Miscellaneous Minutiae, 5/24/2012

Just in case you needed a painful reminder. The pair of MNC game losses aside, Ohio State was obscenely dominant throughout the Tressel era: news at 11. From this week's Big Ten mailblog, these two points stand out:

• Ohio State hasn't lost to the same opponent twice in a row since 2003/04 (Wisconsin--the first being, yes, that game where Robert Reynolds did that thing). 
• The Buckeyes lost five conference games between 2005 and 2010. My goodness. 

These aren't things you reflexively think about because the previous decade or so is mostly a monolithic bloc of frustrating rivalry immolation. With that said, when you actually look at things like the above--in addition to other similarly shocking-but-not-really-shocking stats and/or anecdotes that make you go CRABLE WHY  or LLOYD WHY PUNT THERE WHY WE'RE NOT WINNING BY THAT MUCH--what the Buckeyes did to the conference was pretty amazing. Say what you will about the strength of the Big Ten during that span, but that is impressive any way you slice it. The odds of a run like that happening anytime soon are not that great. 

With that said, the 2012 schedule for the Buckeyes does feature more than a few opportunities to see the aforementioned streak end. Michigan State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Michigan are all distinct possibilities, and who knows what Penn State will look like this year. Three of those five are on the road, so, I think it's safe to say that the streak will come to an end. It's also safe to say that a couple other streaks and records that only fans care about will come to an end, given how high Tressel set the bar. I doubt that the Buckeyes experience the same sort of catastrophic tabula rasa-ing that Michigan got in its transition from Lloyd to RR, but there will be some bumps in the road. How many bumps there'll end up being will be the difference between say, another 6-win season and an 8 or 9 win year in Year 1 under Meyer.

Just here to negate all that retrospective doom and gloom, you guys

Show me the money. In light of the Great Band Fiasco of 2012, you're probably wondering a bit about Michigan's finances and, by extension, how much cash money we netted from the Sugar Bowl. Well, here you go: 

After expenses were taken out and the Big Ten absorbed the cost of the university's unsold tickets, Michigan brought in $78,916 in profit from its trip to New Orleans, according to records received by WolverineNation as part of a Freedom of Information request.

The headline doesn't include all pertinent information (not that it can be expected to), but, either way, your visceral reaction of "pfft, that's it" might not be completely wrong. I still don't think it's unreasonable to wonder why the "guys in blazers" that everybody euphemistically refers to get paid so much to do so little. Bowl directors and general hangers on remind me of Turtle from Entourage in that they are completely useless vis-a-vis their role in the entire operation. This is bad because anything that reminds me of Entourage or a character from it is probably a pretty terrible thing. 

Naturally, everybody in the Big Ten who is anybody thinks that semi-final home games would be a bad idea. They would make money, which I thought was what this was all about, but I guess they would also preclude generally anonymous B1G administrators from having ritzy times in warm weather bowl locales for a few days. Emphasis mine: 

Michigan spent $423,574 to transport the 379 people comprising the team and staff to New Orleans for the game, $297,183 for the 319 members of the band and cheerleading squads and $16,470 to transport 31 members of the school's "official party," which Ablauf wrote comprised "non-athletic department personnel: Regents, president and university officials."

Jim Delany is Vincent Chase if the latter had an entourage that enjoyed exquisite cheese spreads and maintained an average age of no less than 60. Okay, obviously I'm joking a little bit here (it's not like $16,000 and change is all that much in the grand scheme of things anyway), but there's probably a little truth to the point that these guys have a personal stake in this.

On a somewhat unrelated note, the other main takeaway from all of this for you, the fan: things are a lot more expensive than you think. Those transportation, food, and lodging costs are kind of staggering. It's not right for Brandon to Machiavelli his way into getting people to pay for the band, but, can you blame him?

DB: slowly making me back away from the "let's laugh at the hate-everything-DB-does-people" table. I have moved on from the fact that we will likely never get the chance to see a team from below the Mason-Dixon line come up to the frigid North to play the game of football. Football, you see, is a delicate game that can always be played under the most pleasant of conditions. The willingness to "roll over," ostensibly for the sake of compromise, is irritating; however, much of the ire against Delany et al is admittedly better directed at the other participants in this playoff debate, simply because they have strength in numbers with respect to this particular issue.

Still, Dave...come on, man. I mean, sometimes I wonder if the Big Ten brass are representing, you know, the Big Ten's interests, what with the comments regarding the "unfairness" of getting teams from warm parts of the country (see: everywhere that isn't the B1G, apparently) to play up north in December/January, and now this.

Not only did DB not support a playoff at all (it's not like he has a choice now), he didn't even feign support for campus site semi-finals and now he's saying that he's against even having neutral site games in the Midwest: 

"The one thing that kind of gets left out of this discussion that maybe ought to get some weight are the kids," he said Friday during WTKA's Mott Takeover. "Now, I know a lot of people don't really care about that part, but I do, and if you polled our players and said, 'If you played a really tough, successful, long regular season, the award you're going to get is to travel to Ford Field or Lucas Oil Stadium,' they would look at you and say, 'Huh?'

I just don't know what to say anymore. I've been far less critical of DB than most people, but this is starting to get absurd. If Brandon has done some even somewhat scientific polling of Michigan players on this issue of "travel convenience/de facto home field advantage vs. going somewhere warm and awesome like Orlando WOO" then I'd love to see it. I doubt that happens, because bringing up "the kids" is a good way of making any critics tantamount to "oh, so you hate the kids huh?"I am not at all saying that DB (and others) don't care about the players, it's just that saying these decisions are being made because of what the players want is maybe a little disingenuous. Maybe I'm being overly cynical.

General superconference thoughts. Stuart Mandel talks about, among other things, why a conference champions only playoff model would negatively impact the importance of the regular season. I don't necessarily disagree with his arguments, but I'm of a mind that superconferences are going to happen. As nonsensical and unnatural as the concept may seem when you look at a map, it's actually a much tidier plan, especially when juxtaposed with what is being discussed within the context of the current conference by conference landscape. As long as the Big East and ACC exist, they will have to be considered in a non-superconference playoff.

A few stray thoughts related to my post from the other day on the issue. It's easy to become enamored with the symmetry of the superconference model: 4 conferences, 16 teams each, 4 playoff spots that require teams to do one simple thing, i.e. win their conference. Very clean and very simple. What's that Alabama, you didn't win your division or your conference? NO SOUP FOR YOU.

In a sense, this setup would mimic the NCAAB tournament model in a roundabout way. I know this sounds like a bad thing, because, after all, everyone complains about how vastly unimportant the college basketball is compared to the Big Dance. The Final Four is not comprised of the "best" teams each and every year, but rather the teams that made it through their respective regions. In this sense, the college football regular season would essentially become the first four rounds of the Big Dance, with the 4 team playoff of course mirroring the Final Four.

Yes, lawsuits will rain down from the sky if this happens. Also, someone mentioned this on MGoBlog the other day (I can't remember who or where it was, but if I find it I'll update), but there really isn't a centralized entity or any pervasive force that's pushing realignment to happen, let alone pushing each of the four conferences to exactly 16 teams. The more that I think about this point, the more that I wonder whether or not even teams even exist to fill out the rest of the Big Ten (Notre Dame, Rutgers...and? Maybe Virginia Tech if they don't land elsewhere?), and even the Pac 12.

The SEC, however, is already at 14. The Big 12, if the completely reliable rumblings are to be believed, might be getting ready to go on an expansion spree that is positively Supermarket Sweep-esque. What would force the B1G and Pac 12 to expand if both the SEC and Big 12 got to 16? Does the Big 12 event want 16, or is it just looking to add teams so that its figurative EKG machine stops flat-lining every so often, something that was a daily torment for the conference not too long ago? You know, kind of like stocking up on water jugs and batteries, just in case*. I don't really have answers to these questions, but when you throw out the inevitability that is "lawyers from have-not schools running around all nimbly bimbly," the whole non-conference games becoming obsolete thing, and the ongoing cognitive dissonance of "this is about the kids" while forcing said kids to travel outrageous distances for conference games...well.

Maybe superconferences aren't such a great idea after all. Symmetry is nice, though.

*Yes, the Big 12 is Dale Gribble. Yes, I am a fan of 1990s television.

More? I don't have much to say about this, but I will say this: whenever the apocalypse comes to pass, I'm pretty certain that Gene Smith will still somehow be the AD at OSU when all is said and done. It's like Smith has spent the entire time since Tressel's departure saying questionable things and then going "hey everybody look over there!"...and then everybody does, and here we are over a year later and he's still the AD and nobody has seemed to notice.

Jim Delany doesn't want to talk about it, because discussing one's finances is tacky and unbecoming of a Big Ten Man. Some good recruiting buzz from UMHoops on Michigan's point guard of the future (and others). Via Michigan Today, a look at Jim Abbott's recently released memoir, Imperfect: An Improbable Life

Things That May or May Not Happen: Season Predictions

via Maize and Blue Nation

It's game week at last, and so it might as well be time to start locking in some ultimately meaningless predictions. These types are things are just about as pointless as preseason polls, but The permutations are endless, and settling on one prediction is like filling out a single bracket come March Madness. As somebody who usually fills out a few each March, you can conceivably fill out one hundred of those things and still feel good about each and every one of them. This year is another high-variance year; Michigan could come out and look legitimately better as a result of better defensive coaching and another year of experience for a host of underclassmen. However, even if Michigan's improvement is fairly obvious (particularly on the defensive side of the ball), I'm not quite sure that Michigan's record will improve from last year's 7-5 regular season mark.

In short, this is more for my purposes than any black and white determinant of what will/should happen. It's always nice to see where we end up compared with where we thought we'd end up at the beginning. As always, people should keep in mind that Michigan could go 7-5 again while still looking like a much better team. At the same time, it's entirely possible that the Michigan team of the first half of the season and the team of the second half. With that in mind, I'll look at each game and give my thoughts, some general conference predictions, as well as a few others.

Western Michigan: This will be a strange game for me, as it will be the first home game that I won't be in attendance for in a long time (graduating...don't do it). In any case, while hubris does not befit the Michigan Man of late, I think this game should be a slam dunk victory for the Wolverines. WMU is 0-5 against the Wolverines all-time, and I don't think that winless record changes this season. The Broncos return Junior QB Alex Carder, who had a pretty solid year last in 2010 by the numbers: 3,334 yards passing, 30 TD's to 12 INT's, and a 63.1% completion percentage. Carder also proved to be somewhat mobile (relatively), rushing for a little over 400 yards last season.

WMU also returns their top receiver Jordan White, who was granted a 6th year. Honestly, he is probably the only weapon that should register any sort of concern with the defensive staff. His stat line is impressive: he hauled in 10 TD's in 2010 on 94 receptions and 1,378 yards. White isn't a big guy (6'0'' 215), but he seems to produce just fine. WMU does lose their other prolific receiver from last season, Juan Nunez, so it will likely be much easier for teams to focus on White. Other than that, WMU will field a few average backs, in addition to having to replace three of last year's lineman. All the pressure will be on Carder and White.

I don't know if Michigan shuts WMU out, but the result will be very much like the one we saw in 2009...Carder will be running for his life most of the time, and Michigan likely won't show too much on offense with ND coming to town the next week. However, they'll squeeze enough out of the spread remnants of the gameplan, and Denard will have at least one big play (i.e., long touchdown run) on the ground (probably more). Michigan wins 34-7.

Notre Dame: This one, on the other hand, I will be flying in for. Needless to say, the atmosphere will be bizarrely raucous; I can definitely see myself looking around at several points to ask myself if I'm actually in the Big House.

For many years, this game has been a sort of litmus test for the Wolverines. This game is certainly important, but the fact is, ND is one year ahead of us in their program's rebuilding plan under Kelly, and to measure ourselves against them within the context of even this season alone is a little unfair and kind of pointless. Michigan could very easily lose this game and still go on to do good things. Of course, losing this one doesn't affect the Legends standings, so there's that to remember. As a general aside, if somebody asked me "you can only beat two rivals and you have to lose to one, which is the one?", I'd pick ND without hesitation.

Going back to last season, we all remember the sentiment, coming from Michigan and ND fans alike, that we wouldn't have won if Crist had not been forced out for much of the game (hearkening back to the '04 MSU game, in which Drew Stanton was destroyed by one LaMarr Woodley). Crist is once again the starter after an extended battle with the less touted Tommy Rees. After the Michigan game, though, Crist was having a decent season, until he was eventually knocked out with an injury early on in the Tulsa game. Rees then took over and led the Irish to four straight wins (Utah, Army, USC, and Miami), but people quickly forget that the Notre Dame defense improved upon its performance significantly in that span. Rees is a ice backup but Crist is definitely better.

Notre Dame finally loses Armando Allen and the consistently underwhelming Robert Hughes, bringing back formerly highly-touted Cierre Wood and Jonas Gray. However, ND returns 9 of their top 10 OL, which may or may not mitigate the lack of quality (or proven quality) among the RB corps. Of course, ND returns future first rounder Michael Floyd, Theo "Chronicles of" Riddick Jr., and TJ Jones (whom you may remember for this little moment).

Defensively, ND will be stout. Everybody knows about Manti Te'o, and Senior safety Harrison Smith is a guy who has been around and produced (93 tackles last season). The rest of ND's front 7 will be strong, and that's without even mentioning the potential impact of true freshman Aaron Lynch.

This one is really tough to predict, but I'll just go ahead and say it: Michigan probably won't win this game. It will be close, but Michigan got a performance for the ages from Denard and still only barely won. Sure, the game is at home and the atmosphere should be pretty electric, but that only goes so far. ND's offense doesn't scare me too much (I'm sure Cam Gordon is happy that Kyle Rudolph is gone). Crist is a good quarterback and he can occasionally beat you with his legs, and the OL figures to be pretty good. The tailbacks don't seem to have a star as of now, but you never know with that position. It's not like mediocre ND running backs haven't had success against us before.

I think Michigan will still be trying to work out the new offense, and Michigan likely won't be able to take advantage of ND's weakest defensive position group (i.e., the secondary). The defense will still not be good enough to hold ND's offense down. It will be close, and it certainly wouldn't surprise me to see Michigan win. How much spread stuff Borges deigns to run will also be a pretty big factor here (i.e., more is better at this point in the season). Michigan loses 28-20.

Eastern Michigan: No point in wasting too much time on this one. Michigan will win, and win big. Mike Hart in the Big House again will make for some solid game week fluff. Michigan wins by a lot, does it really matter the score? Okay, how about 45-10.

San Diego State: This one, on the other hand, is not getting enough consideration. Although Hoke and Borges are gone, SDSU should still be a dangerous team. If you read my run down of the 2010 TCU game, you'd know that the Aztecs have a pretty talented offensive unit. Unfortunately for the Aztecs, they will be without their top 4 receivers from last season, losing Vincent Brown and DeMarco Sampson to the NFL and Dominique Sandifer and Jay Waddell to injuries. As such, the offense has essentially been declawed, but they still return QB Ryan Lindley, RB Ronnie Hillman (who rushed for 1532 yards and 17 TD's last season), and TE Gavin Escobar. Defensively, SDSU returns 5 starters, but the defense will consist of mostly juniors and sophomores.

Michigan will win this game, but not before SDSU gives the Wolverines a bit of a scare in the first half and into the third quarter. Michigan wins 38-24.

Minnesota: The Gophers are just a bad team and they will probably suffer as a result of the Tim Brewster era for a couple years more. Jerry Kill figures to bring Minnesota back to their ground and pound days under Glen Mason, but the fact is the scheme doesn't really matter because the talent isn't there. Minnesota loses long time starter Adam Weber, who seemed to put up the numbers in a pass-heavy offense but really was fairly terrible. MarQueis Gray is a guy who was somewhat touted and brings some mobility to the QB position. Unfortunately for Coach Kill, Minnesota's leading rusher DeLeon Eskridge left the program  this offseason, making things that much tougher.

The defense returns 8, but they gave up 33.0 ppg last season. Minnesota is not good (how they managed to pick off Illinois and Iowa at the end of last season is a mystery). Gray might be able to run around for some yards but Michigan should be able to gash this defense on the ground and through the air with ease...Michigan wins 35-13.

Northwestern: This is another tough one to judge, but it's certainly winnable. If Michigan has developed enough momentum at this point, they should even be favored despite the Dan Persa hype train. I'm pretty sure the same things could be said about the Wildcats that have been sad about them for the past several years; for Northwestern, that's not at all a bad thing, because it means consistency. Northwestern returns 16 starters (9 on offense), including, of course, Persa and leading receiver Jeremy Ebert. Northwestern's OL also figures to field its best starting five in recent years. Like Michigan, Northwestern leaned on their quarterback on the run game, and it will be important for the Wildcats to find a reliable tailback to carry the ball if they don't want Persa to get injured halfway through the season. However, it looks like that decision might've been made for the NU offensive staff, as an Achilles injury that Persa is still rehabbing will likely force him to remain in the pocket.

Defensively, Northwestern returns 7, but this is not a unit to worry about. They only notched 17 sacks in 2010 (one less than Michigan did) and 29.0 ppg. Vincet Browne--who was 2nd Team All-Big Ten last
year--led the Wildcats with 7.0 sacks, making him probably their only standout.

Northwestern...they are what they are. Some people look at the numbers and call them one of the "luckiest" teams in the NCAA. While that may or may not be true, Fitzgerald has done the most with the minimal talent that he has, and a talented senior quarterback in Persa will be a tough assignment for the Michigan defense. This is the first road game for Michigan, but anybody that has been to a Michigan game at Ryan Field will tell you that there will assuredly be more Michigan fans than Northwestern fans present. By  this point in the season, I think the Wolverines will have started to improve on both sides of the ball, winning this one 31-28, and putting Michigan to a solid start of 4-1.

Michigan State: Okay, so for the first time in a while the Spartans truly have the attention of the Michigan fanbase. Michigan State had a very good season last year, but getting thumped by Alabama and Iowa, while also missing Ohio State, makes it a little less impressive than it seems on paper. With that said, I think MSU comes down a step this year.

Defensively, MSU should field a pretty strong DL, headlined by future first rounder Jerel Worthy and his tattoo. However, the Spartans will need for former Michigan target William Gholston to improve, as Tyler Hoover only registered 3 sacks at the other end position. At linebacker, they will be without the services of Greg Jones and Eric Gordon, only returning SLB Chris Norman. This position group figures to take a step down this season, although how much of a drop it ends up being depends on how former 4-star MLB Max Bullough performs.

Offensively, MSU looks like a team that can win the division and even the conference except for one, tiny issue: the offensive line. The Spartans only return 2 starters, and the departures included LT DJ Young (who was 2nd Team All-Big Ten) and RT J'Michael Deane. The Only Colors runs through the list of candidates to replace Young, one of which is a converted defensive lineman. Nobody will confuse Michigan's defense with Nick Saban's group of 11 Terminators, but this OL is something I'd be worried about if I was a Spartan fan. Otherwise, the skill positions look very good, with Cousins, Cunningham, Martin, Baker, and Bell coming back. Thus, everything hinges on the performance of the line. MSU's skill position guys won't do them much good if their lineman can't block anybody (see 2011 Capital One Bowl).

This game is enormous for Brady Hoke and for Michigan as a program. As much hype as the ND game is getting (and rightfully so), Michigan needs to win this one more. I think Hoke et al will have the team focused and prepared for this game, and the Wolverines will escape EL with a victory, finally flinging the monkey that is MSU's three game streak into the Detroit River. Michigan wins in 2007 fashion...Denard leads a late 4th quarter touchdown drive and Michigan wins 24-21.

Purdue: It's pretty sad that I'm giving this game, a conference game, about as much thought as the EMU game, but...Purdue is bad at football, and Michigan will win easily. The only concern here is a "hangover" after an emotional game in EL, but Michigan is much better on offense than Purdue is on defense (no Ryan Kerrigan is a plus), and Purdue's offense is just laughably incompetent, even more so now with Purdue's annual ACL explosion bonanza victimizing QB Rob Henry. I could see this being like the 2007 Minnesota game for a little while (come out slow, eventually wake up and turn it into a blowout), but ultimately Michigan should get to play a lot of second teamers by the 4th quarter. Michigan wins 38-10. 


Iowa: Michigan is, at this point, sitting at 7-1. Even I will admit that this might be a little optimistic, even considering that the next few games, as I will explain shortly, should go a little differently. However, Michigan's schedule really isn't that tough this year, so a 7-1 start is not out of the question. Beating State in EL is probably the only thing that's somewhat of a reach, and I feel pretty strongly that we'll get that done.

Beginning with the trip to Iowa City, the schedule gets much tougher, and I think Michigan will struggle. I don't necessarily think Iowa will be anything out of the ordinary this year, but I just have a bad feeling about this one. Iowa only returns 9 starters total, the fewest in the conference, and they will have to replace American hero Ricky Stanzi with junior James Vandenberg. I don't really have any concrete analysis for this one; Michigan will drop a road game (if not 2 road games), and I think this is one of them. Iowa seems to do well when expectations are low, and after losing their 5 games last year by 7, 1, 4, 3, and 3 points respectively, I think chances are they turn it around this year even if the team isn't necessarily better than last year. Iowa has never beaten Michigan three times in a row, but I think that trend is finally broken this year...Michigan drops a frustrating one, 28-17.

Illinois: As horrible of a coach as Ron Zook is, this is another dangerous road game for Michigan. As entertaining as last year's game was, I think we will not see nearly the same offensive production in this game. Illinois returns 6 starters on defense, losing Corey Liuget and Clay nurse on the line. The Illini should still have some experience here, but one would think it's going to be nearly impossible to replace Liuget this season. Ilinois gave up 23 ppg last year (good for 48th in the country), surprisingly good for a team you'd figure to be much worse. However, the Illini will almost certainly give up a few more points this year; Illinois will not be able to replace the production of Liuget and MLB Martez Wilson (and Nurse, to a much lesser extent).

The offensive side of the ball is where the Illini worry me. Despite being very much of a project passing the ball, Nathan Scheelhaase developed into a dangerous dual threat QB as a freshman last season, and he figures to only get better. The Illini lose Mikel Leshoure, an admittedly pretty huge loss, but Jason Ford should do alright as the top guy (he ran for 480 yards last season at rate of 4.8 yards per carry), and Scheelhaase will carry the ball a lot anyway (868 yards and 5 TD's last season). AJ Jenkins is also back catching passes for the Illini after a pretty good 2010 (56 receptions, 746 yards, and 7 TD's).

Like the Iowa game, I could easily see Michigan winning it, but I just think that Michigan will have trouble containing Scheelhaase. Michigan wins in a number of alternate universes and/or pick sets, but in this one, they lose 21-38, dropping the Wolverines to 7-3.

Nebraska: This is the first game where I feel the Wolverines are probably outmatched. Nebraska showed signs of weakness near the end of last season, when they lost 3 of their last 4 to Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Washington (in addition to an inexplicably bad loss to Texas in October). Much of this can be pinned on the health of Taylor Martinez, who was pretty much lightning in a bottle until the Texas game. While Nebraska fans have much of the same concerns about Martinez that Michigan fans do about Denard, the Nebraska offense should be better if Martinez can simply stay healthy. Star tailback Roy Helu is now in Mike Shanahan's offense in Washington, but Rex Burkhead almost ran for a 1,000 yards as his backup last year, averaging 5.5 yards per carry. None of Nebraska's receivers really put up big numbers, but Brandon Kinnie and tight end Kyler Reed are the best returning targets, putting up 5 and 8 TD's respectively last year. Martinez will improve as a passer, but it's unclear by how much, especially if he's forced to continue to carry the ball so many times. Sound familiar?

On the other hand, the defense is Nebraska's bread and butter. Nebraska returns 7 starters from a unit that gave up 17.4 ppg last year. They return three pre-season all-conference types--one in each position group--in DT Jared Crick, MLB Lavonte David, and CB Alfonzo Dennard. This team is talented and well-coached, and although their number went down from '09 to '10 after Suh's departure, they are still a very good defense and certainly one of the best in the conference, if not the best.

Michigan will have a hard time containing Martinez (much like Scheelhaase), and the Huskers will score enough points to come out of Ann Arbor with a relatively comfortable victory. Michigan loses 31-17.

Ohio State: As important as the MSU game is, this one is about a million times more important. According to what I have so far, Michigan will be 7-4 coming into The Game. OSU likely won't be as good as they have been, and they could come into this meeting with 3 losses. Like Michigan, OSU is very much a high-variance team as far as what their best case and worst case scenarios look like this year (of course, OSU's "best case" is much better than Michigan's).

A lot rides on the quarterback situation (understatement of the century), a situation which is still not settled but has been whittled down to two candidates in freshman Braxton Miller and Joe "Methusela" Bauserman. I previewed the Buckeye quarterbacks earlier this summer, so my thoughts are already out there. I think Bauserman takes the first snap, but Miller will eventually take over, much like in 2008 when Pryor eventually took over after Todd Boeckmann started the season as the starter after taking the Buckeyes to the BCS title game in 2007. In the wide receiver corps, the Buckeyes have a lot of talent in guys like Verlon Reed, Philly Brown, etc. but not many of them are proven. DeVier Posey is the top target, and he will of course be available for the Buckeyes in the Michigan game after he starts the season serving out a 5-game suspension. Jake Stoneburner is a pretty decent talent at tight end but when was the last time the Buckeyes really utilized the tight end position? I'm not sure that this is the year. In the same vein, the Buckeyes will have Dan Herron back for this one, and after him the Buckeyes boast a stable of talented backs that can fill in here and there in a pinch.

Defensively, the Buckeyes only return 4 starters; however, this will be another good defense for OSU, and it will have to be because Fickell and Co. will depend lean on it. OSU loses a number of big names (Rolle, Homan, Hines, Chekwa, and Heyward), but they will reload. Will the defense be as good as last year? I'm not sure, but they will still be pretty good, and definitely top 2 in the conference. Nathan Williams and John Simon on the ends should make for a formidable pash rush, and Garrett Goebel and former kind of Michigan target Jonathan Hankins should be at least okay (with Hankins seeming to get some hype in Buckeye circles this offseason). The Buckeyes replace the linebackers with Andrew Sweat, Etienne Sabino, and Storm Klein. There is a lot of talent there, and Buckeye fans seem to be pretty excited about all three, particularly the potential of Sabino and Klein. Sweat seems like a guy who will be your standard, dependable tackle machine; however, I'm not sure that the other two positions are as sure of a thing as many Buckeye fans seem to think. Sabino and Klein were both 4-star recruits, yet they haven't done much of anything thus far in their careers. Sabino even took last year off, taking a redshirt because he saw a stacked depth chart and a chance to start in 2011 while not wasting a year of eligibility. The Buckeyes are talented in the secondary as well, but losing Chekwa, Hines, and Torrence will hurt. One figures that any growing pains should be mostly behind this unit by the time The Game rolls around, but you never know.

I had a tough time picking Michigan to beat State on the road, but this one will be an even tougher pick to make (not that there's really anything at stake here other than the risk of being wrong)...there's no doubt that the difference in talent between the two programs is not insignificant. Michigan will narrow the gap in the coming years, but just look at Ohio State's talent and depth and you can see why they've been the powerhouse that they've been for most of the last decade. At the same time, much of OSU's talent is unproven and inexperienced, and that is not even mentioning the fact that Luke Fickell will be roaming the sidelines and not Jim Tressel. Luke Fickell is not Jim Tressel. Say that out loud, it feels pretty good.

By the time this game rolls around, Michigan will have been hardened by the Big Ten schedule and some tough losses (which can be piled unceremoniously on top of the experiences of the last few seasons and the general scrapheap of futility and ruined Saturdays). The new starters will have a season of experience under their belts, and with guys with good football minds like Mattison and Borges instructing them on a weekly basis, it's difficult not to envision a team that is much better, tactically and fundamentally, on November 26th than it was on September 3rd.

As talented as OSU is, Michigan fields a wealth of talent of its own. A strong offensive line and group of receivers, as well as a talented group of tailbacks of which hopefully one will emerge as "the guy" (Toussaint?), will form an above average group by the end of the season, even with the subtle shift in offensive philosophy. Oh, and there's Denard too. If Al Borges was able to turn Jason Campbell into a first round pick, I think he can do some things with Denard Robinson.

The defense is of course another story, but there are a few things that encourage me: 1) A year of Greg Mattison's coaching 2) another season of experience for guys like Cam (and Thomas) Gordon, Courtney Avery, Kenny Demens, etc. 3) a Buckeye offense which will have serious issues at the quarterback and wide receiver positions 4) Hoke's/Michigan's desire to win this game. Yes, I realize the last point is completely intangible and doesn't really win games (execution does), but it's there and you can't deny it. Seven in a row? Has it really been that long? You know that the preparation for this will be thorough and intense, and the desire to win among the seniors will be at an all-time high. For three hours, Troy Woolfolk will think he's Marlin Jackson, Kenny Demens will think he's David Harris, Junior Hemingway will think he's Braylon Edwards.

More on this later, but for now I will say that Michigan will beat Ohio State. I won't even give you a score because it doesn't even matter. Michigan will win. It won't quite be 1969 in its significance, but it will be the biggest win since the 2003 contest, and the argument for it being the most important win since the 1998 Rose Bowl victory is a cogent one.

That means that Michigan finishes 8-4, which is good for the Outback Bowl or something. Honestly, I went into this thinking possibly 7-5 (which I could still easily see happening if you flip either of the Northwestern or MSU predictions), but it was so very hard for me to predict that Michigan would get off to a start similar to the ones they had in 2009 and 2010 only to fall flat on their faces come conference play. 8-4 is my prediction, though, and I'm sticking to it (and if it comes to fruition, with wins against MSU and OSU...Brady Hoke for President?).

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Bonus Predictions:

• Denard carries the ball no more than 180 times, and definitely no more than 200 (down from last year's 256).
• Shaw runs for 800 yards, Toussaint for 600, and Smith for 400. Denard for 1,100 yards. 
• Hemingway steps it up in a big way, picking up the slack in Stonum's absence: 60-70ish rec., 950 yards, and 7 touchdowns. 
• Kenny Demens leads the team in tackles. 
• The defense will improve to top 70 in total defense, while also shaving a few points off of their mark of 35.2 ppg in 2010...31.0 ppg sounds like reasonable shot in the dark (Minnesota gave up 33 ppg and Northwestern gave up 29.0 ppg last year). 
• Devin Gardner will be a significant factor in at least one win this season. 
• Leaders division champion: Wisconsin, Legends: Nebraska--Big Ten Champion: Wisconsin
• Other conference champions--ACC: Florida State, Big East: West Virginia, PAC 12: Oregon, SEC: Alabama, Big 12: Oklahoma
• BCS Title Game: Oklahoma vs. Alabama--Alabama wins second title in 3 years

via Mike DeSimone

2,815 Days

It's been a long, long time since we've beaten that team down south. 2,815 days, to be exact. A lot has happened since then, then being the last time we managed to beat them. I was 14 years-old, essentially a third of my life ago. Times were much simpler. Losing two in a row was a cause for concern back then. Everything was straightforward and decidedly more comfortable, even in defeat. Michigan was usually going to have a good--but not great--season, and beating Ohio State was, for quite some time, a near birthright. Then things changed. Jim Tressel came along, and somewhere along the line Lloyd had lost a certain something; his raison d'etre had been compromised.

It's hard to tell when these types of things really begin and end. The Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, and most people will tell you this if you ask. Of course, that empire did not just collapse at one moment like a physical manifestation of the past perfect tense, like a sand castle crumbling feebly under the ocean's mindless will. It was gradual, slow, and excruciating. Deep down, they knew it was coming, and when it finally did they had become numb to all external stimuli that didn't flatly tell them this is going down. 

Next year became next year became please just make it respectable.

The "days since" doesn't mean a thing anymore. It honestly hurt more when we had lost three, four in a row. The "scUM" comments and general insanity of the Buckeye fanbase (re: Kyle Kalis) exist now as they did then in equal measure, like one derpy scientific constant; they've become a part of the normalized perception of them, and as a result they mean nothing. The pain receptors of a sports fan can only take so much; after a while, you're only flooding the synapses with wasted refuse, drowning neurotransmitters speaking Mandarin Chinese to a receptor that only understands Old English. Michigan fandom between 2004 and now, vis a vis Ohio State, has been like one long, extended third degree burn; a pain so great that our nerve endings have been burnt off, leaving the pain unfelt, although we know its there. Things are bubbling up again now, a fresh start has excited us once again. Still, I can't help but imagine the innumerable peasant revolts throughout history that began with such lofty goals and were relentlessly quelled without any hoopla or lasting historical imprint. The again, it's better than the alternative. Every once in a while things work out, and I think our chances are a little bit better.

The worst part of all of this is not even the fact that Michigan has lost so many times in a row, it's that Ohio State has become the undeniable definition of success in the Big Ten throughout the last decade, and that we have come to measure ourselves against them. Lesser programs than ours have beaten Ohio State since 2003. They can be beaten, especially now. The question is, when? An entire era of Michigan football passed without answering that question. Rich Rodriguez nominally close for a half in 2008, approaching closeness if not for wholesale self-destruction in 2009, and quite frankly, never close at all in 2010.

This offseason has intensified my distaste for Ohio State in a way that I previously thought was not possible. I thought my hatred had plateaued long ago, that I had maxed out my hating potential and that it would probably begin to decline ever so slightly once Michigan got that elusive next win. I was so wrong. I hate Notre Dame with the intensity of a thousand suns, and the Spartans and their Sith Lord of a head coach are slowly starting to gain traction on my hatred power rankings. Yet, all I can think about is Ohio State. Every offseason, I painstakingly count down the days to kickoff. No matter how good or bad Michigan was expected to be in a given season, the chance to watch Michigan play was sacred and inviolable. Despite all the Hoke-speak about taking it one game at a time, I can't do that. I would honestly fast forward through the entire season like I would the offseason if it would take me to just before high noon on the 26th of November. This sounds like desperation, and maybe it is, but if I could isolate and distill the endocrinal secretions that come about from my thinking about Ohio State in early August, you'd have a thriving black market for a on-FDA approved energy drink. This burgeoning hatred must be what MSU fans want us to think about them (i.e., that that rivalry has been rekindled, that we hate them), only I don't feel that about Michigan State and probably still won't even if we lose to them this year. That type of hatred is reserved for one team; there can only be one.

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The number itself, 2,815, is surprisingly meaningless. It is, however, beyond absurd when you write it down or say it aloud. I'm still getting over the fact that Denard racked up 502 total yards against Notre Dame last season. The numbers don't mean anything, in and of themselves; they're just markers of failure and success, of triumph and defeat. When Michigan finally wins The Game again, that number will be twisted about, and we will begin flinging the days back at Columbus like rotten fruit, in bushels of 365 at a time. And while that may sound absurd, the fact of not having beaten our most hated foe in that many days is perhaps even more so.

The consoling part of hitting rock bottom is that everyone tells you the only place to go is up. Sometimes, though, you just stay down.

And that is what concerns me the most. Losing again would hurt, and it'd put me in a funk for the next week or so like it always does. But, after all, what's the difference between 7 and 8 really? In the end, it won't amount to much. I just want to beat them again, if only to know that we still can. To beat them once, now, is to beat them a thousand times, and it goes without saying that it would infuse the Michigan program with a vitality that Coach Rod's lacked at all times except  perhaps September of 2009 and 2010. Only 110 days remain until we find out if we still can. This isn't the time for real predictions, but I think we can. At the very least, we'll have our best chance in a long time, and a chance is more than we've had in many of the last several contests against the Buckeyes.

Exit Pryor, Other Stuff You'll Care About Only Because It's the Offseason

Nowhere to hide come draft time supplemental draft time

So, it's official: Terrelle Pryor is no longer a Buckeye, having played his last game against the Mallett-led Razorbacks in the game of quarterbacks that got away. Has there even been a player that has affected both Michigan and Ohio State in every facet of his career? It starts from his decision to attend OSU over Michigan, leaks over into "what ifs" about the staying power of the Rich Rodriguez era at Michigan if RR had had a guy like Pryor running his offense from Day 1, and lastly and most obviously, the sanctions that are on the horizon as a result of Pryor's lack of respect for much of anything. As much as Pryor not choosing Michigan put RR behind from the start, it has thrown a rocket booster on Hoke's back as he zooms around from sea to shining sea, pointing at things and recruiting kids as if Noah filling up the Ark. Much more on who he'll be replaced by at a later date, but for now I'll just say the quarterback situation is not 2008 Michigan hopeless, but it's not exactly bright. Then again, when has OSU ever placed a high premium on elite QB play? Yeah.

I will say that I'm pretty shocked at how shocked some people are about this. Wasn't this basically inevitable?   Can you imagine him sitting out five games and coming back to play (assuming Miller or somebody else hasn't secured the role) out the season with all that has come out and will continue to come out? It seems pretty ridiculous, and so Pryor made the only decision he could in this case.

Michigan's the 12th best job in America...according to Andy Staples of SI. While it's a fruitless exercise to argue with one writer's opinion about a pretty nebulous thing like "best job," I think we can safely say that Michigan will be on the way into the top 10 and OSU will likely fall a few spots unless they make a slam dunk hire next year.



Staples writes:

Everyone in Ann Arbor seems to be behind Brady Hoke, which is the only reason this job — which probably would have ranked near the top five 10 years ago — is this high on the list. … Hoke knows he is at a special place. Michigan doesn't have the recruiting base of an Ohio State, a Penn State or an SEC power, but it has a dedicated fan base and the resources to draw recruits from other parts of the country.

Nice little backhanded compliment there, but it's true, I guess. An RR program flaw has flipped on its head and become a major program plus under Hoke (re: fan support and/or overall atmosphere of the program). It sure will be nice to talk about Hoke as a coach rather than Hoke as recruiter or Michigan football's Abraham Lincoln.

On a general college football note, Richt's situation at Georgia will also be a point of interest this upcoming season. Another shaky year and he could be on the way out, despite how stupid it would be for them to fire him. The man can coach, it has just been his misfortune to have had to go head to head with Urban Meyer on a regular basis. Also, PSU at #8 seems a tad too high to me. ANYWAY.

Scheduling! Kickoff times for the Western and Eastern games have been announced (3:30 ET and noon, respectively). As a big time proponent of the 3:30 start in Michigan Stadium, I approve. It should serve as a nice warm-up for the Notre Dame night game (!), which will be a marathon of a day for all parties involved. Five games are now set, with the other two being @Northwestern (7 ET) and Purdue (noon). Only 87 more days to go...actually, that isn't that far away. Does anybody else feel like the Gator Bowl was a long, long time ago? Nah, probably just a coping mechanism.

Tressel Halftime Speech:

A brief behind-the-scenes peek at Jim Tressel in halftime speech mode during the Arkansas game. Tressel saying "ass" four times in little over a minute is about the equivalent of the average Ozzie Guillen curse-laden diatribe, relatively. The audio quality leaves a little to be desired but a transcript is included. This type of thing is always interesting, particularly in light of the recent revelations about Jim Tressel. That's not to say that cursing a few times makes him a bad person, it's just so at odds with the image he kept up for over a decade in Columbus.

Big Ten Coaches Sans Tressel: Firstly, an interesting fact that I never really considered: Jim Tressel never won Big Ten Coach of the Year despite grabbing 70% of the last decade's conference titles. Pretty amazing but understandable given the absolute dominance that he enjoyed. Rittenberg lays out the various arguments for why Ferentz, Dantonio, Fitzgerald, and Pelini are now the most irreplaceable Big Ten head coach. I'd make a case for Fitzgerald given that he's a pretty darn good coach, not to mention ridiculously loyal. Although Fitzgerald seems to be more than happy with coaching in Evanston for the long haul, you can never say never. If he were to leave I think Northwestern might have a tough time retaining their status as that lower-middle tier team that nobody wants to play when they're playing their best.

Yes...it's Phil Steele time. In addition to picking Michigan to finish second to last in the Legends division, there's this (HT: EDSBS)...and yes, Bama fans everywhere just took this opportunity to claim their 347th national championship. The collective redneck will of Bama fans is so strong that they inception'd themselves into Steele's normally sturdy mind when he made up that page. ROLL TAHD!

The Little Sensor

By now you've probably been thoroughly inundated with coverage of the fall of Jim Tressel and the impending doom headed toward the Ohio State football program like a locomotive. Yesterday's SI article revealed that things are worse than we thought, meaning a whopping 28 players since 2002 are now implicated. Jim Tressel is a dependable wooden rocking chair that has seen some things, many things, only to fall apart from within, bursting with ravenous termites that undermine every iota of moral high ground he once had with every bite.

Perhaps most inexplicable to me (and most disturbing) is the Brobdingnagian gap between previous public opinion of Jim Tressel and what he has now become. How were we all so fooled? While OSU had certainly not been the "model program" even before this bombshell came to the fore, I admit to holding a certain sense of respect for Tressel; a begrudging, hateful respect, but respect nonetheless. He beat us over and over again, and I almost got to the point that I wanted him to say something disrespectful, not be PC, step out of the comfortable cocoon of coach speak. Basically, I wanted him to be Mark Dantonio just for a second, just to prove that he wasn't a robot. But, Jim Tressel was not and is not Mark Dantonio, in both flaws and virtues.

The reason I say this, that I respected him, is that it only makes this all more frightening. Jim Tressel fooled an entire state, an entire conference, and the entire college football world, that he was a good guy. They called him "the Senator," but I have no doubt that he could have won the actual office if he was so inclined. Everybody was so amazingly wrong. I imagine a portrait of Tressel is sitting in some dark and musty room, gathering dust and getting uglier and uglier as a decade's worth of transgressions piled up on top of each other.

"'What does it profit it a man if he gain the whole world and lose'-how does the quotation run?-'his own soul'?"

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This becomes not a question of morality, of right and wrong, of good and bad. We all know that Tressel committed violations with varying degrees of directness, from ignoring the obviously ill-gotten cars of his several of his players to the now infamous fixing of a summer camp raffle (!). SI quotes a former colleague of Tressel's:

"In the morning he would read the Bible with another coach. Then, in the afternoon, he would go out and cheat kids who had probably saved up money from mowing lawns to buy those raffle tickets. That's Jim Tressel."

 What can you say?
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At some point, Jim Tressel made the decision to be what he became. Tressel infantilizes the concept of morality by referring to it as a "little sensor," as if it were a fire alarm, all-seeing until you take its batteries out. Jim Tressel is a fire alarm with its batteries taken out, useless like eyes out of eye sockets. This little sensor, according to Tressel, "knows right from wrong." If only it were that easy, that automatic. It's fairly easy to do something you know is wrong if the benefits outweigh the perceived risk of punishment and/or shame. History bears that out quite well. If Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and take-your-pick-horrible-person had little sensors, it's a wonder they ever slept with the little device's constant shrieking in their heads.

It is not insignificant that Tressel has projected this understanding of morality upon this "little sensor," a thing you can imagine if you tried. He just didn't listen to that little sensor, and that's where he erred. If you ask me, this little sensor is yet another act of trickery, of a desire to deflect blame and disrepute. More often than not, the average person knows whether they are doing something wrong; they are often betrayed by their own bodies. A facial tic, a rising heart rate, a bead of sweat. These are all reactions to and precursors of deceit. Tressel is not the average person. He mastered the art of body language over the years, remaining stoic and unmoved at all times despite the assuredly great joy that every 60-yard punt and 3-yard run brought him. The happiest I've ever seen Jim Tressel look was in that picture of him with the ridiculous facial expression after the Miami game.

Perhaps it was early, then. He wasn't yet trapped by his decision to go down that dark road just yet. Like Dorian Gray's portrait, the sins accumulated over time, attaching themselves to a proxy source, until the time that all those wrongs converged upon him all at once. The same goes for Coach Tressel, who, all at once, is forced to deal with  what he's done (at least publicly). I don't doubt that he is a good man in a lot of aspects of life, but his actions, juxtaposed with a heretofore assumed air of stoic Midwestern principle, make it all the worse. Somewhere, that portrait of JT is back to its original state, the burden of his missteps transferred unto him and him alone. Leave the little sensor out of it; the batteries have been sitting in some box in his attic, next to old family picture albums and a box of long unworn Youngstown State gear. 

As I rewatched the 2003 Fiesta Bowl earlier today, I couldn't help but laugh at the way that the world drops hints along the way, randomly and without purpose. With Ohio State up 17-14 with a couple of minutes to go, the Buckeyes were forced to punt, several minutes after Mike Nugent missed a field goal to give OSU and Coach Tressel a six point lead. Roscoe Parrish returned it deep into Buckeye territory to set up a game-tying Miami field goal as time expired. The camera panned to Tressel after that return, the momentum entirely with the Hurricanes, looking on with that same stoic glare tinged with that special sort of discomfort reserved for special teams miscues. With the camera still focused on Tressel's visage, Dan Fouts presciently says:

And Tressel can't believe how quickly things have changed!