Unverified Voracity Is Going To Campus
Moving towards a semester. This is a development:
BREAKING: @UMich Provost Susan Collins: “We are very optimistic that the University of Michigan will have a public health-informed, in-residence academic year.”
— Calder Lewis (@CalderLewisTMD) May 28, 2020
A change from “cautiously optimistic” in previous statements, one day after @michiganstateu announces in-person fall.
Michigan is still being more circumspect than MSU, which just announced it would be open this fall, and Notre Dame, which announced it would have a fall semester that ended at Thanksgiving. MSU is also ending in-person classes at Thanksgiving and finishing the rest of the semester online.
Still, everything is pointing towards a return. For the purposes of this website this means they'll try to play football like everyone else. The broader impact on the university is currently projected to be… not that bad, actually:
Not much new from Pres. Schlissel, although it now looks like the predicted losses ("for the year ahead" which I take to mean the calendar year) are in the range of $22M to $192M, which is much more optimistic than earlier projections.
— peter honeyman (@peterhoneyman) May 28, 2020
Although that's quite a range. We'll see how it goes. Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The current plans at MSU:
Stanley said. Physical distancing and wearing face masks on campus, as well as strict limitations and regulations on large gatherings are being imposed, he said.
The punch in the mouth is coming from Rick's, et al., this fall.
[After THE JUMP: More on the transfers]
Howard talks transfers. Juwan Howard doesn't seem to think Nojel Eastern's decision is still in the fuzzy realm:
"Having to game-plan for a guy like Nojel, I was always scratching my head," Howard told BTN. "He's a matchup problem for any opponent with his strength, his athleticism, his skill set, his IQ on the floor."
Michigan contained Eastern in two matchups last season, both Wolverine wins. Eastern started the first game, in Ann Arbor, and scored two points in 28 minutes. He played 19 minutes off the bench in the rematch, scoring six.
"He has a lot to prove as a player, like they all do," Howard said. "But he wants to get better. This is from his own mouth: 'I want to improve. There are a lot of areas on my game I feel I can work on and I'm willing to put in the work.'"
Waiver attempts are on the docket but their outcomes are unguessable. Brendan Quinn reports that Chaundee Brown is definitely withdrawing from the draft and will be on campus no matter the outcome of that process.
A HUMANITARIAN DISASTER. WHY
— Illinois Football (@IlliniFootball) May 27, 2020
NO
Michigan moves forward with NIL. The local version of the Nancy Skinner bill has passed the Michigan house with massive margins:
A bipartisan plan introduced in the Michigan state House by Democrat Joe Tate and Republican Brandt Iden, House Bills 5217 and 5218, easily passed in the state House on Wednesday in lopsided votes. The bills now move to the Senate.
Iden, who played tennis for Kalamazoo College, introduced House Bill 5217 which “prohibits preventing a student athlete from receiving compensation for the use of his or her name, likeness, or reputation." That passed, 94-13. Tate, who was a three-year starting offensive lineman at Michigan State and a co-captain in 2003, introduced House Bill 5218 which “repeals criminal and civil provisions related to prohibited conduct of an athletic agent.” That passed, 95-12.
It is truly incredible that the one thing we can all agree on as a nation is that the NCAA sucks.
I was talking about Butler. HoopVision+ post on Butler's defense under Brad Stevens has a graph of all elite defenses since 2000; the x-axis is block rate and the y-axis is turnover rate. The bottom left corner of the graph has Michigan's lone qualifier, the 2018-19 team spearheaded by X, Matthews, and Teske:
It also has three Wisconsin teams and—ugh—three to six MSU teams, depending on how far you want to stretch out that definition. Contrast the Big Ten's usual route to elite defenses with the UK/Louisville one. You can see the giant arms of both those outfits and the positional discipline and referee min-maxing that prevails in the Big Ten.
Live sports with no fans create a conundrum. Anyone who's tried to watch an NCAA hockey regional on TV can tell you the deadening effect an empty building can have on a TV broadcast. The Bundesliga is piping in fan noise, songs and all, and that'll be the default when US sports resume at some point in the future. We have the technology:
According to Max Chamberlin, a Madden audio artist, the game has a “robust logic system that has thousands and thousands of particular scenarios in-game.” When Dak Prescott throws a long touchdown to Amari Cooper, the sound a player hears is a combination of basic crowd reactions (loud cheering), the crowd’s swell (“Ohhhhh”), and custom “sweeteners” like, “Yeah, all right, Dak!” Those sounds will vary depending not just on whether the Cowboys are playing at home or on the road but whether the roof at AT&T Stadium is open or closed.
We even have technology that seems counterproductive:
At the Super Bowl, you hear cheers from a quieter, corporate-patron kind of crowd.
Someone at EA has gone to the trouble of toning down the Super Bowl atmosphere to reflect reality. This is like the time that the game which infallibly knows where the ball is added replay reviews.
But there's no reason to stop there. Let's get weirder!
In 2010, Hill got permission from Roger Goodell to score a handful of NFL games with the help of Fox engineer Richie Becker. “We got 50 different pieces of music ranging from exultant to sorrowful, and he had them recorded on what effectively looked like a piano keyboard,” Hill said.
The live game action went off like normal. The music played during slow-motion replays, in the classic style of NFL Films. If the replay showed a touchdown pass, Fox might play “exultant.” If the team threw a killer interception, viewers would hear “sorrowful.” Just like the “sad” Fox bumper music that plays after an injury, the score directed the audience’s emotions. “It’s like listening to a theme that’s been composed by Hans Zimmer or James Newton Howard,” Hill said.
That's a terrible idea that I want to experience once.
An incredible legacy. We are so opposed to corporate naming at this blog that we have an annual post about appropriate bowl nomenclature that allows you, the reader, to discuss an upcoming football game by referencing an agricultural product or metal like God intended*. But even this outpost of anti-name-pollution sentiment has to tip its hat to the Whatever It Is Bowl in Tampa:
Devastating news: Bad Boy Mowers no longer title sponsor of Gasparilla Bowl, sources told @Stadium. Previous names:
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) May 28, 2020
magicJack Bowl
St. Petersburg Bowl presented by Beef O'Brady's
Beef O'Brady's Bowl
Bitcoin St. Petersburg Bowl
St. Petersburg Bowl
Bad Boy Mowers Gasparilla Bowl
An incredible run. I can't wait to see what's next. The Martin Shrekli Bowl? The Los Angeles Gasparilla Bowl of Anaheim? The 2 Fyre 2 Fest Bowl? Everything is on the table!
*[Yes we are aware that the Citrus Bowl is advertising Florida agricultural products. The objection is not to economic activity but ugliness in naming. We are perfectly happy with the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.]
Etc.: New Deadspin remains one of the most fascinating media stories going even if the content reads like a robot third grader put it together. Red is hired by the Big Ten as a hockey advisor. Regents pass revisions to faculty removal procedures in response to recent issues. Brisson 14, Bordeleau 33 on Corey Pronman's most recent NHL draft board.
Does the AI account for where the game is taking place? I want regional accents, and everything in Philly turned up to 11.
How easy can this AI be altered? Can you replace the standard "woo" with a Goofy "h'yuck"? I'd love to hear 70,000 artificial h'yucks going wild as a player is sprinting towards an end zone.
Better yet, get me 70,000 screaming rubber geese
I love the idea that the AI will have a “fans throw batteries” and a “fans boo Santa Claus” function”. Awesome.
Kechaun Bennett news?
I couldn't get the hello done in time this morning but it'll post soon.
Is there a metal bowl other than Copper, and Iron sort of?
Well, there's also sort of the Old Brass Spittoon, which appropriately belongs to Michigan State right now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana%E2%80%93Michigan_State_football_rivalry
Also, that is just a wonderfully named Wikipedia article.
I don't know why they didn't just call it the Beef Bowl sponsored by Beef O'Brady's, I would've been onboard with that. I am also a supporter of every bowl being named after an agricultural commodity or food (Fiesta, Gator and Pinstripe Bowls excepted). They can have a corporate sponsor but they still have to be named after a local crop or foodstuff and the corporate sponsor comes second (so no more All State Sugar Bowl but rather the Sugar Bowl presented by All-State.)
Has any city in Nevada ever had the Silver Bowl? Similarly Northern California could have the Gold Bowl. Here are more suggestions because I'm thinking way too much about this now:
Oregon/Wash.: Timber or Lumber Bowl (Seattle can also have a Fish Bowl)
NY/NJ: Pizza or Bagel Bowl (Wing Bowl in Buffalo but its too cold)
Maryland: Crab Bowl
Wisconsin: Cheese Bowl or Beer Bowl (Green Bay has a heated field)
Kentucky: Bourbon Bowl (used in the Waterboy I know)
Missouri: the Bud Bowl (St. Louis has a dome - how have they not thought of a real Bud Bowl yet?)
Hawaii: Pineapple Bowl (how is there no Dole Bowl?)
MSU also announced that there will be exceptions on social distancing guidelines for all couch burnings since the heat from the fire "should keep the virus thingy stuff dead".
It's welcome news that they appear to have decided what all the science says is the best course, opening schools with caution.
Honestly, there isn’t a lot of hard proof science out there yet. It takes a long time to do nonbiased RCTs. Yes, there are a lot of things we think we know but a lot is still educated guesses. I agree though that a thoughtful common sense approach to opening back up is refreshing and needed. It’s important to have a pretty well defined protocol to opening back up and what to do if it hits the fan again. Nice to see UM is doing their part. MSU is playing this like everything else. No plan, wing it, see what happens, and scramble to do damage control if this hits again. If they botch this, at least we know they’ll fire their president and give them a sweet lifetime severance package free from litigation.
Agree, the science is not settled because it's too early for any science to be settled on this. But the balance of information we do have points to the fact that all school age kids from 5-25 are at extremely low risk of serious consequences from Covid. So low that the flu is of greater risk to that age group than Covid-19. Of the 100,000 deaths from the virus, the CDC says 14 have been under 25. That is (statistically, not in human terms but in math terms) almost zero. And some small evidence (not conclusive yet) indicates that for some reason children are not really transmitting it to adults much either.
You realize I was basically agreeing with you right? Again, I agree it’s time to open things back up and see what happens. You didn’t really need to post more speculative non proven data to prove my point though. Your comparisons to the flu are even more speculative as you are comparing something that has been around for 6 months (covid) for which our testing is unrefined with terrible sensitivity and availability. We also haven’t shut down schools for the flu like we have covid, so comparing school aged covid data during a quarantine to decades of flu data is useless. Once again, going back to school may not change the numbers or our concerns at all. I’m all for getting things back up and running!
Well, I upvoted your post so typically that is for a post that one agrees and approves of. But now that you mention it, I'm not pointing anything speculative at all, it is a statistical fact that getting the flu is more deadly to younger ages than Covid--so far. Like to like, getting the flu is less deadly for the young than Covid-19--for now it's a fact. Just like getting Covid for those over 65 is much more deadly than the flu. And the deaths by age that the CDC puts out are the opposite of speculative-that's the data, you can call it speculative or unproven if you like that doesn't change the data.
If you're perceiving me as hostile, that's not my intention at all, and I'm not criticizing you whatsoever. I'm discussing, but perhaps I'm used to debating (my wide and I disagree) and so come off like I was.
perhaps if you stopped referring to your wife as "wide" she'd agree with you more
I mean, anyone who claims science is unsettled on this is not really looking at data. MEdian age of death around the world is in the 80;s. Countries and states that did not lock down or opened early are having no more cases than those who didnt. None of that is questionable. Most of the "2nd wave" people are basing it on the Spanish flu which is not a coronavirus.
Surely we can go for the PPE N95 Bowl?
Forget the music and AI crowd noise or whatever. This is a one season in a lifetime opportunity to simply mic the field. Not necessarily mics on individual coaches or players, but ambient mics that can catch shouting and the cadence and all that stuff that we barely or never get to hear. And when the F bombs ring out in all their glory, I don't know, put the audio on a two second delay or something and have some puritanical linguist juiced up on Red Bull with a finger poised on the bleep button. What fun that would be! Which is why it will never happen.
...puritanical linguist juiced up on Red Bull..."
BRB, updating my Twitter profile.
I’ve always though this would be an interesting addition to watching live. Mic up the players and coaches and have a dedicated uncensored channel. I have a feeling this hasn’t happened because the things that are said before, during and after plays makes f-bombs sound like “poopy head”.
"Stanley said. Physical distancing and wearing face masks on campus, as well as strict limitations and regulations on large gatherings are being imposed, he said."
Beyond stupid.
This is being blown way out of proportion and I am sick of it including Whitmer and her crap. And I don't even live in Michigan.
What's wrong with Walter, dude?
Solid 6 Million Dollar Man reference. Bravo.
What are the odds we get increased game lengths due to added commercials as the TV stations try to earn back all of the lost revenue they have suffered?
How have TV stations lost revenue?
You can’t wear a mask effectively with a beard, so that’s one reason why, at least.
That's why my son shaved his beard. Has to wear a mask at work at it was difficult with his big hipster lumberjack beard.
The Bad Boy Mowers slash Gasparilla slash magicJack slash whatever bowl game isn’t in Tampa, it’s in St. Petersburg. It’s a distinction that folks who live here insist on making every time someone refers to the Tampa Bay Rays as “Tampa.”
Honey for the win, flexing the zoom with the Prez
I never thought about the replay thing and I'm super mad at missing that. All of the wasted time in playing NCAAFB and trying to skip past the stupid replays when they don't need it.
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