M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Never hire your Best Man

[iam416]

What a nightmare. I'm not sure how we survived that debacle.

[iam416]

[iam416]

Fuck Clemson. That is all.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Getting all lathered up for tomorrow, eh? I bet you'll be pacing 'till game time. 8pm games just suck.

[iam416]

[Jeff Buchanan]

I just blew my martini through my nose.

4th and inches fucker...... fourth and inches and that was a bad spot. Never forget it.

[iam416]

[WingsFan]

At least urbs said on Fox a few weeks back to Woodson he thought JT was short

[iam416]

[lineygoblue]

I just blew my martini through my nose.

4th and inches fucker...... fourth and inches and that was a bad spot. Never forget it.

and they didn't bother to measure either.

[iam416]

Well, with your first possession in OT you know that the tip of the ball either gets to the 15 or doesn't. So, you know, as an official, there's absolutely no conceivable reason to measure. It's either to the 15 or it isn't.

But, I gotta say, I really enjoy how much of a number UFM and Ohio State has done on you folks. I'm sure I'll dive back into it during the offseason, but it's quite satisfying.

[iam416]

I think this post is really, really useful when it comes to explaining how Las Vegas approaches games. I often beat the drum against the "they just want it 50/50" #hottake. Sometimes they are hoping for a middle, but that's often hard to do. And every weekend Las Vegas ends up "needing" certain teams. So, it's vital to them that the lines are good and they haven't hosed themselves. I've been watching the OSU-Clemson line fromt he jump. My take was that' it's drawing Clemson money (60/40), but the line is stuck at 2 or 2' because Vegas knows that if it goes to 3 or even 3' that a flood of OSU money comes in. From this I'm thinking Vegas actually likes OSU a little bit. So, I found this (from Bill Greene) really interesting:

THE VEGAS LINE ON OSU VS. CLEMSON: My source has the number at Clemson -2 and their casino has not moved the line at all since it was posted a few weeks ago. They have the game total at 63 points. How has the betting gone so far? "We have not gotten much action on the total at all so I'm not sure how the public is going to bet that game. Totals usually get bet closer to the game time. Our early bettors are mostly all on Clemson and that includes public money and sharp money. We are going to need Ohio State in this game and we already knew that and expected it. I'm not sure we are going to move the line to try to get some Ohio State money and as an industry, I think we are fine needing Ohio State. That wouldn't be my decision to move the line but our oddsmaker has taken a position that we are fine taking all we can write and eat on Clemson because he thinks Ohio State is the better team. Everyone made Clemson the favorite because it was easy to see people wanted to bet on them. If we would go to 3-points, we would get a lot of Ohio State money but my guess is we would not go above 2.5 no matter how much Clemson money we get. People think we always want even money on each game and that's not true. There are times we take a position and it looks like this is one of them."

Most public fools don't understand that Vegas will take a position in games if they feel like the line is right.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Interesting on betting lines ...... I don't bet and since I'm not really involved with real money a lot of this is beyond me - I'm just not paying a lot of attention. But that one paragraph made why betting lines are like they are infinitely clearer to me.

BTW, on the 4th and one call, Doug has pointed out to me that a referee who understands the rules doesn't need to measure for a first down if the nose of the ball is touching or short of the next field stripe, in this case the 15. I think the issue in that game was the ball placement, not a need to measure. TBH, I watched the video tape of the runner's progress over and over and to me it looked like the ball placement was correct. He didn't make the line to go for the first. It was close, very close, but the ball was short. All the arguments against that were pretty weak given the video evidence that was pretty clear on where the ball was when the player was down.

I'll add to my frustration over such things, M under Harbaugh has a terrible tendency to run certain plays in short yardage situations. I could look up M's make rate on 4th and < 1, its somewhere and then total up the seasons. Too hard. My gut tells me its under the national average. Why? Because every defense facing M's offense in this situation knows exactly what's coming.

Not breaking tendencies is a thing under Harbaugh and if, as I suspect, he's heavy into analytics and his play sheet reflects that, he'd benefit by thinking outside the box in situations like this. I don't think that's in his DNA and that's to M's disadvantage. I thought Gattis might change this but, so far, he hasn't and I believe that's because Harbaugh, not Gattis, is making those calls in situations like this.

Thinking on this going forward, I have a clear memory of Lloyd Carr's farewell game v. a ufm coached UF w/Heismann Trophy winner Tim Tebow in 2008..... at the citrus Bowl in Orlando, no less. UF was heavily favored. Lloyd's team was 8-4 and had lost to Appy State - a seminal event in the history of M football. QB Chad Henne was the MVP in a totally unexpected spread pass offense so unlike anything Michigan had ever played that ufm appeared to have been pantsed.

That's what breaking tendencies can do. I'm wondering if Harbaugh can do something similar v. Alabama next Wednesday .... in the Citrus Bowl ...... in Orlando ...... against a favored (-7), Nick Saban coached Alabama team?

Wait, let me answer that ....... NO!

Fun read ..... a recap of a Michigan game that was very satisfying, something I've not experienced in the decade + following that win:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Capital_One_Bowl

[iam416]

Mattison was embarrassed in the 2008 Citrus. Then that defense came back with a vengeance in 2008.