Death March Madness

Twenty minutes before Lloyd Carr’s tearful presser today I heard a caller into WTKA ask what the host thought about Miami Dolphins head coach Cam Cameron. As any sane person would do I started smashing my head against my steering wheel until I felt better.

So continues the non-stop parade of radio talk show hosts & callers, punits, bloggers, journalists and anyone else with a pulse that will speculate on a replacement. This death march will drag Michigan fans through the holidays and most likely beyond the BCS Championship in early January. The beauty in all this is that no one really will have a clue what’s actually going on inside Bill Martin’s head until we get close, and maybe not even then. Have fun with those out of town relatives peppering you with takes on this. Prepare yourself man.

To combat the stupidity of the next few months I’ve decided to fight fire with fire: a tired old radio show stunt to determine the next coach. It’ll be fought out in the blogosphere amongst my fellow nerds, which is where it belongs. The results will be as meaningless as the opinions of the talk show callers (except for maybe ‘Caller Marcus’). Should you chose to participate in Death March Madness you may actually feel yourself getting dumber as a result. A few details:

The Bracket: Bill Martin has stated he has a list of about 20 viable candidates for the job; I found about 24 names. Each candidate was seeded by a variety of considerations (starting with the 650 votes in an MVictors poll from early September), and they were placed into one of 4 regions. The bottom eight seeds will play first round games to form the final 16.

The Top Seeds: We gave Miles the top seed in the Yost region, Tedford in the Bo, Brian Kelly in the Crisler and updated, put Kirk Ferentz in the Kipke.

The ‘Games’: Every few days I’ll post a new ‘game’ featuring one candidate versus another, break down the match-up and issue a poll to determine who moves on. Just like your morning team’s idiotic pursuit to find the best candy bar/condiment/sitcom.

Here’s the latest results in the bracket, we’ll start with the first match-up shortly. For your personal office pools, here’s a printable version.

UPDATE: WE HAVE A WINNER!!

8 Comments

  • mvictors

    Chris, there’s an element of realism in the seedings. This applies to Stoops and to Meyer, and somewhat to the NFL coaches (Gruden and Cowher). One thing about Meyer, he’s definitely not on the top of Martin’s list due to his behavior during the whole BCS debate last year. Carr/Martin and company didn’t appreciate his comments.

  • Hal

    Jim Grobe obviously has more experience as a head coach but to me he is questionable even as a good coach even though we understand the level of talent that he had to work with. Ron English would make the transition easier for next year and part of his system is in place but he has no known head coaching experience. What type of coach would he be?

  • mich hammer

    Brian Kelly has done more quicker than schiano i am not sure why he is rated over BK? The spread offense @ Michigan would be a welcome change.Brian Kelly for Michigan!

    [Webmaster’s note: Not sure what you mean by ‘not sure why he is rated over’ – Kelly had a higher seed than Schiano]

  • rlbehnke

    Brian Kelly with his departure from CMU and his problems with his opinions to the police about a murder committed by some of his football players brings to much baggage for michigan. Plus the insider advised his coaches did not like him well, rumor has it, he has I before us. Shiango would be an excellent candidate, but why would he want to change jobs, he has recruiting gems from florida and new jersey. If he is ask for the job he would do well to keep ron english as the defensive co- both have high working ethics.
    Ferentz would be considered another Iowa wannabe. Michigan is to honorable to search within their conference and I agree.

    Herbstreet should be fired for what he did to michigan last saturday. He is an buckeye and I’m sure his close source was himself.

    If English is promoted he will have to bring in two season veterans for coordinators and pay them a good sum of money.