tom anastos

I have heard your cries; it's time to catch up on the quasi-offseason's user-generated content.

FOOTBALL SECTION

What the… heck is that pic above? Markp (the p is for photoshop) decided to mock up the Big House with a couple of upper decks, and colored in the endzones themselves. I present without comment. For the record, Brian turned me around on the luxury boxes exactly ten years ago this week.

Every snap by QB. DGDestroys broke up every snap of the spring game by quarterback, because just being a good dude wasn’t enough to justify his existence on the planet and he just had to make himself ludicrously useful. I plan to Hennechart this. DGDestroys is your Diary Dude of the Week.

More Don Brown D: Space Coyote took issue with the assertion that Michigan's D was doing some Spartan D-like things, and went about discussing what Brown's Cover 2 concepts look like, i.e. why it's not really a base "Quarters". This is the upshot:

But at the end of the day, [Brown] is a "multiple" coach, which Michigan has almost always been dating back a long time. This, in and of itself, makes it very different than what MSU and OSU are doing.

The BC playbook that James Light made available that we're all pouring through does have a package called "Spartan" that does some of what MSU does (at right).

But that is page 144 of the playbook, i.e. just a thing they have to bring out against certain opponents or as a changeup, not the base thing. Brown's cover 2 is a kind of read, but it's not that kind of read.

This is all getting away from the more important distinction, which is that Michigan will line up their DL so the "Anchor" (strongside end) is outside the tackle. This widening the front to squeeze the LBs inside is an MSU characteristic too, though unrelated to the coverage system. One of the things it does is keeps the SAM clean so you can play a much lighter and quicker player there (e.g. Peppers). The tradeoff is your middle linebacker had better be good at thumpin' and getting off blocks.

Space Coyote is not your dude of the week, but he’s a Guy.

Worth discussion. Sharik followed up a diary about head injuries with various positive ideas for making football safer. Going to Rugby-style tackling rules and possession arrows for fumbles make paper sense, but it seems tougher to implement than making football men wear girdles, i.e. never going to happen. But making the equipment softer for the guy on the receiving end, especially helmets and shoulder pads, seems…plausible?

Changeup routes. Docwhoblocked went to Michigan’s recent coaching clinic and was moved to write up what he heard from, so far, three of the sessions he attended. Frank Beamer talked mostly about special teams. Art Briles was in there too but a lot of it was for coaches' ears and thus not that useful to you as a fan. But I found this bit interesting for the irony:

His offensive strategy: Tell the receivers to run as fast as they can and then tell the quarterback to throw it as far as he can.

Ironic because Smart Football last year wrote about how Briles's offense stretches the field diagonally by having receivers *not* run as fast as they can. The defense still has to cover the lollygaggers, which creates more space for whoever's streaking downfield, and sometimes get lulled to sleep by a trotting receiver who then turns on the jets. I bet Harbaugh starts using some lollygagging in his offense soon.

Doc also wrote up the Harbaugh, Harbaugh, and Harbaugh session.

[Hit the jump for a record hockey diaries]

So pumped for the Don Brown era. Half because of his defense, and half because dude is on Harbaugh's level when it comes to photos:

STORY: Don Brown nearly finished installing his "frenetic" defense at #Michigan @isaiahhole: https://t.co/3MR1QhUhmk pic.twitter.com/lL6QH0HAc0

— Steve Lorenz (@TremendousUM) March 30, 2016

Don Brown's seen some things. Some things better left buried. But the law doesn't work like that. The law just keeps bringing things back, like a cat with a hairball.

Basketball roster not exactly set yet. Michigan has lost Spike Albrecht and Ricky Doyle, bringing their 2013 roster to 13. But they don't appear entirely settled with their roster yet:

Michigan, California, Syracuse and Hawaii are among the schools that have contacted Columbia grad transfer Grant Mullins.

— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) March 30, 2016

Mullins, a combo-guard, was super-efficient in the Ivy League last year (36th nationally in ORTG, 44% from three, lots of FTs at 83%) on a team that looks a lot like Michigan, statistically. Michigan also reached out to Sacred Heart transfer Cane Broome, though it doesn't look like anything is coming of that.

What's the deal with that as regards Spike, then? I don't know. Maybe Spike isn't likely to be the same player, or Xavier Simpson was going to take his minutes. Or Michigan is just keeping options open in case someone who has not decided to transfer does so in the future.

Red status not set either. Red's offered some quotes to news organizations about his impending decision, which seems honestly yet to be determined:

“I’m going to talk to [Manuel]…I don’t want to make an emotional decision because I’m mad at somebody or something, I want to make a decision that’s good for the program,” Berenson said.

Who or what he would be mad at is unknown. This in the Free Press doesn't really sound like a guy who was planning to come back but wanted to anyway:

“There’s no question ... the start of the year, I was pretty much resigned to the fact this would be the last year,” Berenson said. “But as the year went on, it got better and better. I thought it made more sense and it was working.

“I don’t want to be in the way, that’s the other thing. If I’m going to coach, I want to coach.”

The relative success of the team might extend his desire to coach. So… yeah. I said my bit on what should happen already.

Not bad. Wisconsin hired Tony Granato as their new head coach. Granato is a former NHL head coach who is a Wisconsin alum who had a prolific NHL career; he was a Wings assistant. He's bringing his brother Don, the NTDP head coach, and former OSU coach Mark Osiecki with him. Osiecki was doing a not-bad job with OSU when his tenure was suddenly and inexplicably terminated just three years in.

That is a lot of coaching firepower for one program. Wisconsin is going to bounce back just fine. With the addition of Notre Dame this early blip in Big Ten hockey is going to look like just that—a blip. The league has four historical powerhouses; those programs don't just stay down.

Well, most of them…

Not good. Meanwhile in erstwhile Big Ten hockey powers, Tom Anastos still has a job because apparently Sunil Gulati is running MSU's athletic department now. Mark Hollis is making statements that are downright delusional:

“I feel really good about where we’re at,” Hollis said. “…I’m also an AD that has to look at, ‘OK, what’s the next five years going to look like, based upon the past five years?’ And from all the assessments I’ve put into this and all the folks I’ve talked to, I’m very confident we’re going to have success here next year and in the immediate future.”

That is the most insane thing I've heard an athletic director say, and I was exposed to years of Dave Brandon. Anastos's teams have gotten worse every year, and this is year five. You can no longer say these things in year five:

Comley left the program bare, though Anastos has been careful not be be overly critical publicly. Most of the players he inherited were not highly recruited.

And guess what… most of the players Anastos is recruiting are not highly recruited. Their recruiting class is bulked up with 20-year-olds like MSU is Merrimack or something, and the guy they seem the most hyped about coming in next year is an overage forward out of the BCHL named Taro Hirose.

Hirose does have a nice line (15-56-71 in 58 games). It probably won't translate. Dexter Dancs came out of that league two years ago with 67 points in 56 games and has mostly been a fourth-liner at Michigan. Before him, Ben Winnett had 58 points in just 39 games; his career high in four years at Michigan was 14 points.

Meanwhile Anastos will not have the services of leading scorer MacKenzie MacEachern, former third round pick and the most Scottish thing not in a bottle. His lone returning draftee at F was –30 last year. I mean… what does it take to fire this guy?

I look forward to having the "Tom Anastos still has a job?" conversation again next year after Wisconsin gets instantly better with their new staff. I'm sorry I'm a broken record about this but keeping Anastos is brutal for the league and what used to be my favorite rivalry in sports.

Etc.: just some dude trying to create Lionel Messi goal, the dessert. OSU's highly touted class has already seen four of five dudes transfer. Willie Henry an underrated draft prospect.