I didn't have the heart to remove Becky's photo from the top of the front page. Weird thing: the (presumed) student equipment manager is in shorts and a tee but Brady has both slacks and a jacket on. I clearly remember Carr was wearing just a white polo all game. Was Brady really jacketed while the other coaches remained unfettered? At 5:27 on the tape you can see long-sleeved Brady walking behind angry Lloyd trying to explain to SEC officials that hitting is allowed in football. Weird. Diaries.

Must Read: Eight Plays and Counting. I'll let EGD announce his latest thing:

This series examines the probable individual matchups Michigan would face against particular 2013 opponents on one of Michigan’s key running plays and one of its key passing plays, as well as defensively against a couple of the opponent’s key plays

So for example he'll take the play at right—the base 26 Power R, a common variation of Michigan's "Power O" (2 means RB carries it, 6 means they're going in the 6-hole, ie between the T and TE, and R means right)—and go through the personnel matchups on that play to see which team has an aggregate advantage. On the above Michigan's likely wins: Lewan on Prince Shembo. Things that seem to favor ND: Braden pulling to find WLB Dan Fox, down-blocks of Jack Miller on Sheldon Day, Kalis on Louis Nix, and Schofield on Tuitt, Joe Kerridge finding Danny Spond for a kick-out block, and Funchess executing a double-team on Tuitt then moving to the 2nd level to get to ND's middle linebacker. Advantage: Notre Dame, though I should point out a down block is one of the easier to accomplish since you start with leverage.

The Notre Dame one has three more plays: a PA pass from our offense, and then Michigan's D versus the Irish's base zone run and one of Kelly's favorite passing plays that we're guaranteed to see because it picks on Jarrod Wilson. Yesterday he posted a second one, which goes over UConn (M's power left and PA deep flood, and UConn's curls vs. Cov2 and 4-verts vs. Cov3). Again, these are things that schematically try to pick on Wilson. Part of that is there aren't many other unknowns on the defense, but I think it's becoming pretty clear where a lot of our attention is going to be early in the season. Prophesy: Wilson will look bad early in the season as offenses consistently do things that try to make him look so. In fact if he doesn't we may have something really nice there.

By the way EGD also updated his Non-Conference Recruiting Watch series a few weeks back. The guy with the Hail to the Thief avatar wins a trophy.

ESS-EEE-SEE! In people having fun with numbers you can find online, stopthewnba pulled January bowl data to show how the Big Ten has fared overall and against the SEC in all those virtual road games. It's not as bad as you might think, except when it comes to Rose Bowls (2-12 in the documented span) and times when a national championship is on the line or an erstwhile title contender dropped down into our range (USC vs. Michigan twice, MSU vs. Alabama). Something isn't right in his spreadsheet since I know for a fact that Northwestern isn't 2-and-anything in bowl games unless the data go back to the 1940s.

More interesting perhaps was maizeonblueaction's look at demographics since 1990 in Big Ten states versus SEC ones. In the comments EGD (man, that guy this week) suggested dividing the numbers by how many major conference (ACC/Big Ten/Big XII/Pac12/SEC plus Notre Dame) teams it has to support. So I did that, except I combined Indiana and Illinois since Chicago is really home territory for the Indiana schools. Result:

The demographic shifts matter but not as much as people seem to think: the part of the population that will disproportionately devote their lives to football isn't the part that recently moved to Atlanta or Nashville to work for an insurance company or relocated to Florida because the weather's easier on their joints. Mississippi can support more and better football programs than New Jersey can because life in Mississippi is more likely to suck so hard that people are willing to do anything to their bodies to get those bodies out of there. Not so much for recent Jersey/St. Louis/Philly transplants, but Ohio State's position in Ohio is a major advantage indeed.

This is bound to change now. LSAClassof2000 looked at red zone offense in the Big Ten since 2008: Michigan is second to last in overall success rate to the Hoosiers until you add Maryland and Rutgers, both worse. Less than a quarter of Michigan's red zone trips ended with a passing touchdown in that time. Our 2009 (converting just 2/3rds of possible points) matches Indiana's 2008 for most brutal ever. However this has improved dramatically every year since, and the 2012 team was really good at converting red zone trips into points (5.28 per drive), though getting there (3.54 times per game, about 40th percentile among data points) was a problem. In the comments I resorted the data to see where Michigan's teams fell. Wisconsin had the top three red zone teams. Michigan's 2012 was 12th out of 70. Suggestion for further study: I bet you this correlates to experience of the starting quarterback.

Etc. The Big Ten meets the Big Lebowski—I didn't find the comparisons all that close. K.o.k.Law is reminiscing about going to the basketball championship game. Moderator JustinGoBlue is MGoProfiled by M-Wolverine. Solar team's new car and discussion of semiconductor theory.

[Jump: Best of the Board, Zen]

Best of the Board

20 SECONDS ON THE BOARD

Good name for an irregular feature in here. The topic: players of NCAA 14 realize Aaron Hernandez is one of the unlockables in Ultimate Team mode (this will be updated by the way if it hasn't been already; Ace still has my copy of the game). Let's put 20 seconds on the board and see what the board has to say:

Icefins26:

Ugh, this kills me.  I wanted to run the Run 'N Shoot offense with him.

Madtadder:

He's killer in either the shotgun or pistol.

Bronson:

How about the Fun N' Gun?

I hate myself.

His Dudeness:

He really buries the competition.

QVIST

No question. He executes very well.

davi2188

Starts out a Tight End, ends up a Wide Receiver

snoopblue

The only way we'll see him is on a jailbreak screen

The FannMan

Not much of a receiver now. You'll have to play him as a glocking tight end.

His Dudeness (in response to a guy asking if he's TE #81 or soemthing?)

MA Inmate # 68795324

Bzzzt!

Friendly reminder: Murder is not funny and you are all terrible people.

DEVIN GARDNER AND PEYTON MANNING

Thanks offskooring.

Your Moment of Zen:

With 7:18 left in the 1997 season, the Most Lloyd Drive Ever: clock-churning runs on 1st and 2nd down into defenses expecting it, with 1st downs courtesy of Griese's long run (and ludicrously bad spot), Woodson and the Continental-Option(!), a long pass to Shaw, and a good ol' fashioned "Woodson comes in" completion. Drive ends with a fake FG pooch punt, and leaves Ryan Leaf with 29 seconds and no timeouts on his 7.