Tag Archives: michigan

Big Ole weekend rundown: The rest

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I don’t know why I keep making it sound like this Nebraska-Michigan game is the most massive tilt ever. It should be fun, but still. The game between these two new conference-mates needs a name, like the Corn Bowl, but it isn’t quite deserving of that just yet. Maybe the Toddler Bowl will work for now. (“My extra hatred for you is only semi-rational and based on the fact that, nearly fifteen years ago, we had to share something that I wanted all for myself because I hate sharing!”) This game will capture my attention because I will be there watching it, but in case you aren’t similarly piqued, here are three other things for you to keep track of this weekend:

  1. Vanderbilt vs. Tennessee: While Michigan and Ohio State no longer have their annual meeting this week, the ‘Dores and Vols are keeping steady on. What will be different this year when these two meet in Knoxville? For one thing, Vandy will be the favored team. Vegas is giving them a point on the road in the SEC, which is really something. UT is 0-6 in the conference, but they’ve cooked up hope of winning this one the only way they could: by pretending star QB Tyler Bray can make it back from a hand injury to play in this game. Vandy isn’t much better on paper– just 2-5 in the conference– but they were two missed plays from being 4-3, and they’ve done better than Tennessee against all common opponents. Vanderbilt must win in Knoxville this week or in Winston-Salem next week to be bowl eligible. The Vols, meanwhile, must win this game and their next one (against Kentucky) to be bowl-eligible and avoid a losing season. They also have to win this game to avoid being brought face-to-face with the undeniable recognition that they’re really bad. They’re going to lose, though, and everyone who’s been paying attention will be both glad and unsurprised. (For what the win can mean for the Commodores, read Bobby O’Shea’s post today at Vanderbilt Sports Line.) 7:00 pm, ESPNU
  2. Carolina vs. Detroit: The Cam Newton Roadshow rolls through the Motor City this weekend, and the Lions’ defenders are licking their chops, which is good, because the Lions’ offenders (that doesn’t quite work, does it?) are licking their wounds. With impressive statistical output that has failed to translate into wins, Newton has been a sort of inverse Tebow this season, and I don’t see this game as the one where the Panthers really put things together. On the other hand, Detroit has been looking less and less stable, successful, and inspiring the closer they get to their Thanksgiving Day meeting with the Packers. The Thanksgiving game is simultaneously a point of intense pride and an albatross for Detroit, and I’m worried that, as more cracks begin to show in their new-look image and play this year, doubt creeps in with the capability of reverting to the old, bag-on-the-head team we’re used to. Hanson kicks the Lions to an uncomfortable win in this one. 1:00 pm, FOX
  3. NASCAR Championship: It’s too tough to encapsulate an entire season (the longest in all of professional sports) into a quick hit here, but when this Sunday’s race at Homestead is over, NASCAR will have its first champion not named Jimmie Johnson in five years. Instead, it’s down to two drivers: Tony Stewart, who won the championship in 2002 and 2005– the last year before #48 went on his dominant streak– and Carl Edwards, the back-flipper who’s never won it all. Edwards holds an extremely narrow lead of only three points heading into this final race, which should make things very exciting. 3:00 pm, ESPN

Enjoy!

ALDLAND take you to the Big Ole Game of the week

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Nebraska makes its first-ever trip to the Big House in Ann Arbor this weekend, and ALDLAND will be there. Grantland has named this meeting its Big Ole Game of the week, and why not. Their feature recalls this clip from the last play of the last game in which these two teams met:

They also place this game in the context of setting up the first-ever Big Ten championship game: Keep reading…

ALDLAND’s rivalry weekend

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While this Saturday features a full slate of college games, Sunday will see the Lions and Packers each try to push their records to 6-0 against the 49ers and Rams, respectively, and the conclusion of the ALCS, ALDLAND is highlighting two of the college games for special attention.

First up is the noon o’clock (Eastern) meeting between Michigan and Michigan State in East Lansing. State has taken the last three games in the series, but this year feels like a tipping point. MSU is the better team, but its stock is falling right now, while the undefeated Wolverines’ stock seems to be rising weekly. The question is, where on the relative spectrum will these two teams be when they face off on Saturday? Michigan may be rolling right now, but it’s a home game for the Spartans, who have had two weeks to get ready for this one. Of course, with a team that has had discipline problems even under coach Mark Dantonio, that extra time off could cut either way.

The featured night game is in Nashville, where Georgia (4-2 (3-1)) will take on Vanderbilt (3-2 (1-2)), and commodawg and I will be in attendance. The obvious subtext, to readers of this site, will be the conflicting allegiances of the two writers. There is a less obvious game within a game going on here too, however. While we aren’t quite talking about The Inner Game of Tennis, the future trajectories of these two programs also are at stake, to some degree, on Saturday night.

The reason is recruiting. Vandy has made inroads in Georgia in recent years, and first-year coach James Franklin has been putting in a lot of effort there so far in his short tenure. The university has been encouraging fans to show up early (contrary to current tradition) because a large number of recruits are scheduled to be at the game for their official visit. From Stanimal at Vanderbilt Sports Line:

If there has ever been a more important weekend in Vanderbilt history in terms of recruiting, this is it. Unlike previous years, Coach Franklin has made a committment to competing with the rest of the SEC and the nation as a whole for top-shelf talent. He is not afraid to go after anyone, and he and his staff have worked very, very hard to get these kids interested in Vanderbilt. In no other state is this more apparent than in Georgia, where CJF has made massive in-roads in one of the best high school football states in the country. For a lot of these kids visiting this weekend (and we are talking some very high-level prospects), they are deciding whether to wear their black with Bulldog red or Commodore gold. This does NOT need to be a free recruiting visit for Mark Richt and his crew. It needs to be a show that this University and its fan base is behind Coach Franklin, his players, his staff, and this team.

His full call to action is available here. What effect this will have on our tailgating plans is not yet clear. As usual, readers can expect coverage of the game and the weekend here and on twitter and flickr.

B1G Roadtrippin’: Michigan at Northwestern

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A couple weeks ago, ALDLAND took you to the opening of the Big Ten season in Ann Arbor. Now we are taking you on a B1G roadtrip to Evanston, Illinois for the Michigan-Northwestern game. But first, I am sure you have a lot of questions. For instance, you might be asking yourself “who is this cool dude with an awesome hair and beard combo writing this article? He isn’t that one guy, or that other guy who usually bring us the ALDLAND content we know and love!” I’m Brendan, the guy who has promised that he would write about five different articles and has not once written any of them due to a debilitating addiction to FIFA. Debilitating, I tell you!

Anyway, on to the roadtrip/game coverage. If you go to a game at Northwestern, make sure you stay in Chicago, and not in Evanston. Evanston is a fine college town and all, but there isn’t a ton to do and it’s only a 40 minute train ride from Chicago to the stop nearest to the stadium. Plus, you can do fun things like have pizza! Who doesn’t love pizza? Communists, that’s who.

Tailgating in Evanston can be a lot of fun, especially if you are a fan of a team that brings a lot of people to away games. We tailgated for several hours with a bunch of Michigan fans, discussing such varied topics as how much we all love Denard Robinson and how great Denard Robinson is at running with a football in his hands. I learned about an interesting game called Dodgebeer, but that’s a whole different article.

Northwestern’s stadium holds about 40,000 fans and is largely uninspiring. Those of you lucky enough to have taken in a blowout loss at Vanderbilt Stadium would be instantly familiar with Ryan Field. Except you might be confused by the atmosphere, because Northwestern has Dan Persa as their QB and not Larry Smith, and consequently actually get somewhat excited for football games. Nevertheless, their fans were personable, and several complemented me on how I was “a lot nicer than those Iowa fans.” Iowa fans, what the heck?

The game started off well for Michigan, as Denard Robinson orchestrated a Michigan scoring drive capped by Steve Watson’s first career catch and touchdown. Miraculously, he did not throw a pick. This changed in short order, as Denard, clearly momentarily color blind, started giving the ball to the Northwestern players like it was candy on Halloween. Denard’s generosity allowed Northwestern to tie the game and eventually take the lead. Michigan’s offense continued to be lackluster, and at the break they found themselves trailing 24-14.

Sometime between the end of the first half and the start of the second half, Brady Hoke either put the fear of God into Michigan, or Northwestern forgot how to play football, because in the second half Michigan put on a clinic, scoring 28 unanswered points to give them a 42-24 victory. The second half featured an extended cameo by backup QB Devin Gardner after Denard hurt his hand and had to take a drive off. Gardner showed why he has the potential to be a star at Michigan, driving the Wolverines down the field like a seasoned veteran and scoring on a one yard run.

What did this game mean for the now 6-0 Wolverines? Well, it means they are bowl eligible, for one. I’m not sure how many doubts this answered about Michigan’s ability to play on the road, as they came out flat in front of a crowd that was at least a third Wolverines fans. Nevertheless, 6-0 is 6-0, and the country will see whether Michigan is for real this week when they take on the Spartans in East Lansing.

For Northwestern, this had to be a tough pill to swallow. They moved the ball almost at will in the first half, but failed to understand the significance of the first down line in the second half and consequently scored no points. Things are not going to get any easier for Wildcat fans, as Northwestern travels to Iowa City next weekend. A loss there and it’s looking like a trip to the Little Caesar’s Pizza Bowl for the Wildcats. However, the plus side of that is: pizza.

I hope you have enjoyed my first article for ALDLAND. I hope to write more in the future, however I think my friend Jeremy just called to see if I want to play FIFA . . .

The Little Brown Jug stays in Ann Arbor

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After opening up the college football season with Vanderbilt, I opened big Ten conference play in Ann Arbor last Saturday, where Michigan took a vice-like grip on the Little Brown Jug, beating Minnesota 58-0.

Across the state, the weather had been somewhat crummy all week. I got into town on Friday night hoping to watch Game 1 of Tigers-Yankees. I thought I might’ve seen snow in Ann Arbor, but everyone saw rain in NYC, necessitating a suspension of that game after about an inning of play. Our Saturday-morning tailgate (for a noon game) was a cloudy windstorm punctuated by grilled bratwurst. It turns out that those are the best kind of windstorms. Even better was that things calmed down and the sun came out just in time for kickoff.

I cannot immediately recall a more one-sided game between teams in equivalent classifications above the high school level. I’m told Minnesota was without its senior quarterback. Given that the Gophers have a win on the year and apparently played USC close, he probably deserves some Heisman votes even if he doesn’t take another snap. It wasn’t so much that Minnesota made a lot of mistakes– they only had one turnover, which I predicted right before the play occurred– as that they just couldn’t function on either side of the ball, while Michigan seemed to gain an easy 8-10 yards on every play.

And thus Michigan improbably moves to 5-0. I want to say they aren’t as good as their record, but I’m really not sure anyone has a basis to say anything about them because, outside of the strange Notre Dame game, they really haven’t been tested. The next two weeks will provide that test, though, as they go on the road for the first time this season, first at Northwestern and then at Michigan State.

Look for ALDLAND to take you to a couple more Big Ten games this year, and maybe even another SEC game.

Big Ten play starts this week, and ALDLAND takes you there

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Unlike the other BCS conferences, the Big Ten hasn’t yet begun conference play. That changes this week, though, with a slate of exciting matchups.

Number 8 Nebraska heads to Camp Randall to take on the #7 Wisconsin Badgers in the weekend’s biggest B1G (when did that start, by the way?) game. Suffice to say by the words alone, this is a Big game, making no mention of the large, corn-fed humans who will be colliding with each other throughout the contest. This is Nebraska’s first game in their new conference. Both teams have the same colors, which will make the Huskers feel welcome.

Saturday’s Big Ten schedule also includes Northwestern in Champaign and non-conference Notre Dame headed to West Lafayette to take on Purdue. That pairing leaves Indiana out in the cold, but they get to stay at home and host Penn State in a game that promises to be ugly and unwatched.

Besides Nebraska/Wisconsin, the other major conference matchup is Michigan State at Ohio State. After putting MSU on a one-week suspension last week for their zombie-like performance against Notre Dame the week before, I’m looking for them to make a statement and win a close one in Columbus that finds them ahead early and not quite choking it away late in the fourth quarter.

That leaves one game, a noon contest between 1-3 Minnesota and improbably 4-0 Michigan at the Big House in Ann Arbor to decide the rights to the Little Brown Jug. The Jug is the oldest rivalry trophy, given to the winner of the Michigan-Minnesota game since their 6-6 tie in 1903. For more on the Jug, including a short video of an old man sharing overly dramatic Jug lore in a noticeably informal setting, click here.

The point of all of this Jug business is that, just like ALDLAND took you live to the opening of the college football season (see here and here), so too will ALDLAND take you live to Ann Arbor for the opening of the Big Ten season. In addition to the game, I will attempt to decipher the particulars of the conference’s new divisions, Legends and Leaders, although I suspect that will be impossible, and I’ll be left with Mark Titus’ conclusion: call them Razzle and Dazzle and be done with it. 

Just like last time, stay tuned here, on twitter, and on flickr for updates throughout the weekend, along with a recap next week.