Space Coyote featured in the Athletic
In an article titled "How to watch Michigan football like the aerospace engineer who knows X’s and O’s," Austin Meek talks film study with Space Coyote, who has been busy with the Artemis mission:
When he’s not breaking down the technique of a pulling guard, the man who runs the account is working with scientists and engineers from around the world on projects involving sensitive aerospace technology. He didn’t want to divulge too many details, but let’s just say Michigan-Colorado State wasn’t the only big event on his schedule this week. When we spoke last Friday, he was in the final stages of a project that consumed most of his summer, which was great for the advancement of humankind but not conducive to a lot of film study.
“Over the summer, I didn’t do nearly as much as I wanted to,” said Logan, who asked that his last name be withheld due to the sensitive nature of his work. “This is the mad scramble to get everything finished.”
Comrade Space Coyote believes that the departure of Josh Gattis will have a significant impact on Michigan's offensive approach:
It’s true that Michigan had success last year by returning to some of Harbaugh’s core principles, but that may understate the influence of former offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, whose fingerprints were on everything the Wolverines did last season.
“Harbaugh has always been a very collaborative offensive coach,” Logan said. “At Stanford, he was 22 personnel — two tight ends and a fullback on the field all the time. But each year, when he would have a different offensive coordinator, his offense would change and it would mesh with the things that he did classically and what the new offensive coordinator did.”
Michigan’s offense is likely to evolve again with two new play callers in Matt Weiss and Sherrone Moore. For the casual fan wanting to watch a little smarter this season, pay attention to how Weiss and Moore scheme up mismatches on offense, Logan said. Michigan did that effectively with specific players last season: Erick All against Penn State, Andrel Anthony against Michigan State, Donovan Edwards against Maryland. With even more options this year, the Wolverines will be able to shape the game plan week-to-week to highlight players who can attack a weakness in the defense.
Full article here.
August 31st, 2022 at 9:28 AM ^
If you get the chance to steal her food from The Athletic break room fridge that's ok.
August 31st, 2022 at 9:34 AM ^
....but are you sure it would be edible for human consumption?
August 31st, 2022 at 1:13 PM ^
She's such a typical Sparty.
I remember the goating on ESPN, "We Own You", after the punt 6 as if it was some deserved victory and not a complete fluke. Of course any fan would be completely ecstatic to win a game like that, but the total lack of self-awareness (your job was to analyze these games with a smidge of intellectual honesty), and the arrogance to believe that the win was earned, and not an acknowledgment that it was an incredible fluke, is exactly why she's a fundamentally unserious analyst.
August 31st, 2022 at 4:22 PM ^
You should learn the difference between The Athletic and The Atlantic.
August 31st, 2022 at 9:37 AM ^
That's pretty cool that he's working on that project and a coincidence that I was just at NASA last Friday learning about that Artemis project (which isn't much; I am, after all, but a humble factory worker). His twitter follow is pure gold to those of us who want to learn more about this game.
August 31st, 2022 at 9:47 AM ^
When do I get featured on the Athletic?! Everyone loves my insights too!
August 31st, 2022 at 9:54 AM ^
No one cares about Aussie Football around here. Go peddle your footy somewhere else.
August 31st, 2022 at 10:04 AM ^
Disagree. Aussie Rules Football is tremendous.
August 31st, 2022 at 10:08 AM ^
Aussie rules football might be the greatest sport ever invented! And I say that as someone who LOVES american football.
August 31st, 2022 at 10:23 AM ^
My bad. Apology accepted?
August 31st, 2022 at 10:42 AM ^
That gif is tremendous.
Also, I’m extremely disappointed that after 2.5 seasons of Bluey there have been cricket and rugby references, but still nothing about Aussie Rules. Yes, I have three young children.
August 31st, 2022 at 3:27 PM ^
Logged in just to +1 Bluey. Also have three young children. Just found Bluey a few weeks ago. The Sleepytime episode might be one of the funniest animated things I've seen.
August 31st, 2022 at 4:07 PM ^
I cried the first three times I watched ‘sleepytime’. Not joking. I love that show so much. Bandit is my dad role model.
August 31st, 2022 at 10:05 PM ^
I remember when ESPN started out in the 80s, they didn't have much programming so they had all sorts of stuff on. One of the main things they showed in their early days was Australian Rules Football.
August 31st, 2022 at 10:50 AM ^
aussie rules chlamydia doesn't draw a big following....
August 31st, 2022 at 10:01 AM ^
Thanks, Comrade.
It's great that Space Coyote has found a way scratch his football itch that helps the rest of us understand —
despite the time he devotes to his space side hustle.
August 31st, 2022 at 12:08 PM ^
Nobody cares about the overweight, bloated jobs program known as the Senate Launch System - SC needs to give that up and spend more time giving us his gold coated football content!
(I do hope SLS/Orion launch successfully and have a great trip around the moon. But that program really needs to go away. ~$20B for reused HW and updated SW is a waste of what NASA could have done...)
August 31st, 2022 at 10:10 AM ^
I wonder. With the rich apparently getting richer in college football this year--OSU, Clemson, Bama, and Georgia prohibitive favorites to reach the playoff, if I were Jimmy I might just start having Sherrone and Matt spend an hour a week scheming for those guys. Starting--say--week four when they start playing people.
August 31st, 2022 at 12:44 PM ^
That's a good way to lose to Iowa.
Not saying I don't think people are game planning for OSU right now, but it shouldn't be Moore and Weiss. There are dozens of analysts for that.
August 31st, 2022 at 1:55 PM ^
Doesn't really matter much if we lose to Iowa though, so I'm am wholeheartedly in favor of this.
We must beat OSU. We don't have to beat Iowa.
Although I'd still say, do some prep for OSU in the easier weeks like literally the entire month of Sept. If it means you beat Hawaii by "only" 45 instead of 60, that's fine. That's an extremely low leverage game. Not every game needs exactly a week of prep because not every game is the same difficulty / leverage.
But yeah, I support a full week of prep for Iowa, PSU, and MSU (the latter two, we really do also have to win as home divisional games, especially if we lose to Iowa which would make PSU and MSU must win games).
August 31st, 2022 at 1:53 PM ^
Going into last year those four teams were just as favored as they are this year and then Michigan made it for the first time and Cincinatti became the first G5 team to make it.
If there's one thing that's certain, it's that we don't know what's going to happen. And I love it!
Let the season begin!
August 31st, 2022 at 10:33 AM ^
rob f, aka Company Man!
August 31st, 2022 at 11:07 AM ^
LOL, I won't deny it ---why not promote the website that gives us such outstanding content TOTALLY FREE (other than a $5 fee the last few years when signing up for a new account)!
What the hey?! How about I also provide the link 🔗 to the MGoStore:
...to make it even easier for everyone to update their wardrobes for the 2022 season and beyond.
August 31st, 2022 at 11:25 AM ^
I own that shirt.
And I love the story behind it.
August 31st, 2022 at 10:57 AM ^
SC works at NASA Glenn not far from my house. As a matter of fact in my neighborhood are several other NASA Glenn scientists and the VP of HR so I'm sure he's known by some of them.
Anyone who's been around here for a while will fondly remember the Brian/SC Borges wars of 2011-2013 where seemingly every game was a battle between the two of them regarding Michigan's game plan & subsequent execution. And speaking of execution, Space was a frequent contributor to both the side board and even wrote for HAIL prior to his untimely MgoDeath during the great purge of 2014.
August 31st, 2022 at 11:27 AM ^
Purges are for communists.
August 31st, 2022 at 11:29 AM ^
Exactly. And Brian is definitely a............um......well........he's definitely an.........
Excellent writer.
August 31st, 2022 at 1:07 PM ^
What purge? Serious question.
August 31st, 2022 at 1:25 PM ^
Sometime in 2014 I think Brian got fed up with a lot of long-time posters here and booted them off the site. I dont remember if Space was specifically ejected although I do know he was dis-invited to writing for HAIL and his board contribution went to nothing.
It was quite a MgoBloodletting. Brian wrote extensively on why he did it (I'm sure someone more enterprising than me can find the link) but a ton of names that were very active from 2010 - 2014 were dismissed.
August 31st, 2022 at 1:32 PM ^
Space Coyote was booted at this place? That explains some things about why some others have been booted. If Space Coyote can get the boot, anyone can.
August 31st, 2022 at 2:53 PM ^
I was still more of a reader/lurker than participant on the MGoBoard during the time of the purge, but I'm reasonably certain Space Coyote was never banned/purged.
All I know for sure was that in my first few years here, I looked forward to and enjoyed his technical explanations and knowledge of play calling, offensive and defensive philosophy, etc.
IMHO, the board lost one of its very best contributors when Space Coyote stopped posting his knowledge here regularly.
(edit: I just used the MGoSearch button and saw that his account has nearly 39,000 points and is 13 years 2 months old, confirmation that it's the same account he has had since joining.)
August 31st, 2022 at 4:06 PM ^
I'm still relatively new here. I like Space Coyote a lot. I really have no first hand information about why he would have stopped posting. And second hand information is dicey to trust. So, I shouldn't have jumped to comment on things about Space Coyote's being here, and then not being here.
August 31st, 2022 at 4:39 PM ^
No problem at all.
Like I indicated in my replies to you and to CRISPEDintheDIAG, I wasn't nearly as involved here back when heads rolled. But just like you do now, I did enjoy the posts/contributions of Space Coyote and wish he'd go back to posting much more frequently.
August 31st, 2022 at 2:17 PM ^
I vaguely remember some chatty disagreements among the more technical types. I didn't know if they were forced out or just walked away.
August 31st, 2022 at 3:13 PM ^
I think the most militant ones (and you likely remember them too, seeing your join date is just 3 days prior to mine) called themselves the "WLA" (Wolverine Liberation Army).
I don't have know anything about the roots of their dispute with Brian, but as I recall, those are the ones who were booted, and a number of their allies then walked away.
At very least, this was my impression as essentially an outsider back then (I was spending much more of my Michigan fan internet time in those days as a moderator/participant on a much much smaller Michigan forum).
August 31st, 2022 at 8:17 PM ^
Speaking of which, I just took a look at the Wolverine Liberation Army site. It's changed a bit.
August 31st, 2022 at 2:49 PM ^
I'm having some work related computer issues, so not much to do. I recall this vaguely, I know there were some hard feelings on both sides by various people, I don't know if there were actual bans though. I think Brian got a little tired of having his work be picked apart by people in the comments, whether they had valid points or not. I did find this:
https://mgoblog.com/content/picture-pages-various-plays-no-interest
August 31st, 2022 at 11:57 PM ^
While I definitely do remember Brian's dispute with "ChitownBlue" (that DarkerBlue references below) and how that went down, I don't recall at all the "picture pages" column that you linked or much at all about the related tensions between Brian and Space Coyote.
August 31st, 2022 at 7:15 PM ^
I'm like 99% sure you're thinking of Chitownblue. Brian definitely made at front page post about how he banned they guy and never liked him. There might have been others included in that post but I definitely remember Chitownblue getting the boot.
August 31st, 2022 at 2:43 PM ^
SC was never banned from mgoblog. He posted earlier this month.
Yeah him and Brian had disagreements but he was never purged. He was a frequent poster through 2019.
August 31st, 2022 at 4:13 PM ^
No two people are going to agree all the time. They may have disagreements, where both are right and both are wrong. Who knows the things that really happen in a person to make them decide things, and make changes. Funny how some changes we make, when we look back on them years later, how even we see we would have done things differently. We can't go back and change them.
Keith Richards makes a good point about looking back on "mistakes":
August 31st, 2022 at 12:34 PM ^
Comrade Space Coyote believes that the departure of Josh Gattis will have a significant impact on Michigan's offensive approach:
It’s true that Michigan had success last year by returning to some of Harbaugh’s core principles, but that may understate the influence of former offensive coordinator Josh Gattis, whose fingerprints were on everything the Wolverines did last season.
This makes me want to know the follow up question, i.e. what can we expect from Weiss?
August 31st, 2022 at 1:34 PM ^
Matt Weiss was successful in everything he did at the Baltimore Ravens. He has been, and will be, successful here. I think the offense is going to score more this year.
August 31st, 2022 at 1:42 PM ^
Tough to say since a lot of it may come down to who starts the second half of the season at QB, but the short answer is: similar to the 2020 / 2021 BEEFSPREAD. Lots of pulling guards and tackles, TE / H back motion across the backfield to create conflicts for linebackers, fast runners hitting gaps that come from scheming a numbers advantage. Real Harbaugh staples in the running game, with a little less focus on just bowling over opponents. Of course the threat of a running QB unlocks the next level here.
Paging Seth on this, but what interests me most is how the spread-to-run sets up the pass. Probably some good play action passing going on with our deep threat WRs, but my suspicion is it’s less of a “stretch vertical to create space underneath” a la Moorhead and (kinda) Gattis, and maybe more RPO based?? Our personnel on offense would allow us to do a lot of things well, so I’m interested to see what the philosophy is in the passing game.
August 31st, 2022 at 3:01 PM ^
The most interesting thing about this for me is that Space Coyote’s real name is Logan, or the Wolverine…
August 31st, 2022 at 7:29 PM ^
- Definitely did not see Logan coming.
August 31st, 2022 at 5:07 PM ^
Good stuff. It's good to see Michigan has gotten away from what they were for decades, where they played the same predictable stuff, infrequently generating mismatches, and just expected their base schemes and talent to win. That would get them their 8 wins a year, but the rest was dodgy because the offense was a dinosaur. We're modern at last.