Unverified Voracity Isn't Backtracking
Harbaugh speaks! Harbaugh's 15 minutes at the mic at Big Ten Media Days have come and gone with a couple of items of note. One is that Harbaugh declined to elaborate on the Media Kerfuffle Of The Week:
On his comments about Urban Meyer's controversy that follows him and if he would add any context
No, I don't see any -- no context you should know about. I don't think it was anything that was anything new or anything of a bombshell. It's things that many of you all understand and have written about.
A second is that Harbaugh came out in favor of a one-time transfer:
My opinion is that every student-athlete should have a one-time ability to transfer and not have to sit out a year, and then if they were to transfer a second time, then the previous rule that we had, where you had to sit out a year of eligibility, and with that, I would also keep the graduate transfer rule that we have in place right now, where you can graduate and transfer and become immediately eligible.
FWIW, many NCAA sports already have this rule.
And finally:
On Michigan being picked as the favorite to win the Big Ten East and conference title game
I think that's where I would pick us.
All righty then.
Oh, one last item:
This is almost certainly a bad idea. There are limited ways in which this can be a good idea.
"we're really close to announcing playing a team on foreign soil" -- Harbaugh
— angelique (@chengelis) July 19, 2019
Neutral site games are bad. Neutral site games when you have the largest stadium in the country are worse. If this is something like Washington moving a home game to Vancouver because their AD has been infected with Pac-12 disease, whatever. If it's Michigan playing someone in France, hard pass.
I guess a one-off with Syracuse in Toronto wouldn't be the worst.
[After THE JUMP: Rutger offers up some batting practice]
This, on the other hand… eh. Basketball and wrestling will face Rutgers at Madison Square Garden this season. These are both technically Michigan home games getting moved. This is unlike a couple of previous events where teams moved home games to extreme consternation because:
- Unlike Indiana playing Penn State in freakin' Maryland, this will still functionally be a Michigan home game.
- Unlike Dave Brandon moving a hockey game against Michigan State to Chicago, this was announced before season ticket sales have closed… and is against Rutgers.
This is the third time Michigan has done one of these double-headers and the second time they've spent a basketball home game to do so. The next time needs to be on the opponent; this is otherwise fine.
Rutger is specialized in dropping letters. I am offended at this as an internet content generator:
SHI Stadium is new name of Rutgers football stadium after company, that is “global provider of technology solutions & products,” signs multi-year naming rights deal. Can’t imagine how many jokes will be made about the letter missing from stadium name
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) July 19, 2019
I don't need your charity, Rutger. I've got jokes! Stop grooving obvious ones down the middle. There's no art in that. Now, the cannon…
[Patrick Barron]
…that is something you can work with.
Bill Connelly at the mothership. The S&P+ purveyor has moved to ESPN, and previews both halves of the Big Ten. His Michigan section will be familiar to most people who read this site. The disintegration of MSU's offense makes for some paragraph, though:
The Spartans' offense has grown more and more hopeless for a while. After leaping to 12th in Off. S&P+ in 2014, it fell to 30th in 2015, 55th in 2016, 72nd in 2017 and 112th last fall. After a brief slip, the MSU defense, Dantonio's calling card, was as good as ever in 2018. But the offense was an outright detriment. MSU scored 13 or fewer points in five of six losses and exactly six in each of the last three.
There's a difference between having a plodding, physical and not-that-creative offense and having one that can't actually pull off being plodding and physical. Michigan State has, for a while now, been a team that wants to run the ball but can't, and things hit a potential low point last season. The Spartans ranked a ghastly 122nd in marginal efficiency. Their running backs averaged just 3.8 yards per carry.
And Dantonio went full Hoke in response:
So you fire your offensive coordinator and bring in a bright, young, energetic new guy, right? That's what's supposed to happen?
Nah, Dantonio just gave everybody a different job.
Quarterbacks coach Brad Salem is now running backs coach and took over as offensive coordinator. Co-coordinator and RBs coach Dave Warner is now quarterbacks coach. Co-coordinator and tight ends coach Jim Bollman is now offensive line coach. Offensive line coach Mark Staten is now tight ends coach. Assistant DBs coach Don Treadwell is now receivers coach, and receivers coach Terrence Samuel is now assistant DBs coach.
On the other side of the conference, a wide-open race with six contenders. And Illinois. Minnesota comes in as the most inexplicable team of 2018:
Fleck's second Minnesota team did all of the following things:
• Beat eventual MWC champion Fresno State (which finished 16th in S&P+)
• Destroyed Purdue 41-10
• Destroyed Wisconsin in Madison 37-15
• Destroyed Georgia Tech in the Quick Lane Bowl 34-10The same team also did this:
• Lost at Maryland 42-13
• Lost at Nebraska 53-28
• Lost at Illinois 55-31Minnesota started 3-0, lost four straight games by at least 16 points each, then won four of six to finish the season.
The Gophers are starting a right side of the line that goes 370 and 400.
Mike Locksley would prefer not to talk about Josh Gattis. He fielded a few question about his former colleague and didn't like it:
Gattis recounted on Jim Harbaugh’s Attack Each Day podcast in January that Alabama coach Nick Saban chewed him out for leaving the Crimson Tide for the Terrapins’ job before Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh called with an offer. According to Locksley, at least publicly, that wasn’t the case.
“I never thought that Josh was going with me,” Locksley said. “He was a guy that I considered. I was happy that he was given the opportunity that he was given at Michigan.”
Then, expressing annoyance at multiple questions about Gattis, Locksley vouched for the coach who actually is his offensive coordinator, recently fired East Carolina coach Scottie Montgomery.
“I’m also happy that I got Scottie Montgomery,” Locksley said. “He is my offensive coordinator, has called played before. Has been a part of winning programs — Duke, the Pittsburgh Steelers — played in the league, you name it. I want to spend a little more time talking about Scottie Montgomery and the job he’ll do running the system that I ran at Alabama 100-percent of the time and developed all of the weekly schemes.”
Locksley has a history of getting mildly cross, so that's not a huge surprise.
More realignment, intramurals edition. PJ Fleck asserted that more Big Ten realignment is "inevitable":
“Change is inevitable,” Fleck said. “I think we all know that. I think that the East and West have been around for a while. I like it, I like the division of it. But I don’t think it will stay the same. I think we’ll change it at some point because change is coming somehow, some way. And I think people are going to want to move it around, and shake it up a little bit.”
Seems pretty speculative, though. Scott Dochterman brings up a potential MSU/Purdue flip, citing MSU's run under Dantonio, but if Brohm stays around and Dantonio heads into retirement after another couple of indifferent years that move might backfire. It would also lock Michigan into an annual MSU crossover game. Net effect: Michigan plays Purude annually and gets even more reduced exposure to the rest of the West. No thanks.
Also here's a thing:
In the last two seasons, a midlevel West Division team has toppled East Division Ohio State in regular-season play by at least four touchdowns.
I wonder if that's why the Big Ten hasn't had a playoff team the last two years.
Man exists. PFF is featuring various players in the run-up to the season, and can confidently assert that Cole Chewins was certainly a human being in pads:
Cole Chewins takes the field again for Michigan State this fall. pic.twitter.com/378ch8OzLB
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 12, 2019
If that's the guy you're highlighting off the MSU OL… welp.
Etc.: Shea Patterson lawyer and all-around NCAA irritant Tom Mars is hired by… the NCAA.
i'd love to take a SHI stadium tour
I love those tours where you just circle around the bowl.
Definitely SHIS. That's where the s from Rutger landed.
SHI Technology Solutions
I think they're missing TWO letters, actually.....
SHIN
If PJ thinks realignment is inevitable, send him over. Little Brown Jug is annual again, Minnesota-Wisconsin can be a protected game. I assume in that scenario Indiana would go West since there's no reason to move anyone else and certainly the new commish can't be as bad as the old one, right?
I'd prefer not to face UM/OSU/PSU annually, but if Brohm does stay then those games would definitely be high-profile conference games. I suppose there's a scenario where Frost makes Nebraska a 10-win candidate again and Fleck actually solves the road problem he seems to have, which might make the West (just as?) competitive at the top, but that seems less likely in a collective sense. More likely would be the current situation or maybe 1-2 teams rising above the rest.
There's also the prospect of annual Rutger/Maryland games, but I just figured nobody else wants those either. Thanks, Delany!
The coaching hires of the West division have been strong the last couple of years. I think Frost can and will make Nebraska very competitive in that division. Fleck, I think can have Jerry Kill levels of success at Minnesota. And if Brohm stays at Purdue long term, Purdue will be an exciting team that no one will feel comfortable playing. Iowa and Northwestern will probably remain consistent 7-8 win programs as long as Ferentz and Fitzgerald stay and Wisconsin will probably fall back a little bit from the 10+ win team they have been recently. What was the worst P5 division in college football may quickly become a really solid and competitive one.
Poor damn Illinois.
I'm perfectly fine if IU moved west and was no longer our annual game before OSU.
As a confirmed Minnesotan (unbelievably, I've lived here for ten years) I am 100% on board with Minnesota flipping back to Michigan's division. My team in state every two years? Yes please.
I can’t believe that any West coaches want to be swapped out to the East. It’s one thing to proclaim the need for competitive balance, it’s another to face OSU/UM/PSU every year to win your division.
I think UM should be the favorites in the B1G but the depth in the secondary and the starting OT's on offense concern me. Runyan was a downright disaster against OSU and UF to end the year and Steuber wasn't much better. I also can't remember corner depth being so thin. Do we even have a third CB? If there's an injury back there at all things could dicey real quick.
Actually, we have like 5 or 6 backups at CB. It's just none of them have played, so we all assume they can't cover their grandmother.
I highly doubt the coaches would be comfortable putting most of those guys on the field. It's a legit concern for me.
I hope Coach Zordich comes out during fall camp and tells us they all really suck.
After Troy Woolfo(r)lk's ankle injury in 2010, our depth chart became (quoting Brian from the time):
1. JT Floyd / random freshman
2. DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
Never forget...
Wasn't James Rogers the 5th yr Sr that became the 2nd corner and did better than expected? The bar was set at ankle level, but I remember him being a pleasant surprise.
This is the third time Michigan has done one of these double-headers and the second time they've spent a basketball home game to do so. The next time needs to be on the opponent; this is otherwise fine.
This is incorrect. When Michigan played Penn State at MSG in 2016 it was technically a PSU home game.
Swap Penn State with a cupcake from the West, and--presto--competitive balance more or less restored
"I guess a one-off with Syracuse in Toronto wouldn't be the worst."
Only if we get to use CFL rules!
Speed in Space with a head start! I like!
Still don't understand why the "controversy follows him" comment was even made? Meyer isn't the coach at Ohio State anymore so why is Harbaugh talking about him at all? Not to mention the "scoreboard" part of the equation.
Harbaugh was talking about Meyer only because he was asked about him. So he answered a question honestly and accurately. Tough to criticize that too much.
He was asked directly about Meyer and responded. I have seen others opine that he really has strong feelings on domestic violence issues and is probably ticked about Urban’s actions last year and also how was able to skate to cleanly away after the initial kerfluffle. - (I actually saw someone on RCMB ask/question what controversy followed Urban at OSU...they were quickly reminded of the whole Zach Smith and lying about it on camera by the rest of the mob there though..)
Dantonio can't fire his guys because there's too many skeletons in those closets.
South Harmon Institute (of Technology)?
Moving Jim Bollman to another job is prefect. It's like they hired him again, so I can laugh at them a second time.
Wouldn’t you like to have been present for the internal NCAA discussion of hiring Mars? How do we get this guy off our backs, he is messing up all our arrangements? Hey, let’s hire him ourselves! We have a ton of money and can afford it. Don’t want him coming up with new ways to mess with our rules.
Dantonio is a great coach, but his loyalty to his crappy assistants is going to be his ticket to a wimper finish of a career where he's gifted early retirement. He could've done more in East Lansing to build off all those double digit win seasons but now it seems like he's going to be content to vie for 3rd in the east every year till his career ends...not that I'm complaining
"Michigan plays Purude"
Is this what we're calling them now? Works for me and fitting after the last time we played at that dump in W. Lafayette.
Playing Purdue every year would be Pur-rude.
Re MSU Offense: I flat out guarantee they'll have a competent running game, and an element of surprise passing game using plays that we won't see before or after their game with us. The final score will come down to how many plays they get with magic unicorns farting rainbows to keep their ball carriers that were stuffed behind the line of scrimmage from being technically down before they rolled past the line to gain. Best case: we'll have to listen to Mork talk about losing with dignity (which is ironic, since they are the most ungracious, chippy winners anyone has ever seen).
Their run game was not good last year. Why the jump to competency in your view? (serious question--I don't follow them that closely)
They've shuffled the deck chairs on offense, hoping that the opponents' defenses trip over them.
BPONE talking. I should have added a sarcasm mark.
Ha! Gotcha. Sorry for being slooooow on that one.
It's possible they'll be better than last season on offense (can't get much worse) but they honestly don't have much on that side of the ball. If their defense isn't lights out all the time, they'll have some struggles.
The defense will be solid, at least the front 7. The DB's are unknown. You can probably throw on them. I don't think they'll be the death machine defense everyone is predicting. Keep your QB upright and you'll probably be fine.
They are not complete on either side of the ball and an injury or two could send them spiraling.
Basically their defense will have to play out of their minds the entire season and the offense will have to play over their heads.
I think a UM victory this season firmly puts MSU under UM's foot, maybe starts Dantonio out the door. An OSU win is 1a and MSU 1b for me this season.
I wish OSU goes to the West division, and have it so every game we play is them is played at home. And ditch the Indy championship altogether, for a home game to the team with best record. This, above all else, would bring our program back to excellence...because it'd force them to succeed in the east just to play osu and vice versa, to keep the tradition going... There would not be a better collective motivation, for both programs. I'd go as far as saying that osu would steer their plan B Ohio guys to us, so the better we win our division, so they could play us. I can only wish.
The Big 10 needs to lead the way in college football by adopting the pod format Connelly is always preaching about. Get rid of these giant divisions that basically wall off half the conference from each other and make sure every student gets to see every single team in their conference come to their stadium during a 4 year time in college.
I would have zero desire to sit through a Maryland or Rutgers home game if it meant sacrificing an original Big Ten game with say Wisconsin, Iowa, or Minnesota.
The WAC tried this pod system 20 years ago. While a more far-flung conference with less natural rivalries, Rice with San Jose State for instance, it didn't work.
At the end of the day moving to 14 teams just means some older rivalries are going to lose importance (and already have), but others will rise to take their place. Somebody has to play Maryland and Rutgers and those games eat into others. There's no way around that.
Also of note and pretty important, Ambry Thomas "working through something".
Probably should be prepared for him to miss time as Harbaugh speak could be a wide range of things.
Hopefully nothing serious.
I think the "game on foreign soil" thing is way overblown and is going to make a whole lot more sense once East Lansing is officially declared a colony of North Korea
Is this stadium located in SHI TPA TOWN?
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