He has been so much better on ESPN than he was for AnnArbor.com. Granted, it helps that he can be more esoteric for his audience at WolverineNation, but someone should show his new writing and old writing side-by-side to A2.com as an example for how colorless their style is and how it crushes creativity.
I loved the positive spins NFL Films would give at the end of their episodes that focused on one team's season, even when the team was terrible. In the waning moments of the Lions loss in Green Bay to complete the 0-16 season of 2008, I remember saying "I don't know how Steve Sabol will make this sound hopeful but he will probably find a way."
I was a Dish customer from 2005-2010 and loved it. Their DVR was/is top of the line. I left when they started refusing to negotiate new deals with me and it looks like I got out just in time. They are a mess.
Paterno's name shouldn't be used cheaply. Outside of Dave Bliss at Baylor, there has never been another college coach worthy of comparison to that crime and might never be again.
Tressel was a huckster, giving his false image the hard sell. That's not worthy of someone who made fellow humans' blood run cold.
Brandon has a heart of gold. Mostly because gold has an high per ounce value.
Seriously, it's not like the kid's brother has cancer or something awful like that. He was told to take off some gear. This is completely about publicity and we have a good track record of the lines DB thinks across. Let's call a spade a spade here.
I don't think the spread is quite dead after this year. We will still have Gallon and Dileo, the Hoke-recruited O-Lineman still may still need to physically mature before they can excel at "manball" blocking schemes and obviously running is a big part of Gardner's skillset.
Looking at 2014 as the first year of the "new" Michigan offense, which I don't think will look as close to "old old" Michigan offense as some think. Shane Morris is no statue.
I hate MSU way more but I want them undefeated on Oct. 20. The last two seasons when they have had a big road game at the time of the year and have had a "due for a loss" feeling (at Iowa in 2010, at Nebraska in 2011) they have been crushed.
I don't think it's guts that leads him to those decisions.
At any rate, I'm pretty sure the Air Force game wasn't his doing but something he inherited. Nevertheless, it was still a small part of a brutal slate for 2011 that shouldn't have made him ever entertain booking that date in Dallas.
I personally don't single Rodriguez out because I don't look at it like we suffered for three years. In my book, we suffered for 10.
From the winter of 2001 when Jim Tressel replaced John Cooper and Drew Henson bolted to the Yankees up until last year, Michigan football wasn't able to sustain any good vibes. The constant losses to OSU or in bowl games made the offseasons pretty damn miserable.
The RR era pretty much represented a manifest destiny of futility and agnst that was slowly building up in the seven years that preceded his arrival until our fortunate rebirth last season (the first since 1999 with two losses or less and wins against both the Buckeyes and our bowl opponent).
If we were caught off-guard by the spread formations Tressel employed in 2006, we certainly shouldn't have been. OSU ran a lot of spread stuff that entire season.
Does anyone know what the logic is behind picking non-traditional football scores (32, 22) in a prediction piece? Brian does it here and I've seen other pundits go there before. Is it just to denote what you think the over/under number will be? Nobody would actually predict a team will end with those scores instead of conventional final numbers like 34, 31, 28...
The hitting coach is one of Leyland's best friends and both are proponents of the archaic philosophy of aggressive free-swinging that has produced so many frustrating moments at the plate this year and made many mediocre pitching opponents look like Cy Young candidates for a night.
Combine that with the lineup oddities and yeah, there's a lot of blame to throw his way.
It's hard for some people to not be a slave to their most recent memory and Avery got targeted and torched on Saturday. But I agree his first two years were solid. He should be at least an adequate starter.
With all do respect, why would it ever be "fine" to put Kelly in the lineup in the heat of a division race?
If you want to DH Prince you play Cabrera at first for a night and at third you could plug in any number of parts that are better than Nice Guy Donnie.
His reasoning for playing Kelly and his .505 OPS in a pennant race September game? "I like to see good things happen to good people." Yes, he said that.
What is depressing is the Detroit media basically lets him get away with that. He'd be fried extra crispy tonight in a lot of other baseball cities.
Grantland seems to have taken a special interest in us, with UM stories heading their "triangle" section for the last several days.
As someone who doesn't like that pompous bluster is a part of Michigan's image to outsiders, there aren't many websites I'd like talking about us less than freaking Grantland.
Especially considering this is the second consecutive year a starting corner was injured as a gunner on the very first punt of the season. Lessons need to be learned and they weren't.
Similar to the Michigan-Toledo game in '08 as we were also very unlucky. That game had a perfect storm of badness (missed chippy, only scholarship quarterback going down, 100-yard interception returned for touchdown off a tip) that was a microcosm for RR's whole career here.
So what is your argument? That Michigan didn't try as hard as Alabama did last night because it was a non-conference game?
I'm not sure how these media-professed "goals" have anything to do with how the team performs. Michigan supposedly had the goal being a Big Ten title in 1997 and they won a NC. Alabama may have been shooting for the NC in the Mike Shula era for all we know.
If you're good, you're good. If you're not, you're not.
Aside from the factual elements of oversigning and JUCOS, the foundation of your point is based in innuendo and hearsay. You're not inside the walls, man. You don't know exactly how Alabama (or Michigan, for that matter) approach academics regarding their football players.
All that stuff aside, a bigger reason (in my opinion) for the disparity is that their main recruiting ground, the South, produces better football players than our main ground, the Midwest. And they have cleaned up that recruiting ground since Saban came in.
They're good. They got through good at least in part through old cliches like strong preparation and good fundamentals, which even their new starters played with last night. To demonize them and bring up the old "smell test" seems a bit petty in the wake of defeat.
You cannot tell me you believe that. The first rumor about the game popped up six months into Brandon's tenure, well after DB announced the first night game.
Herbstreit rambling on and on about Junior Hemingway. I loved JH, but two great catches in the Sugar Bowl that stuck in the minds of talking heads has made him the most overrated Michigan player ever.
You would think he was a first-round pick who terrorized the Big Ten last year from the tones people talk about him in.
I'm a big Arsenal fan and if Wenger quit, I'd follow him wherever he went and be a big fan of that club next.
The abuse that man has taken by ignorant nationalists in the English media and public is maybe the most unfair you will find anywhere in the world of sport. All he does is get to the Champions League EVERY YEAR despite stingy ownership. And yet, somehow, he is blamed for the "lack of ambition" after Man City, Man United and Chelsea have all gone absolutely crazy with irresponsible spending.
Thought this was going to be Houston, which would have been cool for me personally. First game I attended as a little kid was the 61-7 rout over the Cougars in 1992.
Calvin was better at Ga Tech than Braylon was at Michigan if you adjust the numbers to the talent of the quarterbacks throwing to them. CJ's 2006 numbers (76 rec, 1202 yards, 15 TD) are truly astounding when you consider that his QB was Reggie Ball. Edwards' 2004 stats are also eye-popping but even a freshman Henne was much better than Ball at - if nothing else - heaving it past the secondary downfield.
Megatron, Braylon and Fitzgerald are probably the three most dominant college wideouts of modern times.
Is this guy you asked a level-headed person with actual knowledge or the type of guy who shouts at his TV that the commentators are rooting against Michigan?
I mean, is there even a reason given why these decision-makers at the NCAA are supposedly anti-Michigan to begin with?
Recent Comments
Adding "Class of ---" in your signature after penning a question about football comes across as a bit pompous, doesn't it?
He has been so much better on ESPN than he was for AnnArbor.com. Granted, it helps that he can be more esoteric for his audience at WolverineNation, but someone should show his new writing and old writing side-by-side to A2.com as an example for how colorless their style is and how it crushes creativity.
I loved the positive spins NFL Films would give at the end of their episodes that focused on one team's season, even when the team was terrible. In the waning moments of the Lions loss in Green Bay to complete the 0-16 season of 2008, I remember saying "I don't know how Steve Sabol will make this sound hopeful but he will probably find a way."
Funny DeBord-era conversation in my section that day:
Guy #1: "Man, it looks like the exact same routes in the passing game over and over."
Guy #2: "Yeah well, somebody inside the program told me the other day that Mallett still only knows 15 percent of our playbook."
Guy #1: (pause) "Wait a minute, wouldn't that mean he knows less than one play?!"
He is more likely to take a big hit on a kickoff return than he is being in on an offensive snap.
Wow. I said the EXACT same thing when I saw that play last night about Denard and Norfleet. It would be killer.
Dollars to doughnuts we see a ton of new stuff vs. MSU, just as plays were saved for OSU last fall.
And in 2008. And in 2006. And in ... aww hell.
I was a Dish customer from 2005-2010 and loved it. Their DVR was/is top of the line. I left when they started refusing to negotiate new deals with me and it looks like I got out just in time. They are a mess.
Paterno's name shouldn't be used cheaply. Outside of Dave Bliss at Baylor, there has never been another college coach worthy of comparison to that crime and might never be again.
Tressel was a huckster, giving his false image the hard sell. That's not worthy of someone who made fellow humans' blood run cold.
Brandon has a heart of gold. Mostly because gold has an high per ounce value.
Seriously, it's not like the kid's brother has cancer or something awful like that. He was told to take off some gear. This is completely about publicity and we have a good track record of the lines DB thinks across. Let's call a spade a spade here.
I don't think the spread is quite dead after this year. We will still have Gallon and Dileo, the Hoke-recruited O-Lineman still may still need to physically mature before they can excel at "manball" blocking schemes and obviously running is a big part of Gardner's skillset.
Looking at 2014 as the first year of the "new" Michigan offense, which I don't think will look as close to "old old" Michigan offense as some think. Shane Morris is no statue.
I hate MSU way more but I want them undefeated on Oct. 20. The last two seasons when they have had a big road game at the time of the year and have had a "due for a loss" feeling (at Iowa in 2010, at Nebraska in 2011) they have been crushed.
Dave Brandon knew when the deal was made (Summer 2010) that there was a good chance there would be a coach in his first or second season at Michigan.
At that time he seemed to go out of his way to tell people that RR's job status was "under evaluation." Not exactly a vote of confidence.
I don't think it's guts that leads him to those decisions.
At any rate, I'm pretty sure the Air Force game wasn't his doing but something he inherited. Nevertheless, it was still a small part of a brutal slate for 2011 that shouldn't have made him ever entertain booking that date in Dallas.
I personally don't single Rodriguez out because I don't look at it like we suffered for three years. In my book, we suffered for 10.
From the winter of 2001 when Jim Tressel replaced John Cooper and Drew Henson bolted to the Yankees up until last year, Michigan football wasn't able to sustain any good vibes. The constant losses to OSU or in bowl games made the offseasons pretty damn miserable.
The RR era pretty much represented a manifest destiny of futility and agnst that was slowly building up in the seven years that preceded his arrival until our fortunate rebirth last season (the first since 1999 with two losses or less and wins against both the Buckeyes and our bowl opponent).
If we were caught off-guard by the spread formations Tressel employed in 2006, we certainly shouldn't have been. OSU ran a lot of spread stuff that entire season.
So we aren't a top 20 team? Because Air Force's system QB did a lot of damage today.
OK State is a "system" program. All their QBs put up big numbers, regardless of experience.
Michigan's crowd has historically been very vocal about how coaches should handle clock management decisions, particularly at the end of a half.
There was no booing there. There was no anxious buzz while it was happening. They are all still in "Brady is God" mode. Sad.
Does anyone know what the logic is behind picking non-traditional football scores (32, 22) in a prediction piece? Brian does it here and I've seen other pundits go there before. Is it just to denote what you think the over/under number will be? Nobody would actually predict a team will end with those scores instead of conventional final numbers like 34, 31, 28...
Very eager to see Funchess. Hope he plays this week.
The hitting coach is one of Leyland's best friends and both are proponents of the archaic philosophy of aggressive free-swinging that has produced so many frustrating moments at the plate this year and made many mediocre pitching opponents look like Cy Young candidates for a night.
Combine that with the lineup oddities and yeah, there's a lot of blame to throw his way.
It's hard for some people to not be a slave to their most recent memory and Avery got targeted and torched on Saturday. But I agree his first two years were solid. He should be at least an adequate starter.
Wait til next year is not what the fans of a team with a $120 million payroll and an 83-year-old owner are supposed to be told.
With all do respect, why would it ever be "fine" to put Kelly in the lineup in the heat of a division race?
If you want to DH Prince you play Cabrera at first for a night and at third you could plug in any number of parts that are better than Nice Guy Donnie.
His reasoning for playing Kelly and his .505 OPS in a pennant race September game? "I like to see good things happen to good people." Yes, he said that.
What is depressing is the Detroit media basically lets him get away with that. He'd be fried extra crispy tonight in a lot of other baseball cities.
Sparty mouth-breathers can't like that Dantonio did this, no matter what they say.
Never voluntarily giving UM an inch in the media fight is what they thought made him a "badass."
Grantland seems to have taken a special interest in us, with UM stories heading their "triangle" section for the last several days.
As someone who doesn't like that pompous bluster is a part of Michigan's image to outsiders, there aren't many websites I'd like talking about us less than freaking Grantland.
Especially considering this is the second consecutive year a starting corner was injured as a gunner on the very first punt of the season. Lessons need to be learned and they weren't.
Similar to the Michigan-Toledo game in '08 as we were also very unlucky. That game had a perfect storm of badness (missed chippy, only scholarship quarterback going down, 100-yard interception returned for touchdown off a tip) that was a microcosm for RR's whole career here.
So what is your argument? That Michigan didn't try as hard as Alabama did last night because it was a non-conference game?
I'm not sure how these media-professed "goals" have anything to do with how the team performs. Michigan supposedly had the goal being a Big Ten title in 1997 and they won a NC. Alabama may have been shooting for the NC in the Mike Shula era for all we know.
If you're good, you're good. If you're not, you're not.
RR calls most of his team's plays. Always has.
Aside from the factual elements of oversigning and JUCOS, the foundation of your point is based in innuendo and hearsay. You're not inside the walls, man. You don't know exactly how Alabama (or Michigan, for that matter) approach academics regarding their football players.
All that stuff aside, a bigger reason (in my opinion) for the disparity is that their main recruiting ground, the South, produces better football players than our main ground, the Midwest. And they have cleaned up that recruiting ground since Saban came in.
They're good. They got through good at least in part through old cliches like strong preparation and good fundamentals, which even their new starters played with last night. To demonize them and bring up the old "smell test" seems a bit petty in the wake of defeat.
You cannot tell me you believe that. The first rumor about the game popped up six months into Brandon's tenure, well after DB announced the first night game.
Their two blatant clips on returns that got no calls and while they were all over our indescretions in the return game were by far the most egregious.
Herbstreit rambling on and on about Junior Hemingway. I loved JH, but two great catches in the Sugar Bowl that stuck in the minds of talking heads has made him the most overrated Michigan player ever.
You would think he was a first-round pick who terrorized the Big Ten last year from the tones people talk about him in.
Dave Brandon is not a dollars and cents man.
He's a cookie-cutter, by-the-book marketing airhead and he is much more responsible for this destruction than the players or coaches are.
Remember this column. Fun piece for the blog.
Kinda coulda done without the veiled RR cheap shot from Walker. Those are the kind of attitudes that divided the community to begin with.
I'm a big Arsenal fan and if Wenger quit, I'd follow him wherever he went and be a big fan of that club next.
The abuse that man has taken by ignorant nationalists in the English media and public is maybe the most unfair you will find anywhere in the world of sport. All he does is get to the Champions League EVERY YEAR despite stingy ownership. And yet, somehow, he is blamed for the "lack of ambition" after Man City, Man United and Chelsea have all gone absolutely crazy with irresponsible spending.
The word "guarantee" has been cheapened and left empty enough as it is in the world of sports by players, broadcasters, owners, and yes, fans.
Please don't contribute more to this pollution.
Poor Sparty. Their dream that UM would be just like them and come down to their level was crushed by this news.
Funny thread. Worm turns on Page 8:
http://michiganstate.247sports.com/Board/93/Color-me-shocked-Fitz-start…
Never saw that segment until now. Is it an acquired taste? Because it seemed brutally unfunny.
Thought this was going to be Houston, which would have been cool for me personally. First game I attended as a little kid was the 61-7 rout over the Cougars in 1992.
Calvin was better at Ga Tech than Braylon was at Michigan if you adjust the numbers to the talent of the quarterbacks throwing to them. CJ's 2006 numbers (76 rec, 1202 yards, 15 TD) are truly astounding when you consider that his QB was Reggie Ball. Edwards' 2004 stats are also eye-popping but even a freshman Henne was much better than Ball at - if nothing else - heaving it past the secondary downfield.
Megatron, Braylon and Fitzgerald are probably the three most dominant college wideouts of modern times.
Perhaps you can direct to these comments? He seemed entirely ambigious from what I read.
Is this guy you asked a level-headed person with actual knowledge or the type of guy who shouts at his TV that the commentators are rooting against Michigan?
I mean, is there even a reason given why these decision-makers at the NCAA are supposedly anti-Michigan to begin with?