detroit lions

Things Discussed:

• Seth is on early to talk about the Lions, relates it to Harbaugh/Sherrone Moore: Dan Campbell is a culture guy, and that's a hole that the NFL left when it shifted to playcallers as head coaches.
• Harbaugh to NFL: Seems the program is set through 2024, need to figure out their plan for 2025.
• Where were you when you heard? I was about to start the final boss fight of a very long D&D campaign.
• Expected? Yeah, said so in the previews. Michigan tried but Harbaugh was going to take a good NFL deal. When in history has someone gotten a successful NFL coach to come back and coach their college team for 9 years? This was the deal. There is no Super Bowl at Michigan.
• Sherrone? Yes. When? They have to wait 7 days but will probably apply for a waiver so it could happen in a week or tomorrow.
• Leaving: Minter, probably Jay Harbaugh. Brian: Spread your wings, Jay. Seth: He's not that kind of guy, but he may be the kind of guy who loves Michigan enough to want to stay. Herbert? There is nothing in the NFL for him like there is at Michigan, but Seth is worried because Bruce Feldman says Harbaugh plans to take him.
• Staying: Clink (AHC?), Bellamy, Hart, Robinson, Campbell to OC, Newsome to OL coach. Need to find a DC, an LB guy, and new special teams coach. Is there a 3rd Skywalker on the Ravens (Orr?) or another guy that Minter and Macdonald know? Jim Leonard: No. Brian has good dude concerns because he couldn't do better than an analyst for Bert (Note: Leonard has a buyout from Wisconsin that would have been voided if he got a DC job but that shouldn't have mattered; knifing Chryst in the back seems to matter). Need to stay ahead of Ohio State in the metagame.
• OSU: They could have gotten a guy as good as Caleb Downs if they'd just recruited Rod Moore out of their own backyard. This is what they're up against. Ohio State has always been the program that will do anything in the world to beat Michigan, and they're never going to stop that.
• Is it bad for CFB that there's no Harbaugh and Saban anymore? Only if you're the person in charge of getting instant clicks by putting someone's name in the headline. What makes college football special isn't the character head coaches; it's the unique connection the fans have to their players.
• Hockey: Young team that doesn't have the depth to overcome mistakes in a very tough league.

[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]

Things discussed:

• Hunter Dickinson: This is why NIL is good for the game. In college he's the cornerstone of a very good team, a heel, and a constant presence; no NBA fans are going "Ah man, I hope my team drafts you."
• Illinois is falling apart: nobody wants to play for Brad Underwood.
• NCAA vs NIL: They're going to lose—their latest fig leaf just got blown up by Mississippi and Tennessee. Emmert firing isn't going to change this. They serve the presidents who serve the donors. Opportunity here for the players to unionize and fill the power void.
• The future is contracts whether they want it or not, because the schools are parties who want services, and are hunting for someone to make a deal with because the NCAA can't protect them anymore.
• Players unionizing?
• Transfer portal shopping: Shannon seems like an NIL duel with Texas Tech, who wants to keep him.
• Portal problem for Michigan is transferring credits, because they have a matching system where the classes you took have to match classes offered at Michigan, and the people who could change that are, by design, siloed from people who want to make that change for sports reasons.
• Where Michigan is on NIL versus where they should be are miles apart.
• NCAA has imbalances that have grown up from years. Stop caring who's advantaged; no matter what changes you make to a system there will be a change in advantage. What matters is what's moral—what's right for the game and for its participants.
• Example: small schools like playing over-agers and Michigan doesn't like it because our players out of high school are better than theirs. But it's good for the players and good for college hockey and good for people getting an education and participating in college sports who aren't going to be pros, which matters more than Michigan's traditionalist needs.
• Mel: does he have a job? When are they going to say something?
• Lions/Hutchinson. Seth says the Lions can't take Aidan Hutchinson because he is a winner and the Lions are losers.
• All me to explain, off-air: The Lions are the only franchise in professional sports that knows how to make losing fun.

Premature but okay. Joe Lunardi's bracketology is in the way (way) too early phase but yeah okay I'll mention this:

The other 1s are Gonzaga, UCLA, and Kansas. I think way too much is being made of UCLA's tournament run, especially given the possibility Johnny "Contested Twos" Juzang stays in the draft. Other Big Ten teams in this projection: Ohio State (2-seed), Purdue(2), Maryland(3), MSU(5), Illinois(6), Indiana(7), and Iowa(11). Northwestern(!?!?!?) is listed as the first team out, Wisconsin second team out.

The previous sentence makes me doubt the usefulness of linking this at all.

I am skeptical this happened. Dennis Dodd recently asserted on a podcast that Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell turned down an eight year, 68 million dollar contract from the Detroit Lions this offseason. This seems unlikely for one main reason: this is an entirely sensible thing to do if you are the Detroit Lions, and the Lions never do anything sensible. (On the other hand, failing to hire Matt Campbell and turning to some other guy named Campbell, who seems a little deranged, does seem like a Lions thing to do.)

If that did actually happen and Campbell didn't take the job that is a major indicator he's aiming for a terminal college job instead of the NFL. Michigan may be in the market for a coach after this season.

[After THE JUMP: Ol' Murderface returns to the column]