gehringer_2

but that's the point. They are plugged into the AD. It's a silo and an echo chamber for the coaches. Just consider the motivations for a minute. If you are Harbaugh, you want the world to think what you want is easy to get, that's how you put pressure on the admin to get it for you. Don't look to people who live by PR for truth - only agendas.

I look at it this way - you have a certain probability in any season of a guy slumping, you have a certain probability in a given year that a guy excels. When a whole team slumps and no-one excels, you are witnessing an outcome which is the product of individual probabilities all below 50%, or IOW a net low probability event; OR there is an unknown forcing function driving the result. If you are going to take a statistics based approach to baseball, you shouldn't ignore what probability is trying to tell you.

The Lions can't trade the 6th pick, don't you know this is the last chance in the history of civilation for them to draft a franchise QB? - or so goes the drum beat on Det sports radio. LOL, I suppose Holmes could do a complete 180 after chasing Goff across the country twice, but I'm not putting any money on it. 🏈

When he walked in the door he gave lip service to the same low walk/control the zone ideas Harris has repeated. He just never executed a strategy to get there. And I'm still very suspicious that the implementation of hitting advice in the Tiger clubhouse last year was doing more harm to hitters than good.

this is certainly what they hope. My only argument with Buddha is that as I see it they have to go out and beat the bushed to find those folks, and it's going to be a significant effort. My argument is with people who think they have a queue of people knocking down the door and they have just been snubbing them out 'arrogance' or some such. I think that is an unrealisitic take. The U has very little pride when it comes to taking money. 😂

If you don't think culture in Alabama is different from Michigan, check your election results.

Michigan alums are willing to spend a lot of money, and they do. But they have been plugged into a different kind of fundraising for generations. You aren't going to move that donor base into a different philosophical stance in 12 months. More importantly, you ignore that there are very powerful interests within the University - at least as powerful as the AD, that have no interest in seeing any of the money they get now go anywhere else. It's naive to ignore the pressures the university as a total institution faces from all it's non-athletic stakeholders. The fans want desperately to believe that all UM has to do is flip a switch and tomorrow they are suddenly competitive with Georgia because that the way fans want to think. Manuel has no easy hill to climb.

Buddha, I don't believe you are even close. The university can already find a million ways for anyone with a nickel who wants to spend it on the U to do it. Their fundraising budget is probably bigger than some schools whole budget. The idea that there is a hidden mob somewhere just waiting to write checks is fanboy wishful thinking fantasy. I bet at least 9 of every 10 dollars that end up in NIL will be $$ that come out of funds they now getting for something else. UM does fundraising by the Billons. You don't do that by leaving many stones unturned.

Yeah - I think too little, too late is pretty much Al's epitaph. I think directionally his ideas were right, he just never got far enough on enough of them.

I got to be a pretty decent straight pool player in college. On my best days I could run a full rack. Customized a 2 piece cue. I've been trying to talk myself into buying a pool table ever since I've had a house. Never have..... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Two words: Microwave cannon.

That's Canada geese, lest you ruffle some ornithologist's feathers.

the question is was he fleeing the current coach?

If you are even a fair (and by no means great) pool player you can make hard shots, you just need to be able to repeat on your misses, which you can when you are shooting a movie. 😊 Of course when playing straight pool, the trick is not to have to make hard shots - putting the ball in the pocket is normally the easy part, it's getting the cue to where the next shot is easy that is the art. Gleason did a small number of 'serious' films. I've seen a few. He probably had more talent than ambition.

yeah - a system full of guys that end up topping out at 4A could look like it's running circles around other systems. The only real measure is how many major leaguers make your team in X yrs.

I really don't know MC. I think most big donors want to leave a mark - some kind of legacy - brick and mortar, building with their names, plaques on the wall, a fellowship they come as award every year. I really do wonder how excited they are going to be about putting a porsche in the next Neon Deion's parking space. That was my question up thread. I think places that already have a well developed booster culture around them are going to do a lot better at having people ready to spend on that kind of expense. The Tucker funding was a black swan, much like Ross's 100M. Those are one time - you aren't going to be able to run an onging program on that kind of basis. (Dept of useless information: People in Europe and the US use 'black swan' as a metaphor for a rare event, but black swans are actually quite common in Australia)

He might not have too much to say about the left handers in the box, but he'll probably have lots of commentary on the right-handers.

knew of a linebacker once, talked a really great game. Impressed a lot of people....I heard it eventually got him a job with a team.... <g,d&r>

As long as that's not just a deeper hole.....

I kid just because so many people just seem to assume there is a money press just sitting unused in the basement of Schembechler Hall. To paraphrase Dave Dombrowski "You try to raise that money!" 😱

have you sent in your check yet?

LOL People won't want to see it, but don't forget that one possible outcome is that the Big Ten does not try to become the 2nd super conference to the SEC but instead is building size and adding Pac schools exactly so they don't have to. Maybe they are trying to go back to where things were in the 60's and 70's where they simply didn't play or compete with the Southern conferences. With enough big popular traditional programs they can make a lot of money sticking to internal scheduling and running up winning records internally. Then as long as the playoff invite is wide enough they still get their playoff invites, take their losses (and football being football, they will win a few) and on it goes with all the 5*s going where the big money is but not very much to the B1G. Could be that is the kind of difference in the future seen by Warde Manuel and Jim Harbaugh. Now don't everybody get your panties in a bunch - I'm just spitballing - but just to make the point that none of us know where college revenue sports are going to be in 5-10 yrs -- there could be lot of outcomes that no-one today is imagining. But you can bet that while the prospect probably doesn't bother coaches much, a lot of ADs around the country are trying to figure out some kind of future that does not involve teams with NFL sized payrolls! And add to the mix Buddha's probably correct prediction that some kind of collective bargaining is in the future for college players which would be another source of new organizing principles that no-one today can see yet.

You need to be doing both. It's true there will be some guys who maybe weren't ready but still have the potential to bloom, but you still have large numbers of top guys who go to good programs and win starting jobs and they mostly are not going to show up in the portal. Once you lose them you aren't going to get another shot at them.

I'm not saying it's likely, but I now I do wonder a bit if when the Tigers decided not to set up their own RSN, part of the reason was the possibility they could end up buying the this one at firesale prices. You don't need to be a Warren Buffet level investing guru to know that a lot LBOs end in failure.

Larkin and Bertuzzi seem to have lost their chemisity - maybe it comes back if Bertuzzi's game comes around, but I'm looking for Lalonde to do some more line shuffling quickly if the #1 line doesn't pick up quickly after the break. You can't keep wasting Larkin's setup ability on guys who aren't using it.