Recent Comments

even when they're winning.

north dakota has the most insufferable fans.  every year i'm happy to see them lose.

maine fans were kind of obnoxious, too.  that hasn't been an issue for a few years now.

of course, i'm not an obnoxious fan, but i wonder what people say about michigan fans (at least away from yost).

part of me was hoping for a und-und final, with und beating und in overtime.  oh, well...  if michigan can't win it, let someone else win it.

five of those to highly ranked opponents and all but one of those on the road.

Maybe you saw this, posted about 10 minutes after you posted:

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/game-live-stream-legal

thank you, wolverinehistorian.

most of all, thank you, denard.

that would undermine the sanctity of the regular season and the bowl structure.

What are you trying to say?

win, i tell you

it's no fun winning if you're padding the schedule

seriously?

i can't fathom pinning this loss on the athletic director.  the loss hurts and we looked bad.  i'll still take this game over emu, wmu, toledo, utah. 

you don't get better playing cupcakes.  i'll gladly take the loss in exchange for playing one of the best pro teams in the country in a virtual away game.  i'll take my lumps.  i'll be better for it.

--

i once coached a youth hockey team.  in the first game of the season we got crushed by a much bigger, faster and more experienced team.  not even close.  we didn't know what hit us.  the last game of the season, they were still bigger and faster, but we lost a close game by a goal and we were in the game the whole way. 

the kids remembered what it was like to get beat badly.  they grew from it and were better for it.  nobody whined or complained.  we went out and worked to be better every single day.  i couldn't have been more proud of my kids after that last game.

yes, screw espn with their blackouts.  why is sc-vandy blacked out in wisconsin?!

...to see teams like florida state, ucla, miami (ytm) at michigan stadium and we can pull these teams all the time.  or, we used to...  i don't care about teams like eastern michigan, miami (ntm), western michigan, utah, etc.  i might go to one of these games because i haven't been to a game in 20 years, but who cares?!

imagine what it would be like for uconn fans to have michigan in their own back yard.  i say we play where we agreed to play.

redacted...

if you know them, give them my compliments.

never underestimate the power of the people to manipulate an opinion poll.

i don't see how either of these can defeat the raptor, though.

what the #*?! is a grimace?

I'd love to see Rich Rodriguez at UCLA.  Just hope he can get his defense straightened out (read:  keep his damn hands off it).

UCLA plays in the Rose Bowl.  Still a home game for SC.

in 1996, we beat 5 of the top 6 teams on the way to the title.

A couple of years ago, I knew there were at least three.  Looks like they've created more categories now.

http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=20476

http://muscle.ucsd.edu/musintro/fiber.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skeletal_muscle

The categories are basically determined by the main means of energy production, either oxygen-independent (fast, when oxygen has been totally consumed), or oxygen-dependent (slow), and rate of fatique.

Think of your breathing patterns during high- or low-intensity workouts.  At high intensity, you run out of breath rapidly, oxygen supply is depleted, and energy must be produced in the absence of oxygen.

best of all, I'm incredulous at all the hatred from the past three years are now saying how important it is to get behind our coach. the players seem happy...



withholding judgement, but afraid of large amounts of fail...

mgovideo.com.  they have the 96 and 98 championship games, and the 96 regional final against minnesota (with 'the goal') and the 96 national semifinal vs. bu.

and she says that being the president at michigan is the pinnacle. 

p.37

"the contract says i'm currently employed for two more years.  i'm having the time of my life.  i couldn't go any other place because it would be bound to be a disappointment.  i've been at the pinnacle.  this is an endlessly exciting place."

yeah...  she's done alright for the university.

i'm proud of the kids on this team.  while they're not winning very much right now, i believe they're doing what's asked of them and giving everything they have.  on top of that, they're staying out of trouble and representing the university well.

that is all.

yeah...  except when they're blacked out.  like this one was.

i took the numbers from bcs guru, just to see what would happen if teams were voted ahead of boise state. even with a computer ranking 0.12 points higher than michigan state (0.92 c.f. 0.80, respectively), if michigan state were the highest-rated team in both polls, their bcs ranking would obliterate that of boise state. 

the polls account for 66% of the bcs ranking.  each computer - at most ~8%.  if the voters want to keep boise state out of the mnc game, they will do so.

tcu vs. boise state?  it'll never happen.

EDIT: fixed typo.

so he missed it, or ignored it, whatever.  i don't understand the tendency here to jump all over people who aren't as omniscient as you may be.  some people are obviously trolls and deserve what they get.  others are trying to contribute to the community and get smacked when they 'fall short of expectations.' 

with all due respect, skip it, or keep it to yourself. 

neg away...

http://www.bruinsnation.com/2010/6/3/1500453/coach-john-wooden-our

Nestor has posted a nice tribute video there, too, 'Our Intergalactic Treasure.'

IMHO, this attitude is ruining college football. Sure, I'd love to win a national championship. But I, for one, would rather play a non-creampuff schedule and risk losing to a good team than watch a thousand games against the likes of Delaware State. Those games are meaningless in the grand scheme of things.

LSU won the title a few years back with a couple of losses. Losses to solid teams early in the year aren't necessarily a death sentence in the national championship race. And they're far more entertaining for the fans, and more interesting for the players.

And they provide more teachable moments for the coaches and players.

Gimme Boise St. and Notre Dame. I'll take Colorado, Oregon and UCLA again, too. Syracuse, Florida State, etc. I think you see my point.

Lest the questioning get out of hand.

While Bonds didn't rule out also going into coaching one day, his six-minute session with the media was stopped after the question about McGwire.

Yes, it is. Thanks for the correction.

It's still a term that was applied by outsiders, though. And one wonders why the French Canadians called them something that means "snake." And why the Americans followed suit.

Scroll down to Names.

After all, dehumanising people has been an instrumental component of war and other oppressive movements forever. They were also called savages, even though they were nothing of the sort.

If it was a self-applied name, I stand corrected. If not, it makes me wonder why they use it.

Maybe it is a South Dakota thing.

rule all. They should be able to do whatever they want to do. What a selfish position, IMHO.

I was in Lakota nation in South Dakota in 2007. I spent a week with the Lakota people. They don't call themselves "Sioux," even though you do. They are Lakota, or Dakota, etc.

Educate yourself before you make comments like these. I asked if there was a book I could read that would adequately represent their experience with the European settlers. It was recommended I read "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee."

Have a read and see if you still feel like they're being whiny and unreasonable.

just got hot at the right time.

/sarcasm

Seriously, I admit my jealous feelings toward the Blue Devils, but Coach K seems like a great coach who has earned everything he's won. Congrats to Duke.

There are solutions for this. I've been using keepass (it's mentioned in the article) for a while. There's a portable version at http://www.portableapps.com, so you can take it and your database with you wherever you go (if you use a pc). It's also available for linux; not sure about OS X (but there is an OS X solution also mentioned in the article).

Important: Use a very strong password that you can remember to lock your database.

This team came together and nearly pulled it off. While the loss is disappointing, I couldn't be more proud of this team.

It's unfortunate he missed the call, but I sincerely doubt John Gravallese, an imperfect human being, had it out for Michigan last night.

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/ncaa-hockey-streaming-weekend

Torn ACL in 1985 (age 13); patellar graft in 1989. 6" scars each over my patella and lateral knee joint capsule. I could care less (couldn't care less?) about the scars.

It rarely bothers me during normal activity. Sometimes there's a phantom pain, but it's gone in a day, and it's very infrequent. I keep to low-impact sports (mostly) - cycling, swimming, maybe a little hockey (i said mostly). I've felt it sway a bit a couple of times, but never really feared for its stability. If I do anything other than walk, I'll wear a brace, though I've been told by some that it's not strictly necessary. Many doctors have commented that my result was excellent.

I have excellent range of motion, both flexion and extension; It does get a bit stiff when I kneel or squat; I minimise that.

Knock on wood I never have to replace it again, but I would think a hamstring would be an option. What's the risk of rejection with an allograft? Do you have to take immunosuppresives?

As a UCLA alum (I'm a Michigan alum first and foremost, of course), I keep Bruins Nation on my RSS feed, though it's often too grating to actually read.

I did, however, find this entry somewhat relevant to this post.
http://www.bruinsnation.com/2010/3/21/1383539/note-for-ucla-fans-mocking...

It's a bummer to lose as the top seed. I remember vividly all the heartbreak of the Michigan hockey teams in the early 90's (and 1997). Those teams were phenomenal, but always lost in excruciating fashion.

Those in glass houses...

What's the status?

How to get your update? :^)

that freezes every couple of seconds?

at least last night. The UM radio feed said Michigan would play the late game. Further, they said they didn't agree, but it's driven by TV.

uscho.com confirms:
http://www.uscho.com/scoreboard/?type=d1

Honest question.

What if they had come out and said the team was violating rules by having QC people present at voluntary activities, and that they were going over allowed practice time by 20 minutes.

i.e. if they had reported the true nature of the 'violations' with journalistic integrity.

Would your opinion of the Free Press be the same?

Then, what if they had instead approached the administration of the university they love and said, 'Whoa, you guys are running a little afoul of the law.' The problem was dealt with in-house, and never saw the light of day.

Just curious.

Is it the reporting of violations that have people angry, or simply the blatant disregard for anything resembling the truth? Or both?

For me, I don't have a problem, fundamentally, with identifying problems. But the nature of this investigation, as are many things in the press these days, was so sensational and inflammatory as to do nothing but incite the masses.

I agree this issue is frivolous. I've been thinking about it a couple of ways.

1) Michigan broke the rules. Accept our punishment and walk quietly into the night.
2) Michigan broke the same rules that everybody else broke. Accept our punishment, but gently suggest the NCAA subpoena practice records from other prominent FBS programs to examine how widespread the problem really is.
3) Adopt a stance of civil disobedience - for which we will likely get hammered. These rules are obsolete - let's look for ways to update the rulebook while still respecting the student-athlete.

1) is what's feeding the media frenzy. There are a few people eg Matt Hinton (aka Dr. Saturday), Adam Rittenberg who recognize this for what it is.

The message boards and the blogosphere are full of those who think Michigan should be crucified, and that Rich Rodriguez is the most egregious cheater evar.

2) This, imho, is the crybaby way to go. I'd prefer we not consider it.

3) This is a great platform to champion some significant change. There's probably going to be a lot of resistance from the NCAA and a lot of heckling from around the country. If the rules are that archaic and not representative of the state of the sport, perhaps it's the only way.

Me? I'm torn. I don't like that we're now being considered a rogue program because of this. And it's painful to read the message boards and see how happily people criticize this program. I think it's unwarranted. And I think if people looked in the mirror, they'd find the same. At the same time, we broke the 'rules'. Something needs to be done. Let's look at those rules.

I did this the first time, and my loans never went away. I'm comfortable carrying a mortgage for 30 years, but a student loan, not so much.

That said, I do think it's worthwhile to do the stock participation plan, if you have that opportunity, but only if you can quicksale the stock the instant it's sold. That's an instant 17% profit. Likewise the 401(k) - I plan to contribute enough to get the maximum match from my employer; more free money.

Otherwise, while some may disagree, it suited me much better to get out of debt and invest all that suddenly disposable income than to try to do both at the same time.

Do the math. I have a spreadsheet that allows me to look at how much I'll pay out in student loan interest over the long haul, as well as all my other debts. If you're lucky, you can get a nice solid 6% return on your investments. Take the time to see which works out better for you, or pay someone to look for you. Just don't underestimate the positive feeling of being out of debt. That was huge for me.

I have to agree. I don't recall doing too much for Physics242, and I also thought Math451 was pretty easy.

One of my hallmates was in the same physics class, though, and I don't think he thought it was too easy. And I didn't know too many (read: any) other engineers who took more math than they had to.

But, I like physics and math.

I thought the idea of consolidating was to lock in a lower interest rate. When I consolidated my first set of loans, a huge, unmanageable payment fell to something I could deal with.

Does it have anything to do with the repayment habits of the payer? If i lower my payment and pay only the minimum, it logically follows that I'll pay a lot more in the long run. But if I consolidate with a lower interest rate and pay as much as I would have paid without consolidation, it seems that the overall amount paid would be less. To sum, if I consolidate and pay responsibly, I can pay a whole lot less. So, I can bury myself deeper, or I can help myself out quicker - it's up to me.

Is that even close to accurate?

When I read this I thought, "Unless he knows something I don't, Brandon Graham and Brandon Smith have already left."

Oh... Dave Brandon.

At least it saved the original post.

I don't remember where I found the RSS feed for the mGoBoard - is there one for diaries?
http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Fmgoblog.com%2Ftaxono...

In any case, while I will resist reposting his drivel, I wonder if he/she'd go away if we ignored her. It's not going away of its own volition because it keeps getting the response it's looking for.

Some people can't resist feeding the trolls. I usually just skip over them, roll my eyes, shake my head, and mutter something under my breath.

on mgoblue.com

They said it in the segment (but it would have been easy to miss). So one year of purging for every three years of being stuck with your scholarship players falls through the cracks.

Making the APR an annual check will have a bit more bite. If, in fact, you do actually want to endorse scholarship amongst your athletes.

Who do I tell them sent me?

Flashgot works nicely for this. You can save these files as .flv files. There are a number of converters to other formats; alternatively, there's the k-lite mega codec pack to watch .flv files in windows media player. I think vlc will play .flv files natively.

Rating divided by W/L... :^)

Here are a few links that explain it a bit better:
http://www.uscho.com/rankings/?data=krach

http://www.uscho.com/FAQs/?data=krach
- "Strength of schedule is a weighted average of your opponents' KRACH ratings."

http://www.mscs.dal.ca/~butler/krachexp.htm

http://slack.net/~whelan/tbrw/tbrw.cgi?2004/krach

--

The numbers do seem kinda counter-intuitive. I'm not sure my methodology is meaningful, it was just something I did.

After I wrote this, I thought, what if I calculate the rating by removing teams and just calculating the ratings based on non-conference record i.e. Boise St. vs. Oregon looks instead like WAC vs. Pac 10; Iowa vs. Arizona looks like Big 10 vs. Pac 10? But, alas, it was 5am and I went back to bed instead. I'll take a look at that today; not sure what it'll give me, but it'll be an interesting exercise.

I was looking at this last night trying to make some sense of the final BCS standings. Here's what I came up with:
http://quakk.co.cc/cfb/krach.results.htm

Coincidentally, Peter Wolfe's ranking, which is part of the BCS formula, applies these statistics to FBS and FCS together.

This includes conference games, not just non-conference. The rating likes the SEC the most, followed by the Pac 10, Big East, ACC, Big 12, Big 10, Independents and MWC, C-USA, WAC, MAC and Sun Belt. Remember, this isn't counting games against FCS teams.

I tried to come up with a response to this, but I can't.

I like a good conspiracy - I suspect that somehow a BCS team would have ended up in spot #2. In many peoples' minds, TCU, Boise and even Cincinnati don't sport the strength of schedule to warrant inclusion in the championship game.

EDIT:
The Sagarin ratings have Florida at #2, still over Texas.
The Anderson and Hester ranking hasn't been updated, yet, but Florida has a reasonable lead over Texas.
Same with the Billingsly Report.
The Colley Matrix will likely see Texas jump Florida.
Florida has a reasonable lead over Cincinnati in the Peter Wolfe rating.
In the Massey rating, Texas isn't even close.

And I think we all know what the human polls will look like.

Whatever they say over at the BCS, their formulae fail to determine a national champion that satisfies most of the people. They can spew forth whatever rubbish they wish, but in the end they can't deny that.

It's the human polls. Each human poll contributes 1/3 of the final BCS standing. At most, a computer rating contributes 1/4 of the last 1/3, or 1/12. Each computer rating has a very, very slim chance at excluding, or including any team from the top two.

I'd worry more about human voters conspiring or, at the very least, colluding to exclude tcu or cincinnati. If Texas wins, I don't see any way they don't play for the 'championship.' If they lose, my vote is for Cincinnati.

This will be the first and only time I will pull for Nebraska. Ever. And I'm a Texas 'alum.'

But not in that case. Without incriminating myself too much, I'm happy to concede that she was right on.

I did a quick search but didn't find it.
http://mgoblog.com/content/unverified-voracitys-hiring-bob-stoops-be-iho...

And the link to Dr. Saturday:
http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/blog/dr_saturday/post/This-Thanksg...

...because it's 2/3 opinion poll. As a result, it's inherently biased and flawed. Look at what happened to Cal a few years ago and Michigan in 2006 and 1997. The pollsters were swayed by petitioning and politics. That's how polls work.

There's a lot more at stake with the top 2 than with the top 16. If you've lost 0 or 1 game, you have a lot more claim to a tourney bid than if you've lost 3 or 4 games. True, there's a lot more room for error, but at that point, the consequences are much less significant.

...and 1/18 each of six (EDIT: 1/12 of four, top and bottom are dropped) computer ratings. The voters will get whichever teams they want into the BCS title game.

We beat DSU, EMU and WMU. BIG. We didn't lose to Toledo; and almost lose to Miami.

We played most other teams close: MSU, OSU, PU, Iowa. We eliminate turnovers, and we win at least a couple of those.

Rodriguez is still a heck of a coach. Barring NCAA violations, I fully expect him to get this turned around.

This team played hard every week. To the last whistle.

Sad this season ended, but looking forward to next season.

There weren't that many protests...

Maybe I was a naive and sheltered undergrad at Michigan, but UCLA was the first place I'd been that really felt like a business, making money off its students. All these years later, and several more schools, and it still sticks out in my mind.

That said, loved my time there. But I'll always bleed maize and blue.

I'll see what I can do about that for next week. Maybe a few fictitious wins here and there will do the trick.

While it looks so in this analysis, it's a direct result of my failure to properly handle undefeated teams and a lack of a wins and losses comparison between the top teams.

Next week I'll either add the fictional tie team (which I'm loathe to do from a purist perspective) or calculate the round-robin winning percentage (RRWP) and strength of schedule (SOS) to go along with the infinite rating for undefeated teams.

This has been added to the info on the link above.

Thanks again.

I captured this during the DSU liveblog:
http://quakk.co.cc/misc/dsu.um.htm

I forgot my password (waiting impatiently for a reset), so I haven't been able to try it. Can anyone get it to work?

He caught me off-guard with his critical comments on a few of my first posts. But I've since come to appreciate his unique brand of 'objectivity.' Now I often lol at his posts.

I'll also agree that personal attacks on a public forum are bad form. You may not agree with what he says or how he says it, but he doesn't strike me as an idiot.

Lloyd Carr was great for Michigan football. He has done and continues to represent the university well. My love for the anti-Carr is no reflection on my feelings for the man or his tenure as head football coach.

However, I love the risk-reward ratio of the new regime. I always hated punts. I love going for it on 4th down. I'd rather go for the win with a 2-point conversion down 1 with 0:01 left than play for overtime. That's just me.

I share with you all a healthy concern for where we're going. But I'm willing to suspend my judgement for a while in favour of those who know more than me (almost all of you, definitely the coaching staff and players), to see if history does, in fact, repeat itself. Will Rich Rodriguez experience the same success here that he has in the past? I think (hope!) he will. I'm willing to absorb a bit of short-term pain for what I think, in the long run, will work out very nicely.

And for that, I like seeing Denard in there. I'm ok with him making mistakes in exchange for learning and maturation. I'm ok with starting walk-ons; I like seeing them hit the field when most people told them there wasn't a chance in hell; depth is never a bad thing. I would rather see us play UCLA and Florida State, Virginia, Syracuse, Oregon, Washington and Colorado, rather than Delaware State; I don't care if we beat DSU 63-6 - I'd rather see a good game, and I think we learn more from losing to a better team than hammering a cupcake.

And one day, I really hope we see a playoff, like in every other NCAA sport, to stop encouraging teams to load up on cupcakes every year.

Finally, I respect, maybe even share, the healthy skepticism shown here lately. I'm just not sure how it's helpful.

Chess games 2 and 3 had me rofl. Well done, sir.

Concerned? Maybe. Still patient? Yes.

Makes me wonder what those mitigating circumstances really are.

I'm content to wait and see what happens after another couple of years, at least. I've seen a lot of improvement over last year, even if the last two games did suck.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Rodriguez#West_Virginia_2

2005 West Virginia 11-1 7-0 1st W Sugar
2006 West Virginia 11-2 5-2 T-2nd W Gator
2007 West Virginia 10-2* 5-2 T-1st * Invited to Fiesta

His team won that Fiesta Bowl, 48-28 over #3 Oklahoma.

Average 8+ wins 6 of the previous 8 years at WVU and at Glenville St. Maybe he had nothing to do with the 12-0 season at Tulane as assistant coach, offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.

There's nothing there to suggest to me that he won't succeed here, if given some time.

That was a scary play.

The announcers showed the replay at the time and discussed it thusly. Since Penn State had kicked the ball, they were no longer the offensive team, so it's not a block.

I guess that makes logical sense, but since when is it legal to push an offensive player in the back like that. Seems inherently dangerous to me, not only as evidenced by Hemingway's injury.

That's got to be a penalty. Right?

You mentioned this slingbox thing last week, too. What is it, man?

Doesn't look like BTN is streaming this game.

"I'd do the free live stream but the quality can be suspect, and this is too big of a game to risk it."

True, but some of us beggars can't be choosers. Also, we pay for bandwidth here, so the lower quality stream is the difference between 2GB (14% of my monthly quota) and 500MB (3%), easy.

This one's pretty reliable:
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/michigan-sports

I get a better picture here, but sometimes the performance isn't as good (and i'm not sure there was a feed for the Indiana game - found an Indiana feed so I never checked):
http://www.justin.tv/cobra00

The myp2p link for this week is here:
http://www.myp2pforum.eu/ncaa/44275-archive-ncaa-football-week-5-streami...

Usually there is a link or two on the liveblog, but it doesn't always have all of them.

what do you think about opening it up to more than 25 voters? 25 seems like an extremely small sample size for something like this.

leave it to a michigan fan to actually want to make sure they got the call right. it bothered me, too, thinking we were gifted something we didn't earn.

looking at these and the photos over at maize and brew, i'm pretty happy they got the call right. after watching the replay on the notre dame out of bounds call, i was pretty happy they got that one right, too.

there's something dissatisfying in saying we won because the refs screwed up. this time we won because we won.

and that, my friends, is a satisfying feeling. even if the defense is young and the offense is young and they make mistakes. this team has a chance every week, and that makes this wolverine fan very happy.

go blue!

people keep saying this. two were the offsides snaps. one denard failed to handle. i don't recall the other two.

if moosman stops with the offsides snag and the quarterbacks can handle the snaps that come to them, this is largely a non-issue.

i think the former has probably already been handled, and the latter, well, we can hope. but that's not moosman's fault.

what a bunch of elitists we have on this blog.

the quality here is far and away better than almost anything else i read. i can appreciate the intent and any efforts to keep it that way. but some of you guys are really full of yourselves...

"stupid newbies"
"reject stupid newbie auditions"

is this one of those stupid newbie posts?

i've been thinking about this, too. having two qb's on the field who can both run and pass could certainly open things up. what about denard taking a handoff, passing it back across the field to tate, who goes deep to hemingway? or, after a bit more development, going deep himself. or tate passing back across to denard who takes off at mach 8.

can we call this 2 points a minute?

unfortunately, i'm afraid you might be right that there will be something and we will be punished. that said...

if everyone's doing it, shouldn't everyone be punished? i'm not excusing any disregard for the rules. if we're guilty, i'd rather fess up and take my punishment - and find out how to work within the rules. but if it's as widespread as these studies are saying, maybe it's time to look at the rules?

fundamentally, i don't have a problem with the rules the way they are. i do recognise that to be the best, you're going to put in that extra time. sure, there are some athletes who enjoy the work. but i don't doubt that there's a ton of peer pressure on all the athletes to attend the "voluntary" workouts. i wouldn't necessarily suggest relaxing the rules so people are no longer "violating" them.

but with the college football landscape what it is now, i can't see schools, or athletes, scaling back the amount of work they put into their athletics, voluntary or not. that is, unless the ncaa gets really, really heavy-handed. i just don't see that happening. those heavy hands would have to spread far and wide to achieve their objective.