Shameless Self-Promotion Time (Talkin' About the Secondary)

HT: Mike DeSimone (via hokiesports.com)

This week in self-promotion:

• I previewed the secondary as part of Maize n Brew's 2010 season preview of each position group. I think we can officially put the haunting specter of Greg Robinson/Tony Gibson to rest. WOO!

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Other links of note: 

• If you hadn't noticed, Chris at Burgeoning Wolverine Star is back and writing about football things, which is awesome. He previewed the wide receivers today (as well as the QBs and RB, links included therein). Calls the wideout situation "dire", which is hard to disagree with at this point in time. 
• Topical given my post on DB earlier, but it looks like the AD is trying to figure out a way to get the 2013 UConn game played somewhere other than Rentschler Field. This might not end in success for DB, but this negotiating attempt was not exactly unexpected. I was in Hartford once a couple of years ago...that stadium is tiny. Also, is amusingly right across the street from a Cabela's, so there's that. 
• Other topical DB news: night games, yeah! Unfortunately, nothing will ever live up to UTL, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't keep having night games (in moderation, of course). Once every other year is enough for me. The only problem is that the Nebraska and OSU games would not be in consideration for this due to the no nights games in November conference-wide rule (not that I support playing OSU at any time other than high noon). Notre Dame it is, I guess. 
• As Brian at MGoBlog would say: DON'T CLICK ON THIS. JUST DON'T. 

This Week In People Complaining About Dave Brandon

Brian at MGoBlog linked to this piece from the Daily on Dave Brandon yesterday, a thing titled "Just Call Him Dave Brand-It".

I just don't understand people. Am I crazy to think that Dave Brandon, on a macroscopic level, has been a very good AD? Scoreboards, Big Chill, UTL, Brady Hoke, increased pay for coordinators in line with other big name programs, facility improvement, the lacrosse program's jump from club status to Division I, attempting to address student apathy (re: athletics attendance) etc. I mean, my goodness: are you not entertained? 

Of course, people on the Internet ignore these things, instead focusing on by and large cosmetic things and slippery slope-based complaints. It's almost as if people like to complain about minor things (yes, JERSEYS, fergodsakes), as well as things that haven't even happened yet...oh wait, that is exactly what people are doing.

My question is: how representative of the fanbase are these sorts of fans? I honestly have no idea. As much as I love MGoBlog and the Michigan blogosphere as a whole, these places can be somewhat of an echo chamber. I suspect that the people claiming to speak for the fanbase as a whole when defending Michigan's inviolable traditions do not actually represent as many folks as they think they do.

As for the article itself:

From the man that brought you the 5-5-5 deal and excessively honest advertising at a mediocre pizza chain comes the Michigan Football Legends patches, gaudy new uniforms and athletic events marketed like Broadway shows.

I will admit that I find the current advertising efforts at Domino's to be more than a little eye roll-worthy, Rothschild is complaining about cheap pizza and advertising that is honest in nature. That is all you need to know right there vis-a-vis the psychological perspective of the anti-DB subset of the fanbase.

The following is not meant as a wholesale endorsement of John U. Bacon's Three and Out by any means, but this sort of reminds me of the passage in that book in which Rosenberg's immediate and visceral distaste for RR is described. Rosenberg, when running into Jim Brandstatter in the parking lot after RR's first press conference, said (p. 84): "I don't like that guy. I don't think he belongs here."

Here's the beat-you-over-the-head version of the aforementioned: COMPLAINING ABOUT PIZZA BEING CHEAP AND CORPORATE FOLKS EVEN ATTEMPTING TO PORTRAY SOME SENSE OF HONESTY, EVEN A CONTRIVED ONE, IS THE DEFINITION OF COMPLAINING FOR THE SAKE OF COMPLAINING, I.E. "I DON'T LIKE THAT GUY." /disengage caps lock

More fun times:

It seems that more and more, Brandon is making a deal with the devil — earning millions more dollars for the Athletic Department at the expense of the vaunted tradition of Michigan athletics.

Translation: HERPITY DERPITY FLURPITY TRADITION MCHERPITY.

Last year’s night game between the Wolverines and Notre Dame wasn’t just Michigan’s first home night game. No, that wouldn’t be enough. It was: Under The Lights. Oooh. Ahhh.

And 2010’s outdoor hockey game between Michigan and Michigan State couldn’t have just been Michigan Stadium’s first outdoor hockey game. No, it was The Big Chill at The Big House — presented by Arby’s. Golf applause. 

Pointless, trivial, semantic, wrong, etc. You get the idea. The rest of the piece follows as such.
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I would say that I'm sorry, but, really, I'm not: the mindless distaste for Brandon's doings, no matter what they are, is really not that different from Rosenberg's distaste for RR. They're both marked by irrationality and a sense that this interloper is doing away with the very things that supposedly define Michigan (nevermind the fact that the assumption that any one person knows what these things are is ridiculous). You know, "tradition" and such, a word that has over time been rendered a sad, desiccated entity lacking any sort of real meaning.

I don't agree with every single thing that Brandon has done. I also don't want to make it seem as if I've trying to be completely dismissive of the belief that DB's EVIL corporate background might end up being a bad thing eliciting legitimate criticism at some point down the line. I don't want a mascot, I want Michigan's last game of the season to be against Ohio State, I don't want ads displayed prominently within the stadium, I think "Sweet Caroline" is terrible, etc.

It comes down to two things: a) people think that Michigan is above "marketing" because we supposedly have innumerable Scrooge McDuck-esque vaults full of cash money and thus shouldn't stoop to such base levels and b) people just like to complain about ancillary, fairly pointless things like jersey designs--even though Michigan has experimented with jersey designs in the past (e.g. white pants, different shades of maize, gradual reformulation of the helmet wings, etc.)--because they're points that can be articulated easily and explosively.

Don't advertise, don't market, don't try to find new revenue streams**, don't raise ticket prices, don't attempt to appeal to the younger generations of fans...but definitely get us that new practice facility and stadium renovations right away! Right.

Don Canham, the Dave Brandon of yesteryear wait what but tradition this can't be (via Bentley)

Anyway, this subject isn't worth much more treatment than this. Like Rosenberg, it appears that those that dislike Dave Brandon, no matter what he does, will continue to do so quite mindlessly. Thank goodness we're less than two weeks away from real football. Until then, I will have to generally look like this whenever the anti-DB-NO-MATTER-WHAT campaign rears its nonsensical head, a grotesque head fashioned from bits of old leather helmets and bleacher seat cushions.

HT: Mike DeSimone 

**MONEYYY BAD NOOOOOOO

Miscellaneous Minutiae, 7/2/2012

Gettin' there. Via the Michigan football Facebook page:

Caption? How about "WOOOOOOOO" or "WARGGHBLB."

BONUS CAPTION--fan of every other team: "SOMETHING SOMETHING FATTTTTTT LOLOLOL."

Playoff! This is a little late at this point, but I'm going to break the "no playoffs/realignment talk" dictum in order to make the completely official Holdin' the Rope statement on the new playoff format.

It is a playoff. There will be four teams playing in this playoff. There will still be complaining from various places around the country, complaining which will sometimes be valid (but not always). It will be different; change is good, but, more importantly it was in this case needed.

Yes, there are, shall we say, certain undesirable potential outcomes with this format (e.g. 3 SEC teams in a playoff field of 4), but we'll cross that bridge of vehement Internet complaining when we get there. For now, this is a good thing, unless it's not...otherwise, it's just about the same as before only with two additional teams. Progress!

Either way, Michigan will still jump up and touch the banner on Saturdays. Let's not lose sight of what's actually important.

/playoff talk

It's official, y'all. Missouri and Texas A&M have officially become members of the SEC as of midnight this past Saturday. Upon the clock striking midnight, Mizzou and TAMU players and fans all instantly shaved .4 seconds off their 40 times and upped their bourbon tolerance exponentially, in addition to winning the inalienable right to piggyback on the accomplishments of their new conference's members.

I already feel sorry for whatever Big Ten team Texas A&M will end up facing in the 2012 Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas. Fans of whatever B1G team this ends up being: hope y'all are ready to suffer some hilarious "S-E-C" chanting from the conference's newest pledge.

Brandon on scheduling. Dave Brandon said some things about his scheduling philosophy going forward. "Wow factor," huh? Sounds like some fancy shmancy corporate-speak to me, [insert whatever the Michigan version of "PAWWLLLL" is here]. Why can't Brandon opt for the "oh my that is tremendous indeed" factor, a significantly more wholesome and less corporately tinged factor? When will Dave Brandon ever think of the kids?*

Nick Baumgardner writes:

Some Michigan football purists are quick to criticize certain scheduling tweaks Brandon has made in recent years, from the home night game to a neutral-site contest to a Thursday evening affair. Some people would still rather have it the old way.

If there are actually people out there freaking out in any way about the Thursday night game in Utah, well...my completely serious investigative report from last week is doubly relevant and not at all facetious under the circumstances.

On a serious note, I don't really buy the "wow factor" of a game against, say, Colorado, but it's better than another game against a take-your-pick of the Michigan directional teams. Even if Colorado isn't all that good, a BCS name on the schedule is better than nothing. I would say something along the lines of "change is good" here, but this stuff isn't even indicative of some sort of sweeping change...it's just trying something different. Yes, you might have to DVR the Season 843 premiere of The Office that Thursday night instead of watching it live, but that's just your fault for still watching The Office, hypothetical Michigan "purist" who is upset about this and oddly is a fan of The Office in the post-Michael Scott era. 


*By "kids" I mean "football purists."


REAL GOOD TIME. I didn't notice this until now, but Sippin' on Purple provides a link for you to click on that will perhaps help send Pitbull to a Walmart in Kodiak, Alaska. For those of you that believe in nothing in this world, believe in this. The natives of Kodiak deserve this real good time, and no I am not selfishly doing this for the greater good of the contiguous states of America.

So, please go to Facebook and like the page for the Kodiak Walmart. Make a difference in the world today with one swift click. Thank you.

More? Charles Barkley tried to illegally recruit Dirk Nowitzki to Auburn...of course he did. Never change, Chuck. The Lakers re-signed Darius Morris, the Cavs waived Manny Harris (from UMHoops)...things are looking pretty grim for Manny. DMo's situation isn't much brighter, but the Lakers' PG situation is still fairly terrible, even if they end up re-signing Ramon Sessions, who recently became an UFA (although I imagine that they will try to make a move for someone this offseason).

Can you imagine what Notre Dame fans being in places like Stillwater or Lubbock would be like? I'll tell you what it'd be like: HILARIOUS.

Michigan To Play Thursday Night Game Sign of the Apocalypse

ANN ARBOR, MI--In a release sent out earlier today, it was announced that Michigan would be playing a Thursday night game (HT: MGoBlog*) for the first time in its long and storied history. The Wolverines will travel to Utah to take on the Utes at Rice-Eccles Stadium, a rare weekday darby for a program that prides itself on tradition and honor and noon kickoffs. This is a sign of the imminent Apocalypse, to be sure.

Michigan has in fact played weekday games before, most memorably a Friday night contest in 2003 against Minnesota in the Metrodome. However, playing on Thursday has never been done by a Wolverine football team. Naturally, concerns abound as a result of this controversial move.

Given the Michigan fan base's voracious appetite for the traditional, we went out into the field to do some crowd sourcing, asking Michigan fans the most obvious and salient questions: is this the straw that broke the Universe's back? Is it officially time to lose all hope? Will it be possible to complain about Dave Brandon in a world which no longer exists? Will Michigan fans be able to continue a carefully nurtured brand of lifelong sanctimony in what could quite possibly be a lawless and anarchistic post-apocalyptic society? In light of this news, these are the important questions of our time.

"This is simply the worst possible outcome. Murphy's Law indeed, ha!" said Winston Tweedington, 52, a wealthy Michigan alumnus and man of great importance. However, Tweedington's tone instantaneously shifted from playful to somber. "It's a slippery slope, to be sure. Next we will find ourselves side by side with the medicore hoi polloi," Tweeington muttered with undisguised disgust. "The...Mid-American Conference. Bah!"


Tweedington picked up steam. "First it's Thursday night games, and next thing you know...that's right, my journalistic fellow. We'll begin to admit athletes solely on the basis of their athletic exploits as opposed to the strength of their body of work on the gridiron of scholastic pursuit! I worry whether or not Michigan will find itself out of place with its similarly-minded peers: the Ivy League, Northwestern, Stanford, Vanderbilt, and so forth," Tweedington said, with no hint of irony to be found in his tone as he languidly held a glass of scotch and played with the lapel of his smoking jacket with a carelessness that verged on noble apathy.

Based on our brief interview, Tweedington seemed to be tragically resigned to a fate that was, in his mind, beneath him; however, we here at the Generic Horrible News Network often marvel at the vast spectrum and the many different manifestations of fandom that can be found at a football institution like Michigan.

John Smith, 44, of Eight Point Buck, Michigan had his own concerns about this development. "Football on a Thursday?" Smith asked. "Heck, that's no good for me. The folks walkin' into Walmart ain't gonna greet themselves, you know? Man's gotta work," he said, wiping a fleck of Costco hot dog from his $3 shirt that he purchased in 1984. Adjusting for inflation, this shirt was worth approximately 92 cents when purchased, which Smith proudly admitted to paying for with a sack of pennies and expired Big Boy gift certificates.

"I didn't go to Michigan, but hey, football's football, right? I don't need some fancy Wall Street guy to tell me when to watch. All I know is, I'll be parked on that couch over there at noon that Saturday, telling everybody in the house not to breathe for three hours...on account of the reception on those rabbit ears getting all sorts of messed up," Smith explained. Whereas Tweedington saw this as a grave setback, Smith appeared to take the news with a charmingly folksy resolve. Nothing would stop him from watching the game on Saturday, even if it meant not watching the game at all.

Variety is the spice of life, they say, and there is certainly no shortage of variety with respect to this Hungarian Wax Pepper of an issue.

In order to hit the youth demographic, we also spoke with several current Michigan students. An LSA sophomore, who asked to be referred to simply as "The Chad," had his own unique take on this new territory for Michigan football. "Thursday? THIS THURSDAY?? BRO. Something's going down and nobody told me? Check this, I'm about to send the illest angry email to the house listserv bro," said The Chad, plainly upset that no one had told him anything. The Chad pulled out a laptop emblazoned with the symbols of youth culture: stickers "repping"--as they say--Entourage, obscure unlistenable house music, and a context-less quote from The Boondock Saints. 


Upon informing The Chad that nothing out of the ordinary was in fact going down this Thursday, and that the Thursday in question centered around a football game taking place in 2015, The Chad remarked, "Football? Is that that thing that comes after the drinking?"

We also spoke with a junior majoring in engineering student who was surprisingly ecstatic upon hearing this news: "Great, now I don't have to set aside time for watching football. All that time spent in the Big House or at road games on Saturdays is just plain inefficient," the remarkably Vitamin D-deficient junior explained matter-of-factly. After a few moments, the student went on to ask, "Wait. What's football?"

Finally, we took the liberty of entering a crowded lecture hall--assembled for the esteemed Linda Gregerson's "Shakespeare's Principal Plays" course--and asking several students for their thoughts. We approached one student, near the back of the cavernous East Hall lecture room, who seemed half asleep and had his laptop open to a blank Microsoft Word document. The black progress marker flicked in and out of existence on the empty page, a startling reminder of the ever constant nature of change, of birth, death, and rebirth.

We not at all disruptively made our way down the row, forcing everyone to stand up--and giving acerbic glares to those who didn't--as we made our way toward the student. We sat down next to him and carefully poked him out of his probably unsatisfying semi-slumber, which caused him to jolt up and  sleepily say "Yeah man Hamlet, sucks for that guy that he stabbed," before trailing off and noticing my presence. "Who are you?" he asked, startled.

I asked, "What do you think about Michigan's schedule Thursday night game against Utah to be played in 2015?" Gregerson noticed all of this and audibly sighed at the podium, continuing with her lecture on the basics of iambic pentamter, Hamlet's existential crisis, and how Shakespeare totally didn't have a team of probably underpaid ghostwriters.

The student, an undeclared LSA freshman, perked up at the question, turning to his laptop and pointing to the website displayed on his browser,"mgoblog.com."

He began, "Well, on MGoBlog, the best source of news on Michigan sports anywhe--," he said, before we cut him off, took his Mountain Dew, and dumped its contents on his head.

"THATS WHAT YOU GET FOR READING BLOGS, IDIOT. TRADITIONAL MEDIA RIDE OR DIE!"At that point, we were forced to leave, but not until many passive aggressive Shakespeare verses and tawdry pun-based epithets were hurled at us while we were sent on our way.

Unfortunately, Dave Brandon was unable to be reached for comment, as he was at the Anti-Tradition League's annual Anti-Tradition Cosmic Bowling tournament, a philanthropic event whose proceeds go directly to Michigan's burgeoning Advertising and Marketing Budget.**

We were, however, able to reach Terry Schmidt, Brandon's lead marketing guru and assistant to the AD.

"We're really excited about what we've got in store for that Thursday at Utah. Let's just say we've got some pretty revolutionary ideas cooking up there in the ol' noggin', some things that will really get our principal market demograpics goin'," Schmidt said, somewhat ambiguously pointing to the box of pizza on his desk and then to the Michigan jersey on the wall.

We returned to Tweedington to ask if he had any thoughts about what Schmidt had told us. Tweedington sighed dramatically before walking over to the gramophone in the corner of his study and playing his vinyl copy of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata", which was notably scuffed, bearing the telltale markings of overuse.

Some fans are dealing with the news differently than others, but make no mistake about it: whether it triggers the end of the world or not, change is coming. Clear your evenings on Sept. 3, 2015, Michigan fans. You're going to be watching football, whether you like it or not.
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*A traditional news outlet HTing a blog...ha! It's almost as if this post is facetious in nature!
**Brought to you by Arby's.

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

Miscellaneous Minutiae, 5/18/2012

UTL Part II? With Michigan joining the rest of the college football world last season by playing under the lights--I love how this is a phrase that we use, as if this is some outrageous concept--it has been the general understanding that Michigan will play more night games in the Big House in the coming years.  Next year does not provide the best home slate possible...outside of the Michigan State game, of course. As you can imagine, there may or may not be some trepidation in the athletic department regarding playing the Spartans at night that have to do primarily with off-the-field concerns...whatever, I don't really care much about that. However, I will say that this is some admirable Machiavellian trolling on the part of Mark Hollis. 

Really, this is a win-win for him and MSU. If this ends up being a night game, MSU gets primetime exposure, a boon for any program. If DB shuffles his feet and says no or fails to adequately sway the networks--if that is something that he can even do in the first place--it will then look like Michigan is, gasp, scared to play MSU at night. Of course, the fact that Hollis himself notes that the athletic directors don't exactly have final say (or much of one at all) in these matters would ordinarily represent an instance of cognitive dissonance; since this is college football, and since this is Michigan-Michigan State we're talking about, this is simply a fine case of Grade A trolling (which, in general, can be annoying but is good and potentially integral to the college football experience). 

Alabama and West Virginia fans. In the same place, at the same time. This is yesterday's news, but yes, the Tide and Mountaineers have agreed to open the 2014 season--i.e. Shane Morris's second Heisman campaign--in Atlanta. Obviously, that game is a long way's away, but if both coaches are still there then that should quite the barnburner.

Nick Saban's tightly-wound, cybernetic "persona" pitted against his home state school, led by the Red Bull-guzzling Skulletor? Narratives!

Things I actually agree with Big Ten brass about. So after I basically called everyone in the Big Ten stupid the other day, I have to say that I agree with this. As irritating as the B1G's capitulation was, it wasn't a battle we were likely to win; if doing that expedites the process in other aspects of the process, then that's a good thing. Maybe this is just me trying to rationalize the decision away into a billion little pieces, but, again, we are not in the meeting room with Delany et al. I still don't feel confident that the folks in charge will come away from the table with anything other than reactionary "victories", but we are only a chapter or two into this book.

Unfortunately for us, the fans, this uncertainty regarding strength of schedule's future importance (or unimportance), will likely mean a fairly brutal non-conference schedule in the near future:

As for now, Brandon said he's "dragging his feet" with future scheduling until he knows how important strength of schedule will be in the future postseason formula, and the Pac-12 partnership is sorted out.

Brandon:

"I fear we could get into a world where we’re all scheduling down to make sure our records are where they need to be," Brandon said. "We’ve seen this in basketball, where the regular season has become diminished because this tournament has become bigger than the regular season." 

Now, I'm not one of those guys that criticizes Brandon for the sake of criticism, but...don't we live in that world already, right now? Haven't we lived in that world for quite some time? As I write this, Florida's Jeremy Foley just scheduled another in-state non-conference minnow and Michigan is looking to hemorrhage some cash in the general direction of some far-flung bottom tier FBS school (or even FCS). Good news for the season ticket holders: there will be games! Bad news: they won't be entertaining games, for the most part.

In any case, anything to mitigate SEC bias in the polls and to coerce schools into playing somebody worth anything in the non-conference.

Speaking of DB and scheduling. Here's another example of the tried and true "is the ND-Michigan series going to end?" rumor mill, from SI:

"What I personally know at this point is that we're going to play for the next three years," Brandon said. "I don't have any control over what Notre Dame may be thinking moving forward beyond that. And the world is changing pretty rapidly."

Personally, as an out-of-stater, the ND rivalry is second only to Ohio State in importance and general vitriol. Beating ND in the manner that Michigan has the last three years has been simply incredible. I don't want to lose that, but, at the same time, I've always wanted Michigan to venture out into the world and play some new teams. That doesn't mean that we have to end the rivalry in any indefinite way, just that it would be nice to throw a change-up now and then to mix things up. Blimpy Burger is good, but not for every meal of every day; variation is key, folks (also, exercise).

In an ideal world without previously signed contracts to which schools have to adhere, I'd go on a 2-1 basis, meaning Michigan would play Notre Dame at home in Year X, away inYear Y, and then take a break from the series to play somebody else (Georgia, Tennessee, Clemson, Oregon, Oklahoma, etc.) in Year Z.

More? The Big Ten favors a selection committee for the future playoff; Andy Staples concurs. Michigan's basketball recruiting success getting some respect from the national media, via UMHoops. Haven't actually listened to this yet, but here's a podcast from al.com discussing the upcoming season opener between Michigan and Alabama.

This Week In Generic Playoff Concerns: On the Road Again

As you probably know by now, Jim Delany and the Big Ten have given up on the continued negotiation for semifinal games on campus sites. For those hoping to see teams like LSU, Alabama, and Georgia come up to Ann Arbor, Madison, or Columbus for one of these hypothetical semifinal matchups, you're going to have to wait a while. Unfortunately, your waiting might not be too different from the sort of waiting in Waiting for Godot. Indefinite, pointless, and tragicomic.

First of all, just to clarify my own position (not that it is all that different from most people's):

• With all due respect to the Rose Bowl, it should not be a driving factor in any playoff negotiations. What was once a nexus of pride and tradition has deteriorated and is an outright albatross on the neck of the conference. There, I said it. You were thinking it too. 

• I'm in favor of a 4-team playoff, conference champions only, with the only other deciding clause being that a team must be in the top X (anywhere from 6-10 is fine to me, however arbitrary that may seem). Otherwise, a non-champion can take a spot left vacant due to a conference champion not fulfilling the aforementioned parameters. 

• No pre-season polls. It's kind of absurd that they exist in the first place, but I guess college football needs a way to drum up interest for non-conference games with shiny rankings.  

• Strength of schedule needs to be emphasized in whatever the new rankings formula becomes. Force teams to eliminate as many minnows from their schedules as possible. Is that fair to the minnows? No, but, then again, I don't think teams like UT-San Antonio, Georgia State, and even current FBS schools like Eastern Michigan, should be in the FBS. In fact, I don't even think many of these types of schools should be fielding football teams, period, but I'm not exactly about to tell the a bunch of Texans that they shouldn't have a football team. That would go over well, I'm sure. 

• While a certain groups of fans will always point to players' preferences for things*--alternate jerseys, music, etc.--as reasons why we shouldn't listen to them (that is, the players), in this case I think the players are in the right, not the coaches and ADs. I guarantee you that if given the choice, every single player on Michigan's roster would rather play for a national championship than the Rose Bowl. The Rose Bowl, not unlike Notre Dame football, hasn't been truly relevant on a national scale in some time. The fact that Mark Hollis says otherwise regarding the players' wants increases my confidence in the notion that the players want to play for national titles and not Rose Bowls: 

"From kids' perspective, the bowl experience is the one thing they want to keep," he said. "Semifinals at bowl sites provide that, it's where fans can gather. With campus sites, it becomes (more) like a regular-season game." 

Yes, because everybody wants more, not less, bowl-type experiences in a given season. This seems counter-intuitive given that the B1G is also thinking about upping the bowl qualifying record to 7-5. The Big Ten wants to expand and downsize the bowl culture simultaneously; this leads me to believe, among a long list of other reasons, that the conference has no idea what it is doing.

*For the record, I don't care too much about the crazy jerseys and stadium music too much. I mean, they might be bad and sometimes a little excessive, but they don't leave an indelibly negative mark on my personal experience as a fan. Also, for the most part, if anybody is going to have a say about these things, I think it should be the players and not Michigan fans on the Internet. That isn't a slight against the fans, but...I think the players have more than earned the right to some creative control with these things. If that means hearing a non-zero amount of Pop Evil and wearing a bumblebee jersey every once in a while, so be it.

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Of course, none of us are in the room for these negotiations. As Rittenberg notes, maybe this is a way to concede one point while gaining ground on the "conference champions only" front re: the playoff structure. Then again, what happens if the SEC (and other conferences in its axis of influence, which, at this point, might honestly be everyone that isn't the B1G) manages to use its influence to eliminate the aforementioned clause from ongoing discussions? The Big Ten doesn't seem to have very many friends right now, and the SEC has all the leverage. Winning has a way of doing that, and by winning I mean, of course, national championships. No matter what anybody says, national titles are the ultimate prize in this era of college football. 

By definition, a negotiation means that multiple sides will supposedly be conceding various things in order to achieve a general common goal (in this case, a playoff). However, from where I stand, these discussions look more like this duel scene from The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly: 

If it needs explication, the Big Ten is Angel Eyes. That is not a good thing. 

So much of this either doesn't make sense or is plainly wrong. Again, in bullet form: 

• Hollis's point that the players value the bowls more than playing for a national championship. This is the height of tragicomedy, as the players can first and foremost look to the parasitic bowls as a primary source to which college football revenue is nonsensically funneled, revenue that is based solely on their back-breaking efforts. Pair this with the fact that those that "run" the bowls seem to do very little in the way of actual work, and you would be justified, as a player, to be fairly antagonistic to the bowl system. The players "love" the bowls because it is the only thing there is, they get to travel somewhere (even if it's somewhere as bland as, say, Orlando), and they get a few neat things in their bowl gift package. 

• Gene Smith: "Let's say Ohio State is hosting and it's January or December, and it's five degrees. Is that right for the game? We're not pro. We need to figure out what's best for the game, and I think a fast surface, good weather is important for the game. It's important for the game." 
  
• He supported semifinal games on home sites before; what changed? This goes for everyone else in the conference, not just Smith. 
• Anytime an AD or anyone involved in this process talks about what's good for the kids, I tune out. "The kids" are the furthest thing from anyone's mind who has a say. 
• I'm not sure why football played in cold weather conditions is okay for the highest level of football but not the collegiate game. That makes sense. Apparently, football players only become men upon entering the NATIONAL. FOOTBALL. LEAGUE. 

Jon Gruden, former HC in the NATIONAL. FOOTBALL. LEAGUE. endures the brutal cold of Tampa Bay like only a true professional can

• The fact that Delany just does not understand what is going on at all. He thinks that NYC is a relevant college football foothold. Then again, given that Rutgers was at one point at least vaguely a target of Big Ten expansion, this isn't exactly unexpected. In light of the dilution of the bowl system that many in the B1G are fearing, yes...signing on with the Pinstripe Bowl is definitely what we should do. 

• The fact that Tom Osborne and Harvey Perlman--with Nebraska having only having one Big Ten season to its name--feel the need to be beholden to the Rose Bowl (and the bowl system at large) proves that this is all: a) mindless groupthink and b) symptomatic of the dedication to preserving monetary lifelines via the bowl system as opposed to doing what is right for the game, the conference, individual schools, and yes, the players. So, yes, when various B1G personalities talk about the Rose Bowl, they are irrationally deifying it, assuaging their fears and their pangs of guilt at even thinking of abandoning it by mindlessly paying tribute; at this point, is the Rose Bowl even worthy of demigod status? 

• Just so it doesn't look like I'm solely bashing other ADs, even our very own Dave Brandon has been notoriously anti-playoff, and although I can't find a direct quote, the above article on the Pinstripe Bowl notes that Brandon thinks that "playing at northern sites within the Big Ten would be unfair to the competition." The administrative idiocy regarding a playoff--and its prominent details--is spread fairly uniformly across the conference. 

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This week has not increased my confidence in the Big Ten brass's ability to not completely ruin our chances of having nice things. Abandoning the semifinal home site cause before any trenches have even been dug is akin to Russia executing its "scorched earth" policy before Napoleon had even begun his campaign eastward (yes, I just compared the SEC to early 19th century France...if that's not trollin' then I don't know what is). 

I'm getting the feeling that once the dust settles, the Big Ten is going to be a major loser in all of this, and it will largely be a product of two factors: 1) the incompetence of the conference's administration and 2) a complete lack of leverage vis-a-vis the SEC (and even the Pac 12).  I hope this resolves itself positively, but early returns have not been encouraging. 

Miscellaneous Minutiae, 5/4/2012

Dear Derek Dooley, Bo Ryan, et al: Please take some notes from the venerable Book of Richt. Richt, on the issue of transfer restrictions, quoth:

“First of all, I think life is too short,” Richt explained. “I want every young man to have a successful time in his four- or five-year window to be able to go to college. So I don’t want to impede a guy from realizing his goals and his dreams, wherever it is." 

Yes, Mark Richt is essentially Ferris Bueller--"life moves pretty fast"--with a sensible haircut and khaki pants, pants sturdy and comfortable enough for the occasional mouth-covering act of relative immodesty. Not only has Richt been far ahead of his coaching peers on this matter, he has taken it a step further by putting in a good word for UGA players whom have looked to transfer to a school within the conference. In a perfect world, the aforementioned would not require the ol' italics of disbelief, but we all know that the world is not perfect. While Richt does not yet have a national title to his name, I've always rooted for him and UGA in the SEC because he represents a lonely island of propriety in a maelstrom of SEC malfeasance. The calls were for his job after 2010 were, and still are, completely idiotic. Appreciate what you have, UGA fans: a good coach and an apparently good dude.

In short, college coaches of America: take a page from the Good Book of Richt and maybe channel some of his abundant chill vibes while you're at it. I'm more than certain that he'd be willing to share with all of you.

Tommy Rees...yeah: I will refrain from the making the obvious jokes because others have already done it better than I ever could (in addition to the fact that I'm not a huge fan of making light of such things, anyway), but, if we're thinking about the football angle to this...does a Notre Dame team led by Gunner Kiel or Everett Golson really scare anyone? Anyone? No? Yeah, me neither. Say what you will about Rees's performance last year, but he without a doubt he gives ND a better chance to win in September than either Golson or Kiel do. This is of course all assuming that this incident will affect his status on the team, which I doubt that it will. However, you never know how the Random Wheel of Disciplinary Justice will spin.

Devin Gardner not a wide receiver...yet: I was shocked, SHOCKED, to find out that this Facebook post, supposedly on Devin Gardner's account, was a hoax. I was previously under the impression that everything on Facebook was not only inherently reliable but factually ironclad. The fact that somebody, somewhere, took the time to create a fake account and then attempt to write something that might sound authentic, ultimately coming up with:

"Looks like imma catch them TD's this year. ... Just certain packages. Our wide out core is going to be really solid this year."

...is, quite frankly, hilarious (and more than a little bit sad). "Our wide out core is going to be really solid this year." I mean, what athlete would even say this? Someone should apologize for defaming Gardner's by portraying him as someone that cannot differentiate between "core" and "corps." If this proves anything, it's that the Devin Gardner to Wide Receiver Illuminati* is out in full force.

*Formerly known as--circa 2011--the Denard Robinson to Wide Receiver Illuminati.

Speaking of pathetic fan behavior: Please read this cringe-worthy cautionary tale about the one known as @Bdubstriviaguru and then proceed to never Tweet at recruits ever again (that is, if you are the sort to even do that in the first place). It's a weird thing to do, and you are weird if you do it, period. While I think the concept of the entire enterprise of recruiting is incredibly unsettling--not to mention the fact that random people on the Internet* can contact recruits in the name of said recruiting enterprises--I do admit to paying attention to it because you sort of have to lest you have your fandom questioned. I don't obsess about the minutiae of recruiting like I used to a few years ago, but I do keep up to date with Michigan's list of commits and the select group of players that seem like they will probably end up being commits at some point in the future. I'll read the MGoBlog "Hello" posts when they go up, and I'll usually at least skim the other recruiting posts, but...anything more involved than that and I start to feel very badly about the whole thing.

With that said, Tweeting at recruits or trying to contact them in any way is very, very weird (unless you know them in real life, of course). Just don't do it. Trust me, they'll be fine without being having "THE TEAM THE TEAM TEAM #GOBLUE #THEVICTORS" tweeted at them for the 927th time.

*By "random people" I mean those not affiliated with a major recruiting outlet (ESPN, Rivals, Scout, etc.). Covering recruiting is still a weird thing to do even if you are a person that works for those entities, but if you're just a guy on the Internet soliciting recruits for amateur interviews, well...that's just odd and I really do not support it. But, perhaps I am alone on this.

Brandon and Hollis hit the golf course: Well, this should be awesome. This is a veritable goldmine of meme and/or AD-related humor waiting to be harvested. Between Hollis's questionable caddying advice and DB's Arby's branded golf gear, I'm not sure what deserves to be tackled first.

MSU won the first B1G AD Golf Challenge last year, which means it's time for some revenge and, more importantly, bringing the trophy home where it belongs...which is Ann Arbor, I guess?

More? The cold existential dread of conference isolation should probably be a familiar feeling for the natives of Moscow, Idaho.

Mo' Money Mo' Problems

I had an entire post ready to go this morning re: The Great Band Crisis of 2012, but, naturally, it seems that the Internet decided to eat it. This is somewhat irritating but also might have been the universe's way of saying "shut up, guy, the world does not need a 47,194th take on this issue." Duly noted, universe. In any case, I have reproduced the most important part of the lost post below. The rest would've been just noise, anyway.

I don't know what the want from me/

It's like the more money we come across/

The more problems we see

Reasons For Optimism: Musings in May

The Michigan football program after the Appalachian State debacle (and, eventually, the catastrophic Year 1 of the RR era) looked kind of like the Death Star at the end of A New Hope.

Yup.

As of now, it looks a little more like this:

So, that's good. Of course, that one got blown up too, so let's just leave this analogy before we go someplace we don't want to. Either way, we're making progress (!). The speed with which we have reeled in commitments has made me wonder whether or not I unknowingly became a fan of the Texas Longhorns. Obviously that's a little hyperbolic, but things are looking up. Yet, we haven't played a game in the Hoke era. The third of September is a long way away, so let's take some time to do a little thinkin' and extrapolatin': why do we feel, as they call it, "good" about things? Some might call it delusion, a false sense of ease like antidepressants supposedly produce, or lobotomized crazy folks drifting in a cloudy haze of not good and not bad. I posit it that this "good" is actually, you know, good. With the way things have gone of late, on and off the field, the simple lack of bad news (minus the Stonum situation) is cause for celebration. Some of the following might be redundant or obvious, but in order to understand the massive, wholesale psychological shift  within the Michigan community--which includes the fans, the media, the athletic department, former players, current players, future players, etc.-- we must look at the reasons why Hoke has been good for Michigan so far, and why he will probably be good in the future. If the Michigan football community was a robot, it just executed REBOOT.exe, turning in their fancy but flawed operating system for an older, sturdier version. 

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Some points for optimism:

1) Coach Hoke and Co. (especially Mattison) are absolutely dominating the state of Michigan right now. Now, I don't personally read any Spartan message boards, but I can imagine that most Spartan fans are monitoring the current recruiting situation with concern. 

Despite three straight losses to the Spartans, they are who they are: a team that will probably have trouble sustaining any sort of success (i.e., Big Ten title/contention) if Michigan is winning on the recruiting front. So far, Michigan has garnered ten commitments (to MSU's four), all from the states of Michigan and Ohio. "Winning" the instate recruiting battle essentially cuts down MSU's hopes of being a legitimate force in the Big Ten landscape like a Chaz Ramsey chop block. On Michigan's path to competence, MSU presents an important step that we can no longer overlook. However, at the end of the day they are simply the mildy challenging but mostly annoying dude you had to fight in any Zelda game in order to get the key to fight the real boss (ND, OSU, Nebraska?)*. With several guys nearing commitments or supposedly looking like decent-to-good bets for Michigan, including Godin, Thompson, O'Brien, and Richardson, it will only get worse for MSU, and we haven't even played any games yet [ed--Godin has committed as of this morning, the much talked about "silent" commit according to TomVH]. If Hoke can find a way to win 8+ this year, recruiting will get even tougher for Coach Dantonio, and things will probably go back to how they once were. This is the best-case scenario, and although said dominance might not manifest itself on the field right away, it almost certainly will in the near future. 


*OSU is obviously Ganondorf.


2) While it is unfair and a little bit of a double standard, the Michigan community has rolled out the red carpet for Coach Hoke. He can do no wrong, and is ostensibly building a shattered program from the ground up, despite the fact that the cupboard is far from bare.Although there were initial reactions of negativity in some circles (particularly, of course, in the cadre of staunchly pro-RR folks) to the hiring of Brady Hoke, they have seemed to dissipate over time, melting like an ice cube on a griddle. I don't know when or how this happened, but you can see it. When given the supposed options, I myself preferred Hoke over Miles (and took the tried and true "well we didn't want him anyway" course re: Harbaugh), but not at the expense of a 4th year for Coach Rodriguez. While I still wish that RR had been able to finish what he started, I sit here only a few months later mostly at peace with how things have happened. Hoke isn't a flashy guy and he probably never will be, but I think we could use a little vacation from the trials and tribulations of personalities clashing against the establishment over and over again like waves crashing against a stoic, unmoving rockface. 


3) The biggest putative supporter of Brady Hoke is of course Dave Brandon, the man who, after a long and fretful coaching journey into the frustrating belly of the dreaded coaching search, decided Brady was his guy all along. I guess we'll never really know what happened there, and while it certainly put a dent in this past recruiting class, it won't matter in the long run if the correct decision has been made. With that said, a precedent has been set; rather, it has not been set. RR's firing after just three years (and all the arguments against this practice's "fairness," practicality, and efficacy), combined with Hoke being Brandon's guy, makes me believe that Hoke should get at least four years, if not five, to cement himself as the head coach at Michigan for at least part of another recruiting cycle. Barring NCAA violations (uh, please no) or a complete and utter failure to win games, Hoke will be given some leeway that his predecessor didn't have. I only mention this because it is a good thing for Hoke; nothing I say here, now, or at any point in the future, will be explicitly in "defense" of RR. It's in the past. Hoke might have 99 Problems but his boss ain't one. 


4) At the risk of sounding incredibly cocky, especially after going 7-6 and getting detonated by Chris Relf and Manny Diaz's ridiculous blitz-all-the-time-like-Tenuta-except-I-know-what-I'm-doing defense, the 2011 schedule seems very, very manageable. Given the inevitable early struggles of the new offense, it is significant that the Wolverines won't have to enter a hostile environment until halfway through the season in East Lansing. I've been guilty of declaring wins in May before, but we're at worst 5-1 going into EL; we've seen this story two years in a row, so the back end will be the key. Purdue is Purdue and Illinois should be a win, so the difference between "decent given the circumstances" and "decent by normal standards" will be the OSU, Nebraska, Iowa triumvirate. Thankfully, we get the first two at home. Nebraska will be interesting and somewhat of a wild-card. They faded at the end of last year and certainly showed they could be beaten. Then again, I don't want to put too much stock in a bowl performance on the heels of a conference title game loss, you know. As of right now, the conference is looking a little bit underwhelming. 


5) Things are not looking good in Columbus, and that is a fairly huge understatement. The NCAA sharks are circling the OSU program, and while they aren't really doing anything of substance right now (not unlike Patrick Marleau BOOM ROASTED), we all know it's a matter of time. Tressel should/will get fired, and that's a pretty huge power vacuum you've got right there. The next couple of years (i.e., once OSU gets hit with sanctions) will be huge for Michigan with respect to recruiting in Ohio. Ohio State's malfeasance and inevitable punishment is bad for the conference long-term but obviously advantageous for Hoke right now as he tries to get this thing started, and it will be critical that he capitalizes while he can and before OSU can recover. Everybody notes that that rivalry comes and goes in swings (the 90s was Michigan's, the past decade has been OSU's), so a win this season would do wonders symbolically and practically. A win this year would give us all the chance to exhale the breath that we've been waiting to exhale for eight years. And, given the circumstances, a win this year is not all that ridiculous of a notion. The offensive and defensive schemes will have seen 11 games of game action and the greener guys will have some experience, and it'll be at home. It's really amazing how almost everything has come into place for Hoke; if he doesn't succeed then you really can't blame anybody else but him.


6) Perhaps the most important factor in Hoke's favor is one Greg Mattison. Although to a lesser extent, Al Borges is also a respected offensive mind who has had success at a number of places. A coach's ability to attract top-notch assistants to work with him is, in my mind, the greatest mark of a coach's likelihood to succeed. Very few head coaches these days do things completely on their own, so Hoke has scored a huge victory in this department. Mattison's recruiting prowess has already become a known and valued asset, and his football mind is unquestioned; while there were certainly some inequities in the Spring Game, the defense actually looked alright (sometimes even good!), which by recent precedent is about equivalent to being the second coming of the '85 Bears.


The fact is, there are still many more reasons to be excited, and the aforementioned only represent a small sample of said reasons. This is a work in progress, and while we may get there sooner or later than we may think (or, we might not get there at all), things are changing for the better. Almost everything has gone right for Coach Hoke and Michigan so far, and if we can make this a quiet summer that would be just great. I don't know how good we'll be this year, but I know there are reasons to be excited.