Sadly, as the old axiom: offense sells tickets, defense wins championships; applies here. You’d think that sports journalists would appreciate impressive efforts on either side of the ball, but apparently when that defensive effort is in the Big 10 it’s “boring” (or insert another clever description).

To echo Estrada’s words, defense wins games. Sorry this wasn’t like the National Championship between USC and Texas where ever trip down the field resulted in a touchdown. That, to me, is boring. Watching a slugfest where you don’t know until the last seconds tick off the clock in the 4th quarter who’s going to win- that is an exciting, interesting game. And far from boring.

in connection with my beloved Lions (and by extension, likening last week’s game to the hell that was Ypres, Passchaendale, the Somme and Verdun…for much of the game I was in a slight case of ‘shell-shock’). It certainly seemed like the Mark Rubin was going ‘over the top’ in the best tradition of the West Country Yeomanry and the D-lin was slogging away in the hold-heavy trenches. It is always difficult though, to reference warfare in connection with football even though the terminology and nature of the sport lends itself so easily to the field of combat. I used some Churchill quotes after the Fall of France in reference to the “monstrous tyranny” I believed Michigan football was and was pilloried by some as the next Kellen Winslow. But in a sport where hyperbole is tossed around as casually as a ball is in a Switzer’s Sooner team, I see no problem. Here’s a little something for the Hawkeyes week after next, adapted from Lt. Col. John McCrae’s equally tragic work on the Great War….

                            “In Kinnick’s Fields the poppy’s blow
                             Between the Hawkeyes row on row
                             That mark the progess, as if by blade
                             The rampaging Lion’s defense made”
                             

Often, to begin our conference calls on an unnamed fall campaign, we begin by listing our “happies” and “crappies”: the good and bad things that happened that week.

In that spirit, my “Happy” goes to LawBuckeye, who as usual astutely reveals a deep understanding of the game of football and a deeper passion for its true heritage. Let’s not forget, the game was invented in the fields of Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. I can think of no two teams with stronger claims to having played a football game in the truest sense than Ohio State and Penn State a fortnight ago.

The “Crappy” goes to Bleed Blue ‘n White. Just as football purists will offer you strong defenses of “Tresselball” (focus on defense and field position), baseball purists will extol the virtue “smallball”: timely hitting, sound pitching, and defense, defense, defense. The steroid era’s inflated numbers only prove the point, and the game is better for attempting a return to its roots.

 If you want to pick on a sport for being dumbed down to pure offense, direct your ire to LeBron James and the NBA.