The running game is going forward again; just another 490 miles to Berlin.

Not with you in charge, sir, no. So we continue to continue to pretend our problems will ever end. Alum96 showed that Power 5 coaches don't tend to last very long, and Yeoman wrote that just 3/43 guys who had a losing season in their first five at a school lost their job for it. The thing: it depends what your historic expectations are. A guy who did a research project on this stuff sent me his paper and is trying to get the data from his old school; we'll address this again.

Wish lists. Ron Utah and Eye of the Tiger both posted what they're looking for in coaching candidates. Both are pretty much in favor of guys who run modern offenses, which is everybody but Shaw at this point.

More candidates. Bud Foster and Georgia DC Jeremy Pruitt were Ron's latest profiles. I don't think either would come anyway. Foster at least has had commensurate offers for five years and never jumped on them.

A more interesting one: Padog got into Doc Holliday (of Marshall) in case a WVU guy wants another shot at mentioning Don Nehlan's Bo connection at his intro (and position himself as the Bo to Urban's Woody). This one's a bit of a reach; his head coaching experience is Marshall, which was 7-6 the year before he arrived and went 5-7, 7-6, 5-7, 10-4 since. He's currently 7-0 and hasn't scored less than 42 points in a game, but his most impressive victory in all of that time was last week at FIU. I plugged him into my matrix and came up with a 42: more attractive than Hoke but more of a gamble than Bo was.

Etc. Padog is also doing the bottom to top hoops preview redux (he was at it way early this year). First up is Rutgers. Wolverines in the NFL.

Best of the Board

WE'RE STILL BETTER AT CLEVER

Brian covered the painting of the Diag's block 'M':

If you're wondering where was that one frat (Theta Xi) whose couch vigil usually prevents this sort of thing, they asked a university admin to go out Tuesday and were told to wait until Thursday. Please boo the next person you see on campus wearing a corduroy jacket (if it's not the admin it's probably a hipster who will appreciate the whimsy of your non-sequitur).

As to catching these slightly academically inferior criminals [a fake account representing] the UGLI apparently can identify the perpetrators in court:

We should've seen the vandalization of the Diag M coming. Last night some State students came in and asked our librarians how to spell 'MSU'

— Shapiro Undergrad (@UMichUGLI) October 22, 2014

Police are stationed outside all MSU bluebook exams, and questioning anyone who fails.

I've heard they got the rock too, which: whatevers. I painted the rock 8 or 10 times in college (the building behind it was my fraternity's historic building and our crests are still on the gates), and every time we went to do so, it was various stages of still wet from the last paint job; half the time it was painted over again before the weekend was out.

[Jump: the pink discussion]

YEAH WE'RE PROBABLY NOT AVOIDING THE 'LITTLE SISTER!' CHANT THIS WEEK

Stipulated: we are all against cancer, and most of us have been affected by it. Also stipulated: charitable organizations that try to do things that help more people survive cancer are good. Within that framework, we disagree on things like which charity is the best, and whether certain forms of promotion are worthwhile.

We also disagree whether it's necessary to have this stuff all over football…

…or if maybe the "let's look like we care" factor is stronger than the "let's actually do some good factor," with an uncomfortably sizeable "let's make money by selling the gear" factor.

Because Michigan had to wear all-blue UNIFORMZ the week other schools were doing that annual wearing pink for breast cancer awareness thing, Michigan will be donning the rosy accents this Saturday. I guess everyone figured the denizens of Spartan Stadium could be mature about it.

That thread has a debate on the merits The Susan G. Komen Foundation it supports. I tried to get some good information from various internet places because there's been some backlash in the sports world.

Charity Navigator is a good starting point, and they give Komen an 82 on a 100 scale (B-). The knock on them is the % of money spent on fundraising has skyrocketed. The knock on the street is that they bully other organizations, trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to get the pink thing all to themselves. The other knock is they got embroiled in partisan politics when they temporarily cut their funding to Planned Parenthood. In general they're more about early diagnosis (offering free exams, etc.) than scientific research to cure it, at least in comparison to the other major breast cancer charities. If you're motivated to use your replaceable income to fight breast cancer, I recommend Breastcancer.org and UM's Comprehensive Cancer Center over Komen.

Here's what I'd like to see Michigan (and the local pro teams) do: offer a handful of well-screened charities from their main site with a few basics for comparison, and have level goals for overall fundraising tied to amount of pink the team wears that week. Hit the top level and your team wears normal uniforms, fall just short it's the accessories, fall way short and the jerseys and pants and helmets fall in order. The team offers to pay the sum of the shortfall.

INTERPRETATIONS

Sometimes board threads say one thing and the story says another. Here's what I gathered from various posts this week:

• Saban is trying to send transfer vibes to Jourdan Lewis.
• Michigan's expected recruiting class of 15 still expects to come in around 15.
• Various people want to know if that "find another team" email WD posted awhile back actually came from Brandon.
• Mullen may be the Les Miles of Florida's impending coaching search.
• Irish tears over totally correct calls because they aren't made 100% of the time are yummy. Always. Always. Always.

THE STARFISH OF BADLY TITLED THREADS

Once in awhile a board newb will post a thread uninformatively headed "Harbaugh" or "Sausage" or "Thing" because they just want to start a discussion, and this gets moderated because that's not how the board works. So the mods killed a "Peppers" one, and it spawned "Sports." Which spawned "Title." Which got locked to put an end to this crap. Which spawned "SIAP: Title."

This is why you shouldn't venture onto the internet after dark.

(SIAP = sorry if already posted)

ETC. People admitting they were wrong to be optimistic thread.

Your Moment of Zen:

Rule #1, there's always the improbable:

HT Ace.