les miles

Oh, Lord. Kelvin Grady is using the twitter cryptically:

I have a good feeling about this weekend.... "in DB we trust" #goblue
28 minutes ago via Twitter for iPad

And Flight Aware caught that winged helmet Learjet touching down in Baton Rouge, so it's time to blow up again. Yes, Les Miles is in Dallas. Yeah, I'm pretty sure the winged helmet Learjet has nothing to do with the university. No, WE WILL NOT BE DISSUADED FROM EXPLODING.

So LSU boards are virtually overrun with speculation about Miles leaving Michigan, and Miles was less definitive in his post-Not Cotton Bowl press conference and there's a LA radio station* reporting that Miles will take the Michigan job "within 48 hours." Of course, I'm listening to it at the moment and the first caller is deliciously confrontational, forcing the guy to back off a little bit. "His sources" directly contradict random radio guy's sources, which given the track record of radio stations when it comes to breaking news is just about as worthwhile. They pegged their confidence at "8 or 9 out of ten."

Despite that radio call-in smackdown, there is an absolute ton of buzz about Miles to Michigan from the LSU side of things. I have a second-hand non-gospel report originating from LSU boosters saying he's gone that's two days old now and Tiger Droppings has been burning up with stuff. You take the word of message boards at your peril but as a guy who's wandered around them for years the widespread buzz has the air of something true.

On the other hand, if Miles is leaving he's apparently not only not told his players but bluntly lied to them:

Russell Shepard just told me Les Miles assured team he's coming back. Not going to Michigan. … So have many others.

He did cut that one guy with a form letter so maybe they haven't checked their mail recently.

I've made my opinion clear on this: Miles is old, has enthusiastically adopted the tao of SEC, and just saw his program take a more serious hit from the NCAA than Rodriguez did. Even if it works out in five years Michigan is going to be saddled with a coach exactly as old as Carr was when he retired and will either get to experience the extended senescence of a guy who's already wacky or experience yet another transition. I would prefer Brady Hoke.

I'm probably alone in this, I know.

UPDATE: More from LSU players:

"He said, 'They have rumors going around about (me) going to Michigan, but it's not true,'" Jefferson said. "'It's nonsense.' He said hasn't spoken to anybody, anything about Michigan. We're going to stick with that and get ready for next year." …

"He told us this is his football team and this is where he's going to be," Ridley said. "We respect our coach, and this is our coach for right now, and we're going to enjoy him as long as we can. Coach Miles is a Tiger. This is his group of guys, and he's proud of us. I think this is where he will be next year."

Seems fairly unambiguous there.

Turns out I have less than I thought I did after reviewing items, but the remainder…

Other people are on planes. So. It's that time again:

It's not a coaching search without people tracking a plane they think might have Dave Brandon in it and pointing out that Phoenix is somewhat close to Jim Harbaugh but not too close, right, so probably they're definitely meeting in Phoenix at an Applebee's wearing big Groucho Marx noses so no one recognizes them, right?

A point in the conspiracy theorists' favor: the plane is registered to Domino's Pizza and spent the new year hanging out in Jacksonville watching Michigan get crushed by Mississippi State. Since then it's done this.

1. Wednesday, 5 PM: Headed out to Latrobe, PA.
2. Wednesday, 10 PM: flew from Latrobe to Chicago.
3. Yesterday, 1 PM: flew from Chicago to Phoenix

What does this mean? Eh… probably that someone other than David Brandon is using the plane for purposes related to the business of Dominos. But it's a coaching search so you get Flight Aware. These are the rules.

But wait! There's more! Another plane suspiciously not registered to anything related to the University of Michigan—"Unknown Owner"—has been flying places. A reader relates its progress:

1. Willow Run flight left for Miami midday 1/4 when firing "reported" but supposedly not made (Mary Sue Coleman or other agent leaving)
2. Miami flight scheduled to Van Nuys, CA on 1/5 and does go, but makes previously unscheduled stop in Lubbock (?). Timing is 2 hours post firing presser. Could be to finalize plan, get gas, time up the following #3, or who knows. Only on ground 47 minutes. Arrives in Van Nuys at 5:09 pacific (Ross in tow to make help make pitch?)
3. Gulfstream flight from San Jose, CA lands in Van Nuys at 5:52 pacific (Harbaugh?)
4. Flight from Miami to Van Nuys leaves for Palm Springs at 5:57 (easy switchover for "Harbaugh" w/ a private aircraft) stays night there.
5. Miami flight departs for home (Boca airport) at 10:05 A.M on 1/6
6. Next flight out of Palm Springs at 10:11 AM is private plane to Monterrey Peninsula airport--less public than San Jose airport and 60 miles south of Palo Alto--lands at 11:03 AM
7. 49ers meet w/ Harbaugh today in undisclosed location - he flies somewhere else or drives somewhere between SF and airport to meet 49ers.

This is all bats and obviously means Mike Leach is the next coach. Stop in Lubbock, people. Mike Leach.

But wait! There's actual information possibly worth reading! So… as mentioned the sudden reversal in the Harbaugh story now lends some credence to the old acquaintances/teammates from yesterday who were predicting Harbaugh to Michigan in the face of the Twitter army. I'm still a little leery that the only thing out there other than this site that says M-to-Harbaugh isn't dead is John Elway's random opinions on the radio, but…

1. Solid source says Harbaugh and Brandon will speak today. There is a separate, extremely fuzzy and probably untrue rumor that it's happening in Phoenix.
2. Another says Ross spent most of his time with Harbaugh badgering him about taking the Michigan job, not making him richer than Stephen Ross, and that Michigan is "still in the game" but Andrew Luck's dastardly desire to get a degree isn't helping.

As of 1:30 PM on Friday 1/7, there seems to be a chance.

Hat. Despite my antipathy for Miles—it's a sign of the fanbase's vast desperation that people are trying to talk themselves into the guy—I'm duty-bound to report that a southern correspondent reports that LSU fans are rumbling about losing Miles shortly after the Tigers play A&M tonight. These are fuzzy indeed.

There is also a random thread on Tiger Droppings saying players think Miles is gone as well because in private he's been "much more melancholy," which what the hell does that mean?

I've repeatedly stated the reasons Miles makes no sense—repeat "he will be sixty in three years" if nothing else works for you—and there's an element of wishful thinking around the reports since losing Miles to Michigan would resolve the great idiot/genius debate surrounding him. 

Hoke. Endorsed by Jason Whitlock.

Patterson: door not exactly closed. This seems like a guy who will at least listen:

"No, I haven't been contacted," Patterson told 105.3-The Fan. "I've got a great job here.

"TCU has a chance to be maybe the No. 2 or No. 1 team (next season), depending on what poll, in the nation. Maybe we are one of those people (elite programs) now. That's what I've been trying to build the program to get to. Michigan has a great tradition and is a great university. I'll cross that bridge when I get there."

Someone talk to him, yes? I mean, seriously. Someone contact him.

RC Slocum, man about town. This doesn't have anything to do with anything but here's Joe Paterno doing the limbo:

Sort of, anyway. I don't think you're supposed to go that way. Paterno probably thinks going backwards is a Hun affectation. Also prepare for the OBC to burn himself into your retinas:

These are from a recently unearthed cache of photos of former Texas A&M coach RC Slocum that features both Gorbachev and Mathew McConaughey, although not in the same picture. Barking Carnival theorizes that Slocum is the most interesting man in the world, and it's hard to disagree. Gorby!

OTL on oversigning. ESPN's put out what's hopefully part one of an extensive series of interviews with college athletes who have been screwed out of scholarships and swept under the rug. It's LSU again:

So Les Miles…

1. Runs a program that oversigns and cuts players who don't seem useful.
2. Doesn't bother to tell players they've been cut in a face to face meeting.
3. Relies on someone else to send a letter to the kid.
4. Refuses to meet with the kid after he's received the bad news.
5. Baldly lies about the kid at media day.

Then Elliot Porter shows up and says he had to be a man about getting cut by Miles, demonstrating more maturity than his erstwhile head coach. Unfortunately for those of us making huge "Please Be Our DC, Randy" signs for the bowl game, Randy Shannon's rep as an awesome dude also takes a huge hit.

Not to beat this dead horse for the thousandth time, but this is some bullshit right here and should be a major target for reform. ESPN's doing the Lord's work, and I hope they continue.

The inevitable redshirt. To reiterate something from Tim's presser recap, Devin Gardner's back problems held him out of the last eight games and have set him up to take a (surprise!) redshirt this season:

“His back has been better, and he’s been able to do most of the stuff today,” Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez said Saturday.

Should a medical redshirt be granted, Gardner would, in theory, have two years to hold the starting quarterback job. Denard Robinson is penciled in as the starter through the 2012 season.

Yes, the nature and timing of Gardner's injury is unbelievably convenient, but if they've got documentation they've got it and the NCAA will have to grant Gardner his redshirt. We should all go back and undo the Great Gardner Non-Redshirt Infighting, since it looks like Michigan's going to have its cake and eat it too… unless Rodriguez gets fired and everyone transfers and we're starting Jack Kennedy next year.

Gwaltney in repose. A Bruce Feldman article on well-travelled former blue chip recruit Jason Gwaltney, who I remember openly campaigning for Rivals to raise his ranking as just another message board plebe, has a random quote about Rich Rodriguez($):

He says he did learn how to practice full-speed from his days at WVU. "They chiseled that into my brain," he said. "Coach [Rich] Rodriguez instilled something in me. I still owe that man a lot."

Gwaltney ended up at a D-III HBCU in New Jersey and is in an upcoming all-star game with fellow spectacular flameout Fred Rouse. His brother Scooter Berry was an afterthought throw-in but developed into an All Big East defensive lineman as Gwaltney toured the lower divisions of college football, so he's got an obvious what-could-have-been in his own family.

Hello Georgia? After UGA's athletic director was pulled over for DUI with a girl in the passenger seat and her panties in is lap, UGA has a new athletic director. His first scheduling actions were cancelling games against actual opponents that the old guy had put in place, so it seemed like Georgia's brief glastnost period wherein they were prepared to end their infamous policy of never leaving the South was over. This, then, is a surprise:

Preliminary discussions have taken place with Michigan, Notre Dame, Ohio State and Penn State about the prospect of one or more of them scheduling a home-and-home series with Georgia in the future, UGA athletics director Greg McGarity confirmed to Dawgs247.

“We’d love to do a home-and-home with a Big Ten or Midwestern school that has a rich tradition,” McGarity said. “We’re going to work as hard as we can to make that happen.

“Hopefully, within the next year, we’ll be able to have something in writing.”

Georgia and Clemson have a series that extends until 2014, so any series would have to wait until at least then. McGarity says the series would be "way down the road" so one school or the other would have plenty of time to cancel it.

Would Michigan be interested? I'd hope so. Dave Brandon's already set up a neutral site matchup with Alabama that's slightly cool but also thousands of miles from either campus in a generic, if swanky, corporate stadium. From a fan's perspective having a home and home with Georgia is way cooler than a one-off in Dallas. From a financial perspective not so much—Michigan's getting a home game's worth of revenue from the Jerryworld game—but money isn't everything and Michigan needs something to spruce up the schedule in years when Nebraska, Ohio State, and Notre Dame are all road games. Of course, "sprucing up" the schedule in those years means "making it brutal," so maybe not.

Would they be more interested than the other three schools listed? Probably not. I'd bet Michigan is the least likely of the four to actually land a series with Georgia. Because of their Notre Dame series they have to work in games against actual opponents where they can; Penn State and Ohio State don't have any annual commitments and Notre Dame has to fill twelve games every year.

Limbo update, or backdate, or whatever. Yesterday Tom's recruiting post quoted Darian Cooper saying Tony Dews told him Michigan coaches would "know January first" whether they'd be around next year. Recent commitment Desmond Morgan was told something similar with more confidence but something less than rock-hard certainty:

“I’ve talked with coach Rodriguez and the rest of the coaches and they’re pretty confident he’s going to be there after the season,” Morgan said. “I’m pretty confident as well. No matter what happens, Michigan’s a great football program.”

So that's Morgan and Countess in the boat no matter what. Picking up two commits during this time of uncertainty is a nice insurance policy against the uphill battle a January coaching change would see the new guy fight.

Bang-bang. Soony Saad's been called in to the U20 team, whereupon he scored in a dismantling of Canada and essentially announced he'd be back for 2011:

Philadelphia Union striker McInerney scored in the 50th minute while Saad also notched an impressive 25-yard half-volley score in the 34th.

It's nothing new for Saad, one of the top strikers of the ball in the country, who helped lead unsung Michigan to the College Cup as he was named Big Ten Freshman of the Year. "It was nice being in camp. It was kind of a tough adjustment coming off the college season," he said.

When the subject turned to the College Cup, where the Wolverines suffered a semifinal loss to eventual champion Akron, Saad declined to comment.

"Not until we win the College Cup next season," he said.

The usual disclaimers apply.

Etc.: Zac Ciullo comes in for an extensive profile in the News. Random New Yorker poem about Michigan. Jason King drops some positive fluff about the basketball team along the same lines as my column but with far fewer references to the DOS command line. Might want to update that photo, though.

The heat melts their brains. Miami fans are trolls:

You've got me there, Jim Martz.

(Via Jerry Hinnen.)

Further adventures in Remember When Smoking Was Cool And Pregnancy Drankin' jes' fine. Les Miles has done all manner of disqualifying things since the Kirk Herbstreit Miles Hiring Fiasco, before which I was highly in favor of Miles as Michigan's coach and after which I was very upset at Bill Martin. He derped the Ole Miss game and lied about it afterwards. He cut some kid who'd been on campus for a month. Whatever the hell that was at the end of the Tennessee game happened.

Miles is now in the radioactive bin of hypothetical Michigan coaching candidates next to Ron English, Mike DeBord, and Stan Parrish. I'd rather have Brady Hoke around. And yet somehow this is the worst thing he's done since that fateful day on a sailboat:

I'd rather see Simon Cowell as head coach around here.

Quarterback ding monitor. So you may have noticed that three Penn State quarterbacks wandered around the field asking for direction/pudding from the coaches in their win over Minnesota. This is because starter Robert Bolden left the game with "a cut hand" or "a cut hand and an eye poke" or "concussion-like symptoms" or, you know, a concussion. JoePa thought Bolden was questionable at best for next week; JayPa thought he was fine. JayPa's probably right since someone asked Joe about Kevin Newsome and he said "who?" I wouldn't put much stock in this "McGloin might start" headline from the Post-Gazette since it's generic walk-on fluff and the only mention of the injury is this:

Bolden was expected to undergo a series of medical tests Sunday, but Penn State spokesman Jeff Nelson said Bolden's status would not be updated until today at the earliest. If Bolden is unable to play Saturday night at home against Michigan on ESPN, McGloin could get his first career start.

I'm guessing Bolden starts.

Meanwhile at Purdue things just keep getting worse. Third-stringer Rob Henry acquired a "crushed index finger" against Ohio State and Boiled Sports believes that means true freshman Sean Robinson will end up starting when Purdue takes on Illinois next week.

Penn State confidence monitor. They didn't lose against Minnesota but they did get outgained by 70 yards and cough up 400 yards of offense to a team headed for 1-11, so reviews are negative:

-- Penn State made Gopher running back DeLeon Eskridge look like Barry Sanders out there. The Lions missed so many tackles I thought they must have brought the wrong shoes. … -- Lion defense just has no playmakers.  … -- In fact, until the fourth quarter, Penn State had precious little success running the ball against a defense ranked 102nd in the nation against the run. Unimaginable, really. … -- Minnesota's 75-yard TD drive to start the second half was so easy I thought I was watching the New Orleans Saints shred the Penn State defense. Very, very scary, folks.

This was a win, but no one was impressed. The line swung from M +2.5 to M –3 based on it, though it's gotten bet back down some since.

It's not that timeout, it's that you still had it. Back to the hat: many people are pointing at Kirk Ferentz going "Les Miles!" in the same manner you would scream "witch!" during a good hysterical mass hallucination after Iowa biffed its clock management good in their 31-30 loss to Wisconsin. Cue defense from Ferentz:

"We wanted to burn the timeout and just go from there," Ferentz said. "I guess we could have gone the other way. Might have saved us two seconds, something like that. I don't think that was exactly the turning point in the game."

Cue Hat reference:

Les Miles might agree.

Iowa fans probably won't.

Ferentz is right—taking the timeout there is not a major factor. But he's not off the hook because he made the most frustrating error coaches make these days now that they don't punt from the opponent's 34 (HINT, NORTHWESTERN): he didn't immediately start calling timeouts when Wisconsin made it first and goal. If Iowa has 40 seconds instead of 12 when the spike/timeout decision is made it's not nearly as big a deal. Always, always get rid of your timeouts on defense if given the opportunity—you will never save more time by holding them.

No, still a punk. In the weeks before the season Ohio State teammate Tyler Moeller said Terrelle Pryor was "kind of a punk" by way of explaining that he was no longer the kind of guy who puts "VICK 3:16" on his eyeblack or talks about how everybody steals from people, murders from people, whatever. Pryor should ban the word "everybody" from his vocabulary:

“Not to take anything away from Wisconsin at all – I really don’t want it to come off like this – but they weren’t better than us,” he said. “Everybody knows that if we play nine out of 10 times, we’d beat Wisconsin.”

Pryor stats: 14/28, 156 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 56 yards rushing on 18 carries. Final score: Wisconsin by 13. I'm sure Michigan would have been better off the last few years with Pryor behind center but right now I'm happy Michigan missed on an unlikeable guy who's not living up to his athletic potential.

The unabated stupidity. Richard Billingsley's computer rankings are even more off the chain than usual this week:

His ballot does not disappoint this week, ranking TCU at No. 1 (three spots higher than any other computer poll) and Missouri at No. 10 -- the Tigers' lowest spot in any computer poll by seven and two places below the less Mizzou-friendly humans. …

In fact, the rule that causes the high and low scores for each team to be thrown out might as well be called the Billingsley Rule -- counting ties, Billingsley ranks 17 of the 25 teams higher or lower than any other computer in the BCS, including being the only one to rank Virginia Tech at all.

At least the discard rule does effectively neuter Billingsley's poll. His poll is maybe 20% as impactful as the other four.

Etc.: You think we have problems? Boston College fired a good coach, hired a career assistant in his sixties named Spaz, is 0-4 in the ACC, and has scheduled Vanilla Ice to participate in something called "Ice Jam." Boston College has problems. EBay watch hits up 1976.

Site note. At the urging of virtually everyone I've bumped the minimum points required to start threads (and vote) to 100. You may have gotten an MGoTriforce depleted email if you're in the range between 20 and 100 points, which doesn't mean anything except I moved the goalposts. The change will take a little time to take full effect.

In ur message board electin ur politicians. It's Michigan State week, and John Runyan googlebombs FTW:

Please don't take that screenshot of MGoBlog suggesting you should go to Notre Dame law.

(HT: Eleven Warriors.)

Injury parade con't. First: knock on wood. Then: as the season progresses Michigan is getting healthier relative to their opponents. They've lost a couple running backs temporarily, but they're not Purdue or anything:

The Boilermakers will be without receiver Justin Siller for Saturday’s game against Northwestern and maybe longer, coach Danny Hope said. … “It’s a bad sprain,” Hope said today. “He’s going to be out for an extended period of time. He could be out several weeks possibly.”

Is there a youtube video of Darth Vader going YESSSSSS? Would that be tacky? Yeah, probably. The Purdue game is over a month from now so Siller may be back anyway.

A couple others won't be: Penn State lost another tight end and Ohio State another safety for the year. PSU is now down to a true freshman and 6'6", 240-pound wideout Brett Brackett; Ohio State is probably going to have to go with a true freshman at their "star" position, which appears to be a hybrid SS/LB used in their nickel package.

Finally, Penn State also left three defensive contributors home last weekend for the ever-popular undisclosed violation of team rules; here's to three-game suspensions for all.

One man offense, you say? Injury, you say? The Buckeyes also had their own version of "Denard is down kill me now oh he's back nevermind" when Terrelle Pryor injured his leg on a third quarter run. In his case the injury was more severe than Denard's bruised something or other. Pryor was clearly limited upon his return:

"The worst thing was when I came back and the guys thought I was all right," Pryor said. "They were saying, 'Come on, Terrelle, lead us,' and it was hard because I knew I couldn't do anything about it. There was no way I could do anything about it other than hand the ball off and maybe throw a couple passes. It kind of hurt a little bit dropping back."

… After he returned, he handed off 26 times, was 3 of 4 passing for 28 yards and gained 2 yards on a sneak.

The official diagnosis is a "strained quad," so could be one of those things that lingers until the offseason or he could be fine next week. Former Buckeye and guy who strained his quad Dustin Fox thinks it will be the former:

Just so u guys know. There's no such thing as a mild quad strain. As soon as u try to burst it's gonna lock up

If it's a Grade 1 strain he should be fine in a few weeks; if it's Grade 2 he could be limited for up to two months. Re-aggravation is possible since OSU has little choice but to ride Pryor as far as he can take them. Their backup quarterback situation is grim and a lot of their praise for Boom Herron's workmanlike performance reads like it's from Michigan fans hoping Vincent Smith is better than he seems right now. This slight window of hope will be followed by Pryor pulling a Denard against their next opponent, which is… Indiana. (Welcome to the Big Ten season, Hoosiers. Yeesh.)

Penn State jealousy update! Kevin Newsome: still backing up a true freshman. Anthony Fera, who Michigan recruited as a kicker:

By my count, Anthony Fera had four mediocre and one really, really bad punt.

They're still 39th in net punting and Michigan is 88th, but we're catching up after being in triple digits last week. While we're on Penn State, that game continues to look very plausible but I don't like this bit:

Credit where it's due: despite being harried and pounded on for pretty much the entire game (and dealing with a difficult night-game atmosphere in Kinnick; it got LOUD on multiple occasions), Robert Bolden seemed to keep his composure well and he did a nice job of leading the Penn State offense down the field on those two drives on either side of halftime.  The coaches made things easier on him by using a lot of quick roll-outs and short passes, but he looked pretty calm in executing that gameplan. Things got more ragged in the fourth quarter and he threw a lot more balls that could have (and should have) been intercepted (including the one that was, by Shaun Prater late in the fourth quarter), but freshmen quarterbacks are going to take their lumps; Bolden seems like he could be a pretty good quarterback for PSU in the not-too-distant future. 

Who hates quick rollouts and short passes? You do, because Michigan can't defend them. That's another game in which I have no idea what will happen. That's a big step forward from the beginning of the season. As a bonus, JoePa punted on fourth and six down 14 with 4:36 left: that's not a game in which fear of Denard will make coaches go Romer.

All hat. Remember when we were all excited about getting Les Miles and despondent when he said GTFO?

(HT: The War Eagle Reader.)

Dodged an enormous penis-shaped bullet there. What looked like enormous balls and a refreshing ability to do that Romer stuff we've been talking about all day turns out to be an inability to comprehend the conventional wisdom or the clock rules. You've seen this, right? It's seven minutes but if you didn't see how this went down you have to repair this immediately:

There are no words. If you insist that there are, Orson has you covered:

The clock runs. You do two things when you might want to stop the clock on the goal-line down 14-10 with a running clock. You may spike it---wait, that's not happening. There's a thing about spiking the ball at LSU, if you'll recall. They could call time out, but they have no timeouts because Les Miles is pretty sure the federal government demands those back at the end of the year if you don't spend them all. Though they've been on the two yard line ever since the pass interference penalty, the LSU offensive staff suddenly remembers OH MY GOD WE HAVE A GOAL LINE PACKAGE and sets off a fire drill the People's Republic of China would call "disgracefully hurried and chaotic."

Imagine if the smoldering tire fire that is Michigan's secondary was inside the head coaches' skull. LSU recruited Russell Shepard, a five-star dual threat QB Michigan thought was more talented than anyone they've recruited at the position and moved him to wide receiver so Jordan Jefferson could play. Guh.

BONUS: The Alphabetical's D, E, and F all concern the Michigan-Indiana tennis match, with Denard ascending past Woody Danztler in Orson's pantheon of spread quarterbacks.

Etc.: Stencil this across the world. Football coaches are focused on play success, not drive success. Chait is with me: just say no to punts.

Help a blog out. So Blogs With Balls is trying to get in on the next South By Southwest and needs internet help. If you could register with SWSX and then thumb-up the BWB topic idea, this would go some small distance towards helping this happen. Do it to it.

Turner return broached, unlikely. In the aftermath of Justin Turner's decision to transfer there have been rumors about a potential decision to reverse that decision once his family talks him off the ledge:

[WTKA's Sam] Webb says Turner spoke to his mom about the decision but not to other members of the family, some based here in Michigan.  They are coming up to talk to him and "see what was on his mind" including discussing "even up to and including whether or not he would entertain the thought of going back."

However, Webb thinks that outcome is unlikely. Even if Turner did decide to return his apparent lack of conditioning would probably make him useless this season.

It's a deke. Srsly. Michigan Hockey Net has been posting some old Michigan hockey clips of late; here's Brandon Kaleniecki breaking out the greatest deke in the history of hockey:

"He's got two and that was a weird one!"

And fin. Michigan goes in front of the infractions committee this weekend, at which point the final stories about practice (practice we're talking about practice) get written and attention returns to the stuff happening on the field. I have the vague hope some of the stories will have the perspective Bruce Feldman($), a guy who's travelled the country and seen the inside of dozens of programs, does:

If you've been to more than a handful of college campuses in the past decade or talked to any football coaches, you'd know that what the school was accused of are probably the most minor major violations you'll ever hear about.

Many folks cringe whenever they hear the excuse of "Well, everybody does it," but the reality here is this stuff goes on with top programs all over the country. Quite frankly, there's been much bigger offenders on these rules than what the NCAA has apparently caught in its net.

While it sucks that Michigan got dragged through this, nothing in the final report suggests anything except institutional incompetence and confusion about rules most people are confused about. My favorite evidence of the latter is the NCAA official site declaring the rules "nebulous," "difficult to understand," and "even harder to track."

Feldman is a guy who brings some authority when he says similar violations would be turned up just about anywhere; if he's right about that the main difference between Michigan and other schools is the attitude of the local paper.

Other numbers. Freshmen were omitted from this site's Fall Roster Overanalysis since they don't have a track record, but I did mean to link to Ace's focus on those freshmen. Most guys come in about where you'd expect except maybe the ever-expanding Richard Ash. At this rate, in two years we'll get to find out if having Norman Bombardini clog the middle is a good idea.

With Ace's post and a helpful reader sending a long a saved copy of the spring roster I  can highlight a couple additional interesting weight changes:

• Stephen Hopkins is down from a Wisconsin-like 236 to a still-pretty-Wisconsin-like 227.
• Christian Pace put on 21(!) pounds since the spring roster came out. I don't think it's possible for all of that to be good weight but if he's already 280 he should be physically ready to play center in the Big Ten when Molk graduates.

Sauce: weak. Les Miles defending the Elliott Porter oversigning fiasco:

He noted that Porter’s scholarship offer was still good, just postponed a semester. He said if somebody made the same offer to one of his sons, they would “certainly be disappointed that day, but recognize that, long-term, it’s not a bad thing.”

Miles said grayshirting can benefit players who could use time to allow their bodies to mature. “He might take his time to come in shape and to benefit his body and compete,” he said.

This is also called a "redshirt," except in that case you get to go to school like you were promised over a year ago. It's a simple choice between not signing that extra kid and taking the chance at going into 2010 with 83 or 84 scholarships or taking a kid who's been living in a dorm for a month and telling him GTFO.

Also note the headline on this thing "Miles defends grayshirt rule," as if there's some crazy NCAA mandate that requires him to dump Porter. The paper is attempting to move the responsibility for the thing from Miles to an NCAA bylaw. Since that bylaw is "you can only have 85 scholarships," fail.

(HT: Get the Picture.)

And so forth and so on. The cases of Noel Devine and Demar Dorsey aren't totally comparable—Devine never got into serious trouble—but his background was "Botswana-level" according to EDSBS:

When Devine was 3 months old, his father died of complications from AIDS.

When Devine was 11, his mother died of AIDS.

Devine's maternal grandmother assumed custody, but he often clashed with her and he eventually moved out. He moved in with the parents of one of his friends.

Devine was a witness to a shooting late in 2004 in which one of his closest friends was killed by a shot to the chest.

Devine had two children in high school in North Fort Myers, Fla., a girl and a boy, born seven months apart to different mothers.

When Devine was a high school senior, many programs backed off because they thought he'd never get into school; WVU seemed a little sleazy when they went after him and got him on campus. Now he's a senior-to-be forgoing the NFL—where his stock is at maximum since he's not going to grow three inches this year—for a degree. Will that degree have the general aura of jockishness? Almost certainly. Is it a better outcome for him than travelling the wilderness as a JUCO? Also almost certainly. I wish the media narrative about poor kids on football teams getting into trouble was less about scolding "win at all costs" coaches and more about what kind of outcomes various programs were achieving with the marginal players they acquire.

In related news, Demar Dorsey still isn't on Louisville's roster.

Maybe holistic and stuff. I'm pretty sure that Doctor Saturday is just reading the media zeitgeist when he suggests that the only thing that can repair the Big Ten's image problem is a national title, but he highlights a fact that's been true at least since Jim Delany's spectacularly ill-advised open letter bashing the SEC:

The Buckeyes' coast-to-coast run at No. 1 in 2006 in calamity, along with their surprising return to the top in '07, the two losses that still loom over the conference like a giant monolith that periodically drawls "S-E-C! S-E-C!" and has no input to receive data such as "the Big Ten and SEC have split their two annual bowl tie-in games 10 to 10 over the last decade."

When you bring this up to someone wearing SEC pajamas, they invariably respond with "bowl games don't matter except those two Ohio State humiliations." The Big Ten has been a bit down of late since Michigan and Penn State can seem to be good at the same time and USC has managed to lose a game against a Pac-10 also-ran yearly, but reports of the conference's demise have long been greatly exaggerated.

Etc.: A Steve Sharik comment on defending four verts with a three-deep gets front-paged at Smart Football. Holding the Rope UFRs Wisconsin's offense against Miami. I was planning on ranking the ten teams of the aughts for Of The Decade but MATW beat me to it so just consider that post part of the series. I didn't see this but a couple of different places on the internet are reporting that on Hard Knocks last night a Jets coach told Donovan Warren "if you'd played like that last year Michigan would have won some damned games," which is funny but not true. Michael Buckner appears in yet another story about Michigan's infractions—is there no other man on the planet with a law degree who can speculate darkly about possible outcomes?

And my "Michigan football" youtube subscription turned up… 60 Seconds With Taylor Lautner. Who is apparently in "Twilight." When I was a kid our vampire shows were full of smokin' hot chicks, not moody boy-toys. /get off my misogynist lawn.