[UPDATE: Matt Demorest of HomeSure Lending is going to buy the first 50 drinks or so for everyone. Also moved to diaries to make it easier to find]

So yep as I’ve been hinting at for weeks we’re doing a tailgate this Saturday for Marlin Jackson’s Fight for Life Foundation, and with a chance of showers at 80% we’re going to officially move our tailgate indoors and earlier in the afternoon. At least I can announce it finally:

WHAT: We’re getting together to watch the afternoon games, get some grub before the night game, and drink good beer at…

WHERE: Homes Brewery, 2321 Jackson Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48103. That’s on the west side, off Jackson Ave just east of Maple, so skip all the M-14 traffic that’s getting off on Main Street and take Maple in, then turn east onto Jackson at the Walgreens and you’ll see it on the right. Homes is a new bar that makes their own really good brews, and the owner is friends with most of our friends. Also it’s not directly in the path of gameday craziness while still a straight shot back to it. Probably want to get there a little after…

WHEN: 2pm to 5pm is when MGoBlog will be there—Marlin is coming in with Second Hardest Working Man on the Planet™ (Zack Eisendrath)’s Big Game Air trip, which probably can’t get to us until 3:30. If you don’t have a ticket of course you’re welcome to stick around after that—we figured people would want time to get down toward the stadium, and we don’t want to clog up Homes’ parking lot for their game traffic. Until then we’re going to watch football not in the rain and drink beer, because…

WHY: Because being somewhere inside that you can buy beer and food and watch football all Saturday beats standing around in the rain with Spartans? Oh, right, the reason for the event is we love Marlin Jackson’s charity, the Fight for Life Foundation:

Marlin grew up in an awful situation in Sharon, Pa., and wouldn’t have made it out except for sports programs and mentors who cared about his education, and wouldn’t give up on him. He knows from experience and from bringing in experts from the cutting edge of modern teaching techniques what kids in similar situations need to get out of the cycle of poverty and danger. Their programming:

• Building Dreams/Field of Dreams (elementary/middle), and RAP (high school) are in-school programs that provide crucial educational needs that schools in poverty zones now entirely lack.
• Seal the Deal is an after-school youth flag football program.
• Be a Blessing! follows up with the kids who've been in their programs, and provides need-based assistance to their families.

I’d probably already be a big fan of this because I’m a fan of Marlin the football player, but my wife, who’s a child psychologist who works with need-based families, was blown away when I showed her what they do.

DO I GOTTA PAY? It’s polite to give $10 to Marlin’s charity at the door but it’s not obligatory. Bring cash for a raffle. Also a shout-out to Matt Demorest for putting in a ton of legwork to make this happen.

[ed(Seth): moved to diaries to keep it handy

ALSO UPDATE: Scratch BBQ and Catering is a reader, saw the post, and offered to bring free food for everyone:

I am hungry for brisket, so we are having that and pulled pork as the meat items.  We will also have a couple of side dishes that will include a gourmet Mac and cheese, coleslaw, and three bean baked beans along with a Texas Peanut butter sheet cake in honor of the first game being played in Texas.

I hope I wasn't presumptuous in saying "yes".]

Matt’s first bill

So I don’t know about you but I’d like there to be football. This weekend I caught myself watching NFL preseason games, as if the Lions murderating Jets offensive linemen could be considered such. It’s only going to get worse from here. By Saturday you’ll be watching YouTube videos from Maryland games. And Rutgers. RUTGERS!

Your host. Also seriously if you’re buying or refinancing reach out to him. Every time I recommend him I get thanked for doing so.

Figure by a week from Thursday you’ll be going insane, and driving those around you the same. If they kick you out of the house, it’s cool, because every year Matt Demorest of HomeSure Lending gets us all together to raise a glass and jibber “football” at each other instead of at loved ones and pets.

This year we’re doing it on Thursday out of respect for those traveling to Dallas on Friday night. Matt buys the beer, MGoBlog provides the entertainment, and your family gets to have an evening of peace without watching you pacing.

WHEN: 6:00 PM to 10:00 PM EDT on Thursday, August 31st

WHERE: 327 E. Hoover, Ann Arbor. It’s the first thing on Hoover after the train tracks after Elbel Field. You remember walking by it from your college days. It was formerly Purchase Radio Supply:

Now it’s an amazing indoor tailgate space owned by the same guy who built the MGoPatio. It doesn’t look like much yet but it’s got it where it counts. See that garage door on the far right? That leads to a renovated indoor space that looks kinda like how Leopold’s used to.

WHAT WE DOING THERE? A few things. We’ll start with the first MGoRadio show of the year, broadcasting the episode live in front of y’all. At the end we’ll have a Q&A session so this is your chance to be on the MGoPodcast and ask that question that’s been bugging you about this year. Then there may be another trivia session like last year after if I have time to write the questions next week.

WHAT WE HAVING? Matt’s getting us a couple of kegs of good stuff (probably from Wolverine State Brewing if they’re down again) and we’re looking at having a food truck there (bring cash for that).

HISTORY OF THIS: This is our third Football Eve, and it was all Matt’s idea because we were talking each other into insanity before the first Harbaugh game. That was a Wednesday night because Utah was a Thursday and we still overflowed Ashley’s. Last year we moved it to Wolverine Brewing and still there wasn’t enough seating.

NEXT EVENT PREVIEW: Friday night before Homecoming (Rutgers), same place, for charity, bring a Playstation controller.

[This article was originally published on 8/30. It has reposted to Diaries because apparently a spammer caused a problem where everyone just got a blue screen (NNTBS).]

Welcome back! This is my semi-regular feature where we track the secondary ticket market and tell you when to buy or sell. My credentials for serving as your ticket advisor are I'm cheap and have been scrounging tickets most of my adult life. This does not make me an expert, so I lean on data and other experts.

The method is I check in every few days on TicketIQ (which collates all the smaller markets), Stubhub, and Craigslist (Ann Arbor and Metro Detroit), then post a price per ticket for two or more seats together. Then when I have enough data to say something I check in with our ticket partners at TicketIQ and ask them what the data mean.

GROUP RATES?

One of the things I learned last year is saving a few bucks here or there on 2 tickets is interesting, however I could really save readers some money if I started tracking the group ticket market (4 to 10 people).

Let me learn for a bit longer before I start giving real advice here—historically I have only bought through the Alumni Association (which, $70 on your membership this year is going to save you more than that if you ever go to an away game), or there's that one time I paid face for 10 seats together to watch Denard shred Bowling Green, and wound up selling off the inevitable cancellation/girlfriend is too drunk extras for $10 apiece. No, the people who requested tickets initially didn't feel they should pay for them when they chose not to come that morning. If you're tasked with buying for your group this year, I'm sorry. We here at MGoBlog salute you. Also buy in July or early August. Seth tells you this on August 30th.

[Hit THE JUMP for the beariest market I've ever seen for an Indiana ticket in a bull pen]

This didn't really merit a front page post but I thought you might find it interesting. These are my notes from things we hadn't covered yet on the front page while re-watching Michigan's 2016 spring game:

-Bobby Henderson is a good blocking FB vs. the starters, and murderous vs  the walk-ons. Hard to bring down too. New Kerridge right here.

-Lawrence Marshall played SDE, was technically very sound, fought to a stalemate with Mags/Bunting. A bit undersized but looks useable in a Pierre Woods sort of way.

-Grant Newsome looked worse than he did live. Taco ate his lunch. Carlo Kemp (playing WDE) ate his lunch. Reuben Jones (playing SDE) ate his lunch. Brandon Watson(!) ate his lunch.

-(Possibly related) Braden was playing left tackle. Did okay not great against Winovich.

-Winovich Jake Ryan-style two-gapped Mags for a TFL.

-Brandon Watson looked as exploitable against Grant Perry as he didn't against Darboh et al last year.

-Isaac's cutback run where he ran past Peppers was on Mone. His other long runs were both Washington losing contain bad.

-On Butt's TD Michigan had #46 Mike Wroblewski (an ILB despite being a DE on the roster) playing free safety. Live I thought it was a pick play on Devin Bush Jr. but this was a Cov2 "safety" getting way out of position. The Shane Morris rub route got another walk-on LB, Cheyann Robertson (who was pretty bad all day) way out of position. I don't think this is something where M was hiding their answer. I think when O'Korn sees a bad linebacker in man with his crossing TE the call is that drag, and those LBs just played it exceptionally badly.

-Kinnel. Srsly.

-Not counting Peppers, Mike McCray is our best LB by some distance. Very good closing speed.

-M lined up in a hurricane punt formation then motioned to the spread punt. If they yelled "ha ha fuck you cook!" while doing so the audio didn't pick it up. Later they lined up in an Ace 11 then motioned to the spread punt.

-I could watch Godin use his hands all day. I get the feeling Mattison does.

-Ulizio can't pull but he's pretty good downfield. Patrick Omameh comparison is strong. They also had him playing RT for white.

-Runyan played LG next to Braden. He did fine pretty okay against Hurst and walk-on 3-techs. (and Wheatley).

-Kugler looked fine. He made the block to get O'Korn that last scramble TD.

-Speight's walk-in TD was a bad blitz by a walk-on (Dunaway) playing Backer.

-Brown had at least 4 CB blitzes, usually with Washington. These are run blitzes.

-Mone had a play where he started in the backside A gap, shed Mason Cole and made a TFL on a power play the other way.

-White team was using Wheatley as a 3-3-5 DE. He was two-gapping against Jon Runyan and a lot of O'Korn's scrambles came from picking the other gap.

-Winnning stop on the 2pt conversion was Hurst standing up to a triple team and Winovich coming around from behind.

Photo via the ChadTough Foundation.
To support pediatric brain tumor research and studies nationwide, visit ChadTough.org

A boy is born with the potential to be everything. He comes out a squealing, reddened, water-logged thing for whom virtually every plot on the vast human distribution chart is plausibly attainable. Whom he's handed to and where will narrow that down some, and within a few years of that handoff a personality will start to emerge that might suggest a direction.

But it takes a lifetime, sometimes many lifetimes, to know what a boy will turn into. There's one boy who two thousand years hence has his name uttered by a third of the world when they want to represent the astounding extent of the human capacity for goodness.

Another boy, 70 years after his initial squall, would in the far smaller world of college football, come to represent the traits of intelligence, integrity, and loyalty. The boy, Lloyd Carr, was born exactly a week before a bomb named "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima. He played a sport where boys flung their bodies at other boys for a kind of fleeting, mostly useless greatness. He began coaching said sport when/because boys of his age and nation were being thrown indiscriminately at a barely understood war.

Through that sport Lloyd got to have a hand in shaping the distribution of hundreds of boys. I know boys born in places that would in most likelihoods see them either destroyed or shaped into destroyers of other boys, to people who didn't care which. Among Lloyd's accomplishments—and this boy's accomplishments an extreme outlier among men—the greatest are these boys he saved, and who now spend their lives affecting more boys than Lloyd or any man could alone.

It is for the things Lloyd did with his 70 years that all Michigan fans, and many non-Michigan fans, today are joining in mourning the loss of one. Chad Carr was born to Lloyd's boy Jason and Jason's wife Tammi, the third of such boys. It was the kind of start and they were the kind of people who open up the best parts of human capacity in a boy.

Chad died today, after more than the year he was expected to have after doctors learned he had brain cancer, less than a few weeks after he began hospice care, a day after he was no longer able to talk to his parents, and just a few short years after he learned to.

His brothers, his parents, and everyone who loved Lloyd and loved Chad because of it, had to just sit there the whole time, powerlessly, and watch this happen.

#chadtough gained his angel wings today. Please pray for peace for our family pic.twitter.com/4eZee8oVNG

— Tammi Carr (@tamcarr21) November 23, 2015

The angels have too many of our boys. I don't know how much more potential the human race will lose, or how much money to research DIPG will be wasted on blind pursuits before a stab in this dark finds a way to stop losing boys this way. It is a certainty that all the money and all the being good and all that you can possibly do and pray for won't prevent this from being the last time a man will have to hold the lifeless body of a boy who'll never become a fireman or a football coach or a father.

But here's the link to ChadTough again if you want to take a shot anyway.

[Ed-S: Moved to diaries so people will remember. We have 51 signups for a room that holds 50. Rather than do a checklist and a million RSVPs just to have a beer if you're coming from far out just get there early. We'll overflow upstairs]

Twas the Night Before Football

No fan could do nothing, but sit there and wait.
We re-read their previews, refreshed our home page.
Is it Smith, Green, or Isaac? Well no-one could say.

The players were nestled all snug in Salt Lake,
and we sent out prayers for the hams of poor Drake.
And Jabrill in his 'kerchief, and Jim in his cap,
awoke that old quiver from its long winter's nap.

But the minutes were hours, and hours were days;
and we'd talked ourselves into the hype for Moe Ways.
Our focus was shattered, our speech MGo-patois
They asked us "What is it?" We said only, "Harbaugh."

The phone told us nothing; the Twitter was mum.
No matter how many times we yanked the screen down with our thumb.
When what to our wondering eyes should appear
but a gentle reminder to come have a beer:

With a little explaining, and maybe a look,
We dashed out the door to catch Ace, Seth and Cook.
To the downstairs of Ashley's thanks to Demo we came
and we whistled and shouted and called them by name:

"Now Jourdan! Now Glasgows!
Now, Darboh and Taco!
On, Khalid! On, Kalis!
On, Mason and Butt!
Go Oji, go Bolden!
Come Ross and Mo Hurst!
And Lyons and Henry
and Morgan who hurts!

Homesure Lending is buying, so we can all raise a glass!
And shout THANK BO ALMIGHTY

IT'S HARBAUGH AT LAST!

-----------------------

Non-poetic details:

We've rented out the basement of Ashley's on S. State Street in Ann Arbor, from 7:30 to 10:30 on the Wednesday night before the season starts to have a beer with other MGoBloggers, since we're pretty much in no state at that point to be around normal folks. The sponsor, Homesure Lending, is not collecting leads or anything; he offered to rent out the space and buy the first round in gratitude of all the people here (including Brian and myself) who closed out a loan with him this year. Link is here. We have have a 40ish people max so we threw up an informal registration form in there, mostly to get a head count.