Robert Smith on ESPN

Did anyone else see this smug asshole on ESPN? "Sounds like folks in Ann Arbor have their minds made up" about Rodriguez, implying imminent firing. Yeah, we have our minds made up all right--that his offense is going to shred Big Ten defenses for years and years to come. Coincidence he's a Buckeye?

Just curious what did he have to do with Bobby Powers..he was a LB, unless you were referring to Ricky Powers the RB?

Back to the point..Robert Smith is a true HATER. It seems no matter what, he has something slick to say towards UM (biased maybe?). It just gets annoying as an analyst, they ask him for his opinion of the game and he sums it up with "it seems like people in ann arbor have their minds made up"...What happened to "offense looked impressive for most of the game, and their D finally made a stop" ...You're analyst!! Analyze the game IF they ask you about the game!!!

Why does everyone make fun of Holtz? Seriously, sure he's old and all of that, but at least he was a great coach. but "HE COACHED NOTRE DAME" I've met tons of Irish fans in my life and they're some of the nicest. We understand what they're going through and them what we're going through. Anyway, about Lou- if he played South Upper Peninsula Michigan State by hundreds of points he would commend them for being underranked and a great team.

Hey, Ishpeming High School is having a hell of a year! Don't act like Yoopers can't play football.

I want to see southern Michigan teams come up and play a championship game in the UP in December and see how they do. Those frickin southern Michigan athletes won't know what hit them, but apparently they want to go pro without playing in the necessary conditions!

(if you subsitute southern Michigan with just southern and the UP with Michigan, you'll see what I did there)

I just spoke to my dad about this earlier. He went to ND and has met and heard lou Holtz speak. Holtz is a great motivational speaker and often draws back on his experiences as a kid with a speech impediment. It bothers me that people make fun of him.

I always get negged at least a point or two when I rip on somebody who responds to a Lou Holtz post with the typical "Are you shhhhhhure Lou Holtshhhhhh shhhhhaid that" bullshit. So dumb. People really need to find something else to rip on him about (like, how about his blind homerism).

i was so pissed when i heard he made it into the ncaa hall of fame after leaving arkansas, minny, ND (and i believe even s. carolina) on probation or shadiness. shouldn't coaches be held to standards similar to the heisman?

Man, I just came from the game too, and the prevailing sentiment seemed to be "this puts to rest talk of RR hotseat."

I don't get this at all. At times, Michigan had three true freshman in the defensive backfield, turned the ball over five times, and still found a way to win. At minimum, can't we put this talk to rest after perhaps the most exciting game in the history of the Big House?

I have some less eductaed family members (morans I believe they are called from a couple posts above) that say this game proves even more why RichRod should be fired. It just proves that no matter what the guy accomplishes, he will never win over everyone. For the Ohio State fans, I think it is a little confusion in the fact that they were only able to put up 17 against the Illini. We put up more than that in just overtime alone.

What do you expect in a triple overtime game? Points will be scored! Yes we know the defense sucks, yes we know the offense is bad ass, yes we know GERG will probably be gone, and yes we know Rodriguez will still be here next year.

We get it, get over it. The defense did only give up 14 2nd half points, 7 of which came from the Tate fumble. Robert Smith is a douche anyways...Go Blue

How did his dream of med school pan out? The guy is just a smug "analyst" who fails miserably at hiding his biases. He should take a cue from Spielman, who bleeds OSU but always seems to be fair in his analysis.

He never knows what the fuck he is talking about but somehow never stops talking. During highlights, he will still be talking about a certain play a minute or two after the highlights for that game are over. What a fucking ruhtard!

And normally I don't react to tv announcers, but I swore all kinda stuff at him that is not fit for a family blog. Who the he'll does he think he is, anyway? Couldn't beat on the field, so he's going to try in the studio? #%*$&@

but Mel Kiper has earned a spot right next to him, IMO. I was just in my car and listening to ESPN radio, Kiper was on talking about changes he'd make to NCAA football. He suggested that teams that were 6-6 or 7-5 with a win over an FCS school should not be allowed a bowl. Claimed it cheapened the game and rewarded mediocrity. He also suggested that the NCAA do away with stopping the clock after a first down is made.

Now, I don't know what other people's opinions are, and I don't really care, but I believe that the influx of bowls over the last couple decades has been one of the reasons that CFB has become more competitive, and that more teams are fielding decent to very good teams over what there used to be with only a couple handfuls of bowl games. I think it has allowed more teams to get the extra practice needed to attain much higher levels of play, and instead of the usual suspects near the top of the charts, we now have teams that aren't usually there making strides against the big time programs. Overall, CFB is much more competitive than it used to be.

As for the clock stoppage issue, I think he wishes CFB was more like the NFL. One has to wonder when he will suggest the sudden death overtime change.

I listened to that in the car too. At first I wasn't really offended with that idea -- after all, I usually don't bother to watch bowl games that pit two 6-6 teams against each other. But, after reading your second paragraph, I totally agree with you -- good point.

Also, either him or Freddy Coleman DID mention that they wanted OT changed to the NFL rule, except if the first team scores a field goal, the other team gets a possession to try to match/beat it.

As for the clock stoppage issue: I don't really see why anyone would feel strongly one way or the other about it. As long as the rule is clear, coaches should be prepared to coach their team to take advantage of the rule (i.e if the clock stoppage rule stays, coaches will call more over-the-middle passes; if it goes, they have to be more wise in determining if they have enough timeouts to throw over the middle).

Gotta say, most of the time I tune him out, but the artilces in the preseason might just bear him out...some. With the new additions to the bowl season, we might actually, according to the win loss records of the past few years, end up having teams with LOSING records pay in bowl games just to round out the competition, that, IMO, is not good. as for the rest of what he said, la-la-la, can't hear you!

the other guy (coleman?) said no 6-6 teams should go. he went further and said no 7-5 teams should go unless they beat all Div 1A teams.

i actually disagreed with just about all of their suggested ncaa rule changes.

kiper did have a really dumb comment though. he suggested that the ncaa should make WRs have 2 feet in bounds (instead of one). he suggested that this would help prevent blowouts by the better teams who don't need more help. wtf? i mean, how many tap dance receptions are made each game? one? two? ya, that rule change would surely prevent those 40 pt blowouts.

but I was watching college football update when Smith said this and he was actually referring to the fact that many people have already made up their minds about needing to fire Greg Robinson, not Rich Rodriguez. In fact, he was arguing that the deficiencies on defense were not all Greg Robinson's fault and that a lot of it had to do with the fact that the kids aren't yet ready to execute, but it looked like too many people had already written off Robinson. That was really the gist of what he was saying.