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In some of life's instances, the letter "B" stands for second rate.
However, this is not the case with some foods beginning with the second letter of the alphabet that are colorful, taste good and are good for us.
Today the culinary spotlight focuses on Bananas, Beans, Blackberries and Black Walnuts.
The interesting thing about today's choices is they are all plucked from a plant or tree. In other words, botanical in nature and another "B" word.
Each is packed with its unique set of healthy nutrients that will appeal to the Recommended Daily Allowance for various vitamins and minerals.
The banana is probably the first fruit offered to infants as it is plentiful all year long, easily mashed and ready to serve. It grows in hanging clusters with about 20 bananas to a tier. There is anywhere from three to 20 tiers to a bunch. While Americans tend to throw away the skin, many cultures include the fruit and skin in their cooking. Bananas are a valuable source of vitamin B6, vitamin C and potassium.
Because it is a peel-and-eat fruit, the banana is an easy choice for lunch boxes and on-the-go snack.
A medium-sized banana has 200 calories with just 1 gram of total fat and zero grams of saturated fat. There is no cholesterol and just 2 mg. of sodium. It contains 51 grams of carbohydrates, 46 milligrams of potassium, 6 grams of dietary fiber and 2 grams of protein. Sugars are the highest number on the nutrition label at 28 grams.
The banana offers 3 percent of Vitamin A, 33 percent of Vitamin C and 3 percent of iron.
Banana-Berry Parfait
2 medium ripe bananas, peeled and cut into small pieces
1 1/2 cups plain low-fat yogurt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
2 tablespoons fresh orange juice
1 cup fresh or frozen (no sugar added) raspberries
In a food processor or blender, combine the bananas, yogurt, brown sugar and orange juice. Process mixture until smooth. Spoon some of the banana mixture into each of 4 parfait glasses or stemmed goblets. Top each with 1 tablespoon raspberries. Continue to layer yogurt and berries, ending with yogurt. Chill in refrigerator until time to serve.
They could be black beauties hanging on the vine, full of sweetness and goodness.
Just one cup of blackberries holds 50 percent of the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C. At just 62 calories per the one-cup serving, blackberries are low in fat. Absent are cholesterol and sodium. There's 233 mg of potassium and 7.6 grams of dietary fiber. Each serving also includes 2 percent of protein, 8 percent of Vitamin E and 36 percent of Vitamin K.
Vitamin K is a fat-soluble vitamin. It helps the body make proteins that are needed for normal blood clotting. Vitamin K also is needed for making important bone proteins. There is also 12 percent of copper, 47 percent manganese and a splattering of the other necessary vitamins and minerals needed every day.
Green Salad and Blackberry Dressing
8 cups romaine lettuce
1 teaspoon garlic, crushed
3/4 cup fresh or frozen blackberries which have been thawed
1/3 cup apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
4 tablespoons honey
2/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper, to taste
Place all ingredients except the lettuce into a blender or food processor and blend well. Transfer dressing into a glass bottle and refrigerate. Just before serving, pour dressing over salad greens in a large bowl. Toss until the greens receive a light coat of dressing.
A nut by any other name would not be as special as the black walnut. According to Christopher Beecher, associate professor of pharmacognosy in the department of medicinal chemistry and pharmacognosy at the University of Illinois, nothing grows under a black walnut tree and there's good reason. "It contains a chemical that kills anything that it comes into contact with. While this may be depressing news for dandelions, it's positive news for people concerned about a variety of health conditions ranging from poison ivy to cancer -- the hull, inner bark and leaves of this amazing nut may be just the answer they've been hoping."
Called the imperial nut by early Greeks and Romans, today it's other name is English walnut. The black walnut is considered to be an antiseptic, a germicide, a parasitic and a laxative. This nut helps rid the body of intestinal parasites and tapeworms and has been known to reduce constipation and heal skin conditions like acne, canker sores, psoriasis, and other fungal infections.
Crispy Black Walnut Chicken
4 boneless chicken breasts without skin
2 cups black walnuts, chopped fine
One-fourth cup flour
One-half cup peach preserves
3 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon mustard
1 cup chicken stock
1 tablespoon cornstarch
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Trim the chicken breasts and pound out evenly. Then mix the preserves, honey and one-quarter cup of the chicken stock in a bowl. In another bowl, take the flour and finely chopped walnuts and mix together. Then dip the chicken breasts in the peach mixture and drain slightly. Roll the breasts in the walnut mixture and pat down. Place onto a cooking sheet and place in the oven for 20-25 minutes.
To make the sauce: put the peach mixture in a small pan. Then add the cornstarch to the remaining chicken stock and mix. Add the chicken stock to the peach mixture and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Season the pieces with salt and pepper, to taste. Remove the chicken from the oven and plate. Take the sauce and spoon it across the chicken breast before serving.
The choice is strictly up to the cook because the bean selection includes red, black, kidney, great northern, pinto, cranberry, lima, navy, pink, yellow, cannellini, black-eyed pea, lentil, soybean, garbanzo and probably a whole host of others I have not had the pleasure of keeping on my shelf.
The bean, while a common staple through the centuries, is a small morsel that packs a mighty punch nutritionally. All beans are a rich source of protein, fiber and lysin, a vital amino acid. Beans also offer folacin and some minerals.
The high fiber gives some protection against diabetes, cardiovascular disease and some cancer. The bean has the ability to stabilize blood sugars, reduces the bad cholesterol and is good for the heart.
One tidbit that most of us may not know is these beans fall under the "meat" category of the food pyramid. It is recommended we have two to three servings out of the meat sector daily. For your information, one-half cup of beans is considered a serving.
Some suggestions for bean uses include:
n Navy - excellent in soups, stews, Boston Baked Beans, great pureed.
n Kidney - often used in chili, three-bean salads.
n Pinto - refried in stews, dips, many Tex-Mex dishes.
n Great northern - excellent in soups, stews.
n Garbanzo - excellent in salads, humus.
n Lentil - excellent in soups and stews.
Black and Red Dish
1 (16-ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed, or two-thirds cup dry black beans
1 (16-ounce) can dark red kidney beans, drained and rinsed, or two-thirds cup dry dark red kidney beans
1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced
1/2 cup onions, chopped
1/2 cup green bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup red bell pepper, chopped
1/2 cup celery chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 cups water
1 (14-1/2-ounce) can stewed tomatoes, undrained, chopped up
1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup frozen corn
1/2 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 cup long-cooking rice, uncooked
If using dry beans, soak in 4 cups of water for up to 8 hours (or overnight in the refrigerator.) Drain and rinse. Combine with 4 cups of fresh water and simmer for 1-1/2 to 2 hours or until tender. Drain. Coat large skillet with olive oil. Saut mushrooms, onions, bell peppers, celery and garlic. Combine with remaining ingredients and pour into a 9-x-13-inch baking dish. Cover and bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.
Scandinavian Beans
and Rice Stew
2 cups cooked navy or kidney beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup cooked long-grain rice, no salt added
2 tablespoons lemon juice
4 tablespoons minced fresh dill (or 1 tablespoon dry dill)
Pepper to taste
Place rice, beans, lemon juice and 2 cups water in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in dill and season to taste with pepper.


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The biggest problem of copper is latency not bandwith.
In the consumer market, bandwidth sells, latency doesn't.
Judging from the fact that low latency connections aren't available here, I'd have to suggest that it isn't selling. Whether or not it would is another question.
OTOH, we don't have bandwidth over 6mbps available here at all, so perhaps it's just greed and incompetence. Either way, I'd be more than happy to deal with the latency if I could get 100mbps of bandwidth.
Too stupid and buy cable connections because they offer "bigger numbers".
Go to dslreports.com and see - the cable provider forums are constantly filled with "high ping" and "lag spiking" complaints. Of course, they refuse to try DSL because their 15/1 connection outclasses the 3/.5 max that they can get via DSL. There are those who use both - DSL for gaming (constant latency), cable for fast downloads.
Bandwidth sells - it's easy to show pages/movies/downloads arrive faster. Latency, not so much. Heck
Too stupid and buy cable connections because they offer "bigger numbers".
Go to dslreports.com and see - the cable provider forums are constantly filled with "high ping" and "lag spiking" complaints. Of course, they refuse to try DSL because their 15/1 connection outclasses the 3/.5 max that they can get via DSL.
Maybe that's not the cause at all, and it's because the only DSL provider in their area is a shitty telecom company like Qwest that has horrible service, constant outages, and when they used to have
What's wrong with cable connections? I get a 6ms ping to a city 30mi away, 20ms ping to Chicago, and 45ms to New York.
If you know someone with DSL that gets more than 10% better, let me know. I bet most have worse. Latency isn't a cable technology issue, but and implementation issue.
In the consumer market, bandwidth sells, latency doesn't.
Then why does anyone have high-speed internet connections? You can get far, far, far more bandwidth with the USPS than you can from any network connection. Of course, the latency is terrible, but you said that it isn't important.
Huh? Signal through copper is 66% of speed of light.
Isn't the latency due to routing which affects all media?
100us sounds a bit high actually. When I run a high-resolution ping on my home network, it claims 0.01ms pings from my computer to my wife's through my Netgear 3700 home router. That right there is only 10us. So, from the time an application instructs the OS to ping a computer to the time the other computer receives the packet, is about 10 millionths of a second, on home-grade equipment.
I should hope fiber is faster than that.
ahh. So 100us would be the "extreme" case. Interesting info
Just in case... I wasn't trying to say you were wrong, but I found it strange to have that much of a latency difference between my copper networking and a high speed fiber link. The 7us range sound quite fast for a bunch of error checking/correction.
The problem isn't copper, it's bufferbloat.
Yes, well it's been a few years since I worked for the wireline division at Ericsson...
There really is no difference in latency between copper and fiber. Fiber runs ~200km/sec which about 2/3 the speed of light. Copper is very similar. Switching equipment causes latency.
The biggest problem of oversold bandwidth is latency. The technology is irrelevant.
Copper is mainly used for last mile delivery not for backhaul. The majority of latency issues which come into play only if you're really a hardcore gamer are to do with routing and switching. Fibre does not fix this problem, actually it may make it worse as routers are purchased which provide more bandwidth with bigger buffers which further contribute to a the bufferbloat phenomenon which affects and degrades routing.
Furthermore your typical ADSL connection to a local game server is 20-30ms. Unless you're the type of gamer who makes their primary career from p4wning n00bs, reducing this figure by 5ms isn't going to provide you with much of an advance. Not into games? What else is there? About the only other really low latency service (and by this I mean service where 20ms becomes significant) is supercomputing, and for grid projects likely to use home internet connections and consumer hardware this isn't an issue.
So my question back to you: Why is it a problem? What are you hoping to fix?
Not into games? What else is there? About the only other really low latency service
What about remote desktop?
You playing video over your remote desktop? It is still largely bandwidth intensive. I have not problem on ADSL2 doing a remote desktop session at high resolutions. I had no problem on my original ADSL session on a service where I was lucky to get 70ms. There is very little in a remote desktop session that requires reduced latency. If you're the type to complain about your mouse cursor not moving damn bloody instantly, then maybe remote desktop isn't the solution you seek, or pick a different protocol.
VNC f
About the only other really low latency service (and by this I mean service where 20ms becomes significant) is supercomputing
Well, there's program trading. There was a story a couple of days ago of a new $300M transatlantic cable being laid whose sole purpose is to reduce transit times (latency) by 6ms from the current 60ms. The consumers for this are hedge funds/etc doing program trading - the article said that a large hedge fund might make $100M/yr extra from a 1ms data advantage.
True, but this is not directed at them. The average home trader can't keep up with the trading floor anyway. 99% of brokerage services have quotes delayed by 15 minutes, the 1% which don't cost so much that you should have a direct tap into the local stock exchange anyway.
Another reply to the parents post was right. Fibre already covers the low latency market, so it's not like there's no other option. But my reply in general was that bandwidth is for average home user the biggest problem and I for one look
local game server is 20-30ms
Unfortunately game servers are typically not that "local", at least for most of the people on it. I usually find around 90+ms are as far down as they go for me anyway. But as long as it doesn't get too far past 100ms it's hardly even noticeable.
Latency in browsing is not something I consider latency as even with a poorly configured DNS server the latency is often small compared to the time it takes to load the page.
Think direct connections, VoIP and games come to mind as latency sensitive with consumers, and once a direct connection is established routing definitely takes up the most of it unless you're playing on a server half a world away.
I don't know what planet you live on, but here on earth waves propagate through copper transmission lines at a speed on the order of about half the speed of light [wikipedia.org]. The latency due to a copper cable with a
The biggest problem of copper is not latency, it's that you have to lay the fucking cable.
The biggest problem of copper is not latency, it's that you have to lay the fucking cable.
Followed up closely by its subsequent theft.
As others have said at least in the case of DSL the latency doesn't come from the copper line itself. It comes from the signal processing used to squeeze relatively huge amounts of data down a line designed for analog voice.
In particular when using forward error correction techniques (which are pretty much essential when you are running close to the limit of a channels capacity) it often makes sense to interleave frames. That way if there is a burst of noise it's impact will be spread across multiple frames
Propagation speed in copper is actually slightly faster than that of light in fibre.
Propagation speed in copper is actually slightly faster than that of light in fibre.
Say what? Copper itself doesn't have inherently more latency than fibre (in fact, the propagation speed of a signal in copper is slightly faster than light in fibre). I suspect you are referring to frame interleaving commonly used on xDSL connections. Which can be turned off. My ISP allows you to change this setting from the toolbox on their website
Latency isn't a copper issue... Between 100Mbps copper and 100Mbps fiber you should get the same latency.
Now if you compare a Gbps PON (fiber) access with a 10Mbps ADSL, then of course the ADSL will have much higher latency.
I have a 12Mbps/1,2Mbps ADSL2+ link and I can ping the ISP's router with less than 10ms delay.
Throttled down to what?
Can't get rid of it and for some reason some people are intent on spreading it
Comcast is capped and when they had my business they managed to be out several hours every single afternoon. Even if they have fixed their service, they're still capped and barely any faster than DSL. On top of which, I'd be sharing bandwidth going to the ISP.
"On top of which, I'd be sharing bandwidth going to the ISP."
Just like DSL and FIOS.
DSL: Dedicated up to the dslam
FIOS: shared at every point. --Best not because of best bandwidth, but fiber generally has fewer issues and is easier to troubleshoot. Much more reliable
DOCSIS: hybrid of shared and not shared. Implementation dependent.
similar, in principal, to the technology found in some headmasters
Fixed that for you.
Att should use this to up there poor bit rate on U-Verse and up all users to 4 or more HD streams.
With a 40GB/month cap!
Your unhappy because you will only be able to taunt people in the U.S. for having a 20GB cap and 1/20th the speed?
My 100Mbps last mile copper line here in Canada (Shaw Cable - been active for the past half year) has a 500GB/mo cap. There's talk of a 250Mbps with 1TB/mo cap (or unlimited) options coming out later this year. The price isn't exorbitant too, too much for college kids, but $99/mo with digital cable isn't *that* bad.
It's not all horrible up here.
(And yes, Teksavvy should have the right to offer the same Internet service without cable on the same copper at a fraction of that price)
Not that far from the truth...
Cable in Quebec
http://www.videotron.com/service/internet-services/internet-access/ultimate-120 [videotron.com]
150-160$/month with only 170GB download/30GB up.
At least the upload speed's nice.
standard service is still around 50$, 8Mb down/1Mb up, with a ridiculous 50GB limit. And with only 2 ISPs, it's not going to change that much (almost all the other ISPs are resellers, and are subject to the same limits, thanks to CRTC)
And since they also own TV stations and are tv providers, that's not abo
Verizon uses VDSL as part of their FIOS service in apartment buildings if they can't get access to run fiber to the apartment. This usualy limits bandwidth to about 30Mb downstram and 4 or 5 Mb upstream.
If they switch to VDSL2 then I may finally get the full 35/35 speeds I'm paying for.
Upload speeds on VDSL2 aren't automatically fixed like they are on ADSL. Different VDSL2 profiles use different splits. Personally, I've got 25 megs down, 7 megs up, and I've bonded two of those to get 50 megs down, 14 megs up.
The distance issue just requires them to push the remote DSLAMs closer to the customers. In my case, Bell Canada has installed the VDSL2 RDSLAM in the basement of my building. I'm 2400m from the CO, but only 45m from the closest DSLAM.
The backhauls are uniformly symmetric links, as are all the other links in the network aside from the ADSL/VDSL. The upstream bandwidth in the network is just going to waste. It's just the dog-in-the manger attitude of the phone companies that is throttling the rates. Even if it would cost them literally nothing, they see no reason to give it to you unless you pay more.
I would be interested to know if the technology to boost bandwidth on copper might also help push bandwidth out further. A lot of us rural folk still don't have a lot of choices when it comes to broadband and all of them are expensive.
Not really, there hasn't been any real advancements in long-distance DSL since ADSL2's annex L (Re-ADSL2), which cranked up the power a bit to extend the range.
ADSL, ADSL2, and VDSL2 all behave about the same after a certain point. VDSL2 can do 250 mbps symmetrical at source, but after 1600m, it performs the same as ADSL2+, and eventually, the same as ADSL. All these newer DSL standards are really doing is crank up how much spectrum is used, enabling faster speeds at the distances short enough to be able to
..100Base-T. Albeit not over incredibly long distances.
Conversely on that broadband cable line already coming to your house, each 6MHz channel can support a downstream rate of 42.88Mb/sec using QAM256 (with some of this as overhead). Devoting that entirely to "Internets", the usable frequency range of that cable (typically) is from ~54MHz to 750MHz which represents 116 channels. 116*42.88 = 4974Mb/sec, or ~5Gb/sec of useful data in one direction. Cut that in half, and allowing for upstream inefficiencies (Q
The amazing thing is that they're able to pull this out of measly twisted pair.
Toss in sCDMA on DOCSIS and you gain 128xs the bandwidth per channel. Now, can CDMA device process data fast enough becomes the issue, but it should scale with faster processors.
From the estimates I saw for the UK FTTC/FTTP rollout, doing full FTTP everywhere was estimated at about five times as expensive as just running fibre to the street cabinets and using VDSL2 from there.
the static sounds between modem handshakes could forever be lost, corrupting data packets along the way
Telus, our local POTS provider runs these cute ads on TV flogging their high speed internet. About twice a year I go to their web site and plunk in my phone number to see what package I can buy.
At present, the best they can do for me is...
56kbit dialup.
And from a few friends, they can't support this becuase of line noise, it it usually runs about 40kbit.
So I still have to use a satellite link with its 200 watt continuous power consumption (on the power supply -- may be peak only) and 800 to 1600 ms latency
You are in a maze of little twisting passages, all different.

subset: commoncrawl


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Archives for: January 2000, 21
Linden Confusion: Type B, High Blood PressureJanuary 21st, 2000 , by admin
Hi Heidi...
Can you stand one more question about a discrepancy between two Eat Right books???
Sure! :-D
In the original Eat Right book Linden is an avoid for Type B. In the Encyclopedia, Linden is listed as an anti-inflammatory and nerve health agent.
I take a naturopathic tincture for high blood pressure. Before ER, it contained linden - along with rowolfia and hawthorne. We eliminated the linden after ER, but I was wondering if we should put it back in now? Has the status changed?? Thanks ~~ Linda
The Encyclopedia's entries on linden are correct. New research since Eat Right was published in 1996 has been extensive, resulting in updated values and recommended usages for a number of items.
If your homeopath or naturopath suggests you add linden back into the mix, there's no ABO-specific reason not to do so.
The antistress protocol Peter recommends for type Bs with hypertension includes the use of visualization. I note it here just as a reminder that directed visualization has been shown to exert powerful influence on an unexpectedly wide variety of ailments. Bs in general seem to have a special knack for it and appear to receive greater benefits from it than others do. I'd also like to suggest the book Meditation as Medicine by Dr. Dharma Singh Khalsa and Cameron Stauth, for the several brief "medical meditations" and other information specific to hypertension. These practices can produce results in astonishing proportion to the small amount of time required to perform them.
Good luck, good health and keep in touch!


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Northwest Herald sports copy editor Kevin Murphy picks his top sporting events to watch on TV this weekend with a spotlight on local graduates:
College football: Miami (Ohio) at Illinois, 11 a.m. Saturday, BTN
McHenry graduate Jake Howe has started all three game on the defensive line this season for the Illini.
The Illini have held opponents to 0-for-3 on fourth down, making Illinois one of 16 teams in FBS yet to allow a fourth-down conversion and one of only eight to stay perfect in three or more attempts.
Tim Clary, a Richmond-Burton graduate and sophomore fullback for the Illini, could see time as the Illini take on a Mid-American Conference school.
Drew Nystrom, a Prairie Ridge graduate, is in his first season as a graduate assistant coach on offense for the Illini.
Nystrom and the Illini coaches will wear patches on their sleeves for the game to raise awareness and funding for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy research, and a family who has been affected by the disease will participate in the coin toss.
College football: Northern Illinois at Purdue, 11 a.m. Saturday, ESPN2
Prairie Ridge graduate and Northern Illinois freshman linebacker Sean Folliard is listed on the Huskies' roster.
College football: Iowa at Minnesota, 2:30 p.m. Saturday, ABC
Iowa senior tight end C.J. Fiedorowicz, a Johnsburg graduate, had only one catch for 11 yards last weekend against Western Michigan.
Fiedorowicz, according to a CBSsports.com story, is listed as the No. 25 pick in the 2014 NFL Draft.
Marian Central graduate Chris Streveler looks to still be the backup quarterback for the Golden Gophers because of an injury to starting quarterback Philip Nelson.
Streveler, a true freshman, is now the No. 2 QB on the depth chart.
"On the sideline, [Nelson] and Streveler both had a smile on their face," Leidner, the new starting quarterback, said in a recent Pioneer Press story. "We were having a good time. Philip would tell me what he saw out there. We have really good chemistry together."
College football: Wyoming at Texas State, 6 p.m. Saturday, Longhorn Network
Marian Central graduate Kurtis Stirneman will be on the sideline for Wyoming.
College football: Wisconsin
at Ohio State, 7 p.m., Saturday, ABC
Jon Budmayr is just focusing on the next game.
Budmayr, a Marian Central graduate, is a student coach for Wisconsin this season. He's finishing his degree in sociology in December and looking to obtain a graduate assistant spot, either with Wisconsin or another team.
"It's been a great experience," Budmayr said. "I always wanted to get into coaching."
Budmayr helps getting the scout teams ready, so this week has been spent preparing for Ohio State.
Budmayr said he's learned a lot in a short amount of time, and that each week the goal he wants is for his players to be consistent and he tries to be a "sponge" and learn as much as can from the coaches.
Pro football: Bears at Detroit, noon Sunday, Fox
Can the Bears start off the season 4-0 with a win against their NFC North rivals? They'll have to slow down Matthew Stafford and Calvin Johnson.
The Lions (2-1) are one of only five teams in the NFC with a winning record.
The Bears have lost Henry Melton with a torn ACL, but Detroit's Reggie Bush sat out the win against Washington with a sprained knee.
College football: Mississippi at Alabama, 5:30 p.m. Saturday, ESPN
Ole Miss is 3-0 for the first time since 1989 and coming off a dominant road victory over Texas on Sept. 14.
That means the Rebels have had two weeks to prepare for the No. 1 Crimson Tide (3-0).
Pro hockey: Preseason, Washington at Blackhawks,
7 p.m. Saturday, CSN+
The Hawks look to put on the finishing touches of the game before the regular season begins Tuesday.
• Agree? Disagree? Is someone from the Northwest Herald coverage area going to be on TV? Let Kevin Murphy know at email@example.com.


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The FasTracks projects that are identified in the RTP amendment to be completed by 2035 are based on RTD's ability to leverage public-private funds or federal grants.
"This is what the plan looks like now, but as opportunities arise, the plan will change," said RTD Board Chair Lee Kemp. "We believe that the plan is fiscally responsible and the right thing to do for the region, as we try to remain flexible to optimize progress on the program."
Another way that RTD is looking to optimize ways to complete more of FasTracks sooner rather than later, is to re-evaluate elements of the FasTracks program and all available resources. RTD General Manager Phil Washington introduced the staff's intent to present to the board within the next 60 days ways of pooling together various resources that can be applied to the partially funded FasTracks projects.
The board also approved a contract award to AECOM for final design of the North Metro Rail Line from downtown Denver up to the 72nd and Colorado Station. This contributes to RTD's $1 billion in expenditures and commitments to the northern communities through 2017.


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With a U.S. space artifact collection second only to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in D.C., and the largest collection of Russian space artifacts outside of Moscow, the Hall of Space Museum at the Kansas Cosmosphere & Space Center in Hutchinson, Kan., is hailed by space enthusiasts worldwide.
The oohs and aaahs start as you walk through the doors. Look up to see the SR-71 Blackbird. This Lockheed rocket with wings is able to travel at speeds faster than a bullet and at altitudes where no other planes dare to be. When the pilots of this spy-jet were ready to eat, they heated dinner by holding their food to the windows -- which had been heated in flight to more than 600 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's an impressive start to a museum that will keep you oohing and aahing. Among the attractions worth a visit:
• Dr. Goddard's Lab: In this live demonstration of early rocket technology, you'll be transported back to the 1930s lab of Dr. Robert Goddard -- the pioneer of modern rocketry. Demonstrations of Goddard's early experiments with liquid-fueled rocket engines end with a bang. Definitely one to watch with the little ones.
• Justice Planetarium: The Planetarium features a multimedia exploration of the solar system, navigational technology, deep space, and astronomical research. This was by far my favorite part of the museum. Our "host" was comical and knowledgeable, and even showed us what the night sky would look like the night we were there--then made us get up and dance to make sure we were wide awake.
• Carey IMAX Dome Theater: As the 12th IMAX theater built in the world, the Carey IMAX wraps up, down, and around its audience. The 44-square foot screen is perforated with thousands of tiny holes that allow digital surround sound to stream throughout the theater. We watched "Flying Monsters" -- a documentary about the world's first flying vertebrates which grew to have a 40-foot wingspan. The story of how and why these mysterious creatures took to the air is more fantastic that any fiction. Check the website to find out what's playing before your visit.
Must-visit galleries
• Cold War: Chronicling the first steps of both the U.S. and Soviet space programs, this gallery brings to life the Cold War standoff between the superpowers and the early drama of the Space Race.
• Mollett Early Spaceflight Gallery: Come face-to-face with American heroes and Soviet secrets. Actual spacecraft, hardware, spacesuits and training gear from the American and Russian programs capture the ingenuity, accomplishment, and tension of the times as two Cold War enemies face off in the race to the moon.
• Apollo Gallery: This gallery showcases our lunar encounters, from Neil Armstrong's first steps on the moon to Gene Cernan's last.
The Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center is at 1100 N. Plum St., Hutchinson, Kan., about 50 miles northwest of Witchita (and, as the website notes, 800 million miles from Saturn). Phone: (800) 397-0330. Hours: 9 a.m.-6 p.m. Monday-Saturday, noon-6 p.m. Sunday. Admission prices vary depending on what you want to do. An all-day, all-inclusive "mission pass" is $18 for adults, $16 for children (ages 4-12) and seniors (60+), free for ages 3 and under.
Amanda Topinka is a freelance writer and blog owner of "The Procrastinating Mommy" and author of the TravelingMom with Toddlers blog on TravelingMom.com. Follow her on Twitter at: @Amanda_aka_Mom or on Facebook at: The Procrastinating Mommy.


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$5 00
Battery Endurance Measurer is a utility to help you measure your battery endurance. It has many advantages:
- it shows you the start time of your measure,
- it shows you the last drop off which occurred during your measure,
- it shows you how long your computer has been awake which is your battery endurance measure,
- it automatically starts measuring at launch,
- it can be reset at any time,
- it can continue to measure after a drop off without loosing the previous measure and without taking into account the drop off duration,
- it remembers last window position at launch,
- it takes very little memory, CPU and disk
What's New
Version 1.4 adds the following:
- Some windows and some menus have been corrected.
- The documentation has been updated.
RequirementsMacOS 8.6 or later, CarbonLib.
Similar Software
Suggest other similar software


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Heritage 7/2015:3046, $15,275
Ron Guth: The 1912-D Liberty Nickel is one of the more common dates in the series, but the mintmark on the back adds a lot to this coin's popularity. Collectors should have no problem finding a circulated example or even a nice Mint State example. According to the PCGS Population Report (as of June 2011), the most frequently-seen Mint State grade is MS-64, followed by MS-63. Gems are plentiful but become scarce in MS-66, with none graded higher. The most desirable examples are those with a full strike and choice, original color.
© 1999-2018 Collectors Universe NASDAQ: CLCT


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Of Course U Can!: PICKLES!
Of Course you CAN! Pickling class is Sunday, July 21, 1-3 pm
Join as at the Fern Hollow Nature Center
Learn new and old pickles
Registration $20 or $15 for students. (Be prepared to show student ID.)
You will learn to make:
Grandma Rubin's Dills--with Miriam Rubin (We'll have copies of Mirian's new book, "Tomatoes," to see and buy.)
Susie Treon's Sweet Pickle Chips--with SFP's Amy Baer
New! Pickled Cauliflower with Master Pickler Nancy Hanst
New! Pickled Vegetable Slaw from The Smitten Kitchen
Midway through, we will pause for our:
Ploughman's Lunch--we'll have:
All pickles taught in class, a spread of Western Pennsylvania farmstead cheeses from PaMADE, Mediterra crusty farm breads and iced tea.
You might be the lucky one to take home a giant basket of canning supplies with a canning book or two.
Register Here:


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preview 2010
Preview 2010: Hype Videos
So: I didn't get Paul or anyone clips and thematic instructions in time for a hype video to exist. This is my fault. But the community provides where the blogger does not, in more than one way.
1. Reprise
2. Thematically similar, though more NSFW
Next year: less gray, hopefully.
Thanks to MCalibur and ShortsGoBlue, along with everyone who contributes in the diaries, board, and comments. This site would not be the same without you.
This completes the season preview. In case you missed any of it:
Let's play some footbaw.
State Of The Schwatevs
Previously: The story, the secondary, the linebackers, the defensive line, the quarterbacks, the running backs, the receivers, the offensive line, special teams, the conference, offensive questions answered(?), defensive questions answered(?), and the prediction.
And introducing Honorary Season Preview Posts.
One: FOOTBALL SEASON IS OVER. FOOTBALL SEASON HAS BEGUN.
Two: Pelé as a Comedian.
Read them or don't, but it'll be your loss if it's the latter.
At some point in the increasingly distant past, my inbox became a triage center where the easily taken care of were quickly dispatched and the things that required some time sat, slumbering, until I made the effort to hack through the underbrush. As emails age they tend to keel over unaddressed, leaving a small but dedicated band of old-timers I guiltily survey whenever I accidentally hit the "home" key.
Right now the teetering old man of the inbox is an in-depth post about corrections and additions I should make to the UFR FAQ from last September. Number two came in two months later at five in the morning on November 20th, 2009—the day before Michigan lost to Ohio State for the eighth time in nine tries, two weeks after Notre Dame lost to Navy for the second time in three. It was a weird email and I feel very, very guilty for letting it molder so long:
state of the schwatevs...
Let's pretend for a second that you aren't, you know, a dork. That you haven't read 'Song of Fire and Ice' (such as it is thus far) and that you don't know what Order of the Stick means and that you never made a joke involving the fact that Comparative Literature is listed as 'clit' and that memes aren't bigger than just memes and John Updike's death wasn't something you immediately had to form an opinion about. Let's pretend none of that is true. Pretend now you haven't got rhetoric and no awful conception of your own brightness, and that you're just into sports like urrybody else is. Then, after that, tell me why do you care about football? Really why. It's important that you answer this question, I think. I mean, it might help me figure out what to do with my life. And you could tell people you once helped a drunk pre-med Notre Dame fan who got in to Notre Dame and turned it down to do Pure Philosophy at Trinity College Dublin, effectively killing his father.
But how do you reply to that, especially when I haven't actually read Song of Fire and Ice, don't know what the Order of the Stick means, and haven't actually made any jokes about comparative literature? I did immediately envision all the unpleasant ways in which John Updike would liked to have described his death since there's no question in my mind that his morbidity fantasies involved barbarously sexing at least one but preferably several nubile innocents, so guilty as charged there. Even so, attempting to bridge the gap between this urrybody version of my mind and a drunk Notre Dame fan/philosophy major at Trinity College who makes it very unclear if he means the bit about killing his father figuratively or literally was not something I could do on MGoBlog D-Day, and not something I was inclined to in the malaise after.
Even as I try to summon up the answer now, the reason this email is still in the geriatric ward is clear. I don't really know.
I am 31 now, a dozen years removed from sitting in my girlfriend's parents' house during the '98 Rose Bowl, seething at how the people around me didn't care nearly enough. It's strange to me that I spent a lot of fall Saturdays in high school going to quiz bowl tournaments instead of being terrified about the outcome of a football game. I completely missed the Kordell Stewart Hail Mary and remember sitting in a car the following year, sick to my stomach as Colorado tried to reprise the feat. How could I feel that bad about a football game and not watch it? When did this start happening?
I have two prehistoric memories of football. In the first, I was very young and Michigan was playing Michigan State. I privately decided to root for Michigan State because everyone else wanted them to lose and this seemed unfair. That was sometime in elementary school. In the second, I fell asleep for the middle bit of the 1991 Rose Bowl. When I woke up Michigan was way behind and my dad was pissed off. I felt guilty. The next year I was trying to figure out some way an 8-0-3 Michigan team could leapfrog a bunch of teams for a national title and pretty pissed off when it didn't happen after Tyrone Wheatley gutted Washington. It happened then. Why? "I turned 12" seems insufficient.
Football came to me as something that was important long ago, so long that if its importance was ever external to the thing itself distance has obscured that. In the wash of items my mind has pruned out of memory must be the reactions of tall people who could do anything they wanted even after eight PM. They thought it was important, and now so do I. I could think up a dozen reasons I haven't forgotten, but they would be post-hoc justifications for something that already was. Football has migrated from reason to the reptilian part of my brain. Now it lives in my throat and has the power to close it at will. This is a terrible answer.
I can say that most of the time I like that I find football important. It gives life a rhythm. I think my favorite part happens on the first day of the new year, when I file into the stadium an hour early. It's still mostly empty then. You can spread out in the sun. In my mental picture of this my seats are high up in the corner so I can take in the whole vast breadth of the stadium. Perched there, looking down and across, the future stretches out across the horizon. Anything seems possible, and the wait is over.
Preview 2010: Heuristics and Stupid Prediction
Previously: The story, the secondary, the linebackers, the defensive line, the quarterbacks, the running backs, the receivers, the offensive line, special teams, the conference, offensive questions answered(?), defensive questions answered(?).
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 -
|0.15 (41st)
|2.17 (67th)
|-.83 (104th)
|1.83 (57th)
|-1.00 (115th)
|2.33 (83rd)
So. Last year I suggested this would head towards average; it totally did not. It somehow conspired to get worse. One major reason for this is the blindingly obvious one: freshman quarterbacks. They accounted for the uptick in interceptions and a large number of Michigan's fumbles. With another year of experience it's reasonable to suggest Michigan's turnovers lost will decline from the 28 given away last year, tied with a few other teams (including Georgia) for 99th nationally. This blog's theory about QB experience and pressure should work in Michigan's favor this year. Finally.
There should be good news on defense, too. Michigan's five fumbles recovered is a very low number, tied for fifth worst nationally with LSU and Tulane (your national "leader" in not getting fumbles: Georgia), and fumbles are so much more fluky than interceptions that Michigan can expect a +5/6 improvement in that metric just by virtue of not being on the death end of fate. Maybe. If they aren't this year, you know.
So… yeah, one more time: this should get way closer to even than it was last year. More fumbles recovered, marginally less awful defense, sophomore quarterbacks. Just ending the year at zero would be worth a couple wins, and while that's optimistic with still-young quarterbacks and that secondary they should see themselves pull way closer to the center. If they don't it's curtains for Rodriguez.
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.
Glaugahgerghasrgh bleaaaaah:
- Mark Moundros moves from fullback to MLB and will start or is basically as good as the starter.
- Cam Gordon moves from WR to FS and will start.
- Martavious Odoms moves from slot to outside WR and will start.
- Ryan Van Bergen moves from DT to DE and will start. Mitigating factor: last year RVB moved from DE to DT.
- Mark Huyge moves from RG/RT to LT and will probably start unless Lewan eats him.
- Craig Roh is something or other that is not quite what he was before.
Offensive moves are basically eh, but the topmost defensive moves are major red flags.
An Embarrassing Prediction, No Doubt
Worst Case
If only they were playing last year's schedule again. If they were, I could say "is the offense going to be better? 100% yes! Is the defense going to be worse? 90% no!" At that point I cold throw out a 6-6 worst case and be confident. Unfortunately, Eastern Michigan is replaced by UConn and things are complicated. They won't go 0-fer on the teams outside the bottom of the schedule, but a crappy defense and a lot of shootouts that go the wrong way could see them hit 5-7 again, and then the bricks.
Best Case
I don't see much upside in the D, but it is possible that teams without good quarterbacks won't be able to take advantage of it, leaving the offense to Leap its way past the middling bits of the schedule. It's fairly easy to see how they win against UConn, Penn State, maybe Notre Dame, and maybe Purdue on this basis; throw in a home split against MSU and Iowa and 9-3 is hypothetically in reach. Hypothetically.
Final Verdict
The offense will undergo Leap II: This Time It's Obvious, becoming legitimately scary to opponents across the league. They will find at least two tailbacks to go with the Denard experience; the line will improve considerably; the turnovers should finally (finally) come down to reasonable levels. This is what Rodriguez has based his career on and if it doesn't happen that career will probably be continuing somewhere else.
Defense? Last year again with less confusion and very long stupid easy touchdowns, shredded by experienced, good quarterbacks (of which there are 4 or 5 on the schedule), considerably better against the run, slightly better overall, still prone to major breakdowns.
|Leans to win
|@ Notre Dame
|Must win
|Bowling Green
|Must win
|@ Indiana
|Must win
|Michigan State
|Leans to loss
|Leans to loss
|@ Penn State
|Leans to loss
|Must win
|@ Purdue
|@ Ohio State
Minnesota, Northwestern
There are the two gimmes in the nonconference and two games against Big Ten teams that should be terrible, as Indiana and Illinois were wracked by graduation losses and weren't good to begin with. The opener against UConn is a game Michigan his maybe 60-70% to win; who knows about Notre Dame and Purdue. From there Michigan will probably get five or six wins. The seventh, or sixth will be picking off one of MSU, Iowa, or Penn State. 7-5 is still the call, but with the secondary attrition 6-6 is more likely than 8-4; before I thought the reverse.
Preview 2010: Five Questions, Five Answers On Defense
Previously: The story, the secondary, the linebackers, the defensive line, the quarterbacks, the running backs, the receivers, the offensive line, special teams, the conference, offensive questions answered(?).
1. What is it?
I keep trying to reconcile quotes like this from Rich Rodriguez…
How have some of the guys responded to the new 3-3-5?
"It is not a true 3-3-5. Again, there is as much as we were doing last year as there is new stuff from the spring. We've tried to keep things a little simpler, added a few new things simply because of the youth on defense and we need to play a little faster. "
…with views of the defense in spring and fall in which Craig Roh hardly ever plays with his hand down. A quick review of Devin Gardner's time in the spring game—which I picked since it was mostly against the first team defense shows 17 snaps on which there's a three man line (a couple of these do have Roh as a standup DE, FWIW) and just six on which he is in a three-point stance, two of those plays where the offense is backed up on their own goal line and the D is expecting a run. In more open play the ratio is a striking 17/21. It certainly looks like Craig Roh is a linebacker who moonlights at defensive end a la Shawn Crable. It looks like a 3-3-5.
Maybe that's an artifact of playing a spread offense and in games against beefy, power-heavy teams Michigan will go to more of a traditional look, but I don't think that'll happen either. Michigan deployed a formation USC calls "Double Eagle" more and more as the year wore on, debuting it against Iowa and deploying it extensively against Ohio State:
This was responsible for Michigan's excellent interior run defense when Ohio State did it's usual DAVE SMASH plays. It was also fundamentally unsound when OSU went unbalanced, but hopefully they fixed that. Either way, only Ohio State has the ability to run it down your throat and switch to a spread n shred—the other beef machine teams in the Big Ten feature pocket passing QBs.
With Ryan Van Bergen and the Sagesse/Banks platoon at defensive end, Michigan's line is four guys who would or could be 4-3 defensive tackles. It seems natural to tuck people inside and and run this thing you've clearly been installing for over a year.
The verdict: it's a 3-3-5 base with four-man lines a "multiple" look Michigan will run for a curveball. The coaches can say it's not a "true" 3-3-5, but to everyone but a football coach it will look like one. Craig Roh is a linebacker, mostly, and Jordan Kovacs is a tiny linebacker. I expect three-man lines to be present on 60-70% of Michigan's snaps this year.
2. Why is the personnel still so doomy?
This is not actually a surprise. The ugly bit about Misopogon's Decimated Defense series—other than all of it—was how little matters were scheduled to improve this year:
…last year was very thin – one or two guys recruited at each level. All told, 11 recruits, meaning if everybody played up to their hype (which never ever happens), we would have had an upperclassman team with some really good players and some really mediocre players. This year, there's a little more play but it's not all that different. Specifically, the tradeoff in upperclass talent is a likely Brandon Graham (6.1) and Renaldo Sagesse (5.6) for two likely Ryan Van Bergens (5.8) and an Obi Ezeh (5.5).
Straight-up, it's probably not a difference, meaning the performance level that Michigan's defense gets from its upperclassmen in 2010 will probably be about what it got from its upperclassmen in 2009. It is still well below that of Ohio State, and like last year, is drawing from a significantly smaller but significantly more talented pool than Michigan State.
Put another way by diarist Jokewood in November:
Comparing Michigan's defensive upperclassmen not only to Ohio State, Penn State, and Notre Dame, but to the rest of the conference as well...
Ohio State - 22
Northwestern - 21
Indiana - 19
Illinois - 19
Michigan State - 19
Penn State - 19
Iowa - 18
Wisconsin - 18
Minnesota - 17
Purdue - 15
Notre Dame - 15
Michigan - 12
The rest of the Big Ten averages 50% more upperclassmen on defense. We are dead last in the conference by a wide margin in terms of experienced defensive players.
Michigan's number in 2010 was scheduled to be a still really crappy 14 before Brandon Smith transferred (and subsequently washed out at Temple), Donovan Warren entered the draft, and Troy Woolfolk exploded. Michigan is down to 11 upperclass defenders, 12 if you count James Rogers, 13 if you count Steve Watson. They've gone nowhere.
The sudden fall attrition has hurt matters, especially since it's been concentrated at the position at which Michigan was most vulnerable, but this was always going to happen.
3. Is there any way the secondary is not a giant flaming disaster area?
operates both as solace and a thousand words on the position
The solitary hope is that Michigan was so bad at safety last year that even though they've lost two competent cornerbacks and replaced them with green players they will improve simply by playing bend-don't-break and forcing opponents to put together touchdown drives instead of touchdown plays. That could make the secondary a rickety cart balanced on the edge of a volcano, which sounds pretty good right about now.
How realistic is that? Somewhat, actually. After last season, Jon Chait had a post at the Wolverine with evidence the Woolfolk move backfired badly:
Michigan played six games with Woolfolk at safety -- Western Michigan, Notre Dame, Eastern Michigan, Indiana, Michigan State, and Ohio State. (I'm ignoring the Delaware State game because the competition level was so abnormal.) Michigan played five games with Woolfolk at cornerback, which forced Michael Williams into the starting lineup and Jordan Kovacs to move out of his more comfortable position. In those five games, Michigan played Iowa, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois and Wisconsin.
You can probably figure out where I'm going with this. In the six Woolfolk-at-safety games, Michigan's opponents gained 380 yards per game. Those six opponents averaged 374 yards on the season overall, which means that Michigan allowed its opponents to gain just a bit more than they did against the remainder of their schedule. This is a poor result, though not an absolutely horrendous one.
But in the five Woolfolk-at-corner games, Michigan gave up 445 yards per game, against opponents who gained 382 yards per game on the season overall. That is a horrendous result. That is a sieve of a defense.
The scoring numbers are even more stark: Michigan went from giving up 23 points a game to 37. Is it really possible that bringing in Mike Williams and moving Jordan Kovacs deep resulted in two extra touchdowns ceded per game?
Well… not quite. The Woolfolk-at-safety games include two MAC opponents, three approximately .500 teams, and Ohio State. The Woolfolk-elsewhere games are much tougher on average because the bulk of the MAC stats were racked up against other MAC teams. If you hack those out this is what it looks like:
|FS: Woolfolk
|M Ydg
|M Score
|Notre Dame
|Michigan State
|Ohio State
[Note: MSU's overtime period was removed to keep everything even.]
Against teams that didn't play a segregated, much easier schedule Michigan was about 20 yards worse than average in yardage and even on scoring. So moving Woolfolk only cost Michigan about 40 yards and nine points a game. That still overstates the effect since MSU did score a touchdown in their overtime period and Ohio State was Tresselballin' it like a mofo, only putting Pryor in the shotgun once Michigan became vaguely threatening. So let's knock our estimate down to 30 yards a game.
What's thirty yards a game in terms of national averages? Kind of a big deal. Michigan would have leapt from 82nd in total defense to 57th—basically average—if they'd just maintained their Woolfolk-at-safety pace.
Plugging the enormous hole at safety would be great, but even if you make the reasonable assumption that Gordon/Kovacs/Robinson is going to be way better than Williams/Kovacs, the massive downgrade at corner means you're probably just treading water. Treading horrible, polluted, razor-blade-filled, despair-laden water.
4. GERG: Brilliant? Terrible? What's Going On?
Punt. Punt punt punt. I have a tendency to get bitchy about coordinators doing things I see as strategically weird and slammed Scott Shafer over the course of the '08 UFRs for transparently nonsensical decisions like hardly ever playing senior nickelback Brandon Harrison (even against spread teams! In favor of Johnny Thompson!) and pulling one of his senior defensive tackles on downs like third and one. The end result:
The picture painted by the above is, in retrospect, one of huge incompetence. Last year Michigan regularly removed functional veteran players in favor of crappy ones that made no sense given the down and distance situations or the offense on the field, and those things only got fixed (-ish) once Shafer was removed from the decision-making process. It's not like the position guys covered themselves in glory with that 3-3-5 against Purdue but at least they pulled their heads out of their butts afterwards and put in the defense Michigan should have been running from day one against spread teams.
I didn't find that kind of complaining much when I went back over the UFRs for '09. The worst thing I found was after the Penn State game:
Why are you such a grump? Iowa put up 30 points and 367 yards of offense to Penn State's 35 and 396 , and Michigan managed to escape that game with way better numbers.
I think it was that all the stuff Penn State was doing came so easy. The Zug touchdowns, the Quarless touchdown, all the long handoffs: all of those plays required nothing more than Penn State not screwing up with wide open receivers. To Clark's credit, he hit all those guys. He then laughed about the primitive defense that Michigan was running, and on review I totally agree: Michigan telegraphed their now-predictable third and long redzone blitzes and got killed. They showed the long handoff was there and got killed. They put Obi Ezeh in man coverage on the edge against Evan Royster and got killed.
That's what the big minus in RPS is there for: I think Robinson got owned by Penn State's offensive brain trust (which is Galen Hall, not Jaypa). This game was slightly reminiscent of the Purdue game a year ago where Michigan switched to a new system and got their brains beaten in by it.
This was mitigated by the situation, obviously:
I don't know. I am sort of mad at Robinson for making it easy by not breaking tendencies with two weeks to prepare. But when you've got Kovacs as your deep safety, what can you do? Kid's smart and can be an effective player in the box but obviously lacks the athleticism to be a deep safety in the Big Ten.
Tactical complaining is absent in other UFRs, though if I'd actually manned up and done the Ohio State one I would have cited the Buckeye Football Analysis link above, in which the guy said he was surprised at how fundamentally unsound Michigan's scheme was, as another negative.
On the other hand, I've been pumping up GERG's work with Roh and Brown constantly and citing his move to linebackers coach as an indication the rest of the staff thinks he's the best option to undo the damage wrought over the past couple years. And, really, what can you do when you're handed the material he was given last year? This has been documented incessantly: given the personnel situation it is totally unsurprising Michigan's defense cratered last year.
So I punt. I'll be looking at the development of Roh and Mouton and seeing if the defense can get off the mat somewhat despite facing down a personnel situation that isn't much better, if it's better at all, than last year's. We'll have a much better idea about Greg Robinson in November.
5. Well?
There were many complaints when I started the preview series off with the secondary and linebackers. People were depressed. They found me depressing. Someone posted something on the message board wondering if I was okay. People of Earth: it is not my fault the back seven on defense is depressing. It just is.
Is there hope? Is there anything resembling it? Maybe. After the Iowa game this is how I diagnosed the D:
On the podcast this week I called the defense "competition-invariant": they have talent and do well when they use it but when they make an error it is so huge that even Indiana can exploit it ruthlessly, so the defense kind of plays the same against everyone.
Maybe GERG can reduce that tendency. Maybe Cam Gordon will 1-0-1 the season. Maybe the linebackers will get less frustrating, and maybe Michigan will give up an annoying number of long drives but not so many awful, really short ones. But here's the greater-thans and less-thans:
- Junior Mike Martin > Mike Martin
- Sophomore Craig Roh >> freshman Craig Roh
- Senior Jonas Mouton with competent coaching > Junior Jonas Mouton with headless chicken tendencies.
- Sophomore Kovacs >> freshman Kovacs/Williams/Smith
- Cam Gordon > Kovacs/Woolfolk/Williams
- Mark Moundros/Obi Ezeh == Obi Ezeh
- Ryan Van Bergen <<< Brandon Graham
- Sagesse/Banks < Ryan Van Bergen
- Carvin Johnson < Stevie Brown
- JT Floyd << Donovan Warren
- Whoever < Woolfolk/Cissoko/Floyd
It's going to be rough. Tony Gibson:
"If we get any more simple, I don't know what we're going to be able to do," Gibson said. "We can't just play one coverage and do that kind of thing.
"These other teams we're playing, they have scholarship kids. They're not going to say, 'OK, Michigan's young back there, we're not going to throw at them.'
I actually think the defense will improve simply by virtue of having some continuity and knowledge of the players, but not by much. Shootouts beckon.
Last Year's Stupid Predictions
- I didn't do any for some reason, and that was the best prediction of all.
This Year's Stupid Predictions
- Fumbles recovered double to ten.
- The secondary is actually better than last year's secondary because long touchdowns are less frequent. It will still be very bad.
- Mouton is much better, leads the team in TFLs and sacks, and is still incredibly frustrating.
- Mike Martin is great and should get first-team Big Ten recognition, though he probably won't.
- Mark Moundros holds on to the starting MLB job all season.
- Michigan manages a modest improvement in yards allowed, getting up to the 60-70 range nationally.
- Pain.
Preview 2010: Five Questions, Five Answers On Offense
Previously: The story, the secondary, the linebackers, the defensive line, the quarterbacks, the running backs, the receivers, the offensive line, special teams, and the conference.
1. Can you answer the same quarterback question everyone's been answering since the spring game?
Sweet hot pickle John The Baptist, the fictional questioners are just as persistent as the real ones. One last time: I expect Denard Robinson to get the start against UConn. Rumor has it the team has already been informed.
The premium sites are engaged in a war of information about the #2. Scout is claiming Gardner has haxored the offense and will plug into the matrix sooner rather than later; Rivals says Forcier's come on like gangbusters of late and is hinting he'll end up starting sooner rather than later. Both of their mumbles are of the "I'm just saying" variety where blame can't be assigned retroactively but credit sure can; both are seriously hedging on Denard Robinson.
I don't buy either much, but I buy the latter way more than the former. My personal obsevations are in line with UMGoBlog's assessment of the spring performances of each. Gardner:
@ the :24 mark: here you can see the game moving really fast around him. His feet slow down because his brain is working overtime to process all the info available. Finally, he leans back away from the contact on his delivery, which will normally cause the ball to sail, or fall well short.
@ the :38 mark: this may be his "can't teach that" moment. With Tate and DR, we have to roll the QB one way or the other to attack the middle. They cannot see over the line. Here, DG confidently steps into the pocket and throws a nice, although low, pass in a deep in route. As he continues to develop, he physical stature may end up being a large advantage for him in the QB race.
@ the 1:15 mark: we see some of the TF-like play making ability. He escapes the rush, but works back INTO the pocket to keep all his options alive down the field. Very good poise for the young guy in his first spring.
@ the 1:55 mark: this is not the first example on this film, but the ball HAS to come out quicker here. Giving the LB/DB time to read this play is a huge mistake and really hung the RB out to dry. Again, no doubt understandable with DG's inexperience, but this is a HUGE thing that must improve before I will call him "Game Ready".
@ the 2:23 mark: SHEESH! Protect the ball above all else, especially at your own goal line. As soon as he felt the hands around him, that ball should have been thrown to the Off. Coord. on the sideline. Live to fight another play.
It keeps going like that, promise alternating with the freshman mistakes we've gotten all too accustomed to the past couple years. Reports from the fall scrimmage, which was all of two weeks ago, are similar. Downplaying the one horrible interception is "a mistake but…" neglects Gardner's tendency to just chuck things when he got pressure. It didn't happen often, but when it did he responded—all together now—like a freshman. I'm done with this true freshman stuff. We've seen the chart, right? Michigan ran out a drilled-from-birth prodigy last year, got significantly above average performance from him, and still had a creaky offense. Devin Gardner is not that good yet. I have every confidence he will be that good in time, but not yet.
Forcier remains Forcier, hopefully minus many of the crippling turnovers. Denard, well;
@ the :59 mark: he is rolling left and fires a strike over the middle. I cannot overstate the difficulty of this throw. Very Impressive.
@ the 1:30 mark: he cannot find a target and tucks and runs. It will be beneficial at some point for him to learn to 1)identify targets earlier 2)throw it away 3)get out of bounds and avoid unnecessary hits.
@ the 1:40 mark: he makes a perfect read on the option. Watch the DE on the O's left side completely bite down on the run. Other Big Ten teams will not bite this hard. They know DR is the bigger threat. He will have to hand off more this year.
@ the 2:20 mark: he hits Roundtree for the 98 yarder. Beautiful touch on this pass! However, his throws out to the slots and RB's on the bubble screens and hitches need to be this accurate. They aren't yet.
Denard is ridiculous. He will be given the first shot because of this, and it will be up to him to keep it. No one can take it away from him; he'll have to give it away. If I had to put numbers on it, there's a 65% chance Denard is the primary quarterback, a 30% chance Tate is, and a 5% chance Devin is.
2. Why should I be excited at all when the "Rodriguez leap" amounted to finishing ninth in total and scoring offense in conference play?
Last year around about the Notre Dame game some very excitable people were proclaiming things about the Rodriguez Leap, something Doctor Saturday identified as a strong trend in Rodriguez-coached offenses to blow up in year two. Michigan's was coming from so far back and running in place when it came to quarterback experience, so that initial prowess ended up being a mirage. Michigan was way, way better, but still pretty meh. So the above conference stats exist.
While those may be literally true, they don't exactly feel right, do they? Michigan's offense did fall off considerably after a scorching start, but whenever that stat gets brought up it seems wrong. Michigan had the misfortune of missing two below-average defensive teams in Northwestern and Minnesota, after all.
According to some crazy advanced numbers that intuition is correct. Via The Only Colors, an aerial of Football Outsiders' advanced metrics for the Big Ten last year:
That is more intuitively correct than raw things like points or yards per game and, since it is conference-only, sidesteps the Baby Seal U issue. Michigan's offense was seventh, a hair away from fifth. That's not good but it is a major step forward after they were last by a mile in '08.
Besides, it's possible they actually made the RR leap. Seriously. The problem is how far back they were coming from. As last year's preview noted:
…even if Rodriguez makes a leap similar to that turned in by his 2002 West Virginia team—probably the most comparable since they were coming from so far back—Michigan will only improve to 68th in total offense.
Sans BSU, Michigan would have finished 78th. With BSU they finished 59th, and since all the other teams that played super tomato cans didn't have them stripped out by when I say they would have finished 78th, splitting the difference seems reasonable. We're back to 68th in total offense again.
The best RR leaps to date were virtually identical improvements at Tulane and West Virginia where year two saw yardage output increase by 21%. If you discount BSU, Michigan went from 290 yards of total offense to 353. That's a 22% increase. While it's a lot easier to go from godawful to bad than go from bad to average or average to great, at previous stops Rodriguez had the luxury of installing an experienced quarterback in year two. With Michigan's chaos there (and Rodriguez's inability to get a viable quarterback in his first recruiting class), they did not have that luxury.
And here's the thing: with the quarterbacks going from freshmen to sophomores and some number of starters back ranging between seven and ten—depending on how you assess players like Roy Roundtree, Martavious Odoms, Patrick Omameh, Mark Huyge, Perry Dorrestein, and a couple others—isn't it plausible to expect another leap in year three? Tacking on 17%—the average yardage increase in previous RR leaps, discounting last year at Michigan—to Michigan's BSU-free yardage yields 414 yards per game for Michigan, which would be good for 32nd nationally.
- There was a leap,
- It was hard to find because they were coming from so far back, and
- There should be another leap this year.
This could be worth a small "woo," or something.
3. Can the running game take a… well… can it improve a… aw, hell, can it make a leap? The leap?
Last year Michigan obliterated their best YPC mark since the turn of the century, posting a 4.52 well clear of 2006's previous high water mark of 4.27. All right, yes, Michigan's demolition of Baby Seal U (54 carries, 461 yards) is heavily distorting, and if you pull it out Michigan's season YPC drops a half-yard. That drops it to third, as you can see at right. Since most of the seasons there had a nonconference cupcake that wasn't good but also wasn't quite as distorting (in 2006, for example, Michigan put up 246 yards on 51 carries against Vanderbilt in addition to their two MAC snacks), that sells '09 a short.
So. Despite missing their best and most critical lineman for most of the year, suffering a number of bad snaps that ended up looking like –20 yard carries as a result of that, and spending most of the year down at least one of their senior tailbacks, and running out freshman quarterbacks. Michigan posted one of the better YPC numbers of the last decade of Michigan football. They were solidly third. I'm throwing this on the pile of evidence that Rodriguez's approach to the ground game is just plain better than Carr's.
Meanwhile, I'm not too concerned about the lost personnel on the line. Omameh should be better than the Moosman/Huyge/frosh Omameh combo over the course of the year. Molk was clearly better than Moosman as a center, something that was addressed in the Illinois game:
Moosman is not as good as Molk on tough reach blocks. Lot of cutbacks against Illinois because the playside DT did not get sealed. Cutbacks are tougher sledding, usually.
Here's a successful run from Brown on which Moosman does not seal his guy and Brown has to hit it up behind Moosman in front of Schilling:
From what I've seen, Molk is more likely to actually get that block on the frontside. He won't do it all the time and the cutback can be effective but then you're relying on the backside block, which is often a tough one.
Ortmann to Huyge/Lewan probably won't matter much; tackles aren't that important in the spread 'n' shred run game. The only other losses are at tailback, where Minor managed just 96 carries a year ago. His average YPC was 5.2, only slightly better than the team average in I-A games. Brown, meanwhile, finished the above run like this:
It's not like either of the lost guys was 1) that great, 2) ever healthy, or 3) irreplaceable. Here's a preview of a stupid prediction: Michigan 2010 tops that YPC table.
4. What about the tackles?
Yeah… that's the thing. Michigan has depth and talent at the skill positions and the interior line. The quarterbacks have been discussed ad nauseum—while they won't be great the best of the three options available will be at least average and possibly (probably?) good. Michigan can take some hits and still expect good things to happen… except at tackle.
There Michigan has two guys who did not play well last year and two redshirt freshmen. Though Taylor Lewan has a boatload of hype he's just one guy, and a freshman at that. Meanwhile, Mark Huyge and Perry Dorrestein took turns playing Slight Hindrance To Guy Forcing Forcier Out Of The Pocket; both were benched for the other at some point. It's clearly the weak spot.
There are reasons to hope:
- Experience helps out offensive linemen more than other position groups.
- Huyge was undersized but is no longer.
- Dorrestein was struggling with a back injury most of this year.
- Frey's coaching saw Ortmann improve substantially in his final season.
- Lewan does have a boatload of hype and provides a viable third option if one of the starters struggle.
A step forward is likely. Even so, at the end of the year the thing that will have held the offense back from great heights will probably be an inability to keep defensive ends away from the quarterback.
5. Well?
This rocket has two stages, the second of which should kick in this year. There's more experience everywhere, plenty of talent to go around, multiple options at quarterback, some of whom are scholarship non-freshmen: Michigan's offense will be much better in 2010. Now for the greater-than-less-thans!
- Sophomore Tate/Denard >>> Freshman Tate/Denard
- David Molk >> David Moosman
- Senior Schilling > Junior Schilling
- Patrick Omameh >> Moosman/Huyge/Omameh chaos
- Stonum in HD > Stonum in black and white
- Roundtree/Grady > Odoms/Roundtree/Grady
- Tight ends > younger versions of themselves
- Five-headed running back monster == constantly injured seniors with younger versions of running back monster.
- Martavious Odoms == Greg Mathews
- Perry Dorrestein == The better of Dorrestein/Huyge
- Mark Huyge < Mark Ortmann
As stated above, RR Leap 2 would hop Michigan up to 32nd nationally in yardage even without the benefit of a tomato can I-AA game. Put that back in and Michigan should find itself in the bottom third of the nation's top 25 offenses.
Things that can make this not happen: tackles are bad and or injured. Quarterbacks do not progress like they should. The tailback situation is a muddled heap of mediocrity. Things that can make this pessimistic: Stonum blows up. Toussaint or Cox blows up. Denard really is that good.
Last Year's Stupid Predictions
- ESSENTIALLY CORRECT IF SLIGHTLY OPTIMISITIC: Minor misses two games with injury [note: chalk!]. [Minor missed Western and Ohio State; he also sat out against DSU, if that matters, and was seriously limited for much of the rest of the season.]
- RIGHT DESPITE INJURY: People expect Vincent Smith to be the 2010 starter.
- WRONG BECAUSE OF INJURY: Junior Hemingway is your leading downfield receiver (ie: Odoms is in the running but we aren't counting screens). [Roundtree blew up late; Hemingway finished well behind Mathews amongst outside WRs.]
- PRETTY CLOSE: Denard runs for 450 yards and throws about ten times. [350 yards and 31 attempts.]
- NOT PARTICULARLY ACCURATE: Michigan uses a huge multiplicity of formations on offense, debuting new stuff frequently and ending the year with a huge (hur) package. [Michigan never busted out
- WRONG: A two-back three-WR set is most common, though sometimes that third WR will be a tight end in the slot. [Michigan went 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 RB most often.]
- OPTIMISTIC EVEN COUNTING BABY SEAL U: As noted, Michigan finishes somewhere between 40th and 50th in total yardage. [59th.]
This Year's Stupid Predictions
- Michigan 2010 finishes atop the rush YPC chart above without considering the UMass game and by a considerable margin.
- Gardner ends up burning his redshirt in very, very frustrating fashion, because…
- …Denard is pretty much your starting quarterback all year, but…
- …Forcier plays in every game, bailing Michigan out in one critical fourth quarter.
- Vincent Smith gets the most touches amongst the running backs. Second: Shaw. Third: Toussaint. Fourth: Hopkins.
- Robinson is Michigan's leading rusher.
- Darryl Stonum does not exactly go Chris Henry on the planet but does greatly increase production via a series of big plays: 30 catches, 650 yards, 6 touchdowns.
- Michigan breaks out the triple option with regularity, using Hopkins as the dive back and Shaw/Smith the pitch guy. They also dig out those WVU formations where the slot motions into the backfield, with Grady the man beneficiary.
Preview 2010: Quarterbacks
Previously: The story, the secondary, the linebackers, the defensive line, the running backs, the receivers, the offensive line, special teams, and the conference.
Rating: 3.
You are feeling a sudden sense of well-being relative to two years ago.
|Denard Robinson
|Tate Forcier
|Devin Gardner
If I had to summarize the thousands of words poured out into this space previewing the 2009 Michigan quarterbacks in a single sentence, it would be "they are going to be much better but probably still suck":
The upshot: freshman quarterbacks suck, but on average they suck far less than Michigan's two-headed monster of yesteryear. An average-for-a-freshman performance from Forcier will be a huge step forward for the offense.
And lo: Michigan's quarterbacks combined to throw 14 interceptions against just 15 touchdowns, fumbled probably a dozen more times, averaged a meh 7.2 yards per attempt, and singlehandedly sabotaged a surprisingly winnable 2009 edition of The Game. This was vast, vast improvement—the 2008 QBs combined to average 5.1(!!!) yards per attempt—and also pretty much sucked.
But, hey, that's what you get when you start true freshmen. We can now slot Tate Forcier in Doctor Saturday's list of recent true freshman starters at BCS schools:
|Comp. %
|Terrelle Pryor
|Ohio State
|Robert Griffin
|Willie Tuitama
|Erik Ainge
|Chris Leak
|Chad Henne
|Matt Barkley
|Tate Forcier
|Mitch Mustain
|Tyrod Taylor
|Virginia Tech
|Matt Stafford
|Thaddeus Lewis
|Jimmy Clausen
|Notre Dame
|Josh Freeman
|Kansas State
|Reggie Ball
|Georgia Tech
|Kris Heavner
|Brady Quinn
|Notre Dame
|Juice Williams
A tick behind Chad Henne isn't bad. And since Henne's receivers were current NFLers Braylon Edwards, Jason Avant, and Steve Breaston while Forcier's top target was a redshirt freshman who only started playing extensively at the tail end of the year—the senior "star" went undrafted—you could plausibly argue that the main difference between the freshman years of NFL starter Chad Henne and current sophomore Tate Forcier was the quality on the other end of the pass, especially since Forcier's YPA was superior. (Save your Baby Seal U protests: Forcier threw two passes in that game.)
To put the suck of '08 in perspective: '09 sucked but only because of the turnovers. The YPA average in I-A last year was 7.2, exactly what Michigan managed. A standard deviation was a yard. Michigan improved two standard deviations with a true freshman under center.
So of course everyone expects the guy who threw four interceptions in 31 attempts last year to start. This is Michigan, where things don't seem weird until the melting clocks drip PCP-tripping Gary Busey homunculi into swimming pools full of ham. We've seen stranger. Have you heard the one about the field goal that one of Michigan's players unblocked?
The Starter Right This Instant
Yeah: Denard Robinson. This is the part of the preview where I ignore the the guy with 281 attempts and 118 rushes in favor of the guy with the 31 attempts and 69 rushes because of an impressive spring performance, a bunch of practice reports, and some inflammatory comments from Troy Woolfolk. For the record, here they are again:
"Denard has been out there through the thick and thin and been out there all the time regardless if he's hurting," Woolfolk said. "And Tate, he tries to come out, but he's not as consistent as Denard is. And that's allowed Denard to jump a little bit ahead of Tate and I think that Tate's going to have to do a lot of work to catch back up to Denard in camp this year."
With Rodriguez and Steve Schilling essentially backing those up a couple days later and the general tenor coming out of spring practice, it seems clear that Forcier did not think his job was under threat, slacked off a bit, and has paid for it with his starting job. (Forcier: "I felt like I was working with the team, just not as much as I should have. Part of that is maturity." Rod Smith: "He didn't come back in shape, and he's competed as hard as any of the other guys.")
By now (and for now) this is assured. When Bruce Feldman was attempting to justify($) his out-there pick of Michigan as #25 on his preseason ballot, he deployed this conversation he'd had with Rodriguez:
Rodriguez is so fired up by the development of QB Denard Robinson, who is so dynamic he evokes memories of WVU great Pat White. Rodriguez says Robinson's presence and personality are similar to White's, and that Robinson is actually bigger than White was at the same stage. He doesn't quite play as fast as White did, but he will.
"Pat was so decisive," Rodriguez said. "He knew what he was doing. Pat was a fast player who played fast. Denard is a fast player who didn't play fast all the time, but I know he will play faster this year. He'll play faster and faster. He'll become more relaxed and calm executing the offense. There is a lot to learn, but at the same time, he is eager to learn it. And as he plays faster and his teammates play faster, we'll get a lot better."
Rodriguez added that the other two QBs Tate Forcier and Devin Gardner are very gifted too and will push Robinson, and if they overtake him, well, then the Wolverines offense should be in good shape.
We were at the point where the other two quarterbacks are "pushing" Robinson even before the fall scrimmage reports ("clear starter," "will absolutely start," "will be the starter") started rolling in. Perhaps more telling even than those rapturous reports was the substitution pattern: like David Molk, Mike Martin, and select other players too important to risk, Robinson saw his snaps limited. His time wasn't nearly as limited as that of the aforementioned duo—he had time to establish himself obviously the man before Forcier and Gardner mopped up during the last bit of the scrimmage—but the sign was clear. The competition is chasing.
I guess this is plausible. I mean, there's this:
Since that was done against the 1972 Pittsburgh Steelers it's pretty impressive. Yes, they had a 5'7" defensive tackle too.
So what does Michigan have in this guy? Anyone who attempts to tell you is having a moment of foolish arrogance. The guy who did this…
…also did this…
|has a lane
|darts through this gap
|easy QB draw
|another one for TD
|squeezes in for Iowa TD
|a precious thing forever.
|shoots into the secondary
|six exciting yards
|Iowa doom INT
|underthrown DSU TD #1
|fired it hard and high
|okay Koger seam
|zings one on the money
…and was such an incredible neophyte that he never once ran the zone read despite its status as Rich Rodriguez's calling card and Robinson's ability to do that first thing above. Any program not digging out from a 100-year flood would have taken one look at the kid in fall practice and put so many redshirts on him that he'd be peeling the last one off right now. Michigan couldn't because its other quarterbacks were walk-ons or injury-prone freshmen.
The results were occasionally brilliant, sometimes promising, and frequently facepalm-worthy. In lieu of a full UFR passing chart here are all of Robinson's infrequent attempts rolled into one pretend game with around 30 attempts:
|6 (2)
|3 (1)
That's three inaccurate screens and an 8/18 downfield success rate, which rivals Mallett's insane freshman performances, without even considering that four of those passes were terrible interceptions. This will not be news to anyone who saw Robinson play last year: he was in vastly over his head.
A guy that raw with that much speed has the ability to make a stunning improvement in a single offseason. And the above-linked spring highlights at least suggest that Robinson's improvement has indeed been stunning, especially since he followed that up with a similarly impressive performance in fall. He's added a non-insubstantial eight pounds to reach 193, and the offseason has come with a heavy focus on ending all the fumbling. Rodriguez:
"He looks to me physically bigger, and maturing physically," said Rodriguez. "Mentally, he understands some of the concepts a lot better, which he should. I see his confidence continuing to grow. And he's so eager to please and do well that he's taking steps every day."
"There were a couple times today with ball security … even though they didn't fumble, it wasn't as good as we'd like," Rodriguez said. "But you could see they were making a conscious effort to take care of the ball. Decision making, the same thing… they're not just trying to force something in there."
This is the bit where I evaluate the player's strengths and weaknesses and offer up a projection for season stats and the like, but here the former is obvious and the latter a mystery. Robinson's radical improvement has come against Michigan's second and third strings, which are so thin as to hardly exist. How will he react when those seams are covered? How will he react when he gets pressure? Can he hold onto the ball when he's not playing two-hand touch? Run around, run around, don't know.
Let's take a wild-ass guess and ballpark it as Pat White, freshman edition. White was a redshirt freshman who split time with a pocket passer—Robinson is essentially the same thing. In 2005, White rushed for 952 yards at 7.3 a pop and completed 57% of his passes for 7.3 YPA, 8 TD, and 5 INT. Downgrade those YPA numbers 10-20% to take into account Michigan's presence in the Big Ten and that's your random guess.
Extremely Nominal Backup
Until about a week ago, virtually every scrap of talk about Tate Forcier this offseason had been negative. A quick scan of any Michigan message board will turn up a thread or four that someone in the Forcier family will screenshot and throw into the section of their personal site once embarrassingly named the "Hall of Shame" and subsequently nerfed to something less ambiguously bitchy and more clearly intended as motivation. The charges: Forcier is a douchebag. He's going to transfer. He's not going to get any better. He hasn't been going to workouts. He will pout when and if he doesn't play, destroying team chemistry. Etc. I've unpublished a couple around here.
How we got here from "Weapon of Choice" and Moxie Death Star is a matter of:
- lots of losses,
- Forcier's waning effectiveness as teams figured out they had to keep him in the pocket,
- Forcier's waning effectiveness after his shoulder was bruised/dislocated/LABRUM'D,
- five turnovers, many of them blithering, against Ohio State, and
- Let's Get Denarded in spring.
Still, the numbers on the above chart are just off future star status, especially when you knock Pryor and Griffin out for being athletic freakshows whose stats were inflated by the rarity of their throws.
Forcier didn't get a ton of help from his offensive line or receivers, either, which made a couple of his performances better than they looked. Michigan State provides a typical example:
You wouldn't know it because of all the pressure and the drops killing his stats, but Forcier had a spectacular day. His downfield success rate* was 71%, which is up there with Chad Henne's best game. Chad Henne's best games didn't come with game-killing overtime interceptions, sure. He made three and a half terrible decisions throwing the ball (with the half being the bomb to Koger) and some additional ones in the ground game.
But does anyone remember the "Sheridan Might Start!" meme? Will anyone own up to actually advancing that point of view? No? No.
After the great start (post ND: "two games in it looks like Tate Forcier has 99th percentile skill in accuracy on the run, pocket awareness, and (yep) moxie"), Forcier had a mid-season swoon with an implosion against Iowa in which his DSR fell to a bleah 50% that didn't take into account how "disastrous" some of the bad reads; the following week Forcier duplicated the 50% DSR performance against Penn State. He picked it up afterwards with a "decent" Illinois game and had "one of his best games" against Purdue before turning in a "good day" against a very good Wisconsin defense; though Ohio State didn't get charted I can tell you that his performance in that game was plain great except for the four awful interceptions, which is a weird thing to say but there it is.
So. By the numbers, both official and blogger-generated, his freshman season was promising. Unfortunately, the numbers aren't everything. Forcier made a ton of bad reads on the zone read and Michigan's rare option plays, one of which Burgeoning Wolverine Star documented in detail. Part of the reason he looked so ineffective on the zone last year was because he pulled the ball out too much.
Worse, the numbers capture Forcier's interceptions but not his massive fumble issues. Everyone remembers Tate gifting Ohio State the first touchdown of last year's game with a basically unforced fumble, and that was a problem all year. Illinois:
The fumbling issue remains a problem, though: Forcier was irresponsible with the ball and coughed it up twice, once on a QB draw he made a poor read on. Michigan lost one, causing everyone to turn the TV off. Hopefully this is a major point of emphasis in the offseason; Forcier can't be as careless with the ball going forward or the offense is never going to get off the ground.
The big downer was the fumble, which was a huge error on Forcier's part but also an understandable one since Purdue blitzed right into the option and Forcier was not prepared to deal with the corner there. He should have eaten the ball and taken the loss.
Robinson chipped in his share of mind-bending fumbles but Forcier, more than anyone else, was responsible for Michigan's crippling 13 fumbles lost.
But as training camp progressed, the Forcier vibe got better. Rodriguez:
"I've had quite a few talks with Tate and some of the other guys and said if you're a true competitor, you'll respond to it," Rodriguez said. "So far he has. He's responded … he's not sulking and laying back. He's working his way back and trying to prove himself."
"Obviously he went through some adversity there with Troy's comments and the wings and all that stuff you guys know about." He's worked hard to prove himself, and show that he wants to be the team's quarterback. "I'm definitely gaining a lot of respect back for Tate," as are a lot of others.
With transfer and ineligibility rumors quashed and fitness levels approaching something the coaches consider reasonable, Forcier has bounced back and finds himself in position to play. Rivals has taken to using its insiders to talk him up like whoah, and while I don't share the point of view on offer there*, especially the lack of confidence in Robinson, it seems like his time with the third team is at an end. As I've asserted a thousand times before, the two sophomores are so different that Michigan has reason to play both, and can reasonably hope the platoon is greater than the sum of its parts.
What can we expect from Forcier's sophomore year? Beware linear projections. Way back in December, Ace took a look at a subset of those true freshman starters in the chart above and compared their sophomore performance to their freshman years. He found that sophomores improved their average yards per attempt by a full yard, completion percentage 5.5 points, and touchdowns by five. If you take those improvements and apply them to Forcier's freshman year you get ridiculous results: 65% completions, 8.5 yards per attempt, 20 touchdowns, 10 interceptions, and the #12 passer efficiency rating in the country.
That's totally not going to happen. Ace took a bunch of really terrible QBs who became decent to good and applied that transition to a decent quarterback, resulting in a projection that says Forcier will be the greatest sophomore QB of the past ten years, and by some margin: only Chris Leak's sophomore year rating of 145 is anywhere close to Forcier's projected 151. More realistically, the hope is for Forcier to cut down on the crippling turnovers by a third, add some more touchdowns, merely maintain his YPA—only Chris Leak significantly exceeded Forcier's freshman YPA as a sophomore—and add a point or two to completion percentage. Forcier doesn't have a long way to go to be a good quarterback, but that means his improvement in all things other than holding on to the damn ball will be incremental.
*(Chances there's some serious fuddy-duddy-ism going on there: high.)
And then after all that there's Devin Gardner. Gardner just came in for an extensive recruiting profile last week, so I won't rehash that when virtually nothing has changed in the interim. The executive summary: massive upside, raw, needs serious work on his throwing motion. I've also made my opinion on the redshirt issue clear:
Should have the luxury of redshirting with Denard's emergence into a viable option. Given Rodriguez's statements on the matter…
There is also freshman Devin Gardner, but Rodriguez said he wouldn't burn Gardner's redshirt if it was for a couple of plays a game.
…you'll probably see him on the bench unless both sophomores struggle. After that it's kind of hard to see him unseating an established junior, but they'll mix him in when given the opportunity; a lot of people have claimed he's going to be the starter as early as 2011, but I think he'll have to wait until he's a redshirt junior, at which point he should be Awesome Devin through and through.
Rich Rodriguez is not of a similar mind. He told the media Monday that Gardner was on the depth chart and would play. I'm still hoping that the two sophomores play well enough to keep him on the bench, if not immediately then by the time the Big Ten season rolls around, at which point Gardner can come down with a strained whatever and get that year of eligibility back.


text:
Fiercely, the heat rages on as the stand for humanistic liberty gathers universal momentum. The quest for freedom from the yoke of theological programming in a world that's been under the stronghold of organized religion for millennia of years now bravely enters the verge of extensive advancement all around the globe. Thanks to the frontier of rational gospels, mounting from the new crusade of Atheists, and audaciously undressing the blatancy of the greatest lies of all times to the world in its raw nudity.
The velocity of change in faith can be best seen in the upsurge of interest in Atheism in recent times. This progressive surge is a clear pointer to the gradual revolution that's now reshaping religious thinking of the populace in all corners of the world. Several people from different walks of life are now coming to terms with the reality that, taking a stand for lucid reasoning is much more comforting than revelling in the dreamy realms of fantasy and delusion, especially in our modern age.
For the first time in the history of humankind, the power of rationality and reason is increasingly weighing down the sustained spread of doctrinaire evangelism. From every indication, it appears people are rapidly straying away from the misfortune of dogmatic belief and now coming into the path of reality based on reason. The unrelenting spread of the age-old theology of fallacies and of strange superstitions is systematically facing considerable resistance all around the globe. And more than ever before, the touchstone of reality and logical insight into the fallacy of religion is fast signalling the inevitable end of dogmatic faith and the theology of fictionalized gods.
To a greater extent, the resolute stand of the larger corporate group of Atheists, Freethinkers, and Secular Humanists to defend the truth in an era of universal deceits, along with their rational audacity for denying illogical gods fashioned by men for the purpose of power and lucrative profits is now reshaping a new world attitude towards dogmatic faith, as more and more people are progressively becoming rational than being religious. Believe it or not, the dominant authority of religion is as never before in danger of losing significant patronage in their con trade, most especially within the enclave of its greenest zones in Africa.
The deceit to turn human judgment into divine command is the hit in the highest point of all spurious impositions that makes religion the most dreadful scam the world has ever known. The age-old misdeed of theologians, self-styled prophets and professional preachers is an appalling sin against humanity that needs to be denounced in compelling terms. As P.C. Hodgell once wrote, "That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be."
The heat rages on, as the validity of our dissenting stand against the era of universal deceit gathers inspiring momentum all around the globe.
Your friend in reason
Adebowale Ojowuro
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