The Athletic (Mandel and Wasserman) admit their wrong

Fuck Mandel. He’s the editor-in-chief of the Athletic’s college football side. He, more than anyone, is responsible for driving the over the top coverage of affaire d’Stallions through his editorial decisions and reporter assignments. The Athletic still has a “Stallions was at the Rose Bowl” story prominently featured in its cfb feed. And he’s not admitting he was wrong about the coverage, just that Stallions’s info isn’t the primary reason why Michigan was winning (he is sticking with the “we can’t know what advantage it gave Michigan.”)

Texas counts as a super team. Check out their stars. Loaded with talent.

I duno. Texas and Alabama are a wash to me at best. Texas beat Bama in Bama... and OSU + PSU are not likely better than Oregon x 2 are they? 

Who else did we play worth a crap?

I'm not talking schedules, but just not seeing how anyone can say that we had a tougher road.

Plus, I'm sure Wash played Wazzou, and some combo of USC, UCLA, Oregon State, and Mi...(HAHAHA msu!)

Those teams are far better than our slate of Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, etc...

Please, you publish the "garbage" because it produces clicks and traffic but then label it as such because the truth is now painfully obvious that Michigan's scouting produced no clear competitive advantage.

The Athletic is garbage and for the most part journalism. Just because a journalist decides to admits the obvious doesn't restore integrity. I'll place my trust in the profession again many of these "sports journalists" can no longer find a job.

I remember when Mitch Album wrote about a game he didn't even attend. Also, I grew sick of having to see headlines reporting on Jemele Hill's childish takes. The profession is currently at an all time low.

Down-voted for promoting slappy hacks trying to save face. Fuck 'em.

It's always about them, not what they're reporting on.  It would be nice if they could occasionally just report on something without making their opinions the centerpiece.

It also would mean more if they could admit they were wrong before it was already blatantly obvious.

that whole sign stealing crap became a non-issue once Michigan beat PSU and OSU. But all the haters keep thinking it was a gigantic scandal like Michigan was doing the Contra cheat code up down a b or some "auto aim" hax.

"IT RUINS THE INTEGRITY OF THE GAME! IT'S SO UNFAIR! MICHIGAN CHEATED!"

Yes that's why they kept winning even after the scheme was exposed and those involved left the program.

Just to reiterate my point again. Don't waste your time on journalists like these. 95% of the CFP media is filled with guys who don't know ball. Who cares what they think? But where I think we've seen it get annoying is this year around the Stallions BS. So many people just saw it as an opportunity to tag themselves onto a story, without any real idea of how pointless it was in the grand scheme of things.

Feldman, while sometimes people here may be annoyed with him, I know to be one of the best sourced CFB journalists out there. I've had some experiences with him to know who he knows and it's directly into coaching staffs and execs. I get the annoyance when his articles come out and it's anti-Michigan from sources. But it's coming directly from Head Coaches and he's going to report it. I wouldn't take it to mean anything other than other Big 10 coaches are petrified of Harbaugh and Michigan. They hate us because they ain't us. 

But my point on Ari is this... he's too much of a fanboy to be seen as a true journalist. He takes a viewpoint of Stars only matter, because it matches his OSU world view. It's not sourced, it's a made up trope that he holds onto, because he isn't a very good journalist. Him writing a whole article about himself and his viewpoints is hilarious. No one cares about his trash opinion. 

Guys like him need to be excoriated; called out on social media; comments in articles need to call out his hypocrisy. He reads every bit of it, he responds to it, he internalizes it. I would love to ask Ari a question... do you post on OSU message boards still? Do you spend your time reading daily thoughts from the Boarding House (aka made up stuff)? Do you have any sources that are outside the OSU world, or have you just piggybacked off Urban Meyer's success like Brian Windhorst did off of Lebron?

It's also why you never see him interact with any other journalist who knows ball. Nick B would eat this guy for lunch. And Nick is a true journalist. He's certainly not a Michigan fan, but can leave that at the door at the end of the day and give you a mostly fair viewpoint.

"Stars Matter" - like many issues that we engage in within the sports world - is not a black and white issue. There are definitely shades of grey in the debate and we'd all do well to acknowledge as much. That being stated, I do think Wasserman continues to make a massive error by using recruiting rankings to predict game outcomes. It is one thing to feel that teams that recruit the highest percentage 4 & 5 stars are the most likely to end up winning national championships down the road, but determining who is going to win at the start of the season (or in a given game) should be based on the quality of the play and players as evidenced by what has actually occurred on the field. The best example of this is something that Wasserman actually used in his article: the last play of the game. To paraphrase, he basically said given Alabama's 5 start lineman and 5 star QB going up against Michigan's lesser ranked D you should expect Alabama to score. Not only is the insane given how we all saw things play out for 60 minutes of regulation, we went into the game with plenty of information on all these players that told us this wasn't the miss-match that the stars tell us it should be. Put quite simply, Jenkins, Graham, Moore, etc. are BETTER football players than Alabama's O-line.     

Oregon, Oregon and Texas ain't too shabby. Don't underestimate Washington. Sixth year qb behind a Joe Moore line is formidable. 

Yeah, don't care.

They had MONTHS to change their tune, yet did so only AFTER Michigan removed every last shred of credibility from their nonsense.  And since they're media whores, their jobs rely on staying relevant.  Michigan forced them to change their tunes.

In other words, they had no choice.

I can believe someone can have an epiphany and realize the error of their ways.  I'm in a forgiving mood when an apology is sincere and unforced.  The timing of these screams the opposite.  This is pathetic blubbering and begging for mercy at swordpoint after having been humiliated in a duel they boldly instigated.  Wait scratch that comparison, that actually has some sincerity.  These twats are still tugging their suit lapels like they have any dignity after having been pantsed on stage.

Downvoted for signal-boosting a rag that tried to torpedo the program.

P.S. Also, learn to spell FFS.  We're a bunch of pro-intellectuals, not a fucking YouTube comments section.

The damage has been done. They spread misinformation and twisted info to suit a narrative. Now that the lies have been made obvious they're backtracking. Fuck em. 

I hope Petey Thamel never lives this down. 

I hope people won't have ill will toward Stalions, because if we think about it, we might not be here without that fiasco and Harbaugh being out.  Instead it solidified the team even more and got them to be one and gave them immense confidence.  Fact is the kid is one of us and had the right emotion despite being a fucking idiot and sloppy and tried too hard and cheated.  Maybe it had to be this way, who knows, maybe Har augh would have turtled the offense and cost us a win and thus this opportunity.

And I hope we rehire Partridge next year. And why not? He paid his debt and people get second chances. 

The thing about stars is that Ari is generally correct. There's high correlation between recruiting rankings and performance. He's just exhausting because he has tended to act like it's the only thing at times. If it was the only thing then maybe A&M or Miami would accomplish something

I think he may finally be walking back from that since he pretty much gets universally laughed at for being so ardently about recruiting stars

Now that the NCsAbAn and Tony Petit-pipi, at the behest of all the other B1G coaches, have nearly all but power kicked Harbaugh in the back to get him out the door and are ready to slam it and deadbolt it when he's gone, suddenly Pete Fartbomb has eased way up on his Michigan hate.

Fuck 'em both. You don't get points for coming to the obvious conclusion after being obviously wrong for years. Ari is no better than a complete homer who devalues coaching, culture, development and preparation in exchange for the science of high school scouting (which itself has gotten lazier and worse over the years. Thamel, Finebaum, Mandel and Wasserman can all go to hell.

They're admission is worthless.

I'm sorry, but it must be said. Neither of these guys know anything about football.

For writing about it for as long as they have in sports media, it remains remarkable just how wrong and how often they both are in assessments of college football teams.

Michigan 2023 football team assessment is no different.

Also, someone like myself cannot attribute malice to the opinions and assessments of those more easily explained by ignorance and room temperature IQs.

I have no strong opinions about Mandel either way but Wasserman is a troll and one minor mea culpa doesn't change that 

Wow that's really nice. Given they've recanted, I think it's time to be the bigger man. Just kidding. Fuck them forever. Get fucked you sackless shit bags. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.