Unverified Voracity Gets Heavier Over Time
The last walkoff goal line stand. Via Wolverine Historian, Illinois 1982:
Health bits. Rudock should play Saturday. Smith's having issues, he will continue to have issues, he has an injury you can play through but always hurts and won't stop hurting until the offseason.
Excellent, responsive, transparent. The athletic department surveyed 4,500 season ticket holders and is releasing that information over the next couple weeks. I love that. It shows the department is listening to fans and allowing us to talk about the data they gathered in public. That is something I've wanted them to do for a long time. So:
Question 4: Did you enjoy the balance of piped-in music and band during the game (not including pregame or halftime)?
• It was a perfect balance (43%)
• Would prefer a lot more band, a lot less piped-in music (20%)
• Would prefer a little more band, a little less piped-in music (28%)
• Would prefer a little more piped-in music, a little less band (6%)
• Would prefer a lot more piped-in music, a lot less band (1%)
• Didn't care (3%)
That's about a 50/50 split between people who think the music is fine and those who want it toned down. (I am obviously in the 20% group.)
I'm disappointed with this answer:
Question 3: How would you rate the overall video board presentation (highlight videos, replays, prompts, information, etc.)?
• Excellent (49%)
• Good (44%)
• Fair (6%)
• Poor (1%)
Alas! Have I not yelled about pore-o-vision sufficiently to move the mass of public opinion?
I'll say this much for Dave Brandon. He didn't land Michigan in a congressional report about how many of the military patriotism events at sport events are bought and paid for. The NFL, of course, is the biggest offender here, but Wisconsin, Indiana, and Purdue are the college programs that managed to show up. In those teams' case they seem to be selling a bunch of game tickets to their local National Guard units, which 1) is not a good use of taxpayer dollars and 2) in the case of Indiana-Purdue football is just not nice to our military reservists.
But mostly it's just NFL teams taking millions of dollars to pretend like they care about anything other than millions of dollars. Which is the best! It is infinite NFL.
Speaking of things we aren't getting paid for. Flyover this weekend:
A B-17 & B-25 will conduct the flyover for the @umichfootball Military Appreciation game on Sat. #GoBlue #MGoTroops pic.twitter.com/viisURhBJn
— Michigan Athletics (@UMichAthletics) November 5, 2015
The answer is "most deserving." Chris Brown asks what the goal of playoff rankings should be:
What criteria should we use to determine who gets the title?
One answer is that the champion should be the season’s “best team,” possibly defined as the best overall team or the team we think would be favored to beat every other team on a neutral field. Another answer is the “most deserving team,” loosely defined as the team that produced the best overall season. These two things are not always the same. It’s perfectly possible for the best team — i.e., the most formidable — to lose a close game or even two on a bad kick or a fluke play, while another team runs the table by winning close games.
Alabama lost a game to Ole Miss in which they had an avalanche of fluky turnovers and this happen to them:
That doesn't really impact my opinion about how good Alabama is. I think they're better than Ole Miss, probably a lot better. But that is just, like, my opinion, man. Once you start talking about "best" because team X has fancy S&P stats or a bunch of NFL first rounders you lose the reason we even play the damn fluky thing that is football. You play to win the game. Bama didn't win.
Now, in a sport like college football you can't just add up wins and losses and call it a day. Schedules are imbalanced and short. Style points have to come into play because a lot of teams will have similar records. A 58-0 blowout of a team should matter more than a 21-20 win. But once you start looking at the why you start eroding the fundamental reason I should care about, say, a one in a million punt drop disaster.
Moving the game to a Vegas-style "eh, don't care about results" model is not good for the sport and is fundamentally a guess that football keeps proving us wrong about, and thus we should dump why and how from playoff rankings in favor of a deeply researched take on what.
I demand a Drake Johnson television show. He killed it at his press availability oh and also
@DRAKEington So does this mean you can Fus Roh Dah opposing linebackers?
— Helios Eusebio (@MGoPhoenix) November 3, 2015
Skyrim bartering is bad but I'll allow it.
On that one site with all the liars. Hey. So Chatsports just lies about things, all the time, in search of traffic. Don't pay attention to them. This was Georgia QB commit Jacob Eason's dad in the aftermath of another Chatsports fiction piece:
The “story” that came out yesterday about him contacting multiple schools really struck a nerve.
Tony Eason called me on Wednesday morning and he was not happy about it.
“Who the h$#** is Marc F&%*% and where did he get that Bull Sh$%$# story at?”
Marc Furballson is the updated nom de plume of Ace Williams. If you post a chatsports link to the message board we will delete all your points. AND THEN WHAT WILL YOU DO
They won't listen. Mike Freeman on Harbaugh availability:
I asked one general manager about Jim Harbaugh returning to the NFL. His response: "He's going to have at least six teams come after him. He'd be able to have any open job he wants." The GM didn't name the teams, but it's not hard to figure out who some of them will be.
Then, the general manager said some NFL teams have already reached out to Harbaugh's camp to see if he'd be available once the season ends. Those teams, the GM explained, weren't told just "no." They were basically told "no freaking way."
Harbaugh isn't going anywhere.
Not that you needed to be told that.
I get it. Bruce Feldman on the Minnesota job:
Hearing more & more this week that there is a lot of key support for interim HC Tracy Claeys is keep the #Minnesota job full-time.
— Bruce Feldman (@BruceFeldmanCFB) November 5, 2015
For one, they don't even have an AD right now. Getting a new coach without a permanent AD is going to be very hard unless you have a Harbaugh; Minnesota doesn't. For two, cheap. For three, this is not a job market Minnesota particularly wants to be in, and you can make a long-term decision on Claeys after a year or two since there should be staff continuity.
Heavier now. MVictors went back and found the average weight of Michigan's starters since the beginning. After a plateau to start weights have crept upwards at a near-constant rate for around 100 years:
Things have leveled off a little bit since the 1990s.
Etc.: Rainman previewed. Dylan Larkin is good at hockey /weeps about last season. Exit Frank Beamer, real good dude. Bill Daley remembered. Rutgers blog is doing a 68-coach bracket to determine who their next dude should be and John Baxter makes a play-in game. Spike profiled. Blake O'Neill and a small child. More of a medium child, actually.
Nebraska's athletic director is… working on extension? That's one way to approach things. Things are going down at Georgia. Chaos there helps Michigan with Isaac Nauta and Mecole Hardman. OSU/M tickets next year will be expensive, still under demand.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
I woud guess exactly the opposite. I would think the pitch from Harbaugh would go something like "come with me and help me rebuild this. The faster we get the program back to where it needs to be the faster the job offers will come for you."
This is not a bad thing at all. Other quality coaches will see a clear career path and will be willing to take a lesser role knowing they have an opportunity to move on to bigger and better things down the line.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:02 PM ^
I think half the reason behind Harbaugh's recently announced Coaches camp and the whole Summer camp series are networking opportunities with quality up-and-comers to backfill for poached assistants. The man has a plan.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:35 PM ^
I think there was talk of some coaches, especially Jedd Fisch, only being short-term. Fisch went from NFL OC, to College Assistant, I'm thinking he jumps for a better opportunity pretty soon. I don't worry about it since the staff right now is so high-level and the Harbaughs are known in the coaching world, they should be able to replace anyone who leaves.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:42 PM ^
Almost forgot about that, but you're right, I think we kind of figured this was a one-year mutually beneficial stopover for him when he was hired, didn't we? More power to him.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^
He's the passing game coordinator, not sure where he's going after this year.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:05 PM ^
I could see him being an OC in the NFL next year.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:17 PM ^
Based on what?!?! His time as OC in Jax? They were 31st in yards and dead last in points in both of his seasons as OC. And UM's passing game is pretty close to atrocious this season.
November 6th, 2015 at 2:00 PM ^
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November 6th, 2015 at 1:27 PM ^
it was more salary issues that led to the one year contract. It had to do with Michigan only having to pay a small salary. It's expected that he would get a bump after the year is up.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:06 PM ^
I dont think it will happen with Fisch. It sort of looked like a place for him to land for a year before he goes back to the NFL and a win win for all parties.
I dont expect Durkin to last 3-4 years - the 2016 D (if we can find a S and LB) should be close to 2015 level and with 2 years like that back to back along with working with Harbaugh and Urban and exposure in the south at Florida - I'd expect Durkin to get a decent Boston College level type of offer at a very young age. Maybe he goes to a non P5 but there are not many great ones to get and he can be patient.
I dont expect too many other guys to leave - a lot of guys Harbaugh brought in on D dont seem like HC guys (Zordich etc) and Mattison will be leaving on his own at some point. On offense I guess Drevno but he is going to be underweighted a bit because people will say this is a Harbaugh offense so I could see him here a long while.
Durkin is really the only guy I could see leaving soon and Wheatley down the road if he wants to go back to the NFL ina few yrs.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:25 PM ^
I am enjoying helping Rutgers vote on coaching options they probably don't have.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:26 PM ^
No clue what it is, and don't care anyway.
I'm concerned with Michigan Sports, and I get all I need from Mgoblog....
November 6th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ^
Now is the time to extend your AD's contract? Wow. Denial is a deep, deep river.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:51 PM ^
Maybe firing Pelini was the right decision. I have no idea what went on behind the scenes. But holy smokes. Mike Riley....
Thank you, Mr, Hackett, for delivering us from that. Not only do the Husker fans have to deal with the horrible team, they have to deal with the administration asking them to eat a $hit sandwich and smile.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:54 PM ^
November 6th, 2015 at 1:17 PM ^
and had to cover my nephew's eyes like it was Rosie O'Donnell porn.
November 6th, 2015 at 12:45 PM ^
November 6th, 2015 at 12:54 PM ^
Keith Jackson in his prime in that clip from 82. God I miss him doing our games. Strike that, any games.
Nice job Wiscy. This Jump-around brought to you by your National Guard.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^
We all do.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^
I don't know how long Smith has had thisinjury, but he's lookeda bit off the last 2 games.
Sucks to have our #1 (and most punishing) back not at 100%.
Drake will give us a nice speed boost but Green has shown nothing as a power back that can consistently break tackles.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^
November 6th, 2015 at 3:00 PM ^
I thought the lock picking stayed the same or is my memory that bad?
I do remember the influencing mini-game from Oblivion being pretty fun and missing it in Skyrim.
Both games were fun, I just thought Oblivion was a little bit better in terms of story stakes and scope.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^
"Getting a new coach without a permanent AD is going to be very hard unless you have a Harbaugh; Minnesota doesn't."
When searching for a new coach, Hackett is what you want; for then you have a chance at landing a Harbaugh.
If you start with Harbaugh, you don't need to a new coach; unless of course you are Jed York.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:44 PM ^
I assume that what Brian means is "Unless you have a slam-dunk-awesome-Savior-Coach-who-would-take-the-job-no-matter-who-his-boss-is, it's generally better to have an AD in place. Would you accept - or even interview for - a job without knowing who your supervisor is?
November 6th, 2015 at 4:33 PM ^
Which is the very poin of the above post.
November 6th, 2015 at 1:34 PM ^
I mean, they still had to run two more plays and couldn't kneel it, not that close to the end zone. What if - not that this would ever happen - our guy fumbled the snap and the Illini recovered it for a touchdown on the very last play?
November 6th, 2015 at 1:36 PM ^
There was just a strong el nino in 2002 that skews the graph...
November 6th, 2015 at 2:01 PM ^
are caused by human activity!
November 6th, 2015 at 1:47 PM ^
and my weight hasn't leveled off at all...
November 6th, 2015 at 2:07 PM ^
November 6th, 2015 at 2:46 PM ^
Freshman Jimmy Harbaugh makes an appearance (this clip was always a fav of mine for just that reason).
November 6th, 2015 at 11:52 PM ^
I think having a committee determine who gets in the playoff will end up being an exercise in turd polishing unless the 4 best teams are clear cut better than the rest of the teams.
November 7th, 2015 at 6:04 AM ^
That's cool about the fan surveys. From all of the feedback here (assuming the board was reprentative of the fan base population), I was expecting the piped in music support to be far less than the 43% of those that think it is the perfect balance. I was hoping they would actually do a survey and that it would end the piped in music. I am guessing by these results that they may leave it how it is.
November 7th, 2015 at 11:33 AM ^
You'd think that the clock management at the end of last week's game would rule anyone out.
And besides, he looks like Peter Griffin.
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