OT- Book Learnin
We're in peak offseason, so I figure now is a good time to catch up on some reading. Specifically books as they relate to College Football. What's some suggestions for the hardcore fan?
Some of mine:
1. 4th and Long- John U Bacon
2. The Meat Market- Bruce Feldman
3. The System- Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian.
Worst:
1. That horseshit book Rosenberg published.
Anyone else have any favorites?
MGoBlog... you need nothing more
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What a...crazy topic. No suggestions--but I am curious about what'll pop up here.
and I love college football. And I LOVE reading good books about college football. So I figure others do too.
I hate that I am posting this, but from a culture of a program book.
Above the Line. - UM
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My favorite part is that Michigan taught Notre Dame how to play football.
Rudy was still offsides... but the Hell with Notre Dame.
I'm reading The System right now, it's fascinating stuff and I'm flying through it. Some of the focus on the Brandon era at Michigan is quite painful to go back and take a close look at again, however. It doesn't have the happy ending promise of Endzone, either.
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"The Blind Side" by Michael Lewis
"Study Hall: College Football, Its Stats and Its Stories" by Michael Connelly
"The Art of Smart Football" and "The Essential Smart Football" by Chris Brown
to put the Chris Brown books. Breaks it down simple enough for the average football fan to understand while at the same time keeping it complex enough for football junkies.
The Sweet Season by Austin Murphy
Scoreboard, Baby by Ken Armstrong
A Civil War: Army vs. Navy by John Feinstein
Dixieland Delight by Clay Travis
The Last Season by Stuart Stevens
Rags to Roses: The Rise of Stanford Football by Joseph Beyda
The Obscene Diaries of a Michigan Fan and The Search for the Unified Field Theory (Football Edition) both by Craig Ross
Civil War. Terrific look inside both Army's and Navy's locker rooms and programs.
Loved Civil War, but as an Air Force Academy grad I was really disheartened to see how much the two teams disliked Air Force(likely due to butt hurt over Air Force being the successful program in the 90's). But it was a great portrait of both programs and was really well done.
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Impressive...all that readin' an fancy lernin' on a unicycle...
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Billion-Dollar Ball: A Journey Through the Big-Money Culture of College Football by Gilbert Gaul
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Rammer Jammer Yellow Hammer - Warren St. Johna
bought it around the time of release and it's a decent look into recruiting. It manages to creep you out despite never going into shady practices on the program's side. You know they're there but they avoid that for many obvious reasons.
Actually managed to get a copy of "The Matheny Manifesto" by Mike Matheny and it's actually a pretty interesting read, mainly geared at parents looking to get kids involved in a sport like baseball, but he injects his own experience as a player and coach and now MLB manager into it as well. A bit like Harbaugh, there's a heavy emphasis on character and trying to instill and develop that as well.
I would like to read "Billy Martin: Baseball's Flawed Genius" before the summer is out as well.
by Douglas H. Chadwick
John Mcphee.
Down and Dirty: The Life and Crimes of Oklahoma Football. Charles Thompson's tell all about his time playing for Switzer and how he ended up in jail for dealing cocaine. The guy went from an All-Big8 qb running the wishbone at OU to convict. Crazy story.
I'm reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I'm about 1/3 thru, so still a good chance he spends a good amount of the book talking about Michigan football recruiting. I know I would.
Its a solid read so far and making me rethink the idea that I'd never own a motorcycle.
That's a tough read. Worth it, imo, but tough. Especially when he starts asking questions about whether rr deserved another year. That's a mind fuck.
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I agree, I had to restart it twice, but glad I got through it.
I don't harbor the RR hate a lot of the fanbase does.
RR committed 2 sins in my opinion.
1. Being tone deaf about the talent on hand -- running schemes which didn't fit personnel
2. Referring to tOSU as just another game.
He got a shitty deal otherwise. He won't make those mistakes again. He's doing well and will continue to do well wherever he goes.
And I agree he got a shitty deal in many respects.
But, I disagree about his firing. It was the right thing, and no, he was not one season away.
Principally from my reading of Three and Out, I have to conclude that he was inexplicably terrible at every facet of his job for the one and only time in his career. I'm not making any judgments about his fault or the fault of anyone else in this situation.
Some have argued that he was on the verge of having all the pieces in place, and that he would have done just as well with his players as Brady Hoke did with them in Hoke's first season. They are wrong. The defense was not getting any better under Rich Rod or anyone he would have hired as DC. Yes, he brought in some good players who performed well for Coach Mattison. That does not imply the team would have been just as good with a hypothetical 4th year under Rodriguez, any more than the 2015 Wolverines would have been just as good under Hoke.
Not trying to be that guy but RR is in Tuscon and not Tempe right?
I've read that... I missed the chapter about how my Ducati needs a valve job every 6K miles. Grrr! It's for sale right now! Motorcycles are fun but there are just too many blissfully unaware people on the roads these days.
For anyone that hasn't yet... Three and out is superb
...a couple years ago. I still haven't read it, or even unwrapped it. I can't bring myself to relive some of that. We put it under the tree each year and I told my wife I'll read it after Michigan wins its next NC.
Sounds like what Hugh Freeze is saying about the NCAA rule book.
NO -- READ IT!
Very insightful. Makes you think after all the goodness that is Michigan, how the fuck did we end up here?
It's also quite telling what a dick Hunter Lochmann is. Fucking flat out lied to the student government several times. Other times, Lochdawg was just too fucking stupid to know what the hell he was doing.
I have more ire for Lochmann after reading that than Brandon. Make no mistake, Brandon is a megalomaniac of Jerry Jones proportions (without the Jones cachet) but he did right by the student athletes; especially Hagerup. Can't fault him for that.
Wrong book, three and out is the Rodriguez era story.
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Ooops. Thanks for the correction.
Blood, Sweat, and Chalk by Tim Layden is outstanding. I also thought Mike Leach's book was good (Swing Your Sword). Bill Connolly's Study Hall if you're into stats.
The Smart Football book is a fun read.
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One of the best football/life books I have ever read, Our Boys, a true story about a small-town Kansas football team/town and how they are essentially inseperable. The book is $0.01 used on amazon, definitely worth it. I have never rooted for a team so hard that I had no real attachment to (and in which the games had been played years prior).
"The ones who hit the hardest" is a cool read. All about the Steelers & Cowboys of the 70s. Great look at the building of these powerhouses of the NFL. Lots of personalities on those teams and the book covers them well.
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The Game written by Ken Dryden.
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The Game by Neil Strauss is much better
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The book was better.
Don't forget The Big Game by O'Brien
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That short one on the back of the bag of pizza rolls where it tells you how to cook the pizza rolls.
Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay was practically required reading for anyone growing up in Wisconsin in the 70's. As I recall, it was one of the first NFL lockerroom-books, and a fairly quick, good read. I wonder how it holds up after all these years.
Collision Low Crossers is probably the best football book I've ever read. I spent a lot of time with a D-1 college baseball coach in my mid-20's. He tought me a ton about the game that most people wouldn't even see. It's nice to view the game from a coaching perspective, which CLC absolutely helps with albeit a different sport.
Just didn't teach you how to spell.
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Well crafted.
is a good read for those intrigued by physics. It's written by a University of Nebraska professor and has some really interesting data in it.
are magazines
Stagg versus Yost is an exellent book for those interested in just how football was run and played in the 1890s and 1900s.
....too.