Rant: Bret Bielema

The following is a rant directed at Bret Bielema. I loathe him completely and totally for reasons even I don't understand. The below may contain swearing that might make a sailor blush. If you're sensitive to that sort of thing, do not read the below post.

Side note, I actually wrote this during Michigan week while I was killing time, so some of the things are future tense. What is not however is that Bielema is a choker.

Here's a BieLOLema while you think it over.



Thank you Black Heart Gold Pants love your blog, hate your coach.

You're still here? Good. Let's begin.

After Ty's remarkable missive on Juggalos and Walverines last week, it seems only fitting that we play Wisconsin this week. At Wisconsin, even the marching band are a bunch of meatheads. Who has a marching band get suspended for a game? Wisconsin, that's who. Who has a fan base that harasses Tom Osborne and his merry band of nonagenarians? Wisconsin, that's who. Who has a tradition of taking some of America's Whitest Kids and having them dance to one of the top hip-hop songs of the 90s?



Wisconsin, That's Who.

So it should come as no surprise to you that in 2005 when it came time to look for his replacement, Barry Alvarez was no fool. He wanted a known quantity, a populist hero, a meathead he could rely on and Bret Bielema was the perfect man for the job.



First off, look at the guy. He looks like a fat gym teacher who hangs out at an old folks home looking for a date. He looks stupid. He's also a reggae guy, I remember an interview with a recruit that talked about him groovin' on Marley to impress a recruit and thinking "What a doosh.", but in fact:

MADISON, Wis. — Sitting in his cavernous office that overlooks Camp Randall Stadium, island reggae music growling on a stereo system, Wisconsin head football coach Bret Bielema laughs and recalls an assistant's first trip to a local supermarket.



The Truth Hurts Sometimes

Second, the windbreaker. He wears that stupid damned windbreaker around like it's going to get him enshrined at the College Football Hall of Fame. "Here is the bronzed windbreaker of Bret Cornelius Bielema, he wore this windbreaker whilst dispatching UNLV in 112 degree weather 73-20, flew home and won a Deep Fried Cheese Curd eating contest while doing a keg stand." I understand the need to brand yourself as a coach these days. Spurrier with his fabulous visor, Sweatervest, Pete Carroll with sunglasses and cheating. I guess in fairness Windbreaker might have been the only cold weather item left, but you could brand yourself by winning.

Oh wait, he has branded himself by winning. Like an asshole. Bret Bielema hung 70 on Austin Peay and 83 on Indiana in 2010. Wisconsin basketball only scored 83 three times last year. Sure you can say, it's not Bret Bielema's job to keep Wisconsin out of the opponent's endzone. You are entitled to that opinion, just like I am entitled to the opinion Bielema is a dickbag. I have to imagine last year when he lost to TCU in the Rose Bowl, people were like "Bret, you failed to run enough when you had success with Montee Ball early on? What happened?" He was like: "Hurr, I am a banana. Scoring 70 on Austin Peay helped us get here but NOT scoring 91 is probably what kept us from knowing how to finish. I need some beer."

Finally, if you're going to go to the Rose Bowl instead of us, despite us beating you head-to-head. Run the damned ball when you're having success on a defensive line 60 lbs smaller than yours. When your backs are averaging 5.8 per carry, run the damn ball. This is the most important piece of all as to why I hate Bret Bielema, he can't close. In 2008, the clock was winding down in East Lansing, we had to hurricane kick with :02 seconds left to go, and he called a timeout to "ice the kicker". Swenson made the field goal and Spartans win. The guy can't close, because he's slow. A point further proved in 2011 East Lansing.

So there you have it, meathead of the people, branding himself for what purpose no one is really sure, no cupcake left behind and not a good coach in crunch time. I loathe Bret Bielema for all of these reasons and probably some more, but most of all despite all of these things he has the most successful team in the Big Ten the past 5 years. The luckiest doosh in the big ten. See you in Indy for the Big Ten Title Game.

The Mid-Season Review

With four games in the books, it's time to step back for a minute and see just what we've learned so far this season. The non-conference schedule is tough, not because it is actually tough as in you work really hard at it. It's tough because four games in, it's hard to tell how good you are or aren't.



This guy never works hard at it.

Four games in we've played a 1-AA team that made us look kind of crappy in the first half, an FAU team that looked kind of like the crappiest team I've ever seen us play, we played crappy at Notre Dame and then polished off the non-conference season by showing the world how crappy CMU is this year. So we can we surmise from all this? Pretty much crap, but we'll give it the old college try.

Donald Rumsfeld once got made fun of for saying: "There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know." I think this might be an apt way to approach dissecting our team's performance so far.

Known Knowns

- Our Offensive Line is going to struggle this year. We've been crushed for years by injuries at the Offensive Tackle position and it's finally caught up with us. They might at some point in the Big 10 season congeal to not be a weak spot for our team, but I think that's the best case scenario.

- Our defense is going to be solid this year. Michigan State is currently tied for eighth in the NCAA scoring defense giving up only 11 ppg. This defense will keep us in some tough games later on this season. They might have only played one good team and three bags of crap, but so have most teams at this point.

- Our rushing offense has underperformed so far this year. We're currently ranked 65th in rushing yardage. A point that came up on the Friday game preview is that the last game we lost where we outrushed our opponent was Minnesota in 2009. Our offense depends on us being able to run the football.

- Our Special Teams are not as Special as last year. Michigan State is still giving up 25 yards a kick return, good for 107th in the nation. Mike Sadler is averaging 39.67 yards a punt (although he had a great game Saturday) which would put him around 57th nationally. We're 69th in punt return coverage. Conroy and Nick Hill have been bright spots. The rest isn't bad, it's a little below average. Last year was outstanding and wonderful and all that Special Teams could be. Last year relatively speaking, was Beamerball.

- BJ Cunningham is a man among boys. He's ranked in the top 20 in all NCAA reception yardage type statistics. He moves the sticks, he gets first downs and then sets up the running backs to punch it in from 3 yards out. We knew he'd be good and he's still been a pleasant surprise.

Known Unknowns

- It concerns me mildly that I have yet to see our defense do it's magic on a mobile quarterback. With Denard "Mr. September Heisman" Robinson and Taylor "I quit the team while having a temper tantrum and then came back" Martinez still on the schedule this is a hole in our defense's sparkling resume.

- It goes almost without saying that we have yet to see how this Offensive Line holds up against a Big Ten defensive line. Ohio State scares me a bit because they traditionally have a very good defense and a good POWER defense at that. We have not had the success to impose our will just running the ball as we like, so a team like OSU might just outPOWER us. Further, a defense like Michigan gives me a bit of the heebie-jeebies. If Mattison can get that blitz home, it's going to give us problems. If not, we'll be fine.

- In order to lighten the load in the passing game, a true second target needs to emerge in the passing game. Nichol seems to be good on the slant routes or a quick curl, but I think we're missing a true second receiver to take the heat off B.J. in the passing game. This will matter more against teams with more disciplined defenses than we have seen so far.

- Will Kirk Cousins continue to have DERP moments at key times in games? I really debated about whether to include this point because I think Cousins has been the steadiest hand we've had at QB since I've been watching MSU football. So picking on him about his occasional DERP moments seems unfair, but, this is supposed to be an MSU football blog and not a "Kirk Cousins boy-crush" blog so, anyway, I digress. When Cousins is pressing from behind he occasionally does things that boggle the mind at critical times. It's not just a Notre Dame thing, it's taking coverage sacks on 3rd and 8 like he did against YSU, or throwing an ill-advised pick on 3rd and 2 against CMU. With a murderer's row of October games coming up, will he be able to risk losing a 3rd down to win the game?

Unknown Unknowns

Obviously this section will be short because if we had any idea what they would be they would tend to be in the category above.

Covered in this category would be the things like Micajah Reynolds showing strong at LT during the CMU game. Skyler Burkland being lost for the year, etc. Not really much to see here.

Overall Thoughts

Coming into the season, I thought this would be a 9-3 or 8-4 type team and I see nothing that changes any of that. I think that comparatively speaking we're a little behind where we were at this point last year. Our offense seems to move a bit more in fits and starts, our rushing attack is not as reliable, our special teams are not quite as crisp. Plus there's the October schedule. I think this year will go on to prove one thing though, Mark Dantonio in spite of the Angry Offensive Line Hating God and in spite of one of the nastiest schedules I've MSU ever play has prepared this team to be an 8-4 or 9-3 type team. That's a breath of fresh air around these parts and I'm excited.