2005 penn state

NotMyFault_1024x1024I forgot I promised Brian to do a post about this before I went ahead and launched it in Guess the Score. Anyway, meet my favorite shirt we've ever made except maybe the Space Emperor ones. Zoom? Zoom:

PSU-Blues-Bro-Maize

To relive the excuses hit the jump. To order the shirt hit the link. We're going to preorder a bunch of these for people who'd like them in time for the game.

Woody-punchin'. WH provides the 1977 Game, which Michigan wins 14-6. Woody Hayes punches the camera at about 11 minutes:

Griese could be good at the TV. Not that Griese, the other Griese. I'm now holding out vague hopes that we could be getting something a little bit like NFL Matchup out of ESPN's Thursday night CFB preview show:

Griese, Mark May and Scott Van Pelt will preview the weekend's top four or five games.

"I'm going to use game film to illustrate what the keys are to look for," Griese said in a telephone interview."That will be fun for me. I like teaching people about the game."

Griese, who led Michigan to an unbeaten 1997 season and national championship and then played in the NFL, hopes to exercise his game knowledge from years and years of digesting game film as a player.

"That's where I like to live," Griese said of being a student of football film breakdown. "From people I talk to, there's an insatiable appetite to understand the nuances of football. I don't think there's any better way to understand the game than to watch it, but to watch it in a way that's informed. I want to give people things to watch for that maybe they wouldn't have known to look for, and look at it from an insider's perspective. I want them to watch and at the end hopefully say, 'Brian alerted me to this, and that's what happened in the game.'"

I know, I know, Mark May. You can't have everything. And we have seen technically-minded guys get swallowed up by the great dumbing-down over and over again. Let me have my candle in the wind.

Lacy still extant. Message board trolls started telling folks that Alabama starting tailback Eddie Lacy had torn his ACL and was done for the year, which doesn't appear to be true. He did give his ligaments the business at an inopportune time:

Alabama starting running back Eddie Lacy sprained his ankle and a knee in Saturday's practice.

“Not a serious thing. Probably going to be day to day but probably be a little bit slow next week," coach Nick Saban told AL.com. "I think in five to six days he’ll probably be ready to go.”

And I can't find anything on the internet that confirms anything about the ACL except for the one random guy in the comment section from the mgoboard post.

The sprain was two days ago, so his availability for Michigan is not in question unless a coach is lying about an injury, which is of course totally possible. If Lacy can't go—sigh—Dee Hart, the former Michigan commit, is supposed to take over top duties.

Beard update. Mealer's beard gathers a couple of quality quotes in a Daily article, one from Jeremy Gallon, who is apparently an aficionado:

“He has a face full of straight, perfect, beard hair,” redshirt junior wide receiver Jeremy Gallon told ESPN. “You don't find that everywhere. I mean, look at it, you can’t even put it into words. It's amazing.”

And the second from Navy SEALs:

When Mealer and 21 other seniors took a trip to Coronado, Calif. for a three-day leadership trip in late May to train with Navy SEALs, he was told by the SEALs that he was sporting a true “Afghanistan beard.”

“We take pride in that,”one of the SEALs told Mealer, he recalled.

But the SEAL left Mealer a stern warning: “If we find out the season comes along and you've shaved that, we’re sending the team after you," he recounted laughing.

Also receiving six points is the Daily staffer who slapped this headline on the story:

Mealer, beard battle for starting spot on offensive line

ESPN gets four for

Wolverines push follicle limits

…by the way. M-Live gets zero for "Michigan Wolverines linebacker Jake Ryan's hair is like Clay Matthews, now wants similar game." STEP YOUR BEAR/HAIR HEADLINE GAME UP, MLIVE WOOOOO

Probably the best thing to ever happen in Minnesota. Faint praise, sure, but BHGP's countdown of the top 25 Kirk Ferentz wins hits the top ten with that one time they clinched the Big Ten for the first time in twelve years and tore down the goalposts… at a road game:

There has not been a fan pwnage since that comes close.

This was dumb, but known. The guy who voted Michigan #1 defended himself by saying "I have never heard of this 'defensive line' thing you keep bringing up," but he'd announced he was voting M first a couple months ago, so, like… yeah. It even came with a picture of Ron Zook. I was going to write more about this but then I realized we were talking about a preseason poll and decided not to.

This is dumb, and was not known. Penn Live has various bits from the Posnanski book on Paterno, and one is relevant to your interests:

Following PSU’s controversial 27-25 last-second loss at Michigan in 2005, the Lions’ only blemish on an 11-1 season, Paterno was furious that officials put a few seconds back on the clock, possibly allowing Wolverines QB Chad Henne enough time to throw the game-winning TD pass on the final play. According to Posnanski, Paterno told friends he was considering pulling the Lions out of the Big Ten as a result.

Someone should check to see if there was frequently-used BWI handle that went dark six months ago or so.

The thing that makes this so ridiculous is that Paterno had literally just badgered the refs for two extra seconds on the previous drive—and got them. The one second hanging on the clock at the end of that game was just as much Paterno's as Lloyd's.

This is dumb, and also dumb. Former Spartan Jim Miller thinks there's an RGIII-Kirk Cousins quarterback controversy after Cousins tore up the second half of an NFL preseason game.

Random hype video. A little repetitive, but it serves its purpose:

What a good idea to bring this up again. Appalachian State's coach had a press conference just to talk about the Horror. What a good idea for the person who won that game. I'm just glad we'll never have to think about it aga—

/Ace shows Brian 2014 schedule

/Brian makes thirty-fifth appointment at Lacuna, Inc. since announcement of Horror II

Walking sans canes. Via Tom, here's Brock Mealer walking without assistance:

Etc.: Michigan alumni clubs sing the Victors worldwide. ESPN has a segment on Alabama linebacker play. Corn Nation joins the Big Ten division names boycott. Playoff details sound about like what you would think. UNC is going to go back and find out if their academic fraud is really as bad as all that. UMHoops recaps Mark Donnal's summer.

Macho man. Invaluable video guy Boyz in the Pahokee noticed something that's gone unremarked upon for five years. Note the score, time, and bicep kiss:

bicepkisser

WHERE'S YOUR BICEP NOW? And how did the director of the game not cut back to Bicep Guy after Manningham went New Math on people?

Maize 'n' Brew just named the 2005 game Michigan's second-best win over Penn State in the series's short history. No dollars if you can guess the winner.

welcometohv

via the Shredder

Not sure if serious. So the news that a loose cannon walk-on is going to start tomorrow should be fairly crushing news to Penn State fans, but if I could be excited about Michigan's 2007 recruiting class they can be excited about Matt McGloin:

Mcgloin

This might just be the kick in the pants to spark this offense. We will see. Good luck to the young man.

by abpsu13 on Oct 28, 2010 4:58 PM PDT

I'm so hyped up about this

This kid has gigantic balls!

I’m so glad we have a pure passer starting in this game, I think it gives us the best chance to win. Knewsome can’t pass and Bolden would never WIN us this game. Now, granted McFarve might lose the game, but there is a chance he could WIN us the game.

by markpsu on Oct 29, 2010 5:30 AM PDT

I already used the image macro once today so I'll forgo it, but… seriously?

A later BSD posts breaks down his performance and even includes video. It could be chopped better—I'm spoiled by BitP's Every Snap videos—but the overall effect is to turn not sure if serious into definitely not serious in the comments, and should be reassuring to anyone fretting. Here's a UFR chart for McGloin:

MATT MCGLOIN

Opponent DO CA MA IN BR TA BA PR SCR ZR DSR
Iowa 2 3(3) 1 4 2 - - - - N/A 25%

I seem to be missing one of his throws but that won't change the overall picture much. The BSD predictionfest goes 4-2 to Michigan, FWIW.

If you change your colors to orange you can get them on the field faster. I suppose I have to say something about Chris L. Rucker's reinstatement. Anyone who didn't see this coming a mile away hasn't been paying attention. People haven't, though, because Dantonio says things like "I don't believe in superstition, I believe in God" and has a square jaw. But all it took was…

  • Dantonio baldly lying about Roderick Jenrette's "family issues" that were in fact robberies,
  • 20% of the team descending on a party to ignite a melee,
  • Glenn Winston injuring a hockey player in that melee so badly he missed an entire season,
  • Winston going to jail for five months,
  • Dantonio reinstating him literally as soon as he got out of prison,
  • 20% of the team, most prominently Jenrette and Winston, descending on a dorm room to ignite a melee,
  • Dantonio reinstating most of the players who attended  and promising zero tolerance, and
  • Rucker being reinstated two seconds after he got out of jail…

…for the media to notice. But notice they have, with Rittenberg, Wojo, and even Mitch Albom(!) saying "hey, wait a minute." So, fine. As long as the correct win-at-all costs guy is being identified, fine. My whole thing here has not necessarily been to hammer Michigan State but to point out how little sense the media storyline about Rodriguez being some sort of renegade has made given the epic crime spree MSU has been on.

So now we know: Dantonio is just another boys-will-be-boys football coach, albeit one who wears his faith as a shield in a crassly cynical way. We can stop vilifying Rich Rodriguez for taking another job now, right?

Hockey weekend. The athletic department managed to schedule the home half of the Ferris State home and home at the exact same time Michigan plays Penn State, and then didn't move the game to Sunday, so 14 people will enjoy a matchup against the Bulldogs tomorrow. The away half is tonight; Yost Built has ten things about Ferris for you. The Bulldogs are 4-2 so far with a sweep of St. Lawrence, a split against Ohio State, and a split against Alabama-Huntsville. It doesn't seem like this is one of the occasional FSU teams that's a contender for a tourney bid.

More Ufer. Nice hair, everyone!

Also Frank Beckmann fluff.

Etc.: I can see why PSU folk think David Jones is their Drew Sharp. Soony Saad scores from distance… like own-half distance. Kenpom says he has "a special place in [his] heart" for MGoBlog because of its David Berri screed. Swoon! Michigan's apple tradition. A look at the future (and distant future) of the weakside linebacker position.