Buffalo trounces #12 Ball State 42-24. WOW. Buffalo finishes the season at 8-5 and has accepted a bid to the International Bowl Jan 3rd in Toronto to play an ACC opponent. And, will be receiving much swag from the BCS yahoos since they've eliminated that pesky Ball State problem the BCS had.The way Buffalo's program has turned around in a mere 3 years under the leadership of Turner Gill is nothing short of amazing. You remember him, right? He used to be the starting QB at Nebraska in 1981-83. He led the Huskers to Number 2 and Number 3 rankings. AND he was a finalist for the Heisman in 1983. Not too shabby......
The only sad thing is that such skill, talent, excellence, and integrity won't remain confined to the MAC for much longer, I'm guessing. Keep your eyes on Coach Gill. (and not only because he is HOT, in a handsome kinda way!)His success in such a short time has me sipping once again from the RichRod Kool-aide Can of Wins. Some of you may say, aw c'mon T9 are you actually comparing the meteoric rise of lowly Buffalo to the restoration of glory to that which is Michigan football????
Well, hell no, not when you put it like that.....What I mean is that seeing Buffalo's success makes hope spring eternal once again that a great coach can turn a program around quickly. You see, Buffalo had only 2 wins in Gill's first year in 2006. The following season he led the team to it's first winning season within the MAC, and this year they are MAC Champions. THAT'S success I can look to and hope it comes to us as well. As compared to the shenanigans of Charlie the Tuna who has done nothing but tank the Domers (and worse).
The other reason why this game had my attention is the Michigan connection. Get this...Buffalo's Athletic Director is none other than Warde Manuel, a former defensive tackle at Michigan in the late 80s. Warde earned a bachelor's degree from Michigan in 1990, a masters in social work in 1993, AND an MBA in 2005. He served in a variety of positions in our athletic department and when he left Michigan he was an associate athletic director overseeing Football and Basketball. And, of course Ball State's head coach--Brady Hoke, Michigan's former D-line and linebacker coach, and much maligned but now maybe not-as-bad-as-we-all-made-him-out-to-be possible former contenda for OUR open coaching spot back in the day....
Interesting to me how we have become the franchisers of coaching and leadership excellence in college football. Think about it---can you list all of the former Michigan players/coaches who are now coaching/leading somewhere else?????
GO BLUE
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4 comments:
Nice win for Buffalo. I did not think anyone in the MAC would beat Ball State.
Turner Gill will have another job within 2 years in the B12.
Off the top of my head:
Harbaugh (stanford)
Miles (lsu)
Corwin Brown (nd dc)
Hoke (ball state)
Good win for sure but I still think Akron should have beat them at that 4 and a half hour debacle I went to a few weeks ago. I guess that's homerism. I thought the Motor City Bowl was for Mac champions? Why then is Buffalo going to the International bowl and probably Ball State will go to the Motor City Bowl? Doesn't make sense to me. Regardless of Ball State's 12-1 or 11-1 record they lost their championship game and thus deserve the lower of the two bowl games.
This further pisses me off because I wanted Ball State to win and have an undefeated championship so they would be harder pressed to put O$U into an at large BCS game. Why they would even consider doing that is beyond me but it's all the rage in the local papers. They were throttled by USC and they lost to PSU. They are not deserving and their are several no loss or 1 loss teams better suited.
biggest difference i can see between gill and richrod is that gill is 1-0 against toledo
oh and no way ball state winning would have changed anything about osu going to a bcs game - boise state maybe but not ball state - MAC schools don't get any respect - that's why you should never lose to them.....
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