Happenings

Schiano turned down the Michigan job. Differing reports on whether there was an actual offer, but I think there was.

The Michigan side and Miles side have begun talking. We'll see what happens.

Come Sail Away

There's an excellent letter written by Joey over at Straight Bangin. He follows it up with a letter he received from a former player. This player said Miles was on the phone with a former teammate of his until 2:00 A.M. wondering why he hadn't been contacted by Michigan after the contract extension had been presented. Sailing. I guess some people just didn't think Miles would do well at Michigan.

"Les Miles was one of our candidates." - Bill Martin

One of the top coaches in the country, who played under Bo and coached for Bo, and we're telling him that he's one of many candidates. That's Michigan for you. We can't even pay market value for a coach let alone try and take one away with lucrative contract. I honestly thought that Bill Martin would handle this 1,000 times better than he has. It's almost funny to think about. Do you wonder why Ferentz took his name out of the running? No way were we going to give him a raise on his $2.8 million dollar contract. Both he and Miles are shaking their heads right now, wondering how the athletic department with the winningest college football program in history got to the point it is at today. It's really hard to comprehend how hiring a football coach at Michigan is harder than throwing rice a kid in pre-school but apparently it is.


Kind of a funny turn of events, no? I'm sure that most of this situation will never become public. Here's what happened as far as I know. Miles to Michigan was practically done. He'll say that he didn't receive any contact from Michigan, but the deal was in place. Talk about assistants and how much money he would have for them had already begun. Ron English's interview was basically an exit interview; that's how far along this was. Of course now he's getting a second interview, maybe to make up for the first. So what went wrong? First we'll have to assume that LSU does not get into the BCS Championship game. They did, but assume they don't because then it would play out as expected. Bill Martin asked for permission to talk to Miles after the SEC Championship game. An interview in New York was scheduled for Tuesday (fairly confident of this). Why wait until Tuesday? Well, that's part of the problem that I'll go over later. Michigan's asking for permission to talk to Miles was a gift to LSU. Martin decided to honor the outdated policy of not contacting coaches without permission. So LSU decided to play hardball and offer a lucrative extension and give Miles an ultimatum before the game. Basically, LSU bluffed, and Miles called it. Miles' agent tries to contact Michigan and continue talks regarding this development but Michigan doesn't respond. I guarantee that LSU's AD and Chancellor have taken about 5 minutes to themselves, sat down, stared at the ceiling or the wall or the bayou and wondered how it actually worked. I'm 99% sure that they honestly can't believe the way Michigan goes about doing things.

Now a sidetrack. It's not an easy thing to admit but Lloyd Carr and others in the Athletic Department had a huge hand in this ordeal. They didn't directly shoot Miles' candidacy down, but Miles knew that he could be walking into a situation where he isn't exactly wanted. Martin, wanting to appease the old guard, has to handle this situation delicately. His policy is to hammer out the contract, and then have a face-to-face interview. Michigan and LSU were operating on different sets of rules. LSU played it perfectly, unfortunately for Michigan.

So now, cut to Friday and LSU negotiating with Miles. Miles isn't exactly feeling wanted by Michigan. Does he want to walk into a situation where there are people don't want him or one where he sees a huge contract extension in front of him? He couldn't pass that up when he knew that Martin was considering him as a candidate, not the guy.

A lot of things still don't make sense. Miles has to know that LSU isn't going to fire him before the SEC Championship game if he doesn't agree to the extension. If that were to happen, he would get paid his LSU salary and the salary of his new contract with Michigan, assuming he became coach there. So what was the breakdown? I think Martin really screwed up here. Lloyd Carr unfortunately had an indirect influence in this as well, but c'mon Bill.

*************************

Who wouldn't take Jimmy Harbaugh right now? It's hard to believe, but he's about the best we can hope for right now. He's going to be a monster for someone in 5 years. He has the flair for the big stage. He relishes it, beating Cal for the first time in 6 years and of course USC, arguably one of the top 3 teams in the country. How often has Michigan won the two biggest games on its schedule in the last 10, 20,30..... years. It's a shame he can't control what he says, and I'm sure he's regretting it right now.

So is English a candidate? I actually think he could become a good head coach. And we'll get to save $1 million USD per year. Per year. That's huge when you're making $226 million renovations. On English though, obviously the only way he would be an acceptable choice is if he retained only a few of the current staff - at the very least NOT Debord, Gittleson, or Moeller. Please god no. A good thing to support part of this is the fraction between the defense and offense coaching sides, particularly within the last year. But English getting a second interview and being a real candidate is really funny for three reasons. 1) English could become a top tier coach in 3-4 years. Top tier as in top 15. But we could have had a top 5-7 coach right now. 2) Martin said all along that he wanted someone with head coach experience. 3) And then there's the piece of information that English doesn't really respect Bill Martin and Martin knows it. This situation couldn't get any stranger.

If anything doesn't make sense, sorry. Hard to make sense of a situation like this.

He Gone?

Angelique S. Chengelis with the inside story.

Les Miles will not be Michigan's next head coach, LSU's athletic director Skip Bertman confirmed to The News Saturday afternoon.

Miles has agreed to a lucrative, multi-year extension with LSU. Miles told his players today, before this afternoon's Southeastern Conference championship game in Atlanta against Tennessee, that he is remaining their head coach.

LSU has called a 1:45 news conference today at the Georgia Dome to announce the extension.

Miles, a former Michigan player and assistant coach, was considered the "front-runner," according to Michigan sources, to succeed Lloyd Carr, who retired Nov. 19 after 13 seasons as head coach.

On Wednesday, Michigan athletic director Bill Martin requested and was granted permission by LSU to talk to Miles after the SEC title game. Martin, sources said, never reached out to Miles' agent, George Bass, or Miles. Martin was expected to contact Miles on Sunday.

"The truth is he's going to stay at LSU," Bertman said by telephone. "We have an agreement, but we don't have a written, signed document. But we have an agreement so that Les could talk to his team today, which he did."

Bertman said the contract essentially was ironed out Friday, but they chose not to negotiate over the weekend because of today's SEC title game.

John Wangler, former Michigan quarterback and close friend of Miles, clearly was shocked by the news.

Wangler had been public in his support of Miles, saying he believed his friend would be the next head coach of the Wolverines.

"I'm very disappointed," Wangler said. "But I'll support whoever the next guy is. I love Michigan."

Bertman told The News Wednesday night he was prepared to make Miles a lucrative offer to remain with the Tigers. Miles is finishing his third season at LSU.

"I don't understand why people won't believe me -- the guy has said he didn't want to go to Michigan," Bertman said. "He told the Chancellor, the president, the board members. He said he wanted to stay at LSU. He had permission to talk to Michigan, but he didn't really want to go to Michigan. I know it's a blow to Michigan, but this is a nice place here.

"The guy was never going to Michigan, evidently. He never even spoke to anybody from Michigan. We're very excited. The players are excited."

ESPN reported Saturday morning that Michigan would announce Miles as its head coach next week, but Michigan sources said this morning that LSU had applied significant pressure on Miles to sign a lucrative deal before today's Southeastern Conference title game in Atlanta.

Michigan Wins

I think the Illinois fan at the end of this video got into a fight about a minute later.

FBDIII

My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius

Russell Crowe, also known as Gladiator, also known as Jim Braddock, also known as John Nash, flew to Ann Arbor Saturday to feast on leprechauns. In the movies, he cuts off heads. In real life, he throws phones at people. Only badasses do that type of stuff. And that badass is now a Michigan fan and drinking buddy of one Lloyd Carr. Watch him with Carr after the game here.

Jimmy Clausen never had a chance. All he could think about was that one time when he and his friends got in their speedos and watched Crowe in The Beautiful Mind. Or maybe it's just because the Notre Dame football team can't actually play football. Charlie says that his team is going back to training camp and starting over. I don't think that will work. The only hope they have now is if the Wolverines teach them how to play the game of football for the second time. I guess once wasn't enough, because that Irish offense is one of the worst that you will ever see. You may never see another that bad. The Michigan defense though deserves credit for what it did. It attacked all game long on 1st, 2nd, and, 3rd downs, sacking the emu more times than I could count. It was always around the ball, and the players actually looked fast. How good is the defense? Well, it's not losing-to-Oregon-by-32 bad or getting-gashed-by-App. State bad. It's also not shutting-out-a-team good. This defense will look good against teams that don't spread it out with a running quarterback. The defensive line will be able to handle the running games of most teams left on the schedule. A potential stumbling point could come in Illinois, assuming Juice Williams doesn't suffer an injury before that meeting. We will see Brandon Graham become a All-Big Ten player, and Taylor will bounce back to previous form. Will Johnson will go unnoticed but will be just as good as Taylor this year. Jamison and will have a good season.

On offense, we won't be able to run on 1st down 90% of the time against good defenses. Other than Hart, we don't have an idea of what we'll see in the next couple games. I'm guessing Henne won't play against PSU but it's not a certainty. Mallett will have to face a good defense, but how good is it? Comparing Penn State and Michigan, Notre Dame gave up more yards to Michigan and Notre Dame gained more yards Penn State. Don't read too much into this though. The numbers were lopsided in the favor of Penn State and Michigan in both games. The only constant: Notre Dame bad.

I think we can expect to see a similar defensive game plan against Penn State as we saw against Notre Dame. Maybe not as many blitzes, due in part to the potential for Penn State to run screens to Derrick Williams and Deon Butler. They also have some big targets in Quarless and Golden. Scott will get the bulk of the carries, with Kinlaw being a change of pace back. If Penn State runs out of a spread formation more than not, they could have more success against our run defense. If not, we should be able to limit them to less than 100 yards. X-factor = A.J. Wallace returning kicks. With most kickoffs being returned now, this could prove to be a pivotal part of the game.

38-0

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

Comments

Now enabled.

Oregon

Lloyd Carr wants a fresh start. He says the season starts now. The team has tried to come together in the past week. There was a players only meeting where the offensive and defensive sides tried to mend the rift that an intense competition between the units had created. We'll see if there is a change in intensity on the field tomorrow. The players know what is at stake.

This game tomorrow is going to be tough. I can already see Chris Graham, Johnny Thompson and whoever else they throw out there at linebacker flailing at Dixon. Dixon, of course, is a bigger and just-as-fast(if not faster) Armanti Edwards. Yards will be piled up, by both teams. Points will be as well. The over/under sits at 64.5, and weather will not be a factor. The Michigan defense is not going to magically transform into USC's defense. And Oregon's defense is probably worse than Michigan's, although they are not tasked with defending the spread this week. Both offenses will take advantage of this.

Besides all of that, I can honestly say that I have no idea what will happen tomorrow. I know that both teams will score, at times rather easily. But I can see either team taking control and winning by 3 touchdowns. So what are some things to watch for? First off, I don't see Carr and Debord coming out of the gate trying to score touchdowns in 2 minute drives. We'll take our shots, but this is going to be a similar offensive gameplan as last week. Oregon could force us to switch gears rather early by loading the box and stopping Hart. Henne will need to play much better than he did against App State. What I would like to see is more straight play action, keeping Henne in the pocket. On defense, I think that it will be interesting to see if we get more speed on the field. We could switch out some linebackers for defensive backs like Charles Stewart, who is a bigger safety. He didn't really play last week. It appears that Warren will get the start at corner and Englemon at free safety. Also, look for how much the starters play on the defensive line. We may see Graham more. As for the overall scheme, I doubt we will be as aggressive as last week. It will be a classic "keep everything in front of you" type of defense.

So let's go into tomorrow hoping for a different team. The national championship hopes have been dashed. There's still something to play for though. Enjoy watching the team play. Watch the future stars in Schilling, Brandon Graham, and Warren. Enjoy watching Hart run. You may never see another running back at Michigan with the leadership and desire that he possesses. I guess we'll see if it will be enough to will us to victory tomorrow.

And.............start.

Figured today was as good of a time as any to write the first post. We all know what we witnessed on Saturday will be regarded as an historic event, whether it should be or not. The team that beat Michigan could compete in Division I-A. That's beside the point though. Saturday was a turning point for two programs. The Appalachian State football program is in the national conscience, and deservedly so. They have won 27 straight games, and have won consecutive Division I-AA national championships under coach Jerry Moore. They will have opportunities to play better schedules than they have in the past, and they will get to watch themselves on the big screen when Disney decides to make a movie. They're tickled to death right now. Michigan's program received a jolt unlike any it had received before. Not even a national championship could accomplish what Saturday did. The Bo Schembechler (RIP) era is slipping under the setting sun. We approach a changing of the guard. After this season, the University of Michigan football team will have a new head football coach. I say that matter of factly, but don't put your season tickets on it. Everything points to this though, from his contract change, to insider reports, to the general feelings of the fanbase. So we will have a different coach next fall, and I have a feeling that coach will not have any significant Michigan football ties. We'll get to that later.

For Michigan fans and non-Michigan fans the feeling is the same, Michigan football is stale. It has been for some time now. There isn't any desire from inside the program to create any excitement, which leads to the brand of football that you see on the field. The Big 10 Network (rocks) showed highlights of Penn State's Thursday night pep rally, capped off with fireworks in Beaver Stadium. ESPN showed highlights of Bobby Bowden speaking to a crammed arena as part of its 25 hour college football preview. This is a Florida State program that hasn't even had the success that Michigan has the past couple of years. I guess Michigan's pep rally for the year will come the night before the Notre Dame game in Elbel field. I assume it will be a festive atmosphere. This team has All-Americans all over the place on offense. What is holding it back? Lloyd Carr and Mike Debord can never put their foot on the pedal. You would have thought that the Orange Bowl victory over Alabama would signal a change in philosophy, that this team can use its weapons to score points without trying to control the clock or protect the defense. People thought it, I thought it, everyone was wrong. After every loss, we hear the same thing.

"We didn't execute. We simply made too many mistakes and had too many missed opportunities."

At some point it stops being about execution. There isn't a team in college football that executes perfectly every game. Players make mistakes. It's not execution that plagues Michigan, it's the overall philosophy of how to win games, gameday coaching, and inability to adapt.....



......Which brings me to another aspect of the program, one that isn't in the eye of the general fandom, is the Strength and Conditioning program, led by Mike Gittleson.

Michigan uses the HIT (high intensity training) program, and was one of only 3 schools to use it in the entire country. Michigan State used it as well, but since hiring Tommy Hoke (from Appalachian State!) in 2004, they now use Olympic lifts. Penn State also uses HIT, but combines it with other lifts from Olympic training. This would be a good time to say that HIT is widely considered an inferior method of training for football. It doesn't produce the explosiveness that Olympic training provides in the forms of cleans, jerks, deadlifts, squats, etc. If you've ever wondered why harldy any of the players were noticeably faster in their senior year compared to their freshman year, wonder no more. You can argue to what effect HIT training has on Michigan's win and loss record, but you absolutely cannot argue that Michigan would not be better with a Strength and Conditioning program based on Olympic lifting.

It's hard to be real shocked about the outcome Saturday when we've seen this story told countless times. From team speed to defending the spread to inability to hammer an inferior oppenent, we've seen it all. Bill Martin knows it too. It's disheartening to even have to think about who will replace Lloyd Carr when it is only September 3rd, but it's also reality. I think that Martin will look for the best candidate to get Michigan into the new era of college football. We have a $260 million dollar renovation at our doorstep, so money should not be an issue at all. Whether Martin feels the same way remains to be seen. But the chances that anyone on the current staff will become the next coach are slim to none, and slim just skipped town to go to North Carolina. I can see Mike Trgovac getting a look, but he isn't a likely candidate. Les Miles is the coach with Michigan ties that gets the most discussion, and he would definitely consider it, but if Carr is in the Athletic Department after he retires I wouldn't bet on Miles being the choice. And Harbaugh? Well, who knows about that guy. A look towards other potential candidates will come a later time.