A friend of mine e-mailed me the brochure that the Athletic Department put together to explain the stadium renovation and “enhanced giving opportunities” to the University that are resulting from the construction. I hadn’t seen this before, so I thought I’d throw out some high lights.

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.

Posted under Blog News

“State of” in the sense that Michigan is a state, and in the sense of a condition of being. Part 4: How can the high school game be improved?

Keep Funding, Baby
Nothing will flourish if it isn’t given the proper resources, and if you throw enough money into something, it can often succeed despite its best efforts not to (except the Yankees – ZING!). Those who can should continue supporting the football programs around the state, especially those that aren’t in position to help themselves. More funding leads to better equipment and coaching, which inevitably leads to better quality athletes coming out.

Abolish Bad MHSAA Rules
This is one area that really holds the state’s football talent back. There are three specific MHSAA rules that I think are crap, and should be eliminated.

1. MHSAA schools are not allowed to travel more than 300 miles for a game, nor are their opponents (there are some nuances, such as they can play anywhere in an adjacent state). This is apparently designed to prevent money from being thrown away for mere high school football games, and to relieve potential stress on high school athletes due to traveling. However, it prevents Michigan teams from playing the best teams in the country (unless they are from Ohio, Indiana, or Wisconsin), decreasing the exposure of the high school game in the state. A Herbstreit Challenge-esque event is out of the question, since it would be against this rule for Michigan teams to play anyone from Texas, California, Florida, etc.
2. No spring practice. The intent behind this rule is either to allow kids to play other spring sports without the possibility of discipline from their football coaches, or to prevent them from playing sports year-round and wearing out their bodies. The second rationale is crap, because most football players play at least one other sport, and often two. While there is something to be gained by wide receivers and running backs participating in track (for example), not allowing spring football discourages athletes from trying to excel in this sport. In most other states (especially those that take high school football seriously, such as Ohio and Texas), spring football is a way of life.
3. All-star participation forfeits eligibility. Current MHSAA rules state that any athlete participating in an all-star competition (such as the Army All-American Bowl or the ESPNU Under Armour Game) is ineligible for high school sports. This means that football players must make a choice between participating in an all-star contest or playing a spring (even winter, for much of basketball season falls after the new year) sport. This discourages Michigan athletes who are of a high enough caliber to participate in these contests, reducing exposure for players from the state.

More TV
This would likely take care of itself if some of the other suggestions were to come to fruition (i.e. allowing teams to play at or against Texas schools). With the death of Comcast Local, there is almost no coverage of high school sports, including football, until the state championships. This may be a chicken-and-egg argument, but with better football will come more TV, and vice versa.

Posted under Analysis

“State of” in the sense that Michigan is a state, and in the sense of a condition of being. Part 3: How can we improve the state of the state?

The University of Michigan Reigns Supreme
As the comparison to Ohio shows, perhaps states are better served by having one in-state power at the college level. While many Wolverine fans may wish that Michigan State would just go away, or drop out of the Big Ten entirely, this is never going to happen. Instead, the Wolverines must continue their dominance over the Spartans, winning over the hearts and minds of impressionable youth in the state.

The state of Michigan might not be improved by having the Spartans be a perennial cellar-dweller in the conference, but with rare victories over Michigan, and a continuance of the current run of mediocrity, Michigan State will be good enough to keep citizens interested in the sport, but not good enough to win fans over Michigan. The best-case scenario for Michigan fans would be having State win all their nonconference games each year, and dwell in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, never beating Michigan and having bowl years about half the time.

Michigan continuing its success over MSU in other sports would also help, as well as establishing a winning tradition in basketball.

More Exposure to (Good) Football
With only the Lions representing the state in the NFL, Michigan does not have a huge presence in the professional game. Especially painful is the fact that the Lions perpetually suck. However, any football helps. If the Grand Rapids Rampage could be respectable in the Arena Football League, this would also help make Michigan more of a football state.

The state should also encourage any professional league (such as the AAFL, currently on a one-year hiatus before it has even started) to establish a franchise in the state of Michigan. This increases exposure of the game to Michigan citizens, and can also help the economy of the state.

Basketball State?
One possible reason that football does not hold the hallowed place in Michigan’s culture as the game does in Ohio, for example, is that it is not the most popular sport in the state. Basketball is probably the king of the state at nearly every level, and hockey is popular in Michigan moreso than any other state (aside from Minnesota). These sports are also aided by the fact that the professional franchises

I won’t suggest that Michigan as a whole forget about these sports, but just realize that football at least as important as each of them. If many elite prep athletes in the state didn’t forgo football to focus on basketball in the offseason, Michigan would be aided as well.

Posted under Analysis

Would you take a 7-5 season every other year if it meant you could go 11-2 (or better, let’s say you win the NC every few tries) in the off years? Conversely, would you prefer to be 9-3 every year and never challenge for a title, or be slightly worse most years, but challenge for a national title 1 in 5 years or so?

The basic question here is whether you’d accept fairly consistent mediocrity with the occasional great year, or prefer consistent elite(ish) performance without getting to the promised land.

I’d like to never have to make that choice, but take the consistently elite years, with national championships sprinkled in here and there. Under Rich Rodriguez, I honestly believe that is a possibility, but given the theoretical “would you rather situation,” I don’t know what I’d take.

I guess I would take the elite years with no (or almost no) national championships. I find that to be better than being a program that people have a lesser opinion of, but occasionally surprises for the better. I think that the consistently elite program is more apt to break through than the consistently mediocre program (especially because successful programs have a recruiting advantage over mediocre ones except Clemson), which is why I think the premise of the question is flawed.

Posted under Mail Bag

“State of” in the sense that Michigan is a state, and in the sense of a condition of being. Part 2: Why does Michigan produce less D-I talent than Ohio?

Michigan and Ohio have been at odds throughout modern history. Beginning with the Toledo War and continuing through the Michigan-Ohio State rivalry, there has always been a certain degree of animosity between the two. While Ohio State has the recent edge in the rivalry, Michigan holds the overall record. Despite this, more Ohio-born players have won The Game than have Michigan natives. This is because the University of Michigan has to use the state of Ohio for recruiting, while the Buckeyes don’t need to return the favor to build their team.

Prove It
To illustrate the point that Ohio produces better football talent, let’s take a look at the recent Scout player rankings. While many players ranked lower than 3 stars will eventually sign with Division I schools, let’s look at the highly-ranked players. For a sample size, we’ll consider any prospect who could feasibly be on a roster in Fall 2008 (2004-2008 recruiting classes).

(* Indicates players that were 2-stars that are included in the signing numbers).
It is clear that Ohio produces more talent than Michigan. Over the past 5 recruiting classes, Ohio has produced 204 3-star or higher players, while Michigan has produced 80. Michigan signed 26 Michigan players (including three 2-star players) and 14 Ohio players (including a single 2-star). Ohio state has signed 3 Michigan players (including one 2-star) and a whopping 55 Ohio-bred players (including six 2-star players). It is plain to see that the state of Ohio produces far more Division I players, in addition to more UM/OSU caliber guys.

Distribution of Population?
The two states produce a significant difference of players at pretty much all levels of analysis here. While this would initially lead one to believe that it was simply a higher population in one state accounting for the difference, this is not the case.

Population density may be something of a factor (are there enough people in one location in the UP to muster up an 11-man football game?), but the differences aren’t that great, especially if you eliminate the ridiculously sparse UP (32% of Michigan’s land, but 3% of its population).

Ohio doesn’t produce more football talent just because it has more people. More nefarious mechanisms are at work here.

Economics
While it is free to go around whacking people, and cheap to get a football to toss around, playing actual organized football does have some significant costs. Individuals must incur costs to join youth leagues, and buy a fairly significant amount of equipment. Schools must invest in equipment, jerseys, staff, and other expenses, which can be a financial burden that is difficult to bear.

However, is Michigan’s economy that much worse than Ohio’s? I wouldn’t presume that this is a major factor, since Ohio has been producing much more talent seemingly since the beginning
of time. Even when the auto companies in Detroit were thriving, Ohio was producing more football players.

Passion
Perhaps the reason is simply a difference between the citizens of the two states in terms of how much they care about the game. There is no way to accurately gauge this, but I honestly believe that it is the case. While there are places in Michigan where football is very important to people, it borders on religion in most of Ohio. Part of this may be the culture of Ohio State hegemony (check out part I in this series), and there are likely other factors adding to it, but no concrete explanation.

Posted under Analysis

“State of” in the sense that Michigan is a state, and in the sense of a condition of being. Part 1: How does Ohio State continue to keep all of the best in-state talent for themselves, while Michigan players go to other schools, including USC and Michigan State?

Statewide Pipeline
The primary reason that Ohio State manages to keep all the best Ohio talent for itself is a lack of instate competition. Until Cincinnati moved to the Big East in 2005, OSU was the only BCS school in the state, and until the Big East (and Cincinnati under Brian Kelly) becomes more respected as a big-time conference (and legitimate major school), Ohio State will continue to reign supreme over its home turf. Perhaps coincidentally (or maybe not), the majority of teams in the state also share one important thing with the Buckeyes: the color red. Cincinnati, and Miami among Division I schools, and pro teams including the Cincinnati Reds and Cleveland Indians and Cavaliers have red as one of their colors. For comparison, Michigan has two main colors, which fans in their own stadium can’t even coordinate (and the pro teams share none of, unless you count the Pistons’ blue as being close enough to Michigan’s).

In Michigan, there are two BCS-level schools, both of whom compete in the Big Ten conference. While Michigan State is seen as more of a rival for non-revenue sports to Michigan fans (they concede basketball to the Spartans in exchange for football dominance), Spartan fans see the football rivalry as very real. Individuals who have been in the state for a long time can easily remember when MSU football was the big game in town (before Canham and Schembechler returned Michigan to Glory – and not in the LOL ND way). Overall, there is a near 50-50 split between Wolverine and Spartan fans in the Great Lakes State.

While having two popular schools in the state may not explain why talent is willing to leave entirely (and go to USC, for example), it certainly helps explain why there is no allegiance to a particular school. With no ties to UofM, Michigan’s players don’t feel obligated to give Michigan more of a shot. This is not the case in Ohio, where nearly every baby’s first outfit is either scarlet or gray.

In Michigan, the allegiance is not to one college team, but to one pro city, Detroit. The state throws itself behind the Tigers, Red Wings, Pistons, and (for some reason) Lions, then divides its attention between MSU and Michigan, and to a lesser extent the other state schools. I still remember the 2006 MSU game, where the score of the simultaneous Tigers game against the Yankees was announced, and Chad Henne had to take a timeout, because fans were cheering more for the Tigers (while the team that they actually paid money to see was on offense) than I have ever heard them cheer for Michigan. Ohio on the other hand, is a state united by one college team, Ohio State, and divided among several pro cities (Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus). This factor also gives the Buckeyes an in-state advantage.

It isn’t likely that UCincinnati ever becomes as ingrained into Ohio culture like the Buckeyes are, and Michigan State, while always little brother, isn’t going to go away any time soon. In-state, Michigan will always be disadvantaged in the Mitten compared to Ohio in the… uh… heart-shaped thing.

Posted under Analysis

Fo’ real this time.

Minnesota WR Bryce McNeal (6-1, 180, 4.46) has given Rich Rodriguez his pledge to become a Michigan Wolverine. “B-Meezy” becomes the eighth member of the 2009 recruiting class. McNeal is an outside receiver with enough wiggle and speed to spend some time in the slot (physically reminiscent of a slightly taller, maybe shiftier, Mario Manningham).

Recruiting Notes
Michigan fans started following Bryce McNeal’s recruitment heavily when he was offered the weekend of St. Patrick’s Day. He originally said he had planned to announce his decision at the Army All-American game, to which he has been invited, but the opportunity at Michigan was too much for him to pass up. McNeal visited Michigan on Monday, March 24th on his way home from the Akron 7-on-7 camp. On March 25th, he told GopherHole that he had a Top-5, but the only schools that he was going to reveal from it were Michigan and Minnesota. At this time, it was assumed that Michigan was his leader, with Minnesota in second. Though he didn’t manage to make it to Ann Arbor for Michigan’s spring game, he had planned to visit the next weekend (which also fell through). McNeal visited for the BBQ at the Big House junior day, and committed. He planned to commit to Clemson next week, but that has since been canceled.

Player Notes
In 2007 he had 33 receptions for 670 yards and 8 touchdowns at Breck high school, where the base offense was a version of the spread that he will be running at Michigan. He has also gotten some attention for track, but it is unknown whether he will try to compete in both sports in college. He is a speedster with good hands, though he will have to add some muscle to compete at the Division-I level. McNeal was invited to attend the Army National Junior Combine in January, where was named to the all-combine first team. Despite this acclaim, he was listed as a three-star player on both sites, but his ranking went up to more reasonable levels after the latest round of re-rankings from each site.

Video

Miscellany
One more interesting fact about McNeal is that his girlfriend, Tayler Hill, is a basketball prospect. McNeal has hinted in his interviews that the two might like to attend school together, but women’s hoops recruiting info is so (oddly) hard to find that I haven’t been able to unearth whether she has interest in Michigan or not. She is a top prospect, and a commitment would help out Michigan’s hoops team greatly. That said, I’d be surprised if one of the top prospects would pick a school that can’t even win the NIT (at least they can get there. ZING

(This was written by Tim. I’m just posting it. I’m basically the secretary – ed.)

Posted under Recruiting

As always, let me know about your school’s commits over the course of the week.

Action since last rankings:
5-9-08 Penn State gains commitment from Stephen Obeng-Agyapong
5-10-08 Ohio State loses commitment from Darrell Givens. Penn State gains commitment from Darrell Givens.
5-11-08 Penn State gains commitment from Derrick Thomas.
5-12-08 Ohio State gains commitment from James Jackson.
5-15-08 Penn state gains commitment from Frank Figueroa. Penn State gains commitment from Eric Shrive.

New Rankings:

Buckeyes lose Darrell Givens, but gain a speedy wideout in James Jackson and remain on top.

Bell will likely end up a high 3-star. Michigan has gone cold for a little while.

Big week for PSU. They snake Darrell Givens from OSU, and pick up two more secondary players, along with two more linemen. Shrive is one of the best OTs in the country. Arcidiacono is underrated, Howle will end up as a high-three star, Figueroa a low three-star.

Every player committed to State thus far is from Michigan. They haven’t gotten any commitments in seemingly forever, and more schools are likely to pass them as time goes on.

Wood is a very good prospect, but all are slightly overrated because of their school of choice (especially Golic).

Keise will probably end up a mid 3-star.

Illinois started fast, but has since stagnated (and lost Melvin Fellows to the Bucks).

Wisconsin has all linemen, all from America’s Dairyland.

Their only commit comes from one of the least important positions on the field. Huzzah!

At least they have some commits. Come on, state of Indiana.

T-11th – Indiana, Purdue (0 commits)

Posted under Recruiting

While most schools have junior days in January and February, Michigan will follow its winter Junior Day with one Saturday.

As the staff started the year, they were behind from having to catch up with 2008 recruiting year. The junior day, a barbecue, should give them a chance to play catch-up, as well as display a family atmosphere about the program. The weather is not expected to be exceptionally warm, but sunny skies should make for good BBQ weather.

Prospects expected to attend include Bryce McNeal, and Pennsylvania DB/WR Corey Brown.

Posted under Recruiting

The Board.

Added:
FL OL Matt Alajajian. He has been offered (info in header).
NC QB Everett Proctor. He would be a backup QB/DB. Michigan might give him the opportunity to start his career as a QB to get him to commit. He is HS teammates with Xavier Nixon.

New Information:
OK RB David Oku. He has trimmed his list to a top 5, still including Michigan (and no longer including OSU or USC).
MN WR Bryce McNeal. Sam Webb in the DetNews.

Removed:
NC DB Devonte Holloman. Committed to Clemson.
MI WR James Jackson. Committed to Ohio State.
CA QB Tate Forcier. Michigan is probably done recruiting him.
PA OT Eric Shrive. THE Pennsylvania State University.

Analysis:
As I said when it happened, James Jackson hurts because he is an instate guy spurning Michigan to go to Ohio State. He loves the school, but never really got a vibe going with the new coaching staff. His location makes it possible for Rodriguez to continue recruiting him. Holloman hurts because it means another year, no 5-star safeties. He had been planning a Michigan visit tomorrow, and it seems as though his commitment may have been to avoid having to go on the visit when he knew he actually wanted to become a Tiger.

Posted under Recruiting