dave brandon creates the future

This was inevitable, I guess. Jib your sail and batten your hats:

I am filled with a moderate distaste, so these are probably good as far as alternate uniforms go. I rank them above the infamous MSU bumblebee jerseys. So we've got that going for us unless the gloves…

…look like that. That brings out the uniformz tag.

Upside: no helmet frippery. No numbers, either, but oddly the announcement says the Alabama uniforms will have them. It's just the rest of the season that won't:

Last season's practice of placing the player numbers on the famed winged helmet will be suspended after the season opener in Dallas.

Aaaand:

Michigan will wear its traditional home and road uniforms for the remainder of the regular season.

No six uniform changes this year, though the "regular season" leaves the door open for Commemorative Bowl Things.

BONUS: They're adding an American flag to the back of the helmet just to clear up any confusion about Michigan football's patriotism.

The rumored Utah series is now official:

Utah will host Michigan in Rice-Eccles Stadium in the 2015 season opener as a part of a home-and-home series that begins with a 2014 game in Ann Arbor. Michigan will make its first Salt Lake City appearance on Sept. 3, 2015 in a rare weekday game for the Wolverines, who have never played on a Thursday. The first game of the series is scheduled for Sept. 20, 2014 in Michigan Stadium.

Michigan becomes just the second Big Ten team ever to play in Salt Lake City. The Utes knocked off Indiana 40-13 in Rice-Eccles Stadium in 2002.

"A home-and-home series with Michigan is the kind of opportunity that comes with membership in the Pac-12 Conference," said Utah Director of Athletics Dr. Chris Hill. "I greatly appreciate Coach Whittingham's willingness to add college football's winningest program to his already difficult 2014 schedule, which will also feature five Pac-12 road games."

You'll note that the Wow Factor has been factor'd by playing in the Thursday night slot usually occupied by Mississippi State's latest flailing interception machine.

But wait, there's more! Michigan has released the entire 2015 nonconference schedule, which is as follows…

2015

Sept. 3 at Utah
Sept. 12 Notre Dame
Sept. 19 Oregon State
Sept. 26 UNLV

…and bits of the 2016 schedule, featuring ND, a home game against Colorado on September 17th and two TBAs likely to be punching bags. The Pac-12 agreement is tentatively scheduled to start the year after, so Michigan's eliminated ND-and-three-dwarves nonconference scheduling for the foreseeable future. That's a positive even if none of the teams incoming has much sex appeal.

But wait, there's more!

In addition, Michigan and Notre Dame will take a two-year hiatus in their long-standing rivalry during the 2018 and 2019 seasons. Both schools intend to resume the rivalry in the years following.

That may be "less," actually. We'll see if Michigan fills that slot with a quality opponent when the time comes.

Questions

Are those Oregon State and Colorado games one-offs? Or are they home and homes with return dates set for the distant future? (If one-offs: coup. If not, okay.)

If so can we expect the Oregon State and Colorado games to slot into that 2018 and 2019 ND hiatus along with the Pac-12 agreement? (If so: meh.)

When was the last time Michigan played three BCS-ish teams in a nonconference schedule, as they will in 2015? (A: 1997, when they played Baylor, Colorado, and ND. They also did so in 1996 (Colorado, BC, UCLA) and 1994 (BC, ND, Colorado).)

What is our deal with playing Utah? (Seriously.)

To watch tonight. If you're starving for something in maize and blue to root on—and you probably are—softball's super regional matchup against Alabama will be on the TV. Game one is tonight(!) on ESPN2 at 8. Games two and three (if necessary) are Friday, with game two at 4:30 on ESPNU and hypothetical game 3 on ESPN2 at 7.

The full Jackie Chiles. I've accused a couple of lawyers who have entered our lives of being Seinfeld Cochran-parody Jackie Chiles, but Jalen Rose just won the title for all time:

"I think it was unnecessary. Flagrant. Defiant."

Rose goes on to say "it"—Mary Sue Coleman saying they won't be putting the banners up again for games that still never happened—is…

"…honest, and I respect that. If they choose not to embrace the Fab Five era, if they choose not to embrace us individually or as a team or the things we brought to the table, I really have no bitterness. I'm not mad at it.

"What's going to happen, though? … When you turn your back directly or indirectly on something that was so good to you, you're never going to get the true foundation of a program to build upon."

"I'm not bitter" is kind of like "I'm not racist, but…" in that it's only said when you're about to be bitter or racist. I can get Rose's frustration and appreciate that he cares enough about his time at Michigan that it bothers him, but the games are vacated. It's over, man.

Well, here they are. Everyone loves them some Phil Steele but whenever he releases these All Conference teams I look at the Big Ten and get suspicious about how closely he's paying attention. This year's edition:

Just amongst Michigan players, the inclusion of Omameh over Schofield, the total omission of Jake Ryan despite 16 linebackers featuring, and Roy Roundtree featuring on the first team raise eyebrows. Also there's no Countess, Kenny Demens is not better than Michael Mauti, and the next time Will Gholston beats a block it will be his… well, his second time. He did it in MSU's bowl game.

The text is really tiny and weird, though. This is Steele's secret weapon.

Hail Mallory. Is JT Floyd too high as well? Yeah, probably. But it's not ridiculous to have him on there. Gibson minus all of the points.

Imaginary depth chart revamp. Based on some things I'd heard I assumed that in the event Michigan needed to fish for a second replacement tackle it would be Ben Braden despite his relative lack of recruiting hype. This tea leaf from Borges suggests otherwise:

Offensive coordinator Al Borges said last week freshmen could compete at any spot this fall, but named Kyle Kalis and Erik Magnuson as leaders to see the field because of the Wolverines' woefully thin offensive line depth.

“Kalis is a good player and he’s going to get a chance, just like Erik Magnuson,” he said.

Meinke goes on to state that Kalis is expected to compete for the left guard job but may move to tackle in the future, which is inverted from my assumption. That assumption: left guard will be okay, but the horrifying lack of depth at tackle means this college-ready five star needs to be prepped there in case someone gets hurt playing football.

All of this will be torn up and revamped when fall camp hits. Finding out who the #3 tackle is and if the freshmen receiver can play immediately will be priorities.

On fire. With three goals in three games, Justin Meram is officially on fire in MLS JAM. The latest is at about 1:20 here:

That cross came from a man named "Dilly Duka."

Side note: parallels between Meram and Zach Putnam exist. Both brought about a renaissance in a non-revenue sport with potential and a pro league to continue to, both programs collapsed after they left, the absence of both saw their longtime program stewards terminated after about a decade in charge. Whenever I see either I think of some fun times that I thought were sustainable but ended up not being so.

He's on top of it! OSU reported 46 secondary violations a few days back. These were more comedy than crime. Adding to the comedy is Gene Smith as Towlie:

Smith told The Lantern Tuesday the athletic department has 12 pending NCAA violations, and he doesn’t know if they will be deemed primary or secondary violations.

“We’ve got 12 pending,” Smith said. “It may turn out to be secondary. It may not.”

OSU spokesman Dan Wallenberg said in a Wednesday email to The Lantern, that there were actually less than 12 pending violations. Wallenberg did confirm that the additional violations are being “processed,” although he did not “know the status of each situation” in regards to whether it was being processed by the university or the NCAA.

I have no idea what's going on, you guys.

Chances anything serious comes out of this asymptotically approach zero until Charles Robinson arrives on the scene in a superhero costume, but it's good to get further confirmation that the man in charge of Ohio State athletics is maybe not so good at his job. [UPDATE: Smith clarifies that Charles Robinson is not on campus.]

Support the troops. Dave Brandon's opposed to having anything in the Midwest ever, and if you aren't you are pissing on our student-athletes:

"The one thing that kind of gets left out of this discussion that maybe ought to get some weight are the kids," he said Friday during WTKA's Mott Takeover. "Now, I know a lot of people don't really care about that part, but I do, and if you polled our players and said, 'If you played a really tough, successful, long regular season, the award you're going to get is to travel to Ford Field or Lucas Oil Stadium,' they would look at you and say, 'Huh?'

"They love going to warm weather. They love going to some of these locations they, in some cases, have never visited."

…TO PLAY FOR A NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME ON SOMETHING APPROXIMATING A HOME FIELD AAAAARGH. I shouldn't even bother repeating the things. They are just infuriating. Next week there will be a sudden reversal and Brandon will talk about how he doesn't consider on-campus sites to be on campus. It's not really a home field advantage, you see, because something something something pasta in a bread bowl.

We made money! Besides, Michigan made bank on the Sugar Bowl:

While the Big Ten conference received $6.1 million for an at-large BCS team and gave Michigan $2.05 million for travel and other expenses for its participation in the game, that was not Michigan's profit on the game.

After expenses were taken out and the Big Ten absorbed the cost of the university's unsold tickets, Michigan brought in $78,916 in profit from its trip to New Orleans, according to records received by WolverineNation as part of a Freedom of Information request.

It's not quite as bad as that. Michigan still has a couple million coming from the league. It seems like the travel and expenses budget is designed to approximately break even. The Big Ten ate about 400k in unsold tickets from the Sugar.

Etc.: ESPN's putting together a "hate week" that seems incompatible with their corporate goals, but if you're writing about Fielding Yost's irrational hatred for something I'll read it.

Derrick Walton still tearing up AAU. Michigan Hockey Net interviews Michael Downing. Troy Woolfolk on stuff. Glick fluff from Michigan Today. I kind of wish it wasn't smack dab in the middle of State Street, since that forced soccer to relocate off campus.

Commits ho? Sleuthing out bits of Michigan's hockey schedule.

Your bounty. The Shutdown Fullback has been created. Don't click it if you can't take jokes about Lloyd Carr's inability to gameplan from a Florida fan who clearly filed the most recent matchup of the two teams under "LSD-induced hallucination."

My name is Orson Swindle
I have taken LSD
Lloyd Carr is beating Tim Tebow by running a wide-open spread offense

PLEASE HELP ME

I mean… yeah. I get it.

Anyway:

Jason Kirk has started making meth with a former student of his. That is all.

That's not all. Final total for M: $6,316. Second place: Georgia with $1,318. OSU: $250. Rest of Big Ten combined: $600.

YES THAT IS WHAT YOU SHOULD LOOK LIKE

Everyone hates it. Literally the only positive response to the Big Ten's recent smoochy session with the Rose Bowl I can find: Drew Sharp [for the love of God, don't click that]. That's when you know you've made a bad life decision. Drumroll…

Kyle Meinke opens with "all due respect, but have you lost your mind" and doesn't back off much from there:

"I’m a big advocate for playing as many games as possible on campus, but I’m also a realist to know when you get to the point where you got those kinds of national games, with teams coming to various regions of the country, playing outdoors in the Midwest in January probably is not going to be a salable option," he said.

Right. Because Lambeau Field and Soldier Field and Gillette Stadium and MetLife Stadium have such a hard time drawing fans for December and January games.

Of course, Delany revealed minutes later the Big Ten is interested in adding the Pinstripe Bowl to its postseason slate -- a game that's played in late December in New York City. So, apparently the Big Ten doesn't mind playing postseason games in the cold, as long as they're not playoff games.

And what about all the fans, who likely will be asked to travel to a Big Ten championship game, national semifinal and national title game within the span of a month?

Maize and Blue Nation:

If you were to ask me why Jim Delany and the Big Ten brass have, essentially, given up without a fight to be able to host semi-final playoff games on college campuses – I would not have a coherent answer for you.

Corn Nation, which doesn't have the lingering fondness of a Big Ten tradition:

I hate the Rose Bowl. I hated it before we joined the Big Ten, I hated it last year, and I'm going to hate it even more now. I don't want a college playoff system if it includes the existing bowl system. I don't care about Rose Bowl tradition.

I wanted to see a SEC team play in freezing temperatures in the snow some day before I die. Now it looks like I'm just going to have to live forever. Bastards.

Land-Grant Holy Land:

Yesterday, Michigan State's athletic director, Mark Hollis, informed us peasants about the death of on-campus semi-final games. The "value" of the Rose Bowl has to be maintained, you see. I guess I'm not surprised fossils are defending other fossils which make them money. It's a hell of a ruse, and I guess in the end, I have to tip my cap and wait for the Grim Reaper to do what he does.

Eleven Warriors:

To hide behind the fallacy that elite B1G teams set the Rose Bowl as their ultimate goal is a joke. That joke becomes the kind you don't deliver in front of women and children when you basically go out of your way to disadvantage your own teams by not pushing for warm climate schools to possibly play big boy football in football weather.

As icing on the cake, the decision makers put an even greater financial burden on fans who will be racking up a lot more air miles with no chance of a home semifinal or at least a semifinal potentially located within the conference footprint.

With self inflicted decisions like this, it's not hard to understand why the B1G struggles to be elite on the gridiron. But hey, at least we still have the Rose Bowl tradition.

Yay.

Get The Picture, a Georgia partisan:

I give up.  These guys really are that dumb.  If I were the folks at ESPN, once I got them signed on the dotted line for the next postseason TV deal, I’d invite ‘em all over for a friendly game of poker.  There’s no reason to leave them with any money in their wallets.

There was also the Wetzel piece, a Holdin' The Rope bit, and a bunch of other stuff I could keep linking for days. Everyone hates the Big Ten's meek-shall-inherit act.

Further statements to make your head explode. Urban Meyer:

"I would rather have neutral sites," Meyer said. "I'm not sure you can, on a crisp December day here in Columbus, have a Southern team come up to play. The Southern teams I coached [at Florida], I know it would be a problem."

AARGH

Meanwhile, I found the Brandon quote about fairness:

"I think there are two issues," Brandon said Wednesday after meetings with conference AD's wrapped up. "One is the salability of that to the other conferences in terms of whether that is a fair fight to bring somebody up in the snow of January from the South. Whatever system we come up with it has to be agreed to by everybody, so that is the practical reality."

ARGHHHHHHHH (The other issue is that players like free vacations.)

In other bowl news. The Big Ten is thinking about diversifying its bowl locations. Right now there's the Rose and then Florida Florida Florida Florida. Delany:

"When you have three bowls in Florida and you're a school that is constantly in that range for selection, your fan base could end up, in a five-year period, four times in the state of Florida," Delany said. "So does that depress the interest? Again, sometimes less is more. Is there a way to give them a taste of Florida and Phoenix and Texas and other places in California? We want to have the fan base excited about going, about who they're playing and about where they're playing.

Delany said they'd be interested in the Pinstripe Bowl in New York—probably the least-embarrassingly-named minor bowl around—and Graham Couch, the author of the above-linked piece, speculates that the Big Ten would like to move in on California bowls like the Holiday and the Fight Hunger Bowl. You may remember the latter as the host of the saddest game in the history of college football (Illinois-UCLA, featuring two fired coaches and zero winning records), but it's in San Francisco so at least it's somewhere interesting. I said my bit on this already; diversity is good, they should put one in Denver. Average temps there in January are in the 40s. Not exactly Frozen Tundra.

Minor violations ahoy. Another minor avalanche of secondary violations from OSU contains little of note except another screwup from Gene Smith, but I want to point out this guy:

…assistant coach Mike Vrabel [was] using smokeless tobacco on the sidelines during football games last season, which was noted and reported to Ohio State by a Columbus-area health teacher, and was a secondary violation of NCAA rules against using tobacco during games or practice.

Of course the guy ratting on Vrabel is a high school health teacher. Now let me tell you about these sexually transmitted diseases. Remember, kids, everything is going to kill you. Now read a book or die.

BONUS: article features Only Lawyer In America Michael Buckner.

"In general, if you're not reporting numerous secondary violations, then from the NCAA perspective, that could be considered a bad sign," Buckner said.

Someone find another lawyer. Surely we must have a second somewhere in this country.

Etc.: Big Ten to make title game tickets less deliciously scalpery. Michigan to spend a quarter of a billion dollars on non-revenue sports facilities over the next ten years. Even the Big Ten schools regularly hovering around 6-6 want bowl minimums increased. More Beilein transfer policy stuff. Staples endorses a committee. 2013 Scout Bball revamp moves Walton up, adds Donnall, still omits Irvin, confusing local observers greatly. Josh Levin says one-year scholarships are the "most evil thing about college sports" in Slate.

Total abominations

The Big Ten meetings are currently underway in Chicago, and the big story is the Big Ten bowing to their SEC overlords respecting the sanctity of the Rose Bowl by abandoning the desire for on-campus playoff semifinals. Of course, the stated reason for such a stance can't be "we're hopelessly in the pockets of the bowl system, so we'll sacrifice a competitive advantage for the sake of preserving some bastardized ideal of tradition," so this is now about... fairness?

DB: Admitted playing northern sites outside simply isn't fair even though Big Ten could have competitive advantage...

— Freep Wolverines (@freepwolverines) May 16, 2012

Sure, USC or UCLA playing in the Rose Bowl, LSU playing in the Sugar Bowl, Florida or Miami in the Orange Bowl, that's all fine. God forbid Big Ten fans actually get to drive to a postseason game while their SEC counterparts don coats (gasp!) and get on an airplane for what amounts to a road game! No, this can't happen because the kids want a nice trip and their bowl swag:

DB: Many UM FB players in favor of traveling to warm weather sites for bowl experience but could be tough in multiple weeks w B10 title game

— Freep Wolverines (@freepwolverines) May 16, 2012

Fair enough, I guess. I'm assuming, if the question was framed differently, the players would be in support of hosting a semifinal—and evening the playing field—instead of playing a "home" semi in Pasadena before a warm neutral-site final, though I could be wrong. Escaping Michigan in January is always high on my list of things to do in Michigan in January. This, however, is not my ideal destination:

Delany said he will "have conversations" about adding Big Ten bowl tie-in to New York City.

— Kyle Meinke (@kmeinke) May 16, 2012

Just so everyone has this straight: B1G concerned about cold weather for playoff, but would like to play bowl games in NYC in January.

— Kyle Meinke (@kmeinke) May 16, 2012

I present Yankee Stadium, home of the Pinstripe Bowl, one day before the 2010 game:

What's really remarkable is that the Big Ten is so brazen in its hypocricy that these ideas are presented within mere minutes of each other. The sooner the bowl system dies a fiery (icy?) death, at least when it comes to determining a national champion, the better.

Dave Brandon, Jerry Jones, and two weird old guys. Unless I've got that wrong.

A lot of people are pretty mad that Michigan's band is not going to Alabama. So many people are mad that there is a backlash against the mad people. The strength of the reaction is a combination of a number of things, amongst them the sudden reversal, how bush-league we look in comparison to Alabama, and the growing feeling that maybe this wasn't such a coup after all.

Remember back when this thing was scheduled and we were assured that the take from this was going to be epic? Back then, I thought it was a good idea because it seemed impossible for Michigan to schedule a real nonconference opponent in any other way. This came paired with rending of garments about that fact, how college football is broken, etc., but the fact remained that 2012 would be the first season in a long time in which two nonconference games would be against truly interesting opponents. It was the only way.

That assumption has steadily eroded as we find out more and more details and observe Big Ten scheduling trends in general. The conference announced a scheduling alliance with the Pac-12 that will force every league member to undertake regular home-and-home matchups against comparable opponents, no neutral site funny stuff (or at least not much). Michigan State jumped the gun on that agreement to schedule Oregon to a home-and-home. The year after that series finishes, the Spartans will take on Alabama in a home-and-home, in years when they also play Notre Dame. It can be done. Michigan just didn't do it.

As for our Alabama game, Michigan's announced take, $4.7 million, is so low it seems impossible it's correct. If that's all Michigan's getting from the game that's at best equivalent to playing a body-bag game at Michigan Stadium. Assuming random one-off opponent cost a million bucks, Michigan would match 4.7 million in gate receipts alone by charging an average of 52 bucks a ticket.

Michigan's 2011 budget shows $41.3 million for last year's eight-game home season in pure ticket costs minus guarantees, $8.7 million in PSDs, and $13 million in premium seating donations. Everything included, the average price paid for a seat at a Michigan game last year was about 72 dollars. Without all the donations, it was $49 last year; ticket prices increased by an average of $4.64 this year. $4.7 million is about 300k less than they'd get from a home game on ticket face value alone.

Add in Michigan's expenses for getting down to Dallas and the ancillary benefits of having a home game (parking and concessions seem to be around 300k per game and there would be some level of increased donations required to get a season ticket) and either $4.7 million is undershooting it by a lot or Dave Brandon sold a home game to Dallas for no financial benefit whatsoever. Meanwhile, tickets for Dallas start at $125. At that price Michigan could easily afford a home and home with a high-quality opponent.

Surely this can't be right. Dave Brandon didn't send Michigan down to Dallas for no reason whatsoever, right? My previous belief was that there was something we were missing in the numbers. But the sudden about-face about the band—and it was an about face given the contract and the conspicuous "Michigan band" sections on seating charts—suggests that the financial picture could be as grim as that: $400k is a significant chunk when you're already getting hosed backwards and forwards.

I finally took a close look at the contract. We are getting hosed backwards and forwards. Check it:

CSLP will … pay $4,700,000 to Michigan. The team acknowledges that the Team Guarantee constitutes the sole financial compensation for the Team for playing the Game, and that no other compensation will be due or owed to the Team under this Agreement in connection with the Game. … The parties acknowledge that the Team may be entitled to compensation from its conference related to broadcast of the game. CSLP … will … retain all other revenues from the game. CSLP and ESPN acknowledge and agree that (a) all rights to telecast of distribute the programs of the Games have been assigned by Michigan to the Big Ten (b) Michigan has no ability to grant to ESPN any rights for telecast or distribution of Games played pursuant to this agreement and c) as between Michigan and ESPN, ESPN is responsible for obtaining such rights from the Big Ten. Notwithstanding the forgoing, if ESPN has the broadcast rights [they can get a title sponsor, etc.]

The TV point is important: my Big Theory for why this makes sense is that the teams would get the TV rights to themselves because the game is outside of their conference footprints. That's not the case. The money Michigan gets from television will be split twelve ways—every extra dollar they make for playing a big time opponent also goes to OSU.

Michigan gets a couple hundred tickets, a couple suites, seating for the band, a field-level "party suite" and right to purchase 500 tickets near it, and 100 parking passes. Cheerleaders get in free. They get one "official retailer" in the stadium that CSLP takes a 22% of the gross of. So that's nothing. An addendum makes it clear that "hotel rooms, and other costs of transportation and lodging, shall be at the cost and expense of the individual institutions." Even the police escorts are at the respective teams' expense.

The only thing that could possibly redeem this is if the Michigan got the revenue from the uber-expensive tickets, but the contract makes it clear they don't:

CSLP shall also provide a minimum of 25,000 tickets for Michgian to re-sell to its fans as specified on the stadium map as an addendum to this document.

Michigan got no more money than they would for an average regular season game and is charging their fans 60% more (at a minimum!) to attend it. There is no way to read the contract other than this: Dave Brandon got ripped off.

So when Dave Ablauf tells AnnArbor.com that they're treating Dallas like "any other road game," it's because they have to. This supposed financial windfall simply does not exist. At best it's a break-even proposition even without the band. They will probably make more against Air Force the next week. Michigan gets a "bowl game experience" in an NFL stadium without its band at "neutral site" Michigan is twice as far away from as Alabama. Meanwhile, Mark Hollis gets Alabama at home. Michigan got owned by Mark "people u is" Hollis.

You can consider the future created, yo.

BONUS: I hope this came from Brandon.

MT @sbell021 Game announced 2 months before Hoke hire. RT @schadjoe Brandon asked Hoke if he'd like to play Alabama and Hoke said "Why not?"