Marty sets the record. Via Michigan Hockey Net:
Juuuust a bit outside. Lake The Posts previews Michigan with a look back at a name that will live in Wildcat infamy:
Red Sox nation hoists names like Aaron “Effin” Boone and Bucky Dent up on the grand facade of ignominious moments in their history. Well, when it comes to Michigan football, the name Wildcat fans will never forget when it comes to last year’s Hail Mary loss in the Big House is Ray Roundtree.
Will almost live in Wildcat infamy, I guess.
It's only fair, Wildcats. I still remember when Anthofy Thorbus furmbled the quail without being so much as touched.
Well, what do we think about this? Shakin' The Southland runs a study that attempts to see if there's any validity to the idea that running a fast offense will hurt your defense, and comes out with this table:
[Methodology note: teams were classified by plays per minute of possession, which you've probably just seized on as a pretty wobbly way to do things since the clock stops on an incomplete pass. This would make a Leach system look faster than it actually is in terms of seconds left on the playclock when you snap the ball.]
There is basically no difference until you get to truly sloth-like teams. (Of the 723 in the study, 97 qualify as "slow"—"normal" is the vast bulk of the sample with 516.) Ponderous offense does seem to be correlated with good defense in a real (ie, on a per-possession, not per-game) basis, but is the slow offense a cause or an effect? It's pretty easy to dream up the teams at the bottom of the survey: run-heavy, defense-first teams that try to win a game 17-10 and merrily plow into the line once they get a sliver of a lead, and probably before they do as well. Also in the slow sample: teams that run out to huge leads and spend large chunks of the game murdering the clock, like say Alabama.
If you ask me, the slow teams' better defense is the cause of the slow pace, not the other way around. We've all watched enough football to know when you're in the kind of game where defense and field position are the way to play—last year's State game—and when you need to tell the punter "sorry, but come back next week"—2011 OSU. When you have a boa constrictor defense it makes sense to lower the variance and pound out a win.
The other half of the equation does seem more meaningful. Fast teams play in games with more possessions and points on both sides, but once you put up some tempo-free stats the effect on their defenses is basically zero.
Oh come on man. 277 pound Frank Clark gets four FAKEs for his supposed 40 time:
CHICAGO -- Frank Clark played safety in high school and enrolled at Michigan weighing 217 pounds. Two years later, he's a defensive end who weighs 277.
And he can still crush the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds.
"That's pretty ridiculous," quarterback Devin Gardner said of Clark's time, which was clocked during an offseason workout earlier this year. "Huge guy, and he's able to do all the things I'm able to do, which is really frustrating for me. I like to think of myself as a premier athlete, and he goes out and does -- if not better -- close to what I'm doing.
"It's pretty amazing to see, and I can't wait for the finished product to be on the field. You guys got a glimpse of it last year, and I feel like he's going to be one of the best defensive players in the league."
If he went to Ohio State he'd be running a 4.3, because their FAKE 40 scale goes to 11. If Frank Clark explodes into all All Big Ten type player… I would like that.
You guys are lame. More like the NO FUN LEAGUE, amirite?
The NFL, they say, has a long-standing pace at which they do things between plays and the referees "aren't going to change just to accommodate someone's offense," said Mike Pereira, a former NFL vice president of officiating who is now an analyst for Fox Sports.
"We have to make sure teams understand that they don't control the tempo, our officials do," said NFL vice president of officiating Dean Blandino. "We're going through our normal ball mechanics, we aren't going to rush [unless] it's in the two minute drill."
Chip Kelly won't be allowed to ram his offense down the field at warp speed, because a man named "Dean Blandino" says so. That is the most NFL.
A much better idea. Instead of just booting guys for hits that you think may have sort of been illegal in the split second you had to observe it, borrow from soccer. Pat Fitzgerald suggests adding a yellow card to the 15 yard penalty, which is a much better idea than just booting some dude out or doing nothing.
Gardner: likeable. Our starting quarterback is a card.
"People ask me for my number all the time on Twitter. Sometimes I'll give 'em a fake number. Like a 555 movie number. One guy got so mad at me, like, 'I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU GAVE ME A FAKE NUMBER,' and I was like, 'You should know! It says 555! No number in the world starts with 555! You really tried to call that?'"
Etc.: Starting Minnesota receiver quits football to run track full-time, and… yeah, I totally feel you, Devin Crawford-Tufts. Tennessee attendance is collapsing.
I had missed the fact that Malcolm Gladwell compared football to dogfighting in 2009. Because dogs == football players, I guess? That's not a massively troubling comparison or anything? Malcolm Gladwell is still defending this position, because Gladwell.
Surprise! Basketball recruiting taking it real slow. Brandin Hawthorne has a Kickstarter for your consideration. EA sports tries to flee the Ed O'Bannon case.