RITonight.  Get it? Get it? Puck drops on Michigan's season opener in a couple hours. Yost Built has a preview and a wrapup season preview post. A few comments on Michigan exhibition against Windsor:

• Trouba is the truth. Three assists, one leveling open-ice hit, and defensive responsibility until everyone got sloppy up a ton in the third. A tape to tape breakout pass machine. Money money money.
• Andrew Copp is an interesting guy to keep an eye on. Not a big recruit by any stretch of the imagination but Copp stood out as a big dude with some jump; he split time between football and hockey in high school and may develop into something a bit better than Danny Fardig 2.0.
• Moffatt-Treais-PDG looks to be your top line, at least for now, with the wingers on that line seeming to have good chemistry. Looking for a bustout year from PDG, who was young enough to get drafted after his freshman year and should improve greatly.
• Brennan Serville is another guy I'll be watching early for signs of improvement, especially with Merrill out six weeks and Serville skating every night as a result. Initial impression was not much different than last year's struggles, unfortunately, but confirmation bias and all that.
• I miss Hunwick. Rutledge gave up a soft goal in his period and looked like he had holes all over. This may be paranoia.

The mid-tier guys (Moffie, Bennett, Guptill, Old Lynch, Hyman) were scratched, FWIW. Hyman's another guy I'm hoping will start producing more after his freshman hype fizzled.

Jake Ryan, basically. Roh on Ryan:

“He’s like a Tootsie Pop,” Roh said. “No matter how many times you talk to him, you really never know what you’re going to get until you get to the chocolatey center.”

Zach Helfland asks the obvious question:

Meaning what exactly?

Roh:

“I don’t know,” Roh said. “You can’t describe him, really. He’s like, I don’t know, he’s like smart but dumb at the same time, but he’s also just random, just like, ‘Yo,’ randomly.”

YO. Elsewhere in that article, Ryan is an alien. Read it.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO JT FLOYD WHYYYY

"I told him right before I cut them, 'Man, 'Lace, I'm going to cut 'em,'" Floyd said. "He's like, 'No you're not, no you're not.'

"He was the first guy I saw. He just looked at me and smiled, 'Man, I can't believe you did it.' We had a little dreadlock bond, I guess. Now I'm trying to persuade him to cut 'em"

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

but it's not going to happen. Not going to happen."

Nevermind.

Ticket pricing update. To be fair The M Zone needs to continue their scalping project into next year to see what it's like trying to grab OSU tickets online, but so far so good for the idea we're closing in on the max amount people will pay to go to Michigan games:

Endzone Seats on StubHub:

UMass - Saved $64.72
Illinois - Saved $31.72

Total Endzone StubHub Savings So Far - $96.44

Maize Seats on StubHub:

UMass - Saved $87.38
Illinois - Saved $43.38

Total Maize Section Savings So Far - $130.76

Victors Seats on StubHub:

UMass - Saved $165.24
Illinois - Saved $98.12
Total Victors Section Savings So Far - $263.36

MSU is looking like a win for season ticket holders but that's the only one, and that's with Stubhub's massive cut (15% from the seller plus 20 bucks in "convenience fees" from the buyer) taken into account.

Willis Ward to be honored. Michigan's going to do it, and it's all thanks to an eight year old girl:

"A lot of people like to listen to little kids, and you should speak up and make a difference," said Genna, a Brighton third-grader.

She addressed the university's board of regents in March and lobbied state legislators in June to name a special day after star U-M football player Willis Ward, who was benched for a game against Georgia Tech in 1934 because he was black.

Genna succeeded, and Willis — a friend and teammate of future President Gerald Ford — will be honored by the state and school next week.

…or the guys who made the documentary that's the only reason anyone's talking about Willis Ward in 2012, whatever.

Like flies. Blocking-type Michigan State people continue to get injured at an alarming rate. TE Dion Sims may or may not play against Michigan; if he doesn't they probably won't be throwing his backup many passes:

Andrew Gleichert, a walk-on who was awarded a scholarship before the opener against Boise State, has a broken wrist and will have to play with a cast the rest of the season.

"We got concerned with him being a point-of-attack blocker," Roushar said. "We feel like he's got to do a better job. He's working on it. With the loss of Dion, you're looking for something stronger at the point of attack."

Meanwhile, former megarecruit Lawrence Thomas went from linebacker to 295-pound fullback and can't move down to tight end this week because he picked up a concussion against Indiana—his second since August. He's expected to play against Iowa because obviously.

[AFTER AN UNUSUAL UV JUMP: THINGS PEOPLE DID TO THE DANNY HOPEDOKEN GIF]

That is all.

Purdue

 

Purdue or Purdon’t … There is no try.

Schedule:

• Middle Tennessee, 27-24 (W)
• @ Rice, 22-24 (L)
• Southeast Missouri State, 59-0 (W)
• Notre Dame, 10-38 (L)
• Minnesota, 45-17 (W)
• @ Penn State, 18-23 (L)
• No. 23 Illinois, 21-14 (W)
• @ No. 18 Michigan, 14-36 (L)
• @ No. 20 Wisconsin, 17-62 (L)
• Ohio State, 26-23 OT (W)
• Iowa, 21-31 (L)
• @ Indiana, 33-25 (W)
• Western Michigan, 37-32 (W) Motor City Bowl

Record: 7-6 overall, 4-4 B1G, 3^rd place Woody Division.

Stats:

	Offense	Defense
Rush:	181.6 ypg, 33rd	174.9 ypg, 82nd
Pass:	195.2 ypg, 83rd	221.0 ypg, 53rd
Total:	376.8 ypg, 71st	395.9 ypg, 73rd
Scoring:	26.9 ppg, 60th	26.8 ppg, 62nd
T/O Margin:	+1, 52nd

Recap: Purdue had all sorts of issues this season yet somehow scraped together a 7-6 record plus a bowl game, which makes it their best record since 2007 when former coach Joe Tiller’s 8-5 squad also finished with a Motor City Bowl win.

The Boilermakers needed stability at the quarterback position after last year’s debacle of a finish. They didn’t get it because bona fide starting QB Rob Henry tore his ACL in fall camp. Apparently this kind of thing is tradition in West Lafayette.

Purdue gave backup Caleb Terbush the job because the other backup guy Robert Marve was recovering from his own ACL tear from less than a year earlier. TerBush was fine. Though he quarterbacked the loss to Rice, he was decently accurate throughout the season. Even when Marve eventually got healthy enough to split time with him, which was critical for the win over Ohio State, TerBush played the majority of snaps. He was a junior in 2011, so Michigan can look forward to seeing him again next season.

Purdue’s defense posted mediocre numbers this season mainly due to three horrible performances against Notre Dame (551 yards), Michigan (535 yards), and Wisconsin (605 yards). When the Boilermakers weren’t completely outclassed, they did a decent job on that side of the ball, and this was without their usual number of playmakers whose names start with R and end with -yan Kerrigan. The highlight of their season came against Ohio State -- their defense forced six three-and-outs over the course of the game and made a clutch stop in OT to hold the Buckeyes to a field goal.

Just rushing the field and minding their own business / via Purdueexponent.org

Michigan and Purdue play again in 2012 before taking a hiatus from each other until at least 2015. Next season the Boilermakers may be better but not by much. They lose some of the glue-type players on the offensive line, but they return a majority of their contributing skill players such as WR Raheem Mostert, WR Antavian Edison, RB Ralph Bolden, and of course TerBush. Defensively they take a couple hits by losing S Albert Evans and LB Joe Holland, but they return CB Ricardo Allen and DT Kawann Short, who is reportedly up to 330 pounds these days and carrying it well.

Purdue is unlikely to get much help from their most recent recruiting class, which ranked near the bottom of the B1G.

Best win: Ohio State.

Worst loss: @ Rice. The Owls finished their season 4-8 overall; every other team Purdue lost to had at least a winning record. Notre Dame is probably a close second due to the instate rivalry thing.

At the time we thought they were as frightening as: I gave them a fear level of 4 but didn’t come up with an analogy that week. Instead I lamented how bad the B1G was when a team that lost to Rice and nearly lost to Middle Tennessee could play competitively against Penn State and then beat an Illinois team that was 6-1 at the time.

But now we know they are as frightening as: Still a 4.

What the win meant for Michigan: I remember being annoyed after this game when nearly everyone in the media tried to cite the win as evidence for why Michigan wouldn’t have a “second half collapse.” I felt a great deal of sympathy watching the players deal with the presser questions the previous week (“Is this like last year?”) and then the following week (“This isn’t like last year!?”), but I also felt an equal if not greater amount of sympathy for the reporters asking them. I’m so happy I don’t have to deal with angles.

Beating Purdue was great, but it wasn’t a sign that the Wolverines had shaken the second-half collapse monkey despite what every headline wanted you to believe. I’m not saying good things didn’t happen: the defense was solid after giving up their first free touchdown of the season, and I think that may have been partially due to Kovacs not playing after sustaining an MCL sprain during a bye week practice. Mike Martin finally went into Beast Mode by notching two sacks, one of them for a safety. Jake Ryan made a highlight reel arm-tackle at the goal line late in the game.

Offensively Toussaint went for 170 yards on 20 carries, finally establishing himself as Michigan’s No. 1 option at running back.

Lots of horse-collaring in this game / via the Toledo Blade

For me, the reason why beating Purdue wasn’t a great case for “this isn’t last year” is because the Wolverines did beat them last year. I don’t know why everyone suddenly forgot. [Ed-S: Because who would want to remember that miserable game?]

Up to this point in the 2011 season Michigan still hadn’t beaten anyone they lost to last year. Who did they lose to last year? Michigan State, Iowa, Penn State, Wisconsin, and Ohio State. Penn State and Wisconsin weren’t on the schedule, though you could argue that Nebraska could stand in for the Nittany Lions. So the Wolverines had three more opportunities to prove the 2011 != 2010 hypothesis; Purdue was not one of them.

And it was totally as awesome as: A cool glass of milk in between a jalapeno eating contest and a habanero eating contest.