Ty's Favorite Michigan Football Games: October 8th, 2016

We have reached Friday, and I am here to talk about Michigan football once again. I read that there may be a re-vote this weekend, that the University of Ohio State's head coach has sent a letter to the Big Ten, that a few schools have had to stop practicing due to outbreaks, that Michigan's president won't talk to Jim Harbuagh or Warde Manuel, basically the Big Ten is a total mess right now. I have no faith in there even being a vote, and I am completely resigned to there being no Michigan football this fall, or even this year. So, I am going to continue with some of my personal favorite games.

Last week I talked about when they housed MSU in East Lansing two years ago. That was a cleansing, emotional watch. That was the return of Michigan football to me. The game today is clearly vanity, and it was a game that I knew, well before it started, that Michigan was going to win. They strolled into New Jersey the night of October 8th in 2016 to play Rutgers. Michigan was the 4th ranked team in the country, Jabrill Peppers was a Heisman candidate and the offense was rolling. The defense was even better. They were shutting everyone down, and making life miserable for their opponents. Rutgers was 2-4, still hadn't won a Big Ten game in some time and were in the midst of being the punching bag they have become the past five years. This was a no brainer.

What makes this game so special, why I remember it so well, is something my dad said to me before the game kicked off. The game was at night, and October 8th just happens to be my father's birthday. So we were in the midst of celebrating his birthday, and my daughter had just turned one the day before. We actually had her birthday party on the 8th. We had it at our house with all of our friends and family over. I miss those days. The game was a night game, so we had all day to celebrate both my daughter and dad. It was a very fun day. My daughter's party was great, and then my wife took the kids home, and I was able to go watch the game at my folks house with my dad and oldest brother. He isn't as big a fan, he is more a Missouri fan, but he still likes to watch games with us. So the three of us gathered around the TV at the house, and that was when my dad said what makes this game so memorable to me. I was talking to him, we were talking about the day, and I said, "so was today a good birthday? Was it fun? What could make it better?". He responded, "it was great, but it would be even better if Michigan scored 70 points and shut out Rutgers". We both kind of laughed, Michigan never really blows teams out like that, and proceeded to watch the game.

What happened for the next three hours was an absolute massacre. Michigan blew the goddamn doors off Rutgers. It was an absolute clobbering. Michigan dominated every phase of the game from start to finish. It was so easy for Michigan that night. In the middle of the third quarter they were running simple dive plays that turned into 60 and 70 yard TD runs. Jabrill Peppers was goofing around on punt returns, which almost ended up as TD's. The defense was impenetrable. Michigan only threw the ball fifteen total times, two of which ended up as TD's. They rushed for nine TD's. Let me repeat that, NINE TD's!. That is insane. And if you are quick at math, not only did Michigan score the 70 my dad was asking for, they actually scored 78. As for shutting Rutgers out, boy did they ever. Like I said, this was the most dominant performance I have ever witnessed as a Michigan fan. When I looked back at the final stats this morning, I did a double take. I mean, I remember it being a blowout, but not the massacre on the stat sheet that I saw. Michigan had exactly 600 total offensive yards. Rutgers totaled 39. Michigan was 6-11 on third downs. Rutgers was 0-17. Michigan only threw for 119 yards. Rutgers, well, they totaled 5 passing yards. Five, singular, total passing yards. Michigan had two guys go for 100 plus rush yards, Chris Evans and Karan Higdon, and Ty Issac was close with 99. Michigan totaled 481 rush yards, which is insane. Rutgers got 34. Michigan averaged almost 9 yards a carry, and Rutgers was averaging 0.9 a carry. Not even a full yard. Of the nine total rushing TD's Michigan had that night, they spread the wealth. Higdon had two, so did Issac, as did Jabrill Peppers, getting some offensive snaps this game. A guy I don't even remember, his last name is Stevenson, you have to be very low on the depth chart for me to not know who you are, had a rushing TD. And Khalid Hill, the tight end turned goal line fullback under Harbaugh, had the other two rush TD's on two carries for two yards. Hill also had a receiving TD, as did Saint Louis' own Jehu Chesson. This was one of the rare games where I didn't bite my nails or sit on the edge of my seat or be ever the pessimist when watching Michigan football. This was as dominant as I have ever seen, and even though it was Rutgers, they are still a D-1 team with guys who were star players at their high school. This isn't like when they beat UMass a long time back 84-7. UMass was, at the time, a D-1AA school, and not a good one. Rutgers may not have been good, they may be going through a down time, but they are still a D-1 Big Ten team, and the game was at their home stadium. But, Michigan won in wonderous, and dominant fashion.

I will always remember this game because of my dad's comment beforehand. He didn't expect the outcome that night, and neither did I. We expected a win, even a big win. But for my dad to say he wanted them to score 70 and shut them out, and then to watch them score 78 and shut them out, that is why this game will always have a special place in my heart. It is a great memory of a near perfect performance from Michigan football. 

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man Podcast.

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Let Me Respectfully Explain Why Your Team Stinks: Ty is not impressed with Northwestern Football

This is to you Northwestern. You try so hard every year.

Today I'm going to re visit one of my favorite topics to talk about on the site. I'm going to go back to my irrational hatred blog.

I haven't written one of these in quite some time, and with college bowl season all but done, I realized how much I hate Northwestern Wildcat football. This has been a bubbling hatred for some years now. It's grown and grown a lot since they hired Pat Fitzgerald. I'll get to what I dislike about him in a bit.

I feel like they may be one of the most overrated, way to often talked about on ESPN, mediocre football teams I've ever seen. They seem to go 5-7 for three years, they'll up that to 6-6 or 7-5 for four or five years, then they'll have a season like this most recent one, when they finished 10-3 and everyone and their mother seems to think they are on the rise, especially world class blow hard, Mike Wilbon. I swear, if you listen to him long enough, you'd think Northwestern football is as good as the 96 Chicago Bulls. He's that blinded by his fandom. I mean, I love Michigan football, but I also realize that they've been very underwhelming for almost a decade now. Things seem to be turning a corner, with Harbaugh and how they finished the year, but I'll wait to start popping off at the mouth until they prove it on the field a bit more. Not the case with Wilbon. Northwestern can beat Rutgers by 1 point and you'd think they knocked off the number one team in the country when Wilbon inevitably talks about it on "PTI" the following Monday. I cannot take him seriously as a journalist anymore because of his blind love for his alma mater. I understand being a fan of your school, but when you are in journalism, as he is, you cannot be biased, especially when you have a talk show that focuses on sports. It's not a good way to conduct yourself at work.

Let's get back to some other things I don't really care for about Northwestern. I absolutely hate how arrogant and entitled their student athletes act. Sure, you guys are the Harvard of the Big Ten, but who really gives a shit. You know what other schools in your very conference are just as hard to get into? Michigan, Maryland, Penn State, Minnesota and Indiana. Really the only Big Ten school that's an absolute joke when it comes to grades is Ohio State. They could care less if you flunk out of high school as long as you are a good athlete. They are the Florida State of the Big Ten. So, knock it off with the excuse that it's harder for you to recruit elite athletes because your standards are too high. I don't care. Michigan and Penn State have equally as hard academic standards yet they're competitive and get top flight recruits in football almost every year. Hell, Maryland is almost impossible to get into and they have a top ten basketball team this year with one of the best sophomores in all of college basketball, Melo Trimble. He has to go to class just like all the Northwestern student athletes so he can make the grades to play. That excuse is old and tired. I'm done with it.

Then there's your coach, whom I've mentioned earlier. He is the WORST. The only coach I hate more than him in the Big Ten, and maybe all of college football is, Urban Meyer. At least Meyer wins, but he is a cheater, don't get that twisted. Fitzgerald's whole "blue collar" attitude and his teams very hard "work ethic" nonsense that he's always yelling is stupid. It's the worst kind of generic coach speak. He is way too giddy on the sidelines too. A head coach needs to keep his act together until they are in the locker room, where no one, except you team, can see you. I can count on both hands how many times I've seen him cheering late in a game because he thinks his team has the win sealed up, but then they blow it in typical Northwestern fashion. I love how much of an idiot this makes him look. All giddy and excited one second, then something bad happens to his team, then he's all flush with embarrassment and tries to make up excuses in the post game press conference. What a boob. He should have been fired five years ago, but a 10 win season this year has probably bought him, at least, another three or four years.

The majority of his players are mediocre as well. Their version of the spread is laughably bad and extremely slow. They haven't had a decent running back since Darnell Autry, and I cannot think of one time, at least in my lifetime, when they've had a legitimately good college quarterback. The players are sub par and it shows when they face real competition. Let's look at this most recent season as an example. Sure, they beat Stanford in the very first game of the year. It was an 11am kickoff time, making it 9am in Palo Alto, and I as I said on a blog earlier this week, that may not sound like an advantage, but it is. So, they get their signature win of the year during their very first game. Then, they rip off five straight and people are actually calling him a potential playoff team. Totally insane and totally off base. Luckily, for me and all college football fans, they went up to Ann Arbor and Michigan dismantled them 38-0. It was glorious. The following week, with some media, Mike Wilbon, saying that the game was an aberration and they'd easily recover with Iowa coming to Evanston, they got crushed. So, two legit opponents in two consecutive weeks destroy them and their "playoff" hopes. They won their next four games, against very weak Big Ten teams, to finish the year 10-2 and they were actually ranked, by the playoff committee ahead of the same Michigan team that shut them out. They finished inside the top 15, coming in at 13. They were extremely overrated by the committee at the end of the season and it showed when they played Tennessee in the Outback Bowl. Tennessee was very up and down all year, couldn't hold leads against quality opponents and finished the year at 8-4, I believe. Well, they hammered a very overrated Northwestern team to the tune of 45-6. So, against four quality opponents, Stanford, Michigan, Iowa and Tennessee, they went 1-3 with a combined score of 131-29. That's not what a top 15 team does when it plays real competition.

Now don't worry, I'm sure ESPN and Mike Wilbon will have them as a preseason top 25 team going into this year and they will regress back to their 5-7, 6-6 or 7-5 ways. The hype for this nothing program needs to end sooner rather than later. I loathe Northwestern football and it will be nice to see them float back into mediocrity for the next decade. The only really good thing I have to say about them, it's easy to get tickets when Michigan travels to Northwestern and since there's more Michigan fans there, it feels like a home game for them and their stadium and fans, for the most part, are genuinely nice people. But when that's all you have going for you as a football team, well, you will always be mid to lower level. I'm sorry, but it's true. Northwestern is to the Big Ten what Missouri is to the SEC. Very overrated, very underachieving programs.

The love for this team needs to end.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the other host of the X Millennial Man podcast. He will never respect a school who has a compass direction in their name. Hear that Parkway West? Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik. 

Ty's College Football Season Preview

Official ball from the 1988 all backyard suburban league championship

Today is August 17th, which means it is only 17 more days until the 2015 college football season kicks off.

This is the biggest "holiday" in my life. I'm as giddy as a kid opening a present when college football season starts. College football is, by far, my favorite sport. It may not be the cleanest, most ethical sport (what NCAA sport is?) yet it's so entertaining. College football, and sports in general, are the only TV show or movie that there's any real drama involved. There's dramatic TV shows and movies, but the outcome, for the most part, is positive. Not the case in sports. Sports can make you extremely happy and can depress you for hours or days, depending on how your team plays that particular day. College football, in my opinion, holds the most drama of all sports. College football also has the best die hard fans. We aren't fans, we are fanatics.

Which brings me to my main reason for my blog today, it's my college football preview. I will make this a yearly thing, so this marks the first annual, "Ty's College Football Season Preview". I'm not going to pick a preseason top 25, because that's stupid and pointless. I'm going to pick my winners of the major conferences, I'll talk about teams that can surprise, I'll give you my favorites for the Heisman and who I think the four playoff teams will be, and who I think will win the whole thing. So let's get started.

First, the Pac 12. You have the usual suspects competing for the Pac 12 title this year in Oregon, USC and UCLA. Of those three teams, I would pick Oregon to, once again, be in contention and most likely win the Pac 12 again. The transfer quarterback from Eastern Washington, Vernon Adams, will somewhat ease the loss of last year's Heisman winner, Marcus Mariota. It's always hard to replace a player like Mariota, but I think that Adams will run this offense very well, and they won't miss Mariota as much as other people think they will. USC returns star quarterback, Cody Kessler, but I don't think that Steve Sarkisian is the answer at head coach. The last time USC had this kind of preseason buzz was the year they started out as preseason number one, lost badly at Arizona State on a late Saturday night game, fired Lane Kiffin when they returned home and finished the year 7-6. I personally don't trust USC. UCLA also has to replace an all Pac 12 QB in Brett Hundley, but they have Myles Jack coming back, and they have a decent defense. They're good for 8 to 10 wins. Teams like Arizona, Arizona State and Washington will be decent too. Arizona won't be as good as last season, they played completely out of their minds, but they have a good young core and are led by the best linebacker in the country in Scooby Wright. Arizona State will be good on offense and sub par on defense, and Washington's opener versus Boise State will tell you everything about their season. If they win or win big, they will be a really good team, and if they lose, it will be a long season for the Huskies. With all that being said, I see Oregon winning the conference again this season.

On to the "powerful" SEC. I'd like to start by saying, I think the SEC is very overrated and I wish companies like ESPN would stop with the constant coverage, it drives me nuts. Anyway, here's another conference with the usual suspects. Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi State, Georgia and Ole Miss are the class of the conference. Alabama is Alabama, they will be good for 10 wins at least, anything less is a failure. They will be good, probably great, all season. It's Alabama after all. Auburn and Ole Miss are very similar in my opinion. They both have decent offenses, Ole Miss is better with LaQuean Treadwell coming back after that horrific injury last season and they both have very good defenses. Auburn got a great hire in Will Muschamp as their new defensive coordinator. He was not a good head coach, but the guy is a defensive genius. They're also helped by the addition of graduate transfer, Blake Countess. That guy is a great cover corner. Ole Miss still has the Nkemdichi brothers, and Robert Nkemdichi is, by far, the best interior defensive lineman since Ndamonkong Suh. The guy is unblockable. Mississippi State has their QB, Dak Prescott, back and he runs Dan Mullen's read option to perfection. I don't think they'll be as good this season as they were last season, but they're still good for 8 or 9 wins. Georgia lost Todd Gurley, but replace him with Nick Chubb. They also have a decent defense. They should win at least 9 games. LSU and Arkansas are kind of a mystery to me. LSU has a lights out defense and probably the best running back in the nation in Leonard Fournette, but they have no QB capable of running an offense. Arkansas has a so so defense, but their running game is legit. Even with the injury to star running back, Jonathan Williams, they have a stable of guys willing to take his place. Missouri and Kentucky are probably your next level of teams. They'll compete, but if either of them wins more than 8 games, I'll be surprised. I'm going to have to go with Alabama to be the champ of the SEC again. Two conferences, two repeat champions.

Next, the Big 12. The Big 12 might be the most explosive offensive collection of teams in the country. First of all, there's Baylor and TCU. Baylor has to replace Bryce Petty, but it seems like anyone can come in there and throw for damn near 4,000 yards. That's how well their offense is coached and run by the players. On defense, they showed flashes, but disappeared late in games last season. Look at the Cotton Bowl loss to Michigan State last season for evidence. They do have a freakish athlete on that side of the ball. Go do a google image of Shawn Oakman and be aghast at how big and quick and nimble he is. The dude is a beast. TCU's offense is led by their explosive QB Trevoyne Boykin. He may be the best QB in the country and he runs their offense to a T. He's crazy accurate, can run if need be and makes the right decision 99% of the time. Their coach, Gary Patterson, is known for his defensive mind, but he will rely heavily on the offense this year. They shouldn't disappoint either. They should be one of the most explosive offenses in college football history. After these two teams, there's a pretty big dip. Oklahoma is Oklahoma. They should be decent, but they could also very well disappoint. That's the bummer of being an Oklahoma fan. They should compete every year, but they are on a down swing for them right now. Texas is still rebuilding, but you have to give them another two to four years before they are making any kind of noise in the national conversation. I do like their coach, Charlie Strong a lot. He doesn't take any crap from anybody. Oklahoma State has all these pending violations and recruiting problems that I think will affect their play on the field this season. Kansas State will be a 7 or 8 win team at best, and the same goes for West Virginia. I think that TCU basically runs away with the Big 12. Baylor will make it interesting, but TCU is going to be really special this season.

Next, the Big Ten. Full disclosure, I'm a die hard Michigan Wolverines fan, but that won't sway me from being biased. That being said, the story of this offseason is the hiring of Jim Harbaugh by Michigan. He's expected to return this team to glory, and with his track record, he should do that. In fairness, this season will be tough for him and my beloved Wolverines. I expect them to make a bowl game and I think they should have, at least, 7 wins, but their schedule is tough and we will see if the running game can finally live up to the hype and see if the defense can be as good, if not better than last season. Okay, I talked about Michigan. The Big Ten will be about two teams this season, Ohio State and Michigan State (ed note: That was the hardest sentence Ty has ever written). Ohio State is the defending national champions. They have three great QB's and one of them is now playing receiver(Braxton Miller). They have one of the best running backs in the country in Ezekial Elliot. But, I don't see many explosive receivers on this team and I think teams will stack the box on them. That doesn't mean they'll stop them, but they will be predictable on offense. I also think that both JT Barrett and Cardale Jones will take a step back. Cardale Jones made a mistake in not turning pro, because his stock will never be as high as it was at the end of last season. Ohio State has a great defense. Nothing more needs to be said. There defense will be hard to get points on. Michigan State has Connor Cook back and a highly aggressive, hard hitting defense. Cook is one of the top QB's in the country. A lot of his top receivers have graduated or are in the NFL, so he will have to find new guys, but he will, he's good. Their running game will be by committee, but that's what works for them. While having a great defense, they play undisciplined and get penalized a ton. They are one of the dirtiest teams I've ever watched, but that gets in other teams heads and takes them off their game. You do what works for you. I feel like this is Michigan State's last, best shot at doing something special. They better take advantage. After that we have, the aforementioned Michigan Wolverines, Penn State, Iowa and Minnesota. Penn State should be good, but they haven't really lived up to any expectations lately and their offensive line has got to play better for them to win. Iowa will be good on the ground, but the QB situation is clearer, with Jake Rudock transferring to Michigan, but we will see how CJ Beathard does as a full time starter. Their defense is in a down swing right now too. Minnesota is a good team. They're predictable, but they have an awesome offensive line and a bunch of good running backs. Mitch Leidner does exactly what the coaching staff asks him to do too. They are not great on defense and that will hold them back. Rutgers, Maryland and Northwestern are teams, like Missouri and Kentucky in the SEC, that will compete, but anything more than 7 wins will shock me. It boils my blood, but I think Ohio State will win the Big 10 once again (ed note: Sorry Ty).

Lots of the same conference champs for me. I'm going to bundle the ACC and the AAC, because these are both jokes of conferences. The ACC has only three teams that are legit. There's Florida State, Georgia Tech and Clemson. Georgia Tech will run the triple option really well and confuse a lot of opponents, but they will take a step back from last season. Florida State is replacing Jameis Winston with Everett Golson, so they will not miss a beat, They'll be good, but blow some games late, like they always do. Clemson should be really good this year and they may make the ACC look like a halfway decent conference. Duke will be decent again, but not as good as last season. I'm going to pick Clemson to win the ACC. I don't watch the AAC at all, but I know that Cincinnati is in the conference. The only other teams I know are UCF, SMU and maybe Temple. I know UCF was good a few years ago with Blake Bortles at QB, but this conference is such a joke, I guess I'll pick SMU to win it this year. That's just a blind guess on my part and for all my AAC fans out there, sorry but your conference stinks.

As far as independent and teams from other conferences go, I'd like to talk about Notre Dame, BYU, Boise State and Marshall. Notre Dame is kind of an enigma to me. At the start of last season they looked like world beaters to me, then they fell on their faces when they played Arizona State, but closed out the season with a bowl win over LSU. They will either be a 10 win team or a 6 win team to me. It all depends on how well new starter Malik Zaire plays. If he plays like he did against LSU, they'll be good, but if he regresses or gets found out, they will be lucky to win 6 games. He has good offensive players around him, but it's always on the QB. BYU gets QB Taysom Hill back, and he's almost unstoppable running the read option. The problem lies with him though, when he got hurt, they were terrible. I believe they lost 4 or 5 straight after he got hurt. That team is completely reliant on the health of their QB and that's a double edged sword. Boise State had a down year for them and they still won 9 games and played Ole Miss tough in the opener. The same goes for them as goes for Washington. It all depends on who wins that game to see who will have the better season. I think Boise State will be good this year. Marshall almost went undefeated last season. They were led by their all world QB, Rakeem Cato, but he's graduated, and I think this marks the end of Marshall winning double digit games. It's not happening.

As far as the Heisman Trophy goes this season, I see it coming down to a lot of running backs and one QB. I think we'll see Ohio State's Ezekial Elliot, Georgia's Nick Chubb, LSU's Leonard Fournette and TCU's QB Trevoyne Boykin get invited to New York. I see Boykin winning the Heisman in an almost landslide vote. He's going to have a special season if he stays healthy.

Now the playoff.  I see the Big 12 being represented by TCU, the SEC sending Alabama and the shocker being the Big 10 getting two teams in, in Ohio State and Michigan State. I think in order of ranking the final four teams, it will be Ohio State 1, Alabama 2, TCU 3 and Michigan State 4. So, we'll get an Ohio State-Michigan State game for the third time this season and I see Ohio State winning this time and we will get Alabama-TCU in the other playoff game and I see TCU pulling away late in that game to advance to the title game. So that leaves us with Ohio State and TCU playing for the championship. I see this game being close for about 2 and a half quarters and then TCU puling away and winning by at least 17 points. So, TCU will be your 2016 NCAA Football National Champions.

Tell me why I'm right or wrong in the comment section and sit back and enjoy watching football. It will be here before we know it.

Ty

Ty is the Pop Culture editor for SeedSing and the co-host of the X Millennial Man Podcast. The editor is eagerly awaiting his NCAA Division 3 football preview. Follow Ty on twitter @tykulik