Grade your team's week 1 performance...

[MiketheangrydrunkenCUfan]

Rushing offense: B-
CU didn't break any long runs but the running game was efficient. Sumler looked good as a change of pace back, but he's not ready to be the #1 guy yet. Losing Hugh Charles early in the 1st quarter didn't help matters. Hopefully he'll be 100% for ASU next week.

Passing offense: B+
Cody Hawkins played way better than I expected him to. He had a couple bad reads/overthrows, but outside of throwing that flea flicker into double-coverage for his only INT, he played a pretty impressive game for a RS freshman making his first start. Walk-on freshman WR Scotty McKnight was a pleasant surprise, hauling in 8 catches for 106 yards and a TD. Overall, the passing game looked really good and can only get better if Charles comes back healthy.

Rushing defense: B+
Yeah, Kyle Bell ran for 135 yards, but it took him 40 carries to do it. Overall, the Buffs held CSU to less than 3 yards/carry and they made the big stops when they needed to. No complaints here.

Passing defense: D+
What the hell happened to the Buffs secondary??? That fucking TE was open all goddamn day! I thought the secondary was going to be a strong suit this year, with Wheatley and Walters leading the charge, but they've obviously got to improve before next week or it could get ugly against ASU. I'd probably give them a D- or F if not for the INT in OT.

Special teams: A-
Probably the best aspect of CU's game today. They had several nice returns and Eberhart hit 3/4 FGs. I know he's no Mason Crosby, but the miss from 41 yards out is a little troubling. if not for that and the brain fart on the onside kick early in the 2nd half, they'd get an A+.

Overall: B
I don't care how bad the Buffs were last year, a win over CSU should be a formality. I'll take the win, but I wish it hadn't been so close. There's definitely reason to be optimistic, but the secondary had better get better in a hurry...

[JayDuck]

Run Defense: F
Secondary: B
Special Teams: B
QB: Incomplete (until we know if the 1st half version or 2nd half version will show up the rest of the year)
Running game: B
Coaching: F

Overall: D

[Shoalzie]

Um, yeah...

Hart, Crable and Englemon each get an A-...the rest of the team, not so good.

[Cornhusker]

I'm tired....
Good nuf to kick CU's ass
A+
Your beautiful Mom would understand, bless that woman!
icons don't work so [wink][/wink]

[WolverineSteve]

Is there any grade lower than F ?

[SoCalTrjn]

Rushing Defense D, Rey was constantly out of position and there wasnt enough penetration in to the backfield vs that quality of an opponent, they also didnt create any turnovers

Passing Defense D-, where was the pass rush? vs a team like Idaho there should have been much more of a pass rush than that. They also only had 2 WRs on the roster and both were slow, there shouldnt have been any completions to them and they had 0 interceptins

Rushing Offense C-, they looked decent for the first quarter, the rotation kept any of them from getting any type of rythym and Mcknight put the ball on the ground

Pass Offense D, Booty had 3 TDs and just 206 yards, he also threw an interception and never looked sharp in the game, he is still getting balls swatted down at the line and this was vs Idaho, Ausberry dropped 2 balls in the endzone and they never threw the ball deep.

Special Teams C, Buehler actually had several touchbacks on kickoffs which I didnt see much of in other games, Van Blarcom had a stronger leg but hes surfing on that leg now, but it was nice to have them constantly start on the 20 when I saw so many other games where teams were starting at pretty close to midfield. Buehler was also good on his 1 FG try. The kick returners just dont impress me, I dont want to see feCal have better Kick Returners than USC but Jackson and Best are far better than Reed who is a good story coming back from that knee injury but I want to see some kick and punt return TDs

Overall D-, very lack luster and half assed effort out there tonight. Maybe its better to play only tough OOC games if theyre going to scabdick it vs over matched teams like the Vandals. USC better figure out what the hell they are doing or Nebraska will run them out of Lincoln and Cal will certainly bring back the horrific memories of Russell White and the bears blowing the Trojans out of bezerkley. guess it could be worse, guess the season could be over like Michigans

[MuchoBulls]

Run D - A 33 yards given up on 30 rushing attempts.

Pass D - B- Gave up 1 big play, but the middle of the field seemed to be open all evening. A team willing to nickel and dime the passing game for a while could do damage against us. George Selvie had 4 sacks and made the QB scramble for his life on multiple occaisions. He's going to be a great player down the road.

Rushing O - C Outside of Mike Ford's excellent debut (6 Rushes for 83 yards and 2 TD's) we didn't really establish a running game. Ford should be the starter next week for Auburn, so he should see the ball more than 6 times, which is nice.

Passing O - C Grothe wasn't that bad, but he made some pretty awful throws downfield. The WR's didn't help him on multiple occaisions, but this was definitely a game where Grother was shaking the rust off after missing a week of practice.

Special Teams - F Roughing the punter penalty, which eventually led to Elon's only TD late in the game. Ensuing onside kick recovered by Elon. Fumbled punt that Elon recovered. Flat out awful. We certainly need to find a return man who is willing to go North/South and who holds the ball better than who we have out there. The punter also fumbled a perfect snap and couldn't get the punt off.

Overall - C- Sluggish start by the offense. We passed much more than I would have liked and had to keep the starters in much longer than should have been necessary. The defense played very well despite being pretty vanilla in the play calling. I didn't see any stunting or blitzing all night. SPecial teams need to be shored up real quick with Auburn coming up.

[Harvdog]

Rush Defense: F. Nice job. They ran base all night and didn't blitz much. We got outgained by Arkansas St. Pathetic.
Pass Defense: F. the secondary sucked last year and we had a Thorpe winner and 2 first round draft picks. Cannot defend a slant and got eaten alive by play action.

Defense overall: F

Rush offense: F. Jamaal Charles went for 127. Yet, he still could not score from the 1 with 3 fucking tries. We have fullbacks on the roster and chose not to play them. Stupid.
Pass Offense: D. Colt threw a late int right before half. Still went for 220.

Special teams sucked again. D-. We had some nice returns but also gave up a few. We also had too many penalties. Where is the dicipline? They looked disinterested in playing this game.

I hate it when we run out of the shotgun. Get a FB in and ound the ball. We did that 3 times the whole game. Basically, no imagination in the gameplan on either side of the ball. Maybe this was by choice. I hope it was because if we come out next week like this we will be 1-1.

Overall we won but damn. F

[GreginPG]

Rushing Defense D, Rey was constantly out of position and there wasnt enough penetration in to the backfield vs that quality of an opponent, they also didnt create any turnovers

Passing Defense D-, where was the pass rush? vs a team like Idaho there should have been much more of a pass rush than that. They also only had 2 WRs on the roster and both were slow, there shouldnt have been any completions to them and they had 0 interceptins

Rushing Offense C-, they looked decent for the first quarter, the rotation kept any of them from getting any type of rythym and Mcknight put the ball on the ground

Pass Offense D, Booty had 3 TDs and just 206 yards, he also threw an interception and never looked sharp in the game, he is still getting balls swatted down at the line and this was vs Idaho, Ausberry dropped 2 balls in the endzone and they never threw the ball deep.

Special Teams C, Buehler actually had several touchbacks on kickoffs which I didnt see much of in other games, Van Blarcom had a stronger leg but hes surfing on that leg now, but it was nice to have them constantly start on the 20 when I saw so many other games where teams were starting at pretty close to midfield. Buehler was also good on his 1 FG try. The kick returners just dont impress me, I dont want to see feCal have better Kick Returners than USC but Jackson and Best are far better than Reed who is a good story coming back from that knee injury but I want to see some kick and punt return TDs

Overall D-, very lack luster and half assed effort out there tonight. Maybe its better to play only tough OOC games if theyre going to scabdick it vs over matched teams like the Vandals. USC better figure out what the hell they are doing or Nebraska will run them out of Lincoln and Cal will certainly bring back the horrific memories of Russell White and the bears blowing the Trojans out of bezerkley. guess it could be worse, guess the season could be over like Michigans

Pretty much right on the money. I expected Booty to have a much better game than he did. They did try to go deep a couple of times but the passes weren't close.
I'll take the win of course but if they play like that against the Huskers they're in trouble.

[RumpleForeskin]

Houston Cougars

Run Offense - A- - Other than the two crucial turnovers, the running offense was very impressive. Anthony Alridge needs to learn how to hold onto the ball better, but other than that, he had an amazing game with over 200 yards on the ground and a touchdown

Pass Offense - C+ - Again, turnovers by Keenum and Joseph cost us any chance of winning. Both their picks were deep in the Ducks territory and there was was just too much inconsitency in the passing game.

Pass Defense - C- - Oregon didn't pass the ball much and we were able to force them to throw the ball on third downs and I thought the secondary did an ok job of not giving up those critical conversions. However, there were some busted plays that allowed Oregon to have wide open opportunities which led to some big socres in the second half.

Run Defense - F- - Oregon ran the ball anytime they wanted us too and it was bad. Real bad. Our front seven was very ineffective against their O-line.

Special Teams - C - Good job on some returns, but the punting was terrible and some of the returns on kickoffs for the Ducks had too many yards which game Oregon short fields to work with at times.

Coaching - B - Opening game at Autzen Stadium could have spelled disaster for the Coogs, but I thought Briles had these guys prepared for the most part. Oregon was on their heels late in the 3rd quarter and that is all you can ask of from a smaller school breaking in a couple of new QBs. 3 turnovers in the redzone cost us the game and that is not on the coach. Briles is the MVP of this one.

Overall C- Good job on the offense, but too many turnovers was the difference of the game.

[War Wagon]

Passing offense: A+ Chase Daniel's 359 yards and 3 TD's spread out to 6 different receivers. Too many weapons.

Rushing offense: F- How in the hell can you not run the ball when the D has to constantly play the pass? Because of some fucked up scheme/formation that always has the RB lining up right beside the QB in the shotgun and never using a FB. What a joke. Tony Temple could be a beast if given a chance.

Passing defense: B- Good job in coverage and limiting YAC plus a couple of nice picks help this grade. Lack of a consistent pass rush is a concern.

Rushing defense: B+ Gave up less than 4 yards per carry which isn't bad for this group. Also forced some key fumbles that changed the game.

Special teams: D- Only avoided an F by returning a punt for a TD. Other than that, pathetic.

Coaching: F- Pinkel goes for two with the score 13-6 in the 2nd quarter trying to turn a 7 point lead into a 9 point lead. Of course, it didn't work and that missed PAT could've easily cost them the game.

When asked why he went for two after the game, he arrogantly replied "I've got a chart".

Oh really, coach? I've got a chart too. It says you're a dumbfuck.

[RadioFan]

Hard to tell ... OU's first game is this Saturday. Yesterday was little more than a glorified scrimmage.

[Adelpiero]

MIzzou

Coaching: F i could go on for days about gary P. oh i hate you gary, oh how i wish you would die.

Offense: C this fucking dink and donk aint going to work, throw the fucking ball down the field. Not 1 pass over 10 yards yesterday, out of almost 60 attempts? Good teams will sit on those outs and take them for 6 the other way. Rushing was fucking pathetic, temple and his east to west running, give me a break, run it into the hole with power ya pussy. See coaching on rushing game plan also. T-Rucker is a fuckin beast

Defense: C If thats all the Ends have, they will be in trouble, very little pressure, linebackers had to play 3 yards from line, they took themselves out of plays because of the lack of pressure. The defense was still looking for the call from the sidelines as illinois was snapping the ball, inexcusable, a total fucking joke. They gave up 3.3 yards per carry, which wasn't so bad, the linebackers have to get off the blocks or teams are going to have 160-200 yard rushing per week. Secondary did well at times, big defensive plays from Pig Brown, especially the 102 yard td return on the fumble. If you take the 2 drives that started inside Mu's 20, the defense didnt have a horrible game, they werent great, but a lot to be happy about compared to last year.

special teams: B Maclin took 1 punt to the house and was a block away from big runs on everyone of his returns. Wolffert missed a 49 yarder after the offense chose to throw on 3rd and 15, rather than get some yards and get the ball in middle of field, typical pinkel! Very good on covering all kicks, so good game. The punting from crossett is what i expected, so i leave him out fo the grading, how long can ya beat the guy up for poor play.

[Dinsdale]

Run Defense: F

I think you're being too generous with this grade. I'm not sure if I remember a D-line/LB crew that ever played this badly in a single game. Absolutely horrific. If that doesn't inprove, the USCs and Cals of the world are going to have a heyday at Oregon's expense.

Secondary: B

Except Patrick Chung gets an A+.

Special Teams: B

Maybe B+ or A- ... while Jonny Franchise is now in year 3 and has still failed to impress anybody from scrimmage, he sure is one dangerous mofo on kick returns.

QB: Incomplete (until we know if the 1st half version or 2nd half version will show up the rest of the year)

Exactly what I was thinking when I read the thread title, and the same reason Rump was cautious making assessments of UH's pass D -- in a suprising developement, Oregon barely threw the ball. I don't know if this is "the new way," or was just a function of the first game. But we've sure become used to the Ducks airing it up with reckless abandon, yet they hardly threw it at all yesterday. It's like I was watching Nebraska after someone had swapped out their steroids for extasy.

Running game: B

I'll go with B+. Seems like they were able to get yards and open spaces to run pretty much any time they wanted, and with everyone added together, put up some pretty big numbers.


Tell you what, though -- I was impressed as all hell wi9th Andre Crenshaw. Sure, he did it all at garbage time, but 47 yeards in like a minute and a half is nothing to sneeze at. Looks like the tradition of outstanding RBs is going to last at least another 4 years.

Coaching: F

Really? Usually, Bellotti's management of the game makes me pull my freaking hair out(what's left of it). But I wasn't getting tooo bent out of shape yesterday. My only major beef was not going deep enough, and giving Jaison Williams and Brian Paysinger chances to kill fools. I don't think any DB they see this season will be a good matchup, and those mismatches should be exploited better. That's a couple of big freaking dudes streaking downfield, give them a chance to kill people.

Overall: D

Still beat an opponent that showed up with a lot more game than people thought they would. In the end, 1-0 is all that really matters. So, as long as the second number of the overall record remains zero, hope springs eternal.

A

[The Seer]

Offense - B

Defense - C

[MgoBlue-LightSpecial]

Offense: *A
Defense: *B-



*The opponent was UAB

[JayDuck]

Coaching: F

Really? Usually, Bellotti's management of the game makes me pull my freaking hair out(what's left of it). But I wasn't getting tooo bent out of shape yesterday. My only major beef was not going deep enough, and giving Jaison Williams and Brian Paysinger chances to kill fools. I don't think any DB they see this season will be a good matchup, and those mismatches should be exploited better. That's a couple of big freaking dudes streaking downfield, give them a chance to kill people.

I wrote that post last night just before getting into bed with a day's worth of beer in my gullet. I wasn't much in the mood for expanding on it. But, here's why the coaching gets a very low grade, in my opinion.

1. 3 man rush on every 3rd down.
2. Playcalling hasn't improved (QB draw on 2nd and 23, while trying to punch it in for a score in the second quarter, way too many WR screens)
3. We still aren't getting Stewart the ball enough, and more importantly, in the best situations. Before the season started Bellotti said Stewart was going to be getting 20/25 touches a game. He carried the ball 14 times. We also still insist on taking him out, for Johnson, on short yardage situations. I love both JJ and Stewart, but we are giving them each carries in the opposite situations that they should be getting them. When we line up with the QB behind center and are doing more traditional running, we have Johnson in the game and when we are running from the spread, Stewart's in the game. Fucking retarded. And I'd be pissed if I were Stew with Johnson getting all the TDs from goal line carries. What's up with that?

I'll upgrade the F to a D though, because I forgot one thing that Bellotti did well, which was sticking with a QB even when he was playing poorly. Had this happened last year, it would have been even more disasterous, because after Dixon had a horrible first half, Leaf would have came in to play the second. When you stick with a guy at least you give him a chance to get into a rythym.


I'm not a fan of our new offense, at all, and what the coaches don't seem to understand is that, in this offense some longer passes are actually less risky than all of these short ones. Dixon's going to throw some dirt balls from time to time and just plain miss some guys. But he's also going to hit some guys too. And it doesn't matter if he's throwing 5 yards or 35 yards. Only the 35 yard pass, if picked off, is usually only as bad as a poor punt and the 5 yarder picked off is going to be taken to the house. I absolutely hate seeing 5 yard passes on 3rd and 8.

[Shoalzie]

Offense: *A
Defense: *B-



*The opponent was UAB

I caught most of the game yesterday...the Spartans came out red hot. Hoyer is a serviceable QB but the key will be Caulcrick and Ringer carrying the mail. The defense should be improved under Dantonio but they'll be better in the next couple years when he brings in his own guys. Michigan has time to rebound from yesterday's embarrassment before traveling to East Lansing in a few weeks but if yesterday is any indication of what we'll see out of the big two in the state...I'm afraid to say the Sparties are going to have bragging rights this year.

[Vito Corleone]

Harv was being nice, Texas is below an F and only slightly above an M.

I'm not looking forward to TCU, they are going to Jack us up. If we don't get better fast, we are going to be looking at 1997 all over again. BTW that was the year Texas went 4-7 with a heisman trophy running back.

[Vito Corleone]

Appalachian State would have kicked our ass last night. The only bright spot was Jamal Charles ability to dodge d-linemen in the backfield and make something out of nothing to the tune of 127 yards.

I know our O-line is going to get better as the season progresses but damn that was ugly, like I said, we better get better in a hurry or TCU is going to rip us a new shit hole.

[Terry in Crapchester]

The whole team gets a F--------------- . . .

Too tired/stunned/busy to break it down.

[campinfool]

JC needs to learn to run downhill for the TCU game. That shake and bake crap ain't gonna cut it against quality teams. They looked so awfully unprepared that I'm off the church to confess my sins(actually spent money on PPV to see that crap).

[Cuda]

Rushing offense: B-
CU didn't break any long runs but the running game was efficient. Sumler looked good as a change of pace back, but he's not ready to be the #1 guy yet. Losing Hugh Charles early in the 1st quarter didn't help matters. Hopefully he'll be 100% for ASU next week.

I give it a solid C. Hugh Charles pulling the hammy didn't help and neither did the fact that his back up is a freshman. Once CSU got that direct snap and the inside handoff to the flanker figured out, there wasn't much point in running them another half dozen more times. Whoever the fuck was calling the plays gets a D+

Passing offense: B+
Cody Hawkins played way better than I expected him to. He had a couple bad reads/overthrows, but outside of throwing that flea flicker into double-coverage for his only INT, he played a pretty impressive game for a RS freshman making his first start. Walk-on freshman WR Scotty McKnight was a pleasant surprise, hauling in 8 catches for 106 yards and a TD. Overall, the passing game looked really good and can only get better if Charles comes back healthy.

Cody looked a lot better than I thought he would. B-Jax flunking out-errrr, "missing practice to concentrate on his grades" was probably the best thing to happen to the Buffs offense in years- even better than Gary Barnett getting run.

Rushing defense: B+
Yeah, Kyle Bell ran for 135 yards, but it took him 40 carries to do it. Overall, the Buffs held CSU to less than 3 yards/carry and they made the big stops when they needed to. No complaints here.

Seeing as how they didn't even slow Bell down until the middle of the 3rd quarter, I'd go with a D+ But since they managed to win the game, I'll upgrade it to a C-

Passing defense: D+
What the hell happened to the Buffs secondary??? That fucking TE was open all goddamn day! I thought the secondary was going to be a strong suit this year, with Wheatley and Walters leading the charge, but they've obviously got to improve before next week or it could get ugly against ASU. I'd probably give them a D- or F if not for the INT in OT.

Buffs pass defense has had the same problems ever since Coach Mac retired: inadequate speed at LB & just barely adequate speed at DB. Brian Cabral is a sentimental favorite of mine, but he's clearly a weak link on that coaching staff.

Special teams: A-
Probably the best aspect of CU's game today. They had several nice returns and Eberhart hit 3/4 FGs. I know he's no Mason Crosby, but the miss from 41 yards out is a little troubling. if not for that and the brain fart on the onside kick early in the 2nd half, they'd get an A+.

Overall: B
I don't care how bad the Buffs were last year, a win over CSU should be a formality. I'll take the win, but I wish it hadn't been so close. There's definitely reason to be optimistic, but the secondary had better get better in a hurry...

Overall, I give them a C-. They're improved over the last couple years- maybe even enough to kick the Corn's ass day after Thanksgiving- maybe not improved enough to go to a bowl game this year, though

[Harvdog]

Harv was being nice, Texas is below an F and only slightly above an M.

I'm not looking forward to TCU, they are going to Jack us up. If we don't get better fast, we are going to be looking at 1997 all over again. BTW that was the year Texas went 4-7 with a heisman trophy running back.

I was watching your game concurrently with ours. We actually had a couple of UT grads hanging out at our table. I think you guys will be OK. Your coverage schemes weren't particularly complex and you weren't disguising anything. The inability to pound it in from first and goal is a little troublesome, but the Indians came to play.

It looked to me that we were running a standard base defense and we didn't do anything as far as blitzing. Nothing exotic. The offense was so vanilla. I hope they were using this as a dress rehearsal. It sucked ass.

[SoCalTrjn]

LSU won the damn game, that's all I really care about.

Grade: pass

Figured a fine academic establishment like LSU would be pass/fail... they have guys on their team that couldnt make the grades to get in to Miami

[PSUFAN]

Like mgo, I'll offer the caveat up front - FIU is not an opponent that is easy to draw conclusions from. That said:

Rushing offense: C- PSU is going on 15 years of pitiful OL play. This year's edition looks to continue the tradition. Late in the game, they broke off some bigger runs...but that is hardly even worth mentioning

Passing offense: B Morelli looked sharp - but the schemes are as bad as they've been for a while. AM will have to go off script, like Kerry Collins did in '94. If he can, he'll be fine. The assistants that work with the passing offense at PSU need to take up their life's work.

Rushing defense: A+ tremendous...even though the opponent was not great, I saw a LOT from this DL. The really talented young guys weren't even out there yet, due to injury. Larry Johnson Sr. knows his fucking stuff. The LBs were great as well.

Passing defense: A Justin King is great. Anthony Scirotto is also. The others look promising indeed.

Special teams: A+ HUGE improvement. The staff worked a lot with the STs, and it really shows.

Overall: B - everything looks great except the running game.

[Bearcat92]

I'm thrilled with the Bearcats so far. Yes, it was a 1AA team (SE Missouri State) but we did to them what a good team should do to a not so good 1AA......beat them 59-3. Ben Mauk (Wake Forest transfer) looked sharp at QB after winning the job just a week earlier. Lots of team speed and the defense looked outstanding. Over 600 yards of offense so I'm feeling pretty good about our chances of moving the ball this year. It gets tougher this week with Oregon State coming in and then Louisville, West Virginia, and Rutgers looming in the future. I'm looking forward to seeing how the Bearcats look against the Beavers this Thursday night.

Overall grade : A

[Danimal]

Passing offense: A+ Chase Daniel's 359 yards and 3 TD's spread out to 6 different receivers. Too many weapons.

Rushing offense: F- How in the hell can you not run the ball when the D has to constantly play the pass? Because of some fucked up scheme/formation that always has the RB lining up right beside the QB in the shotgun and never using a FB. What a joke. Tony Temple could be a beast if given a chance.

Passing defense: B- Good job in coverage and limiting YAC plus a couple of nice picks help this grade. Lack of a consistent pass rush is a concern.

Rushing defense: B+ Gave up less than 4 yards per carry which isn't bad for this group. Also forced some key fumbles that changed the game.

Special teams: D- Only avoided an F by returning a punt for a TD. Other than that, pathetic.

Coaching: F- Pinkel goes for two with the score 13-6 in the 2nd quarter trying to turn a 7 point lead into a 9 point lead. Of course, it didn't work and that missed PAT could've easily cost them the game.

When asked why he went for two after the game, he arrogantly replied "I've got a chart".
Oh really, coach? I've got a chart too. It says you're a dumbfuck.

You don't go for two unless you have to, the odds are against it working. Just take the extra point since you don't know how things will shake-out. Ya there are instances where you take the chance like the BSU/OU-game where BSU was out-of-gas and had to finish the game. This was not one of those scenarios and unnecessarily going for it almost cost Pinkel the game. What makes it worse is that this dumbass will put all his stupidity on hold when Neb comes to town and probably beat us again in Columbia.

[Laxplayer]

Figured a fine academic establishment like LSU would be pass/fail... they have guys on their team that would be academic all Americans at U$C

There, much better.

[War Wagon]

What makes it worse is that this dumbass will put all his stupidity on hold when Neb comes to town and probably beat us again in Columbia.

That's the plan, Dan. Hopefully, even Stinkel can't fuck it up.

Makes you wonder, though. How in the heck can this moron attract and recruit some of the talent he has? I guess he must be doing something right, I'm just at a loss to explain what that might be.

Ponderous.

But there's no doubt in my mind that any success that my beloved Tigers have comes despite the coach, not because of him.

And I have seen that before at the High School level, though it's rare. Players tend to band together and say to themselves "we're going to win no matter how much this fool tries to sabotage us".

[M Club]

michigan players are supposed to have their tutors write papers for them, not fill in on field goal protection...

[Q, West Coast Style]

Wazzu (42-21 L to Wisconsin)

Rushing offense: A
Tardy and Ivory were very effective against what is supposed to be one of the better run D's in the Country. Took the Badgers nearly the entire first half before they could slow them down.

Passing offense: B-
Brink was efficient in the 1st half, but pretty quiet in the 2nd. In typical Mike Levenseller (WSU O-Coord) style, he went to the well once to often with something that was working early (in this case running game.)
So the passing game lacked the requisite imagination.

Rushing defense: B
Not bad. Didn't get run over like they have in the past against bigger teams from the Midwest or South.

Passing defense: F
Inept.

Special teams: C-
Lousy. Coulda been an F if it weren't for a recovered fumble on punt coverage and the punter picking up a blocked punt and running for a 1st down.

Overall: C
Still not sure how much of the outcome was due to Wisconsin strength or WSU weekness. We'll see. But if the WSU D doesn't come correct it's going to give up some monster passing yards in the Pac-10.