100% complete insanity

67 minutes

SUMMER OF HARBAUGH PLUS FIVE MINUTE KLINSMANN RANT

Top five best Harbaugh things of the summer. Partial consensus. I give myself exactly five minutes to thunk my head about the Gold Cup, and I tell you when they start so you can fast forward if you're so mad

VINCENT SMITH!

Vincent talks Team Gardens and fall camp and tells Fred Jackson stories.

LIZ CROWE!

We have our first-ever sponsor so what do we do? We have her on for a segment that starts out ridiculous and goes down/uphill from there.

If you're around Ann Arbor you have a 50/50 chance of knowing Liz (E.T.) Crowe (t: @beerwencha2) personally, but for the other half and people not from around these parts, Liz is a best-selling, (usually sports-themed, not exactly censored) fiction author, Ann Arbor real estate agent, craft brew consultant and blogger, and mom times three. She will be backing the Podcast this year so we can keep making it, and we had her on for a special entire segment in this one as an introduction. During the season we'll have briefer bits with her.

FOOTBALL RECRUITING

Where Michigan stands and where they may go.

MUSIC

"Across 110th Street"
"Sad Penance Raps," Open Mike Eagle
"Playing Your Game, Baby", Barry White
"I'm Not Part Of Me," Cloud Nothings

THE USUAL LINKS

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link
• What's with the theme music?

"I just forgot we're allowed to pitch it because that happens so rarely, you know?"

This week we have a guest responder, Craig Ross, author of The Obscene Diaries of a Michigan Fan, and The Search for the Unified Theory (Football Version), neither of which he would actually encourage you to buy—as if that's going to stop us.

Craig also has an article about the weird as hell 1925 season in this year's HTTV, now available for pre-order in the MGoStore, and which we do encourage you to buy. Because his fan memory goes back to pre-Bump I thought he'd have a unique response from history that none of us young 'uns would have remembered, then he answered with a play we'd just as soon forget.

Special thanks to Wolverine Historian for making most of these replies possible. Prepare thineself for some youtubes!

The Question:

Describe the weirdest play/sequence you can remember as a Michigan fan?

---------------------------------------------

The Responses:

BiSB: Personally, I find weirdness in the mundane. It's the draw play on 2nd and long, or the corner who allows a receiver a free inside release on 3rd and 2. Like snowflakes, even the most typical, nondescript plays demonstrates the chaos of our very existence. Each is unique, and each is OH MY GOD PITCH THE BALL TO BREASTON YOU ARE TYLER ECKER AND HE IS BLACK JESUS WHY IN THE NAME OF ALL THINGS HOLY DO YOU STILL HAVE THE FOOTBALL HE'S RIIIIIIGHT THEEEEEEEEERE.

Honorable mention for the Brandon Minor touchdown catch against Michigan State in 2008, when 100,000 people we all like,"uh, I'm pretty sure that's not how a pylon works, champ..."

[Hit the jump for two blocked punts in a row and people making top fives]

10/11/2014 – Michigan 18, Penn State 13 – 3-4, 1-2 Big Ten

OONTS OONTS OONTS OONTS

Songs designed for da club have one over-arching theme: tonight. Buy another drink, raise it to the sky. The OONTS OONTS commands you. Feel the beat. The beat is inside you. Tonight is going to be a good night, says the worst song ever written. The people around you accept this and so do you. Your sky-drink is empty. You are commanded to buy another. The OONTS OONTS doesn't care if you vote or do your homework or wake up tomorrow with a gremlin jackhammering at your temple. It commands you to see only what is in front of you now.

What is in front of us now is a lady named Victory. She is… well… she's a little ragged. Makeup's smeared; eyes are a little twitchy; you don't want to know the Vegas over/under on how many times she will throw up in the cab. Because she will do that, in the cab. Because there is going to be a cab.

Tonight, we go home with Victory.

-------------------------------

Michigan put it all aside. There is no one to credit here; I found out a long time ago that pushing large groups of people in a direction is impossible. To lead is to find yourself at the head of a tidal wave hoping it won't notice your tiny course corrections. The people are the direction.

And except for a third of the student section that was momentarily absent because of malice or apathy—impossible to tell—the people showed up, were as into it as can be expected of people watching two cows rub against each other threateningly, and were happy to win.

After the game a section in the south endzone unfurled a section-wide FIRE BRANDON banner; that was about right. Michigan fans have for the most part held their fire on players, held their fire for the portions of games in which Michigan can win. When things get out of hand or are just intolerably incompetent on the staff's part, they let their feelings be known. They have in fact been as good as an enormous amorphous mass of pissed-off people can be at aiming before firing.

They're still mad, because they should be. This kind of win over this kind of team is just more of the same, and the athletic director's futile gestures towards humanity are the definition of too little, too late. But tonight is tonight and tomorrow can be dealt with later.

---------------------------

Devin Gardner put it all aside. A guy who'd been moved to wide receiver because the coaching staff thought more highly of Russell Bellomy. A guy whose ribs are a fine paste after last year. A guy who got benched for Shane Morris because the coaches had lost faith in him. There is a guy to credit here.

He's going to be a footnote, now, no question. All hopes and dreams of being a towering colossus have fled. He won't have Navarre's redemption story, and unless something deeply bizarre happens he won't have an OSU win. Ten years down the road mention Devin Gardner and most Michigan fans will wince involuntarily and offer sympathy.

This is especially cruel on the heels of his predecessor. Denard was a tragic hero but he got his OSU win, his BCS bowl, and anyone still trying to be disappointed with him after what happened when he left is certifiable. Ask a Michigan fan about him in ten years and it's different. A lot different.

But that's tomorrow, and tonight the guy who's had his leadership questioned since he arrived is going full Novak on his sideline to WIN THIS FUCKING GAME. He limped out on the field because that's just what he does. Probably can't even throw right unless several different areas of his body are telling him to go to the spa immediately. Rod Gilmore's screaming that he shouldn't be in the game because Rod Gilmore is incapable of telling a head from a leg—not that we are at all surprised by this revelation—and Devin Gardner is just like I put my heart in this shit.

-----------------------

Heart only gets you so far. It gets you to a narrow win over a Penn State team starting a broken vacuum and a Teddy Roosevelt biography at guard. We appear to have a vicious all-day hangover scheduled in two weeks. But that's for tomorrow.

Tonight, we are in a cab and squinting and feeling pretty okay, because we've got something to hang on to.

Awards

DEVIN GARDNER I PUT MY HEART IN THIS SHIT POINTS OF THE WEEK.

1: Devin Gardner.
2: Dennis Norfleet.
3: Devin Gardner again.

[After THE JUMP: don't start thinking about tomorrow. Oh no we did.]

Adam Glanzman/special to MGoBlog

Human beings, and not just those associated with Michigan, are capable of extraordinary incompetence. The biggest brain fart tonight was when a guy watched Amara Darboh make a catch, take two steps, dive out of bounds, and place the ball on the ground, then “confirmed” it “incomplete.” The call on the field was malpractice; getting it wrong with the benefit of a DVR and HDTV is so staggeringly separated from reality that most fanbases will go for sinister explanations.

A Michigan Man knows better. Watching this program try to manage a clock, manage an offense, or manage a press release is the kind of thorough education in the extent of the human capacity for ineptitude that you’ve come to expect from the nation’s top public university.

“Blame the refs!” explains why Wile had to attempt a 56-yarder—which Rutgers blocked—and why Michigan had just one timeout to throw against a 1st down-and-kneel drive to end the game. It doesn’t explain why Michigan manipulated the clock to leave their opponent a comfortable 120 seconds to drive at the end of the first half. Or why they forgot they had Funchess for two quarters. Or why a heretofore deep and competent secondary gave up 404 yards to Gary Nova, overcoming a record previously held by the John L. Smith Razorbacks.

Michigan stayed in it, partly because Rutgers is Rutgers. Also because Devin Gardner laughed off two tackle attempts en route to a 19-yard 4th quarter touchdown that needs to be put to Autumn Thunder immediately. I feel awful about how this guy’s career has gone. Given the schedule from here, the Wolverines would be lucky to go 6-6 and unlikely to win four. When the team is this bad and the coaches’ meat this dead, we can check out, or just enjoy the occasional exploits of those who won’t.

People are just stupid sometimes; even Unpossible Throw God Gary Nova himself took a false start(!) this game. This will be important to remember whenever it’s time to commence  a headhunt as inevitable as the Big Ten’s empty apology. Humans are only tenuously rational creatures, and as soon as a coaching search commences, all contact with reality is lost.

9/27/2014 – Michigan 14, Minnesota 30 – 2-3, 0-1 Big Ten

Look at this photo and tell me he is not concussed, TELL ME. (Photo Credit: Leon Halip, USA TODAY) pic.twitter.com/FNR75YG2Sv

— Joshua Henschke (@JoshuaHenschke) September 28, 2014

Brady Hoke is too incompetent to be Michigan's coach. He's too incompetent to be responsible for 85 kids who might get badly hurt at any moment. Hell, he's too incompetent to run a Hooters. Do not eat the chicken at Brady Hoke Hooters. That's not chicken.

And that's the nice way to interpret the information presented to us. It's one thing when Michigan is sending out ten guys in their dinosaur punt formation, one thing when they have the country's worst offense relative to available hyped recruits two years running. It's one thing when Michigan is pretending to try by getting Devin Funchess's ankle mangled in the waning moments of a 31-0 game. These are all fireable offenses, but year-end fireable offenses.

It's another thing when the Yakety Sax chaos that has come to symbolize the Hoke regime puts one of Hoke's "115 sons" in danger, as it did Saturday.

Shane Morris had just taken a headshot from a defensive end. He momentarily lost the ability to use his limbs. There was no real reason for him to be in the game anyway, what with his 49 passing yards and air of being totally overwhelmed. And Hoke threw him out there, because he "didn't see" his quarterback stagger onto one of his offensive linemen.

Even if that implausible excuse is true, somebody did. The announcers did. Doug Nussmeier—who was desperately trying to get his quarterback to fall on the ground—did. There were 80,000 people still in the stadium looking at the quarterback, and

EVERY

GODDAMNED

ONE

OF

THEM

knew Shane Morris had just had a very bad thing happen to his brain. When he was left in, they booed vociferously. This is where we're at: the guys booing in the stands are doing so because they fear for the players' health.

This is a long, long way from the "they ain't got no heart" guys from the Rodriguez era. Booing is now the only agency you have when something reprehensible is going on in front of your face. It's gone from childish to necessary.

Brady Hoke had no idea, and even more damningly nobody on his sideline had the sense to overrule the guy who purports to be the head coach. Some guys started yelling at Russell Bellomy to get his helmet on when Gardner lost his a couple plays after entering; Bellomy tried about 50 because he never dreamed he'd go in a game again. Morris re-entered the game. Did he have a concussion?

"Shane's a pretty competitive, tough kid. Shane wanted to be the quarterback. Believe me, if he didn't want to be, he would've come to the sideline, or stayed down."

That is unacceptable. Brady Hoke should have been fired walking off the field.

-------------------------------------

Dave Brandon is too stupid to be Michigan's athletic director. After a day-long lambasting culminating in ABC's World News Tonight slamming the program, they released a breathtakingly tone-deaf statement that is a flat-out lie.

We generally never discuss the specifics of a student-athlete's medical care, but Shane Morris was removed from yesterday's game against Minnesota after further aggravating an injury to his leg that he sustained earlier in the contest

This is how Shane Morris aggravated his leg injury.

Who are you going to believe, Dave Brandon and his lawyers or your lying eyes?

It does not matter whether Morris was concussed or not. What matters is that Shane Morris showed obvious signs of a concussion immediately after taking a wicked head shot and was permitted to stay in the game, then re-entered some 90 seconds after departing, well before any serious concussion check could be completed. The NFL's process takes 8-12 minutes. The NHL requires players suspected to have sustained a concussion to be removed from the ice and taken to a quiet place for evaluation.

Michigan was flagrantly negligent about Shane Morris's safety. Period.

And then they lied about it. To your face. Because they think you're too fucking dumb to do anything about it.

Michigan's athletic department has been insulting the intelligence of their fans for years with offended statements about how they weren't really going to do the thing they said they were going to do and the thing you're mad about definitely is your fault, not theirs. That was bad enough for petty things like noodles; this is the athletic department lying to the nation about a matter of real import.

Brady Hoke is either a liar or an idiot, and my guess is both.

— SI_DougFarrar (@SI_DougFarrar) September 29, 2014

This opinion is universal outside a small corps of true believers who have inexplicable faith in the people who are just in charge of the Michigan athletic department.  Hoke has been condemned by the ESPN announcers, Deadspin, Business Insider, Yahoo, Andy Staples, Nick Baumgardner, Wojo, Bruce Feldman and Stewart Mandel, USA Today's Nicole Auerbach, CBS, CBS again, USA Today's George Schroeder and virtually every other person to offer an opinion about college football this year. Hell, a news program aimed at olds did a segment on it, just after they talked about ISIS.

The die has been cast. Until Brady Hoke and Dave Brandon are removed from this program, This Is Michigan: incompetent liars.

I can't stand by and watch this anymore.

----------------------------

This program is broken. The coach is too dumb to be in charge of other people. The athletic director is so loathed that when the remainder of the student section started to chant something after the concussion fiasco, they went with "FIRE BRANDON." Tickets go for two cokes, and that's too expensive.

Stephen Ross is defending Brandon, and I feel helpless. The thing I love most in the world has been held hostage by unacceptable people. So I'm going to do two things.

I'M NOT GOING TO THE MARYLAND GAME. (Unless Hoke and Brandon are gone.) This is going to break a home attendance streak dating back to the 1997 opener, when I was a freshman, but it's the only thing I can do to show my disgust at the state of the program. I'm not selling my ticket—not that I could sell it for anything. I am eating it. I urge you to do the same. Yeah, it sucks for the players. I am more concerned about sending a message about the program as a whole than making anyone feel bad.

#boycottmaryland

Do it for all of us. I hate it with the fury of a thousand suns, but this is the only thing we have left.

I'M RUNNING FOR REGENT IN 2016. I don't know how or with who yet, but the  board of regents is a broken institution that privately conspires to vote unanimously in favor of everything, in violation of the law. They accepted the presence of Dave Brandon; they run the worst FOIA office in the country; they are supposed to be the check on an increasingly overpaid and unaccountable administrative class at Michigan. They are failures.

Leaders and best. I still believe that. Goddammit, I do. I started the Every Three Weekly with Amol Parulekar and Mike Chu and Paul Malewitz and Michigan allowed that to happen despite it being an obviously not-great idea for them. I learned how to code; I didn't go to my discrete math class for the entire semester and that was cool; I got my brain rearranged by Stephen Kaplan in an immensely productive way. Michigan is awesome. It is awesome in spite of the people in charge of the university's front door.

I love this place, which gave me my education, livelihood, and wife. I am going to do the thing I can to try to help it.

Because this is not Michigan.

[After THE JUMP: more reasons to fire Brady Hoke.]

As a father, I suddenly find myself looking for ways to explain the world we live in and the rules that society has created. Nursery rhymes are of course a tried and true method of passing social mores on to the next generation. Since the NCAA's rulebook and enforcement practices are particularly difficult to comprehend for a young mind, I thought I would share some of these great old rhymes, each with an important lesson to teach, which have been passed down generation to generation, so our children may too come to understand what the hell the league is doing.

This kinda started on twitter.

Little Bunny Foo Foo

After several warnings to Little Bunny Foo Foo
regarding his repeated field mice violations,
the Big Fairy vacated his head bops
and put him on probation.

Kids need to learn that if you are really flaunting the rules the NCAA always has two things they can do to you: threaten to watch you really closely for any other violations you may report on yourself, and pretend things that happened didn't happen.

Also there's no conclusive evidence, despite precautionary efforts, that the head injuries sustained by the field mice will have any long-term effects.

From BiSB:

In related news, the doctor eventually tagged Mama with a Lack of Institutional Control after too many monkeys fell off the bed.

Mama of course could have avoided the LOIC if she had reported to the doctor that after an exhaustive investigation only a few isolated incidents of falling monkeys were discovered, and Dada had retired with honors for his role in covering it up.

From Zone Left:

All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again because glue is an impermissible benefit.

Humpty may, however, be entitled to a medical hardship waiver.

Jack Sprat could eat no fat,
his wife could eat no lean.
But Jack was on scholarship,
so sharing would be a secondary violation.

You see? Children learn the value of sharing, but also that it's important not to share things you get as a student-athlete. If the scholarship stipend is more than you need to live as the poorest student on campus, then the stipend can be reduced. In a similar vein:

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.
Since her son's team had a deal with the shoe's manufacturer
the NCAA investigated this.

The value to a shoe company of having great student-athletes wear their apparel while performing great athletic feats is not generated by the athletes performing the feats in the apparel. Nay, the real value here was made by people in a board room who negotiated that deal. Anybody can split two defenders and take it to the house; it takes a truly special [company to hire a] guy who can wear a suit and shake hands with another guy in a suit over their mutual affinity for the word "branding."

Big man Jack Horner
Sat in a corner
Eating a stale hotdog bun.
He thought "I'm so lucky for this year at Kentucky,
I should thank David Stern when I'm done."

Name another job besides NBA player that requires you to have 1/4th of an SEC education?

Jack be nimble
Jack be quick
Don't miss Jack's team
at New Candlestick

That's not all Bo's lost.

Jack's sixth-place in the Pac 12 school will be charged $500/night for San Francisco hotel rooms in anticipation of the Diamond Walnut Kraft Emerald Fight Hunger Bowl game versus Navy or something.

Little Bo P. has lost his D.
And doesn't know where to find them.
Just bring down a guy, and play 'em one-high
And Borges will try to run by them.

Football is stupid.

This little piggy went to Fayettville
This little piggy should have stayed home
This little piggy crashed his bike
And that exposed the piggy's goomah
So the piggies hired the guy with warm whee-whee.

Whatever they say, John L. Smith is good for college football.

Old King Cole was a Maryland soul
And a building was name for he.
But they needed a new, so they offed swim and crew,
And sold the rest out to cable TV.

The Big Ten believes it can better fulfill its academic mission by adding the Comcast Center to its footprint.

Oh where oh where has my center gone?
Oh where oh where can he be?
With his back sewn up
And his tie once on
Oh where oh where can he be?

Some violations are absolutely inexcusable. Being that one guy who tested positive for pot during the latter half of March cannot be tolerated, even though 23% of NCAA athletes just told you they use it. With such numbers, and society's rapidly relaxing views on pot, there's never going to be another chance to really screw some kid over this, so you'd better find the nicest possible kid at the most model possible program, and absolutely duke him. Then they'll really know you're serious about enforcing the rule you were about to change.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary
How do your revenues yield?
With Title IX and creative fin- 
-ancing for football's new practice field.

In a move that totally makes how much the athletic department spends on women equal to how much it spends on men's teams, the women's basketball team recently unveiled a $140 million renovation to their arena, which the fellas will also have access to so long as they ask nicely.