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.