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Unverified Voracity Fills The Flag

By Brian — November 5th, 2010 at 12:12 PM — 52 comments

Newsbits of importance from Tom. Dark I'm-not-saying-I'm-just-saying rumors about Craig Roh and Demetrius Hart have been flying around the internets this week. Tom clarifies. On Craig Roh:

My source told me that Craig has been concerned with his position switch to linebacker, and believes he is much more effective as a defensive end.

Craig actually vocalized his concern about his position to the coaches after the Penn State game, and my source says that he has been playing much more on the defensive line during practice this week.

Roh's apparently been handed to Bruce Tall and will no longer be mostly a linebacker. This is both good and another instance of players coaching themselves. Meanwhile, Demetrius Hart decommit rumors are false:

There was a slight mix up with Demetrius' enrollment with Michigan, but it has been cleared up. That was the issue, it wasn't that anyone was recruiting him harder, or anything along those lines. Everything has been straightened out, and his mom says Demetrius will be at Michigan in January.

Insert the usual CYA boilerplate about how anything can happen, but you can focus your panic elsewhere.

Crowded. JT Floyd is officially out for the year with "freak" ligament damage in his ankle. Hooray.

The Never Forget banner guy has updated it, and if any further members of the secondary wish to make themselves unavailable they'd advised to do it quickly because we're running out of room: New additions are Michael Williams (concussions), JT Floyd (ligament damage), Jared Van Slyke (leg injury), and Vlad Emilien (transfer). Available locations are limited to that patch of maize underneath the crying wolverine. Given the state of the secondary this is getting considerably more RR-fault-ridden as the year goes along. Justin Turner and Vlad Emilien's transfers are big deals with the free safety depth chart reading "Ray Vinopal" and the corner depth chart reading "Random Three Star Freshman Projects and James Rogers."

At least the Floyd injury has been a productive one for the legions of Michigan photoshoppers: So we've got that going for us. Courtney Avery will draw into the lineup for Floyd.

Okay, a final final final word or two. It's unfortunate that Anchorman references are vastly overused because sometimes there's nothing you can say except… …I'm not even mad, I'm impressed. That is amazing. I'm sitting on this pile of ninja corpses, covered in blood. As the sun rises over a scene of indescribable gore I laugh, because what else is there to do?

Probably not in the special section about how naughty Michigan's been:

the committee wrote that "though serious," the overage was "far less extensive than originally reported and that no student-athletes were substantially harmed."

Though this was obvious as soon as the smoke cleared last August because the piece was so shoddily written, it is now official. Hurrah for pyrrhic victories.

Watch this. The House Rock Built's "Stuffing The Passer" series is the best thing going in the CFB blogosphere right now:

If "Shit My Dad Says" is being made into a sitcom, Stuffing The Passer can't be far behind.

Elsewhere in coach grumbling. You've probably seen this but Brandon Graham has some depressing quotes that point towards the Those Meddling Kids theory:

I’m surprised they didn’t stick with what Coach Robinson was running,” Graham said of the 3-4 the team deployed in 2009, its first year under Robinson. … “Let Coach Robinson play his defense,” Graham said. “Let him do what he knows. He was thrown off, I would say. I know the 3-3-5 is what he (Rodriguez) has been doing for so long. He’s just got to adjust to the Big Ten.”

Michigan ran a 4-3 under last year but that's beside the point. Those quotes from a guy who was in the program last year indicate that no one who doesn't know a 3-3-5 like the back of his hand is ever going to be comfortable as a defensive coordinator at Michigan as long as the WVU guys are around saying things like "hey it's a bye week, I've got this great idea."

While everyone says "scheme is overrated," Michigan's offense puts the lie to that. It's not necessarily the 3-3-5 itself—this is not a BLANK can't work in the Big Ten argument—but attempting to run an exotic niche defense with a guy who doesn't know it (and evidence suggests is a terrible coach anyway).

I'm pretty sure this is as close as we'll get to an opinion from Angelique Chengelis, if that's actually what it is:

Hope for next year?

Much has been made about Michigan's defense, which is near the bottom of several national categories, including total defense. Illinois was in a similar spot last year, but has made strides under new defensive coordinator Vic Koenning:

Scoring defense: 30.2 (96th) in 2009, 16.8 (12th) in 2010

Total defense: 403.3 (91st) in 2009, 301.4 (15th) in 2010

Pass defense: 248.8 (100th) in 2009, 183.9 (19th) in 2010

Rush defense: 154.4 (76th) in 2009, 117.5 (26th) in 2010

That certainly reads like a "hint, hint."

Defensive antidote. Via Wolverine Historian:

Penn State jerkos. As an internet fanbase, Penn State has a remarkable knack for accusing others of pathologies they're displaying literally within the accusation itself. The latest example is a piece at Black Shoe Diaries the author probably thinks is Swiftian satire that takes a sentence from the game recap, some random comment I don't recognize and didn't make about the Terrence Talbott whiffed PBU that turned into 40 yards, a somewhat maudlin paragraph from Maize and Brew supporting Rodriguez, and a random quote from pissed off David Molk. It combines these to show how self-centered Michigan fans are… in a post whining that Michigan fans didn't give Penn State its proper respect.

BSD can talk about self-centered behavior when they do this:

Indiana has a legitimately very good pass offense. They had 41 opportunities to make catches and made 40. Chappell almost never went to the wrong guy and missed on maybe five of his 65 attempts. Their receivers are tall and fast and shifty. One dollar they're the most productive pass offense in the conference at the end of the year.


Michigan State has somehow acquired the without-question best stable of tailbacks in the league; Iowa's Adam Robinson isn't bad but he's not the equivalent of Baker/Bell/Caper, and there's only one of him.

Indiana imploded and Michigan State's run game is pretty mediocre. We tried the credit-the-opponent bit and then all of the opponents turned out to be much worse on offense than Michigan made them look. Doing it now against your gritty moxie ginger neckbeard quarterback would be delusional. Penn State sucks and Michigan is worse. But I said Ogbu is a beast, so your pathetic insecurities can be a tiny bit less pathetic. Let's hold hands.

Now go talk about how arrogant we are as you caress each other's soft places while whispering "what if Michigan never comes back" and we discuss whether we should keep Rich Rodriguez and worry about falling into a Notre Dame-like fallow period. Tim was right to describe BSD as a place utterly incapable of recognizing irony.

Etc.: Craig Roh's eyebrows, and the rest of Craig Roh, are attractive to some guy who ranks him the #13 "hottie" of the year in CFB. Yost Built has ten things to know about Alaska. Amani Toomer is running marathons now.

Exoneration, Probation, Over

By Brian — November 4th, 2010 at 11:04 AM — 85 comments It's been real, jihad guy and generic Barwis picture.

When this was breaking last night I was trudging through the fourth quarter of the Penn State game, gin in hand, and didn't feel like rushing to do anything except maybe to throw up. But it happened and it's over and the news is good, and by good we mean "exactly what everyone expected" but at least all those wild theories about how the NCAA is going to blow up the program and make an example out of Rodriguez are gone:

The NCAA has concluded that Michigan coach Rich Rodriguez did not fail to promote an atmosphere of compliance, a previous allegation that the school challenged, a source close to the situation said Wednesday night.

Other reports state that the NCAA has accepted the self imposed penalties and added a third year of probation. The official release will happen at 3 PM, but Michigan's leaking all the relevant details early. If you'll allow me a moment of self-congratulation, that's exactly what was projected around these parts when Michigan announced its response to the notice of allegations.

Our long and winding journey that started with wildly overheated allegations and ends with some misinterpreted stretching and excessively involved grad assistant ends. After this afternoon's flurry of redundancy there are no more news events to push this to the forefront, so Michigan can get on with the reductions quietly and the proverbial dark cloud hanging over the program can finally evaporate.

I can't emphasize enough how much of a steaming crock of crap the initial Free Press story was and how richly everyone involved with it deserves to be fired, but at least they immolated the idea that journalistic ethics are a reason to read boring neutral "objective" copy and stupid 600-word columns dashed off without an ounce of research. They also drove a ton of traffic here as Michigan fans looked for accurate projections of what was going to happen, and in doing so obliterated the idea that bias, which this place has in spades, necessarily leads to inaccuracy. So thanks for that. Send me your resumes in five years when you all lose your jobs; I'll get back to you with all possible speed.

To go for two, or not to go for two? A response to Stewart Mandel

By Anonymous Coward — October 26th, 2010 at 5:42 PM — 0 comments

Go for two. This is so obvious, but Northwestern bloggers have to explain it to everyone.

Unverified Voracity Slowed By Prayer, Hats

The heat melts their brains. Miami fans are trolls: You've got me there, Jim Martz.

(Via Jerry Hinnen.) I'd rather see Simon Cowell as head coach around here.

I'm guessing Bolden starts.

Cue Hat reference:

Les Miles might agree.

Iowa fans probably won't.

Unverified Voracity Withstands Sophomoric Indignities Needs moar jericurl but pretty good otherwise.

The games figure to be choppy. Via Yost Built: 

Q: Tell me, what are people missing?

But no. Press Conference is Serious Business. 

Scott Wolf’s Anti-Big Ten Campaign Continues

By Anonymous Coward — October 18th, 2010 at 6:33 PM — 2 comments

stick with what you know best, Wolf: creeping on cheerleaders
