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The Charge of the Light Brigade

1.

Half a league, half a league,

 Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!

"Charge for the guns!" he said:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

 


2.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"

Was there a man dismay'd?

Not tho' the soldier knew

 Someone had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

 Rode the six hundred.

 


3.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon in front of them

 Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

 Rode the six hundred.

 


4.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turn'd in air,

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army, while

 All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel'd from the sabre stroke

 Shatter'd and sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

 Not the six hundred.

 


5.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

 Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

 Left of six hundred.

 


6.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

 All the world wondered.

Honor the charge they made,

Honor the Light Brigade,

 Noble six hundred.

 

Did the ND game really have a future?

What with the 9 game conference schedule?

Did the ND game really have a future?

What with the 9 game conference schedule?

I voted Democrat

However, I think Silver's analysis is pretty flawed here. How many avid college football fans are really googling for "X college football"?

The validation is that he claims Georgia Tech has a bigger fanbase than Georgia, which is just crazy talk.

I love stats and numbers and believe in man caused climate change! I just think Silver is off base here and is using flawed data for his methodology.

I just peed myself laughing.

I just peed myself laughing.

I don't see much sense in this move

The B1G already added Nebraska and gets the coveted championship game, so I don't see Maryland and Rutgers adding much value there.

I don't think either school brings much to the table in football. Maryland was at its apex under Friedgen and even then wasn't more than a regional player. Rutgers has been a middling Big East school the last decade which was also their apex and might diminish as the residue from Schiano fades more and more from the program.

I wonder if the Big Ten Network might try to bundle itself with the Yankee network (YES) and force itself into the New York cable market that way. Maryland is in a nice metro area, but I don't think they have a very intense fanbase. Without some sort of deal, I wonder if this won't dilute the Big Ten viewership on a per school basis.

I don't see the value in a "screw ND" mentality, either. The ACC will probably just pick up Navy, which actually makes ND's deal with the ACC even better.

PSA: can't bring signs to ND

PSA: can't bring signs to ND stadium.

Good luck, y'all!

Good luck, y'all!

The lots opened at the usual

The lots opened at the usual 7:30 AM for the USC night game last year. I'd expect the same for this weekend's game.

Happy tailgatining, y'all!

on your realignment notes...

Boeheim's being a dishonest ass. The decision was made by the Big East and not ND:

Big East commissioner John Marinatto said there were mixed feelings about turning down ESPN's deal initially -- and the divide was pretty much between the so-called basketball members and the football members -- but the announcement of the Pac-12's lucrative deal ($3 billion over 12 years) convinced them all it was the right move.



"The [price of programming] dramatically changed when the Pac-12 announced its deal," Marinatto said. "And we were unanimous. There was splintering before that, but, on that day, we were unanimous 'we're walking away.' College football has firmly been implanted as the No. 2 most popular sport.



"What we bring to the table in terms of assets is very unique and going last and having last at-bats [among the major conferences negotiating new TV deals] provide us the opportunity to evaluate what everyone else has done."

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11215/1164696-233-0.stm

In fact, the Pitt AD wanted to hold off on the contract in an attempt to expand to 12 members.

Mike Martin + banged up = vomit on keyboard

Mike Martin + banged up = vomit on keyboard

Wasn't there some mention of restricting Robinson?

I think Hoke mentioned he wanted to restrict Robinson to 10 or 15 (as opposed to 20) runs per game: http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/30957/confident-denard-robinson-embraces-changes

I think the net effect might be losing a game or two early on as a result, but a much healthier Robinson down the stretch.

Sorry if this has been answered before

But what the hell was up with Vorax? Is there some insider story about the stuffed animal out there? Or is it yet another mystery of the GERG?

As a dumb sidebar question

Why is it that folks can never seem to get the name of ND's coach right? For the longest time, you'd hear folks talking about Coach Davies or Coach Weiss. For a while, it looked like Coach Meyers would take over the Irish until he took over Florida and changed his name to Meyer. Now they've got this new fella, Coach Kelley?

 

I guess everybody like Coach Willingham enough to get his name right. That's probably because he sucked.

The correct answer is "whatever makes you most marketable"

I'd say being able to stamp the name of a Fortune 500 company or a company most everyone's heard of (something like LinkedIn) is going to give any resume a huge boost. If you have that opportunity, it'd be hard to turn down.

Howeva, if you're in something like graphic design, you have to keep in mind that your resume is ancillary. In the case of design, you're being judged moreso by the quality of your portfolio than by resume per say. In that case, whatever option gives you better opportunities to enhance your portfolio with quality entries is where you want to go.

Similarly, if you're into programming or web design nothing sells like "go to this website and see this nifty bit of code I wrote." A small company is much more likely to give a summer intern that opportunity. My first internship was at a 10 person company and I wrote code for their flagship software. They let me hand out demo CDs with my segment of their software. That ended up netting me an internship the next summer at a Fortune 500 company.

I guess there's a lot of "it depends" in my answer. Big companies are safer because you'll be able to stamp "Famous Company" on your resume, but working for a small company can have tremendous upside, too.

I too think Collins is most at fault

The extent of that fault, however, is unclear. What is clear is that Collins wasn't using appropriate information to inform his decision. Was Collins's approach typical for others making similar decisions? If so, his error was systematic. If not, why did he use those particular means for gathering information? Did he lack education? Was he properly educated but using an improper procedure?

You should really read the report pages 17-20

http://nd.edu/assets/files/notre-dame-investigation-report.pdf

Could it be that they see

Could it be that they see things differently than you? Perhaps they even agree with the findings?

You seem to be coming at this that Brian Kelly had some sort of "Code Red" moment, ordering Sullivan up into the lift and that's "the truth" that everybody knows and the family is party to covering up.

In fact, it's really not. Kelly and the coaching staff made the decision to practice outside. The decision for videographers to use the lifts or not was made by the video staff (Collins). Collins was using improper information to judge whether lifts were safe to use, although he was diligently checking in on the conditions.

There were many failings along the way for this tragedy to occur. Some demand a pound of flesh. Others just hope that policies and practices change (which ND has taken steps towards) to prevent this from happening again. Unfortuantely, neither will restore Declan.

Actually, this response is

Actually, this response is consistent between even old and new regime. Will Yeatman got a DUI during Spring 2008. He later violated his probation during the 2008 season, leading to his suspension from football and school. Yeatman left the university of his own accord.

That's pretty consistent with the Floyd case. It's also consistent with the treatment of "normal" students at ND for DUIs.

A scholarship is in the works

A scholarship is in the works already.

Scout changes for the Irish

Kayak & Tuitt up to 5 stars, G. Atkinson and Hanratty down to 3. That's a net neutral on the average Scout ranking.

Quick Florida Stats

1999 - 20.9 points against per game

2000 - 21 papg

2001 - 14.8 papg

So he had one great year as DC and two average years while at Florida. Overall tendancy was to give up lots of points to the good teams.

Mr. Forcier - 0.0


Last coach poached from the Bears...

Ron English, for whatever that's worth. Of course, English never coached a down with the Bears either.

I think it's tough to judge a guy's ability to develop talent based on the NFL. His Florida track record is probably more relevant, correct?

Isn't the rumor that Tate isn't enrolled at UM?

I've seen it posited as fact elsewhere that Tate didn't make the grades and is out of UM for at least a semester.

I'd think the favorite is his brother

Nepotism sounds bad, but Jon Hoke (current Chicago Bears DB coach) actually has a pretty solid resume:

1982 Dayton (DB)

1983 NC State (DB)

1983-1986 Bowling Green (DB)

1987-1988 SDSU (DB)

1989-1993 Kent State (DB/DC)

1994-1998 Missouri (DB)

1999-2001 Florida (DB/DC)

2002-2008 Houston Texans (DB)

2009-2010 Chicago Bears (DB)

Hoke

I think we'll be circling in on a Hoke hire once we start to hear names crop up that are definitively worse than his, guys like Ron English or a myriad of coordinators.

Gruden

Gruden has interest in every major coaching position since the end of his Bucs gig. Hell, while he was with the Bucs I think he took a rumored trip to Tennessee. If he's demanding his brother be the OC with a $1M salary and successorship, I really don't see this happening even if he has some interest in the job.

Weren't these Gruden's demands to Miami?

1. $3.4 million salary

2. $1 million salary for his brother Jay to be the OC

3. If he met a certain winning standard, Jay would become his successor

4. A private jet for recruiting and personal uses

 

I sort of have my doubts that Michigan and Jon would come to some accord if they above is true.

This class is shaping up to be probationary

I recall that when ND hired Charlie Weis, he wanted to stay with the Patriots on their Super Bowl run. Doing so really hurt their recruiting class that year. Ultimately, that class really killed them in 2007 since there was almost no depth.

I see Michigan in a similar position now. The only real hope to salvage this class is that an established coach comes on board and convinces a number of verbal commits at his current school to flip to Michigan. Even then that's not terribly likely.

Yeah, but Gruden put a down payment on a house in Ann Arbor!

Are we gonna go with the co-Head Coach model?

Interesting

If this is about Les Miles, one should probably note that he's in Dallas at the moment.

Jon Gruden must really be into real estate

He's been putting down payments down on lots of houses since he left the Bucs.

Let me guess

The guy owns the local 31 Flavors, am I right?

As another note

Search firms also typically vets a candidate.

The flow here is that Brandon will say to the search firm "What about Coach X" and the firm will investigate and report one of the following:

A) X has no interest

B) X has a skeleton in his closet

C) X has interest, here is where negotiations start

 

If a search firm is actually being used, I think we can deduce that the obvious candidates (Miles and Hoke) are ruled out at this point. It indicates that Brandon is probably going to try to hire somebody he's not personally connected to.

It's up to you

I mean, do you really want to quite masturbating?

 

Legit question

What is the "value add" of this set of names/logos over what you could get off of Bleacher Reports? I'd argue most of this is actual worse.

I realize QB depth looks rosy now

But I'm firmly in the camp that you should take a quarterback in every recruiting class. I'm not suggesting anything is afoot, but you never know when injury, trasfers, or other attrition will occur. In 2013, if Gardner has to miss a game for some reason, it'd sure be a lot better if his replacement was a junior rather than a sophomore.

I realize you're probably not going to get a superstar, but having a body with a profile that matches your system is good enough for a "depth" QB.

All I have to said

Is you raise me up! Thank you.

Remember when Urban Meyer was at Utah?

He'd accepted the Florida job but coached the Fiesta Bowl against Pitt. Don't see why it's a big issue.

Just to be fair to Kelly

Once the tower fell, "practice" only continued in the sense that Kelly ordered an assistant to take the players to the other end of the field to keep them out of the way of emergency personnel. Kelly and Swarbrick both were by Sullivan until emergency personnel took him away in an ambulence.

"Kelly continued practice" is a myth perpetuated by FREEP type hatchet reporting on the part of Brian Hamilton.

Hope you're not clamouring for Harbaugh

That dude takes arrogance to 11.

That's a good point

The contract stipulates as "for cause".

 

Rodriguez is determined by the NCAA, the Big Ten Conference, or the University to have committed a major violation of the NCAA Rules.

The process for that is unclear, though. Would that have to happen immediately?

re: Harbaugh

The real issue with Harbaugh comes down to his ultimate ambitions. Is Michigan a destination job for him or does he have designs on the NFL?

By my understanding, some NFL teams (namely the 49ers) will be considering Harbaugh this offseason. If his goals are indeed the NFL, he will probably have the opportunity to go there as soon as January 2011.

Who knows

The again, we're not the ones in charge of balancing revenues against costs for the AD.

And considering the state of "the economy", I'd really hate to be the guy who makes a $1.5M decision when the effects are at best immeasurable.

Not according to this

If this is in fact his contract... read pages 4 and 7.



http://mvictors.com/images/2008/Q4/rodriguezcontract.pdf

 

"Contract Year Three" is $4M and "Contract Year Four" is $2.5M.

$1.5M

The contract posted on mlive and linked through this blog suggests firing Rodriguez on or before 12/31/10 costs the school $4M and on or after 1/1/11 only costs $2.5M.

Ohio State

FUCK YEAH

I almost wonder if it's

I almost wonder if it's already too late for the defense and therefore too late for Rodriguez. Assuming he has a one year mandate to get the defense rectified, or else. You'd think year one (mind you 8 months of a "system") would yield only an incremental improvement and the real, difference making pay-off would come in year two. Assuming that's the case, our Lord and Saviour couldn't turn the defense around in time to save Rodriguez, barring some water-into-wine type scenario where unlikely heroes miraculously emerge from the depths of the current linebacking and defensive back corps already on campus.

With regards to an actual candidate, my thought would be that you're hoping Casteel would come over as suggested, but that presumes a) Stewart is fired and b) Casteel doesn't see Michigan as a sinking ship. Otherwise, if you demand experience then you're looking for somebody who's fallen on hard times. That person matches the profile of either a Greg Robinson circa December 2008, present day Jon Tenuta, or Moeller pulling a "Captain Freedom" type comeback.

I dunno about #2

Shouldn't it be just a bit concerning that Akron held IU to fewer yards than Michigan?