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I'd like to thank Al Borges

I'd like to thank Al Borges for his first year, when he took control of a team whose offensive scheme was radically different than anything he'd ever run before and yet the offense ended the year with higher red zone efficiency and other metrics than RR ever managed.  

I'd like to thank Al Borges for his second year, when despite all those designed QB runs finally catching up with Denard, defenses finally figuring out his arm was nothing to fear, and who knows what in terms of injuries (the pinched nerve, possible knee issue, etc) all leading to the sudden transition of Devin from WR to QB, we came close to beating a 10 win SEC outfit in a bowl game.

I'd like to thank Al Borges for the fact that we're going to a bowl these year and as bad as the offense is, I've seen worse from other offensive transitions in recent memory.  As bad as the line situation is this year, I've seen offensive geniuses shit the bed to much worse degrees than this year.  No one we've lost to has more than two loses and they have 5 loses total.  The moments of futility suck, but so did offensive line recruiting for awhile and one of our higher ranked gets is currently a nose tackle because defensive line recruiting also sucked.   

 

One of the things seems to be

One of the things seems to be he doesn't keep any kind of momentum after he beats that first block.  He crushes right through the line and then he's just kind of standing there, trying to find the ball, and once he figures out that the ball carrier is headed for the edge he has to get his body back up to speed.  Better vision will let him come crashing through at full speed instead of needing to pause and figure out what is going on.  Lots of wasted steps there, which in some instances comes close to letting the offensive linemen pick him back up.

The offending thing is

The offending thing is actually something I've been pondering for awhil and it does present a problem.  Least we forget, Tuley-Tillman has very displeased when a blog called him raw and basically failed to declare him the next coming of Long and Lewan.  

This blog has always excelled because when recruits are covered, attempts are made to break down their game film and critique their play.  Things are said like "Likely won't start until their junior at the earliest, very raw.", "Likely to be passed from behind unless he works his ass off",  and other such things.  If the content is going to target kids who are 15 and not used to hitting the camps and being critiqued in a such manner, we're going to tie our hands in the future in terms of analysis.  Last year it was unhappiness over being called raw, this year it was being young looking, and perhaps next year someone will mad when Ace says he doesn't have the world's greatest hands and is prone to dropping balls.  You're always going to have to recruits who don't like the grading they get, but at least the older ones should in theory have gotten used to it after hitting those camps and talking to coaches on their officials.

We have an admittedly small sample size here, but so far the trend line has started out in an extremely poor direction to say the least.  We're not the kind of blog prone to mindlessly hailing fluff pieces, because if we were we'd all be watching Sports Center rather than hanging out here. 

I went through Michigan with

I went through Michigan with a full ride for academics and also worked 10 to 20 hours a week for General Motors.  A fair number of folks in college get some or all of their college paid for with scholarships and cash a paycheck beyond that.  A fair number of engineering grad students are in the same boat, tuition waiver and some kind of grant or hook up with a company that results in a stipend.  I see no reason that a football player shouldn't be able to do the same.  Just because a small percentage of them will go on to become wealthly in the pros is no reason to deny them money.  By that logic we should go stick it harder to the Business School types since they might end up with Stephen J Ross kinds of money.  

In terms of wealth on hand, I had a significantly better deal in that I went to class and cashed a check for my work.  A football player goes to class, has 20 hours of official practice with the coaching staff, more voluntary practice or film study with their teammates, which is supposed to average out to around 44.8 hours per week, and they don't even get a stipend for walking around money.  Heck if they chose to stay in school rather than go pro early, their wallets take a hit because they have to buy injury insurance with their own money like Lewan did.  

There are a lot of services FBS programs could offer their students beside just handing them the cash (and half a million per head doesn't seem defensible) such as a living stipdent, program provided insurance for career ending injuries, a free grad degree as well as 4 years of undergrad, a trust fund of some sort, etc.  Right now though players do get screwed considering the revenue stream they bring in.    

 

Ghost is still the king.

Ghost is still the king.

But I'd already bulk

But I'd already bulk ordered the popcorn for when Saban ripped his former employer to shreds...

Next time DB is golfing with

Next time DB is golfing with Hollis, he can slip him App State's business card.  

Great's its Noon out here and

Great's its Noon out here and now thanks to you I have to go drink or find someone I can buy a roofie off to repress my memories of Jordan Diamond. He could be playing guard right now and then move out to tackle next year like Schofield did.  Gah!

Dial 1-900-Maize-And-Blue and

Dial 1-900-Maize-And-Blue and kick them nasty thoughts!

That's what I fear, every

That's what I fear, every recruiting cycle it seems we have one guy in our backyard who every analyst says is a perfect fit for Michigan and vice versa, we're in the drivers seat, and yet it never happens.  I don't want McDowell being this year's winner of the Laquon Treadwell Memorial Award.

And if they could just get it

And if they could just get it up to positive non story like a water skiing chipmunk or something, things would be even better.  

Seriously though what did they say about him?  Just sophomoric ass jokes?

As I said, ask the kid to

As I said, ask the kid to pass a request along to the parents in your first contact package.  Alternatively if directly contacting the kids is seen as unacceptable, every school in America has a public phone number and someone who answers the phone during the school day.  Leave the coach a voicemail and ask him to pass it on to the parents.  

In a lot of cases you don't even need to go that far, as a fair amount of the higher star ranked prospects have a Twitter or Youtube account dedicated to recruiting, which one assumes an adult is at least aware of, if not checking.  Hit up that account, speak briefly with a parent, and move forward.

Again the issue comes down to the fact that Brown's standard workflow does not included "Speak with a parent or gaurdian" as a step before interviewing a 16 year old.  

Which forms of social media are used and how you use them is something that is still up in the air, as some new social network comes out every six months it seems, but changes in the mechanics of contact doesn't at all influence the issue that sooner or later a parent is not going to be happy and the fact Brown doesn't attempt to speak to them as a matter of course only increases the odds of it happening sooner and more frequently.  

I'm gonna go register

I'm gonna go register ChiTownMaize just to thwart him.  

I do actually.

It's all right here.  He clearly states he has not talked with a parent or coach for every interview, which in turn means that speaking with the parents is not part of the standard contact package.  As for his contact method, @BBrown has a clear history of sending out Tweets in the form of "Hey X, follow back", which in turn is designed to allow for private direct messaging. No additional context is provided by Brown in the initial contact.  

One area that the board is

One area that the board is clearly going to be divided on are the ethics of not talking to the parents in all this.  I've made my view clear upthread, so clearly have a bias in favor of contacting the parents.  That said, from a pragmatic viewpoint:

Let's say I'm a high schooler and I'm interview.  Now I live with my mother in Michigan and my father lives in Hawaii since they divorced.  I do an interview, my mother doesn't really mind, but my dad finds out and absolutely flips his lid.  Maybe he does it purely out of a cynical ploy for usage in a custody battle or some other reason, at the end of the day it will still be MGoBlog didn't ask and at least one parent is pissed off and no parent approved since no one was asked.  Ethics of interviewing minors aside, there is a certain cover your ass aspect of at least attempting to get approval from one parent.  Better to beg forgiveness than ask permission is not always true.

This is really what it boils

This is really what it boils down to.  Print journalism ethics first begins with question why you must interview minors.  Clearly in this case, because they are potential Michigan recruits.  Secondly you determine if parental (or gaurdian) consent is needed.  If you determine it is not, you should leave contact information with the minor so his parents can contact you if they later object to the interview being used.  I'd say that is pretty standard.

So in this day and age, personally I strongly disagree with Brown's method of going from contact to publication.  There is no reason why the initial contact could not also include "Also, I want to clear it with your parents, my email is [email protected]."  Clearly of course the kid could set up a fake email and impersonate his parents, but at least there is more of an effort to be upfront and reach out to the parents there.  Here of course we enter into a slippery slope in that how much due diligence Brown has to do.  The core issue though is right now he is doing nothing. 

At the end of the day, tweeting kids "Hello X, follow me back" seemingly out of the blue* and dropping interviews on 16 year olds strikes me as extremely low professional standards and I'll post negative comments about it.  One of the first things you normally learn in the professional world is just because you are on social media, doesn't meant professional standards are thrown out.  

Ultimately that is going to happen is Brown is going to run an article and some parent is going to be pissed the fuck off by it and when that happens, if Brian thought the AD was on his ass before, he's going to wake up and find the Athletic Department so far up his ass, Dominos is opening a branch in his colon.  

*There also does seem to be an element of hypocrisy here, what did Kyle Kalis and Tuley-Tillman teach us?  Don't tweet recruits.  Yet now a business function of the blog is doing it via a personal twitter account and lacking any sort of formal letterhead...no thank you.

The new one is earmarked for

The new one is earmarked for Life Sciences according to the general plan, although that could change.

The industry is undoubtably

The industry is undoubtably grimey, but just because MGoBlog does partake in elements of the industry doesn't mean people can't express concerns about the level at which the blog partakes in this industry.  Scout, Rivals, etc do a lot of things that MGoBlog choses not to do and I don't see the issue with people on the blog expressing concern about how deep into that industry the blog staff dives.  

After all, it was called the MGoCreeper Van because when TomVH started out, lots of people jokingly expressed concern about a dude driving around to various high school games for the express purpose of posting footage on the internet.  Moving forward with hudl pages and all that the game has changed.  That being said, it is still an ongoing discussion.  Both posters and staff comment negatively on some of the offers made to 8 year olds by coaches, so it stands to reason different people would have different thresholds for where that age cut off is.  

I can confirm this is

I can confirm this is correct, a large portion of the wing on the Dental School was marked as no access when I did my orientation for Marine ROTC.  However the Marines showed that area and the massive cracks because "Marines aren't pussies like those squids."  Also the University never really repaired it beyond taking it to a point it wasn't condemned.  Circa 2007 or so the patchwork as still visible in a number of classrooms and a couple of new cracks were coming along quite nicely.  

It's ashame because the building has a lot of history, but its time has clearly come.  

Yeah this is creepy, given we

Yeah this is creepy, given we have lots of 2014 and 2015 people still out there.  Well even if both those classes were full, it would be creepy given this is 2013, but a bit more understandable.  

Ultimately at the start of

Ultimately at the start of the season, most of the 'experts' were calling us an 8 or 9 win team this year due to our youth and right now the fanbase is being reminded of that.  The play where Chesson failed to dominate the tiny little sub 6' corner covering him his a prime example of that youth.  Senior Chesson will likely just reach over the guy, grab the ball and proceed to burn down the field for another 10 yards.  Freshman Chesson doesn't jump properly and it results in an Int.  

That said that throw made my happy, Chesson mistake aside, because it was one of many times that Gardner did throw to someone not named Gallon.  Gardner was out of sync with a lot of those people but that can be fixed.  

The second half went well and in the 4th we really did start to establish something.  Fitz was running hard and the defense finally got pumped up thanks to the Morgan pick.  Hopefully that will carry into the bye week and give the coaches a little something positive to work with before showing the 6 hour long clip of things that need to be corrected.  I'm really hoping with 2 weeks off we can get the offensive line settled into at least mediocrity and Devin calmed down and out of the "I need to win it all by myself mode."

This issue the higher ups who

This issue the higher ups who looked the other way on this did so in part to protect their cash cow of a football program from any taint of a scandal.  PSU struggling to make ends meet is just in that is serves as a fair warning to every other administrator in the country (and the PSU community) that the coverup only makes it worse.  The message needs to be sent that a better economic result will come from coming clean and taking the initial hit.  True PSU never had some kind of secret meeting where the entire Board of Trustees said 'cover this shit up', but the culture was such that a group of school leaders thought they could do just that.  Ultimately that is why they pay.

Also you can't just blame sanctions.  Donations to the athletic program are also down, likely because alumni are disgusted by the actions of the department, not just in the coverup but all its continued denial.  

Beside, they can always melt that statue down and sell the metal.

 

One of my GSI's student

One of my GSI's student released coursework and grads I had performed on public forums and via mass email because they had an issue with me.  Disclosure of grades of course falls under FERPA.

Lewis as Dean of Rackham was actually the ultimate say in punishing this grad student, but kept ducking meetings with me, I had four rescheduled and denying responsibility until a letter from an actual lawyer rolled in, coupled with an official compliant to the Department of Education.  Suddenly Lewis had all the time in the world to meet with me after that and I no longer kept getting routed to other departments.  For awhile they had this whole "Oh no, we don't handle that, someone else does." thing going on to ping pong me back and forth.  

Whereas I personally feel

Whereas I personally feel Lewis failed ot adequately discpline a grad student who committed a FERPA violation and I had to hire a lawyer to send a threatening letter so that Lewis would get off his ass and respond.  So I'll vote a strong "Hell no" on Lewis.  

I would like to see our

I would like to see our starting tackles pulled around halftime or so and the backups (next years starters) inserted to work with interior line.  Get the backups some experience and also look to the future.  

Also for busy content days,

Also for busy content days, the stock photos could be placed beneath the jump or shrunk.

Honestly I think State's

Honestly I think State's defense is slightly overrated. They needed to bring 5 or 6 just to get pressure against USF. The Bulls burned them a few times with draws. Against better teams Narduzzi may be made to pay for that aggression with those draws and screens. State's front 4 are not as disruptive as they were in past seasons.

That stopping Denard defense

That stopping Denard defense comment is the key I think.  Notre Dame early in the game was playing they thought Denard was still there and no one on our team could pass to save his life.  They reopened with a rehash of their 2012 formations and were promptly murdered via a passing attack.  

As the season goes on we'll see if coordinators we face make different choices, like not stacking 7 or 8 in the box and having the LBs play to stop the run on almost every down, and what kind of running game improvement we see at that point.  So far Devin has not been a free turnover machine when pressured, so we'll see what happens next.  If we seems playing to stop the pass more and we still struggle to run, my worries will increase at that point. 

Funchess blocking mistakes that definitely hurt the run game.  That's worrisome, but it is only his second year in the program and blocking takes time to learn (think back to Seth's work on how long it takes to prep offensive linemen to learn the blocking schemes, Funchess faces the same task to a degree).

 

Well this should hopefully

Well this should hopefully end the Sailboat Bill jokes (I have to admit, I've made a few myself).  The oddly unified story I've heard is that Miles was exiled from AA by Bo for various sins beyond the whole screwing Mrs. Moeller thing, which might just be campfire gossip anyway.  Which was why when coming into the 2006 season, when Carr wanted to retire and Bo was alive, no move was made to hire Miles.  As the story goes, MSC felt that Bo was over reacting to some minor issues involving Miles, whereas Bo had full on excommunicated the guy.  So long as Carr stayed on, MSC figured there was nothing to be gained by challenging Bo over this and let it ride coming into 2006 when Carr was making noises about retirement but people talked him into staying.  

What happened in 2008 supposedly was Carr and Martin were against Miles, but MSC ordered contact to be made and since she is the ultimate boss she had to be obeyed.  Martin, a multimillionaire who has conducted many business deals on tight timetables, became suddenly incompentent (strategically so one might say) with his cellphone and Carr laid the groundwork for RR (since RR had the Nehlen link and Bo liked RR's read-option, although I assume Bo must have flipped channels during defensive series).  Martin 'made a mistake' and 'lost the deal', then Carr presented RR as a viable Plan B.  However Carr actually had buyer's remorse due to further interactions with RR and things went to hell as we all saw.  

 

Seems fair.  As long as we

Seems fair.  As long as we keep it together the next part of the schedule is nice.  Plenty of time for the interior of the line to come together and Fitz to become less ginger.

Also State is at #27, reaping of the benefit of people never watching them play and just seeing the final score on their news feed.  

The horrible offense aside,

The horrible offense aside, the other thing this game provided us with is that MSU students are too dumb to properly take shelter during a thunderstorm.  

I've always been impressed

I've always been impressed with Guiton, he has good mobility and is a better passer than Miller.  

"Value 3 Feet".  Maybe State

"Value 3 Feet".  Maybe State should aim higher than that?

Backing themselves out of FG

Backing themselves out of FG range.  

USF is going to lose because

USF is going to lose because of this basically, they can't take the MSU turnovers and get significant points.

Aaaah the boo birds are out

Aaaah the boo birds are out in full force now.  

Out of bounds and at least 5

Out of bounds and at least 5 yards short of the marker, this new QB is clearly a stud.

Well that should be the game

Well that should be the game for State right there.  They can cling to an 8 point lead for the rest of the game I'm sure.

There you USF, make those

There you USF, make those blitzes work for you.

Wow Sparty, wow.  

Wow Sparty, wow.  

The big worry for state is

The big worry for state is that their defense is a beast when it comes downhill, but it is so aggressive it is wide open to exploitation by more discplined teams.  The defense just looks lights out because they've yet to play an offense with the skill to counter those blitzes.  

This can't their shot of

This can't help their shot of landing Cole as a WR.  I also imagine if Campbell blows up and gets better offers, he'd jump ship pretty quickly.  

So State how does it feel to

So State how does it feel to be up by a mere one point at home, against a team that had its ass whipped by a FCS team the week before?  

He owed Tressel some favors I

He owed Tressel some favors I assume.  Just like how Carr rehired certain folks and all that.

That was a good call to run

That was a good call to run it with how bad the USF QB is.  Better off running it to set up the easy FG than risk a turnover.  7-6 at halftime is good.  Minimize your offensive risks and aim for more turnovers from State.

The Pass interfence is nice,

The Pass interfence is nice, but the dumb USF QB still threw into clear double coverage...

USF's line is also godawful,

USF's line is also godawful, they have 2 offensive linemen vs 1 defensive linemen there as the QB goes for the corner, and the QB still has to throw it away.  

State should just go buy 5

State should just go buy 5 traffic barrels from MDot, same level of protection, but no risk of holding calls.  

Also USF needs to stop with

Also USF needs to stop with all the motion and such, their players are not skilled enough.  They always tip their hand, false start, or flirt with not properly setting before the snap.  Plus State is too smart to fall for that shit.

Finally USF realizes they

Finally USF realizes they need to exploit the over aggressiveness.