lolbrandon

Lochmann on the left

Jim Hackett ain't having it. A "Chief Marketing Officer" who can't even market his own brain effectively is not long for the AD:

"He resigned his position to pursue other opportunities," said Dave Ablauf, Michigan associate athletic director.

Lochmann was the living symbol of Dave Brandon's incompetence, a buzzword-spewing yes man whose only ideas were bad ones. The fact that Brandon hired a CMO whose twitter handle was "LochDogg" for at least a year after he was hired says somethin' about somethin'.

Under Lochmann's watch, Michigan aggressively polluted its gameday experiences with relentless noise, chintzy contests, and above all money-grubbing. Michigan came to be defined by the bad ideas Lochmann rolled out only to quickly reverse course on and bad ideas it was too late to do anything about except lie. Michigan lied about hiring skywriters; they claimed the Cokes-for-tickets thing was a failed "retail activation," which isn't English. Michigan increasingly focused on roping in "families of four from Grand Rapids who go to one game a year," as he told a prominent member of the alumni association, taking the core fanbase for granted.

That fanbase rebelled against his boss thanks in no small part to Lochmann. Ticket sales now hover on the edge of collapse and Michigan Stadium is just another generic sports experience.

The best news of all is that Michigan doesn't know if they're going to bother to replace him. Air would have been more effective at marketing Michigan than Hunter Lochmann was, and less expensive.

Duke: creating future generations of people who will crush the economy for their personal benefit

WELP. Ace will have a fuller postmortem shortly, but the short version of what happened at Duke: Michigan spent the first half playing offense like the football team not against ND or OSU and dug themselves a hole they could not extract themselves from.

Very frustrating that Duke can extend their defense so aggressively and not give up backdoor cuts, of which I don't think Michigan had a single one all night. I don't get it. A few bullets:

• GRIII is the same guy and has to be seeing his NBA draft stock crumble as teams get a longer look at him and see someone who can stand in the corner and make threes at an acceptable rate and throw down some dunks but do little else, especially as an NBA three.
• LeVert was pretty much the only guy willing to and capable of driving at a set Duke defense to generate shot opportunities.
• Michigan's defense was actually all right, but flattered by a poor shooting night for Duke in the first half. Duke didn't put Michigan in too many situations where they switched, which previously led to a lot of confusion and things like LeVert trying to cover a power forward. This happened maybe once or twice.
• Everyone in the Duke student section looks like the villain from a 1980s teen comedy.
• Sports! Hate you, sports.

Yeah, pretty much. Ross Fulton breaks down what happened in the OSU game on both sides of the ball, noting that OSU often didn't align well and seemed unprepared for some things that Michigan had shown plenty of:

Like Iowa this year or Cal two years ago, Michigan was able to get easy yards by aligning their blocking strength to the boundary and running to the edge. By aligning to the defensive front to the field and failing to adjust, the Buckeyes are outflanked before the snap. For instance, Michigan picked up easy yards by putting their tight end and wing to the boundary and running touch passes to Jeremy Gallon.

In fact, Michigan went so far as to put their tackle to the boundary to run speed option and the Buckeyes still did not adjust. Michigan has previously shown this look (with limited success) this season, but the Buckeyes did not seem to expect it.

I don't know if that's good news or bad news. OSU's defense doesn't seem particularly well-organized (compare throwback/tunnel screens in this game to Michigan's attempt against MSU), which is a good thing in one game per year as long as OSU doesn't make changes. But some of their success being the stuff they'd already put on film that OSU was inexplicably unprepared for is less good than Michigan having a bunch of wizbang.

The proper way to have a vote of confidence. There is exactly one correct way to tell the universe that your embattled head coach isn't going anywhere. It is three sentences of boilerplate in which you strongly endorse the man in charge and say nothing else, because saying anything else is not useful.

For example: "Coach Hoke will be at the University of Michigan next year and for several years after. While this season has been a trying one, Michigan barely had a non-freshman interior offensive lineman on the roster and has to-date retained 51 of 52 recruits in Hoke's first two full classes, providing needed stability after years of turmoil on and off the field. He is the man for the job."

This is short, and crucially does not

MAKE IDIOTIC COMPARISONS TO NICK SABAN

Many don't remember that Alabama finished fourth in its division during Nick Saban's fourth year with the Crimson Tide. At present, Alabama seems to be doing pretty well!!

Nick Saban won a national title in his third year.

USE MULTIPLE EXCLAMATION POINTS LIKE A HIGH SCHOOL GIRL

OMG!!!

I imagine the editorial meeting about this spent 15 minutes talking about whether "pretty well" needed two or three exclamation points, with the third getting axed because This Is Michigan and three exclamation points is just not done for anything other than the many and varied accomplishments of the University of Michigan.

BRING UP THE GUY MICHIGAN—***YOU***—WHIFFED ON BECAUSE OF THE PROCESS

Stanford had 4-8, 5-7 and 8-5 records under Jim Harbaugh before reaching its current string of consecutive BCS appearances

>__<

ALSO STANFORD WAS 1-11.

ACK

THROW A FORMER COACH UNDER THE BUS FOR NO REASON

The senior class was recruited by Coach Carr and had some terrific talent that had simply been underperforming.

Football is simple, says the BTN commercial.

NOT AT ALL INCIDENTALLY THROW DENARD ROBINSON, MIKE MARTIN, JORDAN KOVACS, DESMOND MORGAN, TAYLOR LEWAN AND JAKE RYAN UNDER THE BUS

Seriously, seniors recruited by Lloyd Carr had about 20% to do with that Sugar Bowl season, because his last class was horrendous.

MAKE UNJUSTIFIABLE ASSERTIONS ABOUT THE MOTIVATIONS OF PEOPLE WHO THINK THIS SEASON PUTS BRADY HOKE'S JOB AT RISK

Anyone making efforts to stir up a coaching controversy at Michigan is ill-informed and is likely promoting a personal agenda that is not in the best interest of Michigan Football.

They will be taken to our new Go Blue Gulag in the upper peninsula.

MENTION THE DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR BUT NOT MENTION THE OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR

The transformation and improvement of our defense under the leadership of coach Greg Mattison has been outstanding.

This was taken as a sure sign Borges was getting axed when there has been very little indication that would happen from inside the program. This was not mentioned in the editorial meeting because of the exclamation point discussion.

But, hey, why say what you have to say in 100 words when you can take a thousand?

I HAVE JUST THE SOLUTION. From the NYT's repulsive tongue-bath of Jim Delany:

After the Southeastern Conference expanded to include the University of Missouri and after the Atlantic Coast Conference added the University of Notre Dame (the school’s football program remained independent) and the University of Pittsburgh — both schools within the Big Ten’s geographic footprint — Mr. Delany concluded that the Big Ten was in danger of ceding strategic ground. “We felt threatened,” he said.

The solution was clear.

Mr. Delany countered with the invitations to Rutgers, then of the Big East, and Maryland of the A.C.C.

YOUR MOVE, SEC.

wait youre just going to not do anything

UT San Antonio is out there man

make a move

d'awww

Speaking of Rutgers…

So much for that theory. I'd ventured that Rutgers might actually become a good program in the Big Ten since New Jersey puts out quite a bit of talent and they would be able to flag down a lot more of it now that they were in a power conference. That prediction was looking pretty good as Rutgers locked down an array of quality local recruits en route to what looked like the best Big Ten recruiting class of the year, non-M-OSU division.

That's now in shambles as Rutgers deals with yet another coach-abuse fallout scandal. Recruits are decommiting in droves after this, which happened a week or two ago:

The incident -- which Jevon Tyree said occurred in April with the Rice fallout still fresh -- happened in front of approximately 10 teammates and a tutor, Jevon Tyree said, and it led to the 19-year-old's escalating ostracization, eventually driving him to quit.

Clarice Tyree called it "an outright bullying episode," and Mark Tyree said the behavior soon "transferred to the other coaches." Jevon Tyree, a redshirt freshman on scholarship, said that after the frightening incident, his standing on the team plummeted, along with practice repetitions and any shot at playing time. He said there were team meetings from which he was excluded.

Four of Rutgers's top recruits have decommited in the aftermath of this going public, including MI QB Tyler Wiegers.

Rutgers is just months removed from firing their basketball coach for flinging basketballs at players' heads and hired an athletic director who had been a coach so hated that most of her last team banded together to release a statement about what a horrible person she was. And no one got the football coaches together and said "hey, let's maybe not call people bitches two inches from their faces." The athletic director in the aftermath:

Look: I don’t know if Hermann is lying. I only know that her response, when I asked her on Saturday morning if she had indeed talked to Mark Tyree, was less than convincing.

This was the answer: “Yeah. Somebody – if it’s not him, who calls me and informs me of it? Otherwise I wouldn’t know about it. So I’m not trying to call – I’m not trying to use big words like the words he’s using, but I’m informed by him, to my knowledge. If it’s not him, who’s calling me?”

People in charge of things are just in charge of them, possibly for no reason. In Rutgers's case, definitely for no reason.

Hockey commits. Michigan picked up a couple of future hockey players over the last few days. Cooper Marody is a '96 forward who is probably a 2015 recruit in his first USHL season; he's got 5-11-16 in 23 games and is second in the USHL for his age cohort in that department. SBN College Hockey notes he's a "blazingly fast skater" at six-foot-even. And I think this commitment is going to stick, you guys.

Today a life long dream came true. Committed to The University of Michigan. Proud to be a Michigan Man. #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/YQyLaMk7Xi

— Cooper Marody (@MarodShow12) December 1, 2013

The other guy is a (probably) 2016 defenseman out of Salisbury Prep named Griffin Luce. Originally from Ontario and on pace to be a first round OHL draft pick, Luce has an interesting back story:

-- Griffin Luce, the son of Florida Panthers (NHL) director of scouting Scott Luce, has decided on Salisbury. The St. Thomas, Ontario native, a top ‘98 defenseman who could be selected in the 1st round of the OHL draft next year, played for the Elgin-Middlesex Chiefs this past season. Will be joined at Salisbury by his brother, Harrison Luce, who will be a PG.

The elder Luce played at Colgate, and they obviously know all about Griffin's options, so this is also a commitment that's relatively OHL-proof. Google knows nothing else about Luce, as is often the case for super-young hockey commits, especially defensemen.

Etc.: Charles Pierce on The Game.

Drumline, go.

I would watch a halftime show that was a you-got-served style drumoff between bands. Yes sir.

It's almost like this was not well thought out. Michigan's three million dollar billboard is an eyesore the city would like to turn off.

Ann Arbor officials are planning to ask the University of Michigan to decommission its new digital billboard outside the Big House.

City Council Member Christopher Taylor, D-3rd Ward, and other council members argue the large marquee on East Stadium Boulevard is too big, too bright and too distracting to drivers with its continually changing messages.

You may be wondering why the city is bringing this up after the thing was installed, they were obviously not consulted and don't have to be. Whateva, the U does what it wants:

The university does not have to follow the city's local ordinances or obey council requests. Nonetheless, the council members behind the resolution are hoping the university will hear the community's concerns and respond.

"It just doesn't seem very appropriate," Higgins said of the billboard. "We talked about the size (as part of the city's sign ordinance), and that just so far exceeded any size that we thought was really feasible within the city limits."

Does anyone ask anyone else about anything before just doing it anymore? If I show up at Michigan Stadium next year and it's upside down, will anyone have a rationale, or at least a document indicating that there was a 15 minute discussion about the pros and cons of such an undertaking? (PRO: rain can't get in so easily. CON: have to invent anti-gravity to play football.)

SCORCHED EARTH

Well, that was inevitable. Miami gets three scholarships docked for the next three years. No bowl ban, various other minor penalties. After the NCAA screwed up that investigation harder than Nevin Shapiro screwed his ponzi investors, this was always going to be a wrist-slap compromise that wouldn't send Miami to the appeal/sue route, and lo, it is so. QED: the NCAA put together a record-shattering 102-page document to mildly annoy a program they savage as being basically without compliance in the report.

It's worth noting that Miami self-imposed two years of bowl ban, which cost them a berth in last year's ACC Championship game, and a bunch of players were suspended. It did cost them something.

Obligatory: the NCAA is stupid and their rules are unenforceable and pointless and most of those rules should be put in a blender for the benefit of players, society, common sense, and most importantly Michigan, which has an alumni base with gobs of dough and a department that actually has, you know, compliance activities going on.

Ann Arbor Skyline. Finally, the mysterious name of Ann Arbor's newest high school is explained:

Stauskas and Caris LeVert sharing the backcourt is not "out of the realm of possibility," per Jordan.

That is from WTKA's eight-o-clock hour this morning, on which Michigan's basketball assistants appeared and sent every Michigan basketball beat guy scurrying to their twitter to live-tweet it.

If this actually comes to fruition, holy pants that is a huge lineup: LeVert, Stauskas, Robinson, McGary, Morgan/Horford, or stick Irvin somewhere in there. No one under 6'6". It'll be a sideshow with Walton and Spike around, but what a sideshow.

In general, the coaches sounded excited about LeVert in particular, who's up to 185 and apparently showing enough point guard skill to warrant some run at that spot. He is the kind of guy—young, skinny, still growing—who can be a totally different player in year two.

Same as it ever was. Hockey got some pretty horrible officiating in New Hampshire over the weekend, no call worse than a Derek DeBlois stick-lift that was somehow judged a penalty shot. Berenson on that:

A man may dress like a cowboy and smell like a cowboy but he can't ride a horse.

The Big Ten ain't fixing the gibbering pack of maroons that's available to ref games.

Exit. Farewell to Burgeoning Wolverine Star, which hangs up its spurs. Chris of BWS acquired a reputation as something of a downer, but… uh… on many counts he turned out to be right. (See: offensive line.) His play breakdowns were consistently worth arguing about. He'll be missed.

Entrance. If the previous news leaves you feeling sad, here is Fergodsakes, which is ramping up their coverage entertainingly:

Young (Michigan Alum) David Alan Grier?

Pictured: Michigan Offense, rediscovered

First off, this reference to Spielberg's "Hook" (1991), a landmark achievement in Giant Crocodile cinema technology, was not at all random, and will be of use later in this piece.

A possible future. A leaked PDF that was accurate enough to forecast a Michigan/UCLA series in 2022 and 2023 also indicates Michigan may be playing a neutral-site game against Florida in 2017. Neutral probably means Atlanta, which wouldn't be neutral but would at least be easy to get to. If Will Muschamp doesn't kill Orson by then that would be fun.

Other games it may reveal: UCF in 2016, pushing back a Ball State game, Air Force in 2017—ack option football—and SMU in 2018, all home games.

I subscribe to your newspaper. I subscribe it up. Jeff Goodman toured six of the top programs in America a few days back, hitting Kansas, MSU, Indiana, Oklahoma State, Louisville, and another school I can't figure out from the italicized preview bit. The most impressive guy Goodman saw?

Michigan's Glenn Robinson III was the most impressive player of anyone I saw on the trip. GR3 will see more time at his natural position, small forward, this season. The 6-7 Robinson has added weight and become more athletic.

The questions regarding the son of the "Big Dog" were about his perimeter shot and ability to put the ball on the floor. Robinson buried deep jumper after deep jumper and appears far more comfortable at the 3-spot in John Beilein's offense. It's still yet to be determined whether this aspect of his skill set will translate in games, but it's a good sign with Robinson more assertive on the offensive end. If he can gain a consistent jumper to go with his athleticism, he'll almost certainly be a lottery pick.

That would be excellent. Robinson attended the same camps McGary did over the summer; the buzz from them was that McGary was a beast and Robinson tended to fade into the background, as he is wont to do. I've been expecting an incremental leap in GRIII's game with Stauskas and McGary picking up more of the usage slack left by Burke as a result. Any indicator that Little Big Dog is going to eat is an encouraging sign.

On pace. Jeremy Gallon was the fourth-leading receiver in the Big Ten last year with 829 yards. Through seven games this year he's already exceeded that total with 831. To break Braylon Edwards's single-season receiving record of 1330 yards Gallon needs to average 84 yards a game—well within reach, especially if Michigan retains the pass-orientation they showed against Indiana.

Booker not looking too good. Devin Booker took a visit to Missouri over the weekend, and this is maybe not so good:

Booker visited both Kentucky and Michigan State on the weekend of Sept. 6-9 and went to Michigan on Oct. 5. He arrived back in Mississippi Sunday after the first of consecutive trips to Columbia, Mo., with plans to return to this weekend when his father, Melvin, is honored along with the rest of Missouri's 1994 Big 8 championship team.

A couple of Kentucky folk have flipped their predictions to Mizzou on 247, FWIW.

Etc.: Pahokee eating update. Also an update from Maize and Go Blue. Ups and downs of Brady Hoke. This happened forever ago, but my gawd James Murphy. The Ducks are the reason John Gibson never showed up at Michigan. OH SF Javon Bess, a plan B for Michigan as they wait on Booker and Blackmon, commits to MSU. Here is the weird halftime show.