INVINCIBLE WINNER

Oh man. I will not mention anything about brothers.

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Mary Sue Coleman? That's gotta sting. Compounding matters: Steelcase CEO James Hackett, another of their speakers, is also a Michigan graduate. Fergodsake, MSU, just put Narduzzi up there.

SCORE. Wolverine Historian has had his video library restored. Run around in circles, but in a good way. 408 painstakingly crafted retrospectives on Michigan past, back. Here is a randomly selected one:

2001 Iowa

The infuriating part of all of this was that no one who puts these things on the tubes is looking to get rich; they are just sharing their fandom, taking items of little financial but excellent emotional value. I'm not going to pay one red cent to watch a game from 2001 broadcast on free television. I will take in a highlight package and deepen my fandom. It's a soft benefit from the perspective on high, but man if I was looking at 0.01% of my revenue versus not being T3Media, well…

US Soccer gets this; they slap great highlight packages from every game they have rights to on YouTube (ie, no World Cup), and sometimes I get lost in them like it's Wikipedia. It's 100% feelingsball, but that kind of thing makes me like the USMNT more from the top down. Getting annoyed by whatever Michigan's latest un-embeddable video player that's crappier than YouTube by a factor of ten is a detraction, and the payoff is minimal.

Hopefully this is a sign that the hardliners have been relegated to the back. T3's channel exists, even. Now… can YouTube maybe unlock my previous UFR account?

LET US DISPATCH ENTHUSIASM. Man, I wanted to write a post on the Concordia game but it seemed like too much what with Ace saying all the things I wanted to. Still, UMHoops jumps in as they are wont to and I want to say things about things. So let's do that.

  • Concordia but. In 2010, Michigan played Concordia. They won 86-65 and Concordia's center went off for 29 points on Jordan Morgan. Michigan led 42-32 at the half. This was a different game, and a different level of team. That team was a Darius Morris bucket away from taking Duke to OT in the second round of the NCAA tournament. This game was an annihilation, and that was without the guy who's probably the best player on the team.
  • Oh, man, Caris. I will not get too excited about Caris LeVert. I will not get too excited about Caris LeVert. I will not WOOOOOOO CARIS LEVERT. LeVert flashed the ability to get where he wanted on the court last year, which is an impressive ability at 6'6". He never really delivered; he was always the kind of guy who might blow up hardcore with some more development. Blowing up hardcore is… I will not get too excited about Caris LeVert. Oh man.
  • GRIII, also. Robinson drove to about 15 feet and pulled up for a Jumper I Hate and it went down, back of the iron, smooth, and I wasn't even mad because Robinson going and getting it is something to look at.
  • Stauskas, also. Do not play the "not just a shooter" drinking game this year. You will die.
  • Walton… you get it. This is a team with many good players on it.

Racine back soon? The Daily's Greg Garno tweets that Red is "leaning" towards Zach Nagelvoort this weekend; he has returned to practice. That one word promises Racine back on the ice next week or the week after. Even if that seems far less urgent than it did when he went out against New Hampshire, Racine's still the starter and should be until he falters.

This will be cool or infuriating or probably both. Prepare thine vintage torches and antique pitchforks, ye mobbe of Ten Yeare War-ists.

BTN Originals will premiere Tiebreaker, the network’s first feature-length documentary, at 7 p.m. ET on Saturday, Nov. 16. Tiebreaker paints an indelible portrait of college football’s most storied rivalry and reveals a forgotten moment in college football history that helped shape today’s game.  

The 60-minute documentary examines the aftermath of the 1973 Ohio State v. Michigan football game that ended in a 10-10 tie. With both teams sporting identical 7-0-1 conference records, Big Ten Athletic Directors were left to vote on which school would represent the Big Ten in the Rose Bowl. At that time, only one Big Ten team could play in a bowl game. In a controversial vote, the Big Ten Athletic Directors voted to send Ohio State to Pasadena. Michigan head coach Bo Schembechler called the decision “the lowest day of my athletic career.”

Hopefully this is a little more hard-hitting than The Journey, which is about 20% cool inside stuff and 80% watching Aaron Craft make pancakes. That's not a joke. I caught an episode last year in which a good five minutes was dedicated to Aaron Craft making pancakes*. Moar NFL films, less soft-focus twee, please.

*[Naturally, he crowded the pan.]

Not looking great. The Power Rank's take on the Big Ten division race:

BigTenLegends_winprob_Nov2013[1]

A win Saturday and Michigan State is gone; so much for the preseason It All Comes Down To November meme. It comes down to this game. Win it and Michigan has a half-game lead. Lose it and State is 2.5 up on M and home free unless… uh… yeah, home free. Ed's numbers have Michigan with a 37% shot in East Lansing, FWIW.

Etc.: Dan on Fire is the best. Boy can the NCAA write a grabbing headline. Narduzzi's probably out the door soon, so at least there's that. Florida: the new Purdue? Come on, certify the players' class, man. More with that girl from the Indiana game. Someone find a different picture of her.

I'm all… like…

…and then I was all like you can't have one without the other…

…and then I was like… yeah. /dies

Word. Stuart Mandel points out something that's been bothering yrs truly:

I've yet to hear a logical explanation for why ESPN has chosen to relentlessly interweave snippets from sappy 15-year-old Dave Matthews songs like Ants Marching into its college football broadcasts. It's true that when I hear that familiar fiddle, I do think of college -- as in, people blasting Under the Table and Dreaming in my freshman dorm hall at 7:30 in the morning -- but not football.

It's hard to think of an act that would be more ill-suited to hype me up for college football than Dave Mathews Band. It is wussy music. Every commercial break should be filled with snippets from Pat Benetar's Heartbreaker:

I mean…

You're the right kind of sinner, to release my inner fantasy
The invincible winner, and you know that you were born to be

INVINCIBLE WINNER! Anything that sounds poorly translated from the Japanese and would conflate Taylor Potts getting his brain scrambled by Sergio Kindle with sex given the context is an invincible winner indeed.

The Chesney has stopped, though, which means at least one person at ESPN isn't a lizard monster from the fourth dimension whose five senses replace hearing with evil. And thank God for that. Seriously, was that just an opening weekend thing or did ESPN see what they had wrought and repent?

Lines of note. Michigan is –18 against Indiana—vote of confidence. Illinois is –15 against Ohio State, Wisconsin –3 against Michigan State, Notre Dame –7 against Purdue (road game, implies that Michigan should be a 10 point favorite at home given the ND line pending changes in opinion on the two teams and since that's minus Mike Floyd it'll probably be more than ten, though that's obviously a long way off and this entire highly speculative aside is of debatable value), and Penn State a whopping –11 against Iowa, which uh?

This is strange. So Tim Staudt, who writes for the Lansing State Journal, took time out of his column to defend one Rich Rodriguez against the rampant Detroit media. For serious. His target is the recent News story that Friday's UV shrugged at:

Don't football coaches have a right to seek the best mortgage for their homes they can find? The News' argument is that Martin might not fire those coaches if he thinks it's in Michigan's best interests, because maybe they'll end up defaulting on their loans without employment. Another example of why some distrust the media.

That's strange enough. The stranger part: I don't agree with him. The News article was something worth publishing a story on, as it does represent a mild conflict of interest and apparently caught Bill Martin contradicting himself. It did not get splashed across the front page and turn into a national news story. The thing properly frames the importance of its content:

"In the scheme of conflicts of interest, this doesn't seem that major," Lowenstein said.

I guess you could interpret the article's attempt to justify its existence (noting that Martin's ability to make decisions about firing any of the coaches who have loans out could be compromised) negatively, but I didn't and neither should the fanbase at large. If Michigan fans complain about everything we just come off like whiners.

Also the moon landing is fake. Braylon Edwards, meanwhile, on said hunt for witch-type object:

Q. What’s your reaction to the allegations from former Michigan players that Coach Rich Rodriguez required players to work out more than N.C.A.A. rules permit during the off-season?

 
A. I don’t believe that guys are working extra hours. Everybody works hard. For this to happen like this and get out, that’s not the case. I don’t believe it to be the case. I believe that this is an inside plot to get him fired. I went to Michigan. I’ve been to college and everybody works hard.

The only thing left to discover is which message board lunatic Braylon is.

Band stuff. Whenever I write about the band the comments turn into a war zone and people send me emails ranging from "word" to "I have lost all respect for you," and it generally seems not worth it. So I'll refrain from offering further opinions, but I will clarify some old ones and point you to some good work elsewhere.

The clarification: man, I don't know about bands. I don't know if piccolos are loud or quiet or if the band can or should increase the brass. I do know that a lot of different people who do know about bands say that there's no reason the band can't be louder, and I have been around plenty of bands that seem louder than Michigan's. So I don't think it's impossible. It's just about what you want to prioritize.

The other work: Hoover Street Rag pinged both Haithcock and Boerma. There's plenty of news in it, couple with denials that they've decreased emphasis on noise and some indications that the prevalence of piped-in music is beyond what the band was told would occur.

One thing I will note: I hate that "Thunderstruck" plays before the teams runs onto the field. Previously, the crowd chanted "let's go blue" as one of the drummers beat out a slow, menacing beat. I like that better than wishing Michigan Stadium's speaker system didn't suck.

Mr. Punchypants. Not to further NDNation's delusion that Michigan possesses less sportsmanship than their personal-foul-magnet warrior-poets by bringing up last year's incident, but remember this?

Rodriguez said Monday morning that he wasn't sure if Butler would face further disciplinary action, since the Big East officials working the game did not specify, in writing, the reason for the ejection. Later in the day, though, a Michigan sports information official spoke was told by the Big Ten that Butler was flagged for a flagrant foul, and will not face an automatic suspension. If Butler had been ejected for fighting, he would have been suspended from the first half of the team's next game.

The math here: ejection for fighting = 1/2 of next game. Ejection for flagrant foul = no suspension. Act that should have drawn a flag—not an ejection—but didn't = 1 game.

Look, no one's defending Mouton here. Rodriguez changed his opinion after his initial take:

“It’s not a football act,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not what we’re about. And it hurts the team when you do that, and Jonas understood that. He understood it hurt the team and that you could be penalized.”

No one's claiming he's somehow ennobled the game. But these sorts of things happen in the game all the time and it's idiotic to single out Mouton for punishment when far more dangerous acts have escaped punishment, especially when the only reason people are talking about it is because a coach outside the conference is running down the professionalism of your officials. It's even more bush league to do it on Friday at 4 PM. Jim Delany's talent for terrible PR is unmatched.

More on injuries. The words that came out of Rodriguez's mouth about the injury situation:

“We’ve got a few guys banged up, but I think most of them should be okay,” said Rodriguez. “[Freshman quarterback]Tate [Forcier] bruised his ribs, got the air knocked out of him. The biggest concern is David Molk. He said his foot was bothering him, and it must have been early in the game … first half, whatever. But now it may be even more serious. We’ll know a little more if he broke it or whatever as we go along. That would be a big loss.”

Moosman is expected back this week, said Rodriguez, and would be the next in line at center if Molk couldn’t go, with redshirt freshman Rocko Khoury behind him.

Good that Moosman will be available; hopefully he can just get a half and some new blood can take the rest. Sounds like another light week for Minor, too.

And a tip of the hat to Rodriguez for throwing Tate out there one more time to handoff, thus reassuring 107,000 some people that they didn't need to find a luxury box to jump off of.

Treat it like Muppets. I tried this last year and got nowhere, but I'm with the Daily's Andy Reid on the "It's Great to Be A Michigan Wolverine" cheer:

My family has had season tickets to Michigan football games since I was two years old, and despite the myriad games I have attended, I’ve only heard that chant a select handful of times. Not coincidentally, all of those games are among the best I’ve ever seen.

Iconic Michigan games that deserve an extra bit of special celebration — 1997 Ohio State, 2004 Michigan State, 2005 Penn State.

And that’s the way it should be.

I was pretty surprised when I heard the chant surface during the post-game celebration after Saturday's 45-17 shellacking of Eastern Michigan. Sure, it’s cool when the Wolverines head over to the student section after each win. But the crowd should sing the fight song, chant “Let’s Go Blue” or something — instead of busting out the big guns for nothing.

Word. That chant first existed in the fan consciousness after the '97 Ohio State game and should be held in reserve for actually stirring events, not four-touchdown wins over MAC teams. Also, get off my lawn.

Etc.: Andy Staples has an article on the steep costs of unofficial visits and how officials should be moved up, which I'd be fine with since Michigan is increasingly recruiting kids from far away. Dior Mathis' mom is quoted. Daily continues what's apparently a series of profiles akin to the massive Pahokee piece. This latest is on Trotwood, Ohio, the home of Roy Roundtree, Mike Shaw, and Brandon Moore. Throw the English-Rodriguez postgame handshake onto the Weis-Miles/Carr-Belotti memorial Pile of Awkward, Probably Misleading Handshake Photos. Michigan State has thrown tickets to the Michigan game(!) open to the public. Right now they require you to buy a ticket to another State game; on Wednesday they'll be totally open.