Magglio Merkin is an ‘06 Western Michigan alumnus who enjoys swearing, Saturdays in the Big House and slaying misinformed Internet commenters. He’s currently pursing a graduate degree at Michigan. He lives by the motto, “Drinking is Fun!”

I know what you are thinking. How can Rich Rod not be the worst at everything imaginable, ever, right? Are you sure he is actually good at something? We haven’t heard about one thing he is good at besides being the losing-est loser ever, LOL. We want Jim Harbaugh and his shitty education!

NSFMF?

Continue Reading “THIS JUST IN: Rich Rodriguez is not bad at stuff?” »

Georgia Tech and Navy have a couple of things in common. Both schools run Paul Johnson’s spread-option and, two, that’s going to result in the ball being forcibly crammed up their opponents’ ass.

Unlike other highly regarded offensive schemes, Johnson’s spread isn’t predicated on balance. In more than eight out of ten snaps Georgia Tech and Navy are going to line up, the offensive  linemen’s finger tips are going to be dug into the dirt, knuckles white, the quarterback is going to holster the leather, sprint out and make a decision of how to best get the rock in space. Simply put, at the end of the day, that’s going to result in a lot yards, points and emergency visits to the proctologist. That is all.

On Saturdays you can find Monte Kiffin, master of the Tampa Two, standing in the shadows of his outspoken and controversial son. Tennessee is 3-4 (1-3), but hardly a pushover and with five games left to play the Vols have a realistic chance of making a bowl. They’re gaining respect, winning games, keeping losses from turning into blowouts and making up for the own offensive inadequacies with defense. Through seven games Monte’s Vols are ranked 10th in total defense*. More impressive than that, to me at least, is that they’re holding opposing offenses below their season averages in points and yards.

Monte is quietly keeping Tennessee from floundering and it’s about time someone toot his horn because he won’t.

Update. As Djohnson pointed out in the comments it wouldn’t be a true analysis unless we also compared each offense to Tennessee’s season average on defense. From now on I’m writing these more intelligent posts while sober. Tennessee is allowing 269.71 yards and 18.43 points per game. So out of the teams analyzed above only two, Auburn and Florida, gained more than Tennessee was allowing and, in addition, only UCLA gained more points. Georgia scored 16 points via defense and special teams (Beamer Ball is ours assholes) so counting them doesn’t make a whole bunch of sense. Given just how wrong regime change game go I still think Monte has done one helluva a job.

*Finished 2008 T-3 in total defense.

I never thought I would defend Bryan Stinespring but here we are.

vthokiefans Question… If we were to lose to Duke, would that be grounds enough to fire Stiney? 2:09 PM Oct 3rd from HootSuite

That tweet came from vthokiefans.com, a Hokies blog that I respect and enjoy to read, near the end of the first half of the Duke game. We all probably feel the same way after our first punt. “What [the fuck] is[that worthless asshole] Stinespring doing?”, “ZOMG we’d go 14-0 every year with a top 50 offense.” Let’s forget the facts that the defense played horribly (gave up 397 yards) and we had 105 yards lost from penalties. As fans when we see that first “failure” we think it’s the beginning of the end. After all we have only scored points on our first possession in 2 of our last 10 attempts (UVA ‘08 Nebraska ‘09). We’re conditioned to having such a putrid offense that if we don’t see instant success we get nervous, worried and angry. To that, now, I say relax, because Hokies this is the first time since the end of 2007 that we do have a capable offense. Continue Reading “Cut Stinespring Some Slack, the Offense IS Improving” »

Let the ACC bashing begin. John Feinstein of the Washington Post takes the conference to task after an embarrassing week of Atlantic Coast football. It all started with Thursday’s suckfest between NC State and South Carolina. Then on Saturday, Duke and Virginia dropped games to I-AA teams, Maryland got waxed by Cal, Wake Forest lost at home to Baylor and Virginia Tech couldn’t close against Alabama. But isn’t it a little too early to be writing the conference off?

Here we go again. As in here we go with another fall of hearing the spinners from the Atlantic Coast Conference tell us how balanced the league is. Sure, the ACC is balanced — apparently no one (again) is really any good. Oh, sure, Virginia Tech played respectably in losing to Alabama. The Hokies may very well be the class of the league again and can play in the Orange Bowl against someone like Cincinnati or Rutgers in a game watched by dozens.

If the conference is so irrelevant then why is it being written about by you John? Why was Virginia Tech one half of Saturday’s prime time game? And why did the sporting world tune into a thriller of a game on Monday night? Continue Reading “re:ACC Football Leads the Nation in Irrelevance” »

The first Associated Press Top 25 Poll was released over the weekend and at first glance it is what you would expect. The SEC and Big 12 have 5 ranked teams, the ACC has 4, the Big Ten, Mountain West and PAC 10 each have 3 and the WAC and Notre Dame each account for 1. Falling in line with the Coaches’ Poll, there are no ranked Big East teams. Here are the top five.

Florida received a record 96.67% of first place votes besting 2007 USC (95.4%). You can view the full poll here.

The interesting/perplexing/alarming/insane part of the poll are the individual ballots of some voters (via pollspeak.com).

Adam Van Brimmer–Savannah Morning News

2. Utah
8. TCU
9. Texas Tech
21. Oregon State
23. Mizzou
24. LSU
25. Tulsa
Unranked. California

edit F4H: He just resubmitted his final ballot from last season which is even more preposterous than the preposterousness of preseason polls to begin with.

Check out the rest after DAS JUMP. Continue Reading “In-depth Breakdown of the AP Poll” »

The SEC is king cotton, again. It must be all that speed. The Big 12 is a close second, but after that it’s not even close. I am very surprised to see the Pac-10 last among the BCS conferences (which includes their very strong bowl record). One explanation for their record being so abysmal is their round-robin schedule. Since they play 9 conference games they only played 2 and then 3 non-conference teams. In most cases the teams they played were formidable 1a opponents and not 1aa cupcakes. For all the crap the ACC takes it narrowly edges out the Big Ten for third in total non-conference wins. That doesn’t include BC’s 5-1 non-conference record in 2004 (Big East). However, the Big Ten posts a better winning percentage 69% to 66%.

One thing missing are the non-conference wins/losses versus just BCS conference teams. But other than the Pac-10 the BCS conferences as a whole schedule (and get wins) against the same number of 1aa schools. Also BCS opponent doesn’t necessarily mean good opponent, ie Utah (non-BCS) and Iowa State (BCS).

Full breakout by year after the jump. Continue Reading “By the Non-Conference Numbers 2004-2008″ »