football

Interesting article...

http://www.gcobb.com/2010/05/02/rookie-brandon-graham-graduates-and-meets-the-president/

"As of press time, eight of the 12 draft picks remained alive. Although they have largely stuck together, the group has steadily fractured. With dehydration and hysteria setting in, Thomas Welch severely beat and nearly killed Zoltan Mesko with the butt end of the flashlight for eating the last sand cake".....

http://www.theonion.com/articles/bill-belichick-drops-off-recent-draft-picks-in-mid,17352/?ref=d

The writers at The Onion were misinformed, the Space Emperor of Space can not in fact be beaten for he does not truly exist in this dimension, his likeness merely occupies a body for the purpose of world domination. 

While researching a response on another post, I came across some interesting statistics about Michigan's 2009 season that I haven't seen posted here.

If you consider Big Ten games only:

• Our offense, while improved, still had the worst average yards-per-play in the conference (4.7 Yds/P).
• Our defense also had the worst average yards-per-play (6.0 Yds/P) in the conference.
• Our net punting led the Big Ten (42.2 Yds/P). The league average was somewhere around 37 Yds/P, and we punted 5 times per game.
• We were the least penalized team in the league last year, losing an average of 34.1 yards per game. In net, we lost an average of 13.4 yards per game last year less than our opponents.
• Our turnover margin was last in the Big Ten by 0.74 turnovers per game, a huge amount.

My own analysis:

• Much of the perception of our improved offense comes from our performances against ND and our patsies. (I'm not going to address if ND is a patsy!) Our offense was still very bad in Big Ten play, but hopefully that changes with Molk back, running backs healthy, O-line developing further, and quarterback play improved.
• We probably lost our three best players (Graham, Brown, and Warren) on the Big Ten's worst defense. The growth on that side of the ball will be critical.
• Mesko was a huge weapon for us and helped alleviate our yardage disadvantages on both sides of the ball (perhaps 25 yards per game). Even if Will Hagerup is an average Big Ten punter his freshman year, we will be losing all that hidden yardage.
• Like Mesko, penalties were another hidden advantage for us. I've never read anything about Rodriguez's teams being particularly well-disciplined, but 13.4 yards per game helps.
• Turnovers were bad again, and let us pray for a regression to the mean.

http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/stats/2009-2010/confonly.html

per ESPN:

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/21941/big-ten-post-spring-power-rankings-2

#7 and behind NW?

Wha??

EDIT:

Disclaimer: The Rittenberg poll is meaningless. I realize this, you realize this, and we all know it to be true. But, you know, it's Monday so let's talk about it. k bye

I am just finishing up reading War as They Knew It: Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, and America in a time of Unrest, and I can't help but wonder what the hell happened to Rosenberg. His book is phenomenal. The minute details, the descriptions of both coaches. Everything about this book screams that he is an outstanding writer, but he chooses to not employ his talents anymore. Did this change solely when Rodriguez was hired? Or was it something else?

Anyway, I am substitute teaching today and don't have to teach a class until 11:30, so discussion about the book is also welcome. The book is excellent if you haven't read it yet.

3 of the 5 roundtable members selected the Michigan-UConn game as the opener they are most interested in seeing (free content)

http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1080163