If I could think of one accomplishment to have in my young life, it'd be starting a cry for Bill Martin's head on a maize 'n' blue platter. The news on WTKA this morning is that Michigan is likely going to open its 2010 season -- the first season with the fully completed skyboxes -- against the University of Massachusetts. Huh?
2007: Appalachian State; 2008: Toledo; 2009: Delaware State; 2010: UMass
It seems that the quality of nonconference opponents is inexplicably going down from year to year, with the probability of losing and being nationally embarrassed going up exponentially. And the kicker is that Bill Martin is the one that keeps suggesting all these crappy teams to invite to the Big House, and the athletic department just does whatever he says. I swear Martin just digs out his Blackberry and scrolls through the list of his AD friends and thinks, "Hmm, which one can I invite to the Big House this year??? I'll pick Southwest Northern Middle Alabama State Technical Vocational College! That'll draw a sellout crowd of (now) 106,701! Weeee off to play on my yacht and get more money for the University!" True story.
I fully acknowledge that Mr. Martin has made the athletic department consistently profitable, but...really? This is freakin' Michigan people...it's not exactly hard to get people to give money to the school. This is a case where Ohio State actually looks better than Michigan does in scheduling. Yes, they play every school from Ohio each season, at home, but they willingly go play a top five team each and every year, including on the road every other year. When is the last time Michigan played a nonconference team that was nationally relevant? Oh right it was two seasons ago when we played Oregon. The athletic director at the time was one William C. Martin, president of the United States Sailing Foundation. Has he met his 2009 self??
Michigan's big nonconference opponents, year by year since 1997:
1997: Colorado (good team); W 27-3
1998: Syracuse (good team led by Donovan McNabb); L 38-28
1999: Syracuse (not quite as good); W 18-13
2000: #14 UCLA; L 23-20 -- whenever the score of a Michigan game is 23 to 20, it's a loss.
<<>>
2001: Washington (clusterf*&k of a game); L 23-18
2002: #3 Washington AND Utah; W 31-29 (go Phil Brabbs!) and W 10-7 (lol)
2003: #22 Oregon (Michigan ranked #3); L 31-27
2004: Unranked San Diego State; W 24-21
2005: Unranked N. Illinois; W 43-17
2006: Unranked Vanderbilt; W 27-7
2007: Appalachian State (the fill-in team) AND Oregon; L 34-32 and L 39-7
2008: Utah AND Toledo (fill-in team); L 25-23 and L 13-10
Note that Michigan's quality of bowl game reached has declined since 2003 with the exception of the 2004 Rose Bowl against Texas. It's kind of arbitrary, but they've basically alternated between the Outback Bowl and Capitol One Bowl since that date.
It just appears that as Michigan's strength as a football team declined with the departures of big-time players, Martin got cold feet and wussed out at challenging his coaches. Which is a paradox considering we had a god mode team from 2004-2007 and Lloyd was still into it up to 2007.
There are some that applaud cupcake scheduling, but I don't want Michigan to be sitting at 11-1 two years from now at the end of a season, and have the College Gameday guys sway the BCS folks from putting Michigan in the title game when it's a dead heat between them and like Texas and Florida and have Michigan get voted out because they played Eastern Michigan, a 6-6 Notre Dame team, and Idaho.
I want to see a team from a power conference on the schedule each year. I want to see West Virginia, Florida State, USC, Oklahoma State, Tennessee pleading to play with Michigan. It doesn't matter whether it's home or away just schedule the thing!
Michigan Football: Scheduling Teams They Should Beat But Losing Since 2007
I just think Bill Martin doesn't really *fight* for Michigan. He's more concerned about the bottom line than how he gets there.
As if this troubling pattern isn't enough, Michigan is playing Iowa at 8:00 at night this year (televised on ABC nationally), whereas Martin spends $260 mil on the stadium and doesn't even put friggin' lights on in the hopes of having the first ever night game (well, a game that starts when the sun is already down that is). He knows a lot of the old-timers wouldn't go, but then again, a lot of them could surprise. And the others: Screw 'em. Gives a chance for the louder fans to go to a game.
So, with that, I'm starting a petition for the removal of Bill Martin as AD.
What are some other teams you'd like to see Michigan play (besides Deleware State of course)?
Post-Script: I clap for Sailboat Bill that he brought Rodriguez here, but from everything we've learned, it sounds like Mary Sue Coleman put her foot down and made him go after RR after the Les Miles "debacle".
The theme this season is "All In For Michigan." But is Martin?
It Begins. Three days after the Draft the national mockery of the Lions starts anew. Last night on The Late Show Stafford showed up:
Top Ten Thoughts That Went Through Matthew Stafford's Mind On Draft Day
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3 comments:
SAILBOAT BILL AWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
Utah turned out to be a not-so-terrible scheduling choice considering how their season turned out. However I agree in the media circus that is college football, they would have been better off scheduling one of the weaker SEC/Big 12/Pac 10 teams with bigger name recognition and a more guaranteed win.
I still think that Les Miles would've been the ideal coach for post-Carr Michigan. The athletic department and Bill Martin clearly dropped the ball on the perfect candidate. If Les Miles coached the 2008 team to 3-9, I'm willing to bet that there would have been less drama.
All that said, I have faith that RichRod will turn Michigan into a Big 10 title contender.
I think the Lions have finally lost me. I've been getting Joey Harrington flashbacks since Saturday. My easy-to-see-coming prediction: Lions lose their first 3-5 games with Culpepper starting, the Detroit media and fans start calling for Stafford, Stafford starts the rest of the season, Stafford gets sacked 40-50 times, Stafford becomes Harrington version 2.0.
I tend to agree with what Mitch Albom of all people wrote about Les Miles in December of 2007. He argued that Miles used Michigan to get a bigger contract for himself at LSU, by playing the two schools off each other. Subsequently, LSU freaked about losing their national-title-winning coach, and dumped a truckload of money on the table. Miles cackles all the way to the bank, and Michigan looks stupid for not landing him.
The scheduling issue is indeed pretty obnoxious. I understand that for a lot of these they were adding a twelfth game after schedules had already been decided, but aren't we past that point now?
It's humiliating that Michigan, which had NEVER scheduled a 1-AA, schedules one and loses - and then goes on to schedule even more of them. Hey Bill, I think the college football gods were telling you something. But whatever I'm proud to be playing Delaware State and UMass, oh yeah...seriously just get Central or U Ohio or Army or whoever on the schedule, it doesn't matter. Just no more 1-AAs.
Ah well, along with going to bowl games, having the largest stadium and not filing lawsuits to uphold violating disability laws, its one more "Michigan tradition" ol' Bill has done away with.
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