text:
he grew a beard
A Conversation With Mark Silverman
Mark Silverman is president of the Big Ten Network and, apparently, is on a sort of media -- any media -- blitz as the saber-rattling between the BTN and cable operators reaches its peak in the month before D-Day. Exhibit A: this interview at Peegs.com. (HT: The Hoosier Report.) Exhibit B: the BTN office reached out to me and asked if I would like to have an interview with Silverman.
Uh... yes?
The ensuing scramble to get some sort of recording capability came up empty -- I shake my fist at you, Skype -- and so I spent a lot of time frantically transcribing. Some quotes may not have 100% fidelity as a result, but they all communicate Silverman's intent fairly. Anyway...
I started by reading Mr. Silverman a quote that was highlighted in an earlier editon of UV:
"We're well on our way toward ensuring that roughly half the subscribers to smaller cable systems across the Midwest have better access to their favorite Big Ten schools and teams than anytime in history."
This seemed a worrisome scaling back of ambition, albeit one that could have been taken out of context. Silverman did confirm that the fears generated by that quote were unfounded: "The point was more specifically referring to the smaller companies. By no stretch is that any sort of implication about the larger companies."
As the conversation progressed, this became clear: the Big Ten is not and has not reduced its goals. They are no more backing down than any of the cable operators are. In fact, when I asked whether there was a backup plan if basic tiers were not possible Silverman repeatedly stated the Big Ten Network is "not deserving of a sports tier" and that they needed to be "sure the network was launched appropriately," then dropped something of a bombshell: if cable operators in the footprint are not willing to put the channel on a basic tier they won't be permitted to carry it at all. This is an all-or-nothing gambit, and this is why Silverman got in contact.
"It means more access. Martin wants to build the school, to build the exposure. The more you can put it on, the more you showcase these universities and make them seen nationally. It's a great exposure tool for the school in general and for the conference."
(Silverman did confirm that they were way more flexible outside of the footprint, willing to accept placement on sports tiers for a lesser fee than that charged by ESPNU or CSTV. Ironically, if you're in Phoenix you have a better chance at having the channel available than Ann Arbor.)
Said gambit is either brilliant or insane depending on whether it works, a real Schroedinger's cat situation. I don't think I have to convince anyone who reads this blog that having the BTN on basic cable is good for both Michigan fans and the University itself. The more revenue the channel generates, the better positioned the Big Ten is in the ongoing filthy lucre wars between conferences, and, frankly, I'd probably watch the BTN a ton.
One thing that Silverman did convince me of is that the universally used -- for scorn -- comparable, the NFL Network, isn't comparable at all. Despite the fact that the NFL is the King Kong of American sports, their network had eight games all year. The rest of their schedule is like highlights and analysis and, basically, junk. The BTN is going to have multiple football games every week plus a ton of basketball games, and act as an ESPN Classic for the conference. (Except without the suck.) The sheer number of televised events makes it comparable to a Fox Sports Net, not the NFL network. The problem, of course, is that a local FSN has a ton of events guaranteed to be high profile and laser focused on wherever it's distributed; meanwhile a Purdue-Indiana football game may not be of extreme interest in Wisconsin or Michigan. Silverman acknowleges this:
"There's a lot of confusion because there's not an exact comparable, but if you look at local and regional networks – most of which are owned by Comcast – and it's significantly less. None of their networks are on a sports tier."
This is true. A brief listing of Comcast-owned RSNs:
- Comcast Sports Chicago: $3.75
- Comcast Sports Philadelphia: $3.10
- Comcast Sports Mid-Atlantic: $2.50
- Comcast Sports Northwest: $2.00
- Sportsnet NY (Time Warner -- Mets): $1.80
All of these channels are on expanded basic, as are Versus, the Golf Channel (THE GOLF CHANNEL), and something called CSS Sports, a southeastern channel whose main attraction is single-A baseball and SEC games... on tape delay. That is in six million homes, about what the Big Ten Network's projected footprint is. The "Northwest" edition of Comcast Sports is especially egregious because their entire programming lineup is 50 Blazers games. That's it. Evidently Comcast doesn't care about the "Blazers tax" they're imposing on Oregon, nor the "Tape Delayed SEC tax" on the southeast or the "Frickin' Golf And Not Even Interesting Golf tax" currently being deployed on virtually everyone.
The Big Ten Network's widely reported $1.10 -- a number Silverman said was "probably ballpark" but, oddly, one that he'd "never confirmed" -- doesn't seem out of whack at all in relation to those numbers. Sure, it's probably not worth anywhere near what channels full of NBA/MLB/NHL games are, but they aren't asking for a price near that, and they are providing everything they have at the basic carriage price:
"There's two networks, an HD network and a regular one, a VOD [video on demand -ed] one, and all these overflow channels that we're offering for free. Comcast is going to get a ton of new HD subscribers because all these new games are on that weren't in HD."
(It is possible this is SOP for cable networks and this is not really a point in their favor, though I do think the HD point is cromulent.) Silverman made it clear that the BTN wasn't married to $1.10, but if cable operators were going to stall on placement on basic cable there would be no discussion:
"If they said 'it's on basic,' then we're off to the races. I have to believe it's posturing. I can't believe they're going to hang their hat on that. You can't even have a legitimate conversation on price until you agree on what level of service you're talking about."
At some point he asked me what I thought -- hey, who's doing the interview here? -- and I said I felt like a pawn, then accidentally got off a pithy quote: "it seems like your leverage is our outrage." It does feel like we fans are caught in a Mexican standoff, except both guns are pointed at our collective head. And instead of a gun we have a rubber chicken. Any trigger-pulling will be a mutual act of our two antagonists, but Comcast's rife hypocrisy shouldn't be obscured by the Big Ten's PR-deaf commissioner.
Will the trigger get pulled? Don't know. Neither does Silverman:
"It's going to go on for a while there. We hope to convince them to carry it on a basic level. I do think we'll get it on the air. But... I don't know. We definitely have some work ahead of us."
Hockey Aside: I asked what the hockey coverage was looking like, and he said there would be "ten to fifteen games" on the network this fall and that they would be "above and beyond" the current coverage provided... probably. Obviously hockey isn't A-1 on his priority list, so he wasn't 100% up to date on their projected coverage. Since Minnesota and (I think) Wisconsin have very good TV packages with their local Fox Sports affiliates I assume most of those
would be Michigan/Michigan State/Ohio State games. Hopefully some will be, you know, on the road.
McGuffaggeddon Approaches
For the record:
McGuffie's announcing on the same show Darryl Stonum did; the result is expected to be the same.
(Sidenote: The announcement about his pending announcement was premium message board only 31337 stuff this afternoon. Which is, like... what? Eventually people are going to figure it out. It's on TV.)
Update: Thanks to MSC for the Myspace link. Also, I so rarely get to do this: SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNNNNNNDAY AT THE SILVERDOME.
Hail To The Victors 2007
There is a book:
This book contains some 15,000 words of mine on Michigan's coming season and their zone running game. The remainder of the words are the work of fine people like Dave from Maize 'n' Brew, Russ Levine of Football Outsiders and The New York Sun, Vijay from IBFC, Michael from Braves and Birds, Joel Pennington, author of the The Ten Year War, Brian Stouffer from The House Rock Built Matt Hinton of Sunday Morning Quarterback, Peter Bean from Burnt Orange Nation -- Mallett, natch -- and Johnny from RBUAS. It is a veritable smörgåsbord of bloggy goodness in book form.
I can't reproduce the whole book for you, but here follow three excerpts to tantalize and amaze.
The Zone Stretch
My excursion into explaining our running game. With some sweet diagrams.
The most important thing on the stretch is to get all the "first level" defenders blocked. Normally these are defensive linemen, who can shoot into the backfield and force the running back to waste time before he gets to the line of scrimmage, but a blitzing linebacker makes himself a first level defender. And sometimes defensive linemen aren't considered first level, usually backside defensive ends who are suffered to run free so that the tackle lined up over him can instead block a second level defender. Our first play features a first level defender suffered to run amok.
It's Michigan's opening drive of the Notre Dame game. Michigan already leads 7-0 after Prescott Burgess's interception return touchdown. On first down, the Wolverines run a zone stretch to the left side of the line for four yards. Facing second and six, they line up in a three-wide ace set (for those who haven't wasted significant swaths of their lives playing EA NCAA Football, an ace set features one tailback lined up behind a quarterback under center as opposed to an I-formation, which has a fullback lined up in front of the tailback). They're going to run another zone left. Notre Dame sticks with seven guys in the box. Please see Figure 1 for the presnap alignment.
On a zone stretch the line moves in unison to one side or the other, blocking whoever they find in their area. But a rote adherence to this concept can leave first-level defenders unblocked. On this play, defensive tackle Derek Landri is shaded to the playside, lined up over the gap between the center and the guard. Asking a center to snap the ball and then get his helmet across a player who is already a step ahead of him is asking for a defensive tackle in the backfield. With the defensive end and outside linebacker shaded to the outside themselves, left guard Adam Kraus has no one in his zone. He could help out on Landri, but he doesn't, instead stepping left into his vacant zone and immediately going out to the second level to block the middle linebacker. Figure 2 shows the actions of all participants immediately after the snap.
Bihl's left alone to block Landri; this works about as well as you might expect. Landri shoots into the backfield, right into the path of Hart. Hart being Hart, he dodges the charging lineman, but the play's timing has been disrupted. The unblocked Abiamiri wraps Hart up for no gain. Figure 3 shows the play's result. It's not a good one. Michigan is stopped for no gain.
The frustrating part of this play for an offensive coordinator is that it was blocked wonderfully aside from the slip up on Landri. By the time Hart was being tackled, Trevor Laws, Notre Dame's other tackle, had been driven five yards downfield by the Riley-Mitchell double team. Riley then completed his zone block by peeling off and hit the outside linebacker. Kraus took out the middle linebacker... if he had just managed to get Landri sealed before he did so Hart would have had a major crease, as you can see in Figure 3.
On the ensuing third and medium, Chinedum Ndkuwe intercepts Henne and returns the ball inside the five, giving Notre Dame their one brief moment of hope in the midst of a wholesale beatdown.
One Last Run
I know this is cruel, to give you an RBUAS article and snatch it away mere paragraphs in, but baby needs to eat.
He sat in his chair with a posture his mother would have scolded him for, his shoulders slumped defiantly forward, his hands hidden beneath a table covered with silver and black tape recorders. He looked like he'd got a haircut recently (perhaps, because, like the first day of high school and dates with pretty ladies, games against Ohio State are worth going to the barbershop for), and though he was not there to talk about things I wanted to hear, it was comforting to see that he'd done so, to see that he revered and cherished this merciless game enough to look nice for it.
It was a little while after Michigan had lost to Ohio State by a score my fragile mind has chosen to forget, and Mike Hart was sitting in a room answering questions which only sought to explain why, specifically, it was that Michigan had lost the most colossally significant game of each of its player's lives – to their nemesis, less than 48 hours after their monarch's heart had stopped beating.
Defeated men in this position choose to walk down one of two dusty paths. On one path he will sit motionless, his face still; so miserable that each question collapses to the ground like a paper airplane sailed into a stone obelisk. He is a man of a conquered will; competitive and visibly exhausted, and talking to a room of men he thinks have never played the game he bleeds for, never fought the men he just fought. It's useless, he thinks – they don't understand. His responses are brief and he wants to go home and close his eyes. I think this is the man I saw when I would watch Lamarr Woodley talk after Michigan lost.
The other man will offer platitud
es lauding the other team and how "they were just a little bit better," than he was. He's detached from the game outside of the moments he's playing it and those he's preparing for it. He's far too content with his fate, and the fact that those who have defeated him know he thinks they are superior. To him, a battle is not necessarily lost, because the entire sport is in a struggle together.
But Mike Hart is not like either of those men. He will never give up on himself, and he will never submit to anyone else. It's doesn't matter to him that people know by now he's one of the best college football players in the whole damn country. Or that when his legs churn against the ground as hard as they do on every third and two you almost wonder if the Earth's rotation has slowed a bit. Mike's only known of a world in which he has everything left to prove; he's never known of anything he didn't have to claw for until his fingernails wore down to the cuticle. So you must understand that if someone had told me about a player in the press room who wanted a rematch and couldn't stop talking about how good Michigan was and how good Ohio State wasn't, I would have hesitated only to wipe the grin off my face. Because that man will always be Mike Hart, our Mike Hart.
Those Who Stayed Were Champions
Joel Pennington draws from his extensive interview sessions with Bo undertaken for The Ten Year War to review Bo's legacy.
Bo was born and raised in Barberton, Ohio. And although baseball was his favorite sport as a kid, his talents were better suited to football. "I always pictured myself being a major league pitcher," Bo said. "But reality took care of that. I was much better at football than baseball and wanted to be a tailback, but reality took care of that too. I asked my high school coach where he needed help the most and he said offensive guard. So that's where I played. I found out that I really enjoyed the intricacies and nuances of offensive line play and I worked my butt off trying to perfect my technique. Physically, I was only average at best. But my technique was good enough to get me a scholarship to Miami of Ohio to play for Sid Gillman."
Following his sophomore year at Miami, Bo's life was forever changed when Gillman left for Cincinnati and a man named Woody Hayes became his new coach. "It's hard to describe what an adjustment that was," Bo recalled. "Woody and Gillman were totally different. Woody was a brutal task master. But something just clicked between us and I ended up spending almost as much time with him as his coaches. He'd call me to play racquetball at all hours of the day or night or we'd spend hours looking at film. He was consumed by football, and I think he recognized the same trait in me."
After Bo graduated from Miami, Woody Hayes took over the Ohio State program and Bo followed him as a graduate assistant for one season before doing his time in the army. His army term was followed by stints at Presbyterian College, Bowling Green, and Northwestern under legendary coach Ara Parseghian. Finally, in 1958, Woody had a spot open on his staff and brought Bo back to Columbus.
"I learned so much as Woody's assistant." Bo explained. "I was like a sponge. I tried to absorb everything I could about how to organize and run a major program. Working with Woody certainly wasn't always easy, but it was an amazing learning experience. Those five years at Ohio State really cemented my relationship with Woody. In 1963, Miami was looking for a new coach and I told Woody I was going after it. He told me I couldn't leave because he would only coach for a few more seasons and then I would take over at Ohio State. Well, I really wanted the Ohio State job, but I knew Woody wasn't going anywhere soon. And I also knew that Woody wouldn't be able to just name his successor. So I went to talk to Dick Larkins, the Ohio State athletic director, and told him that Miami had offered me the job. He just said, 'You'd better win.' He knew that I wanted the Ohio State job and that this might be an opportunity to prove myself. But things didn't quite work out that way."
In addition to the above articles, the book contains:
- An extensive preview of the team, position-by-position, player by player, by moi.
- SMQB breaks down each of our opponents except ND and OSU, because...
- said opponents are covered in their own full fledged articles by Tom Orr and Brian Stouffer.
- Peter Bean's article on Mallett complete with comparisons to Paul Bunyan by local talent evaluators.
- Ten recruits you should know.
- Dave from Maize 'n' Brew's recap of the Henne era to date.
- Two ridiculously researched articles from Vijay and Michael; Vijay compares DeBord to Malone and finds evidence for the infamous "scoring offense" while Michael takes a look at the correlation between Michigan's experience and its on-field success.
- Christopher P. Anderson on Jim Harbaugh's rapid rise to the Stanford HC position, complete with speculation about whether he'll be the new HC here. Yes, written before his multiple outbursts. Still a great article.
- Russ Levine on Lloyd Carr.
- Joel has a second article, this one on the 1973 voting controversy that jacked Michigan out of the Rose Bowl.
- Lots of pretty pictures. Seriously, it's a gorgeous book.
You are probably asking yourself "just six easy payments of 19.95"? And, like, no way, man. That is way too much for a book. You have no idea how much books are supposed to cost. It is way less than that. You can find it at Maple Street's online store or (probably) anywhere fine football publications are sold. Sometimes people ask how they can help out this blogging endeavor; this would be a good way.
Unverified Voracity Wonders If The FCC Thinks The BTN Is An RSN LOL
Game of the Century of the Year. We had a #1-#2 matchup last year that didn't work out so well. If voters see fit to place Michigan #2 to start the year, we'll have another: Appalachian State is #1 in I-AA. Slightly higher probability we come out on the right end of this one.
Meme of irritation. As mentioned over the weekend, the Michigan-ND series is taking a break in 2012. The exact quote that contains all knowledge about this AFAIK:
White said the Fighting Irish will take a short break from their Big 10 rivals in the future, replacing Michigan with Oklahoma for a two-year period, then facing Arizona State instead of Michigan State for two years.
It's explicitly two years and with a direct replacement. But this Irish fan in the comments says:
To back up ChrisND, supposedly UM wanted ND to play in the Big House two years in a row to shift to having ND at home and OSU away/ND away and OSU at home each year. The same thing could have been accomplished by playing two years in a row at ND, but that was not discussed. One thing as well, as this would have the same effect on ND with the UM and USC games (similar to UM's case). I enjoy playing UM, despite the recent blowouts in recent history, the series is relatively balanced over recent history. (NOTE: THIS IS NOT A CALL FOR SEVERAL FOLLOW UP POSTS RECALLING HISTORY FROM THE 1800s).
Chris Wilson also has this version of the story:
And here's MGo's rather comprehensive PSU preview, although there's little mention of the Wolverines basically forcing the Irish to drop them by asking for two straight games in the Big House.
The more insecure portions of the Irish blogosphere are repeating this ad nauseam as further proof that Michigan is the root of all galactic evil. I call BS. If ND was willing to accommodate Michigan's request to split the ND/OSU home-road rotation, the simplest solution is to take a single year off and then resume the series as before. Demanding two consecutive home games makes no the sense.
Where is this coming from? Does anyone have a link to someone reporting this or is it just a face-saving fantasy based on that old Bill Martin interview in which he said "we want to keep playing Notre Dame" and Notre Dame fans immediately assumed that meant we were going to back out of the series as fast as possible? The meme is spreading rapidly through the ND internet population and is poised to be an annoying urban -- er, rural Indiana legend as the series break nears.
Also, you can file this under "easily predictable": Kyle King flips out and renews his push for a Georgia-Michigan series. I would be up for that. Also, if Alabama's looking for a high profile opponent at around the same time...
Red quotes. I don't remember where I got these; apologies to whoever I stole them from. Probably WCH. Anyway, a couple weeks ago CSTV had some NHL draft-related articles that quoted Red. Red on goalies:
"You rarely find a 19- or 20-year old goalie playing in the NHL, whereas you will find the odd 18- or 19-year old forward," said Michigan head coach Red Berenson, who's seen Wolverine goaltenders Steve Shields and Marty Turco make it to the NHL since he took the reins at his alma mater in 1984. "The forwards, you can get away with their mistakes, and play them when they're younger. Defensemen, their mistakes are more important, and it takes them longer, and goalies' mistakes are critical. Look around the history of the NHL and find me a rookie goalie who's 18 or 19 years old who's on a winning team."
He maintains his longstanding opposition to early-entry:
Berenson's thoughts on that sort of development plan for a goalie don't differ much from his long-held views on skaters signing early when they aren't NHL-ready.
"Are you ready, as a college player, to give up your senior year to play in the American League?" Berenson asked. "If you are, then you're thinking differently than I am. If I were a goalie, I'd go to college, and I'd stay for four years, and I would get as ready as I can for pro hockey, but even then, I would expect I might have to play a year or two in the minors."
Elliot Olshansky also has this incendiary quote on his, um, slog(?):
"The NHL [teams] are becoming the biggest enemies of college hockey," Berenson said. "They're afraid of losing players that they draft, so they're signing them early whether they're ready or not. They're saying that they're going to take over the development - which the NHL hasn't necessarily been good at - but they're going to take over the development of these young players."
Rules and such. Also from a couple weeks ago was a whole bevy of potential rules changes coming down the pike for college hockey. Yost Built has summaries and opinion. In brief:
- A two-ref, one-linesman system starting in '08. Wha? Weird. Unless they're planning on slapping orange bands on several linesmen I don't know that college hockey has enough referees. I mean... there are referees out there but they're the sort of referees who would get fired from the never-ever league. See: Scott Hoberg.
- The elimination of ties starting in '08. Overtime would get modified to make scoring more likely in the extra session, possibly extended to ten minutes, and then a shootout would follow. I'm indifferent to this.
- They're thinking about changing the handpass rule but don't know how yet.
- The addition of an "embellishing" penalty that's supposed to be called concurrently with an opponent penalty; a dive should now only be called on its own. Won't have much effect on the game but will prevent my head from imploding when the dive-obstruction duo is called.
Yost Built, as mentioned, has more.
(Side note: Yost Built also offhandedly mentions that the NHL is implementing a new rule: all faceoffs come from one of the nine faceoff dots. This is an excellent change that gets rid of those silly faceoffs just inside the offensive zone that when "won" instantly put everyone offsides and force a dump-in. It also provides one fewer thing for the referees to track. College should follow suit.)
More Adidas. Since the shoe company is probably going to get a lot more mention amongst Michigan fans please note that it's not "adidas" even if the company refers to itself as that. It is a proper noun and should be presented as such. END angry grammar man section.
Jim Carty has a two part interview with Bill Martin that discusses the deal extensively. Part 1; Part 2. The deal's bells and whistles:
So, here's Nike with an offer they say would be the highest contract they have in college sports, and I'm still concerned, because these are long-term deals. How ever I set this up is going to impact this place for a long, long time. The long and short of it is, we were very fortunate with our timing. Adidas was hungry to have a major college bra
nd and they laser focused on us. If you look at their strategy, they take one or two schools in every conference, and that's it, whereas Nike tries to saturate the country with all schools. (Adidas) has Tennessee, Notre Dame, UCLA and Wisconsin. Everybody has said Notre Dame has the richest Adidas contract, but you can't get it, because it's a private institution. I know this contract exceeds it.
I'll name some of the unique features in this contract. There is a $6.5 million signing bonus. There is never a signing bonus. We're going to get it in two weeks. What am I going to use it for? I have to finish up this facility stuff and get Crisler going. If I had any spare bucks, it'd go into endowing scholarships. It's pretty simple.
We've got an annual (Consumer Price Index) escalator. Annual.
We got a most favored program clause. There's never going to be an Adidas school that gets a nickel more than us, either in product or money.
But wait, there's more:
The other thing we received is that ... you know, markets go in cycles. Eight years from now, who knows what the situation is going to be economically. The market may be way below where it is now. I've seen that happen in my business career. Well, guess what? We have the option to extend. It's no lose. If the market's gone up, we negotiate a new deal. If the market's gone down, we say we like this deal and we'll keep it another five years.
A sweet deal all around for Michigan. Whenever you sign a contract and one of your main rivals' message boards has a week-long conniption fit over it, you have done well.
There's some stuff about Crisler in there and then a discussion of this month's looming issue:
Q: You talked about Big Ten revenue. Are you concerned about the rough waters the Big Ten Network finds itself in? (The new network is struggling to get picked up by major cable operators in the Midwest)
Martin: We anticipated this. Jim Delany counseled us on this a year ago. Fox counseled us on this. Do I think it will get resolved? Sure I do. One way or another, we'll get it resolved. I feel very good about it. Long term, it's going to be tremendous, and I'm not thinking in terms of the money, I thinking about exposure.
We want it on basic (cable). We don't want it on a premium sports tier. The Golf Channel, Versus, they're on basic. What we're going to provide is much more exciting to our state and region.
Q: Are you prepared for a flood of angry e-mails if some football games aren't on the local cable outlet this fall because a deal hasn't been reached?
Martin: Join the list (laughs). I don't fret about that stuff. We'll be fine. This is exciting, what's happening in the Big Ten with that channel.
Q: Are you concerned it's become a public fight?
Martin: I don't like seeing it. I don't.
Negotiations with Dish Network do not appear to be going well. Their parent company has petitioned the FCC to get the BTN declared a "Regional Sports Network." Apparently there is some sort of arbitration process that RSNs go through with satellite providers or something. Argument:
EchoStar claimed that after three months of negotiations, it has been unable to strike a carriage deal with Big Ten Network "due to its insistence on unreasonable terms, including rates that are far above market, and its demand for nationwide carriage on EchoStar's basic tier."
The No. 2 direct-broadcast satellite provider claimed that Big Ten Network is trying to position itself as a national network, not an RSN, so that it can "evade the RSN classification so that it will not be subject to the arbitration provisions" of the News Corp.-Hughes order, which only applies to RSNs.
"Although the Big Ten Network has held itself out as a national network, its programming, pricing structure and other aspects of its business model are consistent with an RSN, not with a national network," EchoStar said in its filing.
"In particular, the pricing and packaging structure proposed by the Big Ten Network is comparable to that of a traditional RSN and bears little relation to the greatly reduced pricing structure of existing national college-sports-based networks, e.g. CSTV and ESPNU," the filing said.
The BTN counters by saying that it only wants the widely-cited $1.10 figure for subscribers in the BTN footprint and is asking less than a tenth of that for everyone else. Do we have an expert in the peanut gallery who can provide more detail on this? I'm not sure what all the implications are here.
The Hoosier Report also points out this Q&A with a Time-Warner exec from the same cable/satellite industry publication:
MCN: At this point, as you're looking at both of those networks, do you see them as being sports-tiered networks in terms of their value? You mentioned that you're not getting complaints with the NFL Network, but the Big Ten's a little different. You have systems that represent markets where Big Ten schools are and there might be a great desire among those subscribers [to be able to watch] that network.
BW: Well, I think that, again, it's a real assessment as to what we think the value is that the content brings to our consumers. There's no question that there are fans of the NFL, hockey, the Big Ten, tennis — there are fans of every sport you can find.
I think striking the right balance is the question. Of course, we're in the business of providing video content, so the most compelling offering is going to be able to offer our consumers everything they could possibly want. If bandwidth were unlimited, we would do that at the right price, and let the right people pay for it that want to pay for it.
So I think that — particularly for sports programming where they're looking for high payoff — we have to be responsible about figuring out who's going to pay for that. And I don't think that that burden should be borne by the breadth of customers.
Particularly, the Big Ten is an interesting one only because they've kind of cast themselves in a hybrid of a regional sports network and a national service. But you'd probably be hard-pressed to find a regional sports network with an eight-state core market. But we're still evaluating, and we have an open door with respect to every programmer who wants to do business we us, so we're talking to them and evaluating, and trying to determine where our customer sets are.
More BTN later today.
Etc.: Maize 'n' Brew previews the hell out of Oregon.
Monday Recruitin'
Sorry I'm late. I'm feeling under the weather.
Update 7/23: Linked to articles on NJ LB JB Fitzgerald, OH TE Kevin Koger, TX WR Darryl Stonum, PA LB Shayne Hale, IL OL Kurt Wermers, PA HB Christian Wilson. Removed OH LB Brandon Beachum (no offer; dropped us), AZ RB Covaughn Deboskie (dropped us). Moved OH TE Kevin Koger to committed.
There's also this article from a WVA paper about the Hale/Saddler package deal that is sort of horribly written.
Editorial Opinion: Not much going on this week other than the Koger commit. We were apparently looking at Beachum as a running back. He camped and was not offered. Michigan is moving in another direction. Deboskie listed us high for a while but has a final six we are not amongst. Possible McGuffie fallout?
This isn't on the board yet but is worth mentioning: the rumored Florida lead for Will Hill appears legit. There are a bunch of stories out there all saying Hill is close to committing to Florida. I haven't taken him off but he's a real, real longshot now.
JB Fitzgerald has a solid top five of Michigan, Florida, Rutgers, Iowa, and Georgia Tech. Michigan is still in a strong position:
"There's not too much not to like about Michigan," he said. "I love their tradition and I have a great relationship with their linebacker coach Steve Szabo. He's been recruiting me since January and I've gotten to know him really well.
"I also like their academics," Fitzgerald said. "They are some of the best in the country."
I think we lead.
Christian Wilson says Michigan, Clemson, and Rutgers lead. We are also in a good position here:
One of the many schools that Wilson visited this summer was Michigan and he was very impressed by the Wolverines. "I like their academics and their football program is always real good," Wilson said. "They are only like four hours away and I like the area a lot. There's a lot to do and it's a fun environment. Everybody really supports the team."
Also think we lead for him.
Shayne Hale on the much-discussed package deal with Cameron Saddler:
"It would definitely be fun, just to have someone that you grew up with and played in high school with," said Hale. "But I have still have to look at what will be good for me."
Hale, though, didn't rule out choosing the same school as Saddler.
"If a school that he and I have offers from is a good school for both of us, we'll probably both go there."
Saddler, on the other hand, says the two are going to the same school no matter what in every interview. Hale's keeping his options open but reconfiguring his final list to be M, WVU, UVA, and OSU implies that he's at least giving the idea some serious consideration. He was rumored to be an Ohio State lean early, FWIW.
Darryl Stonum is going to be an early enrollee. The Houston Chronicle has a meaty article with quotes from both Stonum and his dad:
"The people at Michigan suggested I try to get up there early, and it's going to give me an advantage on the other (2008) recruits, and even on some of the recruits from the class of 2007. They want me to get up there and work on things like returning punts and becoming a better receiver, and hopefully, I'll be able to work my way up the depth chart and be returning punts on Saturdays as a freshman."
Sam McGuffie doesn't have a set announcement date yet. This is bad since everyone says if he was going to commit today it would be 100% Michigan, but everyone remains confident anyway.
Garrett Goebel visited Michigan this Friday with both parents and expects to decide within the next two weeks. Like Koger, this is a Michigan-Ohio State battle. It appears very close. If you forced me to guess where he's going I'd say OSU but that's guesswork.
Michigan-Notre Dame on Hiatus
From, weirdly, somewhere in Alabama:
White said the Fighting Irish will take a short break from their Big 10 rivals in the future, replacing Michigan with Oklahoma for a two-year period, then facing Arizona State instead of Michigan State for two years.
Via Mark Snyder. From the tone of Press-Register article it sounds like this is more Notre Dame's choice than Michigan's. The Irish have signed a deal with the Big East that requires them to play three BE teams a year, which sort of crams things up when you're also playing Purdue, Michigan State, Michigan, Navy, and USC every year and are trying to get seven home games a year, which requires the importation of service academies and the like. Michigan is likely to sign up a big name in Notre Dame's stead -- at least they'd better -- but this makes it highly unlikely we accidentally schedule ourselves into two interesting games in either of those years given the current climate of college football. Which sucks.
Penn State Preview: Stupefying
The Story
No matter Penn State's final record, every edition of the Nittany Lions as the Paterno era trundles to its end in the near (or possibly distant and zombie-run) future seems to be the same team: tough defensively, tough in the run game, inept with the ball in the air. The varying levels of toughness and ineptness produce either Big Ten championships and BCS bowl victories or, like, losses to Toledo. Last year "very," "moderately," and "immensely," respectively, combined to go 8-4 without impressing anyone or beating any team with a winning record save the fraudiest of delicious frauds, Purdue, until an unexpected victory over Tennessee in the Outback Bowl validated the Nittany Lions as a team that was not complete crap.
This seems like faint praise, but after Penn State's last fairly respectable season -- a 9-4 2002 squad that lost in OT twice and by narrow margins two other times -- Penn State did morph into complete crap, and how. Over the next two years Penn State scratched out a 7-16 record as their fanbase studied Oedipus Rex for brooch-wielding tips. So, yeah, they'll take it.
Now Penn State fans look at a couple returning all-everything guys on defense, a senior quarterback, and a wide array of the sort of unproven talent SMQB has aptly dubbed "alleged" and dream big. The natural tendency, at least around these parts that haven't experienced a loss to Penn State since the father-son combo in the White House had the last name Adams*, is to gently pat the excited on their adorable heads and fight back giggles.
But... um... while no one in their right mind is truly excited about Anthony Morelli, you are invited to consider this question privately: who, exactly, is the second-best quarterback in the Big Ten?
No, it isn't possible. Is it?
*(may be a slight exagerration. possibly.)
Last Year
|Pass Eff
Not good. The departure of once and future "slash" Michael Robinson to the fertile grounds of the CFL or Arena football or wherever stripped the Nittany Lions of their best passer and (debatably) best running back simultaneously. While Tony Hunt's yeoman work in his final season was remarkably effective given the constraints he was working with, when paired with a pure pocket passer it was not enough to maintain the running game that propelled Penn State to the BCS in 2005. Penn State skidded from 14th to 43rd in rush yards per game. That would have been all right if Morelli had perked up the passing game, but he did not. Though yardage increased, efficiency plummeted along with total yardage, scoring, and sacks allowed.
Rating: 3. Anyone who's been reading these previews the last couple years can tell you what's coming next.
1. Rip on current PSU quarterback.
All the mockery extended here and elsewhere about Anthony Morelli's lack of mental faculty proved more than founded. The indelible memory from the first year of the Morelli era was the back-to-back pick-sixes he threw against Ohio State that turned a tight 14-6 game into a three-score blowout faster than Morelli can spell "dubble cuvrage." They were hideous, appalling, memorable, kind of hilarious -- everything you want as an on-the-record skeptic of a particular player. The rest of the year was not much better. Morelli completed 54% of his passes, averaged only 6.3 yards per attempt, and had a dire 11-8 TD-INT ratio. Five stars my ass. Though the problems in the passing game weren't entirely on his shoulders, 92nd in efficiency is 92nd in efficiency.
|Passer Efficiency
In The JayPa Era
2. Rip on Jay Paterno.
If Morelli was the only fly in Penn State's passing ointment, you could see some sort of light at the end of the tunnel. But it wasn't Morelli that called the option play against Notre Dame that turned into a spectacular fumble and Irish touchdown. It wasn't Morelli's decision to blow his redshirt year for 13 garbage time attempts. It isn't Morelli responsible for the table at right. These things are the doing of the Penn State offensive brain trust, which has clearly been powering the unholy zombie body of Joe Paterno for the past half-decade instead of coming up with clever plays and stuff.
The rule here until proven otherwise is this: assume the Penn State quarterback is going to suck. Call this the JayPa Theory. Even in PSU's improbable '05 Orange Bowl season, Michael Robinson was a fairly crappy quarterback, completing 52% of his passes and finishing 57th in efficiency. Fortunately for PSU, Robinson doubled as a decent running back and the Nittany Lions were able to overcome their passing game issues with a top 15 run game. Last year they fell back to the pack and results dipped accordingly.
3. Disclaim!
Except... dammit. I have a hard time picking against one of the few senior quarterbacks in the league this year. The one thing indicative of probable Michigan dominance more than any other is this list of experienced senior quarterbacks other than Chad Henne:
- Anthony Morelli
- Curtis Painter
That's it. And I think even less of Painter than I do Morelli, largely because Morelli was kind of competent against Tennessee -- though not very, let's not get ahead of ourselves, Penn State scored 13 points on offense that day -- and Painter was miserable in Purdue's bowl game against Maryland. Painter also had the luxury of a deep, varied receiving corps, the pass-happy Tiller offense, and a veteran offensive line. Morelli had none of these things.
So... what do you do? I think it's likely that one or two of the young guns pass him by year's end, but as of right this second he's probably the second best quarterback in the Big Ten. He will probably be above-average when all is said and done. If you have not seen London or France or the queen's undies, watch Penn State this year and you may well see something every bit as stupefying as you'd see in any of those other places: Anthony Morelli, All Big Ten. (Second team, of course.)
Tailback & Fullback
Rating: 3(?). The vastly underrated (by everyone, including me) Tony Hunt is gone and with him goes thumping fullback BranDon Snow. Into Hunt's shoes steps erstwhile blue chip recruit Austin Scott, a fifth year senior who took an unusual voluntary senior-year redshirt for the shot to be the Nittany Lion starter free and clear in 2007. The job is now his, virtually by default.
Scott's career has been one disappointment after another but does have one shining moment. It came when Hunt was knocked out of the Orange Bowl... well, let's let Penn State's hilariously overwrought official page do the talking:
Like an understudy in a Shakespeare play, Austin Scott learned his lines and knew them well. The curtain went up on the highly-anticipated 2006 FedEx Orange Bowl but, the play's lead at running back, Tony Hunt, went down in the first series with an ankle injury. Like any good understudy, Scott was ready in the blink of an eye to take his place on center stage and make sure the show did not skip a beat. He did not disappoint, as the only thing skipping beats were the hearts of Nittany Nation watching the thriller. Scott ignited the offense, carrying five times for 57 yards on Penn State's second drive and skipped [sic] untouched off left tackle two yards for the first score of the game. He demonstrated his multiple skills by rushing for a game-high 110 yards on 26 carries and scoring twice in the pulsating 26-23 triple-overtime win over Florida State.
I... wow. "Pulsating." Note to self: refer to coming Appalachian State win as "pulsating."
Anyway, yes, Florida State had a intimidating defense that year and Scott did have a nice game against them. He also has high school accolades few others do. But he's spent most of his Penn State career disappointing coaches and fans with substandard play and lackadaisical practice. A tendency to dance his way to pretty one-yard gains has not endeared him to Penn State's old-school coaches.
In short, he has talent that he's on the verge of squandering. At this point he could either be David Underwood or Chris Perry. If he's like Perry and motivation is the real issue, he could be a revelation as he enters a contract year of sorts. If he's like Underwood and the issue is an inability to play football, nothing will help. I lean towards the former given the Orange Bowl, but not much. Scott is one of the biggest wildcards in the league; much hinges on his performance.
It's thin, thin, thin behind Scott. Redshirt freshman Evan Royster is the top backup. A three star recruit out of Virginia, Royster had 45 yards on nine carries in the PSU spring game. Penn State fans seem inordinately enthused about this. This concludes all available information on him. Senior Rodney Kinlaw has spent three years tantalizing Penn State fans with his speed on kickoff returns (though AJ Wallace largely took over those duties last year) and doing nothing much in a structured offense; he might be the third down back. There are few options if Scott comes up craps.
Wide Receiver & Tight Ends
Rating: 3. This group was an enormous disappointment last year largely because the waxing star of former national #1 recruit Derrick Williams went back on the wane. The sophomore caught 40 balls last year, which is fine. Official Big Ten receiving Jesus Mario Manningham only hauled in 38. The issue is the yards per catch: Williams managed just 440 yards on his catches, a pedestrian 11 per. By way of comparison, noted non-deep threat Steve Breaston beat that by a good half yard on his 58 catches. If you remove his anomalous 62-yard touchdown against Indiana, he still ends up at 10.7 per. A less frequently deployed Steve Breaston is not what Penn State fans had in mind coming into the year; one touchdown does not a luminous star make.
Running mates Deon Butler and Jordan Norwood had similar seasons, both catching 40-some balls for several hundred yards and finding the endzone rarely (twice each). If there is a deep threat on the Penn State roster it's Butler, who managed 13.2 yards per reception. But there isn't, so ignore that last sentence except for the YPC data.
One problem the Penn State wide receivers have is they're all basically the same. All three are at least smallish, with Norwood and Butler checking in at plain old "small" -- the duo is listed at 5'10", which means they crack 5'9" on a good day. Williams is asserted to be six foot even, which is not quite smurfy but isn't exactly not. None of these guys are going to be Calvin Johnson or Braylon Edwards type threats on jump balls. For any of them to get open deep they would have to be Breaston-esque guys who can kill you with YAC and use a quick change of direction to get open deep. (Despite all Breaston's problems with actually catching the deep ball, holy Lord could the guy get open.) Unfortunately for Penn State, no one has shown that sort of ability. Compound that with Morelli's inaccuracy, Penn State's protection issues and the result is five touchdowns from your receivers. There is no quick strike in this unit.
Nor is there the sort of player who can fight through a jam and catch a slant on third and seven, at least not yet. This is where sophomore Chris Bell enters the picture. Bell had a downright Michigan freshman year, spending a year of eligibility to acquire five catches for 66 yards as he polished his blocking and route running. A highly touted recruit who chose Penn State over Michigan and a host of other suitors, Bell has the size (6'3", 210 pounds) to fill that Avant role. He's a good bet to move past one of the mighty mites.
Ha! I kill me.
Another third down target will be sophomore tight end Andrew Quarless, who picked Penn State over Michigan and others in 2006. He was a bright spot as a true freshman, catching 22 balls for 288 yards (a better per catch average than Williams!) and establishing himself as an up-and-comer.
This unit should be better than it was a year ago with everyone of note returning, but the two leading receivers from last year seem fundamentally limited players unlikely to discover a hidden cache of talent and Williams' stock is in a tailspin after his uninspiring first couple years. Quarless should be a major target and Bell is a good bet to emerge into an Avant-type possession receiver; a lack of big plays will still hamper Penn State.
Offensive Line
Rating: 2. As a Michigan fan, my perception of this unit is hopelessly biased by the sieve job it put up against Woodley, Branch, et al., in PSU's 17-10 October loss. This is de rigeur:
img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/1074/130/1600/269998421_fb32303bd7.jpg" />
Any game in which two quarterbacks were sent to the sideline with concussions does not reflect well on your blocking prowess. And that was with future top ten pick Levi Brown at left tackle, albeit with a scoped knee that wasn't quite right. With Brown off to the NFL, I probably can't find any way to predict this unit to do anything other than suck in heinous fashion. But let's try anyway.
Points in favor of the PSU OL: they return four of five starters (sort of... Gerald Cagoden started half the season before losing his job at LG and RT John Shaw has been moved inside to RG to battle with fellow returner Rich Ohrnberger) from a line that paved the way for a strong season from departed tailback Tony Hunt and his grinding ways. Hunt was a power runner of the sort that needs the designated hole to be in its expected location to leverage his strengths; his success necessarily reflects well upon the line that cleared the way for him. Center AQ Shipley was a fine starter all of last year and will probably be on the MGoBlog preseason All Big Ten first team, for what little that matters.
But, um... no. Earlier this summer Black Shoe Diaries took a crack at projecting the starting lineup this fall. It includes two returning starters not switching positions, two total unknowns who were ignored by the gurus (though it should be noted that offensive line is a notoriously tough position to rate kids), and a left tackle who a was not only a guard last year but one who "wasn't very impressive," losing his job halfway through the season. Holy heebie-jeebies, Batman. Outside of Shipley, there isn't a spot on the line that is settled. Steele says this is a "much more experienced" unit than last year's edition... I am not so sure.
Last Year
|Pass Eff
Predictably badass. Virtually nothing changed from the Orange Bowl 2005 season, as you can see at right. The similarities go beyond the coincidental and into the eerie, with only one question remaining: WTF was up with getting smithereened by Notre Dame? Penn State finished sixth in sacks with 40 thanks in large part to heavy and effective linebacker blitzing but chose to play virtually the entirety of its September game against the Irish in standard seven- and occasionally eight-man zones. Brady Quinn, free of the pressure that made him whimper and implode against Michigan, USC, and LSU, had a field day against the passivity. This is yet more fuel for the idea that Penn State is no longer a particularly well-coached team, at least not at the top. Mark Bradley evidently has some chops.
But, but, but... the rest of the year! If you discount the two touchdowns gifted to Ohio State by Anthony Morelli, the only other team to crack 20 against Penn State was (weirdly) Minnesota, and their total of 27 was assisted by an overtime touchdown.
One thing that does not show up in the stats: Penn State's #7 ranked rush defense may have been significantly overrated. Granted, in several games they were dominant but they were also aided by some ridiculously pass-happy opposition. Brian Hoyer threw 61 times in the Michigan State game. Erik Angie had 37 attempts for Tennessee despite Arian Foster and Lamarcus Coker going for 101 yards on just 17 carries. Take a look at the better run games on the Penn State schedule last year:
|Darius Walker
|Good job but against the #72 rush offense; Travis Thomas had 44 yards on 3 carries. Probably depressed by a lot of obvious garbage time runs.
|Antonio Pittman
|Owned. Wells 5 for 11.
|Amir Pinnix
|Excellent job.
|Mike Hart
|Close to a push. Started out strong then faded down the stretch as their offense hung them out to dry. Live and on tape an impressive job thwarted by Hart's ineffable awesome.
|Rashard Mendenhall
|!!! 79 yarder distorts, sure, but 13 carries for 80 yards still ain't good. Did control Williams, who had 19(!) rushes for 4 yards, though sacks were probably much of the losses.
|PJ Hill
|Hill had a long of 16. Steady grinding PSU could not stop.
|Fat man love to throw.
A steady diet of sacks and some amazingly low RB utilization by opponents (14 RB carries for Purdue, 17 for UT, 6(!) for crazy-ass John L. Smith, 11 for NW) obscured a run defense that was pretty average when pressed.
Defensive Line
Rating: 3. Gone is the, um, pulsating heart of the Penn State defense. Paul Posluszny is taking his ill-gotten trophies to the NFL, but that's another section; here we talk about the absence of Ed Johnson and Jay Alford, two of the best defensive linemen in the conference last year. Fortunately, the figuratively and literally enormous holes left by their departure will be filled with a host of guru-approved recruits.
Despite the presence of the heralded, It's the relatively un- Abe Koroma who is atop the depth chart at defensive tackle. His running mate is likely to be enormous Phillip Taylor, a run-stuffing space eater who hovered around 350 pounds as a high schooler (named "most likely to eat your baby," FWIW). The top backup appears to be sophomore Jared Odrick, a top 100 recruit in 2005 spent his freshman year as an oversized defensive end a la Ohio State's David Patterson, picking up four tackles and a sack in limited time. He's moved inside to his more natural position and will get a lot of time in the defensive tackle rotation, particularly on passing downs.
I am a little confused by the projected depth chart since Odrick has both guru approval and, seemingly, coach approval on his side over the Koroma, who redshirted as Odrick played. It wouldn't be surprising to see Odrick force his way into the starting lineup.
Last year the Nittany Lions struggled to generate anything from their defensive ends until they moved linebacker Tim Shaw to a weird but effective standup DE position; Shaw would pick up seven sacks by year's end. Now he's gone, leaving Josh Gaines, Maurice Evans, and the 3.5 sacks between them.
Traditional MGoBlog heuristics lead one to be skeptical of a major leap forward for Gaines. He was a meh recruit in 2004 who contributed little in his first year starting despite playing next to a couple of defensive tackles who demand more attention in the passing game than most and in front of an aggressive, blitzin
g linebacking corps. The picture painted is one of a lot of effective single blocking of Gaines by right tackles. He was a redshirt sophomore a year ago -- less upside than a guy in his first or second year in the program -- and started largely because the situation at defensive end was so dire it required the Shaw move. If Penn State can get a mediocre season out of him, it would be a small victory.
The player starting opposite Gaines is still unknown. Depending on who you ask it's either true sophomore Maurice Evans or a player whose name might be a slight annoyance to Michigan fans who follow recruiting: Chris Rogers. Evans was a moderately shirtless recruit who was forced into early action as a freshman, picking up a dozen or so tackles and a sack and a half. Rogers was a Michigan recruit in 2004 who redshirted before fleeing back to the cozy confines of central Pennsylvania. The common reason given was homesickness. Unfortunately, there was more than a little disappointment at his departure. The general impression gleaned from message boards was that the coaches felt he had potential to be a plugger in the mold of Rondell Biggs, a high motor guy good against the run with adequate pass rush ability. Rogers had three TFLs in the spring game and should be adequate to good.
Redshirt freshman Aaron Maybin is also in the mix. He probably needs another year of adding bulk before he is anything other than a pass rusher.
Rating: 5. Though this blog has often claimed Paul Posluszny overrated, those criticisms were specific to the very foo-foo awards he was granted by voters stunned into mute submission by PSU's admittedly rich linebacker tradition and were limited to "is not as good as AJ Hawk" and "is not the best defensive player in the country." Oh, and "you're crazy if you take him before David Harris." Mustn't forget that one. Anyway: his departure is not to be scoffed at.
...At least not entirely. Penn State, in keeping with that whole Linebacker U thing, is in fine shape despite losing its most decorated performer at the position since Lavar Arrington was leaping offensive lines in a single bound. Senior Dan Connor, a terror on the weakside when not suspended for prank-calling his own coaches, moves away from his quaintly-named "Fritz" position to Posluszny's vacated middle linebacker spot which probably isn't dubbed "Hun" but should be. Strongside -- "Jerry"? -- linebacker Sean Lee was a quiet revelation when I UFRed the Michigan-Penn State game...
Probably the difference between PSU and other defenses: Sean Lee, a sophomore linebacker, reads this very quickly, getting out on Butler and preventing much in the way of YAC.
...and his 90 tackles, 8 TFL, 5.5 sacks, interception, and two fumble recoveries indicate that the "surprisingly heady" Lee was not turning in a fluke performance. Racking up those numbers next to a pair of tackling machines like Connor and Posluszny is truly impressive; Lee may have been the best strongside linebacker in the conference as a sophomore. Insert grumbling about where they get these guys here.
So the only question is at the old Fritz position; even there Penn State has options. Tyrell Sales, Navarro Bowman, and Jerome Hayes will compete for the position. Redshirt junior Sales is the front runner. He has three starts to his credit because of the Connor prank calls and was the senior's sparingly-used backup in 2006. Eleven tackles in the spring game also help his cause. Bowman redshirted last year; he receives high praise from the coaches when queried. Hayes is evidently the top backup at middle linebacker, playing opposite Connor in the spring game, and may win a job if the coaches decide their best lineup has Connor on the outside.
(Side note: Wikipedia has a subarticle on offensive terms for various ethnicities and nationalities. This subarticle has a sub-sub-article on terms levied specifically at Germans. It includes six different English slurs plus nasty words from Austria, Croatia, Denmark, France (three), Finland (two), Italy (three), Luxemborg, the Netherlands and Belgium, Norway, Poland (four), Portugal, Russia (designated "unfriendly" instead of "offensive"), and Bavaria, which you will note is a part of Germany. By my count, Paterno could specifically enumerate different anti-German slurs for each position on offense and defense and have five left over for kickers and other special teamers. I fully support this effort, Joe.)
Defensive Backs
Rating: 5. Junior Justin King is the headliner. I hardly need to discuss him, do I? For those in the dark: King was the ur-disappointing cornerback "lock," a top ten player and five star supposedly ticketed for Michigan from day one. This did not occur. In retrospect, the only surprising thing is that anyone was surprised. King's stepfather is Terry Smith, formerly a diminutive but effective wide receiver for Penn State from 1988 to 1991. Smith was also King's head coach in high school. Result: Penn State commitment. Duh.
Anyway, King spent his freshman year as a two-way player, acting as PSU's nickelback and tooling around on the offensive side of the ball as Penn State searched for anything approximating offensive confidence. The nickelback thing provided an opportunity for this Nelson moment to transpire:
Ha-ha indeed. Everything was right in the world and King's decision was foolish. Then he dumped the wide receiver gig, focused full time on cornerback, and became one of the country's best cover corners as Michigan's secondary stood between it an a national championship game berth. The ha-ha was on us. Don't be fooled by King's somewhat scanty numbers (six PBUs and an interception). Offenses avoided him like the plague, instead choosing to test a capable Tony Davis. He is one of the country's premier cover corners.
The other returning star is safety/dispenser of vigilante justice Anthony Scirroto. Since Joe Paterno has decided to punish Scirotto for gathering together a posse and performing a daring nighttime raid on a party that contained someone who said or did something nasty to his girlfriend by instructing the rest of the team to clean up Beaver Stadium it appears he will dodge serious repercussions, though an FIU suspension seems plausible. Scirroto was probably the best of a weak crop of Big Ten safeties a year ago. His six interceptions led all defensive backs in the conference, and his 14 passes defensed is an impressive total.
Tony Davis was an adequate to good cornerback a year ago who moves back to safety. Yes, this is a position switch starter but it's way less sketchy when you move a corner to safety than vice versa. This one seems especially innocuous because it appears designed to get uber-recruit AJ Wallace on the field every down. Wallace was
the team's Designated Reverse Guy as a kinda-sorta two way player as a freshman; he'll try to follow in King's footsteps this year.
So this appears to be a hell of a starting secondary: the best corner in the league, the best safety in the league, another returning starter, and a highly-touted recruit entering the starting lineup as a sophomore. Beauty. There is a small catch: depth. Backup safety Spencer Ridenhour transferred away, leaving Penn State very thin beyond their starters. Past nickelback Lydell Sargent the situation at corner is similar.
Special Teams
Rating: 4. Frequently deployed Kevin Kelly returns for a third year at kicker. Kelly, 22 of 34 last year, is a version of Garrett Rivas with delusions of grandeur. Inside 40 yards, Kelly hit 80% of his attempts. From 40 and out he was 5/13, though three of those were from 50+. He's all right, but no Mike "Ted" Nugent.
Punter Jeremy Kapinos is gone. He was pretty good, averaging just under 42 yards a kick last year (34th nationally) and helping PSU to a respectable 37th in net punting. I know nothing about replacement Jeremy Boone, as befits a person who occasionally leaves his house. He will probably be marginally worse.
Penn State's return units should be above average as long as they get the right people the ball. Their overall rankings (40th and 43rd on punts and kickoffs, respectively) obscure better performances from their primary threats: Derrick Williams had a punt return touchdown and was 18th in PR average while AJ Wallace was 30th in KR average.
Turnover Margin
The theory of turnover margin: it is nearly random. Teams that find themselves at one end or the other at the end of the year are highly likely to rebound towards the average. So teams towards the top will tend to be overrated and vice versa. Nonrandom factors to evaluate: quarterback experience, quarterback pressure applied and received, and odd running backs like Mike Hart who just don't fumble.
|Int +
|Fumb +
|Sacks +
|Int -
|Fumb -
|Sacks -
|0.08 (55th)
|3.08 (6th)
|1.8 (47th)
This heuristic doesn't tell us much about teams that are near zero, so take the following lightly, but: this category projects marginally worse in 2008 unless Penn State can keep up their prodigious sack rate. The interceptions against are much lower than you might expect largely because of the extreme conservatism of the Penn State offense. No throws across the middle of the field (according to fans more familiar with the predilections of the Nit offense than I), few chancy deep balls, and a decided preference for running Tony Hunt limited Morelli's turnovers but did little to actually help the offense move. Assuming the offense opens up, the line remains kind dodgy, and Morelli is still prone to mental errors, interceptions should go up, but a reduction in fumbles lost should help.
But this is all a long way to say: turnover margin treated Penn State fairly last year. Their results on the field weren't distorted.
Position Switch Starters
Theory of position switches: if you are starting or considering starting a guy who was playing somewhere else a year ago, that position is in trouble. There are degrees of this. When Notre Dame moved Travis Thomas, a useful backup at tailback, to linebacker and then declared him a starter, there was no way that could end well. Wisconsin's flip of LB Travis Beckum to tight end was less ominous because Wisconsin had a solid linebacking corps and Beckum hadn't established himself on that side of the ball. Michigan flipping Prescott Burgess from SLB to WLB or PSU moving Dan Connor inside don't register here: we're talking major moves that indicate a serious lack somewhere.
We have three. One trips our alarm bells: failed guard Gerald Cadogan moving to left tackle to replace Levi Brown. A second, shift of Tony Davis from corner to safety, is probably all right but might speak to a lack of depth in the secondary. The third, Dan Connor to middle linebacker, is not an issue.
Dumbest Thing In CFN Preview
Just because.
The team will be far better if ... the offense starts to scores on defenses with a pulse.
Charlie Weis would be proud of that Grayson-Moorehead moment.
Flickr Says...
If you've never been to State College it's hard to imagine. You get off the freeway and there is a field and then there is a 110,000 seat stadium amongst an open vista of dormant farms and trees. It would look just as out of place in the Amazon.
And this one's not for downloading, but any Nittany Lions wondering what they'll be doing after games this year should check this shot out.
An Embarrassing Prediction, No Doubt
Best Case
The defense has no falloff at all. Morelli turns into a bonafide quarterback and the receivers find a way to get open; the line is decent enough to... naw. Who am I kidding? Best case scenario for the Nit passing game is a leap to average, maybe slightly better, when coaching is taken into account. If Scott turns into Perry/Larry Johnson PSU could turn in a season like their Orange Bowl run of 2005, but that's a lot of ifs. Still, 11-1 could happen, though I think undefeated is out of the realm of possibility.
Worst Case
Even in the worst case I don't see Penn State's defense being below average. Lee, Connor, and King are really good and there's enough supporting talent that they should be able to weather their offseason departures well enough. The run defense could take a significant step back, but they'll still be tough to score on.
Offensively, though, there could be a comical stagecoach explosion complete with single burning wheel skittering across the camera lens. If the offensive line is AQ Shipley and the 'tards, hypothetical Morelli improvement will be negligible and the passing game will remain mired; if Scott goes bust the resulting ugliness could hearken back to the bad old Mills/Robinson/Agony days... though not quite. Those were some of the worst offenses ever seen in the Big Ten and Morelli has at least proven he's not broken Zach Mills. A series of tight, ugly games could lead to 8-4; a return to the bowl-less days of recent yore is not in the cards. I can't see this team being worse than last year's edition, especially with the soft nonconference schedule.
Final Verdict
Even though I am deeply skeptical about Morelli and the Nit offensive line, the comparison that is foremost in my mind is Wisconsin. The teams were virtually identical in 2006, stiff defenses coupled with mediocre or worse offenses heavily reliant on running the ball.
The Badgers are a trendy pick for Big Ten champs based on their 12-1 2006, but replace Bowling Green with Notre Dame and rejigger the Big Ten schedule to include Ohio State and you're probably looking at 10-3 and more reasonable expectations for a team that didn't prove all that much last year. Unit by unit on offense:
- QB: PSU. Even if Morelli was meh, he has a year of experience over Donovan/Everidge.
- RB: Wisconsin, but they have similar depth issues and Scott has one-year wonder upside.
- WR/TE: Penn State. Beckum is all the Badgers have; Penn State has Q
uarless, two guys who would be fine #2/#3 players, and at least the hope Williams lives up to his potential, plus Bell.
- OL: Maybe a push based on the similarities -- uninspiring starters returning from last year's team; top ten LT off to NFL -- but Bob Palcic fought in 'Nam and Wisconsin doesn't have a failed LG playing LT this year.
I figure the defenses will be near mirror images. The secondaries are a wash if not a slight PSU advantage -- more faith in AJ Wallace than Allen Langford -- and the presumed Wisconsin advantage on the D-line is offset by what should be one of the nation's premier linebacking units. If you consider the skill positions even, you're picking between the Wisconsin OL's advantage over PSU's line and Morelli's advantage over whoever Wisconsin throws out there.
My point is this: if you're looking for a darkhorse challenger to consensus favorite Michigan in the Big Ten, this is probably your team. I kind of hate saying that what with JayPa and all, but there it is. The differences between UW and PSU last year laid mostly in the quality of their opponents. The defenses will both be stout, intimidating things; if you made me pick between the offenses I would wince and take the Nittany Lions.
|Functional DNP
|Notre Dame
|Probable win
|Functional DNP
|@ Temple
|Functional DNP
|@ Michigan
|Probable loss
|@ Illinois
|Probable win
|Probable win
|@ Indiana
|Probable win
|Ohio State
|Probable win
|Minnesota, Northwestern
Penn State sweeps its candy OOC slate -- I weep crocodile tears for whoever the ND quarterback is against this defense -- and goes a solid 6-2 in conference. 10-2 it is.
Oh, and: play Pitt, for Christ's sake.
Unverified Voracity Is All About The Ladies
Awwwww yeeeeeah. This post comes with audio accompaniment and should be experienced multimedia style. Oh yes.
I swear this came from a reader tip and not my regular perusing of Essence, but, um, Braylon is going to stare directly into your soul now.
This is from Essence's apparently annual issue dedicated to "Do Right Men." Braylon is one of three "ballers" included. But wait! There's more!
So now Dhani Jones has just stared directly into your soul. I bet your soul is feeling a little... naked at the moment. And willing. Oh yes.
Uh. Anyway. Though the Do Right Men are all sort of really, really eligible bachelors and the NFL guys participated in a photo shoot in which they were -- wait for it -- OMG shirtless (feverish searching can be cut short; it's here), they were also selected for being generally awesome individuals. Dhani, of course, has been active with charities since he entered the league, and Braylon's been giving a scholarship to any kid in Cleveland who looks at him funny. It reflects well on the program that when Essence scoured the NFL for players who were not only hottt but also good people, it came up with two Michigan guys.
It also lets us know important things like how Dhani gets his care on:
MOST ROMANTIC MOVE: "I was dating a girl who loved tea. So I found her favorite loose tea and wrote messages on the empty tea bags so that every time she filled them up, she got a new message."
And then there's the Braylon guestbook, which is full of:
iam lost for words, iam a 36 yrs old and wish the black men looked this good in manchester,nh
-vanessa laing
Hi Braylon,
I admire how you give kids the chance to go to college. You have a nice smile. (and a GREAT body) :) Thank God for essence!! LOL I hope you find the woman of your dreams and may she be all you dreamed of her being. Who knows maybe I'll win the contest and get a chance to meet you one day. Until then, stay strong and continue doing what your doing. God Bless
-Tiara R.
IT IS SOMETHING ABOUT YOU EYES, THAT MAKES ME FEEL SO.... NAKED!!!!(LOL) [told you so. -ed] YOUR TO HOT
But no one mentions how frickin' awesome he was in that Michigan State game. Like... WTF?
Caution advised. Remember Justin Fargas? Nation's top tailback recruit in '97, had one nice game as a mudder versus Northwestern, exploded his leg, moved to safety, transfered to USC, and emerged impossibly buffed up as a quasi-starter his senior year? No? The one who's dad was Huggy Bear. There. Now we are on the same page.
Given all that it's interesting to check out this video of Fargas in his high school days, apparently put together by a family member who would like to wish him congradulations [sic] on his achievements:
Caution? Screw it. Scout got a few prospects together for some pictures; two of them were OSU commit JB Shugarts and Sam McGuffie. Shugarts entered a two-point stance. McGuffie jumped over him. And did a flip just because.
You hate us, you want to be us yesssss join the darkside. An array of Penn State blogs have weekly roundtables in which they bat questions back and forth to each other. This week's edition had the following question:
If you had to choose between being a fan of The Ohio State University, The University of Michigan, and Notre Dame who would you choose and why?
Whoah. Penn State fans are about to deliver a massive payload of maize and blue hatr--
I would say Michigan because their fan base is generally well regarded. THEosu fans have one of the worst reputations in football – just ask them they'll tell you and Notre Dame... well let's just say I know the Irish starting offensive line, I'm a Lutheran, and I don't have an arrogant sense of self worth so that disqualifies me for the Irish.
That's weird. Probably a deviant or something. Next?
Michigan. Because then I'd still have a fantastic reason to hate Ohio State!
Um. Wha?
Michigan hands down. Buckeyes think winning national championships is their birth right. Notre Dame fans think your respect is their birth right. Michigan fans think not having to talk to stupid people is their birth right.
I don't think I've ever been so accurately described in a sentence. Surely the last guy...
University of Michigan – they own us, so if you can't beat them, join them. They also lack an overwhelming number of arrogant assholes in their fan base (Notre Dame) and don't inhabit a dangerous, poo-filled Styrofoam cooler infested environment (tOSU). Oh yeah, and one more thing "Space, Bitches."
Huh. Who knew?
Etc.: Johnny has returned from wherever to RBUAS. Said return is up to his usual standard.
Hurray For Being Wrong
Headshot from the Toledo Blade.
Kevin Koger has committed to Michigan. Divers alarums. Informative update coming.
Informative Update: Major disagreement between Rivals, Scout, and ESPN on just how good Koger is. Scout's porridge is hot, ranking Koger above fellow OH TE and Michigan commit Brandon Moore and placing him just outside their top 100. Koger's the #106 player on their THIS IS MADNESS top 300 and the #7 TE in the country.
Rivals' porridge is warm. They give Koger four stars but exclude him from their Rivals 250. Only a few players outside the 250 get the fourth star, so he's closer to a three than a top 100 ranking to them. He's their #15 TE and way behind Brandon Moore, a resident of the Rivals 100.
ESPN's porridge is cold and full of nails, but not quite so much as it was a week or so ago when they rated Koger a 65/100, which would be by far the worst rating assigned a Michigan recruit since ESPN dumped Lemming for Scouts Inc. Now it's up to 73, which is still way crappy. Scouting report is, as you would expect, mixed:
He has a long, rangy frame and should be able to pack on additional bulk. He looks on film [but not in real life? -ed] to have long legs, takes long strides and can cover some ground. He flashes the ability to come off the ball, shoot his hands and create some separation. .... Koger will garner interest because he has talent, but he will need to work on elevating his game and getting more from his skills consistently.
Said scouting report also evaluates him as a defensive end only; Koger is coming in as a tight end.
As far as offers, Michigan and Ohio State were obviously the two big ones. The OSU offer is especially telling, IMO, since they're pretty thin on scholarships this year and have a bumper crop in-state. They have a few young TEs in a system that doesn't use them extensively, pursued and acquired Columbus-area TE Jacob Stoneburner, lost out on Kyle Rudolph, and didn't offer Moore -- though I hear tell that may be because of some friction between the Trotwood-Madison and OSU staffs and not necessarily a reflection of Moore's talent -- and still chose to pursue Koger. Salutary indicators. Not salutary is his lack of offers outside the Big Ten, though that may be due to a lack of interest on Koger's part. I don't believe he went to any combines or camps that would get him wider attention and was down to the local behemoths as soon as he had offers from both.
ScoutingOhio has video of Koger on both sides of the ball, though their website continues to sell the video quality short by making them teeny tiny. I've you-tubed it; hopefully increased pub will prevent them from unleashing the hounds.
(I know you're wondering: rap or emo? Emo.)
I like that the guy who put it together clearly got tired of how much time the slow-mo and glowing ball effects were taking and said "screw it" after a few clips.
You can compare and contrast with the Brandon Moore clips if you like. It's not advisable to get too invested in highlight reels -- you can never tell if you're getting Mike Hart or Justin Fargas -- but I like Koger's. Even if the scrubs he's running away from or towards aren't D-I caliber they are usually like 50 pounds lighter than him.
The wider view: Michigan is done at tight end and has two kids they identified and pursued early, wresting one away from Ohio State and the other away from most of the SEC. With Stonum and possibly Smith or Baldwin, a potentially stellar haul of targets for Mallett.
Name collision: Kevin Koger provides online dating tips:
SAY CHEESE! Look your best and submit a great photo of yourself for your profile photo. A good picture really is worth a thousand words, and research shows that you are nearly 10 times more likely to be noticed if you post a photo to your profile
There are dozens of these on all sorts of skeezy-sounding domain names. The other Kevin Koger is apparently try to put together some sort of Mormon (or "LDS") dating site.
NCAA '08 Preliminary Review
I don't have the game. I decided against it for now for the sake of the blog. But my friend Anthony does. He also has a very large TV. Sometimes I envy Anthony. Anyway, anyone wondering about making the purchase or not, his review follows.
The unofficial beginning of each college football season has become the release of EA Sports' annual NCAA Football offering. There was more excitement than usual brewing for this year's edition, partly because last year's 360 offering felt incomplete in many ways. The last gen '07 versions were good, but not too different than what's been coming down the pipe since 2001. Word is that the last-gen versions of '08 are completely unchanged, save roster updates, and the 360 version is the only way to go this year. The demo released late last week on XBox live played very well, much better than last year's, so I was eager to get the game. As I stood in line with a large group of fellow degenerates, the excitement was palpable.
The backstory: I'm a simulation and realism freak. I only play online with friends, and I usually get through a couple dynasty seasons annually. I'm a software engineer by trade, so details stick out to me on some things that others wouldn't normally notice or care about. Here are my opinions:
The game plays great. Much better than last year's 360 and PS2 versions, in every way. The button responses are crisp, the physice are solid (although the ball doesn't bounce much), and everything is smoooooooth. There are occasional graphics hitches and minor collision issues, but nothing that impacts gameplay in the 6 or 7 games I have played so far.
The user interface is nearly flawless. Its easy and fast to do what I want to do when not in the game.
The playcalling is different than last gen, but easy to follow and navigate. I feel that I am less apt to accrue a delay of game penalty with the new interface. There are also a boatload of new plays, and there are motions built into some plays, which is a nice touch. There are also new trick plays, which had inexplicably been absent since the PS1 days (EA – please bring back custom playbooks from the PS1 grave, as well. Its 2007 for Christ's sake.)
One of the things lacking for a long time that had great affect on the realism of the game was the poor implementation of lineplay, both offensively and defensively. EA has taken great strides with this and the result is a much more rewarding experience. Nothing seems scripted. If you blitz well, you'll be rewarded instead of having your players get clogged at the line. If you set up your blockers well, you'll have the extra time to make the pass or find a hole. This ultimately makes the game more playable and addictive. One thing I was interested to see, especially since it was mentioned in the demo, is zone blocking. So far, I have not seen any plays that use it, so I will have to dig deeper.
[I still feel somewhat unfulfilled when attempting to create a pass rush with a defense end or tackle. There are now "finesse" and "power" moves you can use to get around blockers but I must be using them wrong because mostly they do nothing. I would like some sort of pass rush minigame... some sort of defensive minigame at all. Still feel like a passenger on D a lot. -ed]
The passing game has improved. No longer do linebackers make plays on balls they shouldn't, but at the same time, the defensive backs make much better breaks on the ball. Reads are more important than ever, but they are more true than ever before. The passing game is where the beefy AI really shines, both offensively and defensively. If you make a bad throw, without your feet set, you will pay, even on the default difficulty.
[Seconded. Finding actual holes in zone coverage and then throwing guys the ball without Luigi linebackers is nice. -ed]
Pre-snap activities, like shifts and audibles, are plentiful. The only problem is that there are so many adjustments one could make, its often hard to make all your adjustments before the snap, especially defensively. All the extracurriculars just further enhance the experience, the same way a few extra shots make Sparty girls look better. [ba-dum ching! -ed]
The kicking game hasn't changed much, but there was never really anything wrong with it. I haven't played enough to see if blocking kicks was actually a possibility, like last year's PS2 version.
[Yes. So far the stick-up-stick-down kicking thing seems like a different way to push a button. One note: we did see an onside kick recovered by the kicking team. I can't remember that ever happening before. -ed]
Play Modes
Campus legend is MOTS, except you get to play out your senior year high school state tournament, which determines your rankings instead of the "mini-camp" of old. I found myself engrossed in the tournament, and that is only the beginning of the game. A nice bonus: your state title game is at a large stadium, relevant to your area. Mine was at Michigan Stadium. You also get to skip through all the plays that you are not on the field for. The rest of the campus legend plays out the same as in previous versions, as far as I could tell. Its a definite change in perspective of the game, in a good way.
The dynasty mode's big change is in recruiting. Much more depth has been added to the recruiting mode, scheduling visits, making promises to recruits in the off-season, and a lot more depth to the 'pitches' you must make to the kids you are trying to get. Its much more meticulous than in the past, and if you aren't going to sim through recruiting, you'll be spending 30 minutes on average between each dynasty game. You get a certain amount of time each week to devote to the recruiting trail, and you must spend it wisely. I did notice that if you play with Ohio State, instead of a time budget, you are given a 'salary cap'. Nice touch.
I did notice that changing positions in the off season no longer cripples your players ratings, like the previous versions did. I swapped a RT to LT and saw minimal drop in ratings. Thats how it should be. Most other aspects of the Dynasty mode are tweaked for the better.
Also, the 'Super Sim' feature is a Godsend. It lets you sim plays, series, etc. Very useful if you are dropping the hammer on some Sun Belt team and you don't want to spend the entire 2nd half handing off to your 59 rating 5th string running back. This feature has been in baseball games for a long time, and it increases playability exponentially.
Things I didn't like (General EA Sloppiness)
- No alternate jerseys [I think these may be sold on XBox live eventually, which is worse than just leaving them out of the game, IMO. -ed]
- Still missing stadiums (lots of mid-majors)
Sidenote: Brian cracked on me for this, but I know that there are a lot of folks out there that like to take "Nobody State" to multiple national titles and get invited to a major conference. Those folks should not be subjected to playing half their games in generic stadiums! There is no excuse for this. Modeling stadiums is not difficult (I've done it), the fact there are some missing is corner cutting, nothing more. EA – Hire some more people to get this kind of stuff in the game.
- No 1-AA teams. Bad timing for Michigan fans, we have to pound '1-AA Southeast' instead of ASU.
- No create-a-team [Seriously? Who ever used that to do anything other than create the Hyyyyarrrr State Pirates? -ed]
- No custom playbooks, and limited team-specific playbooks.
Freaking Brandon Graham is a 99. Yes, a 99. He is the 3rd best player in the ENTIRE GAME. Antonio Bass is still in the game! Adrian Arrington is not! Morgan Trent is an 89! Half the players' eligibility is wrong, redshirt sophs are listed as true juniors, et
c. Michigan was the only team I scrutinized, I'm sure there are atrocities in all the rosters. This would be OK if EA hadn't ripped the ability to edit a players class (was in last years 360 version). EA needs to 'do work' and get the rosters right. [The removal of something completely basic like editing a players eligibility is really bizarre. That sort of thing should take, like, one developer a few hours. -ed]
- No on-field referee – this affects the clock starting after a first down, a little detail that bugged me.
- Only one playable camera angle. It's a good angle, but still, if I didn't have a widescreen TV, it wouldn't show enough field. [This is also weird. Camera positioning is dead simple. -ed]
- The off-season for the dynasty lacks the 'spring game' that the last-gen versions have. Player ratings are increased on a random basis, much like the old NCAA games.
None of these are deal-breakers, but most of the missing features were included back in the PS1 versions in the late 90's. Why take them out? Will they be back before Notre Dame wins a bowl game? [Hey, that's my line. -ed] Only time will tell.
Overall, the game looks, feels, and plays like a 'next-gen' game for the first time, and it is a huge step up for the series. Its crisp, realistic, and addictive. In conclusion, this game is a must-buy for any sports fan. Goodbye sunlight! See you on the first Saturday in the fall!
So you see my dilemma, right? I can get the game and subject you guys to Penn State Golden Gopher previews that talk about how Joe Paterno got fired and was replaced by Jim Kewster, light bends coach for the Menver Loncos or I can not spend the next month and a half driving Idaho to a national championship. Sigh.
Update: Michigan Sports Center also has impressions. Same general tenor.


text:
I'm sitting here rewriting a ton of Go code in C. And I can't bill for the time. As the principle programmer, the buck stops here. I talked to my client and took responsibility. My mistake was trusting Go. I should have remembered my motto, stolen from the Royal Society: nullius in verba.
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subset: commoncrawl


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Canon Digital EOS 30D with 70-200mm 1:2.8 Tamron lens, f 19.0, FL 70mm, ISO 100
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Shot on US 20 near Galena, Illinois, this farm has it all. Corn, hay, pasture and buildings, lots of buildings. The idyllic rural setting was captured on a mid-Summer day in the late afternoon.
I combined five exposures over a five-stop range with a fixed aperture and variable shutter speed processed with Photomatix Pro 5 and Detail 3 from Topaz labs to produce this hdr image.
Images are available in matted, framed, canvas or mounted formats as well as greeting cards and posters at truly extraordinary pricing. Just click the Prints, Posters or Cards tab to explore all the formats available. The sample below is a framed print with a walnut frame and a black matte.
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Very nice work
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THURSDAY, Nov. 11 (HealthDay News) -- Although pregnancy and exclusive breast-feeding are strongly related to low vitamin D levels in multiple sclerosis (MS) patients, these low levels are not related to an increased risk of postpartum MS relapses, according to research published online Nov. 8 in the Archives of Neurology.
Annette Langer-Gould, M.D., of Kaiser Permanente Southern California in Pasadena, and colleagues assessed 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels in 28 pregnant women with MS during the third trimester and at three intervals after giving birth, and followed them through the first year after delivery to determine if low vitamin D levels are associated with the risk of postpartum MS relapse.
The researchers found that 14 women (50 percent) breast-fed exclusively and 12 women (43 percent) experienced a postpartum MS relapse within six months after giving birth. Vitamin D levels appeared to be significantly affected by breast-feeding and relapse status during the postpartum period. Vitamin D levels stayed low in those who breast-fed exclusively, but rose significantly in those who did not breast-feed exclusively. The authors concluded that the lower vitamin D levels associated with breast-feeding and pregnancy were not associated with a higher risk of MS relapses postpartum. In fact, by three to six months after childbirth, vitamin D levels were slightly higher in women who relapsed within six months of giving birth than in those who did not.
"Our results suggest that future studies aimed at identifying and unraveling the relationship between vitamin D, pregnancy/lactation-related hormones, and regulation of MS inflammation may reveal novel insights into MS pathophysiology," the authors write.
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My Comments
Microsoft Work & Play is the Uber Subscription Service You Asked For Commented on: 2 weeks ago (November 11, 2014)
Is this $199 for one account, or 5 accounts like the Office Home deal?
Live from San Francisco: It's the Future of Windows Commented on: 8 weeks ago (September 30, 2014)
Here is hoping for improvements to storage spaces, like higher speeds and removal of the stupid 63TB limit.
Microsoft: Nokia Lumia 830, 735 and 530 are Coming to the United States Commented on: 11 weeks ago (September 6, 2014)
"coming soon" is what it said on the 930 for Norway right after it was announced, so it can be months until it is available in the US.
Is 2014 the Year of the Hybrid PC? Commented on: 23 weeks ago (June 14, 2014)
What I want is Surface with a DockPort.
Surface Pro 3: Power Connection Commented on: 26 weeks ago (May 25, 2014)
Can you still replace the cable between the brick and the wall socket? So that one only needs to replace that cable to use a US charger in Europe?


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Click Here for Articles About THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY
THE HOBBIT Takes Weekend Box Office with $36.7 Million
|Related Links
|Marathon Event Screenings of All Three of Peter Jackson's HOBBIT Films Set for 12/15
November 13, 2014
|VIDEO: Actress Sarah Wayne Talks New Thriller 'Into the Storm' on GMA
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Peter Jackon's THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY took the top spot at the domestic box office weekend, grossing an addition $36.7 million, Rentrak has announced. The film has now earned nearly $150 million since its release just last weekend.
THE HOBBIT was theatrically released in international markets on December 13 domestically on Friday, December 14. On its first day of release in the United States, THE HOBBIT earned $37.5 million.
Though it's proving to be a box office smash for Jackson, the film has received mixed reviews so far; see BWW's December 20th Review Roundup.
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey follows title character Bilbo Baggins, who is swept into an epic quest to reclaim the lost Dwarf Kingdom of Erebor, which was long ago conquered by the dragon Smaug. The film stars Martin Freeman, and Ian McKellan - it is the first in what is set to be a trilogy.
Rounding out the top five earners for the weekend of Dec. 21-23 were Paramount's JACK REACHER with Tom Cruise, which netted $15.6 million, Universal's Judd Apatow-directed THIS IS 40 with $12 million, and Paramount's RISE OF THE GUARDIANS with $5.9 million. Disney's LINCOLN came in fifth with $5.6 million.
Rentrak's Domestic Box Office Estimates: Weekend of Dec 21-23
1) The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Warner Bros.
This Weekend: $36,705,000; Total: $149,858,000
2) Jack Reacher, Paramount
This Weekend; $15,600,000; Total: $15,600,000
3) This Is 40, Universal
This Weekend, $12,030,690; Total: $12,030,690
4) Rise Of The Guardians, Paramount
This Weekend: $5,900,000; Total: $79,694,230
5) Lincoln, Disney
This Weekend: $5,633,000; Total :$116,781,000
6) The Guilt Trip, Paramount
This Weekend: $5,390,000; Total: $7,420,614
7) Monsters, Inc. 3-D, Disney
This Weekend: $5,040,000; Total: $6,525,000
8) Skyfall, Sony
This Weekend: $4,700,000; Total: $279,792,000
9) Life Of Pi, 20th Century Fox
This Weekend: $3,800,000; Total: $76,156,244
10) Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, Lionsgate
This Weekend: $2,600,000; Total: $281,605,734
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