And, with any luck/planning, this hire will be with a CBB team currently in the tournament. I'm hoping that this process doesn't snatch up whatever unemployed guy is out there just to get it done quickly.
I turned it on just before halftime. At halftime, the studio guys were showing clips of PSU guys hustling and diving for balls... while Michigan guys were standing around and watching them. And there was plenty of that in the second half as well.
It's one thing to lose a basketball game because you have inferior talent OR because the opponent's shots go in OR because your shots just don't go in, provided you are trying. But there's no excuse for lazy, disorganized, half-assed play in a tournament game that is win-or-go-home for your team. That tells me that the team has quit and that's on the coaching staff.
Many college and pro sports fans everywhere operate under the benign delusion that it's easy for their preferred team to procure any and all players or coaches. If they're free agents, all it takes is a lot of money; if they're already under contract, the team that holds their rights is willing to trade them to us, usually for whatever unused players we have on our bench.
There's also the less benign, delusional corollary that, simply because a player or coach didn't sign with our preferred team, our team automatically "failed" or "didn't try hard enough" to get that person to sign. More often that not, a team isn't going to release a list of all of the players or coaches that it considered and/or reached out to but didn't sign.
Thank you. Elston can coach full-time now. No more having to run a recruiting department, no more flying all over, no more trying to convince kids and their families to come to Michigan, no more trying to convince kids and their families to STAY at Michigan... AND coach on top of it.
Elston and all the previous staff have now coached a team that won a college national championship. Just like Harbaugh, they're moving on, taking a job with less work, but probably for more money. The only down side with the new gig is that NFL coaching regimes get a much shorter leash than at colleges, so there's more pressure to produce right away.
1975 was also a killer. Up on OSU by 7, 14-7. They score with 3:28 left to tie it. We get the ball back and Leach throws an interception that they run back to our 3. They punch it in and we lose 21-14.
Another killer of an old game was 1988 v. #1 Miami, the defending national champs, coached by Jimmie Johnson. We are up on them 30-14 with less than 6 minutes to go and the crowd is electric all game. Steve Walsh throws a TD pass and they make a 2-point conversion, 30-22. They stop us and score again. they go for 2 and it fails. We're up 30-28, with 2:54 to go. Miami recovers an onside kick, takes it down the filed and kicks a FG with 43 seconds left. We lose 31-30. Total misery after being up 17.
Losing Harbaugh under these circumstances does hurt, especially in recruiting.
You'd expect that winning a natty would result in a huge recruiting haul. However, having to change head coach, OC, and DC (although the OC is now head coach) results in enough uncertainty about what defense and exactly what offense are going to be run to give recruits pause about fitting into the program.
I would also expect that every program that we are recruiting against is telling recruits about imminent gloom and doom that's going to come from the NCAA in terms of sanctions. The sooner that BS gets put to bed, the better.
I have followed them for decades, but I don't feel crushed by this. I'm in my 60's and am somewhat resigned to never seeing a Super Bowl win from this side of the ground.
Now, if UM had lost to Washington? That would have taken a week to get over. If we'd lost to OSU this year? Longer than that.
Green Bay (much as I hate them) will be a playoff team. The best thing that happened to their offense came when Rodgers left and LaFleur could call what he wanted, without having a rickety QB who would change plays at the helm.
That said, if they draft some CBs and edge rushers, the Lions should be a playoff team. Maybe not a better record, but in the playoffs anyway.
You make a lot of good points. I'd only disagree that it he's very likely to get offers, especially if he is requiring the kind of control that he is reputed to want. We'll see, I guess.
What intrigues me is JH at these team interviews. We've seen him in pressers and in TV and radio interviews. He is often so quirky with his answers that I'd love to be a fly on the wall while a bunch of team execs are talking to him for an hour or two. Then again, he's gotten job after job before. It would be interesting anyhow.
I think you're correct that a significant chunk of players have the ultimate goal of making it to the NFL.
But, even if they wouldn't blame their college coach for jumping to the NFL, the players would certainly need to reassess what effect that coach's leaving will have on them achieving their ultimate goal. Purely hypothetically, but if Harbaugh and Minter are gone, if I'm a marketable defensive recruit, I'd want to know a whole lot about who's going to replace them before the portal opens again after spring ball.
I've been going to games since I started school in 1974. We had terrific teams for many, many years but we never ended #1, although, in all fairness, beating OSU and winning the Rose Bowl were the primary markers for a successful season for many years.
Winning in 1997 was great, but sharing it with Nebraska was a slight bit of downer. But, considering there was no championship game, the undefeated season and winning the one poll was a source of tremendous pride.
Since 1997, the program has gone through so much travail. I admit to getting sucked into the BPONE for a while. I'm pushing 70 now and I started to wonder if I was ever going to see a National Championship. Now, it's here.
Whatever you folks do, don't take it for granted. Life has no guarantees. Appreciate it what you have at this very moment.
Why would they have such a moment? Be realistic; defense, especially a tenacious one, ain't sexy enough to string together a quick bunch of highlights. It's way easier to show Penix making throws v Texas as opposed to showing UM's defense getting hurries, forcing missed throws, causing pass drops, or breaking up passes.
I couldn't care less what ESPN or anyone on their network says. We don't need their approval or validation or even their respect. We won the game and the Championship.
Considering that there are plenty of draft sites that are projecting McCarthy to go in the first round, choosing Michigan wasn't a bad career decision.
Our offense has a lot of pro concepts in it and you can become pretty damn valuable to the NFL by 1) mastering those pro concepts, 2) having raw talent and 3) winning games.
He's similar enough in running ability that our defense can practice pass rush lanes and containment. If Milroe is throwing a lot of passes, we are in good shape.
Notice that the article never mentions any of the talented players Michigan has. None of them. It's all about Alabama... which is probably to be expected since none of these SEC teams played us.
When you read the article, not one of the SEC coaches (or their assistants or their SID's or whoever they had talk to Feldman) mentions ANYTHING about what Michigan does well or what problems Michigan presents to Alabama.
Of course they're going to say that they'll give us problems, considering they're apparently only familiar with Alabama.
Ummm, this is the playoffs. You expect that you're not playing patsies.
Why even tie it to a school then? Why bother forcing kids to enroll in a school and attend classes if the object is to collect NIL money and make it to the NFL? Other than you can market tickets to current students and alumni by appealing to school pride?
At some point, some player will make the argument that enrollment is an illegal restraint of trade. The argument worked last week in the ruling temporarily allowing multiple transfers.
At some point, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these athletes try to argue that the requirement that they actually attend and pass classes is a restraint of trade.
Watch Borges on the videos every week with Sam Webb, especially the film breakdowns. He knows his stuff. He was the OC for Auburn's natty.
It's especially interesting when he start talking about scripting and sequencing plays as an OC, as well as why OC's make choices to not run certain types of plays that fans are CERTAIN would work.
In the video that is linked above, Borges talks about Denard's shoulder injuries. He mentions a game where they wouldn't even let Denard throw the ball in the pre-game warm-up, because he didn't want the opposition to watch him and see that he couldn't throw.
Eh, neither of them are likely to vanish forever from electoral politics. Cheap political points are probably never a bad thing to have in your pocket down the road in that business. :)
Not to be snarky, but what do you realistically see in this team and its coaching staff that leads you to believe that this year or next year will be any better?
Howard has 2 years left on his contract after this year. Call him in, give him the firm handshake, and tell him that its time to go "retire" and take care of his heart problems. And then pay him for the remaining 2 years. Let Martelli finish the year.
Of course, Warde is the AD so it's a just a dream.
If our defense continues to be as good as it has been, we won't need to score 45 to win. Nobody has scored more than 24 on us this year.
Yes, it would be nice to think that we could reliably, at will, put up 50 points a game. But grinding the clock, possessing the ball, keeping it out of the opponent's offense's hands, and then eventually scoring make it way less likely that the opponent can run up a big score. They can't score as long as we have the ball.
On top of that, next year, you can bet there will be bellyaching about the bottom of the brackets, i.e. who got in and who got left out. People will complain.
As long as we play a clean game on offense, i.e. no turnovers or penalties, we should smoke them. I envision our D getting plenty of sacks and TFLs, which translates to great field position for our offense. Iowa's defense is good but they'll have to be great all night to overcome that putrid offense.
Besides, PSU's defense was supposed to be great until we put three TDs up on them. OSU's defense was supposed to be very good until we put three TDs up on them. If our offense plays a clean game, we'll beat them comfortably. We'll even cover 23.5 if we get a few turnovers.
Come on, this is the kid's first year as a starter and it's not like he has a running game or 5-stars at skill positions to fall back on. He'll be pretty good in a few years.
Running it down their throats is a virtue, not a vice.
As I (vaguely) recall, I was at the last M game at the stadium that was not televised. It was against Long Beach State in 1987 and we killed them 49-0. Kickoff was at 1 PM. It was over in a bit after 3. Students were drunk and back in the dorms before the cafeterias opened at 4
Here's a hoot of an article about it. The best is the quote from their nose guard, "“They don’t hit you that hard, but they’re so big they just get in your way like a wall of humanity,”
Do you know if the NCAA or the conference have procedures in place that provide for depositions with rights of cross-examination?
I find it hard to see that a court is going to take on the responsibility of overseeing discovery and then fact-finding on the propriety of any discipline, especially when A) there's an administrative procedure in place to so decide and B) only a cursory investigation has been completed, which means that administrative remedies haven't been exhausted.
The question of the conference's legal authority to issue a suspension under these circumstances and given the current state of the factual record available to the conference seems to be a purely legal issue, not a factual one. The current question that a court would decide now is whether the conference, given what it know now, has the authority to do this NOW as opposed to after further investigation.
If the court says to wait until all the facts come out in an investigation, the source would be relevant.
And, realistically, if there are procedures for entities/agencies to investigate and deal with infractions, a court is usually going to tell them to go investigate and deal with the infractions themselves, before coming to and bothering the court. Why else would you have these procedures? A court isn't going to do their investigating for them. The court will probably kick it back to the agency and tell them to do their job. It might look at the final results but not until the agency is done. The doctrine is exhaustion of administrative remedies; if you have a procedure in place, you have to use it before a court will hear a challenge.
An "indefinite suspension"? And exactly what criteria is there, what has to happen, for such a suspension to be lifted??
And what precedent is there for suspending a head coach indefinitely? Good luck justifying that in court, especially when there's been no full investigation.
Recent Comments
I got news for you. The transfer portal opened last Monday. Per Andrew Brandt, 450 guys were already in the portal in the first 24 hours.
And, with any luck/planning, this hire will be with a CBB team currently in the tournament. I'm hoping that this process doesn't snatch up whatever unemployed guy is out there just to get it done quickly.
Thanks Seth! This always helps with the games where I'm not real familiar with the teams.
I turned it on just before halftime. At halftime, the studio guys were showing clips of PSU guys hustling and diving for balls... while Michigan guys were standing around and watching them. And there was plenty of that in the second half as well.
It's one thing to lose a basketball game because you have inferior talent OR because the opponent's shots go in OR because your shots just don't go in, provided you are trying. But there's no excuse for lazy, disorganized, half-assed play in a tournament game that is win-or-go-home for your team. That tells me that the team has quit and that's on the coaching staff.
Thank you. The quote from Manuel indicates nothing about what could happen once the season is over. And the season should be over in about 9 days.
Many college and pro sports fans everywhere operate under the benign delusion that it's easy for their preferred team to procure any and all players or coaches. If they're free agents, all it takes is a lot of money; if they're already under contract, the team that holds their rights is willing to trade them to us, usually for whatever unused players we have on our bench.
There's also the less benign, delusional corollary that, simply because a player or coach didn't sign with our preferred team, our team automatically "failed" or "didn't try hard enough" to get that person to sign. More often that not, a team isn't going to release a list of all of the players or coaches that it considered and/or reached out to but didn't sign.
Thank you. Elston can coach full-time now. No more having to run a recruiting department, no more flying all over, no more trying to convince kids and their families to come to Michigan, no more trying to convince kids and their families to STAY at Michigan... AND coach on top of it.
Elston and all the previous staff have now coached a team that won a college national championship. Just like Harbaugh, they're moving on, taking a job with less work, but probably for more money. The only down side with the new gig is that NFL coaching regimes get a much shorter leash than at colleges, so there's more pressure to produce right away.
1975 was also a killer. Up on OSU by 7, 14-7. They score with 3:28 left to tie it. We get the ball back and Leach throws an interception that they run back to our 3. They punch it in and we lose 21-14.
Another killer of an old game was 1988 v. #1 Miami, the defending national champs, coached by Jimmie Johnson. We are up on them 30-14 with less than 6 minutes to go and the crowd is electric all game. Steve Walsh throws a TD pass and they make a 2-point conversion, 30-22. They stop us and score again. they go for 2 and it fails. We're up 30-28, with 2:54 to go. Miami recovers an onside kick, takes it down the filed and kicks a FG with 43 seconds left. We lose 31-30. Total misery after being up 17.
OT, I wonder how the beer sales went at both events.
Losing Harbaugh under these circumstances does hurt, especially in recruiting.
You'd expect that winning a natty would result in a huge recruiting haul. However, having to change head coach, OC, and DC (although the OC is now head coach) results in enough uncertainty about what defense and exactly what offense are going to be run to give recruits pause about fitting into the program.
I would also expect that every program that we are recruiting against is telling recruits about imminent gloom and doom that's going to come from the NCAA in terms of sanctions. The sooner that BS gets put to bed, the better.
Or if SF doesn't get gifted a TD after an interceptable ball bounces off the DB's helmet and into the WR's hands at the goal line.
If, if, if...
I have followed them for decades, but I don't feel crushed by this. I'm in my 60's and am somewhat resigned to never seeing a Super Bowl win from this side of the ground.
Now, if UM had lost to Washington? That would have taken a week to get over. If we'd lost to OSU this year? Longer than that.
Green Bay (much as I hate them) will be a playoff team. The best thing that happened to their offense came when Rodgers left and LaFleur could call what he wanted, without having a rickety QB who would change plays at the helm.
That said, if they draft some CBs and edge rushers, the Lions should be a playoff team. Maybe not a better record, but in the playoffs anyway.
Another edge rusher or a #1 CB should be the first priority.
And, yes, a kicker that you can trust from 40-50 yards out.
You make a lot of good points. I'd only disagree that it he's very likely to get offers, especially if he is requiring the kind of control that he is reputed to want. We'll see, I guess.
What intrigues me is JH at these team interviews. We've seen him in pressers and in TV and radio interviews. He is often so quirky with his answers that I'd love to be a fly on the wall while a bunch of team execs are talking to him for an hour or two. Then again, he's gotten job after job before. It would be interesting anyhow.
I think you're correct that a significant chunk of players have the ultimate goal of making it to the NFL.
But, even if they wouldn't blame their college coach for jumping to the NFL, the players would certainly need to reassess what effect that coach's leaving will have on them achieving their ultimate goal. Purely hypothetically, but if Harbaugh and Minter are gone, if I'm a marketable defensive recruit, I'd want to know a whole lot about who's going to replace them before the portal opens again after spring ball.
I've been going to games since I started school in 1974. We had terrific teams for many, many years but we never ended #1, although, in all fairness, beating OSU and winning the Rose Bowl were the primary markers for a successful season for many years.
Winning in 1997 was great, but sharing it with Nebraska was a slight bit of downer. But, considering there was no championship game, the undefeated season and winning the one poll was a source of tremendous pride.
Since 1997, the program has gone through so much travail. I admit to getting sucked into the BPONE for a while. I'm pushing 70 now and I started to wonder if I was ever going to see a National Championship. Now, it's here.
Whatever you folks do, don't take it for granted. Life has no guarantees. Appreciate it what you have at this very moment.
Why would they have such a moment? Be realistic; defense, especially a tenacious one, ain't sexy enough to string together a quick bunch of highlights. It's way easier to show Penix making throws v Texas as opposed to showing UM's defense getting hurries, forcing missed throws, causing pass drops, or breaking up passes.
I couldn't care less what ESPN or anyone on their network says. We don't need their approval or validation or even their respect. We won the game and the Championship.
Considering that there are plenty of draft sites that are projecting McCarthy to go in the first round, choosing Michigan wasn't a bad career decision.
Our offense has a lot of pro concepts in it and you can become pretty damn valuable to the NFL by 1) mastering those pro concepts, 2) having raw talent and 3) winning games.
We'll get our share of talented QBs.
He's similar enough in running ability that our defense can practice pass rush lanes and containment. If Milroe is throwing a lot of passes, we are in good shape.
Notice that the article never mentions any of the talented players Michigan has. None of them. It's all about Alabama... which is probably to be expected since none of these SEC teams played us.
When you read the article, not one of the SEC coaches (or their assistants or their SID's or whoever they had talk to Feldman) mentions ANYTHING about what Michigan does well or what problems Michigan presents to Alabama.
Of course they're going to say that they'll give us problems, considering they're apparently only familiar with Alabama.
Ummm, this is the playoffs. You expect that you're not playing patsies.
Why even tie it to a school then? Why bother forcing kids to enroll in a school and attend classes if the object is to collect NIL money and make it to the NFL? Other than you can market tickets to current students and alumni by appealing to school pride?
At some point, some player will make the argument that enrollment is an illegal restraint of trade. The argument worked last week in the ruling temporarily allowing multiple transfers.
Just wait until our season ends and guys who are currently on our roster start hitting the portal.
Fortunately, the portal also giveth.
I know what you mean though. For me, it'd be nice to have some predictability as far as what the team is going to look like next year and beyond.
The TLDR story of my life: "He had potential."
Go Blue.
Hard luck, my friend. That big a spread, you're at the mercy of the performance of end-of-the-game scrubs.
At some point, I wouldn't be surprised if a few of these athletes try to argue that the requirement that they actually attend and pass classes is a restraint of trade.
Watch Borges on the videos every week with Sam Webb, especially the film breakdowns. He knows his stuff. He was the OC for Auburn's natty.
It's especially interesting when he start talking about scripting and sequencing plays as an OC, as well as why OC's make choices to not run certain types of plays that fans are CERTAIN would work.
In the video that is linked above, Borges talks about Denard's shoulder injuries. He mentions a game where they wouldn't even let Denard throw the ball in the pre-game warm-up, because he didn't want the opposition to watch him and see that he couldn't throw.
Eh, neither of them are likely to vanish forever from electoral politics. Cheap political points are probably never a bad thing to have in your pocket down the road in that business. :)
Not to be snarky, but what do you realistically see in this team and its coaching staff that leads you to believe that this year or next year will be any better?
Howard has 2 years left on his contract after this year. Call him in, give him the firm handshake, and tell him that its time to go "retire" and take care of his heart problems. And then pay him for the remaining 2 years. Let Martelli finish the year.
Of course, Warde is the AD so it's a just a dream.
The way you win over people to take your side is by winning OR by developing guys to the point where can show that winning is imminent.
The last 2 years have looked like a program in decline and, so far this year, it looks like the decline is continuing.
Probably because he got word that they're going to be bringing someone else in to compete for the position.
If our defense continues to be as good as it has been, we won't need to score 45 to win. Nobody has scored more than 24 on us this year.
Yes, it would be nice to think that we could reliably, at will, put up 50 points a game. But grinding the clock, possessing the ball, keeping it out of the opponent's offense's hands, and then eventually scoring make it way less likely that the opponent can run up a big score. They can't score as long as we have the ball.
On top of that, next year, you can bet there will be bellyaching about the bottom of the brackets, i.e. who got in and who got left out. People will complain.
Beat Bama!
As long as we play a clean game on offense, i.e. no turnovers or penalties, we should smoke them. I envision our D getting plenty of sacks and TFLs, which translates to great field position for our offense. Iowa's defense is good but they'll have to be great all night to overcome that putrid offense.
Besides, PSU's defense was supposed to be great until we put three TDs up on them. OSU's defense was supposed to be very good until we put three TDs up on them. If our offense plays a clean game, we'll beat them comfortably. We'll even cover 23.5 if we get a few turnovers.
It was incredible to see. Just the hustle for a guy that huge to not give up on the play.
Um, because he is 19? :)
Come on, this is the kid's first year as a starter and it's not like he has a running game or 5-stars at skill positions to fall back on. He'll be pretty good in a few years.
I heard it too. I thought that Avant was on the sideline, standing next to Franklin, and picking up all the whining and bitching from the sideline.
Probably not, but if they win, no NFL team would care.
Why? Seriously, who cares? We won.
Running it down their throats is a virtue, not a vice.
As I (vaguely) recall, I was at the last M game at the stadium that was not televised. It was against Long Beach State in 1987 and we killed them 49-0. Kickoff was at 1 PM. It was over in a bit after 3. Students were drunk and back in the dorms before the cafeterias opened at 4
Here's a hoot of an article about it. The best is the quote from their nose guard, "“They don’t hit you that hard, but they’re so big they just get in your way like a wall of humanity,”
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1987-09-27-sp-10553-story.html
I upvoted you, but Franklin did them no favors. Down by 8, 4:25 to go and he goes for it on 4th and 6, at their own 30.
One play later, PSU is down by 15. All time Franklin.
Style points don't matter. The goal was to win and they did.
In spite of every sort of distractions that could have derailed them, they won... and kicked ass in the process..
Suspend the guy at the dump button!
A Michigan Classic!!
Do you know if the NCAA or the conference have procedures in place that provide for depositions with rights of cross-examination?
I find it hard to see that a court is going to take on the responsibility of overseeing discovery and then fact-finding on the propriety of any discipline, especially when A) there's an administrative procedure in place to so decide and B) only a cursory investigation has been completed, which means that administrative remedies haven't been exhausted.
The question of the conference's legal authority to issue a suspension under these circumstances and given the current state of the factual record available to the conference seems to be a purely legal issue, not a factual one. The current question that a court would decide now is whether the conference, given what it know now, has the authority to do this NOW as opposed to after further investigation.
If the court says to wait until all the facts come out in an investigation, the source would be relevant.
And, realistically, if there are procedures for entities/agencies to investigate and deal with infractions, a court is usually going to tell them to go investigate and deal with the infractions themselves, before coming to and bothering the court. Why else would you have these procedures? A court isn't going to do their investigating for them. The court will probably kick it back to the agency and tell them to do their job. It might look at the final results but not until the agency is done. The doctrine is exhaustion of administrative remedies; if you have a procedure in place, you have to use it before a court will hear a challenge.
An "indefinite suspension"? And exactly what criteria is there, what has to happen, for such a suspension to be lifted??
And what precedent is there for suspending a head coach indefinitely? Good luck justifying that in court, especially when there's been no full investigation.