Two good blogs that haven't been mentioned yet: the music ninja and pretty much amazing. Both skew toward the indie side of things and both cover some stuff that I don't care for (electronica, etc.). But both are way ahead of the pack in terms of finding new bands. Definitely worth scrolling through every so often.
Froome has a three year contract with Sky that began in 2011. I have no idea whether riders can get out of those contracts, but if not, it seems like Froome isn't going to be the alpha dog unless Sky management sets Wiggins aside. That's unlikely in the near term, given Wiggins's history of success in grand tours.
And while I do agree with you that Froome has proved himself worthy of leading a team, I wouldn't bash Wiggins too much. There hasn't been a real signature victory moment for the yellow jersey in this tour, because the organizers designed such a boring route. Most of the action was (and will be) in the time trials and not in the mountains. Wiggins shined in the time trial and appears to be playing it safe through the mountain stages. That's less exciting than, say a Lance Armstrong stare down of Jan Ullrich, but it's still quite a feat.
Of course, we'll all be left to wonder what might have been if Froome had been allowed to ditch Wiggins in the mountains. Could Wiggins have held his wheel?
I disagree with those who commented that law school itself stinks. I enjoyed it, and I know others who enjoyed it. Not everyone does, and I believe people when they say they hated it, but it's not a terrible experience for everyone.
That said, I'm in full agreement that the schools you're looking at are not worthwhile investments for you. The fact that you already have a good job means that you're not just taking on debt, you're foregoing three years of experience and earnings. Think about how that will affect your entire future income stream. Now, some lawyers rake in.a lot of dough after graduating, but there's a sharp dividing line between the haves and have nots. You could end up with a starting salary at 160,000 (for a top firm in Chicago) or 50,000. And at the schools you're looking at, you'll need to finish at or near the top of your class to even get an interview at the top firms.
If you do decide that you'll be really happy as a lawyer, then I'd go to the best law school in state where you want to live. Detroit firms are more likely to hire from Wayne State than from Kent. And then do two things: work your ass off, because you'll need excellent grades, and network like crazy. Start thinking about getting your foot in the door at good firms before you even walk onto campus. Get coffee with alums of your school to ask them about their experience. You can also build up your resume by participating in a journal, clinic, or moot court competition.
Good luck. You're doing the smart thing by reaching out for advice.
Meh, like others here, I've never understood the Fat Tire hype. I'm not a huge amber fan, but Bell's make a much better one than Fat Tire. As far as IPA's go, I much prefer Two Hearted, Lagunitas IPA, any of the Stone IPAs, Founder's Red Rye PA (not a true IPA, but a great riff) and Alpha King to Ranger. (I know people like Dogfish Head, and that's cool, but to me the 60 and 90 minute IPAs are totally unbalanced -- all bitterness in the hops and no malt or even nice floral notes to balance it out).
If you want something exotic that you don't normally get in Michigan, start hoping for some 3Floyds distribution. You can criticize their beers for sometimes being too big, but they're always unique. To my taste, Fat Tire is just a boring version of a style that I'm not a huge fan of.
Any how, there are so many great Michigan breweries (Founders, Bells, New Holland, Dark Horse) and so many great ones coming up in Chicago now (Two Brothers, Metropolitan, 3Floyds, Half Acre), I wouldn't waste too much time with the west coast.
Argh, I think the mods already deleted one post on this subject. I'll make the same response here that I did there:
Doesn't matter, it's the past.
Let's just live and let live, and enjoy watching a cool offense on Saturdays at 10 p.m. when everyone else is done playing for the day.
And I think it's awesome that Rich Rod got good popsicles for his players and made a note of his disappointment that no one ate them. Seriously, you're so tired from practice that you can't move for a delicious red, white, and blue bomb pop? I don't always like popsicles, but when I do, I go for the bombers.
Why doesn't Moore win? He can still get his full amount of damages. Or is your point just that Moore got hurt, and that stinks, so he can't win at this point (if so, I agree).
See my post below. I can't imagine any way that this agreement could affect Moore's rights. Presumably, Moore has a claim against:
1. Bertuzzi, for clocking him [this is a "tort", not a dessert, but a fancy way of saying a wrong perpetrated against you by someone with whom you do not have a contractual relationship]
2. Owners of the Canucks, because owners are responsible for the torts of their employees when committed within the scope of their employment [i.e., if Bertuzzi hit Moore in the parking lot, he's not acting as a hockey player for the Canucks but just as a dude on the street, during the game he is perhaps acting as a hockey player for the Canucks]
3. Crawford, for . . . beats me. Crawford doesn't employ Bertuzzi so there's not the same kind of liability as in #2. Maybe there's a theory that Crawford ordered the hit [in which case he's liable for battery] or encouraged the hit [negligence?]
Any how, to the extent any one of these folks is liable, Moore can collect the full amount of the damages he is owed. If multiple are liable, then there is likely what we refer to as "joint and several liability", in which Moore can go after any one he wants for the full amount or part of the amount. [So if the judgment is 3 dollars, he can get 3+0+0, 2+1+0, or 1+1+1]. Now in the joint and several liabiltiy situation, the defendants can later sort out amongst themselves who should have paid. So, say Bertuzzi thinks Crawford is 100% at fault for ordering the hit, but Moore collected the judgment from Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi can go after Crawford and try to collect what he paid. I'm assuming this is what the agreement was about. But this is speculation -- the article is quite vague and omits a lot of detail (perhaps legitimately - sounds like the agreement is still secret).
It's not clear to me that this is an indemnification agreement. The article mentions that the parties to the agreement won't sue eachother, but doesn't say that one party agreed to cover a damages award against another. Really, there's too much left out of the article to definitively say what the agreement is.
But regardless, the agreement shouldn't affect Moore. Moore has various theories of liability against each of the three defendants. If he wins, he collects, regardless of what the defendants agreed upon among themselves.
I also don't understand this statement:
bad because Moore won't be able to have a judgment pinned on any single entity
Why is that so? If Bertuzzi is liable for the full amount of Moore's damages, he has to pay it. Maybe Crawford agreed to cover a portion of that money, but that's between Crawford and Bertuzzi, and has nothing to do with Moore.
The only relevance that I see here is that the defendants kept an agreement secret from the court and their opponent. In the U.S., that's a no-no, but that's because we require disclosure of possibly relevant information and not because the information necessarily affects the substance of the litigation.
As a (fake) doctor, I can tell you that your problem is not all that advanced. You're not reporting that you check the twitter feeds, facebook pages, or personal e-mails of top recruits. You have not acquired their phone numbers and texted them, or gone to their week 5 game against JFK High School to "scout" them. By your own account, you seem like someone who is doing the "gateway" recruit following, so you ought to be careful (though some doctors think that the so-called "gateway" recruiting sites are no more dangerous than ESPN.com)
My advice: the next time you feel tempted to check a recruiting site, watch a WolverineHistorian video instead. You'll find them to be much more rewarding.
Great news for Loeffler, and great news for Michigan. When your program is modeled on tradition and keeping things in the family, you need an active coaching tree to keep it successful. Obviously the well dried up for awhile. Here's hoping Loeffler is the first of many to take a turn visiting other schools before returning home to keep us going strong.
I'm with the "we have too many recruiting experts crowd." Obviously there's a market for this stuff, and Aquaman's just doing his best to make people happy by giving them the info that they demand, so I don't blame him at all.
I blame us, the Mgoblog posters. We crave up-to-the-minute reports of the whims of 17-18 year olds. It makes some sense - it's exciting to see the team get built, to know the moment the next big thing is coming to town. But I think we need to remember that these are kids in a high pressure environment that they may be totally unprepared to handle. I'd like to see us all take a step back and relax a little bit about the day-to-day of recruiting. If we don't, we're just going to fuel the demand for Aquaman, Ace, Sam Webb, the dudes at ESPN, Scout, Rivals, 247, etc. to get more information from recruits.
At the end of the day, who we recruit and who signs on with us matters. But we should remember that these are young people with a big decision to make, and we should try to leave them alone while they make that decision.
You might object that no one forces these kids to talk to the various recruiting beat reporters. And the reporters may comport themselves with the utmost care and courtesy. Even still, I think we're creating an intense atmosphere for these kids. While there's no one intense of an overly pushy reporter, I think the collective work of these guys is creating an unhealthy atmosphere for recruiting, and maybe opening the door for pushy reporters with fewer scruples to bug these kids for info.
Totally with you. He especially had me scratching my head with the pharoah metaphor -- they buried their dead with alcohol. JoePa used to drink alcohol, and so JoePa is like a pharaoh? Say what you mean man. If you want to add metaphor and enigma, fine. But in the end (or in the beginning or the middle), just make a clear point.
That's not to say that there is no place for florid prose in sports -- some of Brian's pieces are meant to convey an emotion more than a point. But I think JoePa's death is a time for us to think (and speak and write) clearly and precisely. Often when someone dies, we use it as a time to evaluate that person's life and deeds, and the combination of his past legendary status and the Sandusky scandal make JoePa a prime candidate for this treatment. JoePa clearly inspired a lot of people, and then he failed. I think it's worth asking and answering whether he was built up to be more than he actually was, or whether he was once great but later failed. I hear hints of the former in Orson's piece, but I'm not sure if that's right. To me, JoePa is the factory manager who ignores a five-alarm fire, because he is so obsessed with making sure the widget press is stamping out perfect widgets, just as it always has. He stopped thinking about right and wrong in a general sense, and started thinking only of details. I don't know that to a certainty, because I never met the man. But it's the only way that I can explain a guy who always preached doing things the right way, and then completely failed when people needed him most.
Certainly that's what he means, but it's a poor choice of words. We won when we recruited Bolden, Pipkins, RJS, etc. What Farrell really means is: the new Rivals ratings show that Michigan did a better job at recruiting than we initially thought.
Ah, I hate months that are not late-August through early-January. I wish I could go into hibernation when Michigan is not playing football. Obviously, it's not half as bad now that Beilein has brought basketball back, but nothing compares to football. And constant influx of fake football news ("Pipkins moves up 10 spots in our rankings," "Molk is #3 center in draft") is like getting served seasoning without the meat. The flavor is reminiscent of good times, but there's no there there.
EDIT: Argh, I am a bad mgoposter. I meant to post this as a response to Wolverinabag.
Not true. Massive preseason hype - spearheaded by a David Brandon led campaign that includes a promotional video of Denard rescuing a baby seal from the jaws of a Lion - will carry him to New York.
Daryl Stonum will catch 3 passes for 110 yards in an opening game loss to Alabama, leading us all to speculate that he is ready to breakout. He will finish the year with 46 catches for 603 yards and 5 tds, leading us to wonder why we would think that Daryl Stonum was going to breakout.
Denard Robinson will accumulate almost exactly the same stats as this year, but he will finish 3rd in the Heisman voting.
Brunettes will be mentioned everytime Brendan Gibbons takes the field. When he misses a field goal, someone (probably Millen) will joke "I wonder if he was thinking about redheads."
The media will mention RichRod (on TV, in print, etc.) 126 fewer times than during this season, or 679 total times.
Arizona will finish 8-4, and RichRod will be asked what his record would be if still coaching at Michigan.
We will be happy, because Michigan football is winning again and doing it with class. But we will win fewer games, finishing 8-4 in the regular season. But we will be happy nonetheless.
To augment it, we (the MGoCommunity), might want to consider making some measure of the departing player's value over his replacement. We could do this by recruiting star level, or perhaps by collegiate production (though that's not a helpful metric for a sophmore RB who has been riding pine for two years but just needs the carries to get some yards). Can anyone think of a good way to measure this?
In addition to the changes in personnel, we should also account for the changes in venue. We get MSU at home, but ND, Nebraska, and OSU all on the road. That adds a degree of difficulty that was not present this year.
What's novel about the PSU situation is that the former players didn't even wait for the new coach to make a faux misstep before jumping all over him. At least our crazed fans and Lloyd loyalists waited for RichRod to open his mouth before attacking him. (Not that the criticisms were fair at that point, but we have principles darn it! We may pre-judge people, but we will at least wait for evidence to support our pre-judgments before indicting the guy).
Seriously though, how misguided can Arrington and Short be to jump on this guy before he even has a press conference? In what world does that make any sense at all?
Not that it matters of course. Brian is right, O'Brien is there to bring bad apples like Arrington and Short to the surface, so that a new hope can be brought along to squash them. He is not pickled ginger, he is Anakin Skywalker -- there to be demonized but then to (incidentally, not through his direct action) bring balance to the force.
I defended Joe D in an earlier thread, but boy was I wrong. Re-signing Stuckey to a 3-year deal is starting to look like an awful move. Where does this team go from here?
This will be interesting. After this game we'll either be super- optimistic about next season or super nervous.
Does this mean BWC and Q move to the NT position and Mike Martin moves to 3-tech? BWC and Q don't really strike me as 3-tech type players, whereas it seems like a natural fit for Martin. In fact, I think the speculation going into this year was that we'd see Martin at 3 and BWC at NT, right?
Feel bad for Heininger. He deserved to see the spotlight of a BCS bowl.
b). as delusional as Bill Martin in his pursuit of Tony Dungy.
I agree with Sckon. Their best play is to take a risk on a young up-and-comer here. No established name is going to touch them, unless it's an established name with a poor track record who can't get a job somewhere else.
This brings me to a larger gripe about coaching searches: they seem to be completely based on resumes these days. Coaches get hired after the briefest of courtship periods, without (what would seem to be) a good chance for a solid interview. In most other job searches, the resume gets you in the door, but the interview is the key. Why doesn't that apply to high profile college football coaching? I mean, back in the day, schools hired Bo and JoePa as young, unproven head coaches (I know Joe Pa rose from an assistant position, but he was untested as HC). Those hires were based on ADs making the right call based on the character of the coaches.
Is it just that recruiting and media hype demand big splashes from name brands?
My response was a little snarky, but you ought to cool it with the name-calling. And in fairness, that really wasn't what oyu said in your original post. You complained about seat licenses and Michigan ticket prices rising, not just brokers.
You're also not necessarily correct that brokers undercut universities and make it harder for them to sell tickets. By buying up large blocks of tickets, brokers offer a sort of insurance for universities, who want to set one ticket price and not adjust it to the market later on. Think of it like the risk hedging that airlines do on fuel -- they enter into forward contracts for fuel, locking in one price for an extended period. They may come out ahead or behind, depending on what fuel costs do in the future. Regardless, they gain certainty on their financial outlook. For some more thoughts on the economics of ticket brokers, here's a good paper: There's more to it than what I wrote here - the summary of the findings is mostly on page 13. http://www.eui.eu/Personal/Courty/Pub/JEP.pdf
Do ticket brokers take a financial hit on every transaction? The one's that are still in business obviously don't. My point was not that they always lose, but rather that they don't always win. Why is that relevant? I took one of your complaints to be that ticket brokers make life miserable for ordinary fans. But that's not always true. If there were no ticket brokers, you'd be stuck paying $120 for a ticket that you could have for $15 to the Sugar Bowl. And if tickets sold out, you'd have to search harder (which is a cost to you) to find tickets.
So there's a partial response, free of snark. You can sum up all of my blathering in two sentences: secondary markets are useful for everyone. Not everyone wins on every individual transaction, but on net everyone is better off.
Dude, Stub Hub doesn't set the ticket prices -- the ticket holders do. There's tons of competition on price. Stub Hub is a glorified bulletin board in your dorm hall -- one that charges a fee for use. If you think the fee-for-use price is too high - fine. But you're totally wrong when you say that Stub Hub has a monopoly on tickets.
And Stub Hub isn't engaging in predatory pricing on the Michigan game to "squeeze out the competition." If it is, it's doing a pretty bad job, because Michigan is going to continue to sell tickets itself year after year.
Yes, if only we could pool our resources and distribute tickets to the people that deserved them most. We could appoint a panel of Michigan alums who would judge the most worthy ticket buyers. I too find it annoying that our greedy athletic department hogs all of the profits from games for itself to build world class facilities that will attract better athletes. Better that they should charge below market prices and keep the facilities at an acceptable level. Or better yet, they should take money from student tuitions rather than pass the cost of running a great football program onto the people watching the games.
In the hopes of not having this post categorized as flamebait let me offer the following serious response:
There's some truth to what you're saying. Bowl games are run by greedy guys who leverage the NCAA to create a situation where they profit unjustifiably. They're not adding a lot of value - they're just taking advantage of their positions to extract profit from schools.
But why are you critiquing Michigan for charging higher prices? The money to run a world class athletic department has to come from somewhere. It would be one thing if the department was using that money to line the pockets of its employees, but I don't think it does. I know you don't like it when ticket prics go up, but can you tell me what a better system would be?
Finally, you seem to be arguing that a ticket broker (or a few of them) can snatch up a bunch of tickets and just rake people over the coals, gouging them for outrageous prices. I think that the fact that tickets are currently $15 on StubHub should make you reconsider that theory. Yes, a ticket broker can grab up a bunch of tickets, speculating that prices will rise. And if he sells those tickets for the above market price, then he's making a lot of money and that's potentially annoying. But sometimes prices fall, and the broker is left holding the bag. I would hate to be a greedy ticket broker taking a $95/ticket loss right now.
I think this point gets overlooked, and I would upvote you if I could. The bowl system rips off schools and is generally run by crooked guys in bright colored blazers who are hauling in piles of cash unjustifiably. But when we think about building a new system, we shouldn't conclude that some financial loss by the school is necessarily a bad thing. The exposure is worth money (and recruiting hype, which leads to winning, which leads to happiness), so even if the school takes some financial hit, they may come out ahead.
I'm not saying that the massive financial shortfalls suffered by many schools is acceptable, or that the windfall should go to the Greater Phoenix Hotels Association (fictitious entity created to illustrate a point). But if we're tossing out proposals for modified bowl systems or playoffs, we should remember that straight revenue from ticket sales does not capture everything that the school gains from the bowl.
What screws the schools over is mandatory ticket purchases. It's illogical to direct your hate toward a site that gives you the opportunity to purchase a ticket for market price, particularly when that market price is way below the face value of the ticket. Do you also hate puts/calls because they encourage "speculation" and drive down/up the price of stocks?
Yes, but if Alabama and Ohio are both our enemies and eachothers enemies, then what does that make them? Frienemies?
In all seriousness, it's hard for me to imagine a Saban/Hoke collusion against Urban Meyer. Doesn't Saban have better things to do with his time than settling old scores? Coaches do visit each other's camps and share info sometimes, but a planning session to really get a particular coach seems far fetched.
Also, wouldn't Mattison be the best source of info for stopping Urban's offense. He saw it live every practice for a year.
Joe D.'s initial run of success came with Stackhouse, Cliff Robinson, Big Ben, Jon Barry, and Corliss Williamson. None of those guys was real exciting when we picked him up. Yeah, he made a big mistake by forking over a bunch of cash to Gordon and Charlie V., but I don't think Joe lacks an eye for talent. Being an NBA GM requires a lot of luck (see Danny Ainge), and finding that useful core of guys can be a crap shoot. I see Joe has having built two good teams (the initial run with Uncle Cliffy and Stack and the championship run with Rip, Chauncey and co.) and one bad one (Charlie V. and Ben Gordon). I'm not totally demoralized just yet.
But if we go 30-52 this year, I'm going to start to worry.
Agree. And I'd add that unlike the NFL, where you can bank draft picks and improve your roster through free agency and trades, you have no ability to add to your roster except through recruiting (and walk-ons I guess, but Jordan Kovacs and Will Heninger are rare birds). This is also a reason to always recruit for need before best available player. That's a legit debate in the NFL, when you can trade away your excess depth to shore up other positions. But in college football, you don't win many games with 6 awesome wide receivers and half an offensive line.
Dude is 6'1, 222. Do you really think he hears this everyday? No one but us faceless, internet message board types would crack these jokes. Well, maybe opposing offensive linemen tell him they're "so glad you could make it."
Seriously, he should come to Michigan. We could have a thread about our favorite football player named Courtney: Avery, Morgan, or Love.
I don't know why everyone's jumpiny for joy at this. Dude seems like something of a self-promoter, but if you read the summary on the SEC website, it sounds like most of the dirty work in the scheme was carried out by his business partners. But the larger point is - why take so much pleasure in someone's troubles? I get it when a football team is doing poorly and you can rip on your friends a bit (MSU circa John L. Smith/Bobby Williams). But this is real life.
I think I'm at the point where I no longer understand Dumars's plan. You could make sense of the Billups trade and some of the draft picks, while questionable, you could at least justify ex ante (hey - the NBA draft is no easy thing to master). But what are we going to do with Brandon Knight, Ben Gordon, Rodney Stuckey, and Will Bynum? That's two point guards and two undersized 2-guards.
I'm beginning to think that most NBA GMs have no idea what they're doing - they just play plinko until they get a good base of guys, then know well enough not to do more than tinker with the fringes for awhile.
Obviously not. Cherry coke is the single most innovative idea in pop ("soda" for you strange folk from strange parts of the country) in the 20th century. It is far superior to Wild Cherry Pepsi, as evidenced by the fact that Pepsi felt compelled to add the "Wild" modifier to the name. Clearly, if you need to add unnecessary modifiers to prove your point, you know you have a weak case and are just trying to cover it with window dressing. Cherry coke is also superiror to Dr. Pepper. 23 flavors? That's way too many.
I was going to reference Marquis Walker, whose playing style reminds me the most of Hemingway's. If that dude couldn't make it in the NFL, no way Hemingway can. I really like Hemingway and think he's a good player, but he doesn't have the speed or acceleration (out of breaks) to make it in the NFL.
The book mentions a fwe occassions when Rodriguez questioned the quality and play of the defense under Robinson. Did the other coaches express doubts about Robinson's coaching of technique or schemes? I have seen it suggested here that the other coaches led an insurgency of sorts against Robinson, leading to the temporary installation of the 3-3-5. Is there any truth to that?
2. Did you personally observe RichRod's private lockerroom freakouts? I'm not asking because I doubt it, but when I was reading the book I found that I couldn't picture how this went down. Did you follow him into the lockerroom and just observe? Did he ever take notice that you were listening and apologize for losing his head (even if it was not directed at you, it seems like something one would apologize for).
3. Do you think that the Michigan community (fans, former players, athletitc department, press) gave RichRod a harder time than other major football programs? Maybe you don't have a solid basis for comparison, but my speculation was that we are less diffcult than say Ohio and Alabama but more difficult than less established schools (like Oregon maybe).
If I could upvote this I would. Exactly the right response. We remember Bo fondly because of what he built out of honesty and hard work. In 10 years, no one will remember the Vest as anything but a crook (except for the most dyed-in-wool fans of Ohio).
If you still have doubts, go watch the Fab Five documentary again. Were you sadder when you watched C Webb call the timeout, or when you saw the banners sitting on a shelf? It was definitely the latter for me.
EDIT: my response is to the "ask Jim Tressel" post, not the response below it. Not sure if that was clear given the sequence of how these comments popped up.
That is terrible relationship advice. How anyone* dates/marries graduates of any school but Michigan is beyond me. Tell me Joe in Austin, TX, would you date Darth Vader if he was good looking? C'mon man, the dark side is all smoke and mirrors.
*Anyone means any graduate of the University of Michigan.
In fact they do. For some reason my brain blotted out the Gulf. Or perhaps I meant that Washington State is closer to the close than Texas Tech. Yeah . . . that's the ticket . . .
Good. Washington is closer to the coast than Texas. More appropriate for a pirate.
Having RichRod and Leach both in the Pac-12 will be nice, because it will give two teams innovative and ever-developing offenses and thus give two teams a decent shot of upsetting those snots at USC every year. Seriously, MOAR Lane Kiffin losses pleaz.
It's too bad there's not a "fan-insanity" meter that would let us measure the heat Muschamp is getting and compare it to what RichRod felt. I'd be curious to see if the Florida fans are more insane, less insane, or equally as insane as the irrational RichRod hating contingent. I'd bet on equal, but that's just instinct. (all the usual caveats here - I think RichRod needed to be fired - I just think the fans who disliked him for irrational reasons are dumb).
Yeah, definitely good points. Football's an intense game, and I'm sure there's a balance between reassuring a guy and getting him primed to play a complex but aggressive game. I just like Hoke's calm during games. I noticed after the deep bomb to Corey Brown that Hoke pulled Floyd and I think Countess aside and spoke to them calmly and deliberately. At the time I thought to myself "good move, these guys are probably so jacked up to play, yelling at them would just put them on edge." That's the kind of leader I want for a football team.
Compare Hoke to Brian Kelly, who is constantly reaming his players out on the sideline. Doesn't Hoke seem to inspire better play from his players? Kelly's style just seems to make his players nervous.
There are a number of high school coaches that post here - what do you guys think? Football's an intense game and I understand some yelling (I'm sure Mattison and Borges play the bad cop to Hoke's good cop sometimes), but it seems to me that the positive reinforcement that Hoke practices works much better than Kelly's "if you f--- this up I am going to chew your ass out" style. (sidenote: did anyone catch the ND broadcast last night, when Herby said that Brian Kelly made him nervous? I found that funny).
I think this season is in a class by itself. Never have we gone through (in my lifetime) such a protracted dark period, only to emerge on the other side so quickly. I've never appreciated a team and a winning season so much. 2003 and 2004 were great, but I went in to those seasons like I did every season, expecting 12-0 and a berth into the national championship game. Maybe I was delusional, but I'd always look at our stacked roster (look at all of these sweet receivers! and I just know this is the year for Timmy Bracken (or a similarly hyped RB who never produced)) and just KNOW we were going to do it this year.
This year, I looked at our roster with walk-ons starting, tiny receivers designed for a system that we no longer run, and so-so RBs (I just know this is the year for Mike Sh . . . nah, I can't delude myself that much), and I thought "boy it would be nice if we got 8 wins and didn't lose in humiliating fashion in the 4 losses." And then boom! We beat up on the weak competition. We lost some games in which we played poorly, but the losses were still reasonably close. And suddenly, we're back. But we're back in a way like we've never been back before. Like in Back to the Future, when Marty goes to the past and gives his dad a backbone and fixes his mom's drinking problem. He's back to where he started, but it's different. It's better. That's what this season is to me, and I've never experienced anything like it.
Recent Comments
Froome has a three year contract with Sky that began in 2011. I have no idea whether riders can get out of those contracts, but if not, it seems like Froome isn't going to be the alpha dog unless Sky management sets Wiggins aside. That's unlikely in the near term, given Wiggins's history of success in grand tours.
And while I do agree with you that Froome has proved himself worthy of leading a team, I wouldn't bash Wiggins too much. There hasn't been a real signature victory moment for the yellow jersey in this tour, because the organizers designed such a boring route. Most of the action was (and will be) in the time trials and not in the mountains. Wiggins shined in the time trial and appears to be playing it safe through the mountain stages. That's less exciting than, say a Lance Armstrong stare down of Jan Ullrich, but it's still quite a feat.
Of course, we'll all be left to wonder what might have been if Froome had been allowed to ditch Wiggins in the mountains. Could Wiggins have held his wheel?
Meh, like others here, I've never understood the Fat Tire hype. I'm not a huge amber fan, but Bell's make a much better one than Fat Tire. As far as IPA's go, I much prefer Two Hearted, Lagunitas IPA, any of the Stone IPAs, Founder's Red Rye PA (not a true IPA, but a great riff) and Alpha King to Ranger. (I know people like Dogfish Head, and that's cool, but to me the 60 and 90 minute IPAs are totally unbalanced -- all bitterness in the hops and no malt or even nice floral notes to balance it out).
If you want something exotic that you don't normally get in Michigan, start hoping for some 3Floyds distribution. You can criticize their beers for sometimes being too big, but they're always unique. To my taste, Fat Tire is just a boring version of a style that I'm not a huge fan of.
Any how, there are so many great Michigan breweries (Founders, Bells, New Holland, Dark Horse) and so many great ones coming up in Chicago now (Two Brothers, Metropolitan, 3Floyds, Half Acre), I wouldn't waste too much time with the west coast.
EDITED - DELETED
Argh, I think the mods already deleted one post on this subject. I'll make the same response here that I did there:
Doesn't matter, it's the past.
Let's just live and let live, and enjoy watching a cool offense on Saturdays at 10 p.m. when everyone else is done playing for the day.
And I think it's awesome that Rich Rod got good popsicles for his players and made a note of his disappointment that no one ate them. Seriously, you're so tired from practice that you can't move for a delicious red, white, and blue bomb pop? I don't always like popsicles, but when I do, I go for the bombers.
Not worth it's own thread but Mike Adams got just 19 on the bench.
Why doesn't Moore win? He can still get his full amount of damages. Or is your point just that Moore got hurt, and that stinks, so he can't win at this point (if so, I agree).
See my post below. I can't imagine any way that this agreement could affect Moore's rights. Presumably, Moore has a claim against:
1. Bertuzzi, for clocking him [this is a "tort", not a dessert, but a fancy way of saying a wrong perpetrated against you by someone with whom you do not have a contractual relationship]
2. Owners of the Canucks, because owners are responsible for the torts of their employees when committed within the scope of their employment [i.e., if Bertuzzi hit Moore in the parking lot, he's not acting as a hockey player for the Canucks but just as a dude on the street, during the game he is perhaps acting as a hockey player for the Canucks]
3. Crawford, for . . . beats me. Crawford doesn't employ Bertuzzi so there's not the same kind of liability as in #2. Maybe there's a theory that Crawford ordered the hit [in which case he's liable for battery] or encouraged the hit [negligence?]
Any how, to the extent any one of these folks is liable, Moore can collect the full amount of the damages he is owed. If multiple are liable, then there is likely what we refer to as "joint and several liability", in which Moore can go after any one he wants for the full amount or part of the amount. [So if the judgment is 3 dollars, he can get 3+0+0, 2+1+0, or 1+1+1]. Now in the joint and several liabiltiy situation, the defendants can later sort out amongst themselves who should have paid. So, say Bertuzzi thinks Crawford is 100% at fault for ordering the hit, but Moore collected the judgment from Bertuzzi. Bertuzzi can go after Crawford and try to collect what he paid. I'm assuming this is what the agreement was about. But this is speculation -- the article is quite vague and omits a lot of detail (perhaps legitimately - sounds like the agreement is still secret).
It's not clear to me that this is an indemnification agreement. The article mentions that the parties to the agreement won't sue eachother, but doesn't say that one party agreed to cover a damages award against another. Really, there's too much left out of the article to definitively say what the agreement is.
But regardless, the agreement shouldn't affect Moore. Moore has various theories of liability against each of the three defendants. If he wins, he collects, regardless of what the defendants agreed upon among themselves.
I also don't understand this statement:
bad because Moore won't be able to have a judgment pinned on any single entity
Why is that so? If Bertuzzi is liable for the full amount of Moore's damages, he has to pay it. Maybe Crawford agreed to cover a portion of that money, but that's between Crawford and Bertuzzi, and has nothing to do with Moore.
The only relevance that I see here is that the defendants kept an agreement secret from the court and their opponent. In the U.S., that's a no-no, but that's because we require disclosure of possibly relevant information and not because the information necessarily affects the substance of the litigation.
As a (fake)
Clarkie:
As a (fake) doctor, I can tell you that your problem is not all that advanced. You're not reporting that you check the twitter feeds, facebook pages, or personal e-mails of top recruits. You have not acquired their phone numbers and texted them, or gone to their week 5 game against JFK High School to "scout" them. By your own account, you seem like someone who is doing the "gateway" recruit following, so you ought to be careful (though some doctors think that the so-called "gateway" recruiting sites are no more dangerous than ESPN.com)
My advice: the next time you feel tempted to check a recruiting site, watch a WolverineHistorian video instead. You'll find them to be much more rewarding.
Great news for Loeffler, and great news for Michigan. When your program is modeled on tradition and keeping things in the family, you need an active coaching tree to keep it successful. Obviously the well dried up for awhile. Here's hoping Loeffler is the first of many to take a turn visiting other schools before returning home to keep us going strong.
I'm with the "we have too many recruiting experts crowd." Obviously there's a market for this stuff, and Aquaman's just doing his best to make people happy by giving them the info that they demand, so I don't blame him at all.
I blame us, the Mgoblog posters. We crave up-to-the-minute reports of the whims of 17-18 year olds. It makes some sense - it's exciting to see the team get built, to know the moment the next big thing is coming to town. But I think we need to remember that these are kids in a high pressure environment that they may be totally unprepared to handle. I'd like to see us all take a step back and relax a little bit about the day-to-day of recruiting. If we don't, we're just going to fuel the demand for Aquaman, Ace, Sam Webb, the dudes at ESPN, Scout, Rivals, 247, etc. to get more information from recruits.
At the end of the day, who we recruit and who signs on with us matters. But we should remember that these are young people with a big decision to make, and we should try to leave them alone while they make that decision.
You might object that no one forces these kids to talk to the various recruiting beat reporters. And the reporters may comport themselves with the utmost care and courtesy. Even still, I think we're creating an intense atmosphere for these kids. While there's no one intense of an overly pushy reporter, I think the collective work of these guys is creating an unhealthy atmosphere for recruiting, and maybe opening the door for pushy reporters with fewer scruples to bug these kids for info.
Totally with you. He especially had me scratching my head with the pharoah metaphor -- they buried their dead with alcohol. JoePa used to drink alcohol, and so JoePa is like a pharaoh? Say what you mean man. If you want to add metaphor and enigma, fine. But in the end (or in the beginning or the middle), just make a clear point.
That's not to say that there is no place for florid prose in sports -- some of Brian's pieces are meant to convey an emotion more than a point. But I think JoePa's death is a time for us to think (and speak and write) clearly and precisely. Often when someone dies, we use it as a time to evaluate that person's life and deeds, and the combination of his past legendary status and the Sandusky scandal make JoePa a prime candidate for this treatment. JoePa clearly inspired a lot of people, and then he failed. I think it's worth asking and answering whether he was built up to be more than he actually was, or whether he was once great but later failed. I hear hints of the former in Orson's piece, but I'm not sure if that's right. To me, JoePa is the factory manager who ignores a five-alarm fire, because he is so obsessed with making sure the widget press is stamping out perfect widgets, just as it always has. He stopped thinking about right and wrong in a general sense, and started thinking only of details. I don't know that to a certainty, because I never met the man. But it's the only way that I can explain a guy who always preached doing things the right way, and then completely failed when people needed him most.
Certainly that's what he means, but it's a poor choice of words. We won when we recruited Bolden, Pipkins, RJS, etc. What Farrell really means is: the new Rivals ratings show that Michigan did a better job at recruiting than we initially thought.
Ah, I hate months that are not late-August through early-January. I wish I could go into hibernation when Michigan is not playing football. Obviously, it's not half as bad now that Beilein has brought basketball back, but nothing compares to football. And constant influx of fake football news ("Pipkins moves up 10 spots in our rankings," "Molk is #3 center in draft") is like getting served seasoning without the meat. The flavor is reminiscent of good times, but there's no there there.
EDIT: Argh, I am a bad mgoposter. I meant to post this as a response to Wolverinabag.
Not fair. That's a completely self-fulfilling prediction. (Unless you meant one time after your post).
Not true. Massive preseason hype - spearheaded by a David Brandon led campaign that includes a promotional video of Denard rescuing a baby seal from the jaws of a Lion - will carry him to New York.
If O'Brien is pickled ginger, what is Ted Roof? Laxative? (He makes it real painful while he's around, but once he's gone you feel so much better).
Daryl Stonum will catch 3 passes for 110 yards in an opening game loss to Alabama, leading us all to speculate that he is ready to breakout. He will finish the year with 46 catches for 603 yards and 5 tds, leading us to wonder why we would think that Daryl Stonum was going to breakout.
Denard Robinson will accumulate almost exactly the same stats as this year, but he will finish 3rd in the Heisman voting.
Brunettes will be mentioned everytime Brendan Gibbons takes the field. When he misses a field goal, someone (probably Millen) will joke "I wonder if he was thinking about redheads."
The media will mention RichRod (on TV, in print, etc.) 126 fewer times than during this season, or 679 total times.
Arizona will finish 8-4, and RichRod will be asked what his record would be if still coaching at Michigan.
We will be happy, because Michigan football is winning again and doing it with class. But we will win fewer games, finishing 8-4 in the regular season. But we will be happy nonetheless.
To
Great post, thanks.
To augment it, we (the MGoCommunity), might want to consider making some measure of the departing player's value over his replacement. We could do this by recruiting star level, or perhaps by collegiate production (though that's not a helpful metric for a sophmore RB who has been riding pine for two years but just needs the carries to get some yards). Can anyone think of a good way to measure this?
In addition to the changes in personnel, we should also account for the changes in venue. We get MSU at home, but ND, Nebraska, and OSU all on the road. That adds a degree of difficulty that was not present this year.
What's novel about the PSU situation is that the former players didn't even wait for the new coach to make a faux misstep before jumping all over him. At least our crazed fans and Lloyd loyalists waited for RichRod to open his mouth before attacking him. (Not that the criticisms were fair at that point, but we have principles darn it! We may pre-judge people, but we will at least wait for evidence to support our pre-judgments before indicting the guy).
Seriously though, how misguided can Arrington and Short be to jump on this guy before he even has a press conference? In what world does that make any sense at all?
Not that it matters of course. Brian is right, O'Brien is there to bring bad apples like Arrington and Short to the surface, so that a new hope can be brought along to squash them. He is not pickled ginger, he is Anakin Skywalker -- there to be demonized but then to (incidentally, not through his direct action) bring balance to the force.
I defended Joe D in an earlier thread, but boy was I wrong. Re-signing Stuckey to a 3-year deal is starting to look like an awful move. Where does this team go from here?
This will be interesting. After this game we'll either be super- optimistic about next season or super nervous.
Does this mean BWC and Q move to the NT position and Mike Martin moves to 3-tech? BWC and Q don't really strike me as 3-tech type players, whereas it seems like a natural fit for Martin. In fact, I think the speculation going into this year was that we'd see Martin at 3 and BWC at NT, right?
Feel bad for Heininger. He deserved to see the spotlight of a BCS bowl.
I'm so stuck in the past. I saw "Biggs" and immediately thought of #91, Rondell Biggs.
Yikes. Sounds like Penn State is:
a). in an unwinnable situation
b). as delusional as Bill Martin in his pursuit of Tony Dungy.
I agree with Sckon. Their best play is to take a risk on a young up-and-comer here. No established name is going to touch them, unless it's an established name with a poor track record who can't get a job somewhere else.
This brings me to a larger gripe about coaching searches: they seem to be completely based on resumes these days. Coaches get hired after the briefest of courtship periods, without (what would seem to be) a good chance for a solid interview. In most other job searches, the resume gets you in the door, but the interview is the key. Why doesn't that apply to high profile college football coaching? I mean, back in the day, schools hired Bo and JoePa as young, unproven head coaches (I know Joe Pa rose from an assistant position, but he was untested as HC). Those hires were based on ADs making the right call based on the character of the coaches.
Is it just that recruiting and media hype demand big splashes from name brands?
My response was a little snarky, but you ought to cool it with the name-calling. And in fairness, that really wasn't what oyu said in your original post. You complained about seat licenses and Michigan ticket prices rising, not just brokers.
You're also not necessarily correct that brokers undercut universities and make it harder for them to sell tickets. By buying up large blocks of tickets, brokers offer a sort of insurance for universities, who want to set one ticket price and not adjust it to the market later on. Think of it like the risk hedging that airlines do on fuel -- they enter into forward contracts for fuel, locking in one price for an extended period. They may come out ahead or behind, depending on what fuel costs do in the future. Regardless, they gain certainty on their financial outlook. For some more thoughts on the economics of ticket brokers, here's a good paper: There's more to it than what I wrote here - the summary of the findings is mostly on page 13. http://www.eui.eu/Personal/Courty/Pub/JEP.pdf
Do ticket brokers take a financial hit on every transaction? The one's that are still in business obviously don't. My point was not that they always lose, but rather that they don't always win. Why is that relevant? I took one of your complaints to be that ticket brokers make life miserable for ordinary fans. But that's not always true. If there were no ticket brokers, you'd be stuck paying $120 for a ticket that you could have for $15 to the Sugar Bowl. And if tickets sold out, you'd have to search harder (which is a cost to you) to find tickets.
So there's a partial response, free of snark. You can sum up all of my blathering in two sentences: secondary markets are useful for everyone. Not everyone wins on every individual transaction, but on net everyone is better off.
Dude, Stub Hub doesn't set the ticket prices -- the ticket holders do. There's tons of competition on price. Stub Hub is a glorified bulletin board in your dorm hall -- one that charges a fee for use. If you think the fee-for-use price is too high - fine. But you're totally wrong when you say that Stub Hub has a monopoly on tickets.
And Stub Hub isn't engaging in predatory pricing on the Michigan game to "squeeze out the competition." If it is, it's doing a pretty bad job, because Michigan is going to continue to sell tickets itself year after year.
Yes, if only we could pool our resources and distribute tickets to the people that deserved them most. We could appoint a panel of Michigan alums who would judge the most worthy ticket buyers. I too find it annoying that our greedy athletic department hogs all of the profits from games for itself to build world class facilities that will attract better athletes. Better that they should charge below market prices and keep the facilities at an acceptable level. Or better yet, they should take money from student tuitions rather than pass the cost of running a great football program onto the people watching the games.
In the hopes of not having this post categorized as flamebait let me offer the following serious response:
There's some truth to what you're saying. Bowl games are run by greedy guys who leverage the NCAA to create a situation where they profit unjustifiably. They're not adding a lot of value - they're just taking advantage of their positions to extract profit from schools.
But why are you critiquing Michigan for charging higher prices? The money to run a world class athletic department has to come from somewhere. It would be one thing if the department was using that money to line the pockets of its employees, but I don't think it does. I know you don't like it when ticket prics go up, but can you tell me what a better system would be?
Finally, you seem to be arguing that a ticket broker (or a few of them) can snatch up a bunch of tickets and just rake people over the coals, gouging them for outrageous prices. I think that the fact that tickets are currently $15 on StubHub should make you reconsider that theory. Yes, a ticket broker can grab up a bunch of tickets, speculating that prices will rise. And if he sells those tickets for the above market price, then he's making a lot of money and that's potentially annoying. But sometimes prices fall, and the broker is left holding the bag. I would hate to be a greedy ticket broker taking a $95/ticket loss right now.
I think this point gets overlooked, and I would upvote you if I could. The bowl system rips off schools and is generally run by crooked guys in bright colored blazers who are hauling in piles of cash unjustifiably. But when we think about building a new system, we shouldn't conclude that some financial loss by the school is necessarily a bad thing. The exposure is worth money (and recruiting hype, which leads to winning, which leads to happiness), so even if the school takes some financial hit, they may come out ahead.
I'm not saying that the massive financial shortfalls suffered by many schools is acceptable, or that the windfall should go to the Greater Phoenix Hotels Association (fictitious entity created to illustrate a point). But if we're tossing out proposals for modified bowl systems or playoffs, we should remember that straight revenue from ticket sales does not capture everything that the school gains from the bowl.
What screws the schools over is mandatory ticket purchases. It's illogical to direct your hate toward a site that gives you the opportunity to purchase a ticket for market price, particularly when that market price is way below the face value of the ticket. Do you also hate puts/calls because they encourage "speculation" and drive down/up the price of stocks?
Yes, but if Alabama and Ohio are both our enemies and eachothers enemies, then what does that make them? Frienemies?
In all seriousness, it's hard for me to imagine a Saban/Hoke collusion against Urban Meyer. Doesn't Saban have better things to do with his time than settling old scores? Coaches do visit each other's camps and share info sometimes, but a planning session to really get a particular coach seems far fetched.
Also, wouldn't Mattison be the best source of info for stopping Urban's offense. He saw it live every practice for a year.
Touche.
Joe D.'s initial run of success came with Stackhouse, Cliff Robinson, Big Ben, Jon Barry, and Corliss Williamson. None of those guys was real exciting when we picked him up. Yeah, he made a big mistake by forking over a bunch of cash to Gordon and Charlie V., but I don't think Joe lacks an eye for talent. Being an NBA GM requires a lot of luck (see Danny Ainge), and finding that useful core of guys can be a crap shoot. I see Joe has having built two good teams (the initial run with Uncle Cliffy and Stack and the championship run with Rip, Chauncey and co.) and one bad one (Charlie V. and Ben Gordon). I'm not totally demoralized just yet.
But if we go 30-52 this year, I'm going to start to worry.
Agree. And I'd add that unlike the NFL, where you can bank draft picks and improve your roster through free agency and trades, you have no ability to add to your roster except through recruiting (and walk-ons I guess, but Jordan Kovacs and Will Heninger are rare birds). This is also a reason to always recruit for need before best available player. That's a legit debate in the NFL, when you can trade away your excess depth to shore up other positions. But in college football, you don't win many games with 6 awesome wide receivers and half an offensive line.
Dude is 6'1, 222. Do you really think he hears this everyday? No one but us faceless, internet message board types would crack these jokes. Well, maybe opposing offensive linemen tell him they're "so glad you could make it."
Seriously, he should come to Michigan. We could have a thread about our favorite football player named Courtney: Avery, Morgan, or Love.
I don't know why everyone's jumpiny for joy at this. Dude seems like something of a self-promoter, but if you read the summary on the SEC website, it sounds like most of the dirty work in the scheme was carried out by his business partners. But the larger point is - why take so much pleasure in someone's troubles? I get it when a football team is doing poorly and you can rip on your friends a bit (MSU circa John L. Smith/Bobby Williams). But this is real life.
I think I'm at the point where I no longer understand Dumars's plan. You could make sense of the Billups trade and some of the draft picks, while questionable, you could at least justify ex ante (hey - the NBA draft is no easy thing to master). But what are we going to do with Brandon Knight, Ben Gordon, Rodney Stuckey, and Will Bynum? That's two point guards and two undersized 2-guards.
I'm beginning to think that most NBA GMs have no idea what they're doing - they just play plinko until they get a good base of guys, then know well enough not to do more than tinker with the fringes for awhile.
Obviously not. Cherry coke is the single most innovative idea in pop ("soda" for you strange folk from strange parts of the country) in the 20th century. It is far superior to Wild Cherry Pepsi, as evidenced by the fact that Pepsi felt compelled to add the "Wild" modifier to the name. Clearly, if you need to add unnecessary modifiers to prove your point, you know you have a weak case and are just trying to cover it with window dressing. Cherry coke is also superiror to Dr. Pepper. 23 flavors? That's way too many.
You've had enough of Raiola? Personally, I'm fine with him, but have seen my fill of Backus. Taylor Lewan (after he plays 4 years) please.
I was going to reference Marquis Walker, whose playing style reminds me the most of Hemingway's. If that dude couldn't make it in the NFL, no way Hemingway can. I really like Hemingway and think he's a good player, but he doesn't have the speed or acceleration (out of breaks) to make it in the NFL.
Questions for Bacon:
1. A follow on to Imafreak's first question:
The book mentions a fwe occassions when Rodriguez questioned the quality and play of the defense under Robinson. Did the other coaches express doubts about Robinson's coaching of technique or schemes? I have seen it suggested here that the other coaches led an insurgency of sorts against Robinson, leading to the temporary installation of the 3-3-5. Is there any truth to that?
2. Did you personally observe RichRod's private lockerroom freakouts? I'm not asking because I doubt it, but when I was reading the book I found that I couldn't picture how this went down. Did you follow him into the lockerroom and just observe? Did he ever take notice that you were listening and apologize for losing his head (even if it was not directed at you, it seems like something one would apologize for).
3. Do you think that the Michigan community (fans, former players, athletitc department, press) gave RichRod a harder time than other major football programs? Maybe you don't have a solid basis for comparison, but my speculation was that we are less diffcult than say Ohio and Alabama but more difficult than less established schools (like Oregon maybe).
If I could upvote this I would. Exactly the right response. We remember Bo fondly because of what he built out of honesty and hard work. In 10 years, no one will remember the Vest as anything but a crook (except for the most dyed-in-wool fans of Ohio).
If you still have doubts, go watch the Fab Five documentary again. Were you sadder when you watched C Webb call the timeout, or when you saw the banners sitting on a shelf? It was definitely the latter for me.
EDIT: my response is to the "ask Jim Tressel" post, not the response below it. Not sure if that was clear given the sequence of how these comments popped up.
That is terrible relationship advice. How anyone* dates/marries graduates of any school but Michigan is beyond me. Tell me Joe in Austin, TX, would you date Darth Vader if he was good looking? C'mon man, the dark side is all smoke and mirrors.
*Anyone means any graduate of the University of Michigan.
In fact they do. For some reason my brain blotted out the Gulf. Or perhaps I meant that Washington State is closer to the close than Texas Tech. Yeah . . . that's the ticket . . .
Good. Washington is closer to the coast than Texas. More appropriate for a pirate.
Having RichRod and Leach both in the Pac-12 will be nice, because it will give two teams innovative and ever-developing offenses and thus give two teams a decent shot of upsetting those snots at USC every year. Seriously, MOAR Lane Kiffin losses pleaz.
It's too bad there's not a "fan-insanity" meter that would let us measure the heat Muschamp is getting and compare it to what RichRod felt. I'd be curious to see if the Florida fans are more insane, less insane, or equally as insane as the irrational RichRod hating contingent. I'd bet on equal, but that's just instinct. (all the usual caveats here - I think RichRod needed to be fired - I just think the fans who disliked him for irrational reasons are dumb).
If you include basketball, there's our entire men's team (exaggerating slightly).
Yeah, definitely good points. Football's an intense game, and I'm sure there's a balance between reassuring a guy and getting him primed to play a complex but aggressive game. I just like Hoke's calm during games. I noticed after the deep bomb to Corey Brown that Hoke pulled Floyd and I think Countess aside and spoke to them calmly and deliberately. At the time I thought to myself "good move, these guys are probably so jacked up to play, yelling at them would just put them on edge." That's the kind of leader I want for a football team.
Compare Hoke to Brian Kelly, who is constantly reaming his players out on the sideline. Doesn't Hoke seem to inspire better play from his players? Kelly's style just seems to make his players nervous.
There are a number of high school coaches that post here - what do you guys think? Football's an intense game and I understand some yelling (I'm sure Mattison and Borges play the bad cop to Hoke's good cop sometimes), but it seems to me that the positive reinforcement that Hoke practices works much better than Kelly's "if you f--- this up I am going to chew your ass out" style. (sidenote: did anyone catch the ND broadcast last night, when Herby said that Brian Kelly made him nervous? I found that funny).
I think this season is in a class by itself. Never have we gone through (in my lifetime) such a protracted dark period, only to emerge on the other side so quickly. I've never appreciated a team and a winning season so much. 2003 and 2004 were great, but I went in to those seasons like I did every season, expecting 12-0 and a berth into the national championship game. Maybe I was delusional, but I'd always look at our stacked roster (look at all of these sweet receivers! and I just know this is the year for Timmy Bracken (or a similarly hyped RB who never produced)) and just KNOW we were going to do it this year.
This year, I looked at our roster with walk-ons starting, tiny receivers designed for a system that we no longer run, and so-so RBs (I just know this is the year for Mike Sh . . . nah, I can't delude myself that much), and I thought "boy it would be nice if we got 8 wins and didn't lose in humiliating fashion in the 4 losses." And then boom! We beat up on the weak competition. We lost some games in which we played poorly, but the losses were still reasonably close. And suddenly, we're back. But we're back in a way like we've never been back before. Like in Back to the Future, when Marty goes to the past and gives his dad a backbone and fixes his mom's drinking problem. He's back to where he started, but it's different. It's better. That's what this season is to me, and I've never experienced anything like it.