2B - Tuesday, January 22, 2008
The Michigan Daily michigandaily.com
M' upsets reigning
Where are Lloyd's minions going? champs at Cliff Keen
6
cot Loeffler obviously likes
a challenge. But really? This
much of a challenge?
If he thought turninga lanky,
awkward John Navarre into a
first-team All Big Ten performer
was a tough
task (it was, and
he did), then he
might not real-
ize what he's in
for next.
Loeffler,
Michigan's
former quarter- SCOTT
backs coach, is BELL
headed to the
Detroit Lions to
take the same position.
Yes, those Detroit Lions.
Loeffler jumps ship from the
state's most successful football
team to its biggest laughingstock.
Sure, the Lions are in the NFL,
but that doesn't mean they play
professional ball.
Instead ofcontinuingthe
"Quarterback U" tradition at
Michigan, he's now faced with
the task of turning Jon Kitna into
a star and developing a mediocre
Drew Stanton into a franchise
player.
From Quarterback U to Quar-
terback No Thank You. Good luck,
IRISH
From page 1B
"There's the game right there,"
Michigan coach Red Berenson
said. "You get a five-minute pen-
alty and have to kill it. And it's not
like they weren't in our zone, they
spent most of the time in our zone.
(Our guys) couldn't get off the ice.
But we killed it."
Saturday night's contest at the
NITTANY LIONS
From page 1B
said. "It was a very physical game,
but I think we did a good job on
her."
The Lady Lions frustrated Phil-
lips enough that she was called
for a technical foul by punching
the floor after fouling Penn State's
Kamela Gissendanner.
"She just got frustrated," Michi-
gan coach KevinBorseth said. "She
didn't do it out of disrespect forthe
ref. It was a good call. She got frus-
trated and hit her fist onthe floor."
With Phillips under defensive
pressure, the Wolverines had to
look elsewhere for offense. Penn
State came out firing on all cylin-
ders and Michigan had to find the
offense to keep pace. Junior Carly
Benson kept Michigan close with
two 3-pointers early in the half to
knot the score at 41. But after that,
Penn State took off, eventually
extending their lead toS11at 63-52.
The Wolverines attempted a
mini-comeback at the end of the
game but stopped themselves on
nearly every occasion. Phillips and
Scot.
But if someone's up for the task,
it's Loeffler. Don't take his firing
from Michigan as an indication
of his coaching ability. He was
released because he didn't match
Rich Rodriguez's system, not
because of any coaching incom-
petence (I'll take the high road
and not make a Mike DeBord joke
here). Tennessee and Alabama
both pursued Loeffler to be their
next offensive coordinator. So yes,
he's ahot commodity.
Loeffler has landed on his feet.
Good for him. He deserves it. So
has former defensive coordinator
Ron English, who took the same
position at Louisville right after
the Capital One Bowl. And Rodri-
guez rehired running backs coach
Fred Jackson. But what about the
other six members of Lloyd Carr's
staff? Where should they go? I
may not have insider information,
but I do have some suggestions for
Lloyd Carr's right-hand men.
. Former secondary coach
Vance Bedford: Bedford was
Carr's first hire in 1995 and his
final one when Carr brought him
back into the fold last year. His
next destination is a no-brainer.
Carr, now an associate dthletic
director, can hire Bedford as his
Palace of Auburn Hills was, well,
a little less exhilarating. The third
period was all but a formality, as
Caporusso's slapshot goal in the
second frame gave the Wolverines
a two-goal lead they never relin-
quished.
Junior goalie Billy Sauer said a
sweep against the Irish felt good,
especially because Notre Dame
brought the brooms out against
Michigan (15-1 CCHA, 22-2 over-
all) last year en route to a CCHA
Janelle Cooper made buckets that
broughtthe score back to 63-57, but
the Wolverines were careless with
the ball, after that.
When Michigan was givenI
opportunities to score, it couldn't
convert easy layups or knock down
open shots.
"At the end of the game, we
missed every layup we shot," Bors-
eth said. "We must have had 25
layups, and we missed them. We
want to take the threes, but they
gave us layups. In a couple of years,
we're going to make every layup
they give us."
The Wolverines have lived off
shooting the 3-pointer in most of
their wins this year, But Penn State
successfully limited open looks on
the perimeter, and Michigan shot
just 5-of-13 from deep. Wolverine
guards Cooper, Krista Clement,
and Jessica Minnfield, who average
4.5 threes per game, faced pressure
from the Lady Lions and collective-
ly shot just -of-4 from downtown.
Though Penn State took away
the three, it gave Michigan plenty
of good looks down low. The Wol-1
verines were just unable to convert
on these easy baskets.
secretary. Decaf, please.
Former defensive line coach
Steve Stripling: Stripling, the
next coach in line to be rehired by
Rodriguez, needs to keep coach-
ing. For the sake of Michigan fans,
hopefully it's somewhere outside
the Big Ten. That is, of course,
unless it's in Ann Arbor. I'm
pretty sure the Wolverines would
appreciate not having to deal with
mini-LaMarr Woodleys and Bran-
don Grahams.
Former linebackers coach'
Steve Szabo: Szabo, the gritty
65-year-old coaching veteran
who called the spread offense a
form of "communist football," is a
likely candidate to starta spinoff
of McCarthyism. That's right,
Szaboism - the practice of hunt-
ing down creative offensive minds
and having them turn back the
clocka few centuries - is about
to spread throughout the United
States. His first target: the man
who fired him.
Former offensive line coach
Andy Moeller: Moeller, who
was pulled over for DUI a couple
months ago and whose dad lost
his head coaching job at Michigan
because of a drunken incident,
should drop coaching and look
into joining another field: moti-
regular-season title.
"It's great," Sauer said about the
sweep. "(Notre Dame) is a team that
I obviously don't care too much for.
We've gotten a lot of criticism lately
for maybe not playing the hardest
teams. So when we play a team like
this, a good opponent, coming out
with two wins is a good feeling."
Notre Dame (11-6-1, 18-9-1) was
widely considered tobe Michigan's
biggest conference test yet this
season. With four games against
vational speaking. He can tour
the country with his dad, Larry
Eustachy and Joe Cullen on the
"How to let alcohol ruin any cred-
ibility you have" tour.
Former wide receivers coach
Erik 'Soup' Campbell: Where
should Campbell go next? How
about to court? It's a travesty that
possibly the nation's best wide
receivers coach can't be retained
at Michigan. The man responsible
for developing Braylon Edwards,
David Terrell, Mario Manning-
ham, Jason Avant, Marquis Walk-
er and Adrian Arrington can't
have a job here? He has to have
some legal grievance.
Former offensive coordina-
tor Mike DeBord: Sorry, Mike.
I took the high road earlier, but
you're fair game now. Your des-
tination is an unexpected one:
Ypsilanti's very own DdjisVu strip
club. After waiting years before
finally calling a great gameplan
in your last game at the Capital
One Bowl, you proved you could
tease people for extended periods
' of time without ultimately giving
them what they want. Thanks for
nothing.
- Bell can be reached at
scotteb@umich.edu.
No. 7 Michigan State and two at
No. 2 Miami (Ohio) still looming,
the Wolverines' four conference
points this weekend should have
ramifications in the final CCHA
standings.
"When you look at the schedule,
Notre Dame doesn't have a top-
four team to play the rest of the
year. We're it for them, and then
after that it's clear sailing," Beren-
son said. "So this is huge for them,
and it's huge for Michigan."
By COLT ROSENSWEIG
Daily Sports Writer
If Terrelle Pryor wanted to see a
tight competition ending in a Michi-
gan victory, he should have been at
Cliff Keen Arena Saturday night.
Instead
of watch- PENINSTATE 354.30
ing the MICHIGAN 356.95
basketball
team lose to Iowa, he would have
seen the Michigan men's gymnas-
tics team pull off a dramatic come-
from-behind upset of defending
national champion Penn State. For
the second year in a row, the Wol-
verines beat the second-ranked Nit-
tany Lions, 356.95-354.30.
"I think we served notice on the
NCAA gymnastics world that we'll
be a force to be reckoned with,"
Michigan coach Kurt Golder said.
Last weekend, Penn State posted
an astronomical 358.50 while Mich-
igan finished third at the Windy
City Invitational. This weekend,
Michigan's team score was tops in
the nation.
"Our house!" chanted the Michi-
gan gymnasts before the sixth and
final event, high bar. At Penn State's
Rec Hall last season, Michigan
pulled off a last-minute win - and
the gymnasts, ahead by about a
point, weren't about to let Penn
State repay the favor. "Ourhouse!"
And on high bar, Michigan
secured the upset. Senior Dan Rais
turned in one of the best routines
of his life after a stress-filled week
when he worried about his chances
of even making the lineup.
"Going into this meet, I felt like
I had to prove myself," said Rais,
who was left off the travel squad to
Chicago. "It felt great after high bar.
... I've never felt that feeling. I was
euphoric - it was amazing."
Junior Joe Catrambone clinched
the comeback with one of his own. A
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Junior Joe Catrambone nailed his high-
bar routine in Saturday's upset win.
hit high-bar set would seal the win
for Michigan, but the junior had
struggled with competition routines
for months.
But on Saturday night, he swept
through the event with the ease and
power of his practice sets, clapping
triumphantly as he finished and the
crowd erupted. Catrambone's 15.4
was the best high bar score of the
night.
Catrambone thought Michigan's
last surge built on senior co-captain
Arren Yoshimura's strong paral-
lel-bars set.
"Everyone kept building on
that and raising the scores up,"
Catrambone said. "Then we got
to high bar and we just let it all
out. They were the best high bar
routines we've ever done."
At the halfway point of the
showdown between the Big Ten
powers, heading into vault, Penn
State had taken a lead of more
than three points. But on vault,
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