Correction: Meyer had 14 months to focus on recruiting. He was the lead analyst for NCAA football that year and he used the air time to do a lot of subtle negative recruiting. I well remember him none-too-subtly wondering whether Denard Robinson was best served at Michigan.
I love John Beilein. But I think it's time we retired the "Beilein wouldn't do this unless he had to" meme. He's shown that he's willing to put other coaches and other programs and even his own players in tough spots. Sadly, that is the bare minimum needed to succeed in today's college hoops. But it also disqualifies you from the automatic "he's a nice guy" disclaimer.
Everything I read about the kid says that Michigan is the best fit for who he is as a person. What does he care if Calipari can develop bigs? He's going to be a top 3 pick whatever happens.
I'm not even sure that Urban Meyer will be at OSU five years from now. He left Florida early because of various issues (family, health, depression, psychology) that are probably still with him. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he left a lot earlier than OSU fans hope.
because he showed the ability to make clutch steals at the end of games almost at will. the author in the linked article comments that he seemed to be saving himself, but I think they didn't quite get the point that he was saving himself strategically rather than physically. it's not that he was being lazy, it's that he saw a vulnerability and saved the "zero day exploit" for the key moment in the game. Super smart basketball player.
1) as a former resident of Dayton, Ohio--ppl in dayton do not care about Ball State. it is closer to Ann Arbor than to Dayton (and there is a darned nice McDonald's right off I-75 which makes a great pit stop for the Dayton to AA drive). People in Dayton care about Ohio State. It is a bastion-- the suburban Centerville High is a major feeder to OSU--A.J. Hawk, for example.
2) Michigan had a thing. It was the pro-style quarterback. Remember Brian Griese, Tom Brady, John Navarre, Chad Henne? That was another one of the things that Bill Martin threw out when he hired Martin. Getting our "thing" back isn't as easy as getting a good coach back. Same as if Penn State decided "meh ... linebackers are stupid" for a few years or Nebraska decided "we want skinny linemen and orange jerseys for our defense" or MSU decided ... well, you get the drift, little brother.
Geez, all this recruiting stuff is a bit too intense for me right now. Let's relax and enjoy a new beginning. It'll all work out. If Michigan can recruit every JAP on the east coast to spend four years in Ann Arbor, we can recruit some good lacrose players, too.
Amen! My first game was watching Ken Brady and Henry Wilmore in 1969. Brady hit a 35 foot hook shot to win it. This is one of the best teams ever. Zack Novak is Steve Grote.
It always amazes me when sports journalists (and now Brian has become an uber-sj) discuss transfer ideas without talking about what the coach's spouse might want Harbaugh is recently remarried and has a newborn daughter. Don't you think his wife's preferences are going to have a major impact on his decision?
Apparently, Sarah Feuerborn Harbaugh is from Kansas City, Missouri. It's not clear how much of a West Coastie she is: she was living in Las Vegas when they met. Much will depend on whether she wants to raise her daughter in Palo Alto (why not?) or whether she is interested in settling for life (could Harbaugh ever be fired?) in Ann Arbor, whose quality of life is best described as "a B+ in everything."
I'm surprised that no one ever mentions that firing Rodriguez at the end of this year would create a risk of having Denard and many other Rodriguez recruits transfer. We could easily lose a guy who may be good enough to be the best offensive player at Michigan, ever.
CEOs are always concerned about keeping the "star" individual performers. If firing your department head means losing your best engineers, probably not a good idea. Brandon knows that.
Unfortunately, failing to convert on a roll out run on 4th & 8 on your 18 at the decisive moment in a crucial game probably disqualifies you from player of the year at your position, especially when your position is one where mistake avoidance is so critical.
Wish it weren't so...
I thought we should have gone for 2 on the final possession. I rate Forcier's chance of converting a 3-yard play as substantially higher than 44%. Kid's a clutch player who's great at scrambling and the short passing game. How many of his possessions (throw or run) went for more than 3 years during the game? He was 17 for 32, so that's probably 15 or 16 passes for greater than 3 yards, and he had a heck of a lot of 5 yard scrambles.
Conversely, I don't see how we could have justified, estimating the probability of winning in OT, away, against a team that outplayed us most of the game, at any more than 50%.
Until Crable got that flag, we were clearly going to get the ball back, march down the field, score, and win. We had the momentum.
Crable, agh, what a knack for the huge mental mistake.
His greatest play at Michigan was in the MSU game where he missed the RB 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, then ran 75 yards the length of the field to make a touchdown-saving tackle. Typical.
Zach Gibson is my favorite player this year because he so clearly has a lot of great ideas about driving athletically to the basket, sinking 3 pointers, etc., but only converts about half of these great ideas into reality. What I love trying to figure out is whether as he gets older, he's going to make an increasing percentage of these plays -- in which case he will be an excellent player -- or whether he is going to continue to miss about half of them, in which case he is sort of the white version of Brent Petway.
Manny Harris looked great when he turned it on. I thought he took some time off at different portions of the game.
Sims had an effective game, but could have done more against NCCU's big men, I thought.
they are not going to go .500 in the Big Ten unless some of the other guys play better.
The average isn't the only interesting statistic about the rushing game this year. Remember the incredible number of 0 or negative yardage non-sack plays in the first several games? That's an abnormal distribution. It's my impression that the number of totally failed running plays significantly decreased towards the end of the year.
Morning after OSU weekend is a good time to commit if you have it in for OSU, which is what Sam Webb said this morning about Vlad. Apparently OSU was hot and heavy after Vlad, then cooled down when he had an ACL. That's when Michigan got into the mix.
Good point about 20 years experience/20 years at Michigan.
But your point about sunk costs is also relevant to the question of whether Rodriguez is a "quality coach": "past performance is no guarantee of future results."
It's all going to depend on what happens when Rich Rod looks inside himself in the offseason of this year (and probably in the offseason of next year, when they will probably go 5-7 or so).
Does he have value to add now that the spread has been widely assimilated? Is he a coaching genius, or a Johnny One-Note? time will tell...
"restore his reputation" was a little strong.
but it has certainly taken a dent, and if his teams struggle for the next couple of years (which seems entirely possible given the returning talent), he is going to be a much less marketable commodity.
if you want to add a "national championship forgives all" clause to my wins quota, that's perfectly reasonable.
The math doesn't lie, though. Either you say "forget about the first X years of the contract, we only care about the trend at the end," or you count every year of the RR era (not just the ones you want to ;-), and going 3-9 in the first year means you have to win a hell of a lot of games in the next five years to have a decent average wins per season.
So he needs to average eight games a year over six years?
Then he needs to win 45 more games in five years, or 9 games a year. That seems doable. That would give him an average of 8 wins every year in his first contract term.
But wait a minute, didn't we all hate going 8-4 every year?
So do we apply a weighting factor--wins in the second half of the contract are worth twice as much? 1.2 times as much?
Obviously, I HAD MY TONGUE IN CHEEK a little bit when I fliply said "all you have to do is say WATCH FOR THE FAKE," but regardless of what Rodriguez said, I put it on the coaches. The coach (WARNING: NEW STANDARD) also has responsibility for getting his message through.
So, BY YOUR OWN STANDARD, that was a coaching success, and it was all the players' fault? Hm.
I don't know if he's bad or not. What I know is that he has a six year contract, and almost nothing good has happened in his first year. I'll never know to what extent that is his fault, but I wonder, as I said, whether he was really up to the job.
A reasonable estimate would be that he has somewhere between three and five years left here before he gets Tommy Amakered. What's our standard for success over those years? I would say beat Ohio State more than half the time; average at least nine wins; and prevail in at least one BCS game.
To average nine wins over six years, he would have to win 51 games in the next 5 years, or 10.2 per year. So far, he's 3-8.
I am perfectly willing to stand by this standard five years from now, if anyone remembers (which is what we Drew Sharps count on ;-). Check back with me then.
My feelings aren't hurt. Why take it personally? Obviously, you're a moron. ;-)
I hate to break this to you, but I am a lawyer. Although thankfully I realized immediately after passing the bar that the lifestyle sucked and there were many more interesting things to do in life.
Recent Comments
Agree that Beilein's adaptability at 65 is really impressive.
Correction: Meyer had 14 months to focus on recruiting. He was the lead analyst for NCAA football that year and he used the air time to do a lot of subtle negative recruiting. I well remember him none-too-subtly wondering whether Denard Robinson was best served at Michigan.
I love John Beilein. But I think it's time we retired the "Beilein wouldn't do this unless he had to" meme. He's shown that he's willing to put other coaches and other programs and even his own players in tough spots. Sadly, that is the bare minimum needed to succeed in today's college hoops. But it also disqualifies you from the automatic "he's a nice guy" disclaimer.
Everything I read about the kid says that Michigan is the best fit for who he is as a person. What does he care if Calipari can develop bigs? He's going to be a top 3 pick whatever happens.
Any evidence for this other than reading recruiting sites?
The beginnng of an Ahab like vendetta that he seems to have finally let go.
No question, the first Zack Novak victory.
Great post.
Maybe Scotty popped a couple of antigrav pods in the enclosure to help with the displacement issue.
He was a legit 6'11 or 7".
Agree that having an NBA career = #WINNING
I think a Falcon is more of a SCREEE!!!!
Laimbeer-esque-ish not a huge stretch. Looks like RD will be a great four-year starter.
I'm not even sure that Urban Meyer will be at OSU five years from now. He left Florida early because of various issues (family, health, depression, psychology) that are probably still with him. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he left a lot earlier than OSU fans hope.
I like how he's playing matador defense until he saves the play with his athleticism.
Rutgers unis look like giant optical illusion.
great point on the implied threat in GRIII's early passes on the break
because he showed the ability to make clutch steals at the end of games almost at will. the author in the linked article comments that he seemed to be saving himself, but I think they didn't quite get the point that he was saving himself strategically rather than physically. it's not that he was being lazy, it's that he saw a vulnerability and saved the "zero day exploit" for the key moment in the game. Super smart basketball player.
the defender's body at the end of the block. Probably enough contact to justify a foul.
1) as a former resident of Dayton, Ohio--ppl in dayton do not care about Ball State. it is closer to Ann Arbor than to Dayton (and there is a darned nice McDonald's right off I-75 which makes a great pit stop for the Dayton to AA drive). People in Dayton care about Ohio State. It is a bastion-- the suburban Centerville High is a major feeder to OSU--A.J. Hawk, for example.
2) Michigan had a thing. It was the pro-style quarterback. Remember Brian Griese, Tom Brady, John Navarre, Chad Henne? That was another one of the things that Bill Martin threw out when he hired Martin. Getting our "thing" back isn't as easy as getting a good coach back. Same as if Penn State decided "meh ... linebackers are stupid" for a few years or Nebraska decided "we want skinny linemen and orange jerseys for our defense" or MSU decided ... well, you get the drift, little brother.
Suggest you ping the UT President's Facebook page. He only has 409 friends so this will probably get his attention.
http://www.facebook.com/UTPresidentJoe
What's your new gig?
Geez, all this recruiting stuff is a bit too intense for me right now. Let's relax and enjoy a new beginning. It'll all work out. If Michigan can recruit every JAP on the east coast to spend four years in Ann Arbor, we can recruit some good lacrose players, too.
Amen! My first game was watching Ken Brady and Henry Wilmore in 1969. Brady hit a 35 foot hook shot to win it. This is one of the best teams ever. Zack Novak is Steve Grote.
blueheron is right. PA would be pretty nice if you had Harbaugh's money.
what matters is what Sarah Harbaugh thinks about the choice.
It always amazes me when sports journalists (and now Brian has become an uber-sj) discuss transfer ideas without talking about what the coach's spouse might want Harbaugh is recently remarried and has a newborn daughter. Don't you think his wife's preferences are going to have a major impact on his decision?
Apparently, Sarah Feuerborn Harbaugh is from Kansas City, Missouri. It's not clear how much of a West Coastie she is: she was living in Las Vegas when they met. Much will depend on whether she wants to raise her daughter in Palo Alto (why not?) or whether she is interested in settling for life (could Harbaugh ever be fired?) in Ann Arbor, whose quality of life is best described as "a B+ in everything."
the Leon Hall 83yd fumble return around 9, the Lamarr Woodley rumble against ND at 10:28 or so, and the Thompson convoy at 11:45.
Boy, it was great when the other team's inexperienced quarterbacks obligingly put it right on the numbers for our defensive backs.
I noticed the freshman defensive back Clarence Thompson making a pretty nice read & pick six.
I'm surprised that no one ever mentions that firing Rodriguez at the end of this year would create a risk of having Denard and many other Rodriguez recruits transfer. We could easily lose a guy who may be good enough to be the best offensive player at Michigan, ever.
CEOs are always concerned about keeping the "star" individual performers. If firing your department head means losing your best engineers, probably not a good idea. Brandon knows that.
None of the name schools are going to give USC free publicity while they are on probation. Why help your competition recruit?
Maybe USC can schedule something with Hawaii.
Usually when I