jim hackett

[Eric Upchurch]

Jim Hackett gets a job. He's now the CEO of Ford. It is deeply unfortunate that Toys R Us is private, otherwise my mutual fund that just buys Ford and shorts Toys R Us would be a goldmine.

2018 hoops recruiting will start moving in the near future. Per Sam Webb, Michigan has "begun talking timeline" with OH SF Jerome Hunter, with Xavier the main roadblock. If not for Trevon Bluiett I would feel 100% terrific about that; I still feel 90% terrific about it. Webb also asserted that Canadian SF/PF Ignas Brazdeikis and MI SF Brandon Johns were the next most likely. Johns is a surprising name for me just because of his location. Also now I have learned to spell Brazdeikis so he had better come.

Another name at wing is NC SF Hunter Tyson, who is a very Beilein kind of player.

Possessing NBA-caliber 3-point range, Tyson’s work ethic and shooting stroke was never open to any scrutiny. It was his overall scoring acumen and utilizing his height to his advantage as a go-to option once open to question. Tyson heard his fair share of “soft shooter” taunts from the crowd.

He’s steadily silenced his detractors by becoming more adept around the rim and developing a feel for the above the rim game.

I've seen one or two of those before. Tyson claims an offer from Michigan despite not visiting—I assume this is another "if you visit we offer" kind of thing. That won't be long in coming:

I would say I am talking to Michigan the most currently,” Tyson explained. “Coach (John) Beilein and I have a very good relationship. I will be visiting Ann Arbor next on June 30th.

Meanwhile SG Robby Carmody told Rivals he'll decide this fall; Corey Evans thinks Purdue, Michigan, and ND are the frontrunners.

The end? Howard transfer James Daniels III, who Michigan was briefly involved with, chooses Tennessee. This is not Ohio State, another finalist, thus further consigning the Buckeyes to basketball purgatory. This is astounding:

There’s a chance that the Buckeyes could strike out on all graduate transfer or JUCO options, and head into next season with just two true bigs, and maybe even two guards total, depending on what happens with Kam Williams, who has not yet decided if he will return to the program or not.

Rutgers must be licking its chops at the prospect of finishing ahead of someone in league play.

An improved hockey schedule. The hockey schedule has been somewhere between disappointing and offensive for the past few years, with games jammed into football season willy-nilly in a schedule that alternated between exhausting game floods and month-long droughts. Happily it does appear that someone is listening. This year's conference schedule:

Michigan is getting a return visit from Arizona State the week after the second ND series, so they have successfully put together a second-half schedule with 1) no byes and 2) no month-long gaps between home games. (Playing a nonconference foe in the last week of the regular season is lame but it's a seven-team conference; someone is going to draw the short stick annually.) Adding ND, a second school that can do home-and-homes, helps immensely. Also ND is a good team and traditional rival.

Michigan's also done a much better job of avoiding football conflicts. There are only two weekends when both hockey and football will be at home, and one of them is the approaching-traditional OSU series on the weekend of the Game. Michigan knows football is at noon so a direct conflict won't happen.

Unfortunately, the nonconference schedule is still terrible. Michigan goes to Clarkson and SLU for one-offs and gets home series against Vermont, FSU, and Arizona State. Their first game in the GLI is BGSU. Only Vermont was even on the bubble last year, finishing 17th in RPI. Those four games against ND are a major upgrade at least.

Grub grub grub. Minnesota is apparently considering selling naming rights to Mariucci Arena. This would be roughly equivalent to Michigan turning a hypothetical Berenson Ice Arena into the Yum Dot Com Exclamation Point Center. At least when Illinois sold out its basketball arena it was confusingly named the same thing as Indiana's arena; this would be naming malpractice on a scale rarely seen. Here is a good comment(!) on The Daily Gopher:

We take in over $110 million in revenue in a year. Do you know how much we get per year from TCF Bank for their naming rights? 1.4 million dollars. Literally, like, one percent of our our annual revenue. I’d be shocked if we get even close to that for Mariucci.

If you think the drop in the bucket we get from auctioning off our names and traditions is going to make a noticeable difference in the quality of the product on the field, you’re wrong.

There remains no money with which to play the players.

Speaking of naming malpractice. The new Wings/Pistons arena going up in downtown might bring some events of interest to Detroit, including the Big Ten basketball tournament. It's already landed two sets of first-weekend NCAA tournament games and the 2020 Frozen Four. So we've got that going for us even if the iconic downtown arena is undergoing the worst naming transition  in history.

Etc.: Football ranked 10th by Athlon. Kiper has Mo Hurst the top senior DT for next year's NFL draft; Khalid Hill is the #2 FB. Guy employed by NFL Network compares Saquon Barkley to… Le'Veon Bell? What? Wilson and Wagner decisions by Wednesday night.

Over under win total for M set at 9. NFL running backs don't get paid any more. D Luke Martin should be a second or third round pick in the NHL draft.

Sorry this is late. I've been really busy. Actually no I've been kind of busy and wasting time following recruiting and watching the Citrus Bowl again and again.

/watches Citrus Bowl again.

Ahhhh. Man having that game recorded is like when my family got a VCR and they put the whole original Star Wars trilogy on TV like right after. That was followed by weeks of the most beautiful weather in Michigan history that I didn't go outside for, by the end of which I could pull everything about Star Wars from memory for the rest of my life, and I STILL wasn't sick of it.

Bronx made the obvious analogy:

To say Dave Brandon is reminiscent of George Lucas is not fair to either man, but the worst characteristics of both mirror each other quite well; both Lucas and Brandon truly loved the worlds they held dominion over, but were so tone-deaf, so blind to the realities of how those worlds were perceived under their stewardships that they threatened to irreparably sully their images.

I'd extend the analogy to say Hackett was the J.J. Abrams we brought in to rescue the franchise, and 2015 was his Force Awakens. IE a lot of it was simply a renunciation of the crap that immediately preceded it, and banging the audience over the head with the things we loved about the originals.

But in light of where we were, that was refreshing. Yes I did see (SPOILER) Jim Harbaugh pilot an X-wing down a trench to destroy a planet-sized world-destroying base of faceless bad guys again. The thing is that hasn't gotten old. We needed a reset, and got one, and should be totally satisfied. As for whoever follows JJ and JH, yeah man, take it in your own direction.

The next movie has a lot to live up to. Expectations are high, but so is that schedule. Alum96 went through the thing and decided that Michigan doesn't have a Big Two-Little Eight schedule anymore, but it's a standard Power 5 trip. How MSU and OSU rebuild will matter much.

Crutin needs updating. Incredibly useful Alum96 also is due for another 2016 class projection since this series has been fairly accurate at predicting things so far. He got Terrance Davis wrong, but had Dylan Crawford and David Long in the highest category of guys who as of last December seemed to favor someone else.

Squinting at his info and that provided by the board in the weeks hence you can kind of piece together a class that would take Gary, LaVert, Raulerson, Hudson and Nordin as long as they are amenable, plus a tight end (Allen or Asiasi), one or two DTs (Elliott, Tagaloa, Dwumfour, …?), another LB (Mbem-Bosse?) and 2-3 WRs (McDoom/N. Johnson/Donald Stewart/Pie). Call a guy not taking officials and a guy who is taking officials to Temple gone and Metellus a Jeremy Clark* grayshirt and that's what: 28? WRITE ANOTHER ONE ALUM WE HAVE TO KNOW!

Did you miss these gifs? Red_Lee is Michiganfreek. IE he makes awesome gifs like LSUfreek does for college football in general. For example:

Opponents Watch needs updating. Now more than a week old, Hail_Yes wrote about the teams M basketball has played, and what they've been up to this year since we formed opinions on them on the court. I'd like to see objects in the future, e.g. Michigan State. What's been going on with MSU hoops lately? They're just pounding everybody because Valentine's back now right? I haven't looked.

Etc. This is OT but it's a wonderful story about MLK visiting Grosse Pointe in 1968. The Maizer followed up on my bowl eligibility proposal with his own, which is a ranking system. M baseball preview. No, Dakich=/=Spike, they're not even like-sized. This month in MGoBlog 10 years ago history was all about Lloyd shuffling coordinators to set up his retirement.

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Best of the Board

OMIGOD NCAA FOOTBALL 2025 for the 2017 season with 2013 rosters?

The night of the Nat Championship EA put an EKG on NCAA2014's Facebook page. The world took this to mean that we might…just might finally go back to having new covers every year for the NCAA game. I guess it would mean a playoff is finally possible. I also probably shouldn't rip on them since I'm on year 2041 of a four-player dynasty* I have thoroughly enjoyed. Please leave Denard on the cover and tweak the game.

*We all got to pick each others' starting teams and one guy turned UMass into a national power that's still ripping off our recruits.

PRESENTING: THE IRON D

Ladies and gentlemen, the trophy you've all been waiting for, the Michigan vs Michigan State in Joe Louis Arena game that used to replace the best home game of your ticket package and now does that and isn't much of a rivalry anymore to be honest, the one, the only, here it is…

It is an iron d.

WHO SAID THIS IN THE MOVIES YOU ARE EMBARRSSED TO ADMIT YOU LOVE THREAD?

People listed some classic films—Wet Hot and A League of Their Own are consensus good—but this one…oh man this one:

It wasn't hated Sockface. While it was indeed "ambitious" (read: up its own ass) it also gave off a very George Lucas "I don't have to listen to anyone anymore because I made the Dark Knight" vibe. Not a bad movie, and at times it was stunning, but if it's the start of a Nolan trajectory into Jar Jar, well, this is our concern man.

Also put me among the Titanic crowd; the ship looks great.

ETC. Guy on board taking photoshop requests. Someone told me last night that Heiko got one of the top placements in the country for his field and I am zero surprised because that guy is a genius for whom "I got Michigan's cranky offensive coordinator to like me" has already been shoved to a footnote on his resume. Tom Harmon vs. porn? Jim Hackett is awesome.

YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN:

[Fuller/MGoBlog]

Opening Statement:

“We’re very excited to be invited to the bowl and sounds like it’s gonna be great, fair, honest, healthy competition. We’re looking forward to it.”

Have you decided on your defensive coordinator for the bowl game?

“Yes. Greg Mattison’s going to coordinate the defense and we’ve also hired Chris Partridge to coach the linebackers.”

With Mattison, is that just for the bowl season or is that a permanent change?

“That will be for the bowl season. And we’ll evaluate from there.”

Speaking of the defensive coordinator, do you have a timetable in mind that you’d like to have a permanent hire in place? How are you approaching that?

“We’re approaching it to win our next game. No timetable. We’ll evaluate as we go. Excited to have Greg coordinate the defense. I think he’ll do a fantastic job, and Chris Partridge- great chance to have Chris coaching on the field. He’s done a fabulous job in every task he’s been on top of. I’m excited to watch him coach and Greg coordinate.”

Is it possible that Chris could earn himself a permanent full-time job with you guys as a coach?

“Yeah, very possible.”

Any familiarity with Jim McElwain and how he runs the program and offense? Any familiarity with him?

“Just that he enjoys an incredible reputation in the profession. That would be…I think we all know that. From people I respect and know very well, he has a fine reputation as a good coach.”

You probably haven’t had time to look at Florida, but anything you know about this team, particularly the defensive side of the ball? I mean, DJ Durkin obviously coached there last year.

“Yeah, I watched probably about half of the games right now. Fantastic season they’ve had. They play with great intensity, and much respect for what they’ve done. Heck of a year for them.”

Can you update us on Jake Rudock? Do you expect him to play in the game, and what’s his health status?

“Yeahhhh, I mean, I think it’s just- I’ve talked to him a few times, I think he’ll play in the game. There was a period where- he hasn’t thrown yet, but I think he will be soon.”

[After THE JUMP: “I don’t think of it as a foundation, I think of it more like a train, more like a locomotive.”]