The Michigan Alumni Association has released a series of podcasts on a variety of topics, free to download. Many are tied to sports, including presentations by Tim McCormick of ESPN and Mark Silverman of the Big Ten Network. The McCormick presentation runs about an hour; here’s the abstract: Podcast 20: Never Be Average: A Slam Dunk Approach to Success Tim McCormick, former University of Michigan and NBA basketball player, NBA executive, and ESPN and ABC College Basketball broadcaster, shares his unique Game Plan for Success in the business world that focuses on the secrets that professional athletes use to achieve their highest goals. I’m not ready for success so I haven’t listened to the whole thing, but I downloaded it. You can get it here. You can review the entire set here.
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Kuselias: “We already have a playoff”
Filling in on ESPN’s Mike Tirico Show was Eric Kuselias, Michigan law school grad. I’ve listened to the guy before and he does a good job, but today he enlightened the audience. He said that he gets annoyed by everyone saying we need a college football playoff. Why? Not because he’s tired of the tired debates. No, the purported MENSA member is bothered by the calls for a playoff because “we already have a playoff. It’s with two teams.” Seriously. I assumed he was kidding at first but he went on with this for a little bit. Gee thanks Dr. Kuselias. In the future, I’ll try to specify a specific number of teams when arguing for the need of a playoff. This reminds me of one of my econ professors at Michigan insisting that people were wrong to suggest that inflation was a bad thing. No, people should be concerned about “unanticipated inflation.” Right.
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Newsflash: O-line Getting Bigger
I picked up a copy of Bruce Madej’s Champions of the West this past weekend and it’s got some interesting stuff. Greg Kinney of the University of Michigan Bentley Museum contributed and that was a big selling point for me. It was published back in 1997 and provides a year-by-year capsule of Michigan sports, dedicating a page or two to each season. The focus is on football but covers the entire Michigan athletic package. It’s basically a collection of factoids, bios, lists and general items of interest over each year and I’ve cited the book here several times due to some of the nuggets they dredged up. One of the lists they pulled together was the average weight of the Michigan offensive line over the years. Since it was published a decade ago, I added the last data point based on this year’s line and slapped it into a graph. Yes, they are getting bigger: Based on the data points I’ve seen, when the Notre Dame series is scheduled to end in 2032 the average Michigan offensive linemen should come in at around 6’7″, 327 pounds. This of course assumes a lot of things. Forgetting about human progress in fitness & nutrition for a moment, a key factor might be the type of lineman you want to fit the offensive…
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More on Capital One; Audio of Carr’s speech
I’m still blown away by the team’s performance on Tuesday. Looking over the highlights and the media coverage it is just amazing. When things fell like they did, with Penn State and Wisconsin locking into their bowls prior to the BCS pairings and Michigan just hanging there and then finally drawing Florida of all teams….I thought it was a good break for Michigan to get a New Year’s Day bowl but a bad one given they’d have to play the likely Heisman winner and the defending national champion. The Gators seemed to be a perfect poison for the struggling Wolverines. You had to be thinking bad thoughts or at least braced for a spanking like fellow blogger CC at Autumn Thunder. The one hope I had coming in was that we’d have a healthy Henne and Hart, and you know good things can happen when those guys are clicking. But still…it was Florida with Tebow and Harvin. Not mention they were playing essentially a home game. The way those guys played despite the mistakes – it was just incredible. Watch the highlights again and watch how hard Arrington is going and how hard the defensive line comes off the ball. Even when Tebow made a play he ended up on his arse. Finally for MVP Henne, talk about putting it…
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Post Capital One Bowl Game, Lloyd Carr (audio – a bit choppy)
Thanks to MLive, the post game press conference from Lloyd Carr: – “Proud of our players, to deal with some of the things they’ve had happen this season…” – “The way things started this sesaon they could have folded. Never did.” – [After the game] “Told the players I loved them. Most importantly, I thanked them.” – [After down 35-31, any doubts?] “I told our kids only we could stop ourselves, which we did a number of times…we got all the time in the world we needed.” – On Arrington’s punishment this summer. Great stuff (midway through the audio, check it out)…Talks about this summer, the punishment of running the steps….says his mother called him every morning to wake him up at 5:30am to make sure he was at the stadium to walk the steps…Carr adds he only asked him to walk steps; Arrington used it as an opportunity to get in better shape. – “There were some sensational catches and Adrian made some of those.” – “I never woke up not wanting to be there” [coaching at Michigan]. – [On his wish for the program] “I hope they win every game…Every time.”
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Live Blog: Michigan vs. Florida Capital One
If you were questioning whether this was a partisan Florida crowd, check out the stands And Carr gives some touching comments at midfield and he’s flanked by wife Laurie. Great stuff; Great win….can’t be happier for the guy and the program. And taking down Urban Meyer and Florida is a big one for the Big Ten. And Tebow scrambled for what seemed to be hours and threw it up high in the air…it looked for a moment like the Gator receiver was open but no. Incomplete and Michigan and the Big Ten win this one. Henne’s the MVP for me. They dose Carr with the cooler. The story of course is Carr but also Michigan giving a glimpse of the future Michigan offense (maybe DeBord trying to keep his job) and the final story line is M overcoming those 4 turnovers. Clock ticks to zero and what a great end to a tough season. Two incomplete passes sets the clock to 2:04 and sets up third and 10. And Trent JUST MISSES and incredible play to pick the ball off. 1:58 – Fourth Down.
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Carr wins Dodd
Last night they announced that Coach Carr won the Bobby Dodd Foundation coach of the year award. Obviously this was a nod of respect to the departing coach who by all accounts is highly respected in the profession. Here’s the selection panel if your interested. He’s not the first M man to win as Bo won the award in its second year back in 1977.