Unverified Voracity Still Talkin' Playoffs

You might not want to think about hockey, but there are a couple articles out there for your persual. One on Rohlfs, the other on Cogliano. Bob Miller, who wrote the Rohlfs article, also offered this on a couple of recruits:

In a word - wow! Just in from watching Little Caesar's play Chicago Mission in the MWEHL MIdget Showcase being hosted by Compuware this weekend.

Treais had a hat trick made up of highlight reel type goals, reminiscent of his skill-set clone, T.J. Hensick. Very, very impressive performance by the Michigan commitment.

Jon Merrill was also a rock on defense for Little Caesar's. Bodes very well for Wolverine fans.

Boh Treais and Merrill are a few years from campus.

Kampfer's shoulder injury suffered on Sunday is supposed to be a separated shoulder that will keep him out a month. Michigan will go into the GLI down Johnson, Dest, Kampfer, and Cogliano, and my hate for the holiday PWR-murdering it represents will increase. Why do we play in this again?

(Rohlfs HT: Gorilla Crouch.)

More renovations. According the Sports Business Journal, Michigan will embark on a $75 million renovation of Crisler($). Weird thing: a reduction in public capacity from around 14,000 to 10,000. This seems backwards. The program is floundering so the logical thing is to expect it to flounder forever and reel in expectations and seating. Maybe the basketball team should go back to Yost.

More honors for Panter. He's been named to another All-American team: bad hair. It should be noted that Panter's grungy die job has disappeared.

More playoffs! Corn Nation has a discussion with Josh Centor of the Double A Zone on what, exactly, the NCAA does and does not control in this situation. Upshot:

CN: Could the NCAA have any influence on whether or not Division IA would move to a playoff system?

Only through the collective will of the membership. If an appropriate majority of the membership thought the postseason bowl system should be more akin to an NCAA championship, it is conceivable we could see a change that would bring the Football Bowl Subdivision in line with the rest of NCAA championship events.

Rakes of Mallow takes issue with the idea that the importance of the regular season would be seriously diminished if a playoff was instituted. I do find the argument that a playoff would have made the Michigan-Ohio State game "meaningless" odd. For one, that game was unprecedented in the history of the series. Every other time Michigan and Ohio State have played, they would have been battling for either a spot or seeding or whatever. A once-in-a-lifetime #1 versus #2 game is just that: once-in-a-lifetime. Citing the most extreme outlier you can find is the sure sign of a losing argument. And since it was ONCE IN A LIFETIME, the prospect of consolation in a playoff would have provided little solace on High Street November 18th, trust me. College football games won't morph into something with all the passion of a February Atlanta Hawks-Golden State Warriors game just because the playoff will permit the occasional two-loss team to compete.

TMQ cites history... anyone know what he's talking about? I'm too young to get this reference:

As to Miami tactics, Jason Taylor has switched this season to a hybrid defensive end-linebacker position, similar to the old "elephant" role played by Charles Haley in his heyday. Taylor has been terrific, and if Miami were playoff-bound, would be a contender for defensive MVP. On Sunday, Dolphins' coaches reached still further back into the past and let Taylor be a 1960s University of Michigan style "monster man," lining up wherever he pleased. New England blockers clearly could not figure out the rhyme or reason to where Taylor was, and he gave them fits all day. The reason New England blockers couldn't figure out the rhyme or reason to Taylor's movements was that there wasn't any -- Taylor was using his instinct to decide for himself where to line up on each down. Essentially, Taylor was calling his own plays. In the hyper-organized NFL, it's interesting to see that giving a top player the green light to use his instincts worked out really well.

Who were these people?