DONE. $34.13 (plus processing fee). 

Thanks for the reminder.

Just finished his senior year, so I imagine he’ll be a grad student. No problem.

LGI and let’s go Marshall!!! This post and these replies have made my morning.

^^^^^Everything under the “Speaking of BC’s Defense” bullet is so spot on and exactly what I was thinking watching that demolition on Thursday^^^^^^

I have always found it a bit of a lameass excuse for M not being able to finish the job in the FF because we lose to teams like UMD “who are all 25 year olds, it’s not fair.” Please. I would imagine fans of those teams would respond that Michigan is icing WAY more talent. 

Not underestimating how much experience levels the field in hockey, maybe more so than any other sport, as we see NHLers consistently get better and better even into their mid-30s. But I think BC’s play should show that much of the defensive issues under the late Red-Mel-Naurato stretch here could be greatly remedied by better coaching and roster construction. 
 

Also, thanks Alex and the rest of the MGo hockey crew else for another year of stellar coverage.
 

I’m still concerned about the curse that will linger over Michigan hockey until the MGoBlog guys figure out how to pronounce Quinnipiac correctly. Hopefully I will be proven wrong tonight and Saturday. 

Totally agree, I’ve always been a fan of that name and their basketball baby blues with the state outline of Indiana standing in for the “I” is such an underrated uniform. 

Typical Canham L. What an asshole.

Also very disappointed to read that letter by Johnny Orr, which I’d never seen before.

Thanks for sharing the article. This functions as a companion piece of sorts to the one that appeared in HTTV last summer, which I’d highly recommend anyone check out if you didn’t read it already.

Thanks for sharing. What a game from Barczewski last night. Also that’s wild he was AAA teammates with Brady Tkachuk. That guy’s in his sixth NHL season!

I am convinced there will be a curse on Michigan hockey until the hosts of this podcast learn to properly pronounce the name of the defending national champion Quinnipiac Bobcats.

Bingo. Thanks for finding that.

According to media reports at the time Otzelberger signed an extension at ISU last year (sorry, I’m too lazy to find a link but I know it saw it in multiple articles—just search for articles on his contract extension) Otzelberger owes the balance on the remaining years of his deal if he leaves. Based on projected salary increases under his contract, that comes to about $17M. So I believe that’s why everyone is throwing that number around.

Also I believe overlooked in the rundown of coaching candidates on this site: his wife was one of the best basketball players in ISU history. 
 

I’m not saying Michigan shouldn’t try, but the notion our current AD could pull off that move is laughable. Not happening.

It was a sunny 50ish degrees day yesterday and I was able to wear my 2023 CHAMPS Homefield crew neck sweatshirt around all day. It was awesome. 

In no way was I supporting an argument that “former players shouldn’t be college coaches.”…I have no clue where you pulled that from. The original post said (in essence) that there is now an established pattern of (1) former NBA stars (2) with no head coaching experience failing badly as first time HCs in college hoops. You used Hubert Davis as a counterexample to that, so I pointed out he doesn’t fit that pattern because he had extensive experience both coaching and broadcasting college ball. Don’t twist my words around, please. 

I wouldn’t put Hubert Davis in this category, though. He was an assistant under Roy Williams at UNC from 2012-2021 before promotion to head coach upon Williams’ retirement. He’s only coached in college. He was also a TV analyst for ESPN college hoops coverage in his post-NBA career before joining the UNC staff. All to say, he had extensive post-pro career experience in the college game prior to being HC at UNC.

2003? Someone tell Chris Perry, John Navarre, et al about their missing rings. Are we awarding ourselves Alabama-style retroactive titles for seasons that no one else considers remotely championship worthy? I am in favor of this, by the way.

If you’re looking to use the Grapentine sample as a text alert on the iPhone, it’s not a simple process. I found this video very helpful and it worked:

https://youtu.be/7Knzz3Z7tgs?si=MQoVBqq__fcY8oeX

Such incredibly sad news. RIP Craig. 

Sorry to spoil the fun but folks from western Massachusetts don’t have that accent FYI. 

He does a lot of great things but doesn’t look like he has a well-rounded enough game to play in the NBA long term. Perhaps he can try to work his way up from the G-League and carve out a niche. I would think he has a long career in Europe ahead of him, though, if it doesn’t work out here. 
Seems like a great dude and maybe the worst part of this abominable season is that he had to be a part of it. Would have been an awesome player to have on better Michigan teams of years past.

“Mike Hart will definitely be a head coach someday. He has the tactical acumen for the offensive side of the ball like a Mike McDonald or Jesse Minter do for defense, and can also recruit like Nick Saban in his prime.” - Fred Jackson (probably)

Dude who was Director of Player Development at Cincinnati during the years leading up to the 2022 Draft where they had 9 players selected: hell yes.

Edit: forgot they hired Casula for TEs. 

I myself had forgotten what happened at the end of that case. It’s mentioned in the AP article OP linked. 
The Board declined to rule on the question of whether or not NW football players were employees and ordered the ballots destroyed. They said because NW was the only school in B1G they have jurisdiction over (because it’s the only private university in the conference) they couldn’t make a ruling because it would skewer the labor market in the conference.

With all Ivies being private, it’s unlikely an appeal ruling could be based on similar grounds. 

If ‘crootin is the decisive factor that finally forces red state legislatures to allow public employees to collectively bargain, that will be one of the most hilarious, awesome, and quintessential college football stories of all time. Perfection. 

I think that depends on what you mean.
College athletes finally being allowed to earn fair compensation for their work is an unambiguous positive and should be the way things are.

If you mean that Michigan won’t be able to compete in an environment where athletes are paid employees, that will only be the result of our university leadership’s stubborn, shameful, and embarrassing refusal to adapt.

I’ve always been underwhelmed by Homefield’s Michigan offerings. I suspect it’s because we lack a history of kitschy, cartoonish logos from the past, which is really where all of their best designs come from when it comes to other schools. We really just have the Wolverbear in that regard, and I’ve never been a huge fan of that. 
When Homefield first started getting known (I want to say this was around 2019ish, when the Fullcast crew starting promoting them), their stuff was awesome. Designs, fit, materials, all great. I have a few tees from that era and I still wear them all the time. I thought that when they started Big New Saturdays a few years ago, they must’ve needed to scale up a lot to meet the new demand, and their quality dipped big time. Got my last couple of tees from them during that period and while I still have them, they weren’t as good as the ones before.

That all being said, I had to get one of their Michigan national champs sweatshirts and I have to say it’s tremendous. Very happy with it.

Sam McGuffie, the prince who was promised. Alas…I still remember watching his high school tape on YouTube. 

Ray Vinopal

Thomas Rawls

Kurt Taylor

Jaron Dukes

Perry Dorrestein

Absolutely ridiculous and shameful.

In the one sense, yes, this likely portends significant changes and may be the first step in the coming dominance and leadership role of the B1G and SEC in the future reformed world of collegiate athletics.

On the other hand, that statement was almost complete drivel with nothing of substance (which is to say, the exact type of statement one comes to expect from these types of institutions). It is not at all clear what this group is set to do. And, not to mention, a future college athletics landscape where one of the leading figures is the current B1G commissioner is not one I want to live in.

That sounds like the best move. If Coach Tress was Herbert’s second in command then he must be extremely good at his job and it’ll be fine.

From an entirely comedic standpoint, I am only slightly disappointed by the fact that Tress does not appear to be the “mini Herbert” on staff who one of the TV broadcasts earlier this year (pretty sure it was Fox but can’t recall which game) mistakenly thought was Herbert for several minutes while the announcers talked about Herbert’s impact on the program, then after the ad break apologized and clarified that the man they showed was not, in fact, Ben Herbert.

If only I could downvote this post more than once. I had a moment of sheer horror seeing it not knowing whether this was empty speculation or something that’s reportedly in play. Thankfully only the former it appears.

Compliments from future Michigan OC Brennan Marion??? #Go-Go

Can’t hear that song and not think of the closing nuke montage from Dr. Strangelove. 

I LOL'd big time when Brian said that. It's so true. Almost all of the old NFL teams are owned by descendants of bookies/boxing promoters who bought into the league for like $500 a century ago and then rode the totally unexpected wave of the NFL growing into the most lucrative pro sports league in the world, due to almost nothing any of them did (and certainly not their children or grandchildren or great grandchildren who run the teams now).

On another point made in the roundtable: Interestingly, Nick Saban's Dolphins tenure was not as much of a failure as widely remembered. They went 9-7 in first season and narrowly missed the playoffs. His second season was bad; they went 6-10. However, there is an oft under-discussed fascinating and potentially football world-altering historical hinge point after that first season, which is that they had an opportunity to sign Drew Brees when his contract with the Chargers was up. They balked at his shoulder injury, and he signed with the Saints instead. The Dolphins traded for Daunte Culpepper, whose career totally fell apart after that. That second season, the Dolphins QBs were Culpepper, Joey Harrington, and Cleo Lemon. If the Dolphins had signed Brees, there could've been a 15+ year union of Saban/Brees. Incredible what-if that would've had massive implications for NFL and CFB.

It's possible Saban was always just more suited to college ball, but if he'd been more successful in the NFL, he may not have left.

Thanks for continuing to put this together every week. 

The Indiana victory over Penn State referenced at the beginning here opened the 2020 season, not last season. Indiana opened last season with a 34-6 loss to Iowa. They also lost to Penn State 24-0 several weeks later. 

Thanks for posting this. I thought about doing so but was too annoyed by the Tech blogger’s post and the continuing controversy about this. I was hoping someone else would do it, though.
 

I think your post captured probably most of our opinions on this—we shouldn’t schedule games during the WJC/holiday in the first place, Mel and M botched PR atrociously, other fanbases incredibly smug and irritating. 

Excuse the typo in the title.

Finally some good news.

RIP. In addition to his brilliant work with MP, he also wrote the screenplay for Jim Henson’s 1986 classic “Labyrinth” starring David Bowie. A true genius. 

Willie Henry’s last year at Michigan was 2015. He didn’t play under Don Brown. 

Merrimack are the Warriors, not the Friars. Brian is thinking of Providence College. Let’s keep our New England Catholic school athletics nicknames in order, please.