Unverified Voracity Stops Fearing Books Comment Count

Brian

apr-birdsapr-books

I'll miss you, Birds+Books APR image header, except I'll probably still use you

APR threat: downgraded. My annual fretting about the first-year Rich Rodriguez number has been a full-post kind of thing the last few years. This year it gets downgraded to a UV bullet because of this number: 984. That's Michigan's most recent one-year score, and it's shiny enough to get Michigan over the 930 Mendoza line even with that 897 anchor. Hurray for everyone.

Unless Michigan experiences another flurry of transfers—unlikely—the next few June days on which everyone reports APR scores because it's the middle of June will be opportunities to reflect on what a swell guy Brady Hoke is. Officially standing down on APR alert.

Michigan's other sports are all doing well, as per usual.

Playoff: almost officially happening. It seems like we've had articles about the inevitably of a four-team playoff for months now. At some point if the thing is so inevitable people would stop writing about it. No one's writing about players being required to wear helmets this fall. Anyway, it seems like there has finally been a meeting with an actual single endorsed plan. It is this (emphasis added):

While the B.C.S. commissioners did not announce the details of how they would pick the teams for the four-team playoff, a source with direct knowledge of the decision said the plan is for a selection committee to “more than likely” pick the four best teams.

There will be a preference given to conference champions in the selection, but how much is yet to be determined. Strength of schedule will also be strongly considered. There have yet to be any discussions about how the finances will be split among the teams.

The selection committee will subject a sport steeped in regional biases to a different type of controversy, although one that will likely die down a bit now that there will be semifinal and final games. The two semifinal games are expected to be played within the bowl system and the national championship will be bid on like the Super Bowl.

In a joint statement, the 11 conference commissioners and the Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick said that they had reached a “consensus behind a four-team, seeded playoff, while recognizing that the presidents will certainly present their views, including a discussion of a Plus-One.”

That's lip service. Presidents are going to rubber stamp it. Pop champagne? It could be better but it's a huge improvement. Other than the Big Ten's self-defeating opposition to home playoff games leading them to perpetual road travels, I'm cool with it. FWIW, even without preferences for conference champions, the SEC would only have grabbed multiple bids three times.

As for where the first one will be, bet on Dallas.

Why not both? This is a revamped sports bar split into MSU and Michigan halves.

4fe3311c4273e.preview-300[1]

Revamped? Revamped.

VERNON TWP. — Uncle Buck’s Northern Exposure is making a dramatic change in format — from a nearly topless dance club to big-screen sports bar.

In fact, it was an overload of drama, says owner Ken Canfield, that prompted the change, including a different name: Crossroads Sports Bar.

Missed opportunity there.

[via EDSBS.]

Hockey schedule: again with the front-loading. Michigan's released the hockey schedule, which again has an extremely light back end. Nine of Michigan's final 12 games are away from home (one is at the Joe) and there are just six home games (and the U18 game) in 2013. Not like they could do anything about that what with the conference going away next year. Price of leaving.

Michigan plays no road games in the slim nonconference portion of the schedule. They've got two against RIT, another one-off versus Bentley, the game at MSG against Cornell, and the outdoor GLI. They'll open against Tech and get WMU or MSU in the second game.

I hope this isn't an indication of where Michigan's nonconference schedule will go when they join the Big Ten. It probably isn't. Red has sought out tough competition as frequently as possible since the program got its footing, and with a whopping 14 games to play with—16 if M makes the trip to Alaska—they should have room for annual series against the big powers.

DUCK

GERG_medium[1]

Context at Maize and Brew.

Should you flip your defense or not? Generally the answer is "not" these days because of spread hurry up stuff. You may remember Michigan doing this a bit early in the year, but that was a stop-gap measure:

Why to Flip

Flipping the defensive positions based on strength of the Offensive formation started as a way to keep teaching simple.

Rather than having to teach a Defensive End to play either lined up either inside a Tight End or outside shade on a Tackle, you could teach him to always align to the strength, meaning he spent all of his time on the Tight End.

The teaching got simpler, as players had to know less about the entire game, and more about their own little piece of tunnel vision. It became easy to know very little about the game while still being a very good and knowledgeable player about your own position.

No more, because if you flip your bits people will run hurry-up on your face and get you confused. Better to have a general understanding these days than a hyper-specific focus. That's a subtle way in which the game's generally increasing specialization is taking a step back.

FWIW, the coach who posted this noted that a number of guys are using field and boundary calls to set their defense instead of opponent alignment. (IE, you line up to the wide side or short side of the field no matter what the offense does.) FWIW, Mattison is one.

More uniform concepts. This time Notre Dame does it to themselves:

uniform__gag__final_front_view_finished_large[1]

The second comment is an image of Chris Hall—life's winner—and his glorious Tom Hammond tie. Well done.

Etc.: UMHoops gives the 1,000-foot view on Michigan's five-man 2012 basketball recruiting class. Rothstein horning in on my season intro column by discussing Hoke's inadvertent marketing genius. Baumgardner has a series on key moments from last football season. I disagree with Baumgardner's take on the 49% TD against Iowa—he seems to think the issue there was whether Hemingway was in, but the real problem was the nose of the ball hitting the ground.

Comments

BlueAggie

June 21st, 2012 at 3:33 PM ^

Oh, Uncle Buck's. If only I had a dollar for every time the quiz bowl team tried to get the driver to take the bus there after quiz bowl tournaments in Durand, I'd have at least $3.

Neodoomium

June 21st, 2012 at 3:44 PM ^

I'm from Durand and the whole Uncle Buck's saga has done wonders for us to shed our old "Durand Dirties" image. 

 

Oh wait, it hasn't at all. 

 

StellaBlue

June 21st, 2012 at 3:47 PM ^

That ND uniform is nearly perfect.  I'd only add some way to commemorate Weis (wait, maybe the uniform is not big enough for that image) and/or Kelly (wait, maybe purple and green clash).  Anyway, I hope they wear them!

ST3

June 21st, 2012 at 6:38 PM ^

I've never been there, but if it's anything like the commercial, Lord Have Mercy. I was watching a game on ESPN a couple weeks ago, and there was some sort of glitch and that commercial ran four times in a row, back to back, or front to front, as the case may be.

WolvinLA2

June 21st, 2012 at 6:50 PM ^

Yeah, it's pretty incredible, especially the ones in CA, for obvious reasons.  I have one right around the corner from my house, I was there just last night for a beer.  It's almost hard to drive by without going in.

WolvinLA2

June 21st, 2012 at 7:42 PM ^

Upscale might be a stretch, but the ladies are far more scantily clad than hooters.  Hooters girls show cleavage, but the Kilt girls wear plaid bras and short kilts, that's it. 

Also, depite the name and the uniforms, it's an Irish-themed bar.  The food, the decoration, the drinks - it's all Irish. 

snarling wolverine

June 21st, 2012 at 9:43 PM ^

The internet is a fascinating place.  First, Brady Hoke says this:

"You can take all these stars and the way all these guys are rated and all that, and that's great for the fan base and the public," Hoke told reporters last week. "But we've had some pretty good players here that probably would have been two-star guys"

Somehow, an Oregon (?) fan took that little snippet and concluded that Hoke was afraid of Urban Meyer (?!?).  Odd.

El Jeffe

June 22nd, 2012 at 9:13 AM ^

I don't see why packing a room full of rival fans and shoving mass quantities of alcohol down their throats could be considered a remotely bad idea. I mean, what could go wrong?

jmdblue

June 22nd, 2012 at 10:09 AM ^

Given the current reality of what happened at PSU, but suffice it to say....I would never....ever....let my kids anywhere near Tom Hammond.

bluesalt

June 22nd, 2012 at 12:13 PM ^

The linked article said that it was the 2010-2011 APR scores that earned Michigan a 984.  Wouldn't this still be RichRod, or at least split between him and Hoke?  I'm neither a RichRod hater or supporter, just trying to clarify.

Picktown GoBlue

June 22nd, 2012 at 3:36 PM ^

such as here or on Wikipedia, the yearly APR is calculated by taking the retention and eligibility for each scholarship athlete for each of the 2 semesters, as they are going into the next semester.  So, I think that everyone enrolling in fall of 2010 and remaining academically eligible (or not...) is RichRod's.  Any transfers mid-year count against the 1st semester.  Any transfers before 2011-2012 count against the 2nd semester of 2010-2011.  Any academic eligibility issues with the 2nd semester would be after Hoke arrived.  So, a properly written article should have noted it as a shared APR.  Good journalists are hard to find these days, I guess.