 Mike HlasHi, I'm Gazette/TheGazette.com sports columnist Mike Hlas. This is the Hlog. We will meet here, discuss things, and then go [...] |
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This is the Big Ten’s biggest football week of the season
Wins by Michigan and Michigan State would form a game-changer
This could be a week that lifts the prestige of Big Ten football toward levels it once knew.
If it doesn’t happen this week, it can’t happen any sooner than Jan. 1.
The season is now. Friday night, Boise State is at Michigan State. Saturday night, Michigan plays Alabama in Arlington, Texas.
The Boise-MSU game is an appetizer. If the Spartans win, it’s a nice feather for the league’s cap. Boise State opened the last three seasons by defeating Oregon, Virginia Tech and Georgia, respectively.
Of course, those Boise State teams had Kellen Moore playing quarterback, and Moore was terrific. But it’s still Boise State, a program that attracts eyeballs from coast to coast. For the time being, anyway.
Mr. Robinson, the Big Ten turns its lonely eyes to you (AP)
However, almost all the marbles are Saturday night. If Michigan beats defending national-champ Alabama on a neutral field in front of a national prime-time audience, the Big Ten league office will be popping champagne corks into Sunday morning.
Any football image-enhancing in the regular-season has to happen this week for the Big Ten. There simply aren’t other games that can make it happen.
Notre Dame has games against Purdue, Michigan State and Michigan on successive weeks, starting next Saturday. But they aren’t difference-makers. Nebraska has no such impact game. Its best nonconference contest is at UCLA, which is trying to rise up from mediocrity. Iowa has no such impact game. Nor do Ohio State or Penn State, not that it matters given both are on NCAA probation.
Wisconsin, the two-time defending Big Ten champ, plays its toughest nonconference game next Saturday when it goes to Oregon State. The Badgers can’t really add to their national profile with a win, but an upset loss would knock them down.
So it’s on you, Michigan, with possible help from your in-state rivals from East Lansing.
The Wolverines can dump the national-champs of the big, bad SEC, Denard Robinson can zoom past Matt Barkley on the September Heisman Trophy polling, and Jim Delany can beam like he would have had the Big Ten somehow prevented a four-team national-playoff, effective 2014.
Or, Alabama can keep the Wolverines and Big Ten in their places, and maybe the Big Ten will beat the SEC in an Outback or Gator bowl. Maybe.
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Right on target, Mike. MSU’s defense should lead to a win over Boise, but as you say, the biggie is prime time Saturday night, and I’m thinkin’ Michigan pulls it off. Denard Robinson will juke the Tide and leave Alabama in his wake. The Big Ten will be making a statement this weekend, and the SEC and its mouthpiece, ESPN, will have a hard time coming up with excuses…but they’ll do it anyway.
The Big Ten is in this together, so let’s get it goin’.
Michigan = 24
Alabama = 20
It’s a double edged sword. If they win we don’t have to listen to SEC fans but we do have to listen to Michigan fans.
But if it makes the conference look a bit better than, FINE, I’ll root for Michigan.
Just typing that made me nauseous.
Mike (above) hit the nail on the head about listening to chest-thumping Michigan fans. I don’t see the Tide losing this one, however. They mauled a good MSU team two years ago. Saban is a wizard, and I hate to admit it, but the SEC just seems to be playing at a higher level than everybody else.
I appreciate where you guys are coming from, BUT Iowa has beaten Michigan 3 straight. And if Michigan beats Alabama, when Iowa takes its shot at making it 4 in a row late this fall, the Hawkeyes will also have the grand opportunity to beat the team that beat Alabama.
There’s plenty of time to hate Michigan, MSU and the others in the week before they kick off against Iowa. Otherwise, I’d like to see the conference Iowa represents win all its games against outsiders, especially those who come from the SEC.
I’m pretty confident in Michigan. Robinson is the key and he has shown remarkable improvement from year to year since his freshman year when he was only a (dynamic) back up quarterback. GO BLUE!!
For the sake of discussion, what would one, or God forbid, 2 losses do?
I saw the Boise State semi parked at the rest stop just west of the I-80/Hiway 38 interchange yesterday afternoon. That is a long trip.
It’s a longer trip back to Boise, Jay.
I can’t speak for Michigan, despite being a true “Michigan Guy”, but based on my last 50+ years as a fan, I know that winning the Big 10 will be their number 1 priority, regardless of the outcome of the Alabama game.
National rankings are nice and bowl games are nice, but winning the Big 10 has always been and will always be their priority.
The Rodriguez fiascal is over and normalcy (I.e. Michigan winning) is back.
Key to the game? It’s early in the season and “Shoelaces” is 100% healthy. If they can’t beat Alabama now (with all its new starters), then they likely wouldn’t be able to later in the season either.
Michigan 20
Alabama 14
I agree with this assessment Mike. I think they have their best chance now.
I would also like to see what happens when they use Robinson like he should be used (let him work his magic in space and on the draw). In all fairness to the Hawks last year, had Robinson run more on them and not tried to be a pocket passer, Michigan would likely have won (glad they didn’t).
I hate to throw cold water on this love-fest, but it is time to get real. My wife is an Alabama girl and a huge Tide fan, so I HAVE to pay attention to them, as much as I wish I didn’t.
These guys have third-teamers that the Big Ten went after and could not get. They have four-star athletes that never make the starting team. They lost nine starters on defense this year? Well, they don’t exactly substitute with the girls from Sweet Briar, now do they?
The Tide will take two quarters to adjust their play to Robinson’s speed, and then they will lower the hammer in the second half. I see it as 24-14, Bama, at the final gun, if not worse. I wish it were not so, and I hope I am wrong, but I am afraid I’m not. The SEC is not just in another league. Their top teams (Alabama, LSU, Arkansas, South Carolina, Georgia) are in a whole other universe.
I have to agree with you about LSU and Alabama, but remember that Michigan State beat Georgia last year, and the Hawks beat South Carolina a few years back.
Yeah, Scott, the operant term here is “a few years back”. That was the 2008 season, and they have beaten Alabama since. And MSU needed put the Bulldogs away late. They struggled against perhaps the fourth-best team on my list, Georgia. And how did MSU do against Bama the year before that? Not well, as I recall.
I would love to see the Big Ten on a level with the SEC, but let’s not kid ourselves. It has not happened yet. We have a long way to go, mostly because we don’t think of ourselves as football teams with schools attached, rather than the other way around.