the downside of dave brandon creating the future

36364604183_17c4a0c9f8_z[Eric Upchurch]

PUNT

By Bryan MacKenzie

For today's game, we must be specific in how we discuss the opponent. The members of the U.S. Air Force, and the cadets that attend the Air Force Academy, are fine people who have chosen to dedicate a portion of their lives to the service of their country. We applaud them for that, and we welcome them and their supporters to Ann Arbor gladly and with open arms.

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No, I don't care if they sound alike, you can't line up an A-10 as an A-back

Now, from a purely football standpoint? I never want to see these devoted self-sacrificing bastards again.

For the third time in three weeks, Michigan will face a radically different type of offense. But at least the work the defense put in for the first two games will have value beyond those games. Florida's offense (and yes, I know we're stretching the word "offense" beyond all reasonable interpretation, but stick with me) was predicated on taking big shots down the field on the outside, which Michigan will see again in Happy Valley in a few weeks. Cincinnati used a quick-passing offense and inside zone read-option run game, which should be helpful for several opponents, including Ohio State.

And now we get Air Force's triple option. The triple option requires a great deal of preparation, and that preparation is basically time lit on fire with respect to the rest of the season. No one else in the Big Ten runs a triple option (unless you count Rutgers' "fumble/interception/fall over" as a triple option). What's worse, there isn't really any extra credit for winning a tricky game against an average but sui generis opponent. It's basically like taking Advanced Sanskrit as a college elective; it may be difficult, but it affects your GPA the same as any other class, and you'll never use it again.

In other word, thanks Dave.

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We tried to warn you, G.

The good news is that Michigan's defense passed the first two tests (such as they were) with flying colors, and are currently outscoring opposing offenses 21-17. If they can stay gap-disciplined, they have the kind of fast, athletic defense that can hold down an attack like this. And on the other side of the ball, this is the kind of matchup that will force Air Force to throw all of their undersized defenders at the line of scrimmage to stop the run, and pray that Speight can't beat them with his arm. And on a warm, sunny afternoon in Michigan Stadium against ten new defensive starters, I'll take that bet.

Still, defending option football is like hitting a knuckleball. It's theoretically the same exercise, but you can't really know what you're up against until you see it done live by someone who is an expert at the craft. Air Force scores a couple of times in the first half, but Michigan eventually sits on them.

Michigan 31, Air Force 17

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COUNTERPUNT

By Nick RoUMel

“God has a very big heart, but there is one sin he will not forgive…” Thus begins one of my favorite quotes from “Zorba the Greek.”

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How author Nikos Kazantzakis finishes that quote is politically incorrect in today’s world. How I will finish that quote today is …. SCHEDULING A WEDDING ON A FOOTBALL SATURDAY!

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How could you, my cousin Ernie? Allowing your lovely daughter Madie to have a wedding during Michigan football season? Just because you live in Pittsburgh, and have no connection to the University of Michigan whatsoever, is no excuse. Your actions are very inconsiderate towards your favorite cousin Niko, who will have to miss today’s game to resentfully share your bliss. You’d better have an open bar, with a TV tuned to Big Ten Network.

Worse are the actual Michigan fans, who should know better. My friend Joe, who married a fellow UM law grad, did so during last year’s Indiana game. Worse are their friends, also both UM law grads, who are having their day of bliss during this year’s Michigan State contest. I would attend dressed as Sparty just to spite them.

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Yes, Sparty does events.

My friend Lauren texted last night, “My friend got married during the penn state game last year like WTF”

The worst was when my friends Pam and Kevin decided to have a Hawai’ian-themed indoor party during Michigan basketball’s 1989 NCAA championship run. Pam would not allow us to turn on the television during the semifinal against Illinois, so we huddled furtively around “Punt Classic’s” tiny portable TV until Pam finally relented during the game’s final minutes.

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Today’s game, however, may be one of those that a Michigan fan will be glad to miss. Reading analysis, and watching Air Force highlights, has my head spinning. Perhaps the scariest quote is this one from defensive tackle Maurice Hurst, who actually told MLive that he has “a little familiarity” with the triple option offense because he’d “played with it sometimes in NCAA Football (the video game).”

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The only actual Michigan player who has non-video experience with the triple option is safety Josh Metellus, who played against it in high school. His advice, as the “biggest key” in defending? "Just not falling asleep," Metellus told MLive.

Woe to us. Shades of 2012 - but with an even shadier ending. I won’t be at the Big House for this one, but at least I’ll have an open bar to console me:

AIR FORCE 28, MICHIGAN 24

fourth-and-long

Previously in this space: The excerpt. Bacon Q&A with Brian and readers.

So there was a new Bacon book this year. We need to review this book. I'm going to do this with the expectation that you have either read it already or are going to. You should. It is a Bacon book. You are reading MGoBlog; either you are a person who appreciates Bacon or else a visiting Sparty looking for more trolling fodder, in which case help yourself to the board where I promise you there's plenty. Or better yet, read some Bacon—you're in the Big Ten; this concerns you too. And he says the Red Cedar is nice.9040891

This is not a negative review, even though I have a tendency to focus on the "needs work" aspects—I'm the guy who walked out of The Return of the King after five years of unmitigated Peter Jackson man-crushing and complained that there were too many endings. So apologies to John U., who's higher in my esteem than Mr. Jackson and just about everyone whose quotes aren't emblazoned on a wall somewhere, for the plurality of minuses below.

The book is available wherever they sell books these days. Amazon links: Kindle, Hardcover. I bought it on Kindle.

More Bacon. Ever since Bo's Lasting Lessons, the chance to devour a new Bacon book has been somewhat of an event around these parts. As a Michigan fan it would be tough to follow the unparalleled access and insight into the Rich Rod program accomplished with Three and Out, specifically because that unvarnished snapshot was so starkly antithetical to Dave Brandon's meticulous staging of his Michigan show: You knew at the time that no true journalist would be allowed to see behind the bunting again, so it should only come as a mild disappointment that there is little about the Michigan program in this book that you didn't already know.

Fourth and Long: the Fight for the Soul of College Football is four unequal looks at four 2012 Big Ten programs, or four and a half if you count a mini-treatment that Michigan State and Mark Hollis receive as host of an Ohio State road game. In order of detail:

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The Kindle X-ray. The next 20 keywords, in order, are Mike Zordich, Ohio State Buckeyes, Dave Brandon, Matt McGloin, Pat Fitzgerald, NFL, Joe Paterno, Nebraska, Wolverines, head coach, Wisconsin, Ohio, Rich Mauti, Jordan Hill, Denard Robinson, Chicago, Spider Caldwell, and Dave Joyner.
  1. Penn State from the point of view of its players, former players, coaches, and equipment managers as they find themselves taking the brunt of the Penn State Awful Thing, and the NCAA's and PSU brass's callow responses to it.
    ======HUGE GAP======
  2. Michigan from Bacon's own point of view of its fans, as those fans interact with Brandon's corporate-itude.
  3. Ohio State from the P.O.V. of Urban Meyer as he goes from win to win trying to get Zach Boren to like him, and
  4. Northwestern as the paragon of virtue.

Bacon set out, as is evident from the title and made clear throughout the book, to examine these four schools from different points of view (players, AD, head coach, and president, respectively), and use the findings to determine if any of the Big Ten's current models for college football are sustainable for college football in general. In it he consistently finds players and fans who "get it" while the people in control seek new and better ways to milk it.

But he could only use what he got from each school. With Ohio State the access was mostly restricted to Urban on game days. He brushes against tatgate but doesn't get into the cars or any other "everybody knows, nobody can prove" things—you have to appreciate that Bacon will never accuse somebody without proof (especially considering he's an avowed Michigan fan talking about Ohio State) but it's really hard to talk about college sports and the competitive problems therein without admitting there are relative bad guys. The Gee quote—"I hope he doesn't fire me!"—is in there in reference to the bloated role of college football head coach in America. The closest he comes to pointing out OSU's exceptionalism in this regard is when addressing the carrying off of Tressel after last year's Game:

"The Buckeyes do not run a renegade program, but they once again demonstrated they don't seem to care if their actions make others think they do."

This isn't a complaint; Bacon handled a sticky situation about as well as he could. With Northwestern he got some key interviews, particularly with Pat Fitzgerald, but no warts (this could be because they don't have any).

With Michigan Bacon was outside looking in, so he used some of the Bacon-usual suspects—Carty, the dueling barbershops, the public comments of James Duderstadt and Don Canham, Brian Cook of MGoBlog, etc. There's also an inside look at the Mud Bowl, and most interestingly, a candid interview with Michigan's band director about Send-the-Band-to-Dallas-gate. I was more intrigued by the comments made by Bill Martin on the corporatization of NCAA football, which I'll come back to. The whole Notre Dame saga is covered. Except for the band's comments most of this is old news to you.

The result is a book that's 52% about Penn State trying to survive 2012, with a bunch of stuff thrown in about some other schools and corporations to underscore a point made clear without leaving Happy Valley.

[After the jump: it's just, like, my opinion man.]

They are coming. Hide the mascara. I'm still waiting for the last few survey responses to roll in but, man, people hate In The Big House. This may be an effect of this blog's readership but with the vast bulk of the responses coming from the 22-34 range I'm guessing the results would not be good amongst the much older general population.

So, like, what to do about this?

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That is a show at the Blind Pig the day before the Nebraska game in November. If this is a prelude to these guys showing up inside Michigan Stadium I think my head might explode. The only consolation would the groomers getting an Ashlee Simpson reception.

HIRE THESE PEOPLE NOW. So. We have the dog groomers above inflicting their terrible garbage on Michigan Stadium, and then there's Minnesota. Land of misery and no money and people who know what they're doing when it comes to internet videos that transcend irony. Go ahead, watch this with your jaundiced eye. You'll give up your cynicism about 30 seconds in when Goldy Gopher spins his head 360 degrees:

So… I'm just saying… we should fire the entire marketing department and replace them with whoever did that. This is in no way a joke.

GODDAMMIT AGE OF IRONY. I can't even say "this is in no way a joke" without it seeming like an ironic joke. It is not.

Good times. News that the God Hates Figs lunatics will be picketing Ohio State brings back nostalgia for that one time when I was an undergraduate and they hit up Michigan for some fake outrage or another. Tactical error: holding up "M = figs" signs while wearing Kansas City Chiefs jackets. At the time, KC's quarterback was Elvis Grbac and #1 WR Derrick Alexander. A fig to fig connection, as it were, which we loudly let them know about.

Unfortunately for OSU fans, the only Buckeye on the Chiefs' roster is backup DB Donald Washington, so they'll have to come up with something else. Just pretend they're Michigan fans and you'll do fine.

Speaking of. This popped up on the tubes recently. It is an anti-anti-gay PSA that you, the wine-and-cheese-consuming Michigan fan, will be hectored with at some point in the near future:

So that's settled then. No one is ever going to say something inappropriate again. This is all your fault, double-bird guy.

Hey, good point. Taylor Lewan hasn't had a false start/holding meltdown yet, so that's cool:

This year, that has been a point of emphasis. The result?

Zero penalties through four games.

"I'm due, aren't I?" Lewan said, laughing. "I've definitely noticed that. I've been very cautious about penalties. I'm not ever going to let up, just got to be smart. Got to be a smarter player."

What's more, Lewan hasn't even been close to a holding penalty that I've seen. He's been a dominant run blocker and hasn't picked up a pass minus. He's a third of the way to All Big Ten.

You have a Nard dog? Wait, what?

That's our Nard Dog. Thomas Nardo, Iowa's newfound starter at defensive tackle and owner of the porn-iest name in the starting lineup with Shane DiBona on the sidelines, was named the Big Ten's Defensive Player of the Week for his efforts against Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday.  Nardo had himself a pretty monster day for a defensive tackle: 12 tackles, 2.0 TFL, and 0.5 sacks.  He doesn't do much to help our problems keeping contain on the outside, but he's exactly the sort of plugger we need to keep from getting gashed up the middle.

This aggression will not stand, Iowa. There can only be one Nard Dog. Shotguns at noon on November fifth to settle it.

More relevantly: this Nardo kid is a fifth-year senior walk-on (sounds familiar) who "won't make anyone forget" a half-dozen Iowa DTs of the recent past but is offering "solidity to an Iowa defensive line that was looking woefully porous earlier in the year." Which… whoah. Iowa suddenly has Michigan's defensive personnel?

Apparently they also have a bomber already on par with Stanzi, so don't chalk that win up just yet. Not that any Michigan fan is chalking up a win against a Big Ten team not named Minnesota.

Stick, baby. Fresh hockey commitment Jacob Trouba is a big deal, like top-half-of-the-first round big deal, and unfortunately these days that means his commitment will be questioned until he shows up on campus. He's even been drafted by one of the more convincing OHL programs, and by "more convincing" I mean "freer with under the table payments."

Anyway. Through no fault of his own, Trouba has the profile of a flight risk. Therefore he gets to answer questions about it whenever he's interviewed. An example:

I asked if Michigan fans have a reason to feel confident that they would see him wearing Maize and Blue next year.

"Yeah they do, I'm a Michigan Wolverine," he stated, "That's why I wanted to wait this long; just so I knew, I didn't want my mind to change over a year and I really wanted to know what I wanted to do next year. I wanted to wait because I didn't want to back out on any decisions, I wanted to stick with my word. I waited until I was sure with what I wanted to do."

Example two. Example three.

Prominent CHL defections usually occur because the player in question is tired of cooling his heels in a lesser league, especially Canadian Junior B. (FWIW, AHL equivalencies imply the USHL is not much worse than the CHL, if it is at all anymore.) Once a kid is locked into his final year before he'd be in college he's usually set. John Gibson is a prominent exception to that, but he was staring down a platoon (at best) with Tiny Jesus. Trouba has no such concerns since he'll probably slot right into the top pairing a la Merrill, and he's got no reason to make a college commitment after he's already been drafted by one of the league's Lane Kiffins.

So… I don't think he'll bolt. If he sticks he makes Michigan's 2012 class pretty impressive. F Boo Nieves is frequently projected as a late first-rounder. D Michael Downing was the third pick of the USHL Futures Draft and was the captain of the U17 5 Nations team. D Connor Carrick is on the NTDP and Michigan took him pretty early. Still need a goalie. Who wants to play behind Trouba? Bueller?

BONUS: While w'ere talking hockey, Michigan Hockey Net and local MGoUser Yesman221 have season previews. (Yesman is a a bit conservative with freshman deployment, FWIW.) There won't be one forthcoming from me due to football season, but Ace might have an official one.

Full cost, sort of. It sounds like the NCAA will bump scholarship awards:

A committee weighing a number of potential changes is expected to recommend that the value of individual scholarships be raised by as much as $2,000 in the top-tier Division I, moving them closer to covering the athletes' full cost of attending school. Full grants currently cover only room, board, books and tuition.

The proposal covers the gap between "full cost of attendance" and the current scholarships as long as that is less than 2k. A step in the right direction. There's also a push to allow multi-year scholarship awards, except it's apparently a push to better market the current system:

Multi-year scholarships also are seen as an athlete-welfare issue, and Swarbrick said his committee favors that proposal even though it might not bring athletes the security many expect.

"The process for nonrenewal of an annual grant probably would look just like the process for terminating a four-year grant," he told ADs. "… But we did think the statement that would be made about our commitment to student-athletes was worth doing and made this a change worth pursuing."

So… he'd like to make a statement about committing to student athletes without actually committing to student athletes. The NCAA has always been at war with the English language.

Etc.: Why Wisconsin is a parasite. Via EDSBS, Les Miles's head on wrestler's bodies. The Octonion dissolves. Hipsters and Denard Robinson.