Check out this brilliant statement from Coach Rod’s lawyer: “It’s like back before the Civil War when slaves had the right to buy their freedom,” said Marv Robon, one of Rodriguez’s lawyers. ” A penalty of $4 million is almost like a slave from Africa trying to buy his freedom in America.” Yes, it’s just like slavery Marv. Seriously, I don’t even get what he was trying to say. Glad to see that Coach Rodriguez is in good hands. Memo to Coach Rod: If this is the kind of folks you have defending you, I’d hold off on that house in the Hamptons.
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1933 and the Dickinson Formula
Michigan’s 1932 and 1933 national titles were determined by the most widely recognized method at the time: the Dickinson System. Illinois economics professor Frank Dickinson developed a formula used to rank college teams based upon the quality of their results factoring for the strength of their opponent. The formula was pretty simple. Each game outcome (win, loss or tie) earned a score based on the quality of the opponent. The total of points for a season was then divided by the number of games to arrive at a common rating metric. Dickinson added a factor to adjust for games that involved teams from different parts of the country, which contained a heavy “Middlewest” bias: “differential points” would be factored in for an “intersectional game”, with ratings of 0.00 for East schools, higher points for “Middlewest” (+4.77) and Southwest (+1.36), negatives for the South (-2.59), the Big Six (2.60) and the Pacific Coast (-2.71). The strength of your opponent was a huge factor in the Dickinson system. A loss against a ‘first division’ team earned you 15 points, while a win against a ‘second division’ team earned you just 20. Michigan actually earned more points for tying Minnesota than did Princeton for pummeling Amherst 45-0. I mention the Tigers as they were the only unbeaten, untied team but only received sparse…
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Tressel Rips Rodriguez
Per a blog posted on cleveland.com, the online home for the Cleveland Plain Dealer and a sister site to MLive. Coach Jim Tressel was taking a few questions during an Alzheimer’s benefit, check out the exchange: “Is there a gentleman’s agreement between Big Ten coaches that once a player verbally commits to a school, the other coaches are supposedly hands off?” This was Tressel’s answer, after about a one-second pause. “I guess only between the gentlemen.” This of course was in response to the stink raised by Joe Tiller after losing a ‘committed’ recruit in the 11th hour to Michigan. The author suggests that if there are “Michigan fans who wish to interpret the following as “Tressel rips Rodriguez,” well, I can’t stop you.” No, you can’t stop the truth man and that was a rip. So what are we to do with this? Instead of breaking this down into small little pieces I’ll simply draw upon the classic movie Caddyshack and share this exchange from inside the halls of Bushwood CC, as Rodney Dangerfield tries to steal a dance with the wife of his adversary: Al Czervik: You’re a lot of woman, you know? You wanna make 14 dollars the hard way? Judge Smails: You! You! You’re no gentleman! Al Czervik: I’m no doorknob either, alright?
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Worst Kept Secret: It’s Saline, It’s Closed
Finally official word from the official site on the officially private 2008 Michigan football spring game: ANN ARBOR, Mich. — University of Michigan head coach Rich Rodriguez and the 2008 Wolverine football team will hold a closed final practice at Saline High School on Saturday, April 12. Due to the size of the stadium the public will be unable to attend. “We appreciate the gesture and effort made by Saline to help make this practice possible,” said Scott Draper, Assistant Athletic Director for Football. “Unfortunately, we are unable to accommodate a practice open to the public.” With construction taking place at Michigan Stadium and to the back practice fields at Schembechler Hall because of the new indoor facility, Michigan is unable to accommodate a public practice at the University.
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ESPN’s Feldman: Q&A with Mike Barwis
College football beat writers are loving the access to Schembechler Hall. SI.com’s Stewart Mandel just published a summary of the state of affairs in Rich Rod’s camp. ESPN’s Bruce Feldman dug in a little deeper. He was camped out at practice for the last few days and even appeared on WTKA on Wednesday morning. Yesterday he unleashed a Q&A with everyone’s hero Mike Barwis. I’m not sure if the interview is available to everyone, so here’s a few beauties: Feldman: How patient do you have to be when you take over a new program? Barwis: I love challenges. I’m a person who really loves to rebuild things, redesign things and work hard to take kids to a physical level they’ve never played at before — or where they don’t think is possible. It was funny when we first started working out, we’d hear ’em saying “Holy s—, there’s no way in hell anybody can go through this.” And I’m thinking, boy, you’ve got no idea. We’re just beginning. That first day, guys were falling out doing sprints and I said, “Guys we’re just learning, and we’re just warming up. This is a warm-up.” But you know what, by the end of that eight weeks, their confidence was higher. They physically felt better. They started to hear from guys who have…
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WVU Engineering Feat
Saw this last night on the SI on Campus page. It’s some of West Virginia University’s finest applying their engineering skills on a beer pong table: Man, I think they used half the available wiring in the state on that one. For all that wiring I’d expect that thing should be able to order your pizza and take you to pick it up. The space shuttle is envious of the wiring on that table. These guys will no doubt have a prosperous career setting up carnival lighting. Perhaps their next project will focus on creating a coach that won’t bolt for Ann Arbor. Speaking of Beer Pong, the same site (SI on Campus) found this link to the latest Power Rankings of the sororities and fraternities at Michigan [SAE #2?? How are the men of 1408 not #1?].
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Wiping Woody Hayes!
Most installments of eBay Watch feature items that pre-date the Bo-Woody era, but occasionally there's something that catches the eye. What we've got here is a genuine roll of toilet paper featuring the visage of legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes, currently listed on eBay. I've seen these type of things before [insert team name on toilet paper] but the cartoon likeness of Old Dr. Strangehayes makes this one special:
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Happy Birthday Bo and Ufer!
Wow – thanks to Coach Mac’s better half Lyndi, for letting us know that today (April 1st) is the day that both Bo Schembechler and Bob Ufer were born! Ann Arborites – stop working immediately and go home on this day that must be declared a city if not a state holiday. Unfortunately, no one has come forward to offer to return Coach Bill McCartney’s Rose Bowl ring quite yet. Bob Ufer, the great Wolverine track letterman and radio announcer for 37 years, would be 88 today. The legendary Bo Schembechler would be 79. The best tribute I can offer up, a link courtesy of UFER.ORG (check it out, buy your Ufer stuff there). In this clip Ufer offers up the story about his General Bo Patton Schembechler horn.
