also, @mgoblog lists scott frost as a candidate but I'd be against hiring a guy looks like todd from breaking bad pic.twitter.com/omxLh1FkNJ
— jason (@jaycrey) October 7, 2014
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PUNT
PUNTBy Bryan MacKenzie
Last week, I predicted a 49-3 win over Hawaii, and Michigan's offense outscored Hawaii's offense exactly 49-3. I just didn't foresee the two defensive scores. My bad. I will do my math more carefully in the future. In the meantime, however, there is reason to worry that this weekend will not see a similar thumping.
For one thing, the weather might give UCF a chance to hang around. Last week was played under perfect conditions. We're expecting rain and wind this afternoon. Michigan's offense struggled against a bad opponent last year in the rain, scoring only 6 points in their first 9 drives against Maryland. A wet surface means mistakes and turnovers, and wet, windy weather makes it harder to throw the ball. UCF wasn't going to able to throw the ball anyway, so this could even things up a bit.
Second, Michigan is already banged up. Taco Charlton and Bryan Mone are expected to miss this week. Ben Braden, Mo Hurst, and Jourdan Lewis all missed the Hawaii game, and even if they return, they may not be 100%. And given the apparent disparity between the teams, Michigan may be tempted to rest anyone who is on the borderline, and to play a deeper rotation than they would against rivals like Michigan State, Ohio State, or Rutgers.
Third, Michigan doesn't have much incentive to go out of their way to demolish UCF. They already got to kick the tires and take their entire roster for a test-drive. They got some real-world experience running their new defense, and blitzing from every-dang-where. They aren't going to tip their hand on anything new schematically on either side of the ball. This is a box to be checked, not a platform to demonstrate greatness.
And finally, Michigan is primed for a let-down. They trained for months with an eye toward September 3rd, and the sexy part of the schedule is still weeks away. Can you imagine that a single Michigan player had September 10th circled on the calendar? Did anyone say "for the honor of my great-grandmother, those UCF bastards must pay for their insolence?" Meanwhile, I bet more than a few UCF players had the Big House on their mind this summer.
But, "what about the opponent?" you ask. Good question, Dear Reader. It is, after all, entirely possible that this week's opponent might be even worse than Hawaii. UCF was 0-12 last year. Their offense was bad. Their defense was bad. They fired their coach mid-season. But it hasn't always been this way. In 2014, UCF was 9-4 and shared the AAC title. In 2013, they were 12-1 and beat Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl after beating Penn State and #8 Louisville in the regular season. UCF may be a bad team, but they aren't a Kansas-level disaster of a program. A significant chunk of their roster remembers a time when they weren't just 'not an embarrassment to an entire region of Florida,' but were in fact pretty good.
UCF still doesn't win this game. Michigan is still too talented, and they are too well led. But there's a good chance Michigan grabs an early multiple-score lead and cruises to an uninspiring victory. Michigan 27, UCF 13.
COUNTERPUNT
by Nick RoUMel
Central Florida are the Beverly Hillbillies of the NCAA. For those of you born after black and white TV, this was a show about a backwater family (never specified, perhaps from Kentucky or Tennessee) whose patriarch, Jed Clampett, accidentally discovered oil on his property. This made them multimillionaires, and as the catchy theme song describes, “They loaded up the truck and moved to Beverly. Hills, that is. Swimming pools, movie stars.”
Central Florida, joining NCAA Division I-A.
Florida Technological University opened in 1968, in the remote forests northeast of Orlando, inspired by the space program, and with the astonishingly clever motto “Reach for the Stars.” Geeks and nerds of all manner flocked to its campus, gawking at rocket launches, their hearts pounding with excitement into their pocket protectors and slide rules. They hung posters of the Citronaut, the school mascot who was a cross between an orange and an astronaut(see: Cook, Brian, “Preview: Central Florida 2016,” http://mgoblog.com/content/preview-central-florida-2016, published 9/9/16), and got mildly aroused at his orange plumpiness and confident mien.
But this wasn’t good enough. Enter Jed Clampett, a.k.a. Dr. Trevor Colbourn, who in 1978 convinced the Florida Legislature to dispense with the limiting “Technological” moniker, as no one was intimidated by facing the “FTU Knights of Pegasus.” Colbourn built a ce-ment pond, in the guise of a massive athletic campus, before even having a football team. That came in 1979, when they spent a lot of their oil money and built a Division III powerhouse in a hurry.
It worked. From their first meeting in the spring of ’79 to talk about forming a team, to their historic season opening thrashing of St. Leo University on September 22, 1979, CFU has gone nowhere but up, just like the rockets in nearby Cape Canaveral. Just four years into starting a program, they convinced the venerable Lou “I’m not Nick, dammit!” Saban into being their head coach. In 1996, with Daunte Culpepper behind center, they entered Division IA. They were the only team in NCAA history to go from Division III, to II, to 1-AA, to 1-A.
In 2004, they hired George O’Leary, the only coach in Notre Dame history to not lose a game. That is because he was fired before ever taking the field, due to resume padding that included calling himself a three-year letterman at New Hampshire (he played one game) and earning a master’s at “NYU-Stonybrook,” a non-existent institution, when he had actually taken one class at Stonybrook.
Undeterred by these transgressions, CFU hired O’Leary who promptly went 0-11 in 2004, but then took them to a bowl game in 2005. He tasted success, culminating in a storybook 2013 season (defeating both Penn State and Louisville on the road) and becoming the largest underdog in NCAA history to win a bowl game, shocking #6 Baylor in the 2014 Fiesta Bowl. He was rewarded with a four-year contract extension.
Everything came crashing down last year. After opening the season 0-8, O’Leary abruptly resigned. (He promptly updated his resume to claim that he walked on the moon with the Citronaut.) CFU finished the season 0-12.
Enter Scott Frost, like bank president Mr. Drysdale taking over the mansion after foreclosing on the mortgage. Frost, the former Nebraska quarterback, has been appropriately lambasted for woofing in 1998 that Nebraska would have beaten Michigan. Why is such lambasting appropriate? Three reasons. (1) Nebraska was only undefeated that year because of the “flea-kicker,” an illegal pass that enabled them to beat Missouri. (2) When Nebraska beat Tennessee in the Orange Bowl, Peyton Manning was so badly hobbled by a knee injury that it was uncertain whether he would even play. (3) Despite his many accomplishments, Manning’s mantelpiece is still entirely devoid of any Heisman trophies, because Charles Woodson was the best player in college football that year, and would have picked off Scotty Frost four times with his teeth.
Frost does have the hillbillies in swampland very excited, because of his up-tempo Oregon-style offense, and new Nike uniforms in white, gold, anthracite and pewter. Inscribed on the neckline is the school’s new catchphrase, “Rise and Conquer,” which is as original and inspiring as “Reach for the Stars.” Perhaps next year they’ll even find some black gold buried beneath the campus, and move to Beverly.
MICHIGAN 48, CENTRAL FLORIDA 17