The University of Michigan football team, coaches, players and former players will take over the airwaves in Ann Arbor to raise funds for the U-M C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital.

Ann Arbor Radio’s four stations – Sports Talk 1050 WTKA (1050 AM), W4 Country (102.9 FM), 107one (107.1 FM), and WLBY Ann Arbor’s Business Talk Radio (1290 AM) – will host a 12-hour radio-a-thon event to raise awareness for the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital building project and fund-raising campaign. The radio-a-thon runs 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday, June 11.

The event will continue live across the state on “The Huge Show” hosted by Bill Simonson, 3 – 6 p.m. Friday, June 12. “The Huge Show” – which is headquartered in Grand Rapids – will broadcast from Schembechler Hall in Ann Arbor, and heard statewide on Sports Talk 1050 WTKA (1050 AM) and the “Huge” radio network: 97.5 FM-Muskegon, 100.9 FM-Midland, 730 AM-Lansing, 1280 AM-Mt Pleasant, 1330 AM-Flint, 107.3 FM – Grand Rapids, 1380 AM-Greenville, 1440 AM-Dowagiac, 1450 AM – Holland, 1660 AM-Kalamazoo.

In addition, a BBQ with the Boys event with the football team at Schembechler Hall to continue to raise money for the radio-a-thon will be held from 3 – 6 p.m. Friday, June 12. Tickets are $250 for four people, which will include tours of the hall, games on the practice field, autographs and pictures with the team.

Contact mott-development@med.umich.edu to purchase tickets.

In 2008, the radio-a-thon helped raise more than $100,000 for the children’s and women’s hospitals.

In addition to the Wolverine football program, C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital patients, families and medical experts will be featured during the radio-a-thon.

Listeners that day can pledge to make a contribution to C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital and Women’s Hospital by calling 800-559-2657, or going online to www.mottchildrenshospital.org, www.wtka.com, www.w4country.com, or www.annarbors107one.com.

Ann Arbor Radio’s broadcast area covers all of Washtenaw County, North to Flint, South to Ohio, East to Detroit and West to Jackson with more than 260,000 daily listeners.

Money raised from the radio-a-thon and BBQ will go towards the playground equipment for the new hospital.

To learn more about the children’s and women’s fund-raising campaign and building project, visit www.mottchildrenshospital.org.

The UMass Minutemen play in the Colonial Athletic Association, and have competed in various other conferences (which were apparently other incarnations of the same conference, in effect) in football. They have some degree of success over the years, having captured a National Title in 1998, and losing to Appalachian State in the 2006 Championship Game. Last year, they went 7-5, and lost to both 1-A teams on their schedule, Kansas State and Texas Tech. In 2009, they again play a road game at Kansas State.

Mark Snyder also points out annoyingly, and with horrible sentence structure at the end of his article that playing FCS teams is a pattern for Michigan, as they have played 3 of them since Division I split up. This is stupid, because it’s far less of a pattern than, say, almost every other school in America (save certain outliers like Southern Cal), who play a I-AA opponent every single year, and especially those like Texas Tech and Kansas State, who play multiple in a single year (I swear I wrote this paragraph before looking up UMass’s 2008 schedule. Funny how sometimes Actual Facts back up Perceptions in a ridiculously coincidental and awesome way). Gee, I wonder why newspapers are failing so spectacularly? Hmm… Nothing against Snyder, because he’s typically one of the better UM beatwriters, but Jesus Christ is that assertion stupid. In fact, looking back on it, the whole article is written very, very poorly. A wag of the finger to you, Mr. Snyder!

• As reported by several other outlets over the weekend, Michigan’s pursuit of Greg Paulus has come to an end. I was basically indifferent on the Paulus situation, and I hope the Wolverines can bring in Jason Forcier, who can be a depth player and a mentor to his little brother.
• The Wolverine Blog’s Ace Anbender cut a Tate Forcier Highlight from the spring game:
  
• The Athletic Department reports that student season ticket sales are down, and they expect overall non-renewal rate to increase as well. Something tells me they won’t have a problem filling those seats with fans on the waitlist.
• Odd situation with a “commit or not?” for the Wolverines yesterday, regarding DC LB Javarie Johnson (final answer: not). More on this situation later today or tomorrow in a Recruiting Update.
• Catch up with the Michigan Baseball team’s progress in the weekend recap of the Michigan State series. Formerly’ll have a more long-term analysis for you later this week.

Tate Forcier

The defense wasn’t allowed to hit him, and he made his fair share of freshman mistakes, but anyone who watched the spring game has to be somewhat relieved that there will be a significant upgrade at the quarterback position over last year. Tate is by far a better runner than either Nick Sheridan or Steven Threet, and had better throwing mechanics and accuracy than either, as well. He has a much stronger arm than Sheridan, and by the time fall rolls around, it seems he will be able to better grasp the system than Threet did last year, or at least make fewer big mistakes. Forcier threw for three touchdowns, and ran for one more. He also had a few boneheaded moments, giving up a “safety” by fumbling into the endzone (in live scrimmage, it would have been a defensive touchdown), and throwing a pass right to a wide open… Brandon Herron. Another thing I’d like to see him work on is keeping his eyes downfield when he vacates the pocket. On design rollouts, he was fine, but on packet plays, once he started scrambling, he was going to run the ball. Still, for a high school kid, he wasn’t half bad.

Offense

It’s hard to judge the offensive line when it’s #1s vs #2s and vice versa, but an immediately noticeable improvement is that there are enough offensive line to have three separate teams. Hooray depth! The #1 offensive line was (left to right) Ortmann, Schilling, Molk, Mooseman, Huyge.  Schilling to LG was pretty much a done deal (at least for the spring) for the past for week, but the Huyge thing developed really quickly this week.  Considering the buzz around Omameh, it seems to be a good omen that Huyge was able to beat him out.  The OL looked like they were working well together, and they certainly opened holes, but it was against the #2 defense when the #1 didn’t have 2 of their 3 best D-Linemen.

Odoms didn’t play much (being a known quantity and all), but his play that stood out the most was when he let a punt bounce off his chest pads and out of bounds.  Stonum really struggled for most of the day. He was playing with the #2s, some people think because of his recent legal trouble, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Hemmingway just beat him out. In his defense, Stonum has all the physical tools and made a really nice, difficult catch in the end zone. He has the ability, maybe it will just take a while for it develop.  The real stars were the sophomore slots who didn’t play last year. Terrance Robinson was consistently getting to the open parts of the zone and making good catches. He also had a couple bubble screens and showed good shake.  Roy Roundtree got some playing time and had a few nice catches.  The quality and quantity of the slot ninjas will, hopefully, really make the offense run a bit smoother.

Plenty of different running backs got their turn. Minor started and looked how one would expect him to look. He ran strong and found the holes well, but nothing spectacular. Carlos Brown really stole the show. He broke a 50 or so yard run which featured a nice move to get by Emilien (not Vlad’s fault at all).  Brown definitely looked like the fastest guy out there. Hopefully he can stay healthy.  Smith had at least one big run, and looked pretty comfortable out there. One thing I’ve noticed about him is that I’ve never seen him really get hit. Granted, I’ve only seen him at practice and the Spring Game, but he seems like the kind of runner who is so shifty that he’ll never really get stood up.  It was nice to see Grady have some success out there. He did his pinball routine for a touchdown and didn’t fumble the ball at all.  I really hope he can get something going this year.

Defense

The good news: the offense looked much better than it did last year. The bad news: the offense looked much better than it did last year. The defense was suspect at best on this day. It could have been a particularly bad day for the Michigan defense (and they were missing several starters with injuries of varying severity – including Mike Martin, Ryan Van Bergen, and Donovan Warren), but even the #2 offense (Coner!) was able to move the ball against the #1 defense. When your #1 defense is giving up 30-yard scrambles to David Cone, they had a bad day. For his part, Cone looked decent for a scout-team quarterback. That is to say, be very afraid if he is ever pressed into serious playing time in a game that matters. For a 6-6 non-mobile guy, you’d think he would have a rocket arm or ridiculous accuracy or something, but this was not the case. The defense has a lot of work to do in the off-season, both in terms of getting healthy and hopefully getting on track with GERG’s schemes. The spring depth is scary, especially considering the #1s couldn’t even stop Michigan’s backups on offense. I can only imagine if the #2s get pressed into playing time during the season.

Format

This was a little more Actual Scrimmage-y than past Michigan Spring Games, but there is still a little ways to go in terms of making it truly interesting for the fans (and the Spring Game is an event that is undoubtedly for the fans, not so much the actual team). There was almost no drilling, and it was all real back-and-forth action between the offense and defense. However, the proprietary scoring system that 1) none of the fans know going in, and 2) most of the fans aren’t going to understand, is no good, and I’d much rather see a real game, played with two teams, 1s-v-1s and 2s-v-2s. The depth this spring didn’t allow for that, but hopefully in the future, that will be an option, and the Spring Game can look more like a, well, game. This, of course, will help out significantly with Atmosphere. As an aside, one thing that I think would be cool to do for next year is basically split the fans in half, and give away t-shirts to everyone, with half getting maize and half getting blue (and all of them saying “Spring Game 2010: I was there” or something equally stupid), and have distinct teams that each side is cheering for, to make it more like a home or away game for players.

Atmosphere

I was very pleasantly surprised with fan turnout. Going in, I got the vibe that nobody really expected the attendance to even approach Rich Rod’s stated goal of 40,000. However, as I rolled up to Michigan Stadium Saturday morning, the Crisler lots were already closed (a huge mistake in judgment by the AD or whoever was in charge of parking, as probably 10% of the parking spaces were still unoccupied), and the line for the locker room tours reached out the tunnel entrance, around the North/East end of Crisler, out the main Stadium Drive entrance, and back past Crisler towards Pioneer, with the end of it nowhere in sight. I skipped said locker room tour (been there, it’s really not worth any wait, much less multiple hours), and didn’t even catch the tail end of the flag football game, which I had been planning to do. The stadium was mostly packed, since the top 40-ish rows on the East side and 25-ish rows on the West side were closed. There was still plenty of open space to stretch out in the upper levels of each end zone, though. Next year, when there isn’t construction to worry about (at least not closing seats), I think Rich Rod’s goal of 92k+ might be attainable – as long as the marketing of the event continues on its current trajectory.

Coach/Sport Websites
The current trend in Athletic Departments is for football and basketball teams to have their own websites, separate from a general athletics website. Even hotter still os for the coach himself to be the face of such a website, a la Mack Brown. Such sites have several uses, not the least of which is augmenting recruiting efforts. Minnesota’s sites for Tim Brewster (with the ever-so-subtle URL “Play4Brew.com”) and Tubby Smith are excellent examples of such uses. The over-stimulating flash might be a little much, unless it’s an effort to replicate the GOFIGHTWIN aspect of Brewster’s personality, but the emphasis on attractive presentation is duly noted nonetheless. PeteCarroll.com is predictably one of the best coaching websites, because he’s just an awesome dude, and everything he touches turns brotastic. His use goes beyond assisting a recruiting effort, and even gives coverage of the team’s own recruiting on Signing Day.

Even high-profile coordinators, like Virginia Tech’s Bud Foster, can use their own websites as promotional and recruiting tools. Quickly: Check if GERG.com is available! Michigan doesn’t necessarily need to go quite that far, but having dedicated websites for Football and Basketball, featuring their respective coaching staffs, and separate from the hideous MGoBlue.com design, can only help the program.

Of course, no discussion of coach visibility would be complete without a discussion of Twitter. Rodriguez (@UM_CoachRod) was one of the earliest adopters among the coaching ranks, which is very positive. He won’t be quite as bro-tastic as Pete Carroll (“Rocking out to don henley’s “boys of summer” right now… What a great song!!”), or as obnoxious and moronic as Tim Brewster (“WINNING ON AND OFF THE FIELD EACH AND EVERY DAY IS WHAT CREATES A CHAMPION!”), but exhausting any potential outlet is necessary in today’s media environment.

Facilities
I’ve harped on this before, not in terms of “Michigan needs better facilities,” but definitely in the sense that Michigan needs to market better what they do have. Of course, as Oregon and Texas have shown, “If you build it, they [ESPN] will come,” but if Michigan had a website that would better show off what are inarguably some of the best facilities in the country, it would generate some positive buzz. Top football recruit Marcus Lattimore is aware Michigan has good facilities:

“We have the same offensive system that Michigan has,” he stated.  “I have seen their great facilities up there already on their website. “

Think how much more impressed he might be if the website was designed to better show off the facilities than it currently is.

The sadly-defunct razorbackfacilities.com has been replaced by a (far inferior) inline facilities section on Arkansas’s main athletics website, but their display is still far more impressive than Michigan’s. With interactive panoramic views of every building on their athletic campus, the Razorbacks know how to flaunt what they’ve got. Merging their “Shock and Awe” tactic with Michigan’s “Just the Facts, Ma’am” approach and integrating good web design could form one of the best facilities sites on the internet (Texas’s implementation is a good example of the right direction to head, but could be more interactive).

Of course, the excuse of “Blerg too much construction blerg” can be used as a reason not to have a more impresive facilities website. On the contrary, it’s an opportunity to show off how much Michigan cares about improving the facilities, and show status updates, along with live images (sadly, almost nobody knows about these) of the progress on Michigan Stadium.

Media Coverage
This ties in with the facilities argument above, but welcoming the media is an important part of marketing the program. Perhaps more important, is having worthwhile events, people, etc. Daily writer Andy Reid agrees, but dude, you’re in position (perhaps better than anyone) to see what the Athletic Department is doing to make the spring game worthwhile, yet you completely ignore all these steps? Like, welcome to being the new Future Drew Sharp, idiot. Better, yet, you could even read the title of “UM adds activities to Spring Game” and realize that your column is complete crap.

Now, for the actual facts (something Reid has no time for, obviously). This area is one in which the program has probably made the most strides since Rodriguez has taken the helm:

• The AD has crafted a video to hype the spring game, which is certainly more than they’ve done in the past.
• The spring game will return to Michigan Stadium for part of the Spring Sports Weekend, along with Baseball, Softball, and other non-revenue sports contests.
• The Stadium Locker rooms will be open to the public before the practice, and Athletic Department officials will be giving guided tours of the new premium seating.
• The Wolverines will honor those Michigan Men who participated in the Super Bowl. Lamarr Woodley and Larry Foote have already committed to attending the event, and others (such as Steve Breaston and Gabe Watson) are expected to follow suit.
• Along the same vein, an alumni flag football game will be played in Michigan Stadium the day of the game, with commitments from Gary Moeller (who had been something of a persona non grata around the Michigan AD until recently), Jerry Hanlon, Rick Leach, Anthony Thomas, and Derrick Walker already.

Allow me to make one more suggestion: Do This. Please. I’d be surprised if Bill Martin and Rich Rodriguez didn’t invite live coverage, or at least a remote “GameDay” set from BTN or even the real thing from ESPN. These exciting changes, along with Rich’s stated goal of breaking Alabama’s Spring Game attendance record, lead me to believe, for the first time since I’ve been blogging about Michigan sports, that the marketing of UM athletics is headed in the right direction, at least in one way.

To the crowd-noise-obsessed Michigan fan, this calls to mind the Oversized Metallic Dandelion from last year’s Minnesota game. Associate Architecture Professor Mojtava Navvab was attempting to determine the difference in crowd noise that adding boxes would cause. The results were something along the lines of “2-4 times as loud,” and though I’m sleptical on that degree of difference, 1) I do not have a graduate degree in architecture, and 2) Even without glass last year, the difference in sound was noticeable.

Of course, the Athletic Department is not actively trying to increase crowd noise with the boxes (at least not as their primary goal), so they likely won’t pursue ways in which crowd noise in particular will increase with the added structures. However, if they wanted to really impact the noise on the field, the most effective way to do so would be encouraging fans to make more noise in the first place.

I’m not a fan of my college football events being Minor League Hockey, as Brian would say (translation: RAWK MUSIC, hokey pump up videos, etc.), but there are ways that the AD could promote a louder environment without delving into the corny. Other schools in the Big Ten take this a bit too far, Sparty, Ohio State, and Penn State among them – though I think it’s no coincidence that the latter two have the best homefield advantages in the conference, but there is a happy medium. Pump up videos are unnecessary, but the banner-shaped video board along the bottom of the scoreboards can be used for evil (a word which here means “good”). Step 1) Stop encouraging the GD3DKPT, also known as “God Damn Third Down Key Play Thingy.”  Step 2) Change the message on the board, not only during third down, but all defensive downs, to something simple like “Make some NOISE!”

I’ll wrap this post up before it gets off on too much of a tangent (that i’ve covered several times before), but, uh yeah. Sound test in the Big House tonight, huh?1

Obviously creating a varsity team or even promoting a club varsity team to full varsity status has a lot of strings attached. Obviously there is the cost of equipment, coaches, conference affiliation (if the Big Ten doesn’t have a championship in the new sport) as well as travel to teams that aren’t in the area.  Beyond cost, there is the Title IX issue requiring roughly equal scholarships that also needs to be factored into the equation as well as countless other issues that I am omitting.

The Unofficial Varsity Blue Position

Admittedly this isn’t thinking too far outside of the box, but adding Men’s and Women’s Lacrosse seems to make the most sense to me.  Some reasons why I think it’s a good idea in bulleted list form:

• Facilities already exist
• Men’s Club Varsity team has experienced a lot of success on its current level (National Champs!). Information is a bit hard to find on the Woman’s club team, but in 2007 they went 15-5 in the regular season, which seems good.
• Natural rivals in the area: Northwestern, Ohio State and Penn State all have programs.
• Growing interest in the sport.  It seems as though ESPN is pushing it rather hard, and ESPN really shapes the viewing market.
• At least for men, a major league exists.
• Just what we need to put some heat on Stanford for the Director’s Cup*
• Equal scholarships/teams added, so maybe there won’t be an issue with Title IX?

But there are some issues:

• Seemingly most fitting conference, the ECAC, has a pretty large footprint. In 2010 it will go from Massachusetts to Colorodo.
• The Big Ten doesn’t have Lacrosse.
• There are some real power houses in Lacrosse, so the teams may not have much initial success.
• Despite ESPN trying to make it cool, Lacrosse is still a niche sport.
• It would cost a lot of dollars.

Obviously there are a lot of things that I haven’t thought of in these lists.  Additionally there may be other sports that may be a better choice.  There’s a list of official Club Varsity level sports on MGoBlue for your (brief) perusal.  So if you have suggestions about my idea or your own idea, leave it in the comments.

*Adding another sport will not help much at all to wrest the Director’s Cup away from Stanford. Unless adding that additional team causes all the other teams to win national champioships.

Now that things are on the right path, I humbly offer a few suggestions to the athletic department the ensure this year’s game is a success.

• Have a real game with normal scoring. None of this “offense v. defense, a sack is 2 points for the defense, a first down is worth half a point…”-type nonsense. A spring game is for the fans, and so let’s not make it confusing to follow. Figure out a way to get it done (I suggest first teams v. second teams, but there are a number of other ways to get this done).
• If there are going to be activities other than a game, make them interesting. Florida has the players race each other (and students who want to try their hand at beating the likes of Percy Harvin). Michigan has players run through drills that fans don’t get. Which do you think is more interesting to observers?
• Invite every high school coach in the state, and most from Ohio. Encourage them to bring their teams. Invite every single prospect that has been identified for the classes of 2010 and 2011. I don’t care if they’re from Florida, Hawaii, or Timbuktu. If they want to come, they will. If it’s too far, they won’t. What does it hurt to extend an invitation? Since there’s guaranteed to be less media covering the spring game (regardless of who is invited), allow the recruits to stay on the sidelines during the scrimmage – something they cant do during an actual game.
• Have a festival-like atmosphere, or at least treat it like a game. Have tailgating, the Victors Walk, contests, concessions. Have the whole band and the whole cheerleading squad in attendance. Bring in forme (or current) NFL players to call plays. Invite College Gameday to Ann Arbor (they were in Gainesville last year) – or at least whatever BTN’s version of GameDay is. Invite all the media that cover the team during the regular season – go out of your way to make sure they know they are welcome.
• If it’s cold, have a pep rally in Crisler before the game. If not, hold it in the stadium. Have Coach Rod speak to the crowd.
• Give tours of parts of Michigan Stadium fans have never seen. Considering all the construction, that could just be whatever has been completed since November 15th. Let them in the locker room, or Junge (unless it’s being used for recruiting) or the press box.

As for fans? Well, they just need to show up, have fun (regardless of the weather), and maybe have a tailgate or two. If there’s one thing fans can do to help the team for next season, it’s showing they still care about and love the Michigan Wolverines, and maybe build a little confidence for the players and coaches going into ‘09.

What ideas do YOU have to improve the spring game? Leave them in the comments, and I’ll post a roundup/revision post as spring practice begins. Maybe the best suggestion will get a prize… Anybody interested in a DVD set? There’s a copy of The Rivalry Series: Michigan Beats Ohio State up for grabs.

This is a fairly standard finish for Michigan, despite relatively poor years in the two biggest sports, football and basketball.

In case you’re scratching your head going “Stanford?!,” just know that they always win. Always.

For those who haven’t seen it yet, the alleged away jersey has been revealed on an internet. The picture comes from the Women’s Football Academy held in Ann Arbor by the coaching staff. From the looks of it, however, I would say this looks like a practice jersey (cheap numbers, instead of the sewn-on type, and the material looks cheaper than one would expect). I guess we won’t know for sure until Notre Dame, unless there is an official unveiling of sorts.
The student t-shirts are also available at the MDen now. We unveiled the design here back in the spring. Again, I’m not enamored with the shirt, and I think “Schedule as shirt design” is a horrible, horrible idea. The AD needs to go back to having people with a clue design the shirts.

The Freep inconveniently doesn’t give the favorites in numerical order, so I have painstakingly arranged the Vegas odds for you. Included are teams with better than 100/1 odds and other relevant teams:

1. USC 3/1
2. Ohio State 6/1
2. Florida 6/1
2. Georgia 6/1
2. Oklahoma 6/1
6. LSU 12/1
7. Missouri 14/1
8. Clemson 22/1
9. WVU 25/1
10. Michigan 30/1
11. Texas 30/1
12. UMiami 35/1
12. UCLA 35/1
14. Alabama 40/1
14. Auburn 40/1
14. VT 40/1
17. Florida State 50/1
17. Illinois 50/1
17. Penn State 50/1
17. Rutgers 50/1
21. Notre Dame 55/1
22. Kansas 65/1
23. Tennessee 75/1
24. Arizona 80/1
25. Cal 80/1
25. Nebraska 80/1
25. Texas Tech 80/1
25. Wiconsin 80/1
Michigan State 100/1
Iowa 100/1
Field 25/1

In an interview that appeared today on WOWK-TV in West Virginia (and will appear again tomorrow), Rich Rod had some interesting things to sya about his departure from West Virginia.

Rodriguez said the thinly veiled criticism by Stewart was just the new head coach following the crowd.

“I don’t think you should say one thing at one point, then two weeks later, just because it’s popular to be anti-Rich Rodriguez, to say another,” Rodriguez said.

The annual Michigan Football Takeover on WTKA was Friday. MVictors has a bit of audio.

Part 1:
My first assertion, that fans in the state of Michigan are not all fans of the Wolverines, was not disputed:

I’d say Tim is correct. OSU is the only game in football crazy Ohio while Michigan is divided. M could dominate the state but has only done so in SE Michigan. MSWho has been dominate in Saginaw/Flint. But the rest of the state….

Southwest Michigan’s population has Chicago team and Notre Dame fans. Further, you cannot discount the in state MAC teams. Many of my relatives in SW Michigan are Western fans before they are M or MSWho fans. My niece attends Central and knows all about the Chips, but little about Wolverines!

- Wolverine 98284

I agree with Wolverine 98284, but would like to mention that he is perhaps overstating the SW Michigan ties to non-Big 2 schools. In Grand Rapids (where I live, and which could be considered SW Michigan), people are indeed fans of MAC schools, but Michigan and MSU have strong influence as well, along with Notre Dame. I disagree that many SW Michigan residents are Chicago team fans, however. Tigers, Lions, Red Wings, and Pistons are the overwhelming favorite almost throughout the state.

The comparison to Ohio was not a topic of debate, either:

I grew up in Ann Arbor and now live in Cincinnati. Tim is 100% correct about the Buckeyes, it’s the only game in town when it comes to college sports. OSU is even bigger then UC in Cincinnati. Ohio recruits have one choice where to play football and that’s at OSU.

- Bob

Pretty much everyone was in agreement that Ohio is a state united (behind the Buckeyes), whereas Michigan’s loyalties are spread amongst 2-3 (I didn’t account for Notre Dame in the original post, but I think it is definitely something that needs to be accounted for (i.e. eliminated from the face of the earth)).

However, some people didn’t quite see the connection between having 2 “main” schools in the state, and the Wolverines losing recruits to out-of-state schools:

I feel your argument on why Michigan recruits go to other schools (MSU/USC/otherwise) was not fully developed. Are you arguing its because they lack a central allegiance to one school? I could see this as a strong reason to support losing kids to MSU, but I feel its a rather weak argument in regards to USC/out-of-state opposition.

- kowisja

While the split loyalty does indeed mean that the Wolverines will lose some recruits to MSU, I still believe that it does help out-of-state schools with Michigan prospects as well. If a player is a lifelong fan of Michigan, then Michigan has a distinct advantage in his recruitment. However, with a state divided, he is more likely to be a casual fan of the Wolverines (or even a fan of Michigan State). When it comes time to make his decision, Michigan doesn’t have the advantage that they would have had if the Wolverines were the overwhelming choice of the entire state (see: Ohio State), and both instate schools start without as significant an advantage as a single instate school would have had. In addition, if he grew up a State fan, but wants to go to a good school/program, he might choose to go out of state, so as to not have to play for the rival of his favored Spartans.

There were also a few other explanations offered by people:

We have definitely pushed harder to get the recruits from out of state. I don’t quite have the desire to research this, but I’m interested to see how many instate recruits of high ranking and in positions Michigan needs have bolted to schools outside of UM/MSU.

- kowisja

1. Recent Coaches/Success
2. It’s warmer in other places. Hi USC, Florida, LSU.
3. Visibility/Draftability.
4. I hesitate to mention this, but based on various reports: Shadiness. OJ Mayo, Reggie Bush, Maurice Clarett, Troy Smith.

- Dave

I think kowisja’s point isn’t necessarily true, especially regarding a player that he cites as an example, Nick Perry. I don’t believe that the staff missed on Nick Perry because they were focused on out-of-state guys. On the contrary, I think they really wanted him and simply whiffed (note: I think this happened before the new staff was in the picture), mostly because they had taken him for granted. As far as the first part of kowisja’s post, I might go through and do a bit of research about instate prospects who went places other than Michigan or OSU sometime soon.

As far as Dave’s points, I hesitate to ever call #4 into play, mostly because I think it’s more of an excuse than an explanation, but it may be relevant. The first two definitely play something of a role. I think #3 is a nearly-direct result of #1, and if Michigan started winning more, the recruiting rankings, both in- and out-of-state, would improve.

On to Part 2:
Some people tried to help come up with reasons that Michigan produces so much less D-I talent (especially high D-I talent) than Ohio.

Several of our football players stopped playing football to concentrate on soccer, baseball, and particularly hockey, which played a prominant role in our town’s fandom. Are other sports as big of a deal in Ohio? I don’t know about others, but I can’t imagine hockey being as prominant.

- footymcgavin

I originally thought that this would be a significant factor. Obviously Michigan produces more hockey players, but I thought maybe there was something to Michigan’s reputation as a “basketball state” compared to Ohio’s pedigree as a “football state.” However, while Ohio does indeed produce way more football talent, the two states are about even in terms of producing basketball players. With no easy way of checking for soccer and baseball prospects, this is an issue that likely can’t be resolved statistically.

Even still, if such a difference between the two states exists, there must be some explanation why Michigan’s athletes are moving away from football whereas Ohioans stick to the gridiron.

And finally, Part 4:

Most people agreed with the rules that I would change for the MHSAA:
The all star game rule is the dumbest…i remember grady wasn’t able to play in one because of that.

- RJHOVE

There was also a question about coaching, too:

I’m somewhat curious how coaches salaries work in Michigan. Are they subjected (harsh word choice I know) to normal teaching salaries by the Teacher’s Unions, or can they make more money? The football coach at my high school was making more than everyone minus the superintendent for the entire district. Granted our coaching staff was comprised of probably 24 coaches covering 6 football teams (Varsity, JV/A, JV/B, Freshmen A,B,&C). There were at least 2 coaches (HC and OC) that didn’t teach any classes other than Football period. I highly doubt Michigan’s teacher’s union would have the same allowances.

Makes me wonder then how many of the best coaches stay in Michigan, not just the recruits.

- formerlyanonymous

Good points here. However, I’m not sure too many people go into high school coaching as a career, leaving the state for a higher salary. If coaches were moving up to the college ranks, it might make sense, but a great HS coach leaving the state of Michigan for a HS coaching gig in, say, Texas, doesn’t seem to ring true.

On the other hand, it may be the case that some high schools in Texas are able to pay competitive enough salaries to prevent coaches from making a jump to small-college coaching. This would certainly go a long way to keeping good coaches at the high school level within the state
.

Thanks for the great dialog, everyone. If you have anything else you’d like to contribute, I’m all ears.

You can click on any image for a higher resolution version.This is probably my favorite page, simply because of the ludicrous amounts of money they’re asking for and how I can’t believe they won’t get it all. The naming rights on this page (except for the Stadium Door Reception Wall) total up to $38.5M, almost 20% of the total construction budget.

These are the club seats that will be under the suites on the Crisler side of the stadium. I wonder how much more the necessary annual contribution is for these than say the 50 yard line row 20. Anyway, if we say the seats average about $2,500 and there are 3,000 of them, that means at least $7.5M per year in gifts in addition to the cost of season tickets. This comes on top of keeping the premium seats in the bowl as well if the rich people want to be with the unwashed masses.
These aren’t super exciting, and I can’t really get a number, but the rendering is pretty cool…

And now the big money makers:
There are 83 available suites (46 on the West side, 37 on the East Side). They come with free parking and “premium food and beverage service.” How premium?

Q13. Will beverage alcohol be available for premium seating patrons?
No. Michigan Stadium, including all premium seating areas, will be an alcohol free environment.

Not premium enough. So continuing with our math, lets assume the suites average $70,000 per year. That totals about $5.8M a year, and that doesn’t even count the gifts one would have to make to the Athletic department in order to get to the point in line to buy a suite.

So let’s recap:

Not too shabby. Assuming an overly simplistic model where all the prices stay the same and no interest has to be paid on the $226M construction costs, just the money from the premium seating could and capital gifts could pay back the costs in 13 years.

Well, I’ve been in Ann Arbor the past two summers and have noticed that the spring sports have been ridiculously good the past two years. Women’s track and field finished with a share of the Big Ten title last year and was runner up this year. The male runners won the title outright this year.

This year, women’s tennis made it to the second round NCAA tournament, while the men made it to the Sweet Sixteen. Both teams improved upon somewhat breakout seasons the year before.

Then there is baseball and softball. Both teams last year made it to the super regionals and gave the teams they played hell. I remember watching baseball’s first game against Oregon State in the Super Regional. Zach Putnam pitched a ridiculously good game. He only gave up one hit, but unfortunately that one hit brought in a run which was enough to earn Putnam the loss. It was one of the best baseball games I had seen.

As well as those teams did last year, the prospects are looking even better this year. One of the biggest reasons is the new Wilpon Baseball and Softball Palace Complex. Last year both teams played on the road in the Super Regional round. Michigan did not even put in a bid for either sport as the stands and press boxes were torn apart for the new construction. This year is different. Now Michigan has one of the nicer facilities, especially in the Midwest. Softball hosted and won its regional and will hope to do the same when it hopes the Super Regional this weekend. Baseball also has a very good chance of hosting it’s Super Regional series if it made it out of the regional round.

The new Ray Fisher Stadium will be getting it’s first test of a large baseball event when it hosts the Big Ten Tournament this weekend. In an e-mail from the media contact for baseball he said “With the new Press Box there is ample room, but I need to know who is coming so I can have Press Credentials waiting in your name.” which is a drastic change from last year when the media room was a tent behind Yost.

If you are in the area, check out baseball and softball this weekend. The schedule for the Big Ten tournament isn’t posted yet, but softball is set to play Virginia Tech at Noon this Saturday. Even if you’re not in town, you can catch the softball team on ESPN and I assume BTN will cover the tournament.

It could be a special year for both of these teams. They deserve all the support they can get.

UPDATE: Details about ticket prices and availability for baseball are here. Similar details for the softball super regional tickets are here. Take-home points: Baseball is $7 per game. Softball is $5 for general admission bleachers or $7-$8 for the nice, new grandstand.

• Upgrade/update the spring game.
• Create a new website (separate from MGoBlue) about Michigan’s facilities. People (including recruits in every sport) care about the facilities at schools. A virtual tour of every facility for practicing, competing, or studying would be entertaining and enlightening. You have the facilities, so make a well-designed website to brag about them. Model it after the Arkansas version of same.
• Speaking of websites, scrap the new MGoBlue. It looks terrible and is a pain in the ass to maneuver. Cloning the (terrible) layouts of CSTV sites was an awful idea. The new video, audio, and photo items are great, but there had to have been a better way to integrate them into the site.
• Encourage more media exposure. With the Rich Rodriguez regime, this has improved a great deal. Rod has been all over ESPN and the local media, and even Mike Barwis is getting interviewed by Brice Feldman. Still, encourage more of this. The all-access feature on College Football Live was a great start. Being more friendly to the media (local and national) means that the media will be more friendly back to you.
• Encourage walkons. Like media exposure, Rodriguez has already started doing this. Like Bo Pelini’s plan to revive Nebraska football, having homegrown walkons will help the team because they are proud to be Wolverines. Take kids from Michigan and Ohio especially, but also any other student who can make the cut. If kids would rather walk on at Michigan than get a scholarship at Michigan State, it would put a smile on my face.
• At least try for a night game. If it means the old alumni won’t come, well… that may not necessarily be a bad thing.
• Give out free maize shirts to fans during maize out games. A sponsor will undoubtedly cover the entire cost, and the “special event” game will no longer look like crap.
• Like Beilein’s meeting with the Maize Rage to brainstorm ideas, have Rod (along with Bill Martin, Bruce Madej, even Marty Bodnar) meet with students for the same purpose. I am not the only person with these sorts of ideas, let the other ones come out.
• Perhaps most importantly (and, unfortunately, least under our control), continue beating Notre Dame and Michigan State, and start beating Ohio State. On top of bragging rights and prestige, this helps recruiting. Enough said.

This is just a little collection of some ideas that didn’t take me more than five minutes to come up with. If you have any of your own, drop them in the comments.

Football’s score was 951. In the past year, the team has lost Adrian Arrington and Mario Manningham to the NFL. Arrington was a fourth-year junior, and probably graduated prior to leaving Michigan. Manningham may have been enough of an academic liability to hurt APR next year. To transfers, Michigan has lost Ryan Mallett (Arkansas) and Justin Boren (Ohio State). I know nothing of their academic prowess, though I would assume that at least Boren was in good standing when he left. Several players have also left the team for other reasons. If Johnny Sears doesn’t hurt the APR, I’ll be shocked. Alex Mitchell and Jeremy Ciulla are the only other two that spring immediately to mind, and I know nothing of their academics either.

Basketball’s score was 927, dangerously close to sanctions. With all the people that left the program (Kendric Price, Jerret Smith, Ekpe Udoh, K’Len Morris), I wouldn’t be surprised if the team at least gets a warning for next year. At least they’re not completely toast like Indiana, already below the cutoff, and going downhill with lots of attrition in this offseason.

One of the most important aspect of running a successful athletic department is being able to rely on your revenue sports to support everything else that goes on. Under Bill Martin, Michigan has been able to turn from a money sink into one of the nation’s most successful athletic programs (monetarily) despite not having a basketball team that has been anywhere close to successful. Thus, if Michigan is able to make the basketball team a big draw, and perennial NCAA tournament participant-type program, it can only continue to help.

Without further introduction, I present the basketball-relevant portion of Bill Martin’s interview with the BTN’s Dave Revsine:

It is clear that Martin is intent on supporting basketball, and trying to bring success back to the program.

Facilities
Crisler Arena is a dump. Regardless of what Martin says, it really should just be demolished, and the AD should start over from scratch (a few suggestions: smaller size, better concourse layout, and location closer to campus (ok, that one is just a pipe dream)). Failing that, The House that Cazzie Built is eventually going to be overhauled for the better, though definitely not until Michigan Stadium is completed, and probably not until there is a practice facility. The practice facility is apparently ready for approval. The sooner that can be completed, the better for Michigan Hoops. Interesting note: Martin stated in no uncertain terms that the funding for a facility will be ready whenever plans are completed.

Recruiting
Martin states that he doesn’t want his coach to recruit players who want to go one-and-done to the pros. Luckily for him, the coach he hired is John Beilein, who does not seem to favor this type of player (and nor does his system). Martin favors the NBA amending its entry rules to require players to spend 3 years in school (I believe they should probably step it up one year at a time).

The Future
Though Beilein was unable to get it done in year one, the improvement made by the team over the course of the year was encouraging, and it is unlikely we will see 2008-09 be a repeat of the epic struggles of 2007-08. With several players accustomed to the system after one year in it, and a few new additions who are good fits for Beileinball, an NIT bid isn’t out of the question. Though that may not be good enough for some fans, it is important to remember how far this program had fallen, and realize that it will take some time to rise again.

Udoh
Rumors have been circulating for weeks that Junior-to-be Power Forward Ekpe Udoh intends to transfer from the University of Michigan. This has now become official. While I am not sure he is making the right decision (though UMHoops.com’s analysis has certainly gone a long way to convince me), I wish Udoh the best of luck in the future.

Why not this year? There were tons of extenuating circumstances (pretty much all out of Rodriguez’s control) that prevented a spring game from happening. Most of them will not be present, at least to their current magnitude, next year.

• Construction in the Big House. Even if they weren’t going to have a legitimate game this year because of other circumstances, they probably would have still invited fans to come to a practice in the Big House had it been available. Next year, the magnitude of construction won’t be as great (there is literally no East Concourse anymore, just steps that lead to a cliff – photo credit to UMGoBlue.com), and they’ll hopefully be able to use the Big House for the game, even though construction won’t be completed.
• Installing a new system. This year, Coach Rodriguez and his coaches were installing completely new offensive and defensive schemes, which is something that they probably won’t be doing again in their time at Michigan. Even upperclassmen are learning something completely new, which won’t be the case in future years.
• Playing catch-up. On top of a completely new system to teach the players, Michigan’s new coaches had other areas in which they were playing catch-up as well. They had to gain back ground on the 2008 recruiting class, start anew for the 2009 class, get to know each other (along with terminology and schemes in some cases), buy houses, and integrate themselves into the community in Ann Arbor. When they don’t have all these things to make up ground, they’ll be able to teach more effectively in the spring, and plan for a spring game.
• Rodriguez had other things to worry about. Including his lawsuit, which he has a stake in, regardless of the fact that his lawyers are doing all the actual legwork.

Is it likely we’ll see one in the future? Yes. Spring games give media exposure which is good in almost every way. It certainly helps with recruiting. Also helping with recruiting is being able to invite tons of top prospects to the game, and show them an exciting atmosphere. Also, Rich Rodriguez has had one in the past at West Virginia. Almost no school this day can sustain a great program without some form of popular spring game.

So what makes a great spring game? Several factors have to come together to make a spring game truly great. The event must be about not only the game, but a carnival-like atmosphere around it.

• First, the game must be entertaining. This means 1st team offense v. 1st team defense, backups v. backups on two teams, with standard timing, scoring, etc. No “offense v. defense” games with complicated and weird scoring systems that nobody can remember (much less decipher in some instances). If you don’t want to do special teams for the sake of avoiding injuries, they can be left out or limited.
• Inviting recruits is also important. Even if many of them can’t come, letting them know that you are thinking about them (a la a Pete Carroll text message) is important to prospects, especially those who won’t get an offer, but still want to feel like BMOCs. This is also big for keeping in-state coaches happy.
• Media coverage. I wouldn’t be surprised if BTN has exclusive rights to all spring coverage of conference schools, which hurts somewhat (it means no GameDay, and no national coverage on basic cable unless the network gets picked up by more carriers), but at least it is something. The game should be on live television, presented exactly as though it is a real game.
• Have other important people there. Invite back every football alum who is or has been in the NFL (photo of Lamarr Woodley, Pierre Woods, and ? thanks to MVictors.com). Invite other prominent Michigan grads (Lucy Liu, Michael Phelps, Steve M. Ross) to come as well, and make the whole thing into an event. The famous people can even come together and coach the teams.
• Band, cheerleaders, alumni cheerleaders, etc. Make it a clone of a real game.
• Have other events around the game, like Ohio State (Lacrosse game in the ‘Shoe) or Florida (sprints between students and players).
• Not sure if this is allowed per NCAA rules, but invite signed recruits to the game, and introduce them to the fans over the loudspeaker. That lets future recruits know how important they are to the program, and also helps fans know who will be on future teams.
• Advertise the game more. Statewide, via direct-mail lists, alumni associations, etc. Get fans in the seats.
• Have the parking lots open for tailgating, just like any other game.

Take a lesson from Don Canham, Mr. Martin (and Mr. Rodriguez) and advertise the event and the program, not just the game itself. Having a big spring game can only help the program achieve long-term success.

Have any other ideas? Drop them in the comments.

The only point I haven’t seen Carty ridiculed on is his assertion that athletes were allowed to enroll in classes only a month before the semester ends, with professor permission. What Carty fails to mention is that this is the late Drop-Add deadline, during which any student can enroll in a class with prohttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.giffessor permission.

Etc.: Michael Shaw and Brandon Moore excel in Ohio state track finals. Charles Woodson gives back. UM, not PSU may finish runner-up for Pryor.

Later today: Hockey highlights.

Smoking gun, Carty still seeks. 0 for 2 so far. The main frustration for me is that real life journalists and ESPN journalists are going to take this drivel and run with it, giving Carty some sort of credibility that he is no where close to deserving.