Unverified Voracity Is Wearing Grandpa's Jacket Comment Count

Brian

Pelini forever. The day that Bo Pelini ceases being a Big Ten coach is going to be a sad one.

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He screams like a lunatic, he makes jokes about his cat, he wears… that… and looks like he believes the camera is taking a piece of his soul with it. Joke's on you, camera! Ain't got no soul, he thinks. Oh and his offense is kind of a looney tunes spread triple option thing that is both modern and very Nebraska. I only wish he was still in our football conference.

Always the best thing out of media days. Mike Spath's anonymous chatter articles are quality as always and the defense one is free. An opponent on the tao of Countess:

"I thought Blake Countess was tough to play against. He's not real physical but he's one of those guys that knows what he does well and what he doesn't. And he sort of lulled us to sleep. We kept thinking that we could go at him and I think that's what he wanted because he stepped in front of two balls, picked one, and we didn't throw at him very much after that."

Countess had INTs against Minnesota, Iowa, and OSU last year, FWIW. The offense is paywalled, but I have to quote this bit:

"They were one of those teams that were tough to prepare for and not tough at the same time because they did so many different things. We had a lot of guys watching a lot more film the week before because they could run 75 different plays in the same game, but I think what stood out was that they didn't have an identity and they never had go-to plays so if you just played sound, technique-strong football, you were OK."

And that had a lot to do with Michigan's ups and downs. OSU did not play anything approximating sound football in their secondary last year and Michigan ate them up; Iowa is nothing but sound cover two and Michigan could do nothing.

The overall theme of that latter one is that opposing teams have a hell of a lot of respect for Devin Gardner since he did not die last year.

You could knock me down with a feather right now. Shock and alarm at unexpected news:

"Going in (to camp, there will be competition between Devin Gardner and Shane Morris)," Hoke said during his appearance on "Numbers Never Lie." "We've got great competition. (But) if we opened the season today, Devin would start for the Wolverines."

I will personally fight anyone* who sends me an email about whether Morris should start.

*[Offer not valid unless you are Ellen Degeneres.]

Ready to go. Ondre Pipkins is cleared and even more importantly, is apparently fit.

"He's done a nice job, he's made a lot of progress and he's passed the conditioning test and all those things," Michigan coach Brady Hoke said this week. "We'll probably be smart with him as we move forward, you know, especially on two-a-days.

"We'll (watch his) reps and those things. But he's cleared and ready to go."

Figuratively and literally massive for the defense. Article notes that Willie Henry is slated to compete with Pipkins at nose, but I'm hoping they figure out that they can start both those guys. We'll see.

'96 Colorado. I missed this game; remember sitting in a car listening to the end of it just terrified about the Hail Mary.

Well, no. No we do not. Hoke on the opener:

He didn't do it.

LEMON UPDATE. Aw man I am going to have to find like a video crew and a roaring fireplace.

Junior linebacker Joe Bolden was named the 2014 Meyer Morton Award winner. The Morton Award is given to the player who "shows the greatest development and most promise as a result of the annual spring practice."

Jarrod Wilson and Chris Wormley also pulled in awards.

The plan. After experimenting with Graham Glasgow at tackle it seems like Michigan is going to leave him at center:

When fall camp opens Sunday, though, Hoke says Glasgow -- who is suspended for the season-opener against Appalachian State due to an offseason drunken driving arrest -- will begin where he ended last year. At center, and likely with the first team.

"I would say he could (be with the starters at center) early in camp but then you’ve got to develop others," Hoke said this week at Big Ten media days in Chicago. "This is why, when you make decisions that don’t help the team, you find out how you hurt the team.”

If Glasgow does move that says more about Ben Braden than anyone else. That is an outcome I don't want to see, as that would be a major strike against a player who was hyped up as a physical marvel by many people a year ago.

It also sounds like the current plan is to leave Cole at left tackle for this year to provide a backup there. Tuley-Tillman and Fox are both likely to need another year before putting them on the field would be anything other than a major problem.

The rehab. Ondre Pipkins is cleared to practice at the start of fall camp

It could be worse, everyone! Man, Illinois fans are grasping at straws:

Tim Beckman came into this morning's press conference after a long bowl game-less winter and a 4-8 season record with only one conference win. But something was noticeably different about his speech this time. He finally seemed comfortable and confident at the podium.

… he hardly pauses or stumbles for the right words. His "uhs" and "ums" are fewer and farther between than in the past. He came off as a true leader and respectable speaker.

Well, I know that our coach starts every sentence with "well" and is not exactly Steve Spurrier. But there's going to be a post this year on an Illinois blog that says "we may have lost by sixty points but it seems like Tim Beckmann's dressing himself these days, so things are really coming along for us."

Unfortunate for Northwestern. Projected starting corner Daniel Jones is forced to retire thanks to injuries. Corner being the Wildcats' achilles heel since it ceased being "the whole team," that bodes unwell for the Wildcats and better for Michigan. Jones was lost for the year in the opener, so this is more Northwestern not getting that guy back than anything else.

The Daily makes the Daily show. You gotta put it in your click hole, nerds.

The most correct thing. This isn't relevant to anything but it is the most correct thing that's ever been said:

I spent five days in Las Vegas by myself earlier this month. If that sounds like your idea of paradise, let me stop you right there, because you’re wrong. Even though I know nothing about you, I’m fairly certain that five days alone in Vegas is enough to make anybody rethink their life. Five days in Vegas with friends or family is still probably four days too many, but being alone in Vegas is like finding out halfway through a party that you were invited by mistake. Everyone is having the time of their lives around you, and even though you were excited when you arrived, you’re just off to the side wondering what you’re doing there.

As someone who spent a week in Vegas by myself*, this is so accurate. I eventually just spent the money for wifi (this was back when wifi still cost money at hotels) and sat in my hotel room because being alone by yourself is so much more tolerable than being alone around everyone. Vegas by yourself: horrible.

The rest of this article is an entertaining Mark Titus piece on attending an NBA scout "school" and finding out just how horrible that job is. So it's sports! On topic!  (Not on topic.)

*[Qualified for the WSOP during the heyday of online poker and couldn't hector any of my friends into railbirding me. WSOP was very large that year so there were four separate Day 1s for a quarter of the field and two Day 2s.]

Etc.: Arian Foster gives classic 'Sheed interview. 1985 Big Ten commercial might as well be from 1685. BHGP sent a horse to Big Ten Media Days. This is legit you guys. Hooray Michelle Beadle. Michigan unranked in opening coaches' poll.

Big Ten coaches really like the word "think." Derrick Walton transitioning away from being just a shooter. I found the only Penn State fan that doesn't loathe us with the fury of a thousand suns.

Comments

carlos spicywiener

July 31st, 2014 at 4:30 PM ^

wait a minute, people are being complimentary of Michelle Beadle's unprofessional reaction in putting a fellow employee on blast over social media?

I couldn't take that article seriously to begin with - from the beginning, the author was groveling at Beadle's feet.

"I'm now aware that I can provoke my own beating." I learned this lesson at 5 years old when I took a swing at a bigger kid for hogging the see saw on the playground.

reshp1

July 31st, 2014 at 4:31 PM ^

Man, some of those anonymous quotes are depressing. Pretty much just railing on how soft we were on defense everywhere. I don't even really want to know what the offense ones are like.

reshp1

July 31st, 2014 at 5:21 PM ^

"I don't know if that's because they don't have confidence in themselves or if the coaches don't have confidence in them, but you could push them around and they didn't push back."

 

Man, that's just brutal

reshp1

July 31st, 2014 at 5:50 PM ^

That quote was actually about the corners. I think it wasnt so much physicalness on the DL as much as we just ran out of the right body types. Jibreel Black just isn't a nose tackle. Pipkins getting hurt was a huge blow.

GoBLUinTX

July 31st, 2014 at 6:13 PM ^

I was addressing.

On the front seven: "It's always funny because you see things on film and expect it to go one way and then when you play them it goes the other. They were a good rush defense but we ran all over them. They weren't as physical up front as we expected and their linebackers were more upper-body tacklers..." 

On the defensive line: "They seemed to have a lot of undersized guys last year. Guys you could overpower and move around pretty easily."

Actually the front wasn't undersized, they just played undersized.

On Frank Clark: "He's good, but he's not like {Michigan State's] Shilique Calhoun or [Nebraska's] Randy Gregory. He doesn't have that go-to move yet. He's strong, he's fast, but he doesn't utilize everything every play. Maybe six or seven times a game, he's a beast, but the rest of the time you could handle him. Calhoun was a beast on 25-30 plays. I think that's more the norm for the best defensive ends." 

Clark is only playing at game speed 20-25% of the time relative to the conference benchmarks.  That's a coaching problem of at least one facet or another.

Bocheezu

July 31st, 2014 at 5:47 PM ^

I forgot about the ploy to run the clock out on 4th down, only to end up fumbling and giving them a hail mary chance at the end.  That's why you punt the ball outta bounds, folks.

ish

July 31st, 2014 at 5:52 PM ^

last year, i went to vegas alone for 36 hours to prep a witness.  i got up in the morning and went to breakfast at 7.  apparently everyone in vegas is dead at 7 am.  i was the only person in a 100 table restaurant.  then i walked through the casino to find the cheapest blackjack table.  it was $5.  i put down $20 and played for an hour before i realized i was never going to win or lose more than $5 and i was the only gambler within 100 feet.  then i waited in the lobby for the witness.  he was an hour late.  i chit chatted with the casino manager for that hour because there was literally nothing else i could do aside from pulling my hair out.  so in short, i completely agree: vegas alone is about as miserable as it gets.

PeteM

August 1st, 2014 at 9:57 PM ^

That's funny about the '96 Buffalo game.  I was also in a car having a heart attack during that last play

The Michigan Daily was great, and fun that they chose our campus.

chewieblue

August 2nd, 2014 at 1:22 PM ^

Needs to go did a hole and lay down in it. How many times can a guy show his true idiocy before he gets bounced once and for all?



Most of us work in places where we have FAR less voice/influence than he does and those types of ridiculous statements would never be tolerated. They definitely should not be allowed by a guy who is heard by the masses.

AlexiyaGoodmanusu

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