Michigan Football

I guess now I’ll talk briefly about Michigan football. I will make this blog strictly sports, so if you’re not at all interested, skip to the next new entry below.

Basically, after coming that close to writing off this season as the first 6-5 type season in the past 20 years, I now realize that we can almost become what I had envisioned we could be. We’re still too rough around the edges to claim national title hopes, but I think in time we could be one of the top 5-7 teams in the land.

Let me say a few things about Henne. Maybe all the kid really needed was to have the offense opened up for him, because he’s shown the past two games that he can progress through his reads and make the right throw when given the chance. What I mean is that any knowledgeable football could see that our passing game in earlier games consisted of “Chad, this play is designed for player X, if he isn’t open, then we’re fucked, eat the ball.” The past two games it’s been more like “Look to Braylon, progress to Ecker, look to Hart in the flats…” and Henne’s gotten it done (not to mention the O-line’s been much better). Seriously, this kid is amazing for his age, maybe better than Henson would have been in the same situation. I now feel that with the coaches’ confidence and continued luck (mostly, that he never fucks up bad in an important game) this offense is good enough to win the Big Ten.

Don’t let me forget Mike Hart either. Where would we be without him? He’s amazing, how for his build he can run in short yardage situations and bounce off piles and break arms tackles. It’s crazy to me that he averages 4.4 ypc even with a long run of 17 yards. He’ll be in our backfield for years to come.

Finally, why do our fans still insist on hating Braylon? It’s fascinating. They don’t seem to mind him being in the top three in the country in nearly every important receiving category, but he drops a pass he has to dive for off his finger-tips and he gets booed. News flash – we may be 4-2 or 3-3 without him at this point in the season. He won us the SDSU game, and he may have been the difference in the Iowa game. It’s gotten to the point where a drop a game (pretty typical for a guy being thrown at 10-15 times, many high, some behind, often in double coverage), is worth more criticism than the 10 catches, 130 yards, and 2 TDs he puts up in the same game. Again, Avant is a great wideout, but he can’t do what Braylon does…hell, only 2-3 guys in the NFL can. Don’t think that’s hyperbole either, physically speaking Edwards is in the Lebron James range of freakishness (4.4 forty, 7 foot high jumper, dunks from the free throw line, benches 225 lbs 32 times). At least he has the Belitnokof wrapped up already…