1925

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The Teams: 1925
Seth • August 14, 2019 • 1:58pm

2 hours and 58 minutes

Michigan historian Dr. Sap and I have started a new podcast on the lore of Michigan football. For this one we invited in author and 3,000-year-old Druid Craig Ross, who wrote about this team in HTTV 2015. We also did a segment with Bennie Oosterbaan's godson, Bennie McCready.

Previously: 1980, 1999, 1901, 1964, 1976

THE SPONSOR:

It is sponsored by HomeSure Lending. If you're buying or refinancing your home, this is the guy to talk to. He'll work on your loan directly and walk you through a process that can get really confusing really fast. I used him. Brian used him. Everyone else who used him is glad they did.

[Description, diagrams, some video after the JUMP]

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benny friedman
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Michigan All-Ancient History Team (1879-1968)
Seth •

You know those “make your all-time” lists that circulate in the offseason? Suddenly they got serious.

Previously:

This week: I’ve been leaving out pre-Nineties players because I didn’t gain consciousness until well into the Eighties. We’ll leave the Best of Bo for Sap. These are Pre-Bo. Also this one’s going to be long because a lot of these guys are probably unfamiliar to you. 

I did not run any of this past Greg Dooley, who studies this stuff, or the UM Bentley Library guys who curate it, or Craig Ross, who was alive for all of it, and I reserve the right to edit based on anything they might choose to add because they know this stuff way better than I do.

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Rules: Players are considered for how they compared to other players of their own time—a 180-pound center from a Point-a-Minute team wouldn’t survive a series versus one of Woody Hayes’s defensive lines; on the other hand Bump’s players didn’t have to worry about cholera. Pre-platooning players can be eligible for both sides of the ball.

Cutoff Point: To avoid overlap the majority of his playing time had to come before 1969. Just give Bump some credit for recruiting the excellent 1968 class.

Foul Language Warning: The faint at heart might want to skip tight end.

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Quarterback: Benny Friedman

2018-06-11 benny friedman
Kinda tough to throw a spiral with that [The Michigan History Project]

Who was Michigan’s greatest quarterback ever debatable, but this much is not: He was certainly Jewish.

I’m going with Benny Friedman over Harry Newman. Friedman was the game’s first great passer, but still more Denard Robinson than Tom Brady. Back in the day freshmen were still not allowed to play varsity, so in 1923 the Glenville (yes, a powerhouse even then) product had to resign himself to embarrassing his classmates. In 1924 Yost was Barry Alvarez-ing over his handpicked successor George Little, and Little refused to put Benny, already a campus legend, on the field. Until, that is, Michigan lost to Red Grange’s Illinois, and a furious Yost joined the campus chorus to play Friedman. The result was immediate and spectacular. After ‘24 Yost sent Little packing, inserted Friedman as his starting QB, and in concert with a certain future Michigan head coach, outscored opponents 227 to 3*. The following year they lost only to eventual national champion Navy (a team Benny and Bennie handled 54-0 at home in ‘25). Friedman also kicked every field goal and extra point, led the team in rushing, returned a kickoff 85 yards, threw more TD passes than the rest of the Big Ten combined, and called every play.

* [As luck would have it the 3 went to Northwestern in a ridiculous 3-2 mudfest that got the safety rule changed and nearly got Evanston burned to the ground; Craig Ross wrote about it in HTTV 2015.]

Honorable Mention: Harry Newman, who went 24-1-2 as a starter and should be counted among Heisman winners except they called it the Fairbanks Trophy back then. Big Bob Timberlake

[After THE JUMP: Icons and Legends]

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Unverified Voracity Refuses To Get Excited
Brian •

Jaylenbits? Maybe not quite but it is by far the most interesting thing going on right now. The latest:

  • Scout's Brian Snow has been saying this is a top two of UK and M for weeks and reiterated that, with Cal running third. Feels like the Bears would be a surprise but not an all-caps SHOCK.
  • Sam Webb did not offer a gut feeling on WTKA this morning but did reiterate that Michigan was very much in this recruitment; he's got an article coming up in the News on why that is. As a guy who's badgered him about this recruitment for months I can say that Sam is getting more hopeful as we move along here. He is not playing coy, though: nobody knows.
  • Kentucky offered 2015 6'6" wing Shaun Kirk yesterday just hours after he committed to NC State. Kentucky needs a lot of guys, yes; they already have a commitment from a 6'6" wing out of Chicago and are about to get a JUCO shooting guard, Mychal Mulder. A 247 Kentucky staff member suggested this was "more indicative" of where things are with Jaylen Brown than Cheick Diallo, the 6'9" power forward who is the other major prize Kentucky is after.
  • Even if Kentucky sweeps Kirk/Mulder/Diallo they will still have a spot for Brown, FWIW. Adding Jamal Murray, the Canadian combo guard who is considering reclassifying from 2016, and all those guys would fill them up but even then a guy like Marcus Lee could get Creaned.
  • Crystal Ball predictions continue to roll in for Michigan, including one from Jerry Meyer, 247's head of basketball recruiting. Michigan now has the last 13 picks, with 247 staffers at their Duke, Ohio State, Kansas, and UNC sites amongst those to pick M in the last couple days. Again, I wouldn't take this as gospel since this recruitment has been cloak and dagger. Somebody is hearing something.
  • College coaches don't seem to be among that group, as several said they have "no clue" and/or "no feel" for what Brown was going to do.
  • The OSU staffer told his message board that after some texts it looks like it's "headed UM's way" and that the Adidas thing was "huge". Steve Lorenz also mentioned something along those lines. I will call them Competent Germans for a week if this happens.
  • Rivals, which has been pessimistic the whole time, suggests that Kansas writers in their network are "beginning to believe" they have a real shot. That's at odds with what their 24/7 guys are saying.
  • There's no scheduled commitment time but people expect that that Brown will choose within the next couple weeks.

Meanwhile VA combo guard Kenny Williams is planning to take an official to Michigan. UNC and Virginia are the other schools he'll visit after using two of his officials earlier in the year; those schools and maybe VCU appear to comprise his list. Obviously if Brown does happen, Williams will no longer be an option.

Other basketball things. During the Hatch press conference, Beilein touched on a couple personnel matters. On DJ Wilson's position:

That is no surprise with Teske and maybe Davis scheduled to enter in 2016 (Davis may prep), but it is an indicator where Michigan stands this year. They may need a third C and it sounds like Wilson will be the guy playing Bielfeldt/Smotrycz when foul trouble looms.

On Spike:

That does not put talk about Spike redshirting to rest but it should at least dampen it considerably. Given the composition of the roster Michigan should want to add a point guard in 2016; a Spike redshirt prevents that. And having Albrecht available is a very good thing for a team with aspirations.

On other potential roster moves:

There was some speculation that Chatman might light out for greener pastures; happy that is not the case. He is still a guy who can develop into an excellent player. Just get that corner three down and get mean on the boards and we're in business.

1925 sounds exactly as fun as you would expect. The roaring 20s of football:

Several years later mud would obscure key numbers in the New York Stock Exchange, and the rest is history.

Nyet. Mike Spath reported a week or so ago that Michigan would look to add a grad transfer wide receiver or two over the coming months, space permitting, and thoughts naturally turned to Devin Lucien, the UCLA receiver who Michigan essentially turned down (they asked him to play D) days after Hoke took the job. Lucien is no longer available:

Ah well.

Cut to the chase. The Final Four—two spectacular games and Duke punking MSU—put the "COLLEGE BASKETBALL IS DEATH" meme to the sword, or it least it should have. But at the same time the tournament was going on, basketball was experimenting with a 30 second shot clock in their B- and C-tier postseason tournaments. Those increased scoring without a commensurate decrease in efficiency, so you may as well do it. It appears that people are going to do it:

Men's basketball is likely heading toward reducing its shot clock from 35 to 30 seconds, NCAA rules committee chairman Rick Byrd told ESPN.com on Monday.

Byrd, the coach at Belmont, said a year ago that there was a 5 percent chance of the change happening, but he changed his tone Monday.

"Now there's a real decent chance," Byrd said. "It's pretty evident a lot more coaches are leaning that way. The opinion of coaches on the shot clock has moved significantly to reducing it from 35 to 30. And all indicators are pointing toward that."

Byrd also said there was a 90% chance college basketball would adopt the NBA charge circle. It does sound like other changes are on the horizon:

Byrd said coaches have told him the game is too physical and too rough. He said that will come up quite a bit in the meeting.

Byrd also said there will be discussion about altering the timeout rule to create better flow. He said he would like to mimic the rule in women's basketball where if a coach calls a timeout within 30 seconds of a media timeout, then that becomes the TV timeout.

He said too often coaches will call a timeout, knowing they are getting a media timeout 15 seconds later, and that creates an even longer downtime for the fans in the stands and the TV audience.

"You can have the last few minutes take 20 minutes," Byrd said. "It doesn't bother coaches, but it does for those watching at home and in the arena. We need to try to get the games within two-hour windows."

All of that sounds excellent. From a selfish perspective I think the shot clock reduction hurts Michigan since they use their time on offense so well, but if it's part of a package that includes improving offensive flow by reducing the Spartanizing of the game I'll take it in a hot second.

Now just implement my coaches-must-cut-off-a-digit-to-call-timeout plan and we are cooking with gas.

The unbundling. ESPN has sued Verizon for attempting an end-around of their contract. ESPN thinks it says Verizon can't offer "basic" packages without its family of channels; Verizon is like nah.

Verizon Fios has just shy of six million cable subscribers -- making it the fourth largest cable company and sixth largest cable or satellite company in the country. Verizon recently announced a new cheaper alternative to a basic cable package. That offering allows consumers to subscribe to a basic cable package for $59.99. Unlike Dish Network's recent Sling TV offering which includes ESPN in its basic tier, the new Verizon Fios package doesn't include ESPN in its basic tier pricing. Instead ESPN -- along with ESPN2, FS1 and NBC Sports Network -- are included in a sports tier package which consumers can purchase for the additional price of $9.99 a month. That is, it's possible to subscribe to Verizon's new cable package without receiving ESPN.

That's actually a great deal for that sports package since ESPN and ESPN 2 alone cost Verizon seven dollars. I am not a law-talking guy but I can't see how this is going to fly in the courts; it is an indicator of where we're going. Right now sports is being subsidized by people who don't care about it at all. In an a-la-carte world that no longer happens.

Then what? Then ESPN takes a bath, with sports leagues next on the chopping block. ESPN costs 6 bucks a month for a channel 20% of people are interested in; it will not cost thirty bucks a month in an a-la-carte world because a lot of people will forgo it. There's only so much you can do by strong-arming customers in an environment where ten bucks a month gets you a virtually infinite pile of content. The people who don't care will opt out.

This is why adding questionable fanbases to the Big Ten in the pursuit of short-term cable dollars was so incredibly foolish even beyond the deleterious effects of adding a bunch of games nobody in the world cares about. Every time I see someone hail Jim Delany as some kind of visionary I want to laugh/cry.

Etc.: Jack Harbaugh on satellite camps. Quinn on Hatch.

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