Unverified Voracity Has Explored Time Travel Comment Count

Brian

Hello Kip. Harbaugh Twitter Summer continues unabated.

This fall Gedeon answers press conference questions by saying things are getting pretty serious and stating that he loves technology. Bank on it.

Finally. #M00N makes Erase This Game. The Funchess butt fumble is not even mentioned. That's how #M00N #M00N was.

M00N is a sad game, and some of that tragedy comes from the advantage of hindsight. Winning didn't save Michigan's season or Brady Hoke's job, as they followed this with a home finale loss to Maryland. Losing didn't inspire Northwestern to a turnaround; even though they beat Notre Dame a week later, the Wildcats missed bowl eligibility by losing to a depleted Illinois team in their last game. That's the bad news.

The good news is every astronaut gets astronaut ice cream. Let's check out today's flavors.

I have been eating Cookies 'N Ennui for a long time now.

Okay. Former TE/DE Keith Heitzman is at Ohio for his final year of eligibility. The Dispatch has an article that's trying to rake up some muck on a standard practice in college:

Keith Heitzman understood that big changes were in order after Jim Harbaugh was hired to replace Brady Hoke as Michigan football coach just hours before the New Year.

What staggered Heitzman was that he might have been one of those changes. Every player going into his fifth year of eligibility, he was told, would have to audition for his job during spring practices.

Heitzman, degree in hand, opted out. That's fine for him and fine for Michigan.

The worst thing you can pin on Harbaugh is a lack of tact. We will put this evidence of Harbaugh's lack of tact in the extradimensional bag of holding. There it can mingle with its fellows and not fill the universe stem to stern.

For perspective, over the years I've read plenty of articles that reference Notre Dame's policy in this department. They come at it from the other direction, wondering not who might be departing but who might be coming back:

The future for the remaining 14 seniors on the roster, all of whom are eligible for a fifth year, is less certain. … At the most, half of them will return. Notre Dame’s 2015 recruiting class sits at 21 verbal commitments, which, if all 21 sign letters of intent in February, will give the Irish 78 scholarship players of the 85 the NCAA allows.

All of ND's seniors walk on senior day, even if they have another year of eligibility. That's how much of a non-story this is.

"It happens," said the jaded boat owner. SCUFFLE KERFUFFLE ON THE WATER

The Border Battle played a role in getting two people arrested and locked up at the Ottawa County Jail.

A Michigan-Ohio State football argument on the Jet Express allegedly prompted a fight that resulted in assault charges.

Witnesses say the rivalry argument turned physical between two couples with a woman pulling another woman’s hair and the two men throwing punches at each other.

1. The "Jet Express" is so well known in Ottawa County that there is no explanation of what it is. There is a picture of a boat.

Jet Express1[1]

I assume it's the boat. Ottawa County readers are boggling at my ignorance right now. The Jet Express is Ottawa County.

2. This was undoubtedly issued with a grim sigh.

"It happens,” says Todd Blumensaadt, owner of the Jet Express. “They get very passionate about their teams."

You see a lot of things when you own a boat. Most of them are stupid.

3. This man is either named "Larry Money" or "Larry Mahoney"—the article is uncertain—and has a hot take.

"Sports are good, but when it reaches that point, obviously it's way overboard."

Good point, Larry Money Mahoney. OR SHOULD I CALL YOU ADAM MONEY JACOBI?

4. Ace grabbed a "Money" Mahoney screenshot:

image

"sparty fan"

Is he Carl Monday's brother? That's not generally how names work but we've already established that Gary Money Mahoney is not beholden to your "rules" about nomenclature, man.

5. This reporter may have had to scrounge up quotes for this dumb story, wondering the whole time how she was ever going to pay off her Princeton J-school student loans, but at least she's not working for Gawker.

6. I may have spent too much time on this.

1977 pep rally. Featuring Bo! He guarantees a win! They burn an OSU player in effigy! They wear 70s clothes! The reporter's jacket!

Michigan won 14-6. Harbaugh was probably at the pep rally and knew Bo had zero basis for getting mad at him when he issued his guarantee.

Surprise. That CSG survey they did in the middle of the general admission fiasco makes the WSJ because it appears to be the first serious attempt to figure out what the kids actually want at football games. A company has just confirmed that with a much larger survey that somehow surprises the author:

The most recent support for this surprising result comes from a new survey by the National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators and Oregon’s sports marketing center. It asked almost 24,000 students across the country to rank the factors that influenced their decision to attend games. By far the most important was a student’s interest in that sport. By far the least important was a stadium’s cellular reception or wireless capability.

The study is so counterintuitive that it seems like it must be an outlier—except that it is supported by similar polls in places where college football is massively popular.

At Michigan, when the student government asked undergraduates why they go to football games, what they found clashed with conventional wisdom: Michigan’s students simply didn’t care that much about mobile connectivity. In-game Wi-Fi wasn’t as essential as lower ticket prices or better seat locations. Among the seven possible improvements to the game-day experience, in fact, students ranked cell reception last.

I'm not sure where that notion came from, other than the sort of gentleman who talks about social engagement and uses hashtags# like coffee dad. And it's not like they even fixed mobile connectivity at Michigan despite thinking that was the most important thing they could do.

Gonna get paid. I don't think Jim Delany has much to do with it, but Lost Letterman points out that the Big Ten is likely to get paid when their contract—the last to get renegotiated for a long time—comes up:

Since launching FOX Sports 1 two summers ago, FOX has been waiting for its chance to put a huge monkey wrench in ESPN’s world dominance of sports. This is that chance.

The Big 10’s 10-year, $1 billion contract with ESPN and six-year, $72 million deal with CBS for select basketball games and six-year, $145 million pact for the Big 10 Championship Game all expire after the 2016-17 season and a new, gargantuan deal will be struck within the next 12 months.

The only two legitimate TV players for the conference’s Tier 1 football rights (best games) are Disney (ABC/ESPN) and FOX, as CBS already has the Tier 1 rights to the SEC and NBC is content airing Notre Dame home games.

The only thing we know for certain is that the Big 10 is about to get paid.

Delany will get the credit for being the camel herder who sat down on this particular patch of oil again, when literally anyone could sit in a room and watch FOX and ESPN go blow for blow. The Big Ten will use this money to hire more MAC coaches.

Best make your money now, though: ESPN is 20th(!) on the list of a la carte channels people would pay for. Barking Carnival has an excellent article on the coming cord cutting that touches on points I've made and continues with them.

Etc.: Michigan's schmancy new dorm. When I was in college the dorms were made out of mildew and we liked it. Predicting Michigan's win total with SCIENCE. Extremely early Utah preview from SBN's Ian Boyd. Someone has to make the tough decisions like "let's play a game in Dubai." Harbaugh antics.

Comments

Blue69

July 22nd, 2015 at 12:43 PM ^

of how Harbaugh can recruit so many players for 2016. This may be commonplace, but it'snew for Michigan when last year's small class was a given. It's reasonable to expect players who get a fifth year should be providing value.  Hopefully players have understood the need for a 4-year academic plan.

mGrowOld

July 22nd, 2015 at 12:58 PM ^

FWIW I know one of Gedeon's HS coaches real well and he told me that if Hoke had stayed - Gedeon was gone.  He said last year he had no idea when he'd play or why he'd get pulled.  He said there was seemingly no logic to the substitution patterns and (according to Gedeon's coach)at the end of the season he was about as down as he could be.  

I know this will come as a complete shocker but he also said that the level of actual coaching under Harbaugh is unbelievably different/better than under Hoke.  A data point of one but I'm optimistic.

IncrediblySTIFF

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:18 PM ^

of course it is unbelievably better.  all change is good.

What person in their right mind would say "hmm, i really don't think Harbaugh understands how to coach, he's doing a worse job than our previous coach whom we fired"

additionally, It would be a feat of it's own to find a player that wasn't pretty down at the end of the season.  Nobody signs up to lose

His Dudeness

July 22nd, 2015 at 2:13 PM ^

The change from RR to Hoke wasn't good.

The change from Crystal Pepsi to No Crystal Pepsi wasn't good.

The change from Nick Saban in Miami to Nick Saban at Alabama wasn't good.

The change from Loose fitting jeans to Skinny jeans wasn't good.

The change from my metabolism in high school to my metabolism now isn't good.

 

 

IncrediblySTIFF

July 22nd, 2015 at 4:11 PM ^

the change from RR to Hoke was good.  everybody was very excited and it ultimately took Michigan down a path that put Harbaugh at the helm.

crystal pepsi has always been optional, no one has forced that change on you.

Nick Saban in Alabama has been good for lots and lots of Alabama fans.

Hipsters across the country rejoiced when skinny jeans became available (in addition to this one also being optional.  no one is forcing you to wear skinny or loose jeans)

As for the metabolism, well, it is just one part of a group of changes your body surely underwent (like having your breasts fill out and finally being a solid B-Cup and not having your voice squeak when you get excited after telling your friends how you "totally wrecked that guy on the internet message boards")

sdogg1m

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:10 PM ^

Burning a player in effigy?! Guarateeing a win?!

Reasons why we should never apologize for driving a stake in the field. I know Harbaugh has plans for OSU and I can't wait to see them!

Btown Wolverine

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:18 PM ^

I think 7.7 wins is an arguably reasonable baseline. But, he had listed the MSU game as a toss up with UM having a 45.5% chance of winning. Does this seem a little optimistic to anyone else? Maybe I'm overestimating how good State is going to be this year. 

Hail-Storm

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^

wow, those are well thought out and amazing facilities. $850-$900/ month doesn't sound like grad student affordable though.  Maybe prices have gone up since I was in A2, although those are far nicer than anything i lived in in my 5 years. 

Blue_sophie

July 22nd, 2015 at 2:55 PM ^

Have you tried finding a reasonably decent rental in AA? Currently there is a serious housing shortage for grad-students. I mean, you could live in college areas of campus, but that doesn't work for everybody, and a lot of the good leases are handed off between friends. Finding housing is especially hard if you are an international student, or a grad student coming from, say, DC or Texas or something and can't fly out in March to try to find a fall lease. This is a good solution (I would have done it) and way better than Northwood, which feels like a horrible 1960's suburb and is only convenient to North Campus.

Hail-Storm

July 22nd, 2015 at 3:04 PM ^

I'm sure it's the same, but in undergrad, if you didn't have a house by mid fall, you were probably not getting a good house. So grad students, who get in later, need good housing opportunities, and this is far better than 99% of housing in A2. 

I'm also basing on pricing from 15 years ago, which is probably not accurate either.  If this includes utilities and cable and internet, its probably a grat deal, amazing facilities, and great location. 

bronxblue

July 22nd, 2015 at 5:59 PM ^

My wife and I looked at some apartments in A2 about 10 years ago and we would have killed for $850/mo in a non-dump.  Yes, if you were willing to drive a good distance you'd find something, but A2 is pretty expensive and the city just doesn't have enough stock for grad students on a budget.

Yinka Double Dare

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:23 PM ^

I'm sure the notiion of "it must be the cell service" came from some high-priced consultant who got paid a pile of money to come up with ideas to increase attendance.

My summary of that article was "WSJ shocked to find out that most important thing to college football fans who attend games is the college football game they are attending"

kevin holt

July 22nd, 2015 at 2:45 PM ^

Depends whose intuition you're using. A 14 year old's, a college student who enjoys football, an MBA who went to Wharton and thinks football is closely related to croquet, a journalist who went to journalism school at Princeton or... heh, Northwestern?

that article made me legitimately angry

Blue_sophie

July 22nd, 2015 at 3:03 PM ^

Yeah, I was legitimately angry reading it.

I stopped getting student season tickets as prices went up and I realized I would need to choose between spending $50+ on attending a game and $50+ on, you know, food.

I mean, $50 is not a lot of money to see a world class football game, and it seems inexpensive now that I am gainfully employed, but its not like I was going to Lions games in grad school either (or tigers/pistons games for that matter). I would have taken NO cell service or wifi if student ticket prices could have been brought into better alignment with student budgets.

Also: bathrooms (it was hard to get my girlfriend-now-wife to go to games due to the bathroom problem).

Also: food/water (I mean, I already blew my budget for the month just to get in the door).

 

 

Wolverine 98284

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^

I know, way too early.

Living on the west coast I see Fox do PAC12 games.  IMHO, the coverage is too much like their NFL games, including Cleatus and too many commercial breaks.  Should Fox get the contract, I hope B1G can negotiate these details and keep a college atmosphere and the focus on the game.

beedub93

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:34 PM ^

Canham rockin' a 70s turtleneck, Ufer in his cardigan referring to them as hairless nuts, pep rally at the mud bowl.

Damn - how much fun would it have been to see that.




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HenneGivenSunday

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:38 PM ^

The Jet Express coming back from Put-In-Bay in the morning is the worst looking walk of shame I can think of. True story, I once saw two guys fighting in the street with beer bottles in their hand in the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday in June.




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Evil Empire

July 24th, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^

is that I haven't heard about a Jet Express rumble between Michigan and Ohio State fans before.  PIB is a place where lots of said fans go and get wasted in close proximity to eachother.   I was at the Roundhouse Bar watching the Killer Flamingos two years ago and witnessed a belligerent drunk woman accidentally kick a drink out of someone's hand and then argue with her boyfriend about it.  She was wearing an OSU shirt.  I took the opportunity to wallow in smugness.

The final Jet Express back to the mainland (midnight?) is ugly...lots of people puking, especially if it's stormy.

Unsalted

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:49 PM ^

I think the cord cutting article on BC foreshadows a bigger issue. The sports bubble, like a real estate bubble. Economically speaking, everything in sports (costs, salaries, fees, tickets, etc.) have out paced the rest of the economy at unsustainable rates.

For years we have seen articles about the exhorbident cost for a family to attend a sporting event, now it may become too expensive to watch or TV. Jon U Bacon writes about how his M fandom was fueled by attending games for $5 at Michigan stadium in his youth. That model is gone from sports now, but with expanded cheap TV veiwing available that problem was somewhat mitigated. Now that option is in danger.

The sports economic landscape will change drastically in the not to distant future. It will be interesting to see how it shakes out. Will there be a crash?

Hill Street Blue

July 25th, 2015 at 1:04 AM ^

And, it seems ripe for bursting at some point in the near-term.  Fueled by large (but now declining) cable fees and (still strong) advertising which feed in to TV rights, it appears unsustainable.  The large cable rights $$'s funded from of the now declining cable network total revenue flow into leagues and NCAA coffers which find their way to the schools.  A shake-out in cable sports subscribers and basic cable fees presages a shake-out in sports programming.  Unless covered by an increase in ad revenue, this leads to a shake-out in ability to pay rights fees which creates a drop in school athletic revenue.  

The questions for the B1G and its network, IMO, are 1) how does the B1G Network subscriber revenue stream fare in this cable-cutting trend, and, 2) will the league's package come up in time, or 1 year too late?  If they do get a large $$ payday, 3) will the counterparty network be able to live up to its obligations for the full term of the deal?  Hmmm, we shall see, but with ESPN already jetisoning talent to trim expenses to be able to shoulder its rights deals obligations it seems like the pain train is coming.

A reduction in athletic dept. revenue through decreased B1G Network revenue, and/or the league's network rights packages will likely reduce athletic department revenue.  This would drive a cost-cutting program and possibly an elimination of the more expensive non-revenue sports.  This will be especially true for UMich where the athletic department receives no central university subsidy and pays full out-of-state tuition back the the central university for all its athletes regardless of state of residency of the athlete.  

The recently dramatically increased expense load of the revenue sports -- for their upgraded facilities and staffs -- will need to continue to be funded to preserve those revenue streams, potentially crowding out funds for the minor non-revenue sports.  The larger non-revenue roster sports may get hit first in this scenario; goodbye LAX, goodbye soccer?  Hope not, but I wouldn't want to be on a large non-revenue team in a few years.

Number 7

July 22nd, 2015 at 1:54 PM ^

Just FYI: Princeton doesn't have a J-School, unless you count the two semesters you can listen to John McPhee ramble on about how to make a travelogue about riding a Midwestern grain barge as boring as it authentically is. Northwestern and Columbia (and maybe BU?) are the top schools with autonomous journalism programs.








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