B10 Media Days Round-up Article (and Saturday Night Beverage Thread)
Mates,
Actual football discussion to take away from the B10 media days. The article is a mix of the various beat reporters in B10 country about the event. Among other notable points of interest:
1. Harbaugh remains the biggest draw and is right that we are the favorites to win it, however thin that margin might be. They rightly point out that ohio is still ahead on talent, but it remains to be seen how Day will do.
2. The West division has this comment: The Huskers will be better but good enough to surpass the Hawkeyes, Wisconsin, Northwestern and Minnesota after going 4-8?
3. Nobody pays attention to NU/Fitzpatrick and maybe they should. He returns a fair amount of talent from last year's team. I will add that if we hadn't hired Harbaugh, Fitz would be my next pick: intensity and integrity, and he's done a whole lot with a whole lot less than others.
4. Time to realign? Issue is that the 'marquee' programs are all in the East and no playoff participation thanks to the brain trust at B10 alignment efforts.
5. They try to salvage mork by saying he's 'hungry'. Whatever your/my distaste for him, you've got to give him credit for some results. That said, I would not be shocked if this season doesn't go so well for sparty. Defense will be stout, but what about the O?
Link to the article here: https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2019/07/20/big-ten-media-days-takeaways-michigan-football-ohio-state-iowa-wisconsin-purdue-indiana/1779862001/
Anyway, its football and its Saturday night. Hope the storms have passed you by and you are having an adult beverage as you BBQ.
Cheers,
XM
Liquid truth serum by Dogfish Head, first time I’ve had it, it’s a really smooth IPA, I’ll be back for more.
As far as the B1G media days, they came and went and when they ended it put us 2 days closer to the start of the season, so that was good.
I think it's still too early to say if realignment is necesssy yet. Nebraska could become a power again and Wisconsin has a record of doing decent (and who knows, someone else from the West could get hot here or there) - if MSU/PSU fall off the divisions could reach some degree of parity.
i candidly think sparty is right on the brink of 'falling off'. i think PSU will be a solid 8-9 win team for the foreseeable future.
Sparty actually loses quite a bit from the back 7. Not sure their defense will be that great, at least against the pass. And thankfully I feel confident Gattis will be fully willing to exploit that. I don't expect them to implode, and they'll probably always be dangerous with Dantonio, but I'd be surprised if they're contending for the division.
This is a key year for MSU. They return quite a bit of experience and their D and DL should be Championship caliber
The question is their OL experience. Returning players is a good thing unless the returning players are not good and don’t improve. Combine that with shitty play calling and possible poor QB play (injury related?) and MSU could be in some tight games against mediocre teams.
MSUs depth is suspect and they have not recruited well the past few years. They need a big season. Let’s hope it’s not one of classic Dantonio ball bounces their way all season.
not disagreeing, but why do you say that? good recruiter no doubt, but he's got a way to go to have the X's and O's down.
He's made good staffing decisions, and quickly.
Minnesota or Nebraska wiil win the West this year.
Nebraska has a lower ceiling. It’s a recruiting wasteland. The whole farm boy walk-on thing worked years ago, but...
Don't sleep on Frost. He's been pulling recruits from Nebraska's old pipelines in NJ and CA
Agreed. Frost is easily top 5 in best offensive minds in the game, and put together a pretty solid class despite the record last year, which shows he's at least a solid recruiter. If they make a big leap this year as many expect, Nebraska could very well be a power again sooner rather than later.
It's us and OSU in the east with the west being wide open.
Can't wait to see our new offense put up a bunch of points. Should be fun!!
Storms knocked out power around here, so my season ticket buddy of over 40 years and his wife are spending the night ( we have power ).
He and I will be sipping on some Texas craft whiskey.
GO BLUE!!!!!!
i too am excited to see how we're going to knock out the 'speed in space' meme. i even have a t-shirt that says so. optimistic, at least until we play ohio.
good on you, taking care of the neighbors. and (responsibly) drinking some whiskey seems like the most charitable way to do so.
Thanks XM. Hope you and the gang are safe and doing well up there in the north country.?
absolute chaos at home right now. singing show tunes (76 trombones, right now) loudly, dinner getting cleaned up, break in the proceedings of watching the original 'top gun' with the whole family as most have never seen it. i do not live in a normal household.
Water. NU is legit.
This is an all or nothing season. Either they go 12-0 and make it to Indianapolis, or they finish 7-5 and Harbaugh is on the hottest of seats
Yes, I've been drinking bourbon and calling in favors regarding the FSB hack.
extremely unlikely we're going to go 7-5. not impossible, but i'd bet sparty has that record long before we do.
what's up with the leather jacket and the dial phones, old pic when you were just about to seize power?
That's from back in my Starsky and Hutch days in Berlin.
And 7-5 is definitely possible if they get punched in the mouth by Army.
Wisconsin, Iowa, PSU, ND, MSU, OSU are all 50-50 games if #SpeedinSpace fizzles out and Charbonnet is not able to compensate.
Michigan went 8-4 with a pizza box at QB in 2017, and an OL that always thought they were supposed to block the guy behind the guy they were supposed to block. That's the absolute floor, and would take some serious injuries to get them there. 7-5 ain't happening in the Harbaugh era.
I hope to God you're right. I really do.
You look like a woman in this picture. Fur coat and a blue dress!
You look like a woman in this picture. Fur coat and a blue dress!
The stat I’m choosing to take away from this week’s media event is that Michigan returns the most All Big 10 players with 15. (I assume that includes every level.) OSU is next with 13. No one else has more than 8. To me that says it’s us or them. We return our starting QB and get them at home. They have a new QB and head coach. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to consider us the favorite as a result of that simple calculus.
I think that's pretty much it. I don't think our 15 vs 13 edge makes a difference because it's likely their "non All Big 10" returners are better than ours, but I think the returning QB vs new as well as the returning coach vs new is what tilts the scales (the home field advantage won't hurt). I don't think the edge is huge by any means, but on paper it's hard not make us the favorite.
Can you please try to corroborate that with a link or with a list of names? I'm just surprised to read it, since we and they and 16 and 15 returning starters, respectively. That's a higher returning All-Big Ten ratio than seems realistic given all the high end departures on defense (Gary, Chase, Bush, Long, etc -- who were All-Big Ten).
If Michigan returns 15, then they must have had 20 or more total All-Big Tenners in 2018, and ... I'm skeptical.
Offense (7): Patterson, Runyan, Bredeson, Ruiz, Collins, DPJ, McKeon
Defense (6): Hill, Metellus, Ross, Uche, Hudson, Paye,
ST (2): DPJ, Hart
Most of these guys are Honorable Mention selections, some just media, some just coach selections. Still, if we can find a running back to replace Higdon and a right tackle steps up, we could be looking at 40+ PPG on offense.
EDIT: I forgot to add Onwenu as an HM, so they weren’t counting DPJ twice.
Not sure how I'm still awake now, since I got up at 5:30 and drove the two older boys home from Marquette today. I think an alcoholic beverage might do me in.
how is it that the two older boys were up in the hinterlands?
We were visiting some cousins who have a cottage on a lake near Ishpeming. The younglings stayed home with mom.
It was quite a Pure Michigan week.
my old hometown, marquette. love that place. once drove to sandusky ohio and back in a day to get a bird dog years ago. and he was worth it.
Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous at times of anyone who gets to live up there. If you have the means and the income, it's like a hidden paradise for outdoorsy people.
My mom grew up in Marquette on Prospect St. I loved going there as a kid. My grandmother had a little cabin on Lake Kabawgam.
Fond memories of learning to ski, drive a boat, ride motorcycles and pick blueberries.
Winters are a bit too long for me though.
Fuck Mark Dantonio.
you watch your mouth. don't you dare say 'dantonio' on this blog.
I hate to fucking say this, but the East Lansing Aggies are going to have a solid team this year.
I fucking hate Dan7onio
I agree. Honestly, i think they have just as a good a shot as us to win the big ten. If anything, i'd give a slight edge to them. Their defense is gonna be nasty this year and with an even average offense, they'll win 10 games.
You think so? I dunno what's changed for them from last year. Defense will be elite, offense will be abysmal.
I never count out the fact that they could win a complete slog against us but I doubt they're contending for the division.
Still drinking St. Pauli Girl
Water because my pants have been getting too damn tight lately.
We made some overtures to Fitz at one time (I think 2011?). He made sure they became public so he could parlay it into more money and an extension. It was in the Chicago papers. He was never going to leave NU but correctly thought he could make some coin out of situation.
Harbaugh's statement regarding transfer rules make sense. Surprised it didn’t get more attention.
It’s accurate to label Fitzpatrick a formidable coach. They had stacked injuries last year and achieved great success with a MASH unit.
rainier beer.... some habits are hard to break.
It got some attention. I don't follow that many in Twitter but Stewart Mandel and Bruce Feldman both talked about it nationally. James Hudson also tweeted "lol" about it, which was interesting.
Harbaugh's transfer portal comments took off like wildfire. I can't believe it wasn't a thread on here. However, Most of the national press has framed it properly and stated that he never mentioned Hudson by name. His haters are acting like he flat out called the kid a liar.
I think it will all be up to the offense this season. If the offense can score over 30 points per game, we should win most of our games, may be 10 or 11 games this season. I'm worried about playing the whiteout at PSU, they are always up for that game. WI on the road will be tough. MSU always plays us tough and of course OSU has a high degree of confidence that they will win when we play them. I just hope Harbaugh can finally beat OSU, even if we don't win the B1G east. Our defense reminds of the 2017 unit with a lot of young talent after a lot of the 2016 great players graduated.
I have heard quite a few mentions of realignment, but has anyone in the Big 10 said what that might look like?
I think the B1G should of went with N/S divisions. North: MN, UM, MSU WI, PSU, Rutgers and NU. South: OSU, UN, Iowa, IL, IU, Purdue and Maryland.
love the graphics, but don't you think in your scenario you have given ohio an easier way to the championship game? their south teams of not would be iowa, nebraska and thats about it. at least now they have to play us, sparty and psu.
I'd go with wild animals in one division, and humans and nuts in the other.
I've always thought that kind of division would be best except that it really screws up The Game. You can't have them playing the final game and then half the time playing right away again in the championship game.
Plus a guaranteed crossover game against OSU is a big disadvantage. And not having a guaranteed game against OSU would be unacceptable.
We don't need another realignment, we need the conferences to drop the division concept altogether.
Then the five conferences do what the big 12 does and take their two top teams for the championship game.
Require the playoff committee to pick the four best of the five conference champions. And $%#@ notre dame. They'd fully join the acc tomorrow if this was the format.
This effectively expands the playoff to ten teams (sorta - yes, one conference champion will get left out each year) and brings a ton more national interest and meaning to the conference championship games. It'd also reduce the controversy we have each year from the selection committee - and keeps the regular season meaningful.
We can keep two guaranteed rivalry games and rotate through the other teams doing home and home series then shifting to other teams every two years. A player that stays for four years would be guaranteed to play each team in their conference at least twice. And require all the conferences to play 9 (or maybe even 10) in-conference games.
Because what becomes vital is winning your conference - which gives you an 80% chance of making the playoff, period - this will also encourage more strong teams to play each other ooc, because that loss won't derail things.
This is all very easy to implement and cleans up a ton of the current defects, so they'll obviously never do it.
Cheers.