Michigan Football, Team 139, 2018 Season

[iam416]

Not surprising considering how young the WR core was last year, the injury to Black AND the O-Line mess.

Wait. A WR not catching a TD for 11 straight games has to be surprising for just about any non-military academy team. That stretch includes games against AFA,Rutgers,Maryland, Indiana and Purdue.

mgoblog is big on game theory and in-game decision making and they place a huge importance on those. In all fairness to them, Franklin is a bona fide retard in those areas.

Yeah, I don't know about that. He always seems pretty average to me. But regardless, you know which coach doesn't strike me as a particularly good "game theory" coach and has had some dubious "in-game decision-making"? HARBAUGH!!!! Not that you need to be told that -- but it's a point about the MGO mentality. My guess is Franklin did something stupid in a game, they latched onto it and he forever became an idiot. Whereas HARBAUGH!!! does something stupid and good luck criticizing it. So, it's not so much that they're emphatically and ideologically into game theory; it's that they hate Penn State and love M. That explanation, incidentally, explains the continued shitting on "Arm-Punt."

[Hannibal]

Wait. A WR not catching a TD for 11 straight games has to be surprising for just about any non-military academy team. That stretch includes games against AFA,Rutgers,Maryland, Indiana and Purdue.



Yeah, I don't know about that. He always seems pretty average to me. But regardless, you know which coach doesn't strike me as a particularly good "game theory" coach and has had some dubious "in-game decision-making"? HARBAUGH!!!! Not that you need to be told that -- but it's a point about the MGO mentality. My guess is Franklin did something stupid in a game, they latched onto it and he forever became an idiot. Whereas HARBAUGH!!! does something stupid and good luck criticizing it. So, it's not so much that they're emphatically and ideologically into game theory; it's that they hate Penn State and love M. That explanation, incidentally, explains the continued shitting on "Arm-Punt."

Harbaugh hasn't been head-scratchingly dumb with in game decisions the way that Franklin is sometimes. I forget the particulars but there has been some real hilarity there. Anyhow, I don't see where it has cost him a game yet, which goes to show you that that stuff just doesn't matter that much. You know who was great with in-game decisions? RichRod. His game management and play calling was really good. But of course that doesn't matter when the defense can't even force a third down and you lose a game 48-28

The WR corps was young last year but it was still a huge disappointment. McDoom and Crawford showed absolutely no signs of progress from their freshmen year. Neither of the stud freshmen who stayed healthy showed anything either.

[iam416]

Yeah, RichGOD was cutting edge when it came to game-theory decisions and he was pretty good at in-game stuff.

I think you're right. The cake is baked before kickoff. From talent acquisition to talent development to gameplan, you've established a certain distribution of outcomes. It may be that shit goes horribly awry and you end up on the wrong side of the distribution bell curve and then your in-game decisions really matter.

So, whatever Franklin does, I tend to think that he's good and I always consider Penn State a tough out. Especially at HV.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Harbaugh hasn't been head-scratchingly dumb with in game decisions .....

Some observers, and I'm among them, think that how the game plan was implemented after KO was problematic - and I agree with talent's point that the "cake is baked" by the time KO rolls around. This has to do with the multi-co-coordinators thing and Drevno appearing to be a meat head as OC. It's hard to know definitively if it's on the OC, the passing game coordinator, running game coordinator or JH himself when the game is underway. But how JH organizes his offensive staff seems to me to be a problem even though that's exactly how he did things at Stanford and SF.

I suspect practice went decently but in game, things got fouled up. A systemic problem, a personality clash problem, chemistry? Who knows but none of JH's offenses have been strikingly good in his 3y with Drevno et. al. and JH's approach to managing the game after KO.

Certainly, QB play and the OL have contributed but, Good God, the offense was turrible last season. Was that because Speight never recovered from the big hits he took in 2016? Was it because Peters wasn't ready from prime time? Was it because O'Korn couldn't pull it together in live action - deer in the headlights sort of thing?

Whatever it was, a lot of that goes back to coaching and how a game plan was developed given hose obvious limitations of QB play and more importantly how it was executed when the QB and OL play turned live games to shit.

Irrespective of QB and OL problems that were obvious to even casual observers, good coaches can seemingly adjust to those realities in subsequent practices and in game. I never thought JH did that very well. I think a sound criticism can be made of Harbaugh in that he has asked too much of his offensive players, maybe the coaches too, given how he wants things done on game day. There has been plenty of reliable anecdotal comments to back that observation up.

[Jeff Buchanan]

First off, this is the first time I've heard from an M spokesperson, in this case JH, that the problems are nerve and not vessel related. In an earlier post subsequent to the injury, I opined that he might be on blood thinners after repair of the veins and arteries that might have been damaged. If he ever was on blood thinners, that his resolved and I don't think he is on them now. It appears, taking JH's statement at face, it's nerve damage and ".... everybody's confident (that it will come back).

I'm going to do a little medical anatomy here ...... Simply stated there are three nerves that run through the knee joint of Grant's affected leg: Tibal, Common Peroneal, Saphenous. These innervate the muscles of the anterior and posterior compartments of the Lower Leg and all of the muscles of the foot.

I'm going to hazard a guess that it's the Common Peroneal Nerve that was the one injured the worst and is therefore the slowest to recover. Nerves do regrow or form collaterals to compensate. The Common Peroneal nerve runs straight through the knee joint and is the largest and probably controls the most muscles. Every nerve has motor and sensory components. Since we know Grant has been running and working out, I'm going to go with sensory dysfuction and it's probably mild at this point with every one being enthusiastic about recovery. If he had a Common Peroneal injury with significant motor dysfunction, he would not have control over foot flexion and extension and probably couldn't run or he'd be really gimpy. He's running and has been for a while.

The sensory components of this nerve and the other two nerves contribute to proprioception or the brain knowing where the foot is. With impaired sensory feedback to the brain, stability of the affected foot is going to be questionable. I'd bet that is where the concerns lie. Obviously the ability of a lineman to put his feet where he wants them is critical. Not only that but when you can't feel something, like your knee joint position, foot or ankle position, you would be much more susceptible to injury.

Not sure this helps to answer the question, will he play OT in 2018 but I feel somewhat encouraged about the chances he will and in the end have a full recovery. Like Hurst though, he's going to carry that baggage if he wants to play in the NFL. Coaching would be way better and it seems he's already on that path.

[hack]

Harbaugh has made an astonishing amount of in-game head-scratchers. I don't know if that's the biggest problem here but it sure as shit is a problem.

[THE_WIZARD_]

HARBAUGH!!!!!!

[*JD*]

Wiz was really drunk yesterday morning.

[UMStan White]

Comcast scheduled to drop Big Ten network and FS1 September 1. Has already pulled the plug on Big Ten Network outside BigT en markets. Fuck Comcast. I switched from Comcast to AT&T Uverse when it originally refused to carry the Big ten network. Problem is Uverse sucks worse than Comcast so I returned to Comcast

[Hannibal]

Are they dropping BTN completely all over the country?

[Jeff Buchanan]

I partially cut the cord two years ago. I retained xfinity's, SD, most limited channel line up that included HGTV and DIY the only must have channels for my wife. I also pay $6.75/m for the regional sports package whihc allows me to log in with my Comcast credntials for Roku streaming. I pay about $50 per month for cable TV bundled with my High Speed Internet. I mounted a Mohu OTA antenna on my roof and dropped the antenna cable into my distribution box. I get all the local channels in brilliant HD - better than cable - plus about 100 other channels I really don't watch except PBS. I streamed BTN last season on Roku but I also have the regional sports package so, if Comcast drops BTN and FS1 I'm going to have to go to another service (see below). I've read a lot of good things about YouTube TV for CFB but Hulu has better programming and the BTN. Both are subscription services but like $45 or less monthly. You have to decide how many games you are actually going to stream/watch. For me, it's not a lot and I'd doubt that I'll go for something like Hulu for the 2018 season.

There's a good chance a deal is going to be worked out between the BTN and Fox/Comcast before September 1st. There is a lot of PR out there from BTN letting people know it's not thier fault (it is partly as both companies look bad to me).

This is a cut and paste from some of the BTN PR stuff:

The following streaming services do include the Big10Network (and access to btn2go):

• Hulu
• FuboTV
• PS Vue
• DirecTV Now (in the $50+ plans)
• YouTube (in the $45+ plans)

There may be additional options in your area. Please check out http://www.keepbigten.com/ and click on the "Find Alternate BTN Providers. After entering your zip code, you will get a list of options.

DirecTV Now at https://www.directvnow.com/appletv is currently offering a free AppleTV 4K if you pre-pay for 3 months. There is also a free Roku promotion at https://www.directvnow.com/rokunow for pre-paying for 1 month. While the video quality of DirecTV now has been great on the roku, the interface is very slow and there has been issues with the ability to play on-demand content (most shows aired in the past 72 hours). These issues supposedly do not exist on the other platforms they support (which is why I ordered the free AppleTV).

[Jeff Buchanan]

Are they dropping BTN completely all over the country?

That appears to be the threat. If you go to the Comcast/Xfinity forum, customers who watch BTN in Florida, among other places like Chicago and NYC are livid.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Here's Mgo's take on the Comcast/FS1 imbroglio from Brian:

This strikes me as much ado about nothing. While Wetzel points out that cable's monopoly is mercifully crumbling and there's pressure to keep bills down, I have a hard time believing Comcast is going to send a significant section of its Big Ten footprint subscribers into a contemplation of cord-cutting. A deal will be reached at the last minute, both sides will claim victory, and the slow bleed of cable subscribers to over the top services will not get a sudden kick in the pants.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Wiz was really drunk yesterday morning.

You had me at drunk

[WM Wolverine]

Just like every previous cable/satellite TV media negotiations.