TWIT

Meijer can make advanced analysis Michigan jokes, a made up Les Miles rumor, and what happens when you add Dakich to Jose Canseco...

Meijer Plus All the Points. Plus three. Twitter is like an echo chamber from Jerry Seinfeld's fondest dream. People make pithy, somewhat amusing observations about the news of the moment, and others respond in kind. If you follow the right people, it's worth a few chuckles every day, but rarely much more. But every now and then someone ties together the disparate strands of your universe and reminds you why you got into the game in the first place.

First, a little back-story. I was at Meijer this week, and when I reached into the dairy cooler, my hand made contact with the hand of a Meijer employee who was restocking the cooler. [Side note: I learned in that moment that I would not survive a horror movie. The hero who survives in a slasher flick is the one with the steely nerves and the cat-like reflexes. A masked psychopath bursts out of the Christmas tree, and our hero is setting him ablaze with a homemade flamethrower within a few seconds. I brushed another human being unexpectedly and it nearly cost me a pair of boxers.]  I mentioned this encounter on Twitter, and had a couple of exchanges with people about the horror of this incident (insert #FirstWorldProblems here).

Now, to the main event. I was having a conversation with @cjane87 (who, FWIW, is a highly recommended follow for Michigan fans) about the generally terrifying nature of Jadeveon Clowney, when this happened:

That is Meijer's official Twitter account. That is Meijer's official Twitter account making a Michigan football reference. That is Meijer's official Twitter account making a Michigan football reference that accurately recounts the details of a SPECIFIC LINE CALL FROM TWO MONTHS AGO. It continues, because somewhere in a past life I held the door open for someone or something.

A little birdie informs me that the individual who runs the @Meijer feed is a former writer from a well-known Michigan athletics blog (not this one), which makes sense, because (a) Meijer is a Michigan-based company, and (b) holy crap read that thing, that HAS to be a Michigan blogger.

ATTENTION CORPORATE TYPES: THIS is how you do "that viral social media relations thing the kids are talking about." Meijer's handle wasn't linked in any of these tweets, yet within five minutes they had responded in the most amazing and appropriate way imaginable. We don't need Harlem Shake videos. Your jingles are annoying. No one cares about your hashtag. Just find this dude and hire him. Unless you're Meijer, in which case you already hired him, but probably for way too little money. PAY THIS MAN.

[JUMP here. But not early Taylor Lewan vs. Iowa in 2010 --@Meijer]

Programming Note

For the sake of helping to bring all the good stuff to the fore, we're going to start using the hashtag #MGoTWIT. If you see anything particularly noteworthy (or, more realistically, scornworthy), tag it with that hashtag and the internet hamsters will stop by to collect it. As always, feel free to send any TWIT-worthy content to @Bry_Mac.

Hoosier (Can No Longer Become a) Daddy

On Tuesday night, Michigan State faced off with Indiana in East Lansing. It was a matchup of Top 5 teams with serious implications for the Big Ten regular season title, as well as NCAA seeding and the overall future of mankind. Blah blah blah LET'S TALK ABOUT THE GROIN-PUNCH. Late in the 4th quarter, Cody Zeller threw an elbow to the nether-region of Derrick Nix en route to the bucket. Nix was displeased because, and I quote, "mmmmmnnnnnggggguuuuurrggggggghhhh [/labored breathing]." So shortly thereafter when Nix was defending Zeller in the post, this happened:

Congratulations Cody Zeller, you have joined the same exclusive club as Brian Cook's soul, Corey Liuget, and 80% of America's Funniest Home Videos participants. The video evidence is pretty damning, so let's consider how Sparty might respond:

DOOR NUMBER ONE: Blame the victim

Some believe that Zeller did this to himself; he pulled Nix's hand into his own manflesh in an attempt to draw a foul. [ED-S: Must include gif:

]

This is an interesting take on the classic "quit hitting yourself" employed by older brothers everywhere, but I'm not sure I buy it. For one thing, that's not a very effective way to draw a flagrant call; it's just too difficult to expect a ref to see that. Moreover, can anyone point to any time ever that someone hit himself in the dangly bits? Have you ever encountered a moment in your life when you thought to yourself, "if I can just rack myself in the huevos right now, everything will work out." The theory doesn't pass the smell test, and I think this is one of those situations where slow motion muddies the water a bit; remember when Michigan fans were all saying that Watford shoved GRIII's arm when GRIII decked Hulls, but a better angle showed that to be inaccurate? I think this is that. But I suppose the video COULD (through bleary, homer-tastic eyes) support that theory. So let's look at...

[After the thing where you do the JUMPING]

Twitter is vast, and there are tens of tweets I don’t see every week. If you happen across anything you think should be noted in TWIT, feel free to tweet it to @Bry_Mac. And while you’re there, you can follow @Bry_Mac. Or not. But do.

Don’t Worry, No One Will See That Tweet

Sometimes people have a hard time understanding the “social” part of social media. Take, for instance, Oregon DE commit Davin Bellamy. Last weekend, Mr. Bellamy took a visit to Eugene, and had a fine time. Unfortunately for him, he decided to (a) document that fine time, and (b) share that documentation with the world. See if you can identify the problem with this picture he tweeted (hint: it’s NOT the bong on the table):

Uh oh… backlighting.

Okay, I lied. It's the bong on the table. And while the state of Oregon did legalize weed recently, I’m pretty sure the NCAA didn’t [ED: Wrong hippie state. Somehow Oregon HASN'T legalized weed]. But I’m more concerned about the thought process. Anyone who has ever posted a picture to social media has done the same three-point check: 1) look to see if your fly is down; (2) be sure your hair isn’t doing that thing it does sometimes; (3) check for drug paraphernalia. In Davin’s defense, he was two out of three.

The other briefly shared photo that made the rounds was from none other than LaQuon Treadwell, who totally put those suggestions of Ole Miss funny business to rest by allegedly posting this little number:

 

Now obviously we can’t be sure that this is Treadwell. Or that this is Treadwell’s cash. Or that the cash was ill-begotten. There are plenty of reasons a teenager would have a few hundred dollars in cash, and only 93% of those reasons would violate NCAA rules. But yeah, I betchya your compliance office will probably have a word with you.

Hugh Freeze, on the other hand, is having none of your insinuations, no matter how ridiculously well-founded. Not long after the Treadwell pic made the rounds, the Ole Miss head coach took to Twitter to defend his recruits (and his program):

He has since deleted the tweet.* You have to respect the coach for defending his guys, but I bet the poor schlub in the compliance office would prefer if you didn’t direct every troll south of the Mason-Dixon line directly to his inbox. The poor guy gets to the office, fires up the coffee maker, and HOLY HELL why do I have seven thousand emails with the subject “CHEATERZ!!!!!1”?

[*NOTE TO TWITTER USERS: Please stop deleting your questionable tweets. Once they’re there, you can’t get rid of them. You’re just making my column less visibly appealing. ]

I Tried ‘Perspective’ Once. Didn’t Care For It.

David Dawson is one of the jewels of this recruiting class, and by all accounts is a genuinely nice kid who has been through quite a bit in recent years. He also took one of the more circuitous routes to signing day, which Chantel Jennings (@ChantelJennings) documented in a recent article about how recruits are treated on social media. And I’m sure that despite his brief decommitment, Michigan fans everywhere maintained perspective and treated him with the utmost respect, especially on social media.

Fans sent him Twitter and Facebook messages telling him they hoped he broke his leg or that he was a "piece of s---."

Worst of all, some fans took shots at his late father.

"They said a couple things about my dad, like, 'He didn't teach you to keep your word,'" Dawson said.

Or not. On the bright side, the article makes clear that Michigan isn’t alone in treating kids poorly, which, hurray we're not worse than Clemson (insert sarcastic slow clap here). The moral high ground we occupied when Buckeye fans were wishing gout upon Kyle Kalis seems to be tenuous. Obviously we’re talking the least stable segments of every fanbase, but let this serve as your reminder: tweeting recruits is generally not cool, but tweeting ill-wishes to kids is even less cool.

From that same article, though, comes possibly my favorite panic-inducing out-of-context tweet of all time, in which Christian Hackenberg announces his dinner plans.

Pops just told me we are going to Canes. #seeya

— Christian Hackenberg (@chackenberg1) December 12, 2012

Canes is some sort of food establishment; Christian Hackenberg declared his intention to eat food. Happy Valley flips out thinking he was decommitting for Miami. I guarantee the words “NCAA conspiracy” were used. Crootin, man. Crootin.

[OBLIGATORY SCOLD: This is your weekly reminder to NOT TWEET OR FACEBOOK MESSAGE OR SEND SMOKE SIGNALS TO RECRUITS. I asked John Infante (@John_Infante, he of the Bylaw Blog and the overwhelming NCAA rule knowledge) to clarify, and he confirms what others have said: it is an NCAA violation. This remains the case until the student actually enrolls. The guys who just signed NLIs are still “prospects” to the NCAA. They are also high schoolers. So, no.]

We Won’t Get Fooled AgaHELLO: RANDOM PERSON

On Monday, MGoBoard users were greeted with an unexpected Hello post for Jahmere Irvin-Sills, a three-star corner out of Maryland.

Congrats to Jahmere irvin-sills committing to Michigan#goblue

— khaliel rodgers (@K_rodgers55) February 4, 2013

You may remember Khaliel Rodgers as an OL with whom Michigan had a brief flirtation when there were rumors of a commit wavering last summer. He also attends the same high school as Irvin-Sills, so attention was paid. Film was evaluated. Y U NO ELITE trolls were summoned. And, of course, within a half-hour the commitment was debunked by Sam Webb and others. This was predictable, of course, because Irvin-Sills had never been on a recruiting visit, appeared on anyone’s radar, or, you know, been offered a scholarship.

The wisdom of The Who is great and all, but I’d bet a shiny new quarter that the next time someone tweets something like this, we’ll go all salmon of Capistrano all over again.

Look Away, Dave Brandon. Nothing to See Here

You’ve probably noticed that the “nameplate with no names” thing has caught on pretty big over the last couple of years. Either that, or you found it very odd that Air Force managed to field a team entirely out of guys named Service. Last week Akron tried to take it to the next level by putting the team’s twitter handle (@ZipsMBB) on the jerseys:

Synergy, we think.

Unfortunately, the NCAA decided to be a killjoy and put the kibosh on the idea. If Michigan had tried to do something like this, Ann Arbor Torch and Pitchfork would have a heck of a day. But this is Akron, so from my perspective this would have been fun. They aren’t trying to Create the Future. They’re just trying to grab some attention for a team that averaged 3,400 fans per home game last year.

If you ask me, Akron should have even taken it a step further; they should have put individual players’ twitter handles on the jerseys. And then they should have made Bill Walton call the game. The joy of hearing Walton have to utter phrases like “@I_B_Smooth41 needs to hedge harder on those ball screens” or “great job by @AkronBalla4Lyfe of recognizing the mismatch down low” would almost make up for the pain of having to listen to Bill Walton. 

How to Make Friends and Influence Good ol’ Boys

Reuben Foster has had a fun year. He originally committed to Alabama, then in July, he switched his commitment to Auburn (which is like switching from Michigan to North Korea). He felt so confident in his decision that he got a rather large Auburn tattoo on his forearm, which must have made for some awkward conversation at his switcharoo back to Alabama on Monday. He then took to Twitter to explain everything to everyone:

Auburn had no problem taking him up on his invitation to hate him. Edits are mine; these fans did not care for SFW language.

This is my shocked face  /makes normal face.

Unrelated Tweet of the Week

Joe Theismann had an interesting theory about the Super Bowl power outage.