Also this week in Twitter, I came up with a way to correlate spikes in Twitter volume with play-by-play analysis of games. The results are published here:
A Michigan Man does not simply refer to a group of geese without pretention. There are a variety of proper collective nouns for multiple scenarios:
"The collective noun for [a] group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose)
I'm sure we can all agree that the Illini variety of whorish geese is unquestionably flightless, and therefore properly referred to as a gaggle.
Your best option might be to use the RSS feed provided by the Mgoblog and pull it into an RSS reader.
That way you can also load up other feeds and get the same benefit from other sites you visit frequently.
If you want to save a lot of bandwidth, have all of your RSS feeds downloaded at night (assuming you can connect to wifi). Then you only need to download the newest posts (during the day) from at&t.
If I had a dollar for every time my photo of the field was used without permission, I'd be a wealthy man. I've never seen someone put another brand on it though (i.e., the mgologo). That seems just a tad bit unprofessional, a little below the level of what I expect to see here. http://www.hillhaus.com/index.php/2006/12/29/michigan_stadium_the_big_house_1
Several schools have used that photo in their media kits (mostly before the stadium expansion). All of them were professional enough to ask. Combine all of those media kits together and the readership is probably less than the daily visitors to this blog. Just emphasizing the fact that you need to follow higher standards. This isn't Ohio, fergodsakes.
I own one of the "queme los barcos" shirts and wear it for games against MSU. Also, I took a bunch of classes in Scandinavian Studies at Michigan. The viking comment is interesting. I suppose they're refering to when people emigrated from Norway (to Iceland) under Harald Fairhair (872-930 AD -- he basically waged war against small communities to unify Norway into one country), which is how Iceland was initially populated.
Ever see photos of Iceland? There's practically no wood. In the early days of Iceland, settlers would kill each other over driftwood (if you've read any Icelandic Sagas you know this resulted in an endless series of revenge killings -- they documented the killings in stories on sheepskin which is why they have the most complete genetic record of any country today). Anyway, Norweigens built boats, sailed them across the Norwegian Sea to escape the conquests of Harald Fairhair, and landed in a place with no wood. It's easy to see how the need to "burn the boats" would be widespread.
For what it's worth, the Icelandic version would be something like "brennabáta."
One thing I haven't seen very frequently is links to buy the book. I pre-ordered a few copies from Amazon. It's only $16 for hardcover right now. Deal and a half. It's already the #2 book about football on Amazon (behind Walter Payton's biography, ahead of the biography of "such an outstanding young man" -- note, the "reading level" on Tebow's book says, "Ages 99 and up." Lol.).
Does anyone know if Bacon makes less money off the book if we buy it from Amazon? Are there any other places (perhaps Ann Arbor-based) where the book can be pre-ordered online?
Great to see the site profiled, but I take issue with the notion that MGoBlog/Brian Cook is the "future" of sports journalism for Michigan. MGoBlog is already the gold standard of sports journalism for my generation (IMO).
Sure, the quote doesn't make sense, but that's probably because most marketing trolls tow the line on the perceived super awesomeness of social media, and in so doing fail.
Nevertheless, Michigan athletics is a huge brand. Having someone in charge of that brand, messaging (through all channels, including social media) and advertising isn't just smart, it's normal. College sports is a big business, for better or worse. Having someone who's responsible for the marketing of a brand is ultimately much more rewarding than pushing out some half-crocked marketing soup. Especially when a brand is still recovering from angry factions and embarassing losses.
If you want to compare points-per-game historically, we need to do some math in order to make the comparison accurate. From the 1897 season through the 1911 season, a touchdown was only worth 5 points (and 1 point for the kick afterwards -- the 2-point conversion wasn't added until 1958).
Additionally, field goals were worth:
5 points from the 1883 to 1903 seasons
4 points from the 1904 to 1908 seasons
3 points from 1909 on
Touchdowns were worth less and fieldgoals were worth more, but these don't equal eachother out. Yost's 1901-1905 PPG records are still at a slight statistical disadvantage (even though they hold 5 of the top 6 spots...).
Here's what you listed:
Year
1902
1904
1901
1903
1947
1905
*2010
1976
1992
2003
PPG
58.5
56.7
50.5
47.1
39.4
38.1
36.2
36.0
35.9
35.4
If we add 10% (an estimate that accounts for higher touchdown value and lower fieldgoal value) to 1902's average we get 64.4 points per game. It would be fascinating to find out what those 1902-1905 PPG's would actually be using modern scoring methods. Unfortunately, the Bentley Library's online history of Michigan football doesn't provide a score-by-score rundown of the early years (although I imagine you could easily find this within Bentley's walls or elsewhere).
Of course, there were several other differences between the game then and now that would influence scores. For instance, catching the ball past the goal line resulted in a touchback and loss of possession (because there was no end-zone), so forward passes had to be caught prior to the ball crossing the line. (This might not have influenced Yost though -- he thought forward passing should only be used for long downs because screen passes resulted in too many turnovers.)
This foolish meme would be more correctly stated as, "it won't work AGAIN in the Big Ten."
While the forward pass was being refined, quarterbacks would routinely run, kick, punt, etc. Turn back the clock and you'll find several Michigan quarterbacks who had success running the ball. For instance: Benny Friedman. He went on to become "the first great passer in professional football," and in 1928 he led the NFL is passing touchdowns, rushing touchdowns, scoring and extra points (while playing for the Detroit Wolverines). He remains the only player to ever lead the NFL in passing and rushing touchdowns in the same season.
Interestingly enough, Friedman's coach at Michigan was a man from West Virginia who learned football while playing tackle for the Mountaineers. That man's name was Fielding H Yost.
Incredibly reasonable perspective!
One thing I haven't heard mentioned anywhere (I don't even know if anyone agrees): I always thought that Lloyd Carr's teams relied too heavily upon a small group of extremely talented players. For example, Hart was great, but it was boring to see him run left so frequently. It worked, but it was boring, and when Hart wasn't available it failed more often than not (as far as I remember). I'm still excited about where this team is going because I see more kids getting playing time. Sure, more kids get time when there are no clear superstars, but it doesn't seem to me as though Rich Rod is building a team that's so one-dimensional. When the talent of the current team matures, I fully expect to see a team that's more exciting and less predictable than Carr's teams. That's important when going up against great teams (or tOSU).
The Free Press is irrelevant. A lot of people gave up reading them back in 95 when they hired scab workers (http://www.pww.org/archives95/95-09-08-2.html). By the time that whole mess was figured out it was somewhat obvious that the Internet would eventually kill news printed on paper anyway, especially from newspapers that aren't respected in their own communities. Today, the Free Press is only delivered on Thursdays and Fridays.
They might have 8 Pulitzer Prizes, but they're dying. They're dying because of people like Brian. They're dying because people would rather get their information from sites such as MGoBlog. They're dying because they simply can't keep up (in terms of both quantity and quality).
Looking at the entire situation from that perspective is somewhat refreshing. It's obvious why Rosenberg is allowed to use double standards and twist quotes. The Free Press needs to rely on questionable, dramatic shock-and-awe journalism in order to survive. They can do this for now, but that doesn't change the fact that fewer and fewer people read the Free Press.
Recent Comments
I have found a good piece of internet journalism: Multiple Orcasms.
Sparta was illiterate and had a poor quality of life.
Punting to Will Likely will likely be bad.
Am I the only one distracted by the lack of consistency in spacing after periods?
Also this week in Twitter, I came up with a way to correlate spikes in Twitter volume with play-by-play analysis of games. The results are published here:
http://www.capturetheconversation.com/social/hashtag-madness
The minute-by-minute national championship graph tells the story of the game pretty well.
A Michigan Man does not simply refer to a group of geese without pretention. There are a variety of proper collective nouns for multiple scenarios:
"The collective noun for [a] group of geese on the ground is a gaggle; when in flight, they are called a skein, a team or a wedge; when flying close together, they are called a plump." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goose)
I'm sure we can all agree that the Illini variety of whorish geese is unquestionably flightless, and therefore properly referred to as a gaggle.
Michigan: Royal Flush / Penn State: 2.5 donkeys
Use Cleverbot to respond to all text messages. Actual responses:
(Mind blown...)
Your best option might be to use the RSS feed provided by the Mgoblog and pull it into an RSS reader.
That way you can also load up other feeds and get the same benefit from other sites you visit frequently.
If you want to save a lot of bandwidth, have all of your RSS feeds downloaded at night (assuming you can connect to wifi). Then you only need to download the newest posts (during the day) from at&t.
Many thanks!
The dots on the field are a better indication.
If I had a dollar for every time my photo of the field was used without permission, I'd be a wealthy man. I've never seen someone put another brand on it though (i.e., the mgologo). That seems just a tad bit unprofessional, a little below the level of what I expect to see here. http://www.hillhaus.com/index.php/2006/12/29/michigan_stadium_the_big_house_1
Several schools have used that photo in their media kits (mostly before the stadium expansion). All of them were professional enough to ask. Combine all of those media kits together and the readership is probably less than the daily visitors to this blog. Just emphasizing the fact that you need to follow higher standards. This isn't Ohio, fergodsakes.
I own one of the "queme los barcos" shirts and wear it for games against MSU. Also, I took a bunch of classes in Scandinavian Studies at Michigan. The viking comment is interesting. I suppose they're refering to when people emigrated from Norway (to Iceland) under Harald Fairhair (872-930 AD -- he basically waged war against small communities to unify Norway into one country), which is how Iceland was initially populated.
Ever see photos of Iceland? There's practically no wood. In the early days of Iceland, settlers would kill each other over driftwood (if you've read any Icelandic Sagas you know this resulted in an endless series of revenge killings -- they documented the killings in stories on sheepskin which is why they have the most complete genetic record of any country today). Anyway, Norweigens built boats, sailed them across the Norwegian Sea to escape the conquests of Harald Fairhair, and landed in a place with no wood. It's easy to see how the need to "burn the boats" would be widespread.
For what it's worth, the Icelandic version would be something like "brenna báta."
One thing I haven't seen very frequently is links to buy the book. I pre-ordered a few copies from Amazon. It's only $16 for hardcover right now. Deal and a half. It's already the #2 book about football on Amazon (behind Walter Payton's biography, ahead of the biography of "such an outstanding young man" -- note, the "reading level" on Tebow's book says, "Ages 99 and up." Lol.).
Does anyone know if Bacon makes less money off the book if we buy it from Amazon? Are there any other places (perhaps Ann Arbor-based) where the book can be pre-ordered online?
Did see this in Brian's post. The book can be pre-ordered on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Out-Rodriguez-Michigan-Wolverines/dp/080909…
Robert M. Soderstrom mentions in BIG HOUSE that Yost had strong enough footings put in to support a second deck.
Somewhat pointless to consider now that the luxury boxes are on the sides.
Great to see the site profiled, but I take issue with the notion that MGoBlog/Brian Cook is the "future" of sports journalism for Michigan. MGoBlog is already the gold standard of sports journalism for my generation (IMO).
The prime example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_page
https://www.msu.edu/~creswel1/riotstatus/
Only the classy schools have riot status webpages.
Sure, the quote doesn't make sense, but that's probably because most marketing trolls tow the line on the perceived super awesomeness of social media, and in so doing fail.
Nevertheless, Michigan athletics is a huge brand. Having someone in charge of that brand, messaging (through all channels, including social media) and advertising isn't just smart, it's normal. College sports is a big business, for better or worse. Having someone who's responsible for the marketing of a brand is ultimately much more rewarding than pushing out some half-crocked marketing soup. Especially when a brand is still recovering from angry factions and embarassing losses.
Fascinating analysis as always. Many thanks.
One note:
If you want to compare points-per-game historically, we need to do some math in order to make the comparison accurate. From the 1897 season through the 1911 season, a touchdown was only worth 5 points (and 1 point for the kick afterwards -- the 2-point conversion wasn't added until 1958).
Additionally, field goals were worth:
Touchdowns were worth less and fieldgoals were worth more, but these don't equal eachother out. Yost's 1901-1905 PPG records are still at a slight statistical disadvantage (even though they hold 5 of the top 6 spots...).
Here's what you listed:
If we add 10% (an estimate that accounts for higher touchdown value and lower fieldgoal value) to 1902's average we get 64.4 points per game. It would be fascinating to find out what those 1902-1905 PPG's would actually be using modern scoring methods. Unfortunately, the Bentley Library's online history of Michigan football doesn't provide a score-by-score rundown of the early years (although I imagine you could easily find this within Bentley's walls or elsewhere).
Of course, there were several other differences between the game then and now that would influence scores. For instance, catching the ball past the goal line resulted in a touchback and loss of possession (because there was no end-zone), so forward passes had to be caught prior to the ball crossing the line. (This might not have influenced Yost though -- he thought forward passing should only be used for long downs because screen passes resulted in too many turnovers.)
This foolish meme would be more correctly stated as, "it won't work AGAIN in the Big Ten."
While the forward pass was being refined, quarterbacks would routinely run, kick, punt, etc. Turn back the clock and you'll find several Michigan quarterbacks who had success running the ball. For instance: Benny Friedman. He went on to become "the first great passer in professional football," and in 1928 he led the NFL is passing touchdowns, rushing touchdowns, scoring and extra points (while playing for the Detroit Wolverines). He remains the only player to ever lead the NFL in passing and rushing touchdowns in the same season.
Interestingly enough, Friedman's coach at Michigan was a man from West Virginia who learned football while playing tackle for the Mountaineers. That man's name was Fielding H Yost.