The Athletic (Mandel and Wasserman) admit their wrong

Mandel is such a dope. All season long he was predicting Michigan to win the national championship then last week suddenly changed his tune in predicting an Alabama win.

Wait a second. I did the same. I'm the dope.

Carry on...

But Ari will always be the Nate Silver of CFB.

Michigan has overcome so much this year.  Proud to be a Michigan Wolverine.  It is so true what Coach has said....adversity can galvanize a group of people like nothing else.  I'm grateful for the issues this team has had and the way they have approached it.

Star ratings only matter if you have a quality head coach and quality player development.  Better players, with a talented head coach and great player development usually win.

Guys like Mandel and Feldman can change their tune now, but that doesn't undo the damage they did with their bullshit. Fuck them.

Back in the late 90's and early 2000's, i believed that stars were the most important thing.  I was young and naive.  Now in my older wiser years, i now realize that coaching is the single most important thing.  For you young, naive idiot star gazers, yes stars do still matter.  But it is to a much lesser extent than you think.

On average, give me a 4th/5th year mid 3 star to mid 4 star over a true freshmen or true sophomore 5 star any day.  And give me great coaching.   That team is going to go places.

Everyone seems to be looking for the secret to Michigan’s success (cheeseburgers, stolen signs, smelling salts).  The secret is Ben Herbert, and he shouldn’t even be a secret at this point.  Harbaugh mentions his name every chance he gets.

Why are certain kids made 5* talents in the recruiting rankings over others?  It’s typically size and speed, which for certain positions (CB, DT, LT) make all the difference.  But for other positions, those things don’t matter as much, or they can be developed.  Ben Herbert has the ability to get the best physically out of most players.  The ones who embrace it (Mazi Smith, DJ Turner, Kwity Paye) far outpace their recruiting ranking and become top NFL draft picks.  What other program does that as consistently??

I love Sherrone Moore, Jesse Minter and the entire coaching staff, but as long as Harbaugh and Herbert are in their positions with Michigan, this will continue and it is an unfair advantage.  Go Blue!

This was obvious as soon as the story broke, and it would have been equally true regardless of the result on Monday. Now that they can’t buy anymore clicks with the “scandal” they try to restore their credibility. Not buying it. 

Unrelated but none of the archive links are working on my desktop. Know of any good tricks? 

Did they specifically call themselves out for their shameful hyperbole and apologize for it?

If not, this looks like an indication of even lower integrity

Fuck Thamel

"What are you going to do when your back's up against a wall, when you feel like everyone is against you?" 

 Blake 'The Great' Corum

You go out and win a National Championship.... that's what you do!

Onward, GO BLUE!

I'm good on both of these guys moving forward. Kinda amazing to so many go right back to them just for backtracking.

I believe Ari is genuine so I am able to accept his non-apology apology. My issue with him is how defensive he still is about it and his true lack of understanding where he went wrong in the first place.

HIs position was always a very stupid extreme: It's literally never happened before, therefore it literally cannot happen. No room for nuance, circumstance, consideration of other factors, ability to recognize the impact of the portal...just this hardline cause-and-effect that he acted like was an unbreakable law of physics. And though he says he's wrong now, he still believes he was correct to take that position because he was right up until the day he wasn't. (Basing this on the podcast, not the article which I don't have access to.)

As for Mandel, don't listen to him and don't read him. But was he previously saying the title would be tainted back in November? Because if so, there's no new information that should have changed his mind. We already knew heading into the Michigan State game that Stalions would be a non-factor for all of our games that actually mattered. For most people (who aren't straight up haters) this was really all settled after the OSU game. So if he's just doing a Finebaum (i.e., oh shit, Michigan might win it all, I better walk everything back) then he can Die Mad as far as I'm concerned. Apology not accepted.

Hopefully Santa brought them all a big old sack of dong to eat for Xmas. They can all fuck themselves with a garden weasel!

Maybe these dipshits realized that alienating one of the biggest fanbases wasn't a long-time good idea.

Sometimes I think sports journalists forget they aren't real journalists, start dreaming of Woodward and Bernstein, and then we get all this sanctimonious crap from them.

I say: fuck these guys.

These after-the-fack mea culpas do nothing to impress me.  Both these turds couldn't jump on the anti-Michigan bandwagon fast enough when there were clicks to be had.  This is nothing more than damage control.  I remain unconvinced of their journalistic credentials.  

To quote my favorite band, The Who, “Apologies mean nothing when the damage is done”.  Fuck these guys who have second thoughts after trashing Michigan’s reputation for months.

Real talk - do we even know for sure that Ari Wasserman and Maizen are distinct individuals?

Scouting is an art, not a science. If stars told the whole story, it would be easy. They tell some of the story (JJ was a 5*) but then there's attitude, chemistry, work ethic, and then just luck, chance, and risk. Add to that coaches who work well together, and who buy into the philosophy and who can get all the players to buy in, too. Seems like a lot of these writers are pretty one dimensional in how they look at success and forget about the human factor -- and human motivation -- which is what makes sports so interesting.

Good for them for acknowledging their mistakes. But Mandel is still clutching pearls over sign-gate.

I'm happy to let my subscription expire at the end of this month.

Today I am not, yet, in a forgive and forget mindset. Sometimes the hatefulness of someone's wrong trumps a tepid admission. There are overflowing multitudes in this court of public opinion. These are spineless, lemming-like folk who are without a critical thought. Their recent ignorant, vengefulness toward anything Michigan is inexcusable. They will reverse course just as quickly if Michigan loses next week. 

I guess the population needs critics to tell it what art and music to like and dislike, which widget to buy,  and predict which sports team is going to win. People don't seem to trust their own judgement and don't believe their own two eyes.

Maybe there should be a sports writing competition, with a playoff. Then we'd know who's good, right?

I'll get out the old ouija board and make a prediction:

The sportswriters on this blog would wipe the floor with the folks writing for ESPN, The Athletic, etc.

Brian and Co. are far more entertaining, fun, and insightful.

Have any of the 'name' writers given us insights and analyses like the writers on this blog have consistently done, year after year? Have any of them made you smile the way the writers on this blog do? I, for one, don't think so.

Bullshit.

These assholes spend a month and a half all but nailing our coffin shut. THEY contributed to the pervasive belief that Michigan was “cheating”. And now that everyone who wanted to be convinced is convinced, they quietly change their tune.

Bullshit.

I don’t know whether they believed this BS in the first place. But there was blood in the water, and like any shark they went into a feeding frenzy. Now that there’s no longer blood in the water, they don’t get to “oops” their way out of it.

The damage is done, and no amount of half-assed semi-retraction can fix it. They were an INTEGRAL part of a massively successful smear campaign, and I will never forgive them.

Is there any sense of responsibility or accountability in the journalism profession?

I’m not a journalist, and make mistakes in my work.  When I make a mistake - I admit it and am responsible for any repercussions or issues.  Maybe it was they way I was raised.

These individuals - like so many others - seem to be interested in sensationalism and clicks - little else.  That’s truly unfortunate.