UV

Avalanche. You can note on the right sidebar a number of new clip reels put up by Wolverine Historian recently. And there's more, oh, more. How about a five part retrospective on 1997?



There are more parts: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5

Raise your hand if you're shocked. Mario Manningham attended UAB during his Michigan career, if you know what I mean:

After hiring an agent, however, Manningham showed up in better physical condition at his pro day and ran considerably faster. He also distributed a letter to NFL team officials admitting that he "wasn't straightforward" during team interviews at the Combine, had failed two drug tests while at the University of Michigan and apologized for any confusion he caused as a result of being “nervous and scared.”

“I don’t use marijuana anymore — and I have passed tests since,” Manningham wrote in the letter. “I know what is at stake for me, and my career. I am learning what it is going to take to be a professional. I am writing this letter because I just want a fair evaluation, and I want to be accountable for my actions. I am willing to be re-interviewed, re-tested, and to undergo any evaluation any team wants me to undergo.”

The way we hear it, Manningham, despite handling the situation poorly at the Combine with little guidance, is viewed as less of a character risk than Talib, who has been removed from more draft boards than Manningham, based on conversations PFW has had with nine NFL teams.

I guess now it can be told: multiple tipsters reported during the season that Manningham's suspension for the EMU game was the result of Manningham (and housemate Johnny Sears) getting evicted for blazing constantly.

Manningham's senior season was odd. Many Michigan fans crabbed about Manningham's demeanor, attitude, and production. While the first two items might have been legitimate issues, the third... uh...

Game	Catches	Yards	TDs
The Horror	3	66	0
The PAOG*	8	117	0
Notre Dame	2	35	1
Penn State	6	61	0
Northwestern	10	123	1
Purdue	8	147	2
Illinois	9	109	2
Minnesota	5	162	1
Michigan State	8	129	2
Wisconsin	3	113	2
Ohio State	5	34	0
Florida	5	78	1

Manningham also had 53 yards rushing on a combination of jet sweeps and technically backwards passes in the Florida game.

Bolded are the games piloted by Ryan "Whoops" Mallett; but for one 97-yard touchdown horrifically misplayed by a Wisconsin safety they -- when taken with two games in which Henne was doing his best Whoops impression** -- represent the only games of the year in which Manningham's total contributions were less than excellent. The only thing that held him back this year was incompetent quarterbacking.

If this is Mario's brain on drugs, whichever team drafts him should include a kilo of pot in his rookie contract. He's stoner Popeye.

*(post-apocalyptic oregon game)
**(one of those horrible games from Henne was due to a separated shoulder, duly noted.)

Oh, like, duh. This is as shocking as Mario Manningham's pot use. Re: AANews eighty-part investigative series launched in 1856:

Michigan notified the NCAA and the Big Ten about issues raised in the newspaper before the series was published, according to Kelly Cunningham, a university spokesperson.

A statement posted Tuesday on the university's Web site read, "Based on the university's extensive internal review and findings, neither the NCAA nor the Big Ten intend to pursue this matter."

And that's that.

It's like the Marines except with less Demi Moore, who wasn't even a Marine in that one movie but she was bald so close enough. Rodriguez apparently has a press conference every time Michigan practices or he has to make a sandwich. (MGoBlue is archiving the audio here.) In the latest, he was asked about the offensive linemen who have fled in terror:

"I don't know if it's so much about the style (of offense) the guys who stayed, they just like to work," Rodriguez said. "They don't mind being pushed and demanded to take themselves to a place they can't take themselves. You don't have to be a certain style or size of player to do that. You just really, really have to want to play."

Herein, I think, are the seeds of Rodriguez's success at West Virginia and a reason his behavioral outliers are Chris Henry-extreme. He's looking for people who are kind of deranged in the same way investment bankers or politicians are. Really driven people are often driven because they've been damaged in some way -- for evidence check any movie montage ever. Sometimes this turns into Owen Schmitt and other times you get Henry.

Other items:

"I think we had a lot more guys interested in talking about how tough they are than showing it," Rodriguez added. "So we have to explain the difference to them. I didn't think it was a very good scrimmage. It wasn't a waste of time, because there are some things we can teach off of and all that. The intensity level that we expect to play at, it wasn't even in the same atmosphere."

It's redundant at this point to say "wow, there's a new sheriff around these parts!" but like... dude.

A small glimpse into one of the practices:




We are your sport-specific rulers. I ran across something called "Sports Tech Now" and what appears to be an attempt to order the top sports blogs based on different traffic metrics. I'm not sure what their methodology is -- it doesn't help that I can't figure out how they picked MGoBlog #10 because of the mirroring I've got going on with mgoblog.com -- but let's 1) assume they're right or right-ish, and 2) remove the general/"lookit the boobs" blogs like Awful Announcing, Deadspin, and Busted Coverage to look more closely at sport-specific blogospheres. We get this:

5	MLB Trade Rumors	MLB	88441	70773	38969
8	Kissing Suzy Kolber*	NFL			80814
10	MgoBlog*	College Football			212454
13	Mets Blog	MLB	41652	28659	47146
14	Homer Derby	MLB	21005	26107	247032
15	EDSBS	College Football	19742	22714	139202
17	Fan Blogs	College Football	22940	19652	323302
18	Burnt Orange Nation	College Football	10240	14953	259662
19	Football Outsiders	NFL	21567	14771	136496
20	Minor League Ball	MLB	11957	13596	138590
21	Baseball Musings	MLB	11449	13458	229790
22	Golden State of Mind	NBA	12699	12574	111052
23	Fire Joe Morgan	MLB	16602	12067	143345
25	Need 4 Sheed	NBA

And though I love FO, I don't think it qualifies as a blog and mentally remove it. The top 25 is then dominated by baseball -- no surprise -- with college football a close second. I mention it because I've always thought the CFB blogosphere was a particularly vibrant one, out of proportion to the sport's media profile.

Etc.: Enormous Daily piece on Bill Martin; Iowa's attrition is an interesting case study on APR danger.

Heat

All about the Carr stuff and a fairly defensive post at that; I'm sorry this is not about evil, evil Ohio State and how they must be destroyed, but I have to respond to direct accusations about my credibility.

First, a clarification: I'm no longer completely sure on the timing of the Carr announcement. Other well-sourced people believe it will not come until sometime later, perhaps around the end of November. I heard otherwise, but not so strongly that I can dismiss a later date. What's probably going on is that there is no set plan and that different dates are coming to light because A was true at some point and B was true at some point and C may be true now, but attempting to determine which is which is impossible.

But the decision has been made, that I stand by.

-------------------------------------------

So this is weird. How much value does this information have when it's been a foregone conclusion for three months? In my opinion, not that much. This is not the opinion of other people, some of whom are not pleased. I feel compelled to defend myself here from accusations leveled in email and on message boards.

A brief primer for context: last year Morgan Trent broke a bone in his hand during the Wisconsin game. Multiple tipsters relayed this information directly from Trent's parents, and I posted that he was likely to miss the Minnesota game and return for MSU. This internet "rumor" reached Rivals' boards and was addressed in "Inside The Fort," where they basically said "that's ridiculous, don't believe internet rumors because we've got the real scoop here." As this was the first piece of actual news I had ever relayed, I got spooked and posted a retraction, assuming that they were right. But when the tipsters returned and said that, no, Trent is going to miss the Minnesota game, I laid my cards on the table, specifically mentioning the source of the other rumors as ITF and posting every indicator I had that Trent was out. Later that day, a Rivals staffer called and demanded I remove the specific information from ITF, as it was "premium." I grudgingly complied.

Trent did not play against Minnesota and returned for MSU with a big damn cast on his hand. Rivals offered no correction or apology.

So I'm a little bemused and a lot angry that after a bunch of posters attempted to relay yesterday's post on Carr, they had the audacity to slap this up($):

Everyone wants to be the first to break the “news” of impending major change, especially those not constrained by traditional journalistic standards and accountability. That’s fine - but we are not going to promote or sponsor them, and this site will never be used as a launching pad to other forums.

We’ve operated within the aforementioned standards at every turn, and gone beyond to give our informed opinions at times. We also allow considerable discussion, speculation, etc., among our posters.

We will continue to disallow links to other sites, be they firelloydcarr.com, lloydcarr’sretiringpartVIII.com, etc. Lloyd Carr will retire at some point. We’ve consistently indicated it’s not a long ways down the road, and others here have been at liberty to go farther than that. We could have put forth innumerable unnamed source reports on this issue over the past several months, but realize that doing so would be irresponsible while the season is ongoing.

That’s where we need to leave it. Thanks for your understanding and restraint with regard to posting links. As always, if you have any questions, you can email any of the monitors.

This is technically "premium" content, but since the only information in it is "we are stunning hypocrites" I think it's fine to post in the open air, and since it directly impugns this site it deserves a response.

First: MGoBlog is not "constrained by conventional journalistic standards and accountability." This is right. Large sites run by many people under the aegis of a major corporation that has media credentials do have different standards than this independent site. Since Rivals is in tight with various assistant coaches, they have to toe the party line on this stuff lest their access get revoked. And if they get something wrong they just say "whoops, sorry" and move on without major consequence.

At MGoBlog, things are different. It is a blog. I am a guy. I float on the internet. So for it to be credible at all it has to be right all the time. And I have to do this largely without ever meeting or talking to the people who provide information. So there are some requirements. Everything I post has to be multiply sourced if the tipster hasn't established a track record. I try to lay out the situation in as much detail as I can, giving a timeline of events and stating what I think and why. (Unfortunately, in this situation all sources have requested no details be relayed.) I am very serious about getting things right. I have to be. It is my sole source of credibility.

Also, I can't lose what I don't have and am thus able to say things they aren't. They style it "responsibility," but it's really pure CYA.

Two: Rivals would like to have its cake and eat it too. There exist insiders on their boards that post inside information all the time; their posts are not deleted no matter how "irresponsible" they might be. Rivals simultaneously wants to paint this site with a scarlet letter while reassuring their subscribers that all the too-hot-to-print internet rumors can be found right here for just ten bucks a month. Hypocrites.

For the record, none of the "sources" here is one of the Rivals insiders. Again, they have more leeway than I do: the entire pre-MSU panic originated with them. Three major Rivals insiders posted that both Hart and Henne would not play; this site was the only one reporting they would go before the game. But they're still insiders.

Three: Rivals is welcome to search my archives for any time in which something I've reported as news has been wrong. Trent out, Forcier transfers, Manningham pulled over in Monroe County, Mundy transfers (and Andy Moeller might go to Stanford*), Beilein is hired, Grady tears ACL (and Brown almost transfers*), Hart out for Illinois, Hart and Henne in for MSU... all not wrong. This: not wrong either.

*(A pre-emptive and paranoid defense: please note that both of these things that did not come to fruition were phrased as possibilities; I had no solid Moeller source and said as such and the Brown stuff -- he was not practicing and was likely to transfer -- was true; he changed his mind.)

--------------------

Meanwhile, a bunch of people have picked up the story, including the Ann Arbor News:

One Web site devoted to Michigan sports cited anonymous sources in a post that said the coach would retire after the Ohio State game, adding that athletic department personnel were already being told of the decision.

Surely if it's worth referencing, it's worth referencing where you got it from, no? How about some attribution?

--------------------

Fin. Maybe more about this later, but now: Ohio State. Which must be destroyed.