the horror the sequel

file

News bullets and other items:

• Captains will be voted on after the Ohio State game, with seniors representing the team at each coin toss
• The depth chart was released prior to the presser. Read Ace’s take on it here.
• Injury update: Kyle Kalis is fully healthy, while Delano Hill is meeting with doctors this afternoon to determine whether he can play Saturday
• Hoke raved about Devin Gardner’s progression on the field and as a team leader
• Ty Isaac’s status is still uncertain; they’re waiting to hear back about the appeal
• The freshman and sophomore classes have an edge to them. Hoke does not know that he has said edge.
• Brady Hoke “Well,…” count: 12

Woody-punchin'. WH provides the 1977 Game, which Michigan wins 14-6. Woody Hayes punches the camera at about 11 minutes:

Griese could be good at the TV. Not that Griese, the other Griese. I'm now holding out vague hopes that we could be getting something a little bit like NFL Matchup out of ESPN's Thursday night CFB preview show:

Griese, Mark May and Scott Van Pelt will preview the weekend's top four or five games.

"I'm going to use game film to illustrate what the keys are to look for," Griese said in a telephone interview."That will be fun for me. I like teaching people about the game."

Griese, who led Michigan to an unbeaten 1997 season and national championship and then played in the NFL, hopes to exercise his game knowledge from years and years of digesting game film as a player.

"That's where I like to live," Griese said of being a student of football film breakdown. "From people I talk to, there's an insatiable appetite to understand the nuances of football. I don't think there's any better way to understand the game than to watch it, but to watch it in a way that's informed. I want to give people things to watch for that maybe they wouldn't have known to look for, and look at it from an insider's perspective. I want them to watch and at the end hopefully say, 'Brian alerted me to this, and that's what happened in the game.'"

I know, I know, Mark May. You can't have everything. And we have seen technically-minded guys get swallowed up by the great dumbing-down over and over again. Let me have my candle in the wind.

Lacy still extant. Message board trolls started telling folks that Alabama starting tailback Eddie Lacy had torn his ACL and was done for the year, which doesn't appear to be true. He did give his ligaments the business at an inopportune time:

Alabama starting running back Eddie Lacy sprained his ankle and a knee in Saturday's practice.

“Not a serious thing. Probably going to be day to day but probably be a little bit slow next week," coach Nick Saban told AL.com. "I think in five to six days he’ll probably be ready to go.”

And I can't find anything on the internet that confirms anything about the ACL except for the one random guy in the comment section from the mgoboard post.

The sprain was two days ago, so his availability for Michigan is not in question unless a coach is lying about an injury, which is of course totally possible. If Lacy can't go—sigh—Dee Hart, the former Michigan commit, is supposed to take over top duties.

Beard update. Mealer's beard gathers a couple of quality quotes in a Daily article, one from Jeremy Gallon, who is apparently an aficionado:

“He has a face full of straight, perfect, beard hair,” redshirt junior wide receiver Jeremy Gallon told ESPN. “You don't find that everywhere. I mean, look at it, you can’t even put it into words. It's amazing.”

And the second from Navy SEALs:

When Mealer and 21 other seniors took a trip to Coronado, Calif. for a three-day leadership trip in late May to train with Navy SEALs, he was told by the SEALs that he was sporting a true “Afghanistan beard.”

“We take pride in that,”one of the SEALs told Mealer, he recalled.

But the SEAL left Mealer a stern warning: “If we find out the season comes along and you've shaved that, we’re sending the team after you," he recounted laughing.

Also receiving six points is the Daily staffer who slapped this headline on the story:

Mealer, beard battle for starting spot on offensive line

ESPN gets four for…

Wolverines push follicle limits

…by the way. M-Live gets zero for "Michigan Wolverines linebacker Jake Ryan's hair is like Clay Matthews, now wants similar game." STEP YOUR BEAR/HAIR HEADLINE GAME UP, MLIVE WOOOOO

Probably the best thing to ever happen in Minnesota. Faint praise, sure, but BHGP's countdown of the top 25 Kirk Ferentz wins hits the top ten with that one time they clinched the Big Ten for the first time in twelve years and tore down the goalposts… at a road game:

There has not been a fan pwnage since that comes close.

This was dumb, but known. The guy who voted Michigan #1 defended himself by saying "I have never heard of this 'defensive line' thing you keep bringing up," but he'd announced he was voting M first a couple months ago, so, like… yeah. It even came with a picture of Ron Zook. I was going to write more about this but then I realized we were talking about a preseason poll and decided not to.

This is dumb, and was not known. Penn Live has various bits from the Posnanski book on Paterno, and one is relevant to your interests:

Following PSU’s controversial 27-25 last-second loss at Michigan in 2005, the Lions’ only blemish on an 11-1 season, Paterno was furious that officials put a few seconds back on the clock, possibly allowing Wolverines QB Chad Henne enough time to throw the game-winning TD pass on the final play. According to Posnanski, Paterno told friends he was considering pulling the Lions out of the Big Ten as a result.

Someone should check to see if there was frequently-used BWI handle that went dark six months ago or so.

The thing that makes this so ridiculous is that Paterno had literally just badgered the refs for two extra seconds on the previous drive—and got them. The one second hanging on the clock at the end of that game was just as much Paterno's as Lloyd's.

This is dumb, and also dumb. Former Spartan Jim Miller thinks there's an RGIII-Kirk Cousins quarterback controversy after Cousins tore up the second half of an NFL preseason game.

Random hype video. A little repetitive, but it serves its purpose:

What a good idea to bring this up again. Appalachian State's coach had a press conference just to talk about the Horror. What a good idea for the person who won that game. I'm just glad we'll never have to think about it aga—

/Ace shows Brian 2014 schedule

/Brian makes thirty-fifth appointment at Lacuna, Inc. since announcement of Horror II

Walking sans canes. Via Tom, here's Brock Mealer walking without assistance:

Etc.: Michigan alumni clubs sing the Victors worldwide. ESPN has a segment on Alabama linebacker play. Corn Nation joins the Big Ten division names boycott. Playoff details sound about like what you would think. UNC is going to go back and find out if their academic fraud is really as bad as all that. UMHoops recaps Mark Donnal's summer.

Dear Diary,

What is wrong with this picture? (which Zoo Blue found on the Michigan Football Facebook page)

• Khoury in for Molk. Omigod something happen to Molk?!?
• Mike Martin's standing up, like a blitzing WILL
• Ummm…?
• Waitaminute: Khoury, Omameh…
• Is that a tight end in the backfield? Koger?
• Khoury, Omameh, …, Moore
• Hey, no right tackle. UNBALANCED!

Way to go board – follow the thread by ZB to pick this apart. And welcome to the new feature of Dear Diary: Things-That-Are-Awesome-From-the-Board-That-You-Might-Have-Missed-This-Week-And-Holy-Hell-Does-It-Need-a-Cleverer-Nickname. But first, to the diaries themselves, starting with a candidate for Diary of the Year.

This is Undefeated dream season of 1992's Ph.D. thesis to show which teams get the most bang for the buck out of their recruiting. Unlike other entries under the "recruiting is legit, yo" tag, the author whom I call "9-0-3" in my head takes into account expectation based on returning starters (especially at QB) and previous FEI performance versus recruiting class ranking. Of course Michigan is terrible:

The top schools in the B1G for outperforming expectations are Iowa, Nebraska, and Wisconsin. Whatever their methods, they have been successful turning 3 star recruits into 5 star players. Over the past three years, the worst B1G team relative to expectations is… Michigan, and that's despite last year's offensive leap. 2008, for a variety of reasons (including Tacopants), was an offensive disaster for Michigan, and 2009 was still below the model's expectations. Minnesota and Illinois round out the B1G bottom 3. Ohio State is right in the middle, mainly because it recruits so well and performs up to those expectations.

Go ahead and blame Greg Robinson. C'mon, you know you wanna!

GERRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

He covers the regression angle pretty well – maybe do FEI percentile instead of rank. My other critique is what are you measuring: scheme effectiveness, development, talent evaluation, or a scouts' biases against recruits who don't live within 40 minutes of a Southwest Airlines hub?

You'll Be Hearing From Us

Highly aesthetic upper body-enhancement equipment / prizes for knowing things about football.

A week from now it'll be prediction this and prediction that and I'll eat a loaf of Lembas bread if we actually get through it without somebody proclaiming Michigan's going to run the table. Yet in the penultimate week of this memorable 2011 offseason, it got really kind of metttttta.

Last week Six Zero debuted the new MGoShirts for this year (see above).

Then Jeff introduced the Pick Six, a relic competition from an ancient Domer blog where you pick 5 teams you think will do well from the Top 25, plus one unranked. Originally there was no prize but eternal glory in the knowledge that you know more about football than other people, but then Brian offered some of those MGoShirts to the winners.

Brian made a rare diary appearance to announce we're gonna get pictures of things baby!

And if you haven't yet met the new guys, here's Hello: Ace, and Hello: Heiko.

Best of the Board (needs clever name)

That photo above is just one of several Hoke: The Early Years shots dug up by Wolverine Historian after MGoShoe discovered the Hoke Points at Things site. This is just a sampling of the wonders to be found deep in the belly of the MGoBoard. Since the board is quite big and I can't read it all, feel free to let me know (misopogon at att dot net) if you come across anything 92% Pure Columbian Awesome or higher. Here's some highlights this week:

1: MICHIGAN STADIUM TO COVER 25 PERCENT OF PLANET BY 2060:* Bumped to a Diary, MGoPhotoRod personally interviewed Dave Brandon about the planned further expansion of the Big House. Radical adherents of traditionalism and democratic architecture, start your griping:

The specs include all-bleacher seating, which will rise up to enclose the spaces between the sideline structures to the scoreboard at a height that the scoreboard will appear as if it is "set into" the new seating area. The design would also make the seating appear like a second deck, as a concourse will be included in the new construction below the new seating.

I'm going to see it before I judge. Second deck like Joe Louis Arena wouldn't bother me, but a visually separated section for the proles I think would damage one of the most aesthetically nice things about Michigan Stadium, which is that unlike some places it doesn't make you feel like you're walking into an Orwellian novel. I doubt however it will look any different than the concourse that broke up the 'M'.

Anyway can people see from up there? I haven't sat up high since my freshman year when they built that stupid Halo, and from there the game just looked like a bunch of blue and yellow dots chasing a white and orange dot around the field.

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* You know who's got the rest

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2. PARKING: Speaking of the stadium, DIABEETUS got some info on where you'll put your car when they're all done.

3. WTKA SUMMARY: On a thread during the live broadcast of Brian's WTKA show, Bocheezu kindly summarized the first two of three segments. Bochee- you should totally make this a weekly diary.

4. BEERS AND BARS: Lamest thing ever that a group of college guys would totally come up with: Forming a club called "DBAAA" ie "Drinking Beer Around Ann Arbor." Here's a follow-up thread to Brian's foodie entry this week that's all about Ann Arbor-y suds.

5. MINNESANGS MIGHT HAVE BEEN MORE APPROPRIATE BUT: Mustachioed Gentleman sparked a Haiku thread for welcoming Heiko, wherein everybody posted in Haiku. #ONLYATMICHIGAN

6. PEP RALLY WILL INCLUDE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUR BOSS TO FIRE YOU AGAIN: Tell Ablauf when it's time to do the Michigan/App State rematch in 2014, the "Old Wounds" game press release is already written.

Etc.

Section 1 remembers when the Lions came to play in the Big House. Not the Nittany kind – the ones that people now use as an example for devastating interior rushing.

Last year Blazefire put his season preview to the theme of "American Pie," and it was almost as good as that "Bye Bye [Name of Fraternity Which Found a Particularly Hilarious Way of Getting Kicked Off Campus]" fwd circulating around umich.edu inboxes c.1999 that you now wish you'd kept.  This year he outdid himself with Walk This Way:

…Singin’ “hail to the Victors”
at our Irish little sisters at the Big House
In the cool night air!

So we took a big chance, with a Hoke-y romance
Didn’t know if he was ready to lead,
Had us all gone foolin’, Yeah he took us for some schoolin’
Seems that he knew what he was doin ‘ indeed

Next week there's football.