It was a very long and quiet ride home last night. My friends and I pulled into town said our goodbyes at 5:00 am and went to bed. I woke up this morning and the weather was dingy and gray which of course did not instantly improve the mood. Caffeine on a mainline was a move in the right direction, but still, slow going. The BCS is a disaster as usual, featuring a game no one wants to see, as usual. It's really hard to feel good, great or even morally victorous about the game I watched last night. Yet, I do feel those things in fits and starts.
When the Bielema presser opened last night, his first comment was: "I was reading a lot about how Michigan State was preparing for the Rose Bowl, we were just preparing for Michigan State." Honestly, I could understand Bielema's confusion since he hadn't actually won the Big Ten outright before, he might not know what happens next. ZING! I was mildly concerned about this after reading Dantonio put roses in the player's lockers on Friday. MSU didn't look past Wisconsin though anymore that Wisconsin looked past them. These two teams are the best two teams in the Big Ten and in my opinion it isn't even close.
Since Mark Dantonio and Bret Bielema started playing each other the average margin of victory has been 5.2 points per game. Dantonio has shown no qualms about rolling out the old cliche, "Football is a game of inches" basically every ten minutes for the past few years. This rivalry is an excellent example of that cliche and this game was an excellent example of this rivalry. Between both MSU and Wisconsin, there were probably a dozen plays where less than a foot made the difference between who wins the Stagg trophy and who goes to the Outback Bowl.
To get into game theory in this post feels wrong, except for the much maligned punt block call. Several people on Twitter were gnashing their teeth over the stupidity of this call. To me, you couldn't have called that any differently. Mark Dantonio is not in the business of playing not to lose games, he's in the business of winning them. You don't win games by not trusting your best players to make plays. The play didn't work, but it was the right call.
The goals of Michigan State Football should be in this order: 1.) Play in and win the Rose Bowl. 2.) Everything else. After 12 games, 58 minutes and 27 seconds Goal Number 1 finally eluded our grasp. Now it is time to begin preparing for Goal Number 2, beating our bowl opponent and getting the Bowl Win monkey off our back. On January 3rd, we can begin preparing for the 2012 season's Rose Bowl.
This game is a real rivalry and I fully support Bielema's notion to create a trophy. If I were feeling cockier this morning, I'd say you could skip a new trophy though, because the Stagg one works just fine. If 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 parts one and two are indicative of the next ten years of MSU-Wisconsin football, this rivalry is not going away and you will be treated to some of the best football games a person can watch in the coming years. Luckily our road to next year's Rose Bowl runs through Madison and if MSU gets to deliver a little payback on it's way, I'll be happy to watch.
Quick Meta Note: I gots me lots of catch-up to do in areas of life not related to College Football Blogging. Updates will be pretty sparse until after December 22nd when I'm off for the rest of the year. When we come back, we'll have probably another Wisky film review, a preview with our Bowl Opponent. Until then, it's going to be pretty random what goes on the blog. Follow us on twitter by banging the link to the right for more microbloggy updates.
When the Bielema presser opened last night, his first comment was: "I was reading a lot about how Michigan State was preparing for the Rose Bowl, we were just preparing for Michigan State." Honestly, I could understand Bielema's confusion since he hadn't actually won the Big Ten outright before, he might not know what happens next. ZING! I was mildly concerned about this after reading Dantonio put roses in the player's lockers on Friday. MSU didn't look past Wisconsin though anymore that Wisconsin looked past them. These two teams are the best two teams in the Big Ten and in my opinion it isn't even close.
Since Mark Dantonio and Bret Bielema started playing each other the average margin of victory has been 5.2 points per game. Dantonio has shown no qualms about rolling out the old cliche, "Football is a game of inches" basically every ten minutes for the past few years. This rivalry is an excellent example of that cliche and this game was an excellent example of this rivalry. Between both MSU and Wisconsin, there were probably a dozen plays where less than a foot made the difference between who wins the Stagg trophy and who goes to the Outback Bowl.
To get into game theory in this post feels wrong, except for the much maligned punt block call. Several people on Twitter were gnashing their teeth over the stupidity of this call. To me, you couldn't have called that any differently. Mark Dantonio is not in the business of playing not to lose games, he's in the business of winning them. You don't win games by not trusting your best players to make plays. The play didn't work, but it was the right call.
The goals of Michigan State Football should be in this order: 1.) Play in and win the Rose Bowl. 2.) Everything else. After 12 games, 58 minutes and 27 seconds Goal Number 1 finally eluded our grasp. Now it is time to begin preparing for Goal Number 2, beating our bowl opponent and getting the Bowl Win monkey off our back. On January 3rd, we can begin preparing for the 2012 season's Rose Bowl.
This game is a real rivalry and I fully support Bielema's notion to create a trophy. If I were feeling cockier this morning, I'd say you could skip a new trophy though, because the Stagg one works just fine. If 2007, 2008, 2010 and 2011 parts one and two are indicative of the next ten years of MSU-Wisconsin football, this rivalry is not going away and you will be treated to some of the best football games a person can watch in the coming years. Luckily our road to next year's Rose Bowl runs through Madison and if MSU gets to deliver a little payback on it's way, I'll be happy to watch.
Quick Meta Note: I gots me lots of catch-up to do in areas of life not related to College Football Blogging. Updates will be pretty sparse until after December 22nd when I'm off for the rest of the year. When we come back, we'll have probably another Wisky film review, a preview with our Bowl Opponent. Until then, it's going to be pretty random what goes on the blog. Follow us on twitter by banging the link to the right for more microbloggy updates.
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