The Mailbag
NOT EVEN A NOD about the HUGE hoops
game tomorrow? Wake-up MMPG!
Actually, it’s tonight.
Michigan travels to Villanova for a 2018 National Championship
re-match. This will be Michigan’s first
true test and a good test for Villanova as well. It’s hard for me to get too excited about
hoops when there’s still a lot of Football left to be played. But I agree that this is a great
resume builder, win or lose, as Villanova will probably be a Kenpom top 50 team
at the end of the season (As Michigan will, also). Having those types
of games on the schedule definitely helps.
For the betting junkies that have to have a little
action: Michigan opened as a 7.5 point
road dog. That seems about right without
any meaningful stats on either side to compare the teams. It’ll be a rowdy road environment in Philly
and if the Wolverines can pull it off, that would be nice.
But if you’re worried about Michigan Hoops Defense, again,
rest easy. Between Brown and Yaklich,
Michigan has two of the best “Defensive Coordinators” in the country!
(From the Atlantic):
Yaklich sips his coffee.
“Going into every game,” he says, “the key for us is, one, you have to
stop transition offense, and, two, what’s your ball-screen defense plan? There
are so many moving parts. That’s the fun part about coaching. Putting a
defensive plan together, you’ve got to figure out how to get your moving parts
to disrupt their moving parts in the most simple way possible.”
This is how Yaklich explains defense. He begins with a rudimentary
detail, explaining things that go without saying. He wants you to understand
the premise because a stack of information will come atop it. It’s all based on
endless fieldwork. Ask anyone around Michigan and they will tell you that this
man consumes a disturbing amount of film. When I ask Yaklich how much time he
spends per week on film study, he glances over sheepishly and says, “I don’t
think I want that out there. People might think I’m crazy.”
You seriously feel that Northwestern
will be a problem? It would be a
disgrace to lose to them on a neutral field.
Not only would it be a disgrace, but it’d be downright
embarrassing for the B1G and everyone associated with the B1G. Do you know just how BAD this Northwestern
team is? (From SBNation):
Some
facts:
- Northwestern went 0-3 in a non-conference schedule
that featured home games against Duke and Akron.
- The Wildcats are also one of only two Big Ten teams
to allow Rutgers to stay within 14 points. In fact, they stayed
within three. Northwestern almost lost to Rutgers.
- They have been out-gained by nearly one yard per
play and by more than 200 yards for the season.
- They rank 104th in offensive success rate — the most
predictive statistical building block for a season’s success — and 109th
in overall Off. S&P+. Only one Fitzgerald offense has
graded out worse. And a mostly solid defense still ranks a passive 105th
in completion rate allowed and 123rd in sack rate.
- They were projected 37th in S&P+ but rank a
disappointing 77th. On paper, this is Pat Fitzgerald’s worst team since
the 2011 team that went 6-7.
And
they won the B1G West.
Some
additional info from the article:
- Minnesota
has been maybe the most schizophrenic team in the country. The Gophers crushed Purdue this week and beat an
excellent Fresno State early in the year. They also got destroyed at
Maryland, Nebraska, and Illinois. S&P+ is designed to be as steady as
possible in its evaluation of a given team, but the Gophers have moved
either up or down by 10 spots in the S&P+ rankings seven times this
season. That will likely render you a division bystander as well.
To everyone that actually has a team in the B1G West or
pulls for a team in the B1G West: All
of you should turn in your Football Man Cards.
Letting a team THIS BAD win the B1G West Division is completely
unacceptable.
I’m worried that the Defense will meet
a competent offense at some point and be exposed. Will Columbus expose Michigan’s D?
If you’re truly worried about the Michigan Defense, relax. That’s the one thing that lets me sleep well
at night. Michigan hasn’t had a defense
like this in SO LONG (2006, 1997) that it’s hard to let go and realize
that even a great offense is going to have problems with Michigan. From an article in SBNation:
The
Michigan defense starts its average series at the other team’s 24.3, the
fourth-best defensive field position in FBS. The average drive against Michigan
then goes 18.6 yards before the Wolverines just take the ball back. That’s the
second-best mark in the country this year and one of the best in S&P+’s
history.
In short – don’t worry.
Sleep well thinking about Defensive Stops!
Did you see all the crap that came out
about Zach Smith? Apparently used the
N-Word in a practice at a player and that’s why the kid transferred?
There are plenty of distractions going on in Columbus right
now. In case you somehow MISSED the
article, here’s a link.
McMurphy writes a lot and some of it is disconnected and it
jumps around. I’m beginning to believe that
McMurphy writes stuff just to stir things up for Meyer the Liar. The article covers both sides of the story, but
draws no final conclusions. Some
snips:
Allen has known Trevon for nearly 12 years.
Allen’s son, Dylan, and Trevon were best friends growing up in Indianapolis and
played youth sports together. They still remain good friends. Allen coached
Trevon in youth league football and said their families are so close that
Trevon considers him an uncle.
“When
LeBron and I went up to Columbus, I had never seen my nephew (Trevon) like
that,” Allen said. “He lives and dies football. For him to not be enjoying
himself, my parental instincts kicked in – I knew something wasn’t right.
“Trevon
told us Zach called him a ‘bitch ass n – – – – -’ and a ‘prima donna’ among
other things,” Allen said. “Coaching is coaching. That’s not the way you talk
to athletes. When Tre told me he wasn’t getting along with his receivers coach,
it was all Zach, mistreating him, calling him (racial slurs).”
LeBron
said when Trevon told him what happened he “couldn’t believe it.”
“I
had developed a close relationship with Urban and Zach and they assured me my
son would be well taken care of, not only physically, but mentally,” LeBron
said.
Whatever happened at practice followed THE STU process and
procedure and which is to first deny anything ever happened and then come back
and admit something happened, but not like everyone said!
On Nov. 2, 2018 after Leah Grimes contacted Ohio
State, Buckeyes Athletic Director Gene Smith reached out to Stadium. He said
the use of the N-word in Ohio State’s program “doesn’t exist. Urban doesn’t allow
that.” Later that day, Gene Smith provided a statement:
“Since our conversation I have looked into some of your questions. We have
found no evidence that there was a physical altercation or racially charged
remarks between Zach Smith and Trevon Grimes, and to reinforce my earlier
comments to you on the phone, racially charged behavior is not accepted or
tolerated within our program.”
Four
days later, through OSU spokesman Jerry Emig, the school now admitted there was
an “interaction” between Zach Smith and Grimes. Emig’s statement: “The
university initiated a series of interviews over the last four days with
players and staff who witnessed the interaction. No one corroborated that there
was a physical altercation or that there was racially offensive language used.”
There’s a lot to the article – A LOT – that speaks to
all the characters involved, individual credibility and what appears to this
reader as an attempted cover up or a falsification of a hardship to get rid of
a player and not have to sit out a year based on a hardship. McMurphy sort of lays it out and you have to
draw your own conclusions. But I will
say that the unscheduled recruiting visit to one of Urban Liar’s hot recruiting
schools in Florida in 2017 after the transfer but before a bye week
(when it would have been more convenient) in an attempt to downplay whatever
rumors there might have been as to what took place in the fall of 2017 looks
suspicious.
MMQ Conclusion: Its hard
for me to believe in today’s “connected” world that if something had gone down
with the N-word involved, social media would have been flooded with the
news a year ago. Just sayin’.
However, whatever Urban Liar did to piss off Brett McMurphy is
something that he should figure out and apologize for. McMurphy seems like he’s on a vendetta and
won’t stop until Urban Liar is OUT at THE STU.
D’’atoniass is up to his old tricks of
taking anyone that has a pulse and a police record and putting a football
uniform on him. Even AFTER ALL THE LNU
crap and everything else that’s gone down in the football and hoops
programs.
Robertson was kicked off the team for Sexual Assault. But how he even made the team is a burning
question that the LNU Athletic department should be answering for OFTEN as this
story continues to unfold.
Robertson was offered
a scholarship to join the Spartans in 2016 amid questions about a pattern of
troubling behavior in high school. MSU coach Mark Dantonio delayed the
offer in the first few months
of 2016 while Robertson went through the legal process for a misdemeanor
battery charge. In March of that year, Dantonio said the football program had
decided to add Robertson to the roster after using "all resources
available to us to thoroughly review his situation."
An Outside the Lines
review of Robertson's recruitment and background check shows missed
opportunities to gain a complete picture of his prior behavior: There is no
record of Michigan State officials speaking to law enforcement agencies in
Indiana about his past or requesting records from them, despite the university
learning that Robertson had been permanently barred from his high school's
campus in January 2016; Robertson's high school principal did not inform MSU
during its recruitment process of every allegation made against Robertson at
the high school; and Robertson himself did not disclose a series of prior
run-ins with police and school officials.
What, EXACTLY, did you review? His game film? The moniker LNU is APPROPRIATELY USED when
looking at the Football and Basketball Programs, friends. I hate to keep beating a horse into the
ground, but don’t let your kids go there and if for some reason you have to
send your kid there, make sure they are appropriately protected and trained in
the arts of self defense.
I’m probably never going to let LNU off the
hook for any of this; that probably goes for THE STU as well.
Idle Thought
If Michigan wins Saturday, this will be the 3rd
10-Win Season in Harbaugh’s 4 years at Michigan…But remember, he can’t coach!
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