So what happened in the way of actual news when I was gone?

• Yeah, this would have been nice, but in no way feasible, as a rumor that Michigan might open 2010 against Georgia was floated, then debunked just as quickly.
• Dr. Saturday’s “All Up-and-Coming” teams include two Michigan Wolverines, but on defense. Defensive tackle Mike Martin and cornerback Boubacar Cissoko are among those he expects to have breakout years in 2009. Offensively, I noted the absence of Kevin Koger at tight end (in favor of a player who I predict will probably have as many catches as Michigan’s 2nd or 3rd tight end this year), and Brian did the same.
• This may belong in a more recruiting-y post, but the Daily Gopher is all set to provide your breathless Seantrel Henderson updates.
• Zoltan named to the Playboy All-American team. Such a shame: it comes just as being on the team gets a lot less cool.
• Adam Rittenberg updates Michigan’s summer schedule for getting started on the season:

Players report: Aug. 9
First practice: Aug. 10
First practice in pads: Aug. 14

Most players, obviously, either haven’t left town in the first place (spring/summer semesters), or have already reported to town, in the case of the freshmen. The official reporting day is for coach-run activities.

• Speaking of which, Jeremy Gallon has qualified, which, like, yay. As soon as he can get on campus, Michigan’s talent pool at the slot position (already booming this spring) will increase greatly. Justin Turner is the only 2009 player remaining with any potential academic hurdles to clear.
• Hail to the Victors 2009 is out. Yrs truly teamed up with Tom Van Haaren to write a chapter on Tate Forcier, who I guess is a Michigan football player?

Anything else I missed? A recruiting update is likely going to be delayed slightly, because I have mounds of information to catch up on.

Posted under Football

My vacation is nearly complete (a hearty round of applause in the direction of Formerly Anonymous for rockin’ the weekend posting), but I’ll still be unavailable until tomorrow. Everything should start getting back to normal tomorrow, and the second round of the Heisman Campaign should be ready to get going over the weekend.

-T

Posted under Blog News

My apologies. For the time being, allow me to remind of the NCAA Softball Super REgional taking place at the Wilpon Complex 8PM tonight, and entertain you with a keyboard cat video:

Posted under Football

So, with one day remaining until the Spring Game, let’s quickly run down once more everything that’s going on:

8:00: Locker room tours.
9:00: The MGo/VB tailgate starts near the bus stop outside Crisler. Brian’s said that’s the earliest he’s going to show up, but I’ll probably get there a little earlier than 9 if you happen to be around.
9:30: Gates to the stadium open.
10:00: The alumni flag football game begins. Most people I’ve spoken to do not plan on going to this, but I’ll probably at least stop by and check it out.
12:00: Spring Game/final practice/whatever starts. At this time, most tailgating will probably cease, perhaps to be resumed afterward.
3:00: Baseball and softball games.

So, that is established. For more info on the MGo/VB tailgate, check out the official planning thread on MGoBoard. Why, you can even participate, if you’re so inclined! There’s also a much more unofficial Spring Game Discussion thread on the VB Forum.

Also: Paul and I put together a Spring Game Guide, which contains pertinent info for people to pay attention to during said game/practice. We’ll have 250 copies on tabloid-sized paper to distribute at the tailgate, at the game, etc., but if you won’t make it there, and still want to absorb our delicious knowledge, you can download a PDF of it here and print it out on normal-sized paper for yourself.

As far as VB coverage tomorrow: I’m going to set up a CoverItLive chat here, as we’ve done for various games and other events in the past. The catch: Since Paul and I will both be at the spring game, we won’t be able to be present for comment approval. Therefore, I propose the following:

• Paul and I will send in our observations, thoughts, etc., on the chat via our Twitter accounts. This can be the end of it OR
• If someone is interested in moderating the chat, let us know here,  and I can have you be the official gatekeeper for the chat, and others can chime in. Paul and I would still be sending in news and whatnot via Twitter.

So, if you aren’t going to be able to make it to the Spring Game, and will be able to set aside 3 or so hours to sit in front of your computer, let me know, and we can have a bit more interaction go on during the event. Otherwise, tweeted in updates.

Spring game-centric recruiting update coming later this afternoon.

Posted under Football, Spring Coverage

I swear, I’m really trying to avoid doing these posts with any regularity.

• Ricky Barnum has sprained his ankle, and will miss a few spring practices to get wrist surgery. His wrist was (apparently) pretty damaged, and he was working through it before. While it sucks that he’s sustained another injury, at least it gave him the opportunity to get the wrist taken care of.
• Denard Robinson has claimed the 2nd-fastest 100m dash time in the country so far this year for high-schoolers. The incoming QB ran a 10.44 time, and expects to run in the 10.3s when track season gets underway in earnest. (Photo by Tom Ervin for the Miami Herald).
• Devin Gardner plans to publicly commit to Michigan either Thursday or Friday. He apparently did so silently at junior day, but wanted to finish out his basketball season before worrying about dealing with the press.
• Darryl Stonum has debunked the rumors that he’s intending to transfer from Michigan at the end of spring practice.
• SPRING GAME WOO GET AMPED.
• VB (Paul and Tim, at least) plans to be at todays 3:05 PM baseball game at the Fish. Feel free to say hello to us.

And, in site news: If you take a look at the top of the right sidebar, the subscription options have changed slightly. You can still subscribe via RSS, but there are now other possibilities. There is now an official VB Twitter account to which you can subscribe @VarsityBlue. You can subscribe via e-mail, which will inform you whenever there is a new front page post on Varsity Blue. And, perhaps what we’re most excited about, we’re going to start rolling out a VB Newsletter, which we’ll send out once a week (you can help us determine which day when you sign up), and will include a recap of the week’s action on Varsity Blue, along with a bit of information that may not have made it to the front page, and even a preview of what is coming in the next week. It might start out a little spartan in design (no pun intended), but we’ll be beefing it up in short order.

In other site news, we plan to debut a couple new features on VB in the coming weeks, though they’re not quite ready for public consumption yet. I’ll keep you posted when everything is ready to go live.

Posted under Baseball, Blog News, Football, Personnel, Recruiting, Spring Coverage

If you’re a particularly astute observer, you may have noticed the “Quick Links” box on the left sidebar has seen a few layoffs of late. That’s partially because of a bit of infrastructure redesign we’ve been working on for a little while. Everything that you’re used to accessing on Varsity Blue should still be around (if something’s not, let us know in the comments), but we’ve also added a couple more items.

The Michigan Class of 2009, Current Michigan Depth Chart, and Michigan Eligibility Chart are still around, but they’re now lumped together under one item called “Personnel HQ.” Soon, I’ll also be putting the finishing touches on the Eligibility Chart by Class, and that will fall under that category as well. The only thing that’s tricky to find is the 2009 Recruiting Board, which can be found on the Class of 2009 page, which is newly spruced up.

New to the site is the “About Varsity Blue” section, which gives a brief synopsis of how Varsity Blue came to be, and links to bio pages for each member of the VB staff. If you’d become accustomed to seeing an invite to follow Paul on Twitter in that left sidebar, fear not, as you can now find that information on his bio page. The same information for the other two of us can also be seen on our respective pages (Tim and FormerlyAnonymous).

The 2010 Recruiting Board is still linked on the left sidebar, and probably will be until around this time next year, after most members of the class sign with Michigan. There are also a few slight adjustments to the site’s design coming along a little further down the road, so be on the lookout for those. For now, feel free to check out some of the new pages and get a feel for the new structure.

If anything is broken, missing, in need of update, etc., or if you have a suggestion for something that you’d like to see, let us know in the comments of this post or the relevant page. I apologize for the abundance of links in this post, but I’m pretty excited to have people checking out all the new and/or updated content.

Posted under Blog News

Apologies for the lack of posting today, as I’m on the road. In the meantime, take a look at this uncharacteristically heartfelt (though characteristically well-written) basketball post by Dex at WLA, and Dylan’s Minnesota preview at UMhoops. My preview will probably be coming later this afternoon, so roll back around later tonight.

Posted under Blog News

Just a note here on cross-platform Varsity Blue appreances: I’ll be appearing on John U. Bacon‘s Big Show on WTKA today at 3:30 (assuming it doesn’t get bumped for the third time in four weeks, of course). We’ll be talking football, recruiting, basketball, and maybe even a bit about blogging itself. If you aren’t in the Ann Arbor area, you can tune in on WTKA.com by using the “Listen Live Now!” link in the upper-left corner, or by simply clicking here.

So, be sure to tune in to 1050AM in the Ann Arbor area or WTKA.com outside of it around 3:30 today.

Posted under Blog News

Basketball UFRs will be posted sometime this week. The reason for the delay is that I’m currently separated from my DVR. I should have it available to me before the Purdue game, but no guarantees. If there’s interest I can post the plus/minus data before then. It’s the part most people said in the CIL was more interesting, and I don’t need to re-watch the whole game to do them. Let me know in the comments.

Football offseason posts will continue, though they might be slightly more theory-oriented until spring pratice begins and there’s actual news to talk about. While on the topic of spring practice, I should have a bonanza of information up during that period, and it should be a fun time to be around here. I’ll spread news about some of those items as they get a bit more solidified.

I’m hopefully going to get the podcast up and running again, since we haven’t really made one since the end of football season. Possible topics include the end of basketball season, football and recruiting (obviously the bread and butter here at VB), or baseball. Let me know how much interest there is in each of these things (and a podcast in general).

Baseball coverage will continue to go strong with new contributor FormerlyAnonymous, who never got a proper introduction. Without further ado: FormerlyAnonymous is the newest member of VB, bringing the total to 3. He’ll bring the baseball coverage, making Varsity Blue the #1 site for Michigan Wolverines baseball coverage.

Recruiting update #1 for the week should be coming tomorrow. Sorry for the delay, but baseball season has left VB up to our ears in content, and I want to make sure every post get the attention that it deserves.

Thanks for bearing with us at a (surprisingly) busy time for the blog.

Posted under Blog News

There’s a lot of stuff to get through the next few days, so we decided to have a plan.  Today will be mostly about recruiting with a round up post here and on MGoBlog (different and complementary posts).   We’ll also post the last the round of information of specific players from the signing day press conference (part 1; part 2).

Finally, Tim will be appearing on the Big Show with John U. Bacon on WTKA at 4pm (listen live online here).  He’ll be talking about blogging and recruiting. It should be interesting, or at least something different.

Tomorrow we switch gears to basketball and talking about Michigan State. If you don’t want to wait until tomorrow, Dylan at UMHoops.com is off and running, including a chat with KJ at SpartansWeblog.  We’ll have a limited UFR (just the plus/minus) from the Penn St. and UConn games as well as the standard preview of the opponent.  There will a be a live blog on MGoBlog (maybe cross posted here).

Wednesday we’ll have reaction to the basketball game and hopefully be ready to run some of the player interviews from the signing day press conference.  Standard caveat of all great plans of mice and men, etc., but that’s our tentative schedule. Should be an exciting week.

Posted under Blog News