The Futon Report

Once again the Toledo Free Press accepts some words in succession by me, this time on Dave Clawson being the least insane thing to happen this offseason.

• Now then, via mgoblog is some Eastern Michigan football coaching talk. Hot! They still need one, it looks like. Also, they are seemingly going to try and play another year of football and not disband it and transfer the funds to their powerhouse curling program. A lot of names sure are floating around (for an EMU rumor, no less) but the interesting one is Chuck Martin, the Grand Valley State coach. If you remember last year, I suggested Michigan should take a look at him and his dynasty he built at GVSU. The guy before Martin is playing in something called an “Orange Bowl,” which sounds colorful and delicious. If EMU can land the next Brian Kelly, maybe the jokes will diminish. Maybe. But for now … the shirt, please.

• I thought if Ohio State was ranked at any point in the year, they’re immediately ranked No. 1. Isn’t this the agreement they had with the Associated Press voters (known colloquially as the Filler Copy Matrix)? Instead, they’re only 16th and a win over Jacksonville puts them at an unblemished 7-0. I guess that respect doesn’t carry over to the indoor variety of NCAA revenue sports. This gives, of the seven games, 1½ road games, and four more home games to finish out the year. Yep, they’ll have gotten to January with just one-point-five road games. If they win all those, and convinces ESPN that Jon Diebler looks like Tyler Hansbrough, they’ll be No. 2 before you know it.

Also, blog-rattling news coming up in a couple weeks.

Thank heavens legitimate journalists have subscriptions to Rivals.com — else we wouldn’t know who Virginia’s next football offensive coordinator might be:

Yeah, that guy doesn’t look familiar at all. Daily Press, can you tell us?

Former Bowling Green coach Gregg Brandon has been offered the vacant Virginia offensive coordinator position, according to a report on CavsCorner.com.

Ah. Well, he does know offense, and his teams have put up a ton of points, with the exception of, y’know, this past year. And Gary Blackney, when he stepped down from BG in 2000, became a DC for Maryland and it worked out well. (Fun fact: Blackney is currently the secondary coach at Central Florida right now. Odd.) It would make more sense for Brandon to get the ol’ band back together at Florida with Urban Meyer whose OC is now coaching Mississippi State.

It seems like a perfect fit, and I wish him the best of luck. A catastrophic problem could arise, however, if Meyer steps down or is kicked out abruptly and Brandon is named the interim coach, well, you saw what happened before.

The good news is I don’t have to stop worrying about what obscure offensive/defensive coordinator will coach Bowling Green anymore. The bad news is they’re hiring a guy whose last OC gig resulted in the 9th worst scoring offense in the FBS. Hi, Dave Clawson. Welcome to the area. Literally.

[BG athletic director Greg] Christopher said on the day Brandon was fired that he would seek candidates with ties to Ohio or the Midwest. Clawson does not appear to have either.

That’s what went off in my head as I was reading through his previous destinations. Before Tennessee, he was at: Albany, Buffalo, Lehigh, Villanova, Fordham, and Richmond.

When the guy was hired last year down in Knoxville, his offensive scheme was deemed sort of complicated, as illustrated by this picture Rocky Top Talk found:

So that’ll be fun.

Image via WikipediaUT “power” forward Justin Anyijong has the body of a praying mantis. When you’re 6′9″ and 205, you’re going to get knocked around if you’re guarding centers. Despite his 6 points, 7 rebounds, and small handful of hustle plays, it seemed like Anyijong found himself in turnover or near-turnover situations. You might’ve guessed that he lost a bet 8 years ago and as a result had to play college basketball.

Last year he was even worse. One of the funniest Google referrals I had was “will justin anyijong make it to the nba.” If it isn’t clear, Justin Anyijong was the last person I would have picked to make the winning basket in any game, let alone opening night of Savage Arena against the University of Massachusetts.

Yet when Ty Kent’s last-second drive tipped out, Justin was there in rebounding position and … Jesus Christ on a graham cracker he won the game. FOX Toledo has video of the final put-back, which sadly I cannot embed here without feeling really really bad about it.

This was a guy who turned the ball over in the final 30 seconds that lost the lead for UT. This was a guy I was cursing for, well, most of the game. But, hot damn, what a redemption story. There will be a two-month embargo on Justin Anyijong jokes effective immediately.

Photos of the new Savage Arena are forthcoming. They just have to be, like, downloaded and stuff.

Ray Bentley mentioned this during the Ball State-Western Michigan game (scroll to 10:06), but Boise State and Ball State really do need to play each other, assuming Ball State can beat Buffalo in the MAC Championship. The Mid-Major Championship. The BSU Bowl.

One problem though; they’ll probably have to play the game in Boise.

Pairing Boise State and Ball State may hinge on luring the Cardinals to Boise and the Dec. 30 Humanitarian Bowl, to which Ball State coach Brady Hoke already has expressed some aversion. He doesn’t relish meeting the Broncos in Boise, he said. To counter that concern, officials are working on sweetening the Humanitarian’s $550,000 monetary and ticket guarantee, designating Ball State as the dark-jerseyed home team and perhaps obliging Boise to make a regular-season return trip to Muncie, Ind.

Image by BlueTurf via FlickrSo, yeah, playing on the blue field would certainly favor the Broncos. They could also play the game in Detroit, but that’d favor Ball State, even though the ground is green and not red. They could play in Shreveport, which would benefit the Independence Bowl custodians since few will travel to that game.

Sidenote: anyone screaming “playoffs” at this point needs to remember that in a playoff system, these two teams probably wouldn’t play each other unless they were to, y’know, meet in the championship. Maybe if bowl tie-ins weren’t so conference-specific and conferences actually worked to pair interesting teams together, more people would like them.

The essence of comedy is … … … [waits 5 minutes] … … timing. So it’s quite hilarious that after the Tom Amstutz Farewell Tour ended with a local holiday in the Glass City and a 38-10 loss, Mayor John Quinn didn’t get a chance to declare Gregg Brandonukkah on the narrow streets of Bowling Green, Ohio, USA, Earth, and the BGSU coach will no longer be the coach after a really hurty 6-6 season.

If you thought the Amstutz stepping-down was weird timing, this one takes the cake. What also obtains some kind of caloric dessert is the fact that it’s not a firing, and it’s not a resignation. I really hate it when coaching changes aren’t cut and dry. Nobody decides mutually on these things, which you’d know if you talked to any of my ex-girlfriends. So it may be difficult to pin a one-word description on the situation — and you HAVE to believe a column will be forthcoming on this — but for now let’s just return to what works when Bowling Green coaches are relieved of their duties:

Postmortem: It just dawned on me, after re-opening that Photoshop, that yesterday was Corey Partridge’s final game. It seems like he’s been there forever, but you’ll have that when you’re a four-year starter at wide receiver. We’ll miss you, Mr. Partridge, as you’ll always have a special place in my heart as the first Facebook blog stalking I ever undertook. Keep reaching for those dead raccoons in the real world, blessed Sir.

What are the odds that UT intentionally lost that game just so they didn’t have to carry the coach off the field?

As Coach Brandon has noted, I’m not a true BGSU football fan due to the lack of MACSploitation updates this fall. Also I didn’t attend a 6 p.m. Friday football game, which actually makes me a secret Muslim and probably gay detriment to society. Nevertheless, I’m asking for some redemption from the True Falcons by dragging my climate controlled ass into the Glass Bowl and watching the UT-BG game, an event I haven’t attended in, I think, four years.

(Christ, four years? I really am a fraud.)

The game will be at 3:30 on ESPN Classic, the channel who proclaimed Mickey Mantle was a shittier athlete than Secretariat. Although the Rockets are 3-8 and have a tendency to elicit crying from baby Moses, one has to believe they have a better shot at winning the game, since it’s Tom Amstutz Day and all. Plus BGSU hasn’t won in the Glass Bowl since 1994, and the 5-6 Falcons’ only metaphysical reason for winning is so they don’t have a losing record. And also, y’know, rivalry game and everything.

And like every year, I’m just hoping for either a good game or a BGSU blowout. Prediction: it’ll be butt-to-bench-stickingly cold.

Maybe here’s how I’ll run my blog from now on:

• 10 I write a post about something
• 20 You write a comment leading me somewhere awesome
• 30 I write another post about that comment
• 40 GOTO 20

This iteration of the post takes us to fan response of Gregg Brandon’s comments. Click through to also see Coach Brandon’s startling comments in return. Read more

As discovered by commenter Ben in the last post, Gregg Brandon put the BG-Buffalo game in perspective by noting how “pitiful” the crowd was.

Well, I’ll just say this. Our kids played heir guts out. And I don’t want to take anything away from the game but that crowd was pitiful. And I’m so disappointed in, you know the fans that showed up, that’s awesome. ‘Cause they’re the true fans. But our kids deserved so much better than that. To be in a championship with so much on the line, and that kind of crowd, disgusts me.

Now, I wasn’t at the game — hell, I wasn’t even aware it was being played Friday night — but then again you guys played a game at 6 o’clock on a Friday night. Of course 13,000 people are going to show up and not be entirely loud when it’s 26 degrees out. The fans may not have been in it. In fact maybe they were deathly silent in double overtime for all I know. On that same note, I don’t remember a time in college football history in which a crowd led a team to victory. The fans spirit soars with the success of its team, and this team is 5-6 and lost to Eastern Michigan at home, and is now the reason Buffalo will probably be playing in their first bowl game.

But I really, truly, am sorry for my part in this 40-34 double-overtime loss.