Reminder. Tom VH will hold you at Literati tomorrow at 7. He'll also be on MGoRadio. Pat pat, there there. I'll be there, too, but I didn't write a book. 

So that happened, and then un-happened. Maryland retained DJ Durkin, and then fired DJ Durkin, because people are just in charge of things for no reason. Like Michigan State, the people in charge of things in this case are the regents. Reports that president Wallace Loh wanted to axe everyone were likely true, and after everyone from the student government to both candidate for governor publicly complained Maryland admitted what every adult American other than their board members already knew: DJ Durkin's career is toast.

Anyway, now's a good time to reflect on the colossal failure Big Ten expansion has been:

Let’s start with rutger. I don’t know if I need to say anything more about these guys that hasn’t been said in the past four years. They’re terrible at the major sports. They’ve embarrassingly brought down the strength of the Big Ten schedule. A few months after their Big Ten membership became official, the basketball coach was caught on video throwing basketballs and yelling homophobic slurs at players. Ex-AD Julie Hermann was routinely making shocking statements to the media and embroiled in controversy at her former schools. Ex-football coach Kyle Flood once threatened a professor if he wouldn’t change a player’s grade. The list goes on. rutger remains an easy target. We’ve already covered them extensively on this blog. Oh yeah, this [a Rutgers player being kicked off the team for a failed double-homicide] happened yesterday as well. Not great, Piscataway!

Moving onto Maryland. Until recently, the frustration with the Terps was a little more subtle than their New Jersey counterparts. The football team employed Randy Edsall. The basketball team hasn’t reached the heights it did under Gary Williams, attendance is down after a post-B1G boost, and an FBI investigation looms over the program. At least men’s lacrosse and women’s hoops have been reliable, though.

But then there is the situation with head football coach DJ Durkin, which after months of investigations regarding McNair’s death, was seemingly resolved yesterday. The Maryland Board of Regents overruled outgoing university president Wallace Loh, who seemingly wanted Durkin fired, and reinstated Durkin as the coach, despite the release of a 200-page report that illustrated the abusive behavior of the coaching staff under his watch. After all of this, one startling fact remains: a 19 year-old student-athlete died, and the head coach has been allowed to keep his job. Unsurprisingly, Jordan McNair’s family was angry about this decision, and at least 3 players walked out of a team meeting with Durkin yesterday. Now, the university administration has received tons of criticism, and is facing backlash from Maryland lawmakers as well as UMD students, who plan to hold a rally Thursday.

Great job, Jim Delany. Hope the brief surge in television revenue was worth it.

Urban's head. Meyer's strange behavior on the sideline has a cause:

Since kneeling down on the sideline in a game against Indiana on Oct. 6 because of severe headaches, Meyer has been peppered with questions about his health and future in coaching. He said the cause of the discomfort links back to a congenital arachnoid cyst in his brain, which has led to severe headaches at times in his career.

“The past four years, we’ve been working closely with coach Meyer to monitor and manage the symptoms that have risen from his enlarged congenital arachnoid cyst,” said Dr. Andrew Thomas, Meyer’s personal physician and the chief clinical officer at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center. “This includes aggressive headaches, which have particularly flared up the past two years.”

That sucks for him and does not excuse his conduct with Zach Smith. Verdict: still a bad dude. Not the kind that saves the president. An expired coupon kind of guy.

[After THE JUMP: secret scrimmages, ooooooh]

The short yardage spread. This Ian Boyd article is relevant for both Michigan and Ohio State purposes, as it's a detailed look into how spread teams operate in the redzone. The answer is short: 11 v 11 or GTFO. The longer version:

Much of this was predictable, I wrote in this space in the offseason that moving to Haskins and higher efficiency in the passing game could allow the Buckeyes to explore a higher ceiling in 2018. What was also predictable was that the Buckeyes were going to need to find a different answer for how to run the ball from spread sets when opponents were going to be selling out to stop it with an extra defender, like in the red zone or in short yardage.

Here’s how drastically things have changed at QB this year for Ohio State:

 

Year	Player	Passing production	Rushing production
2014	J.T. Barrett: RS freshman	314-2834, 9.0, 34-10	148-1094, 7.4, 11
2015	J.T. Barrett: RS sophomore	147-992, 6.7, 11-4	146-908, 6.2, 12
2016	J.T. Barrett: RS junior	379-2555, 6.7, 24-7	178-990, 5.6, 9
2017	J.T. Barrett: RS senior	371-3053, 8.2, 35-9	109-714, 6.6, 11
2018	Dwayne Haskins: RS sophomore	315-2801, 8.9, 30-5	26-83, 3.2, 1

Through eight games Haskins has already matched or surpassed J.T. Barrett’s typical passing production but he’s offered up rushing production that Barrett would routinely hit in a single game.

But while the total yardage is about the same, the absence of the QB run game threat has caused real problems for Ohio State beyond the rushing production from that position. The goal with the spread offense is to make the defense cover the whole field, but in short-yardage and the red zone defenses know that they don’t have to.

It’s typical for teams to get cover zero near the goal line or in short-yardage with the defense playing man coverage on receivers and allowing the safeties to focus on the run game. For spread teams that depend on pulling defenses apart with spacing, this is an issue because they may or may not be up for forcing the issue up front when the run game has the defense’s full attention.

Against Purdue Ohio State ran the ball five times on the goal line for a total of seven yards and zero touchdowns. Their base inside zone play ran into real trouble because Dwayne Haskins wasn’t executing the QB run reads to gain a number advantage.

Ohio State will get Haskins to execute these pulls or they will start using Tate Martell in the redzone. There are no other choices; by the time they get to Michigan this will be addressed. Alas.

If this is all you've got... The Sporting News has a very strange article about the upcoming Penn State game in which Gerry DiNardo says some Gerry DiNardo things...

 

"You have to look at Michigan defensively only against the best teams they play," Big Ten Network analyst Gerry DiNardo told Sporting News. "Look at them against Penn State last year."

...and the author of the piece duly attempts to put some numbers behind a Thing Gerry DiNardo Said. The result: 

Those numbers tell a story, too. The Nittany Lions racked up 506 total yards on 8.3 yards per play — the most on the Wolverines since Brown took over as defensive coordinator in 2016. Michigan has allowed the combination of more than 300 total yards and 5.0 yards per play in just seven games since Brown arrived. They are 2-5 in those games.

Year	Opponent	Total Yards	Yards per play	Result
2017	Penn State	506	8.3	L 13-42
2016	Michigan State	401	5.7	W 32-23
2016	Florida State	371	6.0	L 32-33
2016	Maryland	367	5.6	W 59-3
2017	Ohio State	350	5.6	L 20-31
2017	Wisconsin	325	5.5	L 10-24
2017	South Carolina	300	5.2	L 19-26

Those are the numbers DiNardo is talking about.

WTF? The national average in yards per play is 5.7. This chart, which purports to expose the truth about Don Brown's overrated defense, has two games that exceed that and one game that cracks 400 yards if we exclude the 2016 Defeat With Dignity fourth quarter.

Who does it say what about when Ohio State, last year's #7 S&P+ offense, puts up 350 yards opposite a John O'Korn start? If the thing you think it says is "Don Brown is overrated," seek medical attention. 

Trey Burke and a small child. Both are correct.

Well said @TreyBurke 〽️ pic.twitter.com/KYVfmM3Rwd

— noah molton (@molton_n) October 27, 2018

Secret scrimmage notes. Michigan played Toledo, which is #119 in Kenpom's preseason rankings after returning all but one of their rotation playes from a 23-11 (13-5) 2017 season. Feedback coming out is positive:

• As previously reported, Michigan started Simpson, Poole, Matthews, Brazdeikis and Teske, and mostly played 8-deep. Livers, Brooks and Davis came off the bench.

— Brendan F. Quinn (@BFQuinn) October 29, 2018

• Matthews was the standout for U-M. “Played really well.” Made a variety of jumpers — “some unguardable shots” — including catch and shoot, and off the bounce. Got the FT line and converted.
• Michigan was “about average” on 3s, but shot really well from the FT line.

— Brendan F. Quinn (@BFQuinn) October 29, 2018

Josh Henschke has a similar report at 24/7:

Words and phrases such as "shellacking" and "got worked" were used when describing what the Wolverines were able to do to the Rockets. One source in particular said, "it was ugly" and Michigan "beat up" on the Rockets the entire scrimmage.

…True freshman PG David DeJulius also made multiple big three-pointers during the scrimmage.

I don't think Michigan's going to have the same level of slow start they've endured for the past few years: their defense is going to be locked in from the drop and they have a veteran, healthy point guard who knows he's the man for the first time in a while. (Derrick Walton had to be goaded into becoming the man midseason, hail Maverick.)

Eli Brooks: potentially happening? People are saying Brooks may be a thing now. Stranger things have happened in the history of Beilein players entering their second year:

“He handled [his benching] last year really well and … he got chances to go back on the scout team and really get reps,” said Michigan coach John Beilein. “And he’s been one of our best players this fall.” …

“It’s just his confidence,” Haynes said. “He’s just been a great teammate. I was telling someone earlier, the things (guard Muhammad-Ali Abdur-Rahkman) was doing with him last year and doing with the team, you see him doing.”

During his time on the bench, Brooks learned the importance of confidence — something that has increased with his leadership. Beilein and Haynes have noticed the difference, and the improvements that have come along with it.

Beilein praised Brooks for shooting the ball as well as any Wolverine. Haynes mentioned him as one of Michigan’s best defenders — high praise for a player on one of the country’s best defensive teams. If those changes show up in games, other teams will start to notice, too.

“We don’t know if he’ll back up at the point, play more of the ‘2,’ I don’t know what,” Beilein said. “But he’s gonna be on the court.”

David DeJulius is going to take a minute to earn Belien's trust if the open practice was any indication, so Brooks has a couple months here in which to pay the above talk off and grab a 10-15 minute role as a backup combo guard.

I keep getting older, they regress into the womb. Hockey picks up a commit from 2004 forward:

Michigan lands a commitment from the best ‘04 forward in the USA in Seamus Casey. Florida native plays for Compuware. Explosive offensive skill set who sees the ice well.

— Jeff Cox (@JeffCoxSports) October 29, 2018

Also:

4.5⭐️Seamus Casey commits to Michigan. Elite skater with acceleration, speed, agility and sharp edges. Unpredictable with the puck and can break down defenders any way he wants. Sees the whole ice and has a finisher's blade. Obvious upside for the 2004.

https://t.co/21Lo8WdEy3 https://t.co/fZDtIEw35P

— Neutral Zone (@_Neutral_Zone) October 29, 2018

So if that all works out Michigan will have that guy.

Meanwhile, Brian Wiseman's apparently in Sweden.

Again, small schools can pound sand. A couple years ago schools were OUTRAGED when the Big Ten put up some legislation that would have put a damper on college hockey's shift to 19 and 20 year old freshmen. People lost their minds. The legislation went down in flames. At that point nobody for a small conference gave one single dang about the fact that they're delaying non-NHL prospects for two years just so they can be more competitive.

But now the tears are flowing about schools like Michigan and Wisconsin trying to get out ahead of the major junior curve:

"I'm looking at kids, my daughter is an '06 birth year, and we have kids that are '04s, two years older, committing to college," Scott Sandelin said. "It's scary."

If a recent NCAA proposal is passed next spring, Katie Sandelin and every other male and female hockey player their age should be able to put off a major step toward adulthood a little longer. …

Men's and women's hockey will have separate schedules, but both proposals aim to accomplish the same goal of slowing down the recruiting process.

Under the new proposal for the men, all contact and communication between a coach and student-athlete is banned until Jan. 1 of the student-athlete's sophomore year of high school. After that, coaches and athletes may communicate via telephone calls, text messages and other similar communications. They can meet face-to-face on campus during a camp, clinic or unofficial visit (paid for by the student), but not off campus.

What a coach can't do under the proposal is make any sort of scholarship offer. That isn't permitted until Aug. 1 prior to a student-athlete's junior year of high school. Also permissible starting Aug. 1 prior to junior year is off-campus contact and official visits (paid for by the school) to campus.

So it's "scary" when prospects make a non-binding verbal commitment to a school that can be rescinded literally any  time the prospect wants to, but freshmen classes full of 20-year-olds are cool beans. Coaches already cannot call prospects and their families until later; the new proposal means that if a prospect's family proactively calls a program because they want to talk to them, that program has to hang up. Framing the removal of an option some players clearly want to take as a benefit to them is so dumb I wouldn't believe it's happening except we're talking about college hockey here.

Goodbye, TV Teddy. You will not be missed. Anyone who can whip John Beilein up into a furious rage should be kept far away from basketball games. Especially one so clueless that he can still say this to a reporter after the Joel Berry incident last year:

“Let me tell you about the ‘TV Ted’ stuff,” Valentine said by phone. “Don’t mean nothing. Ted Valentine is always on TV, and they’ve got to attach a name somewhere. As I’ve gotten older, I laugh more, I smile more, I high-five kids. I have nothing to prove no more.”

I look forward to block/charge calls being made without an entire pyrotechnics team on staff this fall.

Etc.: A wrestling preview from user "TheTeamTheTeamTheTeam." Basketball is meditating. The younger Beilein enters year four at Le Moyne. He and Yaklich make the Athletic's list of 30 up-and-coming coaches to watch.

Pearson adjusting to 19 skaters. Phil Paea had some sort of surgery a week ago. Purdue's offense under the microscope. James Franklin: not wrong about asking after injuries.