Unverified Voracity Et Al Comment Count

Brian

The Michigan Difference. From the Iowa game:

the-michigan-difference

et al

I will take this radio host's opinion and trust it because that's what I want to do. Gene Smith just stopped by the local sports talk radio station and said the following things:

Gene "probably leaning to playing more conference games considering the amount of teams we are at"

And said this as well, paraphrased:

Gene was emphatic that preserving that game is job one. Good news as far as Im concerned.

And the guy doing the interview got this impression:

Get the feeling talking to Gene just now that OSU and Michigan in same division will be a likely endgame.

At least there's one guy maybe trying to do the thing that makes sense. Good job… Gene Smith? We have reached a strange place indeed.

Mitigating damage. We've heard this before only to have it beaten back by the need to squeeze every penny out, but if they don't expand the conference schedule now come on man:

After announcing the addition of Maryland to the league Monday, Big Ten commissioner said during a national teleconference that the league's conference football schedule could increase to nine games, and the league's basketball slate could jump up to as many as 20 contests for each team.

"I think more games is on the table," Delany said. "One of the reasons we stayed at 11 (members) and stayed at 12 is because we love to play each other more, not less."

My wacky idea for the basketball schedule is to play everybody once, draw a line in the middle, and then play six more with the top teams facing off and the bottom teams facing off. Never happen, but it would at least make the regular season title a nonrandom event based heavily on who you didn't play.

Meanwhile, a nine game conference schedule in football with the current protected rivalry setup would mean teams played opponents in the other division 33% of the time. Better than twice every twelve years; still less than is necessary to support any true rivalry with the opposite divisions.

Guaransheed! Mark Dantonio:

"When we win Saturday -- and I'll say when -- we'll be a 6-6 football team, not climbing out of the cellar as a 2-10 football team," Dantonio said.

Would you like to backtrack like whoah, though?

It sure sounded like a guarantee. So I asked Dantonio later on the Big Ten coaches' call whether he was, in fact, guaranteeing a victory.

"I don't guarantee anything," he said. "I'm saying that's the mindset we bring when we come."

Aw man just roll with it.

The hate. MVictors has created a grid of hate.

HeHateMe_thumb[1]_thumb[5]

I assume that ending the losing streak has cooled off some of the Penn State hate; when I went in 2006 I would have classified that as orange. Also, Illinois should be red for them and green for us—when my wife, an Illinois undergrad not too up on sports, came to Michigan for her PhD she was under the impression that Michigan was Illinois's primary rival.

Meanwhile, fire up Rutgers and Maryland versions: all Big Ten teams totally indifferent towards them, Maryland and Rutgers getting continually more pissed off that Big Ten fans would like to see their universities vanish from the planet.

This is not about TV? Delany:

Delany said that, in his opinion, too much has been made about the move to add Rutgers as a pure cable television play. He emphasized how difficult it will be to integrate the Big Ten Network into the lucrative New York and New Jersey market.

"It's a difficult business," he said. "It's not always successful. You have to be good and lucky and hardworking at it. People treat it as if there's a no-risk assessment. There's always a risk. This initiative has risk. If it was so easy why didn't it happen a long time ago?"

Delany said the media has a perception that growing into cable homes in the East and mid-Atlantic regions is easy. He strongly disagrees with that notion.

"It's not that way," he said. "We went a year with the Big Ten Network without distributing in core areas. We decided we wanted to do that we did it and hung together. We'll have discussion with people."

Hmmm. I am not sure this is the best idea I have ever heard.

How will we spend the money? This is the saddest thing I've read about all of this, a post from On The Banks about what they'll do with all the money:

That being said, staff raises and respectable budget should be in order all around.

Awww.

Yes. Get The Picture takes apart an annoying Andy Staples article:

This is Staples’ blessing of the situation:

None of us grew up with Ohio State-Maryland or Michigan-Rutgers. This is different, and different is always scary. But the Big Ten saw a chance to add value, and Maryland saw a chance to make more money in a time of economic uncertainty. This marriage may not square with your idea of which teams should or shouldn’t play in the Big Ten, but in this economy, none of us should be criticizing a school for making a sound fiscal choice.

It’s not that it’s scary.  It’s that it’s boring.  It’s like shopping for an insurance policy instead of a new car.  We’re fans.  We don’t give a rat’s ass about our schools making sound fiscal choices.  (Just ask Tennessee fans about that right now.)

This is soul-numbing.  And it’s been done in such an in-your-face way that it won’t even be worth making an effort to laugh the next time Delany has the stones to invoke tradition when he talks about the television programming he schedules, er… conference he leads.

Money is a zero-sum game. It can only be used on the facilities treadmill and coach salary treadmill. It does nothing for the people the money actually comes from, especially when the richest conference in the country goes out and hires Jerry Kill and Danny Hope and Tim Beckman.

The overwhelming feeling of adding Rutgers and Maryland is boredom. No one is going to wake up the morning their team plays either of those schools and do anything but shrug, and as the expansion continues that will spread to other teams. Michigan State and Wisconsin have a nice thing going; now they don't meet for four years. In the future there won't even be a way for those nice things to get going, because oh God Rutgers is on the schedule again.

More on the dissolution of the bundle empire. Conveniently timed SBJ article:

Nobody thinks that the World Series or NBA Finals will be on YouTube any time soon. But top executives with MLB and the NBA said they’ve seen increased interest from digital media companies like Google, Microsoft and Apple in recent months.

“They are sniffing around,” said MLB’s Brosnan, who just negotiated media deals with ESPN, Fox and Turner. “Pay-TV services are never secure, but with TV Everywhere starting to gain some traction, pay TV is looking like it’s building a model that might have some traction and will be here to stay.”

Stern, whose NBA is in the fifth year of eight-year media rights deals with ESPN and Turner, said he anticipates a time when digital media companies place a bet on sports rights in the same way that Fox Sports invested in the NFL in 1994.

The problem for the BTN model is not going to be actual fans signing up to pay but increasing numbers of sports-indifferent cord-cutters who opt out of subsidizing sports fans and just Netflix/Hulu/whatever everything. The current model is going to be the newspaper business in short order here, wheezing out a decline.

The 60 Minutes thing. It is here:

And there is a bonus thing.

Oh right Ohio State. This could have waited a week maybe, Mr. Delany? Articles from Maize and Go Blue and two from Eleven Warriors, one on the New War, the other on Goebels past and present.

Etc.: Fake conversations with Jim Delany are about to become a cottage industry. Penn State loses Tim Frazier for the year, which just obliterates them. They were outscored 53-24 by Akron in the second half after Frazier went out. He'll be back next year. Weinreb bombs everything. The Iowa game from the Hawkeye perspective.

Comments

blueinuk

November 20th, 2012 at 6:24 PM ^

I think the bottom line is that Devin at WR looked better than Devin on the Bench for a significant % of the time.  

Yes there was a good chance that at some point Denard would get injured and the backup QB would have to come in.  But what are the chances that would happen for the remainder of the game against one of our strongest opponents instead of, say, Minnesota?  Maybe Bellomy could rescue a win against a lesser opponent and then Devin could switch to QB for the coming week if necessary.  

Despite the agonising 'what if's' of the Nebraska game (which are indeed agonising!), it seems like the coaches made the right call in light of team chemistry, what Denard means to the team, putting the best 11 on the field, etc.  

robpollard

November 20th, 2012 at 4:54 PM ^

One thing I finally realized a 2-3 years ago was how little, at a deep level, ESPN et al folks know about local issues. I don't fault them - it's impossible to know the details of 30+ teams in a particular sport. If you cover just one sport (a la Mandel at SI), it's definitely better, though not perfect, but there's only so much time in the day. Thus, while I like shows like PTI and the BS Report, I realize they are just for entertainment purposes - there is no real analysis most of the time. An example:

- About 3 years ago, when Detroit was in the midst of the recession meltdown, Simmons was on his podcast ruminating over the "fact" the Red Sox had a real shot at Miguel Cabrera b/c (paraphrasing) a) Detroit fans won't possibly support the Tigers in big numbers during a recession and b) the owner will have to trade Cabrera in a salary dump.

On the surface, that sounds reasonable. However, if you know anything about the situation, you realize that is idiotic. a) Detroit fans are as passionate as they come (the Tigers have continued to sell 3 million tix a season) and b) more importantly, Mike Illitch is not only truly rich (i.e., he's no Frank McCourt), he grew up in Detroit AND played minor league ball in the Tigers organization. There was a zero percent chance someone with that background would dump Cabrera.

Same thing with Devin/Denard. Devin has looked really good, particularly last week, but what was the competition? More importantly, in 2011, Denard literally had the best game  in the last 50 years of UM vs OSU football at the QB position (seriously - find a better QB performance in The Game).  But if you don't really follow the program, how would you know? However, you do know, based on numerous highlights, he runs really fast and doesn't wear shoelaces. That, you know.

snarling wolverine

November 20th, 2012 at 5:57 PM ^

I don't understand why everyone keeps harping on the level of competition Gardner faced.  When Denard had those 200/200 games against Air Force and UMass, no one seemed to care that they were crappy defenses.  I agree that he played very well against Ohio last year, but that was also the worst Ohio team in the last 20 years.  

They're both good players, with different skillsets.  I don't know why it's hard for some to acknowledge that one (Gardner) may be better at passing while the other (Denard) is better at running.  I'm glad that's the case, because we're a better team for it.

 

robpollard

November 20th, 2012 at 6:21 PM ^

...and isn't (or shouldn't) be enough. Ohio State's team, overall, last year was thoroughly mediocre, but not their defense. It was at Top 20/25 defense; it was their offense which was terrible (except, unfortunately, until they played us). Plus, playing great against OSU, with a BCS game on the line and UM trying to snap a 7-game streak is a lot more pressure than playing against either Northwestern or Air Force (or anybody, really). The performance was unbelieveably huge.

And Denard didn't just play "very well" against OSU -- he was lights out awesome. Again, find me a better performance by Henne, Brady, Henson, Navarre, Leach, Smith, Franklin, etc against OSU. It doesn't exist.

Finally, the difference against Air Force was without Denard, we literally had less than zero offense. And, unlike Iowa, Air Force gave our D fits and it was a close game, so we needed every one of those yards.  Against Iowa, Devin was fantastic and it was exciting to see, but he at least had some help.

For the record, I think Devin should start against OSU. I'm no doctor, but I've seen nothing that indicates Denard is healthy enough to realistically be in top form, which is what is needed against OSU.  I'm just tired of this idea (like I heard on WDET yesterday by one of their host) that "Man, Michigan should have went to Devin as QB last year and Denard as RB." I think that is just foolish and overlooks some awesome QB performances (e.g., ND, Neb, OSU, Air Force).

Geary_maize

November 20th, 2012 at 4:19 PM ^

There's a huge difference between the Indiana's and Minnesota with Rutgers and Maryland. The newcomers come from talent rich states and have 1000 times the potential to be better teams than the B1G bottom feeders. Rutgers right now would be a middle of the pack team.

Let's give it a few years and decide then. The extra money isn't bad either

ldoublee

November 20th, 2012 at 4:26 PM ^

ND fans HATE USC more than anything.  We are a very, very close second, however.  Especially after we ripped out their still-beating hearts 3 years in a row. 

evenyoubrutus

November 20th, 2012 at 5:14 PM ^

If you watch nothing else from that 60 Minutes piece, go to the last minute at the end of that bonus bit and listen to the story the guy tells about the M Club banner.  I think we all can relate to that.

Alton

November 20th, 2012 at 5:40 PM ^

I agree.  I said earlier that there was no chance of it happening, but I would be very happy to be wrong about that.  The downside is that I would suspect that if Michigan and Ohio State end up in the same division, it will be a division with both Rutgers and Maryland as well.  I'm willing to take the good with the bad, I suppose.

 

Michigan Arrogance

November 20th, 2012 at 5:27 PM ^

No one has presented the arguement about added teams being above average programs- like, Neb was a big addition from a football perspective. No one wanted to add teams to maintain status quo or diulute the B10.

So what happens 2 years after those intentions were stated? we add rutgers and fucking maryland. they very definitions of mediocre at BEST athletic programs.

My only solice in this is thinking about how I (we as B10 fans?) would react to MSU being added in '49. Hopefully, over time, the reputaions of the schools athletically and academically will inflate due to this marriage.

eamus_caeruli (not verified)

November 20th, 2012 at 5:37 PM ^

GO BLUE! BEAT OHIO!



Well since we changed for the sake of change. How about we thusly be progressive and play ten conference games. Six divisional and four cross-over games.



In the case of UofM, that's leaves us a MAC/MW/WAC/CUSA game and then a marquee intersectional game annually. I could live with that. Whether is a fourteen or sixteen member conference.



It looks highly unlikely that ND will be a mainstay on our schedule any more and I would rather play teams in conference than get creative with our schedules like in years past.



So the year we play Arkansas at home, example schedule (7 home, 5 road):



WMU

Ark

Illinois

Minn

Msu

Neb

NW

Whiskey

Indiana

Iowa

Rutgers

Ohio



Caveats: having eight home games pretty much impossible. Most likely will be a rotation of seven home games one year, six the next. We might all devour ourselves and not have a shot at the MNC.



Bright side: that's not a terrible schedule if the conference improves. Could be strong and entertaining. We get to keep playing teams that are traditionally red letter games.



If we went to sixteen teams, add new divisional foe and reduce cross-divisional foe by one. Still playing people more than two times in twelve year period.



I still want to go independent and have moved into the depression stage. Drinking early and often this week.

zeda_p

November 20th, 2012 at 5:37 PM ^

How about we make the red division and everyone else division?

There's now 6 teams in the b1g who's predominate color is red (w/ the gophers going either way).

HOW WILL THIS LOOK ON TV?!?

snarling wolverine

November 20th, 2012 at 5:49 PM ^

If the Gene Smith bits are true, then I will love this round of expansion/realignment.  Having Michigan and Ohio in the same division is by far the most important thing to me regarding the B1G.

Brodie

November 20th, 2012 at 6:21 PM ^

Yeah and I kind of don't give much of a shit about playing the western teams more than once every three years. Like this as an average conference schedule:

 

Maryland

@ Rutgers (at MetLife)

MSU

Iowa

@ PSU

Indiana

@ Minnesota (our protected game if we get them in this alignment)

Northwestern 

@ Ohio

100% fine by me 

UMMAN83

November 20th, 2012 at 6:38 PM ^

means the other side's best of the year have a cakewalk to the Big 14 Championship every year.  Where the is balance? Thanks Dumblaney.   He is obviously in bed with Ohio.

WolvinLA2

November 20th, 2012 at 9:02 PM ^

I agree - that stuff changes anyway.  A few years ago, the SEC East was way better than the West, Florida and Georgia were great, Tennessee and South Carolina were solid, and nobody but LSU was good on the other side.  Then it changed, LSU got even better, Saban went to Alabama, Auburn and Arkansas were good, and the schools on the otherside were down. 

As long as it's not totally lopsided, it will all even out in the long run.  Or close enough.

Big Blue Ball

November 21st, 2012 at 10:36 AM ^

Now that we've added 2 cupcakes to the football side, let's play 10 conference games each year.  Beating Maryland or Rutgers every year sounds to me like beating Colorado or Utah or Arkansas.  Besides that gives Delaney a means to keep the 10 in B1G.