Unverified Voracity Panics, Retracts Comment Count

Brian

lolsparty. Rivals and Scout sites have extremely uneven levels of professionalism. For every Wolverine.com that manages to keep some journalistic self-respect there are two sites completely in the tank for the schools they cover. No one is quite as shamefully biased as the Michigan State sites. Here's SpartanMag's Jim Comparoni on Glenn Winston:

Winston looked a little slower, a little gassed at practice today. I assume he missed most of summer conditioning. He looked it.

Yeah… that might be because he's been in jail since April. That might slightly impact your ability to attend summer conditioning sessions.

No, no, no, no. You know, the disconnect between this headline

Michigan’s QB race: Forcier vs. Sheridan

…and the actual content of the piece…

Forcier might not start the opener next month at home against Western Michigan, but it’s difficult to envision him spending a lot of time on the sideline behind Nick Sheridan or fellow freshman Denard Robinson.

…just means I've been unnecessarily fretted about the possibility a walk-on will start in Michigan's second year under Rich Rodriguez. Also, Rothstein headline: "Here comes the carousel: Michigan begins fall practice trying to figure out who's the starting quarterback." Argh. Also:

Rodriguez insists he doesn’t know who is quarterback will be and plans on alternating Forcier, Sheridan and Robinson throughout the next few weeks.

Come on, we know the score, don't we? I know beatwriters defy the words of the people they're quoting at their peril, but I will cut off a finger if Sheridan starts this year in any circumstance where Forcier is available.

In which I realize the previous section was blind panic. Right, so that's not going to happen. Ryan Kartje, who I said should not terrify me with words about Sheridan's polish yesterday, clarifies that statement:

I'll start this out by noting that, although I said Nick Sheridan looked a little better than Forcier in some drills, in no way do I think he'll be the starter on Sept. 5th.

In fact, I can't think of any reason why Tate Forcier isn't the starter against the Broncos.

And if you're so inclined you can take this with a grain of e-salt, but Maizeman is a longtime observer of Michigan practices and he says there is no quarterback competition:

Its only two practices, but just my opinion [sic], but there really is not any competition at quarterback. Tate is way ahead of everyone. His presence, his football sense, his competitiveness, his wanting to improve on a daily basis. We say let him play and he will win a lot of games at Michigan in the next four years.

Back in the day. Tom Brady's official Youtube channel has been dumping out recruiting videos. Milquetoast recruiting videos:

 

Brady eschewed the usual rap and went with awesome 80s hair metal guitar for his highlights:

At this point, no one could possibly know that Brady would end up scaling the heights of the NFL and Gisele.

Recruiting remains legit. I've been waiting for a study like this one for a while. The extant studies have all concentrated on the NFL draft, and while they show a statistically significant correlation between recruiting starts and NFL draft positions I've always thought a study that looked at all-conference teams would remove the disconnect between college and the pros (AKA "Tim Tebow isn't God") and provide, well, numbers like these:

They found the following probabilities of a prospect with a particular star rating being named all-conference at some point in his career...

  • 5-stars 33.8%
  • 4-stars 20.0%
  • 3-stars 11.6%
  • 2-stars 7.2%

In other words, despite the existence of "can't miss" prospects who miss badly, in general more stars are better. A 5-star recruit is almost 70% more likely to be named all-conference than a 4-star and makes all-conference at nearly triple the rate of 3-star prospects.

This is pretty much what I've been saying about recruiting for a while: it's important but far from fate. A five-star player has a 65% chance of never even making an all-conference team—which is, I think, bust territory for the hallowed—but is also three times more likely to reach that level than your run-of-the-mill three star.

[UPDATE: the statistically inclined are tearing this apart in the comments; I didn't read the original story in sufficient depth—nor do I have the advanced statistical whatsit—to comment.]

Thank you. Tom Dienhart surveys the widespread SEC television dominion meme and takes it down by comparing the SEC's much-hyped mondo ESPN deal to the Big Ten Network and finding it wanting:

The Big Ten also is an equity partner with the Big Ten Network, owning 51 percent of the company. Kagan values the BTN at $1 billion. And Kagan says the value of BTN in three years could be $2 billion.

No one will go on the record to say it, but the SEC was able to leverage its deal with ESPN because the Big Ten started its own network. ESPN couldn't afford to lose the SEC's product, so it essentially overpaid to keep it. Why? Because ESPN wants to use SEC football to bolster ESPNU and its regional arm, making them more valuable commodities.

IME, the main reason the Big Ten Network is a viable entity is the combination of basketball and football. Something like half of Big Ten basketball games are on the BTN, making it a must-have for virtually the entire footprint (Pennsylvania might not care much). The only state in the SEC footprint that cares enough about basketball to demand it is Kentucky. And the BTN was a huge leap of faith, a fiasco for its first year. Now that's passed and everyone gets it and is happy while the Mountain West languishes, its network unavailable in places like Salt Lake City, and everyone else is stuck on regional Fox Networks cursing their commissioners.

Also it's a 15-year contract. Right now that seems like a fantastic amount of money. In 15 years it's going to lag some. The Big Ten has a revenue share in the BTN and shorter contracts that will go up the next time they're renegotiated, if only because of inflation.

Etc.: Like an idiot, I forgot to post this photo gallery by Paul taken at the hockey alumni game. Also there is evidence that Bill Martin is taking over campus. The Knight Commission will likely have a fainting spell at longtime M equipment manager Jon Falk describing Michigan's new digs at Newsterbaan as the "Taj Mahal" of locker rooms.

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