Thermos H. Christ

Taken together, the unanimous opinion and the concurrence seem to say that the plaintiffs could've probably taken it all down if they hadn't limited their SCOTUS challenge to stuff like school supplies (very broadly defined) and paid internships. Seems like now we wait and see whether the NCAA tries to get ahead of it by quickly opening the door to schools directly paying players a salary (like they did with NIL) or waits for things to play out in the courts again. I guarantee there are lawyers hustling their asses off right now looking for plaintiffs to go after the prohibition on straight paying players, and I have to think at least some lower courts are going to say the players prevail based on this decision. Short of congress stepping in to create an antitrust exemption for the NCAA or something, it's hard to see getting more than a few years down the line before players are getting straight paid. And probably a lot of big schools could do that without increasing their budget if they just stop building absurd gold-plated stadiums and diamond-encrusted weight rooms because they'll no longer have to set piles of money on fire to maintain the charade that they aren't profitable.

I guess Harbaugh not being a Michigan fan would explain some stuff.

Holy fucking shit, this is from Yahoo's writeup of the same press conference: <quote>Also not new is the idea that Bo Schembechler, who died in 2006, knew generally of Anderson’s abuse. A recent university-funded report even detailed numerous stories of Bo being directly told. That included one from Daniel Kwiatkowski, an offensive lineman from 1977-79, who on Thursday detailed his own molestation by Anderson and his reporting of it to Schembechler. “Bo said, ‘Toughen up,” Kwiatkowski said. “Bo knew.” “Bo knows everything that goes on on campus,” said Gilvanni Johnson, a Michigan wide receiver from 1982 to 1986, while fighting back tears. Johnson added that Anderson’s behavior was so well-known that coaches would threaten trips to see him as a motivational ploy. "Only now do I realize how crazy it was to threaten rape as a way to make players work harder," Johnson said.</quote> I mean Paterno was a monster for his handling of things at Penn State, but this is on a whole other level than even that. How is there still a debate over whether to remove the statue and rename the building? That seems like a given, the sort of thing you would do real quick before you get around to digging up Bo's corpse and dumping it in a lagoon of pig shit.

No? I didn't say he's the greatest, but his resume is objectively way better than the hires some places made. A guy who was always a position coach before going 4-3 in one season as a coordinator vs. a Broyles award/national championship winning OC who is 54-22 as a HC with a couple of NY6 bowl wins in there?

I was on campus for the Vince/Colt era, so it should be them, but right now today the first to come to mind was Sam. Sam WAS our team's identity for the last four years. Obviously I hope Sark finds a way to be more consistent and get us to that next level where we're regularly contending for conference championships and playoff berths, but overall I did not hate the Tom Herman era and I think Herman and Sam were in some ways a perfect match for each other, which was lucky because neither one of them chose the other. Say what you will about Tom Herman, and there's a lot there to criticize, but throughout his career he has consistently gotten impressive production out of QBs with significant limitations. JT Barrett, Braxton Miller, Cardale Jones, Greg Ward, and Sam Ehlinger were not guys with elite ability, but the constant threat of QB Power clearly makes life hard for a defense and creates opportunities that a less-polished QB can take advantage of. I understand firing Herman, especially if the powers that be really believe Sark is the future and didn't want to lose the opportunity, but I don't understand nobody snapping him up as an OC or even HC. Like if I was running things at Tennessee I would've gladly picked up a clearance-priced Tom Herman if my best alternative was Josh Heupel. I still feel like Herman could stroll into most G5s, out-recruit the rest of the conference, and have them good enough to knock off ranked teams a couple times a season and whip ass in a bowl game (even if they would get inexplicable losses to dogshit teams a couple times a season too). Surely he would've been a solid choice for a place like Boise State, who instead hired a guy with no HC experience and a 4-3 record in his one season as a coordinator?

If only we could all be beacons of positivity and cheerfulness like Cajun

You're not wrong, but I feel like this may not be the website for you.

I meant specifically in the context of football games. Staying for the eyes was a way of saying win or lose, you players busted your asses out there until the last snap and we stayed to appreciate it instead of leaving to try and beat traffic. It could be 90% of the fans staying after a big win, or 10-20% staying after a bad loss or a drubbing of some cupcake. But it was a way of showing that we were faithful and stayed until the end. If it was a bad loss, we were here cheering you on even when there was no hope because you played on when there was no hope. If it was an easy win, it was a way of saying hey, backups who work hard all offseason and all week long just hoping to have a chance to see the field, we stayed and watched you when the game was no longer in doubt because you deserved that audience and that appreciation. Right or wrong, I don't think it will ever feel like that again.

I certainly don't have my finger on the pulse of student life and opinion these days, so that could easily be true. But it does appear the group includes most of our current players based on how many of them chose not to participate when given the choice. And I'm uncomfortable with all the rhetoric about the need to put these players and students in their place. Before when I would stay and sing the Eyes I always thought of it as being a way to honor and show respect to the players, and I don't see how it's going to feel like that anymore. If it's going to become a ritual of the players being made to humble themselves before the older alums and donors, that's kind of gross and definitely doesn't give me the warm fuzzies.

Am I the only one who sees this as lost cause, regardless of the merits of either side of the argument? Like, if the idea is to preserve a cherished tradition, hasn't that ship sailed? Whatever it may have meant to previous generations of students, if the current group sees the song and the boomer/GenX insistence on preserving it as an insult or an affront, they certainly will not view it as a cherished tradition and pass it on. The olds will die off and the song with them, if it doesn't go away before then.

Says who?

Hook 'em, Sam. One of my favorite players ever and he will be missed, but we got four full years to watch him work and it's totally understandable if he's done with college football at this point.

If true, that makes me wonder if CDC participated because Herman needed him to come be the bad guy. "See, I'm on your side, but it's out of my hands. If the boss says this is what we have to do, it's what we have to do."

How do you think those 18-22 year old black men will perceive this? Young men who made it clear this was an issue before the season began, who were told they had been heard and would not have to participate in a minstrel song, only to then have CDC and Herman come to them halfway through the season and tell them the compromise will not be honored because CDC and Herman are taking heat for it. Heat they are not willing to take for the sake of their players.

Wasn't the compromise reached in the offseason that they would continue to play the song after games, and players were free to participate or not? But now halfway through a meaningless shitshow of a season CDC and Herman go to the team and explain the situation."Hey so it turns out a bunch of angry boomer donors are blowing up the phones calling for us to lose our insanely lucrative jobs, and we're actually gonna need you guys to go ahead and debase yourselves before them every time you get done battling in the arena for their amusement, which we hope will appease them. Anyway good luck not getting covid or CTE."

I don't know but it sounds like this may be less about it being Manscaped specifically and more about NFL Network not wanting their personalities to be doing ad deals on their own without company approval.

Yes, no matter what if he loses there are going to be a lot of folks saying he should have done the thing that doesn't lose, but I don't think he could be blamed for taking his shot at the end of regulation. I think more likely people would say we should have called a different play when going for 2 than would say we shouldn't have gone for it. Option 1: Bet the house on Sam Ehlinger being able to get you 3 yards Option 2: Bet the house on the kicking unit successfully kicking the XP, the offense successfully putting together another scoring drive, AND the defense getting a stop or a turnover. Losing is absolutely a possibility either way, but I think option 1 is clearly the higher percentage choice. How often does ANYONE stop Sam from getting 2 yards downfield and falling forward when we really need it? It happens, but he's got to be good for it 3 times out of 4, maybe more. Call a QB power RPO so he can take advantage if they send EVERYONE after him, and put the ball in his hands.

I keep coming back to this. Sam was absolutely on fire those last two drives, OU's defense was totally reeling and demoralized, and Tom decided to bet AGAINST Sam finding a way to pick up three yards to seal a legendary comeback. Tom figured the odds of this team putting together a couple drives on both sides of the ball without punching ourselves in the dick were better than the odds of Sam balling out for one more snap. Did anyone other than Tom Herman doubt Sam in that moment, or believe in OU's ability to stop him? Sure, it's possible that Sam COULD have gotten stuffed, but how do you not bet on his ability to pick up three tough yards when the alternative is betting on ANYTHING ELSE ABOUT THIS TEAM.

I’m not defending Herman, I’m saying I don’t think there’s any reason to think Urban is a realistic option and I would have to question whether his heart was in it (no pun intended) even if he took the job.

You guys, Urban quit coaching, and it wasn’t because he couldn’t win at tOSU. If he didn’t have it in him to keep going there where the machine was already humming, why would he want to come try and fix a broken one? Would we really want him to? At least Herman wants to be a football coach. I’m not saying that’s a reason to keep Herman, but it is a requirement.

I just don’t see it happening. I think this would have been a make or break year but then covid and everything happened and it’s been a super weird season all over the place. It feels like an exhibition season. I think we’ll continue to win and lose one-score games regardless of how good or bad the opponent is because that’s what this team does.

Hey now, they blocked a nominee because they could, and now they're going to ram one through because they can. Where's the inconsistency there?

To be fair, they were... in their first season. Greg Robinson was also a godsend when he took over for Manny Diaz in 2013. And Vance Bedford's defense was pretty amazing in 2014, at least until they would finally give out from lack of depth and always being on the field. For whatever reason, whenever we bring in a new DC we instantly have a kickass defense and then it falls apart in year two, and after year three when it doesn't get fixed we repeat the cycle. Clearly the answer is to get rid of the DC every year even though we had an amazing defense because it was their first year. I think we can pay them enough to make it worth their while, especially since it barely even seems to matter who it is as long as they're new. I'm sure part of it is the opposing coaches just figuring a defense out after a while, and probably a new DC is more likely to focus on getting the fundamentals sound and keep things simple than a DC who is in year 2-3 and thinking more about getting their whole schematic system up and running. But even accounting for that it's weird how consistent it is.

I have to say having 25k in the stadium feels like a stunning fuck you to the people of this city. We have sacrificed so much to get our numbers under control. People have lost loved ones and weren't able to have funerals. People got married and weren't able to have weddings. Graduates weren't able walk in front of their family and friends or celebrate with them afterward. Our children have had birthdays without family and friends around them.The live music capital of the world is dead, with many beloved venues permanently shuttered and many more inevitably to come. So many have lost jobs. The willingness to risk pissing away so much that came at such a cost, just so there can be a few people in the stands at a mostly empty DKR is genuinely fucking outrageous to me. If we could teleport everyone to their seats and they would stay there, spread apart, I think risk would be minimal, but what about getting everyone from outside the stadium to their seats, and back out again, and what about concessions and bathrooms? This will be a crowd of people who have self-selected to take this risk in the first place, and therefore not the people I would trust to exercise the utmost caution. We're talking about taking a bunch of our students who don't have it currently, exposing them to thousands of people who aren't being careful, many of whom just came from out of town, and then immediately releasing them back into the student population at a time when University Health Services says they don't even have the means to keep track of how many tests they're doing or what the positive rate is.

Yeah that's why I'll be rooting for them to win the conference next year, potentially extending this already insanely long period of Clay Helton being Probably Fired by years