national champs baby
D.C. Dave
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Recent Comments
| Date | Title | Body |
|---|---|---|
| 15 weeks 5 days ago | Like the media it is, this blog blew it |
This false "catfishing" claim only came out in the skewed form in which it was presented because it's the last weekend of recruiting and it was a chance to plant a negative story about Michigan. And this blog blew it too, because of its noted bias against Dave Brandon, who is an excellent AD and has really helped turn around a sagging program. |
| 24 weeks 4 days ago | Ah Pelinka |
And then the game would start. He might make a fee shots, miss the clutch ones, and usually be a non-factor. Mr. Practice Player. |
| 24 weeks 4 days ago | Garde Thompson |
Could really play. |
| 25 weeks 4 days ago | Hire Loeffler |
Scot Loeffler fired along with rest of Auburn staff today. We should move on him before Meyer does. He was on Meyer's staff at Florida and well-regarded. Caught up in Chizik's mess but an excellent coach. |
| 26 weeks 2 days ago | Congratulations to Jim Delany and the Big 10 |
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/college/2012/11/19/college-sports-m... It's not like the commissioner is hiding his strategy. This is what you do once war is declared, and the Big 10's view is the first shot came when Notre Dame aligned itself with the ACC. Even if you don't share Delany's vision, at least ackowledge the man seems to know when his conference is in someone's crosshairs. We all long for the sports lineups we are used to, but it is not like doing nothing is the smartest option, lest you prefer the Big 10 be in the ACC's shoes. It's business, it's life. Too many people are reacting based on the quality of the football programs at Maryland and Rutgers now, but money solves a lot of those problems. Remember, even venerable LSU sucked for years until Nick Saban showed up. The Big 10 is a mediocre football conference right now. And this is how we see the ways in which being the big player in huge TV markets offers a lot of protection -- even if our teams are down, the viewership is still there. The alumni are all over the Midwest and Northeast. That's our insurance. It is hard to argue with locking up the New York/New Jersey and Baltimore/D.C. markets in this current war, in which some conference or conferences are going away. If I could wave a magic wand right now, I'd try right now to recruit two of these three -- UVA, UNC and Duke -- and lock up the most progressive states in the South. They have to be thinking about their futures -- and Notre Dame may be doing the same. The Irish are about to start thinking they made a big mistake, and that's because they did make a big mistake. In my view, as it is the Big 10 has put the ACC in a very precarious position, with so many of the nation's largest TV markets now in the Big 10 footprint. The Big 10 is an attractive place to be, today and even more so tomorrow. Yes, it puts a lot of teams in the conference, and that makes it hard to win the conference title. We'll see schools celebrating division titles, a la the Major Leagues, but we have to be realistic as we react to what is happening. It's happening to us or by us. |
| 27 weeks 3 hours ago | Quarterback out of nowhere? |
I think it's a stretch to call a top recruit like Devin Gardner a quarterback out of nowhere. He has shown indications when he's had a chance to play that he could be an excellent quarterback. I thought he settled down nicely against Illinois last year and I was at the MSU game in the ridiculous windstorm. That was a tough situation but even in that game he showed flashes. I would not expect him to play perfectly in those games coming in off the bench, and he didn't, but it was also clear he had ability. He's always thrown a nice ball and it seemed his accuracy improved the more the game went on, but he just has not previously had much chance to play. What I continue to wonder is what the coaches saw in practice that convinced them we'd be OK at quarterback without Gardner as Denard's backup. I really think it was less about QB and more about just trying to get a great athlete like Gardner on the field, and to make that happen they talked themselves into believing that Bellomy was ready to be the backup. (He wasn't, but that also does not mean Bellomy has topped out as redshirt freshman. He'll get better.) But I really think even if Gardner had not moved back this season, he still would have won the job as starting quarterback next year. I just never have thought Hoke would be eager to play Morris as a true freshman over a senior, but that's particularly true when the senior has a world of talent, as Gardner does.
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| 27 weeks 1 day ago | They couldn't get Rosenberg and Snyder? |
I guess they wanted someone who knows what he's talking about instead. |
| 27 weeks 1 day ago | The Free Press proved the value of an investigation |
They ran a series riddled with errors and ignored requests that the paper run corrections. Even the report the NCAA produced noted the newspaper was in error. Drew Sharp hates the state of Michigan and everything about it. I would ask, why hasn't Drew Sharp or any of the others written about the rampant oversigning and fraudulent medical exemptions handed out by the SEC over the past 10 years? Or ripped the SEC coaches for voting unanimously against ending oversigning, while the university presidents in the league voted unanimously to stop it? Why has he not written that Urban Meyer's departure from Florida came soon after the university hired a new president who said he did not like oversigning and would no longer allow it? No, instead we see him constantly rip the Big Ten even as he praises the number of consecutive years the SEC has won BCS titles, with no discussion that the run by the league started with Nick Saban's arrival at LSU, where he commenced to blow open loopholes in NCAA rules, to the point that even the most shameless conference in the history of college athletics finally had to do something about it. I'd rather have a journalist who investigates legitimate stories worthy of investigations than to criticize the Detroit News for not making the same mistake the Freep did -- launch a U-M investigation without really even understanding the concept of countable hours, spend reams of time and ink on a series of stories that essentially detailed nothing more than a paperwork violation by the coaching staff, and then not have the decency to correct the errors in their report.
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| 28 weeks 1 day ago | You're not wrong |
And they always include a number of hypotheticals that leap ahead because the kid missed one game. I would imagine the coaches would like him to play quarterback in his final four (maybe five) games at Michigan. But hypothethically, we could ponder this again tomorrow, when we'll have 24 more hours to not have any idea where Denard's elbow stands. |
| 28 weeks 1 day ago | Leagues also drawing a hard line |
It doesn't look like the leagues or the NCAA care what the voters decided. It's still banned. But this makes sense. There's no way the sports leagues would ever lead this charge. If the U.S. culture changes over time, they'll follow a long. But this is a long way from that.
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| 28 weeks 1 day ago | Totally agree with this |
People who want to use it already are using it. And judging by the vote totals, a lot of people are using it! |
| 28 weeks 1 day ago | Law will not change sports leagues' policies |
This law will have no impact on professional athletes, who have agreed in their collective bargaining agreements that marijuana is a banned substance and they can be suspended for it if they test positive. They have a signed contract with their employers that specifically bans marijuana and the law won't change that. Same thing for college athletes, Olympic athletes, etc. -- the rules governing them prohibit the use of marijuana. It does not matter whether the athletes are on the job or not. They cannot use it. The DEA today said the law changes nothing in their view: It remains against federal law to possess, use or cultivate pot. What we can expect in Colorado and Washington in the short term is.... nothing, at least until more of this is sorted out. What is most likely to happen is those state governments will be talking to the feds about how the feds will react as the implementation of this law proceeds. One could imagine the governor of Colorado letting someone try to open up a retail marijuana outlet, even though he knows the feds will come right in and shut it down. Turning enforcement over to the feds protects him politically because the voters in his state have said they don't want the state to enforce it. So when he says he will honor the will of the voters, that really means nothing. The feds typically do not prosecute marijuana cases unless it is a distribution charge involving a large quantity -- they leave the minor cases to the states. But if a state is declaring it no longer will enforce it, most analysts expect the federal government to sue Colorado and Washington on the grounds that a state law cannot supercede federal law. This is very similar to the Arizona immigration law in some respects, though the marijuana case will law actually be more clearcut in favor of the feds. In the case of Arizona, the Supreme Court split because it was a case in which Arizona was seeking to enforce a state law on the grounds that, in the view of Jan Brewer anyway, the feds had failed to enforce the same law. This is a case of a state in direct conflict with a federal law. The feds' potential actions could take many forms, from pursuing busts and criminal cases themselves to simply challenging the law in court and preventing it from being enacted until a federal judge decides. But I would say there is no chance of the feds just letting this go or the NBA, NFL, NCAA, MLB, USOC or any other sport governing body allowing it for athletes in those two states.
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| 37 weeks 3 days ago | Agree! Bama a cut above rest of SEC |
I'm a little tired of all these SEC teams flattering themselves by talking about how great Alabama is, as if that makes all the SEC teams great. Alabama is a great team, but in my view there is a large gap between Alabama and the rest of the SEC. What Bama did to Michigan, they did to virtually every SEC opponent last year. Indeed, as this poster points out, LSU did not get in the end zone against the Tide in EIGHT quarters of play. We got dominated, no doubt. But I have watched Bama for years. I'm from Alabama, graduated from Michigan. In several games last year, the Tide did the same -- to Arkansas, Florida, Auburn and LSU. LSU? Less than 100 yards of offense in a national title game? This is the other 'unbeatable' SEC team? Don't think so. Alabama is a cut above the rest of the league. The departed seniors on defense meant very little. The team had its QB back, veteran lines and returning LBs. The losses were easily plugged. Plus, Saban has handed out like 163 scholarships over the past six seasons. That's an average of 27 guys, every year, with some of those replacing players who were basically cut or run off. In fact, this Bama team might be better than last year's simply because McCarron is experienced now. Last year, he was trying to nail down the job. After Bama, I see a bunch of SEC teams that are distant seconds. Does anyone really think John L. Smith is going to lead Arkansas to victory over Bama this year? Not happening. And I think Bama will beat LSU if the game is played in Miles' backyard. It's a coaching mismatch and Saban has increased the talent gap between his team and the rest of the league. If we had faced any other SEC team on Saturday, it would have been a different game. Who knows if we would've won. But we definitely would've been better able to hang with the other teams in the league. We played the best team in the country. That does not make every other team in their league as good as them, as much as SEC fans want to portray it that way. Their allegedly superior SEC teams have been getting killed by Bama and it will happen again this season.
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| 37 weeks 4 days ago | RR got too much time |
In my opinion, we'd been in a better position to compete last night if RichRod had been fired a year sooner. And this is not a 'slam RR' post. I get all his offense excites people, but to me he was far from a complete head coach. His teams are flashy, but they are not tough. The kind of teams he builds get destroyed by the Alabamas of the world, and there is no doubt Alabama is the current standard of excellence. We got pushed around on both lines and line recruiting was a huge weakness under RR. Alabama has tough guys all over the roster. Hoke is building a tough team, but clearly not there yet. The team from Tuscaloosa was built like Bo used to build teams. The team from Ann Arbor was a tweener team, still part-Rodriguez and not yet Hoke. Saban devours spread teams. If you have no vertical passing game, you cannot beat them. Our QB play was awful and the only receiver to play well was Gallon. Gardner looked like he had no idea what we was doing. Soft cuts, wrong routes, turning the wrong way. We have no real passing attack and it showed. The goal for 2012 should be to see what kind of passing game Denard can handle and we should just run him more. He is no more accurate than he was last year, a lot of his passes still are just launches that he hopes our guys catch, and he's destined to be a Percy Harvin-type in the NFL, which I feel is a good thing for Denard's pro longevity. I love watching Denard run the ball, but his limitations get exposed by really good teams. We'll be putting in a true passing game starting in 2013. |
| 37 weeks 4 days ago | I understand the sentiment, but... |
... I would not overreact to one game. Truth is, we had played Alabama three times previously and won twice. Saban is a great coach. Combine great coaching, great tradition and the ability to make a team incredibly deep through oversigning, and you have a program on a roll. But if -- and this is a big IF -- the NCAA really does crack down on roster manipulation (Stewart Mandel, for example, thinks the new rules will not stop oversigning), and as Hoke continues to recruit players head-to-head with Alabama (as in the Turly-Tillman and Dawson commits), we'll see things level out over the next few years. Someone should run the numbers on this, but I'll bet the edge Alabama holds in the number of scholarships given out over the past four years, not to mention that Saban has been recruiting players to fit his system, which is more like the days of Bo. I don't think we'll ever be Alabama in terms of how we go about things -- Michigan is a serious university, while Bama is your typical, average state school -- but I think we'll be able to compete with them in two years. There's nothing fancy about what they do. They get great recruits, they've been cutting recruits they missed on and replacing them with more recruits, and that just gives more talent to a great coach. They'll always get great recruits. If we can stop them from manipulating the rules to correct their misses, we can compete. Indeed, if we can get everyone playing by the same rules, we have the coaching staff and recruiting power to return to beating Alabama again. The competitive edge brought by oversigning is depth, and we saw it last night. It is the reason Alabama can 'reload, not rebuild.' They've been stockpiling as much as they can get away with. Remember, there were years before the SEC went on an oversigning rampage started by Saban at LSU (and then Alabama), along with Arkansas and South Carolina. And Michigan dominated the SEC in bowl games before the binge. And which SEC team was the first to ban oversigning? Florida, by the order of the school president. And looked what happened -- they started getting dominated in the SEC. The SEC teams you see on the field really are better and much deeper. It's how they got that way that doesn't get any discussion on television.
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| 41 weeks 3 days ago | Ah |
Thanks. I have done that myself. |
| 41 weeks 3 days ago | Excuse me? |
What are you talking about? |
| 41 weeks 3 days ago | It's a consent decree, not an NCAA ruling |
This is posturing and will go nowhere. |
| 1 year 8 weeks ago | That's an ugly house |
Always amazed at how much money some people spend to buy a house that has no curb appeal, no character and is just plain ugly. Ugly brick and the design of those window frames is hideous. Smacks of 'new money' with no classic taste. |
| 1 year 9 weeks ago | SEC fans don't wear jerseys? |
How many SEC teams has he seen play? Go to an LSU game and you'll see plenty of jerseys. And plenty of really ugly purple shirts. |
| 1 year 10 weeks ago | I thought he said Temple would beat us |
Did Davis come back later and say Ohio would beat us? When I was watching the show, he said that Temple would beat us in the round of 32, in what he termed a "mini-upset." I don't pay attention to it. When we drew Clemson, people said we'd lose. We won. Last year, all I heard was about all the great athletes Tennessee had. We crushed them. The analysts are just fans. They all say predictable things. That said, Temple is a quality, well-coached team. Fran Dunphy is an excellent coach. But I still like our chances of getting to the Sweet 16. |
| 1 year 10 weeks ago | Thanks for stopping in troll |
Hey troll, thanks for leaving top talent sitting there because of your coach's "system." |
| 1 year 12 weeks ago | On those university rankings |
Important to note that Michigan's ranking was the highest ranking of any U.S. public university. The nine U.S. schools ranked ahead of us are all private institutions, and Michigan ranked ahead of the other two top public schools -- Cal-Berkeley and Virginia. Pretty impressive. Also, while everyone likes to make fun of a "General Studies" degree, it is basically just a liberal arts degree. The classmate of mine at Michigan who is the richest of everyone in our group of friends is a hugely successful corporate real estate developer. He majored in General Studies. Far from holding him back, it made a dramatic positive difference in his life. Why? Because he had a degree from Michigan and that in itself opens doors. My point is it's the quality of the school that matters most, and the competitiveness of the student body. At Ohio, you are going to school with a bunch of average students, some well below average. It is not hard to get accepted. Any degree from Michigan is worth more than the vast majority of degrees from Ohio because you have been to a place that is simply filled with smarter people and that better prepares you to compete.
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| 1 year 15 weeks ago | This is correct |
If Gutierrez had not injured his throwing shoulder in preseason practice, he would've started ahead of Henne. My prediction is that Gardner starts for two years -- the second one is contingent on him getting the medical redshirt for 2010 -- that Morris plays little if at all his first year, and then gets more time his second year. I don't see any way that Morris arrives on campus ahead of Gardner, who is a very talented player. I also could even Morris taking a redshirt year if he is not needed his first season, which would mean Bellomy is the backup and that Bellomy has developed into a pretty good player, which is how the coaches view him. Borges keeps saying everyone is going to be surprised when they see Bellomy play, and I don't think that is false praise. |
| 1 year 15 weeks ago | Agreed |
I think if Alex has somehow convinced himself there is a comparison between the business schools at Michigan vs. Auburn, then he may very well be trying to rationalize a decision to go to Auburn. I also am from Alabama and I've never heard anyone even take Auburn's business school seriously. You'd be better off to major in economics at Birmingham-Southern than go to Auburn's business school, unless your business is dairy. I agree with the poster who said an economics degree from Michigan would be better. It would be life-changing better. My roommate at U-M went that route, got into Ross for his MBA, and is now living in Chicago and really wealthy. The problem with Auburn is even an undergraduate degree from there is not likely to mean much if you want to go to Michigan's business school. Auburn does have some above-average programs, but it is in general a lightweight school in terms of academics, like most of the SEC schools. (Vandy and Georgia are far and away the two best academic schools in the league, though now you could add Missouri to that list, at least for some areas of study.) As for the two worst, I'd go with LSU and Mississippi State. For most of its history, LSU didn't even have admission standards beyond requiring a high school diploma. When I was working in New Orleans, every summer we'd bring in interns, and a few of them would be from LSU. We would always end up hiring a few interns, and it was never the ones from LSU. Loyola University in New Orleans, a small Jesuit-run school, is light years ahead of LSU in producing sharper graduates.
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| 1 year 15 weeks ago | What a clown Saban is |
Every coach could claim caps prevented players from having opportunities to come to his school. Every NFL coach could claim league limits on roster size prevented players from having opportunities to be on an NFL team. The rules are there to protect the sanctity of the competition. Saban doesn't look at rules as rules. He likes to portray them as unfortunate roadblocks to his goal of assuming advantages no other teams are allowed to have. Then when he wins, he acts as if every coach had the same chance to win as his teams had, and he doesn't mention the scores of extra players he has signed over the years. |
| 1 year 15 weeks ago | Has no one heard of central time? |
The guy is in Chicago, which is central time. And he's not coming to Michigan anyway, so who cares. |
| 1 year 15 weeks ago | Auburn board says Diamond has told the coaches |
This board says Diamond informed all the coaches yesterday and the announcement is tomorrow. They also believe Arkansas is the winner. |
| 1 year 15 weeks ago | On the four-year schollies |
Hoke mentioned that he didn't recall players losing their scholarships for not being good football players, and said it was usually for academic or social reasons. That was true at places such as Michigan, but that was not true in the SEC. In fact, because the rules previously did not prohibit schools from non-renewing kids for athletic reasons, Saban and many others adopted a tryout-and-cut approach as a routine, annual practice. Arkansas used to announce it with a press release, touting the six scholarships it had just non-renewed. The new NCAA rule attempts to close the loophole by saying players cannot lose their scholarship for 'non-academic' reasons, or unless they get into a legal issue that violates university or team rules, or unless they voluntarily quit the team. On the face of it, it should make a difference. It will not solve it. Coaches have all kinds of ways to get kids to quit. |
| 1 year 16 weeks ago | Could not agree more |
Ask yourself how many teams below us view our ranking as elite? All of them. Once you get in the top 5 to 10 classes, it's real close, a matter of opinion always. Our standing tells us our class has a great chance of turning out well. There are no guarantees. Don't get hung up on numbers 1 through 5, like it means we've come up short. Our class has huge talent, character and a lot of smart students. That defines elite. |
