crazy kimbo slice beard

Oh like your facial hair is any better Brad! [Patrick Barron]

Last trip down the bits until fall, as the spring game will get its own coverage next week and then it's just cold, dark offseason punctuated by Hello posts and HTTV work.

Defensive Tackle

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Rest that, man. We're gonna need you. [Marc-Grégor Campredon]

What we want to hear: Jeter comp to Hurst or something. Somebody else stepping up at DT. Dwumfour back soon.

What we're hearing: Since last week there was a whole kerfluffle started when Harbaugh said this in his presser:

Just to follow up on Donovan and Dwumfour, are they injuries that could keep them out of the season? When you say serious, what does that mean exactly?

“It could. I’ve always been kind of just… as a coach but also when I played, I put a lot of stock in what a player, how their body feels, how they respond. So that’s the feedback. All indication we’re getting is that they really can’t do much at all. You always hope for the best.”

Are they injuries that require surgery?

“No, no. Donovan’s has been a soft-tissue injury, a groin injury. And Michael had a torn plantar fascia right before the bowl game. You start to worry when injuries linger longer than previously thought or longer than the time it usually takes, but I think nobody knows their body better than the actual person or athlete.”

And Dwumfour got word of some winds and responded on twitter (I'm choosing not to link a player's tweets since I don't want to add fuel to internet dumb). I mentioned all this with DPJ, along with my take:

"I put a lot of stock in what a player thinks" is Harbaughspeak for "It annoys me when players aren't practicing because they're healing even though I've been told it shouldn't." I gather from comments inside the program and from Dwumfour's response on Twitter that both are going to be fine. If Harbaugh's football coach instinct to expect players with minor injuries to practice has been reduced to howling at the moon about it, that too is fine.

Dwumfour was on the field but not practicing.

Rivals' young contributor Andrew Hussey shared that Mazi Smith's name comes up a lot when they talk to coaches and players.

Harbaugh also clarified what he sees in Jeter and what position they're playing:

Donovan Jeter’s our starting 3-tech right now. He continues to be an ascending player. He’s just…he appears hellbent on being the starting defensive tackle…And Carlo Kemp, talked about him before, extremely strong. He’s our starting nose.

Marich dropped a practice buzz($) yesterday that was mostly offense, but we got a few bits on D:

Jeter and Hutch looked very good in one on ones vs OL.

Rivals published some competition drills. Not much you can glean from watching them except Paea was much faster than Mazi Smith in the 58 vs. 58 battle. There wasn't much else to take away from practice, really.

What it means: We finally made it through a week this spring when the Ben Mason talk wasn't being jammed down our throats. That's the best sign yet that we might survive Defensive Tacklegeddon—Mason is a character but also not a guy who's going to last at 3-tech at 260 pounds after moving from fullback. Hey—it'll be fun, don't get me wrong—but you want them comfortable with the guy.

Moving Kemp to nose is…well his pass rush is not going to be as much of a problem as it was at tackle as long as he can stand up—that's a thing to watch in spring. It also gives the easier job to Jeter—whether that translates to better pass rush is The thing to watch. We'll have to watch it all over again in fall to see how Dwumfour fits.

 

[After the JUMP: Depth charts and scant explanation]

 

Desmond Howard Profilebrian-griesejohn-navarre-2

YOU TOO CAN OPEN YOUR MOUTH IN PUBLIC WITHOUT GETTING PEOPLE MAD

braylon-edwards

NOT YOU

Don't. This is the easiest and best way to go about it. What does everyone think of David Baas? Exactly. We think David Baas won the Rimington award. We do not think he has some weird grudge against his younger doppleganger or is Joe Morgan.

If you have to, do not say anything about Denard. Nothing you can say about Denard will meet the standards of the Michigan fanbase, which thinks he is made of rainbows and sweetness and light and will brook not even the slightest criticism. For instance, saying

You looked fantastic for five games against nobody. That's what you did.

…as a way to "blast college athletes' sense of entitlement" is taking a cheapshot at a guy playing opposite the worst defense in the history of man. Many people will make the internet annoying for a day until the next outrage.

More importantly, it's inane because Denard is the least entitled athlete at Michigan in a very long time. We get it: you hated Rich Rodriguez to the point where you'll roll your eyes at Denard Robinson. You can stop it now.

If you do say something about Denard, at least own up to it. Desmond Howard's response to this was to claim his comment was about "fans and the media," and while the fuller context of the quote does soften it somewhat it mostly emphasizes how bizarrely inappropriate it is to grab Denard Robinson of all people as a "perfect example" of entitled kids.

I mean, it's not like there's anyone else in Michigan's recent past that fits that bill slightly better—

Ryan Mallett publicly drunk

If you have successfully piloted your speaking away from Denard, don't imply the kids currently on the team are lazy and soft. This is called "projection," a malady that often befalls middle-aged men past their glory days. The people on the team have worked very hard for little reward because there are a lot of people who aren't on the team for various reasons. So when you say the effort was "lacking" or Michigan "toughness" is back you are telling Ryan Van Bergen, who can stuff your desk-job-having ass in a can, that he's failing you.

This isn't very nice. Also, the opposite is in fact the case.

If you have managed to not talk crap about the players, you are most of the way home. Congratulations! Now you've only got three topics left:

  • Rich Rodriguez is the devil. Accurate! So very accurate. But also played out. Everyone in the room will be envisioning you beating on a dead man. How did that go in the last season of The Wire? You didn't watch The Wire? You only read Rudyard Kipling books? Well, let me tell you: not so good. Also it was biting dead people but telling you that is pointless until David Simon writes a book of illustrated allegories featuring animals. How hard would I buy this book? So, so hard. I digress.
  • Shuffling the fullback so you can run a power play at a defense that knows what's coming but is powerless to stop you is the only way to play football. Also very, very true but so obvious in the aftermath of Rodriguez being the devil that it hardly bears mentioning. You are trying to bring the Wisdom Of The Michigan Program to the public, but the public already knows that part in its bones. Fooling people is for communists. The wages of spread are turnovers.
  • Brady Hoke is a cuddly bear-god who you, 6'9" high school tackle Zach Banner, should definitely play for. Now we are talking. This is a matter that the public is uncertain about—just look around here a few months ago—and Zach Banner is definitely uncertain about, being one of the few high school players in the country who has not leapt to play for our magic-poopin' cuddly bear-god. This is a topic of major interest amongst laymen and scholars and may result in honorary degrees from prestigious institutions if expounded upon at sufficiently withering, recruit-ensnaring length. Bonus points(!) awarded for pointed contrasts with Jim Tressel.

Escuche y repita. Like last year's Ohio State season, the last three years never happened. They are the Godfather III, the lying-newspaper-guy plot from The Wire, the Brian Ellerbe era… right… forgot. Kipling. Forget this bit.

Remember: the last three years never happened and therefore cannot be commented on BRADY HOKE MAGIC POOPING BEAR GOD SAY IT DO IT NOTHING ELSE

SPECIAL BO-ERA DUDE ADDENDUM: it is not racist that Corwin Brown was not hired by Michigan and you should stop saying that because it's not helping Corwin Brown any.

Precedent. Matt Marc Precedent. So I'm idling along watching some Wolverine Historian videos, as I am wont to do from time to time, and am watching the '91 Notre Dame game. In it we may see a hint of what Michigan will do with the Terrencible Talbott brothers when they hit campus: Michigan had Marc and Matt Elliott on the team that year and just said "screw it, this will look ridiculous but the fans must be informed":

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I look forward to "TERRENCE TALBOTT" stretching down to said Talbott's armpit. Should have named the bigger one Terrence. Also, check out this guy in the endzone when Desmond makes his famous diving fourth-and-one catch:

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1991, everyone!

Numbers 0, Old-Timey Hockey Wisdom 0… But Driving. The NCAA hockey rules committee is thinking about dumping full facemasks in favor of half-shields. This would seem to be an obviously less safe setup unless you're a hockey coach, at which point you resort to the old canards about respect and people getting their sticks up and so forth and so on that are similar to the old-timey complaints about how dumping the two-line pass would somehow clog up the game. Both objections are so counterintuitive that they say more about the person offering the explanation than the rule in question.

I was thinking to myself "it's too bad no one's actually done a study about this" at the same time Western College Hockey was busy finding the studies people have actually done about this. Results:

CONCLUSIONS: The use of a full face shield compared with half face shield by intercollegiate ice hockey players significantly reduced the playing time lost because of concussion, suggesting that concussion severity may be reduced by the use of a full face shield.

Er… that would be the exact opposite finding, one echoed by a second study by the same U of Calgary team and a third by the Mayo Clinic. It is possible that college hockey is less likely to feature severe goonery, but that just blows up the lack of respect argument. Half-shields don't seem to prevent vicious hits that result in season-long suspensions and potential criminal charges. (Fight unsupported anecdotes with unsupported anecdotes, I always say.)

Even if the hockey committee recommends it it's hard to imagine anyone outside the community looking at the available evidence and approving the change. The NCAA is not going to make a pointless move that all available evidence suggests will see more athletes injured.

Q: why is anyone pushing for this change? The only rationale I can see is that it's a way to mitigate junior teams playing up their "NHL style" of play. Moving to half-shields would remove the primary visual differentiator between CHL and NCAA hockey.

Mott content explosion. The WTKA Mott-a-thon and the weekend's Brian Griese-sponsored Mott golf outing have collectively raised a ton of money for the children's hospital—maybe this year fewer than three bucket people will accost me before every hockey game*—and produced a flood of what passes for news in May.

Lloyd Carr on booing kids:

Carr has long held the stance that players should never be booed.

"We all love the University of Michigan and to me, that's where it begins and that's where it ends," Carr said. "I always felt that (in) college football, the players should be treated differently than they are in the NFL because they're going to school every day, they're trying to get degrees.

"Very few percentage-wise are going to play in the NFL. The criticism of the players, the pressure on the players has been dramatically increased because of the price of tickets, (and) all of the salaries we're able to provide coaches. All of that pressure is, I think, not a positive for the game. We have to rememvber, those are 18-, 19-, 20-to 21-year-old kids down there, and a lot of people don't want to hear it."

I hope you heard that, guy I threw an empty water bottle at after the Toledo game.

David Terrell sporting a the beginnings of a crazy Kimbo Slice beard (and Braylon Edwards not sporting a crazy Kimbo Slice beard):

david-terrell-crazy-kimbo-slice-beard 

David Brandon on his involvement with Michigan's recruiting:

"I love it. When I was here as a student-athlete, the coaches used me a lot. I love the place and I think I'm a pretty good sales guy, particularly when the product is great. And the product here is great. ... When I'm called upon, if I can convince student-athletes and/or their parents why this is a great place to come and be a part of this tradition, by God I'm going to do it."

Rodriguez on David Molk's status:

“I don’t know where he’s at running wise or anything like that, but I saw him the other day, he walked by the office, and he looks great,” Rodriguez said. “I think he was anxious to do more in the spring but obviously for precautionary reasons we held him out but I think he’ll be 100 percent certainly for August stuff.”

Q.

A. "I have only the vaguest recollection of what David Molk looks like since I haven't laid eyes on him since the Penn State game and will not see him until midway through the second quarter of the UConn game, but a complicated information relay involving at least sixteen different intermediaries who were in no way directed to discover information about Molk—one of them, in fact, is a Canadian—has, by happenstance, provided me a hazy outline of his recovery prognosis, which has a 10% chance of being extremely good and a 90% chance of being completely unknowable by me, Rich Rodriguez, for reasons of NCAA regulations and quantum."

Q.

A. "As you know, as the University of Michigan's head football coach I only take a minimal interest in the on-going progress of the football team, for reasons of NCAA violations, quantum, and AMC's Breaking Bad."

Q.

A. "Devin Gardner is somewhere between 4'1"" and 8'2". So rumor has it, at least. I have no direct knowledge of the situation."

*(Seriously. I just went past two bucket people, third bucket person. Whatever spare change I am going to put in a bucket has been spoken for.)

Another year, another home regional in which you are heavily favored. Michigan was given the #2 overall seed in the softball tournament—Alabama is #1—and will host a regional against Notre Dame, Wright State, and Illinois State this weekend. If you are wondering, yes, geography plays a major role in who goes where. Carol Hutchins:

“It’s why I coach because it makes you feel alive. It’s exciting, that’s what it is. It’s exciting.”

There's a joke in there somewhere, but I can't find it. Illinois and Ohio State are the only other Big Ten teams to make the field; neither are seeds.

Etc.: The Mountain West takes a concrete step towards inviting Boise State. This is happening.

Write a python script to parse mgoblog back unto the dawn on history, get a front page link even if you diss kicking the blog off with a "hello world" post. C syntax ENRAGE python user. Graagh. FYI: apparently about three million words have appeared in posts by yours truly. I won't say I wrote them all given the prevalence of blockquotes on the site, but I probably wrote half of them.