Recent Comments

This makes my eyes water.

he didn't recieve an offer from OSU but that wasn't really the point.  I am not condoning what he said or that it is the right thing to do.  I am not even saying that everyone from Michigan should like the kid or even not be upset by his comments.  My only problem has been the increasing trend for fans to publicly insult, berate, or otherwise make comments on twitter that aren't necessary or warrented. 

I still care about michigan-manness (i like that term) but even if someone doesn't live up to my expectations, or hopes it is not my place to scold him.  He has coaches and parents and if something is severe enough even cops.

I honestly can't tell if you are serious or being sarcastic. 

I hope you are being sarcastic a high school kid shouldn't have to defend an innocuous statement such as "I like Ohio" even once let alone twice.  Especially when that kid is already committed to Michigan.

A lot of NFL teams use both man and zone blocking schemes.  In an ideal world you would utilize both concepts depending on situation, goal, defense, ect.  Unfortunately, in college it is difficult because you only have players for a limited time and OL is a very complex position to learn.

last year Borges was still trying to learn how to run a spread offense, and how to utilize Denard effectively.  It would be a bit much to incorporate even more new offensive strategies/formations/plays.  There is only so much that you can implement as a coordinator and teach to the players in a given time.  I imagine the focus of the offense will be shifting towards something Borges is more comfortable running and that allows him to add some different things to his playbook this year. 

It would have been a lot to ask of him to learn two new systems in a year.  It is not going to be suddenly finding the light but I think Borges will gradually incorporate new things. 

if after you opened all of your presents you had to wait until spring to play with them.  I can't wait to see these kids develop and to watch them start playing some football, even if it is just springball.

he also looks like an angry leprechaun 

My mistake don't know what I was thinking. None the less it is a very rare and impressive feat

I wish less people would change their jersey numbers

I think you may be getting a little bit ahead of yourself.  I agree the potential for the future looks especially bright, but I don't know that recruiting rankings are enough for us to go calling for a national champion contender.

For some reason comback wins against northwestern are just feel like they are supposed to happen.

I really appreciate you posting this diary.  I think it is important to realize there is more to life than sports and to keep in mind that all of our actions, even those that seem trivial at the time can have profound impacts.

The biggest difference from last year is definitely Molk.  However, I really think that it is not his blocking that we are missing most but rather his recognition and communication skills.  Communication and intelligence are two of the most important aspects of OL play.  With Molk gone there really isn't anyone on the interior who provides that kind of leadership.

I agree that people may be over reacting about O-Line coaching, but OL was supposed to be one of our strengths this year.  I think our line does have talent besides Lewan, what has been missing is not the ability to block people once engaged.  While OSU's DL is very good and probably the best we have seen all year blocking has been a consistant problem.  I think that the key problem facing this unit is lack of leadership and experience.  Molk was an invaluable part of our offense in his role at center.  Not only was he an exceptional blocker but more importantly he was extremely intellegent and was good at recognizing pressure and communicating blocking assignments.  This year the problem has been the OL knowing who to block.  The most common problems have been strait up misses by the OL.  Center is one of the most difficult positions to replace because if its demands regarding communication and blocking calls.  We will see how our line comes together in the next few years, much of how that turns out will be on coach Funk.

For sure, I want a gif of that hit and if it is possible I want to put that gif as my desktop wallpaper so that I can watch it 100x a day.

Do you know the guy personally? How do you know that he only cares about himself. Seems a but premature to state that. Why don't we just reserve judgment until later. Oh yeah and maybe pay less attention to the kids twitter.

Man I hope I get fired like that someday. You suck, here's 5 million bucks.

Great content it is awesome to have a meteorologists pissing on mgoblog keep it up!

"Maximizing reps" is inherently a good thing.  I would assume that every coach would want to maximize the number of quality reps their atheletes are able to take.  That being said the way each coach does this will be influence by a huge number of things such as: offensive and defensive system, coaching philosiphy, team experience, and pripary practice goals. 

In the case of Kelly his practice style makes sense.  He runs a no huddle offense that is predicated on speed, and tempo.  Running practice with loud music, at high pace, with little verbal communication is a good idea.  He is managing to acheive high number of reps as well as physically condition his players and make no huddle communication effective.  Clearly this system works for him.  It may be helpful that Kelly's offense is not extremely complex.

On the other hand, coach Hoke has a different phylosophy.  He instead focuses on physicality and fundementals.  To this end he runs a slower paced practice with hard hitting drills and teaches technique often.  He is still "maximizing reps" but in a different way.  I think that Hoke and co. have been quite succesful as well.

I think a lot of people have the impression that Denard took a step back in 2011 compared to 2010 due to the transition from RRs offense to Borges's but his totals for both running and passing are higher.  Although in 2010 Tate probably accounts for the difference between the two years as he was subbed in frequently.

I thought it was a little odd and somewhat anoying but then I moved on.  It is not a big deal and it had literally no impact on the game whatsoever, for better or worse.

The intensity on Hoke's face makes it almost look like Hoke is going to punch the cop.

This game sucked but it was notas bleak as many people are making it out to be.  Our offense did a reasonable job marching down the feild against an ND defense that MSU could do absolutely nothing against but was killed by turnovers in the red zone.  Hell even if we are held to feild goals on all of those red zone trips we could have won.  

Also I though our defense looked suprisingly good especially given the fact that we gave their offense so many une3xpected opprotuinities.  I think this was probably the best defensive game we have had all year.  Yes we lost but to a much improved ND team where we shot ourselves in the foot a lot.

Thanks for bringing up some of those numbers and drawing that comparison.  I did not realize that similarity.  I am still worried about our defensive line but that is all based on just watching real time.  I guess it also speaks to how well our coaches did throughout the season last year. There is still plenty of time and I hope our three DLine coaches can work some magic.  Of course like many people I beleived that during this season we would have a better team with a worse record than last year and unfortunately that is still likely the case.

Who he reads is also dependent on the type of defense the other team is running.  In a traditional 4-3 you are right the DE is almost always the read (although sometimes this is not true as mentioned before) but for the 3-4 the read could very commonly be a linebacker.

I really don't think that he will crack the starting line-up at all this year.  The expectations for Pipkins seem to be a bit too high.  It is not that I think Pipkins is not going to be a great asset for us but rather more about the transition from High School to College.   The jump to college is especially high on both sides of the line, making starting freshman at this position very rare.    

Pipkins is a great athelete and I really can't overstate how much I like him as a recruit but he has a HUGE amount of progress and development needed to compete with his older more experienced competition.  Not only does he need some physical development and conditioning but more importantly he needs to learn technique and learn the defense.  The extra weight is less of a concern than technique.  Most DL recruits that are highly touted like Pipkins are used to dominating their opponents physically but in college to be effective you NEED good technique.  Is it possible? Sure, Lamarr Woodley and Brandon Graham both contributed as freshman.  I certainly hope that Pipkins can develop that quickly and contribute this year and even turn out like one of those guys.    

I can't beleive that Nebraska and Wisco are actually going to wear those absolutely hideous jerseys.  I don't know who designed them or who approved them both get an EPIC FAIL for those jerseys.  Even when we have terrible alternate uni's (ie the evil bumble bee that was MSU) they are still nowhere near that bad. 

I love the Block M on the sleeves these unis were awesome!

How a team manages their punishment has no bearing on it's merit. This is not to say that I think the NCAA has been fair with their punishments.

Zing!

It really seems that BWC has grown up a lot.  I don't have any real knowledge of what he was like before but he was reportedly kinda lazy and immature, I don't seen or here any of that this year.  I am pretty optimistic about him this year, hopefully we will see much more of him running over centers.  Good interview.

but he really seems more suited to zoe coverage than man to me, but maybe I am mistaken.  Does anyone else have any thoughts on this.

God I hate OSU fans.  I cannot imagine what sort of insane fantasy world they live in. 

It is true that RVB doesn't have the same big play ability and is not nearly as visible as a player but he still deserves to be on this list.  I mean Mattison trusted RVB enough his senior year to let him call stunts on the line and what is more is that Mike Martin respected his oppinion enough to listen and go along with it.  You cannot underestimate how big of an impact that kind or leadership and football intelligence has on the line.

Kelly is a terrible coach and an even worse person.  He had some success in the MAC and at Cinci but he has clearly managed to keep with the ND tradition of taking top talent to mediocre places.

It's great because it gives Shane an opprotuinity to showcase himself but much more importantly it is great because he now has an opprotuinity to get coach from very experienced quarterback coaches early on.  This will really help his development and I think should really help he touch and seeing how good he is already that is a very exciting prospect.

I mentioned eliminating stress just to make a point not as a real suggestion.  Although there are many ways to avoid stress based on you work environment, sleep schedule, family life, and a hundred other factors.  

Your second point is an over simplification of a complex sequence of events.  Everything we do changes the structure of our brain and most of the changes cannot be "repaired" in the sense of the word.  Regardless, I think you may be missing my point a bit.  My point was not to say that stress is bad and therefore get rid of it.  My point was that causative inferances based on incomplete knowledge and missinformation should not be made.  There is simply not enough data to support the kind of conclusions that people seem to be jumping too following this issue.  

Yes, football has the potential to cause damage to the brain and it is an unfortunate risk of the game.  That being said we should condem football all together due to a possibility of undesirable outcomes.  Lots of people die falling down stairs should we get rid of them? how about cars there is an obvious risk there? fast food and poor diet lead to one of the most prominent problems in America today, obesity, which is a risk factor for diabetes, heart disease, depression, strokes, and cancers. So should we make everyone avoid the risk of unhealthy food? I say no. 

I am not convinced by the media storm that has followed Junior Seau's death.  I am not trying to be disrespectful about the situation or dissmiss the tragedy of a persons death.  However, the media has been portraying his death as the direct result of depression caused by repeated concussions.  The simple fact of the matter is that correlation does not equal causation.  Just because the man played football and was depressed does not meen that football = depressions.  

Major depressive dissorder is suprisingly prevelant in today's society, around 5-13% of the population is affected by major depressive disorder.  So far as I have seen there has not been near enough data collected to even generate a predictive correlation between brain injury and depression.  Stress is actually a much better predictor of depression.  Multiple studies have shown that chronic high stress can be predictive for depression, futhermore the mechanism by which stress can lead to depression has been established by multiple groups. With this in mind I would say that high stress jobs/lifestyles have lead to many more tragedies than football.  Does that mean that we should completely restructure our entire society and eliminate high stress jobs because of the potential link between stress, depression, and suicides.  I don't think that is realistic.  

Again, I am not trying to be dissrespectfull of anything.  I am just trying to get people to really think about the situation and not to be swayed so easily by the media and a few NFL stars pointing to the game of football and blaming it for one man's death.  It is short sighted and dismisses the entirety of his life aside from a game.

I am going to see the it at 12:10 with my girl.

Although i have to admit that I liked the Avengers-Michigan mashup that you did better better.  

Traditional uniforms are the best no doubt about it.  I personally have always kinda liked Penn State's white on white look and I hate when when we ware crazy versions of old uniforms.  On the other hand I think that Oregon has really done a nice job with the new uniform every week approach, although some of them are hit and miss.  I really think that new uniforms are not universally "bad" or "good" to any particular generation but are hit or miss for each group.

bit is still dissapointing due to consistancy.

He is a mauve face leprechaun.

Do you really think that we will miss out on highly ranked recruits because they will have to compete to earn playing time.  I can't believe that any high profile program offers kids guaranteed playing time right away.  There is just no way they would be able to live up to that kind of promise.  Hopefully, the vast majority of highly ranked recruits realize this reality and have a competitive nature anyway. 

Did anyone else notice how much higher Denard jumped than Gallon during their chest bump at the end?

Don't completely discount BWC.  He has shown a number of times that when he is motivated enought he is a disruptive force of some note.  His biggest problem has been consistancy and attitude from all acounts (including his own) and I think this coaching staff has really inspired him to turn that around.  I bet we will see BWC blow up some centers this year.

EDIT: Damn you beat me to it.

Your recruiting updates are extremely informative for a board post and I like that they come with the added prosepective of an outside view.  I appreciate the time you take to post these updates.

As far as I know the DL workout has not happened yet and there is no results for any DL on the NFL combine website.  Maybe this was a workout? I don't know why he would be doing bench the day before he has to bench but that 36 is not official

Now that ridiculous tattoo wont have any meaning.  Maybe he can slant the M a little with shading and play it off as a golfer from Minnesota.  

"We don't worry about academics, there's no way you can fail, even if you give minimal effort you can't fail"

would it be possible just to use a proxies to vote a bunch of times?

EDIT: Tried it and nope doesnt work 

Of all of the players that did press interviews with any regularity Molk was by far my favorite to watch.  You could tell that he hated the press and he came out and said as much on more than one occasion.  Yet despite his distaste he was always very well spoken and seemed to convey the type of intelligent leadership that is crucial on the offensive line.  I also loved hearing him talk about coach Hoke this year.

Always fun to watch the results that mgoblog can have on a fan vote.

1. Michigan will sign 28 players in the 2012 class

FICTION

2. Denard Robinson will be invited to NYC for the 2012 Heisman Trophy ceremony

FACT - I hope  

3. Michigan will sign 7 offensive linemen in the 2012 class

FICITON

4. Fitzgerald Toussaint will finish next season as a 1st Team All-Big Ten player

FACT - he will have over 1,200 yards on the season 

5. Michigan will open the 2012-13 season ranked in the top 5

FACT (they wil be overrated though)

6. Brady Hoke will repeat as B1G Coach of the Year

FACT - wins the big ten in his second year 

7. Michigan will sign a "sleeper" prospect that is currently not on the public radar

FICTION

8. Desmond Morgan will open the 2012 as the starter at WLB

FICTION

9. Michigan will play a night game at home next season

FICTION

10. The Wolverines will return to a BCS Game

FACT

more like he dismissed it.  I think he was probably just trying to say that fans are butal and that it has nothing to do with the game.  He mentioned that if he knew who it was or found out that he would throw them out of the izzone.  The Michigan stuff was pointless and he should have just left it alone but its not a big deal by any means.  Should be funny to have Tom Izzo through Gholsten out of the Izzone though.  

if you spent that much time thinking about your opponents junk and your own while wreslting.  Bet you think those QBs and centers are a little to close for comfort in a pro system too.  

then I would pretty much agree...  

I completely agree.  The whole situation is atrocious and lets not be those guys.

Denard cutting off his dreads is way bigger news than Devin's twitter post.  Don't you know that dreads are PROVEN to make you run faster!

You are quickly becoming my favorite poster on the board

Payton was really high on us at one point and we were expecting him to commit until he visited ND and pushed back his decision like three time before eventually committing to cal.  Is there really any chance of regaining his interest and even if there is do we have room for him in this current class with two WRs already committed?  Other than Payton I don't specifically remember either having a huge interest in Michigan.  Although that would be a great suprise to have Shaq be a suprise on signing day.

Maybe that explain the color of his face

but I didn't watch it either.  It was more out of boredom than principal.  I am a little worried about the prospect of denard facing that Alabama defense but that is mostly because of what I saw with Al against teams with agressive dominant defenses.  Still optomistic though.  Can't help but to think this team is trending up despite losing some of my favorite all time wolverines in Junior, Martin and RVB.

Everything I have heard from Beamer makes me think that he is a great coach who runs that program right.  I didn't really know much about him or VT before the sugar bowl but what a great group.  Also he certainly is not lacking disipline... that bus trip would have been horrible.

When I saw the players come out in those jerseys for the game my first thought is that we were wearing them mostly because of problems with our normal game jerseys.  You know the sort of problems that cause half the team to change uniform at halftime like we saw during the NW game.  I don't know, it might just be wishful thinking on my part that we had a possible reason for wearing those hideous bee costumes.

I think the coaches and player should be taking the high road.  There is no reason to start pointing fingers and calling out players after a game.  The only thing that happens when you choose not to take the high road is that you look weak and seem to be making excuses.  The plays speak for themselves and anyone who watched the game knows what happened.

There was really no danger for Lewan in that situation.  I am sure that Lewan can get punched like that all day and just be pissed off but what Gholsten did against Denard was an attempt to end a players career.  That kind of play is unacceptable in my mind.