Brandon Naurato = NHL Dominance

Courtesy of Mgoblog, comes a feature story from Askmen.com which ranked the top 10 college hockey teams for getting guys to the pros. They have Michigan as #1, which is fair enough (though I have a feeling Minnesota would disagree--and I'm not sure I'd blame them), but in their comment about the school, they wrote:

Class of 2008: Forward Brandon Naurato has a sweet lefty scoring stroke and with a little bulk could dominate NHL first lines.

I'll let the Geico Caveman sum up my reaction to that one:



We're talking about a guy who last year I commented on by saying, "I'm honestly not sure he consistently dresses next year." It probably won't be the case, since he is decent in his role, but still, that article has to be a mistake right? Did they screw up the double-number and mean to talk about Kevin Porter? Or even Chris Summers?

They also spelled Lerg's name wrong in the Michigan State section. "Brian" should actually be spelled "B-E-N-E-D-I-C-T" (or at least "Bryan"). And is Aaron Broten really the best guy they could come up with to exemplify Minnesota's hockey prowess?

Other stuff:
Red Berenson is up in Traverse City at Wings camp helping out.

Lost in the "ARRRGH MICHIGAN!" football disaster is that a lot of our non-rev sports are doing really, really well to start the season. Volleyball is 10-0 and has moved up to a program-high #10 ranking (now if they can avoid the disastrous Big 10 start they had last year). Men's soccer is up to #18 after a 4-0 start. Women's Cross Country is #2 in the nation. Women's soccer tied #2 Notre Dame, and even though they stand just 2-4 on the season, field hockey has played the best teams in the country tough. Their losses are to #1 (in OT), #2, #3 and #3 and they beat #9.
Hockey season is getting close, everyone! The ice is down and the boys are skating. I figure I'm going to get at least 16 or so games on TV this year thanks to the wonders of Dish Network, so hopefully the level of coverage won't drop off too much now that I'm no longer living in Michigan. Expect lots of live-blogs.

Another Changing Attitude

This kind of fits in with my last post about how quickly attitudes and expectations can change. Cd4me over at Red Wings Central dug up a gem of a video on Youtube.



And the hate was mutual. Probably about the time he made those comments to the Chicago media, I would've said something along the lines of "Yeah, well I wouldn't want you in Detroit." Now I own a friggin signed jersey of the man.

I still can't believe that we thought we were getting a rental when the Red Wings acquired Chelios at 1998-99's trade deadline--someone who would play a year or two and retire--and here we are getting ready to start the 2007-08 season and he's still playing for us.

Chelios played 402 games for the Canadiens, 664 for the Blackhawks, and if this season he plays the same number of games he did last year (71), he'll have played 552 for Detroit. It's amazing to think that the Red Wings acquired him at the age of 37 and he'll likely play more years in Detroit than he did with any other organization. If it weren't for the lockout, he'd be going on his tenth season as a member of the Detroit Red Wings.

Not bad for a rental who said he would never play for Detroit.

Update: Thanks to a link on Michigan's official ice hockey site, I found this excellent article on Jack Johnson from the NHL's site, featuring a lot of great quotes from Red Berenson. There were two things in the article that I found pretty interesting:

“He’s as ready as any player I’ve had as an underclassman,” he said, high praise from the coach that also mentored Marty Turco and John Madden. “There’s not many players that I would endorse and say it’s time for you to turn pro. But Jack is. He has been in that mode and he needs a challenge at the next level, whereas most kids have to stay and play at least four years before they’re ready for that. And even then, they may wind up playing a year or two in the minors. But Jack is a special player and he’s worked hard to get himself where he is, and he needs that challenge.”

I thought that it was kind of funny that the author mentioned John Madden, following a quote about Berenson thinking that a player was "ready for the NHL" given past history and all.

Also, it seems that JMFJ has flipped his thinking about whether he'd rather lay someone out than score a big goal. His quote from the article--

“That’s a tough call,” he said. “It probably depends on the person. I’d probably want to score a big goal instead of the big hit though, because goals win games. Big hits are momentum swingers and give you more of an intimidation factor, but being able to score goals and stop goals wins hockey games. That’s pretty much my job, to stop goals from being scored and being able to contribute on offense is a bonus.”

--goes in contrast to what he said a couple of years ago as he was getting ready to enter the University of Michigan. His quote back then--which has been my signature on the forums at Letsgowings.com ever since--read:

"I would much rather [break someone's jaw with a hit than score a goal], assuming we're not talking about the type of goal that would clinch a championship. My reasons are not sadistic, however. I simply feel that a big hit energizes a team more than a casual goal. A goal lifts the individual; a big hit lifts the entire squad. You never aim to injure somebody, but assuming the hit was clean, I would have to go with that over a goal."

I guess I need a new signature.

A Tale of Two Teams

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.

On one hand, you have multiple takeaways on special teams, a defense that dominated the #2 ranked offense from a year ago, and a rookie kicker nailing his third field goal of the game to lift a team that no one was talking about over a team that some described as Super Bowl Bound.

On the other hand, you have two of the most embarrassing losses in the history of the team. Both at home. In back to back weeks. Combine that with the rumblings that the starting quarterback may be done for the season (or at least at substantial part of it) and the team that many had pegged as a National Championship Contender might be fortunate to keep their consecutive bowl streak in tact.

It's amazing how fast expectations can be raised or lowered. What once looked to be a very promising season for the Wolverines has quickly turned into a disaster that actually has me looking forward to (gulp) basketball season. Or at least hockey season.

I'm not sure what more can be said about the Wolverines. I take solace in the fact that we're one of the only (if not the only) football power than hasn't ever really fallen off this cliff. Maybe it's time. And if this disaster is finally the thing that snaps the program out of the 1970s, then it's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I can't imagine anyone from the current staff will even get a sniff when it comes time to find a new coach, and that's a good thing.

Mike Hart is the guy that I feel for. He's dinged up, and he's still in there with Michigan down by 30+ points in the fourth quarter. I wondered aloud why he was still in the game and my girlfriend replied, "Maybe they can't make him come out." And truth be told, that's probably what it was. Hard to not feel bad for a guy like that.

The defense was expected to be well....not as good as last year. But when the offense can only put up 7 points against a joke of a defense like Oregon's, you've got major problems. And even though Henne didn't exactly help us these last two games, it's hard to believe that Mallett will be an improvement. In the long haul, maybe it's better. Since this season is basically a write-off anyway (hard to believe I'm saying that when we haven't lost a Big Ten game yet), at least Mallett can get his growing pains out of the way now instead of at the start of next year.

The thing that kind of bugs me is that they were talking in the telecast about how much the offense would be limited with Mallett in there. That means that either Mallett doesn't know the playbook (which is kind of hard to believe since he enrolled early and all) or they're just afraid to take the kid gloves off of him. I understand that he isn't going to have as good of a command of the offense as a fourth-year starter in Henne, but shouldn't he at least know enough (or shouldn't they trust him enough) to not take the offense back to the days of Tecmo Bowl (2 passes, 2 runs)? And if not, then should he really be our backup QB in the first place? I have a hard time believing that making a predictable offense even more predictable is going to be successful. Maybe there's no other way to do it.

All-in-all, it's been a pretty depressing season and it's only two games old.

Then you have my Packers.

I'm as big of a homer as there is, and even I didn't think they could/would beat Philly. In the Eagles, you're talking about a team that has absolutely OWNED Green Bay the last few seasons. When they weren't blowing the Packers out (47-17 in 2005, 31-9 last year) they were winning in heartbreaking fashion (In 2004, the Packers trailed the Eagles for something like 13 seconds and went 0-2).

Then, when you factor in Greg Jennings and Vernand Morency being hurt and the fact that the Packers are a notoriously slow starting team (1-4 starts the last three seasons), it was easy to see why I had the same feeling heading into this game that I usually get when the Wolverines hockey team plays Minnesota.

But what a performance out of the defense and special teams. They held the league's #2 offense of a year ago to under 300 yards and to 13 points. The Eagles managed just 13 first downs on their 12 drives. Also, after being gashed by "explosive play" after explosive play last year, Green Bay gave up just two on the game.

The front four (and with the rotation along the defensive line, it should really be the front 9) were able to pressure McNabb while not letting him break contain. The sustained pressure allowed Green Bay to drop 7 into coverage for the most part and not use any of the LB or Safety blitzes that were so effective against Seattle in the preseason. Atari Bigby, starting his first game, made 8 tackles and didn't have any of the blown coverages that were all too common last year with Marquand Manuel back there.

And the special teams. Oh the special teams! Statistically, the Packers had the worst special teams in football the last two seasons. But yesterday, they won the football game. The Eagles muffed two punts (one was a horribly bad attempt at a fair catch, the other was perfect timing by Jarrett Bush), resulting in a Packers touchdown and the game-winning field goal. Additionally, rookie kicker Mason Crosby hit all three of his field goals including a 53 yarder and the winner from 43 yards out. That 53 yarder would've been good from 65.

The offense did struggle, but even in doing so, Brett Favre provided two plays that were the perfect example of why I don't care if they go 1-15 this year, I'm happy he came back: The first, his underhanded pass-handoff to Wynn while he was being sacked may have been the play of the game not involving the special teams. Instead of being forced to punt, it kept the drive alive that ended in the Packers tying the game at 13. On that same drive, Favre was being sacked and as he was falling, he threw a rope to Donald Lee (I believe) to convert another first down.

The running game is a concern. Philly isn't especially stout against the run and the Packers couldn't do a darn thing on the ground. I keep telling myself that they're still missing their starting running back, but if the offensive line doesn't create any holes, it doesn't really matter. Also concerning was the number of times Favre was hit and/or sacked. Chad Clifton and Mark Tauscher, usually two of the best the NFL has to offer, were both horrible. If the problems on the offensive line aren't fixed, it doesn't matter how good the defense is.

Especially in light of the way the Michigan season has started, I couldn't be happier about what the Packers accomplished yesterday. It was a game that I truly didn't expect them to win, but they pulled it off. The division and conference are both wide open and the Packers just took down one of the NFC's best. The other favorite, Chicago, looked terrible offensively against San Diego (though SD will do that to a lot of teams....probably including Green Bay in two weeks) and lost two defensive starters for the season. I'm not drinking the Kool Aid after one week and claiming SUPER BOWL!!!!! but if the problems on the offensive line and in the running game can be fixed, it's a realistic goal given the state of the conference. They could still just as easily end up 8-8, but the window of opportunity is there.

Ted Thompson has clearly done an amazing job reworking the defense and special teams and the Packers are suddenly a young team with a load of potential. It's just a matter of how quick they can realize that potential and if the offensive line issues are a one or two week problem, or a fatal flaw in the team.

Either way, yesterday was a statement game. The Packers are relevant again.

Wings Sign Sopel?

Bruce MacLeod is reporting in his blog that the Red Wings will bring in veteran defenseman Brent Sopel for a tryout in training camp. I think this is a really solid move. He might be the guy to push Andreas Lilja into the "healthy scratch" department, and we don't really have a veteran guy to bring in when Niklas Kronwall has his annual injury.

I don't know a ton about him beyond the stats, because let's face it, I've never watched a Kings or Canucks game and been like, "You know who I'm going to focus on today? Brent Sopel." But looking at his numbers, he looks to be a solid signing. TSN's profile of him (linked above) says that he owns a "booming shot from the point" which is the one thing that we lost out on in the Mathieu Schneider/Brian Rafalski exchange.

Additionally, he put up 28 points in 64 games and managed to be a +2 despite playing 20+ minutes a night for LA for 44 games last year. By comparison, most of LA's defense was -10 or worse. And for most of this decade he's been a solid 25-40 point guy.

So we're bringing in a guy for a tryout who had more goals and more points than Kronwall, in roughly the same amount of ice time, and who had a better +/- despite playing on a much worse team. And we're paying Kronwall $3 million a year for the next five.

And if nothing else, Sopel fetched a 2nd and 4th round pick at the trade deadline last year. If Kronwall turns into the player that he's supposed to and we end up with some extra depth at the deadline, maybe we can sell him (or Lilja) off in another deal to replenish some of what we give up for that top-six forward that we still desperately need.

I'm actually surprised that he wasn't snapped up by someone already. You'd think that some bad team would be looking to sign him, if for nothing more than to bring in a couple picks at the deadline. If I were running an NHL team that was likely not going to be in contention, I'd be looking to sign as many of those type of players as I could. By moving guys at the deadline, you can rebuild the depth in your organization in 1-2 years with the picks/prospects you can accumulate.

Todd Collins has Life Figured Out

According to ProFootballTalk (scroll down to 9-5-07 at 5:00 pm....no permalink), Todd Collins has beaten out Mark Brunell for the #2 quarterback job on the Washington Redskins. Upon seeing that article, I had the same reaction that I have every year about this time: "Wow, Todd Collins is still in the league, and he's still not going to play."

That is one guy who has life figured out. I honest to God think that he has the best job in the world. He never gets hit in practice, because the quarterbacks are hands-off. He never gets hit in games because he never gets in. Therefore, later in life he's probably not going to have the same problem with his knees, shoulder, etc. that a lot of starters have. And because he's been around for so long, his salary just keeps going up and up.

He cleared $800,000 last year and his base salary is $1.25 million this year. Not bad at all for a guy who has thrown 27 passes in the last 10 years and went three years in there without playing in a game.

	Passing Stats
	YEAR	TEAM	G		CMP	ATT	PCT	YDS	TD	INT
	1995	BUF	7		14	29	48.3	112	0	1
	1996	BUF	7		55	99	55.6	739	4	5
	1997	BUF	14		215	391	55.0	2367	12	13
	2001	KAN	1		3	4	75.0	40	0	0
	2002	KAN	3		5	6	83.3	73	1	0
	2003	KAN	5		9	12	75.0	74	0	0
	2004	KAN	2		1	5	20.0	42	0	0
	2005	KAN	2		0	0	0.0	0	0	0
	Career		41		302	546	55.3	3447	17	19

I say good on ya, Todd. We should all be so lucky.

Why Didn't We See This Coming?

The more I think about the unthinkable happening on Saturday, I keep coming back to the same thing: Why didn't we think it could happen?

We all knew that playing App State was probably more like playing a strong MAC team than playing the typical I-AA doormat. Not a team that you should be scared of by any means, but a team that can beat you nonetheless.

We knew that Michigan tends to not exactly put out their best effort against the teams that they're supposed to blow out.

We knew that by nature, Michigan is a fairly conservative team and isn't prone to blowing out opponents.

We knew that App State had a mobile quarterback and ran the spread offense--two of the things that have given Michigan fits consistently for the last 10 years.

We knew that our defense had some major question marks in the secondary.

We knew that this game was App State's Super Bowl. That they have been pointing to it since the minute it came on the schedule as their chance to make a statement and do for their program what beating Oklahoma has done for Boise State's (seriously, did you ever think that you'd see a Boise State player on the cover of NCAA Football?). Alternately, Michigan probably cared about this game less than any other on their schedule with the possible exception of Eastern Michigan.

We knew that Michigan would likely play it pretty vanilla, with the upcoming slate of games against Oregon, Notre Dame and Penn State. It wouldn't be the first time.

We knew that our field goal kicker was not only a walkon, but not even the walkon that we all thought it would be. (Not to pin the blame for this loss on him by ANY stretch. I never saw the first blocked kick, but there's not a kicker in the world who could've made the second one.)

And yet, with all that out there, we all still thought that this was going to be an easy win, because let's face it they're a Division I-AA team and we're a top five team in the country. I threw the 49-9 number out there, more as a joke than anything, but I did think it would be fairly close at halftime and Michigan would end up winning by 25-30.

Never did I see this coming, and now I feel stupid for not expecting at least a battle. Look at the past history:

2006:
-Against an eventual 4-8 team in Vanderbilt last year, it was 13-7 until late in the third quarter.
-4-8 Northwestern had us in a 10-3 game late in the third quarter and we ended up winning 17-3...granted the weather was awful in this one.
-5-7 Ball State (who lost to North Dakota State and Indiana) had 5 shots inside Michigan's 10 yard line (as deep as the 2) with a chance to tie the game late in the fourth quarter of that tilt.

2004:
-4-7 San Diego State (whose wins were against Air Force, UNLV, Idaho State and Nevada) led 21-17 at halftime, and missed two field goals in the second half that would've tied the game back up.

2002:
-Utah, who ended the year at 5-6 and only beat Indiana, Utah State, UNLV, BYU, and Wyoming, only lost 10-7 and had the ball on their own 32 with a chance to tie or win in the closing minutes.

2001:
-Miami (OH) (who did end up 7-6) trailed 17-6 in the third quarter and was driving, but had a pass picked off in the endzone. That was their last real threat as Michigan then won going away.

Like I said, it's not like it's anything new for Michigan to screw around with opponents who are theoretically cupcakes. That's six times in the last six years where the Wolverines have played fairly tight games against bad opponents. And three of those games (Utah, San Diego State, and Ball State) we legitimately could have lost.

It shouldn't have been a shocker that this game was close or that Michigan actually had a chance to lose to one of our "cupcake opponents". After all, it happens about once a year where we're in an unexpected nail-biter.

The shocker is that the red flags were there, and no one seemed to pick up on it.

Wow.

Sometimes a game comes along that makes me wonder exactly why I invest so my time, energy, and money on following sports. I'm not talking about going to the games, or being a fan. That much will never change. You love your team win or lose, undeafeted or winless. I'm talking about the other stuff: Reading season previews, following recruiting, paying any attention at all to spring practice reports. Because the fact of the matter is that no one really knows anything. And with a program like Michigan, which doesn't let reporters into practice, all you're getting from them are puff pieces. I mean, is Mike Hart really going to say "I'm pretty sure our defense blows"? No. All you get is bravado. And we lap it up.

I made some cracks a couple days ago about how I wasn't going to the game and that I wanted my first real football-watching experience of the year to happen against a real team like Oregon. How I couldn't get excited for football since we were playing a Division I-AA team. Well I hope that my team has been humbled as much as me.

This loss changes everything. Hopefully it knocks our football team down a few pegs in their own minds. Hopefully they realize that rather than planning out how many freshmen backups we can get into the game once it's out of hand, they focus more on winning the game. Rather than trying to "not show anything to future opponents" they PLAY! TO WIN! THE GAME! I don't know that it was the case yesterday that they played vanilla, since I wasn't there. I do know that in past seasons they have done so against "weaker" opponents (remember how everyone was freaking out last year that we couldn't throw the ball during the lead up to the Notre Dame game?).

It's hard to emphasize just how bad this loss is. The whole sports-watching world is laughing at this program right now, and quite frankly it's deserved. For all the cracks I've made about Minnesota getting beat by Holy Cross, I deserve anything I get. And that's fine.

This game is evidence of a couple things:

1) Preseason polls are stupid. We already knew that, but this might be the crowning example of why it is so.

2) There is no benefit to playing a Division I-AA team. Especially if you're going to play a good one. You have all the risk & then some of playing a high-MAC team, with none of the reward. If we lost to Central or Toledo or something, everyone would be making fun (and rightfully so) but there'd be no "Biggest Upset Ever" talk. And if we won by 60 points and played lights out football in the process, it was only a Division I-AA team, so that's what we should do. ASU was a team with nothing to lose. This was their Super Bowl. They were 41 1/2 point underdogs. No one would've batted an eyelash if Michigan had gone Louisville on them. And that's a scary situation to be in if the opponent you're playing has some talented players.

To go one step further, it's evidence that we probably shouldn't be scheduling teams that we're expected to absolutely destroy--if it's at all possible (which it might not be). Michigan's not the type of team to hang 70 on someone, and that's the only way to "win" in a game like this. If you win 35-3, no one is impressed. If it's a close game, everyone laughs. If you lose....you're a laughing stock.

And based on past history, it's pretty evident that our team doesn't meet the expectation of scoring ten touchdowns in games like this. Ball State should have been a wakeup call that no matter how "bad ass" they think they are, other teams can beat them. And that game was definitely not the first time we've gotten a scare against an "inferior" opponent.

Lloyd should take all kinds of heat for this debacle. I'm not going to be one of those people that goes all "OMG FIRE CARR!" or anything, but it's really disturbing to me that he can come out after the first game of the season and say "We just weren't prepared." You had 7 months to get them prepared. The implication there is that they completely looked past this team and were more worried about getting ready for Oregon, ND, and PSU. Every coach I've ever heard speak loves to throw around expressions like "We've gotta take it one game at a time" and "The most important game is the next one". And yet, they weren't prepared for the opening game of the season? Against a team that spreads out the defense and has a running quarterback? There's just no excuse. It's one thing for the fans to look ahead (me to not care about watching/attending the game, Brian to not write an App State preview, etc.), it's another entirely for the coach and the team to do it.

This one isn't going away. We could win the next 11 games, win the Rose Bowl, and all anyone will talk about is the loss to App State, which derailed another shot to go to the BCS Championship. It's going to be mentioned every game this season when TV shows each team's record. It's going to be mentioned over and over whenever we play a "cupcake" opponent--this year or ten years from now. Spartan fans, Buckeye fans, PSU fans....it's all we're going to hear, even if we beat their team.

It's been a long, hard offseason with all those players getting arrested and doing generally dumb things, along with the Jim Harbaugh controversy. And on the first day of the season, the football team just proved that the season itself isn't going to be any easier.

This isn't the "end of the world" as I claimed before. Crable was right in his postgame comments: They still have goals and it's very possible to all of them save for a national championship. (I wish he had said "WHY'D IT SEEM LIKE WE ONLY GOT TEN GUYS ON THAT LAST FIELD GOAL???!!!") But it is the end of any real satisfaction with the outcome of this football season. I've got to believe that any Michigan fan on the planet would've happily taken 12-1, Rose Bowl win, undefeated Big 10 season in the lead-up to the season.

Now, if that happens (and I'd have to say it's very unlikely), I'll be thrilled, but at the same time it will be strangely unsatisfying because all I'll be able to think about is "If only we hadn't stuffed up against ASU".

I was very wrong about the score yesterday, but I was right about one thing: I made the right decision about what event to attend.