give money to meeeeeee

Hello! I swear this idea was in the hopper long before the Wolverine Liberation Army came along and made MGoCommunism chic, but there's a new shirt available for preorder at MGoStore. It looks like this:

Now you can headbutt all your Che-lovin' hippie friends with the power of Bo.

The deal on shirts going forward is this: we'll put them up for preorder when they're designed. Preorders will be $3 off the regular price; when there are sufficient preorders to indicate demand the shirts will get printed up in an appropriate number and shipped out. Get to it, if you would.

Last year, there was a book, and it was good. This year there is a book, and it's probably even a little better. You can order it here.

The book features:

Stuff by me. I preview the Michigan offense, defense, and special teams, which is even better than last year, when I totally forgot about special teams until the book was full. HTTV: now with special teams. Rad. I also take a quick trip through Michigan's recruits and reprise last year's zone running article with a version focused on the spread 'n' shred.

Stuff about opponents. Matt Hinton, who you probably know better as Sunday Morning Quarterback, provides a rundown of every Michigan opponent save Ohio State and Notre Dame. Those two get their own articles by Tom Orr, late of Michigan Monday at the OZone, and Brian Stouffer, Fanhouser and impresario of The House Rock Built.

Stuff about the new guys. Dan D'addona gives you the Rodriguez dossier from Glenville State to Pat White, Russ Levine takes stock of the program at a fulcrum point, and Christopher Paul Anderson looks at blitz-mad defensive coordinator Scott Shafer from his perspective at Stanford.

Stuff you won't find elsewhere. Michael Elkon of Braves and Birds took an in-depth look at how the top coaches in the country did in their first years out and Colin Johnston, who you may remember from the comments section of this blog or his own endeavor, expands upon the hours he spent researching/lamenting Michigan's linebacker play, breaking down in just what ways Obi Ezeh needs to improve if Michigan's going to avoid getting run over by Wisconsin and Ohio State this fall.

In the history department, Joel Pennington takes a look back at the 1969 Ohio State game and Greg Dooley of MVictors has a special Depression-era edition of his eBay Watch.

Just plain awesome stuff. Lloyd Carr's exit was a great boon to this year's edition of the book:

• It caused Rocky Mountain News columnist Paul Campos to pen an entertaining piece about the insane few weeks in between Carr's resignation and Rodriguez's hiring, during which any one of us would have beaten a man to death with his own limbs if it meant the coaching search would reach a satisfactory conclusion.
• It allowed local author Craig Ross to finally publish a piece about his attendance at a Scot Loeffler-run quarterbacks meeting.
• And it paved the way for Johnny of RBUAS to interview Carr himself.

All three pieces are terrific.

THERE IS ALSO A ROSTER. Sweet.

You can order it here, or here, or here, or here. Those are all the same place.

Over the next couple days I'll republish last year's zone article, which features heavily in this year's zone article, and provide a couple excerpts.

MGoStore currently has three bouncing baby shirts for your perusal and acquisition. They are all about the basketball team's win over Northwestern.

Ha. No.

For the US Mint enthusiasts (click images to be magically transported to a world of goods and sundries):

For the Simpsons enthusiasts:

And for the beaten-within-an-inch-of-your-life-in-a-West-Virginia-saloon (they still have saloons, right?) enthusiasts:

Capitalism, Warp 9. Engage.

Word: MGoStore can still get you the shirt you need before Christmas or the Bowl game. Last chance to express your Mike Hart mancrush.

Yes, "In Rod We Trust" tshirts are coming ASAP.

Hello! I'm proud to announce that MGoStore has moved. (Or, at least, has partially moved.) It's now under the direction of RichRobots. This has several benefits for you, the consumer:

• Shirts are cheaper: $20 each, shipping free if you buy three.
• The shirts are now from American Apparel, which means no six year old Cambodians were involved in their construction. Also they're really soft.
• There are women's sizes.

It's not a print-on-demand shop, so most of the obscure designs that no one bought have not made the move yet. We'll add designs gradually, and some shirts may just end up in the old shop if they're not of general interest or need quick turnaround.

CONSUME

CONSUME

CONSUME

Book update! Maple Street says that the book should be in bookstores like Borders and Barnes and Noble across Michigan, as well as newsstands at Meijer, Walgreens, and wherever fine book-magazine-preview-type things are sold. Should be arriving sometime this week. An excitable commenter inquired at the local Borders:

Borders in Ann Arbor just said that it hadn't been shipped to them yet and it would be at least a few more days before they had it. Hearing that, I broke down and ordered it online.

They are coming, I assure you. Anyone who sees one in the flesh, please let me know.

Amazon orderers are spooked by the projected ship dates (September?); Maple Street assures me that this is a fiction borne of Amazonian caution to not over-promise and under-deliver and that they will have the books shortly as well.

If you'd like to check out what the book actually looks like in the flesh, as it were, here's a PDF of the first half of SMQB's schedule preview.

Order the book. It wants you to order it. All these links go to the same place.

I have been inundated with email (two pieces!) about this, so, yeah:

Left: Mike Comrie. Right: Hillary Duff. TMZ says the duo has been "hot and heavy since a wet weekend of jet skiing in Idaho." (Idaho?!) Someone mail this to recruits across the country.

The photo proves a few things. One: It doesn't matter if you're 5'8" on a good day if you've got a jaw like that. And millions and millions of dollars. (Not only is Comrie a well-compensated NHLer but his father is the owner of a chain of Canadian furniture stores.) Two: holy hell Hillary Duff is tiny. I can't believe she can even lift her enormously oversized purse-type thing. Shouldn't she have a manservant or something?

That would be awesome. If I was preposterously wealthy and famous instead of getting all coked up my vice would be hiring a tiny elderly man from the Indian subcontinent to carry around things for me. Not even heavy things. Like, my cell phone. Because my jeans profile must not be disturbed, I say!

This appears to be a digression.

(HT: WCH.)

Schedule bits. As soon as a break in the ND series is dropped everyone wants in. Texas:

Two readers emailed me this morning with links to this story noting that both the Wolverines and Fighting Irish are seeking opponents for the 2010 and 2011 seasons. I've beaten the "please schedule tougher" horse to death by now, so I won't take the podium for that particular lecture again.

Instead, a quiet sigh of resignation as I note our current schedules for both seasons in question

Peter's actually got the years wrong, as it's 2012 and 2013 that are the open slot. Texas is very feasible.

Cal:

As Hydrotech wrote before in our most controversial post to date, while it's rather unfortunate that while THE Ohio State University (seriously, what is up with that?) decided to cancel our series with them in 2012-2013, it does leave us with other opportunities. Like the opportunity to schedule a habitually underachieving Big Ten foe whose fans somehow got more riled up about our dis of Ohio State than their own fans did. Maybe it's an inferiority complex.

Still, just like Ragnarok suggested, our Bears have an open date in 2012. So do the Wolverines. The two haven't played since the 1950 Rose Bowl. And we are a national power from a major conference.

This would be great if this was true, but it isn't. Cal's not even a Pac-10 power: the Bears' last Rose Bowl was in 1959. The reason Jeff Tedford is such a sexy candidate for the hypothetically open Michigan job is that he's managed to drag Cal into respectability. Next.

Doug Karsch got on the radio -- I did not actually hear this, but have seen it multiple places on the message boards -- and said that Michigan was looking at Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, and the big three in Florida. FWIW.

Meanwhile, I will enjoy watching the pretzel logic from a certain genre of Notre Dame fan that turns this Bill Martin quote on its head:

"Certainly, we will be playing them; we'll never discontinue playing with Notre Dame," Martin said. "We may take breaks now and then so that we can add other prominent programs to our schedule."

Ready... go!

Szzzzabo. Brief excerpt from a GBW interview with Steve Szabo with interesting bits. Graham and Thompson lead for their spots at the moment. Szabo on Austin Panter:

Spring was rough for Austin. He played eight-man football in high school in Kansas and then went to junior college out there. He doesn't have a vast background in 11-man football. He struggled in the spring, but I think he'll come back a different man this fall. He's become acclimated to the university and his teammates and I think he'll come back much more competitive in the fall."

Yikes. On Thompson:

John's got to step up to the plate. He's got a ways to go, but I'm often reminded by the coaches of some comments that I made last spring about David being a little mediocre (laughing). Thompson is the same way. He's not a house hold name right now, but you never know with how hard he'll work.

I am not particularly assured at the moment.

This will be next to Yost next fall.

Click for big. Construction info here. All the windows are reflective. Curses! Foiled again.

Etc.: Lake The Posts is counting down the top games in Northwestern football history. They've reached #6. You
probably don't want to read about it. And you definitely don't want to read the Anthony Thomas fumble one, whenever that is.