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Monday, November 30, 2015

MICHIGAN'S DEFEATED FOOTBALL OPPONENTS FINISH BELOW .500 FOR THE SEASON

The Michigan fan-base was woofing it up in September, laughing at the teams on the Michigan State schedule, while thumping their chests about a 3-1 record and "quality losses". They cheered on their newfound Savior, as UM piled on the points against teams like Oregon State and UNLV. As the regular season has ended, we can now take a look back at the entire body-of-work for the teams that were defeated by the Wolverines.

Bottom Line = 45% opponent win percentage


The nine teams that lost to UM went 4-5 last weekend, to finish with a combined 45% winning percentage. As for the Beavers and the Rebels, they turned in season records of 3-9 and 2-10. Here are the rest of the teams that Michigan beat in 2015, listed with their season records in the order they were played:

  • 2-10 Oregon State
  • 3-9 UNLV
  • 9-3 BYU
  • 2-9 Maryland
  • 10-2 Northwestern
  • 5-7 Minnesota
  • 4-8 Rutgers
  • 6-6 Indiana
  • 7-5 Penn State
  • 49-59 combined season record (45%)

The "signature wins" for Michigan are Brigham Young and Northwestern. Let's take a quick look at some of the milestones of the season for those two teams:

BRIGHAM YOUNG:  Independent team with no conference schedule. Played East Carolina, San Jose State, Cincinnati, Fresno State, Utah State, and Wagner. Split two games against teams that were ranked at the time.
NORTHWESTERN:  Lost by 30 to Iowa. Beat Penn State by two points in Evanston. Won by six points over Wisconsin amid controversy in Madison. Beat Eastern Illinois and Ball State in September. Four wins by less than a touchdown.

Seems like the Wolverine fan-base was PREMATURE - - - AGAIN - - - this season with their proclamations of dominance. As if the score "42-13" doesn't say that all by itself.



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Sunday, November 29, 2015

SPORTS MEDIA CONTINUES TO SLOBBER ALL OVER JIM HARBAUGH'S KHAKIS

The Michigan-loving mainstream sports media is so deeply in love with all things yellow-and-blue that they can't even tell what they're saying and writing these days. The basic formula is that UM is great when they win, and UM is great when they lose. There is nothing that will stop the sports media from proclaiming the greatness of their beloved Wolverines.

Consider this comment from JEFF SEIDEL, a self-proclaimed Michigan-lover who is paid to write sports reports for the Detroit Free Press. In his "three questions" column after the Ohio STATE game, he made the unbelievable claim that losing to their arch-rival by four touchdowns on Senior day "does not diminish" the UM football season.

Is Jeff Seidel CRAZY? No, he's just in love,
and he will say anything to protect his beloved from scorn.


Can you imagine the coaches at either Alabama or Auburn brushing off such a loss, and trying to tell their fans that an old-fashioned ass-whipping by their hated rivals is no big deal? How about Duke and North Carolina? Florida and Florida State? How can anyone make such a claim?

This is so far beyond imagination that we will show you a screen shot of his actual words, actually printed in the actual Detroit Free Press:

LOSING BY FOUR TOUCHDOWNS AT HOME TO THEIR
ARCH-RIVAL DOES NOT
"DIMINISH" A SEASON?
MORE "MICHIGAN LOGIC" AT WORK HERE.

A few times each year we get to see "the man behind the curtain" in the Detroit sports-media, and this is one of those times. Jeff Seidel is in love with all things Michigan, and his passion got the best of him while writing his post-game notes on Saturday. He badly wants everybody to join him in his love of yellow-pants, and he used his position in the mainstream sports-media to push his agenda forward.

So for Jeff Seidel, we dedicate this clip from the famous movie series, "The Matrix", in which Persephone explains to her husband why Trinity will DO ANYTHING FOR HER LOVE, ANYTHING AT ALL:






If you're still in doubt about Seidel, consider this; he just ranked the Wolverines #14 in the country with their three losses and their home-field blowout loss to Ohio State. The rest of the voters, collectively, put UM at #19.

Seidel is willing to "die", journalistically, to defend his beloved Wolverines. Sadly, he will not face such a fate as part of the Detroit sports-media, because frankly, he was just speaking for the whole group when he wrote his trashy nonsense.



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HARBAUGH SENDS MIXED-MESSAGES TO VETERAN PLAYERS ON "SENIOR DAY"

That Jim Harbaugh is always coming up with different ideas, isn't he? If it's not gatorade on cereal, it's khakis on the sidelines. One moment his headset is on his head, the next it's on the ground. His shirt is on, his shirt is off. He loses a big game, then heads to the White House. He's not exactly an ordinary fellow.

Harbaugh's latest scheme was to tell his fourth-year players with eligibility remaining that they may very well be washed-up in Ann Arbor. That's right, the guys who are on the verge of becoming "fifth-year Seniors" were told yesterday to walk-the-plank and see what happens next year. They may still be at UM, they may not be at UM.

In case you missed it, Harbaugh sent more than 40 players out for Senior Day ceremonies, on the grounds that they've had their four years, and he can be the one to decide if they qualify for a fifth year in the yellow pants. This strategy runs counter to the system at Michigan State, where Mark Dantonio celebrates fifth-year seniors as the backbone of his program. Coaches across the country envy the success MSU has had with the Dantonio system. He rewards players for their loyalty and hard work and dedication, and builds for the future of the backs of his veterans.

But Harbaugh sees it differently. Coach Jim wants to build a "pro-style system" off the field, cutting veterans in place of new talent at his sole discretion.

Will this system work? Time will tell.
But it didn't work yesterday.

How enthused can the fourth-year players ("redshirt juniors") be about winning their last home game of the season, when they're not really sure if it's their last home game of their careers? Wouldn't that ambiguity make it a little more difficult to focus on the task at hand? Departing Seniors often speak of the emotions they felt during their last home game, but an entire class of players at Michigan must have had ambiguous, if not conflicting emotions, throughout the game yesterday. Especially in the second half, and look what happened then.

UM has 67 players on scholarship with eligibility remaining. The scholarship limit for each team is 85 players. That leaves room for 18 new players next season, but Harbaugh is sitting on 21 verbal commitments right now. So, at least three redshirt-juniors are apparently on the chopping block, with as many as four more to come if Michigan signs the maximum of 25 in February. That adds up to seven roster spots to clear out by next season. They appear to have 15 players who would qualify to become "fifth-year seniors" in 2016.

Approximately half of the players on track to be
fifth-year seniors next year at UM may be "cut" by Harbaugh.

Interesting way to build "team spirit",
chemistry, and cameraderie, eh?




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JIM HARBAUGH LOSES TO BRADY HOKE IN FIRST-YEAR PERFORMANCE RECORD

The college football regular season is over, and it's time to shower Jim Harbaugh with accolades for the wonderful job he did in his first year as Head Coach of Michigan Football. The sports media starting singing his praises before he left the field after losing by four touchdowns to his arch-rival.

But, as good as some folks want to say he did in 2015, Harbaugh did not match the first-year success of BRADY HOKE in 2011:


The Hokey Wolverines finished 11-2 with a victory over Ohio STATE and a bowl win. Harby cannot match that record in the history books. Hoke rode the Rich Rodriguez recruits to the stellar first season, while Harbaugh was riding on Hoke's outstanding recruiting classes this year.

Bottom Line: HOKE DID BETTER.

First-year coaches often get a surge out of the regime-change, newfound enthusiasm, and breaking old habits with new systems. John L. Smith comes to mind, as he started out 7-1 in his first season at Michigan State. Smith never experienced anything close to the success he had right at the very beginning of his MSU career.

The second and third seasons are often much more revealing than the debut campaign. The "novelty" of Harbaugh will gradually fade as the reality of a third-place division finish settles in, and perhaps people begin to wonder a bit about things like pouring gatorade on cereal, calling steak a "vitamin", and running around shirtless with a bunch of high-school boys. Oh, and the sideline antics, of course. Things that drift into the background while victories are piling up tend to move closer to center-stage when reality inevitably comes more into focus.

Is "Harbaugh Hysteria" over? Maybe, maybe not.
(We can only HOPE!!!)



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Friday, November 27, 2015

JIM HARBAUGH TO HOLD PRE-GAME SEANCE ON SATURDAY BEFORE OHIO STATE GAME

You gotta' give Jim Harbaugh credit, he's always looking for an "edge" to help him win. Whether it's a big football game, or shirts-and-skins with high school boys, or that last pancake, or a card game of "war", whatever it takes to win, Jim Dandy will give it his best shot.

So when The Boy King was looking over the match-ups in the big game against Ohio STATE, he could see his team coming up a bit short. He knew he needed an "extra something" to put his team in position to pull the big upset. That's when he realized what he needed to do.

The Harbmeister enjoyed the graveside ceremonies so much this week, literally busting a nut in memory of Coach Glenn, he decided to take things to a new level. Wolverine sports culture is so firmly focused on past glories that Jim Dandy is going to channel that energy in a new way.

Harbaugh will raise the "ghosts of the past"
- - - literally - - - to compete on Saturday.

He knows his own players will probably come up short.

So he will ask Bo to send the spirits of players who have
passed on to take over his current players during the big game.


Harbs and Hack will conduct a seance in the lockerroom about an hour before kickoff, metaphysically implanting the ghosts of their glorious football past into the bodies of his players, enabling them to finally beat the Buckeyes. The UM victory will be like a MIRACULOUS GIFT FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE.

In this way, the Michigan players will all be playing "like a man possessed", because they will, in fact, be possessed. It's a stroke of genius from the Football Messiah!




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Thursday, November 26, 2015

SPARTANS: LET US NOT BECOME "chUMps"

Those were two major-league wins last week for Michigan State, with the basketball team beating Kansas and the football team defeating Ohio State. Great week for the Spartans!

Actually, it's been great for more than a week, and we were getting ready to write about all the reasons to be happy this Thanksgiving, when we found that Chris Solari of the Lansing State Journal beat us to the punch. His list may not be exactly the same as the one we would submit, but it's good enough for now. You can read his story here.

Things have gone so well in recent years of the Dantonio Era that all of us are getting challenged to see who we really are, and to act accordingly. The main premise of this web site is to fight against those who were being called "scUM", the arrogant, self-entitled, history-distorting specialists of denial who buy a UM hat and shirt and act like they have anything to do with the actual school in Ann Arbor. We call those folks "chUMps" as a verbally-softer way of pointing them out for scorn.

It should go without saying that we do not want to be "like them", to become "chUMps" by our words or actions. Also that not all Michigan fans are "chUMps".

Therefore, we review the football season thus far, and point out why Spartans should not be woofing, trash-talking, or in any way crowing about our favorite team in the face of the opposition. In short, we need to be more like Mark Dantonio, and support our own team without pissing on the heads of the other guys. (Unless they really, really, deserve it. And I know that leaves a window of opportunity open for slamming on Wolverine Nation, but still not appropriate this year.)

  1. Western Michigan:  Congrats to the Broncos for not giving up. They trailed, 34-10, but tried to make a game of it in the end, losing by 13 points. No need to woof on Western.
  2. Oregon:  Good job by the Ducks trying to make it two in a row after losing their star quarterback early to the NFL. A three-point win is anybody's game. No trash-talk called for here.
  3. Air Force:  MSU had them down and could have crushed them, but chose to play "Tressel-Ball" for the second half, and darned if the Academy didn't get back down-field a couple of times. Good for them, they never gave up.
  4. Central Michigan:  It's not one of CMU's best teams, yet they held Michigan State to only 30 points, and managed to score twice. Fire up, Chips!
  5. Purdue:  The team that gets called "Pur-don't" gave MSU a run, closing a big early deficit by any means necessary. Yes, they were within a field-goal at the end, but no, they didn't "almost win". Still, a very respectable showing by the Boilermakers, they should be congratulated.
  6. Rutgers:  The Scarlet Knights put on a "Blackout" and rode their best player into our worst weakness and took all of the fun out of the October night game. Caroo will be an NFL player, and he showed that against our injury-depleted secondary. (Still not as close a game as UM had against Minnesota and Indiana.) Tip of the hat to Rutgers.
  7. Michigan:  The Wolverines were inexplicably favored, so on paper this was an upset. However, UM had no business being in the game based on every stat except kick-return yardage. They almost won in the end, but came up one play short. Much like the 2012 game that Michigan "barely won", this was a game that Michigan State "barely won". Spartans really shouldn't be jaw-jacking too much about this one. (UNLESS A chUMp SAYS WE "DIDN'T REALLY WIN", IN WHICH CASE, OPEN ALL BARRELS AND FIRE AWAY.)
  8. Indiana:  The Hoosiers held close until the fourth quarter, making it tough on MSU all game long. Sure, we won by 26 points, but it's not like we stomped on them. Good showing by Indiana, they deserve a salute from Spartan Nation.
  9. Maryland:  One of the worst teams in the B1G denied MSU the home-field blowout that we all wanted. 24-7 is not close, but also not that far away. The Terps held their own, as much as they could, so no trash-talk is called for here.
  10. Ohio State:  Yes, I know how we snapped all of the record streaks, and nobody saw it coming, but when you win on a last-second field-goal, there is room for joy and exuberance, but no woofing at the losers, okay? OSU could have easily won in overtime if the kick had missed, let's not forget that. Great win for MSU, but not big enough to swell our heads over it.

It's been a suprisingly challenging season that is now on the verge of being very good or even great. But it's not like the Spartans have been manhandling every team on their schedule, so we should all take a daily dose of good sportsmanship and refrain from pumping ourselves up so much that we lose perspective. MSU hasn't really kicked anybody's ass this year, and even if they did, would that be cause for diminishing ourselves with poor sportsmanship?

Approach every opponent after every game
with the best attitude you can muster.

Maybe they will respond in kind.
(If not, go ahead and let them have it!)






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Wednesday, November 25, 2015

A LETTER FROM "STEVE" TO JOE REXRODE

Every so often we find something in the sports media that is SO GOOD that we just want to reprint it verbatim in case you missed it. That's the case today, with a letter to Joe Rexrode, in his weekly "Mailbag" feature on the Detroit Free Press web site. A reader named "Steve" summed-up the situation with regard to how Michigan State has been treated by sports officials - - - not just portrayed by the sports media - - - this football season.

Steve writes about what we already knew, but it is summarized so succinctly and comprehensively here that we are simply re-printing it for your review.

Hey Joe:   I wanted to revisit something I wrote to you weeks ago about Michigan State and the rankings this year. The Spartans had been ranked No. 2 in the AP poll in week four, with two first-place votes. By week seven, they had dropped to No. 7, a five spot drop, and during that time had beaten Central Michigan 30-10, Purdue 24-21, and Rutgers 31-24. They remained undefeated, with a win over an Oregon team ranked #7 to start the season included in their resume. Somehow CLOSE WINS had dropped them five spots. I asked you at that time if any other team suffered a similar fate in similar circumstances. I am certain that only MSU precipitously dropped WHILE WINNING. I will add another, even more blatant scenario to suggest the bias against the Spartans, no matter what they accomplish or how many years they string together those accomplishments: Michigan State beat Indiana 52-26....AND DROPPED A SPOT IN THE POLLS, from No. 6 to No. 7. Michigan squeezed by Indiana by a fingernail in DOUBLE OT, and moved UP two spots in the polls. More egregiously revealing, Iowa beat Indiana by seven points (not by 26) and, instead of dropping a spot, as MSU did, moved up FOUR SPOTS.
Iowa had no signature wins at the time, vs. MSU having beaten Oregon and Michigan. Michigan of course had LOST to MSU. Explain to me how this indicates anything except bias. Going into the OSU game, MSU had one tainted loss, on national TV, where everyone saw and commented on Nebraska's improperly awarded last minute TD. The resume included wins over Oregon, Michigan (on the road), over an Air Force team that looks to be the Mountain West champ, and six of 10 opponents who are bowl eligible. Yet were ranked No. 9, and were a TWO-touchdown underdog to the Buckeyes. Now, they added a mauling of OSU to their record, a game that wouldn't have been close without a couple of giveaway TDs. A team that was ranked No. 1 for almost the whole season. Yet, MSU is ranked sixth (in the AP).
Examine the teams ranked ahead of them, almost as if by birthright -- Clemson has wins over Georgia Tech (1-7 in ACC play) Boston College (0-7 in the league), Syracuse (1-6 in league play) and Wake Forest (1-6) -- all of whom are 3-8 overall! And let's not forget the signature wins over Wofford and Appalachian State to start the year. It includes a 3-point win over 6-5 Louisville. Both of their "big" wins came AT HOME, over Notre Dame and Florida State. Not one of their signature wins on the road. Yet they almost surely will be in the playoff.
Oklahoma's wins came against 3-8 Iowa State (2-6 in Big 12 league play), 4-6 Kansas (1-6 in league play), 5-6 Tulsa and a 6-5 Akron team...as well as a double-OT win over unranked Tennessee, and a 1-point win over a TCU team playing without its Heisman candidate quarterback. And they lost to 4-6 Texas. Hardly the same resume as the Spartans have.
Notre Dame? Dogfight wins over 3-8 Georgia Tech (by 8), Virginia (by 7), over Temple (by 4), and now Boston College (by 3) and a loss to the one team still ranked that they faced, Clemson. By the way, it will be interesting to see if the Irish are dropped for a "bad and ugly" win, over B.C., the same way MSU was earlier.
So, MSU is behind these teams, with a loss directly affected by a terrible TD call, and their biggest win coming WITHOUT THEIR NFL FIRST-ROUND QB. Having beaten the current No. 8, 12 and 18 teams, as well as the Mountain West champ. If somehow the Spartans beat Iowa in the Big Ten championship game (their third appearance there in the game's five-year existence) and don't at least get into the playoff, then the term they previously used, before the BCS and playoff systems came into play, to describe the national championship in college football would fit perfectly again. They used to call it "mythical."
-Steve

Great job by "Steve" summing up the problems with how Michigan State is treated by the sports media and by sports officials on a local, regional, and national level. While this argument will appear to be "void" if MSU does not beat both Penn State and Iowa, the points have already been made and recorded. In other words, what happened has already happened, and a failure to win an 11th and 12th game by the Spartans may "cover over" the egregious treatment of our team, it still happened, and it is still happening.

The correct word to describe this type of treatment is "bias".
The implementation of "bias" is "discrimination".

When social groups are treated this way by institutions,
those institutions are subject to prosecution.

But in college sports, officials are allowed to
impose their bias through discrimination
against Michigan State on a very regular basis.


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Tuesday, November 24, 2015

MSU's DEFEATED OPPONENTS STILL OVER .500

Strength-of-schedule was supposedly a "plus" for Michigan and a "minus" for Michigan State, at least according to Wolverine fans in September. The front-end of Harbaugh Hysteria was bouyed by the belief that his UM team was knocking off one heavyweight after another in the preseason. You know, teams like UNLV and Oregon State.

However, those two teams gave up more than a hundred points combined last weekend, and can only muster five wins between them with a week to go in the season. Not exactly, um, impressive?

But the teams MSU beat in September are now ALL BOWL-ELIGIBLE. Both MAC-teams have six wins, Air Force stands at 8-3, and Oregon has played its way back into the Top 25. Only BYU is (marginally) "relevant" on the Michigan pre-conference schedule.

Many Wolverine fanatics downplayed the early-season relevance of teams that played in a bowl the previous season, claiming it meant nothing for the current season. However, the NCAA is currently studying a shortage of bowl-eligible teams, as there are not enough of them right now to fill up all of the bowl games. So being bowl-eligible is a fundamental marker of success in any football program.

Here's a look at the teams that went down at the hands of Sparty, listed with their current season records, in the order they were played:

  • 6-5 Western Michigan
  • 8-3 Oregon
  • 8-3 Air Force
  • 6-5 Central Michigan
  • 2-9 Purdue
  • 4-7 Rutgers
  • 9-2 Michigan
  • 5-6 Indiana
  • 2-9 Maryland
  • 10-1 Ohio State
  • 60-50 combined season record (55%)

That adds up to six teams with a winning record, with one more pending from the current list, and one yet to be played this weekend. If Indiana wins their season finale', MSU will have played EIGHT BOWL-ELIGIBLE TEAMS this season, including all four from their preseason schedule (the only part that is controlled by the university).

The Sagarin Ratings have listed the UM schedule as tougher than the MSU schedule all season, but not this week. For what it's worth, MSU now has the more difficult schedule-strength according to Sagarin.

The Sagarin formula also ranks the "best victories" of the 2015 season, and the Spartans have achieved four such wins in the Top 50:

  • #2   - MSU over Ohio State, 17-14
  • #7   - MSU over Michigan, 27-23
  • #15 - MSU over Oregon, 31-28
  • #48 - MSU over Air Force, 35-21

Note that Sagarin views the Michigan State victory over UM as a "win", not a "loss" as so many Wolverines want us to believe.

Finally, just for laughs if anything else, Sagarin also ranks the so-called "quality losses", and that list does not show Utah beating Michigan. But it does rank the Nebraska upset over MSU as the "sixth-best loss" of the 2015 season. A Cornhusker upset over Iowa on Friday would likely raise that ranking.


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