Unverified Voracity Got To Mars In Six Days Comment Count

Brian

rtaImage[1]

Team Gardens in Flint. If you're in the area and available this Saturday, the Alumni Association is working with Vincent Smith's Team Gardens to make a thing:

Each year, on Michigan Alumni Community Service Day, alumni clubs from all over the country give back to their local communities in a variety of ways. This year, our club is pleased to partner with Team Gardens #EATING Project to assist with the creation of a community garden at Potter Elementary School in Flint. Be sure to register for this event soon; attendance is limited to 35 volunteers and families are very welcome.

Plants! Plant them in planters, the plants. And the ground.

Go big or go bigger, home is just a distant memory. Michigan has now announced 28(!) satellite camps, including faintly ludicrous stops in Australia, Hawaii, and American Samoa—and Michigan will be at the latter two twice. I have a preview of Jay Harbaugh's future right here:

I have also traveled to and fro in time to acquire a piece of Jay's diary.

JULY 15TH—unnamed village 50 miles north-northwest of Almaty, Kazakhstan. The stink of refuse in the streets and the uncomprehending looks from the villagers wear on us daily. We say "football" ever slower only for the children to grab the balls and kick them about. The oblong shape does not bother them. They have never seen a soccer ball, either. I begin to wonder if they've ever seen a man-made toy.

Everything else is goats. Goat cheese. Goat moccasins. Goat yurts. Furtive in the streets, one day I think I see a goat wife. All is goats. We offer a class of 2019 wide receiver who does not know what a post route is, or his own name. We call him Goatley. He is probably a goat.

Tomorrow we're going to see the cosmodrome, for some reason.

JULY 21ST—Mons Olympus, Mars. There are no people here. We have been directed to form them from the dusty Martian soil. Every day I trudge up the ancient shield volcano to see if the crumbling forms have been imbued with a spark of life. They never are. I feel the radiation sleeting through space and Mars's thin atmosphere, into my bones. The nights are dark beyond belief.

In more ludicrous satellite camp news. The War On Rutgers continues. Our current situation: Michigan is ignoring Rutgers for the 150th consecutive year. Rutgers is offended that Michigan asked them to their Paramus camp because they didn't want to play second fiddle in their home state, so they announced a camp with Urban Meyer at the same time as Michigan's. I have a dank meme for this, you guys, that will prove I am hip with the snapchat youth.

flat,800x800,070,f

Noted rappist DJ Khaled will ensure I remain relevant for decades

Only the dankest of memes will appear in this space.

Anyway, by flipping the bird to Michigan, Rutgers and OSU have annoyed a bunch of local recruits who now have to choose which set of coaches to get exposure with. New Milford assistant and outstanding name Preston Lawyer:

It appears this has hit a vein of internal New Jersey high school politics, and that a number of NJ high school coaches are nuts. A NJ.com article quotes a number of coaches supporting the Rutgers camp with language that says more about the person speaking than the event they're commenting on:

"Obviously, Michigan wants to conspire with Paramus Catholic to do whatever they want to do,'' Campanile said. "So I don't think they're making friends from that standpoint with a lot of these schools. I really don't know what to say about it. But it is what it is. They're obviously aligned with those guys, and if that's what they want to do, it's their business."

I'm sorry if some of you experienced painful eye-rolling at that quote. There's plenty more in there if you're inclined. This guys sounds like a major piece of work. His brother in an assistant at BC, who will work the Paramus camp:

"I love my brother more than anything in the world. I just don't want anything to do with my kids going to a camp at Paramus Catholic.''

The good news is that per 247 this dude doesn't have a single recruitable player in either of the next two classes. The two other coaches in that article are from Don Bosco and St Peter's Prep, though, and that's going to be interesting: three of the top five guys in the 2018 class are at those schools and Michigan is thought to lead for the Ademilola twins and is up there for Tyler Friday. A dollar says at least one of these guys is hired by Rutgers in the near future.

This already happened. To you. As recently as it's possible for this to happen. Elsewhere in incorrect braggadocio:

"I may get myself in trouble for this: For people that want to come to Alabama and have a camp, I think it's great, because they're helping the quality of football in the state of Alabama," Horton told the Ledger-Enquirer. "(But) no one is coming to this state and getting a player from Auburn or Alabama. That's not going to happen. So hey, I'm for, if they want to come to our state and have it, that's going to help the quality of high school football."

Not quite Alabama, but Elysee Mbem-Bosse went to high school less than two hours away from Auburn, was widely expected to go to Auburn, and then Harbaugh went "yoink." Michigan's recruiting efforts are not going to have a material impact on any out-of-region school; pretending that Harbaugh can't go pick off kids you want is sticking your fingers in your ears and going "la la la."

Pack line is music to the ears. Quinn profiles Billy Donlon in a long piece. They key bit for people blanching at triple-digit Kenpom D efficiencies:

At Wright State, Donlon primarily played a true pack line defense (a variation of man-to-man), while showing some 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones over the years. His team ranked in the top three in defensive efficiency in five of six years in the Horizon.

Over the last three seasons, Michigan has ranked 9th, 11th and 10th in the Big Ten in defensive efficiency.

"He has a great basketball mind in general, but the way he coaches defenses -- that's kind of his thing," said AJ Pacher, a Wright State center during Donlon's first four seasons. "He did a lot of film, and a lot scouting, and he'd implement a lot of against specific teams in specific games."

The foul tension will be fascinating to see unfold next year. Here's hoping Michigan is a lot more annoying, a lot more effective, and autobench is at least somewhat warranted.

As a side note:

As Tuesday afternoon wrapped up, Donlon declined to answer if he'll serve as a sort of pseudo-defensive coordinator at Michigan.

Dank meme questions bros.

An easy way to get fired. Like a lot of coaches, Charlie Strong has a twitter hashtag he uses to announce commits, albeit anonymously. Would you believe the Texas guy for Scout has trademarked this hashtag and is now selling merch featuring it? You would not. But it happened anyway:

Texas officials were surprised Monday after learning that a reporter who covers Longhorns recruiting had trademarked Strong’s phrase in March 2015 and recently started selling #Letsride T-shirts.

Jason Higdon, the lead recruiting analyst for Horns Digest, filed two federal trademark applications with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last year to use the phrase on various sports apparel and wristbands.

If this guy had any connect with the coaching staff he doesn't have it any longer, and if the reaction to this news is any indication he might not have a job much longer. There is now a JasonHigdon.com run by one of the Barking Carnival guys, because the internet is like that.

Etc.: Mount Hot Take has been discovered. Excellent summary of the A&M twitter disaster. Ditto the Tunsil situation. Basketball has a home and home scheduled with UCLA. SMSB director appreciates Harbaugh's advocacy.

Baumgardner profiles David Long. Please have all future profile posted before the 2016 recruiting profile for that player, pls thx. Also profiled: Jourdan Lewis. Bama is comin' to our citayyyy. Don't hire the son of a famous coach before he's done something to prove he's not a total buffoon. See also: Derek Dooley.

Comments

Truthbtold

May 12th, 2016 at 8:56 AM ^

At the top of this article, are those former UM football players putting their degrees in landscaping to work ?? I know that UM players takes the easiest courses in all the big 10, but landscaping ? This must be why Deshaun Hand decided to go to Bama. UM couldn't sell him on that " landscape engineering " degree.

CourtneyPowell

May 13th, 2016 at 4:51 AM ^

I just started 6 weeks ago and I've gotten 2 check for a total of 16,400...this is the best decision I made in a long time! "Thank you for giving me this extraordinary opportunity to make extra money from home. This extra cash has changed my life in so many ways,.. Read more on this web site...Visit This link.... http://www.earnmore9.com/

jenniferlbecker

May 11th, 2016 at 3:36 PM ^

I've made $64,000 so far this year working online and I'm a full time student. Im using an online business opportunity I heard about and I've made such great money. It's really user friendly and I'm just so happy that I found out about it. Heres what I do,

 

===========>>>>>> http://www.worknow88.com

elhead

May 11th, 2016 at 3:51 PM ^

Excellent stuff. I work with a ton of community organizations that do food work and the project that Vincent Smith put together is legit. Not that folks on this board didn't already see it that way, but meaning within the panorama of efforts taking place it's quite good.

UM Fan from Sydney

May 11th, 2016 at 3:54 PM ^

I see now why WD says "rappist" as opposed to "rapper." Rapper is the correct term, by the way.

winged wolverine

May 11th, 2016 at 4:06 PM ^

Brian, have you heard anything about some of the assitant coaches grumbling about the schedule? Adam Rittenberg mentioned it this afternoon:

@nickbaumgardner @swmckewonOWH For sure. But already hearing some U-M assistants grumpy about this pace. Don't want too much staff turnover

Not that it makes a difference because Harbaugh runs the show and those that can't keep up will be on their way out, but just wanted to get your thoughts.

JOHNNAVARREISMYHERO

May 12th, 2016 at 3:53 AM ^

Yep, Rittenberg needs to shut the fuck up.  

Remember last year he was making comments on Harbaugh's twitter pics as contrieved.  

Yet the guy praises coaches with acts that are comically fake.

kehnonymous

May 11th, 2016 at 4:32 PM ^

Off the field, Long's considering a major in either architectural engineering or business, as he's interested in perhaps becoming an architect after his football days are over.

Dude.  Don't do it.  While I am certain that his work ethic and ability are 1000x better than mine, the return on investment is.... yeah.  The job security is slightly worse than the NFL and it's a fraction of the pay.  Major in literally anything else.  

Seriously, though, if he wants to be an architect he should major in general studies/engineering/business/whatever as an undergrad and then get a grad degree in arch school - I'm not demeaning other majors at all, but you have no idea what a fkn time sink design studio is.

Don

May 11th, 2016 at 10:23 PM ^

As a 1978 graduate (BS Arch) of the first two years of UM's architecture program, I can heartily concur with "time sink." As in all your time goes down that sink and you've got nothing left for anything else. It was challenging, to say the least. That's when I learned how to get by with four hours of sleep a night for weeks at a stretch.

Sac Fly

May 11th, 2016 at 4:38 PM ^

Mike North is the worst, but not buying the usual trash from Deadspin where they try to be the journalism police.

He doesn't like an announcer. What's the problem?