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It was inevitable in the aftermath of the Michigan State game: websites looking for #content tell their unpaid intern to type in Blake O'Neill's twitter handle and report back with all the bad things they find there. Copy and paste and you have #viral #content for your crapsite.

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That's right! It's a screenshot of a screenshot tweet! Original did not black out usernames FWIW.

Once the crapsites have aggregated their #content, larger players step in to say the most blindingly obvious things possible: that is bad. Don't do that. Something something society. It's obvious that the larger players don't do much more than read the sensationalized headlines thrown out without considering whether they are justified.

Arguing with crapsite proprietors is fruitless since they have found out they have no ability to acquire viewership through doing good work. But I would like to emphasize that I went through every account on both of those posts (neither of which contains a death threat, by the way) in an effort to see if there was something these twitter users have in common. Aside from one Sorry For Partying type named Mitch* who seems to be a current student and a random, lonely Patriots fan with a sad attempt at facial hair, this is what they look like.

0Muy0_1t[1]FHeqf04H[1]dk1ld5f9[1]mxJ9scP5[1]v_D_Lp7U[1]

it goes without saying but don't harass these children

They are literally children. The third and fourth are the "death threat" issuers**. They are about as dangerous as an egg salad sandwich. They are approximately 15. They spend 90% of every day thinking about how great it will be when they get to put their hand up a girl's shirt. They represent nothing other than the fact that a healthy slice of teenage boys don't know how to act. I and much of the readership will know this from personal experience. We were fortunate to not have twitter.

Scolding these kids is pointless. They will learn, and then there will be a new generation of them writing the same stuff on FaceSnaps 2030. Extrapolating anything about any fanbase from the portion of it that has a phone but not a driver's license is equally pointless. If you're going to report on it you should know that your next article should be about what Becky told Morgan in the locker room about McKinley.

We now have "global access to the written opinions of morons." It sucks for Blake O'Neill that Scott Tenorman got all up in his mentions, but it's worse that #content farms continually try to spin the hormonal excesses of the nation's youth into pageviews. Twitter should seek to implement a technological fix for this kind of pile-on. Until they do the snap decisions of children should be ignored by people who don't know them.

Go ahead and be proud of the fact that your reject these notions if you have such low expectations of yourself. Be proud of the fact that you think cancer sucks, too, while you're at it. It's about as useful an activity. One day we will beat twitter and cancer by scowling about them on the internet. You just wait.

*[You suck, Mitch.]

**[It should be noted again that neither of those tweets is any kind of threat. As far as terrible things said to people in the aftermath of Bad Sports Event go if that's the best you can come up with things are going pretty well.]

The full Hebner. If you've got a Scout account I highly recommend their latest video of Kyle Kalis($). It has many examples of Kalis burying some poor high school kid, sure, but the main attraction is a ref bump worthy of Wrestlemania:

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At this point in the film I was expecting Luke Fickell to rush in from behind and deliver a low blow, then roll Kalis up for a pin.

In other news, holy crap Kyle Kalis hates people. Molk will be proud.

Will Campbell tackled Thomas Gordon after his INT.

Q: "Did he say anything do you?"
A: "Get off me."

My name is Boris. Michigan let Pryor golf partner and all-around weirdo Dennis Talbott in, but he was calling himself "Tennis Dalbott" and could not be identified:

"I actually spoke to him and told him he would no longer be credentialed," Dave Ablauf, Michigan senior associate athletic director for media and public relations, told ESPN.com. "He came in under a different name than what we were familiar with. Had the name I knew popped up, I wouldn't have credentialed him."

He's been booted, as has the organization he was working with. So… have a free spot on the sideline, do you, Michigan? #callme

Welcome to our pit of shame and despair. Amongst Eleven Warriors' constantly shifting cast of writers is a man named Danny. Danny seems new. Danny seems untouched by trouble, a happy-go-lucky fellow just raring for another bite at life's apple. This is going to last another two months, tops:

In a recent B1G conference power ranking by Adam Rittenberg of ESPN, the Buckeyes are listed at number six in the conference behind Wisconsin, Nebraska, Illinois, Michigan, and Michigan State.

I expect these numbers to change in OSU's favor by the time B1G play opens up against Michigan State on Oct. 1. Yes, Ohio State had a major meltdown against Miami, but this team will get better if the offense can gain some consistency coming out of this week's game against Colorado.

Rittenberg's rankings are pretty reasonable with the way the Buckeyes have played up to this point, but I expect to see OSU ahead of at least Illinois, Michigan and Michigan State later this season. Ohio State has endured much hardship stemming from last December, but this team is much better than sixth in the conference and time will prove that.

That's right: despite barely cracking 200 yards and only eclipsing 13 passing yards because of two pity throws allowed Braxton Miller at the end of the Miami game, OSU is "at least" better than Illinois, MSU, and Michigan. Danny's not sold on this Wisconsin business, and Nebraska's passing game? Eh… a little shaky.

He may actually be right about Michigan but when The Game is played for that all-important eighth win this guy is going to be a mite peeved, and by "a mite peeved" I mean "catatonic on the floor of a 7-11 in Euclid." At least he's not the guy who thinks a 9-3 projection is "worst case."

The 'freude! You like it this week, too. On Bauserman:

I got 3 lil boys all who can kick his ass and get nothing since they got clean records. honestly I bet someone on campus is going to kick his ass.if I knew where he lived he would take a ass whipping for laughing during that gm and f--- all u lil bitches who got somethin to say on here supporting him

Luke Fickell doesn't understand how time works. He doesn't think you can save timeouts, but he does think that he is going to run off as much time as a team trying to kill the clock:

“We still knew we were going to need two scores. Our thought was if we’re going to need two scores, we’re going to need to have the ability to stop the clock offensively,” Fickell said. “They were running (the clock) out.

“If we look back in hindsight, the very last (third down), maybe it would have saved us 30 seconds in our minds and maybe we could have got a little bit of a breather (for the defense, which) is something that I always look back at. Our thought was, ‘Hey, we’re going to do the best we can to try to make sure we have a couple (of timeouts) to score twice.’ ”

This is a breathtakingly stupid thought. Hire this man, OSU. (HT: DocSat)

ND pregame. We missed an impressively overwritten Tom Rinaldi intro for the Michigan-ND game never got aired because the SEC game went late. Bonus bits include full pregame festivities and Brent Musberger rambling semi-coherently despite no one watching him.

I bet Musberger does this on planes. YOU ARE LOOKING LIVE at a half-ounce packet of peanuts.

Road trips. An Ole Miss fan did the wise thing a couple weeks ago and hit up Ann Arbor instead of watching the Fighting Ackbars go at it one week before they'd feature in Vandy's biggest SEC win in 40 years. Overall gist:

Aside from being an incredibly exciting football game punctuated by a tense, high-flying fourth quarter which featured the Wolverines coming back from a 17-point deficit on the back of Denard Robinson's heroics, this number made the trip itself worth it. 114,804 is the largest attendance number ever recorded in the history of NCAA football. I'm sure that, in time, that record will be broken, but until that happens I will be able to proudly boast that I was a part of the largest crowd to ever watch a college football game. That's cool, dammit.

Bell's is enjoyed. He did us the service of getting a good shot of the U MAD Kelly sign:

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Also, Orson hit up the LSU-Mississippi State game and reports back with what's left of his cowbell-shattered sanity.

You think we're wafer thin? I'll show you wafer thin. Michigan State's offensive line was a sore spot going into the season and has just been poked by Notre Dame to the tune of 27 rushing yards. That ain't good. The injury situation is worse:

A day after Michigan State announced starting right tackle Skyler Burkland will miss the rest of the season following left ankle surgery, Dantonio said starting center Blake Treadwell and backup tackle Jared McGaha will be sidelined with knee sprains.

Both of the latter are questionable for the M-MSU game on the 15th of October; MSU does get center Travis Jackson back this weekend. Dantonio got his customary shot in at Michigan about it, but if I had to pick between OL situations for that game it's a slam dunk for M, which has two solid backups and a complement of experienced starters. Michigan State just flopped a third defensive tackle—one who was seeing playing time!—to offense in less than eight months.

Michigan's situation. With Toussaint and Barnum's apparently healthy returns the injury situation for Michigan is not bad at the moment. Cam Gordon's has been out but is expected to play against SDSU, as is Brandon Herron. Then you've got Woolfolk's array of comically obvious minor injuries and… that's about it. Knock on wood.

Unfortunately shoddy. I was about to be all about Nate Silver's stab in the dark at the relative sizes of college football fanbases because the Big Ten made out like gangbusters and the M-OSU-PSU troika finished 1-2-3, but a little deeper poke into the numbers reveals they fail some basic sanity checks. Braves & Birds:

I love Silver's writing on politics and baseball, but you can tell from his post that he is not a college football fan. If he were, then he would know that he needs to go back to the drawing board when his methodology produces a conclusion that Georgia Tech has 1,664,088 fans, while Georgia has only 1,098,957 fans. Anyone who follows college football in this market …immediately knows that this number is wrong. Georgia sells out every game in a 90,000 seat venue, regardless of opponent. Georgia Tech struggles to fill a 50,000 seat stadium unless the opponent brings fans. Georgia has a fan base that will make massive donations in order to have the right to buy tickets; Georgia Tech has to offer ticket packages to get casual fans in the door.

That highlights a major bias towards 1) metro areas and 2) nerds, and while we joke about Ohio State's fanbase most of the counties in that state do have power. Can't say the same for a lot of places college football is popular.

There's also this:

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When your data includes a note that it is "highly inaccurate" and your results defy common sense it's back to the salt mines.

A ridiculous picture of Ron English for no reason.

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Via Philly.com. EMU is at Penn State this weekend.

Etc.: Big East folks are just bombing everything around them. Jim Boeheim more than anyone. On The Banks is in full Kelly mode, except they're seemingly justified because their ham-handed attempt to force Villanova football into the Big East blew it all up. My favorite part is Jack Swarbrick complaining about people doing things that have "very negative consequences" for other schools. Notre Dame has long been known for its teamwork and spirit of share and share alike, which is why they voted down a big rights increase for Big East football.

Jamiemac tries to say nice things about the Big Ten. A couple of cool counter plays Texas ran against UCLA. SEC expansion remains stupid. Craig James media awards are extra spicy this week. Silver featured.

INSPIRATIONAL COUNTDOWN IMAGE: 25.

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I liked the koala, wallaby, and I chilled with a kangaroo a bit. There was a wombat that I quite enjoyed also.
Todd Barry

The floor is not on fire and we need water desperately. Crisler's new floor:

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I like it, and not just because there's a charge circle.

Soon to be us. Penn State fans on their version of Special K:

Penn State has been saying for years now that the piped-in commercial music has not compromised in any way the Blue Band's ability or chances to play music in the stands. I'm calling bullshit on that. Since Penn State football became The Greatest Show of Great Shows of Not-Just-JoePa in College Football or something they keep renaming to something worse, piped-in public address music has become more prominent within the gameday experience at Beaver Stadium. They are no longer just snippets of music, or pre-game warmups music when the band isn't even done with Tailgreat. Nope, Penn State now plays full songs over the PA. You know, those raucous, adrenaline-pumping classics like... Sweet Caroline?

And the poll:

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Penn State fans are not down with the sickness. Ah ah ah ah ah.

Dirty. Boo Nieves did this in an international tournament against Russia: :

Dang. Nieves is consistently criticized for being a "perimeter player," FWIW, which probably means he tries stuff like this all the time instead of bulling his way to the net.

Practice highlight type substances. From Rivals and strictly FWIW since there's no pads:

So there you go.

Rerank. ESPN's latest 2012 re-rank sees Glenn Robinson III at #53 (up from #60) and Nick Stauskas at #85 (from #99). Their profiles don't show any updates, though—wonder if they still think Stauskas is a low-athleticism guy who can't create his own shot or whether this AAU season has changed that. The highlight videos suggest he can get to the hoop.

Mitch McGary is #3, BTW. Come on, Mitch McGary. Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

Also rerank. Scout redid its Midwest state rankings. Your instate top 10:

Rank Name Pos City (State) High School Ht/Wt Verbal
1 James Ross MLB Orchard Lake (Mich.) St. Marys 06/01/20 Michigan
2 Aaron Burbridge WR Farmington Hills (Mich.) Harrison 06/01/80 Michigan State
3 Danny O'Brien DT Flint (Mich.) Powers 06/03/90  
4 Royce Jenkins-Stone MLB Detroit (Mich.) Cass Tech 06/02/15 Michigan
5 Terry Richardson CB Detroit (Mich.) Cass Tech 05/09/65 Michigan
6 Ron Thompson TE Southfield (Mich.) 06/04/20  
7 Devin Funchess TE Farmington Hills (Mich.) Harrison 06/05/10 Michigan
8 Dennis Norfleet RB Detroit (Mich.) King 05/07/75 Cincinnati
9 Mario Ojemudia DE Farmington Hills (Mich.) Harrison 06/03/15 Michigan
10 Ben Braden OT Rockford (Mich.) 06/07/19 Michigan

If O'Brien commits that's seven of the top ten with two of the others guys who wanted to commit but got slow-played because of grades (Burbridge) or undisclosed "things to clear up" (Thompson). They really should have taken Burbridge just to make Dantonio's head explode.

Braden's moved up and threatens to get a fourth star if he performs this fall. Only one That Guy complaint: Matt Godin is #15, which seems low for a guy with his size and offers. He's behind a CMU commit, for one, and Thompson appears to be picking between Syracuse, Indiana, and a late offer from Illinois.

Etc.: Michigan soccer enters this season ranked ninth, which is a vote of confidence in the program after they lost Justin Meram and Soony Saad—AKA all the goals—in the offseason. Hopefully that holds up. Hoke's entire opening presser. Two toned pants: ack.