schadenfreude

Brabbs reminder. Chicagoans: Phil Brabbs is having a fundraiser this weekend for the Indiana game, which Michigan will DOMINATE. Offer still stands on the Brabbs shirts, BTW: buy one, get five bucks off a second shirt in the (now severely reduced) MGoStore.

Insane rootability UPDATE! This is quality except for hated non-journalist Melanie Collins(!) introing it:

(Note: last time Melanie Collins was referenced on the blog the comments got very sad; just don't, hokay?)

Also: you've already seen Stonum kick the glasses up a notch this week, but what about Taylor Lewan's insane mustache tattoo?

The purpose of this:

"I mean it's the best icebreaker in the world. You go up to them," Lewan said, putting his finger in place to reveal the mustache, "'Miss, let's be serious, I just want to dance.'"

You will not be surprised to learn the idea originated in third grade. I mean:

"My friend thought it would be a cool idea to draw a mustache on (his finger)," Lewan said. " I was like 'this is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my life. I have to do this for real.'"

I love this team.

Kicking paint. Via a reader:

Injury watch. Another pair of big injuries hit the Big Ten this weekend, with Purdue QB Robert Marve and Penn State RT Lou Eliades tearing ACLs and getting knocked out for the year. Marve's replacement is a redshirt freshman who will further condemn Purdue to a terrible season; they're now down their top QB, RB, and WR and just lost to Toledo by 11. The Rockets were dead last in total offense going into the Purdue game; they put up 31 points and exceeded their season yardage average by 100. Purdue is bad. Someone should Yakety Sax the upcoming Purdue-Minnesota game.

Penn State winnability watch. Eliades's loss sends Penn State into a further bout of scrambling on the OL. They were already starting two(!) guys who played guard in 2009 at tackle. Now they're going with this guy:

Filling Eliades will be redshirt junior Chima Okoli, who is an offensive lineman for the first time in his career. Okoli was a full-time defensive lineman in high school and at Penn State until spring drills, when he reluctantly shifted to offense.

Penn State's starting tackles are now 6'3" and 6'4", and the position switch starter klaxons are blaring. Linebacker U on the situation:

The offensive line was already having issues before this tragedy. I lost count just how many times I pounded my fist on the bar table today when PSU only had to pick up a yard or two in third down situations and got manhandled by Temple's defensive line. … I am now taking bets on just how many of our linemen are going to join ex-punter Jeremy Boone in getting swallowed by Iowa's Adrian Clayborn next week.

Normally level-headed official-journalist-type-guy Bill Kline also sounds the alarm, albeit about a different position:

Penn State's safeties are just too slow. Drew Astorino and Nick Sukay both got burned on runs, and more than once. Andrew Dailey also was beaten. Terrelle Pryor is gonna eat them up, let alone Denard Robinson of Michigan. Can you imagine those safeties trying to even touch D-Rob? He could outrun those guys wearing a NASA spacesuit.

Yeesh. He also has some critical words for Bolden ("overthrows open receivers, holds onto the ball too long, rifles it in there harder than a sledgehammer") and actually says the PSU coaches should have inserted Kevin "Michigan Fans Are Just Bitter" Newsome at some point against the Owls.

All that sounds like overreaction to me. Even so, the Penn State game has moved into the coinflip-ish band with MSU and Iowa, even at night on the road. I remain terrified of Wisconsin even if Vegas hates them.

The Freude. TWIS is up and has the usual bout of Notre Dame self-loathing. Get your laughs in now since ND's next five games should all be easy wins—Boston College is the toughest opponent in that stretch and they also feature in TWIS because they have a 70-year-old OC named "Tranquill," which is just too easy.

Also featured is TRAIN MONKEY:

I don't even know what this means:

----

Fire Mullen Now

Train monkey could have called a better four down set

----

Train monkey?

via www.richgonzales.com

What?

TRAIN MONKEY FOR WVU OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR.

BONUS! This just came down the NDN crazy pipe:

My mom says it's ok we lost because Stanford is a good team
by KLav18 (2010-09-27 16:03:17)

I want to punch her in the face and tell her that is the whole problem. We can't beat anyone good because we suck.

Is there anything more entertaining than ND Nation after a loss? Yes: Denard Robinson. But that's it.

I admire your enthusiasm. One Indiana fan's opinion of this weekend's game:

Michigan has no chance next week....

---

their defense doesnt exist. They barely beat an ND that IU could easily handle (ND couldnt dominate PU, which got killed by Toledo. You think Toledo would beat IU??). They barely beat UMass (FCS team?) at home.
They are not going to get 400 yards on IU.... let alone 700 yards.
Michigan are getting full of themselves, again. The BTN is helping.
Chappel will destroy them. Robinson will get some of his yards, but no one else will. And if they are sandbagging his injury, Tate Forcier's parents will have to take down his website after the game.

This is just one guy, obviously. Most other IU fans are hopeful but reasonable, or seem reasonable next to this guy, who also suggests that if the "referines" give Michigan the game again, IU should join the Big 12.

Etc.: Oregon blog Off The Pond finds AP voter John Wilner's secret ballot notes. Wilner is one of two voters to exclude Michigan, and the rest of his ballot does not make the guy out to be a genius. (The other guy not to vote for Michigan is creepy/sad cheerleader groupie Scott Wolf.) Nobody goes to Florida State games. Just 61k showed up for the Wake Forest game; they haven't topped 70k for the last five games. TV Guide droids are changing the storyline.

Note for students: Maize Rage mass meeting 7PM in the League's Vandenberg room. Who wants some FREEEEEEE PIIIZZZAAAA?

Further adventures in epic rootability. Remember how Darryl Stonum was this year's Roy Roundtree, who was in turn Michigan's version of Rick Vaughn? Yeah, Stonum is taking the comparison as far as he can without literally raiding whichever Planet Hollywood contains the skull-and-crossbones originals:

Awesome. He was probably thinking Run DMC, but either way it is epic.

Just plain epic. This is astounding:

I would buy a billion of these before they were taken from us. Sadly these are not extant, but you can get it as your wallpaper.

The Freude. You will want to check out This Week In Schadenfreude this go-round for obvious reasons:

My 11 year old thinks ND football is a joke
by btd (2010-09-19 00:43:18)

She can't grasp why they are even on TV. She said it tonight. "Daddy, why does anyone care about Notre Dame? Have they ever been good?"

Basically there isn't a kid alive today that has ever seen real ND football.

This running diary didn't even make it in because I ran out of room:

12:06 Went and got a bottle of NyQuil and a bottle of Woodford Reserve. Placed them both on the table in front of me. Flipping a coin to see which one I start chugging.

12:10 Why?

12:16 WHY DO WE HAVE THIS BLACK CLOUD HANGING OVER OUR FOOTBALL PROGRAM!?!?

The freude is strong this week. BONUS: find out where Tacopants transferred. It won't be a surprise.

Mascot win. So the Ohio Bobcat got fired, reprimanded, and banned for life from Ohio athletics for a spectacular attack on the Ohio State mascot:

So worth it. He's never going to have to buy a drink in Ann Arbor, State College, or any other Big Ten city.

Elsewhere in fantastic misbehavior, Orson's Alphabetical catches an old Arizona fan shattering a child's innocence:

The look on the kid's face afterward is priceless: "this never happens to me in Iowa."

The latest lack of outrage. This is probably the most convincing explanation of an assumed ref disaster ever. It's about the delay of game, or lack thereof, on the Michigan State fake punt:

"The responsibility is assigned to the Back Judge, who in this situation was standing beneath the upright. Proper mechanics dictate that his focus be directed to the play clock as it approaches zero. When the play clock display reads zero, he must re-direct his attention to the ball. At that time, if the snap has not started, a flag will be thrown for delay of game. If the snap has begun, no flag will be thrown.

"Under these procedures, there will always be a small amount of lag time between the time the clock reads zero and the time the Back Judge is able to see the football.

"On the play in question, this lag time created the situation where it appears the play clock expired just before the snap. We believe the snap occurred well within the normal lag time for the Back Judge to make this determination.

That makes total sense. I wish officials would do this more often. Issue little dicta explaining why penalties were (or in some cases, were not) called and you reduce the complaining at least somewhat.

Bork on. Hockey season is going to start soon and Red Berenson is talking them up:

"We realized we were as good as anybody at the end of last year and this team will take that (confidence) and put that on the ice,"  …

"Does it make our team better? Definitely, it's huge," said Berenson of having Hagelin and Caporusso back. "You're so much more optimistic because you know who your top players are. I felt they had their heads in the right place. They are really invested in this program."

The usual blunt assessments of early departures (Pacioretty and Palushaj are in the AHL and "probably don't like it") are also included along with an interesting Cold War II tidbit: the rink will be Olympic size. Advantage to a quicker Michigan team, no doubt.

Etc.: Congratulations, commenters, for not being NDNation about Dantonio's heart attack. It is in this way we will not be a newspaper's comment section. By request, shots of Michigan Stadium's renovation from above. MGoBlog invades North Korea. Srsly. The Team, The Team, The Team: the video they played Saturday.

App: extant. The MGoBlog iPhone app is live in the Apple App Appstore:

It's free, and will still be inaccessible on Gameday when 100,000 people try to text their buddy "DENENENENENAAAARD." But if you're on an iPhone it's better than webbin' it. Guilt at lack of Android app: severe. If there are any Android developers out there interested in a revshare deal to create one, email me.

Send us your sons. Since it's football season we'll forgo the full breakdown of Glenn Robinson III, Michigan's freshest basketball recruit and the son of Glenn Robinson (II, I guess), that guy who played for Purdue and was in the NBA forever. Robinson is a 6'6" wing who will arrive in 2012 (ie, the year after Carlton Brundidge and Trey Burke). Robinson's a three star rated #118 by Rivals who picked up an offer in August. UMHoops doesn't have a google-stalk yet but it's just a matter of time.

Crist concussion certain. Dude, Dayne Crist was concussed. This is from Brian Kelly:

"We had just got clearance from the TV tout to take the field. We were under a minute. That's when he said, 'Coach, I just don't remember this play.' You could look at him and you could tell that he wasn't fully in charge. So that's when we made the decision to make the change."

I'm not saying Kelly's a bad guy (though I'd be disappointed in RR if he'd done something similar) or that making a decision like that is easy, but at some point there should probably be a guy unaffiliated with either school who makes a decision about whether a player who's "dazed" can return at all. If you're out most of a half, have trouble seeing out of one eye, and are having memory issues, that's a "maybe next week" sort of injury.

TWIS for you. Some miscommunication led This Week In Schadenfreude to get posted late but you'll want to head over there for the awesome animated GIF created from the Terpstra on-field video and the Nation's reaction:

ya know what?
by jddomer (2010-09-11 19:34:34)

f--- you, and anyone who thinks this game was OK. F--- YOU!!!!!! I hate michigan with the white hot heat of 1000 suns. We should NEVER lose to thses f---ers. EAD. These fuckers should never beat us, especially like this. And, being unfortunate enouogh to be born in that godforsaken f---ing state, I will ahev to listen to the "we are better than you" shit for yet another year. F--- you.,
Where is my Jack? seriously. I need a bottle, and I need it now. Until we are 10-1.

Most of you just laughed like mad scientists, and that's okay.

This looks familiar. Via a reader comes this report of a new tradition at Marshall that seems slightly ripped off from your favorite team:

They're still getting the hang of it:

They started a “new” tradition where the players hit the M[arshall] Club banner on their way out onto the field.  Its quite a circuitous  route as the come out of their locker room which is in the North end zone, run up the hashes to the 50, make a right hand turn, and boom! hit the banner. Best part was they didn’t set the banner at an appropriate height (probably 10’) and only a handful of the players were able to hit it.  Lots of missing going on. 

You're welcome, WVU readers. We try to give something back.

More walk-ons necessary. So the annual walk-on tryouts went down:

More than 30 students participated in tryouts for the Michigan football team Monday afternoon. Rodriguez said six or seven will receive an extended look during a two-week trial period.

“A couple really caught our attention,” he said. “They might have a spot on the team.”

Keecker? plz?

Major injuries. Michigan isn't the only team getting it in the nads from Angry Blank-Hating Gods. Purdue's #1 receiver and only remaining scary offensive threat in the aftermath of Ralph Bolden's injury is out for the year, which is especially painful because Smith is a senior who has taken a redshirt and will have to apply for a sixth year he may or may not get.

Also gone is Ohio State starting strong safety CJ Barnett, though Ohio State has the depth to find a suitable replacement. Not so much Purdue. Penn State's Gerald Hodges, their version of Mike Jones, will miss 4 to 8 weeks as well. MSU lost its third-string TE, so they're totally screwed.

Steal my thunder. I was totally going to do this but BWS beat me to it:

This is not the 31-yard Roy Roundtree touchdown that kicked off Michigan's scoring. It's a play on the previous drive that ended with Robinson gaining a few yards on that QB off tackle or whatever you want to call it. Look at the WRs: they're running routes. I'm not sure if this is an option for Robinson he misread, a mistake, or a proof of concept for the 'Tree TD, but Michigan saw the results and got seven points out of it. More details at the link above.

RBUAS alert. Johnny talks about the wonder that is Stephen Hopkins. No, not really:

The Saturday morning before last I woke up on an inflatable mattress on the floor of a friend’s apartment in Ann Arbor. You know how the rest goes.

 

If you type in Denard Robinson on Google the first suggestion is "Denard Robinson Heisman." He doesn't know what they say about him on television because he doesn’t have cable. Notre Dame let him in the interview room, the first time an opposing player has been allowed in there since 1997. Dick Vitale spent Saturday afternoon telling Jalen Rose over Twitter that Denard Robinson was awesome, baby. Lebron James said he was “a monster out there right now.” Denard Robinson is operating from a different dimension. We can all only swarm to the crater where he crash landed and pick through the debris for souvenirs.

Etc.: Get your Denard wallpaper. Backstreet's back after the Ohio State win. Big Ten Hockey from the BC perspective. Personally I doubt it has any impact on further Big Ten Expansion. Brabbs dominates some more cancer. Blue Seoul picture pages the crap out of everything, including the Tate-RR hugz. Tom Brady on the cover of SI. LOL wrong Michigan QB guyz.