Agreed, and I'm also surprised Moore isn't taking any criticism for what was, save for a few good schematic wins, a pretty mediocre offensive performance. I think Brian's take that the offense needed to feature a lot of JJ runs and play action was spot on, and we made things harder on ourselves by attacking the perimeter, using our WRs more than our TEs, and ignoring JJs running ability until the last drive. IMO, this was another game where Minter and the D won the game for us, and our offense played below their capabilities because we didn't take advantage of their strengths.
I'm probably in the minority, but it feels like, aside from 2021, our offense never quite puts it all together in The Game the way we're hoping/assuming they will. They've gotten the job done, and that's the important thing, but it seems like our D is usually ahead of our O (huge props to Minter) in terms of strategy and maximizing talent. In both the PSU and OSU games this year, even with all our star power on offense, it seemed like we leaned heavily on our defense to win those games for us.
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I felt like the play calling once we got into field goal range the last two drives was way too conservative. It felt to me like an old Lloyd Carr game where we were putting the ball and the game in the other team's hands. We got away with it and I'm ecstatic, but especially without Will Johnson, I would have liked to see them play for the win on that last drive. I think Harbaugh 100% would have been more aggressive.
I'm an LS&A '05 grad (English). Sophomore year I dated a girl at Western and I lived In Kalamazoo for the summer. I was able to take a summer class at Western (biology) and knock out one of my required science credits. Easiest A I ever got, and it still seems crazy it transferred. That was almost 20 years ago, but it seems like the system in place is whacky if community college courses can transfer but somehow courses from a school like Stanford cannot. I'm sure it's more complicated than I realize, but come on.
I can't remember his exact words, but he was asking a lot of players if they felt afraid and telling everyone not to have fear. Seemed like a really weird motivational approach. Maybe some mgopsychologists can chime in, but that seemed more likely to plant seeds of doubt/fear than dispel them. I've only seen one eipisode, but so far I've been very surprised at Harbaugh's demeanor in general and his rapport (or lack of) with players.
It's not intelligence but knowledge that leads to doubt. Study after study shows true experts in their fields tend to recognize complexities and gaps in knowledge that are oblivious to the ignorant. The more we know about a thing, the more we tend to recognize our own ignorance.
At some point, and I hope soon, I would expect some of the attention to turn on the Freep and other local media that failed to report on most of this, when every reader of this blog had heard rumors about these coaches and many of these players/incidents. The fact that ESPN had to do a lot of the FOIA and investigative legwork is really odd. Usually these things start locally, and then national catches on. It seems incredible (in the true sense of the word) that the writers covering MSU sports didn't have an idea of what was going on.
And I don't blame the guy. He took so much heat for turnovers that it's understandable he would be skittish back there. But I can't remember a play this year where he took a basic 3- or 5-step drop and let it rip. Timing routes were non-existant.
pretty much sums up his season. I appreciate all he's done for the program, and he earned a long runway to prove himself this year. But he seemed unwilling to let the ball go until he'd double and triple checked that a guy was open, and it was killing our offense.
Of all the criticisms you could lob at journalists, saying it's about money is the least legitimate. That may be true of publishers, but it's almost never true of the underpaid, overworked people who report for them. There's the old saying you get the ___ you deserve. If you want exhaustive, considered, honest reporting, start reading or clicking on it.
I remember being frustrated by those play calls because, at least to me, Higdon seems more like a Mike Hart, north-south runner, not an end-around specialist like Isaac.
I couldn't find the study link, but I know I've seen research that texting--because people tend to do it in their laps to avoid police detection, and so take their eyes completely off the road--is more dangerous than driving drunk by a wide margin. Even more frightening: "A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration survey found 20% of drivers age 18-20 said texting does not affect their driving, and nearly 30% of drivers ages 21-34 said texting has no impact."
To your second point, I've spent the last six months working on a feature for a national news magazine about the effect smartphones have on teen and tween brains. I will post here when it's published (if before end of OT season), but I can tell you what I've learned has made me a zealot about keeping phones away from kids, including my own, who are 1 and 3. The parts of their brains that regulate emotion and anxiety are just not equipped to handle the type of constant stimuli they receive from their phones, and we're starting to see the effects in surging rates of teen depression and suicide. It's all very scary stuff.
For whatever reason, the dad from the TV show "Frasier" has always flashed through my mind when writing the Martin Yerxa character in these. But it's mostly his voice, not his face.
I'm "Ed Markham," which is a pseudonym. I work as a magazine journalist, so I try to keep these thrillers separate from my professional writing. (My real name is Markham Heid. Ed was my grandfather's name, and now it's also my second son's name.)
I'm at a loss for words here. Everyone on this board was awesome and supportive when I posted about my book last year during the off-season, but I never expected it to come up again. I'm almost getting emotional sitting at my desk and seeing this. If this isn't an example of the Michigan Difference (and the MGoBlog Difference), I don't know what is.
I'd love to pay this kindness forward somehow. If anyone here is thinking about writing a book, or would like information about any aspect of book publishing or self-publishing, I'd be happy to share what I know. You can reach me at [email protected]. LLB, thank you again.
But the assessment of Speight seems a little harsh. The guy may not be pinpoint on every throw, but his ability to move well in the pocket seems like a huge asset that few of us likely anticipated, and one that doesn't show up on the stat sheet.
Curious to hear Brian's analysis, but it seemed like there were a lot of deep balls thrown to Darboh that he adjusted to very poorly. Not great throws, but throws where he didn't do much to help Speight out. I was frustrated Chesson didn't get a few more of those.
Darboh seems like a guy who always gets a lot of fall practice hype, but in games he still looks like a posession receiver to me, whereas Chesson looks like a more polished deep threat.
If you go into it believing "making your wife happy" = "having your balls removed" then you're in trouble. I'd argue being selfless and putting your wife's needs first makes you more of a man.
But most good teams/coaches don't have that slip up during such an important contest. Meyer and team went into that game knowing it would all but decide the B1G. It had been tee'd up all season, and GameDay was there. That's not the same as laying an egg mid-season against a sleeper.
For a hyper-competitive guy, he and his team sure looked unfocused and unprepared during that MSU game. If it had happened on the road against a different team, it would make more sense to me. But all year he and his team knew MSU and UM would likely be the two games that would determine their season. To play like that at home is tough to explain.
At the time I actually tweeted it at Harbaugh. It was right around the time of his "candy ass" skim comment. My family now only eats/drinks full-fat dairy.
Also, kidding about this being old news. Most people don't realize dietary fat isn't a health concern, and this can't be reported on enough. As a nation, we're all counting calories and avoiding fat when we should be worried about processed carbs.
And if you read the analysis of that poll, you would know Seth had labeled 'the official maize' , which he acknowledged skewed results. Once he removed that label, the majority of the voting went for a lighter shade of yellow/gold.
I thought we looked great Thursday. I would still prefer a slightly lighter maize, like the color Mich wore in Woodson's day (and basically for my whole lifetime). I'm not that pumped our colors are now indistinguishable from Cal, WVU, and several other schools.
You can read it on your laptop using the free Kindle app. If you click on this link to my book, you'll see a button/icon right below my book's cover that says "Read On Any Device." Click on that, and Amazon will email you what you need to get the free app on your computer.
Thank you very much for checking it out. I can't say enough how much I appreciate everyone's support here.
I lived in DC back in 2009-10, but I've been in Philly since. Otherwise I'd love to join up.
And to answer your second Q, yes I did try the traditional route. It's a very long, very arduous process, but certainly worth it if it pays off. After 18 months of querying agents, I was able to secure representation at a big NYC firm. While my agent said he was optimistic about my book's chances, the big publishers to whom we submitted the manuscript (Random House, Little Brown, etc.) said complimentary things but ultimately passed.
It's frustrating to think I could have had this book up on Kindle two years ago, but that's life. You hear about bestselling authors who struggled for years to break through, so I'm just going to keep at it and hope my day will come.
If you're talking about formatting services and that sort of thing, I handled everything myself, which was a huge time committment and probably not worth it. (I've since learned that I could have hired someone to format my manuscript for about $75, which would have saved me many days of work.)
If you want to learn all about self-publishing, the "writer's cafe" section of Kindle Boards is a phenomenal resource. Also, my email address is on my author site. Please get in touch and put MGoBlog in your subject line. I'd be happy to answer any questions I can about this or publishing traditionally.
I've always been interested in U.S. history, and I thought it'd be fun to weave some of that history into this genre. I like books that teach me something, even if it's just a beach read. So I started with the idea of a Constitution/Founder-obsessed killer, and went from there. Several years and many, many re-writes later, here we are.
Maybe I'm missing something, but saying the jumpman logo will be on our apparell is not the same as saying it'll be on our uniforms. I'd guess it'll just be on warmup gear and sideline stuff, not the actual jerseys or pants.
Except a lot of people here supposedly wouldn't be cool with that shade of maize, at least according to that very flawed poll Seth put up.
I know I shouldn't blame Brian, but part of me feels his ardent (but lately unmentioned) quest for a return to some mythical maize-ier maize has turned us into MSU with their ever-shifting green. I wish he'd speak up and own it, now that it seems we're returning to an orange-hued maize we haven't worn in 30 years.
And it's all subjective, but I think these look worse than the 'highlighter' maize Brian hates so much.
Watched the '97 season in review on B1G Network last night, and what Wodson et al. wore was a lot closer to what we had last season than to these orangey gold unis. I'm an '05 grad, so not such a youngun' anymore, but these don't look like Michigan colors to me. I feel like we're now indistinguishable from Cal and West Virginia, and that wasn't the case before.
It's easy to create a bunch of freaky symbols and allusions. It's a lot harder to tie them all together coherently in a way that's satisfying. In the end, they didn't even try. They just stole some creepy imagery from Se7en (dangling air fresheners) and turned McConnaughey and Harrellson's storyline into your classic love-hate buddy cliché.
I really enjoyed the metaphysical aspects in the first four episodes, but was disappointed (hugely) when the principal bad guy turned out to be your classic weirdo living in a shack in the woods. To me, the show didn't live up to the tremendous potential of its first four episods.
Season two seems bleaker, and doesn't have the esoteric setting and regional flair of season one (rural Louisiana versus a burb of Los Angeles). Also, Harrelson's friction with McConaughey provided some levity that this season doesn't have so far.
If this was a new series, and not True Detective, I probably wouldn't be that interested in keeping up with it after episode one. But maybe this one will finish stronger than it starts. (Does anyone else think the direction so far sucks? All those face close-ups at the end . . .)
Editors write headlines, not reporters. And the editors wrote the headline, "Michigan football program broke rules, players say," which is factually false. So the editors are as complicit and involved as the reporters. A story that big with those implications does not go to press without many, many people signing off on it. I would bet no fewer than 15 people, including every sports reporter, plus the sports desk editors, managing editor, and executive editor, had a look and OK'd everything. If you know the newspaper business, you know a report like that implicates many more people than Rosenberg and Snyder.
As a journalist and a guy who wrote for a newspaper (in DC) when Stretchgate went down, the entire incident was so ethically and professionally disgusting that it's sickening to think people will just shrug their shoulders and forget about it. I wish I could come up with an appropriate analogy . . . maybe something along the lines of bankers who knowingly mislead clients and sell them junk investments to make a profit for themselves.
If these guys were gone from the Freep, I could understand giving the new reporters/editors a chance. But until that happens, no one should let these assholes off the hook for what they did. They never apologized or issued a retraction, even when it came to light that they'd eggregiously overstated things. And as another commenter brought up, they showed they were still willing to jump on UM with both feet when we announced a few minor violations a month or two ago. Seriously, fuck them.
No one argues UCLA, Cal, Santa Cruz, Davis, or any of the other UC schools are all the same. I think this only comes up with UM because of sports fandom.
I think many people would disagree with you. Unlike Berkeley and UM, UVA seems to have a much more extreme bias in favor of in-state applicants. I've heard it's nearly impossible to get in from outside of Virginia, but not too tough if you're in-state. I think you could make an argument for any one of those three for top public university.
Or maybe Harbaugh just wants more competition and more options at the most important position on his football team. We could go with that instead of bashing one of our own players.
All that's "clear" is that a high school senior had a hard time choosing between two good football schools. Weber cited the Higdon signing as a reason for his OSU committment because he felt mislead by our coaches, not because he was afraid of competition. As others have speculated, he may have just felt the need to say something to justify his decision to people who wanted him to go to Michigan.
In any case, bashing a kid who chooses another school, for whatever reason, is pretty classless and reflects poorly on Michigan fans.
I felt like there was a major shift (and dropoff) from the tone and grandness of the early episodes to the last two, and the finale really felt boring and conventional to me. The dangling air fresheners and the man strapped to the bed seemed like blatant knockoffs of the film Seven, and the buddy-buddy neatness of Marty and Rust coming together in the end as better men just felt like a betrayal of their earlier characters. I loved the series, but really felt let down by the finale.
Not sure about your wording. But yeah, something along the lines of, "You tend to shit your pants and turtle during road games. For examples, recall every significant road game since you've been our OC. Should we prepare for more of the same in two weeks?"
Not sure if this is a common sentiment, but two breast cancers sufferers I know (one no longer with us) both told me repeatedly that October was their least favorite month because they were constantly being reminded of their disease.
I'm curious, has anyone seen research supporting the idea that players who quit football after college suffer from the same long-term health consequences as the pros? I'm under the impression the types of health concerns leading to all these rule changes take years to develop, and so mostly affect pros, who are extremely well paid to take such health risks. I don't understand why the media are suddenly up in arms about football players' safety and not talking about all of the other dangerous professions. No one's calling for an end to Alaskan crab fishing, even though the people on Deadliest Catch risk their lives for our entertainment and so we can all enjoy crab, and make a hell of a lot less than the worst-paid pro football player. I understand the desire to protect college players, who are unpaid, but is there any research showing that they're in danger of long-term neurological issues?
Recent Comments
Agreed, and I'm also surprised Moore isn't taking any criticism for what was, save for a few good schematic wins, a pretty mediocre offensive performance. I think Brian's take that the offense needed to feature a lot of JJ runs and play action was spot on, and we made things harder on ourselves by attacking the perimeter, using our WRs more than our TEs, and ignoring JJs running ability until the last drive. IMO, this was another game where Minter and the D won the game for us, and our offense played below their capabilities because we didn't take advantage of their strengths.
I'm probably in the minority, but it feels like, aside from 2021, our offense never quite puts it all together in The Game the way we're hoping/assuming they will. They've gotten the job done, and that's the important thing, but it seems like our D is usually ahead of our O (huge props to Minter) in terms of strategy and maximizing talent. In both the PSU and OSU games this year, even with all our star power on offense, it seemed like we leaned heavily on our defense to win those games for us.
I agree with you that 2nd down on that last series was the time to slip in something safe but sneaky. You know they're 100% playing run.
Maybe I'm an outlier, but I felt like the play calling once we got into field goal range the last two drives was way too conservative. It felt to me like an old Lloyd Carr game where we were putting the ball and the game in the other team's hands. We got away with it and I'm ecstatic, but especially without Will Johnson, I would have liked to see them play for the win on that last drive. I think Harbaugh 100% would have been more aggressive.
I'm an LS&A '05 grad (English). Sophomore year I dated a girl at Western and I lived In Kalamazoo for the summer. I was able to take a summer class at Western (biology) and knock out one of my required science credits. Easiest A I ever got, and it still seems crazy it transferred. That was almost 20 years ago, but it seems like the system in place is whacky if community college courses can transfer but somehow courses from a school like Stanford cannot. I'm sure it's more complicated than I realize, but come on.
I can't remember his exact words, but he was asking a lot of players if they felt afraid and telling everyone not to have fear. Seemed like a really weird motivational approach. Maybe some mgopsychologists can chime in, but that seemed more likely to plant seeds of doubt/fear than dispel them. I've only seen one eipisode, but so far I've been very surprised at Harbaugh's demeanor in general and his rapport (or lack of) with players.
It's not intelligence but knowledge that leads to doubt. Study after study shows true experts in their fields tend to recognize complexities and gaps in knowledge that are oblivious to the ignorant. The more we know about a thing, the more we tend to recognize our own ignorance.
Great article laying out this area of research:
https://psmag.com/social-justice/confident-idiots-92793
At some point, and I hope soon, I would expect some of the attention to turn on the Freep and other local media that failed to report on most of this, when every reader of this blog had heard rumors about these coaches and many of these players/incidents. The fact that ESPN had to do a lot of the FOIA and investigative legwork is really odd. Usually these things start locally, and then national catches on. It seems incredible (in the true sense of the word) that the writers covering MSU sports didn't have an idea of what was going on.
And I don't blame the guy. He took so much heat for turnovers that it's understandable he would be skittish back there. But I can't remember a play this year where he took a basic 3- or 5-step drop and let it rip. Timing routes were non-existant.
pretty much sums up his season. I appreciate all he's done for the program, and he earned a long runway to prove himself this year. But he seemed unwilling to let the ball go until he'd double and triple checked that a guy was open, and it was killing our offense.
Of all the criticisms you could lob at journalists, saying it's about money is the least legitimate. That may be true of publishers, but it's almost never true of the underpaid, overworked people who report for them. There's the old saying you get the ___ you deserve. If you want exhaustive, considered, honest reporting, start reading or clicking on it.
I remember being frustrated by those play calls because, at least to me, Higdon seems more like a Mike Hart, north-south runner, not an end-around specialist like Isaac.
I couldn't find the study link, but I know I've seen research that texting--because people tend to do it in their laps to avoid police detection, and so take their eyes completely off the road--is more dangerous than driving drunk by a wide margin. Even more frightening: "A National Highway Traffic Safety Administration survey found 20% of drivers age 18-20 said texting does not affect their driving, and nearly 30% of drivers ages 21-34 said texting has no impact."
To your second point, I've spent the last six months working on a feature for a national news magazine about the effect smartphones have on teen and tween brains. I will post here when it's published (if before end of OT season), but I can tell you what I've learned has made me a zealot about keeping phones away from kids, including my own, who are 1 and 3. The parts of their brains that regulate emotion and anxiety are just not equipped to handle the type of constant stimuli they receive from their phones, and we're starting to see the effects in surging rates of teen depression and suicide. It's all very scary stuff.
For whatever reason, the dad from the TV show "Frasier" has always flashed through my mind when writing the Martin Yerxa character in these. But it's mostly his voice, not his face.
I'm "Ed Markham," which is a pseudonym. I work as a magazine journalist, so I try to keep these thrillers separate from my professional writing. (My real name is Markham Heid. Ed was my grandfather's name, and now it's also my second son's name.)
I'm at a loss for words here. Everyone on this board was awesome and supportive when I posted about my book last year during the off-season, but I never expected it to come up again. I'm almost getting emotional sitting at my desk and seeing this. If this isn't an example of the Michigan Difference (and the MGoBlog Difference), I don't know what is.
I'd love to pay this kindness forward somehow. If anyone here is thinking about writing a book, or would like information about any aspect of book publishing or self-publishing, I'd be happy to share what I know. You can reach me at [email protected]. LLB, thank you again.
But the assessment of Speight seems a little harsh. The guy may not be pinpoint on every throw, but his ability to move well in the pocket seems like a huge asset that few of us likely anticipated, and one that doesn't show up on the stat sheet.
Curious to hear Brian's analysis, but it seemed like there were a lot of deep balls thrown to Darboh that he adjusted to very poorly. Not great throws, but throws where he didn't do much to help Speight out. I was frustrated Chesson didn't get a few more of those.
Darboh seems like a guy who always gets a lot of fall practice hype, but in games he still looks like a posession receiver to me, whereas Chesson looks like a more polished deep threat.
Have they also banned hoisting people and bobbing them for every point scored? I hope not.
The knee-jerk condescension on this message board is getting obnoxious.
If you go into it believing "making your wife happy" = "having your balls removed" then you're in trouble. I'd argue being selfless and putting your wife's needs first makes you more of a man.
But most good teams/coaches don't have that slip up during such an important contest. Meyer and team went into that game knowing it would all but decide the B1G. It had been tee'd up all season, and GameDay was there. That's not the same as laying an egg mid-season against a sleeper.
For a hyper-competitive guy, he and his team sure looked unfocused and unprepared during that MSU game. If it had happened on the road against a different team, it would make more sense to me. But all year he and his team knew MSU and UM would likely be the two games that would determine their season. To play like that at home is tough to explain.
I'm outing myself here, but I wrote this exact story for TIME eight months ago.
http://time.com/3734033/whole-milk-dairy-fat/
At the time I actually tweeted it at Harbaugh. It was right around the time of his "candy ass" skim comment. My family now only eats/drinks full-fat dairy.
Also, kidding about this being old news. Most people don't realize dietary fat isn't a health concern, and this can't be reported on enough. As a nation, we're all counting calories and avoiding fat when we should be worried about processed carbs.
You can read it on your laptop using the free Kindle app. If you click on this link to my book, you'll see a button/icon right below my book's cover that says "Read On Any Device." Click on that, and Amazon will email you what you need to get the free app on your computer.
Thank you very much for checking it out. I can't say enough how much I appreciate everyone's support here.
Thank you. And yeah, please get in touch when you get up here. I don't know any other Philly UM fans. We should get together for a game.
I lived in DC back in 2009-10, but I've been in Philly since. Otherwise I'd love to join up.
And to answer your second Q, yes I did try the traditional route. It's a very long, very arduous process, but certainly worth it if it pays off. After 18 months of querying agents, I was able to secure representation at a big NYC firm. While my agent said he was optimistic about my book's chances, the big publishers to whom we submitted the manuscript (Random House, Little Brown, etc.) said complimentary things but ultimately passed.
It's frustrating to think I could have had this book up on Kindle two years ago, but that's life. You hear about bestselling authors who struggled for years to break through, so I'm just going to keep at it and hope my day will come.
If you're talking about formatting services and that sort of thing, I handled everything myself, which was a huge time committment and probably not worth it. (I've since learned that I could have hired someone to format my manuscript for about $75, which would have saved me many days of work.)
If you want to learn all about self-publishing, the "writer's cafe" section of Kindle Boards is a phenomenal resource. Also, my email address is on my author site. Please get in touch and put MGoBlog in your subject line. I'd be happy to answer any questions I can about this or publishing traditionally.
I've always been interested in U.S. history, and I thought it'd be fun to weave some of that history into this genre. I like books that teach me something, even if it's just a beach read. So I started with the idea of a Constitution/Founder-obsessed killer, and went from there. Several years and many, many re-writes later, here we are.
Thank you very, very much. I hope you enjoy it.
And thanks for all the kind words here from everyone.
That submarine is school-bus yellow.
Still my favorite, minus the super-subtle piping
Maybe I'm missing something, but saying the jumpman logo will be on our apparell is not the same as saying it'll be on our uniforms. I'd guess it'll just be on warmup gear and sideline stuff, not the actual jerseys or pants.
Except a lot of people here supposedly wouldn't be cool with that shade of maize, at least according to that very flawed poll Seth put up.
I know I shouldn't blame Brian, but part of me feels his ardent (but lately unmentioned) quest for a return to some mythical maize-ier maize has turned us into MSU with their ever-shifting green. I wish he'd speak up and own it, now that it seems we're returning to an orange-hued maize we haven't worn in 30 years.
And it's all subjective, but I think these look worse than the 'highlighter' maize Brian hates so much.
Watched the '97 season in review on B1G Network last night, and what Wodson et al. wore was a lot closer to what we had last season than to these orangey gold unis. I'm an '05 grad, so not such a youngun' anymore, but these don't look like Michigan colors to me. I feel like we're now indistinguishable from Cal and West Virginia, and that wasn't the case before.
It's easy to create a bunch of freaky symbols and allusions. It's a lot harder to tie them all together coherently in a way that's satisfying. In the end, they didn't even try. They just stole some creepy imagery from Se7en (dangling air fresheners) and turned McConnaughey and Harrellson's storyline into your classic love-hate buddy cliché.
I really enjoyed the metaphysical aspects in the first four episodes, but was disappointed (hugely) when the principal bad guy turned out to be your classic weirdo living in a shack in the woods. To me, the show didn't live up to the tremendous potential of its first four episods.
Season two seems bleaker, and doesn't have the esoteric setting and regional flair of season one (rural Louisiana versus a burb of Los Angeles). Also, Harrelson's friction with McConaughey provided some levity that this season doesn't have so far.
If this was a new series, and not True Detective, I probably wouldn't be that interested in keeping up with it after episode one. But maybe this one will finish stronger than it starts. (Does anyone else think the direction so far sucks? All those face close-ups at the end . . .)
Editors write headlines, not reporters. And the editors wrote the headline, "Michigan football program broke rules, players say," which is factually false. So the editors are as complicit and involved as the reporters. A story that big with those implications does not go to press without many, many people signing off on it. I would bet no fewer than 15 people, including every sports reporter, plus the sports desk editors, managing editor, and executive editor, had a look and OK'd everything. If you know the newspaper business, you know a report like that implicates many more people than Rosenberg and Snyder.
As a journalist and a guy who wrote for a newspaper (in DC) when Stretchgate went down, the entire incident was so ethically and professionally disgusting that it's sickening to think people will just shrug their shoulders and forget about it. I wish I could come up with an appropriate analogy . . . maybe something along the lines of bankers who knowingly mislead clients and sell them junk investments to make a profit for themselves.
If these guys were gone from the Freep, I could understand giving the new reporters/editors a chance. But until that happens, no one should let these assholes off the hook for what they did. They never apologized or issued a retraction, even when it came to light that they'd eggregiously overstated things. And as another commenter brought up, they showed they were still willing to jump on UM with both feet when we announced a few minor violations a month or two ago. Seriously, fuck them.
No one argues UCLA, Cal, Santa Cruz, Davis, or any of the other UC schools are all the same. I think this only comes up with UM because of sports fandom.
I think many people would disagree with you. Unlike Berkeley and UM, UVA seems to have a much more extreme bias in favor of in-state applicants. I've heard it's nearly impossible to get in from outside of Virginia, but not too tough if you're in-state. I think you could make an argument for any one of those three for top public university.
Or maybe Harbaugh just wants more competition and more options at the most important position on his football team. We could go with that instead of bashing one of our own players.
All that's "clear" is that a high school senior had a hard time choosing between two good football schools. Weber cited the Higdon signing as a reason for his OSU committment because he felt mislead by our coaches, not because he was afraid of competition. As others have speculated, he may have just felt the need to say something to justify his decision to people who wanted him to go to Michigan.
In any case, bashing a kid who chooses another school, for whatever reason, is pretty classless and reflects poorly on Michigan fans.
I felt like there was a major shift (and dropoff) from the tone and grandness of the early episodes to the last two, and the finale really felt boring and conventional to me. The dangling air fresheners and the man strapped to the bed seemed like blatant knockoffs of the film Seven, and the buddy-buddy neatness of Marty and Rust coming together in the end as better men just felt like a betrayal of their earlier characters. I loved the series, but really felt let down by the finale.
Not sure about your wording. But yeah, something along the lines of, "You tend to shit your pants and turtle during road games. For examples, recall every significant road game since you've been our OC. Should we prepare for more of the same in two weeks?"
Not sure if this is a common sentiment, but two breast cancers sufferers I know (one no longer with us) both told me repeatedly that October was their least favorite month because they were constantly being reminded of their disease.
I'm curious, has anyone seen research supporting the idea that players who quit football after college suffer from the same long-term health consequences as the pros? I'm under the impression the types of health concerns leading to all these rule changes take years to develop, and so mostly affect pros, who are extremely well paid to take such health risks. I don't understand why the media are suddenly up in arms about football players' safety and not talking about all of the other dangerous professions. No one's calling for an end to Alaskan crab fishing, even though the people on Deadliest Catch risk their lives for our entertainment and so we can all enjoy crab, and make a hell of a lot less than the worst-paid pro football player. I understand the desire to protect college players, who are unpaid, but is there any research showing that they're in danger of long-term neurological issues?