Recent Comments

- A good percentage of the state won't vote for a Republican.

- A good percentage of Republican/undecided voters are Michigan State fans, who won't vote for him.

- A good percentage of his natural demographic (Michigan fans) won't vote for him, for whatever reason, political or personal.

- The easiest parallel to make with Brandon (Ann Arbor businessman, relatively uncontroversial public persona, viewed as politically neutral) is Rick Snyder, who currently has sub-40% popularity levels, and who ran a neutral campaign that veered vastly right-wing after two years.  Everything negative about Snyder will be attached to Brandon.

I don't think Brandon will run.  It's a bad race for him to run in, sources tell me he prefers being an exec to being "1 of 100", and I don't see a path to victory for him.

If he does run, I think it will be a mistake in the long run.

Football - Woodson (with Rose Bowl shoulder graphic), Brady, Howard, Ford, Denard (with name on back!), Anthony Carter tearaway.

Basketball - Trey Burke...with his name on the back, and properly sewn letters and numbers. And Fab Five, of course.

Hockey - Brendan Morrison (as listed above), Red Berenson (white with MICHIGAN across front like current whites), Carl Hagelin (either regular maize from that era, or Big Chill).  Got all of the others that I need.  haha

2:30?

I'm very happy after that.  That's great.  I'm tired.  I'm gonna go pass out and wake up before the highlights on the news later.

Oh man, we won that game.  We won that game!

aaaaahh

What happened to all the accounts?

HOKE POINT ACTIVATE

I'm a die-hard Michigan fan too, but don't have the basketball knowledge and history because I'm a hockey guy.  There's a segment of the Michigan fanbase that doesn't follow basketball until the Big Ten season starts up, or something like that.  There's also a segment that doesn't care about hockey unless it's MSU week or a tournament, and that's alright too.

This whole hockey debacle is really casting a pall over enjoying this basketball season, for me.  Just a year with a lot of feelings.

Well, mascot was shorter than "person who comes to Michigan Stadium because they are a Michigan fan, so let's just give them tickets and make them a symbol of the school instead of a giant furry anime muskrat covered in hashtags and Arby's coupons".

So yeah, mascot.

Welcome, visitor from the Spartan Tailgate/Red Cedar message board!

Huge Michigan fan who hung up on Colin Cowherd when he was being a dick on an interview.

Before the hot girl would send a picture, she would also try to get the victim to purchase an Arby's-brand sandwich or one-use special football jersey.

I had no idea Value City stores even existed in metro Detroit, I thought they were all in Lansing and Grand Rapids/West Michigan.  I remember VC stores in Lansing, when I was little.

Turns out, there are none in Lansing now.  Huh.

Hockey time in a couple of hours!

Al Borges just called another run up the middle.

If so, Michigan Hockey plays Cornell at MSG on Saturday night. A good nightcap to what will hopefully be a celebratory day.

Yes, and Chris Floyd had one.  He quit that job and moved back to Ann Arbor, under the impression that he was getting his dream job, and then once he got into that job, it was taken out from under his feet.

Yost is always packed with students, but a student season ticket does not include any games played while the school is off on break.

Since today is Thanksgiving break, tonight's game isn't included inside the season ticket package.

Thanks!

I shall use this.

Honestly, I like things the way they are now.

Michigan should play Ohio State every year, and The Game always does affect the final standings.

The only time I'd radically switch things around would be if the conference went to 20 teams.  Then, have the Big Ten against the Big East Ten or something.

Thanks!  Glad you enjoyed it.

- It was like midnight, and I was tired.

- Aargh, I thought I checked everything aaaargh

EDITED:  1993 got fixed.  Good news guys, Michigan wins another division title!

It's Michigan/Ohio State, it's the tenth anniversary of the 2002 Buckeyes team, and it's free temporary tattoo day at Ohio Stadium.

Get there early for your free Ohio State stick-on tattoo, and take part in some half-assed pregame calisthenics with confused Buckeye students!

I'm already kind of doing something like this on Denard.  It will be posted as a diary later tonight.

The irritating thing about the Chick Fil A Bowl is the name.

It's a generic corporate name, not the Peach Bowl anymore.  And now after everything that the corporate sponsor did this year, there's certainly some negative connotations to the name on top of its corporateness.

I've heard a certain group of people at or around the Big House use racially-tinged language in the past couple seasons.

It's always either the rednecks (who, for whatever reason, always look like they came here as a random thing to on a Saturday) or the WASPy types whose parents sent those racist letters to the Fab Five.

I've had to get into it with some of those latter people in the past, especially since they spend their Saturdays by dropping a ton of cash to angrily say racist things about everything that's around them.

Do they hate Denard, and every black player on the team?  Yes.  Constant racially-motivated complaints, entirely unprompted.  (It's not like they are saying racist stuff after a bad pass, they are saying it loudly at 1:30 pm while cooking.)

Do they hate the coaches, from Carr to Rodriguez to Hoke?  Yes.  Is it because they are recruiting black players?  Yes.

Do they hate the people tailgating around them?  Yes.

Do they hate Michigan, hate anything progressive surrounding the school?  Yes, they are the first to talk about how we're all godless heathens or whatever for not supporting whatever they support.

(And, before this derail starts, it's not a religion thing.  It's a money spectrum and ignorance thing.)

Frankly, I don't know why they are here.  If they want to dress like yachting twats and shout racial epithets, the SEC is awaiting them with open arms.

Desmond Howard's number!  A good sign for the rest of the year.

Let's move up to Denard's number next week, and the Wisterts' after that.

Anyone adding randomly stupid hashtags to their posts/fields of play aren't worth rebutting.

Looking right at you here, Mississippi State football.

And to keep it on topic, Racine is a grad of Connecticut's Taft School - home of Max Pacioretty, Peter Berg and Trey Anastasio.  Now you know.

On one hand, Jacob Trouba does take himself completely out of the play and game with those big hits.

On the other hand, we're on track to get some type of Trouba-specific, MHB tuba-led chant or something by January.

Think of the positives!

Rutledge seems to be putting too much pressure on himself.  He's a great talent, but just needs to relax a bit and play.  Better play will come, but Jared needs to be able to put a bad goal behind him.

Racine is playing like Hasek out there, with no fear whatsoever.  It's exciting to watch, and it shows some ballsy confidence in himself and the team in front of him.

Edited, thanks.

1.  The erratic play is likely to improve as players start finding their comfort zones.  An influx of freshman, no starter in net, and players adjusting to new roles will do that to a team trying to find its potential.  But with that said, any good team can't just relax.  Consistency has hurt Michigan in years past, and you'd hope that things would settle down shortly.

2.  Having so many freshman in big roles does affect the consistency, as mentioned above.  That said, this team will really come together as the season progresses.  There's so much potential with this team.

3.  Treais is the perfect example of what the role of senior/captain can do.  AJ has become a complete player, and he's setting the example for everyone else.

4.  I think Racine will be the eventual starter.  Rutledge is the more talented goalie overall, but Racine has the confidence to take the starting job and not give it up.

5.  If Trouba keeps his skates on the ice, he wouldn't be getting those penalties.  No matter the head-shoulder physics of his hitting, penalties will always get called when it looks like someone left the ice to make a hit.

I'd hope that Merrill is back by the end of the month.  Lou Lamiorello told the NJ media that Merrill will be out around six weeks, and a November 24th return against Cornell would be after about 6.5 weeks to heal.  If he can't go then, there's the weekend after at Ferris State, then a weekend against Western two weeks after that.  Merrill will return sometime in that stretch.

Sumlin will stay at Texas A&M.  I don't think he's going anywhere for a while, and the other opportunities would only get better if he actually wins some titles in the SEC.

And frankly, the SEC isn't as good as everyone says.  It's an incredibly unbalanced conference, with three good teams and four bad teams in each division.

(The SEC West has Alabama, Texas A&M, and LSU with a combined record of 9-0 against everyone else in their division.  The SEC East has Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina with a 12-0 record against everyone else in their division.)

The conference has its power teams beat up on everyone below it, and are always talked up as the greatest thing ever. Frankly, any of the one-loss teams in the SEC should be grouped in with any one-loss team from around the nation.  No SEC worldbeaters this year.

Les was on his way to Ann Arbor, but hey, late-November is a great time for some sailing.

Florida State's 2004, 2005, and 2006 recruiting classes are all in the top five.

That's a remarkable streak.

I had no idea the Detroit Free Press had a London bureau.  You learn something new every day, I guess.

This whole rumor was mentioned at one point, but the guy who brought it up was Pittsburgh sports shock-jock Mark Madden.

Madden is noted for being really terrible, so no one really picked up on the story since he was the only one discussing it.

Michigan's press release is incorrect.  The last ticket stub of the season honors the 1994 team, not the 1992 team.   That season was Moeller's last in Ann Arbor, and did not include a Big Ten championship or Rose Bowl appearance.

Note the numbers in the team pictures.

1992 - http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/getimage-idx?viewid=BL001277;cc=bhl;entryid=x-bl001277;quality=m600;view=image

1994 - http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/i/image/getimage-idx?viewid=BL001279;cc=bhl;entryid=x-bl001279;quality=m600;view=image

The Tigers will be fine, especially since some injuries and traditionally slow starts are behind them.

If they stay hot this week, Detroit can be in first place over the next six games.

Friday and Sunday aren't on national TV at all, and Saturday's game is on FOX, but not in the South (for the most part).

http://www.the506.com/temp11.html

It is completely justified tonight to go out to a local bar for this game though.  Huge night.

I hope Charles earns an incredibly huge amount of money, because he has the heart to help others with it.

The Free Press is internally debating about when to further cut printing and delivery days.  Eventually, the Free Press will be down to delivering only on Sundays, and possibly only publishing physical newspapers on that day as well.  As mentioned earlier, writers are now filling the gaps when people leave, and the newsroom staff continues to shrink and shrink.

If a blogger is trying to attach itself to a newspaper, they are giving up their own creative control and larger rights to a dying industry.  We are at the point in the evolution of media when it's better to create and build your own site and invest in yourself for the future.  Selling out your rights to a newspaper is doomed to fail, because I don't see a realistic option for these papers to survive.

MGoBlog and other sites like it are where media is headed, whether Gannett and others like it or not.

It'll be torn down in a couple weeks, over the course of one night, after the furor subsides.

Quietly, so no one can protest or make a scene at the demolition.

Looks like this story will blow up tomorrow.

That was the worst start by Justin Verlander that I've ever seen.

YES YES YES

The shutout!  Of Cano!

That was hilarious.

Prince advances!

There will be no Inge jinx this year, with HR Derby.

Don't get shut out.  Don't be Brandon Inge.

JimLahey seems like the kind of guy who would definitively know.

Odds are, Ryan won't do that again.

Also, I love how this site is Kate Upton-centric.  Once she came on FSD, I checked over here to see if there's a topic, and there was!  She really is Michigan's mascot.

She should get a brunette wig for Michigan games though.

Michigan will occasionally recruit guys in other footprints, but the same basic mold is in everyone:  highly ranked since age 15 or 16, had some previous interaction with the program, and then got a scholarship offer many years in advance.

With someone like Moffatt, who was not around any colleges, he played for an elite club team in Arizona that attracted the attention of colleges, then went to the USNDT in Ann Arbor.  That's what got him on Michigan's radar, which led to him on the team.

We need to get her to Yost this season.

...getting a dollar figure on suspected payments for only the second time ever is a really big deal.  Michigan Daily, post some Muppets on your homepage!

It requires HAGELIN SWAGGER.

With a look of stern disapproval on my face, for some reason.  I don't exactly know why, but everyone here tends to have weird photo moments.

I'm pretty sure it's just laziness.  Michigan/the Big Ten/BTN hold the rights to everything, and whoever is doing the programming is just putting on the usual rotation of Top 2011 FB Games, Top 2011-12 Basketball Game, every school episode of their latest original programming, and a couple random classic games. 

Now that the Stanley Cup playoffs are over, I'm firmly in football mode.  YouTubed Michigan games have been amazing, especially since BTN only seems to show games from last season.

I'm coming, and excited to do so.  Always great to get back to Ann Arbor.

Dear Brian,

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding.  However, couldn't you use some stripes down the shoulders of your jacket?

We here at Adidas would love to help.  Not only would we outfit your entire wedding party with an ensemble that roughly resembles what your grandparents might have worn but actually didn't, but we can also come up with a full line of shirts, hats, and accessories to outfit your big day.

Remember, it's not just your marital partner that you should be worried about...it's also your corporate partners.

Sincerely,

Adidas

----

Congrats, Brian!

Go Blue, it's nice to see some confidence back.  It's part of coming all the way back.

Rich was on the outs with West Virginia's AD and staff, and was looking to go somewhere else.   A job that he knew had deep meaning opened up.  He jumped at the chance.

I doubt that anything major would have changed.  WV still would have complained, and people would still whine that the new coach isn't Bo Schembechler or a Bo clone.

All of Michigan's recent design work has been done by Old Hat Creative, out of Oklahoma.  Here's some examples of their work, from their site:

Michigan Football's 2010 poster/full campaign - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=162

The Big Chill - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=138

Michigan Softball - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=136

Big House Premium Seating brochure - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=127

Michigan Basketball's intro video - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=107

The Game intro, 2009 - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=117

Michigan Hockey package, 2009-10 - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=11

The rest of Michigan's sports - http://oldhatcreative.com/ourwork-detail.php?wid=24

Here's a pretty definitive list of where every game will be shown.

http://mattsarzsports.com/2010/week1.aspx

Looks like ESPN2 for State.

What weeks does the Big Ten Network get the second choice of games?  From what I remember about the TV contracts:

- ABC always gets the first pick of Big Ten games.

- BTN, ESPN, and ESPN2 rotate among who gets the second/third/plus choices.

- Any remaining games go to BTN.

- (Not entirely sure on this, but...) Games are usually picked a couple weeks in advance, a couple weeks at a time.

Anyone know what weeks give which networks preferential treatment?

"How Many Wins?" has been cliched for years now.  If Rich Rodriguez has a good year, he'll stay.  If Rich Rodriguez does something terribly scanadalous, he'll be fired.  Frankly, it's time to get down to football, just so that there's actual stories to talk about.

 - Get there early, so you two can walk around and explore the stadium.

 - Try not to leave the seating bowl once you get in.  If you leave before the game, there's a good chance that lines around the section entrances will cause you to miss some of the game.  Get in, and stay in, for the most part.

- Take a lot of mental pictures, this will be a great day of memories.