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With respect to athletes, I…

With respect to athletes, I think this is pearl clutching.  A good deal of college athletes, especially football and basketball players are not being pushed to take advantage of college degrees in the same way as the average college student.  They're taking online classes, they're pushed to degrees that mesh well with being a high level college athlete, etc.  Yes, there is an administrative inefficiency in changing schools where some of your credits may no longer apply to the degree at a new school.  But, between summer school and a potential redshirt year, they often have the extra time.  

For those athletes that are there to "play school" they probably aren't all that interested in transferring and don't need "protection" from themselves and a decision to transfer. 

Adding restrictions is to protect the sanctity of the college athlete education is unnecessary and pretends that NCAA schools haven't been ignoring the educational aspect for years now.   

Isn't that a bit…

Isn't that a bit presumptuous?  It may not be the way you or I received a degree, but conceptually, so long as the student takes the required classes and gains from those classes the required knowledge to earn a degree, why should it matter how many schools the student attended?  

It certainly can take longer to meet the requirements, but that's a semi-normal occurrence as well.  

Lots of people don't have the privilege of attending college for four years at one school, whether from financial limitations or simply life getting in the way.  I think your argument that we should prevent transfers so that their education is not lessened disparages in some way the achievments of those people that persevere to obtain a college degree in non-traditional pathways.

I'll also begrudgingly come…

I'll also begrudgingly come to his defense a bit here.  It's hard to tell in a written article if his last comment explicitly about the money being more important than the players or teams was reflecting what he thought should be more important or if it was just a reflection on reality, one that he doesn't necessarily agree with.  

I 100% expect that Izzo's interests and thoughts on the tournament and who deserves to be in would not match those of most fans, but I would be hesitant to slam him too much over an article derived from about three, sentence-length quotes.  

The surprising record salary…

The surprising record salary cap increase probably made the dead money hit more palatable for the Broncos...

It's annoying when people…

It's annoying when people blame someone's wife for that person's "changes."  It's sexist and often wrong (yes, relationships do change people, but it goes both ways, but for some reason only gets called out when it's the wife/girlfriend being blamed).  In this case, Wilson was well on his way to being annoying long before Ciara.

Whether any hire is "good"…

Whether any hire is "good" is subjective and based on a lot of factors.  When Howard was hired, we were hiring after the coaching carousel had already completed, meaning options were limited.  We either had to go outside the carousel or lure someone away who had made the decision not to leave just a couple months earlier.  I don't recall exactly who was in the latter category, but that is always going to be a tough pull.  

Since we had to go outside the carousel, we were looking at likely an internal hire or someone from the NBA.  Howard was a respected NBA assistant who many had pegged as a future head coach.  He had an obvious love for Michigan, and with two high school age college prospects, he had some understanding of modern recruiting.  Were there risks?  Obviously. There are risks any time you hire someone, let alone someone without head coaching experience or college coaching experience.  I think anyone that was being honest at the time would say it was riskier than most college hires.  Nonetheless, it was still a very good hire under the circumstances.

I think the Champions League…

I think the Champions League is the apt comparison.  You have a massive tournament of members of disparate leagues competing to be crowned "champion" in a tournament that may or may not succeed at identifying the "best" team.  Champions League recognizes that the stronger the league, the more teams in that league would be capable of winning the tournament.  Thus the higher number of guaranteed entries.  The Big Ten/SEC are asking for the same approach.

You could probably note some differences that counter this narrative, namely that Champions League is based on the results of the previous season where teams potentially have changed drastically before the resultant tournament.  You could argue that when deciding entrants for a tournament happening during the same season, one can adequately judge the most deserving teams without having to give auto-bids.

You're not entirely wrong,…

You're not entirely wrong, but I do think you are underselling what winning means.  Michigan has had what, 5 down seasons in the last 55 years?  While the RichRod/Hoke years felt like an eternity, they started just two years removed from a top-5 rose bowl team, interrupted by a top-10 sugar bowl team, then followed immediately by the excitement of the Harbaugh era.  We, thankfully, never had to see what value there is in a Michigan football team that is no longer winning.  Nor have most of the blue-bloods.  

Michigan (and Ohio State, Penn State, and to a much lesser extent Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconson, etc.) brings in millions of millions of dollars for its athletic program and those of other big 10 schools.  Yes, the current set of players could not generate nearly that much money if they were wearing a MAC, FCS, XFL, etc. uniform.  However, collectively, it's been generations of players that have created that value and differentiate Michigan from Indiana, more so than anything intrinsic about Michigan.  Since going back and paying former players for the value they helped create is unrealistic, I think paying current players good money for the value they continue to enhance is the only reasonable path forward--even if it ultimately kills the sport.  

The old system could be fine…

The old system could be fine if not for one major caveat--everyone in the system was getting rich but for the players.  Your tradeoff of an education/exposure in exchange for benefits to the college makes sense until you realize that the benefit to the college, in addition to any intangible benefit such as recognition/marketing, is worth millions and millions of dollars.  And those dollars are making coaches rich and providing very good livings for people that are involved in sports programs that bring in almost no financial benefit to the school.  All one has to do is review the relative salaries of NFL GM/Head Coach with those of NFL players to understand that FBS football players are not getting the same relative value for their efforts.

I recognize that there are real problems in the new system that does threaten to greatly diminish, if not destroy, the college football system.  However, sticking one's head in the sand and just going back to the old system is not the answer.  The original sin was insisting on monetizing every single aspect of college football, and that was part of the old system.  It may never have been avoidable given how TV developed, but we should be clear eyed about the inherent problems, both in the old system and the current system.

 

As soon as you become a…

As soon as you become a professional in a given sport, your NCAA eligibility expires for that sport.  Admittedly, this line is certainly blurred in the time of NIL, but that is indeed why nominally there are still prohibitions against "pay for play" NIL.  It's also why occasionally you can have an athlete playing professionally in one sport while maintaining NCAA eligibility in another.

You would have to get really…

You would have to get really creative to make a transfer portal in February work.  The reason players are transferring during bowl season is to be available to compete in spring practices, which requires them being enrolled in school for the spring semester.  A February window does nothing.  Players wouldn't be able to participate in spring practice anywhere.

A later window would require something like each school guaranteeing kids that transferred from their school could still complete the semester online while participating in athletics at a different school.  Not impossible, but not the most workable situation.

It seems like they're going…

It seems like they're going to challenge the legitimacy of the GOR, not buy it out.  If they succeed, they will will succeed for everyone (Clemson, UNC, etc.).  If the GOR is the only thing holding the ACC together, it's removal will lead to it all falling apart very quickly.

Not reading the Athletic,…

Not reading the Athletic, but I've seen reporting elsewhere that the first step is essentially getting the grant of rights removed.  Once they do that, they must feel that the SEC/Big Ten won't wait for the other to make the first move and will immediately try and nab the ACC "properties" they want.  I think it's a pretty reasonable assumption, honestly.

I think some of this is the…

I think some of this is the consequences of going from pre-BCS bowl season to the BCS to the CFP (along with the proliferation of minor bowls).  If all season long all anyone can talk about is who is going to make the CFP (or BCS championship game), it's natural to feel a letdown and thus care less if you're in any other bowl. 

The other change that goes along with your theory is that there probably feels like a lot less pressure to prove yourself to NFL scouts in a big bowl game than there was 15-20 years ago.  By the time you get to bowl games these days, NFL draft-eligible players are known commodities.  Showing out in a single bowl game won't change much.   

Football, for certain…

Football, for certain schools, needs to exist outside of the NCAA and likely outside of the school itself to avoid the Title IX issues.  Football is a business, a big business.  It needs to be treated as such.  The top 30-40 teams need to be administered separately with control of the money coming in and the costs going out.  They can license all the IP they need from the school so that the "Michigan Wolverines Football Team" can still be associated with the school even though it is actually separate.  If it's important from a business perspective that the facade of football players being "student-athletes" they can work something out with the associated school to continue to give team members a college education.

A league of those 30-40 teams should be established to administer the sport from a competitive-balance perspective and run league wide financial systems such as negotiating tv agreements and playoffs.  A scheduling agreement could allow teams to play NCAA teams left behind.  The NCAA can then get back to its actual mission of administering inter-collegiate competition between actual student-athletes separate from the pressure of the insane money involved with college athletics.  

For what it's worth, I don't think this is good for anyone, but we're already down the path of destroying the sport and I view this as the only workable solution for the next step.

They didn't get confused…

They didn't get confused with Michigan's points.  They intentionally argued against what they wished Michigan was arguing.  Typical lawyer tactics when you have a shit hand.

I generally agree. Their…

I generally agree. Their floor is really low with all that experience back.  Not sure their ceiling is really top 5 though, unless Izzo is doing Izzo things and holding back their freshmen.

Not questioning the timing,…

Not questioning the timing, or putting faith in WSJ, but both reports can be true.  The Big Ten could have decided they will defer to the NCAA but at the same time pressed hard on Michigan to agree to a suspension to placate certain members.  To me, this may even be the most likely scenario.  The Big Ten may not be willing to act unilaterally, but know that Big Ten members want them to do so.  If Michigan goes along, Big Ten gets to take the easy path.  The Big Ten should be willing to push/lie/bluff/etc. to reach that result.  The Big Ten is only in a bind if Michigan refuses and fights.  

If you accept that both the…

If you accept that both the WSJ and the Michigan insiders are both accurate (big if, obviously), then this is likely the story.  Or said without the color--Big Ten knows their safest course of action from a legal perspective is to wait on the NCAA, but to keep members happy, would be best if something happened to Michigan/Harbaugh immediately.  Meeting with Michigan to achieve the latter, but if Michigan doesn't agree, fall back on the former.  In essence, the idea that the Big Ten could take action is a bluff.  

It's probably a three-person…

It's probably a three-person committee and the PSU folks split their duties.  Two people, one vote.  It wouldn't make sense to have such a committee with an even number unless all votes had to be unanimous.

Just like OSU fans shouldn't…

Just like OSU fans shouldn't jump on every stray rumor as gospel, we should probably temper our belief in anything from insider types.

Nothing moves copy in sports…

Nothing moves copy in sports media like a scandal, especially a cheating scandal.  This is absolutely driving the drip-by-drip nature of the reporting.

The WaPo article (like…

The WaPo article (like almost all reporting on this topic) is very vague and seems almost written purposefully to give an impression that is not explicitly stated.  What the WaPo actually stated is that files were stored where some coaches had access, but it does not say that they were accessed or belonged to any coaches.  It then said that the files included a budget.  This was written to imply that it was a "Michigan Budget," but it could just as well be Stallions personal budget/plan for scouting that he happened to store on a shared folder somewhere.  What the article explicitly did not say was that the budget was paid by the AD or even the program.

Either the vagueness was because that was all the "evidence" could show or it was to purposefully leave an impression not supported by the "evidence."  No real way of saying which is correct.  

The second one is very…

The second one is very questionable to me.  It's in the "Players and Playing Equipment" section of the rule book.  And the Article is titled "Prohibited Field Equipment." It's a real stretch to say the alleged conduct at an entirely different stadium on a different day violates that rule.  

Maybe they have him on in person scouting if you assume the ticket is compensation, but that's about it.  This really should be a "hey, knock that off" type of situation.

 

I'd guess there's an…

I'd guess there's an efficiency factor for the process that prevents changing things too often.  Seconds matter when getting a play in, so likely the play caller and the signaler have a strong familiarity, if not outright memorization, of the play sheet.  The more versions they use, the more preparation has to be given to simply getting the plays in.  

That said, there should be enough robustness in your coding system that any opponent work from previous games should at best give a minimal head start to the gameday sign stealing operations.  

Most plays they don't show…

Most plays they don't show the play-caller, but my guess is we would all be surprised just how many shots there are of the play caller, specifically on offense.  Before key-plays, there's often a shot of the head coach or play caller in which there's a decent chance you'll catch some of the signals going in. We're not generally looking for the signaler, so we may simply not notice how often they're visible.  It probably doesn't take that many shots of a signaler to at least get a head start in your gameday deciphering.

This is all really stupid.  Everyone uses some sort of code to send in their plays.  If your system isn't robust enough to change it up from half to half or at least game to game, that's on you.  

If it were 1500 random data…

If it were 1500 random data points, sure, but that's not what we're talking about.  The vast majority of schools do not meaningfully compete with each other and none of them frankly change much from year to year.  It's not a football team that may graduate a ton of production with a weak class or two following.  A student body and academic resources are going to be consistent from year to year.  There may be a small trend over the course of several years, but realistically a ranking shouldn't change by more than a spot or two in any given year.  There is no Coach Prime of college Presidents that is going to completely change a school in a single summer.

That's sort oh how they do…

That's sort oh how they do it though, make sure the Ivies and a handful of other well known elite schools are at the top and it gets buy-in from the general public who then won't think too deeply about the reality of the rankings.

No, they are not a very…

No, they are not a very effective measure.  They just modified their criteria and some schools moved 20 spots.  It's not possible for a school to actually be 20 spots different from year to year, so either they were bullshit last year, this year, or both.  

In general, ranking undergraduate institutions is a stupid endeavor.  Most schools, even so called "national universities," have different missions that don't necessarily make one better than another.  Some focus on research, others focus on giving as many state residents a great education as possible, others focus on trying to blend both, etc.  Any ranking system is going to try and apply objective measures to subjective subjects.  This will always be inadequate and based on the value system of the ranker rather than necessarily what the schools are trying to accomplish.  That's ok, and it's generally what people should do when deciding which school is best for them.  The problem is thinking that any one ranking system is objectively meaningful.

I personally think the quality of school should be based on the quality of the entering student body and how hard the students have to work.  I may decide to rank entirely on some combination of incoming students' gpa, test scores, and high school class rank as well as how many kids fail out because they couldn't hack it.  I'd feel pretty good about the ranking, but I wouldn't expect anyone else to consider it meaningful.

Not the OP, but it's pretty…

Not the OP, but it's pretty simple.  PV =nRT.  In terms of a football, V, n, and R are constant.  Thus, as Temperature changes, the Pressure changes.  The air pressure in a ball measured at room temperature (e.g., before they are brought out of the locker rooms) will be higher than the air pressure in the same ball when measured after the ball has been in cooler conditions for an extended period of time (e.g., outdoors in New England during a winter late afternoon/evening).  If the former pressure measurement is just above lower limits, the latter pressure measurement will be below.  Simple science.

The whole purpose of the…

The whole purpose of the statement is to be rambling bullshit where enough people will pick up on one detail and decide it's fishy.  Based on this thread it seems to have worked.  100% that was not drafted by Tucker and is almost entirely meaningless.

She's essentially a…

She's essentially a consultant and must forge individual relationships to keep working.  Wishing others a good holiday is absolutely a reasonable professional step.  

The flip side to the father's day card (if it even exists), who wishes someone a happy father's day in order to try and start an intimate relationship?  

This is a lawyer's letter…

This is a lawyer's letter through and through, there is exactly one note in there (the comment about how they would look with their clothes off) that connects to Tucker's version of the call, and conveniently there's no evidence of it happening.  Everything else preceding the call is either irrelevant or would be consistent with a professional relationship where two individuals get along well.  

This is exactly the type of legal tactics that make it so hard for victims of sexual assault/harassment to come forward.  All it takes is one reasonably well crafted lawyer's statement full of vague statements, an accusatory tone, and the twisting of innocent conduct to make the gullible and those inclined to think every woman was asking for it to have doubts and think there are "two sides."

This attitude is so absurdly…

This attitude is so absurdly whiny.  So there's one sport where the Big Ten has to compete as a mid-major.  That means the whole NCAA baseball system that suits much of the country just fine should be scrapped?  The Big Ten is better at Hockey and Wrestling, the south has baseball.  They're all relatively niche sports.  It's really ok for there to be one of these types of sports where it's a real surprise if Michigan succeeds, especially when it gives smaller schools in the same sport a chance to be a much more relevant national player. 

The article lays out the…

The article lays out the plan.  Essentially expansion throughout Asia...

I assume Tom Tupa is the…

I assume Tom Tupa is the latter, no idea on the former...

People are complex.  Some…

People are complex.  Some people really are totally great and some are total assholes, but most people succeed in some ways and fail in others.  Most of the time, the failures are not of the variety that cancel out all of the good.  And even when failures are of the variety that polite society will distance themselves from the offender, it still doesn't stop good conduct from happening now and then.

It's a reflection of internet culture that we too often think in binary terms of all good or all bad.

 

That's how I feel about…

That's how I feel about college basketball.  I'm not sure I've watched a game without a vested interest all season.  Part of it is family commitments, etc., but a good chunk is that the last 2-minutes of any competitive game takes forever.  Between reviews that stretch for ages and multiple timeouts teams always seem to still have, the last two minutes of game time can take 20-30 minutes or longer.  Just painful to watch.

I'm not there yet with football, but I will admit to cringing every time a game I want to watch is on Fox...

It's simple geometry.  The…

It's simple geometry.  The back official threw the flag and had responsibility for that receiver.  When JuJu cut parallel to the LOS, the DB's back hand doing the holding would have been plainly visible.  If the official on the LOS was the responsible official, he may not have been able to see it, because he would had Juju's body between him and the hold.  That's why it's sometimes inconsistent.

If they had a video from the…

If they had a video from the official's angle, it almost certainly would have met your criteria.  An official sees a receiver's jersey pulled from his body, especially as he's making his break, it is the epitome of defensive holding.  That's what happened here.

Not only was it not not…

Not only was it not not-holding, it was pretty egregiously holding.  The views Fox showed were terrible, but even on those you could see the jersey get pulled away from the body by a closed fist right as he makes his break.  The official responsible for the action would have had the perfect view to see the tug.  If you could magically put that exact play in 100 different game/time scenarios, it gets called 99 times.  This whole debate is stupid...

Calls for consistency are…

Calls for consistency are infuriating when there's no acknowledgement a major reason why there is apparent inconsistency.  In the NFL, the major reason is that you have 7 officials watching 22 players across a huge area of play.  Generally, only one or two people will have a view of any single action.  If their view doesn't give a clear view of all necessary information, they either have to guess or let things go.  This is especially true of defensive holding where one official is responsible for one eligible receiver.  If he sees the jersey grab, he calls it.  If the jersey grab is blocked by one of the two players, it probably isn't called, and it looks inconsistent.  This penalty would have been obvious to the responsible official and would have been called all game.

How is he financing this?…

How is he financing this? Isn't pretty much all his wealth tied up in his company?

McBurrows is clearly visible…

McBurrows is clearly visible at 16 seconds charging with Green to back MSU guys off.  What it looks like to me is that there was some jawing, there may have been a little physical pushing, then some clear pushing away by Green and an MSU player.  At that point, it should have ended and this would probably have never seen the light of day.  However, Green gets backed against the wall again and someone clearly takes a shot at him.  That's when Green and McBurrows both surge forward to defend themselves.  Being two on more than a dozen, that ends how you would expect in tight quarters.  

My wife called in a…

My wife called in a douchebag and a real tough guy after that pregame shot.  Her judgment was spot on.

A lot of people have made…

A lot of people have made assertions on what wouldn't happen in realignment based on tradition, yet they keep happening. If the choice for Michigan was being in the only tier one college sports conference or staying out based on principles/academics, I have no doubt Michigan would sign on the dotted line.

I don't think the scenario I laid out is particularly likely.  The current path with the Big Ten and SEC combining, officially or not, to form the tier-one division is certainly far more likely.  But if the two conferences start sniffing around each other's members, who knows what will happen.

I would think a bigger…

I would think a bigger concern than a one-off swipe of OSU would be the SEC going nuclear and forming the national conference.  Swiping OSU, Michigan, Penn State, USC and top picks from ACC/ND and splitting off from the NCAA.  Despite the lesser TV contract at the moment, the SEC probably has the better base off of which to build a national tier one conference.

Ignoring that this would be horrible for the sport in the long term, it would be catastrophic for the majority of Big Ten membership in the short term.  A hands-off approach to the SEC makes sense.

Reading this, I have to…

Reading this, I have to think the incident at MIS with that country music festival also contributed to the decision.  Didn't three or four teenagers die from essentially this?  As soon as they knew about the risk, their insurance was in jeopardy.  The school/city couldn't accept that liability risk.

You're describing NIL as…

You're describing NIL as what it is supposed to be, not what it is.  There are probably a handful of players nationwide with enough of a profile to warrant major promotional deals (your national player of the year candidates).  There are probably a couple athletes at each P5 school that warrant local promotional deals (car dealership, restaurant, stores, etc.). Everyone else should get no more than a few bucks here or there to promote something on social, show up at a club party, or work a camp.

If your school has more than 3-4 athletes earning $50k+ a year in NIL it is almost certainly pay to play and not really NIL.

The choice of participating…

The choice of participating is not what determines if it is a free market.  Government regulation is not the only inhibitor of a free market, monopolistic actions also limit the free market.  In this case both factors are at play.  Government regulation on the part of the NCAA saying schools can't pay players, which some would choose to do, and the NFL trust dictation that college age players are not eligible for any reasonable alternative to the college game (which the NFL does so that they don't have to fund their own development system).

While athletes technically have a choice to participate, they realistically have no other option if they want to play professional football.  This is such a flagrant violation of free market principles that it can only exist because courts/legislatures have explicitly stated that professional sports need some exemption to antitrust laws in order to operate.

Coach/administration/facilities spend is only as high as it is because college players may not be paid and those players do not have a viable alternative.  This is not a rational result of a free market.

And your last question has it backwards.  The obvious next step from my argument is less regulation. Eliminating the regulation forbidding paying college players and/or eliminating the draft eligibility requirements.  I'm not sure either result is "good" but it would reflect an actual free market.