Unverified Voracity Isn't Doing Facebook But Narrow
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How it works: You answer 12 questions as quickly as you can (it's timed) before Thursday, July 13 at 6PM EDT to secure your spot on the leaderboard. Your performance will be ranked based on the number of correct answers you submit and how quickly you complete the questions. You only get one shot, so make it count and check out the Challenge Rules for more information. Or listen to the man himself:
At the end of the submission period, the top performers will unlock front of the line access to purchase exclusive University of Michigan football rewards curated by our friends at Valiant. Once the competition ends, look out for an email from Autograph notifying you if you are eligible with details to purchase.
We are all going to die soon. I bring terrifying news:
San Diego Lincoln 2025 quarterback Akili Smith Jr., was one of the standouts at Future 50 last month at IMG Academy in Florida. The Top247 prospect said he has a loose top three, not an official group, but the one he’s working with right now and it includes Florida, Michigan and Oregon.
The existence of a recruitable Akili Smith Jr. has caused me to drink from the wrong grail. If I find out there's a JJ McCarthy Jr in the 2026 class I'm going to evaporate.
I'm not joining "Threads." Elon Musk is currently running Twitter into the ground but "Facebook but narrower" is not something I will tolerate, folks. I do not want an algorithm populating my social media feed. I want it to be the maniacs I follow in chronological order. If Bluesky attains critical mass I'll migrate, but the sheer number of people I've blocked on Twitter is a critical advantage for that platform. Someone step in and buy it from Musk, please.
[After THE JUMP: Fred Jackson!]
Continued portaling. A new name in the portal that's relevant:
West Virginia’s Jose Perez hits the portal.
— Trilly Donovan (@trillydonovan) July 5, 2023
Expect Michigan to be a player here. https://t.co/OcC6SaubBv
Perez has been at Gardner-Webb, Marquette, and Manhattan before a sit-out year at WVU. At lower levels he's been a massive-usage 6'5" point guard who gets to the line a ton but is otherwise dubiously efficient. His year at Marquette saw him get four minutes a game and doesn't mean much of anything. Perez is a career 30% three-point shooter, but he probably has some upside there since he was a ball-dominant guy sucking up 33% usage at Manhattan and if he ends up at Michigan he's likely to be a relatively low usage wing.
Michigan needs another 2/3. Perez isn't Caleb Love but he's an interesting prospect.
Bellamy on McCarthy. A JJ McCarthy great leap forward is something Michigan is banking on this year, and Ron Bellamy thinks it'll happen:
Speaking on “In the Trenches,” a Michigan Athletics podcast, Bellamy referred to J.J. McCarthy as “one of the best leaders I’ve been around”
“J.J. can make every throw,” Bellamy said. “He can make every throw, and the most dangerous part about J.J. is he can extend plays. Receivers love that — DBs lose sight of receivers and you’re running down the field open. J.J. is a complete quarterback, and just just watching him go through progressions, just watching him — whatever the coaches put on his plate, he was able to chew it up and digest it and then go out there on the field and execute it.
“We’re super excited about J.J. — especially as a football team, but in particular in our receiver room, we know that we have the best quarterback in America.”
From your lips, etc.
I'm not sure I agree 100% with your policework there. Devin Gardner discussed Kirk Campbell on Sam Webb's show recently, and:
Devin Gardner: “Last night I talked about the conversation I had a couple years ago I think when Kirk Campbell first got on the staff. And Fred Jackson is not just throwing out praise willy nilly. Fred Jackson is pretty stern in his approach on many things. And it was so unprompted. He's just like, 'listen, if you want to know anything about this offense… and he used different words that can't be used on the radio... and he was pointing at Kirk Campbell... he said, 'you need to talk to him if you want to learn anything about this offense.' And that was way before anybody even thought that we needed a new quarterback coach or whatever the case may be.”
I have no doubt that Campbell is a wunderkind and that Gardner's substantially right here, but FRED JACKSON IS NOT JUST THROWING OUT PRAISE WILLY-NILLY?!? Fred Jackson said Avery Horn was "Mike Hart but fast." I was going to make up some sort of entertaining hyperbole there but remembered the actual thing, and decided hyperbole was unnecessary.
Important hockey item. Michigan goalie commit Stephen Peck is coming in next year, and did we know the nickname of Avon Old Farms?
G Stephen Peck of Avon Old Farms headed to Rangers development camp. Michigan commit backstopped Winged Beavers to New England Elite 8 title last season
— Mark Divver (@MarkDivver) June 30, 2023
Winged Beavers! Beavers do not have wings. Avon Old Farms does not care. I'm putting an accent over that E in "winged" in my mind, because Avon Old Farms is fancy.
Various less important hockey items. Adam Fantilli signed with the Blue Jackets, of course. As soon as Anaheim didn't pick him that was likely foreordained. Alas, and good luck in the league.
Arizona State has been accepted into the NCHC, giving a major-college program a home for the first time. That gives the NCHC an awkward nine teams and may open the door for Miami—currently getting crushed—to move to the new CCHA. The linked article addresses that, saying Miami has no plans to relocate, FWIW.
Corey Pronman's initial 2024 mock draft has commit Michael Hage going 17th to Buffalo. Michigan is also after #7 Artyom Levshunov and #19 RJ Emery. College hockey-bound players go 1-2 as BU commit Macklin Celebrini and Minnesota commit Cole Eiserman are the top end of next year's draft.
Connor Earegood projects next year's lines. Michigan's likely to stick BC's former captain on their third pairing, which is a hell of a luxury. The forward corps is not quite as loaded as last year's but Michigan will be considerably more experienced—the only freshman in the top nine, Nick Moldenhauer, already had his D+1 year in Chicago. That's a major change from last year when the majority of the top nine was new to college hockey.
Etc.: Michigan won 13 Big Ten titles this year. Sokay. Birthday distribution in elite hockey players is wild.
I'm not a huge fan of bigoted shrieking morons dominating the comments on every thread because they (like the idiots that they are) pay for Twitter.
Complaining about Twitter is "in" because they are self immolating. There is a reason 70 million people have signed up for Threads in a couple of days. Somehow Musk has made Zuck look like the less bad option, and I am all for despising Zuck.
Maybe the hype will fizzle on Threads, but, so far, it's like Twitter, but generally functional and not rate limited.
I bet it cost Zuck a lot less than $44B too.....
I hope one of them does succeed so all the people bleating about how they're going to leave Twitter because Musk took over actually do leave. You would think after being wrong about so much already (You can't run this company without those engineers!) they would have learned something.
The existence of a recruitable Akili Smith Jr. has caused me to drink from the wrong grail.
Yeah, it's probably Kool-aid in there.
As I've said, Michigan's appearance in the CFB inevitably resulted in flirtations that in most cases are insincere. I can't speak for Akili himself, but in general (read: healthy default mindset), bear in mind "Michigan in top 3/5/whatever" is an easy way to foment worry and jealousy from other programs. In other words, hit on B to score with A.
Michigan will entertain these recruits because why not, so MGoBlog will track them because that's what they do, but statistically it's mostly noise. Expect our hit rate among top recruits to go way down, because with success comes recruits feigning interest for personal gain far outnumbering those whose blood turns maize n' blue.
I think Brian's just saying that it's crazy that Akili Smith has a son old enough to be a football recruit?
Ah.
Well, we're all old and going to die soon.
I think Brian must be losing his understanding of time. Akili Smith was done playing in the NFL before all of the games were broadcast in HD. It's more surprising that he hasn't had a kid in college already.
I liked the video and challenge but who was that guy proposing it? As a staunch fan he seems familiar. Is he a blogger on Mgoblog and if so, which one?
He was a backup QB
A longtime lurker.
Seems to have extra time on his hands. Too young to be retired. Unemployed...poor soul?
I would argue helping Michigan's NIL efforts is a better use of his time than helping Tampa Bay win NFL games.
As a Bucs fan, it was fun couple years (last year not being included). Baker Mayfield takes over this season - lol. They should be in line for a top draft pick next year.
Sweet Jesus, if you’re serious that means Tom Brady may have watched the Lloyd Brady videos.
I need to lie down.
Hasn’t everyone?
With all due respect.... Fred created the willy nilly praise toss
Looking at the comments I am glad we were dragging Luke Fickell all the way back in 2011
Chachi Sandler.
Fred Jackson invented Chuck Norris!
The Top247 prospect said he has a loose top three, not an official group, but the one he’s working with right now and it includes Florida, Michigan and Oregon.
Not gonna hold my breath if those are his top schools. Fingers crossed we can close on Bryce Underwood sooner rather than later
Tom: It was a 13-yard pass to Russell Shaw and he bailed your ass out.
I do like how he's thinking on there for a moment like "Do I want to mention my first career pass? No. No I definitely do not."
Keith Jackson asking how on earth did they get that kid from Columbus, and then Griese saying, well, some kids just like the helmets...
Was it referring to Woodson? Because he wasn't from Columbus.
He was referring to RB J.R. Ford.
You teased with Brady's first completion, but you really wanted the Al Borges mention later in the game. TELL THE TRUTH, SETH!!!
i was this game... 1 - i don't remember it being a 3:30 start, 2 - Woodson had an amazing run on a reverse in this game, started one way realized it wasn't going to work turned and went the other direction an nearly scored IIRC, 3 - after that Remy field gold a couple of UCLA fans sitting about 5 row in front of turned and started chirping the 2 guys sitting next to me that had been making fun of UCLA the entire game and there was nearly a brawl in section 6, row 65...
Safe place to put the ball though with that coverage.
Okay fine, I admit that guy may be a good quarterback.
Malcolm Gladwell wrote about the birthday thing in his book Outliers back in the early aughts. He used Canadian junior hockey as an example. Here's a bit of an interview he did with ESPN Page 2 (remember that?!??!?!) after the book came out:
The first chapter in "Outliers" is about how some Canadian hockey players born in the first months of the year enjoy advantages that those born later in the year don't have. You also write that birth month correlates closely with success in other sports. Why is this?
It's a beautiful example of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In Canada, the eligibility cutoff for age-class hockey programs is Jan. 1. Canada also takes hockey really seriously, so coaches start streaming the best hockey players into elite programs, where they practice more and play more games and get better coaching, as early as 8 or 9. But who tends to be the "best" player at age 8 or 8? The oldest, of course -- the kids born nearest the cut-off date, who can be as much as almost a year older than kids born at the other end of the cut-off date. When you are 8 years old, 10 or 11 extra months of maturity means a lot.
So those kids get special attention. That's why there are more players in the NHL born in January and February and March than any other months. You see the same pattern, to an even more extreme degree, in soccer in Europe and baseball here in the U.S. It's one of those bizarre, little-remarked-upon facts of professional sports. They're biased against kids with the wrong birthday.
The whole interview can be read here.
Weird, I'd think it'd be the opposite as the ones almost a year younger are getting to practice against older, better players.
I was struggling to recall the name of that book and was hoping someone would bring it up. It was an interesting read with a few examples really making me scratch my head, especially the part about the Beatles practically being a band of destiny based on how much time they spent playing together before they hit it big. Definitely thought the hockey birthday thing made a lot of sense though.
Ya gotta schedule that sex if you want your kid to make the show.
Christmas, New Years Eve and Valentine's Day conceived babies are lovers....
Easter, Memorial Day, 4th of July conceived babies are players....
Yup.
Signed,
Born in February
The existence of a recruitable Akili Smith Jr. has caused me to drink from the wrong grail. If I find out there's a JJ McCarthy Jr in the 2026 class I'm going to evaporate.
Lol!
Twitter isn't chronological either in the replies. The lunatics that paid for verification show up first in replies. Hopefully threads is just doing the algorithm to get people followers. Doesn't seem like it would be a difficult change.
Akili Smith is 47 years old and was drafted 24 years ago. It's not like Denard Robinson has a class of 2025 kid.
Denard does have a Class of 2036 kid. That'll be here before we know it.
Some legacies coming up soon:
- Brendan Zurbrugg, son of Chris (Class of 2024)
- Tucker Kattus, son of Eric (Class of 2025)
- Tommy Carr, son of Jason, grandson of Lloyd and Tom Curtis, brother of CJ (Class of 2026)
- Devin Mignery, son of Andy (Class of 2026)
- Marquis Ray, son of Marcus (Class of 2028)
Marcus Ray’s kid in 2028? I really wonder how that recruitment might go.
Yeah, Akili Smith Jr. is a weird one to get the "man I'm old" feelings from. Asante Samuel Jr. has been in the NFL for two years, Marvin Harrison Jr. is in college, and Vlad Guerrero Jr. is now in his fifth MLB season. There are plenty more examples of younger fathers or older sons who are now college or pro athletes.
Yeah, I am not totally surprised that a 47-year-old guy might have a teenager. Means he had a son 17-18 years ago when he was 29-30. That's totally reasonable.
Watching Twitter get the Dave Brandon Special sure has been...something.
I also hope he sells it to someone who actually knows what they are doing, as I've invested years in the platform. But I think his ego will lead him to keep running it into the ground instead of accepting the L. Most likely scenario is that it just slowly dies on the vine while everyone migrates somewhere else.
Lets hope 'wunderkid' Campbell doesn't leave for Westhampton United.
Looking at pic of Fred Jackson at the top of the post, I can't be 100% sure, but I have the feeling he had at least 3 drinks (a Coke, an OJ, and a water) with him at that moment.
Wingéd Beavers? On wingéd wings of angels.
Hockey birthday distribution: only 2 born in November and 3 in December out of 180 elite hockey players. Hockey dads too busy sharpening skates in August & September?
Did you mean February and March? Cuz my kids took longer than 3 months to finish baking.
More like "Wingèd"
Better have the audio of Brady saying "MGoBlog" on every podcast now.
I don’t use Twitter or its competitors but I support free uncensored expression no matter who doesn’t like it.
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