A Much Better Preview

MgoBlog previews the Michigan offense. Watch the "New Math" video clip. It's awesome.

I'll Take Clueless for $200 Alex

I was driving home this evening from work (after The Swinging Bunts softball game). In a hurry to get home and not really paying much attention to my surroundings given the light traffic, I started going about 55 on Cottage Grove Road (speed limit 40). After about 15-20 seconds at this speed, I realize that I just passed a cop car at a high speed!

I hit the brakes immediately and started going the speed limit. The cop car catches up to me and starts driving next to me in the other lane. I look over, and he's laughing at me. Seriously, I just passed a cop car at 15mph over the limit. If I were him, I think I would have done the same. What the hell was I thinking?

At least I didn't get pulled over, but I think I was about to get pulled over for speeding if I didn't slow down so quickly. I didn't speed the rest of the way home.

2007 Michigan Football Season Preview

It may have snuck up on me this year due to recent vacations and long hours at work, but Michigan football starts this weekend. Woohoo!!!

No drawn out season preview this year, but based on the limited reading I have done on the team this year, here is my take on the team.

Offense
One word. Amazing. This will be the best Michigan offense since 2000 when we had Henson, Terrell, Thomas, and 5 offensive lineman that started an NFL game including Hutchinson and Backus. In fact, this offense has much more talent at the skill positions than the 2000 team, just a weaker offensive line.

Chad Henne is the best Michigan QB I have ever seen. Yes, I think he is a better college QB than Michigan greats Tom Brady, Jim Harbaugh, and Elvis Grbac. Henne does not get much respect since he has not won bowl games or games against OSU, but he often plays well in these games, and he will hold every passing record at UM after this season. Throw in Mike Hart's heart, Jake Long's willingness to pass up the big bucks of the NFL, and Manningham's big play ability, and I really like the leaders of the offense.

The only potential downside to this offense is that Carr and O.C. Mike DeBord call a very conservative offensive game which could result in Michigan playing in more close games than desired. Given the defensive weakness this year, the offense must go into each game thinking that 40 points will be necessary to win.

Defense
As good as the 2000 offense was, the 2000 defense was pathetic. I hope I never see Michigan lose another game 54-51 in regulation time. Sadly, if any team can match that incompetence, it's the 2007 Michigan defense. This is a terrible defense. Woodley, Branch, Harris, and Hall are gone. With a much weaker front seven unable to hide the secondary weaknesses, Michigan will give up a lot of points this year on big plays. Brace yourself, Michigan fans. Regardless of how awesome Ron English is as a defensive coordinator, it will take a Belichick miracle to make this defense respectable.

Special Teams
We're going to miss Steve Breaston. I am having nightmares of my college days when I had a pit in my stomach every time Michigan was receiving a punt. Just thinking of Julius Curry or James Whitley fumbling punts every week has me freaking out about whichever unknown player will have the punt returning responsibility this year.

Oh yeah, and we have a new placekicker too. Anyone remember the year before Garret Rivas? Let's hope that never happens again.

On the bright side, we have Zoltan. If a punter ever had a chance to win the Heisman, it's Zoltan.

Despite my defensive and special teams concerns, I still think Michigan should have a good season, mainly because I just don't see many good teams in the Big Ten this year.

Here is my game-by-game prediction:

Game 1 - Appalachian State
A Division 1-AA opponent? Disgraceful. Why did college football add a 12th game if it was just going to be against a crappy school.

Believe it or not, the two-time defending Division 1-AA champs are not the easiest opponent on Michigan's schedule this year. That honor belongs to the lightly regarded 'Bye Week' (see Game 6 below). Michigan will try to win this game without running a single play other than the off-tackle run behind Jake Long. They will succeed, but the resulting final score will be much closer than you would expect.
Michigan 38, Appalachian State 13, Number of people able to watch the game on the Big Ten Network, 7

Game 2 - Oregon
This is one of the games that really concerns me. Oregon comes from a pass-happy conference. Michigan will not be able to stop these teams in 2007. As tempted as I am to think that Michigan could lose this game, everything I have read about Oregon indicates that they are not as good this year as they have been in past years.
Michigan 42, Oregon 24

Game 3 - Notre Dame
Notre Dame was not good when they came to Michigan and beat us two years ago. However, Charlie Weis knows how to pick apart a bad defense. That said, this Notre Dame team is probably as bad on paper as the one Michigan beat 38-0 four years ago, just better coached.
Michigan 38, Notre Dame 20

Game 4 - Penn State
Penn State was a mess on offense last year. I am not one of those who believe that Morelli will be better because he is a year older. However, the poor offense at PSU has always been offset by a stellar defense. Michigan won't win if the defense doesn't play well because Michigan's offense will not light it up on Penn State. This game scares me, and I think a special teams miscue will ultimately doom Michigan and give PSU the points they need to win. PSU finally breaks their losing streak to the Wolverines (and JoePa will celebrate by announcing his retirement after the season).
Penn State 23, Michigan 20

Game 5 - at Northwestern
No one wants to face an angry Michigan team.
Michigan 48, Northwestern 17

Game 6 - Bye Week
Like I said, this week will present less of a challenge than the season opener.
Michigan 45, Eastern Michigan 6

Game 7 - Purdue
Purdue returns to Michigan's schedule after a two-year hiatus. They are nowhere near as good as they were two years ago, but other than that, I really don't know anything about their team.
Michigan 40, Purdue 20

Game 8 - at Illinois
At Illinois in prime time. Brings back scary memories of the only football game I attended where I truly feared for my life (@Ill in 2000). This is not an easy place to play in primetime. Illinoise has sucked for years, but they are a team on the rise and should surprise some people this year. Throw in a mobile QB and this is a worrisome for Michigan. Michigan will enter the game as a 10 point favorite, but way too overconfident that this will not be a tough game. Illinois will cover the spread, and I think they could win.
Illinois 34, Michigan 30

Game 9 - Minnesota
No one wants to face an angry Michigan team.
Michigan 51, Minnesota 14

Game 10 - at Michigan State
Michigan State has a new coach, which will make it that much tougher for Michigan to walk in and win there this year. However, it's Michigan State. They mail it in every season after November 1st.
Michigan 33, Michigan State 20

Game 11 - at Wisconsin
Wisconsin is not as good as advertised this year. A new QB and a team whose record was disguised by a very easy schedule in 2006. They will not finish in the top 3 of the Big Ten this year, and a 4-4 or 5-3 conference record will not surprise me.
Michigan 27, Wisconsin 17

Game 12 - Ohio State
Even with two conference losses, Michigan could still be playing for a BCS bowl birth and possibly even a chance at the conference title. The conference is down this year, and no one will run the table. Ohio State does not have Troy Smith, who was the biggest factor in their last three games against Michigan. His departure will be enough for Michigan to end the losing streak against the cheating Buckeyes.
Michigan 33, Ohio State 24

Game 13 - Bowl Game
With a 10-2 record, Michigan might get an at-large BCS bid. However, Michigan's poor defense will be exposed once again in January in yet another bowl game loss.

Projected Final Record - 10-3

Projected Big Ten Standings
1. Penn State 7-1
2. Michigan 6-2
3. Ohio State 6-2
4. Wisconsin 5-3
5. Iowa 5-3
6. Illinois 4-4
7. Purdue 3-5
8. Michigan State 3-5
9. Indiana 3-5
10. Minnesota 1-7
11. Northwestern 1-7

Fear the 'Fro

For the past two weeks, I have desperately needed a haircut. Unfortunately, the barber shop I go to closes at 5:30PM and because of work, softball, vacation, or Saturday plans, I have been unable to get to the barbershop before they close.

Today was the day I had planned that I was leaving work at 5PM no matter what to get my haircut, even if it meant that I was working from home all evening. I had a meeting on my calendar at work from 3-5, so the plan was the leave right after the meeting.

Sadly, the meeting ended at 6:15. :(

For at least one more day, you must fear the 'fro.




If I can't get to the barbershop before Labor Day, I am going to go to a "supercuts" type place because I can't handle this any more.

Your Favorite NFL Players in 2007

Please be sure to root for the following players in 2007. The draft did not play out as I expected, so I did not fare as well as I hoped.

QBs
Peyton Manning, Ind
Matt Leinart, Ari
Trent Green, Mia

RBs
Willis McGahee, Bal
Maurice Jones-Drew, Jac
Clinton Portis, Was
Warrick Dunn, Atl


WRs
Javon Walker, Den
Bernard Berrian, Chi
Santana Moss, Was
Darrell Jackson, SF
Jerricho Cotchery, NYJ

TEs
Randy McMichael, Stl
Ben Watson, NE

Ks
Mike Nugent, NYJ
Jay Feely, Mia

DEF
Cincinnati
St. Louis

Start 1QB, 1 RB, 2 WRs, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DEF, and 1 QB/RB/WR/TE Flex

Critique away. I feel weak at WR and K, but I don't care about kickers. I like my RB situation, though that depends on my assumption that Jones-Drew will emerge as the feature back for Jacksonville in a division with weak run defenses.

Misc and Stuff

It's been such a busy week that I have completely neglected to post anything here. Here's an update:

Being "New England-y" (Mpls Ju term, not mine)
Mpls Ju was studying at Woods Hole on Cape Cod for the past couple weeks. I took Friday off of work and spent a day with her on Martha's Vineyard. We spent most of the day biking around the island. Given that I had not been on a real bike in who-knows-how-many-years, the 20-25 mile bike ride was exhausting, but the island is absolutely beautiful. It was my first trip to the Cape. Even though I didn't really get that far into the Cape this time, I'd like to get out there again.

Near Death Experience
RoopDogg and I went golfing at a 9-hole course near his apartment on Saturday afternoon. The course was pretty short, with no hole over 260 yards. A good golfer could drive the green on most of the par-4 holes, which created a couple of tense moments during our round. On the ~210 yard hole #4, we signaled the group behind us to tee off once we reached the green, per course guidelines. We stood well behind the green since we thought we would be safe there. We watched the second guy tee-off, but we lost sight of the ball in the sun as it traveled towards the green. Next thing I know, I see the ball bouncing on the ground about 15 feet away from me. I never saw it or heard it. I looked over at RoopDogg. He had not moved and was clearly in shock. Apparently the ball missed his head by about 2 feet. He never saw it either, but he heard it scream by hit head at a very high speed before landing a few feet behind him. Talk about your close calls.

When we were on the green at the 260 yard hole #9, RoopDogg was lining up his birdie putt when a golf ball landed on the green about 10 feet away from him. Apparently, the same guy managed to drive the green, but this time we had not waived them through. RoopDogg was almost killed again and was (justifiably pissed this time).

Despite the multiple near-death experiences, RoopDogg managed to shatter his personal best on that golf course by 4 strokes.

Pilot Pen
RoopDogg, DrT, and I went to the men's championship at the Pilot Pen tennis tournament on Saturday. James Blake, the hometown tennis star, was playing fellow American and good friend Mardy Fish. Blake won 7-5, 6-4 in a very entertaining match. The three of us especially "appreciated" how much the tournament directors played up the "All-American" final. If I had a nickel for every time an American themed song was played during commercial breaks, I may have paid for the cost of my ticket. Also, about 12-15 ball boys and ball girls ran out during the player entrance before the match carrying American flags. Personally, I think they needed more flags.

Side note here, after the match we all had an excellent beer at RoopDogg's apartment. Three Philosophers. Try it.


Softball Update
We lost our regular season finale to The Swarm 22-15, which means we have the #2 seed for the playoffs. Despite scoring more runs against The Swarm than we scored in our last four games against them combined, we gave up more runs in a game (22) and more runs in one inning (12 in the 6th) than we have in any other game in our five-year history. We made so many errors through the first five innings and then I couldn't pitch a strike to save my life in the 6th. Just a horrible horrible collapse in a game we should have won. On the bright side, we would have had to play The Swinging Bunts in the first round of the playoffs if we had won and captured the #1 seed. I'd rather be able to root for them to win at least one playoff game this year.

Our first playoff game is Tuesday.


That's it for now. Tomorrow is the big fantasy football draft. I have the 4th pick in odd-numbered rounds and 6th pick in even-numbered rounds. Any suggestions?

Mr. Jones and Me

I went to a sweet concert last night. The Counting Crows were playing at the New Britain Rock Cats stadium last night with Collective Soul and Live. Every seat in the house was general admission, so our group (RytheRed, RoopDogg, and a bunch of RoopDogg's college friends) tailgated for four hours and then went in and found a place to stand about 20-30 feet from the stage. I had never been so close to the stage for a concert like this, and it was AWESOME!

I've become a much bigger fan of the Counting Crows since the concert I attended in Foxboro, MA last year, thanks in large part to the CD RoopDogg made for me. I enjoyed this year's show a lot more. The Counting Crows are an interesting live band. Their performances often are quite different from the recorded versions of their songs that everyone knows, but you can tell that the group puts a lot into every live concert.

The biggest shock of the evening was when Counting Crows played Mr. Jones. According to RoopDogg, they rarely play the song that made them famous at live shows. In fact, in all the concerts RoopDogg has attended over the years, it was the first time that he had heard the group play Mr. Jones. If only I had a picture of the shocked look on RoopDogg's face when the group started playing that song. I think RoopDogg was in disbelief and was expecting some sort of fake-out throughout the intro until the lead singer started the first verse of the song.

And after four hours of tailgating before the show, I am so ready for the college football season to start. 13 days until game day!

Road Rage

I spent the last five days down on the New Jersey shore in Avalon with some friends of mine that live in Philadelphia. We rented a house near the beach. It was a much needed chance to relax and I had a blast during my first trip on the NJ shore. However, the drive down to the shore on Saturday was a miserable experience.

Shore traffic on the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey is awful on weekends during the summer. The last 150 miles of my drive on Saturday took over five hours because of accidents and heavy volume on the Parkway.

One incident in particular near the end of the trip really set me off. There was a really bad accident near Atlantic City. According to traffic reports on the radio, they had to shut down the highway for a while so that a chopper could land and take a seriously injured individual to the hospital. By the time I got to the area, the highway had reopened, but there was a 10 mile backup.

I was in the right lane during this backup since it was moving faster. However, cars eventually started driving on the shoulder because they felt that they were too important to wait in the traffic jam with the rest of us. I was already 6 hours into a drive that should have lasted 4 hours, so I took advantage of an opportunity to pull into the shoulder and block the traffic trying to skip the line while staying just behind that car that was in front of me in the right lane.

How did the drivers behind me in the right lane thank me for stopping cars from jumping ahead of us in the backup? They filled in my "place" in the right lane and blocked me into the shoulder. At one point I rolled down my window and asked the driver right next to me why he was blocking me in the shoulder when I was helping keep that lane moving as fast as possible. That driver was kind enough to give me a little opening so that i could be half in the lane and half in the shoulder. Unfortunately, cars took advantage of that opening to pass me on the shoulder again.

As we got close to the exit right by where the accident happened, a large SUV tried to pass me on the shoulder. By this time, I was really pissed, so I moved back into the shoulder and refused to budge. This driver was especially pissed, and started honking and yelling. At one point, he rolled down his window and half of his upper body was outside of his window while he was gesturing and yelling. This guy probably wanted to drive about a mile on the shoulder so that he could take the next exit, but I was not about to let him by since I had no idea if the accident was before or after his exit. Furthermore, if I let him over, then the 20 cars behind him would also be able to pass me on the shoulder, and I doubt all of them were taking the next exit.

Unfortunately, my little Subaru cannot out-muscle an SUV. The driver was having a serious case of road rage and he started passing me on the grass to the right of the shoulder. Since I lost this battle and was just generally pissed off at this time, I had a rare outburst of road rage. I flipped off the driver of the SUV as he passed. This guy went off his rocker at this point and he tried to stop his car and block my path. Thankfully, I was able to get back into the right lane of the road and the car in front of me was paying attention to this whole exchange and pulled over into the shoulder, essentially preventing the SUV from doing anything to me OR passing any more cars on the shoulder. I gave the car ahead of me a round of applause for his help in keeping the traffic moving through a horrendous backup.

The one good outcome of this was that the car in front of me was also trying to take the same exit off the Parkway and could have taken the shoulder shortcut, which just happened to be 200 feet before the location of the accident. However, he decided to follow the rules of the road and stood up for the rest of us that were waiting in the 10 mile backup. Obviously, the car in front of me did not have NJ plates.

Thankfully there was no more bad traffic for the last 30-45 minutes of that drive on Saturday because I was really shaken up and quite angry once I finally got through that traffic jam. New Jersey drivers will forever be assholes in my book.

The Stage is Set

Time for another highly anticipated softball update. After a grueling stretch of three games in five days, the Pitchers & Catchers have improved to 12-1 and a tie for first place in the league standings.

The last of the three wins over the past week came against FlyingV and The Swinging Bunts last night. The 10-5 battle was much tougher than the score would indicate. For the first time in our six game series history against the Bunts, I was legitimately concerned that we could actually lose a game to them. We were trailing 4-2 heading into the bottom of the fourth inning and were not able to generate any offense. The Bunts had a strong defensive lineup that day and we were not able to generate any hits or runs. However, thanks to some solid hitting and some unfortunate errors by the Bunts, we managed to score 8 runs in the bottom of the fourth inning to blow the game open. Each team "won" one of the seven innings and we tied the remaining five, but the big 4th inning proved decisive.

One of the actuaries at work came and took some great pictures at the game last night. I'll try and post some of them soon.

Now the stage is set for a thrilling regular season finale. Our opponent in the last game is the only team to beat us all season. The Swarm. Conveniently, they are also 12-1, so the winner of next Thursday's game will also earn the #1 seed in the playoffs and should not face a stiff challenge in the playoffs before the league championship series after Labor Day since there are only three teams that have a shot at winning the title this year.

While we'd like to avenge our 8-2 loss from earlier this season, we will once again have to face The Swarm without our "Franchise" player. The perennial all-star, PhillyPhanatic, will be on an ill-timed vacation again next week. Without our trusty shortstop, RytheRed will have to fill in. He's been improving at SS all season, so I still think we can win this game without the Franchise player shoring up our league leading defense if we can get a few more hits than we did against The Swarm last time. Given that we have not scored more than 6 runs against The Swarm in our last four contests (each team has won twice), we'll need solid defense to win.

Needless to say, there will be an update after that game, hopefully to write about a glorious victory.

Drama

My brother is back in CA getting ready to move his family across the country to Washington DC, where he has been living since the end of January. They were planning to drive their old car the entire way and just hope that it made it to DC. At that point, they were looking into a few options for replacing the car.

Unfortunately, the best plans of mice and men often go awry. He called me at work this afternoon to let me know that after driving he car down to LA and back and making two trips to the store this morning, the car broke down. They took it to their trusty mechanic, who delivered the fatal news. The engine was dead, and the car should be scrapped.

They are supposed to leave on their two week journey across the country (with various stops) tomorrow morning. Needless to say, we're all freaking out a little bit. My brother and I worked out a contingency plan this evening that should work out fairly well. In fact, given how worried I was about his car surviving the cross country trip, I am sort of glad that this happened now as opposed to one week from now in Oklahoma.

My brother is going to rent a car for the cross country trip and drive it all the way to Asheville. My dad is going to look at new cars in the area for the next two weeks to find a car so that he can loan my brother his Chevy Malibu. Then my brother will decide to either buy my dad's car or my car. In the meantime, I am going to start searching for new cars to see if I can find anything I like. I don't really need a new car, but my brother prefers my car to my dad's car and I definitely want to help him out any way possible.

I guess we'll see what happens, but it's definitely been a drama-filled day.

Was I Profiled?

Last night, I joined DrT and one of her friends at the Dave Matthews Band concert in Hartford. Although I do like Dave's music that has been played on the radio over the years, I am not very familiar with most of his music. Despite that, I still enjoyed the concert, with the exception of the large amount of pot smoking around us.

Needless to say, the concert was packed. It took me nearly an hour after the concert just to get out of the parking lot. Once I finally made it out, I was directed by police to the carpool lane on I-91N. Since I could not make it to I-291 from the I-91 carpool lane, I exited at CT-218 in Bloomfield with the intention of driving over to the I-291 entrance from that exit.

Right after turning on to CT-218, I noticed a cop car sitting in a nearby parking lot. No need for me to worry. I was driving 5mph under the speed limit and completely sober. It was 12:30AM, so there could be a million reasons why a cop was stationed there.

To my surprise, the cop decided to pull me over. Yes. Me. I really could not figure out why, but I figured that I had nothing to fear. The cop informed me that the lights that illuminate my license plate are not functioning properly. What? Shouldn't the cop be looking for speeders or drunk drivers? How could she have possibly noticed a broken license plate light? And what kind of stupid law is that? I have no way of knowing whether that light is out unless a cop pulls me over to tell me. No one else pays attention to such a minor and stupid detail.

She then proceeded to ask me a bunch of unrelated questions about my evening. Where was I coming from? Had I been drinking? Why was I in Bloomfield if I was coming from a concert in Hartford and returning home to Manchester? And so on...

She then proceeded to take my ID and insurance/registration with her. She came back one minute later and let me go with a verbal warning.

Was she profiling me? I cannot figure out the real reason why I was pulled over. Was it because I was a 20-something male driving after midnight? Strange. At least I didn't get a ticket or get arrested, so nothing bad really happened.

Isn't it Ironic

I had an awkward moment today on the drive in to work this morning. I was giving one of my softball teammates that lives near me a ride into work since we had a game this evening. We were talking about various topics throughout the drive in. The conversation ultimately turned to the tragic bridge collapse in Minneapolis last night (btw - glad to hear that you were nowhere near the accident Mpls Ju!). Neither of us had heard about the story last night since we went from work to a minor league baseball game (go Erie Seawolves!). I first heard about the story on the news this morning, and the guy I was driving did not know what had happened.

For those of you in CT that know the I-291 drive into work, would you care to venture where I was right when I finished passing along what I knew about the tragic event? That's right. I was just about to drive over the Connecticut River. Talk about fantastic timing. When we both realized where we were, we gave each other an awkward glance and there was an eerie silence for the 10-15 seconds while I was crossing over the river.

Good thing we have the highest state income tax burden in the country. At least I don't have to worry about the infrastructure in this state being underfunded.