Title ref (this time with apple flavor cause L'shana tovah)

We have waited far too long to recognize Blue Indy for his wallpaperin' ways. The above background has been maized to remind you it's Maize Out week. There's a wallpaper too from cjm but no I'm not putting a naked gopher with a tattoo on my work laptop again (long story).

Plus man I am drinking down a pitcher of that myself. Not about the 4-0 start and a 4-point come-from-behind win over Notre Dame—we've seen that before. About this coaching staff. Whatever nits we pick around here, an overwhelming majority of Michigan fans are in agreement that our coaches are all of the following: top-of-line recruiters, good teachers, competent playcallers, sound schemers, and good guys. We've been demanding that combination so long it's easy to not fully appreciate how rare it is.

Okay BlueSeoul diarist extraordinaire, about those nits:

It's 3rd and Fricken 1!!!

He doesn't much care for flipping the front 7 to keep SDE and WDE accurate. Any other complaints?

Who does this band director think he's fooling? [pic]. There are: 1 Drum Major, 4 Twirlers, 24 Flags, 12 Piccolos, 24 Clarinets, 12 Alto Saxophones, 12 Tenor Saxophones, 48 Trumpets, 12 Horns, 33 Trombones, 4 Bass Trombones, 12 Euphoniums, 14 Sousaphones, 6 Snare Drums, 4 Bass Drums, 4 Cymbals

AND NONE OF THEM ARE LOOKING AT YOU!

NCAA Rule 448: All band leaders think they're Professor Harold Hill. The other 60% of the  weekly breakdown is breaking down wonderful happy things like the sprint option and Craig Roh using an OL's extension against him. Bonus: BlueSeoul did one for EMU too.

Tailgaters: Send in Your Photos and Recipes

Some dude posted a forward from his wife in the diaries looking for tailgate recipes and photos to be made into a cookbook sold for charity purposes. Since it's for a good cause, and the dude's name is eerily similar to the one on my paycheck, I'll abide by not calling "kiosk" this time.

What Kind of Rivalry are You? Since this is a "rivalry" week, turd furguson's deep thought is timely. He breaks the nation's collegiate rivalries into those where you love the rivalry more than you care about the rival, those where you just hate those guys, and those where somebody gets noogies. He does a good job at categorizing but I think there should be way more to it. Like what about the one where you have an annoying little brother who's actually sometimes really sweet? (chicken soup diary by Shaqsquatch). I maintain a more interesting theory of rivalries is to make them analogous to relationships that 4th graders have. 100 pts. to whoever makes the best Brown Jug rivalry analogy between South Park characters. Bonus points for incorporating MIT vs. Harvard-Yale.

Bust on through into the backfield (post jump) and I'll show you the diary of the week, the weekly things, and shed light on a few memes from the depths of the board.

You've Just Been Screen'ed, Oh Yeah!

Front-paged this week was the long-awaited Screens lesson from larsonlo Space Coyote. 'Round here we call him "perfessor." This Diary of the Week-winning paper teaches you Bubble, Tunnel, Jailbreak, Slow, and Crack variations. I think the last is named so because Michigan became addicted to it during the 2003 Minnesota comeback.

This Week in Things That Are Weekly

Hoke for Tomorrow by Lordfoul is ready to start calling four games of bending without much breaking more than luck.

That's half supported by Enjoy Life in the weekly turnover breakdown, who is now tracking "% of games where TOs were significant" and games W/L due to turnovers. He uses expected points to calculate the significance of each turnover instead of simply counting them. For example against SDSU, M came out +2 points expected from turnovers total despite having more gives than takes, mostly because of that RVB-caused fumble.

Highlights from the rest:

Inside the Box Score, by ST3 also mentioned the turnovers to add in that SDSU went 0-3 on 4th down. That kinda counts. Countess also led the team in tackles (tied with T.Gordon and Demens) this week, which shows how much they picked on the new guy.

Conference Power Rankings, by bwgrudt1484 has things settling down, with the Big~Ten dropping to 4th behind the Big East (?) after an 8-4 week against nobodies. Big XII and SEC are benefitting from getting their conference losses out of the way early. A follow-up diary focusing on the Big Ten is forthcoming but I'm also watching where FCS teams are scoring beside mid-major conferences. They're 6-81 this year against FBS teams (and M faces one of those 6 victims this week but NDSU is kinda good); the worst FBS conference is the WAC at 7-17.

jamie mac's column on betting odds says Vegas is weirdly optimistic about the Wolverines; we're now favorites (by a little bit) in every game the rest of the year. Crazy Vegas.

Handicapping BCS and MAC teams, and Upset Watch by Maize_in_Spartyland picks Minnesota to upset Mi…just kiddin. But stay up to watch 'Zona vs. USC, which also might make an appearance in…

Ugly Game of the Week, by stubob. Nope – he's going for the enemies of roundheads versus the enemies of civitas.

Get ur programs!

Best of the Board

MEET THE 2012 and 2013 SCHEDULES

They're out. Discuss.

MEET THE NEW CRISLER ARENA

People went to the Open House. I got my fill on Facebook but you can get yours from Shaqsquatch.

IS DENARD SLOWER THIS YEAR? (Guh) and WHY IS THE RED ZONE SUDDENLY ALL LIKE HALLO

If you have to ask; I point you directly to the answer by Blue in South Bend with a video breakdown of Robinson vs. SDSU being either Wowowowow fast or slowing on purpose. A way more sober conversation about our offense in the red zone is had by JohnnyBlue.

MICHIGAN GOALIE SAVES AN ORPHANAGE

That headline is not even exaggerated. Former women's keeper Dory Gannes is in Tanzania doing her thing despite being threatened and swindled. Hail to you Dory. HT: mejunglechop.

PEOPLE LESS PRODUCTIVE THIS WEEK THAN DORY GANNES

Some user harmlessly asked what happened to Mike Jones (passed at WLB by Hawthorne, Morgan and Herron). One spilled coffee later and some guy had his reply -- "who" – posted 30 times. Then things got meta for a few hours. If you run into someone asking "who?" followed by "MIKE JONES!" this is the genesis.

BEST OF THE BOARD (for people above)

Not at all comprehensive but justingoblue and helpers take you back through some other mostly inside jokes for the Level 10 MgoFaithful in this bottle episode of a board post.

Etc.

Some scouting done by WojoRisin, who got to a Twinsburg game to see Pharoah Brown play. JimLahey profiles Trouba and starts getting into DFW describing Federer territory.

Already mentioned by Brian, Yesman2221 has a preview of the hockey team, whose season is starting soon. I am weirdly more broken up about losing Caporusso than Hagelin or Rust and have been told I need to talk to someone about this, so Yesman expect a phone call and probably valentine projectiles. Here's jhackney channeling The Duke (John Wayne) instead of Raoul Duke (Hunter S.) for once. Update on Pick Six has BlueMars24 and Cottonpicker in the lead. I'm now at 54, tied with a person named "Mich Tits", and one point behind where I would be if I picked completely at random; yer killin' me West Virginia. Some base statistical analysis your friends will recognize from matt D. And UMAmaizinBlue developed some of our own former staff playcalling cards, which let's please make sure the defense is all the way competent before showing some of theses faces in Ann Arbor again, yes?