DANTONIOAD

1 hour and 38 minutes

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1. Hoops vs Michigan State

starts at 1:00

Franz Wagner didn't score but his gumby arms were huge—got a good Wagner face from the block that was inexplicably called a foul. Turned on some rebounding potential. Comp? Michigan finally wins from the 3 point line. Nice to have Livers back, not just because Johns is a very good backup 4. Michigan renders Bingham useless—Johns and Davis could body him, and Livers means he can't be on the floor for spacing otherwise. Izzo's whiny bitch fest of a press conference. Why does anyone play for that guy?

2. Hoops vs Ohio State

starts at 25:46

The most insane call we've ever seen—doesn't help the refs that their explanation for the call is patently untrue. Complete officiating debacle—Kaleb Wesson should have fouled out—you literally can't take a charge if the guy is in the air before you get there! Bad both ways yes but asymmetric, and good lord. When's the last time Michigan ever got a gift game, because we have to eat 3 or 4 losses a year. Michigan is 96th %ile in short clock plays. Questionable coaching: drop coverage on Kaleb Wesson. Peak this season is cursed.

3. Hot Takes and Mark Dantonio

starts at 45:32

The XFL: a lot of good ideas for entertaining football. Seems like this league is set up for more success than previous ones. Kickoffs are cool, punting is bad, "Team 9" league-wide practice squad. Michigan's tourney resume vs State's: um, actually it's better.

Dantonio: run by Curtis Blackwell! Was clear if he was going to leave he would have gone to Beekman and gotten his money. Tom Mars is involved now. If Blackwell comes out clean here Michigan should hire him! MSU job: inheriting a rogue program after its best coach with two years of cratered recruiting. Timing is bad because you can't get in on the portal now, terrible fanbase, toughest division. Preemptive no's from Narduzzi, ISU's head coach.

4. Ace's Sconnie Hockey Podcast

starts at 1:18:02

Wisconsin's goaltending is TERRIBLE. Getting production from Granowicz. Potential #1 line with Beecher (muscle)/Hayhurst (creator)? Control their own destiny to win the league (have to win 6 in a row) but still outside looking in on tournament. They've improving: get the puck out of the zone cleaner, playing solid. Wonder what position they'd be in if they didn't take a bad luck goal against PSU and get rogered by the refs vs OSU. Only PSU in this league is a lock for the tournament but all the way down to MSU is bubble.

MUSIC:

• "E=MC²"—J Dilla (feat Common)
• "Rip Off"—T. Rex
• "Jump Around"—House of Pain
• “Across 110th Street”

THE USUAL LINKS:

• Helpful iTunes subscribe link
• General podcast feed link
• Direct download link
• What's with the theme music?

Ever had a gnome thrown at you? It's not a pleasant situation

Why?

What, are you worried Spartans are gonna be all "Typical Wolverines, whining about the refs."?

Well, yeah.

[Interference on Desmond.gif] [Spartan Bob stops the clock.gif] [etc.] Things that happen happened. Plus can you name a Spartan anyone actually takes seriously?

Chris Vannini.

Granted. But is this hypothetical Spartan in your life Vannini, or this Youtube commenter?

Wow. That's— uh, that is…

…a person whose opinion does not matter.

I was going to say my brother-in-law. But they outgained us!

Special teams matter.

Indeed.

Dude.

Still can't we be above blaming the refs? Steel in the spine and all that. It won't change the outcome of the game. At most we'll get an apology from the Big Ten that's worth exactly as much as Rutgers in a post-cable bundling media landscape.

Nice one. I'm not making a "Michigan should have won…" argument, because every play matters. The last play had a huge effect on the outcome. Connor Cook throwing perfect back shoulder passes and Aaron Burbridge being an NFL-caliber receiver was very relevant. Jake Rudock being bad at deep balls was relevant. If they'd won, Michigan's stops on 4th downs were relevant. All of it is relevant, and the game, as they say, is over.

So then what's the point?

The point is to assess how good this Michigan team is at football. IE were they significantly better than a Michigan State team that nearly lost to Purdue and Rutgers, and was absent its Rimington-quality center plus half the legs of its bookends, and is fielding a pretty awful secondary. But I'm also doing this for some more personal reasons:

1. For myself, and for posterity, I want a thorough canvassing of the things I saw and thought I saw.
2. I want to point out where the refs are getting a bad rap. Not everything we thought we saw was a legit gripe, and some of the legit gripes may have been hard for human refs to see in real time. Since complaining is inevitable, let's get it right.
3. Right now I feel like a truck ran over my dog and then half of the people in my life came over to gloat as if they were driving this truck. This is part of my healing process.

And you're going to show we got hosed?

Can't promise it. That was my certainly biased hypothesis in the stadium, but I'm not going to be able to find every incremental hold and would-be pass interference. I want to tackle the things people were talking about.

How?

Clip the plays people bitched about, watch the hell out of them, gauge the relative expectations we should have for the officials on those plays, and use the Markov Drive Analysis tool to calculate a rough expected points swing.

Markov?

This tool is based on NFL drives but it serves for what we're doing here. It gives you a basic expected points for every down, distance, and field position. For example if you have 1st and goal on your opponent's one yard line, the expected points is 6.32. A 4th and 10 on your 40 is about zero.

If I've left out any plays (including and especially those where something went Michigan's way) let me know and if I deem it worthy I'll add it to the post.

I'd rather not be part of this.

Then don't hit...

[The jump]

[ED: Hey guys! Ace is looking for a few good questions for a basketball season preview mailbag. Hit him up at [email protected].]

Meta-response about yesterday's post.

[ED: I normally hack out praise from these emails in an effort to be as concise as possible but it was not possible to do so here without making bronx sound like a jerk.]

Hey Brian,

I've been trying to think of a better way to ask this, but I can't so I'll just come out with it:

What is/was your goal with reporting about the Brandon emails? 

Man, yeah, that comes across as condescending.  Let me try to explain.

I'm not saying they shouldn't be given their due. and I respect the hell out of you and Ace putting in the effort to figure out their veracity; count me in the camp of people who doubted WD's initial post due to the inconsistencies in his story.  Following through on the story and backing it up with multiple sources is the type of reporting you don't expect to see from a "fan" site, and yet you guys did better work than I've seen in a long time from more established media members in the community.  Heck, it's basically you guys and the Daily kicking ass in that department.

But once the dust settles, how do you see this information positively or negatively affecting the program going forward?  I've made my feelings known about Brandon and how, frankly, this really shouldn't accelerate his removal (I mean, if his handling of Gibbons, Morris, ticket prices, attendance, stadium experience, alumni relations, coaching snafus, losing, etc. doesn't do him in but bitchy emails do I'll be a bit disappointed in the administration for needing something so trivial to move them to action), but I honestly want to know your take.  Do you think the fan's role in the turmoil surrounding the program, now being given a wider public forum by your site than in the past, will ultimately hurt its recovery going forward? 

For example, you mentioned in your podcast that fans' habits can be broken quickly and it can take a generation to get them back.  You and Ace seem to think that Brandon and Hoke coming back would lead to an exodus, but are you worried that the level of vitriol displayed by the fans already shows the pivot point already happened, and that everything from this point on is just piling on and driving even more fans away?  Personally, I'm less and less excited to follow this team even this year because it is just a clown show made worse by the negative tone so many fans seem to hold toward it.  My Facebook feed is full of people linking to articles calling for Hoke an co. to be booted (many to mgoblog), and lots of them were moderately-sane fans before the last couple of years.  I'm not saying you and the site are to blame for any of it; you are just reporting and commenting on the shit show being trotted out every week.  But do you think we'll look back in a couple of years and wonder if too much gas was thrown on the fire?

And again, I'm conflicted even asking this, because you guys have a duty to ferret out these idiots and bring them to the public's eye, and you do a great job at capturing the Michigan zeitgeist effectively.  But there's just such a toxic culture around the program, and I wonder even if they get some homerun hires (which I'm a bit dubious about), if some of this damage will linger. 

Anyway, feel free to respond however you want; if part of this makes its way into a mailbag or something then by all means out me and respond how you wish.  I'm fine with it.  I honestly just want to know.

Thanks.

-BronxBlue

I made a decision to let the original Have A Happy Life email stand—in fact I made a decision to re-instate it after one of the mods pulled it 200 comments deep—and from there things proceeded inexorably to yesterday's post.

I let it stand because I thought it was true.

[After THE JUMP: a full run-down of the decision to run with this story and evaluation about whether this was in error.]