THE WORST. I can’t even bring myself to talk about it. As of this writing it had 43 upvotes: Read it.
THE SALUTES MARCH ON. Catching you up on the Catching Up With series, ReadYourGuard is still talking to his old teammates. Lately he’s profiled Brent White, Clay Miller, Tim Williams, Mike Dames, David Key and Mike Reinhold.
A taste of what you’re missing, from Reinhold (goofy looking fellow at right-above):
When the film played this particular punt play and the guy came through the line unblocked, Bo came unglued. He stopped the film, flipped on the lights, and barked out, “Who is this man?” as he smacks the screen with his pointer. Mike was sitting in the back of the room with the rest of the freshman and the assistant coaches standing behind them, against the back wall. He raised his hand.
“Stand up, son.”
“What the hell were you thinking?”
This is the absolute last place on earth you want to be; standing in front of the entire team with Bo asking you a question that has no right answer. The naïve 2nd year player responded with “I don’t know”.
Oooof. Wrong answer.
WHO GETS TO PLAY THE MOST B1G WEST OF THE BIG WEST, BASICALLY. MaizeJacket went through the cross-divisional threes for each Big Ten team this year and ranked them. As expected, the B1G East teams mostly had easier cross-division games due to playing those games against the B1G West. Not sure however that I agree with his rankings: Indiana has Nebraska, Northwestern and Purdue, whereas Maryland swaps the Wildcats for the Gophers. Minnesota’s tougher than Northwestern will be I bet.
MAC’S LONG GOODBYE
In an offseason when we’re super excited about bringing in one of the best defensive coordinators in the country, some awful news about one of the greatest DCs in Michigan history was finally made public. Bill McCartney has Alzheimer’s. Mac (along with his brother) was a legendary high school coach in the Detroit area who joined the Michigan staff in 1974 after Bo made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.
When Gary Moeller took the Illinois job, Mac took over the defense, beginning a run for “McCartney’s Monsters” that set most of the defensive records in modern program history (including the three-shutout streak the 2015 team tied). We have an article this year by Dr. Sap on the 1980 team and how Coach Mac invented the Dime (4-1-6) defense to stop Purdue’s early shotgun spread-to-pass outfit. Mac went on to win a national championship as head coach of Colorado. FYI everything he remembered for the article checked out.
MEET THE NEW NUMBERS:
Rasmus broke down the history of the numbers and what inspired them, and also suggested we call that a “Winged 4”. Co-sign.
PROJECTING WIN TOTALS. Ecky Ptang (Ni!) took the S&P+ and FPI preseason numbers and made them into those likelihood charts that are so useful later on in the season for comparisons. Michigan’s centered on…10!
Ecky did a good job breaking down what things mean.
A GOOD BET. Last time I did one of these posts I shared The Saturday Edge’s annual free betting prospectus. Tim contacted me after and asked if he could sponsor another DD in return for me finding more flaws in his Big Ten preview. Here’s some nits:
- Iowa’s Matt VandeBerg’s yards per target make him more impressive than his YPC. (Okay I know I’m supposed to be ripping on things but Tim uses the Hawkeyes’ too-lucky turnover ratio last year as a negative and I wanted to point out this is why the gamblers are smarter than the hot takers).
- He’s a bit too high on Nebraska’s offense (which I think has reached its ceiling) and Northwestern’s DTs.
- Who is this “Purdue”?
- Argh name an Ohio State secondary (this could go for Urban Meyer too)
- Too high on MSU’s OL and MSU in general.
Now that I’ve read all the others I kinda think I sold it short because of the missing Michigan details.
/collects check.
A SILVER AGE OF BIG TEN COACHING. Reader canzior surveyed the Big Ten coaching field in the wake of some apparently good hires the last few years and declared the coaching talent in the league to finally be catching up to the SEC.
I did my HTTV article a few years back on the dramatic difference between how most SEC schools were hiring coaches and Big Ten coaches were. The upshot:
All told the hires I filed as “Strong” at the time went 758-377 (67% winning percentage), the “Average” ones went 404-275 (60%), and the “Cheap” hires went 320-443 (42%). Strong hires totaled a 4% improvement from those programs’ historic average winning percentage; average ones met the school average, and cheap hires have been winning at a rate 11 points below what’s typical for their programs.
Coaching hires are crootin x 100 and give similar returns: the 5-stars require massive investment but work out >50% of the time, 4-stars hit less, and 3-stars are easier to get but are a quarter as likely to be great (at which point you're paying them like a 5-star anyway).
You should hit the link for two reasons: 1.) a comprehensive chart of current Power 5 coaches and their coordinators, and 2.) the thread is a fun discussion comparing coaching years.
For that I submitted 1998: Hayden Fry, Nick Saban, Barry Alvarez, Lloyd Carr, and Joe Paterno are hall of famers; Mason, Turner, Tiller, and Barnett were some of the best coaches in their school's history; and John Cooper won just about every game except The Game. The last guy is Cam Cameron, a Bo assistant who coached the Antwaan Randle-El era, currently coordinates the Leonard Fournette offense, and was an NFL OC and HC in between. The next year Fry and Barnett were replaced with Ferentz and Randy Walker, and the Big Ten had its best year ever. Good coaching: kinda important.
ETC. What happened to Jehu? MGoColloquialisms. Wallpaper will terminate you. Only Cazzie’s number is actually retired. Children exist so that the embarrassing things adults do can look cute (I taught my 2-year-old to do the GO!-> <-BLUE! cheer). Video of players speaking at Jordan launch. Game blouses: TRUE STORY! Brian, Rittenberg, Todd Howard and I will be in Chicago in 2 weeks from yesterday. For Draftageddon complainers: MGoBlog’s offseason content 10 years ago.
YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN:
Ace forgot to put Aubrey Solomon murderating a guy in the roundup so I get to do it:
U of M commit @AubreySolomon91 in first day of pads. I am so excited to not have to go against him everyday. AUG 18 pic.twitter.com/xMcE3vHkg4
— Kevin Pych (@pychke) August 3, 2016
Thanks Ace!