gehringer_2

Then again, look at Tua - seems to have suddenly blossomed into the guy there was no sign of in his 1st couple of years. It's funny, the position is probably more demanding and complex than ever, but the conventional wisdom about how long it takes a QB to get fully up to league speed has gone pretty much the other way.

Oesterle should be fine, he's been better so far this season than last I think, but then again, I'm not really worried about Seider at all.

Yeah - overall it sucks. But in the end you can't fight mother nature forever. We got at least a chunk of society to take enough precautions that the hospital system didn't fully collapse before we got vaccines, paxlovid, and monoclonals. That level of success is more than the species has ever managed before in the face of a new disease. What could be done has mostly been done (excpet for maybe China!). The Universe has just gotten a little less hospitable for our species.

Yeah - the bottom line is that until Putin believes he cannot eventually win all his objectives, there can be no settlement, and up to this point, as bad as it has been for the AFRF, it hasn't created enough (maybe any) pressure on Putin to change course. As long as the deaths of thousands of Russians is a price for Empire that Russia appears happy to pay, the West has little choice but to hold the line against them.

similar here.

one problem is that now that Russia has declared itself as the enemy of Ukrainian existance, the strategic importance to Ukraine of some of the territory captured pre 2021, and even including Crimea, has increased to a point far beyond what it was prior. Ukraine could tolerate a peaceful Russia in SE Ukraine, it can hardly tolerate a professed enemy of its existance commanding its access to the black sea. Russia's conduct has basically precluded going back to the status quo ante 2021. That is just the new reality.

almost hard to believe NW was in this game twice in the last 5 yrs.

Interesting, though Harbaugh is being a little dismissive of this own team there. Even if OSU makes the snap for the fake, it's still no gimme that some number of M players don't combine to make a play anyway or a guy doesn't run over the back of his own blocker and fall or whatever. Sure it might have worked, but no play, esp a trick play, is ever a total guarantee.

Way, way back in the day there was a lot of back and forth between Greg Landry and Bill Munson over multiple seasons, but I don't think you could call it a platoon, they just couldn't decide who was better.

That's would be about 80% of the total population of Ohio and Michigan. I do wonder what the ratio of MI+OH eyeballs to the total was.

Yikes.

I think the question for Michigan and Harbaugh is whether he's going to get bored and lose focus or start pining for one last shot at the NFL again or whether he's settled on the thing to do he really wants to keep doing. He's always seemed like kind of a restless soul type to me. Saban won a natty at 69? Harbaugh is 58? So if his mind doesn't wander off somewhere and he can keep bringing in good young position coaching talent I'd figure he's got a little more than 5 yrs - maybe say 10 yrs left - if he's healthy - and keeps winning of course! But that's a long time - who the heck knows what college football even looks like in 10yrs?

and there's issues and then there's issues. What if a guy K's a lot but also walks and hits a lot of HRs? What if a guy swings away a lot with the bases empty but always shortens up with a runner in scoring position and less than 2 outs? You can look under the covers of almost any statistical measure and find more nuance.

IDK - you don't think Michigan is up for the PSU model? How long did PSU let Paterno hang around?

TBF, not that many college teams can both run and pass well. We said that given their run game, M would be as good as the passing game allowed them to be - well they passed pretty well yesterday, and that ability to do boh is going to be hard for any college D to handle.

he did change defensive co-ordinators - but maybe Knowles isn't the right guy for the job either.

I'll grant your point about recruiting, but to go back the idea about OSU's defensive identiy, it seems like recruiting or not, and JTT not withstanding, this OSU team doesn't seem to haved produced a Bossa type player from those recruits this year like they have so often in the past. And sure, that probably goes back to the coaching. You (the generic 'you' ) hate to have to admit it, but just because Meyer is a scumbag doesn't mean he wasn't a good head football coach.

except for the $30-40million difference in attendance income, but who's counting?

JTT is a good case in point though - one dominant game a star does not make. He may get high on some draft boards based on athletic potential like T. Walker did, but not so much based on 28 tackes and 3.5 sacks on the season.

I'm hoping they have enough pitching to be no worse than they were last season, but you never know..

the Waterboy's gonna be running the team!

Maybe it's that Day isn't in Meyer's league as a recruiter or maybe it's just that OSU is facing all the same kinds of issues every other school is in terms of figuring out what to do next, but did you see a single really dominant, disruptive player on the defensive side of the ball for OSU? These don't seem to be your father's Buckeye's anymore.

it's funny, you mentioned them not sticking to the inside running game, but you see coaches fall into the "it's not enough" trap with stuff that is actually working all the time. Harbaugh not the least in his 1st couple years was constantly going away from whatever was working. Nature of the beast I think. It's a constant trade off with trying to stay unpredictable.

IDK, OSU had pretty good success on the edge runs early. The diff was M apparently adapted. One thing that stood out to me was that OSU doesn't seem to make any attempt to disguise their defense, something M does almost to a fault in wanting to line up so late they sometimes get caught. OSU would bring everybody up or they wouldn't and always left it pretty obvious which. TBH, OSU never really seemed in particularly in sync on O or D. Looked like a team expecting to win without a battle. OTOH, the near death experience against the Illini was probably just what M needed going in That plus the lack of discipline. the PF's cost OSU big time and of course that's pure poor coaching.

his D got a good number of stops in the 1st half. If you think you are going to get stops you can play field position. If he had gotten them he probably wouldn't be getting criticized so much in hindsight.