Dr. Green and White Sports Authority

Just in time for Halloween, this week is a good lesson that in life, some people go through life wearing a mask.  The kids on the block might be wearing a mask of Shrunken Head Bob, Beetlejuice, Catnap, Lady Deadpool, or Wolverine. Some of the old-school kids might be dressed as Prima Donnas. One of the local hoodlums might even pretend to be superman this week. I hear that Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti plans to dress as the cowardly lion this year. A lot of folks in southeast Michigan seem to be dressed as clowns, but that isn't just a Halloween thing. Sometimes those poor fools just make me laugh. In the context of college football, even though we are now 10 weeks into the season, we still don't know who some of these teams really are. For example, a team dressed in red from the south will be visiting East Lansing this week. With an 8-0 record at the end of October, it must be Alabama, or Georgia, or Ohio State, right? Who is this masked team? It turns out that the undefe...

Saturday night's 24-17 loss to the Michigan Wolverines by the Michigan State Spartans looks like a lost opportunity. If you would have told me prior to the game that the Spartans would outgain the Wolverines by 87 yards, that the Michigan State running back room would out-produce the Michigan running back room 204 yards to just 59 yards, and that the Spartans would only commit one turnover, I would have picked Michigan State to have won the game by more than two touchdowns. But that is not how it played out. Instead, the Wolverines eliminated many of the errors which have plagued their season so far, found a surprisingly competent passing game, and took advantage on some opportunistic trick plays to generate just enough offense to score 24 points. On the other side of the ball, the Spartans failed to capitalize on the opportunities that they created for themselves in a dominant first quarter and especially on the empty first drive where they lacked the brawn to punch the ball into ...

Once upon a time, in a land far removed from reality, there was an emperor, metaphorically speaking. The emperor was a proud emperor, and he his kingdom had prospered for a few years following a long drought. The emperor liked to brag to the leaders of the nearby kingdoms about the battles he had won and other amazing things that his empire had accomplished. The emperor liked to show off his jewelry, t-shirts, and other trinkets that commemorated those accomplishments. More recently, however, the emperor has been forced change a few things up. Among other things, he has a new, more airy wardrobe that he insists is invisible to those who are not truly leaders or the best. Over the last few months, his closest advisors have insisted that his new threads look amazing, despite the strange looks from his citizens and the even stranger looks for foreign dignitaries. This week, as the emperor prepares for a new battle against his closest rival city state, whispers are starting to grow louder ...

Coming into Week Eight, the fans of both of the in-state Big Ten schools were saying the same things about the bye week. Both teams were coming off at least one loss, and both teams had hope, faith, or the wish that the extra week of rest would provide the cure to want was ailing them. Wolverine fans were hoping that Jack Tuttle was going to be the answer at quarterback, the running game would continue to be explosive, and that the defense would keep them in every game. Spartan fans were hoping that Aidan Chiles would be able to cut down on mistakes, that the run game would start to get some traction, and that the defense would look better again a team not ranked in the top three. One fan base had their wishes granted on Saturday. The other watched their dreams disintegrate in front of them. In both cases, all of the signs have been there for a while, for those who have been paying close enough attention. The Wolverines have looked shaky for weeks, relying on big plays, bad calls, and ...