You two are definitely correct about what the more consistent titles would be, but I don't think it's useful from an information perspective to assign the development/deploy outcomes of the defense to Rodriguez. What part of the development and deployment was he involved in? He's responsible for it yes. His defensive coordinator decisions got Michigan there yes. But he didn't do it himself. He did do the offense himself. If Michigan was more of a Mack Brown CEO type head coach, the rampant delegation would make me not even bother to mention his offenses or defenses as Mack Brown's. It would certainly explain their recent collapse despite Mack Brown still being there, being responsible, and having great recruiting.
I guess my point is you can be technical and make sure you blame the man at the top which is reasonable, but if you're looking for the guy who did the job (chosen to do it by rodriguez), you go for the highest guy who's actively involved and has the real power to make it work. For offense that's Rodriguez, for Defense it was GERG (Nothwithstanding Rodriguez insisting on 3-3-5's at inopportune times, or other bad veto's he might have made. He's not showing the DL how to take a step or calling blitzes here).
I hope I'm not echoing anyone else in this thread, as there seems to be many long responses not available to a quick skim haha but I would like to say that the OP's CMO's idea of basing your understanding of the market on your competition is probably the most offensively angering thing I've ever heard about marketing haha. It doesn't matter what your competitors are doing, it matters what the customer wants. Focusing on the competition instead of the customer for what you should do is the shortcut to A) guaranteeing you're always behind the curve, since you only understand something once they do it and they make the rules and B) ruins the marketplace because you teach customers what they want making it riskier to give them what they really want if by total accident you figured it out. I cannot believe any chief marketing officer would genuinely believe that maxim even in a mature or declining market. It might be okay as a rule of thumb for people just starting out but as a way to inform your marketing strategy even medium term it's like focusing on the "what" instead of the "why". And marketing so desperately needs an understanding of the why because of how indirect its methods and effects are.
Sort of beside the point with respect to Michigan, but I fear for said CMO and whoever made him CMO with those kinds of attitudes. Yikes.
If "getting it" is spending your time fretting over the trivia of the past and gargling past players' members, no wonder Michigan has been in trouble for so long. They do realize football is still played at michigan? Michigan hasn't "won" football once and for all yet, or maybe hoke doesn't "get that". Tradition and all that but damn.
This kinda stuff being accepted as obviously the way Michigan is and needs to be treated is kind of disappointing.
No more missed tackles is good though. Not that most coaches don't subscribe to the "tackling" school of stopping ballcarriers. But you know.
Those caveats about this are ridiculous. They have extra time to prepare... being small? The Wisconsin O destroyed them on thier first drive with enormous holes just like anyone would predict. Wisconsin's size mattered and in a big way. Except that it stopped mattering after that first drive and speed from massively smaller defensive linemen won our enormously. They were tons bigger and made enormous holes early on, and then they scored 11 points in the final 55 minutes. Speed can and does beat size on the defensive line. No caveats required. "can it be sustained" is pretty dumb too. They do it in the NFL for a 20 game season in indianapolis and whatnot. Why can't they do it with an 8 game conference slate?
TCU's defense was first in the nation, it demolished wisconsins 50-80 point scoring offense for the whole game after getting pushed around early, and there are no redeeming caveats to dissuage saying that speed can definitively beat size and experience on the offensive line, in any league and locale.
I was going to ask the same thing. Haven't we suffered enough? Well, besides that we don't have to run gassers and get our bodies caved in while also suffering the losses. But besides that.
One Year does not define a rivalry, no matter how much MSU would want it to.
And what does basketball have to do with football? If we're gonna look at more than one sport lets look at the big picture. Let's also look at how many people show up for basketball games. Okay. And how many show up for football games. Alright. Might as well include all the sports if we really want to make a comparison like that. Let's check the director's cup standings. Oh.
It's sane because it's a different year. We're not putting quarters in a vending machine here buddy. Lets keep things real and take it easy on the irrelevant non-sequiters.
I like how you equate offensive success to team success there. Didn't we put more points on wisconsin in a half than Michigan's put on them in a decade? Points or no points a young team will win when it has more points than the other team. Just a little football protip for you there.
he used the word "myopic" in there somewhere. That describes you and the childishness with which you evaluate michigan (a team, clearly not your team).
There's a lot of negativity in here over this. It's completely legitimate to see that kind of swing, considering how ridiculously counter-intuitive it is. How many people looked at the line and thought "Almost a touchdown win for Wisconsin? not a chance" and put money on michigan.
It might be based on statistics because Michigan seems to have "lost" via the spread many weeks in a row and they might think that they're "due", especially given wisconsin's history in ann arbor and because the spread allows a field goal win for wisconsin to still be a winning bet on michigan.
Basically a lot of factors that don't pay attention to the intricacies of these exact iterations of the team.
It's somewhat myopic to suggest that a single arbitrary game's outcome is the definition of that team's ability across a month, let alone a season or between years. Boise State had to squeak by a Virginia Tech team who spotted them 21 points in the first quarter, and that is THIS season. Oh and that same team lost to James Madison. (Side note, purdue SHOULD have beaten oregon last year and lost by 2. Is Boise State = Purdue from last year valid? then again that purdue team dominated OSU so you can see whatever you want)
If we're going to pick arbitrary games. Boise State this season is as good as Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is somewhere between a good team and an FCS team. We've built up a lot of evidence that teams like that have no shot against Oregon. No problem.
Anything can happen but when both teams have a one-game season instead of just Boise State, considering Oregon has probably beaten more actual teams this year than Boise has in the past 3 years, it's well within reason to think Oregon is going to bury them just like they have everyone else (and if they'd just scored the TD at the end of the Cal Game instead of kneeling it out there'd be less outrage, but the box score makes it look like an escape)
It's tough to consider yourself little brother when Michigan has been so historically dominant, including recent huge stretches like OSU has right now. I'm pretty sure It's fair game to wish ill on your rivals even when you're not playing them, and the fact is there IS an upside to losing even if it's not as big of an upside as winning. That's sort of what an upside is. If you want to ignore reality and think OSU winning the big ten every year has no bearing on Michigan that's your choice, but there's no need to get on peoples' case for not following your lead.
Wisconsin is damned if we do, OSU is damned if we don't. That's good news all around that's what that is. And if you think talking about it in this manner somehow jinxes the team, that's pretty silly. Those boyos work out and practice for decades and you think message board phantasms are gonna determine the outcome? Focusing on that stuff is... lame.
Denard didn't lose a step but it might be the knee brace or something. He banged that knee, got the brace, and then was a little off against Michigan State. If toussaint gets caught from behind by linebackers because of his knee brace, denard might not be invulnerable to its unbalancing effects. Maybe he doesn't wear it anymore but it's a thought since he's been banged up so much.
Maybe people are more likely to want to watch Denard Robinson light things up in a bowl game than the walkon and the wounded of Penn State? I don't think it's unreasonable for Michigan to get a good bump because of the potential offensive fireworks and it being the first in 3 years. People were making a big deal about Notre Dame slithering into BCS bowls at 9-3 because even though they were terrible it's about the money and in this economy they can't afford to take chances with ticket sales and TV eyeballs.
Why don't you go be a fan of those teams then? Perspective usually extends longer than 1 year, also longer than 5 years.
The more you think of this as Michigan versus every other team in college football combined, the more you'll be disappointed because newsflash Michigan wins the national championships sometimes, the rest of college football wins the national championships the rest of the times. Have some perspective on that.
The initial linebackers and defensive coordinator hires were somewhat disastrous for on the field and recruiting and such. If Casteel comes everyone is on the same page from day 1 and things are at least marginally better on defense every year since RR shows up.
Casteel is from there isn't he? He probably wanted someone to stay behind to afford some kind of continuity for the program instead of losing literally the entire coaching staff except their cranially challenged special teams coach/new head coach.
But then if wannstache just hadn't beaten WVU in the last game of that season... oh how the dominos fall.
I think the main issue with that is a question of competence or relative competence. Pryor improving relative to himself in the past isn't relevant. Being dominant for stretches "if you really look at it" doesn't help either. If you're the best player and you're at defensive tackle maybe it doesn't show. If you're even a great player at QB it will show. If you're even a good player at QB for ohio state and just let it happen you might win a national championship. There really isn't anything distinctive about him. He's not the best at anything and he's not the best on average. He's played 25 and in his only marquee game the impressive thing that happened on the team was the defense was able to stop oregon.
Also it's worth debating Pryor's merits since his high school hype is having a strange effect several years later, possibly bumping more deserving candidates out of the limelight and away from awards. People whine about the BCS, the guy hasn't done anything spectacular since high school and he was the frontrunner for heisman. Scary stuff.
Seconded. As far as I could tell it was the 4th quarter before a dropped or errant pass, and lots of floaters and diving grabs that were all made handily. MSU has more running potential than Indiana but as far as passing goes it'll be really hard for them to duplicate.
So Michigan's defense has trouble with senior teams who execute really well? Tough to be mad about that. Football is still football.
I honestly don't see why anyone would want to draft Pryor anyway. To do what? He wins at OSU but then he isn't really a standout at anything. He's an athlete but the NFL is full of athletes and the NCAA has much much better actual QBs on offer than Pryor. He couldn't even get drafted as a wildcat Pat-white style experiment, especially after what happened with pat white discouraging it.
What does Pryor offer a team that would make it worth drafting him in the top 3 rounds? Not as a QB, not as an RB, not as a WR. Where would you play him?
They get a worse and worse rap as their successful coaches get poached. I mean brian kelly was like a yearly "Why has nobody hired this guy yet?" when he hadn't even been there that long and Edsel is still like that. Rodriguez, petrino, kelly, the best teams in the league have their coaches poached and then where are you at. And when schools are trying to replace Rodriguez with Bill Stewart you're digging your own grave.
I mean pittsburg should feel bad because their coach has been bad enough he hasn't been poached, and he'd have been canned anyway if noel devine had just taken that damn kickoff back all the way instead of to the 30 but I think I'm getting ahead of myself here talking about WVU's last game of the 2007 season. Point is if every coach who is any good gets hired away, you're going to have a low ceiling and they're proving it this year.
Bad as in undeserved? He shouldn't have dove but the only thing he hit was the ground. Focus on the well deserved win, Cullen will get it together soon enough.
It's tough to imagine. What would even be the point? As if there isn't enough mis-information floating around out there. If they could be led to believe that kind of stuff is representative of how things get done here that would do everyone involved a disservice.
It's tempting to UFR stuff ourselves since we love it so much, but we should probably wait for the real thing so we don't get led astray by what is still a partially subjective rating system. The best part of Brian doing it is that it'll be largely consistent and comparable. No need for community members to duplicate the effort and let our divergent biases fragment one of Brian's trademarks. We'll just have to be patient before we get anything conclusive, which does require the whole game and season to be looked at in general so one quarter isn't really conclusive as he suggests.
I guess it's too much to ask to actually read it instead of oversimplifying to deliver snark. The point is not that they have "good" role players, its that the players he has fit exactly the profile of the kinds he needs. Mallett is a good QB, he wouldn't fit. Boren is a good OL, he wouldn't fit. Just putting it out there so people who actually pay attention to the details (Since when do offenses need two good RBs instead of one?) could get something from it.
Do they want to build depth for all teams by dissipating the national focus on The Game as a definitive part of the Big Ten's tradition? So the other teams can take bigger steps to tangibly get away from the Big 2 and Little 8 mentality that keeps them down now that there are more teams and a new structure?
Not sure how non-participating teams think things will change by the vaccuum left by removing this tradition's importance. Maybe they think they'll get more cred, and the vote goes 10-2 in favour of the non-participating teams who won't get lost in the hype over UM and OSU every year? I guess it's one less major competitive tradition advantage for the two schools when competing with the other big ten schools for attention and recruiting etc etc.
Maybe they want depth to be able to build the whole conference into a juggernaught to try to permanently stamp out southern arrogance once the cycle comes back around? That would take a lot of assumptions on their part though. Assuming they can build up the bottom by hammering down the top.
Not at this. And it's not like they can just change it back unless they use more big ten additions as a chance to shake up the divisions and re-introduce The Game as The Game Classic, Coca Cola Style. Would it even bounce back? Hinton makes the best case that it wouldn't benefit anyone, ever, and the only reason to put it up is to make it so some years The Game has really high stakes and the other years it has practically none. It'd just be nice if it didn't seem like it had already been pretty much decided, the way they're slowly giving hints at the alignment, and it'd be nice if they'd notice the seeming uniformity of every outlet there is, no matter how stupid, that this is going to be a disaster. No such thing as bad PR? As if The Game needs it to begin with. They don't have to take off the business suit for this decision, the return (clearly, historically marginal to negative) is not worth the risk (sizeable, permanent) to the conference or any of the individual teams. Delaney has had a slam dunk or two, but this does not make sporting sense or business sense. Maybe they give him the benefit of the doubt? They shouldn't.
I have an astigmatism and had similar problems, and amusingly had problems tracking the ball in the air without contacts, but the problem persisted somewhat even with glasses because things were easily to see but still 2D-ish. If I recall correctly Stonum had the physical skills but was woeful with tracking the ball in the air. If it's anything like I experienced he'll be deadly now, I know what kind of enormous difference it made for me. Difficult to completely describe but definitely a fantastic difference for sports, and hopefully it'll serve him this year and next and he can be the next great.
While I don't think Michigan's defenders will necessarily be as wily as that team's, the comparison seems pretty apt. The question with those teams was always when the wins and offensive success would let them recruit enough defense for a championship. They had that in 2007 but even so, that video even shows off the ridiculous lapses in the secondary to go with what we'd hope would be second half hang-ons this year instead of collapses. When RR gets to a bowl this year hopefully his late-WVU bowl form shows up. Nothing like 3 straight underdog victories to keep your hopes up for the possibilities.
Yeah I watched a lot of WVU before RR came to Michigan and I always attributed their issues with USF to them having NFL-caliber CBs. It's probably easier to cope with a spread attack when your DB's can win 1 on 1 with the guys they're spreading you out with. That sort of talent is thankfully absent on the schedule, but against a team I don't recall (relatively small, talent deficient one), they actually put 10 in the box and it worked for more than a quarter against WVU but then pat white threw some bombs and they still won by 20 or something. They sincerely dared them to throw, and WVU did and still won but pat white was still a viable QB in college so hopefully denard can be too. we know tate is.
I'm not sure its such a big deal that he kept the hard-to-qualify ones. He was recruiting others and none of the draft classes have been completely full. If more Cornerbacks had been available, more qualified ones like knight or whoever, he would have taken them. It seems more that he recruited a bunch and for whatever reason some iffy ones came, and some iffy ones toasted the iffy side. He wasn't exclusive on ones who were rough around the edges though, so it's probably more a creature of circumstance, like dislocated ankles.
This is pretty silly. "It isn't 100% causal so we shouldn't jump to conclusions". You realize that getting shot in the face point blank doesn't always kill you, falling out of a plane from 30,000 feet doesn't always kill you, and if you wanted to get christian on it dieing doesn't even always kill you. Everything to do with people is a monstrously dynamic environment. Waiting for 100%s would be preposterous. Pointing out that we don't have them yet is also preposterous.
Recent Comments
You two are definitely correct about what the more consistent titles would be, but I don't think it's useful from an information perspective to assign the development/deploy outcomes of the defense to Rodriguez. What part of the development and deployment was he involved in? He's responsible for it yes. His defensive coordinator decisions got Michigan there yes. But he didn't do it himself. He did do the offense himself. If Michigan was more of a Mack Brown CEO type head coach, the rampant delegation would make me not even bother to mention his offenses or defenses as Mack Brown's. It would certainly explain their recent collapse despite Mack Brown still being there, being responsible, and having great recruiting.
I guess my point is you can be technical and make sure you blame the man at the top which is reasonable, but if you're looking for the guy who did the job (chosen to do it by rodriguez), you go for the highest guy who's actively involved and has the real power to make it work. For offense that's Rodriguez, for Defense it was GERG (Nothwithstanding Rodriguez insisting on 3-3-5's at inopportune times, or other bad veto's he might have made. He's not showing the DL how to take a step or calling blitzes here).
I hope I'm not echoing anyone else in this thread, as there seems to be many long responses not available to a quick skim haha but I would like to say that the OP's CMO's idea of basing your understanding of the market on your competition is probably the most offensively angering thing I've ever heard about marketing haha. It doesn't matter what your competitors are doing, it matters what the customer wants. Focusing on the competition instead of the customer for what you should do is the shortcut to A) guaranteeing you're always behind the curve, since you only understand something once they do it and they make the rules and B) ruins the marketplace because you teach customers what they want making it riskier to give them what they really want if by total accident you figured it out. I cannot believe any chief marketing officer would genuinely believe that maxim even in a mature or declining market. It might be okay as a rule of thumb for people just starting out but as a way to inform your marketing strategy even medium term it's like focusing on the "what" instead of the "why". And marketing so desperately needs an understanding of the why because of how indirect its methods and effects are.
Sort of beside the point with respect to Michigan, but I fear for said CMO and whoever made him CMO with those kinds of attitudes. Yikes.
Definitely Starcraft, not Warcraft 2 or 3.
If "getting it" is spending your time fretting over the trivia of the past and gargling past players' members, no wonder Michigan has been in trouble for so long. They do realize football is still played at michigan? Michigan hasn't "won" football once and for all yet, or maybe hoke doesn't "get that". Tradition and all that but damn.
This kinda stuff being accepted as obviously the way Michigan is and needs to be treated is kind of disappointing.
No more missed tackles is good though. Not that most coaches don't subscribe to the "tackling" school of stopping ballcarriers. But you know.
Those caveats about this are ridiculous. They have extra time to prepare... being small? The Wisconsin O destroyed them on thier first drive with enormous holes just like anyone would predict. Wisconsin's size mattered and in a big way. Except that it stopped mattering after that first drive and speed from massively smaller defensive linemen won our enormously. They were tons bigger and made enormous holes early on, and then they scored 11 points in the final 55 minutes. Speed can and does beat size on the defensive line. No caveats required. "can it be sustained" is pretty dumb too. They do it in the NFL for a 20 game season in indianapolis and whatnot. Why can't they do it with an 8 game conference slate?
TCU's defense was first in the nation, it demolished wisconsins 50-80 point scoring offense for the whole game after getting pushed around early, and there are no redeeming caveats to dissuage saying that speed can definitively beat size and experience on the offensive line, in any league and locale.
I was going to ask the same thing. Haven't we suffered enough? Well, besides that we don't have to run gassers and get our bodies caved in while also suffering the losses. But besides that.
One Year does not define a rivalry, no matter how much MSU would want it to.
And what does basketball have to do with football? If we're gonna look at more than one sport lets look at the big picture. Let's also look at how many people show up for basketball games. Okay. And how many show up for football games. Alright. Might as well include all the sports if we really want to make a comparison like that. Let's check the director's cup standings. Oh.
It's sane because it's a different year. We're not putting quarters in a vending machine here buddy. Lets keep things real and take it easy on the irrelevant non-sequiters.
I like how you equate offensive success to team success there. Didn't we put more points on wisconsin in a half than Michigan's put on them in a decade? Points or no points a young team will win when it has more points than the other team. Just a little football protip for you there.
Fantastic
he used the word "myopic" in there somewhere. That describes you and the childishness with which you evaluate michigan (a team, clearly not your team).
There's a lot of negativity in here over this. It's completely legitimate to see that kind of swing, considering how ridiculously counter-intuitive it is. How many people looked at the line and thought "Almost a touchdown win for Wisconsin? not a chance" and put money on michigan.
It might be based on statistics because Michigan seems to have "lost" via the spread many weeks in a row and they might think that they're "due", especially given wisconsin's history in ann arbor and because the spread allows a field goal win for wisconsin to still be a winning bet on michigan.
Basically a lot of factors that don't pay attention to the intricacies of these exact iterations of the team.
It's somewhat myopic to suggest that a single arbitrary game's outcome is the definition of that team's ability across a month, let alone a season or between years. Boise State had to squeak by a Virginia Tech team who spotted them 21 points in the first quarter, and that is THIS season. Oh and that same team lost to James Madison. (Side note, purdue SHOULD have beaten oregon last year and lost by 2. Is Boise State = Purdue from last year valid? then again that purdue team dominated OSU so you can see whatever you want)
If we're going to pick arbitrary games. Boise State this season is as good as Virginia Tech. Virginia Tech is somewhere between a good team and an FCS team. We've built up a lot of evidence that teams like that have no shot against Oregon. No problem.
Anything can happen but when both teams have a one-game season instead of just Boise State, considering Oregon has probably beaten more actual teams this year than Boise has in the past 3 years, it's well within reason to think Oregon is going to bury them just like they have everyone else (and if they'd just scored the TD at the end of the Cal Game instead of kneeling it out there'd be less outrage, but the box score makes it look like an escape)
It's tough to consider yourself little brother when Michigan has been so historically dominant, including recent huge stretches like OSU has right now. I'm pretty sure It's fair game to wish ill on your rivals even when you're not playing them, and the fact is there IS an upside to losing even if it's not as big of an upside as winning. That's sort of what an upside is. If you want to ignore reality and think OSU winning the big ten every year has no bearing on Michigan that's your choice, but there's no need to get on peoples' case for not following your lead.
Wisconsin is damned if we do, OSU is damned if we don't. That's good news all around that's what that is. And if you think talking about it in this manner somehow jinxes the team, that's pretty silly. Those boyos work out and practice for decades and you think message board phantasms are gonna determine the outcome? Focusing on that stuff is... lame.
Denard didn't lose a step but it might be the knee brace or something. He banged that knee, got the brace, and then was a little off against Michigan State. If toussaint gets caught from behind by linebackers because of his knee brace, denard might not be invulnerable to its unbalancing effects. Maybe he doesn't wear it anymore but it's a thought since he's been banged up so much.
Maybe people are more likely to want to watch Denard Robinson light things up in a bowl game than the walkon and the wounded of Penn State? I don't think it's unreasonable for Michigan to get a good bump because of the potential offensive fireworks and it being the first in 3 years. People were making a big deal about Notre Dame slithering into BCS bowls at 9-3 because even though they were terrible it's about the money and in this economy they can't afford to take chances with ticket sales and TV eyeballs.
I'm pretty sure he gave up at least 6 figures to play or keep playing football for RR and then try the NFL.
Pryor really has nothing to offer the NFL besides his name, which is all he's had to show off since high school. He should have gone to Oregon.
Why don't you go be a fan of those teams then? Perspective usually extends longer than 1 year, also longer than 5 years.
The more you think of this as Michigan versus every other team in college football combined, the more you'll be disappointed because newsflash Michigan wins the national championships sometimes, the rest of college football wins the national championships the rest of the times. Have some perspective on that.
The initial linebackers and defensive coordinator hires were somewhat disastrous for on the field and recruiting and such. If Casteel comes everyone is on the same page from day 1 and things are at least marginally better on defense every year since RR shows up.
Casteel is from there isn't he? He probably wanted someone to stay behind to afford some kind of continuity for the program instead of losing literally the entire coaching staff except their cranially challenged special teams coach/new head coach.
But then if wannstache just hadn't beaten WVU in the last game of that season... oh how the dominos fall.
21-17 Mich
35-31 Michigan
I think the main issue with that is a question of competence or relative competence. Pryor improving relative to himself in the past isn't relevant. Being dominant for stretches "if you really look at it" doesn't help either. If you're the best player and you're at defensive tackle maybe it doesn't show. If you're even a great player at QB it will show. If you're even a good player at QB for ohio state and just let it happen you might win a national championship. There really isn't anything distinctive about him. He's not the best at anything and he's not the best on average. He's played 25 and in his only marquee game the impressive thing that happened on the team was the defense was able to stop oregon.
Also it's worth debating Pryor's merits since his high school hype is having a strange effect several years later, possibly bumping more deserving candidates out of the limelight and away from awards. People whine about the BCS, the guy hasn't done anything spectacular since high school and he was the frontrunner for heisman. Scary stuff.
Score 30+ and hold on. They should put that on a board in the locker room. Very apt at the moment.
Seconded. As far as I could tell it was the 4th quarter before a dropped or errant pass, and lots of floaters and diving grabs that were all made handily. MSU has more running potential than Indiana but as far as passing goes it'll be really hard for them to duplicate.
So Michigan's defense has trouble with senior teams who execute really well? Tough to be mad about that. Football is still football.
45 completions for 480 yards and... 35 points? Clearly there's more going on here. How many quarterbacks get 45 attempts let alone completions.
I honestly don't see why anyone would want to draft Pryor anyway. To do what? He wins at OSU but then he isn't really a standout at anything. He's an athlete but the NFL is full of athletes and the NCAA has much much better actual QBs on offer than Pryor. He couldn't even get drafted as a wildcat Pat-white style experiment, especially after what happened with pat white discouraging it.
What does Pryor offer a team that would make it worth drafting him in the top 3 rounds? Not as a QB, not as an RB, not as a WR. Where would you play him?
What let us down in the Ohio State game? Oh right.
having free time = bad thing? Live a little boyo. It's good for you. And for us when this is the result.
I was thinking of being articulate in pointing out how you're factually incorrect, but this is almost troll levels of stupid so this is all you get.
Recruiting an entirely new defensive two-deep takes more than one year? who knew.
They get a worse and worse rap as their successful coaches get poached. I mean brian kelly was like a yearly "Why has nobody hired this guy yet?" when he hadn't even been there that long and Edsel is still like that. Rodriguez, petrino, kelly, the best teams in the league have their coaches poached and then where are you at. And when schools are trying to replace Rodriguez with Bill Stewart you're digging your own grave.
I mean pittsburg should feel bad because their coach has been bad enough he hasn't been poached, and he'd have been canned anyway if noel devine had just taken that damn kickoff back all the way instead of to the 30 but I think I'm getting ahead of myself here talking about WVU's last game of the 2007 season. Point is if every coach who is any good gets hired away, you're going to have a low ceiling and they're proving it this year.
Robert Griffin is really fast. Not an ignorant thing for them to say.
Covering the face? unacceptable.
Bad as in undeserved? He shouldn't have dove but the only thing he hit was the ground. Focus on the well deserved win, Cullen will get it together soon enough.
It's tough to imagine. What would even be the point? As if there isn't enough mis-information floating around out there. If they could be led to believe that kind of stuff is representative of how things get done here that would do everyone involved a disservice.
This kind of thing is definitely a very valuable addition. It's so good I bet Notre Dame fans would want to read it as a breakdown of their team.
Definitely do it in later weeks whenever its possible and you are so inclined. Great stuff.
It's tempting to UFR stuff ourselves since we love it so much, but we should probably wait for the real thing so we don't get led astray by what is still a partially subjective rating system. The best part of Brian doing it is that it'll be largely consistent and comparable. No need for community members to duplicate the effort and let our divergent biases fragment one of Brian's trademarks. We'll just have to be patient before we get anything conclusive, which does require the whole game and season to be looked at in general so one quarter isn't really conclusive as he suggests.
You see what you want to see... and miss a good win in the process. Be happy for Michigan first.
Let's Go Blue
I guess it's too much to ask to actually read it instead of oversimplifying to deliver snark. The point is not that they have "good" role players, its that the players he has fit exactly the profile of the kinds he needs. Mallett is a good QB, he wouldn't fit. Boren is a good OL, he wouldn't fit. Just putting it out there so people who actually pay attention to the details (Since when do offenses need two good RBs instead of one?) could get something from it.
Oh those 2 star Alabaman QB/Ath with offers from LSU and Alabama. When will they learn.
Do they want to build depth for all teams by dissipating the national focus on The Game as a definitive part of the Big Ten's tradition? So the other teams can take bigger steps to tangibly get away from the Big 2 and Little 8 mentality that keeps them down now that there are more teams and a new structure?
Not sure how non-participating teams think things will change by the vaccuum left by removing this tradition's importance. Maybe they think they'll get more cred, and the vote goes 10-2 in favour of the non-participating teams who won't get lost in the hype over UM and OSU every year? I guess it's one less major competitive tradition advantage for the two schools when competing with the other big ten schools for attention and recruiting etc etc.
Maybe they want depth to be able to build the whole conference into a juggernaught to try to permanently stamp out southern arrogance once the cycle comes back around? That would take a lot of assumptions on their part though. Assuming they can build up the bottom by hammering down the top.
Not at this. And it's not like they can just change it back unless they use more big ten additions as a chance to shake up the divisions and re-introduce The Game as The Game Classic, Coca Cola Style. Would it even bounce back? Hinton makes the best case that it wouldn't benefit anyone, ever, and the only reason to put it up is to make it so some years The Game has really high stakes and the other years it has practically none. It'd just be nice if it didn't seem like it had already been pretty much decided, the way they're slowly giving hints at the alignment, and it'd be nice if they'd notice the seeming uniformity of every outlet there is, no matter how stupid, that this is going to be a disaster. No such thing as bad PR? As if The Game needs it to begin with. They don't have to take off the business suit for this decision, the return (clearly, historically marginal to negative) is not worth the risk (sizeable, permanent) to the conference or any of the individual teams. Delaney has had a slam dunk or two, but this does not make sporting sense or business sense. Maybe they give him the benefit of the doubt? They shouldn't.
I have an astigmatism and had similar problems, and amusingly had problems tracking the ball in the air without contacts, but the problem persisted somewhat even with glasses because things were easily to see but still 2D-ish. If I recall correctly Stonum had the physical skills but was woeful with tracking the ball in the air. If it's anything like I experienced he'll be deadly now, I know what kind of enormous difference it made for me. Difficult to completely describe but definitely a fantastic difference for sports, and hopefully it'll serve him this year and next and he can be the next great.
While I don't think Michigan's defenders will necessarily be as wily as that team's, the comparison seems pretty apt. The question with those teams was always when the wins and offensive success would let them recruit enough defense for a championship. They had that in 2007 but even so, that video even shows off the ridiculous lapses in the secondary to go with what we'd hope would be second half hang-ons this year instead of collapses. When RR gets to a bowl this year hopefully his late-WVU bowl form shows up. Nothing like 3 straight underdog victories to keep your hopes up for the possibilities.
Good video find.
Yeah I watched a lot of WVU before RR came to Michigan and I always attributed their issues with USF to them having NFL-caliber CBs. It's probably easier to cope with a spread attack when your DB's can win 1 on 1 with the guys they're spreading you out with. That sort of talent is thankfully absent on the schedule, but against a team I don't recall (relatively small, talent deficient one), they actually put 10 in the box and it worked for more than a quarter against WVU but then pat white threw some bombs and they still won by 20 or something. They sincerely dared them to throw, and WVU did and still won but pat white was still a viable QB in college so hopefully denard can be too. we know tate is.
I'm not sure its such a big deal that he kept the hard-to-qualify ones. He was recruiting others and none of the draft classes have been completely full. If more Cornerbacks had been available, more qualified ones like knight or whoever, he would have taken them. It seems more that he recruited a bunch and for whatever reason some iffy ones came, and some iffy ones toasted the iffy side. He wasn't exclusive on ones who were rough around the edges though, so it's probably more a creature of circumstance, like dislocated ankles.
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Moving on
This is pretty silly. "It isn't 100% causal so we shouldn't jump to conclusions". You realize that getting shot in the face point blank doesn't always kill you, falling out of a plane from 30,000 feet doesn't always kill you, and if you wanted to get christian on it dieing doesn't even always kill you. Everything to do with people is a monstrously dynamic environment. Waiting for 100%s would be preposterous. Pointing out that we don't have them yet is also preposterous.