In the christening game of the Canadian Football League season, Montreal hosted last year's expansion Ottawa REDBLACK club, the only team required to CAPITALIZE its name. They were the biggest favorite of the weekend, and rightly so, with Jonathon Crompton at QB and Central Michigan alum Dan LeFevour pushing him, throwing to a loaded receiving corps against a 2-16 team.
So, the Montreal solution? Get them BOTH injured, and be forced to throw in rookie Brandon Bridge, who threw a game-breaking interception as Ottawa leads the Eastern Division at 1-0, winning 20-16. To Ottawa's credit, pinned back with four minutes to go, ran the clock out against the Alouette defense to seal the win - and they can't blame their quarterback situation for that.
The Alouette play by play man closed his broadcast tonight by asking for tweets from any interested Montreal fans who want to try out for quarterback for next week....and I think he was serious...
Showing posts with label Central Michigan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Central Michigan. Show all posts
Thursday, June 25, 2015
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Fiesta Bowl, eat your heart out...
As a longtime Boise State follower, it's hard to beat the 2007 Fiesta Bowl as the greatest college game of my lifetime (the USC-Texas/Vince Young national title game is the only one I have above it), but piece the highlights together from today's Bahamas Bowl between Western Kentucky and Central Michigan, two medium level teams who played an amazing game today.
WKU scored touchdowns on all six of their first half possessions and led 49-14 going into the fourth quarter. With less than twelve minutes left, CMU scored the first of their five consecutive touchdowns: the first two just looked like garbage time scores to pretty up the final tally, the third brings them within two TDs with just over three minutes to go; the fourth with 1:06 to go seems to mean an onside kick has to be successful...but using their timeouts, they get the ball punted back to them with one second left, on their own 25. CMU QB Cooper Rush threw a Hail Mary to about the thirty, and four laterals later, Titus Davis stretched out to reach the pylon and tie the game...
...except that CMU head coach Dan Enos has balls the size of Wilson.
No time on the clock, extra point pending, he decided to go for two - win or lose on one play.
I'm all for it, and I'll tell you why.
First, who cares? It's a BOWL GAME. It doesn't really affect your standings, your conference record, or anything else. Why not?
Secondly, they had ALL the momentum! CMU had just scored five touchdowns in less than twelve minutes. Western Kentucky hadn't stopped them in forever - why not?
Thirdly, the football gods were with them! One play for the win when you just pulled off a play that looked like The Play? Why not?
But fourth and most importantly, it shows your current and future players that you have balls. When push came to shove, you trusted your players to win or lose that game. It's the flip side of the coach that refuses to go for 4th and 1 at midfield and punts instead ("because we're playing the 'field position' game...") or at the goal line and tries the field goal ("because we need the points on the board") instead of trusting that if you miss, your defense will get it done. It's the same thing as the Pulaski (ARK) Academy "never punt" theory that says, trust your players to win games, instead of playing scared and not to lose. It's playing the game with courage and integrity, instead of pussyfooting around and trying to deflect the blame to your players if you lose. Be a man, coach. Play to win, like Enos did.
(Did they win or lose? I won't tell you...because it doesn't matter. It was the guts to try it that mattered.)
WKU scored touchdowns on all six of their first half possessions and led 49-14 going into the fourth quarter. With less than twelve minutes left, CMU scored the first of their five consecutive touchdowns: the first two just looked like garbage time scores to pretty up the final tally, the third brings them within two TDs with just over three minutes to go; the fourth with 1:06 to go seems to mean an onside kick has to be successful...but using their timeouts, they get the ball punted back to them with one second left, on their own 25. CMU QB Cooper Rush threw a Hail Mary to about the thirty, and four laterals later, Titus Davis stretched out to reach the pylon and tie the game...
...except that CMU head coach Dan Enos has balls the size of Wilson.
No time on the clock, extra point pending, he decided to go for two - win or lose on one play.
I'm all for it, and I'll tell you why.
First, who cares? It's a BOWL GAME. It doesn't really affect your standings, your conference record, or anything else. Why not?
Secondly, they had ALL the momentum! CMU had just scored five touchdowns in less than twelve minutes. Western Kentucky hadn't stopped them in forever - why not?
Thirdly, the football gods were with them! One play for the win when you just pulled off a play that looked like The Play? Why not?
But fourth and most importantly, it shows your current and future players that you have balls. When push came to shove, you trusted your players to win or lose that game. It's the flip side of the coach that refuses to go for 4th and 1 at midfield and punts instead ("because we're playing the 'field position' game...") or at the goal line and tries the field goal ("because we need the points on the board") instead of trusting that if you miss, your defense will get it done. It's the same thing as the Pulaski (ARK) Academy "never punt" theory that says, trust your players to win games, instead of playing scared and not to lose. It's playing the game with courage and integrity, instead of pussyfooting around and trying to deflect the blame to your players if you lose. Be a man, coach. Play to win, like Enos did.
(Did they win or lose? I won't tell you...because it doesn't matter. It was the guts to try it that mattered.)
Sunday, November 2, 2014
Week 9 - the "Water Tiers" (H-to-O... get it?)
Tier H: Air Force (6-2), Arkansas (4-5 in the toughest division in history), Boston College (6-3), Penn St (4-4), Stanford (5-4), and Utah St (6-3).
Tier I: Two divisions have to have seven teams to total 128 FBS teams, and right now this is one of those: Cincinnati (5-3), Northern Illinois (6-2), Oregon St (4-4). Pitt (4-5), Rutgers (5-4), Tennessee (4-5), and Chris Petersen's Washington Huskies, at 6-3 in his first season in purple.
Tier J: Houston and Memphis (both 5-3 from the AAC), Nevada (6-3), and three ACC schools: Virginia, North Carolina, and North Carolina St (the Pack is 5-4; the others are 4-5).
Tier K: Two conference leaders from the Sun Belt and Conference USA headline Tier K: Georgia Southern (7-2) and Louisiana Tech (6-3). They're joined by 5-3 Bowling Green and Temple, and 4-5 former champions Texas and Virginia Tech.
Tier L: BYU (5-4), Navy (4-5 after a great game against Notre Dame), Northwestern (freefalling at 3-5), Syracuse (3-6), and 4-5 Toledo and Louisiana-Lafayette.
Tier M: Three 5-3 teams (Central Florida, UTEP, Rice), and three Michigan teams - Central Michigan, Western Michigan, and Big Blue themselves, the Michigan Wolverines, who are NOT happy to be classified with their little brothers...
Tier N: Arkansas St (5-4), Illinois (4-5), Middle Tennessee (5-4), San Diego St (4-4), Texas Tech (3-6), and Wyoming (4-5).
AND finally, our brand new Tier O!: With seven teams in all the tiers from K-P, it was easy to separate out one more tier - we'd said we didn't know why we left out this tier last week; this must have been why! Florida Atlantic (3-6), both Fresno St (3-6) and San Jose St (3-5) from the Mountain West; Texas St (5-3) and Louisiana-Monroe (4-4) from the Sun Belt; and the Pac-12's wild guns from Washington St (2-7).
Tier I: Two divisions have to have seven teams to total 128 FBS teams, and right now this is one of those: Cincinnati (5-3), Northern Illinois (6-2), Oregon St (4-4). Pitt (4-5), Rutgers (5-4), Tennessee (4-5), and Chris Petersen's Washington Huskies, at 6-3 in his first season in purple.
Tier J: Houston and Memphis (both 5-3 from the AAC), Nevada (6-3), and three ACC schools: Virginia, North Carolina, and North Carolina St (the Pack is 5-4; the others are 4-5).
Tier K: Two conference leaders from the Sun Belt and Conference USA headline Tier K: Georgia Southern (7-2) and Louisiana Tech (6-3). They're joined by 5-3 Bowling Green and Temple, and 4-5 former champions Texas and Virginia Tech.
Tier L: BYU (5-4), Navy (4-5 after a great game against Notre Dame), Northwestern (freefalling at 3-5), Syracuse (3-6), and 4-5 Toledo and Louisiana-Lafayette.
Tier M: Three 5-3 teams (Central Florida, UTEP, Rice), and three Michigan teams - Central Michigan, Western Michigan, and Big Blue themselves, the Michigan Wolverines, who are NOT happy to be classified with their little brothers...
Tier N: Arkansas St (5-4), Illinois (4-5), Middle Tennessee (5-4), San Diego St (4-4), Texas Tech (3-6), and Wyoming (4-5).
AND finally, our brand new Tier O!: With seven teams in all the tiers from K-P, it was easy to separate out one more tier - we'd said we didn't know why we left out this tier last week; this must have been why! Florida Atlantic (3-6), both Fresno St (3-6) and San Jose St (3-5) from the Mountain West; Texas St (5-3) and Louisiana-Monroe (4-4) from the Sun Belt; and the Pac-12's wild guns from Washington St (2-7).
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