Recent Comments

Not everyone is a diehard Michigan fan.

I decommitted from Michigan Tech when I was offered a spot at Michigan. It may have been a legacy offer, but who really cares. I came to watch home games. The education was a bonus.

I've heard that Miller Park is one of the better venues.  It should be an exciting year.

How is that any different than Spartan Stadium?

Weren't most of the guys from the big class from Ohio?  

Obviously not enough people have seen the grumpy cat.  I thought it was serious until I saw the picture of the cat then it was clearly a joke.  

Maybe he was a Boy Scout and thought that it would be appropriate to kindly remind people that being prepared is generally a good thing.

A lot of Hardaway's drives are what appear to be lobs for a block.  Many of the shots were going to get blocked even before the shot was released.  

It's is actually pretty funny. Glad dantonio is starting to understand when not to say stupid stuff.

I actually like Vitale.  He seems like a guy who genuinely loves basketball and that is all he cares about.  He gets excited about storylines, big plays, and doesn't appear to have any school biases.  Analysts who try to sound smart are a dime a dozen and often are reciting typical talking points with mainstream biases.  Vitale is different in that all he cares about is having fun.  I completely understand why some people don't like him or find him annoying, but you can count me as one of the few who enjoy it when he calls games.

Every announcer sucks when Michigan is losing though. 

Perhaps more weight needs to be placed on the system that Beilein runs.  If he is known for getting more out of less, then isn't it reasonable to expect that the dropoff won't be as great with a downgrade in talent?  Basketball is a superstar dominated sport, but coaching a system cannot be overlooked.  

We may have Dumars chemistry, but having a system coach makes me feel better about not losing it.

Commentators like stereotypes.  It makes their jobs easier as they don't have to have any real knowledge, just common knowledge no matter how far from reality it is.

He's not just a shooter.

Michigan 76

Indiana 68

I think Beilein definitely exceeded expectations with the caveat that expectations were too high.  I am retroactively lowering expectations, so now they are exceeded.

He is playing five freshmen on a regular basis.  This is a reason why expecations too high to begin with.

All of the players know their role and play it.  This is exceptional considering he has superstars and freshmen.  Everyone is playing team basketball and that takes great coaching.

All of the players are showing observable improvement in the season.  Freshmen are understanding their place better and letting the game come to them.  I don't know if a player has had consecutive bad games all year.  In season development at Beilein's level is probably pretty tricky for a coach.  

He's working and running a lot which is why I think his shot is suffering.  Earlier he was just standing in the corner and shooting open shots.  Once he gets the conditioning down, he should return to form.

Watching Wisconsin play basketball is painful as they play the most frustratingly boring offense known to man.  

I find it cool that there are teams that want to copy Michigan.  

However, there wasn't much time left.  The rebound took quite a bit of time off the clock, so it was a net positive. 

That is all.

Bill Cowher bought a house in Strongsville.

Do you like Oregon's uniforms?  All of them?  What have they lost?  We are not at risk of losing traditions by rolling out 1-2 alternates each year.  To think we are is ridiculous.  Deal with the fact that not every fan gets exactly everything they want.  In fact, fans don't really matter in relatively minor decisions like this.  

I always liked the look at the Rose Bowl.

I blame the Scotch.

If they stuck with the brushed gold for 100% of the helmet then they would be pretty sweet.  Alas, they have to showcase their made up Irish heritage.  

Notre Dame = French

They would look much better with blue numbers.

I kinda like the helmets.

We have five linemen committed.  They are all highly ranked.  How is that unprepared?

All biases aside, I think Tressell was a better coach than Meyer.

None of the legend jersey's sans Howard have been given based on position.  In fact they aren't really based on skill either.  

I am pessimistic about very wealthy people being sought after because of their wealth.  It was reassuring to me to see that Henne was dating this girl since he was 14 which, I assume, was prior to his stardom.

LSU is the only one that doesn't have an A in the common reference to the school.  I think we consider them out.

GeorgiA

AlAbamA

Auburn

WAshington

LSU

That is what I was trying to get at.  Big name schools do tend to have a talent floor.  Thus the baseline 3 star is not representative of scouting the player rather it is more representative of an understanding of the talent level at a certain school.

They look pretty normal to me.  All black uniforms are pretty common with a lot of teams these days.  I just don't see anything special about them.

Colorado is a bad team, yes, but I'm more enamored with the history there than with Purdue. Colorado is in Colorado, while Purdue is in Indiana.  Where is the contest there?  Turning around a Colorado team means being a national player.  Turning around a Purdue team means going to the Outback Bowl on occasion.

If you are a coach that wants a challenge and potential reward, Colorado offers the greater challenge, but also the greater reward.

Stu going for 20 against UCLA for our first big win was pretty huge.  Couple that with him being our best perimeter defender, I'd say he has to be in the discussion as well.

One of those two has to be the most important recruit.

Without an adequate foundation, a building can collapse.  If you are not planning on building a foundation for a building then you have to have a lot of money in for perpetual repair work.  

I'm assuming that the vast majority of fans want a program that allows for teams rather than sporadically successful teams.  To build that program you have to start with a foundation.  I don't think that there is any question that Zach and Stu are the most important recruits because they represent the foundation.

Teo had 7ints as a LB.  That number is absolutely insane.  Also, to say that Woodson excelled in all three phases of the game is a bit odd.  He returned only one kick for a TD and had some 200 yards receiving.  That isn't much.  CW won it based on his defensive performance, and there rest was icing on the cake, but doesn't really add anything.  

I'm perfectly fine with Teo winning it, and if I had to choose another defensive player to stand with CW it would be Teo. 

If we got both Treadwell and Stringfellow

This is a great way of getting recruits.  All we have to do is lead for them and expect other schools to pull the offers because we lead.  Treadwell is talented and can choose whichever school he wants.   If a recruit has that many offers, it can be expected that they will take their time and weigh their options.  The longer things go on, the more information is available to the recruit.  There is absolutely no point in giving up until signing day.  To say that we should drop out of the race because he favors two other schools is just plain silly.

EDIT: FORGOT HOW TO SPELL ARGUMENT

You seem pretty angry.

HS and College are two very different levels.  A great athlete in HS could put up big numbers at RB simply because he can beat everyone to the edge, or otherwise rely on his athleticism to win the battles.  That isn't the case in college when a more in depth knowledge of the position as well as intangibles such as vision or presence in the pocket.  A better athlete won't necessarily win the battle because the guy on the other side is also a great athlete.

When it comes to recruiting, I'm assuming that the coaches look beyond athleticism and look for the intangibles when determining what type of position is right.  In the case of Dymonte or Ross they put up great numbers at RB, but is that because of an athletic mismatch or because of them being great RBs?  This is why I was wondering about the position switches.  Obviously the coaches saw something in Dymonte and Ross that said DB and not RB.  We don't really know how the coaches rated them as RBs.  Maybe they aren't good RBs and just great athletes at that position.  Thus, big numbers won't necessarily translate to the college game.  Maybe Dymonte has great vision and all the other RB stuff, but chances are the coaches think that it is better to go after true RBs like Smith, Green or Isaac. 

This is why I am skeptical that position switches will necessarily work, so I wondered about specific examples.  

Was CW recruited as a RB or CB?  I'm wondering about those who were recruited as, say, a RB and switched to CB after enrolling and starred/were good.  I don't think that Furman, for example, was ever recruited as a RB even though he was in HS.

I thought that I saw that he was projected as a CB.  I think that he will have the best shot there as Dymonte and Wilson should be manning both safety positions for a few years.  He will have the opportunity to step right into the CB position.

There are essentially two eastern conferences (Big Ten and the SEC) while there are two western conferences (Big 12 and the Pac 12).

Can conferences get too big to serve the purpose that was intended?  If you have a 20 team conferences, is there any difference between that and having two 10 team conferences?  

I'd imagine that the flagship schools, or the schools with means, will get sick of sharing their money with the deadbeat schools such as Rutgers, Maryland, and those others that are on financial life support and cut them off.  Maybe there are too many teams to begin with, and large conferences will be able to expose the fat that are the poor schools as to eliminate those programs all together.  This frees up the additional revenue for those left standing.  

There is absolutely no integrity in the NCAA.  They are allowing this to happen.  Maybe we should just detach football from education and call it what it is which is a minor league.  

Ramble ramble ramble.

Gardner is a human.  He isn't a robot.  In fact, I don't think that the NCAA allows robots to play football.  

At the beginning of the season we had Denard firmly entrenched as the starting QB. Say what you want about Devin being a better fit (I think this), but given the circumstances of a coaching transition and a need for continuity and leadership to help hold the team together Denard was the man.  At the beginning of the year Devin is a junior.  He was also a highly ranked recruit and probably knew that he was good.  He was often called the second best athlete on the team.  If I were him I would want to play.  Holding a clipboard to protect your team against the odds that Denard gets seriously injured is probably no fun.  I'm pretty sure that football players want to have fun.  This worked out for him because he could play WR (a position of dire need), or to put it more direct, he could play football.  Why not let the kid have fun playing the game he loves and is good at?  How many top players can we land if we promise them that they can finally have a shot to start only after they hold clipboards and roam the sidelines for three years?  I'd guess that we'd get the David Cone types.  Devin is not Cone.  Let him play.

Robots don't have emotions or a game that they love playing.  They are interchangeable.  Putting a robot on the sidelines for three years doesn't do anything to that robot.  It doesn't care, cause it can't love the game.  Football is played by humans who want to play.  To hold them back because of a chance that they may be needed at some point in the season for a little while is not a nice thing to do especially if they can play somewhere else.

If Devin was good enough to play WR and start at that position, then the switch was a good thing.  If he were a redshirt freshman or redshirt sophomore at the time then it would make more sense to hold him out knowing that he has at least two years to be a starter.

Offensive stats should not be a requirement.  A defensive player can take over a game without scoring.  This just lends to the idea that games are won on the offensive side of the ball.  That is simply not true.

CW is probably the best defensive back ever to play the game in the future.  It is a physical impossibility for any defensive player to ever be better than him.  Teo should pay a fine for even being mentioned in the same sentence as him.  It seems that the maize and blue glasses say that Strongarm Stonejaw QB, Fleetfoot Sackevader QB, Speedy Fasterson WR, or Shiftyeye Quickfoot RB are the only ones to be allowed to win the award.  Oh, I forgot to mention Michigan players qualify by default regardless of position.  If we take the glasses of we can see that, yes, sometimes our rivals have great players that deserve the award.  That is not a knock on any of our award winners, and it is ok.

Seriously though, it is a legitimate question.  Those that say that Teo must return a kick or play wide receiver are ridiculous.  Playing multiple positions is not a prerequisite.  Those who give credit to the DL for his success have a point, but wouldn't that invalidate the QBs who won it with great OLs and WRs as well as RBs with good OLs?  Football is, and always will be, a team sport, so the Heisman will always have an element of team in it.  I would like to hear the rational as to why only certain positions or certain stats or a certain build should qualify or disqualify someone for the Heisman?

To compare Teo to CW, though, is tough to do because they play different positions.  I'd just as soon say that it is an impossible comparison and any attempt to do so will be nothing more than an opinion marinated in specifically filtered statistics.  

Teo is a fantastic player and has 7 INTs from the linebacker position.  The record for career INTs by a linebacker in the NFL is 37 over a 13 year period.  7 in one season is crazy good for a LB.  I'd love to see him become the second defensive player to win the award.  

This is a fan site.  All the talk about expansion here eventually leads to a comment about where our television market will expand to.  Let's make that irrelevant for the sake of being fans for a moment and talk about who actually we want to be in the Big Ten.

Personally GT sounds great to me.  They are a bit far away, but apparently that isn't an issue anymore.  Maryland and Rutgers do absolutely nothing for me.  There is no record of sustained success in their football programs in recent history.  It would be purely for TV which, as a fan, I will refuse to say is a good reason.

If you want to listen to the homer then listen to the homer.  If you don't then mute the TV and listen to a different broadcast.  I wish that more broadcasters were openly bias like Bob Ufer. There is no shame in that.

What if student tickets were will call?  After the kickoff they are open for purchase without validation needed.  You could pay a higher fee to avoid will call and it is refunded if you meet attendence requirements.

Michigan leads the series against MSU 67-32-5.  For you math majors we have played 104 games.

Michigan leads the series against ND 23-16-1.  Again for the math majors it is 40 games.

I know there is a lot more that goes into a rivalry than just quantity of games played, but I don't think it is so clear who our number two rival is.  

I started out the season thinking 14-0, and now I'm hovering at around 12-2.

AJ Hawk is dating Brady Quinn's sister.

Tom Zibikowski is a boxer.

Jeff Samardzija plays baseball.

I actually like this one.  Sure he may be raw, but how do we know when someone is good enough to wear it?  It is ultimately a matter of opinion.  Gardner has stuck it out behind Denard, switched positions to help the team, and is good at his new position.  He has also not gotten into any sort of trouble or drama.  

What did Tom Brady do at Michigan that warrants legend status?  Why is Rick Leach more legendary than Chad Henne?  

The Big Ten can't improve its teams.  Only the schools can.  

I don't think that there is any risk of the league becoming irrelevent.  Remember it is the SEC that is constantly promoting its dominance over the Big Ten.  By my apartment there is a Porsche dealership across from a Cadillac one.  That is because they compete.  Porsche will not compete with Chevrolet because they are not on the same playing field nor for the same customer.  Notice how the SEC doesn't really seem to care about the Big East.  They are a lost cause and are not on that level playing field.  The fact that they are harping on the Big Ten means that there is some notion of relevence to the conference.  The Big Ten is still considered a quality conference.  They just aren't better than the SEC.

Sit down and relax.  UM and OSU will be back sooner rather than later.  They will ultimately define the conference with Wisconsin, and the other second tier teams riding on the coattails of the anchors such as Arkansas, South Carolina, and Georgia have done in the SEC.  

I find out today that the camp I worked at for four summers will no longer be providing summer camps.  Couple that with Cliff Keen Arena, where I worked for four years in college as a student, being eliminated I don't know what to think.  I've been working at my current job for four years...

He's a pretty good goalie.

I aced the science portion while blindfolded.

Make that zero to Norfleet in 0.5 seconds.

Teams like UM and OSU are going to be around.  Nebraska will be consistent, and Wisconsin is proving to be consistent.  Too much is made of short term conference performance and it is getting quite silly to be honest.  

1. Top Ten from a major conference (Alabama)

2. Top 11-25 from a major conference (ND)

3. Below Average Team from a major conference (ASU, WSU, BC, CO)

4. Average team from a major conference. (Washington)

I would be completely happy abandoning all non major conference teams.  We will win some and we will lose some, but the important part is that I will have a heluva time watching the games.

The dominance of the SEC is really distorted by the fact that the best of the SEC is clearly better than the best of the rest.  Sure, Auburn won a title recently, but they would not be in the top 2 of the Big Ten this year.  Florida is the same too.  Arkansas has never won anything that I can remember as being significant, nor has South Carolina.  Georgia hasn't won anything either although their history makes me think they have been better than they have been recently.

If Alabama and LSU left and formed their own conference then they would be the ones chanting S-E-C and the former members of the conference would be relatively quiet.  

We'll get there with Hoke focusing on the Big Ten first and formost.   We need to become a consistent midwest power before we can expect to be title contenders year in and year out.  We even have an advantage in the midwest as there are now only two teams that can legitimately vie for the top recruits enmasse.  That is not the case in the south where there is FU, FSU, Miami, Ala, LSU, and Auburn to contend for the southeast recruits.

Throw an 8 yard out?

There has only been one touchback.  If Alabama's kicker doesn't have the leg then...NORFLEET!

BSU should have had a pick 6 there.

They're getting destroyed out there.  

I actually don't mind the gold portion of the helmet.

I read much of the series then gave up and donated the first 9 back to the library.  I had an honest discussion with myself and decided that the reality of the situation was that I wasn't going to finish the series.  Most of the books I read were good, but it got to the point where it seemed like it was long for long's sake.  

Do you have anything on Mike Hart's first start?  I have been looking for highlights of that game.

Clapton Unplugged - Clapton

Long Walk to Freedom - Ladysmith Black Mambazo

Graceland - Paul Simon

World Gone Wrong - Bob Dylan

Daily Bread - Corey Harris

Like you said, regular market capital is not flowing anywhere.  That is precisely because of the lack of savings.  Market capital is savings, and if we want to get that flowing again then we need to be more frugal and bank our paychecks to rebuild our capital and urge liquidation and recovery.  

If he can gain admittance to Michigan, I'm sure he can win a spot on the team via student body tryouts.  However, he will have to gain admittance first.  With all the talk of Hoke giving him a chance, I don't see why he can't let him try out, but I think a scholarship is out of the question.

This will be my final post on the matter.  I am engaging in the impossible task of attempting to predict how the market will provide a product.  What actually happens I can only speculate about, and with all the responses I can imagine that what I speculate is probably not accurate.  I do know that when there is a product that is in high demand, individuals will find a way to produce that product and  they will find a way to make money off of it.  

Lastly, for clarity, I do not propose the immediate elimination of all copyright and patent laws as there is much built up around them.  I was just noting, going back to my original two posts, that intellecutal property lacks scarcity and thus is not real property that can be owned by any one person.

forgot to hit reply

What is the purpose of the college football postseason?  The old system didn't provide for a definitive #1 team.  The current BCS surely doesn't but it probably is a bit better than the old system in that regard.  A playoff wouldn't either.  If we really want to have a definitive #1 team we have to ask ourselves what system provides for that.

Does the NCAA basketball tournament produce a definitive #1 team in the country?  I would argue that it doesn't.  The winner of the tournament is just that, the winner of the tournament.  It will be the same for CFB if there was a single elimination playoff.  A lesser team could get lucky and win a game and all of a sudden the "best" team would be out.  Can we really say that the 18-1 Patriots were not the best team in the NFL that year?

Does the BCS produce a definitive #1?  It doesn't because it relies on force (to an extent) and a single game to prove everything.  Working out a tie is an arbitrary process thus nothing can be definite. 

Does the old bowl system produce a definitive #1?  Absolutely not.  It relies upon conference predetermined matchups that have no connection to national ranking.  At least this system doesn't try to convince us of its #1 determining authority.  

The best system used in sports is simply not possible for football, and that is a best of 7 series.  Luck can only last so long, and the series eliminates, for the most part, luck determining the winner.  There it is.  The quest to create a perfect system for determining the #1 team in the country is impossible.  The best we can do is be fair.  

If we want to be fair we can revert to the old system and let it be completely a matter of opinion.  If we want more high powered matchups the current system can be reformed.  A playoff will not solve anything better than reforming the current system.

I like it.  The Clorox Shiny Porcelein Bowl could have a dirty counterpart in the Columbus Sewer District Bowel Bowl.