well i did make it in the simplest way possible in photoshop so it's definitely possible he made it himself first.



i went ahead and made the cropped/slightly larger version if you want it to help differentiate you two.

nah, he switched back. i assume he was just ****ing with me..

again though, graci. you have caused me to change an avatar that i've had for a year..

actually, now that you mention it, i like the zoomed one more.

Let me stipulate ahead of time that I me some Riverman in the Politard forum but good God you turn into a ****ing troll when ND is the subject at hand. I've yet to declare you to be Mark May's gimmick account but I'm pretty damn close.

It's beyond bizarre that you feel qualified to rate the quality of a poster's contributions or lead the cheering section for an athlete after they demonstrate some class.

So you get up on Sunday morning and post as follows:

But then we get more like the following over the next couple of days:


Come on lads, we're all smarter than this. Right?

I'd agree with that. I mean, when both teams put up 30+ points they've both done some good stuff (and some bad stuff no doubt). If ND had held on the last drive it wouldn't have meant that Michigan didn't play a great game. But the manner in which they drove it in there in the end merited a victory. Michigan fans should be proud of their players, and have every right to be delighted with the win.

I just don't agree with that. ND's playcalling was excellent throughout the game (choice of passing play on the second last drive aside), Michigan got a lot of the playcalling right aswell. I think you can pick apart both sides from this perspective and find holes, and as such I don't buy that any edge in this department was the prime factor in a four point gap between the two teams at the final whistle.

The reason this was the key part of your post to highlight is because it's indicative of an incorrect mindset when analyzing most anything in life. You will often win despite making bad decisions every step of the way. And vice-versa. Just because RRod won isn't proof enough that he got the gameplanning / gamecalling right.


I know a whole heap of people desperately want the story to be Weis ****ed up. He wasn't perfect on Saturday, but boiling the narrative down to 'ND would have won if they had a different head coach on the sideline' is far too simplistic and inaccurate. He deserves criticism in so far as any coach who takes a superior team on paper and ends up losing a game deserves criticism. But blaming it all on Weis doesn't add up in a wild end to end contest that swung one way and then the other. And ultimately, it does a great disservice to what Michigan achieved infront of a raucous home support.

LuckyLloyd, I'm assuming you manage to avoid the echo chamber of the ND blogs because I can tell you after a quick perusal this morning that there has been something akin to a gas leak. You need to organize an intervention of some sort.

I'm sure those blogs are filled with friends and classmates and good and wise people -- but collectively they nurture each other's inner moron. I'm concerned about the structural integrity of some of the Domer domes.

And I'd love to hear more from any one of you who continues to entertain the theory that a local affiliate had their own camera crew working the game and video imagery beyond the capacity of replay officials, and thus was the treachery of cheaters hidden when they mistakenly got a call right. Stand up and be counted.

This is the only sports forum that I read / post on with regards to ND or college football in general. Even with regard to the soccer and rugby that I follow on this side of the Atlantic, I tend to avoid biased sites / blogs / whatever that pander to one group of fans exclusively.

As to your last paragraph, I agree that such a contention would be ridiculous at this stage. That said, I have to ask why people are left wondering about the angles available to the officiating crew during a booth review? This (and other contentious decisions) could easily be put to bed if we knew whether the crew had the benefit of angles not used by the TV company providing coverage / got to use a set of cameras placed in the ground independant of the TV company (ies) involved.

It seems to me that most reviews come down to a very small set of frames, and that the various leagues could make those public whenever a coach sought post-game clarification-- a short clip plus explanation that says this is what the replay official was looking at when he felt compelled to overturn the call. I don't know how often this scenario presents itself, but I'm guessing the typical coach will make this request fewer than a half dozen times a year.

edit to add: I suspect this process is already in place and that replay officials have to justify their calls to someone.

I'm very surprised people are sticking up for Weis' playcalling.
When you have the offensive weapons he has and are playing Michigan, who hasn't been able to defend in space since Appalachian St or was it the #1v#2 tOSU game that first exposed it, his output wasn't great

See, it was a disaster to only be up 3 at halftime... how did that happen?

First drive blunder. It's 3rd and 5 at the Michigan 10. Score is 0-0. ND has moved the ball 70 yards in 8 plays. It's come via both the run and pass through many wideout sets. Clausen is 2 of 4 right now. Both incompletions had wide open receivers and Clausen just fastballed the pass with early game jitters. So far, we've seen the Michigan defense in space being exposed for like the 8th time in past 2.5 seasons. What does Jabba the Weis call? A ****ing QB draw up the middle. Is he serious? What in the hell is that? You go from like a 60% conversion rate to 25%. It's just horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Horrible. Of course, they miss the FG, too... lollerskates, but the playcall was almost as costly from a point EV standpoint.

The ND defense responds and keeps Michigan to one first down and a punt.
Let's watch Jabba the Weis **** up the 2nd drive. Easy first down pass for 5. success. 2nd down run for 3 on 3rd and 5 is barely a success. 3rd and 2 is the setting. Charlie brings in a bunch set. WTF? Has he forget Michigan sucks in space? Has he forgot that his offense is successful on 7 of 11 plays so far despite the 2 Clausen poor passes and the stupid draw call on the drive before. Basically, Michigan has only stopped one play on their own thus far. I hate when teams bunch up near the goalline, but it's a bigger mistake here. ND is at their own 36 and doesn't make Michigan defend the whole field. It's not like there is an inch to go. This is just terrible again. The play never has a chance again.

Notre Dame scores every other drive in that half to put up 20. The two times ND got stopped resulted from their own coaching blunders. Michigan's D had no chance that first half and, though the Irish put up 20, it should have been more!

As usual:

[x] LSUfreek delivers.



Every Day Should be Saturday ldo.

LOL...loving Lloyd in the background

Way more than say, Illinois, Mich St, Penn St, and Colorado; to name the ones I can remember off the top of my head.

Or that the Big10refs decided it was close enough and overturned the ruling on the field because they wanted to and not because they had the required proof. I wonder which one is more consistent with the entire afternoon.

I went back to the play-by-play to look at the box score and today I see 4 holds for ND and 3 for UM-- I'm confident that that was changed. Yesterday there were 3 in the first half and one in the second for UM. The second half one is gone (or maybe it was changed to indicate interference, I don't know). I want to put that in the record given that I made a big deal out of it yesterday.

42 pass plays and 0 sacks as the stat of the game on the Charlie Weis show.... guess it's awesome if you exclude holding calls

I finally found the Big10's policy on refereeing non conferences.



Don't Ask: If this is Pass Interference
Don't Tell: Me what the Michigan DB was trying to do

So its not at all possible that the ball was underthrown, and Tate slowed down to catch up to the ball, thereby basically initiating contact with Warren and causing the image that we see there (which includes contact with Tate's hand on the ball)? Nah, that can't be it. I've seen fans complain about officiating before, but this might be the most ridiculous display I've ever seen. Hey, let's nitpick every single little call that went against us because they would've all swung the game in our favor amirite?

My take on the ND/UM game:

Did Michigan get more breaks from the officials? I have no idea. But I did notice the refs missed an obvious personal foul call on Cissoko. He blatantly shoved a ND receiver back in the ground. In a game this tight that call would have been huge.

And that holding penalty that negated ND's 70+ yard play was one of the most ticky-tackly holding call I have ever seen. I actually thought it was perfectly legal. Because I don't know the exact rules on holding, I figured there's a chance I'm missing something on that one, so perhaps it's a good call.

The called back TD on the out of bounds play we simply an excellent call by the refs and the evidence in this thread proves that.

The call against ND's back for the shhhh act was a good call based on the rules, but I still hate it. Players should be allowed to celebrate after a TD and even taunt a little. It makes the game much more fun to watch. So that call tilted me a little.

About ND's last real drive: I thought the choice to pass on 2nd down was a good one. With their top RB out, Michigan's defense loaded at the line of scrimmage, Michigan's weak secondary, and the fact that a first down effectively wins the game, passing > running imo. However, throwing a deep ball against Michigan's best corner is borderline ******ed. I know CW has said that was a read based play, but it's still a terrible call in my mind given the inherent low percentage completion rate of such a play. The 3rd down call was perfect for ND. They got a guy open, and the ball just sailed by him. Tough break there.

I can't think of what ND could've down better on defense because Michigan's offense is such a headache to stop once it's rolling, but like another poster mentioned, on offense ND should have exploited Cissoko even more than they did. If CW had the killer instinct of Carrol that's what would have happened.

Overall, I think ND is the better team. I think ND would beat Mich on a neutral field 7/10 times. The only reason Michigan ever had a chance in this is because they have a true freshman QB who's already playing like the best QB in the big ten.

Also, I think ND is gonna crush MSU this week, and I really think the only reason MSU has such a favorable record vs ND is because of the emotional investment ND makes every time they play Michigan the week before. ND may be emotionally flat for this game but it won't matter. MSU's shakiness at QB will do them in.

Since I'm a huge Michigan fan I guess I have to say something trollish:

Goddamn CW is fat.

LOL at drawing conclusions on pass interference from a picture.

Okay. I'm turning the page. Can't make much headway on the you didn't get homered angle.

MSU has 9 of the last 12 and 6 in a row at South Bend. Can't see how they win, but roll me a seven one time!

This could be the one that has Domers reminding each other that Urban Meyer has always spoken of ND as a dream destination.

Lol at M living in denial.

Notre Dame has lost lots of close games since Pitt 2004 and I haven't blamed them on ref bias. Just like Pitt 2004: a. I started to see bias in the first half b. my friends saw it too. c. It kept getting worse as the game went on.

BTW: against Purdue last year, I didn't deny the opposite, I said "ND is getting all of the close calls."

I am sure that ND 09 and Pitt 04 win their games anway without ref help, just by fewer points. Yet nobody has said that M wins without the calls, I guess that no one really believes it. Perhaps you should try the obvious, trot out all of the bad calls helped Notre Dame. As we look at the game the sheer number of times M got helped falls like rain. Surely with a fair crew there were almost as many that went for ND!

Instead you've tried to justify everything. Keep up the good work. The list of examples is so long now we know what happened; but in pasting them here, we get the entertainment value of you insisting that everything was right.

congratulations

I thought the no call on the holding on the first play of ND's penultimate drive was as big as anything in that game.

I'm not sure what the big anti-ND calls really were. There was the taunting and the no call on the 2nd down pass.

They allowed a lot of hand-fighting in the secondary, which I'm fine with. There was a lot of post play garbage between dbs and receivers that I wished they would have flagged early, to put it an end to it. Get the wrong guy. Make them offsetting. Do something to get the donkeys to simply head back to the huddle.

Charlie conceded the holding calls.

The life the replay thing has is a monument to domer dissociative disorder.

Seems to me you have a list of grievances that you think adds up to a lot because the list is long, not because of the quality of the grievances.