dear diary

By Ace. From.

Sports doesn't exist for charity. It's about competition, tribal mechanisms, and betterment for the sake of itself. Fans follow teams for the identification, the camaraderie, and the thrill of what is essentially fake war by proxy, not to heal the sick, shelter the homeless, or feed the hungry. But on occasion, such things can be an ancillary benefit. From Martavious Odoms:

I want to thank the mgoblog community for allowing me to become part of something so special and helping us reach our goal for the garden project. The rewards took a little longer than we expected but we got them all ordered and as soon as we get the order back you will get your reward. (Side Note) I will be attending my first game in the BIG HOUSE 11-10-2012 I'm tired of watching the games from home and i'm ready to tailgate never got that chance to do it because i was always playing so i'm ready to experience that.

After graduating, Tae took the #EATING meme and made it real. Hope for Pahokee, his organization, had a kickstarter campaign to launch an urban gardening program. Every other day the board was hit up by another unsolicited reader reminding folks to contribute. They hit their mark, and now the Floridian swamp burg that a run-out-of-town coach raided for type players for his run-out-of-town systems will have a little Michigan garden right in the center of town. Sports isn't supposed to be about bringing together such disparate places as Ann Arbor, MI, and Pahokee, FL. But then we can all get behind #EATING.

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Don't Miss These:

The 10-Year War by Proxy. I'm pretty sure k.o.k. Law is an older guy. For one he pasted his diary from Word in 16-point font Arial (now fixed). Two, most of the article is written in short, one-sentence paragraphs. And three, he has memories from The Game in 1967:

That was back in the days when you could rake up the leaves, pile them on the driveway, and burn them. Even in the suburbs.

And only one or two UM games were televised each year, so, tend the burning leaves and listen on the radio.

Thus began kokLaw's love affair with Michigan. I put the quote about the radio above because even 20 years later, when my generation were first becoming fans, a lot of those games weren't broadcast. So for most of Michigan history, a lot of people got the details of the game by hearing it recollected in a stream of consciousness just like this diary.

Early Al's Southpaw Slinger. Turned up by markusr2007 is a short diary on the career of an early Borges quarterback at Portland State. There's a highlight video in there from when PSU (NTPSU) played Boise State on the blue turf you should watch. You'll recognize the pre-snap motion right away, but the speed with which the Flutie-armed John Charles got the pass out is utterly jarring for those of us used to the typical two or three seconds Denard typically takes. I'm sure Borges has picked up a lot in the years since—or it could be a preview of what this thing is supposed to look like now…eventually…?

Weeklies:

Inside the Box Score had one of his best this week, helped by some weirdness in the box score and a final score that didn't at all seem to match the feel of the thing we witnessed. Like losing 10 yards per kickoff and 10 yards per punt. And the names of some of the guys on Minnesota's team. Last year they had a guy named Shady Salamon. Just sayin'.

I'm told the sticker on the brim is to prevent stains from constant adjustment. Also to increase the douche factor.

If you've been following the FEI ranking along with Enjoy Life by now you're used to the swings. This time the offense improved to 47th from 56th while everything else held steady. It needs to score on somebody who doesn't give up much scoring if it wants to break that. Defense is 20th. DIABEETUS sums up my sentiments:

You know, I'm not sure I understand why FEI is useful when you predict against it (correctly) almost every week.

EJ said he'll ask Fremeau about this…very much looking forward to the answer here.

And yes he did the turnovers too, which are now at –4 for the season. I liked it when he went over each one from the game and what it did to win probability. Or was that someone else who used to do that?

Etc. A guy named Tauro took the time to break down the currently bowl eligible teams and which will be going to the Depend Adult Undergarment Bowl, etc. Program.

Best of the Board?

JMFR GIFFING (NSFW)

Linebacker who shoots inside a blocker when he's got contain: Crazy. Linebacker who maintains outside leverage and forces the play back to help: Awesome. Linebacker who treats blocker as minor irritant while cutting off two gaps of 8 yards to either side of him: Crazy Awesome. Courtesy of Ace. Don't open at work because it says fuck.

That was it at the top. Just lots of etc. here: Metrodome Memories, Lloyd Brady revealed on ESPN, a guy who's following the team Cato June's now coaching in the D.C. metro area, and a discussion on whether legalization of pot in some western states will be a recruiting advantage (it won't be and I'm not linking it). Scooter Vaughn is starting a headphones company.

Your Moment of Zen:

Can you guess what was wrong with Herb? Also the copyright to this at the end says "U.M.&M."

Of all the things to despise about the new divisions—like the MSU game being technically more important every year than Ohio State—at least let's admit there's one wonderful benefit: Michigan-Minnesota is back to every year.

The historians like this one because there were some major powers with some major players who went on or ended some major streaks back in the day. But with more than enough annual powers on the schedule these days, I kind of like having this one historically poignant yet presently non-stressful mid-year contest with the people who invented cooking the cheese inside the actual hamburger.

After yet another Hallow's Eve scare, a nice jug of hot cider and Minnesota's safeties are just the thing. Alas, it is not Jug Saturday yet, and there's some things from last week that we need to over again. Like what happens when you lose your 5-star quarterback?

DON'T MISS THESE:

You Get This One Chance. Why is it every time we've got like THE MAN under center, the minute he goes out it's terror central? Not just Denard against Nebraska but the crater when Mallett departed, or the black hole that formed when Henne's arm was removed from its socket against Oregon in 2007, or the feeling in the pit of your stomach when that Buckeye Steinbrenner bought off Drew Henson (right). Enter oakapple, who goes back through recent history to show how the uber recruit tends to both work out and scare off competition. Whyfore wast thou oppos'd to class, bygone son of Forcier?

He hits on some good questions—like the handling of Gardner. But if he looked back further, to the deep recruiting of the time after Bo, he might have seen a different magic.

Gameboy went back over Michigan's 2012 opponents past to pull up percentages for how much better our defense fared against them than their average opponents. Michigan got blown out by Alabama about exactly the same way everyone else did, and we beat UMass the same way everyone else beat on UMass. As for the rest, the defensive performances have one other outlier in Air Force (we did marginally better than Mountain West teams) and otherwise stand as "omigod that was a tough defense" in the memories of everyone else. I fixed his charts to make them more legible so the descriptions may be a bit off.

[After the jump, more spooky things]

Given the weak home schedule this year, I planned on creating a new feature on the site to detail my exploits in obtaining seats for every home game (by methods available to the hoi polloi) without ever paying a forced donation. Rule was I had to get two people into each game and sitting next to each other. Then I didn't bother for awhile because it would've been a lot of dividing by zero. To wit:

Air Force: I couldn't attend so I sent a correspondent, who then accepted a free ticket from somebody.

UMass: Offered one guy near the northeast entrance $10 each for his tickets and another guy interjected with two free ones.

Illinois: Family friend offered me a pair of his earlier in the week, then the day of the game both my designated game buddy (Misopogal) and the couple who owned the tickets decided it wasn't worth sitting in a rainstorm for this edition of Illinois, so I rolled solo with 4 tickets. I traded one to a student for his student ticket and 5 bucks 'cause the kid needed to get his buddy in, and sold the other two extras for $10 each outside the Stadium-Main entrance. I think I gave the student ticket away. Total: –$25.00

MSU: Bought two Row 11s from our new affiliate on Friday for $129 each plus $14 to have them FedEx'ed overnight (cheapest seat on Stubhub was $20 higher at the time even before their fees). Corner, but our endzone got most of the action.

Remaining home games are Iowa and Northwestern, and I'm at net $111. Guys, I think this is working.

DON'T MISS THESE:

The Thing About Purdue. In other useful though tardy things, the blogger formerly known as Blue Seoul (now ttifiblog) brought back the formerly weekly Game Wrap With Pics post for Purdue. Don't remember what that looks like? Like this:

…but bigger and legible and there's lots of them. Brian front-paged but those who went to see discovered some bad html. Now fixed; dig in. And welcome back, Diarist of the Week.

Denard Watch. As he climbs toward the big career marks, let's look back on some of the milestones already passed along this trail of hobbled safeties, heaving linebackers, flying shoes, sanctified endzones, flappitty laces, askew helmets, smile-curved mouthguards, and soaring dreads. Courtesy of jeepinben.

Kugler and some guys we're looking at. Everyone's looking for the next 2013 recruit with consensus 4 stars to start moving up boards, and Patrick Kugler's one of those dues. A couple of helpful readers got a scouting report on his recent game, plus those of three prospects.

[JUMP: Weeklies, Best of the Board, Waving things in front of Brian]

This is the kind of post Diarist of the Week was invented for: Ladies and gentlerines, I give you MSU's latest Narduzzi defense, as broken down by colin. If you missed it on the front page yesterday and when Ace linked to it, now is your chance.

The defense he describes is a version of the thing we faced from Ohio State and Virginia Tech last year, a run-sound Cover-4 scheme that is built to beat north-south spread offenses and 4 verts, and weakest against great edge rushers and outside receivers who will always win a 1-on-1 matchup. Short version: Michigan can move the ball by running over an overhyped Gholston, optioning off Marcus Rush, getting a hat on the playside linebacker, and Denard getting by Isaiah Lewis. It's a good defense.

It's also a good institution of higher learning, with a fantastic teaching school, one of the nation's best ag schools, and a packaging program that is not the joke you think that is. In this vein of non-sarcastic appreciation for our worthy in-state rival, turd ferguson offers this panegyric to their football program's unparalleled off-the-field accomplishments since Dantonio arrived:

Spartans are known to generously extend a hand to those in need.  They’ve developed a prison-to-work program seen by many as a model for how to reduce to an absolute minimum the time between prison and work.  Their athletic director moonlights as a volunteer career counselor and their football coach as a public speaking coach, offering their time even to supposed athletic rivals.  When one of their neighbors could use help just stretching his neck, scratching his eye, massaging his arm, or bludgeoning his face, a Spartan is always there to assist.

Other things in the family: Program. Wallpaper. Question: provided we can make it happen, are you guys interested in buying these as posters from the MGoStore?

Weeklies:

Defensive Analysis. If you read just one comprehensive, detailed analysis of Michigan State's defense this week, read colin's. If you read two comprehensive, detailed analyses of Michigan State's defense this week, tune into the more personnel-oriented one by death by trident. Things you may have missed: Darqueze Dennard doesn't show on the stats but is the field and probably the better corner than Adams, and the man Ace called the "best linebacker in the conference" hasn't registered a sack, though he's done everything else. Weird he said that because Ace has Mauti and both Wisconsin guys.

Tea Leaves. Eye of the Tiger checks back in at the midline to see which Star Wars episode this season is turning out to be. So far Michigan has fought its most pivotal battle using Ewoks and a game in South Bend featuring plenty of LANDO! so we're definitely not in Eps IV or V. I submit we use the special editions to specify which games are lost:

1. Empire Strikes Back, Special Edition: 12-2, win Rose Bowl. Do you remember the part at the beginning when the Wampa ice creature that haunted your childhood nightmares turned out to be a guy in a white bear suit? No you don't. Because Han is frozen in carbonite and could be anywhere in the galaxy and Luke has begun to consider the dark side, and Threepio hasn't said more than "Help, I think I'm melting" in 15 minutes.
2. Return of the Jedi: Beat MSU and OSU, blow up Death Star, celebrate with teddy bears, then lose to Admiral Chip Kelly in a licensed fan fiction called Star Wars: The Pasadena Affair.
3. Return of the Jedi, Special Edition: Lose Big Ten Championship to Wisconsin. Would be like defeating the Empire, and then having the ghost of Hayden Christianson show up claiming to be your dad.
4. A New Hope, Special Edition: Still the epic you remember, but the beginning is now a disaster ruined by Stormtroopers riding dewbacks and a Jawa falling off a Paraceratherium, and ILM family members wandering around in Halloween costumes. Then there's Han shooting first. Along the way there's a point where Borges decides to use the "Han steps on Jabba" scene, and the result is depressingly worse than it should have been.

Advancystats: FEI says 45 points on Illinois just isn't trying hard enough. The defense had a moderate climb but Michigan dropped badly in offense and overall because those stats are now opponent-adjusted. Enjoy Life has some words for the numbers:

That said, WTF!!!

After a 45-0 drubbing of an admittedly weak Illinois team, FEI blasted the overall rating to #47 (from #24 last week) and pummeled the offense efficiency to #63 (from #40 last week). Defense efficiency improved to #27 (from #33 last week).

A Box Score's Gooey Insides: The carnage isn't as gruesome when reduced to statistics, but I still wouldn't recommend letting children under the age of 11 see the Illini's final passing totals.

Etc. Chris of Unborked Logic has brought back Moving Picture Pages. Whoever the mystery person is who gave their idea for this week's Blockhams should have had the socks turn out to be kind of sticky, and then show Denard losing his shoes right and left on TV.

[After LE JUMP, MGoHalloween costumes, free indoor club seats to two lucky readers, and tinfoil Sparty hats are for realz!]

Wondering why you are all the wonderful things you are.

Don't tell Danny Hope, but there was more than one hard-G GIF animating the boards this week. The Flying Denard Photoshop thread, as cropped by blue95, was almost as fruitful as the Lewan twosie and worth your visit. Denard can be seen attacking imperial walkers, pulling Santa's sleigh, riding Falcor, and traveling via DeLorean back to 2011 to screw Tommy Rees. Drkboarder wins two internets for that last. More from the board later; first diaries.

They can be a great people, Kal-El, if they wish to be. In case you missed it among the 10/10/2012 post-a-thon, turd fuguson's graphic representation of the B1G 2013 classes is quite helpful so long as you can resist the urge to defrag it:

Why do so many people have to die for the crime of the century? The newest addition to the weeklies is a preview of the opponent's defense, Illinois being the flavor du semaine. This is death by trident, the guy I bumped for his Purdue front 7 preview last week. He followed up with the Purdue secondary after that. The Illinois one covers personnel, stats, and a lot of scheme: You'll recognize some of Ohio State's terminology on this one. He nailed the thing about Supo Sanni. He also brought up the thing about how this is another game Toussaint dominated last year, not that they're all that likely to try the same "force Denard beat us with his legs" gambit that worked so well for Purdue. Diarist of the Week, this. Other weeklies:

ST3: Inside the Box Score was quickly disabused of any notion that the Purdue game was closer than it looked. Revel.

Enjoy Life: Statistics and FEI Prediction is starting to come back to common perception, with Michigan ranked 24th overall. And here's a weird thing that shows just how far we've come: the defense is ranked ahead of the offense. Turnover Analysis shows just one forced fumble all year, which may be keeping the recovery rate depressed.

That's Clark, nice: A program. A wallpaper.

[After THE JUMP, the board produces an NFL depth chart of Wolverines, and we grieve for some heavy losses to the world of sports.]

See if you can spot Upchurch in his bucket hat | my phone

There’s a Kryk article in the 2011 HTTV about how Nebraska and Notre Dame spent much of the first bit of the 20th century beating down the doors to the Big then-Nine (actually nine). In the days when everyone had to travel by train, Lincoln was WEST man. As for Notre Dame, they were well within the conference footprint, but far outside the preppy conference’s idea of a fit. Said Kryk:

“[Expanding beyond nine members] wasn’t the biggest reason for keeping Notre Dame out. Academic snobbery was, followed closely by religious prejudice. The Big Nine was run by academic elitists, and they viewed the education provided by religious institutions of higher learning such as Notre Dame as purely second-rate.”

If you know your University of Michigan history, you’ll remember James Burill Angell’s biggest battles with regents and the rest of the brass were around his hiring Catholic  faculty and saying nice things about papists. It’s a little snapshot of the prevailing prejudices of the day, and the genesis of the Notre Dame psyche.

You’ll also know that from these early days we too were arrogant enough to go it independent for a time. But while Michigan evolved toward benchmarks of greatness that involve our in-conference rivalries, Notre Dame’s established themselves as a fearless lone wolf. It’s why we balk when our chief rival is moved to another division, while they see nothing untoward about canceling the Michigan series to guarantee one West Coast game per year.

Fast forward a century with plenty of independent glory and this is what we hath wrought: a group of exceptionalists who are in many ways truly exceptional. Like how a mountain range of new or recently renovated megaliths spring out of an industrial Northern Indiana town. Like how in this craven era they can play on dirt and grass in an 80,000 seat bowl with no jumbotrons, no bad seats, and overlooked by a great big mural of religious figure who may be praying, may be calling touchdown, or may be exclaiming “Oy vey.” And yet they will also exclaim six times, with Michigan in attendance, that their fight song is the greatest. They will mike their band and have them drown out the visitors’ whenever our guys strike up. They’ll blare pump-up music deep into the opponent’s snap count on 3rd downs. And they’ll scoff at our 100-years-late invitation to finally sign on as half-members of the Virginia and Duke conference, keep the extra home game of this now odd-numbered series, and then tell Yost’s team to go screw.

Calling them arrogant when we’re the school that shows up to other stadiums with a trailer painted all over with the message “mine’s bigger” is pot-kettle-ish. They are the hot chick, and we can’t have them anymore. Cue the diaries of Notre longing. Start with conference realignment at the end game as oakapple, rehashes the four axioms that drive college football relationships. Then DanRareEgg reminisces over the latest series that spanned, with a few two-year hiatuses, from Dan Devine to Denard’s derps. Big Will the Gazelle thinks canning the Michigan rivalry to keep MSU and Purdue is a departure from the “We’ll play anybody, any time” ethos that built the ND brand. And if you’re really not ready to let go, here’s k.o.k.Law with a present tense poetic retelling of his ‘06 experience.

Let’s do THE JUMP here, and rejoin for the weeklies and the best of the board.