Plenty of fight left in Wolverines as UM, OSU tied at the half

By John TaylorNov 30, 2013, 1:53 PM EDT

Ohio State came into The Game with Michigan knowing it would be in for a fight as it looked to extend it’s nation’s best winning streak and remain in BCS title contention. And a fight is exactly what the Buckeyes have gotten… literally.

Through two quarters of play, the Buckeyes and Wolverines combined for 611 yards of total offense — 308 for the former, 303 for the latter — as the bitter rivals entered halftime locked in a 21-all tie.

Braxton Miller was responsible for all three of OSU’s scores, passing for one and rushing for two more. The junior nearly hit the century mark in the first half with 82 yards rushing; teammate and leading rusher Carlos Hyde did top the century mark (115 yards on 15 carries), his second straight game with 100-plus yards.

On the other side, Devin Gardner — and a tremendous game plan from embattled coordinator Al Borges — has consistently torched a Buckeyes’ defense that has spent most of the first two quarters looking dazed and confused. Gardner passed for 238 yards on just 11 completions. He accounted for two of UM’s three first-half touchdowns.

The highlight of the first half, though, didn’t involve any type of offensive fireworks.

Early in the second quarter and at the end of a kick return, a fight that seemingly involved the entire populations of the states of Michigan and Ohio broke out. Punches were thrown, helmets were ripped off as the melee seemed to last for close to a minute. While there were offsetting penalties, the Buckeyes got the worst of it on the flag end as starting offensive lineman Marcus Hall and dynamic playmaker Dontre Wilson were ejected for throwing punches. A reserve linebacker was the only Wolverine given the boot following the fracas.

Hall’s departure did provide a PG-13 moment as the ESPN cameras caught the lineman delivering a two-handed, single-finger salute as he headed into the tunnel.

Missouri’s Albert Okwuegbunam, Oklahoma’s Grant Calcaterra lead off 2019 watch list for the Mackey Award

Getty Images

By Bryan FischerJul 19, 2019, 4:25 PM EDT

Jim Harbaugh says Michigan is close to scheduling a football game overseas

Getty Images

By Bryan FischerJul 19, 2019, 3:14 PM EDT

1 Comment

Jim Harbaugh hasn’t yet conquered the Big Ten but he sure is trying his best to plant the Michigan flag all around the globe.

Speaking to reporters at the conference’s media days on Friday, the Wolverines head coach was asked about his program playing an actual football game abroad and he indicated that plans are in the works for just that.

“Yeah, you know, we like travel. Mexico City would be great,” Harbaugh remarked. “I know you can talk about this, we’re scheduling — I think we’re really close to announcing, actually, playing another team on foreign soil. I won’t say what it is because — have you heard anything about this? Then I’d better not say it because we’re probably not ready to release that yet. But I think there’s something really imminent. There will be an announcement soon on that.”

Michigan AD Warde Manuel played coy in a subsequent message to the Detroit News and said nothing was finalized but the school may do just that at some point.

Harbaugh has already taken his team to Italy, France and South Africa for visits during the spring but this would be the first time he’s indicated something for the fall. Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany indicated he would be in favor of playing a game somewhere like Mexico City on Thursday but did not seem to suggest that anything was in the works for a game to be played south of the border in the near term.

It’s not known if the Wolverines are thinking about taking a conference or non-conference game abroad but something says they can find a willing partner from the Pac-12 if so.

Famed NCAA waiver attorney is changing sides and reportedly joining NCAA enforcement

Getty Images

By Bryan FischerJul 19, 2019, 2:30 PM EDT

1 Comment

If you can’t beat ’em, hire ’em?

Seems like that is the case this week as Yahoo! Sports says that famed attorney Thomas Mars is switching sides from battling the NCAA for player eligibility waivers and will instead join the NCAA’s new “Complex Case Unit.”

Mars recently announced that he was getting out of the business of representing players in their battles with Indianapolis to become immediately eligible. While he cited overwhelming demand as one reason for getting out of that line of work, it seems wanting to pursue other opportunities was the more notable aspect of him leaving — in this case going to work for the very people he once sat across from (albeit in a different department now).

In addition to handling high-profile cases like Michigan’s Shea Patterson and Ohio State’s Justin Fields, Mars also popped onto the college football radar for his work handling Houston Nutt’s lawsuit against Ole Miss.

The Complex Case Unit, which is not an upcoming version of Law & Order: NCAA, is something born out of the commission looking into the federal college basketball scandal. Per Yahoo!, it “is expected to be comprised of a combination of external investigators and members of the NCAA enforcement staff that is tasked to handle the more complicated and large-scale investigations of potential NCAA rules violations.”

It seems Mars is one of those external investigators who will be part of the group in an interesting move from the NCAA.

Tua Tagovailoa, nine other Tide players headline preseason All-SEC first-team

Getty Images

By Bryan FischerJul 19, 2019, 1:50 PM EDT