Forty times are bunk and this article pointed out by EDSBS makes an excellent case against them. This is what you can tell from a 40 time: whether or not he was faster than the people running on the same day as he was at the same place. If it was electronically timed.

I've never understood why the shuttle (or a modified version thereof) isn't the primary "are you fast" statistic, since routes and cuts are the essence of football, not running in a straight line really fast. But I'm just a dude, so maybe there is indeed a good reason.

Notre Dame defensive lineman Travis Liekto is academically ineligible and thus not on the ND roster. Lietko was a big time recruit... and a huge bust, but still was a decent player expected to be the third DE this year on Notre Dame's thin defensive line.

Charlie Weis took the opportunity to again confirm that he's an egomaniac:

At every university there's going to be some things that are better left unsaid. Unlike a lot of other universities who like to make everything their business, there's a lot of private matters (at ND), and it doesn't really do any good talking about it.

Jesus. Not literally, Charlie.

Though markedly inferior to mgoblog's upcoming All Big Ten teams, Athlon's version of same are worth mentioning. Michigan players found therein:

• First Team: Mike Hart, Jake Long (good on yer, Athlon!), Gabe Watson.
• Second Team: Steve Breaston, Jason Avant, Tim Massaquoi, Matt Lentz, Pat Massey, Lamarr Woodley (listed at LB), Leon Hall, Garrett Rivas, Steve Breaston (again, as PR).
• Third Team: Chad Henne.

For those that refuse to count, that's 12 players, fully half the starters if you count kickers.

Update: Doh. Forgot to point out Straight Bangin's awards dispensal for roundtable #3. Yes, I seriously doubt that "dispensal" is a word.

Well, the NHL is back, for really officially this time, and thus the articles on Montoya are coming. The NY Daily News is the first out of the gate with an article on Montoya and fellow first-rounder Hugh Jessiman:

Montoya is similarly confident in his ability to play in the NHL. In fact, coming off a heady 2003-04 that included leading the United States to the World Junior championship, Montoya conceded he found himself getting bored to the point of distraction with the college game.

He attributes part of that to not preparing adequately last summer in the aftermath of his drafting by the Rangers. Promising he'll be ready and focused no matter where he plays this season, Montoya understands there are persuasive reasons to turn pro now. One is the chance to work closely with accomplished Rangers goaltending coach Benoit Allaire. Another is the desire to get in the battle before budding Swedish star Henrik Lundqvist gets the inside track in the race to become Mike Richter's successor as the Rangers' franchise goalie.

"I know I'm ready for this level - I know that," Montoya said. "But the thing is: Is another year of college going to hurt me? I don't think so."

Michigan College Hockey thinks the last sentence bodes well, but color me unconvinced. Teams can start negotiating with unsigned draft picks this weekend. Hopefully Montoya makes a decision soon, no matter what it is. And if it's college, then, uh, Monty, try to PAY ATTENTION.

The other major departure risk is forward and captain Jeff Tambellini, who was somewhere between great and spectacular last year. INCH declares him to be one of the major flight risks in an article that is long on speculation and short on hard information. The general feeling among those close to the program is that Tambellini leaving would be a major surprise (especially if he keeps getting sweet suites at Pistons playoff games). Michigan hockey is used to 'major surprises' in the horrible, horrible offseason, though.

Also, Michigan recruits Steve Kampfer and Billy Sauer were named to the US U18 Select team. The team will play in the U18 World Cup in Slovakia and the Czech Republic in mid-August. 2007 recruit Tristin Llewellyn was named to the U17 team.

(HT: Packer487.)

Right, I've noticed that I link to about 90% of everything at iBlog For Cookies. But I have to. If you aren't reading it already I will beat you into submission with links until you do. The latest: a dissection of the previously mentioned Motown Sports Revival posts on Michigan losses. I basically agree with iBFC here. No offense to MSR but I think he's missing the forest for a few nasty trees that had an 18 point lead on Illinois. The really interesting thing to me is the lack of variance in Michigan football. The other programs in the list have all had up and down seasons; Lloyd Carr has never lost more than four games or less than two with the exception of '97. If you remove the first three years of his career, Lloyd has lost three games every year except one year of four losses and one year of two. This seems to be a macro symptom of Carr's aversion to variance.

Troy Smith is in more trouble according to The Canton Repository, though it appears to be really, really minor:

Smith attended a quarterback camp held by Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair. Smith was one of six college athletes at the charitable camp, but was the only player of the six whose university is on academic quarters rather than semesters.

If Smith missed a class to attend the camp — as is believed to be the case — he violated NCAA rules.

Smith is already out for the opener. I am willing to bet everything I own that this does not affect his status for Texas.

The bowl tie-ins got all realigned: the Big Ten has lost the Sun and Music City bowls and picked up the Citrus Jr. (mgoblog avoids corporate bowl naming at all costs) and some stupid thing called the "Insight Bowl." I don't care, because going to one of these bowls means losing to Indiana or something, and one craptastic bowl is identical to any other craptastic bowl.

An ominous sign regarding incoming freshman CB Johnny Sears can be seen on the Milford Academy's (temporary host of Marques Slocum) roster. Milford is a prep school for those who narrowly miss qualifying. Sears is listed. Nothing is official yet but obviously he is still not qualified and has at least had to make a backup plan.

USA Today somehow infiltrated the Fort to get a vague unquoted assertion from Pat Massey in an interesting article about the "voluntary" summer workouts that get less voluntary every year:

Michigan defensive tackle Mike Massey said the Wolverines were working out this summer with all their scholarship players.

Sweet Jesus! Massey said something to the media! Looks like Alan Branch is our new starting DT.

Gil Thorpe... er, Brandt is the Official NFL Draft Guru of the Official NFL Website and he says that Gabezilla is one of the top six senior prospects for next year's draft. Says Thorpe... er, Brandt:

Has great quickness and strength ... a bigger version of Dewayne Robertson (drafted fourth overall in 2003 by the New York Jets) ... this spring at the Playboy All-America weekend, I watched this young man make moves that 180-pound wide receiver would make ... .needs to play hard every down this fall and will be picked very high.

Someone please forward the last sentence to Watson one million times. Also, Jason Avant makes an appearance in the "oh and these guys too" section.

Scout is running a series of articles on freshman QB Jason Forcier's recruitment. Parts one, two, and three are up. Cloying in parts, but when GBW steps out of the way and just lets Jason's parents speak it's excellent. There is also heartwarming.

Additionally, there's an article on the Braylon-free WR corps, which will still kick ass.

Traitorous bitch!

More NCAA 2006 commentary can be found at The Blog For the Sports Gamer, which is all over it like a piece of cheese on Phil Fulmer's ice cream cone. (That one's just for you, Orson.) If only I had known about the TBFTSG in early July, because one of the three writers managed to pick the thing up like the second or something. I suggest reading the entire July Archive if you're into the scene which is teh cool for school. Strangely, one of the guys who runs the site: diehard Buckeye. Other guy: diehard Wolverine. Reminds me of that ESPN commercial. Anyway. They're rather harsh on the game (though one of them is playing Race for the Heisman which, as expected, is totally fricking retarded), though they agree that it's tons better than 2005, which I get angrier and angrier at each passing day.

Personal experience is thus: I switched to Heisman and am mostly delighted. Michigan offered me a job after I won the NC with the Wildcats, so I took it, and now have two wicked sweet 99 speed senior corners. I am now 4-0, though the only good team I played was a #15 Notre Dame squad with an absolutely crushing running back. But since I have the kickass corners I was able to play eight guys in the box and blitz all day to attempt to contain the back. He still made some plays but I held him roughly in check after he sprinted out to 100 yards midway through the second quarter. There are some issues with dumb computer AI (let's run the pitchout-throwback-to-the-QB play that lost us five yard the previous six times we ran it again!) but 2006 is currently running away with the Best Sports Game I've Ever Played title.

(Also, from Fanblogs, UW linebacker Josh Cribbs CAN'T READ MOMMA and therefore can't play.)

EDSBS: hot and bothered.

Rob in Madtown returns from a long, boring, blogging-free hiatus with a post designed to get his house firebombed: the best and worst traditions in college football. He also did a bit of Bentley digging to find tape of a Michigan game from 1903(!) shot by Thomas Edison, who invented the handlebar mustache.

For my money, the worst tradition in college football is any music at all not played by the band. The thing that makes our drunken savagery better than the pros' drunken savagery is pomp, circumstance, and tradition. Playing that goddamn "hey" song lowers us to their level. The second worst is the plastic lego chariot that Michigan State runs out on the field. The third worst is getting assaulted by Ohio State fans. No, seriously.

Pam Ward's replacement is being pondered by the accidental meme started by EDSBS: the three bizarro announcers that would cause you to watch the 1 AM start Mountain West game. EDSBS goes with Paris Hilton (chalk), Ron Zook (Gator antipathy), and Vladimir Putin (intriguing sleeper). Paul Westerdawg starts the imitation train by totally stealing Dave Chappelle from my list.

Look ma, no credibility.

mgoblog says:

1. Eric Cartman. Right, he's a cartoon, but you could get either Trey or Matt to do the voice, whoever it is. The array of bleeped out words, declarations of various players to be goddamn hippies, and incoherent screaming of "BEEFCAKE"... well, it's the closest thing you'd ever get to mgoblog: The Announcer.
2. The Iron Chef Announce! Team. Apparently I have a fetish not only for Asian women but for Asian talking. Who knew?

   Dumb-sounding guy: "This off-tackle play reminds me of my childhood in Satori Prefecture."

   Ditzy but Lithe Actress: "Yes, but it is too salty. And hot. Tee hee."

3. Stewie. All right, ANOTHER cartoon, but Stewie: The Announcer would be pure comic gold, calling everyone slackjaw layabouts and declaring "Victory is theirs!" at the end of the game. Oh the joy.

Again, not for the faint of heart, but Motown Sports Revival has another giant exegesis on Michigan's losses that's worth perusing. MSR definitely falls into the 'pissed at Lloyd' camp of Michigan fans; the conclusions he implies are harsh on the man. I think the truth of Lloyd is that he's a B+ coach. MSR seems to think he's a C at best. This will come up again, I assure you. One thing I want to take issue with right now is this:

It depends. Lloyd Carr will definitely not change. In fact, I don'Â’t see Carr admitting that there even is an issue. Surely he doesn'Â’t like to lose but I doubt he differentiates between losses to good teams and lesser teams. It'Â’s been ten years of the same stuff so I'Â’m 100% sure that Carr will not change.

I think Lloyd has changed at least somewhat. The offense fell into disrepair and Lloyd went to Malone, who has opened up Michigan's offensive style extensively. The past two year have seen very little of the 'offense nuts up on the road' phenomenon, save for the Notre Dame game last year. That game had a really, really good excuse, though: Henne in his second start and his first on the road. Underwood the starting tailback. Malone said he called a more aggressive game but Henne checked everything down, and the thing is: I believe him. I would not have believed any previous offensive coordinator. But Malone has shown a great deal of creativity in trying circumstances. I think this year, with an established offense with only one real question mark (replacing the blocking of Baas and Dudley), we'll see Malone come into his own.

The special teams disasters of the Brabbs year and the Oregon/Iowa ST disasters appear to be heading in the right direction: Michigan is making a concerted effort to recruit reliable kickers and dynamic returners. Coverage and preventing blocks still requires some work but the special teams have ceased losing games. The problem that remains is that Lloyd has stuck his fingers in two leaks in the levee but a third has sprung. His name is Jim Herrmann, who has been caught behind the times. College football is moving to something of a futuristic-retro phase where running plays use the quarterback as a threat. Herrmann has completely failed to adjust to this.

Where we differ is here: I think Carr has adapted. Witness the emergence of Michigan as a truly balanced offense that only has a few slight annoyances. Witness Zoltan The Inconceivable and Black Jesus Breaston. I have hope that he'll make the one final adjustment that needs to be made, and then we will be cooking with plastic explosives, as they say.

Update 7/18: Removed DE Patrick Rigan (MSU), QB Neil Caudle(Auburn), DT Jason Kates (ceased listing us), DT Jared Odrick (ceased listing us).

Editorial Opinion: No real surprises here. Marques Slocum getting pushed back to the 2006 class lessens the need for a DT this year, though there are still a couple of possibilities out there (KY's Aundre Henderson and Corey Peters). Caudle was expected to go to Auburn from the start. Rigan is a good pickup for MSU who may have earned an offer if he waited into his senior year. The Spartans are (mostly) holding off other Big Ten programs for the instate players that were recently going to places like Purdue.

Link here.

Okay. I think I've passed the initial addiction phase as relates to NCAA. I played it far too much this weekend, though I managed to not call my friends and tell them "screw the Wrens, I'm going to sit at home and play a video game for 48 hours straight," I was close. Damn close. By Sunday night, though, I wanted to do something else... at least temporarily.

I'm in season four of Northwestern's inexorable rise to All Everything (I generally have simmed games against loser schools like Eastern Michigan or Notre Dame that I have no chance of losing and death traps away to Michigan or Iowa that I have a 100% chance of crying after... though those get simmed no longer), and I'm somewhat pleased to report that I think with some serious slider work the game will be excellent. As it stands my running back has cracked 2,000 yards without trying particularly hard, and there are still four games left in the season. He'll probably hit 3k. This is a problem.

What is not a problem is that the games are more fun. The last one I played was a 64-61 quadruple overtime thriller against Michigan. I beat Colorado 36-35 and similarly squeaked by a not good Syracuse team. The game is way offense-happy, though: a game against a terrible UNC team ended up 73-49. I waxed Iowa 55-6. I don't think I've played a single game where one team didn't break thirty, and usually it's both. I'm #1 in offense by a wide margin and #110-something in defense.

A brief list of pros and cons, if only to prove that I am still in love with the new bullet gif.
Pros:

• The passing game is vastly improved. I've started reading safeties and linebackers and knowing when people will be open, something I tried and failed to do last year. The twelve-foot high jumps from players in coverage are gone, and pass strength and direction are critically important. When something bad happens 90% of the time the only person I can be mad at is myself. (Or the receiver for making like Agim Shabaj.)
• The running game is vastly improved. A variety of runs now work. Running backs break tackles when not taken head-on. The sprint button is a bad idea on an interior run. Spins and jukes and stiff-arms are all effective in the appropriate places.
• Controls are more coherent. X always sprints is a wonderful thing once you get used to it, especially with the quarterback. Rollouts are now workable, and escaping from pressure is a possibility. Using the right analog stick for jukes, block shedding, and hits is an excellent decision.
• Rushing the passer seems pretty realistic. The computer seems to know about blitzes beforehand, however. A favorite tactic is taking a safety who would normally be in a deep zone and blitzing him, which catches the CPU by surprise (man coverage only, please). Other than that, they struck a nice balance: I feel effective rushing the passer but not dominant.

Cons:

• Defenses are mostly impotent. I thought at first that playing eight minute quarters was distorting my stats, so I cut it to the more standard seven. Things are still out of control.
• Running is way too easy. My running back is averaging over ten yards a carry. That, as they say in the south, ain't right.
• Pass plays remain stupid. Like, say, the various "slants" plays, which send three receivers on, well, slants. If one guy is covered chances are all the rest are, too. Hot routes can fix this somewhat but on the road that's nigh impossible. I would much prefer plays that feature a variety of routes
• My tight ends are pass-dropping gits.
• Some punt returns are preordained touchdowns. Sometimes the Red Sea will just open up along a sideline. Returning is always a matter of cutting it to the outside as fast as possible.
• Bombing it downfield is too effective. The passes are just too accurate.
• "Impact players" == impact stupid. Players get ordained with superhuman powers randomly, without cause, and then make plays that totally change the game. Screw you, hippies.
• I still suck at defense.

Northwestern is 9-0 and has one hurdle (at Iowa) left before playing in the NC game. It's year four, though, which is a major improvement over past years, and I'm playing close games, again a major improvement. But recruiting is too easy and soon my team will be rife with eight-stars who kick out the jams, at which point there's only one thing left to do: make the leap to Heisman. In the past this has invariably led to swearing, controller-throwing and game-hiding. Fingers crossed.