Unverified Voracity Has Odd Advocates
Do you think we should take both? So Bryce Petty and Jameis Winston stopped by Schembechler yesterday to hang with Mr. Harbaugh.
QBs Jameis Winston (FSU) & Bryce Petty (Baylor) are preparing for the NFL Combine at Schembechler Hall. pic.twitter.com/2ICM9XMVrc
— Michigan Football (@umichfootball) February 17, 2015
This is good publicity, and then they brainwash both of 'em to say things that went beyond kind boilerplate into angry-phone-call-from-Jimbo territory. Winston:
"These guys don't know how blessed they are to have this kind of facility. I mean, Florida State, we're a very prestigious school, we have nice stuff, but we don't have this. I'm sorry, I love Florida State. Go 'Noles till the day I die, but they're so much [more] advanced than us."
"This is bar none the best one that I've seen. We've got great ones in Waco, you know I love what we had at Baylor, and so it's cool to kind of see other places, and this is definitely by far one of the best I've seen."
Winston again:
"It was a blessing to meet a guy like that. It was an honor to meet him. All of his accomplishments, and the type of coach that he is, I wish I could have played for him."
Petty again:
"If there's anybody that you want to play for as a player, it's a coach like him. Just a fan, energetic guy, passionate about football. From the second he came over here he was sizing up Jameis and wanted to see his grip. He's just a quarterback. And that's the coolest part about playing the position and being coached by somebody that's been there and done that."
Ndamukong Suh showed up today, because why not.
#fans "@umichfootball: Great having @NdamukongSuh visit Schembechler Hall this morning! pic.twitter.com/IeA2wvATkd”
— MGoJen (@MGoJen) February 19, 2015
Can't hurt recruiting, that. Unless people think those pants are mandatory.
Doing what needs to be done. Note that this kind of thing did not happen under Hoke, who didn't have twitter at all. Harbaugh's firing off shade tweets at OSU and putting his mug on the internet with NFL stars, to wide publicity.
Michigan is—ugh no way around it—Leveraging Social Media much better than they did under the previous regime, during which they rarely did anything anyone would pay attention. Brandon (or rather his ghost-tweeter) tended to send out the kind of #hashtag tweets that make you sound like a broken robot. Hoke was invisible, and nothing that was interesting enough to pass around was constructed. The Winston/Petty stuff had some viral quality to it. That serves the program well.
Good to see goals other than incremental revenue being advanced these days.
Iggy Pop's biggest musical influence. Via MVictors comes this amazing story about Iggy Pop confusing some guy who met him in a bar:
“You’re Iggy Pop, man. I love your stuff. I’m from Michigan too,” I rambled on, sounding as moronic as the Pop is accused of being by some of his critics.
Iggy pointed to my t-shirt with the word Michigan splayed across my chest. “Meeschigan,” he said, holding his right arm in front of his slight chest in a 90-degree angle. “Meeschigan.”
After a minute or so of gushing and trying to open up a conversation with the man who’s music, with the Stooges anyway, was the soundtrack to much of my late adolescence and early adulthood, all I could get out of the guy was “Meeschigan.” As I turned to go back to the boys, I decided Iggy was either too burned out by the adulation of the years and hero worshiping kids like me or the critics were right. He was so sort of junkie savant. Either way, I was utterly confused by our meeting. …
Half an hour later, AMC had gone through a series of ballads that failed to alter the weird, contained rage from the mosh pit. I felt a tug at my shirt and turned around. I looked down right at Iggy Pop.
“Meeschigan,” he said, his arm cocked at that 90-degree angle.
“Meeschigan,” I answered him, my arm at the same angle. He turned and walked out with his Ginger look alike on his arm.
Iggy Pop, spreading the Ufer gospel wherever he goes. Confusingly. Demanding that people imbibe the spirit of Ufer before departing with his girlfriend. Following them around.
Adding to the weird. According to a podcast interview with licensed twitter troll Tim Kawakami, Jim Harbaugh's favorite restaurant ever is…
The best restaurant he's ever been to: "Cracker Barrel ... you can't beat the bacon."
Harbaugh then put his twitter where his mouth is.
Enjoying dinner with Addie at the Cracker Barrel: Life is Good! pic.twitter.com/pCV6pYHhGA
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) February 17, 2015
FWIW, my wife used to work at Cracker Barrel in high school. When I told her this, she expelled a sad, hurt sigh. The kind of sigh you expel when someone has told you something horrible. "Cracker Barrel isn't supposed to be anyone's favorite restaurant," she relates, "but if your main priority is getting out of the restaurant as fast as possible, Cracker Barrel is great at that."
I think we have found a reason.
(Also they make all their stuff from scratch instead of taking it off the SYSCO truck, so there's that.)
Miss you big guy XOXO. Charlie Weis is taking the slow boat to Shoney's:
For the first time since 1978, Weis will spend a football offseason as a bystander and not a coach. And it might very well be for good.
“I think it’s highly doubtful that I will ever coach again,” said the 58-year-old former Notre Dame head coach whose five-year regime in South Bend, punctuated by extremes, launched 10 seasons ago.
"…because I will still be paid to coach until the sun engulfs the earth and would rather follow Bon Jovi around than deal with people who don't understand my schematic genius."
Weis was a bad football coach and a good enemy, and for that I thank him.
(By the way, never go to Shoney's. Never ever.)
The ineligibility gambit. This will never happen but hopefully the NCAA folk pushing it know that and are trying to leverage the NBA:
7. Address the “one and done” phenomenon in men's basketball. If the National Basketball Association and its Players Association are unable to agree on raising the age limit for players, consider restoring the freshman ineligibility rule in men's basketball.
In today's lawsuit-rich environment that would be the equivalent of slapping a "SUE ME" sign on your own back, but anything that fixes one and done is a good idea. Increasing the age limit is the wrong direction, but anything is better than the current system.
Normally I would believe that this is just a leverage play but you never know with the NCAA. Bob Bowlsby, the Big 12 commisioner, makes a somewhat self-contradictory case for it:
Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby said there is “almost a uniform acknowledgment that there's kids in college that don't have any interest in an education and don't have the proper education to take advantage of an education.” Bowlsby said freshman ineligibility would have a “profoundly positive effect” on football and men's basketball by easing the transition from high school without the distractions of competition.
“I think there's a growing interest in a robust debate, and I think we ought to drag it to the ground and consider it any way we can,” Bowlsby said. “I think it is the one change that could make an absolutely dramatic difference in college athletics.”
Kids who don't have interest in education aren't going to find it because they can't play. I don't think that helps much of anything. Maybe it sends more Mudiay types overseas as they cool their heels. It may help the guys who are behind educationally, but how much when they're participating in all the team activities anyway? They don't have more time. They will be prepped to play just as much as any freshman.
It's impractical for a ton of reasons and won't happen, but go ahead rattle that sword just in case you knock a concession loose. The NBA draft is the worst system out there. The NHL or MLB models would be much preferable.
Des updated. Wolverine Historian has released a revised Desmond Howard tribute video. Up to 20 minutes(!).
Etc.: Lax getting good? Well done, gymnastics. Petty-Winston IM building faceoff! Don't expect Derrick Walton back soon. Maize and Blue Nation advocates blue versus red in The Game. I'm on board.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:32 PM ^
Methinks Jim Harbaugh is gonna kick some serious ass.
I cannot wait for the MSU game.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:33 PM ^
Barrel is pretty much the only chain restaurant of any variety that I have been to that I actively disliked, in the "not going to Cracker Barrel again" kind of way. It was bad. Breakfast, at a restaurant, was bad. That is hard to do.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:44 PM ^
Really? I love Cracker Barrell. Their Sunday-only (at least here) fried chicken dinner is to die for.
February 19th, 2015 at 7:33 PM ^
Love me some Waffle House
February 19th, 2015 at 12:36 PM ^
Between Suh's olde timey base-ball player pantaloons and Harbaugh's non-khakis, I feel like my understanding of men's sartorial trends has gone all higgledy-piggledy.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:38 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 1:31 PM ^
How is this, in any way, bettering the school?
It's arguable if it's even bettering the football program. Maybe it's generational, and I just don't see it. Yet, I've yet to see any tangible evidence that it has, to date, made any meaningful difference other than to delight the acolytes.
As for Cracker Barrel ... who cares? Oh yeah ... "HARBAUGH", I forgot. I'm glad he enjoys it and I'm even more happy that he makes the time to enjoy it with his daughter.
Yet, I'm just so upset that Brian's wife is dismayed... Maybe if the choice was more organic...
February 19th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ^
out and say it: "Who's got it better than Michigan? Nobody!"
February 19th, 2015 at 12:43 PM ^
I kinda want to go to a Shoney's now for two reasons.
1. Meet Charlie Weis pre-food coma.
2. Spite Brian. ha.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:48 PM ^
Don't learn the hard way. Last time I went was when I was a kid and there were toenail clippings all around our table.
February 19th, 2015 at 1:08 PM ^
Changed my mind. I don't feel so good after reading that.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:47 PM ^
I ate a Shoney's in Prattville, Alabama (home of Keith Washington) two days after NSD, so the experience is still fresh in my mind.
The waitstaff was very friendly and courteous (it's the South, so duh). I ate grits. I heard "y'all" a lot. The end.
February 19th, 2015 at 1:54 PM ^
I haven't been there in about 20-some years, when I was a kid. Do they still have that bear mascot?
The last time I was there, I begged my dad to buy me the little plush version of the bear. In true kid fashion, I enjoyed the bear for a couple of hours and then tossed it aside, never to touch it again.
February 19th, 2015 at 3:00 PM ^
Shoney's is where you stop to eat after 11 hours in the car on the way to Florida. It's like the redneck Big Boy. Not great, but way better than Waffle House. Which gave my entire family dysentery last year.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:48 PM ^
Tom Brady's status as the greatest of all-time. It wasn't the scheme making Tom look good, but rather the other way around.
Harbs went a bit over the top on praising Winston on Twitter, in my opinion.
Love the home unis concept for The Game (since it will [should?] always be an early day game. Dark colors could be a problem at dusk.)
Need Derrick healthy for the B10 tournament. Never say never.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:58 PM ^
Good luck to Jameis Winston & Bryce Petty. Two terrific youngsters & fine football players. We will be pulling hard for you from Ann Arbor.
— Coach Harbaugh (@CoachJim4UM) 19. Februar 2015
February 19th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
Red vs. Blue in The Game would be awesome. Just like this:
February 19th, 2015 at 1:35 PM ^
It's not like Blue vs Green or Red vs. Orange. Red v Blue are two distinct very discernable colors. Add the gray pants v maize pants and the radically different helmet designs, and you have a recipe for gloriousness :)
February 19th, 2015 at 1:38 PM ^
Go blue.
February 19th, 2015 at 3:37 PM ^
is awesome.
February 21st, 2015 at 2:20 PM ^
I've been advocating for this for years, because not only would it look awesome, it's an authentic throwback.
Back before balck and white TV forced home color against away white to get a readable contrast, teams used to play each other color vs. color.
The newspaper accounts of the dedication game of Michigan Stadium in 1927 talk about the scarlett-clad buckeye players on the field.
The Maize and Blue Nation post is actually wrong on this, it has been done before . . . and we should do it again.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
We went to Shoney's once as a kid. My sister ate three bites and then puked everywhere. We have not gone back since.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:49 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
February 19th, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^
felt like Hoke was essentially doing a Lloyd Carr impersonation in terms of how he addressed the media. With Carr, you felt like he was sitting on supreme knowledge that he was not sharing with anybody else, whether that was true or not. It was kind of playful. With Hoke, it felt as though he genuinely did not have answers to give anybody but attempted to make it look like he was being "coy." The ultimate effect was that Carr was often very likeable despite being rather condescending while Hoke became kind of distasteful despite actually being very personable. Kind of an interesting contrast.
February 19th, 2015 at 1:33 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 1:41 PM ^
You just totally redeemed yourself from the Cracker Barrel remarks.
February 19th, 2015 at 2:42 PM ^
Totally agree. Although with Hoke, his press conference deameanor changed over time a bit. To the point where he would hardly share anything of any substance this past year. The complete shutdown of all injury information. I can't help that some of that was driven by Brandon with how much of a clustefuck the season was up until Brandon's "resignation".
February 19th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
As a 50 year old alum who existed on Omega subs and Snappy's pizza, I'm not down with the hating on Cracker Barrel. You guys can jump over to Real Seafood and I'll head out to "the Barrel."
February 19th, 2015 at 1:13 PM ^
I too am pro-Cracker Barrel. Where else can you get your good eatin' and your general store-shoppin' needs met in one convenient location!
February 19th, 2015 at 1:32 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 1:44 PM ^
Best grits in the Midwest.
February 19th, 2015 at 1:53 PM ^
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracker_Barrel#Controversies
Holy shit, check out the page on Cracker Barrel controversies. As shameful as it is, I'm not shocked about the racial discrimination or the homophobia 15+ years ago, but the fact that it was found that they discriminated against non-white customers in the mid-2000s is insane.
February 19th, 2015 at 7:38 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 3:28 PM ^
Is that where he got it?
February 19th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^
I love Cracker Barrel and loved Shoney's as a kid (haven't seen one in ages, although there was a Shoney's or Bob's Big Boy or something on Washtenaw east of Ann Arbor, a little before 23).
Next thing you know, Brian will be slamming Po Folks and Waffle House. You cretins.
February 19th, 2015 at 7:14 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 12:51 PM ^
I think Harbaugh is bringing these successful players in to work out as an example for the current players. It shows them how hard they need to work to reach the highest level. Of course the publicity is good too.....
February 19th, 2015 at 2:31 PM ^
Rather, they're seeking him out. Of course, he's happy to accomodate them.
February 19th, 2015 at 12:54 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 12:59 PM ^
February 19th, 2015 at 1:03 PM ^
IGGY POP!
His dad taught English at Fordson in Dearborn.
His real name is James Osterberg Jr.
#CSB
February 19th, 2015 at 1:21 PM ^
And Iggy is a fellow UM alum, having attended for about one semester. Here he is at the Meescheegan Festival in 1970:
February 19th, 2015 at 1:01 PM ^
Nice piece, Brian, but I really miss seeing David Brandon's face and the words "The Failure" at the top of the home page.
February 19th, 2015 at 1:09 PM ^
Not sure how I feel about the jersey question. Something about the greatest uniform in sports making an appearance in Columbus just seems wrong.
February 19th, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^
because they are BOTH the home team, playing in LA. That's not the case with M-OSU. I'm not sure what the reason would be for having both us and OSU wear home uniforms other than "it would look cool," and that's a road I don't want to travel down again. Maybe Michigan/MSU could pull off the double home jerseys idea because the schools are so close.
February 19th, 2015 at 3:38 PM ^
The reason for the color/white jersey split in the first place was for black-and-white TV, where viewers couldn't tell apart the teams otherwise. We don't have that problem anymore, and the blue/red contrast would be striking.
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