Miscellaneous Minutiae, 5/3/2012

Philanthropy!: There's no way that you don't know about this already, but Spencer Hall is conducting a special charity drive for a refugee resettlement organization in Atlanta. Michigan won this thing last year and Spencer thusly sung our praises on EDSBS for a week, which was cool. Michigan is currently in the lead, so keep donating with your rivalry game score-derived donations. The neurons in the "make it rain" lobe of  your brain should still be warm and firing after the spring game and the Kickstarter for HTTV. You're not a Michigan Man if you don't donate, and that would mean you probably love Dave Brandon and Pop Evil too and are a horrible person. In any case, a Michigan-themed Shutdown Fullback episode would be nice.

Miami football, still basically out of a movie: In the most recent development surrounding Miami football, Randy Shannon is suing the university for not paying him a certain amount of money to which he was contractually obligated. I'm not sure to what depths Miami can go after the last year or so.

The only logical end to Miami football as we know it involves Donna Shalala burning down the Orange Bowl for the insurance money. I mean...right?

Indiana football...exists: Pre-Snap Read taps Indiana for the #109 spot in his offseason countdown. It is exactly as depressing as it sounds:

This was the worst B.C.S. conference team in the country, beating out strong contenders like Kansas, Mississippi, Maryland and Colorado for the crown, and this might have also been the worst team in program history. The latter designation says it all, if you’re familiar with the history of Indiana football.

 Indiana is still terrible but at least they were/are incredibly young and thus have some hope for minimal improvement. I though Wilson was a good hire for the Hoosiers and I still think believe that, however IU will have a hard time finding itself some wins this year if it doesn't win its first three games. (Indiana State, @UMass, Ball State). Unless Kevin Ferrell, Jeremy Hollowell, and Hanner Perea can play football, this is likely a 3-win team at best, which, to be fair, would be an improvement.

Alabama/ARE WE GONNA DIE news: Via the MGoBoard, some news about Eddie Lacy's foot injury perhaps being more serious than it really is (i.e. he might not play this season). I've already talked about Eddie Lacy a little bit, but I think this would be a pretty big loss if true. I highly doubt that he won't be playing against us in the fall, but you never know. Either way, Jalston Fowler is next in line, although you'd imagine that TJ Yeldon would get a shot at the starter's role.

Insert standard "you never want to see anybody get hurt" caveat here, but if Lacy is in fact hurt then Michigan can breathe a little easier on defense. Fowler is a load but hasn't really done it against good teams or fresh defenses and Yeldon is a freshman. I don't care how good he is, running against a college level defense in an environment like that is much different than dominating high school competition (or a college spring game, even). Still, like I've said before...an arthritic turtle could probably run for at least 4.0 ypc behind that line.

2013 Basketball Recruits: Joe Stapleton at UMHoops has a nice article on Zak Irvin's improvement as a player and the effect that making a college decision has had on his game. Everything mentioned in the article as a positive--including his handle, 3-point range, and defense--sounds exactly like the very things people criticize THJ for not doing well:

He has extended the range on his jumpshot to beyond the 3-point line and his handle has improved to the extent that he even ran some point over the weekend in Indianapolis.

Also:

“Defensively, he’s our stopper,” Green said. “We put him on the other team’s best player. So sometimes you’ve got the best offensive guy, he’s going to work, but then he’s got to turn around and play defense against the other team’s best player. He’s capable of doing both.”

It will be interesting to see how he looks once he gets on campus, especially as Irvin a guy with more recruiting hype than THJ had. In any case, file this under "even more reasons to be excited about the 2013 class of basketball recruits and Michigan basketball's future in general." It will also be interesting to see how Michigan handles the 3 spot with THJ, GRIII, and Irvin all on the same roster (I'm for some reason assuming that THJ will be a four year guy). Assuming Trey is done after this season, a 2013 lineup of...

Walton-Stauskas-THJ-GRIII-Morgan 

or

Walton-THJ-GRIII-Morgan-McGary

...would sound pretty good to me. It'll be nice having enough talented players to not only fill out a solid starting five, but to have multiple competent to good bench players backing them up. 

More? Being a fan of the Toronto Maple Leafs basically sounds like being a Notre Dame fan. Alex Cook continues with the New Math series by attempting to analyze the 2011 Notre Dame game, a game which is, IME, beyond all forms of analysis. Butler to the A10...is it even worth trying to keep up anymore? Nick Saban talks 4-team playoff...his solution? Split both Alabama and LSU into two teams each and have the resulting four mini-squads duke it out for the title. Okay, that's not what he said, but...it basically is.

And Now We Play The Waiting Game, 8/12

Only three more football-less Saturdays until we can finally stop talking about Ohio State, what we're going to look like on offense, etc. Until then...

The Times They Are A'Not Changing: I don't really care to discuss today's NCAA hearing at length; just Google News it and you'll get enough versions of the same story to last you till next year. In any case, the NCAA will proceed at a pace that would make Terrence Cody look positively Denard-esque, which isn't anything new. While we all know what we want to happen, it won't, and we'll all be frustrated but this is the NCAA we're talking about here. It's like trying to make sense of Dadaist art. Whatever happens, happens, and there's no use wasting any more time thinking about it, especially with real, actual football on the way. And that's all I have to say about that.


CtK Day 22: 

On Denard: "I don't know if I've ever seen a more explosive guy with his hand on the ball." You'd obviously expect Mattison to say something like that, but I wonder where Denard ranks on Mattison's list in a fluff-free environment?

Exit Schnellenberger: As somewhat of a history buff, this post from EDSBS is excellent (not to mention well-written, as usual).

Above all, you will remember the suits, the anachronistic skin of a coaching generation long since shed for khakis, team shirts, and the crass trappings of the sleepless modern technocrat coach. We once got an email from a reader who was In New Orleans around the same time FAU was preparing for the New Orleans Bowl. The reader had seen Schnellenberger, standing outside a restaurant in the Quarter,wearing a blue sport coat, pink shirt, and white pants. Immaculate from cuff to collar, and striding with the deliberate purpose of a man with a bellyful of creole butter and spiced meats, he struck a match and lit a cigar. The reader sounded awestruck, and should have. It's not often you see real live nobility in the flesh, and it will get rarer and rarer still with the retirement of one of college football's last grand dukes.

College football will be losing a legend after this season. He has had a truly remarkable career, despite the fact that his coaching flame begin to flicker at FAU of all places. Hopefully this isn't the end of EDSBS's always hilarious Schnellenberger rankings. Suspenders!

Conference Expansion: With TAMU to the SEC looking like a good bet, the first domino has fallen in the dreaded but inevitable transition to the Super Conference Era. Of course, the SEC will be looking to add another member,  with a number of names coming out already, including: WVU, Virginia Tech, Clemson, OU, and Oklahoma State, FSU, and Miami. If expanding the SEC's recruiting footprint is the main concern, you'd think that Clemson, FSU, and Miami would be out, but who knows. In any case, strong rumors are circling via a vis FSU's potential move to the SEC, a rumor which FSU AD Eric Barron goes all Johnny Tightlips the issue, saying it's just a rumor but that it could happen.

I'll go on record as saying that super conferences would be incredibly stupid, but whatever. I just don't see the appeal of four massive conferences that are geographical nightmares and make no sense whatsoever, but it's obviously all about the Benjamins. If the Big Ten expands, it has to be Notre Dame or Texas plus somebody else (it's not really important who, as long as one of the two teams are ND or UT), but neither are exactly likely, what with the Longhorn Network for Texas and ND's history with the Big Ten being what it is. I actually kind of like the Big Ten's current set-up, and I would hate to see us expand for the sake of it.


More camp notes (QB-focused) from 11W...sounds like Fickell is tentatively leaning on Bauserman, as I expected. Completely unrelated, but DT Jonathan Hankins seems poised to have a big season for the Buckeyes, making Michigan's strange pseudo-recruitment of him even stranger. The infamous Branch picture from the '06 PSU game shows up in EDSBS's picture countdown. Mike Gundy...44, still a "man." Arkansas loses starting tailback Knile Davis for the season...a huge blow for a team that will seriously contend with Alabama and LSU in the SEC West. Tyler Wilson figures to be a pretty good replacement for Mallett, but this is one less weapon at his disposal (that offense is still loaded, though). Forde compiles a list of underachievers...normally I don't really care for Forde at all (and I still don't after this), but this list is relevant simply for the fact that it's a reminder that Dabo leading the Tigers to another mediocre year could quite possibly mean RR will have a job again, which I, for one, would be genuinely happy to see.