Now, THAT Was Fun!

EASTERN BEATS CENTRAL 56 TO Fifty...ummm...backwards six? (good lord)
The forums are ablaze with negative talk about Friday's Eastern Michigan win over hated Central Michigan. As I've mentioned before, I read the forums every day but only have enough creative energy to write on this blog every once in a while so I don't comment but still read them because I find them entertaining to see everyone talk about things they have no idea about. Seriously, it really cracks me up.

As for the game...holy shit.
It was a powder keg from the start. All the pre-game antics served as the match that lit the fuse and exploded into a contest that featured 108 points and 1171 total offensive yards. The EMU players were fueled with the roller coaster of emotions that comes with a coach getting fired. Luckily for "Eagle Nation" the roller coaster was climbing up a hill Friday morning.

It started off innocently enough, it was late in the warmup with both teams going through their last preparations for the game. This is typically a time where teams are usually in close quarters with each other anyway but most of the time an official or two is there to babysit. This was for some reason not the case on Friday. So you put two teams who naturally don't like each other standing on either side of the fifty yard line about 2-4 yards apart with no referee supervision and see what happens. It's like poking a beehive with a stick... somebody's gonna get stung.

No punches were thrown but there was a lot of shit being talked. I for one am completely fine with this type of behavior before a big game. Did any of you see the Michigan/Ohio State game? I LOVE that kind of stuff as long as it doesn't doesn't escalate into the brawl that happened with Clemson and South Carolina a few years back which I'm sure sent Lou Holtz into a lispy locker room tirade. As long as it's just two fired up teams being and acting like fired up teams, I'm completely fine with it and if I were coaching, I would encourage it (to a point of course, c'mon I'm not retarted).

The game just escalated from there. Eastern jumped out to a 14-0 lead with Genyk jumping around on the sidelines yelling across the field at Butch Jones, pointing up to the pressbox where the administration was sitting after each score, it was the guy's last game and he was going to go out with no bullets left in the gun. The game see-sawed back and forth with Central scoring just before the end of the half to make the score 42-35. There was about 4 seconds on the clock so CMU still had to kick off one last time to end the half. 4 seconds is a long time for a lot to happen and a lot happened. Central's kicker got jacked by an EMU player and the next thing you know there was some pushing and shoving and other random nonsense that resulted in two personal foul penalties against Eastern. This confused me because I saw one Eastern player at the bottom of a Central Michigan tap dance contest at one point during the fracas. Eastern would kick off from their own 7 and a half yard line to start off the second half because of the lack of throwing a flag on CMU...the MAC's favorite team in the world.

The second half of the game was slightly less insane. It came down to back to back fourth down stops for Eastern to win the game. Eastern wins 56-52 and Jeff Genyk rides off into the sunset with a 4-1 record against Central Michigan. Four wins against the best team in the MAC in five seasons is pretty damn impressive. As for the rest of the games....anyways, the EMU players gave Genyk a deserved Gatorade bath and ran onto the field to celebrate with the Michigan MAC Trophy (which, in typical EMU fashion, broke mid celebration...awesome). Of course, during the celebration there was one more brief scuffle with a few players from each side but cooler heads prevailed and CMU hopped on the bus to wonder if they will still get a bowl bid after losing to lowly Eastern Michigan.

To wrap this game up, Andy Schmitt completed a D1 (I refuse to call it the FBS) record 58 passes, an EMU record 516 yards, had 6 total TDs and was named today as the NCAA Player of the week. Tyler Jones celebrated his last game with 23 catches which tied the D1 record and broke the EMU record. In the last two games, Schmitt threw over 150 times and threw exactly 1 interception (a fluky tipped pass against CMU), also he threw for over 1000 yards in two games, and was only sacked twice in the process which is a huge testament to the offensive line. Jones totaled 40 catches in two games which is freakin amazing. As for all of the extra curriculars...c'mon folks, it takes two to tango and both teams were in the wrong. Am I ashamed of anyone from either team for what they did or said? Hell no I'm not. That is what college football is all about and it all resulted in a great football game between two now bitter rivals. Next year's game is going to be pretty violent, let's just leave it at that.

As for the coaching hunt, it is expected that there will be a few interviews this week for the job, Corwin Brown is added to the list of candidates. Right now my top four (of people given to me by sources) is Fred Jackson, Scott Loeffler, Erik Campbell, and Corwin Brown. See any kind of a resemblance? Yeah, all Michigan guys. I'll keep you posted when I hear more about the hunt.

Oh and since the EMU Athletics website won't allow me to copy their pictures, here's a picture of the official hot chick of Tobacco Juice Sports, Elisha Cuthbert.

News From The Underground

The rumor mill is churning up some good stuff and here's what I've heard so far in regards to the Eastern Michigan opening...


My first choice, Ron English, is out. He is rumored to be pursuing the San Diego State job and with the weather here (and lack of indoor practice facility in Ypsilanti) I don't blame him. That and he's from Cali anyway so that's the end of the Ron English idea.



From what I've heard there is mutual disinterest between the university and Wayne State Coach Paul Winters.

My very close to the program source has told me that it is most likely going to be Michigan Running Backs coach Fred Jackson. Fred Jackson is known for being a tremendous recruiter and great position coach. He was promoted to offensive coordinator in 95 and held that post for two seasons so he at least knows how to call a game (JG was never a coordinator at any level and could most of the time be seen on the sidelines without as much as a piece of paper, let alone a call sheet). He's been at Michigan since the Gary Moeller years, and was also a graduate assistant there, getting his masters from The U in 1975. The Fred Jackson bio can be found here.


On the whole, I think Fred Jackson would be a good hire for Eastern Michigan. As I've said, he's a great recruiter and has coached some of the best backs in Michigan history (Perry, Thomas, Biakabutuka, Hart, the list goes on). Having coached at one of the greatest football programs for so long gives him the type of coaching pedigree that we need to see here at Eastern.


Now...IF I'm wrong...there are more candidates to still talk about...


Scott Loeffler, Michigan guy, currently coaching the quarterbacks for the Detroit Lions so he'll probably need a job pretty soon.


Stan Parrish is still on the board but falling slightly with the Fred Jackson talk.


Chuck Martin is still on the board as well but he's taken the seat as the "probably not" guy.


If it is in fact going to be Jackson, you can expect an official announcement from EMU as early as Monday.


That's all for me today as Masten and the boys are all back in town and since tonight is the biggest bar night of the year (next to my personal favorite, St. Patrick's Day) we will be hammering down some brews, shots, and gin and tonics starting in about 5 minutes or so. Be safe out there and enjoy your Thanksgiving. We really do have a lot to be thankful for...like the Lions not being blacked out.

Turn the Page...

As I mentioned briefly this morning, Eastern Michigan Head Football Coach Jeff Genyk was fired this morning. I promised you more info, insight, and closure, so here you go...

Eastern Michigan has long been considered an underachieving athletic program, especially on the football field. Always a team with some good players but never able to really put it all together. Things were supposed to change when Genyk got the job in 2004. The record on the field didn't change. The stands didn't fill up. The glory of the 1987 Championship team (yes, it's been 21 seasons since a MAC Football title) didn't return. Things on the field just kind of stayed the same. However, there was one main accomplishment you can attribute to the Genyk reign in Ypsilanti. The culture of EMU Football changed. Genyk took over a program that was a joke off the field and turned it into something respectable. I could go into APR points and all that nonsense but instead I will put it into better, more understandable terms. Genyk took over a drug team with a football problem and turned it into something the university could be proud of off the field. Instead of recruiting thugs from junior colleges, Genyk and his staff recruited good kids who could play football and wouldn't embarrass the program off the field. They've done such a good job of this that I can go through the entire roster and not find a true bad kid in the bunch and you have to credit the man for that. Not only did he recruit good kids but he recruited great support. He organized the Eastern Gridiron Group (an idea stolen from his days at Northwestern, a great idea) that features well to do alumni and their friends who did a great job of raising money for the program, something that just didn't happen before at Eastern. To say that Jeff Genyk left the program better than it was when he got here would be a gigantic understatement. It's because of that, that you can call his reign at Eastern a success.

There's your obituary. Now to turn the page...

Where do we go from here? Well, now we have to bring in another stand up guy who can translate a group of "good kids" into a successful football team. Former Michigan coach Lloyd Carr has been called on to be an unpaid adviser to Eastern for the hiring process so I would have to say that the next head coach at Eastern will have some Washtenaw county ties. By that I mean it's gonna be someone who coached at or against Michigan and knows Coach Carr.

One name that comes to mind is Louisville Defensive Coordinator Ron English. If I am making the hire, I go after English with everything I have. The only problem is, who would leave a big time program like Louisville who plays in front of 50,000 fans a game in the Big East on ESPN every other week, for a program like Eastern that routinely plays in front of about 5,000 on a GREAT day (we play Central on Friday, the day after Thanksgiving and I'm expecting MAYBE 500 people to be there) and sometimes accidentally finds themselves on TV. I'm hoping that Ron English would like to be a head coach and would take a pay cut (probably, I can't back that up) and take on the task of turning this program into something that people would actually like to come and watch. English is for sure my first choice but I'm not on the hiring committee.

Another name of course would be Grand Valley State Head Coach Chuck Martin. Martin reportedly really wanted the Northern Illinois job last year after Joe Novak retired from his post but obviously didn't get it. This of course means that Martin wants to move up and move on from his horribly successful GVSU team, which will probably win ANOTHER National Championship in a couple of weeks. Martin inherited a great team after Brian Kelly left for Central and was getting a serious look from the CMU administration when Kelly bolted for Cincy a couple of years ago. Martin would be a good choice because he has been a defensive coordinator and is now in charge of the high octane offensive attack at GVSU, so he's called the plays on both sides of the ball with great success. I don't know about his ability to turn a struggling program around, because he hasn't really had to. However, his championship pedigree alone would be enough for me.

With English being the longshot but best choice, I would also consider taking a long look at Ball State offensive coordinator Stan Parrish who himself has been a successful head coach in the past after reviving the Marshall program a few years after the tragedy. And if you look at Ball State and what they've done on offense for the past couple years, you would see that he knows what he's doing and knows how to turn a program around. Ball State was a laughing stock not four years ago, now they're the toast of the MAC and undefeated this season. Parrish would be a good choice.

There are people on the internets (namely the mlive.com forum, which I read but never post on) who have been clamoring for the hiring of Wayne State Head Coach Paul Winters. Although I really appreciate what he's done at Wayne State, I can't help but think he would be the wrong hire for this situation. He's won the GLIAC coach of the year 2 out of the past 3 seasons and was a running backs coach and offensive coordinator at Akron from 1994-2003. He's taken a dead program at Wayne State and turned them into a very competitive team in arguably the best D II conference in America so he knows how to rebuild. I can't put my finger on it, but I just don't see him as being the answer at EMU.

Fred Jackson, the running backs coach at Michigan has been with Carr for years and since Coach Carr is an advisor to this process, you would have to think that Coach Jackson would at least get a look. Jackson is known for being an outstanding recruiter but I can't tell you if being a great recruiter translates into being a great head coach.

Tyrone Willingham...yeah right, not gonna happen.

One last sleeper pick I have to bring up would have to be Jay Paterno. Yes, THAT Paterno. Jay has to know that when the legend that is his father Joe Paterno retires, he's not going to get the Penn State job. He's been mentioned on a few rumor sites as being interested in the Toledo job so why not just kind of re-route him 50 miles or so north to Ypsilanti? Why would he fit here? I don't know, in fact he might not fit at all but with a name like Paterno...he's gotta know something about the game? I mean, even the Bowden boys took over struggling programs and turned them around, maybe Paterno could do the same thing. I highly doubt he even looks once at EMU but still, you never know.

I've heard from sources near the program that this is going to be a quick search and that the EMU athletic department, teamed with Coach Carr, has a short list of candidates already. I of course will keep everyone updated as much as I can.

It's a sad day, but it's also a good day. The Genyk chapter is over, it's time to turn the page to the next one.

By the way...Central Michigan comes to Ypsilanti on Friday at noon. Tickets are free. In fact, I don't even think there's gonna be people at the gates. Bring your booze and wear warm clothes.

Genyk Out at Eastern

Eastern Michigan Head Football Coach Jeff Genyk was fired this morning. More details and obituary later.

Ann Arbor News story here.

If I Could Write a Letter To...Tag Team Edition!

Our other contributor here at Tobacco Juice Sports, Sarahvan, decided to help out today with the letters. She's the one in italics...because italics looks girly and well...she's a girl.



Dear Michigan Football,
Welcome to the world of mediocrity! 6-6 doesn’t sound too bad about now does it? Look on the bright side, now you can just focus on recruiting instead of preparing for that pesky bowl game.
Love,
Indiana, Illinois, Arizona, Iowa, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Syracuse, etc…. and the MAC

Dear Tom Amstutz,
Congrats big boy. Way to figure out a way to get your money with even less responsibility. Honestly, how much did you really do? You wouldn’t even walk to the press conference after a football game. Made the reporters come to you in front of the locker room. Because walking 60 yards in the other direction would just be too much to ask from you. Yeah, you beat Michigan…but so has everyone else. You talked about how you wanted to just stare at the scoreboard after the game. But were you really looking at that or mustering up the energy to make the trek through the tunnel? And come on, you had a guy catch 20 passes in that game…Not something that happens every day. You were lucky at the Big House. So now you are “reassigned” within the Toledo athletic department. Yeah, the alumni office. So you will just be asking people to donate money…while reminding them that YOU beat Michigan in the Big House. But I guess I shouldn’t be mad about all this…I should really be commending you on beating the system here. No messy divorce…both sides wanted out. Now, if you could do me a favor and give someone else a call about leaving gracefully. Here is the number 734-…..
Yours Truly, Sarah

Dear Undecided Voters,
Hi there. Sorry to pull you away from all that meth you’re cooking or World of Warcraft you’re playing but I just wanted to remind you that tomorrow is the day we as Americans vote for president, senators, local stuff, you know, we make democracy work tomorrow. For some reason, you’ve been in a shell for the last ohhh…9 months to a year and have no idea what is going on with any of the candidates. To boil it down into simple terms for you, we’ve got the white dude, and the black dude running against each other for President. The white dude is pretty cool but he’s really old and probably not make it through a 4 year term (yes the president is president for 4 years and if he’s good he gets another 4) but that wouldn’t be too bad considering that his running mate is pretty hot. Yeah, she’s a girl. You know what a girl is right Warcraft guy? The black dude is pretty cool too but he had this thing where his pastor was a total wackjob and that scared some people off, but he was born in Hawaii so that’s better than nothing right? Either way, since you’re an undecided voter and you haven’t read or heard anything about anyone in any election, do us all a favor…just stay home. Cook your meth, play your gay little game, and act like it’s just any other day. Just try not to blow yourself up or anything in the process. Idiots.
How hard is it to read a fuckin newspaper?
Cole

Dear Bud Selig So let’s see, you get two teams in the World Series that you don’t want. Your solution is to postpone the clinching game for two days. Good one. At least you got everyone talking…even though all that talk was about your incompetency. But it was fun getting to relive the All-Star game that ended in a tie. Ah, the good old days.

Dear Allen Iverson and Joe Dumars,
Let me start this letter off by asking you both a question. You do know that both of your careers are on the line now right? Joe, listen man, growing up you were my favorite Piston, well, besides Laimbeer but you were right up there. You just traded the best thing that happened to the Pistons since you found a guy named Ben Wallace from Virginia Commonwealth. Chauncey Billups was the heart and soul of every Piston team he played on and you just sent him back to Denver for a guy who’s never won a championship and historically is not exactly considered a “Team Player.” Maybe he’s changed, I don’t know. Why not trade Rip instead? You are really taking a risk here Joe. As for you AI…welcome to Detroit! Don’t fuck it up. Honestly dude, I think you are a great player that in your younger years, was a dumbass. You can admit that can’t you? You’re what like 30 something now? In fact, I’ll tell you what, if you can drop 25 points with some dimes to Rip here and there every night and at least attempt to play hard assed defense, while not reverting to Philly AI, you’ll be my favorite Piston and you might just help win the whole damn thing this year. I mean, not that I’ll watch any of it until the playoffs anyway, but it’s still nice to read the paper and see that the Stones are still playing well. Just remember Joe and AI…if this experiment fails…well just don’t let it fail.
Sincerely,
Cole

Memo to all THOSE girls
I know that you are all sitting around right now, just bummed about the fact that Halloween is gone. Gotta wait another year now to be excused for wearing nothing out to a party and being celebrated for it. You had the costume idea like two months ago and spent way too much money on that little piece of lingerie and bunny ears…but who cares. You got drunk (while someone else paid) and had people grab your ass all night…and you felt good about yourself for that. Congrats. And then you just HAD to put those pictures up on facebook. As soon as you got home…you were still a little drunk posting them. And then, once you sobered up (of course) you went through ALL the pics to find the best one of yourself. You know, that one where your rolls aren’t so prominent. And your eyes aren’t halfway closed because you are just so hammered from all the red bull and vodka you have been slamming all night…that picture! Now crop it and put it up on facebook for the whole world to see how good you looked the other night…and just wait for all those great wall postings complimenting your outfit. Now you have to wait another year for this enjoyment again, while the rest of it will be forced to relive your Halloween until you do something along the same lines for New Years.
No Really You Look Great,
Sarah

Dear Dante Culpepper,
Seriously? What do you really have to prove by signing with the Lions? They’re what 0-9 now? You are not at all the missing link between them and a playoff berth. You MIGHT help them win A game. You have no idea the quagmire you’re setting foot in. I guarantee you that before it’s over, you’re gonna wish you stayed retired. They aren’t called the laughingstock of the league for nothing. Even you, Dante, are not good enough to save this franchise. Why you and not Drew Stanton? Is Millen secretly still calling the shots because this is something he would do.
Damnit!
Cole

Dear overzealous college sports fans,
As you sit there hitting refresh on your forum page to see if someone makes a comment to your comment, ask yourself something…What are you doing? I mean, honestly. You are basing your life, mood, habits, rituals, etc on 18-22 year old kids. These kids don’t care about you…they care about finding new ways to get more financial aid, more gear or more food. They don’t care that you just spent half your paycheck scalping tickets and paying for that parking pass for the game. They only care that they get their per diem money at the end of the game. Sure, there are a few who care about the game and how they perform, but these student athletes are only thinking about themselves. So I am here to help you realize that you need to move on…become a healthy fan. Only post on the forums 10 times a day. Stop emailing Jim Rome 47 times a day when 30 will suffice. Scale back to three blogs about your team. Maybe show up for work on time…baby steps.
Time to grow up boys,
Sarah

Dear Slutty Looking Halloween Girl,
Don’t listen to her, she has no idea what she’s talking about. I think you look great as a…you know what, it doesn’t matter what your costume is, lemme buy you a drink. So you wanna like, make out or something later?
See you on New Years, St. Patrick’s Day, 4th of July, or at random football games around the nation!
Love,
Us Guys