cookie monster

I Will Eat Them Up: Remix. Boyz in the Pahokee wanted to parody hype videos. He failed, but in doing so succeeded:

Sit under the Banyan tree and ponder this.

As long as we're pondering the above, yeah… I thought this was slightly premature after UConn but, like, dude:

Yeah… kinda. Offer still stands with the Brock Mealer shirt, by the way: buy a Brock shirt, donate to Brock's continued rehab, get five bucks off another MGoShirt. "onepercent" is your magic word.

Old school. Did you know Bump Elliott was on "What's My Line?" With his brother? Who was Illinois' coach at the time?

Different world when you could have the head coaches of Michigan and (I guess) Illinois on a TV show and people had to guess as to who they were instead of saying "what's the deal with hiring that rube from Southern Miss, eh?" FWIW, Michigan went 6-3 in the 1961 season, defeating 0-9 Illinois 38-6 but losing to both Michigan State and Ohio State by lots. Minnesota was the other loss.

Die, Special K. Straight from Brandon's mouth about pipin' it in:

"I will probably be chastised for telling this story:  At a Big 10 AD meeting I proposed an amendment to allow bands to be miked and it was emphatically turned won.  I kept pushing it and tried to convince the other AD's that it was about distributing the sound throughout stadiums better and not amplifying the sound on the field.  Using my persuasive powers, we eventually got this amendment passed and now we've got the band miked.  Now to head off any questions about the recorded music, we are planning on there being less recorded music now that the band can be heard better. "

Adios, Ron. #87 Ron Kramer, the last Michigan player to have his number retired, died on Saturday. Since he played 20 years before I was born I don't have much to say that's not in a press release, but the News's Jerry Green does:

Ron Kramer lugged the wooden brown box into the saloon close to the University of Michigan's campus in Ann Arbor. "Give me two Scotch-and-waters," Kramer told the bartender.

Kramer placed the brown box atop the bar. The guy behind the bar looked at Kramer with deep curiosity. Ron was alone, accompanied only by the box.

"What do you want two for?" the bartender asked Kramer.

"Bennie is kind of dry," answered Kramer.

Yeah: Oosterbaan, ashes of. The Hoover Street Rag has another story in the same vein and Lynn Henning talks to Frank Beckmann, Jerry Hanlon, and Don Dufek about him.

It might be pretty stupid to think that Denard Robinson going 87 yards had anything to do with Kramer, but what the hell, right? Let's do it anyway.

Perspective: there is no perspective. Denard's second week by the Mathlete's numbers:

Another ground game worth 12 PAN [Ed: Points Above Normal, IIRC], just like last week. My database goes back to the 2003 season and during that time there have been a total of 107 games where a player has recorded a PAN of 12 or higher. Of those 107 times, there are 10 players who have done it at least twice (4 have done it three times). The only players to have put up a dozen on the ground twice in one season versus BCS teams, Denard and two others, Jerome Harrison at Washington State vs Stanford and UCLA in 2005 and Chris Barclay at Wake Forest vs Clemson and Maryland in 2003.

So if he does this again in the Big Ten season he will have done something unprecedented over the last seven years in college football. Also, the Mathlete calculates that Michigan's penalties cost them a full touchdown and the kickers are not good, but you didn't need math for that last bit.

Penn State hockey: engage. INCH is reporting that Friday will see an official announcement of Penn State hockey, something that will likely be followed by the CCHA extending a membership offer as soon as whichever official is drafted to make the statement finishes the syllable "ho—". This is win for the CCHA, for the Big Ten Network, and possibly for a Big Ten conference I'd be behind as long as it can be accomplished without seeing any existing programs fold, whether that's by scheduling guarantees from departing clubs or whatever.

This is all very vague still but USCHO reports some grumblin' and mumblin' at a top-secret WCHA meeting:

At a meeting late last week, WCHA coaches discussed the potential of a Big Ten hockey league starting in the near future, and how that would impact their league, sources said. … Sources indicated that the hot topic of speculation at the WCHA meeting was that the 2014-15 season is a potential start date for the Big Ten in hockey.

At this point I doubt anything other than Minnesota blanching can prevent the Big Ten Hockey Death Star from forming. Wisconsin ended the College Hockey Showcase because it explicitly wanted more games against Big Ten opponents; it seems like they'd be willing to jump. Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State aren't attached to the CCHA closely enough for tradition to override dolla dolla bill ya'll. That would be a brutal six-team conference on paper but of late State and Minnesota have struggled to consistently make the NCAA tournament, and Michigan came within a whisker of whiffing for the first time in twenty years. Still, PSU hockey would be in for a rough ride to start.

I don't think the impact on CCHA members would be too hard since a six-team Big Ten leaves at least 14 nonconference dates for conference members to fill and it will make economic sense to spend most of those playing Ferris, Western, Lake State, Northern, et al. Michigan might schedule regular trips to Alaska because those get exempted, as well. The WCHA will be fine; all of those programs are established.

Slow States has the PSU angle.

Defending the inside zone with the 3-3-5. Relevant post by Football Defense on something we figure to see later this year:

Versus the Inside Zone, I want to either avoid double teams (pretty tough in a 3-3-5 Defense) or or split double teams.  By slanting our Defensive Line against the Zone blocking, we have the best chance to split those doubles.

As long as we’re still working to split the double, the Offensive Line can’t get off to get to the Linebackers, and this is where I believe we stop the Inside Zone.  If you have 3 Linebackers that are able to run free (not including the Outside Linebackers a.k.a. Overhang Safeties here) you should have no trouble stopping the play.

Thus far it's been a lot of power (pulling linemen, not sliding double-teams) but we'll run up against zone teams in the Big Ten schedule, most prominently Illinois. Since Michigan ran a ton of inside zone against UConn I'd hope they're proficient at it.

Etc.: Dhani Jones will return to campus on October 15th to speak to students at the behest of the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative. Union Ballroom, 3:30. I wouldn't ask him about Rodriguez. Denard Robinson tribute tumblr. Scott Wolf has an irrational hatred of the Big Ten. Whirlwind '>pre-UConn Mustache tour.