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They're not just muppets -…

They're not just muppets - they're martians! See here for example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_trSIBCgF0

 

Very rough sketch:

We are…

What is dark energy?  Rough attempt to provide a (non-rigorous) answer:

We are familiar with normal matter. We, our dogs, our football stadiums, and the dark side of the moon are made of normal matter. As Newton realized and Einstein clarified, normal matter is the source of gravity. All matter attracts all other matter. If you know how much a football or a star weighs, and you know how fast it's moving, then you can use physics to predict how the force of gravity influences its motion and predict its path of travel.

At first, we assumed that stars and all the not-yet-made-into-stars "stuff" in galaxies was also made of normal matter. And then scientists began to observe stars in nearby galaxies closely, and watch how those stars moved. (Roughly, how they orbit the centers of their galaxies.)  And it was quickly realized that if you add up all the stars you can see and how much mass they must have, and then you watch the stars move, you find that the mass and the motion don't match. There must be something like 5x more mass there that we can't see in order to explain the motion. Thus, the term "dark matter" was coined to explain stuff that must create gravity, but doesn't shine brightly in the sky for us to see.

Turns out this "dark matter" theory actually cleanly solves many different problems in cosmology (not just the galaxy rotation example), so even though we don't really yet know what "dark matter" is made from, the idea that it exists is at this point uncontroversial.  (Note that while we don't know what dark matter is, we do what it's not. It's not a bunch of planets or comets or black holes. If there were 5x more black holes than stars in the universe, we would definitely be able to tell!  Seems clear that dark matter is not made of normal matter.)

---

Okay so separate from all of that, it's quite clear that the universe is expanding. This has been known since the late 1920s, and Einstein famously could have predicted it when he first developed General Relativity but chickened out. (The guy who did first find it, Hubble, got a rather nice telescope named after him for his efforts.)

The expansion of the universe began with the infamous Big Bang. (A point of common confusion -- the idea that the universe is expanding tends to suggest that it used to be smaller, which often leads to people saying that "the whole universe was once the size of a grapefruit" and leads people to ask where did the Big Bang happen?  The answer is that the Big Bang happened everywhere, and the Universe might well be infinitely big now and might well have been infinitely big then too.  The thing about infinity is that you can multiply it by a very large number and it's still infinity. The part that used to be grapefruit-sized is just the part we can see, the observable universe, which we're pretty sure is only a small fraction of what's actually "out there.")

Remember how earlier we said that if we know how much something weighs, and we know how fast it's moving, we can predict where it will go?  We can do this with the expansion of the universe as well. We know how much various galaxies weigh, and we can watch them move, and we can predict how gravity will slow down the expansion of the universe over time as all matter is attracted to other matter.

But there's a catch. It's become increasingly clear from recent observations that the expansion of the universe is NOT slowing down. In fact, it's speeding up! This is bonkers. There is no known mechanism to drive this acceleration. In General Relativity, positive mass has positive (attractive) gravity, and mass and energy are interconvertible (E=mc² and all that), so when you see something that looks like repulsive gravity, the equations of General Relativity give you something back that looks like a negative energy.  Since we already have "dark matter" to explain one mystery, the name "dark energy" was coined to describe this mysterious repulsive force that apparently fills the universe and accelerates its expansion.

So, if you are confused about what "dark energy" is, you're not alone. There really is no current explanation for what it is, other than that it's a term in an equation that allows us to fit the current best observations for how the universe is changing with time.

The current paper attempts to begin to explain what dark energy is, and in the process invokes the unexpected twist that maybe as the universe expands, the black holes inside it are expanding with the universe (not due to gobbling up stars or anything; they're being dragged to larger size by the growth of the space they sit in.)  That is a fun new twist. Normal matter does not expand with the universe. You and I and Jim Harbaugh and the Andromeda galaxy are not expanding with space. The Earth is gravitationally bound to the Sun, and they will stay the same distance apart even as the universe around them expands (nor is the Earth itself expanding). But black holes have always been weird, so them being weird in this way is perhaps not that surprising after all.

Link to the actual article…

Link to the actual article for those who are interested:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/acb704

Pet theory: yes, 12 million…

Pet theory: yes, 12 million is the minimum acceptable number. Not because he cares about the money per se, or even necessarily how much he makes compared to Tucker, Saban, etc, but because that's how much his brother makes.

Interesting analysis. I'm…

Interesting analysis. I'm not sure if this counts as a caveat, but it's worth pointing out that by your championship-game-excluded definition, Alabama has not lost a bowl game since 2014 (which is just absurd). Non-Alabama CFP champions are Ohio State (B1G), Clemson 2x (ACC), LSU (SEC), and Georgia (SEC), meaning the ACC has won as many non-Alabama championships as the SEC has and the B1G is only one behind. Meanwhile Alabama alone has won the CPF three times (and played for 3 more!). So, when one notes that the SEC is the most dominant conference (e.g. in ranked bowl wins or championships won), how much is that a statement about the SEC as a whole, and how much is just a statement that Alabama has had an unprecedented run of dominance over college football, and Alabama happens to play in the SEC?

Edit: not fast enough. East German Judge already posted the picture.

You can't scheme around that…

You can't scheme around that.

This is the answer right here. I don't know why so much of the narrative about this game is about OSU's failings. Is it that hard to believe that maybe Michigan is just that good? When Michigan's offense is executing at the level they did last Saturday, they are extremely hard to stop. Their run game forces you to commit more and more resources to the line of scrimmage, which leaves you vulnerable to being hit over the top. If those over-the-top hits connect, as they did on Saturday, then there's nothing left for the defense to do but tip its hat.  Would bending instead of breaking have been strategically better?  In a vacuum, perhaps, but if you're trying to play complementary football opposite the high powered OSU offense, taking a few gambles (and trusting your 5*s to make plays) seems like good coaching to me. The larger failings with OSU are in the meta: they are built to be an NFL squad and to make playoff runs, rather than being built specifically to destroy Michigan. Conversely, Michigan is now built specifically to destroy OSU. But there's nothing the in-game coaching on Saturday could have done about that.

Michael Barrett made the…

Michael Barrett made the comment that in years past, playing OSU at the end of the season was something you just had to get through. Made it sound like a chore, something you knew was going to be unpleasant. All that's gone away now. Now we've got Sainristil saying "they are who we thought they were," and a team that's down three at the half looking at the game and saying "we've got 'em right where we want 'em." Cliché or not, "Michigan is not afraid of Ohio State anymore" pretty well captures it.

Since you asked...

I have…

Since you asked...

I have defined the Modern Era as being since 1983. This encompasses 40 years of playing seasons, and includes every season since Jim Harbaugh enrolled at Michigan.

By my count Michigan has played 131 non-conference games during this span. Teams we have played more than twice during that span are:

Notre Dame - 28

Western Michigan - 6

Washington - 6

Eastern Michigan - 5

Miami (not that Miami) - 5

UCLA - 4

Boston College - 4

Colorado - 4

Hawaii - 4

Central Michigan - 3

Washington State - 3

UConn - 3

Houston - 3

Maryland (as a non-con) - 3

As you guessed, Western and Eastern are near the top (and obviously Notre Dame has been most-played by far). But apparently Miami is tied for second-most popular MAC opponent. The Pac 10/12 and MAC are the most-played conferences overall. Our only non-conference SEC match-ups during this span were JerryWorld games against Alabama (2012) and Florida (2017) and a one-off against Vandy in 2006.

That Michigan's most-played…

That Michigan's most-played opponents are the "old" Big 10 is no surprise, but it immediately makes one wonder - who's next on the list after Purdue?

...

It won't surprise anyone to know that next (#10) is Notre Dame, whom Michigan has faced 44 times. #12 is Penn State, with 26 match-ups (all since Penn State joined the B11GTen), tied with UChicago (an original conference member). I was not, however, expecting that #11 would be Case Institute of Technology. Michigan has faced Case 27 times (holding a 26-0-1 record). Evidently the two played every single year between 1897 and 1924, and then never again thereafter.

The only other teams Michigan has faced 20+ times are Penn and Navy. Interestingly, we have played future conference mate UCLA more times (13 games against) than current conference mates Maryland and Nebraska (11 times each), and USC more times (10) than Rutgers (8). On this basis, possible future conference mates Washington (13) and Stanford (11) also seem like natural fits.

I think you'll see Cade play…

I think you'll see Cade play much more than a half against CSU and JJ much more than a half against Hawaii. We saw this last year at the beginning of the season as well - the starters stayed in well after the game was in hand to get more game reps. (Example: vs NIU, Cade had 37 snaps and JJ 23, while four other players combined for 11 snaps at the end.) If the goal is to see what you have in each guy, you have to give them enough time on the field to see a variety of downs and distances and field positions, and that probably takes more than a half. I'm guessing Q4 or last drive of Q3 before the starting QB heads to the bench.

I think you can make an…

I think you can make an analogy (in football terms at least) between Cal in the Bay Area and Rutgers in NYC.  Neither one has a huge following in its local market, but that doesn't actually matter. What matters is the huge number of alums and fans of current B1G schools who live in the Bay Area and ARE interested in football, basketball, etc, and would attend or watch a Cal game if Cal were playing their school. Having a foothold in NYC allowed the B1G to rationalize having the men's BB conference tournament at MSG, and that seems to have gone pretty well. No reason you couldn't leverage that same effect at the Chase Center or the Oakland Arena.

 

Maybe there will be a bit of…

Maybe there will be a bit of a receiver in Year 3, you know, to please the reel folk.

I love what this implies. Stand-out on defense? Come to Michigan, get invited to New York.

A step behind but perhaps in…

A step behind but perhaps in this case for good reason. It is not at all clear that what Texas A&M is doing is actually allowed under NIL. This is a cultural difference in the organizations we are not likely overcome:  A&M doesn't care if it is legal; they were doing it already either way. That $25 million is probably there with or without NIL. A&M isn't afraid of a slap on the wrist (or more) and don't care about having to say sorry if they overstepped (indeed I doubt they would even apologize).

Michigan may well be "All In" on what they know is legal. That almost certainly will stop well short of what places like A&M are willing to do. This is really a separate issue from how good Michigan's NIL infrastructure is, whether it's coordinated, whether the AD is directly involved or arms' length, etc. Whatever the new rules are, Michigan is still going to try to follow them, while places that don't care about the rules will continue to not care about the rules. Don't confuse being "reactive" in the sense of not being ahead of TAMU with being "reactive" in the sense of having no program for the actual use of name, image, and likeness in place.

And even more amazingly, it…

And even more amazingly, it's not a fluke. The last great Michigan team in 2011 was a lot of fun to watch, but as has been documented in this space, it did take a certain amount of luck to get there - most obviously in the Sugar Bowl win, which was absurd by any measure. By contrast, this 2021 team is if anything unlucky not to be 13-0 right now, with dominant victories over two 10-win teams including the Death Star down south, plus @Wisconsin and @Penn State. Not only is a playoff berth well-deserved, but I dont think we've seen the ceiling yet on how good this team can be. I'm so grateful we get to watch them play (at least!) on more time. GO BLUE!

Yeah it's striking to…

Yeah it's striking to compare Michigan rushing attempts in the Game vs. the season average: they're essentially the same. In other words, Michigan won by being exactly what it has been all season. Amazing that OSU didn't have a more targeted plan to stop that.

And in Michigan's case, this…

And in Michigan's case, this isn't just a matter of what the alumni or the Regents or the Athletic Director expect: Jim Harbaugh himself is a big believer in the true student athlete experience. The overseas trips, for example, were because he realized that athletes don't otherwise get to have the study-abroad experience and he wanted to provide that for them. He has Michigan selling recruits on a "40-year" plan where there's something other than just football in their future. Paying more than lip service to the student side of the equation, making sure his players have the full college experience, is something the head coach himself appears to value.

Calling it early: he is our…

Calling it early: he is our next Eli Brooks. Different position, but long term I see him becoming that guy who does a little bit of everything, draws a tough defensive assigment or buries a key shot when you need one or brings some energy when play goes flat. Luxury that he can grow into that role while our current Eli Brooks is playing beside him!

LETTING THE DAYS GO BY...

 

LETTING THE DAYS GO BY...

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WTeTcrvSQms

 

Honestly, I'm consistently…

Honestly, I'm consistently underwhelmed by the steaks at Chop House. Like, they're not bad or anything, but at that price point I expect something superior to what I can grill at home, and I can't honestly say they've achieved that. Maybe I've just been there during off times or gotten unlucky, though I would expect one of the premier restaurants in Ann Arbor would deliver a consistent product no matter what time I happen to be there.

The calamari, on the other hand, is out of this world.

One part apricot jam, one…

One part apricot jam, one part sriracha, one part yellow mustard. Use on pork, chicken tenders, vegetables, whatever. You're welcome.

And here I thought that…

And here I thought that BryMac's description of the perfect nacho was among the most insightful and undeniably true statements ever made on this here blog.

Strong work as always, gentlemen. LFG.

Brian,

THANK YOU. For…

Brian,

THANK YOU. For seventeen years, you've helped us understand everything from what a "hybrid space player" is and how to use one, to how to process victory and loss, to what it means to grow up, evolve, outgrow the person you were in college without really meaning to, spend part of your 30s feeling lost even though things mostly seem to be going well, and how to navigate the fact that your relationship with things that matter to you (sports, but not just sports) will change as you do (and as they do).

You have done with Michigan sports what great science fiction writers do with fantastic worlds: use them as a lens to help us understand the world we actually live in, and how we fit into it, and what it means, ultimately, to be human. We are drawn here by your unique ability to put a name to what so many of us feel but could not describe. By drawing us here, you have created a community, something larger than yourself. I might go further and argue that you've shaped the the entire Michigan fan community. There is generation of us for whom you have been as important to our understanding of Michigan fandom as Bob Ufer was for a generation before us. And as you are well aware (having written a column about this yourself), there is no other college football fanbase that has something like MGoBlog. That's a testament to Michigan's unique fans, to be sure, but also very much testament to your own remarkable talents. Be proud of what you have built.

Please take to heart the pages of comments this post has generated. Be there for your family, and figure out how to be a whole person again. Write when you have something to say - whether or not it's about sports - and take care of yourself. And if the answer is to retire from the blog entirely, we can only be grateful to you for this amazing thing you have created, and the way you have enriched our lives. Again, THANK YOU.

I mean, Tom Harmon is the…

I mean, Tom Harmon is the Michigan GOAT and it's not even close - dude received a standing ovation at the Shoe - but restricting to players anyone other than Craig Ross can remember, yeah, Woodson for sure. And I, too, love me some Denard Robinson.

 

And JMo - these are fantastic, and the poorly named Diaries section is the right place for them. Keep 'em coming!

As with admissions-related…

As with admissions-related issues, the University's policy on (non)-use of its trademarks has nothing to do with student athletes, but rather is a University-wide policy impacting everyone on campus. We were not, for example, allowed to use the Block M on the shirts that our undergrad department made as seniors. We weren't trying to make money; we just wanted to make shirts that said "CHEMENG" with block-M in the middle to commemorate our time on North Campus. We were informed that legal action would be taken against us if we tried to do this. How lame is that!

As a student, I thought it immensely stupid that the very people for whom the University exists - the students - couldn't use the University logo. I get why this is more complicated when a student _is_ trying to make money, not for the University but for him/herself, and wants to use the logo in the process, but that doesn't seem like it should be an unmanageable situation. But as I said, the policy isn't targeted at student athletes in particular, so I would not necessarily expect that the wants or desires of student athletes will have much impact on changing it.

I think Gattis also just…

I think Gattis also just wasn't quite ready for the big chair his first year, and Harbaugh had to get more involved, leading to an apparent shift in tactics halfway through the season. And then last year apparently there was drama in the offensive coaching room leading to Warriner's departure. So maybe this year we'll finally get to see what a fully operational Gattis looks like?

Do you consider it "playing…

Do you consider it "playing dress-up" when Michigan Football players wear jerseys and pads?

Road bikers wear spandex shorts because over long distances, everything else eventually chafes you raw. They wear tight shirts not only because biking into the wind is exhausting and minimizing drag is therefore desirable, but because loose fitting clothing in wind turns into a sail and can actually blow you sideways. They wear dorky glasses with extra mirrors on the side because being able to see what's coming behind you isn't just convenient, but may be essential to staying alive on roads where you are much smaller, lighter, and slower than the traffic coming up behind you.

It may look ridiculous - and believe me, most bikers are aware of how stupid they look - but they "dress up" because experience has proven that's what's most functional for the activity.

Likewise, motorcyclists wear heavy leather or kevlar jackets and leather chaps because they want to have at least a slim chance of keeping their skin attached to their bodies if their bike goes down. That can happen in the first five miles as easily as in the next five. Does the jacket have to have a skull on it? That's not really much different than having a team logo on a jersey. And dressing like the rest of your club is in any case a basic tribal human behavior that reinforces belonging to the group. Not really different from wearing maize and blue to Crisler. Hell, wearing a golf shirt on a golf course or a suit to meet a client is "dressing up" too, yet that's something we all but expect of responsible adults. I'm sure if you think about it you'll remember a time that you, too, have dressed up for something. It's not really that upsetting.

Ha, i was just about to post…

Ha, i was just about to post such a matrix only to see that you came up with the exact same one. Apparently there is some consensus already on the best solution!

Indeed this has already…

Indeed this has already happened: in 2008 Oklahoma, Texas, and Texas Tech ended the season in just such a three way one loss round robin. Oklahoma was chosen the winner by virtue of having the highest BCS rank. That was within what was then the Big12 South Division rather than the conference as a whole, but as all three had better records than any North division team, the problem would have been the same if there had been no divisions.

Closer to home, in 2016 we were two points at Kinnick away from the same thing happening with Michigan, OSU, and PSU in the B1G East. (Sorry for the reminder.)

In both those examples the tiebreak winner did go on to win the conference championship, so maybe not the full doomsday scenario you outlined. But particularly for the Big12, a stronger team from the South being upset in the championship game had happened in 2001and 2003, and Ndamukong Suh almost made it happen again in 2009. So yeah, in college football, total chaos is never far away.

I mean, we don't lose that…

I mean, we don't lose that many recruits to MSU either. But they're still a pain in the ass. I want OSU to feel our pain.

If so, I vote for Cincinnati…

If so, I vote for Cincinnati (which will never happen). Not because I care for them, but because screw OSU.

Alternately they could drop Nebraska and slot ND in their place. I don't think Nebraska to the B1G has worked well for either party, and if Texas is done having a hissy fit the Big 8/12/10/? would probably take them back.

Either way, need ND in the West for some semblance of competitive balance.

See here, from May 25: https…

Could also be that they're prioritizing writing a thoughtful response over getting out a statement ASAP. You posted this question two hours after the press conference started. I wouldn't expect a column until tomorrow.

Harbaugh may also have had…

Harbaugh may also have had the same blind spot that everyone with a connection to the program has, and assumed that to some extent Michigan would recruit itself (especially if he's winning, which at first, he was). That, combined with his own NFL pedigree and the idea that selling the NFL might be his best differentiating advantage in recruiting, may have led him to focus on bringing in coaches with NFL connections* and selling getting ready for the League by playing for coaches who know what that level of football is really like, rather than hiring coaches who are college-level recruiters first and foremost, and can recruit for Michigan itself and not just an NFL future to follow.

I too have to credit him with realizing none of that was working and making the radical change that was apparently needed. It's fine to be salty that it took so long for him to figure it out, but how many leaders never figure out that what always worked for them in the past isn't working anymore? Despite the uncomfortable rebuild ahead (again!), the plan itself now at least makes sense. Let's hope it works!

*Don Brown excepted of course, but that reads pretty clearly as a counter to OSU that unfortunately OSU stayed one step ahead of.

We do have the same trouble…

We do have the same trouble with Basketball when undergrad transfers are involved. Cost us a shot at Nojel Eastern last year: https://mgoblog.com/content/nojel-eastern-isn%27t-coming-michigan-after-all

And that's a transfer from Purdue! A good school with classes equivalent to Michigan's! I think in this case they ran into a cap on how many credits they'd accept, regardless of equivalency. But whatever the reason in Eastern's case, the larger point is that admissions policies do have effects beyond football.

Tongue in cheek I know, but…

Tongue in cheek I know, but your question does actually have an easy answer: more posters = more entropy. More information entropy on the Board, and also more physical entropy from the heat expended by more typing fingers.

What's fun about physics is that banning posters ALSO raises the entropy of the universe. (Insert death star gif here)

Had a builder tell me that…

Had a builder tell me that not only is lumber hard to get, but that what is available is younger growth trees harvested earlier than optimal, and that the resulting wood is much more prone to warping, cracking, etc. Which in turn means fewer quality boards, which means even less supply.

For decks, they're pushing Trex really hard. But you have to figure the price on that will go up too if the lumber shortage increases demand for alternatives.

Watch out for closing costs…

Watch out for closing costs. Looked into this not long ago, and found cases where for example a 30 year loan at 3.00% ended up costing more than the same term at 3.25% because the closing costs were higher for the lower rate. No matter what the rates do, you can be sure the banks will find a way to make money...

I think this cuts to the…

I think this cuts to the real nub of why it's so difficult to make real changes in the socioeconomic composition of the student body. The students have already been in school for 12-13 years by the time they're applying for the University of Michigan, and the extremely wide range of possible outcomes after those 12-13 years is more of a gap than a 4-year tertiary educational institution can reasonably be expected to close. It is noble of Michigan and Texas and other universities to try to create balance and greater opportunities for more students, and they should by all means continue to try to find creative ways to do this. But the place where real change is needed is at the primary and secondary level, i.e. outside the control of the universities or their admissions offices.

I think with Milton, the…

I think with Milton, the coaches were really hoping that a guy with all the physical upside could also put together the mental part with time on task (including in games), and given how teachable and hard-working Milton was, they gave him a lot of leash hoping it would all finally click.

And then it eventually became clear that despite how capable and how teachable he was, he just didn't have the ability to process what was happening in front of him at extreme speed and under fire in order to consistently make the right decision. Not a knock on him - what's required of the position is almost superhuman. And it is a knock on Gattis and Harbaugh, as most college QB's don't have "it" either, and yet most college offenses manage to lurch along in a way Michigan's could not. But I do understand why they gave Milton so much of a chance.

But you're right - I'll take a guy with a high processing rate and low arm strength over an arm that's just an arm at the QB position every time.

This is why "Player of the…

This is why "Player of the Year" and "Most Valuable Player" need to be separate awards. Garza is the MVP no question for exactly the reason you stated, but that's not the same as being the best all-around player or even having the best season at the position.

Because people are not…

Because people are not rational. Very few people need even 200 miles of range for their current commutes. But range anxiety isn't about what you actually need 99% of the time; it's about what you're afraid you'll need just once and won't have, but that you do have today and therefore aren't willing to give up.

Do we have the capacity in…

Do we have the capacity in the electric grid? Not today, not even close.

Consider an IC vehicle with a 15 gallon fuel tank. At 44 MJ/kg, that gasoline represents about 2000 MJ of energy, which at 35% engine efficiency means you have access to about 700 MJ of energy for locomotion. Let's say your BEV is 80% efficient, so you put an 875 MJ battery on it to get the same range. If you want to charge that battery from zero to 100% in two hours, that will take about 0.12 MW of power continuously for 2 hours.

Consider California. Google tells me the state has an installed power generation capacity of 80,000 MW if everything is running full out. Let's run the system full out for 24 hours, meaning 12 2-hour charging windows at 0.12 MW apiece. The total installed capacity of the grid in California, running full out, would be able to charge about 8 million vehicles a day. There are about 15 million registered vehicles in California. So even if you used the entire existing electric grid to do nothing other than recharge electric cars, you only have enough power to recharge about half the fleet each day. And as anyone in California can tell you, there's already not enough power even without converting the entire fleet to EVs. If you really go all in on EV's, you're talking doubling the size of the installed grid at minimum. Since the current generation capacity comes from about 1500 power plants, that means you're building another 1500 power plants in California alone. If you want to go full EV by 2035, that's 100 new power plants coming online a year, every year, for the next 15 years. And that's just California.

Now, you can quibble that not everyone needs to recharge a vehicle from 0 to 100% charge every night, and that's fair. But you also can't run the grid full out all the time, and you still need that power to do other things besides charge vehicles. So the order of magnitude of the challenge is still about right.

Good At Bad Shots

Good At Bad Shots

For me it was the 1-in-a…

For me it was the 1-in-a-million MSU punt block return victory. I hollered and threw the remote... and then I saw the look of terror on my then-2-year-old's face, and snapped out of it more or less permanently. We'll see what happens as the kids get older and get more into sports themselves, but I suspect my ability to become truly irrational over sports is probably now gone for good. And this coming from someone who went to a lot of games in body paint, and more-or-less intentionally dragged out my degree an extra year just to get student tickets one more time.

That said, I do agree there's something about this year in particular that has made it harder to get as emotionally engaged in sports. Maybe for Michigan fans specifically it's having been burned by football too many times, and now we're all too jaded to let ourselves get hurt again getting excited about basketball. (Which is stupid, since basketball on its own has been nothing but joyful for Michigan fans for a decade now.) Maybe it's the general sense of oppressive weight of what's going on the world this year. Or maybe it's MGoBlog - maybe we need to be the change we want to see in the world. Maybe this site, its commenters, and its proprietors need to get excited again.

So let's do it! Let's get excited. Big Ten Champions WOOOO! Final 4 or bust! Let's do this! It's GREAT to BE a MICHIGAN WOLVERINE!

Maybe nobody should. Lots of…

Maybe nobody should. Lots of people do. Hell, half the people I went to grad school with went there mostly out of momentum from undergrad, and had given relatively little thought to specific career choices other than "going to this school and getting this degree will help me" in some diffuse, ill-defined sense. A surprising number even got to the point of defending a PhD before they suddenly realized "Oh crap I have to go find a job! What do I want do do?"  (The answer for many of them was to do a post-doc and postpone real life even further!)

I do think the ever-exploding cost of college tuition has forced a lot more people to get more serious earlier about what they want their careers to be, and the fraction of students enrolled today who have already put serious thought into what they expect to get out of college is probably higher than it's ever been. But that fraction even today is nowhere near 100%, and given the age cross-section of this board, a lot of us will remember a time when college was pretty explicitly as much about "the experience" as it was a means to a specific end.

If Harbaugh has a year left…

If Harbaugh has a year left on his current deal, and thinks the new offer is considerably worse, isn't there a good chance that he just doesn't sign it? Like, ever? And just continues on the last year of his current contract and we go through all this again next year? I mean, optics aside, he doesn't have to sign this offer at all does he?

Ask and ye shall receive!…

Ask and ye shall receive! Strunk and White, The Elements of Style, page 13:

7. A participial phrase at the beginning of a sentence must refer to the grammatical subject.

Walking slowly down the road, he saw a woman accompanied by two children.

The word walking refers to the subject of the sentence, not to the woman. If the writer wishes to make it refer to the woman, he must recast the sentence:

He saw a woman accompanied by two children, walking slowly down the road.

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/37134/37134-h/37134-h.htm#Rule_7

Well there's your problem…

Well there's your problem right there: the majority of students are not a writing professor!

Sorry, had to tweak you there for using incorrect grammar while complaining about incorrect grammar.

(To demystify: the opening phrase "As a writing professor" properly refers to the first subject following the phrase, to wit "a majority of students." This rule is broken so often in both spoken and written English that I doubt many people ever learned it in the first place. As the odd engineer who somehow ended up in a John Rubadeau course, I am lucky to have been shown the errors of my own ways; I am now happy to pay it forward in the form of obnoxious message board pedantry. #TheMichiganDifference)

I do think uniqueness has…

I do think uniqueness has something to do with it -- on this message board, for example, Joe Milton is far more often "Milton" than "Joe." McNamara and McCaffrey are mostly referred to by their last names, whereas Shea Patterson was more often "Shea." Juwan Howard and Desmond Howard being on campus at the same time as students may also have had something to do with them both being universally referred to by their first names by Michigan fans of a certain age.

Then again, when Denard Robinson became the starter, he was the first QB I saw play whom we casually called by his first rather than last name (Grbac, Collins, Dreisbach, Griese, Henson, Brady, Navarre, Henne, Sheridan, Forcier), and likewise Devin Gardner was probably "Devin" more often than "Gardner." Hard not to notice the pattern there. (I'm not old enough to remember Dennis Franklin - was he "Franklin" or "Denny" to the broadcast media?)

So even in what I just wrote, one can find at least one example one way or the other. As with most issues around bias, it's often easy to rationalize why any one particular example does or does not fit a pattern or speak to a deeper issue (with the rationalization in turn often reflecting the speaker's "meta-bias" about whether or not bias is likely at play!). This is where I love your closing paragraph. Maybe this particular case is an example of bias; maybe not. But it's worth being aware of, and discussing, the possibility.

There is only modest overlap…

There is only modest overlap between the top schools in football and basketball, but a lot of money in both. I think that decreases the likelihood of blowing up the conferences completely in the way you describe. Then again, we have Nebraska and Rutgers in the B1G now (and the latter wasn't even added for competitive reasons!), so I suppose anything is possible.

The other possibility is…

The other possibility is that Harbaugh simply doesn't care that much about the details of his contract or the optics around when it gets signed. He knows he's coming back, probably still plans to be here until he retires, his focus was on his recruiting class which is now mostly signed, he's on vacation, and he'll get to his contract when he gets to it. I suspect this is a case where the message board cares more than Harbaugh himself.