lolbuckeyes

Legacy. This is up there with having Denard sign your head or wearing a Tom Hammond tie to school:

That is MGoUser11's artist's impression of OSU "legacy*" jerseys and it is spectacular. Must be nice to have Halloween taken care of for the rest of your college career.

*[grumble grumble abuse of the language by marketers grumble.]

A momentous event. Ohio State's situation, already pushing known boundaries of realness, just broke through into uncharted territory with the return of Michigan ur-blogger iBlog for Cookies. Roused from a nearly two-year absence, Vijay lays out the case for trouble:

the OSU fan belief that the school's compliance department is top notch is non-starter at this point. We have found out that they weren't monitoring athlete's vehicles, that they never really investigated Terrelle Pryor's loaner cars, that they never looked into Aaron Kniffin's relationships with players, that they never acted on information about Dennis Talbott, et al. …

The second line of defense, that this is all about Jim Tressel and 5 players, is also a non-starter, as this now appears to involve the compliance office and at least one assistant coach (one of the people who was notified directly about NCAA violations involving Talbott in 2009).

A third line of defense, or deflection, is the belief of some Ohio State fans that no program could withstand the scrutiny they have been subjected to without such problems surfacing. But a widely believed to be extremely corrupt Southern Cal program was subjected to just such scrutiny, and 3 major violations were found (2 involving Reggie Bush, one involving basketball player OJ Mayo). Michigan faced a hostile local media that first spent months investigating the academics of our football program (and found no academic fraud, no eligibility problems and no NCAA violations), and then our practice habits. Combined with the scrutiny of the NCAA, they turned up evidence of practices that ran 15 minutes over and of Quality Control assistant coaches exceeding their allowed job descriptions.

No scandals. No players suspended. No coaches forced to resign. No covers of Sports Illustrated.

There is plenty more; IBFC's strength was always laying out the facts in pursuit of a conclusion inescapable by the end of the post.

yeah, this is happening for free

Oh and that Talbott thing. So when it came about that Pryor was playing golf with the memorabilia dude I was kind of like "bah, who cares," but out of that story comes this image:

As gifts go, walking into your young son's birthday party in Columbus, Ohio, with the star quarterback of the Ohio State football team and a linebacker is the stuff of dreams. Getting that quarterback, Terrelle Pryor, at the birthday party two years in a row with a teammate seems almost incomprehensible.

Yet there was Pryor in successive December parties with different teammates for Dennis J. Talbott's son -- sights that left even partygoers wondering about what they were seeing.

"We all thought it was crazy," said one 2010 partygoer who spoke to ESPN's "Outside the Lines" on the condition of anonymity. "It was a Saturday night, and I remember sitting there watching them watch the SEC championship game [on TV]."

Terrelle Pryor. At a kid's birthday party. With some guy who drives around in a car with a "TPRYOR" license plate. Eating cake. Playing pin the tail on the donkey. Signing stuff. Listening to the Wiggles.

That in and of itself is iron-clad proof Talbott (not either of those Talbotts) was paying Pryor. Terrelle Pryor does not go to children's birthday parties for free. If anything, the 40k cited by ESPN is low. Terrelle Pryor wearing a festive hat is only happening for low six digits. That's the price—children's birthday parties are awful.

The rest of that OTL story is the usual tale of a creepy middle-aged guy who couldn't stay enrolled at OSU with massive tax debt ingratiating himself with Ohio State football players thanks to nothing more than a sizeable quantity of derring-do (according to him) and fat stacks of cash (according to everyone else). This one has some added flair: Talbott once told the Plain Dealer he'd spent five years in the minors as pitching prospect, and a business rival actually fired this quote off:

"I have been waiting 20 years for somebody to get him," Godwin said of Talbott. "I am a born-again Christian and wish no ill will. I just want him to stop hurting people."

As IBFC alludes to above, the way it makes OSU's situation worse is it adds another data point to the pile of Buckeye compliance aintgiveadamn and implicates another OSU coach, the unnamed assistant who concerned golf club employees talked to about Pryor's free rounds. If you want the whole picture I'll again refer you to IBFC but it's even harder to see OSU not getting the hammer after the latest bit.

This isn't even hard for reporters. They are heading down to Columbus and people are falling out of helicopters screaming about NCAA violations. They must feel like a guy who sits down at a poker table with a 20 grand minimum buy-in and finds the rest of the table arguing about whether a flush beats a straight. When the Free Press launched the Jihad they had to resort to misrepresenting stuff freshmen said and anonymous quotes from people who had no idea what the rules were, and follow-up stories were nonexistent. This is a feeding frenzy.

[RANDOM AWESOME COMMENT ON PLAIN DEALER STORY:

blah, blah, blah. If the rules are so utterly ridiculous and are ignored by almost everyone, then when you investigate any successful organization you will find minor errors. YOu act like Tressel is the devil or something. He was not actively endorsing this type of activity but you want to feed him to the wolves just the same. How do you follow him around a golf course even if you do know who he is playing with is an evil type? He does have to coach all the other kids plus teach classes, run practices, and I am sure many other things. I am sure he would have been awake 24/7 he would have dealt with it. Just stop making a hard working, successful American out to be something that is not warranted.

/end]

Jersey take. I retweeted some guy who mentioned that Adidas's stripe fetish made it awfully convenient that Michigan deployed "legacy" jerseys that looked nothing like anything anyone has ever worn at M but did have stripes out the wazoo. (Also stripey: the Big Chill jersey, but at least that had a breathtakingly ugly historical precedent.) Another guy said "give it a rest," so maybe this is a played out topic. The other option is the guy doesn't know how twitter works—who's following who, buddy?

In any case, the HSR has a structurally ambivalent take. The thing that worries me:

Pro: It's just one game.

Con: Unless the jerseys sell like crazy, in which case it becomes another jersey next year, and so on and so forth. I wonder if in 2012, it will be a retro Schembechler era white jersey for the game at Notre Dame or the game against Alabama.

Pro: Wait, that would be cool.

Con: Yeah, that's the problem. You let your guard down on one thing, and the next thing you know, maize jerseys.

Why would this stop? Ohio State is doing this pro combat thing every year now, and always for the Michigan game. We've taken the first step down a slippery clownslope. "It's not that bad" is the first move towards Idiocracy Stadium.

If only people made rational decisions. The Bylaw Blog suggests the Big Ten get even more militantly anti-oversigning in their own conference so they can tell recruits they won't get cut:

This disconnect between theory and practice is better legislated at the conference level. Far from ensuring the SEC maintains a competitive advantage, it offers a chance for conferences to create their own competitive advantages. While some may call it negative recruiting, there’s nothing morally wrong or impermissible about informing prospects and their parents/guardians that one conference offers more protections to student-athletes than another.

If that idea gained traction, it could turn around the race to the bottom. Imagine if conferences got creative:

• A rule that allowed for an appeal to the conference office when a scholarship is cancelled or not renewed.
• A rule requiring conference schools to renew scholarships within the first week of school, almost creating two-year scholarships.
• A rule limiting the ability of conference schools to refuse permission to contact other schools under certain conditions

If every change is quickly reduced to a national rule, there is no way for conferences to differentiate themselves.

Well, for one, competitive advantage is just one part of why oversigning is annoying/outrageous. Turning the Big Ten into the land of the ironclad offer may help swing a recruit here and there but it doesn't do much to prevent "nefarious" things from happening. For two, for every hockey player who picks college there are four third-round-or-worse draft picks plying their trade in the OHL, unlikely to make the NHL or access the nebulous scholarship packages offered therein (approximately a quarter of OHL players actually use any portion of those packages). Kids and families striving for the brass ring often don't make contingency plans because It Can't Happen To Them. The impact of the policies above would be minimal on the recruiting trail.

Stonum. Stonum got sentenced for his second DUI. He's won:

• two years probation
• a one-year suspended sentence
• mandatory enrollment in a "strict sobriety program"
• a condescending but justified lecture from the judge

The suspended license violation he picked up is dropped if he completes the sobriety program, which includes daily breathalyzer tests. I'd guess that if Stonum doesn't follow every letter of the court decree (he spent three days in jail last summer for not doing so) he's gone; if he does manage to not slip up before fall the ball will be in Hoke's court. He and Michael Floyd can have a chagrin-off.

Etc.: UMHoops scouts Michigan's elite camp. Red at one of those alumni things. Brian Kelly can coach a bit. I have no idea if this SBB post means anything but it's long and may mean OSU is lying about something else, or just that Brooks is confused, or that Ohio State can't figure out what's going on in their own department. Via Eleven Warriors, yes that's a sweatervest on a crucifix. Way to go, cooler poopers.

license derp

Facepalm of the last half-hour. Trey Keenan is a Texas offensive lineman with three stars, a Michigan offer, and a slightly shaky grasp of the recent past($):

Keenan admits he likes the direction that the new staff is taking the program. “I like that they’re going back to being the old Michigan and not the team that got beat by Appalachian State,” he said.

It's a good thing I set up a facepalm hotkey. Ctrl+Alt+FFFFUUU:

Dude is hardcore. Hey, look, it's the Little Brown Jug:

Just hanging out… uh… in some guy's basement on what appears to be a pool table. This would be the point at which we round up a posse and hunt down the varmit who stole our danged jug, but that would be pointless violence since some dude made a Brown Jug replica (and apparently that box) because he is hardcore. Auburn fans should try this: get some hardcore guy to make a replica of Toomer's Corner. Problem solved.

Come on, baby. Red apparently doesn't think anyone's jetting in the offseason:

Michigan coach Red Berenson said Monday he finished his postseason individual meetings with players and doesn't expect anyone to leave early for the pro ranks. The Wolverines, who advanced to the national title game, return two outstanding defensemen in junior Brandon Burlon and freshman Jon Merrill.

No quotes and frankly the Detroit News isn't an outlet that spends a lot of time on hockey, but… woo? It wouldn't be too outlandish: Merrill and Burlon are the only serious departure threats and both are Devils draftees. The Devils have a track record of leaving kids in college and have a number of D prospects a bit further along the development path than their guys at Michigan.

While it's kind of a negative that I can't think of a Michigan forward who would even think of an NHL departure at least we won't get blindsided, except of course we will.

Attention Shawn Kemp. You take any random son of an NBA star, have him commit to Michigan, and bam he's awesome:

I did not recognize Glenn “Trey” Robinson when compared to the skinny kid I watched last summer. Robinson was maybe 175 pounds soaking wet then.

Now he has a body that makes you envision a flying combo forward finishing strong on the offensive end with lock down ability defensively. Robinson did just that Friday night against Upstate. He finished at the rim, often violently, through contact.

That's the third or fourth early rave GRIII has picked up in the month or so AAU ball has been going on. In addition NBE lists Robinson at 6'8"(!), 205. Other first-hand reports like those of UMHoops think that's generous, but he's clearly bigger than he was when he committed.

(HT: UMHoops.)

Stats are bad (this time). I hate to disagree with a guy who goes back and checks out actual game film instead of talking about football players playing football, but KC Joyner has an ESPN Insider article that claims Michigan is going to have an "elite passing game"($) this year because of some shiny Denard stats that I think are silly.

Joyner splits Denard's attempts* into buckets by yardage: 11.9 YPA on throws of 11-19 yards, 16.4 YPA on throws from 20-29 yards, and 15.4 YPA on throws of more than 30 yards. These compare favorably to some guy you may have heard of:

A review of 11 of Ryan Mallett's games against SEC and bowl-level competition over the past two seasons found that the possible future first-round draft pick (and one of college football's top passers) posted an 8.2 total YPA, an 11.6 vertical YPA and a 14.6 stretch vertical YPA.

Robinson's 10 games include his three worst contests from last season with regard to passer rating (Ohio State, Michigan State, Notre Dame) and exclude his two of his three best passer rating contests (Massachusetts and Bowling Green), yet he was still able to top Mallett in all three categories.

There are a number of problems with this analysis. One: it does not account for the frequency of throws. Mallett's Hogs passed 53% percent of the time; Michigan threw on 40% of snaps. Two: Denard's throws are heavily slanted towards short stuff. The "stretch vertical" number cited by Joyner consists of just 31 attempts, which is both a sample size problem and another equilibrium issue. Three:

A large number of Denard's long touchdowns were stupidly easy because of the system that ran so much and so effectively, often with Robinson himself. You can't point to 11 completions featuring safeties going "WHAT DO I DO /explodes" and extrapolate anything approximating Mallett's production. The opportunities above simply will not exist in an under-center WCO, leaving Denard to try to do this:

I love Denard like he is a combination of my own son and Olivia Wilde but I don't think he's making throws like that. Maybe "simply will not exist" is a bit much, but the amount of pressure Denard put on opposing safeties last year—and the interceptions he threw even when given reasonable windows—prevents you from divorcing his production from his system.

I'm not saying he won't be a better QB than he was last year. I'm saying the smart bet is on a significant reduction in passer efficiency if he's operating a WCO.

*[Attempts against Michigan's Big Ten schedule, ND, and UConn. Unclear why the bowl was left out. Probably because KC Joyner doesn't like watching snuff films.]

Get this man a cereal commercial. Don't tell that to Denard, though, who says "I really like this offesne and what we're doing" in a brief TSN interview. Also:

Q: Defensive coordinator Greg Mattison says he talks a lot of trash to you. What’s going on there?

Robinson: We have that love/hate relationship. I love competing against him. Every day at practice, he says something to make you want to compete.

Q: What does he say?

Robinson: He says, ‘You can’t throw. Can’t throw.’ I know he’s teasing. I make a throw, and I’ll say something to him. Or I’ll just look over and smile at him.

Thank God for Denard—whenever you're feeling ambivalent about your connection to the program because of the Braylon Edwardses of the world just think about Denard.

Um… thanks? Believe it or not, this is Jack Nicklaus trying to say something nice about Ohio State:

"I don't know what really happened, but I'll promise you that Tressel wasn't the only one that knew what happened," Nicklaus told The Plain Dealer.

If he's right pieces of the Ohio State athletic department will be slowly descending from the troposphere for decades. (Not that he's anything other than a very famous message board poster in this department.)

Etc.: Ace relates the story of his first game at Michigan Stadium. I'd play but I can't remember which game it was because I was small. The Hero Of Tiananmen Square (AKA John Pollack, king of futile Big House preservation attempts) puts out an awful book on puns featuring many awful puns. As per usual, he misses the point entirely. You should have gone to Vermont, but at least you didn't go to Iowa State. TTB outlines the 4-3 under in parts: line, linebackers, and secondary. Forward Thinking surveys the QB landscape in the aftermath of Zeke Pike's Auburn commitment. If you didn't get enough carpet-bombing of former players who have fallen back in love with Michigan football, Mets Maize is over Avignon right now.

OHIO!

Power pellets. Denard as envisioned by BHGP:

They also envision a Pacman board with no pellets and something like 20 Hawkeyes, but they are #4 in total defense so they may  be entitled to some cockiness. Also their version of Denard is gritty.

Trick or treat. Wolverine Historian has assembled a set of trick plays over the past 20 or so years:

I'm surprised that transcontinental worked as much as it did since Michigan ran it from the same goofy formation they never ran anything else from for 20 years.

The Demensing. It is apparently happening. Kenny Demens, who you could be forgiven for thinking had the first name "TheEnigmatic," is mere days away from actually playing:

"In the last game, we played quite a few in the secondary and a few guys up front, but we didn't rotate a lot of guys at linebacker, and that's something we have to look at this week."

Rodriguez said he expects to see Kenny Demens, J.B. Fitzgerald and Mark Moundros in the mix a bit more against the Hawkeyes.

"Particularly if they have a good week in practice," Rodriguez said. "Kenny Demens in particular has had some real good practices and has shown some pretty good things when he's had an opportunity out there. So it looks like they've warranted the opportunity to see what they can do in the game."

One of these two things will happen when Demens gets on the field:

• he is obviously better than Ezeh and everyone wonders WTF is with the Michigan coaches' talent identification skills, or
• he isn't obviously better and everyone wonders WTF is with the Michigan coaches' development skills.

I'll take option one, please. If Demens can come in and be person with clue at MLB Michigan might be able to bridge this gap between the currently devastated upperclass linebacking corps and the guys who will come in this year and next without resorting to true freshmen. A novel concept, yes.

FWIW, People have been talking up Demens's abilities in run defense and criticizing his coverage. I haven't seen much either way. The reports of excellent play in the spring game didn't come from me; even when I watched the tape I didn't see much good or bad from him.

In other bits from the RR teleconference, the chance that Odoms returns this year is "slim."

Basketball recruiting pointers. Alf goes here because Dom Pointer, a 6'5" 2011 wing who is Michigan's primary target to fill their last slot in the upcoming recruiting class, is coming in this weekend. He can dunk some. According to Sam Webb he's just dropped West Virginia, a rumored favorite, and will decide between Michigan and St. John's. His parents are in one corner:

"I really, really like the staff and the people of St. John's. I was really impressed with all of them, but they are not Michigan. Me and his mama — that's how we feel. But if he really feels that strongly about St. John's, I'm not going to kill him. I'm going to be mad at him, but I've got to stand next to him. The way he made the U-turn and changed his life, what can I say? Yeah, I'm a Michigan fan. I'm Michigan all day long, but if I got a kid that made a total U-turn with his whole life, I can't criticize him about making his choice if it's St. John's."

Webb's stopped short of offering up the gut feeling that indicates a silent commitment but Michigan is in a strong position here. With Trey Burke and Carlton Brundidge in the fold Michigan would have three consensus top 100 players if Pointer committed, with two of them brushing up against the top 50 in ESPN's rankings.

FWIW, ESPN was the service highest on Tim Hardaway, Jr., and that prediction looks like it will bear fruit as early as this year. Scuttlebutt from practice suggests he might be the team's best player, which is bad for this year but may be good down the road. This could be a good team in 2012. Yeah.

THIS MAN LIVES IN A HOUSE. What a country!

This person currently has a home. They may be borrowing it, or living with their parents, or squatting like Tyler Durden in Fight Club, but there is still something between him and rain. What recession? Srsly. Find me a recession after watching a guy sing

"You can get yourself drunk//you can tailgate//you can bring your daaaaate!"

on the internet. You can't anymore. Go America. Anywhere else, even Canada, and this guy would be used in a government-sponsored human beef jerky project.

Midline AAAAAAAH.

Usual complaint about midline and lack thereof, backed by Smart Football highlight its effectiveness this weekend in the Purdue-Northwestern game, which Purdue won despite getting less than 50 yards passing from Rob Henry:

“We knew they were going to run the quarterback; how they were going to run him we had to adjust to,” Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald said. “They changed up their scheme a little bit, and were reading our tackles as opposed to our defensive ends. There were times when we fit it very well, and there were times when we didn’t.”

It's not magic or anything but one of the things that Juice Williams murdered us on (other than everything) was the midline, and using it periodically should increase the effectiveness of the running game. If it can get Dayne Crist 20-yard gains what can Denard do with it?

The thing that makes me want to run it more than anything is that it prevents teams from doing what Michigan State did. They left a defensive end in contain all day, which should be a win for your offense but Michigan's tailbacks are not very dynamic. Our Helmets Have Wings notes that after the first three drives Michigan ran zone read plays twice(!). The game situation had something to do with that, but so did that Vincent Smith third and one stuff.

Here is an opportunity to eliminate a player with an option read and get Denard in space.

Etc.: Occasional MGoPunchingBag Gregg Easterbrook describes the Oregon offense and gets it almost entirely wrong. Basketball media day happened. Rothstein wanted a nap 30 seconds in.

also everything else