On MGoBlue now! Hurray!

Number changes:
Stevie Brown #3
Kevin Grady #24
Doug Dutch #35

New guys:
Ryan Mallett #15
Vince Helmuth #32
Artis Chambers #38
Austin Panter #54

Posted under Personnel

Nathan Fenno of the AA News reports.

This is huge news, aside from the fact that Michigan is retaining two great players, in that both Manny Harris and Alex Legion have specifically mentioned these two guys as reasons to stay committed to Michigan.

Posted under Basketball

Courtesy of columnist John Heuser.

I have a slightly more in-depth look at the depth situation in the works, but am essentially to lazy to finish it in any reasonable amount of time. Look for that in the near future.

Posted under Personnel

After over a year of brave service, the Minima Blue template has been retired. Trying to avoid (intentionally or unintentionally) copying the blogs that Tim and I read all the time, we tried a different approach to the Maize and Blue color scheme. This is one is based more on the away jerseys.

Let us know what you think about the new layout in comments.

Posted under Blog News

Clickondetroit reports.

The $750,000 update is expected to be completed by the start of next season. For the time being, that will rule out possible expansion around the end zones once the renovation is done (that wouldn’t have happened for a very long time anyway).

For those of us desperately wanting a Godzillatron (a la Texas), there is no good news. When Texas renovated Royal Stadium, they built one Godzillatron, which, along with some (relatively inexpensive) audio upgrades, cost $8 million. I still wouldn’t rule out improving the screens to HD capabilities, though the video boards will not become ridiculously large.

Posted under Misc.

Dann O’Neill, an offensive tackle from Grand Haven, has committed to the Wolverines. He’s pretty highly regarded, though not exactly OMG shirtless. Probably a 4-star guy.

Jim Stefani has him ranked as the #26 offensive line prospect, regardless of position. Stefani also calls him 6’7″, though there are a lot of conflicting reports about his size. Most credible sources have him at 6’5″. Also of note in Stefani’s post: Michigan targets J.B. Shugarts (#5), legacy Khaled Holmes (#17) , Kurt Wermers (#45).

O’Neill’s a very athletic big guy: he wrestles, and finished 7th in the state. He was a commitment waiting to happen, and once his wrestling season ended, he pulled the trigger on a visit to the first spring practice.

Posted under Recruiting

In case you have been in a cave the previous day (I was kind of in a green beer induced cave) Amaker has been fired. While the response from some Michigan bloggers can only be described as euphoria, some people feel differently.

Tom Izzo spits some righteously indignant fire in Bill Martin’s general direction.

I feel bad for our profession that guys with 20 wins are getting fired in programs that I don’t think they stressed basketball there.

It is true that Amaker had 20 wins going into the Big Ten Tourny, but look at the schedule. I think a good IM team at Michigan could have beaten Wofford. Numbers mean nothing without context, and Izzo’s point isn’t salient when you put it in the context of playing a schedule that would make Kansas State’s AD blush.

An interesting article from the recruiting angle. Some highlights are Legion with:

“I’m surprised, shocked and disappointed,” said Legion, a third-team Parade All-American who this past season averaged 21 points, 10 rebounds and five assists as Wilson, Va.-based Oak Hill finished 40-1. “Coach Amaker is the coach I wanted to play for.

“He and I were real close. And he was real close with my mom (Annette Williams), too. He was a father-figure to me. It hurts that they fired him.”

And the President of the Detroit Public School League Coaches Association had some an opinion on the firing:

“It’s terrible,” said Washington, who plans to write a letter expressing his disappointment. “They didn’t give him enough time. You need more time to rebuild a program than they gave him.”

So… watch out for a strongly worded letter Bill…

Michael Rosenberg chimes in with his article actually supporting the decision and giving some (predictable) thought on the future.

Finally there is a great interview with Bill Martin by Jim Carty and Nathan Fenno (via Maize ‘n Brew). Definitely worth the read. You can really tell Bill Martin really didn’t want to fire Tommy Amaker, but really had no choice, which was kind of surprising for me. I figured that Amaker had enough support from the administration, especially Mary Sue Coleman, to get through the offseason, especially with the recruits he has (or had?) coming in.

While unequivocally mediocre as a coach, Amaker was the right guy for the Michigan job six years ago. He restored the credibility of the program, but now Michigan needs someone to restore the luster, the excitement, the pride of the basketball program that was around in the Fab Five days, but with the added challenge of a lower salary cap. I hope Bill Martin can find the right fit and make Michigan basketball relevant again.

Posted under Basketball

Currently being voted upon by student season ticket holders. Here’s a copy of the e-mail sent to students:

“M-Mail
University of Michigan Athletics

Football student season ticket holders for the 2006 season may vote to decide the winning design of the 2007 Michigan football season T-shirt. The maize shirts with the theme “The Team, The Team, The Team” can be viewed and voted on at [link redacted] until Wednesday March 14 at 5:00pm.

You can be part of the largest crowd to watch a college football game by ordering a student football season ticket for the 2007 season. The student season ticket sale begins next week. An e-mail will be sent by Monday, March 19 to all U-M students with ordering information.

Go Blue!

Marty Bodnar
Associate Athletic Director, Ticketing & Marketing”

And the options are:
#1

#2

#3

#4

Also, I am an idiot and don’t know how to prevent these images from breaking the tables. I’ll make Paul fix it later.

[Paul – fixed it]

Posted under Misc.

See a couple posts down for the original.

“My goal in football, in the Big Ten, is to ideally play a complete round robin – 10 conference games and two non-conference (games). I’ve been fighting for that for four to five years. I’m not going to get it. But I think I’ll get nine games, soon.”

As commenters and Brian have noted, maybe our boy Billy isn’t so good at the math.

Posted under Blog News

I’ve never done a hockey liveblog before for a few reasons:

1) This is a football blog.
2) I never followed hockey at all until the past couple of years, and know next to nothing about the sport.
3) I’m typically at home hockey games.

However, for the FIRST TIME EVER, I shall perform some awesome liveblogging of tonight’s game against Northern Michigan. While I will always cheer for Michigan teams (even if a loss can result in an Amaker firing), I’m cheering doubly for the team tonight, because if they lose, I have to work at the game tomorrow.

I apologize in advance for my essentially utter lack of hockey knowledge. Because of this, I may not be saying much all that often. FSN Detroit coverage started a few minutes ago, so now I just await the drop of the puck (that’s what faceoffs are called, right?) Another important fact to note is that I have a life, and may or may not end this blog early to do something with my weekend.

7:39 Puck drops. The announcer REALLY needs to learn that David Rohlfs’s first name is not “Dale.” I realize that I know very few players names based on their numbers, and will probably refer to a lot of guys by number, rather than name.
7:41 Uh, the puck has been on our half of the ice for a long time. Maybe we should go the other way.
7:42 Since I don’t know a whole lot about hockey, I’ll probably comment mostly on peripheral things to the game. One such thing is as follows: the announcers fucking suck. Give me O’Day and Breece!
7:43 A fun little loose puck thing happens, and Hensick collects it. Finding himself conveniently in a one-on-one situation with the goalie, he shoots, he scores. 1. We want. Mooooooore Goals.
7:45 Kolarik takes a shot off a beautiful feed from Cogs, but Zaniboni makes the save. This leads me to the realization that NMU has switched goalies since last night, going to Zaniboni who started most of the year.
7:48 Great color commentary. “Hensick is 10th on the Michigan all-time scoring list. He needs one more to move into ninth. Actually, that would make him tied for ninth.” TV Timeout 1-0 UM 12:25 1st Period
7:51 Billy does the splits to make a save, not freezing the puck or clearing it out.
7:52 I guess it didn’t turn out too poorly, as Cogs gets it to JMFJ for a goal. That would make it 2-0. Per the announcers, the teams are playing 4-on-4, though there was never any mention of a penalty.
7:54 Hensick makes a sweet move behind the net to get alone with the puck out front but Tim Cook(? #25) decides to wait approximately seven minutes before actually taking the shot, allowing Zaniboni to get back in position. NMU commits a penalty, UM on the PP. Cump, dick, wuss, etc.
7:58 Michigan penalty coming up. TV Timeout 2-0 UM 7:37 1st Period.
8:00 NMU scores on the power play, 2-1 UM. I don’t think I remember seeing a legit power play set up by the Wildcats last night.
8:02 Cogliano does this thing where he skates around a bunch of guys and scores. Hooray! 3-1 UM 5:55 1st Period, Zaniboni is a sieve. TV Timeout.

I have determined that this here liveblog shall end after one period, because I get the distinct impression that I look like an idiot trying to talk about a sport whose intricacies, etc. are but a mystery to me.

8:05 David Rohlfs’s name is still not Dale, a fact that will probably bring much embarrassment to the play-by-play idiot when someone whispers it in his ear. He is brutally bad.
8:06 Zaniboni gets hit in the head with a shot. Let’s just say he’s lucky it wasn’t JMFJ.
8:08 For like 80% of the time the teams are at even strength, it looks like Michigan is on the power play, as they seem to be able to just set up camp in the offensive zone and pass it at will. JMFJ has a sweet play where he goes up the ice and has a good look at the net, but the puck ends up on top of the net after he fakes some dude out going between his legs.
8:10 Porter scores directly off the faceoff, putting Michigan up 4-1 early. This one might be over by the time the 2nd period rolls around (especially considering it already seems to be). 1, 2, 3, 4, we want more goals.
8:12 For the size of the network, I’m surprised how poor FSN Detroit’s Coverage is. I’m at least as good a cameraman as theirs, and their announcers make me want to tear my eyeballs out. 4-1 UM End 1st Period.

Time to go socialize. Enjoy the rest of the game.

Posted under Hockey