Medvedev was chosen as Putin's temporary "successor" when Putin was term limited in 2008 because Medvedev was the only guy in the country shorter than Putin himself...
Not sure who he's talking about, but a name like Jim Stapleton comes to mind (can't think of many other schools where an alum seems to actively try and sabotage their alma mater because he's butthurt). Also people like Warde who, if the rumors are true, seem more concerned about being liked by their peers than actually sticking up for their school amid all this B1G/NCAA bullshit...
Long Beach St. is going to the tournament with a fired coach (fired him a week ago but asked him to still coach the conference tournament, which they shockingly won). After punching their ticket dude dropped this gem:
On Monday Dan Monson was fired after 17 years at LBSU. Now he's dancing.
"When Jim Harbaugh says who's got it better than him, someone's got to tell him Dan Monson... I have the 1999 run at Gonzaga, but as Mark Few said over text, why don't we have a run in the first year and a… pic.twitter.com/Cb5MCctlS8
That would be great. Huntington Center is a great venue, and Toledo is a great hockey town. For people in the area, hit up a Walleye game sometime and thank me later.
With our luck though we'd be shipped elsewhere. Still don't understand why we've never bid Toledo. We've bid venues on the west side of the state (Grand Rapids and/or K-Zoo I think), but have never bid the awesome hockey venue that's way closer. Only thing I can figure is a state thing (we're only bidding venues in Michigan), but as long as they have this stupid neutral site setup, Toledo makes too much sense not to bid it...
I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, I wouldn't have expected him to get drafted. My guess is that UDFA is his ceiling, but then again, I wouldn't have expected guys like Metellus to make it in the league, so you never know...
I wouldn't necessarily say Mikey was better at everything; Dax's athleticism was off the charts (he was a first rounder for a reason), and he may have been slightly better in coverage. But importantly, don't forget that Dax was a safety. He played nickel corner in 2021 because that was what was better for our defense (we had solid safety depth but an out of position Dax was still one of the three best corners), but it's not entirely fair to compare Mikey to someone moonlighting at a different position.
Mikey's intelligence, leadership and intangibles are off the charts though.
Yeah, the extension thing was the most interesting aspect for me; I didn't know that until I read the article. Makes me think that DeBoer knew he had a great team coming back in 2023 and was preemptively planning on striking while the iron was hot...
The man gave us the best three-year run in the program's history and topped it off with a perfect season and a natty.
Maybe if you consider the modern era more impressive and thus discount older seasons, but 1901-1903 went 33-0-1 with three national championships (plus 1904 was 10-0 with a fourth straight national championship). Honorable mention to 1931-1933 (a one loss year in 1931 followed by two undefeated, national championship seasons) and 1947-1948 + 1946 or 1949 (two perfect, national championship seasons bookended by top 10 years).
I would fully agree with this. The point with JJ's reps, which is a valid point, is that more would have been better. The problems and inconsistencies with Williams' larger rep size (vs. JJ's largely excellent, though smaller, sample size) shouldn't just be handwaived away though...
TLDR, I feel like JJ has shown more than enough skill to warrant being the top QB (especially in a system that will take more advantage of his passing), while also being probably the safest pick (maybe one or a couple of the other QBs have a slightly higher upside, but also a lower floor)...
But that argument is essentially claiming that JJ's data sample isn't big enough to be statistically significant.
That's not the argument (or at least the argument I'm making). Rather, the argument is simply that more is better. More passing attempts mean more reps, which means more information for scouts to go off of, and more experience for the QB to learn from.
Anyone who took a stats class can tell you that after a certain point, increasing the size of the sample doesn't have any meaningful impact on the validity of the data being collected.
Where I think I disagree is that this is true when you're taking a sample of a large population to try and get a sense of the makeup of the population. First, that would be like looking at a sample of JJ's throws and saying it's representative (i.e. looking at more isn't going to give you any new information). But with JJ you're talking about adding to the population size; just from an experience point of view (he should get better with more reps and experience), I don't think it's the same concept as increasing the sample of a pre-existing population. But also the college game is different enough from the NFL that with college film you're looking at a player's performance to try and project performance in the NFL. I don't think it's the same thing when you're trying to use a sample of a population to predict that population vs. using a sample of a population to predict a different population.
The case against him is basically total passing yardage, which is junior high level analysis.
It goes a little deeper than that (at least for serious criticism). More passing attempts means more film, which gives scouts more to go off of. When you think of the difference in attempts (not to mention all the games in which the starters got pulled early), it's almost like JJ has half as much experience as some of the other top QB prospects. So that's not nothing.
The counter is that there seems to be little that's actually on film that suggests he isn't one of the top QBs in the draft. He's had some issues with deep ball accuracy, people have said he's had accuracy issues with intermediate routes to the left, but that's about it. He has a very strong arm, is generally very accurate, sees the field well, is a good leader, etc. Personally I feel like that adds up to being one of the safest options for a top QB, about as safe as you're going to get (even first round QBs seem to be a crap shoot).
Was it always like that? I don't remember him being hated during the Legion of Boom Seahawks years, though then again it's possible I just missed it...
Correct, he is simultaneously very liberal on some issues and very conservative on others.
As a more general matter, it is unfortunate that our binary political system often forces us to choose the "less bad" option, since so much of the country doesn't fit neatly in either of the two political boxes...
I was big into wrestling for a while as a kid. This probably sounds stupid, but for me everything fell apart when I realized it was fake. The storylines weren't great--in retrospect they probably sucked--and they became harder and harder to not just believe, but get into. But at least I could lean back into the illusion that it was real. But once that was gone, I just couldn't be interested anymore. It was no different than any other series that had long run out of good ideas...
If so - who's responsible for that - Moore, Harbaugh, a combination?
This hasn't really been addressed yet, but I personally have some concerns about sustaining it. To your question about who's responsible, I'd say Moore first and foremost. I certainly don't think Harbaugh had much to do with it--while he's often had good OLs, the Drevno and Warriner years weren't without struggles. And the rise of the OL to truly elite heights coincided with Moore's move from TE to OL coach. I don't think that's a coincidence at all. Unless a lot of the OL success was due to coaches behind scenes (i.e. grad assistants and analysts), I'd say Moore's coaching was the biggest driver.
Any concerns about it being sustained?
This hasn't really been addressed yet, but I personally have some concerns about sustaining it. So while I feel like Moore has been the biggest factor in the OL success, and yes, Moore is still around, what worries me is his shift away from OL coaching duties. Last year Moore took on full time OC duties in addition to coaching OL, and while the OL was still very good, it was a marked step down from the previous two years. It's such a small sample size that it's tough to know why--it could have just been a function of the players--but my concern is that as we lose Moore's focus on coaching OL, the OL will in turn take a step back. It's actually something we observed with Drevno and that I would term the "Drevno effect." Drevno was a highly regarded OL coach when he came here to be the OC as well as OL coach, and while he cleaned some things up from the disaster he inherited from Funk, his OLs were never great, to the point where Frey was (awkwardly) brought in as a co-OL coach and then the next year Drevno was fired (though to be fair his OC performance had quite a bit to do with that). In trying to figure out why Drevno couldn't recreate his previous successes with our OL, my best guess is that in trying to also be the OC, it drained enough of his time that he couldn't properly coach the OL.
The hope is that Newsome will be a great OL coach like Moore was, but it's always a concern when you replace a highly skilled coach with an unproven one.
Yeah, QB is front and center to my biggest worry for next year. I would like to see the offense open up more, but QB looks like a limiting factor unless someone takes a huge leap.
It'll be interesting to see how the offense looks going forward under Moore. Does he open it up more now that Harbaugh is gone? Or does he keep it run heavy? Bellamy in particular has been tough to evaluate. He seemed like a slam dunk hire, but the WR room has arguably underachieved (having trouble getting open, even when teams are stacking the box, has been a frequent criticism, among others), though whether that's due to coaching, the players, or the scheme is anyone's guess.
I oppose it for the same reason that I think twelve, or even eight, teams are too many for the CFP: namely that there are only so many teams that have a realistic shot at winning the title, and adding additional teams that have no shot is pointless. You're not adding more contenders, you're just expanding the bubble.
For football, in most years there are only a couple teams with a realistic shot of winning it all. This year was kind of an exception, as there were actually more teams that truly deserved a spot than the four spots available (hasn't typically happened), and if you squint you could maybe make an argument that there were upwards of eight-ish real contenders, but again, most years that's not been the case. In most years teams ranked nine through twelve, and often some of the teams ranked five (if not four) through eight, have no shot whatsoever, so all expansion does is add unnecessary games.
Same with basketball. Yeah, Cinderellas often make runs, but realistically there's what, ten, twenty teams that have a shot? I'm not opposed to the autobids, they make the tournament fun and teams that win their conference deserve a ticket, but adding another twelve spots for at-larges just pushes back the bubble and adds more games. I'm sorry, but if you can't make the tournament as it is right now, you just don't have any legitimate reason to get in...
Yeah, I don't mean to diminish the calls to get colonoscopies, but the recommended age starts at 45, and he was diagnosed at 31. I don't know what you're supposed to do at that point...
Jabrill's biggest problem is that he's a tweener. Seems to be overcoming that and making a nice career for himself, but at the end of the day, he's best suited for a viper role, and that just doesn't exist in the NFL. As such, he's always going to be some degree of square peg in whatever round hole you try to put him in...
He was a 4.4 guy until he put on about 15 20 lbs of muscle which made him much more durable but he lost that breakaway speed.
I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembers this. My early impression of him was that he was a speed back. He was the lightning to Haskins's thunder. He definitely did seem to get slower (likely, as you said, as he added weight), but I've always found the comments about him being slow to be strange, as I distinctly remember him being fast...
The thing that shocks me is that we hadn't done it in the past 50 years. Like, was the thought that we already had a bunch of manned landings, so it wasn't necessary to send any more probes/landers/whatever and instead focus on other targets? With the number of missions we've sent elsewhere in that time, I would have assumed at least one went to the moon...
Got to be honest, part of me(🤌🏻)still believes Joe Cool is the GOAT because of how dominant he was in the Super Bowl. He was sooo good while outperforming some all time greats on the other sideline.(Marino, Elway)
I always hated these types of arguments (e.g. "Montana was 4-0 in the Super Bowl") back when Brady was, say, 4-2, as if that somehow made Montana a better QB. While it's nice to perform well in the Super Bowl, every Super Bowl Brady lost is a Super Bowl Montana didn't even make. I.e. every Super Bowl loss for Brady was a conference championship, divisional or wildcard loss for Montana (or worse, a year Montana didn't even make the playoffs). I truly feel like there were plenty of people out there that felt like it was better to lose before the Super Bowl than in the Super Bowl itself. And that's ridiculous.
Grew up going to the game. My mom was a huge fan, and really drove my fandom, and my grandma and aunt had season tickets which allowed to go to a ton of games as a kid. Honestly I was young enough that I don't even remember my first game, would have had to have been in the early 90s. I feel like I remember a game against Indiana, which would have been 1991 I guess (would have been four at the time), but no idea if that was my first one. The first game I definitely remember attending was OSU in 1995, as an eight-year-old. By 1997 I was such a hardcore fan that my family took me to the Rose Bowl for the National Championship...
I have to believe that if he desired a DC role, he would've had it by now.
I feel like I remember hearing that being passed over for the DC job at ND when Freeman became HC was the final straw that led him to come here. Elston seems like he would have been the obvious choice on staff, and yet Freeman hired Al Golden to be the DC instead. It's not like Golden was some slam dunk hire. He hadn't been a DC in 16 years (granted 10 of those years were as a HC), and had been bouncing around NFL position coach jobs since getting fired as HC of Miami.
So I come at it from a different angle, i.e. why was Elston passed over, potentially multiple times? He was a co-DC for one year under Kelly (demoted back to position coach the next year), and Kelly never again elevated him to DC, despite Elston following Kelly from CMU to Cinci to ND. And Freeman preferred to grab what feels like a random retread instead of promoting him. Honestly I'd be a little worried hiring him. It would feel like kind of a panic move, particularly since Kelly and then Freeman didn't see enough in nearly 20 years to give him that job...
I feel like burnt out is a good way to put it. We just went 15-0 and won our first national championship since 1997, and yet the strongest emotion I think I feel (even more than joy, excitement, etc.) is exhaustion. More than anything else I'm just happy for a break. And I've lived and breathed Michigan football all my life. I'm not even sure that I'll renew my season tickets. I mean I probably will, but I'll probably wait until the last day, and if I forget about it and miss the deadline, oh well I guess. I have no explanation for why I feel this way, but I'm just exhausted...
I thought that was just one of a number of shady things he's done. I may not be remembering correctly, but my impression of him was that he was a slightly less shady version of Will Wade. Regardless, he would never go to any school that doesn't pay players Miami-style, i.e. Michigan would be the absolute last school he would ever go to...
I'm sure you're being sarcastic, but I honestly had wondered that, at least previously (his star has fallen a bit the past year or two). If you had asked me ~2019-2021, I would have thought he and Lincoln Riley would be about the two most likely coaches to jump from college to the NFL, as they both fit the young, offensive minded mold the NFL seemed to be going to. I certainly feel like Day would have had a better case than a Kliff Kingsbury, etc...
He needs to be mindful not just of his interests (as others have said), but also his abilities. Because even if he can get a good finance job, he's not going to last long (and not going to get rich) if he's not any good at it. It's not just a pure math thing; I did just fine with the math in engineering, but financial math makes my head spin. It did in school (I took a financial math class as an elective to finish my math minor, and I was horrible at it), and it still does. In other words, I couldn't do finance if I wanted to.
When I hear bottom quartile/bottom decile, that gives me real pause about recommending something that is incredibly difficult (there's a reason that finance pays so well, it's not just about the hours). As an example, my sister was bottom decile at U of M, and it was a struggle for her from start to finish. So explore it, sure, but prime him to accept the possible reality that he might not be cut out for it...
Recent Comments
Medvedev was chosen as Putin's temporary "successor" when Putin was term limited in 2008 because Medvedev was the only guy in the country shorter than Putin himself...
Not sure who he's talking about, but a name like Jim Stapleton comes to mind (can't think of many other schools where an alum seems to actively try and sabotage their alma mater because he's butthurt). Also people like Warde who, if the rumors are true, seem more concerned about being liked by their peers than actually sticking up for their school amid all this B1G/NCAA bullshit...
Long Beach St. is going to the tournament with a fired coach (fired him a week ago but asked him to still coach the conference tournament, which they shockingly won). After punching their ticket dude dropped this gem:
That would be great. Huntington Center is a great venue, and Toledo is a great hockey town. For people in the area, hit up a Walleye game sometime and thank me later.
With our luck though we'd be shipped elsewhere. Still don't understand why we've never bid Toledo. We've bid venues on the west side of the state (Grand Rapids and/or K-Zoo I think), but have never bid the awesome hockey venue that's way closer. Only thing I can figure is a state thing (we're only bidding venues in Michigan), but as long as they have this stupid neutral site setup, Toledo makes too much sense not to bid it...
Was he on our radar as a recruit? Always stings to miss out on guys in our backyard...
I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, I wouldn't have expected him to get drafted. My guess is that UDFA is his ceiling, but then again, I wouldn't have expected guys like Metellus to make it in the league, so you never know...
Better than paying a fortune for Cousins. I'm literally awestruck by how dumb that move is...
I wouldn't necessarily say Mikey was better at everything; Dax's athleticism was off the charts (he was a first rounder for a reason), and he may have been slightly better in coverage. But importantly, don't forget that Dax was a safety. He played nickel corner in 2021 because that was what was better for our defense (we had solid safety depth but an out of position Dax was still one of the three best corners), but it's not entirely fair to compare Mikey to someone moonlighting at a different position.
Mikey's intelligence, leadership and intangibles are off the charts though.
Yeah, the extension thing was the most interesting aspect for me; I didn't know that until I read the article. Makes me think that DeBoer knew he had a great team coming back in 2023 and was preemptively planning on striking while the iron was hot...
Maybe if you consider the modern era more impressive and thus discount older seasons, but 1901-1903 went 33-0-1 with three national championships (plus 1904 was 10-0 with a fourth straight national championship). Honorable mention to 1931-1933 (a one loss year in 1931 followed by two undefeated, national championship seasons) and 1947-1948 + 1946 or 1949 (two perfect, national championship seasons bookended by top 10 years).
I would fully agree with this. The point with JJ's reps, which is a valid point, is that more would have been better. The problems and inconsistencies with Williams' larger rep size (vs. JJ's largely excellent, though smaller, sample size) shouldn't just be handwaived away though...
TLDR, I feel like JJ has shown more than enough skill to warrant being the top QB (especially in a system that will take more advantage of his passing), while also being probably the safest pick (maybe one or a couple of the other QBs have a slightly higher upside, but also a lower floor)...
That's not the argument (or at least the argument I'm making). Rather, the argument is simply that more is better. More passing attempts mean more reps, which means more information for scouts to go off of, and more experience for the QB to learn from.
Where I think I disagree is that this is true when you're taking a sample of a large population to try and get a sense of the makeup of the population. First, that would be like looking at a sample of JJ's throws and saying it's representative (i.e. looking at more isn't going to give you any new information). But with JJ you're talking about adding to the population size; just from an experience point of view (he should get better with more reps and experience), I don't think it's the same concept as increasing the sample of a pre-existing population. But also the college game is different enough from the NFL that with college film you're looking at a player's performance to try and project performance in the NFL. I don't think it's the same thing when you're trying to use a sample of a population to predict that population vs. using a sample of a population to predict a different population.
It goes a little deeper than that (at least for serious criticism). More passing attempts means more film, which gives scouts more to go off of. When you think of the difference in attempts (not to mention all the games in which the starters got pulled early), it's almost like JJ has half as much experience as some of the other top QB prospects. So that's not nothing.
The counter is that there seems to be little that's actually on film that suggests he isn't one of the top QBs in the draft. He's had some issues with deep ball accuracy, people have said he's had accuracy issues with intermediate routes to the left, but that's about it. He has a very strong arm, is generally very accurate, sees the field well, is a good leader, etc. Personally I feel like that adds up to being one of the safest options for a top QB, about as safe as you're going to get (even first round QBs seem to be a crap shoot).
Looks like we're one of the last four byes in the latest bracketology. Are we pretty safe if we get the win tonight?
Doesn't mean they still can't (*fingers crossed*)...
Was it always like that? I don't remember him being hated during the Legion of Boom Seahawks years, though then again it's possible I just missed it...
Yeah just ask Freddie Mitchell...
Correct, he is simultaneously very liberal on some issues and very conservative on others.
As a more general matter, it is unfortunate that our binary political system often forces us to choose the "less bad" option, since so much of the country doesn't fit neatly in either of the two political boxes...
I was big into wrestling for a while as a kid. This probably sounds stupid, but for me everything fell apart when I realized it was fake. The storylines weren't great--in retrospect they probably sucked--and they became harder and harder to not just believe, but get into. But at least I could lean back into the illusion that it was real. But once that was gone, I just couldn't be interested anymore. It was no different than any other series that had long run out of good ideas...
RichRod just doesn't look right without a hat...
This hasn't really been addressed yet, but I personally have some concerns about sustaining it. To your question about who's responsible, I'd say Moore first and foremost. I certainly don't think Harbaugh had much to do with it--while he's often had good OLs, the Drevno and Warriner years weren't without struggles. And the rise of the OL to truly elite heights coincided with Moore's move from TE to OL coach. I don't think that's a coincidence at all. Unless a lot of the OL success was due to coaches behind scenes (i.e. grad assistants and analysts), I'd say Moore's coaching was the biggest driver.
This hasn't really been addressed yet, but I personally have some concerns about sustaining it. So while I feel like Moore has been the biggest factor in the OL success, and yes, Moore is still around, what worries me is his shift away from OL coaching duties. Last year Moore took on full time OC duties in addition to coaching OL, and while the OL was still very good, it was a marked step down from the previous two years. It's such a small sample size that it's tough to know why--it could have just been a function of the players--but my concern is that as we lose Moore's focus on coaching OL, the OL will in turn take a step back. It's actually something we observed with Drevno and that I would term the "Drevno effect." Drevno was a highly regarded OL coach when he came here to be the OC as well as OL coach, and while he cleaned some things up from the disaster he inherited from Funk, his OLs were never great, to the point where Frey was (awkwardly) brought in as a co-OL coach and then the next year Drevno was fired (though to be fair his OC performance had quite a bit to do with that). In trying to figure out why Drevno couldn't recreate his previous successes with our OL, my best guess is that in trying to also be the OC, it drained enough of his time that he couldn't properly coach the OL.
The hope is that Newsome will be a great OL coach like Moore was, but it's always a concern when you replace a highly skilled coach with an unproven one.
I get the sentiment. Plus, with the amount of opt-outs nowadays, you sort of feel like what's the point anymore?
Because not doing it makes it seem like you have something to hide?
I wouldn't say zero--I could envision a lineman jumping to try to catch/knock down a batted pass, for instance--but your larger point still stands...
Yeah, QB is front and center to my biggest worry for next year. I would like to see the offense open up more, but QB looks like a limiting factor unless someone takes a huge leap.
It'll be interesting to see how the offense looks going forward under Moore. Does he open it up more now that Harbaugh is gone? Or does he keep it run heavy? Bellamy in particular has been tough to evaluate. He seemed like a slam dunk hire, but the WR room has arguably underachieved (having trouble getting open, even when teams are stacking the box, has been a frequent criticism, among others), though whether that's due to coaching, the players, or the scheme is anyone's guess.
This exactly. Adding teams that don't belong (and let's be honest, how can you argue that more than 64 teams belong?) just dilutes the quality...
I oppose it for the same reason that I think twelve, or even eight, teams are too many for the CFP: namely that there are only so many teams that have a realistic shot at winning the title, and adding additional teams that have no shot is pointless. You're not adding more contenders, you're just expanding the bubble.
For football, in most years there are only a couple teams with a realistic shot of winning it all. This year was kind of an exception, as there were actually more teams that truly deserved a spot than the four spots available (hasn't typically happened), and if you squint you could maybe make an argument that there were upwards of eight-ish real contenders, but again, most years that's not been the case. In most years teams ranked nine through twelve, and often some of the teams ranked five (if not four) through eight, have no shot whatsoever, so all expansion does is add unnecessary games.
Same with basketball. Yeah, Cinderellas often make runs, but realistically there's what, ten, twenty teams that have a shot? I'm not opposed to the autobids, they make the tournament fun and teams that win their conference deserve a ticket, but adding another twelve spots for at-larges just pushes back the bubble and adds more games. I'm sorry, but if you can't make the tournament as it is right now, you just don't have any legitimate reason to get in...
Yeah, he was 31 when he was diagnosed...
Yeah, I don't mean to diminish the calls to get colonoscopies, but the recommended age starts at 45, and he was diagnosed at 31. I don't know what you're supposed to do at that point...
Yeah, wasn't he kind of the consensus top guard in the country before he got hurt?
Jabrill's biggest problem is that he's a tweener. Seems to be overcoming that and making a nice career for himself, but at the end of the day, he's best suited for a viper role, and that just doesn't exist in the NFL. As such, he's always going to be some degree of square peg in whatever round hole you try to put him in...
I'm glad I'm not the only one that remembers this. My early impression of him was that he was a speed back. He was the lightning to Haskins's thunder. He definitely did seem to get slower (likely, as you said, as he added weight), but I've always found the comments about him being slow to be strange, as I distinctly remember him being fast...
The thing that shocks me is that we hadn't done it in the past 50 years. Like, was the thought that we already had a bunch of manned landings, so it wasn't necessary to send any more probes/landers/whatever and instead focus on other targets? With the number of missions we've sent elsewhere in that time, I would have assumed at least one went to the moon...
Is baseball projected to be any good this year? Obviously last year was a letdown from where Bakich had us, hopefully they can rebound...
Is this a posbang thread or a negbang thread? Because wow do they look miserable up there. You just graduated! Crack a smile, or something...
Yeah, I'd definitely call the MI bar and see what they have to say about your situation...
I always hated these types of arguments (e.g. "Montana was 4-0 in the Super Bowl") back when Brady was, say, 4-2, as if that somehow made Montana a better QB. While it's nice to perform well in the Super Bowl, every Super Bowl Brady lost is a Super Bowl Montana didn't even make. I.e. every Super Bowl loss for Brady was a conference championship, divisional or wildcard loss for Montana (or worse, a year Montana didn't even make the playoffs). I truly feel like there were plenty of people out there that felt like it was better to lose before the Super Bowl than in the Super Bowl itself. And that's ridiculous.
Grew up going to the game. My mom was a huge fan, and really drove my fandom, and my grandma and aunt had season tickets which allowed to go to a ton of games as a kid. Honestly I was young enough that I don't even remember my first game, would have had to have been in the early 90s. I feel like I remember a game against Indiana, which would have been 1991 I guess (would have been four at the time), but no idea if that was my first one. The first game I definitely remember attending was OSU in 1995, as an eight-year-old. By 1997 I was such a hardcore fan that my family took me to the Rose Bowl for the National Championship...
I feel like I remember hearing that being passed over for the DC job at ND when Freeman became HC was the final straw that led him to come here. Elston seems like he would have been the obvious choice on staff, and yet Freeman hired Al Golden to be the DC instead. It's not like Golden was some slam dunk hire. He hadn't been a DC in 16 years (granted 10 of those years were as a HC), and had been bouncing around NFL position coach jobs since getting fired as HC of Miami.
So I come at it from a different angle, i.e. why was Elston passed over, potentially multiple times? He was a co-DC for one year under Kelly (demoted back to position coach the next year), and Kelly never again elevated him to DC, despite Elston following Kelly from CMU to Cinci to ND. And Freeman preferred to grab what feels like a random retread instead of promoting him. Honestly I'd be a little worried hiring him. It would feel like kind of a panic move, particularly since Kelly and then Freeman didn't see enough in nearly 20 years to give him that job...
My guess is that he feels like he would need at least two, i.e. at least one more than John has...
I feel like burnt out is a good way to put it. We just went 15-0 and won our first national championship since 1997, and yet the strongest emotion I think I feel (even more than joy, excitement, etc.) is exhaustion. More than anything else I'm just happy for a break. And I've lived and breathed Michigan football all my life. I'm not even sure that I'll renew my season tickets. I mean I probably will, but I'll probably wait until the last day, and if I forget about it and miss the deadline, oh well I guess. I have no explanation for why I feel this way, but I'm just exhausted...
The sad thing is that I thought "wow that sounds like us" before I even reached your last paragraph...
I wouldn't read too much into that; Minter was reportedly out on the recruiting trail last week...
Wasn't it well publicized that MacDonald hates recruiting?
I thought that was just one of a number of shady things he's done. I may not be remembering correctly, but my impression of him was that he was a slightly less shady version of Will Wade. Regardless, he would never go to any school that doesn't pay players Miami-style, i.e. Michigan would be the absolute last school he would ever go to...
I'm sure you're being sarcastic, but I honestly had wondered that, at least previously (his star has fallen a bit the past year or two). If you had asked me ~2019-2021, I would have thought he and Lincoln Riley would be about the two most likely coaches to jump from college to the NFL, as they both fit the young, offensive minded mold the NFL seemed to be going to. I certainly feel like Day would have had a better case than a Kliff Kingsbury, etc...
He needs to be mindful not just of his interests (as others have said), but also his abilities. Because even if he can get a good finance job, he's not going to last long (and not going to get rich) if he's not any good at it. It's not just a pure math thing; I did just fine with the math in engineering, but financial math makes my head spin. It did in school (I took a financial math class as an elective to finish my math minor, and I was horrible at it), and it still does. In other words, I couldn't do finance if I wanted to.
When I hear bottom quartile/bottom decile, that gives me real pause about recommending something that is incredibly difficult (there's a reason that finance pays so well, it's not just about the hours). As an example, my sister was bottom decile at U of M, and it was a struggle for her from start to finish. So explore it, sure, but prime him to accept the possible reality that he might not be cut out for it...
We should hit up Harbaugh to donate to the "Need to Find Replacements for All the Coaches Heading to the Chargers" fund...