Weekend Roundup, Media Guide Edition: August 12, 2012

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The 2012 Michigan Football Media Guide is out (actually it's been out for a little while).  I remember when the media guide was a heavy $20 bible you'd run out and get at the MDen before the season started, and you'd go through page by page, marveling ​at the amazing history and tradition of Michigan Football.  There's probably some old timers from the tailgate that remember when the media guide was reserved for the media.  Now it's a publicly distributed pdf file, and those same old timers are squinting and reading a manual to figure out how to download it and save it as a file on their "internet boxes."  Ah, times they are a changin'.  It's available here in all of its glory.  And it's a big pdf, so be patient....especially if you're still rolling free dial-up internet from Net Zero.

Anyway, here's what happened around the internets​ while you sat in the fetal position in a corner wondering if the fact that Fitz was cleared to practice means he might play in Dallas.

  • ESPN's power rankings discuss Michigan at #8.  The have the weight of the world resting on Denard's shoulders.  Denard covers some boilerplate keys to season, and the pundits talk about our difficult schedule, and O and D line issues.
  • Michigan Basketball is on the map.  ESPN hopes to cover a rekindling of the rivalry of the 70's and 80's between Michigan and Indiana when Gameday travels to Bloomington on February 2.  I'm in.  Somebody find me some tickets.​
  • The Shreveport Times covers the flame out and exit of the Honey Badger, who will be taking his talents to FCS football in the hopes he can make an impact worthy of an NFL draft position.  I'm not sure what Musburger and Lundquist will do with all that airtime during LSU games that has been freed up now that they don't have to suck Honey Badger's nuts.
  • ​MVictors breaks down the media guide records section, and covers the historical numbers that might be in play this season.
  • Trey Burke is thinking national championship, and an ESPN blogger thinks he's not crazy.​
  • Ugh Ugh Ugh.  Roy Roundtree had arthroscopic knee surgery and is out for the next two weeks...as in  "A lot of guys come back in two weeks (from surgery like this)," Hoke said. "Our doctors did a tremendous job, we have a great medical staff."  Let's hope it's as minor as everybody at Fort Schembechler says it is.

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Happy Belated Birthday, Tom

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Happy (belated) Birthday to Tom Brady, former Michigan quarterback, future NFL hall-of-famer and significant-other to supermodel Gisele.  Tom turned 35 on Friday, which means you are getting old.  

Tom has won multiple season and Super Bowl MVPs, has appeared in 5 Super Bowls in his 10 seasons at the helm, and won three of them.  But most importantly, he continues to represent the University of Michigan, despite a fanbase that refused to recognize his talent until the final game of his college career, and just wanted him to get out of the way of Drew Henson's impending Heisman campaigns (which went about as well as Ron Pawlus's).

Anyway, we love you Tom, and more importantly, we love to pretend we always did.  Happy 35th buddy.​

Weekend Roundup, "'Cause I Got a Golden Ticket" Edition: 8/6/2012

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They're here.  All six of them.  Smallest ticket package that has arrived at my home in some time.  The tickets are significantly smaller (as in not lanyard compatible like last year) and there's not many.  And the prices on them are exuberant.​  Seems like only yesterday we hit that $75 face mark....and now we've got a $95 MSU ticket.  This shit ain't getting any cheaper folks.

Here's what happened around the internets while you watched the tigers beat Ohio.​

  • You like the new Big Ten logo, or the new B1G logo?  Well, we we've got one on the home jersey now, and a pair on the field.  Maize and Blue Nation discusses the process, which involved cutting out a chunk of the field turf and replacing it with a new piece with the logo on it.
  • MGoBlog covers the new numbers for the incoming freshman as well as growing beard progress and "dread-flow."​
  • Speaking of tickets arriving, Dooley covers the team numbers and the guys being honored in each game.   This new patch every game, in my opinion, completely cheapens the whole legends ​jersey idea.  Anyway, he points out a glaring flaw in the Gary Moeller ticket...while I still ponder how we don't have egg on our face as an institution for firing a coach and honoring him 18 years later.  Weird?  Weird.
  • Sporting News has a nice article on the hoops revival in Ann Arbor.​
  • The first home game is Air Force.  A game that concerns me.  Now they're down 5 dudes, all starters or penciled in starters.  Now we can concentrate on the tailgate.​
  • AnnArbor.com profiles Matt Wile vs. Will Hagerup in the battle to see who 's gonna nail those coffin corners.​
  • 26 long years of waiting, and the Big Ten championship rings have arrived in Ann Arbor.​
  • ESPN reports on... Exit Justin Brown, the latest Penn State starter to see the light and get the hell out of State College.​
  • When I was 11 and I had a paper route, my mother was terrified I was going to be kidnapped.  What she didn't realize, is that I, at a robust 160lbs, I was the last kid they were looking to take.  Too much heavy lifting.  When I heard that Montee Ball got attacked, and that it was a random act of violence....I called bullshit from jump street.  Nobody looks to attack 5'11'', 210 pound muscle-bound football players.  Big surprise...ESPN says it looks like it was more than just random.  These boys are in some trouble, no doubt further weakening a Leaders division that already only has 4 teams eligible for postseason play.

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Poll-ish

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30 days before we play, and 4 days before we start practice...yet we have a poll.  Michigan clocks in at #8 in the USA Today Coaches Poll, and Alabama is #2.  This locks in the prime time showdown on September 1st as a battle between top 10 teams.​..and that's exactly what the "powers that be" wanted.  It's going to be a ridiculous spectacle.  It's going to be a huge Saturday night opening audience.  It's going to be a chance for Michigan to make a grand opening statement.

Three other Big Ten teams are in the top 25: Wisconsin (12), MSU (13), and Nebraska (16).  Ohio State is not eligible for this poll, nor is Penn State.  Which makes me wonder, what other Big Ten team is going to crack the top 25?  Nobody else even appears in the "others receiving votes" section, but I envision a couple finding themselves ranked as we hit mid-October:

The Hawkeyes (SB Nation Preview), despite having running back trouble like Rich Rod's Michigan teams had cornerback trouble, have Northern Illinois (at Soldier Field), Iowa State, Northern Iowa, Central Michigan, Minnesota, and a bye week before travelling to East Lansing on 10/13.  If they can find a way to get past the seemingly yearly hiccup that is Iowa State, they should be 5-0 in mid-October​, good enough for a ranking in the late teens to early 20's, depending on style points.

And I'm high on Northwestern (Chicago Now Preview) this year.  Transfer 6'5'' 220lb WR Kyle Prater got a pass from the NCAA so he could play this year, and he'll be getting balls from Kain Colter.  Kain played early in the season in place of the injured Dan Persa, and showed he has a Tebow-esque skill set.  Their season starts at Syracuse before returning home for Vandy, BC, South Dakota, and Indiana.  Then they travel to Penn State and Minnesota.  They could easily be 7-0 before hosting Nebraska on 10/20, at which point you'll be sick ​of hearing about Pat Fitzgerald and the Wildcats' cinderella story.

Yes, it's just a poll, and it's a preseason one at that.  But what the hell else do we have to talk about?   ​