Unverified Voracity Is On To Great Tiger Comment Count

Brian

punchoutcharlesmou

The Shredder, endeavoring to fill the Autumn Thunder gap and succeeding wildly. (Thread)

No bags. Bags. None of them Saturday. Don't bring bags of any variety to the stadium. You can't bring them in.

Site note! A couple tweaks: annoyed with the folk who would just post diaries because they didn't have the requisite 20 points, I removed the minimum points required to post a board thread. Q: should I have gone the other way? I can do that.

The other tweak: lightbox links that won't take you off the page now have dotted underlines so they're differentiated from regular old links.

The starting lineups. Multiple people have asked what's with the lack of starting lineup announcements, so I asked Bruce Madej. The response:

Really, it came down to timing. The idea to develop more on an exciting atmosphere prior to the game works around keeping things upbeat, quick and exciting. We only have a little over three minutes to accomplish what we are trying to do. The starting lineups were long and drawn out. Hope this helps.

I'm not exactly sure how that helps. With the starting lineups there was cheering and shouting "who cares" and now there's nothing. I've got a follow-up in.

The starting lineups part II. David Moosman was expected to start in David Molk's place if he was healthy and he is:

David Moosman is back practicing after missing last week's win over Eastern Michigan with a shoulder injury, and Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez said he'll start at center in Saturday's Big Ten opener.

“He had a good practice" Tuesday, Rodriguez said. "He’ll be ready to go."

Moosman will be replaced by John Ferrara, who played against Eastern, or by moving Huyge inside and starting Perry Dorrestein at RT. Carlos Brown is still the starter at RB as Minor tries to get over his high ankle sprain before serious opponents pop up on the schedule, and Mike Williams' ankle went from "tweaked" to "sprained"; he was in a red jersey yesterday. He might miss the Indiana game if they're being cautious.

Hurray now we have to deal with this all year. Cheap Shotty the Boiler Lineman got his one game suspension. As you might imagine, Danny Hope is displeased:

“Well, really he [Rodriguez] should worry about his own team,” Hope said Sunday. “I didn’t think Zach Reckman’s play at the end of the game was all that vicious. ... I’m sure it’s going to be brought up and we’ll address it. I don’t think he should have gone in there and jumped on that guy at the end of the play, but maybe he was hoping the ball would come loose. He was just trying to give us a chance to win.”

That last part is just as laughable as Rodriguez's assertion that Mouton was attempting to free himself. And, of course, Rodriguez is worried about his own team.

Should this guy be suspended? No. But now the Big Ten is in the position of trying to make the Mouton suspension not seem like a one-off idiotic decision based on the complaining of the Great White Fail. I'd actually prefer the hypocrisy to the new "policy."

Scoop and score? Robbie Czarnik's cousin Austin was a Michigan State hockey commit until just recently:

I had heard a rumor this past June that NTDP forward Austin Czarnik had de-committed from Michigan State, and checking the NTDP's roster today, he's now listed as uncommitted, so that would seem to confirm that.

Czarnik's stock's shot up in the past year—he was the U17's leading scorer—and decided that casting his lot with the CCHA's 11th-place team and Rick Comley (who just got a contract extension!) was unwise. Now that he's back on the market, you figure that Michigan and his brother look like an attractive option. A catch: Czarnik will skate with the U18s this year, but he's only in the 11th grade. He'll have to head to the USHL for a year before heading to college, which makes him a 2011 prospect. This means he would only overlap with his cousin for one year, and that's assuming Robbie stays all four years. (Pretty good assumption at this point, but still.) OTOH, it also means that Michigan would have plenty of room for him.

Czarnik has been drafted by an OHL team but at 5'8" and 150 pounds he's not likely to be the sort of super-hot NHL commodity for which the CHL actually makes sense. Also he probably wouldn't decommit from Michigan State, he'd just sign with the OHL team.

Elsewhere in hockey land, Lake State's coach had some interesting comments in the aftermath of the Big Ten's decision to reject Alabama-Huntsville:

Roque pointed to both the situation with Bowling Green [which almost folded] and “pressure by the Big Ten Conference” to have Big Ten member teams from the CCHA and WCHA face off more during the season. “If anything, I think our league schedule is going to change here in the next year or two as far as a few less league games to allow those schools to play each other more,” Roque said.

Wha? Michigan and Michigan State already play a game each against Wisconsin and Minnesota every year; adding more—which would be 100% for the Big Ten Network, I imagine—would bring the number of games up enough to start contemplating a quasi-official Big Ten Championship.

And there are a bunch of photos of incoming recruits Chris Brown, Kevin Lynch, and AJ Treais at HockeyPhotography.com. Aaaand and WCH's CCHA season preview pegs Michigan second. Notre Dame is picked to repeat; State picked ninth.

Etc.: Men's soccer now 7-1 heading into the Big Ten schedule. Game went from 1-1 at halftime to 5-1 at 62 minutes.

Comments

Mark

September 24th, 2009 at 11:28 AM ^

I'm not exactly sure how that helps. With the starting lineups there was cheering and shouting "who cares" and now there's nothing.

Seriously. Announcing the lineups was one of my favorite parts to the pre-game experience.

ThornXBL

September 24th, 2009 at 1:54 PM ^

This was the first thing I noticed at the Western game.

I saw the lineups on the video board with no announcement. I would think getting the crowd pumped up about your starters (with freshman QBs esp.) would be a huge boost for the team.

Also, what if the opponents think we do care about their lineups now? That would be a travesty.

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

September 24th, 2009 at 11:35 AM ^

Admittedly removing the 20 points limit did a great job in reducing the number of diaries where people say "this isn't a diary, it's a board post." Unfortunately it's also very much increased the number of board posts where people say "this isn't a board post, it's a steaming pile of monkey shit."

Yes, I'd definitely like to see the 20-point requirement restored and a 50-point requirement for diaries. Better to occasionally lose (or simply have to wait for) a good diary that doesn't get posted (yet) because the writer doesn't have the points, than to have to filter through the crap to find anything good. Eventually people get tired of filtering through crap.

Plegerize

September 24th, 2009 at 11:59 AM ^

Yeah I would like to see a point requirement for both, But make the diary requirement significantly higher (such as 50 pts). The point requirements are good because they don't inhibit conversation completely, but ensure that you don't have flamers and trolls joining just to post one topic on the board and never seeing them again.

bouje

September 24th, 2009 at 12:04 PM ^

I'm not trying to say that "hey points matter" but if someone really wants to troll in the diary section then they should really have to earn it.

My point is that when have you read a diary from someone with under 100 points and went "yeah that was great" (BTW I really like naijablue's diary). I'm just saying that the majority of the time they are complete crap.

Stereotypes are stereotypes because they are generally true.

michigandadof4

September 24th, 2009 at 1:27 PM ^

I confess to being an offender. My very first post was in fact a diary entry, "The making of a Michigan Football Fan."

After the ND game, I finally decided I had something worth posting about. I figured that I would have to add it as a reply to an active discussion. I was surprised to find out that there was an active tab for diary. What I wanted to post seemed to fit within the definition of a diary entry so I went with it.

It struck me as odd at the time. If there is going to be a points requirement, the requirement should apply to both.

Blue Durham

September 24th, 2009 at 8:21 PM ^

I think it's a matter of less is more; sacrificing quantity to get a little better overall quality.

Does that mean that a few diaries or board posts fall through the cracks. Maybe. But, many of the ideas and thoughts posted as OT's can easily be introduced within various threads going on during the day, thus building up the points and credibility necessary to start thread.

bouje

September 24th, 2009 at 11:50 AM ^

As far as the Diary versus the Board goes I am still in the camp of "Let anyone with a pulse post on the board but only let 'trusted users' post diaries".

How you get to be a trusted user? I don't know... But I think that diaries should be good and not the shit that has been posted

cfaller96

September 24th, 2009 at 11:51 AM ^

Should this guy be suspended? No. But now the Big Ten is in the position of trying to make the Mouton suspension not seem like a one-off idiotic decision based on the complaining of the Great White Fail. I'd actually prefer the hypocrisy to the new "policy."

I actually kind of prefer this to be a policy. I'd rather have the conference take a hard line on cheap shots and whatnot. But since this is a "policy" borne out of an attempt to mollify a miserable fat man and not a real policy intended to cut down on cheap shots, I agree it's stupid. I predict the enforcement of this will fail and after the season's over the conference will "reexamine" it and try to figure out how to make it go away.

Dave

September 24th, 2009 at 11:55 AM ^

"Early on, the Wolverines struggled to penetrate a 4-4-3 defense, which clogs the middle of the field and forces the action outside."

A "4-4-3 defense"? No wonder it was hard to penetrate.

SpreadGuru

September 24th, 2009 at 12:01 PM ^

picture of Tate as Little Mac in Tyson's Punch Out. Now to real business...I am really looking forward to Moosman playing center this week. Although disappointed at Molk's injury, I think "Moos" is an improving lineman. I had the chance to meet him at the Mott's BBQ for the Boys and he is a Michigan historian. He was in the weight room telling Gittleson stories...fascinating.

Danny Hope's hatred of RR boils down to this...on November 7th, his ass is going to pay the bill that his mouth just wrote. The kid from Purdue should be suspended b/c that was the cheapest of cheap shots. The fact that Hope thought the lineman doing that might be "giving us a chance to win" is idiotic.

GO BLUE

Yinka Double Dare

September 24th, 2009 at 12:20 PM ^

You can jack up the requirement for diaries, and make a note that if someone does a diary-worth post (i.e. research or actual analysis or whatever) and doesn't have the points to maybe email it to you and perhaps there's a way you can just give them enough points to post it?

I'd hate to lose a good research/analysis post from someone new who doesn't bother to post on the boards (and thus doesn't have the points).

MMB 82

September 24th, 2009 at 12:36 PM ^

vs just having a board- the difference is really subtle. The really regular contributors who I would otherwise think would be good for diaries are now contributing directly to the website for major topics, so that distinction is lost too. But at the very least I would push the limit to post a diary up over 100.

Yinka Double Dare

September 24th, 2009 at 12:46 PM ^

Steve Sharik isn't a direct website contributor and I think everyone appreciates his diary posts. A good diary post if it were on the board could get buried easily in the avalanche of topics. With a diary, it's linked on the front page for at least a day and usually more, much easier to see that it's there for the less-obsessed MGoUser.

As to the distinction, diaries are for a more long-form post, especially with charts and diagrams and such, that involved your own research or analysis (if you know what you're talking about). I don't think you can as easiliy incorporate those things into a board post as you can in a diary, or at least you have more space in diary because your username block isn't taking up 1/4 of the space on the left.

A board post is "hey guys check out this article" or "what do you think about this" or "OT - Are the Tigers going to choke on the division". General discussion topics.

Erik_in_Dayton

September 24th, 2009 at 12:46 PM ^

Aren't we better than that? I mean, yes, Charlie Weis is fat - extraordinarly fat, orca fat - but I don't think it's very civil to point that out. Anyone can see that he's morbidly obese, a man whose gluttony is matched only by his sloth. But why focus on that when we could just point out his hypocrisy and remarkable arrogance? Isn't that better than dwelling, like school children, on the fact that he is so very, very fat?

note: yes, you can use an "'s" with a name that ends in "s".

Blake

September 24th, 2009 at 1:08 PM ^

I agree with Mark that announcing the lineups was one of my favorite things leading up to the start of the game and I don't buy the reasoning that they simply don't have time.

If so, they should simply go back to announcing either the defense or offense and just switch it every other game.

Why would you want to diminish atmosphere by having people NOT cheer for their own team and favorite players/Coach Rod when they're announced?

Nickel

September 24th, 2009 at 1:19 PM ^

On the lineups announcement -Any chance they avoided it the first game because they were a little worried about the response Rodriguez might get? Remember this was in the midst of practice-gate.

I know most of the fans who read here realize it was much ado about nothing, but at the same time weren't we all a little worried the casual fans were on the verge of turning against him? Of course that wouldn't explain why they don't announce the lineups now.

Ann Arbor Cardinal

September 24th, 2009 at 2:11 PM ^

I don't see why the Purdue suspension is Mr. Rodriguez's fault. According to a 16 Sep AAnews.com article, "Big Ten spokesperson Scott Chipman said by e-mail the conference 'reviews all plays on a weekly basis.'" If I remember the context correctly of his mentioning the Purdue "punch", Mr. Rodriguez's main point was that the conference should enforce this evenly, which means there will be lots of chances to use the new policy. So many, in fact, that he just happened to catch the end of the Purdue game and saw what looked like a non-football play. It wasn't that he studied each of the Big Ten games' film from that week and discovered the Purdue "punch"; he just referenced it in passing as evidence of his larger point.

The merits of the policy may be up for debate, but I think Purdue's blaming Mr. Rodriguez (or even, at this point, UM blaming Mr. Weis) is missing the issue: this is the Big Ten's policy, effected and policed by the Big Ten. The Big Ten coaches - if they don't like it - would do better to Rise and Strike as one rather than bicker with each other.

The Shredder

September 24th, 2009 at 6:34 PM ^

I like the idea of having to earn your Avatar and thread making rights. I say 50 pts. The reason I say for the avatar thing is because I was just reading a thread and a new poster with 1pt had a Sanjaya avatar from American Idol. That just can't happen...

aenima0311

September 25th, 2009 at 12:16 PM ^

Late to the party on this, but I'm in favor of the 20 / 50 rule. A buddy of mine went from 0 to 87 points in one night just by posting top notch content. It isn't' that hard to reach either of those and it discourages the trolls.