I have heard your cries; it's time to catch up on the quasi-offseason's user-generated content.
FOOTBALL SECTION
What the… heck is that pic above? Markp (the p is for photoshop) decided to mock up the Big House with a couple of upper decks, and colored in the endzones themselves. I present without comment. For the record, Brian turned me around on the luxury boxes exactly ten years ago this week.
Every snap by QB. DGDestroys broke up every snap of the spring game by quarterback, because just being a good dude wasn’t enough to justify his existence on the planet and he just had to make himself ludicrously useful. I plan to Hennechart this. DGDestroys is your Diary Dude of the Week.
More Don Brown D: Space Coyote took issue with the assertion that Michigan's D was doing some Spartan D-like things, and went about discussing what Brown's Cover 2 concepts look like, i.e. why it's not really a base "Quarters". This is the upshot:
But at the end of the day, [Brown] is a "multiple" coach, which Michigan has almost always been dating back a long time. This, in and of itself, makes it very different than what MSU and OSU are doing.
The BC playbook that James Light made available that we're all pouring through does have a package called "Spartan" that does some of what MSU does (at right).
But that is page 144 of the playbook, i.e. just a thing they have to bring out against certain opponents or as a changeup, not the base thing. Brown's cover 2 is a kind of read, but it's not that kind of read.
This is all getting away from the more important distinction, which is that Michigan will line up their DL so the "Anchor" (strongside end) is outside the tackle. This widening the front to squeeze the LBs inside is an MSU characteristic too, though unrelated to the coverage system. One of the things it does is keeps the SAM clean so you can play a much lighter and quicker player there (e.g. Peppers). The tradeoff is your middle linebacker had better be good at thumpin' and getting off blocks.
Space Coyote is not your dude of the week, but he’s a Guy.
Worth discussion. Sharik followed up a diary about head injuries with various positive ideas for making football safer. Going to Rugby-style tackling rules and possession arrows for fumbles make paper sense, but it seems tougher to implement than making football men wear girdles, i.e. never going to happen. But making the equipment softer for the guy on the receiving end, especially helmets and shoulder pads, seems…plausible?
Changeup routes. Docwhoblocked went to Michigan’s recent coaching clinic and was moved to write up what he heard from, so far, three of the sessions he attended. Frank Beamer talked mostly about special teams. Art Briles was in there too but a lot of it was for coaches' ears and thus not that useful to you as a fan. But I found this bit interesting for the irony:
His offensive strategy: Tell the receivers to run as fast as they can and then tell the quarterback to throw it as far as he can.
Ironic because Smart Football last year wrote about how Briles's offense stretches the field diagonally by having receivers *not* run as fast as they can. The defense still has to cover the lollygaggers, which creates more space for whoever's streaking downfield, and sometimes get lulled to sleep by a trotting receiver who then turns on the jets. I bet Harbaugh starts using some lollygagging in his offense soon.
Doc also wrote up the Harbaugh, Harbaugh, and Harbaugh session.
[Hit the jump for a record hockey diaries]
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BASKETBALL SECTION
Here’s a non-surprising thing about success in the NCAA tournament: recruiting and retention matters. Champswest’s diary ranked the crootin of schools since 2003 against their tourney success. Yes, of course they’re correlated. Of interest, teams that flashed into the Final Four didn’t get as big of a bump as you’d think. Royalty won. I would like to see a better Apple to Apple comparison though. Average class rank doesn’t say much when you’re recruiting like one to five dudes per year, and tourney success should be compiled into a single number.
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HOCKEY SECTION
Mel Mel Mel What if Not Mel? It's Mel. Mel Mel Mel Hire Mel. Well yeah. Also since Red is staying this is now moot. Until next year. Or 2034.
Pulling Mel Pearson out of the upper peninsula of the Upper Peninsula isn't exactly like prying Harbaugh from the NFL, but say it doesn't happen, and Red retires, then what? There are, technically, other human beings capable of coaching hockey, and Canadian went over a few of them in a three-partseries. Among the ideas that sound crazy are stealing Penn State's Guy. But really: Mel.
Fraternal intervention. Hey dude. Duderino. Man. Tiger. I know we're not always the best of friends but we're stuck living with each other, and what one of us does reflects on the other.
Yeah, like Ellerbe. I apologized for that.
Well bruh, you see, we've all been a bit worried.
No, not about your pet Graham. He's cute in a "constantly eats his own poop" way. We mean your Anastos habit. This has to stop bruh.
David Doublespaced. What would it be like to meet Craig Ross in, like, 1923, when he was already a polymath of Michigan athletics, but had only been at it for about a decade and a half? That's David "NastyIsland" Nasternak.
David's kind of the silent man of our staff, doing the grunt work to make sure things run smoothly and roundly on time, appearing in your eyes only in those weekly roundtable articles, always first to respond, always double-spacing after periods like a 60-year-old man.
That last characteristic is probably why he's not on the front-page too, because his hockey coverage during the last few weeks of this season was certainly more worthwhile to you than, say, Dear Diary. Re-live Games 34-38 with him here and here and here and here and here.
Patrick Pictorial. Another guy I see every day on our slack chat but you don't get often enough is our newest photographer Patrick Barron. Pat made the trip to Cincy for us and came back with a pictorial tale that's worth a clickthrough even if you just scroll down the photos.
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Things have changed since 2006.This month in MGoBlog '06 History, "buying itself an iPod" was Brian's metaphor for the defense going modern.
Things haven't changed that much since 2006. People still fall for this. And for this.
Etc. Spring game observations thread.Michigan's bubble resume vs the competition. How seeds fare in the tourney. Skip the OP and read AC1997's rundown of pre-2000 M hoops recruits. History of the spring game. Spring game program. We'll get to it after the Spring Game like always. OSU to spend $42 million on a thing they could get for $12.28. Font change? Explain your handle/avatar. Favorite podcasts thread for people interested in having Audible advertised to you a lot. Ain’t going in dere.
YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN:
Bob with Don on Bo via Dr. Sap.