1998 wisconsin

Nice try, Jean de Valk, making the blue of your background a greenish gray, as if we wouldn't recognize le drapeau tricolore as anything but a call to arms against the Bourbons of college football.

Didn't realize the French national anthem was a bloody minded board rant did you?

This plus a wallpaper about the cheat-sheet gloves are available in the thread. Allons enfants de la Michigan, le jour de gloire est arrivé!

Every Time Michigan Loses, George Lucas Writes a Love Scene. The annual if:then prediction thread by L'oeil du tigre gives six different scenarios for the 2012 season rated from Empire to Jar Jar. I'm in agreement on the order of quality, but not that an 8-4 season, even with a fifth loss to MSU, could be as painful as Attack of the Clones. Go with me here. I could see 700, maybe even 800 more Michigan games in my lifetime, yet in all of human history we've had six Star Wars movies. And to wait for two decades of hype to get that… Argh. Honestly, if I was told I had a chance to go back and fix Star Wars Episode I or change the outcome of Football Armageddon '06, I don't know man…

…but I co-sign SO HARD on this, especially Anakin being a teen and a Vader-Padme-Obi Wan love triangle. And Mace Windu…I digress.

What Shall We Do With Fullbacks? A short but potent message by Renault en Ben: We should all start thinking about Hopkins and Houma and future fullbacks recruited by this staff as less like Kevin Dudley and more like Aaron Shea because Al Borges is a West Coast guy and West Coast offenses use their fullbacks as passing options in the flat. Sometimes they can run block too. Short-term I think Hopkins doesn't have the hands or the hop to be a scary passing threat like some TE-ish fullbacks, however he does have a running back's rushing skillz, so they'll use those. As for the future: eventually we'll have a U-Back to be that. Borges and Hoke say they like a low-altitude kind of player who can pop a guy low and get North-South quickly on the FB dive. Watch Houma's highlights—the second half is almost entirely dive runs. That's not necessarily a Dudley, but it's more LeRoy Hoard than Aaron Shea. Hoard was 5'11, built like a tank, and accelerated like a 1970 Boss 302 Mustang V8.

The Defenses are Back. The series that won Monsieur Couer-Vingt a DotW (plus the inaugural "hero" points) continued this week with the Returning Defense of 2012 Opponents part the first and second. He used blanket stats, which I think makes bad defenses look like they're returning more (Purdue & Minnesota) because it doesn't check for how many plays faced. Helpful user euh-tay-ah mille-vingt-deux notes Phil Steele does a similar analysis.

There was also a nice little diary by the same on Bama, ND, and Ohio State, and recent updates on those teams. I'd like something like this—better formatted—to continue throughout the season. You know, like a weekly around the opponents news thing to round up what their blogs are saying about them. Again, monsiuer couerVingt is your Diarist of the Week.

Elsewheres in analysis  LSA class de deux-mille is goofing around with a spreadsheet of Big Ten player weights and heights. Part two is by position and I'm just linking to that one because the first doesn't break it up by contributors and thus will just call whichever team with the most lineman walk-ons the biggest.

Where Legends' Jockstraps Lie.

Thanks to phjhu89 (I can't translate that!). That's locker #21 in wood panels and there's a close-up of it and more in the diary (bumped from a thread). The special locker makes it all but certain they're not giving Legends jerseys to young players but using them to reward old ones. I'm with the people against this, but I'm sure it will look less weird when 11 and 48 etc. are all teaked out as well and if it's good for recruiting…

Preseason Polls Have Been Meaningless Since the Time of Louis VII. In 1149, the Associated Scribes submitted a poll claiming the Glorious Franks* would sweep the next season's European battles. Then a coalition of kings released their own poll claiming that no, it was the Holy Notre Dame Empire that would prevail by winterfell. So began pre-season polls. Actually they go back to 1950 and usually rate Michigan too high. Thou hast perform'd well in gathering us this parchment good Sir Dévot du Loup Glouton.

Etc. The Twin City socks mentioned in Three &Out are comfy, but to be honest they're less comfortable than my ski socks. Anyway I don't think the socks in the Northwestern photo are the TCs, but horray to Section Une for finding M's on socks of M history. And in things less important than socks: two meta articles on an MGOpoints system that isn't used anymore, because there is no such thing as data that our readers won't put in a spreadsheet.

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* Yes "Franks." Louis's son Phil was the one who started calling it France.

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Best of the Board

AARON SHEA PLUS ALL THE POINTS. UMdad wanted to find video of this one play where Aaron Shea blocked three guys at once…you know, that one:

"… But that's my job, to go out there and block a linebacker, or, you know, all of them."

The hero of the day is helpful reader Carcajous, who found not just the Daily excerpt above but the video too. I highly recommend poking around in the video to relive the setup before the triple-block run and Clarence Williams at his Clarence Williamsiest. I don't recommend poking around in that issue of the Daily because I was 18 and had only recently discovered the long dash.

BETTER NOT TO SHOW THE OPPONENTS

That day once a year when your season tickets come, and you get really excited and put them out on the kitchen table to stare at them until you realize the last four are the only ones you really give a damn about. Sigh, even years.

UNOFFICIAL OFFICIAL TAILGATE MIX. Mine has a lot of the band plus the UM Hospital's cool version and Across 110th street (the Michigan Replay song). I say mix more of those in.

HELLO: MICHAEL FERNS!! HELLO: MICHAEL FERNS!! HELLO: MICHAEL FERNS!! HELLO! Before he (I'm guessing accidentally) somehow turned his account into a function that auto-posted Hello: Michael Ferns posts to the board every few minutes, user kaykay put together a "Projected Depth Chart for 2015" thing every fan base puts together in the depths of the offseason when every incoming freshman and recruit is going to reach all of their potential. I rescued the thread from that smoldering account to save my response, a Projected Depth Chart for 2012, as we thought it would be in 2009.

ETC. Lacrosse rules seem to favor more offense and less standing around, which as a casual fan who knows nothing about the sport I say thee yea.

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Your Moment of Zen:

Ln	Dn	Ds	O Form	RB	TE	WR	D Form	Type	Play	Player	Yards
O15	2	G	Offset I TE Twins	2	1	2	4-3-Over Plus	Run	Counter Sweep	Thomas	15
Badgers pressing with 3 LBs cheated to the eventual playside and a safety up for good measure. Michigan runs right into it (RPS -1). Line downblocks to seal three linemen while a double by Campbell and Jansen (+0.5 each) escorts the playside DE 5 yards downfield. However that safety plus three unblocked linebackers are set up and should have this play dead. The safety tries to leap into the backfield and gets helped by Hutchinson, leaving three LB versus Shea and Thomas. From here it's all Shea (+4) who reaches the first linebacker, then DETACHES TO TO BLOCK THE SECOND LB INTO THE 3RD!!!! (!!!!!) [breathe] (!!!!!!!!). Thomas walks into the end-zone wondering where everybody went. Barry Alvarez quits football.
RUN+: Campbell, Jansen (+0.5), Shea (+4)							RUN-:
Drive Notes: Touchdown, 21-7, 1 min 2nd Q. Since this is 1998 a 14-point lead means Wisconsin is cooked; everyone go back to reading the Kenneth Starr report.

This could be going better. I was really thinking there'd be a Hello post yesterday. Instead, bupkis. Armani Reeves sticks with his buddy and Alex Kozan commits to Iowa. Michigan's 50-50 shots are coming up tails. With Sam Grant headed to Oklahoma, even their better than 50-50 shots are coming up tails.

Big deal? Somewhat. It's not a huge deal to downgrade from a 3/4 star type like Kozan to a sleeper three star like new DT hotness Willie Henry*. Losing Reeves and having Yuri Wright go off the board** because of various tweets about organisms (not those organisms) does leave corner a little dodgy, especially if you look at 5'8" Cass Tech corners skeptically these days. The depth chart looks fine there, though.

OL and TE not so much. Diamond is a huge priority now and if Chris Muller looks like he might shake free from Rutgers (survey says… probably not, but not out of the question) I would hop on that rather than vacate a bunch of scholarships. Michigan has five more slots and looks like they'll fill two or three from Henry/Diamond. Insert extreme confusion about Arnett situation here.

Along with Kozan, Iowa's getting guys from eight-man football who have commit posts begin…

Your average Iowan has probably never heard of Tabor, Iowa or the Fremont-Mills Community School District. Hell, they probably aren’t even aware that there are counties named Fremont or Mills.

That's Nate Meier, a running back/MLB who will either be Chad Greenway or a shiftless hobo in five years depending on which side of the ball he ends up on. The point: no one in the division is recruiting at Hoke's level and with a huge focus on getting character kids, eventually that's going to pay off.

*[Who is not the surprise I was talking about in an earlier post, FWIW. I think that is off the table now; not sure what changed but Henry certainly seems like a one for one drop in for mystery guy. Most likely scenario: they watched Henry's film just now and veered towards him over mystery guy.]

**[LEMON BET STATUS! since every post about Wright's situation ostentatiously mentions Michigan's withdrawal from his recruitment, it is void. The disbelief was that a player from NJ would choose to go to Colorado over Michigan; Wright basically had no choice.

Also: no, Yuri Wright did not get expelled for some frickin' tweets. That does not happen. Similarly, Michigan did not drop the kid for some frickin' tweets. Put the pieces together and you have something like Stonum. The relatively minor thing was the last straw. This is entirely speculation.]

Bye week hockey. Another chaotic weekend in college hockey saw Bowling Green win(!) and UMD come out of a weekend against Michigan Tech on the short end of things. Tech is now .500 on the year and 9-7-2 in the WCHA. Mel Pearson: I be like dang.

Anyway, when the dust cleared Michigan blipped down to seventh in the Pairwise and sixth in the CCHA, but it's not all that bad:

Rk	Team	W	L	T	SO	Pts.	Games	GB
1	Ferris State	11	6	3	1	37	20	-
2	Western Michigan	10	7	3	3	36	20	1/3
3	Miami	11	9	2	1	36	22	1 1/3
	Ohio State	10	7	5	1	36	22	1 1/3
	Notre Dame	10	7	3	0	33	20	1 1/3
6	Michigan	9	7	4	1	32	20	1 2/3
	Lake Superior	9	9	4	4	35	22	1 2/3
8	Michigan State	8	9	3	2	29	20	2 2/3
9	Northern Michigan	7	8	5	2	28	20	3
10	Alaska	6	12	4	2	24	22	4 2/3
11	Bowling Green	3	13	4	3	16	20	7

They are a point from a massive n-way tie for third. The schedule doesn't look that intimidating anymore, with series against #3, #8, #9, and 11, though of course there's little difference between 2-9 in the league.

What if we look at goal differential?

Team	GF-GA
Michigan	13
Miami	12
Western Michigan	9
Ohio State	6
Ferris State	5
Notre Dame	5
Michigan State	4
Lake Superior	-2
Northern Michigan	-7
Alaska	-10
Bowling Green	-35

Michigan is #1 by a second ENG against OSU and faces #2, #7, #9, and #11. Suddenly things are manageable. After this weekend they'll be exceedingly so. Anything better than a split against Miami and they're rolling to the finish.

As for the Pairwise, pay no attention to the drop. Lowell, BC, and Ferris are ahead by RPI shavings. A collapsing OSU is ahead by a COP shaving. If Michigan plays like they deserve a one seed down the stretch they'll get it. The target number of wins to enter the CCHA playoffs as a top seed is six, which is very doable: sweep terrible BG and one other weekend, split the other two.

The only truly annoying comparison is versus CC, which overcomes a massive RPI gap by playing fewer TUCs (both teams are two games above .500) and beating Union instead of losing to them. Root against the Tigers from here on out.

Negative recruiting: not so much. Amara Darboh:

"A lot of the other coaches, when I would talk to them, they’d ask, 'What other schools you looking at?'" four-star Iowa receiver Amara Darboh said. "And then then they would talk badly about the schools, or bash where I just went.

"But, not Michigan. I don’t know why they didn’t, but I like that they didn’t, and it says a lot about them."

Wormley, Reeves, and Pipkins also vouch for that. And Darboh's guardian brings up Hoke's masterful self control during a key moment:

Dan Schaefer, legal guardian of Darboh, said he was highly skeptical of Michigan because of the failures of the Rich Rodriguez era and the instability of a coaching change. Two things changed his mind.

First, it was Hoke's measured handling of struggling punter Will Hagerup in the Ohio State game last season, which was Darboh's official visit.

"He wasn’t overreacting," Schaefer said. "Like, the punter missed the snap. But (Hoke) didn’t go over there and get in his business right away. I liked that. It gave me confidence he could handle Amara."

I was uttering every cussed cuss I knew and inventing six new ones as this went down. Mienke also has a story on Darboh's turbulent past. Turbulent as in "caught in a civil war."

'98 Wisconsin. Part of Michigan's recovery from that ugly 0-2 start ("Cross is boss! Cross is boss!"):

Via Wolverine Historian, obviously. You can also check out '83 Ohio State.

Well done, America. Texas hates Craig James:

Public Policy Polling just came out of the field with news that only 2 percent of Texas Republicans will vote for him for U.S. Senate. It's early yet, but if Republican political consultant Brian Mayes is correct, 2 percent is about where we should expect him to end up. In the interests of disclosure, I'm working for one of the Democrats in the race, and we aren't concerned with James in the slightest.

"I'm surprised it's that high," said Mayes. "If you ask the average Republican voter... he's remembered for the scandal at SMU and using his position at ESPN to get a wildly popular coach fired. He is by far one of the most hated men in West Texas."

Money quote:

"It's not that people in West Texas don't like him," said Mayes. "It's that nobody likes him."

The only downside to this is ESPN will rehire him on the Stephen A. Smith principle: ESPN hates us as much as America hates Craig James and knows we can't change the channel.

#rememberthefive

[HT: Blutarsky.]

Let the looting begin. The NCAA has come to a fairly obvious realization in the aftermath of finding out there's an Indiana State:

he NCAA will look this summer at retooling its Division I governance structure amid what some officials say is growing sentiment to further split its top football-playing schools.

Association President Mark Emmert said Sunday he'll appoint a working group to examine the issue, stressing it will focus on "the way in which Division I is organized for the purposes of making decisions" - and not on a competitive format that now groups football programs into bowl and lower-tier championship subdivisions.

IE, Indiana State shouldn't be able to say anything to anyone. Anonymous officials a bit later in the piece suggest Emmert is being coy in public and another split between football programs is at least going to be spitballed.

Anything that gets San Jose State out of I-A is fine by me, but it seems unlikely anything will come to fruition here. If it does, the break should be based on institutional support offered a football team. If it's over X, GTFO. Prediction: if there is a split, eventually those left behind from the current I-A will merge with FCS as it becomes increasingly difficult to tell the two lower divisions apart.

Success with… actually let's just scratch both. Penn State cuts freshman center Peter Alexis from its basketball team, effective at the end of the season. This is described as the result of a… "carefrontation." That is not a word.

Alexis appears to be a good student and has not gotten in any trouble. Two thirds of BSD voters say this is okay even if it was "purely based on his basketball ability."

This is what happens. Q: What is Molk talking about here?

"I don't like it; I don't care about it; it (ticks) me off," Molk said. "It just adds to my anger."

A: Everything.

Also, Molk has to be Michigan's internet-era record holder for most bowdlerized quotes in the newspaper. This story alone has the above plus:

"Missing the Senior Bowl (stinks)."

And then Barwis gets in on it:

"It shows something to the NFL that the guy tore a tendon off a bone and played with a tendon off the bone, and he said, '(Forget) it, I'm going to dominate a game."

Godspeed, Molk.

Etc.: The East side upper deck of Spartan Stadium is "kind of like 1980s Poland," says A Beautiful Day For Football, which I can vouch for since I've been in it three times. If it was just a holding pen for opposing fans it would make sense. It's not. How to tweet at recruits. I'm surprised Kenpom isn't sitting on top of something tall, screaming "COME AT ME BRO" about Wisconsin after the Badgers resurrected their season.

Bob Miller scouts U17 NTDP commits JT Compher, Tyler Motte, and Evan Allen plus fellow 2013 commit Michael Downing. TomVH gets Barwisized. Remember how Ohio State fans were outraged by oversigning? Never mind. Plague of non-caring students extends to MSU.