Unverified Voracity Requisitions Shoes For The Men Comment Count

Brian

In the future they'll call them Lonbrays. You know who else has joined the Braylon Edwards Historical Reenactment Society? Braylon Edwards:

braylon-edwards-civil-warAs soon as he finishes this interview he's going to have a gangrenous limb sawed off and receive the couriers bringing word of Lee's progress across Virginia.  (HT to MGoShoe.)

In other facial hair news, Mustaches for Michigan is launching the 2010 campaign.

grailstacheBraylon's in. Are you? Is "Civil War Facial Hair For Michigan" in the offing? 

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter. Not really, desperate newspaper executives, but Darren Everson provides some reason for hope going into year three of the Rodriguez era:

Year three, statistically speaking, is when it all starts to come together—when the no-longer-new coach's recruits and systems settle into place, and the team reaches new heights. The records of college football's current major-conference coaches bear this out: They had a .548 win percentage in years one and two combined, then a .627 mark in year three.

This bodes well for our current head man, Rich Neuheisel, Bo Pelini, Bobby Petrino… and uh… Paul Wulff.

Right before practice. This is probably the second-best thing in the history of MVictors' trawling of Michigan's football heritage, a form Fritz Crisler had one Tom Harmon fill out before the 1939 season:

harmon-smoke #1 is still the drunk guy trying to tackle Harmon, but it's close.

Half the specialists should be fine. Excellent dairy from "Wonk" addresses Michigan's punting situation by looking at the recent track record of true freshman at the position. It's not exactly quarterback:

The total averages for all of the years:

  • Average Rank: 73.42
  • Average Punting Average: 39.30 yards (editors note: yecch)
  • Average Rivals Rating (for those who were actually rated): 5.21

So a true freshman punter is going to be just a little below average, as you might expect, and Hagerup comes in with more recruiting pedigree than anyone save Zoltan (38th in 2006) and Wisconsin's Brad Nortman (32nd in 2008). Hagerup should be fine.

Another winner. The first time a coach does something self-evidently petty and dickish, you can write it off as generic coach stuff. They've very stressed people. The second time approaches a trend, and Derek Dooley has just executed Dick Move 2 in his first offseason as Tennessee's coach:

As of Tuesday, a Tennessee spokesman said that request had come without a face-to-face meeting with Dooley, who seemed to confirm to the Knoxville News-Sentinel that he hadn't talked with the younger Brown at all throughout the saga: "The reason it has continued on (since the spring) is because Bryce has not come to me, looked me in the eye and said 'I want a release to so-and-so school.' At some point, that's got to happen." Arthur Brown told Schad, however, that there was a meeting between Dooley and Bryce last Saturday, before Bryce returned home to Kansas, which Dooley mysteriously asked the family to keep under wraps.

So not only is he not releasing Bryce Brown to Kansas State—who is not on Tennessee's schedule for the duration of his eligiblity—but he attempted to keep a meeting between the two parties secret, then lied to the media about whether it had taken place in an effort to make his decision seem more legitimate. This comes on the heels of his petulant decision to make Aaron Douglas transfer at least eight hours from Tennessee's campus (and his home). Douglas ended up at an Arizona JC; hopefully he'll cool his heels for a year and then stick it to Dooley by transferring back to the SEC.

Tennessee hasn't even played a game since the unceremonious end of the Kiffin era and the tune is already sounding disturbingly similar when it comes to euphemisms:

This story does once again confirm the notion that Dooley plays things close to the vest, having met with Brown on Saturday but denying it in the media.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles:

Lane Kiffin Knows Exactly what he is doing

…Kiffin's schtic [schtic sic] in the SEC did exactly what he wanted it to do. Gain attention for his program, he admitted as much in Part II of my interview with Kiffin at the Pac-10's media event here in NYC.

Sure he does. Note: USC is down to 71 scholarship players and will lose 20 seniors this offseason, of whom they can replace 15. They'll be down to 66 next year if they miraculously suffer zero attrition.

(HT: Team Speed Kills.)

Fiutakin' it. Via WolverineWill, Rick Reilly takes up the banner for Lane Kiffin. It was inevitable that some sportswriter would do this eventually, and it was just as inevitable that it would be shoddily argued to the point that it could appear on CFN:

And don't forget, Kiffin knew USC was about to be hit with some whopper sanctions by the NCAA over the Reggie Bush case, sanctions he had no hand in creating. He came anyway. And now that the sanctions are twice as bad as he thought they'd be, is he leaving? Is he complaining? No, he's trying to make filet mignon out of horse meat. He's stuck with 71 players when every other team with have 85. He's stuck with trying to sell kids on a school that will have no bowl games for two years and a Swiss-cheese roster.

Lane Kiffin told every high school kid in America that USC was going to get a stern look and a belly rub from the NCAA, so either he didn't know USC was going to get nailed or he merrily lied to USC's entire recruiting class. Also he is complaining. Rick Reilly is Fiutakin' it, man.

Etc.: GS continues its series on the instate recruiting war by looking at some recent history. You probably already know the way this ends—recruiting 40% of the top-quality instate prospects and a bunch of the rest gives you a program that looks a lot like Michigan State.

Comments

stubob

August 2nd, 2010 at 3:29 PM ^

So the earth-shattering news was that coaches go from 6.5 (.55 * 12)  wins in year 2 to 7.5 (.65 * 12) wins in year 3?  I'd rather have one of our resident statisticians look at that and see if there's actually anything to it or not.

Side:  I wonder why they averaged years one and two to get that number.  I bet year one was slightly above year two and messed up the story.

saveferris

August 2nd, 2010 at 4:23 PM ^

As soon as he finishes this interview he's going to have a gangrenous limb sawed off and receive the couriers bringing word of Lee's progress across Virginia.

Maybe Braylon was doing a summer stock theater performance of "Glory".

"...and dyin's been what these white boys have been doing for going on 3 years now.  Dyin' by the thousands....dyin' for you fool.  I know 'cause I dug the graves.  All the while asking myself, when Lord, when's it going to be our time.  Well our time's a comin'.  Time coming when we'll have to step up and kick in like men.....LIKE MEN!"

03 Blue 07

August 2nd, 2010 at 4:31 PM ^

Great quote; greater movie. I can hear Morgan Freeman saying that line right now. FWIW, I thought Andre Braugher as "Snowflake" was better than Denzel and should've won the Oscar for supporting actor over Denzel, but I think that solitary tear Denzel pulled out for the whipping scene probably sealed it for him. All in all, one of my favorite movies of all time.

Also: doesn't he say "ante up and kick in..." as opposed to "step up and kick in"?

KBLOW

August 2nd, 2010 at 5:45 PM ^

That Kiffin "knows what he's doing" article was written by a real ass-hat.  Read the whole thing if you want a good definition of denial masked as confidence.

bandgeek

August 2nd, 2010 at 6:29 PM ^

there is so much nonsense in that reilly paragraph that you may have missed another gem: the fact that, IIRC, kiffin was the, umm, offensive and recruiting coordinator of the team that incurred the violations that led to the sanctions that he had "no hand in creating"...i guess maybe he didn't personally hook reggie bush up with the promoters or whatever they were (or maybe he did!!), but it seems like at  a minimum he should have been, ya' know, aware of a) ncaa regs in this area and b) his star player's eligibility-destroying proclivities in this area.  no?

jmblue

August 2nd, 2010 at 10:15 PM ^

In the future they'll call them Lonbrays.

Outstanding.

Apparently, he won't shave it until he scores his first TD of the season.  This could present endorsement opportunities ("The only razor strong enough to penetrate Braylon's beard!")...

John Wyatt

August 3rd, 2010 at 1:20 AM ^

"Year three, statistically speaking, is when it all starts to come together—when the no-longer-new coach's recruits and systems settle into place, and the team reaches new heights. The records of college football's current major-conference coaches bear this out: They had a .548 win percentage in years one and two combined, then a .627 mark in year three."

This quote above is missing something, specifically all the coaches who got fired. Counting only the coaches who are currenlty coaching alters the data set in such a way that this stat is in no way predictive or even a fair measure of what actually happens in year 3 for a coach. Coaches get fired after bad years and fall out of this stat, thus raising the winning percentage of the coaches who still have jobs. Here is a short list of coaches who had 3rd years that were bad and are not included in that .627

John L Smith (5-7 in 2005)

Bobby Williams (3-6 in 2002 before getting fired)

Charlie Weis (3-9 in 2007)

Gerry DiNardo (3-8 in 2004)

All had sub-.500 records in their 3rd year. All are now gone. As a matter of fact, Ty Willingham had sub-.500 records twice in his 3rd year at a school and one school where he was 6-5 in the 3rd year. Any of those seasons would drag down that .627 average.

For the record, I'm growing accustomed to RichRod and hope he does well. Just, these numbers are argh to me.

Seth

August 3rd, 2010 at 9:10 AM ^

My 2010 NFL Prediction Based Entirely on Receiver Facial Hair Length: Jets will win the Superbowl, convert the Apache, defeat the rebels in the South, and build a great transcontinental railroad, ensuring perpetual prosperity for captains of Industry and the Union!