Dan TrueBlue

History

Member for

2 years 38 weeks

Blog

View recent blog entries

Karma

Current value

Recent Comments

Date	Title	Body
1 year 37 weeks ago	Sounds good	I'm feeling some good mojo on this one.
2 years 18 weeks ago	I'm not so sure	I'm not so sure about the Denard Spread-offense part.   I'm not convinced that Borges is really capable of utilizing a weapon like Denard in a full spread offense.  Although I believe him when he says he'll incorporate him into the offensive schemes he does use.  I also don't think the running back situation is a proven one.  Still, this hire does give me much more hope than I had before!
2 years 18 weeks ago	Why does everything have to	Why does everything have to be about liberal vs. conservative?  Anytime something bad happens, it gets blamed on the party one doesn't like, and anytime something good happens it's because one's personal favorite party and belief system won the day.  It happened with the Tuscon shooting, and with every other news story of the last 15 years.  If your dog gets run over, it's because of those conservative hicks or maybe the SUV-driving ones who can't see over the dashboard; of if you're conservative, it's because of liberal drug dealers/gangsters, or just because liberals like to pass regulations like speed limits way more than they like to follow them.  It's a lazy and specious and bigoted way of thinking, and I'm tired of it. Forgive my aside.  I know this is a football-related site, and I'd like to keep it that way.  It's nice to be able to come here, away from the maelstrom of political accusations going on in the world outside. Except for the last sentence which really bothers me, I agree with everything you said.
2 years 19 weeks ago	Your physical connection to	Your physical connection to the school doesn't matter at all, that's what I'm saying.  That's why so many Michigan fans never attended school there.  What matters is that you're a fan for the right reasons: that you believe in winning the right way, not just that blue is your favorite color or you like the stadium.   But then, I'd add that I'm not sure I'm a Michigan Man either.  Simply because just being a fan isn't what determines it.  It's not something you are, so much as something you aspire to.  It's about how you live and what standards you hold yourself to, not just who you root for.  At least, that's how I feel about it.
2 years 19 weeks ago	I don't think you have to	I don't think you have to know every detail of the history and tradition, no.  I think you should have similar values as the ones espoused above.  But I get the sense that Brandon in his search felt too restricted by so many of the fanbase saying things like, "see, we went outside of the family and this is what we got."   Even for those who don't buy into the "new" (awful) definition of Michigan Man, many now think that you have to get someone connected to Michigan in order to find someone who does espouse those values in this day and age.  You have to find someone who meets the new definition in order to find someone who meets the old.  I don't believe that, and I don't know that Brandon believes that per se, but I do think he believes he has to find someone who meets both, at least to try to unite the fanbase again.
2 years 19 weeks ago	A Michigan Man	Honestly, I think the term 'Michigan Man' has been severely warped by the media over the last few years.  Bo was a Michigan Man, even though he didn't have any link to the university.  It used to refer to a certain sense of values: of hard work and discipline, of being successful academically as well as on the field, of integrity and winning "the right way," of putting the team above yourself, and of generally representing yourself and your university well.  Although being a big fan of the program didn't hurt either.   With the problems that haunted Rodriguez though -- the NCAA sanctions, academic violations, and players in trouble with the law -- people started using that together with the fact that he was from West Virginia to label him as "not a Michigan Man."   When people who don't know otherwise hear that, they assume it simply means that he wasn't connected to the Michigan family.  Especially since both of the previous two coaches were.  It became such a meme in fact, that I think many of the fans and perhaps even some at the university itself have forgotten what it used to mean to be a Michigan Man. When it comes down to it, Michigan has always held themselves to a higher standard of winning the right way.  And that's what's important about being a Michigan Man, not where you come from or who you know.
2 years 19 weeks ago	Alright, but you have to give	Alright, but you have to give the coach time to become that, which Brandon & fans have now shown themselves unwilling to do.
2 years 27 weeks ago	Agree with those saying wait and see	I think for now, GERG is coming back.  If we lose both of the next two games, especially if one is a blowout, he goes back to being a borderline case.  But overall, DB will lean towards letting GERG come back with a more mature roster of defensive talent next year.
2 years 27 weeks ago	Definitely agree on the turnovers	Definitely agree on the turnovers.  I just wanted to bring up things I thought were less cited and easier to fix.  Turnovers have been an up-and-down but ongoing problem for 3 years, and they come with inexperience.  But some other things like play-calling and going for it on 4th might be easier to change.
2 years 27 weeks ago	That's true	I just thought one of the touted reasons for picking up RichRod was the unpredictable nature of his spread offense.  It was to achieve the lethal combination of "you can't stop us" with "you can't even begin to guess what we're gonna do."   Anyway, I believe Roriguez will get us there soon enough.  We're just quite not there yet.  And with the holes in the defense, we need every advantage we can get.
2 years 27 weeks ago	Not completely wrong	Actually, no I've looked at the numbers.  In fact, I just went through every play.  Here's a chart: Yards Frequency <0 10 0-2 31 3-5 12 6-9 10 10+ 17 Out of 80 plays, we went for 0-2 yards on 31 (3/8) of them.  I think that's pretty high.  The 17 plays of 10+ yards is also pretty high, and is what saved us.  But when you look at the numbers, more than half (41) of our plays went for 2 yards or less!  Overall, the picture is pretty schizophrenic. I don't think it's limited to just this game either.  RR himself has emphasized how we've had trouble making 3rd down conversions all season.  Although this game was certainly a more extreme example of it, I think it points to why. Don't get me wrong, our offense is awesome.  It's #5 in the country.  But it's also a little schizophrenic, which is why those conversions have been more sparse than we'd like, and why I no longer think going for it on 4th down is such a hot idea.  The offense is terrific in terms of yards-per-play average, but there's a wide variance beneath that average which makes it not so reliable in terms of moving the ball forward consistently on every play.  Ideally, we'd like to see a few more plays in that "3-5" category. On a side note, I also checked the play-calling on first down.  We ran on first down 28 times, and passed only 5.  That includes 9 1st-down runs in a row in the 1st half, and 16 in a row in the 2nd half, during which our only 1st-down pass came on the first play of the half.
2 years 27 weeks ago	OT doesn't count	Overtime doesn't count because all judgment is relative and 65 points only sounds as bad as it does when you're comparing it to other games that don't have 3 OTs.  I guarantee you: if every game went an extra 20ish minutes, with possessions starting on the 25 yard line, 65 points would sound a lot more normal.  You can compare triple-OT scores to other triple-OT scores, or the regulation score to other regulation scores, but it's deceiving to mix-and-match. As you say, 45 points in regulation is still a lot, but see above for why it wasn't as bad as the final [regulation] score made it out to be.
2 years 27 weeks ago	Kudos to Purdue	You're right, Purdue's D was excellent.  And rain always makes defenses look better too.  That may have contributed to why there were so many downs with 0-2 yards.  I don't think it had anything to do with the predictability of our play-calling though.
2 years 27 weeks ago	Defense vs. Illinois	I understand that if you just look at the points scored by Illinois, it looks bad.  But 20 of those points came because of the 3 overtimes.  Those don't count.  Some more came because of possessions without Martin -- by far our best defensive player -- on the field.  And others came because of really bad offensive turnovers, where the defense still held them to a field goal.  In fact, the defense stopped them with a really short field several times, and forced them to punt on half of their possessions.  Depsite what the points say, I think that was the first decent game of the year (or at least since B10 play started) for the defense.
2 years 27 weeks ago	You could certainly make an	You could certainly make an argument about the degree to which Detroit has or hasn't earned its reputation.  I think that's missing the point though. It's kind of like saying that some kids really do deserve to get bullied.  Yeah you know what, some kids really do.   Good social skills is an important part of growing up and having success in life.  You and I both know though that bullying can go too far. The point is that Detroit has great places and great stories that never get reported.  Places like the DIA, the Zoo, the Fox, the Whitney.  Not to mention all of these places.  Detroit also has a lot of good people (in both downtown and the burbs), who've had a lot of bad happen.  The real problem is that the longer Detroit's reputation burns, the greater chance we have of losing the great things that are still there, and the longer it will be before economic recovery.
2 years 27 weeks ago	Like the two posts above me,	I've got to disagree.  Detroit 187 is pretty darn good for the D. Anywhere you go outside of Michigan, people think Detroit is full of nothing but gang-bangers who want to kill each other.   The show puts real, human faces on what's going on.  It's a chance to talk about what the media doesn't: the people who really care about their city, and want to make it better.  It's a chance to show all the beauty that Detroit once had, and all the little gems that it still has, and the potential it will always have to be great again.   Of course, bringing jobs into the city is good too.  The real benefit though, is empathy (not sympathy).  It's getting people to see Detroit as not just a hole in the ground and an object of derision, but as a living, breathing place full of people they know.
2 years 27 weeks ago	I'm not sure	I'm not sure that "Yeah, well you're too safe" is really the counter-argument we're looking for.
2 years 28 weeks ago	Yeah I'm not sure yet how	Yeah I'm not sure yet how that game makes me feel: a little more worried about Purdue or a little less worried about Wisconsin! But at least with Michigan's win today, I feel just a bit less worried about all of them!
2 years 28 weeks ago	You're right, he'll never forget it	Since that was the age I went to my first Michigan football game.  It was the 1990 game when MSU came into Ann Arbor and ended up beating Michigan and Desmond Howard by 1 point.   It wasn't a triple-overtime win, but I'll still always remember how much fun I had at that game with my dad.
2 years 28 weeks ago	WOW	SO many good things the team can take from this game! The defense showed it can force a Big Ten team to punt!  Even from awful field position. People will stop talking about Rodriguez losing his job!   And most of all.... MICHIGAN'S GOING BACK TO  A BOWL GAME!!!
2 years 28 weeks ago	YES!!!!	I did all my chores for the last 3 days, I stood up at just the right times, and cheered and shouted words of encouragement to the TV at just the right times.  I'm sure you guys did too, and with all that karma, we won!  Oh yeah, and the players were awesome too!! GO BLUE!!!!!
2 years 29 weeks ago	I don't know that	I don't know that GERG is the best guy for the job.  But I don't think there's any way of knowing that anyway until we have guys who can actually play defense.  In the meantime, it can only hurt to change him.
2 years 30 weeks ago	My house	My house is just a couple blocks east of the stadium.  Winds have been insane for the last couple days.  This was so stupidly avoidable, it's just tragic.
2 years 30 weeks ago	So sad	This really could go bad for Kelly too....  The facebook post from someone named Kent Rieger looks like it's advising Declan to tell someone about his concerns: "tell brian kelly that, or someone who....."   It was clearly acknowledged as a big risk by multiple clear-thinking people.
2 years 30 weeks ago	The problem isn't	The problem isn't that BSU/TCU would get 2-3 losses in one of the big conferences, because there's no way of knowing how good they really are.  The problem is that half of the major conference teams would get 0 losses in their non-AQ conferences.  That's the reason, in turn, for the former problem of not knowing how good BSU/TCU really are.
2 years 31 weeks ago	Regarding Big Ten division names....	I asked Rittenberg about it during one of the lunch-time chats, and he said that they weren't planning on even thinking about division or trophy names until December.
2 years 31 weeks ago	Is this a sign	that the Big Ten is already making plans to have their own Big Ten hockey conference?  The timing is interesting, that they would do this so soon after Penn State announced plans to set up their own team and rink.
2 years 31 weeks ago	That was my favorite line	That was my favorite line from the article too.  Anyone who says that Rich is nothing like Bo, well they don't know Bo.  Anyone who says that Rich doesn't know what a Michigan Man is hasn't looked closely enough.
2 years 31 weeks ago	Because	Because of the one thing that Tate has shown that Denard hasn't: a remarkable ability to pass on the run.  While their passing numbers are about equal, the situations that they got those numbers in have been very different. Denard can run when the game's on the line.  But we've also seen him struggle to pass under pressure.  Tate can scramble out of the pocket under pressure, and still get the ball off.  Does that mean Tate is the better quarterback?  Not at all.  But it could mean he's better under certain situations. When the opposing defense is able to apply pressure and contain the run, and the team is down a couple scores near the end of the game, so that passing becomes more critical, then why not go with Tate for a bit.  Especially if Denard is struggling. You make it sound like their skill sets are the same, Denard's just better in every way.  Not true. Also, it was a legitimate topic.  With due respect, your attitude isn't justified.  We're a message board, for fans of the team to enjoy themselves.  What's decided here doesn't matter: it won't affect who's played next week, or even public perception at large.  So, chill.  Have fun.  Respect others. Batman out.
2 years 31 weeks ago	Agreed	Not sure why you'd be negged for asking someone to be more respectful.  Which probably means I'll be negged too.... :P

more