gjking

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Date	Title	Body
1 week 5 days ago	Bust	Mgoblog should do an Mgobust of the year, the player predicted to contribute the least in the class amongst the 4* or higher guys.
1 week 6 days ago	Insanity	This list is absolutely insane. If a guy is not the consensus best in his particular sport, how can he possibly be the best of ANY college athlete? I don't see how the USC football player or the Duke basketball player can be considered at all. Seems like you'd have to be an idiot to vote for either. (On an aside, I'd never heard of either of these guys). Couldn't they at least find somebody who dominated his own sport? That leaves the Hobey Baker winner, Kyle Dake, and Trey Burke. Dake is the consensus #2 NCAA wrestler of ALL TIME behind Cael Sanderson who went 4 years undefeated in the 1990s. I don't think anyone is making the case for Burke or LeBlanc to be the greatest ever at their sports. Case closed. Dake is the best.
3 weeks 1 hour ago	Rules	How is this rule enforceable at all? What if I tell the referees that every player on my team plays at every different position on the field? Then I can assign numbers at random. During games, I can simply claim that I happened to never call a play with player XX at position YY corresponding to player XX's number. Seems an arbitrary rule to me, unless there is an NFL rule forbidding players from playing at multiple positions.
7 weeks 6 days ago	Hold it	Its easy to be overly optimistic with these things. Mexico just had 2 homes and an away and got only 3 points. CONCACAF is always more tricky than it seems. I think 6 or 7 is the best to resonably hope for, 9 points is unlikely.
8 weeks 45 min ago	Yes	We are tied for 2nd place on points after 3 games, and the 3 teams we've played are the teams that finished 2nd, 3rd, and 4th in the hex for the 2010 world cup, which we won. Also, 2 of these 3 games were away. Yes, we are in great shape. Next up in June is Jamaica on the road, Panama in Seattle, and Honduras in Salt Lake. If we get >= 6 points from those 3 games, we'll be extremely well positioned. 5 or 4 wouldn't be too bad. 3 or fewer would be troublesome.
26 weeks 1 day ago	UM-OSU	If we move to this schedule, it will be even more unfavorable that we will have to play OSU every year in the cross over while MSU plays Indiana and Nebraska plays Penn State. I wonder if they would change the rule for qualifying to the Big Ten Championship and consider in-division record first, then total conference record, and finally head-to-head. That seems more fair to me.
26 weeks 3 days ago	ND	They think they are too good for Michigan, eschewing our rivalry with them so they can try and get more money. Money, money, money.
38 weeks 4 days ago	Starting D-Line	The starting D-line you mentioned also was mentioned on the BTN Michigan preview show. That may be where people got that information.
39 weeks 2 days ago	Golf	Not sure how others feel, but the elitist culture of golf sickens me. The sport has become a mechanism for rich white people to surround themselves with other rich white people by paying exorbitant country club fees. I never watch professional golf, it is boring, and being good is more a product of privilege than anything else.
42 weeks 4 hours ago	Triathlete	Former XC and track runner, walked on to a DI program (not Michigan). Ran 4:30 in the mile, 26:40 in 8K XC, and 15:50 in the 5K. All New England XC runner in High School. Compete in triathlons these days. Recently did 1:15 for a half olympic distance (800m swim, 20K bike, 5K run), but still a terrible swimmer. Any tips from the board on getting a half mile swim time down from 18 minutes to 13?
42 weeks 4 hours ago	Excellent	Very strong, did you compete in college?
43 weeks 5 days ago	Wiggins	Too bad that Wiggins didn't do the right thing, and let Froome go with 2-3K left in the race. Froome and Sky very well could have won the stage, and Bradley would still have the yellow jersey, and still win the tour on Sunday. Essentially there was no downside (how much could Bradley really lose over 2-3K when he was already ahead of all his competitors?), and the upside of winning a stage of the TDF, which is super prestigious. But clearly Wiggins is not at all a class act, and not grateful for the best domestique service in the history of the TDF. No questions remain that Froome is the best rider in the TDF this year. After all, most of the time he lost was on stage 1, a flat stage, losing 1:25 in a crash. In all of the mountain stages, he has held back for Wiggins. Based on what we saw, he has likely been minutes better than Wiggins in the mountains. I hope that Froome can find a team that will support him for future tours, and we can stop talking about British cycling for a guy who actually grew up in Kenya, and just became British 2 years ago.
44 weeks 3 days ago	TDF	I know others have brought this up before, but the route this year is a little lame. From stage 12 (yesterday) to the end of the tour, there are 9 stages, and really only 3 of them matter for the GC. The important ones are Wednesday and Thursday in the Pyrenees, and then the final time trial next Saturday. Barring an injury, the green jersey is already decided. The GC also looks pretty safe at this point. What we do have to look forward to? Personally I'm looking forward to seeing how the young American Tejay Van Guarderen holds up in the mountains and on the final TT. Can he finish in the top 5? I also expect to see some fireworks on Wednesday and Thursday (especially Thursday). Hopefully one of Wiggins or Froome unhinges and opens up the race a little bit. One would expect some attacking riding from Nibali, Evans, or others.
49 weeks 2 days ago	Warhurst	I saw Warhurst speak at an event, and he made it pretty clear that he had been forced out of the Michigan job. While I can see some justification for this, it seems like the program has not take a step forward at all in recent years, especially on the track (non-distance/XC) side of things. On the distance side, Gibby is new and did extremely well at William and Mary. My concern with him is that his approach from W&M might now work that well at U of M. There, he got a lot of mid level distance running talent (9:20-9:30 HS 2 mile types), cranked up the mileage, and made them into a strong XC team that scored in the 5K/10K at the conference meet. At Michigan, we should be building a deep all around track program, and Gibby will have the opportunity to get some higher level talent. For these reasons, his approach will have to be tweaked. Given the performance of Forys, he is doing this well thus far in my estimation. On the non-distance side, we need to do something to become more competitive in the Big Ten. I'm not as knowledgeable in this area, but perhaps we need some coaching changes, or some well-paid top assistants that can attract talent.
49 weeks 3 days ago	Track and Field	I tend to agree more with the second poster here... I think the Big Ten Conference and Michigan name should be a huge pull in track and field, especially given that we use the full scholarship allocation and have top notch facilities. Dave Brandon is committed to using the money from football to get the best coaches and athletes in every other sport, so this should be happening in track, and clearly things are not going well. I was a varsity track and field athlete at an Ivy League school before coming to U of M for grad school. While the ivies have the benefit of generous financial aid and academic prestige, they still have the challenge of the weather, and no scholarships, but seem to be thriving in spite of this. Michigan really has no excuse.
49 weeks 3 days ago	Track Programs	Given the athletic department commitment to excellence in every sport, I would guess the U of M track and field coaches might be on the hot seat.  Indoor Big Ten Championships - Woman 8th, Men 10th (of 11) Outdoor Big Ten Championships - Woman 7th, Men 9th (of 11)   I know that Men's XC had a good year, but we need to get better at track, both men and woman.
49 weeks 3 days ago	Excellent	Excellent season for Forys, ran 8:28 back on May 12, so we'll see him at the Olympic Trials. Hopefully a sign of improving distance running for U of M, which was very strong in the early 2000s but has dropped off in recent years.
1 year 5 hours ago	Effort	I love the effort here by the mathlete, just incredible. To slot all these schools into divisions, this must have taken a day or two to do all this work. In terms of the actual proposal, well, we know it will never happen. A relegation and promotion system implicitly assumes that every team has winning as a #1 prority. With college sports, you have all sorts of competing priorities, especially for teams outside of DI BCS.
1 year 1 day ago	True true	This is true too. Unfortunately, Kljestan has not played well for the USMNT so this hurts his stock, along with the other reasons mentioned. Another possible explanation is that Kljestan is seen as a "Bradley guy", being drafted by Bob at Chivas back in 2006 (Bornstein also taken in that same draft by Bob). As we know with new coaches, they often try to separate themselves from prior regimes through personnel choices.
1 year 1 day ago	Snub	The biggest snub here is Sacha Kljestan, who has made 72 appearances in the past two seasons for Anderlecht, and was a consistent starter for them this past season when they won the Belgium League, qualifying for the Champions League next season. He is one of the rare Americans who has become an established starter at a decently big European club, and has shown great improvement in recent years while still being relatively young at 26. Something seems wrong here. The only logic behind it is that perhaps the US style is best suited for more attack from the wings and more defensive-minded central midfielders, so Klinsmann sees no place for him on the pitch.
1 year 4 days ago	Playoffs	I've had this debate more than a few times, and I really dislike the playoff structure in the NHL and NBA where the regular season means jack shit. But there is also a question of fairness vs. entertainment. When the champion is seemingly totally random, is this unfair or more entertaining? Personally,  I find the MLB system to be unfair. Judge a team over 162 games, then dump them in 5 close-to-coin-flip-probability games. But on the other hand, I love the randomness of the NCAA basketball tournament. So there is a tradeoff. For me, the right tradeoff is NFL or college football, where regular season games matter a ton, and there is still some playoffs that heavily favor good regular season teams. I also would be fine the with European soccer model of no playoffs, but as stated earlier, Americans would never go for this.
1 year 5 days ago	Students	I get DB's point about the student-athlete perspective. But what about the student body perspective? Very few students are going to be able to make it to a neutral-site location, but if there was a home game, the students would be there, loud, and (hopefully) on time. A better student section increases the enjoyment of all other Michigan fans, and presumably increases the experience for the players too.
1 year 5 days ago	Warm Weather	Personally, as a Michigan alumn, the prospect of returning to the big house for a cold playoff game in Ann Arbor is far more appealing than a generic warm weather neutral site game. I'd even prefer visiting an opposing stadium. Outside of sites with tradition (Rose Bowl), the neutral site locations are terrible. I hate Florida, Arizona, Southern California, Texas, etc.
1 year 1 week ago	Character	For me, if a recruit is attracted to a guy like Lane Kiffin and a place like USC, they don't have the character to be a real Michigan man. May be a fantastic football player but not the kind of guy I want in our program.
1 year 1 week ago	The Band the band the band	The only music I ever like to hear at Michigan Stadium http://grooveshark.com/#!/search?q=Michigan+Marching+Band All piped in music is garbage.
1 year 1 week ago	Agreed	I agree with this sentiment. While the blog focuses primarily on the big 3 sports, there are a lot of extrodinary athletes that have been at Michigan in the past few years. That being said, I can imagine that trying to be fair across sports would be nearly impossible and could become a slippery slope.
1 year 1 week ago	Eligibility	According to the post, woman's basketball is allowed?
1 year 2 weeks ago	Agree/Disagree	To some extent, I agree with the prior post. It is difficult to be a fan of a mid-level team in European soccer. I am a big Fulham supported in England, and for them, finishing in the top 10 is the objective each season. Once in a decade, you might get a great run in the FA cup, Europa League, etc. but it can be difficult. What I will say about American sports, is that the playoff systems suck badly. In the NHL, NBA, and MLB, the regular seasons are WAY too long, and there is no prestige associated with winning the regular season. Therefore, you end up with Lebron James playing 82 useless games per season. I haven't watched an MLB regular season game for 5 years beause there are so damn many I can't find much significance. NFL does a much better job at this, with the BYE system, and fewer playoff spots. In the soccer model, there are multiple competitions which leaves more teams with things to play for. In the EPL, there is currently a battle for first, then a battle for third and fourth (champions league spots for next season), and a relegation battle, plus teams in the Champions leauge and FA cup. Most of the clubs have something to play for, even though there are just 2 games left.
1 year 2 weeks ago	Uproar	I caused the prior uproar by saying a degree was a requirement. On second consideration, I agree with others that is it NOT a requirement. Bo and Brady clearly must be included. Perhaps love and loyalty to the University, plus a good person is sufficient. Some affiliation to the University perhaps too, whether it be faculty, employee, fan, parent, etc
1 year 2 weeks ago	Degree + Respectful + Love the U	In my view, there are 3 requirements 1) Degree 2) Love for the university 3) Good person Nothing to do with arrogance, or this idea of the Michigan "difference". Just people that went here, love the university and are good people. That is enough for me. With adjectives ("real Michigan Man") comes more severity of the above three.

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