Unverified Voracity 10/5

This one's abbreviated as I haven't found much to link of late.

The GT Sports Blog examines the battle of expectations that can get poisonous on the Internet. They're spurred on by a Bill Curry column featuring this passage:

The second is more dangerous -- the diehard pessimists. The pessimists weasel in close to the players, talk on the call-in shows and post their blogs wherever possible. They harp on the facts as they see them. And they only see bad, as they moan, "You know, this coach should not be here. We don't like him at all. We have not beaten a real football team, and we never will. All these folks that get excited have not been around here very long. We always lose."

I for one, am outraged. You cannot post a "blog." You can post ON a blog, but an individual entry in a blog is not a blog. It is an article or a post. This is akin to calling a slice of bread "a bread" or an article in a magazine "a magazine." It's a sin against the langauge. Curry's not alone in this unfortunate usage--it must be stopped.

What, I was supposed to be outraged about something else?

Coverage map: here.

A kindred spirit! Wonkdown.

Look! I can be nice to media! John Walters has an interesting piece on holding this week in which he proposes the extremely wacky idea of outfitting offensive linemen with gloves that prevent them from grabbing opponents and then gets this response:

"The gloves idea is thrown out there every year," Gaston says. "It just never gets passed."

Sweet fancy Moses! Seriously? One problem that leaps out at me is that there are certain situations (fumbles, mostly) where an offensive lineman has just as much of a right to the ball as anyone else on the field and in said situations the gloves or whatever would be detrimental. A corner case, granted, but one to consider.

There is also some discussion of the MSU game I'll offer my own comments on:

5. Can anyone explain to me why former Michigan QB Tom Brady's fumble against the Oakland Raiders back in 2002 was not a fumble and yet current Michigan QB Chad Henne's fumble against Michigan State on Saturday was? I don't want to hear about the tuck rule, I want to hear common sense. Clearly Brady was less in the act of throwing the ball than Henne was. If we're on the playground, the calls are reversed.

Well, in answer to your query, "no." But the NFL and college games have different rulesets so your rationale here is something of a strawman.

7. Great, great, great information from ABC's Brent Musberger during the Michigan-Michigan State game on Saturday. ... Musberger (and it was likely a researcher or an associate producer who scored this info for him) noted that a Spartan assistant coached with the Wolverines last season, so Lloyd Carr was concerned that Michigan State would steal Michigan's offensive play calls from the sideline. For that reason Michigan had three backup quarterbacks stand side-by-side, each one flashing a play call in to Henne. Two of the calls were decoys. Cut to photo of three Wolverines in baseball caps gesticulating toward Henne. That, and not another Big and Rich music video, is what a true college football fan craves.

Er... point taken on your last sentence and I agree with the spirit of your comment, but it's laden with irony since it's Michigan defensive line coach Steve Stripling who's the turncoat in this rivalry and unless Sargeant Slaughter was replaced by a robot spy Michigan had no reason to worry about signal stealing. Deeper analysis (like Lynn Swann pointing out that Manningham's post route was preceded by Michigan WR coach Erik Campbell screaming at him to decrease his split) is sadly lacking in televised coverage and excites me to no end when I hear it, but thees ees not the example to cite.

And finally:

OVERTIME: You cannot please everyone, of course, but one way to make sure that you do not, ABC, is to switch away from a fantastic Michigan-Michigan State game after the first overtime because you are obligated to show fans (in my particular case, for example) Minnesota at Penn State in its entirety.

I have a bitch about the other end of the Minnesota/PSU game, which was in the late stages of a 30-point blowout when I got back from the MSU. Across the country, #1 Southern Cal was trailing Arizona State. I, sitting in Michigan, continued to get the mind-numbing garbage time of the Gopher game while something that did not suck was happening elsewhere. Why do you torture me so, ABC?

Also on SI.com: Dr. Z. I have absolutely no way to link this to anything but it's an interesting column on blitzing in the wake of the Michigan State game in which (I believe) we did it very infrequently, tried to contain the Spartan offense as much as we could, and won despite giving up 455 yards. People would be screaming from the rooftops about it had we lost. FTR, I think it was probably the right decision but would have liked to see more blitzes off the slot guy designed to prevent Stanton from rolling out constantly.