Unverified Voracity Finds Unintentional Hawk Poetry Comment Count

Brian

Hey kids. The Michigan Theater's hosting a premiere of a documentary that may be up your alley tomorrow at 7. It's a documentary about a not-very-good Indiana high school basketball team:

It's getting excellent reviews, and was put together by Ann Arbor/Michigan folk, including Davy Rothbart of FOUND. And you can get in free(!) just by mentioning MGoBlog at the box office. It does not get better than that. Except maybe going 9-3. That would be awesome.

Anyway: Thursday, 7, Michigan Theater, an Indiana basketball team. There are also showings in Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids; mention the blog and you'll get in free there as well.

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"DEAL WITH IT" –Dead Hawk to itself.

IMPORTANT. Here is a story from Don Cherry that he posted on twitter.

1) A big beautiful hawk was killed on North Sheridan Way Service Road last night. How can anybody kill a beautiful bird like that?

2) The bird had to be seen. I can understand, although sad, when I see a squirrel killed on the road, the way they dart in and out .

3) But this hawk did not know how to time it when to get out of the way of as a car comes. Sad. I love hawks. They always look so cool as

4) they sit on a tree like they should be wearing sun glasses.

Sometimes multi-part tweets seem like nouveau free verse with their accidental breaking points and garbled syntax, and this one culminates with the image of a Hawk Cop keeping his eye out for you. Serve and protect (mice not included). Sometimes twitter is great. Other times it's MACK BROWN IS DEAD (I'm not dead yet!).

Also not dead yet. There were reports from campus that Devin Gardner was wearing a sling to classes during the year, and at the bust yesterday he shows up on crutches and in a walking boot.

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I FEEL HAPPY

Is there any part of Devin Gardner that is not broken? Is it even possible to judge Gardner's junior year, given that for most of it he was a broken assemblage of bones grinding against bones entirely other than the ones they were supposed to grind against*? For the love of God can someone protect this man?

Hoke says Gardner's issue is turf toe. This will prevent him from practicing this week but won't affect his availability for the bowl, because Devin Gardner is quarterback Rasputin.

*["Hey, tibia, fancy seeing you here. Aren't you supposed to be hanging out with, oh, what's his name? Femur? The big fellow."

AHHHHHHHHHH IT BURNS

"Yes, well I imagine it must. You seem to be getting smaller and there are many more of you."

I AM DISINTEGRATINGGGGGGGGGGGggggggggg

"Strange folk, those leg bones. Don't you think so, ulna?"

"Ulna?"]

Here is a weird thing on Wednesday. Michigan finishes their first-half schedule with a game against Ferris State tonight, for some reason. Ferris is off to a hot start itself, currently 4th in the RPI (Michigan has dropped to fifth since we last checked, just because other team have won games and leapt up) and 13-2-2 overall. The Bulldogs haven't really played anyone outside their conference, splitting against Colgate and St. Lawrence and beating Mercyhurst, but they are scoring tons of goals and are 10-0-2 in the new WCHA.

Center Ice has a preview for you; sounds like there's going to be a lot of pressure on the Michigan defense to escape a heavy forecheck. That is suboptimal. Should be a good one… on a Wednesday. For some reason.

Here's another weird thing. Brennan Serville will return to the lineup tonight. He's displacing Mike Chiasson, leaving converted forward Andrew Sinelli on the ice. Sinelli's played pretty well since moving back to defense. He's small but his puck skills are above average for the position and he's a good skater with relatively good pop for a guy his size. I've noticed him more than Chiasson, certainly, and while Serville is still a mistake factory he's much better with the puck on his stick than Chiasson, and Michigan's going to need to move the puck against Ferris's aggressive forecheck.

Here's yet another weird thing. Michigan is legendarily averse to post touches, something I've been fine with for the most part. Michigan's personnel hasn't lent itself to dumping it on the block and letting someone try to score, and that's not Beilein's wheelhouse, so okay. But with Mitch McGary rounding into shape, Beilein asserts that we might see more than 1% of Michigan's possessions feature a large man on the block:

For those calling for post-entry plays, Michigan coach John Beilein tossed out a modicum of hope on Wednesday morning.

“I think everyone should stay tuned to that because that’s been a process,” Beilein said in an interview with “The Michigan Insider” show on WTKA-AM (1050). “But sometimes we stay away from it, sometimes it frustrates us, sometimes it’s been good to us.”

One of the primary guys calling for post entries has in fact been Sam Webb, who asked the question that led to that answer. Personally, my prescription for success is running a ton of pick and roll with McGary, Stauskas and LeVert. Michigan's gone away from the P&R a lot this year without Burke and the results have been… iffy.

Here's a usual thing that is still a little bit weird. Remember last year when I kept saying that Michigan was just unbelievably young? And that this would get much better the next year even with the departures of Burke and Hardaway? About that.

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And that's likely to drop as the season goes on and McGary sucks up more of Horford and Morgan's minutes. This is significant improvement on last year, in fact—their experience number was 0.73—but when you're so far down the list you have to improve more than that to make any real headway.

Not particularly surprising aside: the nation's least experienced team is Kentucky. Kansas is third. Kansas has lost three of their last four and Kentucky is 8-2 with losses to MSU and Baylor and a best win over Providence. It is hard to be young, sometimes, even when you have guys on your roster NBA teams are slavering over.

QWASH speech issues. Quinton Washington's speech was the highlight of the bust, as he opened up about the speech issues that had been the thing politely not mentioned about him ever since his recruitment:

"Coming here, it was hard for me to even pick up a phone," said Washington, who has struggled with speech problems his entire life. "I couldn't order at a restaurant."

Five years ago, Quinton Washington couldn't order food.

This is a problem when you are 300 pounds. Read the whole thing; Washington is a fine example of the reasons you root for the kids inside the uniforms instead of just the uniforms.

Etc.: Michigan is +3.5 against K-State, which sounds about right. I mean okay yeah Michigan blew a late lead to the NTDP, but I mean… Luke Dwyer was in. I'm not bothered. 23 minutes of Jeremy Gallon highlights. RIP Don Lund. Doesn't sound like any juniors are exploring the NFL draft.

Comments

Wazoo

December 11th, 2013 at 3:29 PM ^

The following is from the Mlive comments to the article, which I thought was worth posting here as well:

"I have know Quinton and his family for MANY years. Quinton's parents are friends of my family, and he is a product of the community in which I grew up. But most importantly, I have had the pleasure of being Quinton's math teacher during his senior year. I am so proud of him. He had his struggles, but never once did he let that hinder him. Quinton had a goal and he stayed focused on what was ahead. I am just so proud of him, and especially the fact that he is now working on his Master's Degree. Way to Go Quinton. I pray that this will motivate and inspire other young men and women, and those younger children coming up behind him."

We focus on the football side so much, we sometimes forget the real good that comes as well.

WCHBlog

December 11th, 2013 at 3:41 PM ^

1.I think the Wednesday start time gives the players going to World Juniors camp, which starts on Sunday, a little more rest/travel time than a Friday game would have.

2. The initial Rob Ford/crack story on Gawker also mentioned a "prominent Canadian hockey analyst" among the gang's clientele and Don Cherry is very good friends with Rob Ford. I'm just saying. 

blueblooded14

December 11th, 2013 at 4:26 PM ^

how DG will look in the bowl game. With him having time to heal and Borges having time to develop a, hopefully, effective game plan this is the perfect time for Mich to put on an offensive showcase. 

Looking forward to the Copper Bowl. 

Blue_Blooded92

December 11th, 2013 at 6:00 PM ^

I'm curious as to which offense shows up for Michigan and Borges. Are we going to see another OSU game where all the tricks come out and the offense flies down the field? I imagine it'd be even more potent considering DG will have had a month to rest his broken...everything. Fingers crossed that there aren't any plays or formations where I consequently audibly groan. For some reason, I have no expectation that we'll be pleased at all, but maybe that's a defense mechanism.

dragonchild

December 12th, 2013 at 7:16 AM ^

I think it's OK to be cautiously optimistic that the Dr. Jekyl version of Borges will show up.  In his short tenure at Michigan, he's shown he can throw all kinds of stuff defenses aren't ready for if given time to prepare.  Molk was injured during the Sugar Bowl, and I mean right before the game, which compromised the interior O-line, and we all know how bad that is by now.  So, that game was the outlier.  Offense didn't look good vs. Alabama but the two TDs we got were as many as any team scored on them that year.  Looking at this season:

8/31 vs. CMU:  Zone stretch!  59 pts.

9/7 vs. ND:  Gallon!  41 pts.

9/14-9/21:  We're on to you Al. . . 28pts, 24pts.

10/5 vs. Minn:  Bye week! Tackle over!  42pts.

10/12 vs. PSU:  Funchess!  34 pts in regulation. . . run game shut down tho

10/19 vs. Indiana:  STACK OVERFLOW

. . . at which point Borges is out of tricks until OSU when he empties the bag.

 

It's an oversimplification that may cause Space Coyote to crawl out of my monitor Samara-style to snuff out my life, but to me, it seems like bad things happen on road games during consecutive game weeks where the opposing defense has had time to look at tape and Borges hasn't had time to add more wrinkles.  A bowl game gives Borges plenty of time to flip the opposing team's prep on its head.

The other concern here is that all this tinkering is bad for player development, especially along the O-line, but the bowl game should be interesting at least.

jmblue

December 12th, 2013 at 11:19 AM ^

I'm not sure how much of Akron and UConn can be pinned on Borges.  We committed a total of eight turnovers in those games.  It's simply hard to score when you don't hang on to the ball.

MSU and the aftermath (NU, NW, Iowa) I think boiled down to a mixture of things: 1) teams finding a clear-cut gameplan for attacking us (pressure up the middle), 2) some rushed personnel switches on the OL; 3) a loss of confidence on the part of Gardner and the OL, and 4) Borges himself losing confidence in Gardner/the OL and calling disjointed gameplans.    

GhostOfPosBang

December 11th, 2013 at 6:02 PM ^

Awesome as usual, but around the six minute mark Herbstreit says something along the lines of, "This offense is gonna be a lot of fun to watch this year" as Gallon scored his third touchdown of the Notre Dame game.

It made me very sad.

SFBlue

December 12th, 2013 at 3:21 AM ^

Medora, man this is dark.  Guys, you gotta reverse the ball and flash the middle to beat a press!  I put part of that on the coaching.  Worth the download.  There are still some places in Michigan that remind me of Medora. 

Amaizing Blue

December 12th, 2013 at 8:42 AM ^

All-time best Twitter user:  Jose Canseco.  Take name recognition and lots of followers, mix in a natural sense of humor with a healthy dollop of crazy, and it equals Twitter Gold.

Feat of Clay

December 12th, 2013 at 1:27 PM ^

I don'y have 23 minutes to spare, but I think we can all agree the Gallon highlight reel is a FAIL if it doesn't include him strutting behind Devin during that one interview.