blogs!

Sponsor note. Well folks, if you're thinking about doing some business you're probably going to need a lawyer to incorporate you, deal with contracts, and dispense advice of the legal variety. Richard Hoeg will do this for you.

Once you have assembled his legal might into a towering edifice of impregnable turrets, buttresses, and whatnot you can proceed with your plans to sell all the locusts to Mars. That's not a good idea. Why do you think that is going to be profitable? There are no people on Mars. How are you going to get all the locusts? Maybe just sell some hand-made knitting or something?

Just because it makes sense and is fair doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. There was much controversy in the sports media about the pending Big Ten championship game, which will now feature Ohio State because we are living in 14-year-old OSU fan's NCAA dynasty. Ah well.

By the rules established prior to this bizarre season, Ohio State is ineligible because they only played five games. Common sense dictates that since Ohio State beat the only other team in the division that is not a trash fire, they should go. The split is between

• people who think that Ohio State should be in the title game and that excluding them is obviously unfair, and
• people who think that Ohio State should be in the title game and that excluding them is extremely funny.

We've already decided that a seven point win over Indiana is apparently a playoff-quality resume as long as you detonate the Nebraskas of the world, so following the rules wouldn't even have cost OSU a berth. Northwestern-Indiana for all* the marbles as an undefeated Ohio State kicks rocks would have been the fitting coda to this stupid season. Alas.

Next up in pipedreams: put Coastal Carolina in over OSU. Coastal beat BYU! Coastal has played twice as many games! Coastal's mascot is Rooster Chad! This is not close!

[After THE JUMP: flange]

Yo this is going to be some #content right here, since I don’t have time for nothing else. I was going through our lists in preparation to transfer the tertiary things to the new site (don’t ask) and this reminded me it had been a long time since we cleaned up the links on the sidebar.

I’ve done so, but it hurt to remove some old bookmarks I used to check every day. So they don’t all just get summarily dumped, I figured a thread in tribute to some great Michigan writing during the formative years of blogging was in order. If you joined the sphere too late for the age when 20-something Michigan fans all had blogspots and tried to invent our own shticks so as to not come off as LiveJournals, some of them are worth going back and reading.

A top three:

Burgeoning Wolverine Star

An X’s and O’s Michigan blog. Chris Gaerig is one of those guys I keep meaning to contact about writing for HTTV sometime because he was a fantastic writer as well as a deep thinker about specific Michigan plays. His posts used to get linked regularly in UFRs. Neck Sharpies exists because I set out myself to fill some of the void he left. Also: basketball.

The Blog That Yost Built

There are two types of MGoBlog readers: those who think we have too much hockey, and those who think it’s awful how little we cover hockey. Tim Williams started his site because we didn’t have enough hockey coverage at MGoBlog and if he still had time to write he’d be a regular here, since we’re all among the former as well.

Ronald Bellamy’s Underachieving All-Stars

Though he has a far better writing gig these days, I still think of him as Johnny RBUAS. If you have ever wanted to feel very emotional about a beloved Michigan player’s fictionalized stream of consciousness, this site was for you. If you haven’t, really that’s okay, I won’t curl up in a ball and cry, unless Johnny RBUAS writes about it. Bonus: the url was umichedme dot blogspot.

Others I remember and don’t:

• The Ace of Sports—His name was Ace (actually Harry), and he liked M and Detroit sports. Get it?
• Autumn Thunder—The half-assed Michigan blog. MS Paint, Hart, and more Hart. Still occasionally useful, though some of his best work has grown outdated.
• Bitter Rivals—Short-lived M v MSU site, beat Mike Hart to the fraternal metaphor.
• Blah Blah Blah—2008 was not the year to start blogging about Michigan.
• Hokeamaniac—That didn’t last.
• In Rod We Trust—That didn’t last either.
• Maize Wings—Very late to the very late-‘00s blogging party
• MGoBlue Football
• MGoSwim
• Michigan Football Recruiting—Guy I grew up with made a crootin site.
• Michigan Football Saturdays—Dedicated blogger in the era of everyone had a blog
• Michigan Hockey Net—Covered M hockey, Red Wings
• MMMGoBlueBBQ—Joe Pichey wrote for himself before he wrote for us.
• Stadium & Main
• The Diag—MLive tried to have a blog
• The Game—Can’t think why a M fan wouldn’t want to post daily about the M-OSU rivalry anymore.
• The M Zone—Humor site, now a worthy follow.
• The Michigan Faithful
• The Wolverine Blog
• Three And Out
• UMGoBlog—Annoyingly, would get our traffic. Annoyingly, UMGoBlue.com took his twitter handle.
• Victors Valiant—Had useful previews.
• When Carcajous Attack!—Used to have some great previews, joined Maize ‘n Brew for a time.
• Wolverine Liberation Army—Only the unicorns remain of the once proud proletariat
• Wolverines Daily

What did I miss? What do you miss?

[ED: been slightly crazy around here recently, so UFR delayed. Look for both halves tomorrow. Not that they'll tell you anything you didn't already know.]

continuing this week's theme

The response. Brandon on the emails:

"I don't read blogs so I think it's nonsense. …  I'm here to get an award tonight, so I appreciate you showing up, but that's not why I'm here."

Would you describe this award as… major?

Also, from former CSG president Mike Proppe:

I've had multiple conversations with Dave Brandon. He has talked about @mgoblog before. So...yeah.

— Michael Proppe (@mikeproppe) October 29, 2014

Doesn't seem to be working. You know it's bad when the Alumni association publishes  a piece titled "Alumni React to Lower Football Student Ticket Prices" and this is the nicest thing in it:

"If the students are not part of the Athletic tradition, then it becomes just a business and commercial venture."

It's nice because it says "if." Other choice excerpts:

"I come to Ann Arbor to remember the days that I lived there, that I went to games with friends, that I remembered cheering for MY team. If I wanted a corporate culture, I'd just go to an NFL game."

"The athletic department procedures have emptied the cupboard of alumni support over the last several years and it will take a significant change within the department to bolster the level of support and fervor that existed then."

"It's appalling that the students are the ones being seen as just one more "market" to be considered...without student support of the University, you will eventually lose alumni support."

The comments are another continual carpet-bombing, including this comment left by Steve Strinko:

Our 1974 Football team is being honored at Homecoming and we did get 1 complimentary ticket, however, I am bringing the allotted three guests at a cost of $75 per ticket. Seem crazy to pay $225 for my family to join me at this event. Oh well, the state of Michigan Athletics, or at least football.

Strinko was the starting MLB on the 1974 team.

This is from the alumni association! When you've lost the alumni association, who do you have left?

This was made a month ago. Sometimes marketing does help, because how did no one see this until 11W?

Ripped from the headlines.

Mr. Brandon’s emails and @mgoblog made an appearance in today’s Business Comm class. pic.twitter.com/crjnXe0TXw

— Ben Fidelman (@TMDFidelman) October 29, 2014

@DrewCHallett @mgoblog To directly quote my prof: “Don’t be a dick to alums that could donate to the department.”

— Ben Fidelman (@TMDFidelman) October 29, 2014

Hope Brandon's taking this pass/fail.

It could have been much worse. In general, football games that feel like Michigan's latest outing aren't close. They are even less close than 35-11. Bill Connelly:

2x

In the end, even with State's late touchdown, the final score of Michigan State 35, Michigan 11 was kind to the losing team. The Spartans doubled the Wolverines on a per-play basis (6.6 yards to 3.3) and more than doubled them up in total yardage (446 to 186). And the game was played at a snail's pace, too (125 total plays) -- even an average pace would have resulted in a Spartan win of 30-plus points.

Finally, a justification for being the slowest team in the country.

I…  I can say nothing. Here is an Indiana blog talking about football, and landing body blows.

I, an Indiana football fan, feel bad for you.

Welcome to the Big Ten Underworld, Wolverine fans. The days are long, the nights are filled with six-touchdown losses to Ohio State, and one in every 5-7 seasons ends in a post-Christmas bowl in Detroit. Your program is now on a comparable level to a partly-incapacitated Indiana.

Well, at least I…

crap

Nevermind.

If you are interested in Indiana football, though. Here's a terrific blog with weekly film breakdowns. From their take on the IU offense under Zander Diamont:

By my count, Diamont only kept it on a zone read one other time. Given the state of the quarterback position, I imagine Diamont was under fairly strict instructions to hand the ball off to Coleman early and often. Probably for the same reason, we also didn’t see Diamont running any speed option or QB draw. He looked mobile on a few rollouts and he did a decent job of running for his life when Sparty put him under pressure.

To sum it up, as we discussed last week, expecting anything out of Diamont in this game was unrealistic. If we define “expecting nothing” as expecting Diamont to account for zero yards rushing or passing, well…somehow Zander failed to meet expectations. In non-garbage time, Diamont threw for -2 yards and ran for –12. While the numbers are troubling, I was more concerned with the way he missed a number of somewhat simple throws. He missed all four of the 5-7-yard hitches/outs he attempted, and three of the four weren’t close. His two attempts to get the ball downfield to Wynn missed badly.

Punt John Punt, it's called. Never say I didn't do anything for you, Jamie.

THE SMOKING GUNNNNNN. I feel confident in asserting this gentleman has a beard, on his neck.

Something nice. Basketball will hold an open practice on Wednesday from 6 to 7. Not today. Next Wednesday.

A blast from the past. A USCHO poster has unearthed and scanned in a program from the 1983 Michigan Tech-Michigan series—the last time M traveled to Houghton.

Quite an artifact.

[HT: SBN CH]

You may not be doing this right. I've seen a few different message board threads stating that Doug Karsch said that he's talked to two sources in the Brandon camp who are "bracing for a change"—same language in multiple places, so I thought it was pretty legit. So I wander over to 97.1's podcasts page and find that the only item posted today is…

…bzzzzt.

Etc.: Brandon emails dramatically performed by Drew & Marc. HSR gets emails from everyone. Bring Your Champions! Berenson on Marek vs Wyshynski

John Gasaway on offensive rebounding and how you shouldn't totally ignore it in favor of transition D. Michigan is classified as a team that "de-emphasizes" OREBs, FWIW, and is not exhorted to crash the glass. Northwestern is.