i am a sad bastard in a record shop

Jim Harbaugh took a big gamble when he hired former Dallas Cowboys, Texas A&M Aggies, Minnesota Gophers, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Iowa State Cyclones, Buffalo Bulls, James Madison Dukes, Valdosta State Blazers, and Baylor Bears defensive backs coach Maurice Linguist, that the young assistant wouldn’t jump again until the cornerbacks room in Ann Arbor was properly restocked.

Alas, Linguist's career at Michigan couldn’t last six months. Kansas head coach Les Miles was fired in early March for sexual misconduct, the Jayhawks replaced him with Buffalo head coach Lance Leipold at the end of April, and Buffalo in turn announced today that the co-defensive coordinator Michigan hired on January 20 will take over the Bulls on May 7.

Introducing our new head coach, @CoachMo15! ?#UBhornsUP pic.twitter.com/9hlpPBfr1r

— UB Football (@UBFootball) May 7, 2021

Shit.

A crack recruiter, Linguist’s hire was the first widely regarded sign of hope that Harbaugh could turn the program around following last year’s 2-4 season. Linguist helped them secure commitments from legacy five-star Will Johnson and TN 4* Kody Jones for the 2022 class, and as of last week the Wolverines appeared to have a strong chance with several more elite athletes in the secondary. Most likely the fallout from today has changed that position significantly, especially with Jones, who committed just days after Linguist's hire. Michigan will also have to start over with top target TN 4* Myles Pollard, and explain to everyone why they go through so much staff turnover.

Not that this one is that hard to explain. There's familiarity, there aren't many head coaching offers that come along, and Buffalo is a solid MAC program that's recently been a springboard for other young coaches.

Linguist returns to the program he helped turn around as “co-“ defensive coordinator with Lou Tepper. If the name rings a bell, Tepper was head coach of Illinois in the early 1990s, after serving for years as former Bo assistant Bill McCartney’s defensive coordinator in Colorado. In their short time together in Buffalo, Tepper and Linguist installed a 3-4/3-3-5 stack defense, played match quarters behind it, and put a small scare into Ohio State in 2013. While Tepper retired not long after, Linguist has had seven different jobs since Harbaugh took his current one.

Harbaugh’s best shot at keeping it would be to find a replacement soon, get the new coach up to speed on their plans before fall camp begins in August, and avoid another program-devastating crater in cornerback recruiting when all their prospects come to visit in June. The new guy will also have to help the current roster improve on last year's abysmal output, and transition to more complicated schemes that pair with new coordinator Mike Macdonald's Ravens-like plans.

While there are coaching options in-house, Michigan’s best hope would be to pilfer some other school’s accomplished cornerback coach, preferably one who can bring a transfer or two along. Kentucky’s Steve Clinkscale, who’s been a recruiting thorn in Michigan for years, would be an obvious choice, although Clinkscale has turned down overtures from this program before. Maybe they’ll even be lucky enough to find Clink’s contract doesn’t have a massive buyout penalty for bailing mid-year. I mean, it’s happened before.

There are only comments after the jump. Do you really want to go there?

Now that football has ceased, a glance at some ongoing sports you may not have paid much attention to yet.

They're real bad

photo not meant to reflect poorly on Jack Lafontaine [James Coller]

Let us cut to the chase. This is the worst Michigan hockey team since Red Berenson rescued the program from its mid-80s doldrums. The three Michigan teams that missed the tourney prior to last year were at least within shouting distance of a bid. Flip a game or two and those guys squeeze into the tournament.

This year's team is 6-7-1 and currently 31st in RPI, in the bottom half nationally. Compounding matters: they're probably the luckiest team in the country. After getting bombed by Penn State their Corsi* is 59th out of 60 teams, ahead of only Alaska-Anchorage. They've survived because their goalies have a collective .927 save percentage, and that has nothing to do with the quality of shots they've faced. While having a good save percentage is, you know, good, SV% is a notoriously fickle stat requiring something more than a full NHL season to produce anything even sort of predictive. Michigan's ranking there could be skill; it could be luck. If it's the latter, Katie bar the door.

The eye test is little better. They were just blown off the ice by Penn State 6-1 and 5-1; when they played LSSU it looked like a bad WCHA team playing itself. Jake Slaker, a 20-year old former St. Lawrence recruit, went from nowhere to the top line. He's scoring some; he's also –9.

Without a turnaround for the ages the only thing keeping this team from the cellar of the Big Ten is Michigan State.

*[Your percent of all shot attempts in a game. Broadly more predictive than actual goals.]

What happened?

Slaker, a late add, went from St. Lawrence commit to M's top line [Coller]

Last year's team was fool's gold that forestalled Red Berenson's perpetually impending retirement yet again. They had an insane amount of talent. Tyler Motte, Kyle Connor, and Zach Werenski went directly to the NHL, with JT Compher not far behind. Those four guys drove so much of Michigan's play, and they also lost two productive scoring line wingers in Justin Selman and Boo Nieves.

A decent but not great incoming recruiting class could not replace that production. The academic suspension of promising freshman Cooper Marody (10-14-24 a year ago) did not help. This team has two guys—Alex Kile and Will Lockwood—who look like top six forwards on a good Michigan team.

The defense is hypothetically deep and good, but in practice teams are piling up excellent scoring chances because Michigan can't exit their own zone, can't enter the opponent zone, and are giving up the constant parade of odd-man rushes that's been characteristic of the program over the past few years.

All of this traces back to the head coach. Every player with an opportunity to go pro does so as quickly as possible, even guys like Andrew Copp who are total shocks. Marody's suspension is just about unprecedented in hockey. For years Red has tolerated guys like Tristin Llewellyn and Michael Downing who take awful penalties and constantly pinch at the wrong time.

Even last year's massive pile of talent was outshot 49-27 in a 5-2 loss to North Dakota in the second round of the tournament. Michigan had an NHL first line and the most prolific rookie defenseman in the NHL this year and still got blown off the ice by a program it used to look at as a peer. What does this program look like with good, but not transcendent talent?

Unfortunately, this.

Is there any hope?

Not realistically. This isn't a one year issue, but a steady decline over the last half decade that last year's talent managed to defy. This team still has more talent (9 draft picks!) than the majority of teams they'll play in the Big Ten, but one of the teams they have more on-paper talent than just blew them off the ice. One of the others, Ohio State, is sixth in RPI.

Michigan teams have picked themselves off the mat at midseason before and gone on runs to make or narrowly miss the tourney; the difference between those teams and this one is the distance they'd have to go to go from losing games to winning them.

What now?

Suck it up and wait it out, I guess. I have to imagine that a fourth missed tournament in five years would be the point at which Red Berenson walks away to prevent damaging his legacy even further. Michigan would have good options afterwards, but the point to talk about that is later.

PELINI. Yes.

ADRIAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNN RT @BryanDFischer: pic.twitter.com/ZfeYIBKiP1

— Mark Ennis (@MarkEnnis) August 1, 2014

This is what is called a face turn. Pelini should start entering stadiums with his own corn-oriented theme music.

Reduced price. Michigan has cut the waiting list fee from 500 dollars to 150 for the 2015 season. That's the one with OSU and MSU games on it. I think we've officially hit the limit of what people will pay. Also, this… this is not a good thing to title your page about buying season tickets.

Watching football is not supposed to make you feel like you're going through twoadays and want to die.

Our lack of post depth and experience: slightly less exploitable. A couple of Big Ten big guys will not take on Doyle/Donnal and company, for reasons pedestrian and mysterious. The pedestrian one: VT transfer Trevor Thompson did not get a waiver at Ohio State and will redshirt. OSU does still get fifth-year Temple transfer Anthony Lee, so not a huge blow.

The mysterious and potentially more important: MSU stretch four Kenny Kaminski has been booted permanently. The crack MSU beat will no doubt have full details on the reason for his dismissal sometime after the sun turns the Earth into a smoking cinder bereft of life, so look out for that, Titan News Network.

Kaminski got only ten minutes a game last year, but he shot 50% on threes. This is Not Bad. Izzo kind of had a conniption fit about everything else about his game, because Izzo. Without any post types in the incoming class, MSU now will rely on Branden Dawson even more than they would have normally and lack the ability to insert a defense-stretching option for times when that would be good.

Now that I put it ion paper, this is less important from a Michigan perspective. Kaminski was a changeup option that a game against Michigan does not invite.

This is an interesting thing. I can't embed this at all, but here's a fascinating graph of the evolution of NFL players' height and weight over time. As you might expect, things get larger and heavier. The interesting bit is the split.

Increasing specialization has seen a class of OL/DL types that have totally separated from people who weigh 270 pounds. 280? 290? Do not apply.

Yea, and thine bagels shall be coated in whatever toppings you desire. Michigan's compliance twitter feed is slowly morphing into Leviticus, and I'm okay with that.

Football preseason practice shall begin with a five-day acclimatization period.

— Michigan Compliance (@umichcompliance) August 4, 2014

During the first two days of the acclimatization period, helmets shall be the only piece of protective equipment student-athletes may wear.

— Michigan Compliance (@umichcompliance) August 4, 2014

ON THE THIRD DAY OF THE ACCLIMATIZATION PERIOD, YEA, THE DOLOMITES DID DON PADS AND VENTURE FORTH INTO THE FIELD OF PLAY.

Happy! Sad. Mitch McGary is doing stupid dunks on Vine.

There's another one where he flips it up to a teammate with his feet. #McGaryForUSMNT

Unfortunately, I am totally not over this. File me under sad bastard mooning at the record store in a Nick Hornby novel in re: reaction to any and all McGary things. Oh yeah I'm really happy for him it sounds like he's doing great oh I'm doing fine you know just buying these records and so sad that I feel like I'm dissolving every day no no man I'm fine.

/plays The Cure for 12 hours straight

Is there an It Gets Better for Mitch McGary withdrawal?

It's called the Big Ten for a reason. That reason is "we don't even know anymore." But we can have a reason again! Kirk Ferentz said that this could happen:

Kirk Ferentz said he could see the Big Ten going to 10 conference games. "If we're going to nine, I don't see why not," he said.

Money, probably. I am beginning to wonder about the relative value of a home and home versus two bodybag games; surely the increased interest from scheduling, say, Iowa, is now just about enough to offset the fact that you're playing a road game once TV factors in.

Rittenberg's take is cynical, but probably accurate:

How many Big Ten teams would get into the playoff with a 10-game league schedule if the higher-regarded SEC plays only eight conference contests? It's all about the playoff and it doesn't matter how you get there as long as you get there. That's how the Big Ten must approach scheduling.

I find it hard to believe that a committee is going to pick a team with an extra loss, even if it had a tougher schedule. And it's debatable whether the committee will even see it as a tougher schedule given the recent direction of the league.

If adding a tenth game induces Big Ten teams to strip out some of the very few comparison points we get before bowl season, all the committee will have to go on is reputation. That would be bad.

I am getting excited about hockey. The prospect of Copp/Compher/Larkin down the middle and the big hole on the blueline that Zach Werenski just filled combine to get me hype about what will go down at Yost this fall. Compher is tearing up the USA WJC camp going on right now:

Compher, who centered Team White’s top line between Fasching and 2015 draft prospect Kyle Connor, was arguably his side’s top player all the way through. He used his feet to take away time and space, and drew the ire of Team Blue with a hit in the corner right at the halftime horn. In the second half, the reigning B1G Freshman of the Year made a smart zone entry and executed a give-and-go with Will Butcher (COL) before finding Fasching at the doorstep for White’s second marker. …

Compher was a key cog at both ends of the rink all game long, applying pressure without the puck while showing his playmaking eyes en route to picking up two assists on the day. He worked hard behind the net for his first assist, and kicked back to the point for a secondary helper on the third White goal. The University of Michigan standout rounded out his effort with some excellent work at the left point on the power play. He nearly added a goal to his weekend resume with a shot that just missed high over the crossbar in the final minutes.

Meanwhile, Motte and Larkin combined to score a late winner against Finland.

The soccer game happened. I did not go, if you're curious. 55 bucks was about 40 too many for a friendly between a couple of teams I don't really care about. 109,000 people disagreed with that, so you got a packed Michigan Stadium and the tangible and intangible benefits of that. The broadcast must have said the words "Big House" a dozen times every 15 minutes; also the department made some money.

Hopefully that'll become something of an annual event. The cachet of having the largest stadium in the country is a natural draw for teams that can fill it. Hopefully they can figure out the turf issues.

Unfortunately the size of the playing surface is short of regulations for a real game, as was extensively discussed when Michigan Stadium was on a list of potential hosting venues for the USA's failed World Cup bid. Any real game would have to be played on a platform that sat above the actual playing field and wiped out viewing angles for big chunks of the stadium. I don't think Michigan Stadium will ever get serious consideration for a USA game because of that.

Oh man, lawyers. I mean that in a good way this time. Andy Schwarz, who was a plaintiff's witness in the O'Bannon case, has been writing big lawyerly pieces for Deadspin about the case. His latest is more of an overview of the two sides struggling to "fix" the NCAA. One, dubbed "Team Reform," thinks that the whole problem with the system is that the universities aren't funneling the profits back into the academic side. The other, dubbed "Team Market" is just like dude this is a joke now just let them get what they can.

I bring it up because Schwarz has a couple of places in the piece that sum up a ton of things I've been thinking:

I personally question the undertones of complaints that athletes may blow their payments on bling and tattoos, when we applaud college students for spending money on ephemeral activities like traveling to Florence for a semester of wine and museums, but as a member of Team Market, I am willing to entertain the possibility that deferred payments will bridge the gap between paying suppliers and pleasing consumers and result in the most popular market-produced product.  …"Fear of a Black Wallet" need not rule the country forever.

Fear of a Black Wallet! The paternalistic overtones of the arguments that start and end with "but then they'll have money" summed up in five words. They might waste their money, sure. It's being wasted now on compliance.

His sarcastic survey questions are also amazing:

This may also explain some of the surveys that we see from time to time, including even the one the NCAA presented in the recent O'Bannon litigation. The question wasn't framed as "Do you prefer watching undercompensated athletes play if it means you can rationalize your love of sports as somehow more noble than you secretly know it is?" or "Does your interest in college sports increase as more value is taken from the athletes and then ostensibly used to further more noble goals?"

I'm noticing this guy writes really long sentences now that I'm quoting him. Anyway, hardcore fans are an interesting exception to the survey trend wherein people say they'll like college sports less if it's less amateur. Guilty as charged.

Etc.: Been a lot of e-sporps about women lately. Jane comments on e-sporps about women. Michigan is favored by 35 against… them. I don't know if that makes me feel better or more terrified.