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I have been wondering about…

I have been wondering about this all month: since when is it Saban's preparation specifically that people worry about? Bama beat Georgia on December 4th, 2021 and lost on January 10th, 2022. Tua wasn't even the starter in 2018 when he was offensive MVP. I guess the best preparation happens years earlier when you're forcing underperforming players to medically retire.

He's had the best players and best teams a lot, he's won games and conference championships and national championships a lot. Makes sense. I keep hearing about his legendary preparation this month, for the first December I can remember, and it feels like people are just making up a reason to ignore the fact that this year's Bama has not looked like a vintage Saban Bama team until the SEC Championship Game.

Michigan's bowl game history seems like a more relevant point of reference. I'm hoping that previous results were due to teams that were actually punching above their weight, teams with insufficient motivation for consolation bowl games, and injuries. And, of course, exceptionally bad luck against TCU on a few pivotal plays.

This isn't quite as bad as…

This isn't quite as bad as people searching for bad tweets about a topic so they can publish articles with the cherry-picked worst of the worst, anonymous, possibly-not-even-serious things they can find. It's notable that Penn State pays someone to analyze football who still fails to acknowledge that Michigan dominated them and didn't need to put the ball or JJ's health at risk to finish tightening down on their neck and lay them in their grave in the second half. It's notable that some coaches think Michigan will always run when Bredeson is in the game.

If Michigan wins on New Year's Day, it will be fun to have these quotes (anonymously) on the record. It'd be hard to say the same about a hypothetical article with fully transparent sourcing where every coach said roughly "Michigan has a great team this year, that's why they're ranked #1, but everybody in the playoff has a shot at this."

I thought it was funny that,…

I thought it was funny that, after all that, Feldman totally missed the point and asked why Eisen didn't use an allusion that was similar but *made no sense for the situation*.

Boy, these coaches having sour grapes about Michigan really reminds me of Judge Smails saying, "Gambling is illegal at Bushwood!"

Nice of you to omit the…

Nice of you to omit the extenuating circumstances (your coach keeps going on TV and saying the police shouldn't be able to seize property from citizens with no due process)

Did not know what I expected…

Did not know what I expected to have been contributed to this thread at this hour, but this exceeded it.

This, this is the whole…

This, this is the whole thing. Always has been. And arguably it was never even meant to be secret, except in the way that Michigan hopefully has a secret Fake Double Pass drawn up for Donovan Edwards to use against OSU.

If Stalions thought there was a chance in hell anyone would ever call this the worst scandal in the history of the Big Ten if they found out, wouldn't he have at least taken one more step and created a fake account name and used some prepaid Visa cards on StubHub?

Someone on reddit or twitter…

Someone on reddit or twitter claimed that All-22 video actually cuts to the scoreboard between plays for this purpose, so that kinda checks out

Damn, I was sure that was…

Damn, I was sure that was coming back for Targeting. Hope somebody took that kid's helmet, he went down ugly.

Brilliant. Stalions should…

Brilliant. Stalions should just put up printable signal sheets for every team in the conference, behind a paywall.

Not just if video was posted…

Not just if video was posted online, but — correct me if I've missed something — would have been/was unquestionably 100% legal if Stalions was already doing it when he first worked with the program on a volunteer basis.

You know, hindsight is 20/20, but I can honestly see a path where it's plenty reasonable for Stalions to have believed he was operating in a valid loophole, which would explain his apparent brazenness.

There's a widely shared…

There's a widely shared assertion/concession that the whole Stalions operation was violating "the spirit of the rules," but when I think about it a little more... no, it doesn't?

The spirit of the rule was that schools didn't want to spend a huge amount of money doing in-person scouting of opponents. I don't think anyone can argue that Connor Stalions was outspending any college football program at any level.

In 1994, the smallest programs must have been working with much smaller budgets to begin with, and the cost of in-person scouting was presumably much higher — you'd have to pay one or more salaries for competent humans. For recording sidelines, specifically, you would have needed to lug some uncommon and expensive video equipment around, get approved to set it up somewhere, and pay someone to run it.

Today, every other fan at a game has a 4K camera with a 3X zoom in their pocket, and I pay Apple $2.99 a month to store unlimited videos of my kid singing "Let It Go" when she was a toddler. The big mind-blowing cost associated with the whole sign-stealing operation is $15K. I bet every CFB program in the country spends several times that much every year on laundry.

Doesn't that seem a lot more…

Doesn't that seem a lot more likely to be related to the Buckeye Scoop thing where an injured nth-string player sold practice videos to a blog? Don't remember exactly when I read about it, but it makes sense that it was between last season and this one, since this article from last October seems to be missing the source of the footage.

This reads exactly like…

This reads exactly like everything else: dude is obsessed with Michigan football, stole signals well enough to impress the coaches even without any resources, continued doing that and dug in a little bit more once he had a salary to finance it with.

When he was just an obsessed fan, it was well within the letter and spirit of the law for him to do everything he did, but it became murky when Michigan hired him. Moreover, it's not unreasonable for the coaches to think he was just using the all-22 video they would have given him access to.

The only reasons this is a story are that Michigan is polarizing and the unsophisticated plot this guy carried out really sounds like it's something from a Coen Brothers film.

Just saw a charter bus with…

Just saw a charter bus with the sign set to University of Michigan Baseball driving up Earhart north of Geddes, so, I'd imagine, soon.

That,

or, uh His Dudeness, or uh Duder, or El Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing.

I've seen this comment a few times

Are people really greeting delivery people in their boxers?

I absolutely acknowledge that walking out of your house to the street is a downgrade from the existing state of pizza delivery, and I can see how it would be a dealbreaker for some people, but, do you literally mean you don't put on pants to get your pizza?

Driver's Re-education

Aviation is regulated enough to make this effective, but driving is not.  It's good that 2016 driver's ed classes incorporated stuff we've learned from research and experience, but i'm sure there are still people on the road who learned to drive in the 50's and have never taken a refresher course.  (Unrelated to learning, but they have also probably lost a step in vision, reflexes, etc.)

And it's very unlikely driving privileges ever get regulated to the point where drivers are recertified regularly like I assume pilots are.  On the other hand, there should certainly be regulations on manufacturers of autonomous vehicles to prevent them from creating cars that will drive in unsafe ways.  In short, I believe self-driving vehicles are our only hope for significantly improving driving safety.

Where?

At the Ohio History Center, the architectural salvage place, or Crew Stadium?

(Of course I don't know how loud it was, but it just doesn't seem like there's anything residential anywhere near the place where the rides go at the State Fair.)

to be fair

I think that guy was lobbying for a (borderline) late hit OOB call, and the ref was smiling as he said something probably to the effect of, you're gonna need more than that to get a call today.

Don't let them bring you down

It really was not that bad.  I'm very surprised that this board, of all populations, doesn't appreciate the joke more.  

Obviously Randy Moss had a fantastic, record-setting pro career, in addition to his unbelievable Motor City Bowl season at Marshall.  But he didn't play for or against Michigan, his kid was not a prominent M recruiting target, and neither of them will have played for a team that Michigan is ever likely to face.  The joke about losing to Woodson is the only thing that makes this relevant here (and it's also a funny faux-arrogant way to describe a HoF player).

The fightin' Oaks!

My mom was on student council with him.  I've never really heard that many stories about it, so maybe his passing should be the impetus for kind of a StoryCorps event.

And the hills!

Not to mention, the hills in his neighborhood (and on almost any 6-mile route through Ann Arbor) would take a lesser athlete down.

You don't need to wonder

Since the last play featured an obvious and non-controversial personal foul with the obvious result that MSU's fumble recovery and TD were called back, I'm just living my life as though Michigan did, in fact, win.  If I were Brian and Ace, I would refer to MSU's record with a loss and/or an asterisk from now on for the rest of the season, and if I were any voter or observer of CFB, I would regard this game as a Michigan win and an MSU loss.  It may prove to be confusing, but I also intend to maintain, for instance, that MSU hasn't won at the Big House since 2010 — hopefully to the consternation of my Spartan friends and acquaintances.

Obviously this is an unusual step, but since there is absolutely no extrapolation or prediction necessary and the call was so cut-and-dried, this is my plan. 

Delta Flight 1719?

I'm flying to LA and Delta's flight schedule is perfectly inconvenient.

ESPN

It's on ESPN - was delayed for hours. They'll be running the "watch the baseball game on ESPN2 [or ESPNNews, whatever]" scroll straight through the match.

What if...

Something I keep coming back to is the way things would have played out differently if Michigan had been up by 1 (as though, for instance, Caris LeVert's close 3-pointer had actually been counted for 3).  Kentucky couldn't hold the ball for a guaranteed last (quality) shot if they were actually trailing rather than tied, and it seems pretty unlikely that they would have tried a 3 in that situation.  I'm having a real hard time getting over the screwjob elements of that game.

Boooo

MSU getting some 1-seed calls for the last full minute. Wonder what every ESPN analyst is doing with State's Sweet 16 game in their round-by-round picks, though.

*bump*

Just... yeah.

Count me in!

If... you happen to be one of us unfortunate souls in the greater Columbus area.  I'll be somewhere on the Olentangy Trail, as soon as I wake up and can drag myself out into the (relatively balmy!) 30-degree morning.

Guess that shoe dropped

 

I'm not sure if this changes anything about the discussion of the allegations, since the Daily piece points out that everything important about the University's investigation is different from a criminal one (participation of victim, burden of proof, etc.).  It reads like this case could literally have been reported by that axe-grinding professor, and the victim may not have participated in this investigation either, and the outcome is totally different because the rules are different.  

Not that I don't think Gibbons probably did what he's accused of, and not that I don't think his expulsion is just and overdue; I just can't see the difference between what we *know* now and what we *knew* then.  (I was disgusted and conflicted all season because I believed Gibbons was probably not innocent.  Hasn't changed, in either direction of certainness.) 

If we can talk about football as it relates to this nasty situation, I do find myself morbidly curious if this has anything to do with Gibbons's non-participation in the OSU game.  Obviously the Daily article is just laying out everything of note that has happened with Gibbons lately, but there's a tiny bit of implication in mentioning that.  The article mentions a document dated 11/20/13, so maybe the wheels had started turning already and Gibbons was sitting because of this?  Would be crazy considering the effect that the kicking game could have had on the outcome.

Beilein's goodwill

It's about damned time Beilein got to cash in some of this accumulated goodwill.  I'll never forget the 2012 game at Breslin when he got T'd up from 30 feet away for sticking his arms out and saying approximately 3 words.  Naturally, this was in the middle of a standard 6th-man-of-the-play-award-winning performance by Izzo on the other end of the floor; the Izzo Show eventually drew a T, but hadn't yet when Beilein got his and the game was still potentially in reach.

T is very briefly shown at the very start of UMHoops's Five Key Plays from that 2012 game.

Chris Christie at OSU game?

Is that Chris Christie (, Governor) right behind the Notre Dame bench?

Student section logistics question

I didn't want to create a whole post about this, but: can any students answer a question about logistics with the new rules?

A friend is trying to go to the game in a group of 3, but is obviously having trouble finding 3 tickets together.  He's thinking about getting 2 non-student tickets and 1 student ticket, and then borrowing a couple of the "section tickets" from neighbors in the student section so he can walk his friends in.  Will that work?  Are people generally friendly about that, or does the usher-student antipathy make everybody tight-fisted?

 

Also: love it, michiganman14.  Definitely agree that the next 3 are totally winnable, and — despite our pessimistic sports fan perceptions — you can't count out any Michigan team in The Game.  If the sane and logical reasons that make a win against OSU seem really unlikely were all there is to it, well, why would we even be fans?  Go Blue!

Welp

Not to mention

The weather was awful (constant drizzle) until around 11:30 here in Columbus. I felt bad dropping my father-in-law and sister-in-law off at the OSU shuttle location at 10am because I knew they'd have to be outside in this crap as soon as the bus got them to campus.

43-2, Michiagn

Michigan 43

UConn 2

Cackle transcript

I'm pretty convinced that I heard "hold on" instead of "hmmmm," before the "Whoosh."

71-2

Michigan 71

Akron 2

No — needs moar

I don't really mind making my browser work overtime, and I actually prefer not to click to individual entries unless I'm pretty bored and want to read comments. SO, I would prefer if there were twice as many stories per page on the front page, and if there were no "JUMP"... ever.

I may be an odd cookie in this regard.

Also, I wish the widgets in the sidebar worked. (Paging through recent MGoBoard posts, specifically.)

I assume that's true, although

I can't imagine a way to deliver a smothering-capable quantity of gasoline all at once, fast enough to prevent it from igniting (unless maybe just the bottom part of the gas can catch fire and the rest of it just keeps falling and smothers that bottom part?).  

Anyway, like putting out an oil well fire with an explosion, it seems inadvisable to attempt this trick in the defensive backfield.

Not bad for a "giant toilet bowl"

Are we all okay with Crew Stadium for a little while? (Seriously, that shit was not clever in any way.)

She was fine

Pretty sure I know what you're talking about, since I was horrified watching that collision from my seat in the south end zone.  I wasn't ready for the game to go on, although everybody else seemed to be.  It looked awful, but when the net was righted, she stood right up and I saw her wave someone off in a clear "I'm fine" gesture — must've just been tangled if she wasn't moving at first.  I was amazed but delighted to see it; maybe the net frame isn't as heavy as the Lacrosse goal it looks like.

Outliers

I don't specifically remember it, but I believe that's true; that was certainly an exceptional game.

I also believe, and have mgocommented about it at some point, that the "You Suck" chant was born (and should have been laid immediately to rest - perhaps with occasional revivals) at that game.  Rare is the confluence of [game that is so well in hand that we can chant You Suck] + [team we hate enough that we would chant You Suck in such a situation instead of feeling sorry for them or thinking, "hey, thanks for letting us keep this Jug" or something like that].  It's just mean to chant You Suck at Baby Seal U, and it's just dumb to chant it when a team's about to go for it on 4th and/or could still beat us.

So, er, what I mean to say is, there are exceptional games even in rivalries, and the appropriate reactions to them should be exceptions.  Not that I thought you disagreed with that in the first place.  (Did the students still chant "You Suck" on Saturday?  Sounded like they might be, but it was pretty faint from Section 13.)

38-0, Michigan

38-0, Michigan - tried and true.

If only there were a way...

Seems like that should already be a Drupal module just waiting to be popped in -- if only Brian and Co. weren't terrified to change anything because the recent server move seemed to expose a chewing gum/twig infrastructure.

Pretty much

It was John U. Bacon, in the chapter of 3&O where he follows Denard for a day (p. 360, for those of you following at home).

At 10:34, they finally walked out of Schembechler Hall for the last time that day.  Normally they would be coming out of the Academic Center, but somehow two middle-aged men carrying a stack of glossy photos figured out where they were and approached Robinson the moment he walked outside to sign their photos of him.  It was all for charity, of course, or their ten-year-old kids—they claimed both at various times—so Robinson autographed one each, then said, "That's it, man," and got into Gardner's pickup.

So I don't think the presence of 2 Lewan items, or even a dozen Braxton Miller items, really means all that much.

So now we know

META topics must wait when the Tigers are busy crushing the spirits of the Indians and their fans.  This also explains the permitted OT list, although I feel like it should include a Columbus-area soccer game in a little more than a month, as well.

Wish I could!

Everything about this sounds great (especially the charity and the City BBQ), and I would normally be running on the Olentangy Trail on a Saturday, anyway, but that particular Saturday I'll be up in Grand Haven, er, getting married.  

Sounds like an awesome event, hope it goes really well!  I'll pass this along to my Columbus frisbee friends, some of them seem like the triathlonning type.

Go Shockers!

This is why any team (WSU, 'Cuse, M) should hate the idea of playing L'ville. That guy in the corner of the floor is an emotional wild card.

Staffing, probably

[Full disclosure: my fiancée is an archivist]

To expand a tiny bit on the general "priorities" suggestion that a couple other posters have already proffered, I'll point out that libraries and archives are not at their highest staffing levels ever, in the current political and economic climate.  Some archivists have even been forced to move from Ann Arbor to Columbus just to find a job in their chosen field...

So, the availability of staff to work on projects like updating new/constantly changing sports records is probably pretty low, and evidently this sort of thing gets put off until somebody can process a couple years' worth of stuff all at once.  For more frequent updates, call your state representative and ask them to vote for more funding for libraries, museums, and archives — or even specifically for more positions at the Bentley!

[okay that was pretty obvious. sorry.]