t-shirts

Shirtpocalypse. So if you've gone to the MGoStore you've noticed that there isn't much of it left. This is why:

We have been ordered to remove many MGoStore designs by the University of Michigan. They feel that these designs violate NCAA compliance rules as well as certain University trademarks. As a thank you for your support of Brian, MGoBlog, and the MGoBlog Store, receive 10% off any purchase at www.moesportshops.com by using the code: mgoblog10

Thank you for your understanding and support and we appreciate your patience as we figure all of this out and continue to provide you with unique apparel. Go Blue!

This is extremely frustrating, but Underground sells licensed apparel and has no choice but to comply. It's not quite as bad as it looks since they threatened but did not actually C&D a number of designs that were pulled yesterday, including stuff like "Worst State Ever"; these will return shortly. Anything player-specific, no matter how oblique, is out unless it's an officially-licensed #16 jersey. We can't do anything but stew about it, unfortunately. Sorry for the lack of warning.

The one thing you can do is take pictures of those stupid t-shirt stands (you know, the ones with "MICHIGAN DRINKING" shirts) that ripped off several MGoDesigns when they have player-specific merch and send it to the U. They deserve pain, too.

Big Ten Hockey less a possibility, more a certainty. Barry Alvarez, always the first guy to tell the world about potentially seismic changes in conference realignment, on Wisconsin's position:

“I don’t know the logistics — how long it takes to get out of a league, all of that — but I sense that we will move in that direction,” UW athletic director Barry Alvarez said Thursday.

Madison.com also cites a source close to the process saying the same thing:

“There’s going to be Big Ten hockey,” assured a source with intimate knowledge of the process, adding that 2014-15 is the target point for introducing the new league although he said “it could happen sooner than that.”

College Hockey news says it's "nice" Penn State made noises about cooperating with college hockey but the tea leaves were easy to read: "BTHC is inevitable in 2014."

A six-team league would presumably play 20 conference games, leaving 14-16 nonconference games for the defectors to spread out amongst former league-mates. A ten-team WCHA featuring Denver, Colorado College, and North Dakota would still be a power conference, and a nine- or ten-team CCHA (depending on whether they reconsider Alabama-Huntsville) would still have new arenas and elite coaches at ND and Miami to guarantee themselves respectability. Hopefully any move to Big Ten hockey will make an effort to preserve existing programs with scheduling agreements and guaranteed home games for the Ferris States and Northern Michigans of the world; the last thing college hockey needs is more programs folding.

One thing that's being kicked around that you probably won't see: Notre Dame in the BTHC. The Big Ten is not going to throw Notre Dame a bone if they don't have to, and making that move would further damage the leftover CCHA schools I assume everyone wants to protect. I bet Michigan still has a home-and-home with them most years, but they aren't going to be in the conference.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Steve Breaston in two questions. Via the Arizona Republic:

Question: Do you have any hidden talents none of your teammates knows about? You know, like can you play jazz flute?
Breaston: I can write. I'm a writer. I post a lot of stuff on my fan page on Facebook. Oh, and I can bend my thumb behind my knuckles like this. Look.

Q: Pretty cool, but that's a little creepy. Did you have some sort of freak accident as a kid or what?
A: No, no. My thumbs are just like that.

Also, Breaston's favorite baseball team is Pittsburgh. Jeez.

Optimism from Massachusetts. Except not really:

Q: What's the best case/worst case scenario for UMass? In other words, what needs to happen for the Minutemen to win? How does a blowout happen?…

A blowout seems more plausible. UMass hasn't faced a good dual-threat quarterback in a while, and if Robinson gets going early, things could unravel fast. The Minutemen can't afford to turn the ball over. Naturally, if they can avoid falling behind early, their confidence goes up. An early hole could drain their belief in their ability to win pretty fast.

It's so nice to have people saying things like this, even if they're a I-AA beat writer.

Etc.: The MZone's Know Your Foe returns! This is just like when we used to go to bowl games! FSD talks to Denard's mom, who says he runs like Grandpa, which is a terrifying thing to think. Tom reports that 2011 OL Chris Bryant and his 2012 teammate Jordan Diamond will be unofficial visitors tomorrow. I will remind you about this again but Phil Brabbs is having a fundraising event in Chicago for the Indiana game.

I Will Eat Them Up: Remix. Boyz in the Pahokee wanted to parody hype videos. He failed, but in doing so succeeded:

Sit under the Banyan tree and ponder this.

As long as we're pondering the above, yeah… I thought this was slightly premature after UConn but, like, dude:

Yeah… kinda. Offer still stands with the Brock Mealer shirt, by the way: buy a Brock shirt, donate to Brock's continued rehab, get five bucks off another MGoShirt. "onepercent" is your magic word.

Old school. Did you know Bump Elliott was on "What's My Line?" With his brother? Who was Illinois' coach at the time?

Different world when you could have the head coaches of Michigan and (I guess) Illinois on a TV show and people had to guess as to who they were instead of saying "what's the deal with hiring that rube from Southern Miss, eh?" FWIW, Michigan went 6-3 in the 1961 season, defeating 0-9 Illinois 38-6 but losing to both Michigan State and Ohio State by lots. Minnesota was the other loss.

Die, Special K. Straight from Brandon's mouth about pipin' it in:

"I will probably be chastised for telling this story:  At a Big 10 AD meeting I proposed an amendment to allow bands to be miked and it was emphatically turned won.  I kept pushing it and tried to convince the other AD's that it was about distributing the sound throughout stadiums better and not amplifying the sound on the field.  Using my persuasive powers, we eventually got this amendment passed and now we've got the band miked.  Now to head off any questions about the recorded music, we are planning on there being less recorded music now that the band can be heard better. "

Adios, Ron. #87 Ron Kramer, the last Michigan player to have his number retired, died on Saturday. Since he played 20 years before I was born I don't have much to say that's not in a press release, but the News's Jerry Green does:

Ron Kramer lugged the wooden brown box into the saloon close to the University of Michigan's campus in Ann Arbor. "Give me two Scotch-and-waters," Kramer told the bartender.

Kramer placed the brown box atop the bar. The guy behind the bar looked at Kramer with deep curiosity. Ron was alone, accompanied only by the box.

"What do you want two for?" the bartender asked Kramer.

"Bennie is kind of dry," answered Kramer.

Yeah: Oosterbaan, ashes of. The Hoover Street Rag has another story in the same vein and Lynn Henning talks to Frank Beckmann, Jerry Hanlon, and Don Dufek about him.

It might be pretty stupid to think that Denard Robinson going 87 yards had anything to do with Kramer, but what the hell, right? Let's do it anyway.

Perspective: there is no perspective. Denard's second week by the Mathlete's numbers:

Another ground game worth 12 PAN [Ed: Points Above Normal, IIRC], just like last week. My database goes back to the 2003 season and during that time there have been a total of 107 games where a player has recorded a PAN of 12 or higher. Of those 107 times, there are 10 players who have done it at least twice (4 have done it three times). The only players to have put up a dozen on the ground twice in one season versus BCS teams, Denard and two others, Jerome Harrison at Washington State vs Stanford and UCLA in 2005 and Chris Barclay at Wake Forest vs Clemson and Maryland in 2003.

So if he does this again in the Big Ten season he will have done something unprecedented over the last seven years in college football. Also, the Mathlete calculates that Michigan's penalties cost them a full touchdown and the kickers are not good, but you didn't need math for that last bit.

Penn State hockey: engage. INCH is reporting that Friday will see an official announcement of Penn State hockey, something that will likely be followed by the CCHA extending a membership offer as soon as whichever official is drafted to make the statement finishes the syllable "ho—". This is win for the CCHA, for the Big Ten Network, and possibly for a Big Ten conference I'd be behind as long as it can be accomplished without seeing any existing programs fold, whether that's by scheduling guarantees from departing clubs or whatever.

This is all very vague still but USCHO reports some grumblin' and mumblin' at a top-secret WCHA meeting:

At a meeting late last week, WCHA coaches discussed the potential of a Big Ten hockey league starting in the near future, and how that would impact their league, sources said. … Sources indicated that the hot topic of speculation at the WCHA meeting was that the 2014-15 season is a potential start date for the Big Ten in hockey.

At this point I doubt anything other than Minnesota blanching can prevent the Big Ten Hockey Death Star from forming. Wisconsin ended the College Hockey Showcase because it explicitly wanted more games against Big Ten opponents; it seems like they'd be willing to jump. Michigan, Michigan State, and Ohio State aren't attached to the CCHA closely enough for tradition to override dolla dolla bill ya'll. That would be a brutal six-team conference on paper but of late State and Minnesota have struggled to consistently make the NCAA tournament, and Michigan came within a whisker of whiffing for the first time in twenty years. Still, PSU hockey would be in for a rough ride to start.

I don't think the impact on CCHA members would be too hard since a six-team Big Ten leaves at least 14 nonconference dates for conference members to fill and it will make economic sense to spend most of those playing Ferris, Western, Lake State, Northern, et al. Michigan might schedule regular trips to Alaska because those get exempted, as well. The WCHA will be fine; all of those programs are established.

Slow States has the PSU angle.

Defending the inside zone with the 3-3-5. Relevant post by Football Defense on something we figure to see later this year:

Versus the Inside Zone, I want to either avoid double teams (pretty tough in a 3-3-5 Defense) or or split double teams.  By slanting our Defensive Line against the Zone blocking, we have the best chance to split those doubles.

As long as we’re still working to split the double, the Offensive Line can’t get off to get to the Linebackers, and this is where I believe we stop the Inside Zone.  If you have 3 Linebackers that are able to run free (not including the Outside Linebackers a.k.a. Overhang Safeties here) you should have no trouble stopping the play.

Thus far it's been a lot of power (pulling linemen, not sliding double-teams) but we'll run up against zone teams in the Big Ten schedule, most prominently Illinois. Since Michigan ran a ton of inside zone against UConn I'd hope they're proficient at it.

Etc.: Dhani Jones will return to campus on October 15th to speak to students at the behest of the Social Entrepreneurship Initiative. Union Ballroom, 3:30. I wouldn't ask him about Rodriguez. Denard Robinson tribute tumblr. Scott Wolf has an irrational hatred of the Big Ten. Whirlwind '>pre-UConn Mustache tour.

So thanks to John U Bacon we got this hooked up:

Now in the MGoStore for regular MGoStore prices, with a large portion of the purchase price going towards Brock Mealer's continued rehabilitation. If you need further incentive, enter the coupon code "onepercent" to get five bucks off any other MGoStore shirt when you buy a 1% shirt.

If I may make a suggestion?

Worst State Ever goes national. On cable, but still:

You, too, can own this piece of History Channel-famous clothing. If you already own one, your Grandma needs one.

Why the hell? This is apparently the reason the Big 12 did not fall apart:

No FSN deal has been signed, and nothing is expected for several weeks at the earliest. But sources say FSN has told Big 12 officials that it would increase its annual payout to as much as $130-$140M per year. It currently pays $19.5M per year for the cable TV rights, a deal that ends following the '11-12 season

How in the flaming hell is that a good business decision for FSN? You're increasing your payout 600% for games that are on average less interesting without Nebraska—the Big 12 was recently reassured that ESPN would not demand a "rebate" on their existing contrat.

Sports Business Daily says that along with that payout will come "third tier rights" that include radio, stadium signage, local media, and third-tier TV rights. I'm not exactly sure what the value of that stuff is but since IMG is involved I imagine they're similar to the rights deals M and OSU have with IMG that amount to something like 8-10 million annually, with teams like Purdue getting maybe half of that. Ballpark those at 4 million per school (which is a complete guess*) and Fox is only… uh… more than doubling its commitment to the Big 12 after it lost a good bit of reach and interest.

We may see a system where more rights devolve to the league itself, thus artificially boosting the conference distribution without actually boosting the revenue much. It'll be like a heavily back-loaded NFL contract that's more show than substance. I'm sure the Big 12 will increase its payouts in a real sense, but the demographic realities that almost saw the conference implode aren't going away. I agree with this guy who is cited by USA Today as an expert:

However, he called the projected average annual TV splits of $20 million for Texas, Oklahoma and Texas A&M, with the other schools getting $14 million-$17 million each, "too high, just not realistic."

"Now, who knows? Maybe they can break the mold and come up with a model nobody's seen."

More likely they'll just dress it up real purty to save face. Doctor Saturday has more.

*(But I think it's the right range since schools will be able to hold onto whatever other rights they require to start their own networks.)

Appeal not so much. The #1 must-read piece on USC's sanctions comes from the Bylaw Blog, which delves deep into the record-length document to reach some conclusions no one else has the expertise or care to. The main takeaway:

In that detailed account, the Committee on Infractions lays out the case that USC took in two student-athletes with no regard for the amateurism rules, and then failed to notice when they began accept benefits and enter into agreements in violation of the rules. The overall gist of the NCAA’s stance was summed up by one quote from Paul Dee, the chair of the Committee on Infractions during the teleconference discussing the report:

High profile players demand high profile compliance.

IE: no more see/hear/speak no evil for Carroll and Friends. Compliance Guy also provides a heartening opinion on why the document is so long and took so long: the NCAA lacks a true smoking gun and instead laid out its case meticulously in anticipation of a USC appeal. The top priority was making the penalties stand.

At this point a USC appeal would probably damage the school more than help it, as the penalties would just be delayed. So, go ahead, USC. Appeal.

Seriously pissed off, you guys. The hockey committee dropped a couple of major rules changes on college hockey:

1. Icing always counts even if you're killing a penalty.
2. Hits to the head are an automatic five and a game.

The second is just another version of the committee's temporary freakout about hits from behind after North Dakota's Robbie Bina was seriously injured by a dangerous check from behind by Geoff Paukovich. The NCAA decided to combat incompetent refereeing by making all hits from behind five and a game, leading to a brief period when every hit along the boards was accompanied by a nervous glance at the ref just in case he decided to toss your guy from the game. Refs started calling boarding instead and a few years later we're back to square one when it comes to hits from behind: still illegal. We'll have an annoying period where routine minors are wildly overreacted to, refs will start calling roughing, and everything will go back to the way it was.

The icing change promises to greatly increase the efficacy of power plays and has been met with fuming, largely because the coaches voted against it… unanimously:

“I think it’s just a crime,” Bemidji State coach Tom Serratore said. “I’ve been in college hockey for 18 years and I’ve never seen anything like this in my life. It was almost unanimous for the entire coaching body. How can the committee overturn the entire coaching body? I think it’s sad, the lack of respect that the committee had for the coaching body.

“We didn’t spend any time even talking about it because it was so radical. We just voted 12-0 and moved on.”

Coaches are also irritated by a change to delayed penalties where a team that scores on the delay still gets the power play, but that hardly ever happens so at worst it's a minor annoyance.

Other changes:

• Goaltenders now change ends in overtime. This might be a direct response to what happened at the Fort Wayne regional, when Michigan got stuck with the long change for four out of five periods in the double-OT game against Miami. It's not a rule change that will have an impact anywhere else, but it's a good one anyway.
• Icing modifications. The "obtainable pass" rule where a player who attempted to pass to a teammate who just missed it saw his icing waved off is gone, which I don't like. On the other hand, if an offensive player is clearly going to beat the defender to the puck they will wave it off. Net impact is about neutral, I guess.

The half-shield proposal was tabled so that more studies about injury could take place.

The rules proposals aren't final—they have to be addressed by the "Playing Rules Oversight Committe" in July. One dollar says the icing rule is dropped and never discussed again.

BONUS: That last article suggests the CCHA will drop the shootout. I actually didn't mind it once they went to a system where all games were worth the same number of points.

Etc.: Bacon goes way back to cover Michigan's brief withdrawal from the Big Ten around the turn of the 20th century. All of the CU/NU penalty fees will go to OU, Texas, and A&M. NHL.com profiles Carl Hagelin. Contrasting Michigan's response to the NCAA with USC's.

Your MGoBracket victor is the elaborately misspelled entry "tickeledtodeath": he will be covered in luxurious cotton from head to waist. All hail his perspicacity, and scorn his willingness to pick Duke as national champion. It was a crazy tournament: the winner only got half of the Elite 8 and half of the final four.

Runners up in the MGoBracket contest are Nate-Dawg, phil solomon, drewg32, and MGoAero. Please email me an address and a size preference.

Fearless Leader finished a respectable 78th, if you're interested. I had Wisconsin in the final four, did get Duke in the final and had Butler as an Elite Eight team.

Also: consume!

It has been a long journey through the desert but finally there is a t-shirt that says "Space, Bitches!" in commemoration of Michigan's killer Apollo PSA. Yea, and it came down from the mountain and it was good:

In commemoration, we'll make this MGoBlog Yahoo tourney bracket an officially sponsored thing. Top five get a freebie Space shirt and the winner gets a bonus of his or her choosing.  Group #36042, password "mgoblog." Get to thy brackets.