The Wings have like no business actually making the playoffs given how mediocre the roster is, but then neither do any of the other teams in the running.
Honestly, Tom Brady hasn't looked like a man happy in his spot for a while now. People handle aging differently, and it sure seems to me like he's not taking it very well.
I think the simple reality of it is that when you're used to being the center of attention, the no.1 name on the marquee, it's going to be difficult to accept any other role. A former superstar athlete can do a lot of things after their career, but none of them will feel like they offer the same heights.
That's kinda circular reasoning though. All they had to do was find 12 jurors like yourself. And I mean there's a reason the old adage goes, if you're innocent you want trial by judge, if you are guilty you want trial by jury.
Not being raised in the U.S., I didn't know crap about football at the time. I remember when the murder thing happened and they explained the background to it, I was like "Wait Nordberg from Naked Gun played football?"
Nowhere did I say that the Wings are bad because they moved to the East. The realignment simply coincided with the decline of the team. It's just funny because the push by the Wings to go East was mostly based on complaints about travel affecting playoff series which - coincidentally or not - has happened to not be a factor at all in the decade plus since then.
And the simple reality is that even today the two teams most Wings fans view as rivals are two Western teams - Chicago and Colorado - while there's basically no real relationship with the Bruins or Habs i.e. so called division rivals and even the Leafs rivalry remains lukewarm at best. Turns out that playing Original Six teams with which you had a rivalry 50+ years earlier doesn't really matter if both teams suck or they're good and you suck.
Ironic given that since the move to the East the Wings have barely played any playoff games. I remember when they talked about the advantages in the playoffs, and how the move will revitalize the Wings/Leafs rivalry etc. all of which turned out to be basically a moot point given the Wings were just fading into irrelevance.
I think the NHL realignment in 2013 was a total dud to be honest. The Wings have been an anonymous also-ran in the East and there's ironically now a sense that there's more of a history between the Wings and various Western teams than any of the Eastern teams. Probably because the Wings were basically constantly in the playoffs fighting those Western teams off for decades while there's nothing memorable about the Wings' time in the East.
Also, the divisions are too big and disjointed for people to really pay attention to them now. If you ask a 100 hockey fans to recite the divisions and all their teams from the top of their head, I bet 90+ wouldn't get them all.
It doesn't surprise me. Before we won the NC, there were certainly a good number of people even on here who thought JJ was merely okay, sort of an Eli Manning on the Giants type deal. I don't think McCarthy was nationally seen as one of the top QBs in college football either before then. The championship has obviously helped his stock - more with Michigan fans than with others though.
It's certainly fair for people to be skeptical of Harbaugh's praise of him, but I think it's got a lot more to do with their relationship than with any kind of pre-draft mind games. Though these articles about it with leaked anonymous comments certainly might be part of such mind games as that's a far more typical approach.
People hate coaches of the teams they hate. There's a few cases of where the reputation becomes so strong it goes beyond that, but by and large it's like yeah you're not going to win a popularity contest being the Duke coach and no MSU basketball coach will ever be liked on a Michigan forum.
I just don't care enough about who wins the basketball championship to work up any strong feelings about the Illini.
Of course, it makes sense from their P.o.V to hate Michigan given basketball is all they have and Michigan may stand in their team's way from time to time in spite of it not being the main sport at Michigan.
It would be pretty funny if Ohtani was actually just this huge villain character, up to all sorts of trouble, and it's all just been kinda hidden because no-one ever really got to talk to him much and Japanese manners appear so polite and genteel to Americans.
I think one way or another, MLB has like zero interest in going after their number one cash cow, the first ballplayer in many years who could pass as an international celebrity and actually drives some interest in the league.
It feels to me like the Michigan media still follows Harbaugh a lot more closely than the L.A. media. Maybe that tells us where the Chargers are in the hierarchy of "things L.A. gives a shit about".
Interestingly the article does not mention where Jim's RV was actually parked. I know in coastal Southern California there's certainly a certain sensitivity in many nicer areas regarding people living in RVs (given the nice year-round climate it attracts a lot of drifter types).
I think hate is a strong word, but I don't think the unrest and anger was manufactured by anyone.
Michigan's athletic programs are high profile and have high visibility, and Warde Manuel is identified as the leader of Michigan athletics. There were various points in the last 5-6 years were many Michigan fans expected more decisive, more assertive leadership from the leader of the athletic department. And you might say that's not his style, that's not how he does the job, and that's fine, but these things take on a life of their own and perceptions form and stick.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Santa Ono was so demonstrative and vocal in his support for Michigan sports. He was filling a vacuum the community needed to see filled, but it was really Manuel's job to fill it. Communications is like 50% of business leadership, and clearly Warde is not doing himself any favors on this front. Even if we treat the May hire as some sort of major coup - and I think it remains to be seen if it is - the internet is already full of stories of how we really need to thank John Beilein for it. That allows even those who love the May hire to do so without giving full credit to Manuel. It's a vicious cycle where Manuel can get the blame for everything that goes wrong and only at best half the credit when things go well, but I think it's something of a problem he created for himself. I think when he was hired people were prepared to like him.
The way I see it, there will never a shortage of people in Ann Arbor who will adore Juwan Howard because he was very good at playing basketball for their favorite team when they were young. It's a powerful thing.
I think objectively his tenure as Michigan basketball coach was pretty much a disaster. A clear and escalating downward trend and a ton of drama.
I remember when he was hired, there was a subset of fans who were glad to see the back of Beilein and his development-focused approach. They were jealous of the likes of Duke, Kansas and Kentucky. They thought Howard's NBA pedigree and young and accessible demeanor would make Michigan attractive for top of the line future lottery picks. It never happened and Michigan was stuck in no man's land. No long term strategy, no short-term fixes. What success Howard had, it can mostly be attributed to what Beilein had left behind.
I think if Juwan Howard had played his college ball somewhere else, he (1) wouldn't have gotten the job and (2) if he somehow had gotten the job he'd be widely loathed. I'm not saying that would be fair, but it'd be a likely reality. This tenure was in many ways worse than Rich Rod's at Michigan and Rich Rod got *tons* of hate.
What exactly are people hailing Warde for? Hiring an in-demand mid-major coach to take over the basketball program cratered by your previous hire? Odd thing to celebrate at this time.
If we're honest, his tenure went pretty effing poorly and there were multiple instances of sub-optimal conduct on his part that would have drawn a lot more of a negative response from Michigan fans if he hadn't been a successful player here.
There's no need to ever personally attack a coach because he didn't do a great job. But to be clear, calling his tenure a failure isn't a personal attack. It's a statement of fact.
I like the "yeah he sucked, but he worked his ass off for the university" type response. I mean yeah I'd hope that's what 3 million dollars a year buys you.
It's pretty obvious that someone like Warde Manuel would never rise to the top in a private sector organization. He fundamentally lacks leadership and communication skills.
That's kind of the contradiction in college sports today, on the one hand these athletic departments are major commercial entities, on the other hand they're still structurally part of a massive, slothful bureaucracy. Time to wake up and smell the coffee or Michigan's 2024 national football championship will remain a generational exception.
Unfortunately, the fact that Michigan athletics are first and foremost defined by the football team's success has given everyone involved in them a decent amount of cover for a while. Michigan basketball's extreme failures aren't causing outrage, they're playing into apathy and lack of interest. Mediocrity can flourish under the cover of that.
I always enjoyed hockey fights by and large, but honestly the thing I really loved was situations 'getting out of hand'. Like goon-on-goon quasi organized fighting is nice, but it's not 'thrilling' really. Thrilling is when games get nasty overall and there's just a palpable sense of nastiness and hate in the air. Big hits, heated words, tons of tussling, a crowd baying for blood. That's what made hockey special. It wasn't just 60 minutes of guys trying to win and then shaking hands afterwards and talking about their plans for the weekend.
There's no reason for this other than money. But that's a pretty big reason to be fair.
The risk is definitely diluting the brand though. Already the 1st round games are often meh and lacking in any special "March Madness" vibe.
It's the classic problem. When you have something special you want to sell more of it, but the more of it you sell the less special it is. Ask the NHL about outdoor games.
This season turned out exactly as I predicted. Wings middle of the pack, pushing for that last playoff spot. Clearly awful for the long-term prospects of winning anything of note, but apparently good enough to get the casual fans back in on it and spend some money on the team (which is the entire purpose of the exercise).
The ACC has filed to seal even their complaint against FSU from public scrutiny. So right now we don't know exactly what they're suing FSU over, but I imagine their contract had an NDA attached to it (In fact I'm sure all of those contracts do). Now, validity of NDAs is a whole thing in itself that lawyers can argue about for ages.
Having had a bit of professional involvement with that at the corporate level, I can say that not every NDA is the same and it's not uncommon for loopholes to be intentionally placed or simply making their way into them by accident.
The thing is, my guess would have been that with FSU being a public institution their vending contracts ought to be accessible to the public unless there's a very specific good reason why they shouldn't. The heart of the dispute may well end up being about that 'specific good reason' and whether the ACC and ESPN's need for commercial confidentiality outweighs FSU's obligations as a public institution. I'm sure there's tons of precedent to sort through.
I bought a UDM Titans shirt many years ago. I have no association with the school but it was blue and basically simply said DETROIT in red lettering on it with the old much more subtle UDM logo underneath it. This was at a time when the Pistons were running that teal abomination scheme, so it kinda felt like the closest thing to an old school Pistons look. I liked that shirt a lot actually.
Field goals in football don't really ruin the game. In the 60s/70s when Larry David came up, yeah I think a lot of people had those complaints back then because games were more low-scoring and many teams were extremely risk averse. But today where winning teams typically score 30+ points and most games are easily over 40 points..I don't know. When scoring is down today it's more to do with teams not being competent rather than playing for field goals.
Kicking for points is a much bigger problem in rugby, which is of course still much more resembling the game that American football developed from. Some teams won't even attempt to really score a try (i.e. touchdown) and instead just play for field position and kicking opportunities all game. It takes the excitement out of that sport in a significant way.
Every time I hear the name Joe Cullen I think of an NHL player that doesn't actually exist. But it makes me think of a composite of Matt Cullen and Joe Mullen. I'm pretty bad with names.
My Michigan and college football fandom has been following the same curve for many many years. It's practically dormant February into early August, then ramps up, gets pretty obsessive by early October, peaks in late November then drops off slowly through bowl season. The last three years I was in no shape or form as emotionally invested in the playoffs as I was in the Ohio State game. After OSU everything else feels either fairly unimportant, or if we beat OSU, the icing of the cake.
Right now I don't feel very strongly about it. I still check the usual sites and all, but it's trending towards the usual off-season low level interest. I'm sure come late summer that will change though. It's going to be an interesting next season no matter what. It's a brand new start and expectations should be adjusted accordingly. But honestly I've seen the ups and downs with Michigan and being a fan was always interesting even during the lows of the Rich Rod and Hoke years.
Trouble with the snap was probably the last time I really got affected by a loss. As I got older the likelihood of a sports loss affecting me that much got greatly reduced. I think as a kid you kinda lack the perspective to evaluate these losses properly, but as a more mature individual you ideally are a little more even-keeled.
The pressure is all on OSU imo. Given how bad the situation Michigan faces now apparently is, I think Ryan Day has absolutely no excuse to not just beat Michigan in Columbus in November but to crush them.
It's a funny situation where Michigan is the defending national champions, but really all the expectation and pressure rests on that team in that cowtown in central Ohio.
There's "we lost a good, well-regarded assistant" and then there's "the sky is falling". People overreacting to this more than to Minter leaving. Minter had more to do with the success, and yet even he's replaceable.
Some football coaches are 'unicorns' that can't be replaced, but yeah that's more Jim Harbaugh than any of these guys because the real 'unicorn' ability is to reliably identify good, well-regarded assistants.
You either trust Moore to do that or you don't. If you don't then Michigan will be screwed no matter whether Herbert stays or not.
I don't care. For two reasons. One, in any professional field, you can never worry about who leaves, only who will be working for you in the future. People leaving is inevitable, it's natural. The strength of an organization is found in things that go beyond individuals.
Secondly, it's the S&C coach. There's a subset of football fans who think that's like the most important job on the team. Typically that's your gym rat types who watch YT videos of 'workout gurus' and are all in on that stuff. Normally, that set is like in its own little world and will occasionally pop their head out to denounce the S&C coach or declare him the best thing since sliced bread (depending on their personal preferences on S&C philosophy and of course the results). In this case that viewpoint got a lot more attention because it was awfully tempting to think the S&C regime is the *real* cause of the recent success, so if Harbaugh leaves but this guy stays, it'll all still stay the same and Michigan will keep being elite.
Now we don't know how Michigan will perform in the future, but it's down to who Moore's choices more than anything. It's not going to be on whether Herbert leaves or even Minter. It's what you do with the opportunity to fill those positions. That's the deciding factor. Moore is pretty young and pretty inexperienced, so yeah there's substantial risk, but hey he's the guy everyone wanted. He's got the keys now and we'll see what he will do.
Based on 'history' the Lions should have never even won a playoff game. And Michigan should have never beaten Bama in the Rose Bowl.
I'm not sure who's watching soccer here, but I recall a time when it was considered the 'predictable' 'safe' thing to think that Spain will choke in big tournaments and never win one. It was true until it wasn't. They then won three in a row.
History really means jack in sports when it comes to predicting the future.
While it's tough to give up such a lead, it was always a long shot to win @SF. It was an excellent season for the Lions and they did better than most expected.
"This was our only chance in our lifetime" is the kind of talk that people would come up with who ahead of the season would have said "no way the Lions make the playoffs, it's just false hope". Why shouldn't the Lions make the NFC title game more often? Several other teams have done it.
Establishing the franchise as a good NFL team that knows what it's doing is way more important for the team than some miracle run to the Super Bowl would have been.
He hasn't been quite himself in a while. Being a long-time manager of a top Premiership team is exhausting and also turns you into a major global celebrity. It's life-altering and not just in a good way. It felt to me like he increasingly lost the ability to make light of it all. Probably a good time to take a step back from it.
I would like to think his next job is manager of the German national team in a year or two. A job with a ton of public pressure, but much less global attention and much lower day-to-day stress levels.
Recent Comments
The Wings have like no business actually making the playoffs given how mediocre the roster is, but then neither do any of the other teams in the running.
Hockey in Utah makes more sense than a basketball team called Jazz in Utah and they've had the Jazz for what 40+ years now? I think it'll work.
I would hope that the overlap between Michigan grads and ICP fans is close to zero.
Honestly, Tom Brady hasn't looked like a man happy in his spot for a while now. People handle aging differently, and it sure seems to me like he's not taking it very well.
I think the simple reality of it is that when you're used to being the center of attention, the no.1 name on the marquee, it's going to be difficult to accept any other role. A former superstar athlete can do a lot of things after their career, but none of them will feel like they offer the same heights.
That's kinda circular reasoning though. All they had to do was find 12 jurors like yourself. And I mean there's a reason the old adage goes, if you're innocent you want trial by judge, if you are guilty you want trial by jury.
Every pair of gloves I own feels like it won't fit when I start putting them on. It's kind of a thing with fitting gloves.
Not being raised in the U.S., I didn't know crap about football at the time. I remember when the murder thing happened and they explained the background to it, I was like "Wait Nordberg from Naked Gun played football?"
Soft batch cookie eh? Something tells me the guy may have mistaken a few paint chips for cookies as a kid.
Nowhere did I say that the Wings are bad because they moved to the East. The realignment simply coincided with the decline of the team. It's just funny because the push by the Wings to go East was mostly based on complaints about travel affecting playoff series which - coincidentally or not - has happened to not be a factor at all in the decade plus since then.
And the simple reality is that even today the two teams most Wings fans view as rivals are two Western teams - Chicago and Colorado - while there's basically no real relationship with the Bruins or Habs i.e. so called division rivals and even the Leafs rivalry remains lukewarm at best. Turns out that playing Original Six teams with which you had a rivalry 50+ years earlier doesn't really matter if both teams suck or they're good and you suck.
Ironic given that since the move to the East the Wings have barely played any playoff games. I remember when they talked about the advantages in the playoffs, and how the move will revitalize the Wings/Leafs rivalry etc. all of which turned out to be basically a moot point given the Wings were just fading into irrelevance.
I think the NHL realignment in 2013 was a total dud to be honest. The Wings have been an anonymous also-ran in the East and there's ironically now a sense that there's more of a history between the Wings and various Western teams than any of the Eastern teams. Probably because the Wings were basically constantly in the playoffs fighting those Western teams off for decades while there's nothing memorable about the Wings' time in the East.
Also, the divisions are too big and disjointed for people to really pay attention to them now. If you ask a 100 hockey fans to recite the divisions and all their teams from the top of their head, I bet 90+ wouldn't get them all.
More important than basketball IMO
It doesn't surprise me. Before we won the NC, there were certainly a good number of people even on here who thought JJ was merely okay, sort of an Eli Manning on the Giants type deal. I don't think McCarthy was nationally seen as one of the top QBs in college football either before then. The championship has obviously helped his stock - more with Michigan fans than with others though.
It's certainly fair for people to be skeptical of Harbaugh's praise of him, but I think it's got a lot more to do with their relationship than with any kind of pre-draft mind games. Though these articles about it with leaked anonymous comments certainly might be part of such mind games as that's a far more typical approach.
People hate coaches of the teams they hate. There's a few cases of where the reputation becomes so strong it goes beyond that, but by and large it's like yeah you're not going to win a popularity contest being the Duke coach and no MSU basketball coach will ever be liked on a Michigan forum.
I just don't care enough about who wins the basketball championship to work up any strong feelings about the Illini.
Of course, it makes sense from their P.o.V to hate Michigan given basketball is all they have and Michigan may stand in their team's way from time to time in spite of it not being the main sport at Michigan.
It would be pretty funny if Ohtani was actually just this huge villain character, up to all sorts of trouble, and it's all just been kinda hidden because no-one ever really got to talk to him much and Japanese manners appear so polite and genteel to Americans.
I think one way or another, MLB has like zero interest in going after their number one cash cow, the first ballplayer in many years who could pass as an international celebrity and actually drives some interest in the league.
It feels to me like the Michigan media still follows Harbaugh a lot more closely than the L.A. media. Maybe that tells us where the Chargers are in the hierarchy of "things L.A. gives a shit about".
Interestingly the article does not mention where Jim's RV was actually parked. I know in coastal Southern California there's certainly a certain sensitivity in many nicer areas regarding people living in RVs (given the nice year-round climate it attracts a lot of drifter types).
I think hate is a strong word, but I don't think the unrest and anger was manufactured by anyone.
Michigan's athletic programs are high profile and have high visibility, and Warde Manuel is identified as the leader of Michigan athletics. There were various points in the last 5-6 years were many Michigan fans expected more decisive, more assertive leadership from the leader of the athletic department. And you might say that's not his style, that's not how he does the job, and that's fine, but these things take on a life of their own and perceptions form and stick.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Santa Ono was so demonstrative and vocal in his support for Michigan sports. He was filling a vacuum the community needed to see filled, but it was really Manuel's job to fill it. Communications is like 50% of business leadership, and clearly Warde is not doing himself any favors on this front. Even if we treat the May hire as some sort of major coup - and I think it remains to be seen if it is - the internet is already full of stories of how we really need to thank John Beilein for it. That allows even those who love the May hire to do so without giving full credit to Manuel. It's a vicious cycle where Manuel can get the blame for everything that goes wrong and only at best half the credit when things go well, but I think it's something of a problem he created for himself. I think when he was hired people were prepared to like him.
The way I see it, there will never a shortage of people in Ann Arbor who will adore Juwan Howard because he was very good at playing basketball for their favorite team when they were young. It's a powerful thing.
I think objectively his tenure as Michigan basketball coach was pretty much a disaster. A clear and escalating downward trend and a ton of drama.
I remember when he was hired, there was a subset of fans who were glad to see the back of Beilein and his development-focused approach. They were jealous of the likes of Duke, Kansas and Kentucky. They thought Howard's NBA pedigree and young and accessible demeanor would make Michigan attractive for top of the line future lottery picks. It never happened and Michigan was stuck in no man's land. No long term strategy, no short-term fixes. What success Howard had, it can mostly be attributed to what Beilein had left behind.
I think if Juwan Howard had played his college ball somewhere else, he (1) wouldn't have gotten the job and (2) if he somehow had gotten the job he'd be widely loathed. I'm not saying that would be fair, but it'd be a likely reality. This tenure was in many ways worse than Rich Rod's at Michigan and Rich Rod got *tons* of hate.
What exactly are people hailing Warde for? Hiring an in-demand mid-major coach to take over the basketball program cratered by your previous hire? Odd thing to celebrate at this time.
It's a ___ hire and ____ Warde for making it.
I'll fill in the blanks in 5 years.
If you think Calipari is a good idea, lol, you shouldn't be a Michigan fan.
If we're honest, his tenure went pretty effing poorly and there were multiple instances of sub-optimal conduct on his part that would have drawn a lot more of a negative response from Michigan fans if he hadn't been a successful player here.
There's no need to ever personally attack a coach because he didn't do a great job. But to be clear, calling his tenure a failure isn't a personal attack. It's a statement of fact.
I like the "yeah he sucked, but he worked his ass off for the university" type response. I mean yeah I'd hope that's what 3 million dollars a year buys you.
You could probably fill a football stadium just with middle-aged football coaches with a drinking problem.
Overdue, but at least it was done.
It's pretty obvious that someone like Warde Manuel would never rise to the top in a private sector organization. He fundamentally lacks leadership and communication skills.
That's kind of the contradiction in college sports today, on the one hand these athletic departments are major commercial entities, on the other hand they're still structurally part of a massive, slothful bureaucracy. Time to wake up and smell the coffee or Michigan's 2024 national football championship will remain a generational exception.
The fact Howard will go to bed tonight with a job is the tell-tale sign that Michigan doesn't take basketball very seriously.
I wasn't a fan when it went the other way, I'm not a fan when it goes this way.
Unfortunately, the fact that Michigan athletics are first and foremost defined by the football team's success has given everyone involved in them a decent amount of cover for a while. Michigan basketball's extreme failures aren't causing outrage, they're playing into apathy and lack of interest. Mediocrity can flourish under the cover of that.
If you were born on February 29th 1980, do you tell people that you are "celebrating your 11th birthday today"?
I always enjoyed hockey fights by and large, but honestly the thing I really loved was situations 'getting out of hand'. Like goon-on-goon quasi organized fighting is nice, but it's not 'thrilling' really. Thrilling is when games get nasty overall and there's just a palpable sense of nastiness and hate in the air. Big hits, heated words, tons of tussling, a crowd baying for blood. That's what made hockey special. It wasn't just 60 minutes of guys trying to win and then shaking hands afterwards and talking about their plans for the weekend.
There's no reason for this other than money. But that's a pretty big reason to be fair.
The risk is definitely diluting the brand though. Already the 1st round games are often meh and lacking in any special "March Madness" vibe.
It's the classic problem. When you have something special you want to sell more of it, but the more of it you sell the less special it is. Ask the NHL about outdoor games.
This season turned out exactly as I predicted. Wings middle of the pack, pushing for that last playoff spot. Clearly awful for the long-term prospects of winning anything of note, but apparently good enough to get the casual fans back in on it and spend some money on the team (which is the entire purpose of the exercise).
The ACC has filed to seal even their complaint against FSU from public scrutiny. So right now we don't know exactly what they're suing FSU over, but I imagine their contract had an NDA attached to it (In fact I'm sure all of those contracts do). Now, validity of NDAs is a whole thing in itself that lawyers can argue about for ages.
Having had a bit of professional involvement with that at the corporate level, I can say that not every NDA is the same and it's not uncommon for loopholes to be intentionally placed or simply making their way into them by accident.
The thing is, my guess would have been that with FSU being a public institution their vending contracts ought to be accessible to the public unless there's a very specific good reason why they shouldn't. The heart of the dispute may well end up being about that 'specific good reason' and whether the ACC and ESPN's need for commercial confidentiality outweighs FSU's obligations as a public institution. I'm sure there's tons of precedent to sort through.
I bought a UDM Titans shirt many years ago. I have no association with the school but it was blue and basically simply said DETROIT in red lettering on it with the old much more subtle UDM logo underneath it. This was at a time when the Pistons were running that teal abomination scheme, so it kinda felt like the closest thing to an old school Pistons look. I liked that shirt a lot actually.
The Chargers are an NFL team in Los Angeles. I don't care about them any more than about any other NFL team.
Is that a rhetorical question? Yes, they are that desperate.
Honestly, I don't care one way or another.
It's a better hire than Boston College football has any right to pull off.
Field goals in football don't really ruin the game. In the 60s/70s when Larry David came up, yeah I think a lot of people had those complaints back then because games were more low-scoring and many teams were extremely risk averse. But today where winning teams typically score 30+ points and most games are easily over 40 points..I don't know. When scoring is down today it's more to do with teams not being competent rather than playing for field goals.
Kicking for points is a much bigger problem in rugby, which is of course still much more resembling the game that American football developed from. Some teams won't even attempt to really score a try (i.e. touchdown) and instead just play for field position and kicking opportunities all game. It takes the excitement out of that sport in a significant way.
Every time I hear the name Joe Cullen I think of an NHL player that doesn't actually exist. But it makes me think of a composite of Matt Cullen and Joe Mullen. I'm pretty bad with names.
My Michigan and college football fandom has been following the same curve for many many years. It's practically dormant February into early August, then ramps up, gets pretty obsessive by early October, peaks in late November then drops off slowly through bowl season. The last three years I was in no shape or form as emotionally invested in the playoffs as I was in the Ohio State game. After OSU everything else feels either fairly unimportant, or if we beat OSU, the icing of the cake.
Right now I don't feel very strongly about it. I still check the usual sites and all, but it's trending towards the usual off-season low level interest. I'm sure come late summer that will change though. It's going to be an interesting next season no matter what. It's a brand new start and expectations should be adjusted accordingly. But honestly I've seen the ups and downs with Michigan and being a fan was always interesting even during the lows of the Rich Rod and Hoke years.
Trouble with the snap was probably the last time I really got affected by a loss. As I got older the likelihood of a sports loss affecting me that much got greatly reduced. I think as a kid you kinda lack the perspective to evaluate these losses properly, but as a more mature individual you ideally are a little more even-keeled.
The pressure is all on OSU imo. Given how bad the situation Michigan faces now apparently is, I think Ryan Day has absolutely no excuse to not just beat Michigan in Columbus in November but to crush them.
It's a funny situation where Michigan is the defending national champions, but really all the expectation and pressure rests on that team in that cowtown in central Ohio.
It's almost comical how quickly basketball went into the toilet. Howard appears to basically be the anti-Harbaugh.
There's "we lost a good, well-regarded assistant" and then there's "the sky is falling". People overreacting to this more than to Minter leaving. Minter had more to do with the success, and yet even he's replaceable.
Some football coaches are 'unicorns' that can't be replaced, but yeah that's more Jim Harbaugh than any of these guys because the real 'unicorn' ability is to reliably identify good, well-regarded assistants.
You either trust Moore to do that or you don't. If you don't then Michigan will be screwed no matter whether Herbert stays or not.
I don't care. For two reasons. One, in any professional field, you can never worry about who leaves, only who will be working for you in the future. People leaving is inevitable, it's natural. The strength of an organization is found in things that go beyond individuals.
Secondly, it's the S&C coach. There's a subset of football fans who think that's like the most important job on the team. Typically that's your gym rat types who watch YT videos of 'workout gurus' and are all in on that stuff. Normally, that set is like in its own little world and will occasionally pop their head out to denounce the S&C coach or declare him the best thing since sliced bread (depending on their personal preferences on S&C philosophy and of course the results). In this case that viewpoint got a lot more attention because it was awfully tempting to think the S&C regime is the *real* cause of the recent success, so if Harbaugh leaves but this guy stays, it'll all still stay the same and Michigan will keep being elite.
Now we don't know how Michigan will perform in the future, but it's down to who Moore's choices more than anything. It's not going to be on whether Herbert leaves or even Minter. It's what you do with the opportunity to fill those positions. That's the deciding factor. Moore is pretty young and pretty inexperienced, so yeah there's substantial risk, but hey he's the guy everyone wanted. He's got the keys now and we'll see what he will do.
Based on 'history' the Lions should have never even won a playoff game. And Michigan should have never beaten Bama in the Rose Bowl.
I'm not sure who's watching soccer here, but I recall a time when it was considered the 'predictable' 'safe' thing to think that Spain will choke in big tournaments and never win one. It was true until it wasn't. They then won three in a row.
History really means jack in sports when it comes to predicting the future.
While it's tough to give up such a lead, it was always a long shot to win @SF. It was an excellent season for the Lions and they did better than most expected.
"This was our only chance in our lifetime" is the kind of talk that people would come up with who ahead of the season would have said "no way the Lions make the playoffs, it's just false hope". Why shouldn't the Lions make the NFC title game more often? Several other teams have done it.
Establishing the franchise as a good NFL team that knows what it's doing is way more important for the team than some miracle run to the Super Bowl would have been.
He hasn't been quite himself in a while. Being a long-time manager of a top Premiership team is exhausting and also turns you into a major global celebrity. It's life-altering and not just in a good way. It felt to me like he increasingly lost the ability to make light of it all. Probably a good time to take a step back from it.
I would like to think his next job is manager of the German national team in a year or two. A job with a ton of public pressure, but much less global attention and much lower day-to-day stress levels.