Behind Enemy Lines

Ann Arbor, MI

Word out of the Michigan spring scrimmage is that Rich Rodriguez is "encouraged with the play of his defense". Sounds like the Associated Press way of saying "well there’s nothing positive on the offensive side of things". In what was a glorified practice at a local Ann Arbor high school (as a result of the Big House being morphed into the Second Biggest House), the defense forced, or were given (depending on who you talk to), 6 turnovers including a fumble recovery and FIVE interceptions.

"The defense came along about how I expected," [Rich Rodriguez] said. "The defense should dominate. If they don’t, were going to have some issues."

Interesting statement coach, please elaborate. To be fair to the, uh, evolution occurring in Michigan, everybody except a select majority of UM fans feels that it will be a few years to incorporate the system and have everything firing all cylinders.

It’s sort of like a startup business, you take losses in the beginning to win in the end. The problem with Michigan is that they are not a startup, far from it, having been in business for 100 years. West Virginia? Startup in the beginning. A lot of other small schools adapting a spread type offense? Startups. The only thing similar in business would be if Ford dropped its F-Series pickup trucks (the real breadwinners) to focus on convertible sports cars. Michigan produced dropback passers by the NFL load, and to win 1-2 games more per year, are changing the entire offense. Tom Brady might have fun going to watch Michigan games from now on, but he sure as hell wouldn’t play for them.

We all saw what Michigan was capable of in 2006 against Ohio State and in 2007 against the Florida defense. I would be more scared of those Michigan teams than probably many future Michigan teams. But I guess when a team goes 1-6 against a certain school and head coach, its time to change something, but should it really have been the whole image of the school? I’m sure I’ll get MGoBloggers freaking out and telling me how Buckeye Nation is scared and the tables have turned.

A completely able bodied and functional pro style offense is 10x scarier than a spread option offense.

And Speaking of that SEC SPEED@#$%^&*()_!…

Gainesville, FL

I’ll get this out of the way. I hate Urban Meyer. I hate Michigan, but I was downright giddy watching the Wolverines drive up and down the field on the Gators. If the Big 10 is slow, UM has to be classified as the slow of the slow. Yet I watched a Wolverine TE outrace the FLA defense on a screen.

Anyways, good ol boy Urban Meyer feels that his savior at running back, Emmanuel Moody "will not play football for the Gators if there’s a chance he’ll put the ball on the ground" or along those lines.

Ouch, and this after Moody was the leading rusher during the ESPN televised Gators’ spring game. But he’s not small and fast like the incumbent back and we all know that Urban will sacrifice actual football talent for SEC speed. And all this after Meyer spent the offseason telling Moody everyday how he "better be really good".

Nothing is below Urban Meyer, even if it means taking shots at the kid you lured from So Cal (I hear North Carolina and Oklahoma State are nice this time of year). I understand that they are comments probably meant to inspire and motivate Moody rather than degrade and belittle…

But still, you can’t help to think that Moody has to be asking himself if he made the right decision transferring to Florida.