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The Shining is one of the stories that stick with you – for a really long time.
I'm talking about the book and the movie here – which are two entirely different entities.
Stephen King has famously went on the record saying he hates the movie adaptation of his source novel. I'm going to go on the record and I say I love them both.
King has said he doesn't find the movie scary. Even today, decades after I first saw it, The Shining is one of the few films that still manages to scare me.
The book is equally terrifying.
Like a lot of King's work, The Shining leaves a lasting impression on the reader.Read more here


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Harvard Business Review Continues To Innovate On The eBook Front; Offers 'Shared Pricing' On Recent Publication
from the don't-bogart-that-info dept
Recently we ran a post discussing Harvard Business Review's decision to go DRM-free and platform independent. The author behind the original post, Joshua Gans, suggested that HBR's ebook policy could open it up to more innovative offerings that rewarded both the publisher and the authors for selling their books through HBR:
I have my own eBook coming out with HBR Press in a very short time. I'd love it to be the case that they decided to offer the book on their site with an explicit 'sharing' option. For instance, the normal 'don't share' this book might cost the same as Amazon while the 'sharing' option may be somewhat higher but would say allow you to assign 'ownership' of the book to another person as well.Gans' book, "Information Wants to be Shared," is out, and true to his word (and the title), there's a sharing option. It's a good idea, but one that is easier said than done. Fortunately, HBR was up for the challenge:
Now the first, snarky remark somebody makes when you release a book about sharing information is that it is kind of hard to share eBooks...Nonetheless, I believe it was very important to take that challenge head on and, as it turned out, the folks at Harvard Business Review Press were more than agreeable to some experimentation.Obviously, once you've taken DRM and platform dependence out of the picture, sharing can become too easy, so to speak. And while Barnes & Noble and Amazon have certain books "lending enabled," the "lending" is done in the most literal (pretty much "physical") sense, with the copy vanishing from one device and appearing on the lendee's. Gans was looking for something that split the difference between "sharing" and "recommending" which would make it easier for those on the receiving end to pick up a "no strings attached" copy of their own. Selling through HBR made the sharing part easier, but setting a price was a bit trickier, leading to this compromise:
The idea was that when a reader recommends a book to someone else they are performing an extremely valuable service to authors/publishers. The problem is that, while with physical books, lending between friends can perform that service, trying the same thing for eBooks makes a mockery of the technology.
So here is the experiment they are running. If you buy my book (the price is $4.99) from HBR directly (which is DRM free and multi-format so it can be read on any device) or if you buy it from Amazon, Apple, B&N etc, you can flip to the last page of the book. You will see there a coupon. If you send that coupon to a friend, they can download the book from HBR (and HBR only) for just $0.99 (in its multi-format DRM free form).The lowered price should make the "second-hand" purchase a no-brainer, especially if the coupon is sent their way by someone whose opinion they respect. The advantage for Gans (and HBR) lies in the potential addition to readership and the data collected during the experiment. But even if it turns into a publisher's worst nightmare, there's still plenty to like about it.
Will this work? It is hard to know. HBR will keep stats on this and hopefully I can share them in the future. Are there risks? Absolutely. All my readers could form a collective and potentially buy one copy for $4.99 and then a million for $0.99. A disaster! Actually, no that sounds pretty darn good to me. (I won't speak for my publisher).As Gans notes, he'll be tracking the results with interest, and hopefully HBR will let him share the data. As the ebook field continues to grow, any information on pricing experiments will be very useful for up-and-coming writers.

subset: commoncrawl


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Edward Pentin began reporting on the Pope and the Vatican with Vatican Radio before moving on to become the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Register. He has also reported on the Holy See and the Catholic Church for a number of other publications including Newsweek, Newsmax, Zenit, The Catholic Herald, and The Holy Land Review, a Franciscan publication specializing in the Church and the Middle East. Edward is the author of "The Rigging of a Vatican Synod? An Investigation into Alleged Manipulation at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family", published by Ignatius Press. Follow him on Twitter @edwardpentin
Preparations to ready the Sistine Chapel are nearing completion in time for the conclave to begin on Tuesday.
Restorers, electricians, mechanics, carpenters, seamstresses, assemblers, electronic technicians and other labourers have been hard at work since Tuesday, fitting two stoves and a chimney to burn the ballots and reveal the election results (white smoke = pope elected; black smoke no result). Earlier today, firemen installed the chimney on the roof of the Sistine Chapel, from which the world will be able to see the smoke's color.
Carpenters have laid an elevated floor in the Chapel to create a uniform area to work and walk on, and to protect the original mosaic paving. Meanwhile, seamstresses have been sewing together lengths of cloth to create table covers.
Around the altar, 115 cherry wood chairs have been put in place, each engraved with the name of the cardinal who will occupy it, with 12 wooden tables covered in beige and bordeaux fabric where the cardinals will prepare their ballots. They will cast their votes in front of Michelangelo's fresco of "The Last Judgment" on the wall of the altar.
The Vatican says that after the chimney is installed, it will be submitted to a series of tests using chemicals to emit a yellow smoke so as not to confuse the increased number of passers-by in St. Peter's Square.
The chimney is just the last piece of the mechanism that will produce the smoke. The two iron stoves it is attached to were installed yesterday.
The first stove (on right in picture) was cast in 1938. It has the dates of the five conclaves it has been used in etched upon it—from the one electing Pius XII in 1939 until the latest, when Cardinal Ratzinger became Benedict XVI in 2005. This older oven is used to burn the balloting papers.
The modern one (pictured, on the left), is equipped with an electronic device and will add the chemicals to produce the black or white smoke indicating the result of the voting until the election occurs.
There are two voting sessions planned for each morning and each afternoon that the Conclave continues.
Besides the Cardinal electors, the only others who will be present in the Sistine Chapel are the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations and Cardinal Prospero Grech, O.S.A., who will preach the second meditation provided for in No. 13 of the Apostolic Constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis" to the Cardinal electors.
A summary from VIS on this morning's Vatican briefing:
Vatican City, 9 March 2013 (VIS) – "The first order of business of the eighth General Congregation, which met yesterday evening and in which 145 cardinals participated, was to vote on the date to begin the Conclave. Cardinal Dean Angelo Sodano, expressing the wishes of all and after having consulted with the Cardinal Carmelengo Tarcisio Bertone, S.D.B., regarding the preparations at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, proposed the date of Tuesday, 12 March. The overwhelming majority immediately voted in agreement," reported Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office. "There was no difference of opinion between the cardinals and the percentage of votes in favour of to those against was around 10 to one. Moreover," Fr. Lombardi added, "the full complement of Cardinal electors was already reached and it was no longer considered necessary to wait further, as they already had time to reflect on their decision."
Fifteen cardinals intervened during the course of the Congregation and two newly arrived cardinals were sworn in, neither of which is a Cardinal elector: Cardinal Miguel Obando Bravo, S.D.B., archbishop emeritus of Managua, Nicaragua, and Cardinal Gaudencio Borbon Rosales, archbishop emeritus of Manila, Philippines.
During the ninth General Congregation that met this morning, the cardinals spoke about moving into the Domus Sanctae Marthae, which will be their residence for the duration of the Conclave. "It was agreed by majority that the move will take place on Tuesday morning, beginning from 7:00am, that is, the same day that the Conclave begins. (This is a change from an earlier announcement saying the cardinals would move in on the eve of the conclave).
A "Pro eligendo Romano Pontifice" Mass will be celebrated by the Cardinal Dean at 10:00am that morning in St. Peter's Square. Rooms were also assigned, by lot, Fr. Lombardi said.
"This morning 17 cardinals intervened, speaking on the same general themes that have been previously reported, including: expectations regarding the new Pope, activities of the Holy See and its Dicasteries, and improving the Curia. In total, there have been 133 interventions in the General Congregations and, keeping in mind those scheduled for Monday, that number will probably reach 150."
At the end of the press conference, the schedule for the sessions of the Conclave was presented:
Tuesday 12 March:
* At 3:45pm, the cardinals will move from the Domus Sanctae Marthae to the Pauline Chapel in the Apostolic Palace.
* At 4:30pm, the cardinals will process from the Pauline Chapel to the Sistine Chapel and, after they have all taken the oath, the Master of Papal Liturgical Celebrations will give the order "Extra omnes" for all those not taking part in the Conclave to leave the Sistine Chapel. The cardinals will listen to a meditation given by Cardinal Grech, concerning the grave duty incumbent on them and thus on the need to act with right intention for the good of the Universal Church, after which they will proceed to the first vote.
* At 7:00pm they will pray Vespers and, at 7:30pm, will return to the Domus Sanctae Marthae.
Wednesday 13 March
* The cardinals will move from the Domus Sanctae Marthae to the Pauline Chapel at 7:45am where, at 8:15am, they will celebrate Mass.
* At 9:30am they will enter the Sistine Chapel, pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and proceed to the voting process.
* Around 12:00pm they will return to the Domus Sanctae Marthae and, after lunch there, will go back to the Sistine Chapel at 4:00pm where they will pray briefly and resume the voting procedure until 7:00pm.
This coming Monday, 11 March, all the auxiliary personnel needed to ensure the smooth operations of the Conclave will take the oath of secrecy and those images will be broadcast by Vatican Television.
Since there are two votes each morning and afternoon, Fr. Lombardi stated that the 'fumata' (smoke signalling the election or non-election of a pontiff) that is produced from the burning of the ballots from those two voting processes could be expected around 12:00pm, in the case of the morning, or 7:00pm, in the case of the evening, unless the first of the two votes produces an election. In such an instance, the "fumata" would obviously take place earlier - probably around 10.30am and 5.30pm, but these are only estimates. (Note that next week, because of DST changes in the U.S. but not in Italy this weekend, Rome time is 5 hours ahead of EST, not 6).
The Director of the Holy See Press Office also recalled the procedure in the case that a pontiff is not elected in the first four days of voting. In such an instance the cardinals will take a pause on the fifth day in order to pray, speak freely among themselves, and listen to a brief exhortation given by the senior cardinal in the Order of Deacons. The scrutinies will proceed in a similar fashion—two days of voting with every third day taken to pause for prayer—until the 34th vote on the afternoon of the eleventh day. In such an event, No. 75 of the Apostolic Constitution "Universi Dominici Gregis" modified by Benedict XVI's recent "Motu Proprio" would apply, which states: "If the balloting mentioned in Nos. 72, 73, and 74 of the aforementioned Constitution does not result in an election, one day shall be dedicated to prayer, reflection and dialogue; in the successive balloting, observing the order established in No. 74 of the same Constitution, only the two names which received the greatest number of votes in the previous scrutiny, will have passive voice. There can be no waiving of the requirement that, in these ballots too, for a valid election to take place there must be a clear majority of at least two thirds of the votes of the Cardinals present and voting. In these ballots the two names having passive voice do not have active voice." That is, the two candidates with the greatest number of votes will be voted for and cannot themselves cast a vote.
Fr. Lombardi reported that the commission that, under the direction of the Camerlengo, is responsible for sealing the entrances to the areas of the Conclave and carrying out the other operations necessary for the safeguarding of the Conclave was established. It is led by the Cardinal Camerlengo and among its members are the Substitute of the Secretariat of State, the Commandant of the Swiss Guards, members of the Gendarmerie, and notaries.
Finally he reported that the Pope's Fisherman's Ring—which exists in two forms, the ring itself and as a stamp used to seal documents—as well as two stamps—a larger and a smaller one—and the master lead seal of the pontificate were all destroyed, the images scratched out in the form of a cross to render them useless. The next Pope's ring will bear the same image of Peter casting his net but, naturally, will have the new pontiff's name inscribed above the image.
It was also communicated that tomorrow, Sunday, 10 March, various cardinals will celebrate Mass at their titular churches, inviting the faithful to pray for the Church and for the election of the new pontiff.
As any Traditionalist, I wondered what type of Pope we have in Francis l. I sensed a great dissapointment in his election. Even though I knew nothing about him. Then I read what Sandro Magister said about him, "He is hostile towards the Traditional Mass". I have done my best to defend the Church, to defend the Second Vatican Council, to do battle for the truth. After reading how he views the Traditional Mass, I now only wish to retire to a private life and act as if Vatican ll never happened. Jesus and Mary, I love you, save souls!
Thank you Reverend Mother Mary Angelica for listening to the call from The Lord. It is so good to know there are sources to lead those who want the true teaching of Christ's Tradition, Magisterium and Scriptures. I'd like to name everyone but I don't know everyone so I'll say as I've heard Mother say so often Thank you Jesus, thank you Family. REVNC


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DisplayLink Releases LGPL USB Graphics Code 61
iso writes "USB graphics should be coming to Linux soon: DisplayLink has released an LGPL library that talks to one of its graphics chips over a USB connection. DisplayLink aren't one of the big guys in graphics, but it's always nice to see a hardware manufacturer go the open source route. Now, when can I get one of these touchscreen MIMOs on my Linux HTPC?"


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defensive backs
Hello: Greg Jackson, Defensive Backs
As mentioned yesterday, both Steve Lorenz($) and Sam Webb($) are reporting that 49ers DBs coach Greg Jackson will take the same role at Michigan.
Jackson is an LSU grad who spent a dozen years in the NFL as a safety after going in the third round of the 1989 NFL draft. A few years after his retirement he took up coaching at various small colleges, bouncing from Idaho to ULM to Tulane, before getting a break and joining Wisconsin in 2010. When Harbaugh went to the 49ers, Jackson got the DBs job despite no previous NFL or Harbaugh experience (unless you count some time spent together as players with the Chargers).
While it's hard to suss out Jackson's impact independent of the team-wide renaissance Harbaugh brought to San Francisco, and harder still to suss out the influence of the defensive backs versus pass rush in general passing statistics, Football Outsiders provides specific enough stats to take a stab at it:
|Pass DVOA
|Adj Sack Rate
|Line Yards
|Open Field Yards
|San Francisco
|San Francisco
|San Francisco
|San Francisco
|San Francisco
Pass DVOA is Football Outsiders catch-all efficiency stat applied to just passing plays. Adjusted Sack Rate is FO adjusting raw sacks by adding grounding penalties and adjusting for down, distance, passing attempts, and opponent.
Line Yards heavily weight the first few yards of a carry and discount yards from 5 on and are used to get an idea of who is winning the battle at the line of scrimmage; Open Field Yards is a ranking of yards gained after the back gets ten.
So. San Francisco's pass defense was consistently very good despite being unable to get to the passer. Their run defense slid towards very bad but maintained elite production from the guys tasked with not turning ten yard runs into 50 yard runs. That run ended this year but even so they were still in the top third of the league.
That is a statistically ideal profile for a defensive backs coach. I mean: in 2013 the 49ers were one of the worst teams in the league at getting to the QB and still had a top-ten pass D. And that's without huge amounts of talent. His secondaries were both responsible and opportunistic:
Jackson helped guide the 49ers to the best pass defense in the NFC and the fourth-best in the NFL, in 2012, allowing just 200.2 yards per game. That total is the lowest given up by the 49ers since 1997 (165.4 yards per game). The 49ers secondary also boasted two Pro Bowl selections (S Donte Whitner and S Dashon Goldson) and a First-Team All-Pro (Goldson).
In 2011, the 49ers secondary tallied 22 interceptions, which ranked second among all NFL secondaries. Goldson and CB Carlos Rogers each recorded a career-high six interceptions, and were both selected to the Pro Bowl for the first time in their careers. Rogers was named a starter in Hawaii, while also being selected Second-Team All-Pro. The defense finished the season ranked fourth in the NFL in percentage of pass attempts intercepted (3.9).
The advanced stats do reflect the impact of those interceptions already. I mention that in case anyone is like WHY U NO TAKEAWAYS about last year's D.
With just one year at a major college, Jackson has little track record as a recruiter.
Jackson doesn't have a long track record, but what he's got is stellar, and on the NFL level. His NFL experience as both a player and a coach should help him recruit, and his deep roots in Louisiana as an LSU player and Tulane coach should help him get kids out of a talent-rich area that Michigan has tapped semi-regularly for a while. His SEC background could free DJ Durkin up to hit Ohio, where he's from.
Jackson's got Harbaugh continuity, as well.
It's still coming together. Our previous assumption that John Morton is likely for the WR job is now in question, though. On WTKA this morning Sam mentioned that while he'd heard a bunch of guys were in town to interview he had not heard that Morton was one of them. Since it seems like the only solid piece of information linking Morton to Michigan is a Sacremento Bee article that's now a couple weeks old (one that did nail Tim Drevno), I'm moving him off the board since it seems Dougherty is getting some sort of job.
Sam mentioned Youngstown State DL coach Tom Sims as a possibility, so he's added to the "others" section.
|Tim Drevno
|DJ Durkin
|Jim Harbaugh
|Greg Mattison
|Tyrone Wheatley
|very likely
|Jimmie Dougherty
|very likely
|Greg Jackson
|Roy Manning
|John Baxter
S&C: Kevin Tolbert (lock)
OTHERS: John Morton (WR), Tom Sims (DL).
Michigan has a spot to play with. Harbaugh's Stanford staffs split the OL between the interior line and a TE/OT spot and that looks like a reasonable idea for the ninth and final assistant. The other possibility is another defensive coach, whether it's a CB coach or Manning staying in the secondary and Michigan adding another guy in the front seven like Sims.
Dear Diary is Michigan's Fourth Sport
Via Hail to the Blue in the comments, "The softball team is in action today, tomorrow, and Sunday in Lafayette, LA at the Ragin' Cajun Invitational. Follow @umichsoftball on Twitter for live updates. Couple of tough games against UL-Lafayette today and tomorrow down here."
Pitchers and Catchers! There used to be a day sometime in the late summer every year when I start to get really excited about football. This tingling would progress to a low hum when practices started up, and would be a spinal vibration by the time I'm racing into the stadium for whatever MACrifice we're starting against. I miss that. Last year we were doing the basketball book so August was just a bleary eyed gauntlet, and the year before the season started in Jerryworld. This year I already know that excitement will be damped down by a month's worth of reliving The Horror.
Baseball's version of that is pitchers & catchers reporting. Mack Avenue Kurt:
Pitchers and catchers reporting isn't so much an event, or even a day on the calendar, as it is a metaphor: It is the day that winter's back begins to break; a promise that day follows night.
|M Basketball
|Ice Hockey
|W Basketball
|W All Track Combined
|W Gymnastics
You can't dampen pitchers and catchers day, not when Omar Infante is the rookie you're praying will lead the offense, not you're seeing his back plus Prince Fielder's and your 4th best pitcher's because the expense of being so awesome has passed what awesome can net.
Sorry, this is supposed to be about Michigan not the Tigers. Ah but it is, for it's a lead-in to Raoul's comprehensive preview of Michigan's baseball team. It's still tough for a northern team to be more than a good mid-major in this sport, but Bakich seems to have Michigan heading in that direction.
When baseball is really good (e.g. their 2006 run) they're the fourth sport in these parts. Are they Michigan's true #4 sport? There was a interesting thread this week where the question of that sport's identity was posed by Wolverine Devotee. To that discussion I added the list at right from Michigan's Title IX reporting. Some of those teams (like lacrosse) are benefiting more from ticket sales/TV revenue generated by opponents' fans. I tried to compare where each stands among other universities, but many schools lie their asses off in those reports regarding women's sports revenues, for example West Virginia says their W Track & Field team takes in what Michigan's hockey team does. My guess is this gets them around a Title IX provision but I don't know which. Either way it makes the stats useless.
As for Michigan's fourth sport, I still think it's softball.
My bloody valentine. Sunday there will be a whole bunch of recruits who don't have drivers licenses yet watching the Wisconsin game at Crisler. Next week there will be a large and star-heavy group of those who can drive, and who can also say things like "I'm committing to Michigan," say, for example, if they were suddenly taken by a wave of euphoria that might accompany an effective conference title clinch over a rival. This is not crazy; it has happened before. Go make our football team good, basketball.
FWIW HopeInHoke's diary shows winning the conference from here is possible, but nowhere near a certainty. MSU's only road loss in-conference is to Wisconsin; remember when that was a thing we used to just chalk up to "happens to everyone"? LSA's weekly stats report shows Michigan's superior to an average of remaining opponents in everything but rebounding.
[After the jump: things Marcus Ray et al. say about Michigan's 2014 secondary]
Hokepoints: Point of Attack
Taylor on an island [Upchurch]
Brian forwarded me a mailbag question regarding where Michigan's defense is getting attacked through the air, i.e. are there certain coverage areas that have been particularly weak? It took me most of a day to chart every passing play; the resulting post is rather straightforward. Consider this your bye week from my logorrhea.
Data are here.
What I tracked:
1) Where the ball starts (hash or center). If the tackles lined up inside the hash it was "center"
2) Which zone it was thrown to, on a telephone keypad grid. 1, 4, and 7 are around the numbers to the sideline; 2, 5, and 8 are the area around the opposite hash to the wide side only, and 3, 6, and 9 are down the middle.
If a ball was on the line I always erred to the zone closest to the quarterback. This makes sense if you imagine a player covering Zone 6 will be responsible for carrying a player through that zone, and would be in better position to defend that pass than a guy over him.
3) Which side (strong or weak) of the defense. I noted "Strong" as wherever the SAM lined up in 4-3 sets and where Countess lined up in nickel sets. Once or twice this conflicted with the offense but it's better this way for identifying which players are being targeted.
Weakside/boundary players, usually: R.Taylor, Wilson, Ross/Bolden, Beyer (as WDE) on nickel, Clark on 4-3.
Strongside/field players, usually: Countess, C.Gordon, Beyer (as SAM) on 4-3, Clark on nickel, T.Gordon, Morgan/Bolden, Stribling/Hollowell/Lewis/Avery.
Sacks, throwaways, scrambles, and other such events that took the emphasis on coverage were excised. I couldn't reward those things which occurred because coverage was good enough to make them happen so keep that in mind as you read.
Hokepoints: Charting Defensive Rotation
Wot it sez up dere^. Despite the blowout nature we got a good look last Saturday at the various positions that Michigan will rotate this season. So I charted who was in at what spot for every play. The results (link to Google doc):
Here's your starting defense, with everybody in their base 4-3 under spots. I want to self-congratulate the MGoStaff for nailing the starting lineup in HTTV with the exception of free safety, since Avery, though out of the lineup, was nominally ahead of Wilson on the depth chart.
The corners lined up to the field or boundary; the line was usually aligned to the formation but then CMU usually aligned to the boundary anyway. The safeties were always lined up to the formation. They split who ended up the deeper guy; usually it was the field guy, and usually that was Wilson.
There was heavy rotation in the front four, an almost even three-man rotation in the linebackers, and the secondary stayed put until it was time to empty the bench. It was rotation, not platooning; guys would go in for a certain number of plays then come out. I charted 44 non-garbage (before 14:59 of the 3rd quarter) plays; rotations as follows:
[Jump for breakdown, nickel, garbage time]
Michigan Museday If the Dudes Get Dinged: DBs
Starting to look more and more like Sgt. Pepper's. Less depressing now. Legend*
♪ Oho a good secondary is a-comin' down the street
Oh please let it be for real
Oho the best safety tandem since like '80-something!
I wish I wish I knew that it could be.
I've got an FS and two tiny backs from Cass Tech
I've got safety-like safeties from Ohio
I've even got a two-deep filled with juniors!
And Curtice Clay out near Toledo sent a bona fide star!
Oho a good defensive backfield is a-comin' down the street
Don't look now but "shut-down" might apply to our J.T.!
Oho a good secondary is a-comin' down the street
And M-Robinson might finally be ready!
I'm particularly excited for Blake Countess
He's everything a sophomore phenom ought to be.
When minus every Gibson from this unit,
Well they could be (yes they could be) yes you're right they surely could be…
Something special (not a Woodson, but perhaps Leon-like special)
Yes we could have… something special… at D.B.!!! ♫
Also: Do do do do do do do do the worst is over.
This is Part IV of the thing predicting the reaction and drop-off if any 2012 starter goes down. Actually I wasn't sure I wanted to complete this series. I did the offense and Toussaint got a DUI; I did the DEs and Frank Clark got charged for stealing a laptop; I did the linebackers and it leaked that Antonio Poole's injury is at least Fall Camp-missing worthy. And well, before I could nix the series and wipe it from the interwebs Terrence Talbott preemptively took the bullet for the DBs, so I guess we can have that now. But if you folks want special teams I'm going to need written confirmation that Hagerup/Gibbons/Wile have come nowhere near the M on the Diag.
These days it's best to think of defensive back as five positions. To demonstrate, here's a preview chart from a Museday in the works (click enhances largetation):
To coaches this is "duh" but the more receivers the offense puts out there, the more DBs the defense counters with. While I mean to eventually include how teams played Michigan as well, and I won't make the mistake of treating anything GERG did as canon unless it involves hair product, the preliminary chart meshes with what coaches tell me about matching personnel. The Shafer line suggests heavy nickel use is more the norm while the outlier of 2009 stands as a reminder of what happens to those who mock the need for corner depth. This is important to us because the teams we play use 3-receiver sets more often than they used to, and this chart (made from UFRs so it's not perfect) says Mattison's defense used almost exactly as many five-DB sets as the 2010 defense, a base 3-3-5! Typical shotgun personnel is RB, 1TE, and 3WR; that is the formation we will face the most vs. every team but Air Force (Triple-Option) and Iowa (the I is for ISO).
Quickly again. Photos are all by Upchurch unless otherwise noted. Ratings are given in Saturn-punting Zoltans. Think of them like stars except more heavenly. Five is an all-conference-type player (Denard to Kovacs); four is a guy you'd call "solid" (RVB to Demens); three is an average B1G player (Morgan to Hawthorne); two is a guy with a big hole in his game (freshman Kovacs); one is trouble with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, and that stands for Poole.
Strong Safety:
Backups: Marvin Robinson .5, Floyd Simmons , Allen Gant ???, various FS
In case of emergency: Was it only a few years ago we were really down about having an emergency redshirt freshman with questionable athleticism thrust into the starting lineup? I re-watched what portions of the Indiana 2009 game are left on the youtubes yesterday to confirm he wasn't a guy you'd think would be getting five Saturn-punting Zoltans; those Zoltans now come confirmed by opponents. To imagine where we might be without him means figuring out what we have now in Marvin Robinson. He was one of those recruits who blew up early in his high school career thanks to an early growth spurt then fell down the rankings as other kids his age caught up. Frankly after similar tweeners like Burgess/Mouton/S. Brown/I. Bell became various types of linebacker I'm excited to see one of these dudes actually stick at safety.
M-Rob probably won't hit his half-SHIRTLESS recruiting expectations, but half-way through his Michigan career the possibility is at least still intact. It's weird to still be relying on his recruiting profile this far into a high-interest career; the off-campus incident may at least alleviate questions of whether the talent was overvalued. Technical problems evident in previous springs were still present but much reduced over a strong spring, and after several years of tutelage under the best, what we probably have is something between the anti-Kovacs and Ernest Shazor. He's a perfect "bandit" safety in a 3-3-5, and that's kind of what we've been doing with Kovacs. Lacking Kovacsian instincts he'll be a downgrade, but he'll make up parts of that with superior athleticism.
In case of dire emergency: Allen Gant may be as ready to go later this year as anyone else of his class, including Kalis. He's a big guy for a freshman, comes with as many work ethic and weight room credentials as Mike Martin did, and has the bloodlines. You'd usually redshirt a guy like this since safety is a tough position to learn, but there are two other safeties in his class and Dymonte Thomas is on the way. Then again he may not bring any more right now than 5th year senior Floyd Simmons, a former walk-on who has been on special teams a lot. He has never made it higher than the two-deep even when a hater god put most of that depth chart on the Never Forget banner. That might be because he was a Spinner (backing up Stevie Brown) at the time. You should also know he has three forced fumbles on kickoffs, suggesting he shares some of T.Gordon's weird fumble-causing voodoo. He's the same size as Kovacs (we have multiple pics of them standing together) and foremost a run defender—his route to regular playing time would be in a platoon situation with M-Rob or one of the free safety types.
Since the likely backups at free safety are pretty much free safeties (Furman's calling card is speed; Jarrod Wilson is the proverbial "rangy" player), a disaster at strong safety is as likely to make one of them a starter as Gant. In such a scenario Thomas Gordon takes on more of the run stopping duties and Furman/Wilson drawn in as an entirely nominal "strong" safety.
Free Safety
Safety: home of the scrumptious abdomen HT M&B
Backups: Josh Furman , Jarrod Wilson .5, Jeremy Clark ???, various SS or nickels
In case of emergency: This is where things get more interesting. After letting us spend years praying for the next Ed Reed to appear as a 5-star Campbellian Hero with angel wings (and trying to believe the other Gordon was that) Thomas Gordon spent 2011 doing his best impersonation of Brandent Englemon. It was like coming back from trying to sleep around New York and finding the girl next door, if the girl next door was once called "Prison Abs" and had a weird (spectacular) ability to cause game-changing turnovers by waving his hands at people.
If we lose him, we hope this has all been some giant lead-up to the Superhero reveal scene. Potential heroes begin with Josh Furman. Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a … dammit I just looked up at the damn picture again. Due to a spurious arrest over the summer (he was innocent, the result of a misunderstanding, but suspended while it got sorted out) Furman missed precious practice time. At last sight he still needed to leap a few levels in a single bound to be ready for Big Ten play. The beneficiary of Furman's misfortune was early enrollee Jarrod Wilson, who is safety-shaped and safety-like and is actually a safety, which I realize is kind of a novelty around here since Jamar Adams graduated. He made some freshman mistakes along with mostly solid play and is probably the first to see playing time among his classmates, especially early.
In case of dire emergency: The position that inspired the BLANK-Hating God meme was free safety. This was in 2005 when Michigan was forced to burn the redshirt of Brandon Harrison (and in turn burn down a good part of the 2009 secondary).
Today there's at least Furman/Wilson, one or both of whom should be plausible by mid-season. The other freshman is Jeremy Clark, a big guy whose grayshirt was upgraded to full-ride as his star rose, but who probably needs some time to develop. Clark's future is at strong safety, but he's a tweener. While the talent atop the depth chart is mostly specialized, Mattison does want the safeties to eventually be interchangeable (the better to screw up quarterback reads my dear) and an injury plague at one safety spot might trigger that.
Boundary Corner:
Center: from the Ernie Harwell Sports Collection, courtesy of the Freep
Backups: Courtney Avery , Tamani Carter , Raymon Taylor other CBs
In case of emergency: The depth recovery program managed to get a bunch of little corners, however since Michigan makes a distinction between "Field" and "Boundary" we may as well try to see where the early returns fit. The former can supposedly sacrifice some size for coverage ability/athleticism. The latter has less area to cover, is more involved in run support since he's generally on the weak side of the formation (offenses typically align to the field since it gives them more room to string out the run defense), and ends up matched with other teams' big receivers on an island. At this last year Floyd was spectacular. A list of guys he covered who are now in the NFL:
Receiver 2011 Team NFL Team Rnd-Overall Catches Yards TDs Michael Floyd ND Cardinals 1-13 13 159 0 A.J. Jenkins Illini 49ers 1-30 4 103 0 DeVier Posey OSU Texans 5-68 3 58 1 B.J. Cunningham MSU Dolphins 6-183 4 39 0 Marvin McNutt Iowa Eagles 6-194 9 101 0 Jeremy Ebert NW Patriots 7-235 11 86 0 Jordan White WMU Jets 7-244 12 119 0 *******Total******* - - 56 665 1 *****Average****** - - 8.0 95.0 0.1
*VT's Danny Coale and MSU's Keyshawn Martin were also drafted this year, but Floyd was primarily covering Jarrett Boykin and BJ Cunningham, respectively, in those games. Boykin had 4 catches for 30 yards and 0 TD; he went undrafted and unsigned.
The lack of touchdowns from seven leaping touchdown machines earns Floyd that 4th star. DeVier Posey did demonstrate the hole in Floyd's game—he can't keep up with the elite athletes—and better passes from Braxton Miller easily could have added two TDs and 120 yards to DeVier's single day of 2011 eligibility. That guy, at least, is gone, as are the rest of the Big Ten's 2011 embarrassment of WR riches. Of those who remain on our schedule, Keenan Davis (Iowa) might be a Posey-like (read: bad) matchup, however I would trust him against Northwestern's (now-eligible) Kyle Prater.
Which brings me to the point: there isn't another Floyd on the roster. Even in the hilariously height-overestimating world of college football rosters, J.T. is the only CB who the FAKErs thought could even plausibly be listed at 6'0.
Talbott was the guy making noise to be the #1 backup to Floyd during spring ball, but since he's gone that means a ding to J.T. puts us back in the midget bucket. I think what happens is Courtney Avery reprises his role as starting corner, which this being his junior year I think we can now get past the original excitement of his one good game and the bitterness of that tackle he missed against Iowa, and remember he ended the Ohio State counter. Avery has been ahead of Talbott his whole career thus far, despite being a quarterback until fall practice of his freshman year, so while Floyd to Avery is a downgrade, I don't think the effect of losing the second Talbott will be felt unless we get to…
In case of dire emergency: This is still a work in progress. Of last year's freshmen Tamani Carter is the biggest—that's why he was listed with the safeties in the first place. He's been hanging out on safety depth charts due to hips that do not fluid swivel or whatever they call a cornerback nowadays who's not twitchy enough, and his forte is supposedly the jump-ball. This is why I've mentally moved Carter to boundary since Talbott's departure. Magnus says he likes Carter in a role where he sits out in the flat, and he missed spring practices, so you're hoping he can just be a nickel back and not have to play significant snaps on the island. Then there's Ramon Taylor. He dreamed of going to Michigan, and that came true when Hoke was putting together a last-minute class and wondered, as we all had, what Indiana was doing with a 4-star...yoink. He's another mite who is listed now at 183 (up from 167 last year), a plausible weight for a Big Ten cornerback. He's also listed at 5'10 which he's not. But he likes to hit and also doesn't have Robot Hips. As a recruit he drew a comparison to a shorter James Rogers; make of that what you will but I say it suggests he fits into Rogers's position. Taylor played early last year (that photo's from EMU), mostly at nickel, and I think he too is destined to be that more than either outer corner spot.
Blake Countess isn't huge, and you want your better guy at the field, but this distinction can be overstated. In the event of an Avery-Floyd injury combo, Michigan will probably lean on Countess to cover the other team's best receiver and whichever mini Cass Tech kid is most ready will be in a better position to start than either of the young nickelbacks. Next year the cavalry arrives.
Field Corner:
Heiko took the one of Hollowell (24)
Backups: Delonte Hollowell .5, Terry Richardson , other CBs
In case of emergency: This spot is young. They're also not-big. What they lack in being young and non-big however, they make up for by being "good" and "extant." That begins with Countess, whom I gave 4 stars because that was the level he was playing at (about equal with Floyd) by the end of last year. The upside is tantalizing for us now, though it remains upside. Making Woolfolk obsolete last year was one hell of a statement, and it's because of that entrance that I'm more filled with trepidation over losing Blake than I reasonably should be.
The reason not to be in total fear is the little we've seen and heard about the other remaining corners from his class (Greg Brown has joined the banner on top of this post) is that they're good, in the way little mite corners are supposedly good everywhere else but here because seriously we have been burned on this so many times.
Every year I involuntarily pick a guy on the team nobody's talking about to get overly excited about for no reason, and this year that somebody is Delonte Hollowell. That's him in the Nebraska photo above and the reason he was playing on special teams against Nebraska when we had all sorts of other corners eating eligibility is he played his way out of a redshirt. I don't yet know what's Hoke's baseline for doing such a thing, however either the coaches are so sure they will be able to find plenty of great CBs to fill the 2015 depth chart (which their 2013 class seems to suggest they were right), or more likely, Hollowell met some standard of what he needs to do to play.
That standard can be few other things than "is 2nd on the depth chart" and there my reasoning stands. Courtney Avery would be here if something happens early I guess. I think you'll be seeing Hollowell spelling Countess either way.
In case of dire emergency: Terry Richardson is the mite-iest Cass Tech dust mite yet. He has the power to shrink to the size of a neutrino and hide out among the other atoms that make up a receiver's garments, reappearing in time to make a crucial interception. However being only a handful of planks has its drawbacks, like accidentally passing through the Earth's gravitational field, and Whitley/Howard syndrome. The true freshman comes with high recruiting bona fides, so if you see him jumping up the depth chart we may have another Countess here.
Backups: Ramon Taylor , Tamani Carter .5, other CBs and safeties
In case of emergency: For most teams the nickel corner will replace the SLB (Jake Ryan), though in Michigan's case we seem to pull the Will (Desmond Morgan) just as often. Later in the year that became more usual as Michigan went with an aggressive nickel package featuring a nickelback and Ryan/Beyer/Clark with a hand down (a 5-1-5 look with 4-2-5 personnel that we called Michigan's "Okie."). The nickel will cover the slot, usually has help over the top, and must be there to tackle in space when spread outfits isolate him against the slot or RB. Michigan played a lot of nickel in 2003 (Leon Hall) and 2006 (Brandon Harrison), and it led to some 38-0 scores against various Indiana teams. You'll remember we came out in mostly 4-2-5 personnel against Northwestern last year, but it didn't work; in the second half Jake Ryan was inserted and allowed to terrorize (at this point he dished it out equally to friend and foe). Early in the season T.Gordon and Avery split duties at nickel, and Carvin Johnson was the free safety. This year Avery is again the designated nickel guy, however expect others from the safety and CB corps to rotate in there.
The nominal "other" is Raymon Taylor (see above), who played a good bit last year at this spot. He is small but so was Harrison. You also might as well pencil in RS Freshman Tamani Carter here since his long-term future is at nickel.
In case of dire emergency: Nickel draws from the CB depth charts (and can from the safety ones as well) so if Avery and a backup are hurt there's an endless parade of other guys. You'll see moonlights of most of the backups here regardless, as it's a way to get a young cornerback playing time and tackling experience without exposing to deep responsibility. If The Dude in Section 2 Eating Fat Free Pretzels is tapped, well, so long as the pretzels are fat free and he stayed in a Holiday Inn Express and whatnot. The 2009 depth chart across the secondary really was unprecedented; if it happens again then it is 2009 and we can all go punch each other in the dong.
* Never Forget Legend (years in parentheses are the last season the guy would have helped had he not left/gone down/whatever).
TOP ROW: T-Wolf (2010), Mike Williams (2011), Boubacar Cissoko (2011), Adrian Witty (2011), Vladimir Emilien (2013), Jared Van Slyke (2011).
SECOND ROW: J.T. Turner (2013), Terrence Talbott (2013), Carvin Johnson (2013), Cullen Christian (2013), Demar Dorsey (2013), Ray Vinopal (2013).
BOTTOM ROW: Greg Brown (2014 or '15), Crying Biff the Wolverine, Donovan Warren (2010), Never Forget Guy.
Preview 2011: Secondary
Previously: The Story.
The existential crisis that was last year's secondary has been the subject of emo rehash and frequently-updated "Never Forget" banners in this space for going on a year now. In mid-August of 2010, Troy Woolfolk did something strange and painful to his ankle and I—and I assume a good chunk of the Michigan fanbase—decided ankle-exploding time was drankin' time. Twitter archived the results; read from the bottom.
The headache I had the next morning did not subside until Greg Mattison was hired.
Woolfolk wasn't going to cure last year's secondary issues by himself but he was going to be a decent returning starter in a secondary without any other than Jordan Kovacs. Without him this section of last year's preview started "What's the point of anything?" because everyone left was either a freshman, walk-on, or JT Floyd.
After a deceptively promising start courtesy of the vast incompetence of Zack Frazer and Notre Dame's backup quarterbacks, the doom took hold. Everyone who saw a snap last year contributed to it but if we have to pick a single moment that best represents Michigan's 2010 secondary it would have to be this:
JT Floyd picking up a –3 against Penn State
That is how Matt McGloin tears you up for 41 points on nine drives. Let's never speak of this again.
While this year's secondary won't bring back memories of Charles Woodson, improvement is almost a given. It could be vast, even. Every contributor returns save James Rogers. Woolfolk is back and healthy, and there's a small horde of freshmen.
If you believe the message board chatter about Tony Gibson's coaching acumen, Curt Mallory is a huge upgrade. My favorite apocryphal story is that when Scot Shafer resigned he told Rodriguez he would take all the blame publicly if Rodriguez admitted to Shafer that Gibson was "the worst secondary coach in the country." Shortly after his resignation, Shafer did pop up in the News stating it was all his fault. Poppycock? Probably, but you can't rule it out.
Things are looking up. They could be okay. Not okay for Michigan, but okay for a mediocre Big Ten defense. They've got a cap—like everywhere on this attrition-wracked team the depth is a little scary. The starters still include a walk-on and the talent level as measured by stars is strictly second-rate. They haven't disproved that on the field, so expectations should be kept in check.
That there are any except doom is pretty cool. Bohemian Crapsody begone.
Rating: 3.
|Corner #1
|Corner #2
|Troy Woolfolk
|Courtney Avery
|JT Floyd
|Tony Anderson
|Terrence Talbott
|Blake Countess
[* = player has taken redshirt. # = walk-on.]
Woolfolk in T-Woolf mode
Unless something very depressing happens in the near future I will not need any power tools this year. Troy Woolfolk is healthy, and while he's probably not going to be All Big Ten he's fast and steady enough to get good reviews a couple of years ago when he split time between safety and corner. There is empirical evidence for this, and how: Woolfolk's absence from the safety spot marked the point the 2009 defense went off a cliff. Michigan went from giving up 23 points per game with Woolfolk at safety to 37 without.
Those reviews have moved from potentially ignorant bloggers to the head coach. Woolfolk was one of three defensive Wolverines to be named a starter by Hoke weeks before the season (Kovacs and Martin were the others) and is conspicuously first when Hoke talks about his corners:
"(Woolfolk is) is a guy who I think, as a senior, has taken some ownership and he's done everything," Michigan coach Brady Hoke. "J.T. is fighting. Courtney Avery is fighting, Terrence Talbott, they're all fighting with each other to see who's going to be the guy."
Mattison joined in as well:
What are your impressions of Troy Woolfolk? "I'm really, really impressed with a senior -- with a new staff, with a new system -- with a guy that comes out every day and says 'I'm going to do what you tell me to do, I'm going to do it how you tell me to do it, and I'm going to try as hard as I can to do it.' ... I think his technique is improving."
That bit at the end about his improving technique is a little ominous. Woolfolk's injury and position switches may leave him vulnerable to Morgan Trent-like deficiencies. The two are similar players: very fast, rangy corners who are tough to beat on a fade but can struggle when opponents are changing direction rapidly. Woolfolk's main advantage over Trent is want-to. Trent spent his senior year raging against the new regime and saw his play suffer. Woolfolk should have no such issues.
Assuming he's healthy, another year to learn the position and get bigger should see him improve on his previous form. There is a nonzero chance his earlier performances were not representative of his ability, but the smart money is on Woolfolk being at least average. It wouldn't be a surprise to see him go at the tail end of next year's NFL draft.
|cover corner
|juuuuust evades the fingertips
|jars the ball free
|abandons zone
|abandons zone
|comes up too hard
|Run Defense?
|pwns a UW guard!
Opposite Woolfolk the battle is on between sophomore Courtney Avery and redshirt junior JT Floyd. The bet here is that Avery wins that battle. Avery drew into the starting lineup last year when Floyd exited with yet another injury and seemed to outplay the guy he was replacing.
What he brings to the table is still up in the air. He was seeing spot duty relieving Floyd and Rogers even before Floyd's injury; he also split time with Terry Talbott when Michigan went to nickel and dime packages. In that role he was erratic. He wasn't good, per se. But in the tire fire that was last year's secondary he showed a little spark. This spark allowed other portions of the tire fire to spew ever more pitch black tar smoke into the observers face, yes. The spark remained.
Here's an erratic UFR that might not mean that much because he's a corner and his playing time was highly variable:
Zone vacancy II.
|Didn't register. Yay?
|The whiff, the zone vacation, etc.
|DNP, I think.
|Two key tackles.
|Gave up the big screen.
|Could have been harsher on him.
It's not great, though a big chunk of his Indiana negative might have been erroneously given. The blogosphere ferociously debated whether a particular frustrating Iowa touchdown was mostly on the head of Kenny Demens or Avery and eventually decided it was kind of both but maybe probably mostly Demens. The UFR still registers Avery as the victim.
Given the circumstances—tire fire—he did well to not get hammered on a consistent basis. Try to judge him as a freshman by comparing him to his classmates: the highly-touted Cullen Christian was a blinking "throw at me" sign whenever he was on the field. Terrance Talbott was clearly behind. His main issue was playing zone coverage too aggressively, vacating his zone as he chased receivers across the field.
His quickness and aggressiveness bodes well. This is just Bowling Green (see also: the brief blip of Ray Vinopal hope) but Michigan hasn't had a corner who's able to recover like this in a while:
Avery's two years younger than Floyd and was healthy through the entirety of last year and spring practice. He played quarterback in high school; nagging injuries scuppered plans to play him both ways as a senior. He was just learning the rudiments of playing corner when he was thrust onto the field last year. Even if Avery and Floyd were close a year ago—something that is generous to Floyd—Avery should improve much faster than his competition. Avery has never seemed to "transparently lack the speed to be a Big Ten cornerback."
With practice buzz generally talking up Avery, it would be a surprise if he was not the starter. If not now, then by the Big Ten season. He should make a big leap forward in year two.
Backups: Extant
The primary backup and presumed nickel/dimeback will be the loser of the Avery/Floyd battle. This preview presumes that will be JT Floyd. Our last glimpses of him were against Penn State, when he turned in the coverage-type substance at the top of this post and a few other howlers. Here's one:
The game before that, it was Floyd who gave up slant after slant on critical third downs against Iowa. Even before that this blog declared his coverage "only brushes up against adequate."
|Run support.
|Poor tackling
|Not victimized.
|Oh my god the slants.
|Awful, awful, awful.
Floyd was so overmatched as a redshirt freshman that Rodriguez and Robinson pulled him off the field, moved Woolfolk from his duties as a fairly effective free safety, and inserted Mike Williams to disastrous effect. Yeah, that could be another symptom of the insanity that ruled decision-making on the D these last few years. But unlike Kenny Demens's debut, Floyd's return to the field didn't make anyone think his removal was a mistake.
As you can see at right, Floyd started off well enough against the incompetent quarterbacks of the nonconference schedule. A number of whiffed tackles and Mouton-like angles against UMass were cause for concern. That concern bloomed, then metastasized in the Big Ten schedule.
|Nate Montana gift
|breaks on to break up
|reads and attacks
|nice tackle
|ain't right
|boxed out by Rudolph
|sucks up on drag
|allows Willis to drag him 15 yards
First he was amongst the many Wolverines who were too confused or too slow to keep those four-yard Indiana routes from becoming eight. While he wasn't a major factor in the Michigan State game, he imploded against Iowa and Penn State.
In context it seems like his relatively benign Michigan State game was because the Spartans had even easier prey elsewhere on the field. And maybe Michigan protected him in favor of that prey. Remember the sinfully easy 41-yard touchdown Cullen Christian yielded? Yeah:
Why the hell is Cullen Christian the guy in man coverage on a receiver running a fly route? Why isn't it Floyd? Christian(-3, cover –3, RPS -2) is smoked crispy as he bites on an out and up gives up the touchdown. Roh was about to hit Cousins but no matter.
After that it was the elevator straight down and the injury. If he gets a lot better this year it's time to take the Gibson chatter seriously.
Anderson, Talbott
If there are injuries, options past the top three are dicey. With Floyd and Woolfolk held out of spring practice the starting cornerbacks were Avery and Tony Anderson, who's one of many walk-ons threatening for playing time. Anderson played ahead of Cullen Christian and Terrance Talbott; Christian transferred soon after. Talbott remains.
The hope is that's motivational or Talbott can accelerate past Anderson's spot on the depth chart as his scholarship-having self surpasses Anderson's walk-on ceiling. Talbott got sporadic time last year and was okay for a freshman. He got lost on zone drops and was a weak tackler, etc. The book on him…
The book on Talbott: short, smart, agile, excellent in coverage but needs a year or two to bulk up for college.
…seemed pretty accurate. He can be a contributor down the road… if he sticks with football. There were widespread rumors Talbott was off the team, by choice, for a period this offseason.
Beyond Talbott it's true freshmen, but at least there's a horde of them. Maryland's Blake Countess arrives with the most hype and should be the biggest threat to play. (Caveat: last year Cullen Christian arrived with the most hype.) Greg Brown [recruiting profile] enrolled early and was decent in the spring game. Those two feature on the first depth chart. Talbott does not.
The rest of the n00bs: Raymon Taylor [recruiting profile] is speedy, might not have the greatest change of direction, and got a fourth star from Rivals. Delonte Hollowell [recruiting profile] is yet another smurfy Cass Tech corner who can't be put on outside receivers; he'll probably have to wait for time to open up at nickelback. He is rooting hard for Thomas Gordon to win the safety job opposite Kovacs. Finally, Tamani Carter [recruiting profile] is probably a safety; as a guy Michigan hijacked from Minnesota it will be a bad callback to Ray Vinopal if he doesn't redshirt.
That's five dudes instead of three; if it turns out some of the guys ahead of them on the depth chart can't play the one who emerges as a contributor will probably be better than Talbott and Avery were last year.
Rating: 2.5
|Free Safety
|Strong Safety
|Jordan Kovacs
|Thomas Gordon
|Marvin Robinson
|Carvin Johnson
|Josh Furman
[* = player has taken redshirt. # = walk-on, or former walk-on]
Is it possible that last year's Michigan defense actually one-upped the safety horror on display in 2009? Yes. It was actually worse than even the situation that gave rise to this in last year's preview:
Their [Kovacs and Mike Williams's] powers combined in episodes like "Iowa tight ends are open by 15 yards," "We don't have a guy in the deep middle on third and twenty four," and "What would Juice Williams be like if he was an unstoppable 500-foot-tall robot?"
While the situation two years ago was never good it didn't drop off a cliff until Michigan moved Troy Woolfolk to corner. First Mike Williams and then Jordan Kovacs leisurely escorted opponents into the endzone for the remainder of the year, sure. But last year Michigan started out with this…
…and then pulled a similar switch by moving Cam Gordon to spur and inserting true freshman two-star Ray Vinopal. Vinopal wasn't quite as likely to take a terrible angle. Instead he was a 160-pound object in the way of Wisconsin's various house-sized Katamaris.
Artist's impression of Vinopal tackling Montee Ball
He also took some terrible angles. Kovacs was better but still kind of eh—he has not yet found that Iowa zen where the slow small white guy is always in the right place—and Michigan never got competent play from the other spot. Survey says increase doom panic victory 2010. And there was much rejoicing.
It can't be that bad again, right? I'm seriously asking this. Please, someone tell me it can't be that bad again. If no one else is willing to stand in front of that howitzer I guess it's up to me: they can't be that bad again.
|blasted all over
|blown back
|tiny linebacker
|fends off the RT
|shoots the gap
|instant tackle on WR
|blitzing untouched
|tackles in the backfield
|sacks Tolzien
|leaking out into the flat
|capable zone coverage
|almost a 95-yard Rick Six
|not so smrt
|inexplicably slows up
It was already a foregone conclusion, but Brady Hoke explicitly confirmed that Jordan Kovacs will start for a third year this fall. He did so almost before anyone asked. The man once mistaken for Matt Cavanaugh by Greg Robinson is on track to becoming the first four-year starter at safety since
Jamar Adams [Ed-M: Marcus Ray ('95-'98). Adams's RS Fr year was Shazor/Mundy]
Unfortunately, thanks to the defensive implosion of the last three years this does not necessarily mean he is any good. Whether he is or not is a subject of heated debate wherever Michigan's starting secondary is discussed. His freshman year he was solid as a box safety. His instincts and tackling made him an effective force player and blitzer. Then the whole Woolfolk-to-corner thing happened and he got switched into a deep half role. To say he struggled was an understatement. Some UFR comments from that portion of his freshman year:
Just can't play a deep half.
Again burned as a deep half safety.
Enormous bust #3.
So that didn't go so well.
Last year Michigan tried to move him back into the box by switching to a 3-3-5 in which he was the "bandit" (a strong safety that spends his time on or near the LOS), but then they spent a lot of time in a two deep shell that saw Kovacs's deep limitations tested again. He did not pass with flying colors but thanks to his awareness and solid tackling was not the flaming dump truck the rest of the secondary was. It's not a coincidence that the new coaching staff has been talking him up. Hoke:
"He's a guy that can get things lined up for you, and he's a tough guy, and he will go attack the football," Hoke said of the former walk-on. "He has a great deal of pride in his performance on a daily basis. He's one of those guys who has an urgency about getting to the football. I'm pleased with what he's done to this point. I would guess that he won't take a step backward."
Kovacs did improve last year, and significantly. Kovacs went from deep half dead meat to "the king of moderate-moderate-0". In three different games (ND, BGSU, and Indiana) he had plusses that exactly offset his minuses; in four more (UConn, UMass, Iowa, and Penn State) he was just above or below breaking even. He was excellent against MSU…
…may have had his best game at Michigan. He's so reliable; on a day when Michigan couldn't find a tackle it didn't want to miss, Kovacs twice dragged down TEs in space to boot MSU off the field. Only one counted, unfortunately.
…but he broke down late, picking up negative days against Illinois, Purdue, and Wisconsin.
Even so, his season was a step forward from obvious liability to "certainly not a liability." Even if he's a walk-on and even if he's obviously small and slow, he should continue improving. He'll be a little less small and slow with another year of conditioning. Being in a coherent defensive system should help put him in positions to make plays. His redshirt year was not spent on the team so he's not as close to his ceiling as your average redshirt junior.
He's not going to be Reggie Nelson. That won't keep him from becoming the first Michigan safety you only hate a little tiny bit since Jamar Adams.
Thomas Gordon: prison abs, manages to look badass on last year's D
|sends the house
|makes a solid TFL in some space
|get outside his blocker
|moves up into the gap
|not brandon harrison
|search and destroy
The spot next to Kovacs is second to only weakside linebacker when it comes to mystery on this year's team. One candidate is sophomore Carvin Johnson, who had a plentiful helping of hype early and started in the spring game. The other is redshirt sophomore Thomas Gordon.
These two are familiar with each other since they spent last year duking it out with each other. The twist: they were doing so at Spur; Cam Gordon had locked down free safety. This year they're swapped.
The smaller Gordon has the advantage. He played at nickelback in the spring, swapping with the WLB on passing downs and covering slot receivers. He seemed well-suited for that spot. Moving him to safety signals some discontent with the options there, and since the move practice scuttlebutt has talked him up a bit more than Johnson. When Countdown to Kickoff flagged down DBs coach Curt Mallory he described the situation at safety like this:
It starts with Jordan right now. … He's done a great job, had a good two-a-days. Then we've got some younger guys in there. Thomas Gordon, I've been really pleased with how he's improved. [pause] And then with the two other guys…
That sounds like Johnson had eleven days to displace Gordon for Western Michigan. As of publication there's been no indication that switch has happened. Gordon was just named a starter by the WMU depth chart.
Gordon's 2010 was abbreviated. He started the season thanks to an injury to Johnson and played pretty well. Particularly impressive was his ability to roar off the edge without pulling a Brandon Harrison by zooming right by the quarterback. Gordon showed a knack for coming in at the fastest possible speed that would allow him to rope the QB to the ground, which accounted for many of his plus plays last year. Here's a good one against Notre Dame:
Outside of that it was minus half points here and there for poor coverage or missed tackles. He and Johnson displayed a knack for finishing his day with around three positive points and two negative ones. The spur was not a high-impact position either way last year until Cam Gordon switched to it and promptly got himself lost on flat zones he'd never been asked to play before.
Like Avery above, Gordon's ability to not be the most spectacularly flaming tire is encouraging. He came in with bler recruiting rankings but—again like Avery—he was a high school quarterback who got a Michigan camp offer and then did not play in his high school's secondary because of injury. He's beaten out some actual scholarship players and drawn praise from the coaches for his play. When I clipped something he did last year it was usually something positive.
I have the same optimism about this Johnson/Gordon combo that I had last year. This, of course, terrifies me. It seems unnatural to think an unproven Michigan safety could be competent. I like Gordon's agility and tackling, though, and while there will be rough spots early by midseason he should settle into that midlevel safety range like Englemon or Barringer.
Carvin Johnson does not like losing.
Curt Mallory wants his safeties to be interchangeable, so this will probably be a situation like offensive line where there's a line behind the starters and whoever the top backup is will come off the bench no matter who exits. That is likely to be Carvin Johnson. Johnson shouldn't feel too down: what small tea leaves we've gotten from the defense suggest he will be the first defensive back off the bench when Michigan goes nickel—in the Saturday punting demo he was on the field plenty as Thomas Gordon played nickelback in Michigan's third down package.
His season was even more abbreviated than Gordon's due to injury. I clipped three events from him last year:
- A bad zone drop against UConn
- An Indiana touchdown on which he was playing some sort of weird ILB and got crushed.
- A nice open field tackle on Rob Henry.
#2 won't be an issue if he's playing a deep safety; #3 is an asset that was promised by his recruiting profile. One… maybe not so much. Though people talk him up Michigan felt it necessary to move Gordon back, whereupon he won the job. He's probably a little unreliable at the moment.
Past Johnson there are actual scholarship(!) players who weren't(!) in high school last year. One is Marvin Robinson [recruiting profile], he of the obligatory OMG shirtless pictures…
…and that thing he did in the spring game where he ran with a slant pattern while Mike Cox was waving at him en route to the endzone. Practice reports on Robinson alternate tales of massive here-comes-the-BOOM-type hits and equally massive touchdown-ceding errors. If you hit up that recruiting profile you'll see a lot of skepticism he can play safety; last year he spent a good chunk of his time at WLB. That may be his long term destination.
For now he's behind Kovacs. He seems to be the second guy in the pecking order; Michigan will try to avoid using him until he has that consistency thing every coach ever but especially Michigan's keep harping on.
The final scholarship guy is Josh Furman. Furman's a bit like Avery in that he was almost exclusively an offensive player in high school. (He put up some Rawls-like games in the Maryland state playoffs.) Michigan managed to redshirt him last year, so his recruiting profile is about all we know. He's reputed to be super athletic, like six FAKES out of five 40 athletic, and will have a role on special teams this year. When asked about the safeties for CTK, Mallory mentioned Kovacs, Gordon, Johnson, and Robinson but not Furman. He's still a year or two away from seeing the field on defense.


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For years, Bungie helped make Halo a system-selling franchise for Microsoft's Xbox consoles. The torch has been passed to 343 Industries, and they've created an impressive, must-have game for the Xbox 360.
The story takes place four years after the events of Halo 3, and Master Chief and his artificial intelligence partner Cortana are stuck in space, stranded aboard a beaten-up ship. As it slowly heads toward Requiem, a Forerunner planet, Covenant forces invade it. Cortana wakes up our hero from his deep sleep, and the eight-mission campaign begins. It took me roughly seven hours to complete it on Normal difficulty, which is on par from past Halo games.
There are two important storylines going on in Halo 4. Cortana is old and beyond the typical lifespan of a computerized helper. To simply put it, she's dying and starting to go crazy. Master Chief, not wanting to lose his favorite companion, promises to save Cortana, even though she is hesitant anything can be done. As this story progresses, you can't help but feel bad for the two protagonists. Their interactions with each other don't feel forced, and 343 Industries did a great job humanizing Master Chief, something we rarely see in Halo games.
As all of this is going on, a new threat must be dealt with. The Prometheans are ancient protectors of Requiem, and while they don't get along with the Covenant, they really don't like Master Chief. Since this is the first game in a planned trilogy, the plot does get a little confusing to follow. As expected, there will be questions needing answers in future games.
In the beginning, classic Covenant enemies like the Hunters, Brutes, Jackals and measly Grunts are in full force, reminding you that yes, this is a Halo game. The gameplay does feel familiar at first, since you're essentially blasting away the same aliens with classic guns like the assault rifle, battle rifle, needler and more. But then the Prometheans come along to change the game.
Three main types of these ancient aliens will make quick work of you if you're not careful. The Crawlers travel in packs, and while easy to kill, they can overwhelm you in a hurry. The Knights are the most competent and will duck for cover, making them harder to defeat. They'll even teleport around you, so watch your back. Then there are the Watchers, who fly above the battlefield providing protection for their allies and reviving the dead. You pretty much have to eliminate these first, or you'll be fighting enemies all day long.
A welcome change is you can finally sprint whenever, wherever. Beforehand you needed to equip a special armor ability to do it, which was weird. Armor abilities include walking around with a shield, flying around with a jet pack, and releasing a hologram to trick others. My favorite was deploying an Autosentry turret to attack enemies, helping me save ammo.
It wouldn't be Halo without vehicles, and there are a few spots in the campaign that give Master Chief a break from running and gunning to hopping into some heavy machinery. The Warthog lets you drive around while AI partners shoot at enemy Ghosts and Banshees, which can be hijacked with ease. A couple parts will put Master Chief in a Mantis, letting you mow down the Covenant and Prometheans with the machine gun and blow away ships with missiles. My least favorite "toy" was near the end of the game where you pilot a ship through an obstacle course of moving barriers and other distractions. It was a short in length but easily the most frustrating due to the constant death and replaying of certain sections.
Level design is a mix of open areas and corridor action, with a little more focus on the indoors. The attention to detail is amazing. Halo 4 is easily one of the best looking games on the Xbox 360. The lighting effects along with the overall atmosphere in many spots will leave you in awe. While it may be a linear game, it doesn't really feel like it when you're playing it. Checkpoints for the most part are generous, so dying is not a big deal.
Most of the missions involve running from Point A to Point B to activate something, with killing a set amount of enemies along the away. 343 Industries played it safe, but for the future I wouldn't mind them taking a few more risks to spice up the single-player experience.
The main campaign is just one part of the Halo 4 experience. The fun continues in Spartan Ops, a whole other campaign involving the UNSC Infinity. Up to four players can play cooperatively in these new set of missions taking place after the events of Halo 4. After the game's release, a new episode can be downloaded for free each week, expanding on the story of the Infinity crew and their exploration of Requiem. It looks to be a wonderful addition to the game.
No doubt what every Halo 4 owner will be playing is War Games, the home for multiplayer. Featuring a variety of maps at launch (and you know DLC is coming), it's packed with content and modes that'll be played until the next Halo game. The classic Team Slayer, Capture the Flag, King of the Hill and one of my personal favorites, Oddball, are included.
In some modes there is the ability to call in ordinance, like receiving a special type of gun or damage booster, if you're doing well enough. It's reminiscent of Call of Duty, minus the kill streaks. It's a good way to reward efforts without having to be an expert.
Another fun one is the free-for-all Regicide mode, where the leader of the match is declared the king with a bounty of points awarded for their death. The bounty is increased over time if the king isn't killed, so there's an incentive to go after the leader.
Customizable loadouts are a big part of multiplayer this time, with the more you play the more options you have to create the perfect setup for yourself. Each player can choose their own primary and secondary weapons and grenade types, and other perks like faster reload speeds, increased motion sensor range, and the ability to rank up faster are available. Some items have level requirements before being used, and Spartan Points are spent to unlock unique ones. Even though it may take a while to unlock those cool weapons and armor mods, I didn't feel overwhelmed playing against others with higher ranks and better perks when I first booted up multiplayer.
Players can also design their own multiplayer maps in Forge mode, which has been expanded this time around. I never get into the map-making aspect of games, but it's a nice mode to have for those who love showing off their creativity.
When 343 Industries took over the Halo franchise from Bungie, there were some concerns if a new developer could pull it off. Fear not, Master Chief fans. Halo 4 is a remarkable game, and the future looks very bright.
4 stars out of 4
A copy of Halo 4 was supplied by Microsoft for this review
Jeff Hoard writes about video games for The Oakland Press. He can be reached at email@example.com. Follow him on Twitter @JeffHoard921. His blog is www.yay4videogames.blogspot.com.


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Sons Without Fathers
Another week, another extraordinary Chekhov revival. The plays may be well over a century old, but no living playwright has caught the temperature of our times half as well. His stagnant rural Russia is the perfect expression of our own flatlining economy. In the frustrations of ordinary folk, you can sense a revolution fermenting.
Helena Kaut-Howson's searing contemporary spin on his untitled debut – often staged as 'Platanov' – confirms all this. In the last year, we've seen his all-time classics sparkle including Benedict Andrews's 'Three Sisters' and Headlong's 'The Seagull' (arriving in Richmond next week), but even this flawed first effort – unstaged and unpublished in the playwright's lifetime, and here cut from six hours to three – nails the grinding exasperation of hopelessness without horizons.
Actually, in the first half at least, writer-director Kaut-Howson makes her version – entitled 'Sons Without Fathers' – stand alongside Chekhov's best. Jack Laskey's unkempt Platanov, a small-town teacher whose forsaken potential and ambition, is happiest when railing at the world. Like a Gatsby of the dacha, he leads one party into the next, calling the vodka shots and flitting between mistresses, despite wholeheartedly loving his wife. The escapism is infantile: a piss-up in a nursery.
The second half gets bogged down in his tangled love-life like a farce in slow-motion, sluggish with melancholy, but the babbling chaos of the first is so gripping and the cast so unanimously engrossing, it hardly matters. Laskey is superb: lank-haired, red-eyed and manically charismatic. Simon Scardifield, as his brother-in-law and local doctor, is even better; an infuriating jester neglecting his duties to drink himself senseless. Strong work too from a headstrong Marianne Oldham and Mark Jax as the unhinged horse-thief Osip.
This is super stuff, by turns forlorn and hilarious, that absolutely confirms Chekhov as our contemporary.
By Matt Trueman
|Venue name:
|Arcola Theatre
24 Ashwin St
|Dalston Kingsland or Dalston Junction Overground
|£14-£18, £12-£14 concs


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Ordinary people laid the groundwork for a revolution from slavery to the White House – just by living their lives. Theirs are the stories we don't know…
New Two-Hour Documentary Special Premieres
Saturday, February 16 at 10 p.m. on HISTORY®
New York, January 15, 2013 – The iconic images and sounds associated with America's Civil Rights movement are well-known. By now, several generations of school children are familiar with the "Colored" signs on water fountains, the march on Washington, and Martin Luther King's Dream. But what happened before the heroes and protests; court orders and riots? We've come a long way, but how did we get here?
STORIES FROM THE ROAD TO FREEDOM, a new two-hour special narrated by Deon Cole, premiering on Saturday, February 16 at 10 p.m. on HISTORY®, gives a fresh perspective of the black movement in America, from Emancipation to the Civil Rights era. The special uses first-hand accounts, rare audio recordings, never-before-seen archival footage, and home movies to chronicle African American life as lived by regular people, in their own words, through over 100 years of social upheaval.
STORIES FROM THE ROAD TO FREEDOM features an extraordinary collection of source material. In one of the only known recorded interviews of its kind, former slave Fountain Jordan describes the early days of emancipation. There is recently-discovered, never-before-broadcast footage of Ernest Beane, a Pullman Porter who documented his life on the rails, and an audio recording of an interview with World War I veteran Edward Nichols, who witnessed intense mob violence in Duluth, a year after the 1919 Red Summer riots erupted in dozens of cities across the U.S.
Other rarities include color footage of Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple whose Supreme Court Case ended race-based legal restrictions on marriage; and outtakes from interviews with the first African American family to move into all-white Levittown, PA and the white neighbors who opposed it. Glimpses of everyday life can be seen in some of the earliest known African American home movies that were shot in wealthy black communities in Oklahoma in the aftermath of the Tulsa Riots; in the earliest known photographs of a Juneteenth celebration in Austin, TX in 1900; and in very rare and never-before broadcast footage from the 1954 All Black Memphis State Fair.
STORIES FROM THE ROAD TO FREEDOM is an unparalleled opportunity to see and hear from remarkable individuals who – for better or worse, whether they were aware of it or not – paved the way through the greatest social movement in American history.
STORIES FROM THE ROAD TO FREEDOM is produced for HISTORY by New Animal Productions. Executive Producer for HISTORY is Susan Werbe. Executive Producer for New Animal Productions is Nicole Rittenmeyer and Seth Skundrick. Yale Professor, Jonathan Holloway, Ph.D., served as historical consultant.
About HISTORY®
HISTORY® is the leading destination for factual entertainment, including award-winning original series and specials that connect viewers with history in an informative, immersive and entertaining manner across multiple platforms. The network's all-original programming slate, including scripted event programming, features a roster of hits including American Pickers®, American Restoration™, Ax Men™, Ice Road Truckers®, Pawn Stars®, Swamp People® and Top Shot® as well as epic mini-series and specials such as the Emmy® Award-winning Hatfields & McCoys, Gettysburg, Vietnam in HD, America The Story of Us, and 102 Minutes That Changed America. The HISTORY website is the leading online resource for all things history, and in 2011, the United States Library of Congress selected HISTORY's Civil War 150 site for inclusion in the historic collection of Internet materials related to the American Civil War sesquicentennial. www.history.com
For more information, http://press.aenetworks.com


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Think of Bruce Beresford's most successful film, Driving Miss Daisy, and the first thing likely to pop into your head is the music that accompanies Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman as they tootle along.
That synthesised clarinet earworm is synonymous with the film and it was Beresford who enlisted popular composer Hans Zimmer to write the score.
While he is best known as a director, Beresford's relationship with music is long-standing and goes well beyond filmmaking to directing a number of operas.
Yet the Academy Award-winning director was as surprised as anyone to receive the international achievement award at the 2012 Screen Music Awards in Melbourne last week, the first time it has been bestowed on someone other than a composer.
''I'm completely baffled by it,'' he says. ''I felt like a bit of a fraud. You're sitting there with all these musicians and that fabulous orchestra and they're playing all that music so fantastically.
''I'm somewhat in awe of musicians. It's magic to me. I think they can look at all those funny little squiggles on the staves and then they play these tunes from it. How do they do that?''
While Beresford may seem perplexed at the accolade, the Australasian Performing Right Association board feels it's entirely justified. Writer, director and board member Nigel Westlake describes Beresford as a ''rare director for whom music really is a priority in a production''.
''He has a remarkable ability to know when to use it and when not to.''
For Beresford, the process of finding the perfect music for a film starts during the editing.
''I generally have a reasonably firm idea of the sort of music I want in a film, and where I want to put it,'' he says. ''A lot of films these days, they use music far too much. They put it in at the start of a film and it goes all the way through; it drives you mad.''
Beresford had to battle the film studio to use Zimmer's score for Driving Miss Daisy, after it was suggested by the producer's wife, Lili Zanuck.
''It was [Zimmer's] first American film,'' Beresford says. ''We went to the studio and said, 'We want to use this guy', and they threw a pink fit and said, 'We don't want him'. And Lili was a tiger and she said: 'No, bugger you, we're going to use him'.
''When they heard it on the film they wanted to take it off and replace it; they hated it.
''And of course the irony was the music was enormously popular. It helped a lot, I think, with the success of the film.''
The studio would not pay for the score to be recorded with an orchestra, much to Zimmer's disappointment. ''It went out with a synthesised score and I was never happy about that,'' Beresford says.
Tightened budgets make it increasingly difficult to use Australian composers in films produced overseas but he is keen to champion local talent where he can.
He is off to the US in a few weeks to start filming a miniseries on Bonnie and Clyde, and is finishing a script for another film to be shot in South Africa, based on the true story of a Jewish man who rescued orphans whose parents had been murdered in pogroms in Ukraine in 1921.
Beresford fondly recalls working with the celebrated French composer Georges Delerue, who wrote the score for Crimes of the Heart in 1986 and Black Robe, Beresford's 1991 Canadian epic.
''He was always wonderful.He had great range, from dramatic scores to comedies, and it was always complex and beautifully orchestrated,'' Beresford says of the late composer.
The music for Black Robe was recorded in Sydney with the Sydney Philharmonia Choir and ''a bunch of scratch players''. ''George was extremely happy with the quality of the playing and the choir,'' Beresford says.
Beresford has also directed opera productions of Sweeney Todd, The Crucible and Rigoletto. His most recent was this year's well-received Die Tote Stadt at the Sydney Opera House.
''The first opera I directed was in 1986. I think I've done eight or nine, but you've got to fit them in between film jobs. It's not always that easy.''


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Monday, February 05, 2007
Irion-Yarian Descendants on Find A Grave
Matthias Irion is my 6th great grandfather, and Carl's 5th great grandfather. Our most common ancestor is Matthias' son George Yerion. Carl is descended from George and his first wife Anna Barbara Fosselman while I am descended from George and his second wife Margaretha Williams.
In the mid-1970's Carl developed an interest in genealogy, specifically in the Yearian/Yarian family. His research has evolved into a database of over 30,000 people related to Matthias Irion. Carl assisted Jim Weaver with his book "The Yerian-Yarian Family" (which was published in August 1989) and also with the "Fosselmann/Fusselman and Allied Families" compiled by Alice Ann Askew.
On October 11th, 1732 Matthias Irion arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Pleasant with forty two Palatines and their families. In "Pennsylvania German Pioneers" (Strassberger and Hinke) he is listed as Marthiy Jargon, Matthias Jurian, and Mathias Jergon. In the volume that has the facsimiles of the signatures, Mathias signs with his initials "M I" which has also sometimes been interpreted at "M J".
Matthias was indentured after his arrival to farmer David Kaufman of Oley, Pennsylvania for a term of 3 years and 9 months. By 1744 Matthias had his own farm in Linn Township, then in Philadelphia county (after 1752 it became Northampton county, and in 1812, Lehigh county). In his will which was signed November 6, 1761 Matthias named five children: George, Conrad, Elizabeth, Susannah, and Jacob. Jim Weaver's book identified the first four generations of known descendants of Matthias Irion and provided some clues as to Matthias' origins. Additional research by others found that he was born in Talheim, District of Tuttlingen, on the Danube in Germany and lived in Graben, District of Karlsruhe, on the Rhine prior to his emigration in 1732. A marvelous piece of detective work on their part, for which I am grateful!
5 comments:
I just found this, and have to tell you I have a Yerian in my family tree. Rebecca Yerian, wife of Daniel Halterman (my 3rd great-granduncle).ReplyDelete
Rebecca was born 17 Sep 1822 in Muskingum, Ohio. Her father's name was Jacob Yerian b: 23 Jan 1798 in Donegal, Westmoreland, Pennsylvania. His wife's name was Jane Vernon.
I haven't researched this family much, but I remembered the name, Yerian. My line is through the Halterman family that Rebecca married into.
Have you heard of Rebecca or her father Jacob?
Well, hello cousin!ReplyDelete
This information below is from "The Yerian - Yaryan Family" published in 1989 by James Weaver. The numbers after the names are his numbering system.
Jacob Yerian (04.006) was the son of John Frederick Yerian (03.002) and his second wife Elizabeth Dorn (who appears to have been a younger sister of his first wife, Anna Maria Dorn). John Frederick had five children by Anna Maria and Jacob was the oldest of his 11 children with Elizabeth.
John Frederick was the son of John George Yerian (02.001) and his first wife, Anna Barbara Fosselman. They had five children. By his second wife, Margaret Williams, he had seven children, one of which is my 4th great grandfather, Conrad Yarian. (This means that you and I are half-cousins).
John George Yerian was the oldest of the five known children of Mathias Jurian (01.001), our immigrant ancestor who arrived in Philadelphia onboard the ship "Pleasant" on or about October 11, 1732.
If you can't locate the Weaver book, let me know and I can send you the pages that refer to your family.
Amazing! I will look for the book you mention, and let you know if I can find it or not. I appreciate the information and the offer! Always good to meet more cousins! :-)ReplyDelete
I am the 1st cousin, four times removed of the children of Daniel H. Halterman and Rebecca Yerian. There is no direct relationship between me and the Yerians, until this generation, since I am directly related to the Haltermans.ReplyDelete
But, you and I are related by marriage, and share a relationship with Daniel and Rebecca's children, since John George Yerian is their 2nd great-grandfather!
Conrad Yerian would be their half-great granduncle!
What a small world blogs, Facebook and the internet make! Love it!
Fabulous work Becky putting all of this together... than you for sharing. We've just started corresponding via e-mail... I'm looking for to the exchange of family history.ReplyDelete
My family tree websites are:
It was my great-grandmother Emma Yarian Flohr that got me interested in family history back when I was about 10... over 40 years ago. She was born in 1875 and loved to tell stories about the old days. She lived through a fascinating period... from horse & buggy to landing on the moon... she went home to be with the Lord in 1972.
You have to be a "Registered User" to leave a comment. This means you must have a user ID with one of the following: Google, Live Journal, Word Press, Type Pad, AIM,or Open Id. If you don't have one of those IDs you can always send me an email (link in upper right corner of the blog). I apologize for the inconvenience but the amount of Spam Comments being left was overwhelming. Comment moderation is turned on for posts more than 3 days old.


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RIT is offering scholarship programs for graduates of the Rochester City School District who are admitted as freshmen to full-time study in baccalaureate programs. The scholarship/grant program will cover full tuition at RIT for city students admitted to the freshman class starting in fall of 2010. The scholarship support, when combined with federal and state grants, equals full tuition at RIT. It is renewable annually for student participants who are in good academic standing and maintain full-time status at RIT.
"The scholarships will build on the many existing initiatives between our organizations and recognizes the criticality of enhancing opportunities for graduates of the district, many of whom come from low-income families and believe educational opportunities are beyond their reach," says Jim Miller, RIT senior vice president for enrollment management and career services.


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Textbook-Integrated Guide to Educational Resources
Organic Chemistry, 2nd Edition by Hornback
16. Benzene and Aromatic Compounds
16.7. Heterocyclic Aromatic Compounds
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Structures and Conformations
Molecular models are used to demonstrate the conformations of alkanes and cycloalkanes.
Alkanes / Cycloalkanes |
Molecular Properties / Structure |
Nomenclature / Units / Symbols |
Aromatic Compounds
A molecular model of benzene, the reactions of bromine with cylohexane, cyclohexene, benzene, phenol, and toluene, the effect of substituents and number of methyl groups on the electron density of aromatic rings, and chlorination reactions of methyl benzenes are demonstrated.
Aromatic Compounds
Phenols and Quinones
Ferric chloride test for phenols, nitration of acetaminophen, extraction of dichloroindophenol, oxidation of phenols with sodium periodate, nucleophilic addition to quinones, "purple benzene", oxidation of 2,6-Dit-butlhydoquinone, decolorization of crystal violet, and chameleon emulsion are demonstrated.
Alcohols |
Aromatic Compounds |
TNT Detonation
TNT is stable in the presence of shock, but can be detonated by adding a chemical priming agent.
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Thermodynamics |
Aromatic Compounds |
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Ceallach, if you can stand having a loved one being missing for several hours, and not contactable, without imagining a million different horror situations - well, I'd love to have your steady nerves, because I can't make myself do that! My mind will insist on making me miserable with all sorts of terrors.If we assume "several hours" is three or more (say, he was supposed to be home at 6, and it's now 9 pm), this would sound like more than traffic to me. And the prevalence of cellphones these days makes being out of contact even worse, because we're so used to being able to check on our loved ones whenever we want. Yes, there are plenty of scenarios that could cause someone to be this late that do not involve death or mayhem - but also a number which do. I think mocking someone who is really worried about a situation like this is cruel, and therefore rude. Giving reassurance that all is likely well is one thing - treating it like a big joke is another.
I don't think it's incredibly rude, no. Definitely insensitive and possibly misreading the situation though. I wonder if the woman's post to her came across more as "oh no hubby's not back yet, shall I send out a search party haha" type concern rather than legitimate fear. I mean personally I'd assume traffic or similar if my husband were late, I wouldn't think it were a police worthy situation. But that's just me.
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DES MOINES — MATHCOUNTS is a national math enrichment, coaching and competition program that increases enthusiasm for and enhances achievement in Iowa's middle school mathematics. The sixth, seventh and eighth grade student competitors are attracted to the MATHCOUNTS program because it provides them with an exciting and challenging forum for math achievements and rewards them for their accomplishments.
Best known for its signature initiative, MATHCOUNTS distributes free curricula and promotional materials to each of the middle schools in Iowa. Teachers and volunteers will begin to work with their students, building their math and critical thinking skills. During February 2013, teams of students proceed through regional competitions followed by the state competition that will be conducted Friday, March 22, 2013, at the Olmsted Center of Drake University. The results from the state competition will determine the top four individuals and top coach who will represent Iowa at the National MATHCOUNTS competition at the Washington Marriott Wardman Park in Washington, D.C., from May 9-12, 2013.
In Iowa, the MATHCOUNTS program is made possible through the sponsorship of the Iowa Engineering Foundation and the Iowa Engineering Society. By working together, parents, teachers, engineers and business people can and will make a difference for the future of children.
For more information about MATHCOUNTS, visit http://mathcounts.org.


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Rehan received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas, Austin in 2008. After receiving his degree, he started at UC Berkeley and joined the Javey Research Group. He is currently exploring the potential of compound semiconductor-on-insulator (XOI) devices based on InAs as the active channel material through device fabrication, characterization and modeling.
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Michael Schwartz Library's Special Collections provides a research facility for our students and faculty, as well as for scholars and visitors from around the world. Our collections cover many topics within the field of Cleveland history, with special concentrations on the industrial history of Northeast Ohio, Cleveland journalism, and the city's infrastructure. We are also home to publications from the University Archives about CSU and its predecessor, Fenn College, including college bulletins, course schedules, newspapers, yearbooks,and budgets.
ATTN: Major Change in Access to Photos in Special
Collections Beginning May 12, 2013! Read More.
We are committed to sharing this wealth of information and material, and we look forward to meeting you and helping you with your research.
Bill Barrow
Special Collections Librarian
(216) 687-6998
Lynn Duchez Bycko
Special Collections Associate
(216) 687-2520
We're happy to help with questions about local history matters, and we very much appreciate your comments and suggestions. Use our online form or use the contact information above or at the right to call, email or visit us in the Special Collections reading room.
The Special Collections reading room is located on the third floor of the Michael Schwartz Library at Cleveland State University in RT 320 (see Library Directions) and is openMonday through Friday from 9 am to noon and 1 pm to 5 pm. Hours of operation are subject to change during holidays and semester breaks so please consult Library Hours before planning your visit.
For more information, call Special Collections at (216) 687-2449 or use our online form.