Unverified Voracity Goes Family Circus
Everything in Minecraft. Michigan Stadium in Minecraft.
I like healthy butts and I cannot lie. Jake Butt is jogging again:
"Went for my first little run yesterday and my knee feels great!" Butt tweeted.
The 6-foot-6, 250-pound tight end suffered a torn anterior cruciate ligament on Feb. 13 during conditioning drills before spring practice began. Butt underwent surgery to repair the torn ligament on Feb. 28, exactly three months ago Wednesday.
ACLs are six-month things these days so Butt could be back even earlier than the third or fourth game, as Hoke projected a couple months ago.
Yes, this is a good idea. Auburn's having a big ol' recruiting weekend, so naturally they've painted the path of the Kick Six on their field.
![Bo5Hv71CUAEs8wN[1]](https://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/343935f57211_9808/Bo5Hv71CUAEs8wN1.jpg "Bo5Hv71CUAEs8wN[1]")
If I find out they've also got a cardboard cutout of Nick Saban in tears, I will commit.
In unrelated news, Bret Bielema took a job at Arkansas. Bielema demonstrates his mastery of making himself look bad with his mouth:
Bret Bielema why he made move from Wisconsin to Arkansas "SEC will get minimum of 2 teams in 4-team playoff"
None of these are ever going to be Arkansas, is the thing. The other thing is that give or take a tough decision, the SEC would have gotten two teams in a four-team field about 25% of the time since the dawn of the BCS era. Three is off the table.
Hooray for three months of this. If there was a single moment when Dave Brandon completed his heel turn with the Michigan fanbase, it was when he picked up the steel chair of Appalachian State and beat us over the head with it by scheduling a rematch. While the blessed event is still three months away, first extensive article on the Horror has been published. I refuse to read the thing, so here's a paragraph at random:
It’s no secret around campus that the football success of 2005-07 was a boon for the school’s “PR value” and “notoriety,” in the words of ASU athletic director Charlie Cobb. It helped bring enrollment increases, academic improvement and more.
I can't wait for replays to be on my television 24/7. Reliving the moment Michigan football went from national power to… this… is not high on my list of desirable activities. Here it comes anyway.
Possibly related. The student section has dropped alarmingly:
"We're projecting that number to be somewhere between 13 or 14,000 for student ticket numbers this year," Michigan associate athletic director of media and public relations Dave Ablauf said. "(That number was at) about 19,000 last year. We don't have a finalized number (yet), that's just an approximation because all the incoming freshmen haven't put in their orders yet."
This is partially because students can just buy tickets next year without long-term punishments and this home schedule is not worth the 300 dollars they're asking for it, let alone the regular price they're charging everyone else. It is also partially because last year was no fun and partially because the students don't like Dave Brandon at all.
The alarming thing is that this is probably going to happen every other year going forward unless Brandon can find a home and home series that actually moves the needle. Arkansas and Virginia Tech do not have anywhere near the appeal that Notre Dame does, and since Michigan got totally boned by having MSU and OSU away in the same year, every other year has no schedule anchor.
Even for you, this is surprising. Zach Travis has a column on the student section drop that you should read. The themes in it are things we hit on frequently here. In the comments, though, TOC contributor MSUDersh relates a story about the things happening to the UM wings of his family that is sadly believable. His dad and uncles are old-timey ticket holders in section one with tickets that go back 50 years:
A few months ago my uncle who splits tickets with my dad & another uncle rec’d an email about their tickets. The university told them that it appreciates their loyalty and also wants to ensure that they continue to have those great seats going forward. And in order to do so, the school recommended that they purchase four more season tickets (plus PSLs) in a completely different area of the stadium. Despite there literally being decades of my family history with the school & athletic department, including an endowment from my great grandparents in the 60’s that continues to fund scholarships today, Dave Brandon’s team is threatening to pull their choice seats and relocate them if they don’t purchase more.
I just had a wow experience. Has anyone else received an email like this? I'd like to confirm that the AD is stooping so low.
I motion to not do this and have ice cream. Latest O'Bannon wrangling:
Lawyers for the NCAA asked the appeals court to vacate U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken's order for the trial to start June 9. The NCAA also wants the appeals court to rule that the O'Bannon antitrust trial should not be held before the Sam Keller right of publicity trial involving videogames, a related but now separated case scheduled for trial in March 2015.
The filing late Thursday night marks the fifth attempt by the NCAA in recent weeks to delay and/or redefine the case. A three-judge panel from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals previously rejected one of the delay attempts without comment.
Our local law-talkin', football-playin' dog weighs in:
Without boring you with the legal mumbo-jumbo, the NCAA's latest motion is not one filed by a party that thinks it is in good shape.
— Bry Mac (@Bry_Mac) May 30, 2014 The NCAA is also asking the courts not to consolidate the wave of anti-trust lawsuits filed by former players claiming they were cheated out of compensation above and beyond the value of a scholarship, and trying to get anyone other than Claudia Wilken as their judge, because Oakland is "spectacularly inconvenient" for a trial. A flight's a flight, according to the NCAA's own rules for seeding the NCAA hockey tournament.
Incoming. Dylan Larkin NHL draft profile ahoy:
“Larkin has shown he can be an elite-level power forward in addition to showing a high level of offensive ability. His ability to take the puck hard to the net allows for unique scoring chances most players would not be able get because of a lack of size and strength.”
Etc.: You definitely shouldn't watch Mitch McGary's draft workout video unless you want to be real sad. Nussmeier's position now sponsored by rich dude. Barking Carnival's boot camp series continues with leverage.
The sad thing is that email to keep the tickets is perfectly believable. Old Blues getting Lochmann'ed.
Cue kneejerk bitching about the Dave Brandon bitching.
I'll bitchily bitch about the bitchers when he quits being a bitchy bitch to his customers.
Isn't your bitchy bitch a meta-bitchy bitch. If so please correctly title it.
/s
Presidential Society members.
Grandfather endowed a chair in Astronomy Dept.
No such email received from UMAD.
crazy-assed ticket package deals, anyone who purchases season tix knows they can save 50-75% by buying their seats aftermarket (this assumes they use all their tix..the deal is better if some go wanting for lack of interest), and Brandon addresses this problem by threatening his most loyal custormers?
Fuck him.
Looks like Chris Davis pissed his pants when he caught the kick.
Pardon the blasphemy, but Imma gonna follow my heart and say it:
Can we trade Dave Brandon for Mark Hollis? Now?
Other than your hatred of Brandon, why would you ever think that was a good idea? Hollis has done nothing of note other than tweet at Trey Burke.
Say what you will about him, but Hollis has actually come up with creative matchups that actually created positive buzz - the aircraft carrier game, even if not amazing in actual execution - is something that put MSU on the map and was something that fans and players will always remember. And in point of fact, most of what he's done to promote MSU athletics is pretty much the exact opposite of scheduling Appy State in 2014.
Yes, tweet at Trey was a horrid embarrasing move, but that still pales vs. the aggregate sum of The Noodle, the skywriting, the "Wealthy M. Donor" Memorial Position Coach and - yes, as always - scheduling Appalachain State in 2014.
A game on an aircraft carrier put MSU on the map? WTF? It was a basketball game and MSU has been on the "map" in basketball for quite some time now. Brandon has made the big chill, winter classic, that soccer match in august, the under the lights games.
the only "high profile" msu out of conference game was against boise state which isnt really a big name or draw.
and also lots of teams have donor position coaches... sure they sound silly but i dont get why people get so mad about them
MSU starts a home and home with Oregon this year. They also had a home and home set up with Alabama after the Oregon one ended, but the Bama one was cancelled.
/drops mic
You mean the Mark Hollis that tweeted at Trey Burke? Dave Brandon might annoy people, but he's not an idiot. The "Dave Brandon sux!" meme is overblown.
We should just be thankful we don't have Julie Hermann
Who gave us skywriting in East Lansing?
IF it's true that "Brandon’s team is threatening to pull their choice seats and relocate them" if they don't purchase four more seats elsewhere in the stadium, then David Brandon is most assuredly an idiot. A gigantic freaking idiot.
However, given the fact that the guy who posted that comment is a Spartan, I'm going to reserve final judgement.
Yeah, the fact that a TOC writer is apparently the first one to unearth this scheme strikes me as unlikely.
but he's better than Hollis who's behavior would illicit even more hatred around here than does DB's.
that DB shows more tact than Hollis.
However, he also seems to be able to create & retain a B1G / Rosebowl winning football coaching staff that manages to do so while slaving away in a soviet-era concrete bunker of a stadium.
I was told only the most expensive facilities in the world (& the gimmicks to fund them) could create winners? Oops.
Can we trade Brandon for a box of socks? (Yes, they would be Nike socks.)
That minecraft guy even got the tunnel ooffset from center. Well done Guy With A Lot of Free Time
That was unbelievable.
But he had the locker room on the wrong side of the tunnel and the lockers themselves weren't quite right.
Pretty good for someone that had only been there once.
but did it bother anyone else that the number of rows in the stadium was way less than reality? Also, I was expecting that guy to have a British accent. (My son "plays" Minecraft, I put that in quotes because he seems to spend way more time watching youtubes of some British guy explaining Minecraft stuff.)
I unfortunately got into Minecraft myself and you're right - there's so many YouTubers in Europe, especially Sweden. Anyway, some of the things they build are honestly breath-taking. This one was pretty cool as an idea but lacked a bit in execution. Maybe a different texture pack (nerd alert) would have helped.
WARNING: Do not start playing Minecraft if you do not want to stay up all night playing a video game. It is HIGHLY addictive. Probably the most addictive game I've ever played (and I've played them all).
Thank God! I thought me kids were the only ones who did that.
(The British guys are pretty funny though.)
After reading that SEC Bagmen article, and then reading the article about the guy who just bought Doug Nussmeier (or however you want to describe it), does anyone else really pine for the day when chaos reigns and handouts from third parties is an option? Does anyone actually think that SEC Bagmen X (who owns a couple of Honda dealerships) is competing with the earth-moving-money guys that schools like Michigan, Stanford, etc. have? I suppose the only obstacle would be the fact that those guys are so wrapped up in making gobs of money that they don't have time to care about football recruits.
I realize this has tangibly little to do with this post, but it struck me as I was reading the article.
I think the difference is (at least put forth in the bagmen article) that the SEC network of car dealer owners can navigate their communities and little fiefdoms precisely because they are small fish when compared to the entire system. Their methods are calculated in hundreds and thousands of dollars - not millions. They also know their territory.
Millionaires don't operate at that level. The feds are much more keyed into millions of dollars moving around as opposed to $300/month payments to a mother somewhere.
I'm a guy who has tried to toe the moderate line on DB. Voice of reason, he's good at executing stuff, the department needs to secure income to continue to be successful, look at the BB program, blah blah blah. All true, yes. I have, at times, reacted to what I perceive to be unfair or excessive anger toward the Director and the Department.
So let me say that the referenced email to longstanding ticket holders (50 years puts them solidly back into the mediocre 60s before Bo, a time somewhat analogous to this one but with fewer fans), if it is accurately represented, is an incredible slap in the face to all fans, and those in particular.
This program was built on people who got in "early." It is built on families passing down the tradition and the memories; that's how I became a fan, after all. People who have held tickets for decades, who have donated (there's still an endowment? That's impressive) and lived through downs and ups and stuck with it, are the building blocks that everything that is good about Michigan sports today. The Stadium, the sellouts, the colors, the success, all of it.
It's possible we're not getting the "whole story." Or that the tone of the email is misrepresented. It may not be as bad as it sounds.
But it sounds really, really bad.
Yeah, this kind of reaction is nothing new to a lot of people here, but keep in mind that I am saying this as a guy who defends a number of the moves DB makes. There's no defending this.
only 5 weeks to the Tour.
If the Athletic Department was serious about people who got in at the ground floor, they wouldn't be nickel-and-diming the handful of Victors Club Charter Life Members that are still around. My dad is one. He gave a bunch of money when nobody was giving money to the Athletic Department. He has the hand-signed letters from Don Lund guaranteeing him certain perks for life. Back then, there were enough people to fill exactly two rows of parking at Crisler. How many of those people, many of whom were old back then, are still around? Why treat them like crap when just giving them what they were promised takes up next to no room.
Over the last ten years, and particularly since Dave Brandon took over, Athletics has been trying to systematically whittle those away. And so people like my dad have to keep photocopying the letters, send them to 1000SSS, and manage to stave it off for another year. My parents even got invited to a focus group meeting last year with Athletics, where some lifeless suit tried to get in front of a group of four-decade donors and pretty much tell them their loyalty means crap. That meeting to real nasty real quick.
Long story short, Dave Brandon's Athletic Department doesn't care about loyalty. They care about the money in the short term, not thinking that a little goodwill goes a long way to make sure that money keeps coming in the long term. That's the problem here.
That is so unbelievably stupid (what happened in the meeting, that is). I'm usually a moderate re: DB like Stephen, but I'm starting to wonder if a monkey couldn't do a better job handling the tickets for the Big House.
Possible new AD:
Wow that is unbelievably crass and disrespectful to your father. That's horrible.
...I have a hard time believing it is. The department re-rigged the student ticket policy to try to ensure that seats are filled during games. Now they're going to try to strong are people into buying seats that they (personally, at least) won't use? The buyers will no doubt be able to give them to friends at times, but won't the seats go empty during at least some games?
If the story presented by MSUDersh is accurate, then David Brandon should be fired immediately by the Regents and there should be a thorough housecleaning of the Athletic Department, especially the marketing suits he's brought in.
Still, need independent confirmation of the story before I'll be convinced it's true.
I'm guessing the final attendance figures lean more toward 13. As in, without the zeroes.
Of a comment on a blog post from a MSU blogger/contributor? Let's just say I'm incredibly skeptical of this. If they did receive said email, a very quick forward would prove this pretty easily.
Of all the MSU guys I interact with over at SB Nation, he is one of the more reasonable and honest when it comes to Michigan, and he is a very well known commodity. This isn't some random poster coming out of the woodwork to trash the Michigan AD. I would be shocked if he was lying or even exaggerating things.
...be mistaken, though.
But after living with this AD for the last few years, what do you think is more likely: MSUDersh being mistaken or the AD actually doing something like this to fans that aren't in a position to have a coaching seat named after them following a massive donation?
A Michigan locker room with awesome pirate-like chests and flaming wall torches?
EAT ME, PINK IOWA LOCKER ROOM!!!
With regard to student ticket sales being low, I would imagine that DB's tinkering with students like lab rats is a bigger cause for low numbers than the crappy schedule. Sure, Brandon is providing the worst home slate in anyone's memory, but back in my day (granted, Fab 5, Desmond, etc) the opponent wasn't super important. We just wanted to get drunk, stumble to the game, throw some marshmellows, sing The Victors and have a good time. Perhaps Dave has taken much of that "good time" away.
Low ticket sales would help explain the extra promotions for tickets to others. There are going to be a few thousand extra seats available in the northwest corner.
Dahblue: Brandon didn't take the marshmallows away--those were gone in the 90s. Personal decisions to imbibe intoxicating beverages have not been influenced by DB, the Victors has still played, and students are still admitted to the Stadium if they are stumbling.
Having a "good time" seems closely related to winning and excitement; that has definitely been lacking, but that it one area where DB has yet to prove a part of the problem.
i don't know who took away the marshmallows, but they weren't gone in the 90s. i was throwing them in 1999,
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