It is possible that there have been MSU players with these names.

I can't believe this is real but a great friend who is an MSU grad is sure bent out of shape over it:

Love the site and Go Blue,

Ray

The worst thing about shirts like this is the five seconds where you think you should get it to troll someone and then remember that the #1 person being trolled in that situation is yourself.

Lessons from decommit central last year

While reading the latest Recruiting Overview I saw you mention forced decommitts. It seemed like a lot of those from last year, except for the most prominent one, were summer camp offers/commits. I am wondering if the coaching staff will lay off those sorts of camp offers this year due to the backlash from last year? Perhaps they will adjust how the offer is made, such as "We like you Mr Under The Radar Recruit and think you could have a potential bright future with our team. Here is an uncommittable offer than could become committable later this year if you keep your grades up/keep getting better on the field/the math at the end of the recruiting cycle works in your favor." Could we see something like this or will offers go flying out every which way again (that's how it appeared from a layman's POV) this summer?

Thanks,
Jon

It does appear that Michigan has altered their approach after The Swenson Incident. A number of different recruits have been on commit watch without a payoff: AL S AJ Harris and AL OL Toryque Bateman come to mind. Harris had a huge crystal ball surge for Michigan and a bunch of insiders predicting a commit. He was apparently held off and ended up committing to Ole Miss recently. Bateman came up saying it was 50/50 he would pull the trigger—which is more like 90/10 in recruit-speak—and left without doing so; it now seems like he'll be headed elsewhere. Last year both of those guys might have committed and then been let go late in the cycle.

Michigan does have a few guys they've been less than cautious with and I do expect they'll suffer/encourage decommits over the next six months. The number should be greatly reduced from last year's double-digits.

It's impossible to know exactly what conversations are going on between coaches and "offered" players but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of Michigan's offers are conditional in some way, whether it's grades or guys higher on Michigan's board going elsewhere. I'd assume Michigan is being a lot more explicit about this, so guys aren't jumping on the future decommit train. Michigan offered MO DE Anthony Payne and FL DE Donovan Winter, sort of. They did so after Corey Malone-Hatcher and Luiji Vilain committed, so I doubt those were actual committable offers; both guys went off the board to other schools in short order. 

Michigan is continuing the offer cannon approach. They're being much more clear about which offers are "offers." Probably.

[After the JUMP: a jerk i tell you what]

Jerky tempo response

Brian,

There is an unbeatable defense against getting Tempo'd by the likes of Indiana and OSU, but it's not macho by any means.  It was invented as far as I know by Les Miles and John Chavis for the LSU-Oregon game back in 2011, played in Texas.

It wasn't written about or commented on during the game, and I'm not sure it's named anything.  So, I refer to this bulletproof tactic as "All the fat guys fall down 'injured'". It was disappointing to watch, but after about every 2nd or 3rd snap, one, two and sometimes even three LSU defenders would stay down or just flop down after the play, and the refs would be forced to hold up play by rule.

These seemed to be pre-arranged substitutions.  After about 20-30 seconds getting checked out, they would ease upright and stagger off the field.  Three plays later, the next round would drop injured, and those earlier guys would buzz right back onto the field.

So, LSU effectively neutralized Oregon's tempo with no football strategy whatsoever.  They just faked injury throughout the entire first half and it worked.  I've seen this tactic deployed on occasion elsewhere but never correctly observed by the commenters or written about post-game.  LSU won handily.

Setting aside ego and two deep D-Lines that don't include overmatched benchwarmers, what is stopping Michigan from using this tactic to get out of a jam induced by Tempo?

Brad

There's nothing that can prevent this in the rules, and it's a bit more common than just that one game. Bret Bielema (surprise!) has also deployed this strategy. So, yes, it is effective. You can even get away with it a couple times without anyone cocking an eyebrow. If Uruguay played college football they would do this on 50% of snaps.

So, yes, setting aside propriety Michigan could do this. It doesn't seem like something Harbaugh's particularly interested in.

Targeting fixes. Or not fixes. 

The MSU game is on ESPNU right now, and I was wondering if Michigan ever got any formal clarification/apology on the Bolden targeting ejection. It occurred to me that maybe the only reviewable aspect of the play is if contact to the head occurred (instead of say the shoulder), and the shove from the OL is irrelevant to the review process. Obviously this is just my speculation, and I'd bet there wasn't any clarification, given Harbaugh changing QB sliding technique, but I was wondering if you had any info or ideas (and apologies if you've already covered these aspects).

Best,
Alex Laird

I don't think Michigan received a formal apology, for whatever little that would have been worth. It does appear that the Bolden incident, amongst other targeting debacles, was the impetus for change. Unfortunately, half that change is bonkers:

The panel, which met Tuesday via conference call, agreed to allow the instant replay official to stop the game and create a targeting foul in situations where an egregious action occurred and was missed by on-field officials. Instant replay officials also are required to review all aspects of targeting fouls called by an on-field official.

The NCAA Football Rules Committee believes players were incorrectly disqualified from games in a small number of cases last season. The elements of targeting that replay officials will watch for include launching and forcible contact to the head, among other factors.

I'd guess the "launching" part would cover Bolden's issue, since he was launched by an opposition offensive lineman. But who knows? Nobody knows. The data the NCAA provided on changes is so vague that it could mean anything, which is perfect for targeting.

There has been a change in the rule regarding sliding that may see Michigan go back to the traditional baseball slide: if you blow up a QB who gives himself up you will get a 15 yard flag. You may have thought this was already a rule. Apparently not. I still prefer the forward slide since it gets your head under the area where the tackler generally puts his.

This is not good, reader. This is not good.

Every time I see a photo of you, I think you look like John Cusack's character, Craig, in Being John Malkovich, and it really flavors my impressions of you. Do you think you have any similarities to that character? Do you secretly like puppets? (I know you have a great affection for Muppets, which is a kind of puppet.) And more importantly, if you found a portal into another person, say Jim Harbaugh, would you want to live in his skin and see what he sees? Would the prospect frighten you, ethically? It would, admittedly, be a very odd thing, supernatural for lack of a better word. It raises all sorts of philosophical questions about the nature of self, about the existence of the soul. Are you, Brian, you? Is Harbaugh Harbaugh? Was the Buddha right: is duality an illusion? Are we all just cum on the mirror, reflections be dampened?

Also, I think it would be cool if we took advantage of that 13th game rule and played at Hawaii at least once every 5 years. Every player would be guaranteed a trip to Hawaii at least once in their tenure which is a cool recruiting chip, and its probably budget neutral when you consider we could schedule an 8th or 9th home game that year. What do you think about it? 

Thanks for your consideration,

JClay

JClay, I do not like this comparison. Craig in Being John Malkovich is a desperate and wheedling man. He has no positive character traits and cannot love or be loved. This is not a good comparison to make to a person.

I would like to emphasize the many differences between Craig and myself by answering your questions. No, I have no similarities to Craig. I do not secretly like puppets and we should be specific here: there are marionettes and there are puppets; Craig uses marionettes. Muppets are only somewhat related to the maximally-arty pretension puppets deployed by Craig.

I would not use a portal into Jim Harbaugh's mind. I doubt that anyone could come out of that with a modicum of sanity. I would probably stay up for 72 straight hours typing motivational slogans into a word document afterwards. I would print this document out and fashion clothing out of it, then go coach up the squirrels in the back yard. Whatever lingering glints of lucidity remained to me would be used only to evaluate what I had become and despair. This is why I would not use a portal into Jim Harbaugh's mind.

Also yes it is an unethical thing. But here we strike on the fundamental difference in character between Craig and myself: Craig wants to be anyone else because he cannot love or be loved. I am not in straits so dire. However, it does not actually raise questions about the nature of the soul since it does not exist except in Being John Malkovich and subtly rude emails concerning same.

I am opposed to the Hawaii idea. Michigan has to keep the Big Ten championship game weekend open, so an extra game in Hawaii requires them to turn what would otherwise be a bye week into a cross-Pacific slog that offers few benefits.