AKWolverine

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Date	Title	Body
41 weeks 14 hours ago	Agreed	They should just reward the most valuable player in each league.  That or rename the award to MVPOAPT.
41 weeks 15 hours ago	Thank You	What I meant is that they are horrible at determining an individual player's value because they are so massively dependant on what the other guys on the team do.  Similar to runs, pitcher win-loss record, etc, etc.  There are just much, much better statistics to look at if you are trying to determine an indivual's value (OBP, Slugging, ISO, etc).
41 weeks 15 hours ago	I know this is a Tigers-friendly site	...but Trout, and its not that close.  I am a Braves fan, so I have no dog in the fight.  And offensively Cabrera is as good as anyone in baseball.  But based on position and defense Trout has been a significantly more valuable player this year, by anyone's WAR-type metrics.  And RBIs are dumb.
1 year 9 weeks ago	Thank You	For writing this.  One of my fondest, if not my fondest, sports-related memories, and I had kind of worried it had been mostly forgotten.
2 years 10 weeks ago	FUCK	YES
2 years 18 weeks ago	As someone who was not thrilled about his hire...	...and who is still not "sold" by any stretch of the imagination, I have no issues whatsoever with how he has conducted himself so far.
2 years 18 weeks ago	Thanks, Brian	This is one of the best posts I have ever read on this blog.  You play a large role in me remaining sane as a Michigan fan.
2 years 18 weeks ago	No worries	The more people who say it the better.
2 years 18 weeks ago	An open reply to your letter	I am not happy about the Hoke hire.  Not because I hate him or anything (I actually know very little about him), but because of the apparent motivations for the hire.  Its not about the sexiness of the hire at all (I actually preferred Hoke to Miles).  I (and I assume many of the other people upset by his hire) feel that: (1) previous ties to the university should not have mattered and unnecessarily limited the field of potential candidates; (2) "loving" michigan does not win games and anyone who comes here to coach is going to "love" it in all the relevant ways anyway; and (3) the new coach should not have been (or maybe, due to the annoyingness of program alumni, should not have had to have been) the guy that simply was most comfortable to old players and coaches and administrators.  I don't think any games were lost against Michigan St. or OSU over the past three years because anyone failed to "get" the rivalries or anything. All that being said, I am first and foremost a Michigan fan.  I will support and pull for Hoke.  And sometimes the right guy is hired for the wrong reasons; I hope that this is the case (and am even cautiously optimistic it could be).  But -- to those of you who are highly supportive of this hire -- please, please stop trying to force everyone to be immediately and 100% on board with it.  There have been many, many arguments about why is this a good or bad hire, and I won't get into them, but suffice it to say that acting as if this is a perfectly ideal hire is silly (as is acting as if it was the worst possible hire in the history of football).  And being a fan is also about bitching about decisions one sees as wrong or misguided. Many of us are still getting over the end of the brief era of Michigan football where it appeared the program was breaking out of its traditional mold.  No matter how unsuccessful it may have been, it was exciting for us.  So give us a few weeks, let us vent, and we'll be there in the fall screaming like we always have.  Go blue.
2 years 19 weeks ago	I didn't call the offensive style/system	"stubborn" and "old school."  I called the attitude reflected by that quote stubborn and old school.  Please read the post.  I also said I had no problem with any system; I'm not trying to say pro-style is better or worse than read-option-based spread or anything else.  If a coach wants to run pro-style, or passing-based spread, or anything else because he thinks that best fits the team, or because he knows and believes in it, great.  I'm all for it.  I just don't want someone who resists certain styles of football because they aren't "real football" or something.  That attitude is troubling to me.  The quote by Hoke I referenced suggests he might be among the people who think that, and that makes me wary of him.
2 years 19 weeks ago	The "basketball on grass" thing...	...troubles me not because I think it suggests what type of system he runs or would run, but because it reflects one of those stubborn, old-school, resistant-to-change kind of attitudes I would strongly prefer the coach not have (regardless of how many 1,000 yard receivers he coached this year). And I don't care too much about the tough transition thing.  Selfishly and myopically I'd love to get a guy that keeps Denard around and uses him well, but that shouldn't be driving the decisionmaking.  The new coach should be the guy that will make Michigan *good* in 3-4 years, not less bad next next year.  I'm fine with any system the new coach wants to run (assuming its effective), I just don't really want a guy who thinks zone blocking is for pussies.
2 years 19 weeks ago	Count me as one of the blind followers...	...I guess.  I have watched zero SDSU games this year.  I will be upset if Brady Hoke is the coach.  But I will be upset because I think he gives the program less of a chance of being successful in the long run than some of the other coaches being discussed (and Rodriguez, for that matter).  I am leery of people who call the spread "basketball on grass." I don't really give a fuck what previous ties to the University someone has (and think that it would be a huge mistake to base decisions on this "Michigan Man" kind of stuff, or onunderstanding the Michigan culture or something).  And, well, once you strip down the Michigan man crap, then you have a coach has been moderately successful at two small programs and who by all accounts knows football well.  That's just not enough for me.  I don't know how anyone has much of an idea how he'll be as a recruiter at a major program [insert anecdotal objection re: Tom Brady].   Will I shut the fuck up if he wins 10+ games a season at Michigan?  You bet.   I just don't think it will happen.  I have nothing against Hoke.  I just don't think he should be seriously considered as a coach for Michigan based on what we know about him now.  Its possible he would do well.  Its also possible there are a bunch of no-name 1-AA coaches or HS coaches that would do well.  That possibilty doesn't mean I don't get to be upset if they are being discussed as candidates.
2 years 19 weeks ago	Hmmm...	Straw man much?  One could just as easily write: OMG I LOVE DB HE IS AWESOME AND I TRUST THAT NO MATTER WHAT HE IS DOING AN AMAZING JOB.  EVEN IF IT IS BRADY HOKE IT WILL BE BECAUSE HE IS THE BEST COACH IN THE COUNTRY AND WE JUST DON'T HAVE THE INFORMATION DB HAS.  IF WHAT MICH DOES LOOKS GOOD FROM THE OUTSIDE ITS BECAUSE DB IS A GENIUS; IF IT LOOKS BAD ITS BECAUSE WE DON'T HAVE ALL THE INSIDE INFO.   And somehow I feel like people would be talking past each other.
2 years 19 weeks ago	Fuckin' A	Well put.  That is all.
2 years 47 weeks ago	I thought first tiebreaker...	...was head-to-head.  If GER > GHA, SER > AUS, then both Serbia and Germany are 2-1-0=6 pts, but Serbia beat Germany head-to-head, which means SER would be first and GER would be 2nd, and the U.S would get Germany. If GER > GHA, SER = AUS, then Germany is first with 6 points, and both GHA and SER are 1-1-1=4 pts, but Ghana would advance (and play the US) because they beat Serbia head-to-head (regardless of goal differential).  Am I wrong about this?   EDIT: nevermind.  That comes after goal differential.  My bad.
2 years 48 weeks ago	I'll have you know...	...I logged in just so I could +1 your comment.
2 years 49 weeks ago	That whole weekend was freaking incredible	IIRC correctly, Michigan was down 3-2 going into the third against Denver the following night.  I can't remember who scored the tying goal, but I think Cammalleri scored the winner, and Nystrom added an empty netter.  Its about as loud as I've heard that building.   EDIT:  Can't believe I forgot Ortmeyer's goal, which was actually the game-winner.  I think Cammalleri tied it?
3 years 5 weeks ago	I'm guessing	The French preists did not select the mascot, however. The point is not who founded the universities in question, but who picked their mascots.
3 years 5 weeks ago	Maybe	But the two situations seem drastically different to me. Native American mascot names were largely selected by, like, white people who thought that having a war-like, fightin'-type of mascot would be cool, right? Notre Dame's mascot was selected by, I am assuming, a bunch of Irish Catholic dudes. Makes a difference in how offensive something is, right?
3 years 6 weeks ago	Another person with...	...nothing invested in the game one way or the other, and I thought the officiating was pretty good too. A couple bad calls (the Scheyer charge being one), but probably fewer than the average game, and they went both ways. I actually thought Butler was getting the benefit of the officiating for a while; It looked to me like Scheyer was getting consistently mugged on the perimeter, both on his follow-throughs on shots and when he'd put it on the floor.
3 years 7 weeks ago	It certainly *could* be ...	But, assuming no unexpected attrition, goaltending will be *the* giant questionmark going into next year. If next year's team gets decent-to-good goaltending, it will be very, very good (and a Hogan/Hunwick combo is certainly capable of providing that). If it doesn't, well, it might lose a whole bunch of games in which the team outshoots its opponents by giant margins. Like it did early on this year.
3 years 10 weeks ago	I have always loved...	...La Terrible. Just aren't any other beers like it. And Trois Pistoles is also really great. Some of the annual ones they have done have been fantastic too (around 10 or 11, if I recall correctly). And don't get me wrong: La Fin Du Monde is an excellent, excellent beer.
3 years 10 weeks ago	I mean	Unibroue is a world class brewery, no doubt. I don't even think the La Fin Du Monde is their best, in fact. But one brewery does not a great beer-brewing country make. Especially when the master brewer is from Scotland, and came from a Belgian brewery (Chimay). Anyhow, I am admittedly more familiar with American microbrews (although I've had a decent amount of Canadian beer) and in my experience, American craft breweries are leaps and bounds ahead of Canadian ones. Unibroue is, however, one of my 5 or so favorite breweries in the world.
3 years 12 weeks ago	If you have recently dealt with	The Michigan Department of Treasury, for example, you will understand that the IRS *is* in fact a model of clarity, common sense, and fairness.
3 years 13 weeks ago	Depends greatly...	...on how much money I had
3 years 14 weeks ago	Oh...	yeah...a 6.5. Converting to the star system, she is a mid-level three star (although the tattoo suggests she might be undervalued). If she plays the timing, etc., of her recruitment right, very few will turn her away, but she's no blue-chipper (although she could really make the male-equivalent a MAC school's month by "committing").
3 years 14 weeks ago	Proof?	No, there's not proof. But a reason to think we might be markedly better? yeah. We have a lot of returning starters, finally some continuity in terms of the major coaches/coordinators, Rodriguez's recruits are not all true freshman and sophomores anymore. Does this team have a lot of problems and question marks? Yes. More than last year? No. (Do I like to pose questions to myself? Sometimes) I'm all about keeping a level head about things, but to say this team isn't much better than last year's team seems to be overstating the problems/question marks to me.
3 years 14 weeks ago	I didn't mean specifically...	...that we'd beat Iowa this year (although I think we'll have a pretty decent shot). I meant more: the games in which the defense plays not great, but probably good enough to win if the offense doesn't turn it over profusely, like the Iowa game from last year, will more likely be wins this year, because of offensive improvement. Maybe it will happen against Penn State this year (they're worse). Maybe it will be Illinois. Or Purdue. I just have a hard time seeing this team winning fewer than 7. Of course I could be wrong, but lets hope I'm not.
3 years 14 weeks ago	Oh, I know...	...you're not a RR hater (you post on here enough for me know you weren't being an idiot or anything--I didn't neg you, btw). Its just that I have been accused in the past of being too coldly realistic (not making predictions based on hope and the like) and I would be pretty shocked if the team didn't win 7 games next year (barring major injuries or something). Its just tough for me to imagine the offense not improving significantly, and despite losing Graham and Warren, I honestly think the defense will be at least as good overall as it was last year (not great, I know, but they were good enough in a few games--MSU and IOWA come to mind--that if the offense had just been a little better--less turnover prone, etc--that those game will be Ws this next year). Like you, I hope you're wrong!
3 years 14 weeks ago	Really?	You honestly wouldn't be surprised if the team didn't improve over last year?! And six wins *tops*? At least unless we start to win on the road? What if they "prove" they can win on the road in week 2; does that change your prediction (in which case, like, how bold a prediction is this? if Michigan wins zero games on the road next year they can only win 7 by definition)? Man, are you even excited for the season?

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