BTN Tour at Michigan - Open Thread

Submitted by Leaders And Best on

Big Ten Network Football Tour is at Michigan practice this afternoon. The show will air tomorrow at 10pm, and they will be live tweeting observations from practice. September 1st can't come soon enough.

EDIT:

Collection of BTN crew livetweets & observations from Michigan practice:

http://btn.com/2012/08/23/btn-experts-michigan-football-practice-tweets/

Tom Dienhart's thoughts from Michigan practice:

http://btn.com/2012/08/23/dienhart-my-thoughts-from-michigan-practice/

Some stats from BTNStatsGuy @BTNStatsGuy:

Brady Hoke: Among 4 #B1G coaches with 11+ wins in first season. He's among 4 first-year coaches to win #BCS bowl.

#Michigan's scoring defense improved by 17.8 points per game last season.

#Michigan's 895 wins is the most in college football history. #Wolverines need 5 more to become first to 900.

#Michigan has won its last 12 non-conference games. That's the #Wolverines' longest win streak since a 15-game run spanned 1970-74.

#Michigan won 6 #B1G games last season. That matches the #Wolverines total from the previous 3 seasons combined.

#Michigan went 8-0 at home last season. Best record in #MichiganStadium history.

#Michigan has not won a #B1G title since 2004. That's the #Wolverines' longest drought since 13-year span from 1951-63.

#Michigan looks to end four-game skid against #MichiganState. It's tied for #Wolverines' longest all-time skid in the series.

WolvinLA2

August 23rd, 2012 at 3:58 PM ^

's 895 wins is the most in college football history. need 5 more to become first to 900." "

Is the second sentence really necessary?  If they have 895, obviously they only need 5 to get to 900.  And if we're already in front with 895, obviously no one has been to 900 yet. 

 

WolvinLA2

August 23rd, 2012 at 4:14 PM ^

If the Dan Anotonio thing was on purpose, it's hilarious.  If not, still hilarious though.

Gholston not even close to best DE in the country.  I don't remember him making that much of an impact last year.  If you're the best DE in the country in 2012, you were pretty damn close in 2011, usually.

WolverineHistorian

August 23rd, 2012 at 4:47 PM ^

Off the top of my head, slappy Brett Bielema at Wisconsin went 12-1 in his first season in 2006.  The only loss was to us and in usual Badger tradition, their 11 regular season wins were against 11 unranked opponents.  They didn't have to play Ohio State, another Badger tradition of missing one of the top teams in the conference.   

They beat mediocre Arkansas in their bowl game.

Needs

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:19 PM ^

Good call with Bielma, easy to forget, b/c that Wisconsin team didn't go to a BCS game (OSU to championship, UM to Rose).

I think Earle Bruce might have been 11-1 in his first year. I know OSU went undefeated until the Rose Bowl, just not sure if there were 10 or 11 regular season games then. 

Just checked, they were 11-1, so that's #2.

 

Still have no idea who the other 3 first year coaches who won BCS games in their first year were. I'll bet they're using a broad definition of "BCS" to include pre-1998 Big 4 bowl games. Not sure if they're including Nebraska either.

 

WolvinLA2

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:22 PM ^

For the BCS game stat, it doesn't say he's one of four Big Ten coaches to win a BCS bowl in his first year, so that likely includes everyone, but I imagine is confined to the BCS era.  Larry Coker is probably one, I'd have to think about the other two.  Chip Kelly maybe?  I don't think he is.

FreddieMercuryHayes

August 23rd, 2012 at 4:11 PM ^

Are they actually going to see anything anyway?  Or are we going to see a bunch of tweets that are along the lines of "The inside of Schembechler Hall looks nice" and "Brady Hoke says the practice was "physical"?

salami

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:12 PM ^

Last year the tour started in the East and traveled west ending at Nebraska (I presume to do the new kid on the block last).

This year more or less in reverse; Chicago to Iowa, Nebraska, then loop back around the north and so on.  I guess doing Sparty as the final stop would have made more sense, as it's on their way back to Chicago.

IMHO, they've saved the most interesting team for last.

Leaders And Best

August 23rd, 2012 at 4:32 PM ^

Lot of freshmen OL out here who don't look like freshmen - Kalis, Braden, Magnuson - all impressive for

Big Will Campbell is looking good. True frosh DT Ondre Pipkins also shows nice strength in double-team drill.

True frosh WRs Amara Darboh and Jehu Chesson are big targets. OC Al Borges told me they will play.

Leaders And Best

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:03 PM ^

Mario Ojemudia getting a ton of reps at DE for the - pretty clear he will have a great chance to play

True frosh DBs Terry Richardson and Jarrod Wilson getting lots of work.

Will count on some freshmen for DL depth - hard not to like looks of Pipkins & Henry.

Leaders And Best

August 23rd, 2012 at 9:23 PM ^

Brady Hoke told me as many as 12 true freshmen could play this fall.

BTN Bus Tour Some young D line guys that looked to have a good practice Ojemudia Pipkins Washington(Jr),

BTN Bus Tour 16 freshman are competing for 2 deep, travel squad or being part of game plan preparation

sundaybluedysunday

August 23rd, 2012 at 4:59 PM ^

If you think nothing new came out today then you're not a Michigan beat writer. Kyle Meinke of annarbor.com is retweeting every single thing they say in between tweets about how pissed off he is that the BTN is getting more access in a day than he has as a local media member all year.



As Brian mentioned in today's Unverified Voracity, it's been rough doing their job this year.

WolvinLA2

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:19 PM ^

Kyle Meinke can shove it.  Fine, your job is hard, so are most people's.  But our football program doesn't owe Meinke or annarbor.com anything.  However, the BTN is owned by the conference, therefore owned by Michigan.  The more money the BTN makes, the more money Michigan makes.  If UM took a major cut of annarbor.com's profits, it might be a different story.  As it stands, it behooves the Big Ten teams to give the best info and access to the BTN. 

Blazefire

August 23rd, 2012 at 5:22 PM ^

I suspect if BTN called Jim Delaney and cried, "Brady Hoke was mean and wouldn't let us watch and talk about it and then he pushed us down and put a worm in our hair whaaaa...",then Dave Brandon would soon have a meeting with Delaney where he would get this look:

"I Am Dissapoint."

State Street

August 23rd, 2012 at 4:38 PM ^

"Wow, UM ran great double reverse in the deuce formation w/ Denard eventually bouncing wide left for the score.  lined up trips right with WR out left"

- Tweets that will never exist