Member for

14 years 1 month
Points
165.00

Recent Comments

Date Title Body
screens - over/under

Brian, excellent as usual.  On your discussion of McCray's going "over" or "under" a screen, I think you should adopt the offense-centric terminology from basketball.  When you describe it here I find it confusing, as you want McCray to be conservative and cede yards, which in basketball we would say is going "under" a screen, but you say "over."  I think it would make it more intuitive for folks if you switch your terminology around.

Thanks!

We had a great day.  Parked at the ann arbor library lot (perfect!) about 10:30 for the 3:30 game.  Went to the MDen and got through before the crazy lines.  Then did the diag, engineering buildings, law quad, etc. before circling back to the student union for lunch.  We went back to the car for a few things, then got down to the stadium for the drumline at 2 and then into the stadium early for all the warmups.  Perfect day for my Dad, and I really appreciate all the advice.  

Thanks!  Beat Ohio!

Thanks everybody-great stuff for a frat day! Go Blue!

Thanks everybody-great stuff for a frat day! Go Blue!




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Also tailgating

Also, we don't have any tailgating invites, so any suggestions on that would be great.  I assume you don't just walk around inviting yourself to people's parties.

Wow

Wow.  I, like I'm sure most of the people here, never saw this coming this year.  Really liked the guy, but this is a great sign that Hoke is willing to make the tough choices to make his team better.  I guess that assumes that it was Hoke's choice rather than Brandon foreshadowing it by leaving Borges out of his blog post a few months back, but I think that's too much tea leaf reading without more so I will assume it was Hoke. 

 

This is, of course, only good if we get someone better, but I am hopeful for now.

great line

"Burke is both awesome at basketball and extremely protective of my emotions."  One of the best sentences yet written on this blog.

reorganize based on the importance of the position per Walsh

First, really good post and I enjoyed reading it.  When I got to the guard position though, I thought that the post could have been improved significantly by going through the positions based on the order of importance from Walsh's perspective.  He talks about guards, not quarterbacks or others, as the ones you style your offense around.  Starting this with guards, instead of our usual progression through the offensive positions based on skill first, blockers last, would have challenged me to think more flexibly (clearly?) on how a Walsh offense should be constructed and the priorities for doing so. 

VLC

Any VLC high quality streams available?

Score

Michigan 47

Illinois 9

ND-Stanford

As an ND Law alum I can tell you that the reason I have always heard for Stanford being important is that ND wants to have a game in California every year.  The USC/Stanford games are set up to alternate years (crazy idea, amirite?) so the Irish play in California every year.  This is important both for the big local alumni base out there, and for CA/west coast recruiting. 

There could certainly be other reasons, but that's the one I hear most frequently.

correct prediction

UM 41 - Air Force 17

UM 41 - UMass 10

Affirmative.

"typo" typo

Ironic that in the course of your discussion on typos, "typo" was the only word misspelled.

It's nice to get a glimpse of the editing process at MgoBlog.

Ex post facto

I can't imagine them applying any rules like this retroactively. A punishment needs to be set before the crime is committed, that's just basic fairness. The first program to get hit with these is going to have quite a shock though. We'll probably see a lot more of the Ohio defense of blaming a rogue coach and players to save the university as a whole.

posted from iPhone

That's still better than virginia tech's schedule.

Competitors want a rematch

I usually agree with Brian (why else would I read the site so often?), but here he has missed the boat.  When I saw we had rescheduled them I was pumped, excited.  It was time to start erasing that defeat, time for a rematch.  If you're a competitor and someone beats you, you want a rematch to crush them, then you want another one to crush them again, and ten more to prove that it was a fluke that first time.  It never truely erases the first defeat, but it sure feels good. 

I hope we schedule them every year for the next 50 and make them regret that they even won that first one.  If you're a program with pride, that's what you want to do, wipe out everyone who's ever beaten you, especially when they had no business doing so.

kickoffs

Minor correction Brian, that Schiano proposal was to eliminate kickoffs because of how dangerous they are, not punts.  I think it's pretty interesting in good matchups, but just think of the carnage that would ensue with a buzzsaw like Oregon against the tasty 1-AA cupcakes on the schedule.  Though, that was already pretty bad anyway...

APR

Have these schools taken an APR hit from kids leaving?  Anybody know where that kind of info is?

Undefeated dream season of 1992 FTW!

"Cannibalism may be fun for the short term, but in isolation it’s not a viable long-term survival strategy. "  

 

My favorite line form Mgoblog in some time...well done.

awesome as usual

Great work man, keep it up!

gotcha

I gotcha, thanks for the clarification.  I hope your series continues.

nice detail points, but

nice points here, I learned a lot from your expertise, keep it coming.  That said, you could learn from one of your own lessons and stay focused on your point, which was teaching film editing basics, not bashing catholics.  Cheap shots aren't appreciated on the field, and they're not appreciated here.  Stay classy MGauxBleu.

be patient

The UFRs will come, all in due time.  The people need hope and laughs these days, and this was awesome....poor mike williams...

super stuff

I don't put too much stock in these numbers, but I'll take all the reassurance I can get at this point!  I did think the number of factors in Michigan's favor was interesting, but none of those factors will be playing DB for us on Saturday.  Still, reasons to hope!  Go Blue!

Ha

Nice.  I am definitely going to say "Z you" to someone today...

good thoughts

A lot of reasonable thoughts here, although I thought it was strange that you discounted the "weakest link" argument so strongly.  I remember a couple front-page articles and diaries from last year about the importance of the defense's weakest-link and how it seriously dragged down the rest of the defense.  Just from a common-sense look at it this makes sense, because the offense can hide its weaknesses through play-calling while the defense can't hide its weaknesses to the same extent and must react to the offense.  

I had had some hope for this defense that every position group would be competent/average, but the attrition at CB has made me doubt that hope.  

general agreement, but

I generally agree with your thoughts, but I disagree that it's going to be time to do anything about it after this season either way.  I am of the "old," perhaps never-existing, school that says that coaches should get five years unless they murder someone.  This is not reality, but only my view of how it should be.  If they were good enough to hire them, I think it is a disservice to your school, the coach, and the long-term health of the program to get a nervous trigger-finger.  If coaches know they will have 5 years they will build for the long-term, and short-term hiccups--like injuries, weird transfers, bad luck--will probably wash out.  I think five years gives you a reasonable amount of data to make a decision on a coach, and less than that is selling everyone short.  

So, yes, I think this season is mostly on RR, although the defensive depth situation is still in recovery mode from Carr's classes, as we saw from those exhaustive diaries. But even if it's all on RR, I'm not calling for his head even with a bad season, e.g. 3-9.  I don't expect most will agree with me, but there it is.

Well done sir

Very well done.

Oh man, that part was so

Oh man, that part was so good, holy cow I was laughing so hard.

dominos

I thought I was going to be tired of the dominos lines by the second one, but they were killer.  GERG and the hair, oh, so good.  

Oh, I needed this today....

DAMN IT

Again, Damn it.  Sigh.

That said, only silver linings I see in this are Woolfolk maybe coming back, as mentioned above, and all this bad news just before the season lowering everyone outside the program's expectations for the season.  I am one of those people who think that a coach deserves 5 years unless he kills someone, so I will be glad if the lowered exterior expectations will make it more likely that RR is retained after a middling year.  Given the absurd and obvious attrition at this position group, most of which he had no control over, any rational observer is going to expect a poor season, and will therefore not be as angry if that's what happens.  For an extreme example, look at Oklahoma last year.

Obviously the most important thing is for Woolfolk to get healthy for the long-term, as in the rest of his life.  I hope the reports are exaggerated and we find out he'll be fine in a month or two.  17 days would be even better, but I'd take a month at this point, for sure.

awesome

That Coner finish was classic.

here's one

Yep, bring on the ulcers.

The last line...

My thoughts exactly.

I guess I need to stop reading this blog at work so I don't swear out loud in the office anymore...

Agreed

Agreed, although I will be rooting more for Black.  I'm not sure why, I think it's because it's hard to emotionally connect with a robot.

Great post

Always enjoy your diaries, great read.  I don't know why I have an attachment to Mike Williams, but I really want that kid to do well.  Hard to see it from the evidence we have so far, but there's always the Stevie Brown comparison.

not worthy

We are not worthy....

 

I loved the introduction, great sales pitch!

well done

I've really enjoyed the series, but this was your best work yet.  I was originally sad to see Udoh in here, he's a great player, but you were just being consistent.

Well done and keep it up!

Just more of the same...

Just more of what we already knew, from this site and from the Woolfolk presser.  We'll only find out once the season starts.

Thanks

Thanks for posting this, it was a great read.  As someone in a situation similar to Abbott's (my left hand is like his right), I have followed his career since I was a kid and drew a ton of inspiration from his example.  He was a great athlete and competitor, and he taught me a lot about wanting to win because it was who he was, not because he was trying to make up for his hand or prove people wrong.  He's an all-around class act who made the world a lot better for a lot of people, myself included.

study for the bar?

Come on, just wing it...

same

Same for me. Great work on these, thanks for the post.

we'll talk more

I think we'll be talking about it a lot more when we're going against Nebraska every year.  It's one of the only points of conflict we currently have, and it would be a big one even if we had a richer history with them.

fantastic memories

I remembered Wheatley from when I was a kid, but I did not remember how fast that dude was.  What a blazer!  Would love to see him and Denard in a race...woooooo!

thanks

Nice piece of data to have around and update.  Good work.

Just a note, the table is all wacked-out on my browser (firefox 3.6.6)

Awesome

I love these under-the-radar types.  Welcome aboard and Go Blue!

great stuff

I know it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things, but it's nice to get out of the dry spell and get another recruit.

 

Go Blue, and welcome aboard!

no surprise here

We'll just have to wait to see if it comes through.  I wonder how Boise State is feeling about their move into the Mountain West now.  Probably still a good move, but not as appealing as it was last week.

great work

As always, great work on this.  I think this is my favorite proposal so far.

my fault then

Well, that takes the imminent drama out of it, obviously.  Thanks for the help on that.

compensation disparities

I don't know a lot about the this sport, but I was surprised to see the the compensation disparities between playing for the premier league and the US national team.  On a purely monetary level, the incentives for making the World Cup roster (~$37,000 in 2006) pale in comparison to the millions paid by club teams.  This is something you see in a lot of sports, see men's basketball and the olympics, but it's interesting to actually be able to put a number on it.