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Hopefully, if Fox Sports it's

Hopefully, if Fox Sports it's at least FS1 and not the regional Fox Sports channels.  Although the local pro sports coverage can be good or great, college football games Fox has broadcast on the regional networks have been less than ideal in terms of production quality and announcing.

Cord Cutters and Short Deal

Given the loss in cable/satellite subscribers that will continue over the course of this deal, I don't understand why a short deal is a positive, or how the marketplace will be more robust.

That being said, ESPN and/or Fox may have insisted on a shorter deal in order to offer $200-240 million/year, and it's worth taking the money while it's there.

Although subscriber revenue will be down, advertising revenue will continue to be there from college football fans, and the Big Ten likely feels comfortable that its product will continue to be attractive when the next deal is made.

Altogether, this is a great deal for the Big Ten - it takes advantage of Fox's willingness to pay up to expand their sports properties, and it ensures continued exposure and promotion on ESPN.

I wonder if the equipment is

I wonder if the equipment is standardized or even provided by the Big Ten to ensure a consistent experience across the conference and for the replay officials in different stadiums?

That would help explain why it appears to be low tech.

Otherwise, if Michigan equipped the replay room, I would have expected large, professional video monitors - well beyond old computer monitors or old consumer flat screen TVs.

This was also a good reminder that I can't wait until college football goes to 4K...

And... here's the new look!

I can't say I'm happy with breaking the clean look of our field, but it's not the end of the world.  Today's news is a reminder of more important concerns.

Michigan Stadium B1G

I personally think the

I personally think the article's headline is a bit misleading because the "profit" was on Michigan's expense allowance for the game, and does not include Michigan's share of the remaining bowl revenue for the Sugar Bowl and other bowls.  Unless the conference had to pay more in unused tickets than it received for its bowl bids, Michigan should still pocket a nice chunk of change from its share of the remainder.

Different situation this year?

 

LSU fans quickly gobbled up the school's allotment of 37,000 tickets, breaking a school record for a regular-season road game. Oregon sold out its 15,000-ticket allotment.

 

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/dallas/ncf/news/story?id=6715802

Given the misbalance between the schools' allotments last year, I don't expect there is room for Mr. Jones to give more tickets to Michigan.  This year, we aren't the equivalent of LSU facing a distant, nascent fanbase.  We are matched against the defending national champions who are located within driving distance of Dallas.

I suspect Jones will use the remainder of the tickets for local/Cowboys purposes, and the best we could hope for is a small group of seats or a large allotment of standing room only seats.

http://www.mgoblue.com/ticket

http://www.mgoblue.com/tickets/fbl-cowboys-classic.html

Victors Club members with 50 or more priority points did not face a limit unlike those who could order yesterday.  Anyone who ordered more than 4 with less points either will have their order reduced, or the Athletic Department did not enforce their own policy, which is frustrating for those of us who would have ordered 1-2 more but were maxed out.

I think the NCAA did not

I think the NCAA did not suspend the players to provide OSU the opportunity to appeal.  Although they ended up only appealing the 5th suspended game, if there had been less proof, OSU potentially could have appealed the entire charge/punishment, which could have led to no suspensions if successful.

You could think of it similarly to being on bail until final sentencing. 

God help him get the support

God help him get the support of the fanbase if he can't even face his old team.  That game is a bellwether for the rest of the season and beyond.  Think back to the MWC team we played at the start of 2008.  It's an opportunity to show progress against an up-and-coming non-AQ team.

I was more disappointed from

I was more disappointed from that article to see that Hoke bailed out of SDSU with nothing more than a text message to his players.  Michigan should have provided him the opportunity to take the extra 4-6 hours to hold a team meeting and explain his decision in person.

You're absolutely right.

You're absolutely right.  Hoke will have fewer distractions than RR due to the relationship with the fanbase and media that is clearly going to be less strained than it has been the past three years.  However, the only good that can provide is if it leads to more winning.  A smoother relationship with former players and boosters has not and will never be a substitute for winning.

Dave Brandon clearly felt that Hoke is qualified for the job, and he does not deserve a pass due to his lack of experience as a BCS coach.  I will definitely be cheering like crazy at every game next year.  But until Hoke starts performing in the areas where RR failed, confident and inspiring talk will not have me convinced we are immediately on track for greatness again.

What does letting go of RR

What does letting go of RR have to do with applying the same standards to our new coach? If Hoke can't do better than 3 wins next year, or 7-6 in year 3, would you really think we should keep him?

Judging by people's expectations here, 7-6 by the third year would be highly unlikely.  He would be significantly underperforming, and undeserving of a fourth year based on traditional Michigan expectations.

Given the question they were

Given the question they were answering, I read it as "if we don't win at least 6 games, Hoke will not meet expectations for next year"

Why should we expect Hoke's

Why should we expect Hoke's recruiting to be better than Lloyd's? What evidence is there to suggest that a rookie B10 coach will out-recruit someone who won a national championship at Michigan?

Lol if the BR media is

Lol if the BR media is chasing BBQ receipts and iPhone photos, their heads are going to explode if they have to start a coaching search on January 11 or 12.

Then again, the Detroit media was chasing down the Domino's corporate jet at Willow Run tonight based on blogs' obsession with FlightAware.  I don't know which is funnier.

The Big Ten does not allow

The Big Ten does not allow signing 27 so that coaches can greyshirt kids.  There are some minutiae with scholarship numbers that allow a team to count early enrollees in the previous year's class if you have enough extra room in your scholarship limits.  Michigan took advantage of these rules last year to stock the roster back up to 85 for 2010.

And here I thought the NCAA

And here I thought the NCAA only cares when entrepreneurial reporters dig up a story exposing a violation.  It turns out that even when violations are admitted out in the open, there has to be excessive stretching involved to justify a response.

It wasn't just you.  It

It wasn't just you.  It looked like his wrist hit the ground as he rolled over the defender.

Gruden

I think it would be worth pulling out the checkbook for Gruden.  We are in a much weaker position than we were three years ago in terms of the attractiveness of the job, but we still have a huge checkbook to go along with state of the art facilities, and I think we should take full advantage of that before we lose it.

I think his national visibility from MNF and his NFL experience/Super Bowl win more than make up for his lack of recruiting experience as a college HC.  Look at the way he talks up every damned player who completes a first down on MNF.  Can you imagine how convincing he could be selling the Big House and winged helmets?

You will also want to look at

You will also want to look at this link.

http://www.mgoblue.com/genrel/081309aaa.html

It states that a student ID is required to validate the tickets.  Whenever I have had tickets validated, I have presented my ID, although I may have provided it without being asked in every case.

You should absolutely be able to find a student in the Michigan Union Friday night before they close around 6 or Saturday morning before the game to validate it for you if you hand them the cash, so I wouldn't be too worried.

Zing!!

Zing!!

Excellent artwork

It's very disappointing that U of M is getting trigger happy with the cease-and-desist letters.  That is absolutely hilarious that they thought you were actually making Denard Robinson Heisman Trophycandidate edition action figures.  If the wallpapers are on a private website that makes no mention of your business whatsoever, I hope that you can continue to get them published.  Thanks for your creativity and hard work making these so far.

This is hilarious, because my

This is hilarious, because my girlfriend graduated from Walled Lake Western high school with Triple O.

Unfortunately, we haven't decided what to name him yet after picking him up this afternoon.  There are many great suggestions on this page to look through, I'm sure we'll find one!  Zoltan Meowsko is currently the front runner.  Who wouldn't want their cat to be Assistant (to the) Space Emperor?

Thanks for the info!  I

Thanks for the info!  I couldn't find it at the Arborland Borders on Saturday or the A2-Saline Meijer this morning.  I'll head over to Busch's tonight too!

Denard left in an SUV with

Denard left in an SUV with some people.  I've been wondering who he was with that was so important that it was his job to go back into the store to get some extra ranch sauce.  Either he's just a friendly guy, or you just figured it out for me.

Denard: National Championship for Michigan soon

I talked to Denard at the Domino's pizza on Main Street the weekend before last.  I was wearing a Michigan football shirt, so he asked me if I was going to any games this year.  I told him all of them, and Penn State too.  So we talked about how that's going to be a night game, and how cool it's going to be to play Notre Dame at night in the Big House next year.  He asked me what grade I'm in and when I said I just graduated but am going to grad school and will be here a while, he responded that hopefully I'll see a national championship soon!

He had just been coming into the store a second time to get some extra ranch sauce, and when he left, I told the girl working there that he was the Michigan Football quarterback.  She said, "Oh, that's who it was... He walked in here and asked, 'Do you know who I am? I'm Denard.' And I was like, Hi, Denard."  I thought that was pretty funny.

I was going to post this story on here right after it happened, but I thought it would get a lot of "that's a cool story, man" sarcastic responses.  But since you asked...

Bye week

Actually, the bye week has already been implemented.  Starting this year, the Big Ten is extending play to the 13th week of the season with each team having a bye week.  This pushes the Michigan-Ohio State game to Thanksgiving weekend, which could affect attendance (don't get me wrong, I still expect 110,000+ sellouts, but it's going to lead to some students skipping UM-OSU who attend the games for social reasons primarily).

The Big Ten made this change to deal with criticism that B10 football ends too soon before the other conferences.

This does not sound good.

This does not sound good.  Shame on the Athletics Department and Admissions Office for not getting this figured out before the offer was made.  And shame on the Detroit/Ann Arbor media for likely ruining this kid's chance to make a new life for himself in Michigan.  One of the reasons it was expected Dorsey was coming here was to get away from a negative environment in Florida with his peers.  If he ends up in a D1 program like FSU, it might not provide him the opportunity he would have at Michigan.

This is not the time for the University to further vindicate the "investigative reporting" of the local media.

Smaller football programs

Smaller football programs that lose money already would still have a problem, but the NCAA could cap the amount that players would be paid.  This would at least limit competition based on pay between big-time programs.  This might limit some blue chip recruits from going to lesser programs for the opportunity for earlier playing time, but I think there would be a similar pecking order of schools going after recruits to what we see now.  The programs that would be able to afford the maximum player stipend would usually be the successful ones that top recruits are interested in anyways.

I think what it shows is that

I think what it shows is that it's not worth going for it on 4th down from around the 45 until you get into field goal range.  If you miss, they have excellent field position.  If you make it, they only have about 4-5 yards worse field position than if you had just punted from where you were on 4th down within the 45.  This wouldn't be true if the extra ten yards that could be attempted after getting a first down would make a field goal likely, but in that range of the field (30-45 yard line), punting position should not be a factor when deciding whether to go for 4th down.

Ads

If the purpose of advertising during football games is to donate to Mott, I'd be OK with it even during the season, and by that measure advertising during the spring game to donate is something I can support too. I just see this and the expected Big Chill ads as the first step towards advertising in the Big House for football games to provide revenue for the program, not for donations.

If they only stick to advertising for donations or for negative revenue events like the spring game or the Big Chill, then they're doing everything right. We'll just have to see how many seasons it is before we have "Allstate" on the field goal netting and an Arby's logo next to the block M on the scoreboard.

Advertising

I'm beginning to get concerned about this advertising. Advertising in the Big House for spring practice and the Big Chill is a slippery slope. Just because there's money to be made doesn't mean it's worth breaking this tradition. I know David Brandon is a savvy businessman and he's looking to increase revenues, but they need to be careful about this. We were supposed to be able to afford the stadium expansion without corporate advertising, or at least that's what was said when the idea was sold.

The other item of note from that press release I see is that a website is going to be launched tomorrow featuring "Victor the talking puck".

The issue isn't punishments

The issue isn't punishments for missing class during the season, it's what happened during the summer. PSU didn't necessarily violate any rules by having players clean up the stadium. I can't imagine how Lloyd punishing Arrington for off-campus trouble would be allowed if checking up on class attendance isn't.

Although as many have pointed out here the past few days receiving a violation for that particular issue isn't exactly a badge of shame.

Bernie

I'm expecting someone will follow this up by finding ridiculous YouTube clips of Bernie segments, but I can't do it myself because I'm working on my undergrad senior design project.

5th year

Totally makes this 5th year of undergrad worth it.

robinsons

What's the over/under for the number of Robinsons in Michigan's class next year?

Terry

I totally forgot about massaging circuits, it's been way too long since EECS 215.

FE Exam

Sadly, the Fundamentals of Engineering exam is that day, and the only other date for the exam in 2010 is the day of the Penn State game this fall. :(

Edit: Double post

Posted twice from one click of "save," sorry about that.

C Fowler

I was annoyed by how persistent Chris Fowler was with trying to get him to announce his new job. If he wanted to announce it then, he could have made that choice. It ended up making both of them look stupid because Kelly obviously wanted to make the announcement the proper way, at a press conference, while Fowler wanted to ask the same question six times.

I just started laughing when they announced Kelly had won the award because everyone knew he was bailing on his team... oops! Maybe they should have made a last second bump down to #2 on the short list.

Walk-on scholarships

Also, do walk-on scholarships affect the total, or are only recruited players that signed LOIs counted? I believe they usually fill out the scholarship limit by offering scholarships to walk-ons. Under the "midyear graduate replacement" rule, unless we only have 82 scholarships or less used right now, the early enrollees must count towards the 2010-2011 scholarship limit, which would limit us to 25 enrollees in the class instead of 28. So, if walk-ons are counted, I don't see how we could get to 85.

Based on the quote from above: 'football is a “head count” sport, which means that if a SA gets $1 or a full-ride, he counts as 1 against the limit of 85,' I would guess that walk-ons would be part of this head count, but that is just speculation.

Edit: This was covered by BleedingBlue above, but his post didn't come up by the time I read the thread and wrote mine.

Uverse

I had Comcast for the past 3 years and got U-verse this fall. It is a bit more pricey than Comcast, but I don't think I can ever go back now. I didn't think it would be necessary to watch the DVR in any room or set recordings online, but I have used that feature a lot. Also, the storage capacity of the DVR is unreal. I have HD recordings of every Michigan football game this season, movies, and a lot of other programs collecting on there and it still isn't full. Way better than Comcast. The quality of the menus is much nicer too; it makes the old Motorola boxes used by Comcast and Charter look like they are from the 90's.

When you add the fact that you get every HD channel you could ever want, it is definitely worth the extra $20-30/month. Oh, and the customer service is actually good, which was my biggest problem with Comcast.

Offers

You're missing the fact that Vinopal had no offers from BCS schools. It isn't just trusting the recruiting services' stars, it's wondering why every other BCS coaching team didn't find it worth offering him. With Carvin Johnson, there was the explanation that he is from a school that doesn't regularly send players to D1 football and so went unnoticed, but Vinopal is from Youngstown, Ohio, and that doesn't apply here. When we have interest from highly rated players with offers from top programs, it doesn't make sense to put your offers out for the last few spots until you have to.

Non-disclosure

The article also mentions a non-disclosure agreement preventing her from giving her take on what happened, which makes the payments make a lot more sense.

As commenters on the linked article point out though, all of this information is highly suspect because of the privacy TW so aggressively maintains.

USOC

Just to clarify, Martin wasn't President of the USOC until after he became AD at Michigan, although he was on their board of directors as the representative of the U.S. Sailing Association.

http://www.usocpressbox.org/usoc/pressbox.nsf/f0101b73c01bdeb7872566110…

Saturday Night Football

I, too, am a fan of Herbie and Musberger. When you compare them to most of the other announcing teams out there, they make for an entertaining game. Maybe it's just the fun of watching high-profile night games, but they at least seem to know what they are talking about more than a lot of other announcers.

EA will not be there, as she is on the ESPN night game team this year instead of ABC. Brian posted this link in the off-season with the announcing teams:

http://www.espnmediazone.com/press_releases/2009_07_july/20090709_Colle…

posted at:

http://mgoblog.com/content/espn-announcer-reconfiguration-bingo

5-year trend

If you look from 2004 onward, the rushing leader only wins 60% of the time (2005, 2006, and 2008) with losses in 2004 and 2007. Just trying to point out that if you slice the data differently it can have drastically different results.

Arm Waving to Crowd and Unmerited Arrogance

I agree with this completely. A few games ago (ND, I think) Donovan Warren was lined up right in front of me waving to the student section, and only turned to look at the offense a few seconds before the snap. The play came his way and his coverage was bad for a larger gain than was necessary. Not necessarily cause-and-effect, there, but the lack of focus certainly doesn't help.

In this weekend's game, Cissoko was motioning his arms in the referee's incomplete signal after a pass breakup in the first half, but it wasn't his coverage that stopped the play, it was a bad throw/bad catch. I think M needs to be told to calm down on some of this arrogance and focus more on the upcoming play until the team can be more consistent.

Zeeland

I happen to be a liberal and from Zeeland, although I wasn't raised that way and I wound up at the University of Michigan... go figure. The place is pretty insular, although Zeeland Schools did still have its fair share of teachers that didn't espouse conservatism.

Jay Riemersma was revered at the school, being its only successful pro athlete ever, although I don't know how his perception changed after he became the Zeeland East football coach, because that happened after I left. As the leader of the Chix, he compiled an impressive record of 1-26.

This isn't as funny to me as the idea of Lou Holtz running for Congress (can you imagine his ESPN-style coach speeches from the House floor?), but it is just as annoying. Seriously, having played football in front of lots of people does not provide a special qualification for Congress. Maybe he should go into business or something, because coaching didn't work out so well either.

Zone read video

For those of you looking for an explanation of the zone read, Tim in his Varsity Blue days made a video explaining it. It was pretty helpful to me when I was first learning how the zone read works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrygTMsyCek&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvarsityblu…