uncleFred

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2 days 18 hours ago 78% of NFL players are bankrupt 2 years after retirement

From a SI article in 2009.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1153364/index...

Also mentioned here in a Detroit News column by Angelique here:

http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120519/OPINION03/205190390/1131/rss17

She also quotes the statistic that 50% of player's marriages end within the first year of retirement.

 
1 week 2 days ago In my humble opinion the number inaugural slots is to small

You really need to think about how many teams you are trying to sift through. That said:

1: Long -- beyond great

2: Hart -- Tough humble unyeilding the definition of a champion 

3: Henne - played hurt and won games that no one had a right to expect. Brian how can you leave him out?  

4: Woodley -- Great

5: Avant - as much as I would like to put Manningham here he left early. I understand why but that knocks him down a bit.

6: Graham/Molk/Martin 
1 week 3 days ago While stars matter - perhaps not so much in May...

The mathlete and other have demonstrated that star rankings matter, but those are how players are ranked after signing day. As others have pointed out, offers from top 25 programs tend to raise player rankings. I'm sure that Hoke and co didn't just see something they liked, they saw a player who is a fit for their system and they grabbed him before he came to the attention of the national services.
2 weeks 14 hours ago So lets consider...

As a student I watched Rick Leach and Rob Lytle play. This is Brian's blog and he is free to set whatever rules he chooses. That said, as much as you young guys want to have your hall of fame start sometime close to when you attended Michigan, there remains some number, perhaps more than you might think, of your members here at MGoBlog whose personal experience stretches back directly to Bo.

If you truly want a hall of fame then you may want to consider allowing us old timers to nominate the guys we watched play. I could argue, despite a lot of push back, that Rick Leach was the catalyst for Bo to start passing on first down. 

Back when the HOF was first brought up I suggested that to nominate someone the nomination had to come from someone who watched the nominee play. I'll bet that there are folks here who predate Bo. Probably not by much, but I'm not that old, so my bet is probably pretty safe. 

The early part of the Bo era featured some pretty incredible guys. Part of the reason that we love team 132 is that they persevered through two coaching transistions in 4 years. The guys that were on Bo's first team had suffered a lot more disappointment than that. Don't you think there might be a couple of guys on the 69 and/or 70 teams who deserve to be remembered for reestablishing the tradition we all so deeply love? 

Anyway as an old guy from the 70s I nominiate Rick Leach and Rob Lytle to the HOF as greats from the ten year war.
2 weeks 1 day ago Welcome Mr. York!     May

Welcome Mr. York!

    May your time at Michigan be rich and rewarding. May you excell and build a foundation from which to achieve everything you wish for both in college and later in life. 

Good luck and Go Blue!
2 weeks 2 days ago The only ticket I ever scalped was OSU my senior year.

Eight of us had bought our seats together and as seniors our seats started at about the 45 maybe a quarter of the way up. It was a very very hard choice, but as a block those tickets were gold, and I had tuition to pay. We'd all promised each other that we'd sell the OSU tickets as a block. We sold the eight tickets for $2400 to a bunch of alums. To put that in perspective $2400 was more than a semester of upper class instate tuition. I regretted it when I did it, and regret it to this day, but sometime you have to face fiscal reality. Otherwise, while I was a student, I attended every home game. I'm still sad about selling it. 
2 weeks 2 days ago You can't update traditions.

You can't update traditions. Nuff said
3 weeks 13 hours ago Whether or not Brandon opened the checkbook

It's pretty clear that Hoke was NOT a return to 3 yards and a cloud of dust or punting on fourth and 3. Rich Rod and the spread have departed from Michigan. Some folks, Brian among them, initially judged Hoke apparently based on their frustration with their perceptions of how RRod was treated. Brian has since reevaluated Hoke based on what he has done instead of his fears about what Hoke might have done. He should be commended for that, however that does not excuse his initial rush to judgement. 

Your central premise is that had Brandon not opened the checkbook to get Mattison, Hoke would have ended up more like RRod. Perhaps, but somehow I have a very hard time believing that. Borges was relatively cheap in his first year with us, and Hoke was a very successful defensive coach. Would we have gone 11-2 without Mattison? Probably not, but I have a hunch that we'd still have had a solid season had Brandon kept the checkbook closed. I, for one, am greatfull he wrote the checks.  

That is the past. The future is bright. Rather than defend the hyperbole of the past, why not focus on the future?
3 weeks 13 hours ago Whether or not Brandon opened the checkbook

It's pretty clear that Hoke was NOT a return to 3 yards and a cloud of dust or punting on fourth and 3. Rich Rod and the spread have departed from Michigan. Some folks, Brian among them, initially judged Hoke apparently based on their frustration with their preceptions of how RRod was treated. Brian has since reevaluated Hoke based on what he has done instead of his fears about what Hoke might have done. He should be commended for that, however that does not excuse his initial rush to judgement. 

Your central premise is that had Brandon not opened the checkbook to get Mattison, Hoke would have ended up more like RRod. Perhaps, but somehow I have a very hard time believing that. Borges was relatively cheap in his first year with us, and Hoke was a very successful defensive coach. Would we have gone 11-2 without Mattison? Probably not, but I have a hunch that we'd still have had a solid season had Brandon kept the checkbook closed. I, for one, am greatfull he wrote the checks.  

That is the past. The future is bright. Rather than defend the hyperbole of the past, why not focus on the future?
3 weeks 19 hours ago As this continues to unfold

I find myself ever more opposed to playoffs. I like the college football conference system. I love B10 football. I loved it back in the 60's and 70's when the pundits called us football dinosaurs and I love the game we play in this conference today. I'm whistful for the old days where every big ten team played 8 or ideally 9 conference games. It didn't always produce a clear champion, but it made more sense to me than the divisional system we have now. While I understand the desire of many to have "the best" (4/6/8/16) teams resolve a national championship on the field, I fear that within a couple decades that spells the end for our traditional football conferences. To some degree I share the desire for a playoff, but not at the expense of destroying the great conferences with all their traditions and history. If we lose the big ten eventually we'll lose "The Game" along with it. The pressure of the B1G Championship game is already threatening keeping "The Game" at the end of the regular season.

Someone wrote that the end of the Rose Bowl was certain the day the first BCS national championship game was played. It certainly looks like he will eventually be proved correct. 

As much as I chaffed over the "shared championship" in 1997, had I realized the future the BCS would bring us, I'd have gladly left the bowl system alone. 
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