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Then you're probably a fan of "the Coach" too.

as long as you completely avoid the comment sections.

I believe it's being called "slot corner" in some of the recruiting reports here.

MSU should do this too.

If your concern is the KIDS, well both are hounding therm. Many of the free sites are trying to make money too. They are just doing it without paid subscribers and paywalled articles.

How many players will they have room for? I've heard 13. If true, they're mostly full already and have 4 WRs. It looks like O'Brien's strategy is to fill up his class early. From the outside, it seems he could be aiming higher. Not only is he getting some 4* commits, getting interest from Peppers has to help even if he doesn't land him. 

Did PSU give a reason for replacing the doctor? It sounded like there was a conflict between the trainer and the doctor that O'Brien and Joyner decided by replacing the doctor.

if he visits as scheduled, the coaches will take his commitment.

As to where they will all fit in, that will sort itself out after they get into practices. Any imbalances can be addressed in the 2015 class.

I'm pretty sure we are already giving out the maximum number of scholarships for all of our teams.

I'd like to know whether the services rank him about the same or have significant disagreement. Could their rankings vary because they project him to different positions, list different measurables, etc?

They want to visit the kid first and find out what's going on before releasing him.

in the Big Ten a few years ago. Being willing to pay doesn't guarantee getting top flight coaching.

The authors of the report cited, the one comparing the relative salaries of faculty, presidents and coaches, suggest reducing the number of football scholarships to 60, capping coach's salaries at around $400K and cutting spending for non-revenue sports. They also advocate revenue sharing among schools.

How fitting that his post-bye numbers are the worst after negotiating all those byes before joining the Big Ten. 

These are not the same kinds of risk, though. The Daryl Stingley type injuries are very rare. There is a difference between assuming the risk of a serious, but rare injury as opposed to serious injuries caused by an accumulation of normal hits. It's a little like flying in an airplane. We all know the plane could crash and most will assume that risk because it's so small. If we learned that there were also toxins in the air inside the cabins with serious risk to prolonged exposure, would we just write that off in the same way?  

In a similar vein, players might be well aware that suffering multiple concussions is dangerous. They also can have reasonably expect the opportunity to retire before it became too big of a risk for them. Certainly we have seen examples of that. Especially college athletes might trust the team doctors to protect them. The danger from repeated sub-concussive injuries isn't really comparable in terms of seeing an increased risk. Plenty of former players are now wondering what damage they might have unknowingly suffered.   

Football has taken measures to minimize the likelyhood of spinal injuries like Stingly's. They have taken steps to protect players who may have suffered concussions. Why shouldn't they try to lessen the risk from sub-cussive injuries?

It seems stupid, you have a point there. The outrage? It seems misplaced as to every other point. I fail to see anything resembling extortion, blackmail or threats. Purdue is certainly entitled to try and persuade a player from transferring. I dare say that happens all over. As far as paying for John Hart in a similar situation, you pointed out the difference. They weren't going to offer him a fifth year. Helping him transfer without havng to sit out a season was the right thing to do under those circumstances, even if they weren't obligated to do so. Bo Ryan took heat for placing unreasonable roadblocks to a player's transfer. There's nothing unreasonable about asking a player who's left the program to pay his own way. 

for a semester. In that case, they are no different than an EE from the following HS class.

I wonder if the coaches have decided on how many places to recruit for yet. Last year they were clearly recruiting for more spots than most here expected them to. We always seem to underestimate attrition. Two would be a remarkably low number of players to lose over the next ten months. 

but I don't think you understand how that business works. ESPN, Scout, etc aren't going to stop making inside information available to their paying customers. Sitting on stories just means they get scooped by the competing services and lose business. They are not sharing secrets with you. Their sources aren't going to stop talking to them if the info spreads beyond WN or some other paid forum.  Granted, they don't like getting that info leaked, but they understand that it happens and that it's been going on from the beginning. They may restrict the accounts of people caught leaking "private" info, but there is really nothing more they would do.

I had always heard the Wings were in the west to give its opponents some extra marquee games. Most of the popular teams are in the east, Detroit in the west helped sell tickets.

I would guess he's not as sensitive to jokes about his looks as you are. Comparing his apperance to Hawking's physical condition is the most over the top thing I've read here in some time and that's saying something.

Isn't it supposed to happen this off-season?

with the basketball proposal is that it will very often lead to an imbalance in home/away games. Just look at this season when we faced all of our toughest opponents on the road first.

You're concerned about having to go small because of foul trouble when the alternative is to go small from the beginning? I think GRIII's offensive game is well suited to the 3. He's got a good 3-pt shot and those lobs can come off of back cuts.

very likely, yes

WTKA picks it up, but they have nothing to do with the content.

Australia too. Finns in the U.P. learned to make them from the Cornish. I didn't notice anything distinctive about theirs. The English, on the other hand, made the worst ones I ever tasted..

He committed to us when we were his only big time offer. If you want to worry, fine, but see if you can think of a decommitment who already had offers from all over before his commitment. 

I'd want to ask him what he thought about other coaches, both those he has worked with and those he faced in games and recruiting.

I think just walk-ons and incoming freshmen.

They will be there all weekend.

the AD could easily see that his job was on the line, almost certainly this was made clear by the president, who would have the same concerns. I would argue the financial incentive was entirely personal.

Last week, Pittsburgh announced that Shell was taking some time away from football to "work through some challenges."

You are right that there will be plenty of mistakes. One can't point at a blown call as evidence of cheating. At the same time, the presence of many mistakes makes it much easier to cheat. Refs don't have to work together to cheat. That would be more effective, but also greatly increases the chances of getting caught. One ref can change the outcome of games often enough. Only the the truly bad cheaters make sure they win every single time. The league can rig games very simply. Tell the refs, for example, to crack down on the overly physical play of a team before a playoff series. Some refs will make bad calls on purpose because they are people. Maybe they have money on a game, maybe there is personal animosity, maybe they are trying to make up for previous bad calls, maybe they are following instructions.

It's crazy to think bigger jobs would be out there for Enfield if FGCU took a step or two back next season. Would he even have been considered for a major job two weeks ago? Succeeding at USC will put him in line for better jobs.

I find the notion that it is cheating to be nothing short of ridiculous. If you want to start a discussion then why not suggest an alternative that you think is better?

One of my best friends wasn't the greastest dribbler. The ball got too far in front of him in an intramural game. He ran faster and faster trying to control it, while leaning further and further forward. He hit the wall with his head down and knocked himself out cold.

I hope you're wrong. I want him to stay for five.

Really? The fab five?

He wanted the Tigers to dump V. Martinez one month into the 2011 season.

Laying big shots to the heads of defenseless players should not be part of the game. I'd say the unlucky players have been the ones getting hit. I'm more concerned about our receivers getting taken out by cheap shots than our safeties getting penalized for them.  

You think the committee uses the polls for seeding?

Just because Bielema wasn't trying to poach commits from Wisconsin doesn't mean he wouldn't still be happy to have them.

about the matchup a week ago. I feel a lot better seeing how we did against Nix and Payne with Morgan in the lineup.

damn triples

of posts questioning/whining about someone downvoting your posts. Nobody enjoys reading those and some people are going to start downvoting everything else you post in this thread as a result. just my two cents

Your title leads with "Tide Clear Scholarship Room". That's strongly suggesting a purpose behind the dismissals that has absolutely nothing to do with doing the right thing. Claiming you aren't taking any credit away from Saban because you also give another reason for the dismissals is just silly.

while downplaying the suspensions and the turmoil. While Herron missed six games, Posey missed ten. They had other suspensions and injuries too. Sure, Miller is more talented than Maxwell, but talent isn't usually enough for a true freshman QB to excel right off the bat. Maxwell had three years practicing in their system. Most expected MSU's offense to be better than it was last season.

I think it's the only thing that keeps the blatant flopping from being effective. Does anyone remember the OSU player faking getting hit with an elbow against us? I think it was in 2011. The replay showed the elbow missed by about a foot. What I find ridiculous is that a player can attempt such a flop without fear of penalty.

They were the best school that recruited me. Although I grew up a UM fan, I can honestly say that was not a factor. I'm also sure that I would have stayed a Michigan fan regardless. 

and that we were not recruiting Stewart.

No SEC member wants to add more schools from their home state and they are looking at expanding their footprint too. VT and NCSt are far more likely to end up in the SEC. They would give the SEC a presence in every southern state.

but I'm pretty sure that guy is not an ESPN employee. He hosts a local weekend radio show. The station he works for is an ESPN affiliate, which means they carry some of ESPN's programming. There are literally hundreds of those affiliates..

It sounds like you are wondering if Hoke would fire someone on his staff just to make room for someone with a higher profile who is likely to only stay for a season or two. That seems highly improbable given what we know about our coach. Imo, if Hoke decides to replace someone on his staff it will because he is unhappy with their performance, not because someone like Cristobal is available.

If he wants to wait, then he is running the risk of the coaches offering that spot to someone else. Although his signing day is further off, that doesn't mean the coaches are going to wait almost a year to decide whether to recruit somebody else for that spot. They are bringing 2015 kids in for visits and have sent out a handful of offers already.

  But with whom? They had most likely established relationships with other players in their class and the coaches, like we hear about our recruits doing. Then on short notice, they need to start over, see who has room and interest. They are forced into making a rushed decision, with a lot less information and perhaps fewer choices than they would have had before. Are you seriously equating that to offering him a greyshirt a year in advance?  

your insight into why we would be wasting a scholarship on this recruit. Those are pretty strong words, so I would hope you have something to back them up.

but OP, you're clearly not very bright, at least not today.

Supposedly our coaches started ignoring Barnes at some point after he committed. It's one of those things where we only hear the recruit's side of the story, but I don't recall any of our recruiting sites ever denying it.

but I don't think you know what you are talking about. Hoke and Mattison have both mentioned that that the 5-tech and 3-tech can be somewhat interchangeable in our defense. You are the first one I've seen suggest they look at the 5-tech and 7-tech that way. It's pretty obvious they have been recruiting different types of players for those positions.

Although I don't believe ESPN has anything to say about it, one would think they would love two signing days.

it was because your post was a bunch of hyperbolic nonsense that contributed nothing to the discussion?

how this fits into Urban's recruiting tips for the other Big Ten coaches.

The coaches were telling all of the OL recruits a year ago that they were taking five. If they had said they were taking six then, it's impossible to know if they would have gotten all of those early commits, Pocic included. It would be nice to know how much room you have in the class from the beginning. Then you could budget the spots perfectly. We would have tried to add a third LB, maybe snagging Reshke or S. Jones. But is that any more realistic than saying we shouldn't have wasted any time and effort recruiting Treadwell, Isaac or anyone else who turned us down? 

Isn't the author the same guy who had us out of the top 40 in his preseason rankings? He is still claiming we should not have been in the top ten.

doesn't make that much difference in the cost of travelling to games. I remember hearing he was a scout for the Heat, so they might foot the cost for at least some of the travel involved.

Alex Collins is the recruit. I can't help but wonder if his mother is related to Landon Collins' mother. 

is from Arizona I thought.

I hope they do show up. Hell, I really hope we're in the finals so they can watch us from their courtside seats. As long as they're not asking for UM to give Webber a ticket I don't see the problem.

Just wondering who else would make such a stupid defense of Alabama's unprecendented and unmatched use of the medical hardship rule without being even a tiny bit suspicious. If you want to use our players as examples, you might want to learn how to spell their names. Clark isn't that difficult. What was the point of that example - that Michigan's coaches were upfront with a recruit and his family early in the recruiting process? Just because you can't count 27 open roster spots does not mean they don't exist. I think that's exactly how many we have if one player is not invited back for his fifth season. That's not allowing for the blindingly obvious fact that the coaches know a lot more about their players' plans than we do. 

You should "of" spelt better.

You need to divide the year's salary by 12 to get the bonus.

There are two unnamed players in the front row. Sorry to complain, I enjoyed your post.

That was a vastly different situation. VT had tried for many years to join the ACC and UVA was asked to help, rather than support taking other teams from the Big East and leaving VT stuck there. 

I meant to say that I agree the sport wil be dead (or dying) in thirty years. As the players continue to get bigger, stronger and faster, it's only going to get harder to make it safer.

What would you do about blocking? There are a lot of collisions in the game aside from tackle attempts. Unfortunately, I have to agree with Pollard.

games that are already scheduled?

2014 - App ST, ND, Miami, OH, Utah

2015 - Utah, ND, OrSt, UNLV

2016 - ND, Colorado

It's pretty clear that Brandon is intent on toughening our non-conference schedules. While I might prefer ten conference games to eight plus ND and 3 directional cupcakes, that's not really the choice. I'm happy with the direction we've been going.

91 on XM. Here's the place I always look: http://www.umhoops.com/2013/01/24/game-19-purdue-at-michigan-preview/

He got fined for the same thing earlier this season. He knew what was going to happen.

some inspired nuggets

didn't have any offers. But he told his friends and family and the local paper he did. He just kept the lie going until it fell apart. That sounds a lot like somebody who's been in the news lately. Williams is already committed to UGA and I'll give him credit for a good sense of humor.

that she was the one calling off their planned meetings (for obvious reasons). Now I see that he was doing it too. He went to a friend's house close to where she was staying in Hawaii, but didn't have a car and couldn't get to her house. Then he lied to his dad about seeing her. He was supposed to visit her around the 4th of July but his parents asked him to go to Utah instead.

Every mention of Kelly in the interview makes him look bad.

In response to a question about why he didn't visit her in the hospital, "It never really crossed my mind. I don't know. I was in school".

He had at least a three week break between semesters in May. He would not have had any team responsibilities during much of that time either, would he? Also, why would Brian Kelly think he had never met her in person? It's hard to know what conclusions to draw, but his story is confusing and doesn't fit together very well.

Do you have sources for the best friend angle? I hadn't heard that one before.

This was not a super sophisticated hoax designed to hold up to serious media scrutiny. The girlfriend was a Stanford student - easily disproven. She could have simply been a fan attending the game. There was no attempt to plant a false obituary notice anywhere. Given that, I'm not inclined to believe Te'o would have done the detailed planning needed to show he was the innocent victim of a hoax in case it unraveled. I wasn't asking what would constitute absolute proof that he was duped, only what would make us believe it.

Upon reflection, the phone records might not make the best evidence. Of course the absence of those long calls would be damning, but I'm not sure how much their presence would mean. Manti implied that his family was paying his AT&T bill. If the fake girlfriend was an invention to fool his family, he would have anticipating their seeing those calls on the bill.

Innocent until proven guilty is for the legal system, not for the court of public opinion. We lack subpoena power.

Retailers save the receipts. He didn't buy a bunch of flowers and mail them in a box. Whoever he had send the flowers will keep records. Plus, that is the type of purchase almost always made by credit card, so there will be more evidence. He doesn't need to remember her phone number either. AT&T could give him a copy of his bills with detailed information.

should be negotiating a book deal, to be announced after the NFL draft.

"Just because I imagined it doesn't make it any less true." - Homer Simpson

But I can't think of too many reasons he would think his son was while he was home in Hawaii.

I might have even wanted to meet her when I went to Stanford for the 2011 game.

when Te'o learned that Deadspin was investigating this story?

I wonder what kind of investigation ND really did. We can be sure the media are going to go over everything Te'o said about her with a fine-toothed comb. There were plenty of stories with information that doesn't fit the hoax perpetrated on Te'o angle. Who were the sources for the details on how and when they met and her visits to Hawaii?

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/college-football/story/_/id/8849887/usc-trojans-scuffle-post-bowl-defeat-sources-say

I like all of the posters who give us detailed analysis. I know they're going to get a lot of votes, so I'm going to say Raoul. His posts are always informative and typically address topics not covered so well by others here. I also look forward to DGDestroys posts on recruiting.

exactly

He can't take an official until fall for football.

While it's unusual, we'll have to just disagree on whether it's absurd to play to play the same team on back to back weeks. I don't see the big difference between that and having a game or three between the rematch. I also don't see why the first game would be meaningless. If you are thinking of some scenario where both teams are guaranteed to win their divisions with a loss and there are no national championship implications, that sounds like an extreme longshot.

Aside from that, the idea that a game against OSU would ever be meaningless is what strikes me as absurd. It wasn't meaningless the last two years when neither team could win the division. It wasn't meaningless in 2009 when OSU had already wrapped up the Big Ten and we went 1-7.

Maybe when the rematch happens I won't like it so much. But Michigan playing in the championship game is something I'm looking forward to seeing. I don't believe my interest or enjoyment will be any less because OSU is the opponent.

I think there are some holes in your reasoning.

You state the winner of the first game is at a disadvantage in the rematch, citing examples where a big underdog wins. What if the favorite won the first game, as happens more often? Wouldn't they be an even bigger favorite in the rematch in your examples? Speaking for myself, the chance to get revenge after an upset loss to OSU outweighs having to face them again after we won in an upset. If we were a big underdog we're probably not going to the championship game even with a win.

I think you are greatly overestimating the negative effect a rematch will have on the value of The Game. It has survived us losing ten of the last eleven and not always being competitive. It has survived many games with no meaning for the Big Ten title. Rematches with a new kind of drama may well add quite a bit to the rivalry.

I could care less if fans on this board meltdown worrying about having to face OSU again a week after beating them. I care about what the players and coaches do. If they can't get ready to face OSU for the Big Ten title, how would they be ready to play Wisconsin or anyone else?