jonvalk

There won't be another one after. Not for Gardner. Not for Jake. Not for Hoke, for whom the accumulated effects of progressively worse seasons will mean the end. Not for a Michigan team that has less talent than their star ratings gave them, but far more than their record demonstrates.

As we come to the end—there will be no bowl game barring a miracle—for the Brady Hoke era, the tragedy is all of that wasted talent. That precious snaps with Denard Robinson and Vince Smith and David Molk and Patrick Omameh were wasted on Power because dogma. That Devin Gardner was never given the coaching or the system or the stability or the offensive line to be more than a freshman who runs around a lot. That Jake Ryan, who would have been Lawrence Taylor if he lived 30 years ago, spent his senior season having to learn a very hard thing he wasn't made to do. That Blake Countess is a coverage nickel because the cornerbacks play man all day. That Devin Funchess was a tight end, and then a bubble screen slot bug, until it was too late to care. That Dennis Norfleet was dancing around on the sidelines while A.J. Williams whiffed on blocks of defenders who wouldn't have been in the box otherwise. That senior seasons of Mone, Wile, Dymonte , Hurst, Gedeon, Houma, Delano, RJS, Ojemudia, Pipkins, Drake Johnson, Raymon, Da'Mario, Jarrod, Norfleet, Jourdan, Brandon Watson, Taco, Bolden, and Shane effing Morris were traded for a bare handful of freshman snaps that other guys might have taken.

That four years of Michigan football were wasted on Brady Hoke, and that here, at the end of all things, we're still not even sure those in charge will consider something besides unwavering faith in the gospel of "Michigan" in the next J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach.

The next guy. These are now a week out of date but Eye of the Tiger put together a couple of roundups of the coaching candidates in our crosshairs. Factors are: Potential upside, Potential downside, Transition costs, Overall desirability, and Chances of him coming. Both start with Harbaughs; the first has Jim, Les, Mullen, Graham, and, uh, Belichick? Second has John, Patterson, McElwain, Herman, and…okay so the fifth guy is always some joke.

Alum96 added a defense of Les Miles to answer some guy made of straw who goes around saying LSU has regressed lately. Straw men are stupid. The main arguments against Les are that he's too old, and his coaching style is a better fit for LSU, which is near the extreme of anything-goes for college football, versus Michigan, where the local press turns you in for accidentally practicing an extra 20 minutes.

[Jump for seniors departing, a new basketball stat, and college football parity]

Counting Crows. Ron Utah pointed out the senior numbers:

• 12...or is it?  I'm not sure if Brady Hoke was still counting Frank Clark as a senior or not when he mentioned the "12" seniors we'll be honoring this week, but there are only 11 on the roster, and that includes Desmond Morgan.  If there were actually 12, it would be the same number of seniors we had on the roster in RR's final season (2010).
• Eight.  The number of seniors on the depth chart, including the kicker and punter.  Of course, that doesn't count Clark.
• Four.  There are four seniors on the defensive depth chart, with Beyer, Ryan, and Taylor as starters and Hollowell as a back-up.
• One.  There is only one senior starting on offense (Gardner), and only one other senior on the offensive depth chart (Burzynski).

Gardner will absolutely be missed, and that's just Gardner at his crummiest; if Michigan can find an adequate QB next year that won't be such a big deal, and if Michigan can't it will be ugly no matter who's coaching. Beyer is underrated; Taco can handle DE but Michigan's whiffed on a lot of guys to back him. We'll see some effects next year unless M goes back to an under. Taylor's hit his ceiling, which is "good" plus or minus a few measures, and the CB depth chart is so robust it's questionable whether he would have started next year anyway. Jake Ryan was an awesome player in his role but a returning Desmond Morgan is almost a wash at MLB. I can't think of another year when Michigan graduates less.

Impactfulness. We had a great hoops diary from MaizeAndBlueWahoo, who came up with a new measurement for college basketball players: Impact Score. It's confusing, factoring KenPom's O-Rating, possession%, and minutes. Here's the top impact scores from last year who've returned:

Etc. Thanksgiving thanks from LSAClassof2000. Inside the Box Score and B&W were covered in the postgame. Turnover margin. F&P stats.

Best of the Board

IT'S NOT PARITY IF IT'S COMPLACENCY

MonkeyMan asked if the college football middle class is conquering the elite, then are the old time powers really powers anymore:

So TCU just beat Texas as predicted- and by a lot. Miss State is a powerhouse (who?), KSU and Baylor have a shot at the playoffs, ASU out west is doing well, etc. etc.

On the other hand, Florida, Miami (FL), Tennessee, Penn State, UM (us), VT, and more great hallowed names are pushover teams. Lots of "old time" perennial powers just look plain average-  Nebraska, USC, ND, LSU, etc.

So does a storied name and program really mean that much anymore?

Yes, because "cachet" is really money. The elite programs have way more of it, and that matters, but because the NCAA doesn't let you give it directly to the guys who are creating that value, the wealthy buy things that lure kids: big name coaches, opulent facilities, etc. Because it's indirect it's not as effective, and that leaves room for elite programs that get complacent to fall behind the few among the next levels down who are operating at their peak. Keep in mind that Minnesota's current team would be just mediocre if we had them right now. Michigan's awful-awful season is just barely missing a bowl game; that's a typical year at Minnesota.

There is a difference between now and, say, the 1970s, in that way more schools can get on TV. The books are far more open for a program to jump from above average to consistently good. LSU wasn't in anybody's discussions of power programs until Nick Saban took them there. Wisconsin's sustained success came after half a century of being a doormat.

Being rich means you can throw money at a Doug Nussmeier, because you're not allowed to throw it at the players [Fuller]

It's been proven time and again (Hinton uses a different metric every year to prove it)that recruiting stars do matter on the aggregate. The thing is there's wide individual variance. A 5-star recruit is 50% to be a college football star; a 4-star recruit is 13%, and it gets to small numbers from there. But there are way more 3-stars, and even more 2-stars or below. Every player has things they are good at and things they aren't good at, and teams that have success find players who are good at the things they want to be good at, and weaknesses in areas they don't have to be emphasized. Good coaches then teach their guys to be better players. If all you know about two kids is one is a 4-star and the other is a 3-star, you want the 4-star. If you know that one is a 4-star only Michigan offered while the other is a 3-star with strong interest from a lot of schools who run a similar scheme, it's a good bet that 3-star will be just as successful. They're all gambles.

The big difference, still, between the Michigans and Michigan States is money. Michigan can summon gargantuan amounts of it, so that despite having a dysfunctional athletic department in the crappy Big Ten, a badly coached .500 team the last several years, the closest thing to zero access to all the little tricks and slides you use to get around the NCAA's "student athlete" structure, and more job scrutiny than most schools, the general public believes it is entirely possible that we'll hire one of the best NFL coaches this offseason. Texas got complacent for the last years, and is Year One of righting itself under Charlie Strong, who had to run 25% of the team off to chance the culture there. Nick Saban at Michigan State is a renegade hoodlum program that can just match Lloyd Carr's Michigan; at Alabama it's a monstrosity.

There are programs like Oregon and Oklahoma State with one alumnus so massively wealthy and into his school that he can basically be a substitute for the kind of alumni base that, say, Alabama enjoys. Even among the elites, they do it different ways. Alabama has probably the most ardent and widest cast fanbase in the country, but it can't even generate Michigan money because few people have much financial success with that Alabama degree. It still comes down to money. USC will figure it out again; Michigan State will last as long as Dantonio's regime, and will never be Alabama.

FROM A TEACHER

I'm posting this in full:

Well, its my last day of teaching before thanksgiving break and thusly, before The Game.  A tradition in my american history class is to show the documentary The Rivalry which goes back through the history of this rivalry.  I'm watching this, and I'm looking at the young Michigan fans here in my NW ohio classrooms who still, despite the jeers and ridiculue, still wear their maize and blue while I too have my Nike number 7 maize and blue jersey on.  I like watching this documentary because it reminds me of the greatness of this game.  How even on bad years our boys can still pull one out to play spoiler to the enemy. 

This is a downturn for Michigan.  But this isn't the first in our storied history.  Anything is possible this Saturday.  So let's cut the woe is me crap and rally behind our team and our coach one last time. 

I hate Ohio State.  But more importanly I love michigan

Go blue

LEBERT AND IRVIE

By LongLiveBo when his girlfriend left him alone with Photoshop for a night.

ETC. Thanksgiving poetry.

Your Moment of Zen: