The Future is Now

​The 89th battle for the Little Brown Jug went to the Wolverines on Saturday, 34-10. Once again, fans were treated to a tale of two halves. A first half of fear and loathing, and a second half of proper adjustments, inspired defense, and taking advantage of the opponent's weaknesses. If I had a nickel for every time my section 30 cohort Kevin mentioned that there was a midget in single coverage on Manningham, I'd have enough to replace the EZ-Up tent that fell victim to the whipping wind during the tailgate. Note to self..always use stakes. Live and learn, folks, live and learn. Seems that is the theme for this edition of the Wolverines. The solomidgetcoverage on Manningham in the first half usually precluded a hand-off to Minor or Brown. In the second half, it resulted in laser guided Mallet-bombs for large gains...and still some hand-offs to Minor and Brown, ya know, to keep 'em honest.

Hart, no Henne. Henne, no Hart. No Henne or Hart. This is the reality of what has so far been an rags to riches comeback. We've done it...and we've done it with part or all of next year's team. And while I've really appreciated the experience and chemistry we've gained for the future, I think I'd like to have 2007's team play out the rest of this season. No, really, the resting of Henne and Hart was a nice gesture, but I think I'd like to see them dressed from here on out. Lloyd seemed to hint that they will both be back for the Backyard Brawl on replay...so, nice.

Three games. Two tough road tests, and one for all the marbles.

Death, taxes, and cold and rainy days for soups and stews...all certainties it seems. A surprisingly open Ann Arbor Golf and Outing was host to an amazing array of warm concoctions from a bevy of tailgaters. Bacon and dumpling, vegetable, stuffed pepper, broccoli cheese...and so many others. On site grilled cheese sandwiches made their first tailgate appearance for dipping and munching. Considering the weather, it was an amazing turnout.

For those that may not have heard, UMTailgate.com was featured on the front page of The Ann Arbor News on Friday. The article followed the "battle" between UMTailgate and Garsworld, and thanks go out to Jo Mathis for doing it. Thanks also to Gar for inferring that UMTailgate.com is X-Rated and full of strippers, while his tailgate is family oriented. The online version of the article has a youtube video featuring yours truly bashing Gar and his little world. Wow, the Orlando Sentinel and the Ann Arbor News in one season. Worldwide baby, worldwide.

Congratulations go out to Goody, son of the Captain, and nephew of the Godfather, on his engagement. No jokes just yet. Whew...this is the toughest thing I've ever done. Not sure how long I can hold out.

Is It November 18th Yet? Michigan 17, Northwestern 3

​It's tough sometimes, to be a Michigan fan. So many expectations, a fair amount of disappointment, and rarely a game occurs where you walk out and say "we executed to the best of our ability." That's just the way it is. We've reached November unblemished, but you're confidence in the offense is low. There are a couple of schools of thought as to the reason why the Michigan offense has mustered only 54 points in the last three games. One is that in our current state we just are not that good, and that the boring conservatism of the Wolverines is a result of the loss of Mario Manningham, the questionable right side of the offensive line, dropped passes by receivers, and a running back by committee that seems to contain only one man that can get yards and not fumble. Maybe Penn State has a good defense, perhaps even Iowa...but Northwestern did not. Going 4 of 15 on third down against the Wildcats could be viewed as unacceptable, and it might be time to wonder if Mike DeBord, the master of 1997's conservative offensive masterpiece might just be too conservative for the available weapons on this Michigan team. The other view is that this is a giant conspiracy, with a 10-play playbook that hides everything we plan to do against Ohio State from the Sweatervest and his staff. We will run the ball (to the left) and rely on the best defense in the nation to hold our lead, no matter how small. You might think we've done this before. After ho-humming our way through Vanderbilt and Central Michigan, we dominated Notre Dame, the #2 team in the country at the time.

A look at total offense reveals that the last three games were our lowest outputs of the season. We peaked at Minnesota, amassing 514 yards, which was 130 yards more than any other game, but only beat the Gophers 28-14. But maybe the powers that be know what it is that wins championships. It's defense. And until we need it, the offense can go three and out every time. We'll get into the common opponent comparisons when we get closer to Armageddon, but let me leave you with this for now: The most total yards Michigan has given up this season is 323 to Minnesota. Ohio State gave up 343 yards to Northern Illinois and 339 yards to Bowling Green. Hmmm.

In the worst weather conditions since the famous 5-0 affair against Purdue in 1995, the Wolverines defense came out in the near-freezing rain and completely dominated Northwestern. Forcing 5 turnovers, they single-handedly won the game for an offense that only managed 17 points, most of which came from great field position gained by the defense. For the 2nd time in three games, Michigan's defense held its opponent to negative rushing yards, and lowered their nation-leading per game average to 28.4 yards per game. Michigan wins, 17-3.

The tailgate was moved from our cushy surroundings on the golf course to our alternate spot at a house on Main St. Wet and muddy, we tried to stay dry under our tents, and tried to stay warm with the appropo Soups and Stews theme. Next week, we gather for Fried Turkeys, and will end the day with our yearly banquet.

It's Homecoming! The Northwestern Preview

​We now take you to the cushy part of the Wolverine's 2006 schedule, with the three-headed monster of Northwestern, Ball State, and Indiana before we head to Columbus. How easy should these games be? Really easy. How vanilla will the offense be for the next three weeks? Super vanilla. We will spend as much time hiding plays that we unleash on the Buckeyes as we will actually preparing for games. We will rest Mike Hart. We will suspend Adrian Arrington. We will rehab Mario Manningham. We will celebrate the near guarantee of a BCS bowl game.

So let's have fun and enjoy it...first up, the Wildcats of Northwestern.

The School:

• Established in 1851


• Enrollment: 13,000


• Mascot: Willie the Wildcat

Notable Alumni:

• Jerry Springer


• Julia Louis-Dreyfus


• Charlton Heston

The Numbers:

• Michigan leads series 50-14-2, and is 27-5-2 at Michigan Stadium


• Northwestern blew a 35 point lead to Michigan State last week, the biggest choke job in the history of NCAA football


• Michigan is 33-5 in their last 38 homecoming games.


• Chad Henne has a league best 65% completion percentage in Big Ten play


• Michigan will be going for their 400th win all time in the month of October, Northwestern will be going for their 437th win all time...in all months.

This Year:

• Northwestern is 2-6 on the season, with their only wins coming against Miami of Ohio (21-3) and Eastern Michigan (14-6)


• Northwestern is 94th in the country in total offense, and 93rd in total defense

Watch For (I guess):

• Tyrell Sutton, RB, averages 84 yards per game


• Nick Roach, LB, leads team with 7.75 tackles per game

Predictions

The Hammer:

Who do we play this week? Oh, that's right Northwestern.Man that was a whirlwind first eight weeks! Still undefeated and the redemption tour has taken a hiatus and now its just getting down to good old fashion fine tuning. Don't sleep on these teams though. We need to perfect our execution. We have three weeks of preparation and it starts with the Wildcats.

1st half prediction:
Michigan 24
NWU 3
2nd half will be on the second team so I leave that up to them.

Go Blue.

The XBox:

Michigan 52
Northwestern 14

The Webmaster:

Tough to make predictions when the team is only going to play a little over a half, but I think our 2nd team would still dominate this poor excuse for a Big Ten team. Mike Hart better have less than 20 carries. Can't wait to see Brandon Minor get his game legs under him. Oh, and Jason Forcier...that should be fun.

Michigan 42
Northwestern 7

The Wind At Our Backs

It was windy. Really windy. And it was cold. Too cold for mid-October in the middle of Illinois. There were a lot of places we'd have rather been. The tarp walls of the pop-up tent made it tolerable, and the small fire pit of a neighboring tailgate was enough to get the feeling back in your fingers. After some food and drinks, we found our rhythm and finished strong, even after the pop-up was blown 20-yards across the parking lot.

The Wolverines weren't much different. It was obvious that they didn't want to be in Champaign. Nothing to get fired up about. Just another Big Ten lackey in the way of destiny. So we came out flat. A couple of miscues, and suddenly the Fighting Illini had fought their way into a 17-10 halftime lead.

Any other day, any other team, and you would have had a raucous crowd to deal with, but most of the Illini faithful had already given up on this season, and many decided to skip what they thought would be a slaughter. A non-sellout crowd tried to yell and scream but their efforts were quelled by the whipping wind, and the second half Illini efforts were quelled by the swarming Wolverine defense.

But let us not forget Mike Hart. 40 carries, 234 yards. That's the most yards in a single game by a running back since Tim Biakabutuka's 313 yards against Ohio State in 1995.

After a 20-2 drubbing in the second-half, Michigan came out of Champaign with a 30-19 victory, staying undefeated in the Big Ten with 4 games to go.