And the Legend is Gone

Bo Schembechler, the Michigan legend, has died. He passed away at about noon today from heart failure at the age of 77, on the eve of the biggest game Michigan will ever play in. I can't exactly offer memories or stories, since Bo stopped coaching when I was only 3 years old, but it's no secret he brought Michigan Football to the status that it invokes today.
The Michigan Daily will be publishing a special edition of the paper tomorrow morning, to be released prior to the football game. I got a bit of a rush when I was sitting on the couch and the news broke and I got an email from the EIC telling anyone who wasn't busy to get to the paper office ASAP, so I threw on some shoes and ran over there, and walked around campus for a bit to see what was going on, and followed a reporter around as he asked passersby questions, and my Edit Board will meet in a few hours to write the editorial for the special edition. I can't help but think Bo is up in football's Valhalla alongside Bob Ufer and Don Canham and Fielding Yost and all the other Michigan legends, getting ready to watch their Boys in Blue play, and win, the biggest game in the program's history.

Pat Forde
Ivan Maisel
Detroit News Story
CBS Sportsline

Judgement Day Eve (Part 1)

Already lots going on in Ann Arbor and Columbus, and it't not even noon.

The AP is reporting that Bo Schembechler has collapsed in Southfield and was taken to the hospital emergency room for treatment. We all know Bo hasn't had the best of health, but this is just awful. What if it ends up that he drops dead the day before the biggest game in this rivalry's history? Clearly God hath no sympathy if that were to happen.

Michigan Daily Sports Editor Kevin Wright appeared on Cold Pizza this morning alongside Columbus Lantern Sports Editor Scott Woods for an interview. It was pretty funny. Jay Crawford was egging Wright on, and he challenged Crawford to come to Columbus to the bar that he would be at and say it to his face. Then the bet between the two editors was talked about. If OSU wins Wright has to hang a Maurice Clarett jersey in the Sports room at the Daily, and Wright countered and said: "I figured it was humilitating enough to make him hang that jersey in his newsroom so that's what he'll do." Mwa hahaha

Gameday Eve Eve

Currently, the "Countdown to Judgement Day" Clock on ESPN.com reads:

01 Days, 16 Hours, 26 Minutes

The media swarm around this game is still in full blast, but not quite as overpowering as it was on Monday. I'm sure it will get totally ridiculous tomorrow, though. Yesterday the debate on "Cold Pizza" was over the spread being 6.5 points, and which team would win. Skip Bayless was on Michigan's side again as he made a great argument for why Michigan has a good chance to win. (1) Clearly Michigan's schedule has been tougher than OSU's; people think Ohio's ability to score more points makes them better, but they've played more cupcakes than Michigan. A win against Texas was big in week 2, but Michigan stomped on Notre Dame and beat a Wisconsin team that is sitting there at 10-1 and no opportunity to go to a BCS bowl.
I'm hoping tomorrow will be when everyone finally gets out into town and gets pumped for the game. I'm skipping my lecture tomorrow to do work/watch ESPN Classic and listen to WTKA in the morning. Lloyd Carr was on ESPN Radio this morning on MIke & Mike, and he gave a great interview, probably one of his better ones. He normally doesn't like appeasing a lot of media, especially anyone who works for ABC/ESPN, but I think Mike Greenberg buttered him up by singing "Hail to the Victors".
Currently, I am watching the 1973 game that I downloaded off iTunes -- they have a 3-game pack to download that also will allow downloading of Saturday's showdown, it includes 1997 and 2002 as well. This 1973 game is legendary though. Michigan was down 10-0 and came back to tie in the 2nd half, and they drove down the field to have Mike "Supertoe" Lantry kick the game-winner, and he missed -- twice. The game ended in a tie and 10-0 Ohio State and 10-0 Michigan left the field with a tie on their records. Michigan was in line to be sent to the Rose Bowl, but the Big Ten athletic directors voted 6-4 to send Ohio State instead, all because they all hated Michigan so much. If it weren't for some old school football politics, Michigan could have gone to the Rose Bowl, and given Bo Schembechler his first Rose Bowl win, and maybe even a national championship. This is just one of the many things behind Saturday's game.

Jim Carty's Wednesday column
Cart's Thursday Column
ESPN's Judgement Day Page
Ivan Maisel on the UM 'D'

Judgement Day: 4 days Out

The media frenzy got off to a nice start on Monday for the OSU-Michigan game. I was afraid it would be real overkill, but so far its almost being covered like the rivalry itself is covered every year, only magnified a bit. My collegues over at the Sports page of the Daily are doing a fine job educating people about this particular game and the rivalry itself in case people don't realize how big it is. I was interested to see how they would cover it because this game hasn't had this much behind it in our lifetimes. I mean, I was in the stands for the '97 game, but Ohio State was the slight underdog, and Michigan was on fire, so this year is even bigger than that.
Ann Arbor News columnist Jim Carty, the best guy out there covering Michigan Football (way better than Mitch Albom), wrote about how much different the media coverage is as compared to the 1973 game, when both teams were unbeaten. In those days, he says. the story about the game was buried in newspapers on like page 6, hardly noticeable unless you were looking for it. He's right. I mean, one look at the ESPN college football page, they have links to about 10 articles already. They've even got some of Bob Ufer's classic calls from a few of the games on their video player. ESPN Classic is replaying about a half dozen of the games from the series (I watched the epic 1969 game before going to class this morning, and wanted to shout "Touchdown Billy Taylor! Touchdown Billy Taylor!" when I entered the lecture hall). After watching that game, it dawned on me that that was my dad's first Ohio State game as a Michigan student, so that's quite a way to introduce a freshmen student to an OSU game. Watching the ESPN 2 show "Cold Pizza" this morning, the two hosts of the show, Dana Jacobson and Jay Crawford, are UM and OSU grads, respectively, and they had famous UM kicker Jay Feely and OSU kicker Mike Nugent making their case for such things as: Which is better, The Big House or the Horse Shoe? Better college town: Ann Arbor or Columbus? Better coach: Bo or Woody? Of course any true Michigan fan knows the answers to such questions.
So far I'm a bit disappointed in the enthusiasm of much of the campus. This place just has too many people that don't really care about football (to which I counter: Why are you here?). I'm sure its there, but I jsut can't see it yet. Hopefully come Friday people will be out in force. Woody Paige and Skip Bayless on "Cold Pizza" this morning were saying that they didn't think this game deserved to be called one of the best games of all time, which of course shocks anyone in Michigan and Ohio. Thier argument was that these two teams don't have some of the legendary players that other rivalries in the past have had. They made constant referral to Oklahoma and Miami games of the past, and even last year's ND-USC game, which is questionable because, as we all know, Notre Dame is dumb. WTKA 1050 AM is doing great stuff on their morning show too. They had Anthony Carter on this morning, and just do a great job getting people fired up for the week.

Jim Carty's Monday Column
Michigan Daily Sports
Ivan Maisel
Gene Wojo
WTKA.com
Ivan Maisel pt.2
AA News Sports

And So it Begins...

Well, the college football universe gets its wish. Michigan and Ohio State made it to 11-0, and as soon as both of their games were over at about 8:00, ESPN and ABC were ready to go with the promos for "JUDGEMENT DAY" a.k.a. the Michigan-Ohio State game. It is very appropriate that this game has so much behind it again, after the last several games haven't had much meaning aside from bragging rights. What was really eerie was that during their two games on Saturday, they both started at the same time, and both teams had identical scores for much of the game. Michigan would score, then the Bucks would score. These two teams are like mirror images of one another, and its creepy. A large number of the analysts think Michigan has no shot, but based upon how they match up on paper, and some of the intangibles in Michigan's favor, and the amount of pressure on Ohio State, playing on their home field for what's been called the Game of the Century, with millions of people watching on national television. This will be one heck of a week.

Countdown to Armageddon: Two Weeks Left...

I knew once I started doing this thing again, something would go wrong. By the grace of the football gods, though, it didn't. Because this Michigan team is different. Most of my fellow Michigan fans expected a blowout victory today, but as Ball State was hanging around, and mounting a comeback, I couldn't help but hate being right. Sure, they're a MAC team, and Michigan usually runs over MAC teams, but take everything into account. The team has had a brutal schedule, with tough road games, and not a single easy win out of the now 10 wins. You try playing a college football game against an inferior opponent with shouts of the biggest game of the year ringing in your ears because it has done nothing but get worse since Michigan beat Iowa. Ball State does have a top 20 ranked passing offense, and they showed up to play. Couple that with a team that had absolutely nothing to lose, and threw every play they had at Michigan, and their head coach is a former assistant of Lloyd Carr's, who probably could explain Lloyd Carr's coaching style to a four-year-old. Add all that up and you've got what turned out to be a pretty good game to close out the home schedule. Michigan did what they couldn't last year, and closed out a game with their defense. Sure, they could have ended it with just one more first down on their last offensive series, but the tight end dropped the game-sealer.
Michigan needed this game to be like this, and people probably don't realize why. Would you rather have them face a charging comeback by a dangerous team on the road or on home field? It also kept everyone's ass inside the stadium, which this team deserved. However, the student section again took for ever to wake the hell up and get to the game. My brother, who didn't get to the game until the 2nd quarter even said there was a ridiculous amount of students who were still on their way to the stadium. What does this team have to do to get people to give a flying fuck about coming and cheering for their team? Michigan hasn't been ranked this high since we were all in middle school! "Eh, we're the number two team in the country, I think I'll come to the game drunk, late, and leave before its over, who cares that its the last home game" Pathetic. All in all it was a pretty great day. The group got to the game on time, there was a flyover of two F-18 jets, and the legendary Patrick Stewart made an appearance to conduct the marching band at halftime, and decreed in his ultimate british accent: "Your mission is to boldy go and beat the Buckeyes! and to be the sole number one!" It was pretty badass. I suppose it will take a victory over OSU to get this place in shape and make everyone real football fans again.

Countdown to Armageddon: 16 days to go

OK, I was looking for an inconspicuous way to get back to doing this thing, and I may have found it. You're probably wondering, "Gee, Kevin, what exactly are you referring to when you say 'Armageddon'?" No, I'm not referring to when the world explodes because the Democrats took control of Congress again. I am, however, referring to the day when the world will explode because the greatest rivalry in all of sports will cause the universe to collapse upon itself from all the inflated hype over, yes, that's right, the EPIC SHOWDOWN OF ULTIMATENESS, THE MICHIGAN VERSUS OHIO STATE FOOTBALL GAME ON THE EIGHTEENTH DAY OF THE ELEVENTH MONTH IN THE YEAR TWO THOUSAND AND SIX, ANNO DOMINI.
The sports media has been pointing to it for weeks, after both teams got through the difficult parts of their schedules unscathed. Well I'm here to guide you through the madness, as only a hardcore Michigan fan such as myself can do: completely biased, vulgar, and without mercy. The hypemachine was cranked a bit further in the last few days, so let's do a recap:

--ESPN College Gameday analyst and failed former Ohio State quarterback Kirk Herbstreit, who has a radio show down in Columbus, Ohio, during a show this week, called Michigan fans "soft" because they left the NORTHWESTERN game early. First, only the pussies left, Kirk. That means old people, women, small children, sorority girls, queers, fags, twinks, nerds, rich people, drunk students, sober students who were dressed inappropriately. I somehow think the crow would have stuck it out had we been playing your team, Kirk. Yes, it was a bit uncomfortable to have to keep my feet from falling off from time to time, but I assure you the fans who count, the ones who are resisting the skyboxes, will prove you wrong any day of the week. He then called one of our star players, Steve Breaston, "useless," just because he's had a few off games the last few weeks. Gee, I guess the guy who had more than 300 all-purpose yards in the 2004 Rose Bowl is indeed useless. I mean, come on, if by useless you mean he actually catches balls, doesn't fumble, and is a team player, then I guess that's useless. *Note: Take your star all-purpose player, Teddy Ginn, Jr., and use the opposites of all those descriptions I just listed -- Now that's useless!
Furthermore, tonight on the Daily Show (they're doing a week of shows from Ohio for election coverage, from the campus of Ohio State) there was a brief Michigan-Ohio State moment. One of the reporters, Rob Riggle, was dressed in Michigan garb, and he said "Well, Jon, everywhere I went this week, I was greeted with hisses and general disrespect; Is there something wrong with me?" Jon Stewart replied, "No, Rob, there's not." And he said "See! I told you motherfuckers I was alright! Wooooo! Blue's in the house! YAAA!" Stewart's punchline was even better. He said, "I swear, this Michigan-Ohio State thing is like Shiites and Sunnis, it's unbelievable. 'We are red, they are blue, we must all DIE'!!". Ahhh, that made me laugh soooo much.