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Dear Diary is Back in the Car Again
Before I forget, go draft your FreeRoll team for tomorrow—if you finish in the top 12 you get legal tender, and you don't have to give up any legal tender for it. If enough people don't sign up we don't get to keep doing these.
Anyhoo,
Okay so maybe I'm still a bit shaken from encountering a real life Tyrannosaur …
…who's not even allowed to enter the draft, but the thought of Lewan leaving for the NFL felt like being stuck in the middle of Jurassic Park with nobody but your 8-year-old brother for protection.
"That's not what I'm gonna do." –Taylor Lewan
So yes I saw new starters at 4 of 5 OL positions and turned into a hyperventilating girl—like you didn't! Thank Denard for Dr. Grant. I have no idea why he thinks a stereoscopic scavenger with an occipital lobe 8 times the size of its cognitive center who's related to visually acute crocodiles and birds would have movement-based vision (maybe it's the frog DNA?) but if I'm gonna walk the length of an island of angry therapods I'm very happy to have this man along one more time. That sentiment was passed on personally by justingoblue and megangoblue, at Crisler. Pretty pictures with the cool story bro&sis but guys I'm feeling really warm and fuzzy inside.
How warm and fuzzy? 1.64 degrees centigrade fuzzy. That's the heat generated by the burning of calories in running 4,495 yards according the post-drunk maths of Blazefire. Here's another way to visualize it:
In case you were wondering, yes West Virginia fans are going to boycott everything because Denard used handoffs for the final stretch. LSAClassOf2000 added some perspective on the Denardian career by the percentage of Michigan's total offense he accounted for. Roughly, from the time he was a freshman, half of Michigan's yards were his.
In other things you ought to read, Ron Utah did a comparison of the 2011 and 2012 seasons, concluding the Denard arm was a big deal. Here's some of the things I pulled from that:
| Stat | 2011 | 2012 |
|---|---|---|
| Rushing YPC | 5.15 | 4.76 |
| Fumble Recoveries | 20 of 25 (80%) | 11 of 22 (50%) |
Surprisingly Michigan improved on 2011's unprecedented ownership of 4th down, converting 69% of our 13 attempts (up from 59% in '11), and holding opponents to 43% (not far off the 38% of last year).
Etc. I forgot to front-page Mathlete this week; amazingly there were two plays that swung the game more than Tyrannosaurus Clowney making a goat disappear. Combining the sagarin and UPI rankings makes Michigan the top football-basketball combo school in the nation (Florida, Notre Dame and Louisville come after). I'm guessing Ohio State doesn't count for that. The Blockhams was great this week, though the text still needs to be way more succinct—not that I of all people can really talk.
[Lewan photoshopping and really smart raptors, after the jump]
FreeRoll, Basketball Edition the First
We did it for football and it was a success, plus people got free money and stuff. Now MGoBlog partner-in-fantasy Draftstreet is going to let us try this for hoops.
Remind me what this is:
It's fantasy except instead of drafting one team at the beginning of the season they've broken it up into quick-hitting night leagues. Enrollment in our pool is free for MGoReaders, and this time there's $300 (up from $200) in the pool paid out among the Top 12 finishers as soon as each freeroll ends. Since there were way more interesting games on Saturday we chose to go with that day, although Michigan-Ohio State (and MSU, and like nobody else of any relevance whatsoever) plays Sunday.
This free contest will be salary-cap style drafting where everyone tries to assemble the best team out of the available players. You will have a $100,000 budget to build a team of 3 forwards, 3 guards, and 2 utility players. Each CBB player has been assigned a price based on their expected fantasy performance. You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts this Saturday at 11:00am EST at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.
Note: you can't be eligible for prize money, even though entry is free, if you're from Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Vermont, or Puerto Rico.
About last time:
Leaderboard? Leaderboard.
Unbwolverine rode Seth Doege and…Akeem Shavers? to victory, proving why did I waste so much gold on Venric Mark when Purdue was facing Indiana's rush defense. Also guys named Seth are can't-miss. Also this was a long time ago and you don't really care.
Smart bets:
Number 1 don't listen to anything I have to say about baskertball. Number 2, I think the trick to hoops is look for bad defenses: South Carolina (plays Auburn) is 289th to KenPom. Texas Tech's D is nearly as accommodating and they face Kansas!
CLICK HERE to register for this week's league.
