Sunday, November 12, 2006
A WIld & Uncrazy Guy
Wolverines can finally focus on Ohio State
Nothing Stands Between OSU & Michigan
The last team to play in two 1 vs. 2 games was Florida State in the 1993 season. The Seminoles were No. 1 when they lost to Notre Dame 31-24 on Nov. 13, and were No. 1 again when they beat Nebraska 18-16 in the Orange Bowl to win the national championship.
The last team to play in two 1 vs. 2 games was Florida State in the 1993 season. The Seminoles were No. 1 when they lost to Notre Dame 31-24 on Nov. 13, and were No. 1 again when they beat Nebraska 18-16 in the Orange Bowl to win the national championship.
The last time two teams from the same conference played in a 1-2 game was 1987, when Oklahoma and Nebraska did it.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
#2 Michigan @ Indiana
Memorial Stadium • Bloomington, IN
ESPN
[ U-M Audio (Free): All-Access | Quicktime ]
[ Postgame Press Conference Video (Subscription) ]
[ Gametracker (Live Stats) | Radio Network ]
[ Press Conference Quotes: Lloyd Carr | Players ]
Michigan Football Game Notes
- Michigan (10-0; 6-0 vs. Big 10); Indiana (5-5; 3-3 vs. Big 10)
- Series Record: 49-9; Series Streak: U-M won 14
- Michigan leads the nation in rushing defense (30.3 yds/game). It's held nine teams under 60 yds/game, eight under 50, five under 25 and two to negative rushing yardage.
- U-M leads the nation in time of possession (34:05) and turnovers lost; second in third-down defense, with a 25.2% conversion rate; third in fumbles lost; fourth in total defense (241.5 yds/game) and turnover margin; and sixth in sacks (3.5/game). They lead the Big 10 in each of these categories.
- U-M boasts the nation's fourth toughest schedule in college football. U-M's opposition has compiled a 63-37 (.630) record thus far.
- U-M recorded its 25th 10-win season last week. Only one team has more -- Alabama (28). It will go for its 8th 11-win season against IU.
ESPN: With Ohio State in sight, Michigan visits Indiana
Looking Ahead: OSU vs. Michigan Match-up News
ESPN: Michigan Clubhouse
Yahoo!: Michigan Team Page
Detroit Free-Press: Michigan Team Page
Detroit News: Michigan Clubhouse
Michigan Stats
- Michigan is #2 in the BCS, #2 in the AP Poll, #2 in the USA Today Coaches' Poll and #3 in the Sagarin rankings
- Michigan has more wins that any football program in NCAA history, 859.
- Michigan has the highest winning percentage of any team in NCAA history 859-280-36 (.7463829).
- Michigan will play its 364th game (270-83-10, .758) when ranked in the Top 10 in the AP Poll. This year Michigan is 7-0.
- Michigan ranks #1 all-time in composite AP final football polls (1936-2005)
- Michigan has 42 Big 10 titles which is the most conference titles of any NCAA school and is 455-163-18 (.730) in Big 10 play.
- Michigan has the most weekly appearances in the AP poll, appearing 734 times since 1936.
- Michigan has led the nation in attendance 31 of the last 32 years
- Michigan has had 200 consecutive crowds of 100,000+ fan at "The Big House" - a streak started Nov. 8, 1975
- Michigan has compiled a 368-106-15 record (.768) in "The Big House"
- Michigan has appeared in 31 straight bowls, the longest current streak in NCAA history.
- 366 Michigan football games have been televised (247-111-8), which leads the NCAA.
- The Michigan football program is the only Big 10 team in any sport to win a conference title in each decade. It is the winningest overall athletic program in Big 10 Conference history
- Michigan has appeared in more Rose Bowls (19) than any other Big 10 Conference school
- Michigan has 11 national championships (5th all-time) to OSU's 7
- Michigan's five current NFL quarterback's are more than any other school in the country.
Lloyd Carr Stats
- Head coach Lloyd Carr has a career winning percentage of .767 (112-34), ranking him fifth among active Division I coaches.
- He is 41-7 (.841) against Big 10 foes at Michigan Stadium and 33-13 on the road. He has the best winning percentage (69-9 .885) of any U-M coach at Michigan Stadium.
- Coach Carr is 46-18 while ranked in the Top 10.
- Michigan has a 39-21 overall record against nationally ranked teams under Carr. They are 16-6 against Top 10 opponents; 8-2 against teams in the Top 5; and 4-1 against No. 2 ranked teams.
- He leads active Big 10 coaches with 74 conference wins, 74-20 (.787), a mark he grabbed in 2003.
- He is the 8th coach in conference history to claim five or more Big 10 championships.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Before Iraq
The assumptions of a forgetful chattering class are badly off the mark.
By Victor Davis Hanson
What is written about Iraq now is exclusively acrimonious. The narrative is the suicide bomber and IED, never how many terrorists we have killed, how many Iraqis have been given a chance for something different than the old nightmare, or how a consensual government has withstood enemies on nearly every front.
Long forgotten is the inspired campaign that removed a vicious dictator in three weeks. Nor is much credit given to the idealistic efforts to foster democracy rather than just ignoring the chaos that follows war — as we did after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, or following our precipitous departure from Lebanon and Somalia. And we do not appreciate anymore that Syria was forced to vacate Lebanon; that Libya gave up its WMD arsenal; that Pakistan came clean about Dr. Khan; and that there have been the faint beginnings of local elections in the Gulf monarchies.
Yes, the Middle East is “unstable,” but for the first time in memory, the usual killing, genocide, and terrorism are occurring in a scenario that offers some chance at something better. Long before we arrived in Iraq, the Assads were murdering thousands in Hama, the Husseins were gassing Kurds, and the Lebanese militias were murdering civilians. The violence is not what has changed, but rather the notion that the United States can do nothing about it; the U.S. has shown itself willing to risk much to support freedom in place of tyranny or theocracy in the region.
Instead of recalling any of this, Iraq is seen only in the hindsight of who did what wrong and when. All the great good we accomplished and the high ideals we embraced are drowned out by the present violent insurgency and the sensationalized effort to turn the mayhem into an American Antietam or Yalu River. Blame is never allotted to al Qaeda, the Sadr thugs, or the ex-Baathists, only to the United States, who should have, could have, or would have done better in stopping them, had its leadership read a particular article, fired a certain person, listened to an exceptional general, or studied a key position paper.
We also forget that Iraq, contrary to popular slander, was not “cooked up” in Texas or at a Washington, D.C., neocon think tank. Rather, it was a reaction to two events: a decade of appeasement of Middle East tyrants and terrorists, and the disaster of September 11. If one were to go back and read the most popular accounts of the first Gulf War, The Generals’ War by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor of Cobra II fame, or Rick Atkinson’s Crusade, or research the bi-partisan arguments that raged across the opinion pages in the 1990s following the defeat and survival of Saddam Hussein, certain themes reappear constantly that surely help to explain our current presence inside Iraq.
One was shared regret that Saddam was left in power in 1991. No sooner had the war ended than George Bush Sr. appeared, not joyous in our success, but melancholy, and then distraught, once images of the butchered and refugees beamed back from our “victory” in Iraq. Culpability for thousands of dead Shiites and Kurds, the need for no-fly zones, and worry about reconstituted WMD were the charges then leveled.
The heroes? A troubled former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz (read The Generals’ War) who almost alone felt tactical success had not translated into strategic victory, and that we were profoundly amoral to have let a mass murderer remain in power, while thousands of brave revolutionaries were butchered just a few miles away from our forces.
We praise the first Gulf War now. Yet, almost immediately in its aftermath, critics accused us of overkill, of using too many soldiers to blast too many poor Iraqis. The charge then was not that we had too few troops, but too many; not that the Pentagon had understated the need for troops, but overstated and sent too many; not that we had too few allies, but an unwieldy coalition that hampered American options; not that the effort was too costly, but that we were too crassly commercial in forcing allies to pony up cash as if war were supposed to be a profitable enterprise.
The generic criticism in the 1990s of the United States, both here and abroad, was that America bombed from on high, and sometimes, as in Belgrade or Africa, even indiscriminately — its only concern being fear of losses, not worry over civilian collateral damage or ending the war decisively on the ground. Indeed, in Europe there was voiced a certain cynicism that we were cowardly turning war into an antiseptic enterprise (the “body bag syndrome”), adjudicated only by our concern not to engage with the enemy below.
There were other issues now forgotten. After the acrimony in the debate over Iraq in 1990, followed by the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, Democrats were determined never again to be on the wrong side of the national security debate. So they supported the present war because they were convinced that after Panama, Gulf War I, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, they could regain credibility by supporting muscular action that seemed to pose little risk of failure. That is why only recently have Democratic supporters of the war bailed — and only when polls suggested that any fear of “cut and run” or McGovernism would be outweighed by tapping into popular dissatisfaction with Iraq.
Realism is much in vogue these days, with James Baker returning as the purported fireman, and even Democrats demanding talks with horrific dictators in Iran and North Korea. That was not the mantra of the 1990s. The Reaganism that rejected Cold War realpolitik and risked brinkmanship to bring down a rotten and murderous Soviet Empire was considered both the wiser and more ethical stance, as even Democrats reformulated their opportunistic criticism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mutually Assured Destruction, Kissingerian tolerance for the status quo, and mere containment — all that was scoffed at in the afterglow of Reagan’s squeeze that popped the Soviet bubble.
Not long ago, abdication — from Rwanda or Haiti, or from the Balkans for a decade — not intervention, was the supposed sin. There were dozens of Darfurs in the 1990s, when charges flew of moral indifference. The supposition then — as now — was that those who called for boots on the ground to stop a genocide would not unlikely be the first to abdicate responsibility once the coffins came home and the military was left fighting an orphaned war.
Apparently all the high-minded talk of reform — Aristotle rightly scoffed about morality being easy in one’s sleep — was predicated only on cost-free war from 30,000 feet. Now the wisdom is that Colin Powell — the supposed sole sane and moral voice of the present administration — was drowned out by shrill neocon chicken hawks. But that was not the consensus of the 1990s. In both books and journalism, he was a Hamlet-like figure who paused before striking the needed blow, and so was pilloried by the likes of a Michael Gordon or Madeline Albright for not using the full force of the American military to intervene for moral purposes. That was then, and this is now, and in-between we have a costly war in Iraq that has taken the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.
The unexpected carnage of September 11 explains so much of our current situation. It has made the realist, neo-isolationist George Bush into an advocate for Wilsonianism abroad, but only on the calculation that the roots of Islamic fascism rested in the nexus between dictatorship and autocracy — the former destroys prosperity and freedom, and the latter makes use of terrorists to deflect rising popular dissatisfaction against the United States.
The U.S. Senate and House voted for war in Iraq, not merely because they were deluded about the shared intelligence reports on WMD (though deluded they surely were), but also because of the 22 legitimate casus belli they added just in case. And despite the recent meae culpae, those charges remain as valid today as they were when they were approved: Saddam did try to kill a former American president; the U.N. embargo was violated, as were its inspection protocols; the 1991 accords were often ignored; the genocide of brave Kurds did happen; suicide bombers were being given bounties; terrorists, including those involved into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were given sanctuary by Saddam; and on and on.
So it is not those charges, but we who leveled them, that have changed. Americans’ problem with the war is not that it was not moral, but that it has been deemed too costly for the perceived benefits that might accrue.
The conventional wisdom was that, after Afghanistan (7 weeks of fighting) and its postbellum stability (a government within a year), a more secular Iraq (3 weeks of fighting) would follow the same timetable. In September 2002, well after the “miracle” in Afghanistan, I listened to a high-ranking admiral pontificate that war on the ground was essentially over in the new age of Green Berets and laptops, that after Bosnia and Afghanistan, air power and Special Forces were all that were needed.
This did not come from Rumsfeld surrogates, but was a fair enough reflection of the wild new intoxication before Iraq — that a supposed “revolution in military affairs” had changed the ancient rules of war, as if our technology would now give us exemption from hurt. Many of those who now most shrilly condemn the war had in fact years ago rattled their sabers for “moral” wars to eliminate dictators — predicated on just this foolish utopian notion that GPS bombing and laser-guided missiles had at last given us the tools needed for removing the tumors with precision and at little cost, as we conducted lifesaving moral surgery on diseased states.
No, nothing has changed about Iraq other than its tragic tab. Changes of view are fine, as long as those who now criticize the effort at least acknowledge the climate in which fighting in Iraq was born, and the real conditions under which they themselves once supported the war — and lost heart.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.
By Victor Davis Hanson
What is written about Iraq now is exclusively acrimonious. The narrative is the suicide bomber and IED, never how many terrorists we have killed, how many Iraqis have been given a chance for something different than the old nightmare, or how a consensual government has withstood enemies on nearly every front.
Long forgotten is the inspired campaign that removed a vicious dictator in three weeks. Nor is much credit given to the idealistic efforts to foster democracy rather than just ignoring the chaos that follows war — as we did after the Soviets were defeated in Afghanistan, or following our precipitous departure from Lebanon and Somalia. And we do not appreciate anymore that Syria was forced to vacate Lebanon; that Libya gave up its WMD arsenal; that Pakistan came clean about Dr. Khan; and that there have been the faint beginnings of local elections in the Gulf monarchies.
Yes, the Middle East is “unstable,” but for the first time in memory, the usual killing, genocide, and terrorism are occurring in a scenario that offers some chance at something better. Long before we arrived in Iraq, the Assads were murdering thousands in Hama, the Husseins were gassing Kurds, and the Lebanese militias were murdering civilians. The violence is not what has changed, but rather the notion that the United States can do nothing about it; the U.S. has shown itself willing to risk much to support freedom in place of tyranny or theocracy in the region.
Instead of recalling any of this, Iraq is seen only in the hindsight of who did what wrong and when. All the great good we accomplished and the high ideals we embraced are drowned out by the present violent insurgency and the sensationalized effort to turn the mayhem into an American Antietam or Yalu River. Blame is never allotted to al Qaeda, the Sadr thugs, or the ex-Baathists, only to the United States, who should have, could have, or would have done better in stopping them, had its leadership read a particular article, fired a certain person, listened to an exceptional general, or studied a key position paper.
We also forget that Iraq, contrary to popular slander, was not “cooked up” in Texas or at a Washington, D.C., neocon think tank. Rather, it was a reaction to two events: a decade of appeasement of Middle East tyrants and terrorists, and the disaster of September 11. If one were to go back and read the most popular accounts of the first Gulf War, The Generals’ War by Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor of Cobra II fame, or Rick Atkinson’s Crusade, or research the bi-partisan arguments that raged across the opinion pages in the 1990s following the defeat and survival of Saddam Hussein, certain themes reappear constantly that surely help to explain our current presence inside Iraq.
One was shared regret that Saddam was left in power in 1991. No sooner had the war ended than George Bush Sr. appeared, not joyous in our success, but melancholy, and then distraught, once images of the butchered and refugees beamed back from our “victory” in Iraq. Culpability for thousands of dead Shiites and Kurds, the need for no-fly zones, and worry about reconstituted WMD were the charges then leveled.
The heroes? A troubled former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz (read The Generals’ War) who almost alone felt tactical success had not translated into strategic victory, and that we were profoundly amoral to have let a mass murderer remain in power, while thousands of brave revolutionaries were butchered just a few miles away from our forces.
We praise the first Gulf War now. Yet, almost immediately in its aftermath, critics accused us of overkill, of using too many soldiers to blast too many poor Iraqis. The charge then was not that we had too few troops, but too many; not that the Pentagon had understated the need for troops, but overstated and sent too many; not that we had too few allies, but an unwieldy coalition that hampered American options; not that the effort was too costly, but that we were too crassly commercial in forcing allies to pony up cash as if war were supposed to be a profitable enterprise.
The generic criticism in the 1990s of the United States, both here and abroad, was that America bombed from on high, and sometimes, as in Belgrade or Africa, even indiscriminately — its only concern being fear of losses, not worry over civilian collateral damage or ending the war decisively on the ground. Indeed, in Europe there was voiced a certain cynicism that we were cowardly turning war into an antiseptic enterprise (the “body bag syndrome”), adjudicated only by our concern not to engage with the enemy below.
There were other issues now forgotten. After the acrimony in the debate over Iraq in 1990, followed by the successful removal of Saddam Hussein, Democrats were determined never again to be on the wrong side of the national security debate. So they supported the present war because they were convinced that after Panama, Gulf War I, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, they could regain credibility by supporting muscular action that seemed to pose little risk of failure. That is why only recently have Democratic supporters of the war bailed — and only when polls suggested that any fear of “cut and run” or McGovernism would be outweighed by tapping into popular dissatisfaction with Iraq.
Realism is much in vogue these days, with James Baker returning as the purported fireman, and even Democrats demanding talks with horrific dictators in Iran and North Korea. That was not the mantra of the 1990s. The Reaganism that rejected Cold War realpolitik and risked brinkmanship to bring down a rotten and murderous Soviet Empire was considered both the wiser and more ethical stance, as even Democrats reformulated their opportunistic criticism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Mutually Assured Destruction, Kissingerian tolerance for the status quo, and mere containment — all that was scoffed at in the afterglow of Reagan’s squeeze that popped the Soviet bubble.
Not long ago, abdication — from Rwanda or Haiti, or from the Balkans for a decade — not intervention, was the supposed sin. There were dozens of Darfurs in the 1990s, when charges flew of moral indifference. The supposition then — as now — was that those who called for boots on the ground to stop a genocide would not unlikely be the first to abdicate responsibility once the coffins came home and the military was left fighting an orphaned war.
Apparently all the high-minded talk of reform — Aristotle rightly scoffed about morality being easy in one’s sleep — was predicated only on cost-free war from 30,000 feet. Now the wisdom is that Colin Powell — the supposed sole sane and moral voice of the present administration — was drowned out by shrill neocon chicken hawks. But that was not the consensus of the 1990s. In both books and journalism, he was a Hamlet-like figure who paused before striking the needed blow, and so was pilloried by the likes of a Michael Gordon or Madeline Albright for not using the full force of the American military to intervene for moral purposes. That was then, and this is now, and in-between we have a costly war in Iraq that has taken the lives of nearly 3,000 Americans.
The unexpected carnage of September 11 explains so much of our current situation. It has made the realist, neo-isolationist George Bush into an advocate for Wilsonianism abroad, but only on the calculation that the roots of Islamic fascism rested in the nexus between dictatorship and autocracy — the former destroys prosperity and freedom, and the latter makes use of terrorists to deflect rising popular dissatisfaction against the United States.
The U.S. Senate and House voted for war in Iraq, not merely because they were deluded about the shared intelligence reports on WMD (though deluded they surely were), but also because of the 22 legitimate casus belli they added just in case. And despite the recent meae culpae, those charges remain as valid today as they were when they were approved: Saddam did try to kill a former American president; the U.N. embargo was violated, as were its inspection protocols; the 1991 accords were often ignored; the genocide of brave Kurds did happen; suicide bombers were being given bounties; terrorists, including those involved into the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, were given sanctuary by Saddam; and on and on.
So it is not those charges, but we who leveled them, that have changed. Americans’ problem with the war is not that it was not moral, but that it has been deemed too costly for the perceived benefits that might accrue.
The conventional wisdom was that, after Afghanistan (7 weeks of fighting) and its postbellum stability (a government within a year), a more secular Iraq (3 weeks of fighting) would follow the same timetable. In September 2002, well after the “miracle” in Afghanistan, I listened to a high-ranking admiral pontificate that war on the ground was essentially over in the new age of Green Berets and laptops, that after Bosnia and Afghanistan, air power and Special Forces were all that were needed.
This did not come from Rumsfeld surrogates, but was a fair enough reflection of the wild new intoxication before Iraq — that a supposed “revolution in military affairs” had changed the ancient rules of war, as if our technology would now give us exemption from hurt. Many of those who now most shrilly condemn the war had in fact years ago rattled their sabers for “moral” wars to eliminate dictators — predicated on just this foolish utopian notion that GPS bombing and laser-guided missiles had at last given us the tools needed for removing the tumors with precision and at little cost, as we conducted lifesaving moral surgery on diseased states.
No, nothing has changed about Iraq other than its tragic tab. Changes of view are fine, as long as those who now criticize the effort at least acknowledge the climate in which fighting in Iraq was born, and the real conditions under which they themselves once supported the war — and lost heart.
— Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He is the author, most recently, of A War Like No Other. How the Athenians and Spartans Fought the Peloponnesian War.
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Govern Well or Be Governed? The Christian and the Civil Authorities in Romans 13
Can Christians afford to submit to their civil authorities? In what sense is civil government God's instrument for his sovereign reign over the world? Using Romans 13, the author helps us to understand and navigate our dual vocations as citizens of heaven and also citizens of earth.
Ball State @ #2 Michigan
Michigan Stadium • Ann Arbor, MI
ESPNU
[ U-M Audio (Free): All-Access | Quicktime ]
[ Postgame Press Conference Video (Subscription) ]
[ Gametracker (Live Stats) | Radio Network ]
[ Press Conference Quotes: Lloyd Carr | Players ]
Michigan Football Game Notes
- Michigan (9-0; 6-0 vs. Big 10); Ball State (3-6 overall and 3-3 vs Mac)
- Series Record: This will be the first meeting between the two teams. U-M is 21-0 all-time vs. the MAC.
- Michigan leads the nation in rushing defense (28.4 yds/game) and has held eight opponents under 60 yards. It's second nationally in time of possession (34:02); third in third-down defense, with a 26% conversion rate; and fourth in total defense (235.33 yds/game) and sacks (3.56/game). They lead the Big 10 in each of these categories.
- U-M boasts the nation's fourth toughest schedule in college football. U-M's opposition has compiled a 57-32 (.640) record thus far.
- With a win, U-M will record it 25th 10-win season. Only two teams have more -- Alabama (27) and Oklahoma (25).
ESPN: Manningham may return for Michigan's game vs. Ball State
Looking Ahead: OSU vs. Michigan Match-up News
ESPN: Michigan Clubhouse
Yahoo!: Michigan Team Page
Detroit Free-Press: Michigan Team Page
Detroit News: Michigan Clubhouse
Michigan Stats
- Michigan is #2 in the BCS, #2 in the AP Poll, #2 in the USA Today Coaches' Poll and #3 in the Sagarin rankings
- Michigan has more wins that any football program in NCAA history, 858.
- Michigan has the highest winning percentage of any team in NCAA history 858-280-36 (.7461669)
- Michigan will play its 363nd game (269-83-10, .757) when ranked in the Top 10 in the AP Poll. This year Michigan is 6-0.
- Michigan ranks #1 all-time in composite AP final football polls (1936-2005)
- Michigan has 42 Big 10 titles which is the most conference titles of any NCAA school and is 455-163-18 (.730) in Big 10 play.
- Michigan has the most weekly appearances in the AP poll, appearing 733 times since 1936.
- Michigan has led the nation in attendance 31 of the last 32 years
- Michigan has had 199 consecutive crowds of 100,000+ fan at "The Big House" - a streak started Nov. 8, 1975
- Michigan has compiled a 367-106-15 record (.767) in "The Big House"
- Michigan has appeared in 31 straight bowls, the longest current streak in NCAA history.
- 365 Michigan football games have been televised (246-111-8), which leads the NCAA.
- The Michigan football program is the only Big 10 team in any sport to win a conference title in each decade. It is the winningest overall athletic program in Big 10 Conference history
- Michigan has appeared in more Rose Bowls (19) than any other Big 10 Conference school
- Michigan has 11 national championships (5th all-time) to OSU's 7
- Michigan's five current NFL quarterback's are more than any other school in the country.
Lloyd Carr Stats
- Head coach Lloyd Carr has a career winning percentage of .766 (111-34), ranking him fifth among active Division I coaches.
- He is 41-7 (.841) against Big 10 foes at Michigan Stadium and 33-13 on the road. He has the best winning percentage of any U-M coach at Michigan Stadium.
- Coach Carr is 45-18 while ranked in the Top 10.
- Michigan has a 39-21 overall record against nationally ranked teams under Carr. They are 16-6 against Top 10 opponents; 8-2 against teams in the Top 5; and 4-1 against No. 2 ranked teams.
- He leads active Big 10 coaches with 74 conference wins, 74-20 (.787), a mark he grabbed in 2003.
- He is the 8th coach in conference history to claim five or more Big 10 championships.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
Breaking Up Is Easy To Do
In China, the hot new trend is "flash divorce," as women cut loose their cheating husbands
More information about U2 Eucharist or U2charists
U2charist: Form & Reflection
U2Charist: This service integrates an Anglican Eucharist and the music of rock band U2.
U2Charist FAQ
BBC World Radio interview with the Rev. Paige Blair, April 12, 2006
WMTW Channel 8, story and video from U2 Eucharist at St. Luke's in Portland, Maine on May 28, 2006
The Journal News, White Plains, NY, October 8, 2006
Church Times, reporting on the U2charist at the General Convention 2006
A sampling of reporting on the U2charist at the General Convention 2006:
Ohio blog;
Episcopal Diocese of Washington;
The Living Church Foundation;
Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta;
Diocese of East Carolina;
Holy Innocents & St. Columba;
Episcopal News Service (ENS)
DelawareOnline, May 22, 2006
Union Leader, on the May 21, 2006 U2 service at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Portsmouth, NH
Arizona Daily Star online, June 18, 2006
The Scotsman, April 2, 2006
Ekklesia, April 4, 2006
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 19, 2005
Cross Rhythms, April 5, 2006
U2charist at Episcopal General Convention
Google U2Charist: U2 Eucharist
U2Charist: This service integrates an Anglican Eucharist and the music of rock band U2.
U2Charist FAQ
BBC World Radio interview with the Rev. Paige Blair, April 12, 2006
WMTW Channel 8, story and video from U2 Eucharist at St. Luke's in Portland, Maine on May 28, 2006
The Journal News, White Plains, NY, October 8, 2006
Church Times, reporting on the U2charist at the General Convention 2006
A sampling of reporting on the U2charist at the General Convention 2006:
Ohio blog;
Episcopal Diocese of Washington;
The Living Church Foundation;
Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta;
Diocese of East Carolina;
Holy Innocents & St. Columba;
Episcopal News Service (ENS)
DelawareOnline, May 22, 2006
Union Leader, on the May 21, 2006 U2 service at the Unitarian-Universalist Church in Portsmouth, NH
Arizona Daily Star online, June 18, 2006
The Scotsman, April 2, 2006
Ekklesia, April 4, 2006
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, November 19, 2005
Cross Rhythms, April 5, 2006
U2charist at Episcopal General Convention
Google U2Charist: U2 Eucharist
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
U2Charist
Episcopal 'U2-charist' uses songs in service
| |||||||||||||||||||
By Gary Stern, USA TODAY
When Anglican Archbishop Thomas Cranmer compiled the Book of Common Prayer during the 16th century, he wanted to make the prayers accessible, so he wrote in English, not Latin, and made sure it was distributed to every church.
About 450 years later, there is another attempt to make prayers more accessible — by an Irish bard who wears wrap-around shades instead of a clerical collar.
It may not qualify as a mini-Reformation, but a Communion service driven by the music of singer Bono and his U2 bandmates is catching on at Episcopal churches across the country.
The U2 Eucharist is not some kind of youth service held in the church basement but is a traditional Episcopal liturgy that uses U2's best-selling songs as hymns.
"It makes you, like, warm inside," says Bridgette Roberts, 15, who is a Roman Catholic and attended a recent U2 Eucharist at All Saints' Episcopal Church in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. "Usually at church, you love Jesus and everything. But this way you can express how you feel."
Says her friend, Natalie Williams, 17: "I love Bono, and you can rock out to the music. But in church, you hear it in a different way. It's like new."
The Rev. Paige Blair, an Episcopal priest in York Harbor, Maine, came up with the idea and held the first service at her church on July 31, 2005, displaying U2's lyrics on a screen by the altar. Since then, she informally has consulted with about 150 churches that have had U2 Eucharists, or plan to, in 15 states and seven countries.
Interest in the service is spreading by word of mouth alone, although Blair's church is starting what it calls a "U2-charist team" to take the liturgy on the road.
Much of U2's songbook is explicitly Christian and perfectly suitable for a worship service, even if some people might need time to get used to the idea, Blair says.
"Bach and Handel were the popular music of their day, and they had trouble getting played in church. The Methodist hymn writers once wrote contemporary music. Are we worshiping Bono? Absolutely not. No more so than we worship Martin Luther when we sing A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
Churches increasingly have borrowed the beats and melodies of popular music — rock, country, rap — since the 1960s, just as blues and R&B once influenced gospel music arrangements. Today, an entire Christian music industry borrows from everything in pop music except sex-obsessed lyrics.
U2 somehow seems to live in rock music's hedonistic world — without being of it.
"A lot of contemporary Christian music has such locked-down, straightforward meaning that you can't play with it," says Lutheran Rev. Christian Scharen, director of the Faith as a Way of Life Project at Yale Divinity School and author of a new book, One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God.
"U2 is good at the art, using language like a poet would, like the classic hymn language. Listen to their lesser-known song Daddy's Gonna Pay For Your Crashed Car, which is about grace. We mess up, but God is merciful. That's playful."
The U2 Eucharist can vary from church to church, but a key part is an offering for Bono's campaign to eradicate extreme poverty and global AIDS.
"It's a big reason that this has taken off as a movement," Blair says. "It's what Bono and the band are passionate about."
A spokesman said U2 is rehearsing and unavailable for comment.
Permissions haven't been an issue; churches that use U2's music for a one-time, non-commercial service do not need permission, says the band's record label, Universal Music Group.
At the service in Briarcliff Manor, the opening hymn was U2's Pride (In the Name of Love). About 110 people filled the tiny church, most of whom were not parishioners. They warbled tentatively at first, as images of Rosa Parks, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. and others appeared on a large screen, but many were singing out before long. As worshipers approached the communion rail, Bono's recorded voice sang "Let it go/ Surrender/ Dislocate" from the song Bad.
"Tonight is a call to action," said the Rev. Timothy Schenck, the church's rector. "It's about living out our faith in the world, something, I'm embarrassed to admit, that Bono does better than many professional Christians."
The Christian themes in U2's music have been widely recognized since their 1981 album, October. But from the start, some have not been comfortable with Bono's regular criticisms of church leadership or his unwillingness to identify with any Christian tradition.
"Bono has said repeatedly that Christianity without an element of social justice is empty," said a 2003 editorial in Christianity Today. "We agree. But a Christian's pleading for social justice without worshiping God regularly within the community of the church is little more than activism for its own sake."
Still, there has been little criticism of the U2 Eucharist, even from traditionalists within the deeply divided denomination.
"The U2 Eucharist is simply another form of music used to celebrate the Lord's supper and bring people into the presence of God through worship," says the Rev. Canon Daryl Fenton of the Anglican Communion Network.
Stern reports for the Journal News in Westchester, N.Y.
Sunday, October 29, 2006
The Eye of The Storm
In a secret, high-tech spy hub near Washington, the war on terror is 24-7
CHARLIE ARCHAMBAULT FOR USN&WR
Keeping watch at the National Counterterrorism Center's ops center
By Kevin Whitelaw
Posted Sunday, October 29, 2006
Every weekday at 8 a.m., Kevin Brock hefts a thick white ring binder onto a sleek, oval conference table. Labeled "Read Book," the deceptively plain folder houses the "Threat Matrix," a top-secret compendium of the most troubling reports of possible terrorist activity, drawn from the nation's 16 intelligence agencies. It is thicker than usual on a recent Monday morning, packed with 66 separate items that came in over the weekend. Brock, the principal deputy director of the National Counterterrorism Center, is about to brief some of the government's most senior officials on the latest threat information.
First, though, he must sort through the reports, most of which are vague-and sometimes little more than anonymous tips. Many are false alarms. ("If we could eliminate all the jilted lovers and ex-spouses," Brock says later, cracking a smile, "we would greatly reduce the number of threats we receive on a daily basis.") But some of the nuggets-coming from CIA operatives, FBI sources, or reliable foreign spy agencies-must be taken seriously. Brock, after meeting with the leadership of the counterterrorism center, decided to present 18 of the threat reports at the 8 a.m. videoconference.
Facing a wall of secure video feeds, Brock watches top leaders from a dozen key players gather-the CIA, the FBI, the eavesdroppers at the National Security Agency, even the White House. A briefer from the center, running through the 18 items, discusses possible terrorist action in south Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, even inside the United States. Brock raises the recent release of a videotape showing two of the September 11 hijackers smiling for the camera. He pays particular attention to overseas threats that have a possible domestic angle. "NCTC was created to ... ensure the handshake occurs between international intelligence collection and the FBI or others within the country to take action," says Brock, a career FBI agent. "And we're seeing that take place on almost a daily basis."
"No boundaries." Housed in an unmarked office complex in Northern Virginia, the National Counterterrorism Center has become the centerpiece of reform efforts to integrate the far-flung intelligence community. The NCTC was created in the wake of the September 11 attacks to reduce the gulf between America's spy agencies and domestic law enforcement. With more than 30 separate, highly classified government networks pumping information into NCTC headquarters, it has unfettered access to the crown jewels of the U.S. intelligence community-including raw cables from CIA spies and detailed FBI case files. One congressional staffer with knowledge of intelligence matters calls it a "miracle," only half joking. "We're the only place in the U.S. government where all that information comes together," says retired Vice Adm. Scott Redd, the center's director. "There are no boundaries in this business."
Inside and outside the intelligence world, however, people are still confused about what the two-year-old organization is supposed to do-and what it's not. U.S. News was granted unprecedented access to the senior leadership of the NCTC, which is supposed to become the primary hub for tracking and analyzing the terrorist threat. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte calls it the single biggest change during his 18 months in office. "The center is really looked to as the principal source of analysis of these kinds of developments," Negroponte tells U.S. News. The NCTC is still building up its ranks, but already it is butting up against the other agencies that work on terrorism, particularly the CIA, which has run its own CounterTerrorism Center since 1986.
The 2004 law that formalized the NCTC also gives it a "strategic operational planning" role, which has taken some time to define. In some ways, it's easier to explain what it isn't. Redd is quick to say that, unlike in the popular TV spy show 24, they don't go after any terrorists themselves. "Jack Bauer doesn't live here," he says.
NCTC officials might not be prowling dark alleyways in Cairo or camping out in Pakistan's lawless borderlands. But the NCTC is, for the first time, trying to make sure that all the operational agencies don't unwittingly trip over one another in the field. "NCTC is not directing operations," says Brock. "We're here just to kind of act as the air traffic controller and make sure everybody is talking." Most of this work is so highly classified that it is difficult to discuss, but Brock tries to describe a recent example in general terms. During the daily 8 a.m. videoconference earlier this year, one intelligence agency announced that it had an imminent opportunity to capture a key terrorist suspect in a Middle Eastern country. Another agency piped up, warning that a productive source of intelligence might be lost if the suspect were nabbed. Brock asked the two agencies to work it out themselves, which they did (although Brock declined to describe how).
Disney-esque. NCTC officials also monitor unfolding plots and investigations, producing continually updated reports called Threat Threads on the most dangerous cases. There are as many as a dozen Threat Threads at any given time; on a recent Monday, the NCTC was tracking 11 different threats. A Thread report came in handy when, for example, the NCTC was coordinating the fast-moving investigation into this summer's alleged plot in Britain to blow up as many as 10 aircraft using liquid explosives. At first, officials had been following the investigation from a distance, because it appeared to be a largely U.K. plot.
But after receiving what officials call "a very specific piece of intelligence" that the suspected plotters were targeting airplanes heading for the United States, the NCTC swung into high gear. Redd was at the White House every day as the investigation built to a climax. At the same time, his aides were helping to coordinate how much information was released to officials at key government agencies, particularly the Department of Homeland Security and its Transportation Security Administration. "They don't need to know what we know about what's going on in Pakistan," says Redd. "But they very much want to know what data we have to be on the lookout for and how does this change our screening procedures."
The NCTC's showpiece is its 24-hour operations center. Designed with input from, among others, Walt Disney's Imagineers, it looks like a film director's version of a high-tech government command post. Giant screens dominate the front of the room, displaying anything from broadcast of an Arab satellite news channel or the radar map over New York City to a highly classified live feed from an armed Predator drone over Afghanistan. An NCTC watch team of at least a dozen people is on duty at all times, while the FBI and the CIA each maintain their own independent terrorism watch centers in the same space. "We are getting paid to say who knows about this information we've just come across, who needs to know about it, and what are they doing about it," says Don Loren, a retired naval officer who runs the operations center.
"Historic baggage." Every watch officer can, in theory, access any piece of counterterrorism intelligence in the entire U.S. government. "We're pretty much the cutting edge," says an air marshal from the TSA assigned to the watch center for the past 18 months. "We're the first ones to see it, and we push it to wherever it needs to go." There are limits, however: To send a piece of raw intelligence from an agency's operational files out to the rest of the community, an NCTC official must first secure the permission of the agency that issued it.
The bulk of the NCTC's work remains on the analysis side. But the road to becoming the hub for U.S. counterterrorism analysis has been rocky. The NCTC (and its predecessor organization, the Terrorist Threat Integration Center) got off to a slow start. "Initially, there was a reluctance on the part of government agencies to let people from other agencies have access to their networks," says John Brennan, who founded the Threat Integration Center and ran the NCTC for its first year. "A lot of people didn't understand what NCTC's mission was."
Getting enough experienced analysts was another problem, and the NCTC had several early tussles over personnel with the CIA's CounterTerrorism Center. Officials insist the wrinkles have largely been ironed out. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, took the first big step last year when he ordered some 90 CIA analysts to move over to the NCTC. Gen. Michael Hayden's arrival as CIA director (after a stint as the deputy DNI) helped to further cement NCTC's status. Almost immediately, Hayden dispatched an additional 28 analysts to NCTC, and he has pledged to send over 50 more in the next year.
Some critics worry that taking analysts from the CIA could harm the ability of its own CounterTerrorism Center to use analysis to target operations aimed at capturing or killing terrorists. But officials insist that, if anything, the new structure frees up the CIA's center from much of the broader analytical work. "I actually think that NCTC may offer us better opportunities to support all the elements of national power because an awful lot of our activity here, quite legitimately and quite naturally, was focused in on supporting our operations," Hayden tells U.S. News. "We can't take all of America's analytic expertise and hard-wire it to any kill or capture operation. So I was willing to take the risk of shifting some of the weight of our analytic force from here to NCTC." Another factor is the civil liberties concern of giving the CIA, which is barred from domestic spying, access to law enforcement case files. Hayden says that it is better to bridge that gap "in a new location, without any historic baggage to worry about."
This summer, the CIA and the NCTC also agreed to adhere to what officials call "lanes in the road," which lay out who is responsible for reporting on which general areas. It's a tough balancing act, between reducing overlap on one side and ensuring competitive analysis on the other. "The worst thing in the world would be to have one gigantic organization that did all the thinking on counterterrorism for the entire government because the 'groupthink' syndrome comes into play," says Andy Liepman, a career CIA official who now manages the 200 analysts inside the NCTC.
Liepman's most active analysts work in the Al Qaeda and Sunni Affiliates group. One team in the group is dedicated solely to al Qaeda's plotting inside the United States. "Most of the [homeland] plots we believe are credible have in their ancestry an al Qaeda brain," says Liepman. Other groups look at all the other terrorist organizations, as well as their interest in weapons of mass destruction. A fourth tracks the logistical aspects of terrorism, including travel, financing, and communications. "You can't just disrupt the attack," says Redd. "You have to go after every element of that life cycle."
Critics have faulted the NCTC for weak analysis on longer-term strategic topics, such as which factors in Islamic societies help generate more terrorists. Part of it is a staffing problem-there is just so much demand for the tactical work of chasing terrorism suspects. "We have not been able to work the long-term strategic issues to our satisfaction," says Dawn Scalici, a veteran CIA officer who is the deputy director for mission management at the NCTC. "We're stretched pretty thin." Eventually, NCTC officials plan to double the number of analysts. For now, more than half of the 200 analysts have less than three years' experience working on counterterrorism issues. "The fact is that they don't have the culture of analysis that the CIA has built up over decades," says a recently retired intelligence analyst. "They need to develop the analytic tradecraft."
The NCTC's analysts do have one tremendous advantage-wide access to both domestic and foreign raw intelligence traffic. But their physical isolation from the bulk of the CIA's regional and cultural experts could make it more difficult to detect emerging threats. "The analysts are further away from many of the specialists in the intelligence community," says Paul Pillar, a 30-year veteran of the CIA who once served as the deputy chief of its CounterTerrorism Center. "Consultation with them would be essential to help have early warning." Liepman counters that much of that contact is already happening in secure online forums these days. "There is a very good, very healthy, substantive discussion going on now between people who follow Hezbollah and people who follow Iran," he says. "Just because they are not at NCTC or in the counterterrorism community, it doesn't mean they don't have a voice."
The technological challenges have been daunting. When U.S. News visited the Terrorist Threat Integration Center three years ago, then director Brennan had five different computers under his desk to access all the different agencies' networks. That problem remains, and, if anything, is even worse now that the NCTC has even greater access to data. In fact, with more than 30 computer networks wired into the NCTC, analysts in the operations center have to use multiple desks to access them all-the switching equipment they use to toggle between networks can accommodate a maximum of only nine systems. Also, analysts cannot yet search all the networks at the same time with a single command. That technology, says Chief Information Officer Bill Spalding, is still "a couple of years away."
"The fight of a generation." The deluge of information is intimidating. The NCTC maintains the intelligence community's ever expanding central repository of suspected terrorists, called the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (which is used to feed several terrorist watch lists, including the TSA's no-fly list). Russ Travers, a career Defense Intelligence Agency official, manages a youthful team of 80 analysts who sort through the mass of reporting on possible terrorist names. Every day, the NCTC receives as many as 2,000 cables-containing some 5,000 to 7,000 names. The database has quadrupled to 400,000 names in three years (although about 100,000 of the names are aliases). Further complicating the task is the fragmentary, often contradictory, nature of the intelligence and the language barrier. "Right away, you run into the whole problem with Arab names," says Travers. "Trying to sort out this 'Mohammed Mohammed' from that 'Mohammed Mohammed' can be a tremendous challenge for these young people."
Perhaps the most ambitious part of the NCTC's mission is its strategic operational planning function. As the "mission manager" for terrorism, the NCTC is supposed to work with the newly created DNI's office, which is charged with reforming the intelligence community, to eliminate gaps in the U.S. counterterrorism effort as well as unnecessary overlap. Without direct command authority, however, the NCTC will have to rely on the DNI's influence over the budget to help push change. It is unclear just how much clout either organization will have.
The NCTC has already issued several plans, including the first National Action Plan to Combat Foreign Fighters in Iraq, completed in June. Officials are now working on another, to counter terrorists' use of the Internet. The most comprehensive effort is the now completed National Implementation Plan, a nearly 200-page document that has become the de facto war plan for the struggle against terrorism. Signed by President Bush in June, the classified plan assigns a lead agency to each of more than 500 different tasks related to the war on terrorism. Some of them are obvious, such as the FBI's lead role in hunting terrorists at home. Others relate to the war of ideas and the need to quell violent Islamic extremism, an area where the State Department has many of the lead roles. The new plan tries to take a broader view, including goals like bolstering educational institutions that focus on Islam and the Muslim world. "This is the fight of a generation," says Vice Adm. Bert Calland, a former deputy CIA director who is now the deputy director for strategic operational planning at the NCTC. "We need to start establishing processes and capabilities with that in mind." Many experts are skeptical; previous efforts by the Bush administration to do outreach to the Muslim world have foundered.
"Radicalization." At the same time, the terrorist threat and the al Qaeda network have become increasingly diffuse. NCTC's analytical director Liepman says that the most credible terrorist plotting appears to have some al Qaeda link back to Pakistan and Afghanistan, but officials are increasingly worried about individual extremists-particularly Muslim men already living here who may be drawn to jihad but who have no ties to known terrorist groups. "In looking at threat reporting on a daily basis, you tend to get a sense of issues of concern and things that might help us understand where radicalization is taking place, why it's taking place, and what we need to be worried about in the future," says principal deputy director Brock. "Radicalization happens in different ways, at different times, with different people, and that's what makes it such a difficult problem."
Redd offers a simple, if unsettling, way to measure their success: "Do the 5-year-olds of today turn into terrorists or do they decide there is something better out there?
Hey, Let's Play Ball
The insular world of intelligence reaches out for a few new ideas
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Northwestern @ #2 Michigan
Michigan Stadium • Ann Arbor, MI
ESPN-TV
[ U-M Audio (Free): All-Access | Quicktime ]
[ Postgame Press Conference Video (Subscription) ]
[ Gametracker (Live Stats) | Radio Network ]
[ Press Conference Quotes: Lloyd Carr | Players ]
Michigan Football Game Notes
- Michigan (8-0; 5-0 vs. Big 10); Northwestern (2-6; 0-4 vs. Big 10)
- U-M leads the series 50-14-2
- Series Streak: U-M won 3
- Michigan leads the nation in rushing defense (33.6 yds/game) and has held seven opponents under 60 yards; and time of possession (34:10). It's fifth nationally in total defense - 240.8 yards/game
- U-M boasts the nation's 7th toughest schedule. It's opposition is 49-30 (.620) thus far. U-M has faced the nation's 6th toughest schedule to this point with it's opposition compiling a 33-17 (.660) mark.
ESPN: Michigan looks to stay focused vs. Northwestern
ESPN: Michigan Clubhouse
Yahoo!: Michigan Team Page
Detroit Free-Press: Michigan Team Page
Detroit News: Michigan Clubhouse
Michigan Stats
- Michigan is #2 in the AP Poll, #3 in the USA Today Poll and #2 in the BCS, #2 in the Sagarin rankings
- Michigan has more wins that any football program in NCAA history, 857-280-36
- Michigan has the highest winning percentage of any team in the NCAA history (.7459505)
- Michigan will play its 362nd game (268-83-10, .756) when ranked in the Top 10 in the AP Poll. This year Michigan is 5-0
- Michigan ranks #1 all-time in composite AP final football polls (1936-2005)
- Michigan has 42 Big 10 titles which is the most conference titles of any NCAA school and is 453-163-18 in Big 10 play
- Michigan has the most weekly appearances in the AP poll, appearing 732 times entering the 2006 season
- Michigan has led the nation in attendance 31 of the last 32 years
- Michigan has had 198 consecutive crowds of 100,000+ fan at "The Big House" - a streak started Nov. 8, 1975
- Michigan has compiled a 366-106-15 record (.767) in "The Big House"
- Michigan has appeared in 31 straight bowls, the longest current streak in NCAA history.
- 364 Michigan football games have been televised (245-111-8), which leads the NCAA.
- The Michigan football program is the only Big 10 team in any sport to win a conference title in each decade. It is the winningest overall athletic program in Big 10 Conference history
- Michigan has appeared in more Rose Bowls (19) than any other Big 10 Conference school
- Michigan has 11 national championships (5th all-time) to OSU's 7
- Michigan's five current NFL quarterback's are more than any other school in the country.
Lloyd Carr Stats
- Head coach Lloyd Carr has a career winning percentage of .764 (110-34), ranking him fifth among active Division I coaches.
- He is 40-7 (.841) against Big 10 foes at Michigan Stadium and 33-13 on the road.
- Coach Carr is 44-18 while ranked in the Top 10.
- Michigan has a 39-21 overall record against nationally ranked teams under Carr. They are 16-6 against Top 10 opponents; 8-2 against teams in the Top 5; and 4-1 against No. 2 ranked teams.
- He leads active Big 10 coaches with 73 conference wins, 73-20 (.785), a mark he grabbed in 2003.
- He is the 8th coach in conference history to claim five or more Big 10 championships.
Monday, October 23, 2006
Big Game hype gets early start
Here’s the best one: What if Michigan and Ohio State play a close game? An overtime classic — a one-point fantastic finish decided by a last-second score?
What if the winner is the only unbeaten team left when the regular season ends Dec. 2?
Could Nov. 18 just be Round 1 between Michigan and Ohio State, a rematch coming in Glendale, Ariz., with the national title on the line?
Really, it’s not that crazy an idea.
There are only seven unbeaten teams left in Division I-A: Michigan, Ohio State, three Big East teams (Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers), USC and Boise State.
Boise State doesn’t count in this discussion and the Big East schools all play each other. USC still must play California and Notre Dame.
Can the college football world handle Wolverines-Buckeyes II?
It’d certainly go over better than “Snakes on a Plane II.”
What if the winner is the only unbeaten team left when the regular season ends Dec. 2?
Could Nov. 18 just be Round 1 between Michigan and Ohio State, a rematch coming in Glendale, Ariz., with the national title on the line?
Really, it’s not that crazy an idea.
There are only seven unbeaten teams left in Division I-A: Michigan, Ohio State, three Big East teams (Louisville, West Virginia and Rutgers), USC and Boise State.
Boise State doesn’t count in this discussion and the Big East schools all play each other. USC still must play California and Notre Dame.
Can the college football world handle Wolverines-Buckeyes II?
It’d certainly go over better than “Snakes on a Plane II.”
Sunday, October 22, 2006
NY Times: Shanghai in 36 hours
Shanghai
Qilai Shen for The New York Times
The Pudong Financial District seen from the Bund district in Shanghai.
Old-fashioned football at heart of Michigan's change
"They were pretty tough. They were without a doubt the best defense we've played all year. How physical they are, their size, their speed -- we haven't seen anything like that." -- Iowa quarterback Drew Tate
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