Hackett says No More Neutral Sites
All hail Jim Hackett, Edition #5642
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2015/07/michigan_declined_cha…
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Hockey too!
Thanks, Jim!
He's got great pad level and keeps his legs churning through the hit. Does he have any eligibility?
... pretty sure he is going to be medically ineligible unless he learns to wrap up better and move his head to the side. I also worry about the unsportsmanlike conduct penatlies he'll get leading with his head all the time.
Brining a national championship is important. If you don't, it can dry up before you're ready. Its an important step, helps keeps the moisture in.
I don't mind neutral site games in theory (see, e.g., bowl games), but home-and-home series are vastly superior. Key now is to schedule games with schools in nice locations (UCLA, Washington, Miami, Texas, etc.).
Good good good.
Wonder where the 160,000 capacity offer was from?
MIS is too expansive to host a football game. Bristol can do it because the track is a lot shorter than MIS. I don't think MIS was the place in question.
Rungnado May Day Stadium, Pyongyang, North Korea – 150,000 spectators.
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I would love a home and home with Oregon. I still want vengeance for their demolition of us in '07.
forget '03.
O'Doyle no longer rules. Hackett rules.
some teams from down south come up here and play in the middle of November. Maybe Georgia?
Bunch of pansies afraid of a little cold.
want a home and home with Georgia. I have wanted to see this for many, many years.
Would love georgia or lsu
LSU. Les Miles vs. Jim Harbaugh.
Just put a fence around the Big House and call it an insane asylum.
play non-con P5 teams on the road in November?
that's something I would like to see. Why not mix up the OOC schedule a bit?
Florida/Florida St, Georgia/Georgia Tech and Clemson/South Carolina.
To be fair didn't we say just the other day it's been like 30 years since we've gone south to one of their stadiums and even then it was to South Carolina who at the time was in the ACC.
Still, the good bowl games are almost always virtual away games for the Big Ten opponent.
Although ironically Richt may have been onto something since this summer has seemed to be unseasonably cold. Maybe he cursed us?
About 600 miles is all it is from Tuscaloosa to Arlington. That's about the same distance from Ann Arbor to Tuscaloosa. The Gators have themselves a nice little commute to Arlington as well. I don't think you'll see many Gator caravans driving much further than the nearest airport. But anyway, I think you'll find there are more Michigan fans native to the DFW area than there are 'Bama or Gator fans.
I don't think he wants to coach against Michigan.
EDIT: This was a reply to tlo2485.
Not sure how it ended up down here.
It's a one-time novelty so that everyone can say they were there. Nobody is going to go the second or third time.
They did this once before, like 40 some years ago. Then that was it until now. Once a generation.
So go ahead, have Michigan vs. Purdue at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, set a 250K attendance record, let everyone say they were there, then never speak of it agian for 50 years.
My concern with holding a game at IMS is that both offenses will run zone stretch all day.
Play after play after play, the ball and all the linemen making left turns. . .
I'll play contrarian for a moment.
I don't see us getting a lot of teams like Bama, USC, FSU (etc) to agree to a home and home. Neutral sites, from a fiscal perspective, make sense for colleges. Bama seems to do one every year in place of home/home series. By eliminating this idea I would guess we are forgoing the chance to play a lot of high profile teams. Not sure I agree with Hackett on this one.
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Totally agree that Bama in the Big House would be awesome. But I don't think Bama would agree to it. Other than PSU a while ago they've not agreed to many home/home. Plus, schools like USC, UF, UGA and South Carolina have a built in home/home rival every year. It they'd be more likely to agree to a one-time neutral site game opposed to another high-profile home/home.
Anyway, I understand the dismany for netural site game and you make a great point that most are not true neutral site due to southern location. But I don't see a lot of high profile teams agreeing to come to UM.
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There were games scheduled but Alabama backed out.
Hackett could also be betting that Michigan becomes good enough again to be able to dictate venue terms. Just as we'd like a home-home with 'Bama and they can deny us, perhaps in a few years other teams will want to play us in similar fashion.
Don't forget that strength of schedule plays into the playoff selection, so if Michigan becomes a consistent top-5, top-10 team, top-tier programs will want to schedule them no matter what.
As Hackett points out, Michigan can make some serious money playing at home (at least equal to Jerryworld and that doesn't include backing out travel costs) and I assume that would hold true for a USC or whomever. Plus there might be incentive for programs to impress the playoff committee with tough road games. You might be right, but I like Hackett's play here.
The money might not actually matter either. It seems like the new administration is actually putting some emphasis on cultivating happiness and goodwill from the fans... having marquee games at home is one way to do such a thing, even if it costs us a little cash up front (see: Nike)