What is more embarrasing?
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:05 AM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:53 AM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:02 AM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:04 AM ^
"penultimate arrogance"
As Mandy Patankin said in The Princress Bride, "I do not think that word means what you think it means."
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Coming next-to-last in a sequence.
- In a sequence of events, the penultimate event is the one that precedes the final event.
November 2nd, 2008 at 11:30 AM ^
It is not the criticism that disgusts me, it is the nature of the criticism -- knee-jerk, unsubtle, and mindless. I am not in denial -- this team is not good. However, having spent a career working with complex systems that occasionally need to be retooled to respond to advances in technology and theory, I realize that these things take time. There are often bumps along the way. Did I wish it had gone more smoothly? Hell yes.
Michigan is still "my" team and I am not embarrassed by or for them. Some of the people on this board, however, I am embarrassed for. Especially the ones who use big words they don't understand.
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:02 AM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:34 AM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:49 AM ^
Zing!
November 3rd, 2008 at 11:51 AM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 12:49 PM ^
at women with cervical abnormalities. I call it the pap sneer.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:38 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:48 PM ^
What do you mean, "By many measures this is the worst team in decades?" Do you mean, the worst Michigan team in decades? Because that would probably be close to being true no matter who the coach was. If we hadn't completely changed our system we might have had a better record this year, but it still would have probably been 7-5 at best.
If you mean worst team in Division 1-A, I'm pretty sure there aren't any stats that could possibly be even close to true except for possibly fumbles. It's a little ridiculous how many fumbles we have, and I would love to know what the record is.
ND had a historically inept offense last year. They were the 6th worst offensive team of the last 10+ years. We aren't even the 6th worst offense this year (109/119). There are 5 worse teams from BCS conferences (including 2 from the SEC). Except for the Notre Dame game, I believe we've had a lead in every one of our games (and most of those were even in the 3rd or 4th quarter). I think that ND didn't have a lead in more than 5 of their games.
It's entirely possible that we will have as bad of a record as Notre Dame did last year, but I think there is virtually no way that we "look far worse."
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:03 AM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 10:15 AM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:41 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:00 PM ^
People, enough with the straw man arguments. It's possible to love Michigan football and still be concerned about what you see on Saturdays. Watching us field one of the nation's worst defenses is unreal. I can't accept that Scott Shafer is getting the most out of these guys, especially given that eight of them started on last year's defense which was considerably more competent than this. I think he has lost his guys. I don't see the same kind of fire out there that we had when English was our DC. I want Shafer replaced because I think it's in our program's best interests, not because I'm a "fair-weather fan." (If I were a fair-weather fan, I wouldn't be paying attention to the team by this point.)
Anyway, here's a question I've been meaning to ask of the WLA guys: why is it OK to harshly criticize one of our players (Brandon Minor), but the coaching staff is off-limits? I'm pretty sure Minor isn't getting paid six (or seven) figures to perform every week.
November 2nd, 2008 at 12:04 PM ^
Speaking of straw-men, I'm not sure anyone "savagely criticized" Brandon Minor. I think we pointed out that he was fumbling at an absurdly high rate, and, thus, wasn't getting PT.
Again, speaking of strawmen, I'm not sure where I (or anyone) said you can't criticize the coaches. As a matter of fact, I think I wrote somewhere on this blog last week that I imagine that the failure of the defense is likely a combination of inexperienced players and some coaching mistakes. I don't doubt that there are things Schafer can do better. I do doubt, however, that he magically forgot how to coach this season.
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:04 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:17 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 2:21 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 6:39 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 1:30 PM ^
We returned 7 players from a defense that wasn't very good, at all.
Look, I think Schafer owns some of the blame here - I'd be an idiot to argue otherwise. But the perception that many of us had - about how awesome this defense was going to be, hasn't really been true since day 1.
November 2nd, 2008 at 3:23 PM ^
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:20 PM ^
I wouldn't be surprised if OSUs punter never makes it onto the field
You Sir, have never seen the OSU offense.
They couldn't score even an offensive TD on Purdue or PSU.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 AM ^
Let's fly in the USC team, put them in Michigan jerseys, and send them to the Ohio game.
Then we can discuss the definition of embarrassing.
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:47 AM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 AM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 8:46 AM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:02 PM ^
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:14 PM ^