Monday, September 27, 2010

This and That- But Mostly Football

I need to preface this post and all those that I write between now and October 1st with the notification that my editor, Alisa, is relaxing somewhere on a cruise ship. It seems unfair she would not only leave me but leave me with typos, grammatical errors and- gasp- punctuation issues! You will see rampant use of the "dash" while she is gone and I will take hell for it when she returns.

OK, Clever Girls, University of Michigan might not be your team, and I am sure everyone is tired of me going on and on about my Wolverines, but history is being made here and it’s important for you to read sports-related blurbs because whether or not you or anyone else likes UM- the following names are going to come up time and again this season: Rich Rodriguez and Denard Robinson- RichRod and D-Rob, respectively. A So Very Clever Guy's Girl will know all about this.

Why? Because RichRod came from West Virginia, where he did an impressive job coaching though the translation to UM has been rocky to say the least. He came in insisting he implement a spread offense and we didn’t have the right players to execute it. Finally, his ass and his job are about to be saved by a young man named Denard.

In order to execute a spread option, you need a quick, intuitive, efficient and highly mobile quarterback who can handle the shotgun (the center pitches the ball to the quarterback) and play under center (the center hands the ball off to the quarterback). In the ideal (what UM has with D-Rob at the helm) scenario, you have a solid pocket (the protection area for the quarterback made up of the offensive linemen) giving your quarterback plenty of time to find a receiver or hand off the ball.

D-Rob elevates this set up by having little concern for whether or not the pocket will collapse- if he is unable to execute the desired play he runs for daylight. He doesn’t just find holes- he creates them. Impressive, explosive- which is why I am jacked out of shape about his bruised left knee. RichRod says he is going to play this weekend, but his knee isn’t going to get a break for a couple weeks.

Why else is history being made? Well, two years ago UM had two walk-on quarterbacks and now we have THREE viable options and they all are young boys. I thought for sure they would red-shirt Tate Forcier, but D-Rob’s injury forcie’d a quick decision and Tate now owns a bit of UM football history having completed 12 of 12 passes- an efficiency record for UM. Fantastic- so glad he is being given a chance to redeem himself after the disaster last year. I will never hang the miserable record on Tate. Fact is- he was not the person to lead the charge on an offensive strategy RichRod was forcing. It is, in part, the coach’s job to admit failure- you can’t implement a play style if you don’t have the right players for the job. He should have put more effort into recruiting and found the right players. We suck in recruiting- we got lucky with Denard and perhaps a national championship will help us to regain some of our former glory we deserve as the winningest college football team in history. My gosh, we should have players banging on our doors like UT does. It’s embarrassing.

Now- about those Hogs. The only silver lining to that cloud is that Mallett messed up in the end getting picked off (throwing an interception). The Heisman race is hot already, Clever Girls- so the names Mark Ingram (Alabama), Ryan Mallett (Arkansas) and Denard are going to be coming up a lot. The Arkansas loss will keep Denard at the top of the Heisman pundit poll despite the fact he only played for seven minutes he amassed almost 200 yards- if he’d stayed in that game we’d have hung a hundred on Bowling Green (there is a reason Corvette leaps to mind and not football- but a win is a win). The bad news? 'Bama rolls on and so does Mark Ingram, and the Heisman voters have been itching for another back-to-back Heisman winner. Hell, Archie Griffin was the last one and Sam Bradford blew his chance with an injury.

Just to manage your expectations- you can count on a weekend wrap-up Monday and a gameday post Friday. It’s just through college football season- don’t panic. More good news- Soupfest is October 9th and I've actually brought someone into the fold to simply write down the recipes. They will be coming your way to carry you through football season and chilly northern winters. Yum.

I’m trying to decide how I should commemorate one year of So Very Clever. The anniversary is in two days. Hmmm. Any ideas?

I’d like to thank my new readers for their interest and a special thank you to my So Very Loyal readers.

If you are interested in the progress on "Consumed," check out my fiction site at www.lidestrigriffin.com.

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