Unverified Voracity Has Saved Battery Life
COACH BA TWEET. If you are not following basketball assistant Bacari Alexander on Twitter, you are doing yourself a disservice. Yesterday's gem:
The iPad by far is the biggest tool used by coaches on the road. It has saved cell phone battery life.
Love the information in the second sentence. So matter-of-fact. Love that guy.
I have to think the Alliance is going to frown on this. As covered by Misopogon last night, a couple Wolverines (including an incoming freshman) have disappeared from Michigan's roster [Ed-M: I'm still waiting for confirmation but other media outlets are reporting It's confirmed: Terry (the Elder) Talbott is medicaled too], ever-so-conveniently opening up a couple roster spots for class of 2012 commits (of which Brady Hoke has said to expect 23-26, and we're currently up to 22 openings).
This disappearing act is sure to draw the ire of Brian, the resident oversigning watchdog (that post is his "final" word on the topic... from more than three years ago). The point is that when signing a big class - or in this case, aiming to sign one - you're actively hoping some guys currently on your roster will not make it through their four years. That puts you in a sketchy-feeling gray area at best.
Of course, there have been hints going back to Rodriguez that Christian Pace's injuries could be career-threatening (and Teric Jones's knee injury did indeed look terrible, etc.), so maybe we're confusing the cause and effect in Hoke's statements about signing a full class? Pace, at the very least, seemed like he would be a contributor if healthy, so there's far less motive to push him out.
Fairly or not, it still gives off the feeling that Michigan is striding away from its moral high ground on the issue. Brian is certain to feel much more strongly about this, so brace yourselves for his wrath when he returns.
Other things that are certain to thrill Brian. Say goodbye to non-conference away games, according to David Brandon. The original tweet from Mark Snyder didn't seem to doom us to a purgatory of Notre Dame and the Directionals as non-conference opponents, but the full quote from Brandon is not so promising:
"I don't believe we can or should go on the road for nonconference games when we can put 113,000 people in our stadium. It's, financially, the right thing to do. It's the right thing to do for our fans, in terms of their ticket packages. And we're going to alternate with Notre Dame, so we're going to have one game on the road every other year. So the rest of those games, I would like to have at Michigan Stadium."
I was hopeful that it would mean the years Notre Dame plays in Ann Arbor would bring Bama-in-Dallas events at the very least, but Brandon's quote seems clear: No games outside of Ann Arbor or South Bend.
Taking the easy money is Brandon's vision of "creating the future," for better or for worse. With a four-year warning in place to opt out of the Notre Dame series occasionally, the chances will be few and far between to play anyone else, if they exist at all.
Upside? One potential reason for the reduction in worthwhile non-conference games, however, could be looked at as a good thing. Purdue revealed that the Big Ten asked it to re-work some non-conference games for the 2017 season and beyond, possibly indicating a nine-game conference schedule coming soon to a stadium near you.
Though it reduces non-conference opportunities, Brandon has made it clear that he wanted to do that anyway, so I'd rather face Wisconsin or Penn State than Akron or Kent State, right?
Off the hook? I'm not going to touch the topic of Ohio State getting off with what seems to be minimal punishment, but I assure you Brian will cover it in extreme depth upon his return, as well.
Etc. Hammer and Rails profiles former Boiler Glenn Robinson Jr., who you may recognize as the father of hoops commit Glenn Robinson III. Duane Long says OH OL Kyle Kalis isn't solidly committed to Michigan and Kalis basically responds "hey leave me alone please." Much more on recruiting tomorrow, per the usual weekly schedule. Michigan is named fourth in the Legends Division by a media poll.
Well the Boston College games were a recruiting/alumni tacktic I would assume (without inside knowledge) to get Michigan's pressence back into Boston and east coast markets. I don't believe playing UConn can achieve that purpose.
I agree we need more quality games, but is there really a big difference between playing at UConn or playing Air Force at home? The only difference I see is Michigan selling 113,000 tickets vs Air Force while getting some sort of cut of the 40,000 we will sell at UConn.
between Air Force at home and UConn on the road???
With Air Force UM gets revenue from parking, concessions and merchandise sales - and that addes up to a lot of money.
Yeah I can get not wanting to do another UConn and their 41k capacity.
However there are a lot of good programs out there with 70k+ stadiums and many programs with 80k+ ones. While we would make more money staying at home, we can make a good profit off an 80k+ stadium and get a matchup the fans want to see.
I feel like Brandon is missing the intangibles of road games and quality opponents. On a road game when I travel into enemy turf I always want new Michigan gear so I look good (merchandise sale). I'll also look at travel and ticket packages offered by the school (which I assume the AD gets a cut from). When that same quality opponent comes to our house i'm much more likley to show up early, pay to tailgate in a lot, buy a program to add to my game collection and possibly buy some game day merchandise. For EMU I show up with my ticket and a hidden water bottle fifteen minutes before kickoff. If Brandon's lucky I might buy a pretzel during half time, maybe.
As I fan I want new and exciting matchups to be excited about. I mean I hate tOSU and all but I've seen them run the Dave play like 6 million times. Same thing with State. I hate them but I already know their basic game plan since we spend every offseason scounting them to death. Get me some team that is completely fresh (and no EMU is not fresh).
Edit: Also consider the recruiting impact. Michigan vs Quality Out of Conference Opponent gets top billing on ESPN. Michigan slaughters the MAC ends up on BTN. I'm sure we're doing this 'Bama game not just for the crazy money ESPN offered us, but also because of the exposure we get in Texas and nationally.
Michigan University? What the Fuck...
loooooolz
glad to share a sentiment with you matty
...editorial board members as off the deep end regarding the appropriate use of medical scholarships. Let me see if I've got this right. Brian has highlighted Bama's unsupportable use of medical scholarships as part of their oversigning strategy and that means that because a few Michigan players have legitimate injuries that are legitimately ending their college careers, the MGoBlog eyebrow of doubt must be arched in Hoke's direction? Since these determinations do nothing to support oversigning (since 2011NLIs were not inappropriately high), this assertion is baseless. Explain to me how handing out medical scholarships to a redshirt freshman C (a position of need) and a sophomore DT (a position of need) to be replaced with an OL and a DT helps Michigan in any way? You can't. Stop this stupidity now.
With the advent of the 9-game B1G schedule in 2017, Brandon's stance regarding away games is the only sane stance to take.
HALOL!!!
with your last sentence. I would rather go 0-3 every single non-conference schedule playing Oklahoma, Oregon, and FSU in home-and-homes than go 3-0 playing Akron, Ball State, and Eastern Michigan.
National championships be damned. I want to see Michigan play awesome football teams they don't usually play.
I'd rather be 3-0 playing Oklahoma, Oregon and FSU!!
...HALOL!!!???
Also, how do you downvote a front pager?
To your point: that sounds great, but it's simply unrealistic due to the requirement to maximize football gate receipt revenue to pay for the debt service on the athletic campus renovations, MLAX, WLAX and all the other non-revenue sports that are part of Michigan's identity.
Also: thanks for locking in the typo I was trying to fix. You're in the book.
/not really
But if we go "No road games" in 2013, that means 4 home games between then and when the B1G goes to 9 conference games. Once the B1G goes to 9 games, I can handle no travel in exchange for another B1G team.
I think the proper solution is to drop Notre Dame. Maybe do home and home, take a two year break and then come back. We could set up another home and home during that two year break. Or drop them for good even.
In case you missed it, Brandon also said there's now more flexibility in the Notre Dame deal. From a Free Press article:
Brandon also added that U-M's contract with Notre Dame is now a rolling four-year deal that lets either side give four years' notice to back out and schedule another team in that September slot.
I would take not one ounce of pleasure in us starting a season 0-3 or 1-2, prior to an even tougher B10 season starts, just because we played a schedule like you describe. While I also don't want a schedule of all directional schools, there has to be a happy medium. If we ever did move to a schedule like you describe, it would actually hurt the program IMHO. In recruiting, like it or nor, elite kids today want to have a chance at the MNC, and a M team that was recognized as having less chance at that (by virtue of regularly playing a schedule like you advocate) would inevitably have less chance to land elite kids IMO. And part of being recognized as an elite, (say perennial national top ten-ish team,) like I assume most of us want, is in fact your overall record. An overall record each year that was likely a game or two lower than it could be might satisfy some part of us that wants to play the toughest schedule, but would in fact hurt our overall record and thus our national prestige, other than the stray Doctor Saturday article extolling the gutsy AAB schedule we play.
Until we lose a game.
I don't get it, either. Come home soon, Brian. Come home soon.
In two consecutive articles, nowhere have I read "Michigan is oversigning and is as bad as Saban."
Tim:
Fairly or not, it still gives off the feeling that Michigan is striding away from its moral high ground on the issue.
Misopogon
It bears mentioning only because it would arch an eyebrow at another school, and because this space has been critical of those other schools when there's even a whiff.
We all see that these were highly rated players at important positions, not some random 2 or 3 star roster fodder getting bumped for "the new hotness." And, we've established that these players are being let go before this class gets to campus. A season before, in fact.
What's being pointed out is that if this continues to happen, a trend, then the AD, Big 10 and the NCAA need to take a close look at what's going on to make sure we are above board. For a school with no history of nefarious recruiting practices, there is no reason to panic. But, if a trend starts, it should be examined thoroughly.
But feel free to read this as "Brian Hates Hoke!" if you wish.
Also, "medicaled " is not a word. Please stop using it.
+1 for calling out "medicaled," a pet peeve of mine.
It amazes me that these medical's are even being questioned. Devin Gardner's med redshirt seemed a little fishy/ Pace, Teric and Talbott injuries have been documented, and they are a full year away from needing their scholarships.
I gues when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Hoke mentioned awhile ago that Michigan would take 26 recruits in this class when there weren't enough roster spots at that time, but I wonder what else he should have done assuming that he has knowledge of players that will legitimately no longer be on scholarship by the time NSD comes along. The only other alternative that ensures no oversigning is to not accept any verbal commitments until after a roster spot opens up that another commit has not verballed to; this has the downside of (possibly) missing out on recruits that think Michigan won't accept any more commits this class. Perhaps this is a necessary evil so as to alleviate the possibility of oversigning for a moral high ground coach like we assume Hoke is right now.
There are enough roster spots for the recruits that are committed right now; it's probably best not to suspect wrongdoing until that changes, especially after NSD. Perhaps "26 recruits" is Hoke's way of encouraging interest from recruits despite the size of Michigan's recruiting class.
Hide the women and children.......he might shake an angry fist at the sky. Let's all remember what he did to defend himself and his merry band of Michigan flag caped crusaders in Columbus a few years back. Commence arching your eye brow and shaking your fist.
Not sure I understand why Bacari Alexander's tweet was noteworthy. His phone doesn't die as quick because he uses his iPad a lot. So?
constant successories style quotes and worthless tidbits of coach speak.
he has been unfollowed.
the biggest consequence of no-non-conference-road-game schedules isn't this year - brandon has (rightfully) crowed about the quality of this year's home sched. but take a look at 2012:
9/8 - air force (which, okay, not bad but not a marquee game)
9/15 - tba (tomato can)
9/29 - tba (tomato can)
10/13 - illinois
10/20 - msu (yup, a big one)
11/10 - northwestern
11/17 - iowa (semi-big)
anyone excited about that schedule, besides state and iowa?
someone above talked about ohio state's schedule - you can't tell me that kids don't look at that and think "man, i'd love to play against miami, or texas, or usc..."
if alabama wasn't a one-off i'd be far less annoyed.
The odd years the home schedule is going to be great: ND, OSU, Nebraska and five other teams.
The even years the home schedule is going to be fairly brutal. As you mentioned at least two tomato cans (if not 3), and then you're crossing the fingers that one or two of the big ten teams you play at home is having a really good year so it's a big matchup.
a completely brutal away schedule. 2012 season could be a tough one.
I'm excited about the Air Force game. It's a program with good history that hasn't played at Michigan before(I think) and has been good recently with success against BCS schools. What's not to like?
I don't know why you (Tim) keep asserting that we should feel shady about Jones, Talbott, Pace, and Jones all leaving. Has there been a single indication that any of those exits were shady as of yet?
Talbott was almost certainly going to contribute at DT (a position of need)
Pace was almost certainly going to contribute at C (a position of need)
Kellen Jones was almost certainly going to contribute this year at LB (a position that has been a black hole of despair for 2-3 years)
and it's been well documented that Teric had a bad injury
Just because we are correctly using medical hardships doesn't mean Michigan = Alabama
Tim didn't say it was shady. He said it's something to keep an eye on, which it is. Over 4 years Saban had 16 medical hardship waivers, while the rest of the SEC had an average of 1.8 in the same time period. They aren't very common, but I'm willing to give Hoke the benefit of the doubt and say it's an anomaly at least until this becomes a trend.
He did imply it with his "wait til your father gets home" statement (Brian will tell us all how bad these medicals are when he gets back) and characterizing the information that these players are being placed on medicals as "conveiently timed." If that does not scream that Tim thinks it is shady as opposed to nothing to see here, but lets be vigilant then he is a much poorer writer than I have been giving him credit.
Funny thing is that I dont think that Brian will have a problem with these medicals, which if they were announced last year when RR was still coach, no one would be saying anything.
These did not magically appear. The Pace and Talbott injuries have been the worst kept secrets since last season, and Jone's injury was public. There is nothing convenient about the timing of these medicals and the only reason that they have come to the forefront now is because the roster was released now. These scholarships are not needed until fall of 2012.
If Brendan Gibbons suddenly suffered a career ending achilles tear, then maybe, but there is nothing here are all to suggest anything shady.
There's nothing to keep an eye on. The injuries have been known.
It's the right business move because the way our contracts are written a home-and-home with, say, LSU, would mean the Big Ten takes home a majority of Michigan's cut, while a home game is a home game.
But this is only true because we saps will keep buying our 8-game ticket plans of which up to four are MACrificial or worse.
Thanks to this plus Nebraska joining the Ohio State/Notre Dame odd-year home-a-thon, our 2014 home schedule will be baby seal, baby seal, baby seal/bye, Michigan State, Penn State, Iowa, baby seal/bye, Northwestern. And we will buy our ticket plans for the same we paid for 2013's Ohio State/Nebraska/Notre Dame/Minnesota/Indiana/baby seal x 3 package because we can't turn down a Michigan home game.
...the system is seriously broken when it makes more sense to play delaware state at home than play a legitimate road game. it's fixable, too - simply mandate that the days of 8-game home scheds are over. that will put everyone on an "equal playing field" (quotes used to indicate extreme sarcasm) and force teams to go on the road for non-conference games once in a while
(by the way - the 9-game conference sched is extremely unlikely in my opinion. no way the a.d.'s will accept 5 road conference games and 4 home.)
as to historical schedules - you can say that the conference sched was lousy, and you'd be right, but check out the non-conference games from the early 70s:
70 - arizona, at washington, texas a&m
71- virginia, ucla, navy
72 - at ucla, tulane, navy
73 - stanford, navy, oregon
74 - colorado, navy, at stanford
almost entirely home games, yes...but hardly a tomato can in the bunch (the tulane game is as close as it gets, but even they were arguably above mac level at the time in terms of profile). the first "you've got to be kidding me" game wasn't until 1987, against cal state - long beach, and there wasn't really another one until we played memphis state in 1995. this is a relatively new thing here.
On paper that looks good but:
1970: Arizona 4-6, A&M 5-6, Washington 6-4
1971: UCLA 2-7-1, Navy 3-8, Virginia 3-8
1972: UCLA 8-3, Navy 4-7, Tulane 6-5
1973: Stanford 7-4, Oregon 2-9, Navy 4-7
1974: Navy 4-7, Stanford 5-3-2, Colorado 5-6
you gotta remember this was in age of no scholarship limits - a lot of these were tomato cans. UCLA and Stanford were decent programss and A&M. Arizona didn't join the Pac-10 until the late 70's (based upon their 1970 schedule I'd say they were in the WAC). Navy was removed from their glory years and neither Oregon or Washington had built their programs yet. Washington would get better in the late 70's but it wasn't until the 90's when Oregon did.
forgot that arizona wasn't in the pac-8, and as you say they were in the wac..
my point wasn't necessarily that we were playing elite programs, more that we weren't playing the directional schools...these games were akin to us playing air force or uconn. i don't have a problem with that.
how taking a scholarship from teric jones in summer of 2011 gives a scholarship to kyle kalis in fall of 2012? if this was a nefarious action, wouldn't the benefit to michigan be in having the uninjured player play this year and then get medicalled immediately prior to the new class coming in?
If Hoke were going to unceremoniously dump players on medicals to make room for new players, wouldn't he already have those players signed and on campus, and not on nonbinding verbal commitments that won't be here until 2012?
If it happens next year, Michigan is in need of scholarships, and the recipients of said medicals are Brandon Hawthorne, Fitzgerald Toussaint and/or [Fill in slot receiver name], we'll talk. Until then, it's pretty sizable leap to even suggest that conclusion.
still doesn't change my view.
I was a little kid at the 1991 FSU-Michigan game where Michigan got absolutely destroyed, and I was in the stands for the 2007 MIchigan-Oregon game. I thought both of them were awesome even though we got rolled (seriously, Oregon's offense was the coolest football thing I'd ever seen), and I'd rather have far more guaranteed experiences like that than potential that Michigan makes a BCS game and has a similar match-up.
Amp Lee...The whole 3 yard and a cloud of dust theme. That dude rolled UM.
Brian is certain to feel much more strongly about this, so brace yourselves for his wrath when he returns.If so, Brian should compare this offseason with past years. Does he think that we've never lost players over the summer? What's happened so far is not out of the ordinary.
If this exact thing had happened anywhere in the SEC, we'd all raise an eyebrow. This reminds me of mudslinging in political elections. Everyone is always against it until it works to your benefit. I think there's a very good chance that this is all legit, but if the SEC average (non-Bama) for medical hardships is 0.45 a year, you have to notice if there are six times the average in one year at the exact same time a coach is trying to reshape a roster and is supposedly saying he expects to sign more players than he currently has scholarships for. This is something that needs to be watched.
As for the question of why would you "cut" people a year ahead of time if you had ill intentions, the answer is pretty obvious. The Big Ten has a policy that if you oversign by the three spots allowed, you have to explain to the conference how you got down to the number. By "cutting" players a year ahead of time, you don't actually oversign if you go 3 over or you could go 6 over and only have to explain 3 of them, in theory.
There is a devil's advocate side to this and I think it makes no sense to blast people for pointing out that it's worth a second look. Pace is from all reports in bad shape, but he did play in the spring game.
And if UM needs fisking, we will fisk. If we go 3 over and 25 are allowed, we are at 28 and we have believed all along that we will get to 25-26, which is under the explanation threshold.
<br>
<br>I still don't see the benefit of shedding a healthy scholarship kid to fill his spot with a walkon who gets a scholly for one year. I think that law an order calls this "motive."
Come on down
He spends more time making sure people can actually log onto his site without making their or their work's computers crash than bring his "wrath" down on anybody or anything.
like brian, tim and this mispogan character are hypocrites. they rail against anyone that said anything negative about rich, coming to his defense at every turn (sometimes justified, sometimes not). rich medicalled zirbel. i didn't have a problem with that and i don't think any of them did either. rich may or may not have run off mallett, boren and numerous others but they never had a problem with that. yet, they all have taken every chance to treat hoke the same way they precieve others treated rich. teric, talbott and pace were all injured seriously BEFORE hoke was hired. a UNBIASED person would think LOGICALLY and come to the conclusion that hoke took the spring to analyze each players status and make a decision before practice starts in august. that is exactly what happened.
maybe these three players wanted out. who knows? until we hear from them or the staff we won't know. so what do the 3 blind men do? toss around accusations against our head coach without any evidence at all. and the three of you talk about the free press? you are just as bad.
HYPOCRITES.
I think it's silly to think that there is something wrong with cutting a kid from the football team. That’s ridiculous and laughable. These kids are told that the scholarships are on a year to year basis. I see nothing wrong with telling a kid that he longer is contributing to the team and that his scholarship won't be renewed. He can either transfer, or be like most college students and take student loans. Most of these kids would never have been accepted into a school like Michigan without an athletic scholarship. At least it gave them an opportunity to get their foot in the door. Sounds like to me that the author is still butt-hurt about Rodriguez being fired and wants to make Hoke look like an evil bastard. RR sucked at Michigan and that’s why he was fired. RR's track record isn't very clean. WVU's football program had never committed major violations until RR was the head coach. The same can be said for Michigan.
I think it's silly to think that there is something wrong with cutting a kid from the football team. That’s ridiculous and laughable. These kids are told that the scholarships are on a year to year basis. I see nothing wrong with telling a kid that he longer is contributing to the team and that his scholarship won't be renewed. He can either transfer, or be like most college students and take student loans. Most of these kids would never have been accepted into a school like Michigan without an athletic scholarship. At least it gave them an opportunity to get their foot in the door. Sounds like to me that the author is still butt-hurt about Rodriguez being fired and wants to make Hoke look like an evil bastard. RR sucked at Michigan and that’s why he was fired. RR's track record isn't very clean. WVU's football program had never committed major violations until RR was the head coach. The same can be said for Michigan.
re: oversigning.
uh, that's kind of dumb. are we over the 85 limit right now? do we need to lose these 3 guys in order to make room for the 2011 recruits that show up in 10 days? i don't see any problem at all nor any rason to be concerned.
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