Friday night was pretty much a wash since I had a lot of house cleaning to do before people could come over on Saturday for Marktoberfest. Some of the usual crew headed out to Royal Oak to see the
Killer Flamingos, the band that Paul is now actively stalking. Well, as active as Paul can be with anything anyway. Jen came over and offered to help with anything I needed as far as the cleaning was concerned, but I was just happy to have her to talk to as I went about the house wondering how certain things got in certain places. She crashed pretty early and I went out to Farmer Jack at about 1am and spent an hour there returning bottles and buying Red Bull while wearing my ultra fabulous 'With a shirt like this who needs pants?' T-shirt and some mesh shorts to match. About an hour after that I was in bed and ready for a long Saturday.
Saturday morning came very fast as Jen's alarm went off about 9:30. She set it just early enough to get up and get online/on the phone to make sure she got
Bon Jovi tix when they went on sale at 10:00. I of course offered to help and volunteered to be on the computer as opposed to the phone. In the end she got tix to the show, but not nearly as good as she had hoped for. After that was the final tidy up duties inside the house and some yard work for the outside.
While I was putting the finishing touches on the party prep I
watched
Michigan beat Michigan State 34-31 in OT. It was a game that as a fan you just couldn't stop watching because either team could have come up with a big play at any time. After Michigan jumped out to a lead early the Spartans fought back to within a FG by halftime. Michigan received the ball to start the second half and gave it to MSU with a Chad Henne interception on the 3rd play from scrimmage, just 17 yards away fromt the end zone.
UM's defense hung tough and forced a FG after three plays. Those would be the only offensive points for Sparty in the second half. After that both teams played a field position game to start the 3rd quarter until MSU put together a nearly perfect drive that ate up a good portion of the 3rd and spilled over into the 4th. Precision passing, great play calling and execution took them from their own 5 to the UM 6 yard line where John Goss missed a FG that was barely longer than an extra point. To put it better, a kick that I would have had a good chance at making, and I haven't kicked a ball in more than 10 years.
On the very next play Mike Hart took off on a 64 yard run to the MSU 16. Four plays later he ran it in from the 1 on a great stretching dive. Michigan's defense held Sparty to a 3 and out, then continued to roll down the field churning out 40 yards on 8
plays. The ninth play of the drive Henne dropped back to pass and was hit as his arm was coming forward with the ball still in it. The play was ruled a fumble and some random slow DL from MSU picked it up and ran it back 75 yards for a TD with not much pursuit from the Michigan players, just that squirrel tail looking hair he had sticking out of the back of his helmet. So now instead of holding a 10 point lead with about 6:00 left in the game, Michigan was now looking at a tied ball game with the Sparty stands going wild.
Michigan put together another nice drive eating up about 5 minutes and moving the ball 50 yards down to the ten where Garrett Rivas missed a 26 yarder with less than a minute left in regulation. Into OT where MSU got the ball first and moved it 4 yards before Goss got to blow another FG attempt, this time at least from 38 yards away. Michigan's follow up possession covered 7 yards in two plays before Rivas kicked the game winner from 35 yards out, and the house went wild!
Sunday was just a lazy football day and we went out to watch a bunch of games. The Lions lost, the Redskins won, and my fantasy team did poorly once again. Even with the loss the now 1-2 Lions still hold a share of first place in the NFC North. What a great division huh? Green Bay has a chance to grab their share of the division lead tonight if they can tally their first win. How sad is it that an 0-3 team can tie for the division lead with a win?
Our defense looked pretty good against Tampa with Teddy Lehman grabbing a nice INT in his first game back, but our offense looked bad again. How sad is it that I keep telling myself that this offense will soon show us all something with the 4 early first round draft picks that are out there, as well as the high 2nd round RB who gained all those yards in the second half of last season? It could be worse. I could still have season tickets.
Deion used to. The Ravens D took notice and got a little chippy with the Lions players who did not back down. Then after punching in the score following the reviewed and upheld fumble call, Jones aimed his dance moves at another Ravens defender. This time it was Ray Lewis. Then the Ravens D started to play a little dirty, as a former linebacker I feel horrible for saying that, which I am sure the Lions pointed out to the refs who began flagging the visitors for anything outside the letter of the rulebook.
