w i U U - w mr w w w w W, 6B Saturday, November 17, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Saturday, November 17, 2007 f The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 2007 Depth Chart B. Englemon C. Graham S. Brown J. Mouton S. Crable J. Adams M. Pollock C. Stewart Dueling columns U MORE ONLINE at michigandaily.com BLOGS Check out our live blog of The Game (michigandaily.com/ thegame) O. Ezeh J. Thompson M. Trent B. Harrison wVR M. Manningham 1. Hemingway J.Ln a.Long P. Dorren B. Harrson G. Mathew 1. Hemingway O. Warren D. Warren D. Dutch T. Jamison T. Taylor W. Johns A. Patterson M. Slocum J. Ferrara . Boren A. Kraus J. Ciulia T. McAvoy D. Moosman A. Mitchell nstein 0E C. He"ne 3 . Malttt M.Moundros -F V. Helmuth vs M. H B. Minor on B. Graham 3 G. Banks I I JBP .,S Jeans or SXasif ,Jeans? Procrastination station Michigan 29 Ohio State 33 Before every football game - Player of the game -C this season, two of the Daily's State W R #4: The receiverp football writers will take the ished Michigan for bringing weekend's matchup to the Play- safeties up every play, scoring Station 2 and then let you know long touchdowns in the game what happened. - Press conference - Play of the game - Ohio State Michigan coach Scott Bell: completed a pass to WR #80 in "Bromwich cheated. The the end zone with 19 seconds cheated. The game cheated." left, but WR #80 came out of the end zone to make the catch. "Fuck." The Buckeyes hurried to the line, and QB #7 snuck it in before the "It's hard to win when WR4 defense was set for the late lead. decides to get hurt in the Michigan had just 11 seconds to quarter of every fricking gar score, and it wasn't enough. control Michigan." A. Arrington TE G.Mthews 5. Schiiing C. Butle G M. Ortmann C. McLaurin B. right Z. Mesko K.C. Lopta "I'm still ending the year with by far the best record out of anyone. " Ohio State Coach Daniel Bromwich; "Excuses excuses. Bell lost, and he threw a tantrum. I'd expect noth- ing else from the sore loser." io "Did WR #86 get hurt? Yes. So did n- my starting quarterback and my is No. 2 cornerback. I don't want to io hear it." "Bellwas a good opponent. He was gracious throughout the game. Mostly. He growled for most of the fs first half instead of talking, though. That was weird." "Bell guaranteed victory this week. Just so you know." 6 st (To view a live blog of this game, I visit Daily Sports' blog, The Game.) O10 pun h tw re #8 fir me Buckeyes rule rivalry F ive of the last six. Brady - broke school records like they It feels good - unless you're were paper mache, only to have to continu- Lloyd Carr, of course. ally prove himself thanks to the man-crush Before I head up coach Carr had on Drew Henson. to Ann Arbor for Everyone called Hensen's name when it Saturday's big game, I came time to take sides, but, thankfully for figured I'd share some you, reason won out. Not only did Henson of my thoughts on the suck at football, he sucked at baseball too. rivalry, and just why He's like the bizarro Bo Jackson. we're so much better. Only idiots like 1994 Michigan captain Buckeye fans are far Walter Smith could beat John Cooper year and away better than ZACH after year like a 6th-and-High hooker, and maize-and-blue back- TIMMONS then make it a goal to get him fired (funny ers. Some like to touch how things worked out once he did). on the number of Mich- The Lantern Michigan is like the kid in class who tells igan fans that reside in the teacher she forgot to assign homework. the greater Columbus Everything is fine and dandy for everyone area, but many fail to realize the fact that else. Then the kid lacking all social skills most wearing the shirts are simply impov- steps in, asking for assignments because erished to the point where they can't afford the textbook is his only friend. to wear anything but the complimentary I guess Michigan's academics are of a shirts they found behind the Kohl's on high standard, considering only bright Olentangy River Road. minds like Ann Coulter and Steve Phillips Nobody here actually enjoys Michigan. - worst general manager in baseball his- Hell, half the people that show up at The tory - get admitted. Big House don't give a damn, evidenced by For every Joey Galloway, Terry Glenn the lack of noise inside it. I guess it doesn't or Carter we send to the NFL, there's a Tai help when your stadium is built to let noise Streets, David Terrell or Desmond Howard out instead of keeping it in. trading in the maize and blue for whatever Michigan fans have the intimidation scout team jersey is up for grabs in the gut- factor of Shari Lewis - they both enjoy ter of the NFL. shoving their hands up the asses of things The war even carries over to ESPN's named Lamb Chop or Hush Puppy, but First Take. Ohio State hears praise from that's irrelevant to the discussion. fan boy and Bowling Green grad Mr. Jay Two years ago, Michigan came into Ohio Crawford whereas Michigan is continually Stadium ranked seventh, only to crash and glorified by Mrs. Dana Jacobsen. burn like a Hogan family sports car against Many Wolverines harken back to Tim the unranked Buckeyes. For such a highly Biakabutka's 300-yard performance in ranked team in the biggest game of the sea- 1995, which is fine and dandy. son, you would expect a better turnout of But take that domination, have it the last Michigan faithful. three years and call it Troy Smith, then But that's like asking Mike Hart to stay we'll see who's talking. healthy for four quarters. We've all had our eras. Michigan had Buckeye fans show up in groves no mat- the first 30 or so years, we've had most of ter the record or the distance. Arizona the rest. has become Columbus West, yet it's hard No big deal. enough getting Michigan fans to travel With Hart's injury and the mangled across town. shoulder of Chad Henn-ington, a Michigan We stand by our players no matter what win looks as likely as a Biakabutuka come- the consequence (Maurice Clarett aside). back tour. Not only are our fans better, so are our But you know how fickle The Game can players. be. Some of our best pros - Cris Carter, Eddie George, et. al - were given the - Zack Timmons is wondering how green light in college to take the reigns warm Pasadena is in January. He can be as soon as possible. Your best pro - Tom reached at timmons.60@osu.edu. MORE ONLINE BLOGS Check out our live blog at michigandaily.com (michigandaily.com/thegame) k now a lot of you can't wait to tell me about it, so I'm going to go ahead and get this out of the way. Michigan lost to Appalachian State in its season opener. Don't worry, I watched from ' ' the sideline as kicker Jason Gingell got his game-winning attempt blocked at the end of regulation. KEVIN I remember it, and, WRIGHT clearly, most of your campus does, too. You The Michigan bought enough T-shirts Daily to supply the entire Appalachian State stu- dent body. Maybe you were still making fun of the "school up north" when your basketball team lost at home to Findlay, a Division-II school. Thad Matta must have missed the memo Jim Tressel left for him. As a coach at Ohio State, you're supposed to schedule the bad Ohio area teams to pad your record. I shouldn't be too hard on you. If sched- uling smaller Mid-American Conference schools in Ohio is what you need to go 10-1 with a home loss to Illinois, then keep up the good work. Still, I'm going to bet most of you won't trade in your Mountaineer shirts (that's Appalachian State's nickname in case you didn't bother to digthat deep when looking to humiliate Michigan fans) for their Find- lay equivalent. It's OK, really. I've come to terms with the historic loss, butI don't think you have. I guess Ican see why you get caught up on the subject, since Appalachian State has higher academic standards than Ohio State. Which brings me to a crossroads in this column. I can delve into the academic excellence of Michigan compared to Ohio State. We could havea lovely conversation about where I'd end up working compared to you, but then the awkward topic of salary would probably come up, and I'd feel bad because I'll make more than you. So, we'll skip that part, because between you and me, I don't want to be the bad guy, just the one with a better education when he leaves his university. So, then, where does the other road lead? Michigan's dominance over Ohio State on the football field. Oh wait, that really hasn't panned out since you guys hired Jim Tressel, a real class act. I always picture him as the used- car salesman who presents a beautiful car for such a cheap price. Unfortunately, the engine is missing pieces and the interior isn't as spotless as advertised. Still, Tressel is pretty close to owning Lloyd Carr over the past six years. So, I'm not going to waste your or, in particular, my time - which is by far more valuable - with jokes about what Tressel likes to drink and wear (wine coolers and sweater vests, respectively). Those burns are unoriginal, and I'd rather not stoop to your level of repetitiveness and stupidity. Which brings me to a quick sidenote. I'm begging you to please retire the "Chad Henne is gay" chant you throw at anyone wearing a Michigan jersey. How is shouting that across a street goingto hurt my feelings or leave me fight- ing to hold back my tears at such an over- used taunt? Anyway, back to the game. I'm not going to sugarcoat how the last three years have felt for someone who goes to a school that doesn't sacrifice academics for athletic success. Well, at least not as much as Ohio State University. I've never personally witnessed a Wol- verine win in The Game. That especially hurts for someone who grew up in the glo- rious John Cooper era of Buckeye football. The current 0-3 streak doesn't help prove that being a Wolverine is better, but like the Michigan football team, I'm not afraid to address the negativity. I could pull out the overall lead Michi- gan holds in the all-time series, but I've always been more of a what-have-you- done-for-me-lately kind of guy. So that argument's out. Or I could mention how much better Wol- verine players like Tom Brady and Charles Woodson have fared inthe NFL compared to Buckeyes like Joe Germaine and Troy Smith, but that's notreally relevant. So it looks like I'll just wait until after the game on Saturday to explain to you exactly how you go about breaking a los- ing streak. Don't worry, I won't be hard to find. I'll be just one of 110,000 congratulating you on a second-place finish in the Big Ten and wishing you an enjoyable trip to Orlando for the Capital One Bowl. - Wright never really understood why the "the" is such a big deal in Ohio State's official name. You can send explanations to kpwr@umich.edu. This is the year for 'M' Avaifabfe at CI Cfotting