redshirt

This was the first year under the NCAA's new redshirt rules that allow a player to participate in four games without that counting as a year of eligibility. According to participation reports Michigan managed to get to the end of the regular season without burning any unnecessary freshman redshirts, pending one fullback's unlikely participation in the bowl game. Since I have the data I figured I might as well share.

No Redshirt:

These three freshmen played in all 12 games

• WR Ronnie Bell basically took over Eddie McDoom's role and finished with 145 yards and 2 TDs on 9 targets.
• DE Aidan Hutchinson spent the season as Chase Winovich's backup, and while that may sound like a redshirt he was a valuable asset.
• K Jake Moody was the kickoff specialist from Day 1 and won the placekicking job prior to the Indiana game.

They also missed a chance to get a redshirt on sophomore RB O'Maury Samuels, who played played in six of Michigan's first seven games before falling out of the rotation. And just for completeness purposes I'll mention reserve S Jaylen Kelly-Powell played in seven games, and WR Tarik Black might have been eligible for a sixth year if his foot injury limited him to four games this year, but he returned for MSU and has now played in five.

Already at Four:

FB Ben VanSumeren (WMU, SMU, Neb, NW) can maintain his redshirt status as long as he doesn't participate in the Peach Bowl.

Played Three Games or Fewer:

• QB Joe Milton (Wisconsin, Rutgers, and OSU) is the big name, since it means he's available in case Patterson goes out again.
• OT Jaylen Mayfield (WMU, Nebraska, Maryland) also has a shot to win a future tackle job in the bowl game with his redshirt secured.
• RB Christian Turner (Nebraska, Wisconsin) had 13 carries for 63 yards before shutting down. He appears to be a part of the future.
• RB Hassan Haskins (ND, WMU) appeared in a few games early in the year. He's not on either stat sheet.
• Luke Schoonmaker of Connecticut was on the field against Rutgers, presumably a nice treat for family members who came to see him. He didn't register on the stat sheet.
• Vincent Gray also got in against Rutgers according to the participation report (I didn't have this one)
• Cameron McGrone got in on special teams versus Nebraska.

Did Not Play

Tight end Mustapha Muhammad and TE/OL Ryan Hayes never got on the field, as Michigan had plenty of tight ends and sixth OL candidates. On defense the two project DEs Julius Welschof and Taylor Upshaw didn't play this year, and neither did recently converted viper/slot receiver Michael Barrett nor the rest class of lengthy/leapy defensive backs: German and Gemon Green, Sammy Faustin, and Myles Sims as Michigan went most of the season with its three starters.

[lead image: Bryan Fuller]

Two fairly major NCAA rule changes just came down the pipe, and both are unambiguously good. #1 is an elimination of most transfer restrictions:

The Division I Council adopted a proposal this week that creates a new “notification-of-transfer” model. This new system allows a student to inform his or her current school of a desire to transfer, then requires that school to enter the student’s name into a national transfer database within two business days. Once the student-athlete’s name is in the database, other coaches are free to contact that individual.

The "most" in the previous sentence is because of this: "Conferences, however, still can make rules that are more restrictive than the national rule." Many conferences had extra restrictions against intra-conference transfers as of about a decade ago; as anyone who's followed the success talismans known as Beilein grad transfers knows, the Big Ten did away with theirs in 2012. I'm not sure if other conferences have followed suit. I kind of doubt the SEC has since bolting for juco for one year and then bouncing back to another conference school is a fairly common practice.

This hereby ends the irritating news cycle that goes:

1. Player Wants To Transfer
2. School Says Player Can't Go To Various Schools
3. Outrage!
4. "Sorry, Sorry, I'm Trying To Delete It" Says School
5. Player Goes To Iowa State Anyway

So it's got that going for us. Also a slight inch away from NCAA serfdom.

[After THE JUMP: suspense! what's the other rule change! crap i shouldn't have mentioned it in the title]

10/21/2017 – Michigan 13, Penn State 42 – 5-2, 2-2 Big Ten

I'm still trying to figure out how this is a wicked burn [Patrick Barron]

Got a new mattress. Wife had been saying we should get one, and then I read this article about the crazy Online Mattress War between dudes who had gotten millions of dollars in affiliate sales as mattress reviewers and a leading mattress company that sued them. The company was kind of right that the mattress guys were not fully on the up and up, but neither was the company. The twist ending: company just bought the site and magically their problems were over, man.

Everyone wins, except the average Joe just looking for an honest mattress review. Insofar as that is possible. Which it's not for an idiosyncratic product that is supposed to hold up for years and years.

This article still convinced me that I should just buy a mattress online, because any industry that has people in that level of desperate hand-to-hand combat is a place where The Online is legitimately disruptive. Also I went into an Art Van once and felt like I needed a shower after I left. I bought one office chair. Guy said I was making an amazing choice buying this office chair. I had an incredible eye for office chairs. Nobody in the world could have picked out an office chair finer than the one I had just acquired, and at such a price. And so forth and so on.

So: I am sold that mattresses are vastly overpriced and open to disruption. Also I am the kind of person who would rather roll the dice on Amazon reviews than talk to someone who works on commission. So I went with the company at the beginning of the article that purveyed a mattress the vaguely shady review guy returned. They were not mentioned again and thus seemed to be more on the up and up than everyone else. I dislike angle shooters.

Here is an internet mattress. It comes in a white box that seems far too small for a mattress. After you hack through an Amazon's worth of plastic coverings to unroll it there is a final layer of protective covering. Pierce that with the steak knife you've commandeered and the mattress will take in a great gulp of air, like a drowning man who suddenly finds himself at the surface. Then you have a mattress.

It's springy. Good? I don't know? I slept on it. It was fine.

It is odd somehow, but that's probably not its fault. It's probably always odd to get a new mattress. It's doubly so for us since the monstrosity we are replacing is an old hand-me-down "pillow top" that's like a foot taller than this thing. The hand-me-down is the 1955 Buick of mattresses. It could double as a boat or siege weapon. You couldn't put it in a trebuchet unless you wanted to flatten something three feet away, but it would do quite well as a battering ram. Nice and roomy underneath. The padding above would mute the impacts of various rocks, arrows, and other sundry implements of murder being flung at your head. The tag you're not supposed to take off swears that flammability is not an issue. And when you get that thing going, momentum is going to take you right through that door. Have fun storming the castle!

Anyway, the placement of the reading lights in our bedroom now makes way more sense.

----------------------------------------------

The child—who goes by Denard Robinson Cook on the internet because I want his Google results to be his fault, not mine—lost his mind at this whole procedure. One of the great challenges of deploying the internet mattress was getting the little goober off the box spring long enough to simultaneously have a bed and an un-suffocated child.

He bangs the box spring and finds its texture pleasing. "BANG," he says, sort of. Getting the plastic off the mattress is a longer than expected, so he runs off to look at the old mattress, which is not in the spot it's been literally his whole life. "OH WOW," he says, distinctly and repeatedly. When the mattress arrived he pointed at the box and exclaimed "OH WOW" for two solid minutes, at varying levels of intensity. The intensity varied from much to lots.

Perhaps he has been raised to find beds and bedding to be a delight. Later I would discover that when my wife makes the bed there has evolved a certain strange ritual. There are four pillows, and after each is sheathed in its cover the wife will promise the child a "boof," which consists of whacking him surprisingly hard in the face with the pillow and throwing it on the bed. The child falls to the ground, cackling merriment, and gets up demanding to be boofed again.

After the pillows are all on the bed the child is thrown onto it, whereupon he flings himself onto every nook and cranny mutter-yelling "boof." Should an adult have the temerity to join the child on the bed, he or she will be shooed away. The child will cry "ah-weigh" until the offense is repaired, and then resume boofing itself.

This was the only part of the mattress procedure with an unpleasant whiff. It is now clear that the child enjoys throwing himself headlong at things, and having things hurled headlong at himself. He thus might want to play football, which is a sport of no account whatsoever that all thinking people rightly condemn.

AWARDS

Higdon, not Long above[Eric Upchurch]

Known Friends And Trusted Agents Of The Week

you're the man now, dog

#1 David Long? I guess? Long intercepted a pass on PSU's third drive, forestalling the beat down until the second half. He was considerably assisted in this endeavor by a Penn State miscommunication, but the other choices here are guys with under 50 yards of offense or other members of a defense that didn't do great. On a day when Michigan got bombed, just one tackle for Long is probably a good thing.

#2 Karan Higdon? Averaged three yards a carry and this felt sort of noble in the circumstances, with half his carries buried at the line by a defense with no respect for the pass and another fair chunk actually decent.

#3 Khaleke Hudson? I guess? TFL, PBU, and a QB hurry, whatever that means in the box score. Notably did not get torched by anyone unless my memory has failed me, which, thanks, memory. Doin' me a solid.

Honorable mention:

KFaTAotW Standings.

8: Devin Bush (#1 Florida, T2 Cincinnati, T2 Air Force, #1 Purdue)
5: Chase Winovich(#1 Air Force, #2a Purdue), Mo Hurst (#1 MSU, #2(T), Indiana), Karan Higdon (#1 Indiana, #2 PSU)
4: David Long (T3 Indiana, #1 PSU)
3: Mason Cole (#1, Cincinnati), Ty Isaac (#2, Florida, #3 Cincinnati), Lavert Hill(#2 MSU, T3 Indiana))
2: Quinn Nordin (#3 Florida, #3 Air Force), John O'Korn (#2 Purdue), Rashan Gary(T2 Indiana), Khaleke Hudson (T2 Cincinnati, #3 PSU).
1: Tyree Kinnel (T2 Cincinnati), Mike McCray(T2 Air Force), Sean McKeon(T3 Purdue), Zach Gentry (T3 Purdue), Brad Robbins(#3 MSU), Brandon Watson (T3 Indiana).

Who's Got It Better Than Us Of The Week

Michigan punches in a touchdown from the six by loading up in a three-TE set and manballing it in with power. This briefly saw Michigan come within a point and was the last event in the game that could be read as hopeful.

Honorable mention: David Long's INT; other touchdown; several plays on which PSU did not score a touchdown.

MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

Quinn Nordin misses an extra point, which made it clear that it was about to be that kind of night.

Honorable mention: Most of the rest of the game. Saquon Barkley's opening touchdown rather stands out amongst the writhing mass of events. About one minute in to the game everyone was like "okay this is a huge loss," and they were eventually correct. Would rather that did not happen.

[After the JUMP: mattress SEO mattress links mattress reviews mattress coupons mattress mattress]