Rocket Docket

End Zone: All-MAC edition

The week after Thanksgiving is unofficially known as "all-conference week," when each league in major college football unveils its list of postseason award winners and honorees. Instead of praising those who were honored for a season well done, the week usually devolves into plenty of bickering and belly-aching about who wasn't included on the list or their placement as a third or second-team performer versus a first-team honoree.

The MAC released its award winners and all-conference squads Wednesday, and without fail, the whining and critiques commenced from players, coaches, team personnel, and fans.

While this type of squabbling will never cease, because somebody is always going to have his feelings hurt when the top members of any group are distinguished, it is nonetheless the most baseless of all gripes. You'd be hard-pressed to rattle off the list of All-MAC first-team honorees from last season, or the second or third-teamers as well, so why worry about it?

If football is a team game and individual accomplishments are down-played all year, then why at the end of the season do some people care so much who was all-conference or not? I will wholeheartedly agree that the system is broken by having coaches, who live in a cocoon for nearly every waking hour of the day during the season, be the sole voting populace for the All-MAC teams.

But at the end of the day, there are a lot more important things to get worked up about than a few dozen individual accolades.

End Zone: Thanksgiving edition

As you're sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner with family and friends Thursday, the UT football team will most likely be already on the way to Ball State for Friday's regular season finale for both schools. The Rockets drew the short straw in scheduling this year, and like their other counterparts in the MAC playing on the road Friday, that means traveling on turkey day.

That doesn't mean Eric Page and the other Rockets didn't get to celebrate Thanksgiving this year, though. Page still got to feast on stuffing — his turkey day favorite — and all the other fixins' Wednesday at his mom's house with family and a few of his teammates. Coach Tim Beckman conducted a morning practice Wednesday, then allowed his players to head home if they lived close by. He also encouraged the local players to take some teammates with them so that they could get a home-cooked meal on a day when nobody should be left behind and forced to have a cheeseburger alone in his dorm room.

The Rockets also celebrated Thanksgiving as a team Tuesday night, and even in this rollercoaster season, they still had plenty to be thankful for. They'll have even more if Northern Illinois slips up against Eastern Michigan on Friday, which would allow UT to sneak into the conference championship game.

"I'm thankful for being the head football coach of the Toledo Rockets, first and foremost," Beckman said. "I have great health and a great family and very, very thankful for all that." Cheers to that.

End Zone: 11-17-11

Imagine yourself as a 19-year-old college football player. Tuesday night, you’re on the field for the highest scoring contest in conference history, and even better, your team wins its final home game of the year.

As you and your teammates run over to the south end of the stadium to strike up the band and celebrate the victory that makes you bowl eligible, the clock strikes 12:20 a.m. By the time you leave the locker room, it’s already 1:15 a.m.

And then reality sets in. You and 19 of your teammates have an 8 a.m. class in less than seven hours. To make matters worse, you have an important exam to take. All that studying you did earlier in the day and Monday night at the team hotel seems ages ago.

At 7:15 a.m., the alarm goes off. You’re still dead tired and very sore, so you decide to hit the snooze button a couple times. Finally, you roll out of bed, just in time to throw on a fresh T-shirt and sweatpants, dash off to University Hall and find your coach waiting for you as you walk into your lecture hall.

You made it, but you were five minutes late. So now you’re faced with a disciplinary meeting with the strength coach Thursday.

Man, you wonder: Everybody seems to love these weeknight conference games. Recruits and fans across the country get to watch you on national TV. Your school and conference get nice chunks of cash and exposure.

But you’re the one paying the price.

End Zone: 11-10-11

Four years ago while I was in Orlando covering Michigan before the Capital One Bowl, somebody asked coach Lloyd Carr what he thought about Purdue's 51-48 win over Central Michigan in the Motor City Bowl the previous night. "That was a great game," Carr remarked, "[but] that's not football. That's a basketball game."

Not sure what Carr would think of Toledo's 66-63 victory over Western Michigan on Tuesday, or the Rockets' 63-60 loss to Northern Illinois last week, but I'll go ahead and answer it for him. That's definitely not football.

I'm sure there are TV viewers out there who enjoy those types of games, and ESPN almost assuredly does with the opportunity to line its pockets with extra cash from the countless extra commercials. But I can't imagine the few people left in the seats at the Glass Bowl when it was all over enjoyed the marathon game that lasted four hours, 16 minutes, and didn't end until 12:18 Wednesday morning. One fan jokingly asked me if the Rockets had won with a game-winning 3-pointer, and in fact, they had — on Jeremiah Detmer's 39-yard field goal, which was the only field goal in the game, with 1:51 to play.

From top to bottom, UT should be embarrassed about giving up 126 points — all in regulation — in its last two games. A defense that surrendered just 78 points in its first four conference games has been ripped and torn to pieces. It's a good thing lowly Central Michigan is next, because I hear the Chippewas have been struggling with their jump shots.

End Zone: 11-3-11

In middle school, everybody learns about the three phases of matter — gas, liquid, solid. Tuesday night, Rocket fans got their first taste of the three phases of suffering — shock & awe, anger & frustration, rooting for your arch-rival.

Phase 1 began when the clock hit 00:00 in a 63-60 loss to Northern Illinois. When your offense puts up 60 points and doesn't turn the ball over once, your all-world receiver ties a conference record with five TD receptions, and your star running back rushes for two touchdowns in the final 11 minutes, you don't expect your team to lose.

Phase 2 started late Tuesday night, continued into the wee hours Wednesday morning, and really got rolling as Rocket fans awoke to a new reality. The Rockets no longer were unbeaten in conference play, no longer sat atop the MAC West standings and no longer controlled their own destiny. Even more troubling was coach Tim Beckman's mismanagement of the game clock on NIU's final scoring drive, opting not to use any timeouts as the Huskies allowed almost four minutes to tick away before scoring the go-ahead touchdown with 19 seconds left.

Phase 3 won't commence until next Tuesday at 8 p.m., when the hated Bowling Green Falcons host those darn Huskies. In what will be the last conceivable time NIU could lose, UT fans will have to swallow their pride, maybe even put on the only tattered piece of orange apparel they own, and hope the Falcons can knock off the Huskies.

Oh, the horror.

End Zone: 10-27-11

This next two-week stretch for Toledo has been billed since the preseason as the make-or-break portion of the Rockets' schedule. Tuesday's matchup with Northern Illinois at the Glass Bowl will go a long way in deciding which team clinches the MAC West Division title. The second part of that equation, a Nov. 8 showdown with Western Michigan, has lost a lot of its luster due to what has been a crazy first half to the conference season.

Perceived as the main challenger to UT earlier in the year, WMU has taken a nose dive in its last two games. The Broncos were admittedly shell-shocked after their 51-22 loss at Northern Illinois on Oct. 15 and weren't able to pick themselves up the next week at Eastern Michigan, suffering a devastating 14-10 loss. The win allowed Eastern Michigan to claim the Michigan MAC trophy for the first time since 2008 -- a shocking development in its own right.

Even Northern Illinois hasn't been immune to upsets, losing 48-41 at Central Michigan on Oct. 1 and escaping with a 31-30 victory at Buffalo last weekend thanks to the Bulls' kicker missing the game-tying extra point with 14 seconds left.

Only UT has been able to rise above the chaos in the rest of the division. The Rockets are the last remaining unbeaten team in conference play, with the primary reason for that being they haven't suffered key lapses at inopportune times.

Because nearly every other team has, the jumbled MAC West probably won't be untangled anytime soon.

End Zone: 10-20-11

A firestorm erupted last weekend when Toledo coach Tim Beckman had four of his players form an impromptu human shield behind him during his postgame news conference at Perry Stadium so that he wouldn't have to sit in front of a BGSU banner. As fans are apt to do, people turned to the message boards for both programs to vent their displeasure or support, depending on which side of the Battle of I-75 they were from.

One Falcon fan referred to Beckman as "classless" and another called the move "childish."

Many UT fans thought the outrage was trivial and wasn't something to get so worked up over.

Asked Monday whether he had heard any backlash, Beckman said he hadn't. "We just do what we do and we're very proud to be Rockets," Beckman said. "I've never done a press conference in somebody else's press area ... so I just wanted to showcase that we're Rockets and proud to be Rockets."

Two years ago after UT's loss to the Falcons, Beckman walked into the interview room underneath the east bleachers at Perry Stadium, saw the BG banner hanging behind the podium and refused to sit in front of it.

The assembled media had to instead shuffle over to a corner of the room away from the banner to get Beckman's postgame comments. Give him credit that he at least came with a plan this year.

Maybe a better plan for 2013 is to bring along a UT banner and eliminate all the hubbub.

End Zone: 10-13-11

Let me start by saying the NCAA’s initiative to remove inappropriate native American nicknames, logos, and other references associated with its member’s athletic teams has been a good thing, for the most part. The words “Fighting Sioux” and “Chief Illiniwek” don’t offend me, but I have come to understand how they could offend others. Some Native Americans view those mascots as racial stereotypes and symbols of oppression, and the NCAA wisely listened to their pleas to have them removed.

Where I draw the line, however, is the argument that the University of Toledo and Bowling Green State University need to retire a symbol of their rivalry, the Peace Pipe Trophy, because it too is offensive to Native Americans.

The Peace Pipe was first awarded to the winner of the two schools’ annual basketball game in 1948 as a goodwill gesture, because from 1935-1948, the two schools did not play each other following a riot after the 1935 football game. The tradition continued until 1969, when the six-foot-long Peace Pipe was stolen from UT. In 1980, a scaled down version of the Peace Pipe returned and sat atop a trophy awarded every year to the victors in the football rivalry.

Now, the Peace Pipe has been stolen away again, this time by the political correctness of America. To say the trophy cast Native Americans in a poor light or made of mockery of them is foolish. The only mockery here is the decision to get rid of it.

Feel free to weigh in with your own viewpoints about the Peace Pipe Trophy being retired. I'd very much welcome some differing (or concurring) opinions in the comments section below.

End Zone: 10-6-11

They say whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Well in the case of the Rockets, they were pretty much left for dead at the end of their meat-grinder nonconference schedule. What Tim Beckman and his players went through can only be described as a cannonball to the midsection, like on that crazy YouTube video.

Somehow, someway, the Rockets picked themselves up off the mat and embarrassed Temple on its home field last Saturday. Now in my third season on the UT beat, I'm not sure if I've seen a more impressive win. The Owls were coming off a very impressive 38-7 road victory over Maryland, and the Rockets spent the earlier part of last week lamenting the win that wasn't at Syracuse.

At practice last week, Beckman kept saying how much he liked the intensity of the team and he thought his players were rebounding well. That doesn't mean much until the next game rolls around, but the Rockets made good on their head coach's words by stifling the Owls' potent run game and taking advantage of four Temple turnovers in a 36-13 victory to open conference play.

To their credit, the Rockets proved they're a resilient bunch. You'd have to be after going through what they went through in the last six games, including last year's loss to FIU in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl. To that point, Beckman doesn't believe the Rockets will overlook Eastern Michigan on Saturday, because as they've discovered, nothing is guaranteed in college football.

End Zone: 9-29-11

It’s time to move on, Rocket Nation.

Yes, the blown call in Toledo’s 33-30 overtime loss at Syracuse last Saturday was a blunder of epic proportions. If it hasn’t been emblazoned on T-shirts yet, “Remember the Carrier Dome” will be stamped on the memories of UT fans for years to come. The pain, heartache, and anger are understandable too. After two weeks of getting kicked around by bigger programs and biased officials, the Rockets didn’t need another body blow.

Credit Tim Beckman and Mike O’Brien for standing up and saying enough is enough. Instead of sulking away, they stood up and fought for their players, school, and supporters. Their appeal of the final result to be vacated and a win be awarded to Toledo drew national attention.

The little guys in the world of college athletics rarely make much noise, but in this case, Beckman and O’Brien were right to challenge the establishment, even if they had little foundation for their appeal.

The NCAA rulebook is clear that once a game is final, the outcome cannot be reversed. For those that bring up Southern California’s win over Utah earlier this month, the outcome would have been the same regardless of the score change. To go back and change Syracuse’s extra-point attempt to a miss and then assume all other events would have remained the same is a shaky proposition at best. So, as tough as it is to swallow, the loss stands and it’s time to focus on the rest of the season.