Who Says There’re No Gays in the Military?

Don't tell these Souljah Boys...



Sorry to keep posting these. I just find the sheer number to be amusing. And some of them are really funny (for varying reasons).

BlogPoll: Ballot #5

Best quarterback in America?

Now that "Andre' Woodson is underrated and underexposed" has emerged as a common media meme, it will be interesting to see if: 1) He is allowed to credibly enter the Heisman debate, supplanting one of the preseason favorites in whom so many pundits have already invested their respective egos; 2) How he is treated once Kentucky loses. I fear that his may be a flash-in-the-pan media campaign that is nearly forgotten once Kentucky remembers that it's Kentucky. But we'll see.

The college football landscape is starting to take shape, with the top four, another class of ten teams that are early BCS contenders, and then everyone else, to varying degrees of for-realness.

Another media question: If it's become hip to complain about Notre Dame getting so much media coverage despite being a bad team, why won't the talkers just stop, well, talking about a winless team representing a program that hasn't mattered in a decade?

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	--
2	Southern Cal	--
3	Oklahoma	--
4	Florida	--
5	Ohio State	1
6	West Virginia	1
7	California	2
8	Rutgers	3
9	Boston College	1
10	Texas	--
11	Oregon	3
12	Clemson	3
13	Kentucky	4
14	Wisconsin	5
15	Missouri	7
16	South Florida	2
17	Cincinnati	2
18	South Carolina	5
19	Georgia	7
20	Alabama	4
21	Purdue	3
22	Arizona State	1
23	Miami (Florida)	3
24	Virginia Tech	2
25	UCLA	1

Dropped Out: Penn State (#12), Texas A&M (#20), Nebraska (#21), Texas Tech (#25).

Notes:
- First, let me apologize. I realized this week that I have not been posting a list of games watched. My apologies.

Games watched last week: Michigan taking its bitch for a walk; Team Coached by Our Next Head Coach (LSU) vs. Team Coached by the Guy I Would Have Loved 10 Years Ago (South Carolina); Team Coached by the Guy I Don't Think I Want (Iowa) vs. Team Coached by the Guy Whose Succession Plan Would Be teh Awesome if Michigan Had Good Assistants (Wisconsin); Georgia vs. Alabama (parts); Michigan State vs. Notre Dame (parts).

- Like everyone else in the world, I have a clear top four. I also feel pretty good about teams five through ten, although the order is fluid.

- The Scarlet and Gray Men of Crime are starting to scare me in a 2002 kind of way.

- Wisconsin has looked fairly wack the last two weeks, so it falls and is placed on notice.

- Penn State goes from top ten to not mentioned at all. You can't lose to a weak-ass Michigan team playing a freshman quarterback and running only three plays.

- Once again, the Big XII looks like a bullshit conference that might as well just have Texas and Oklahoma play a best-of-13 series.

- The Big Ten looks like shit, as well. Minnesota is a disaster; Northwestern lost to Duke; Michigan State allowed Notre Dame to score; Michigan lost to Appalachian State and is living on borrowed time; Penn State lost because Lloyd Carr is better at being Joe Paterno than Joe Paterno is. It's Ohio State, suspect Wisconsin, and then a long list of teams working to be mediocre.

- The SEC is going to be a difficult league to rank. LSU and Florida look great, but after that.... South Carolina should feel no shame for losing to the top-ranked team on the road, and it beat a Georgia team that just went into Alabama and beat a Crimson Tide group that beat dangerous Arkansas. What to do? Arkansas stays off the ballot while South Carolina falls and Georgia comes back just behind the Gamecocks and just ahead of the Tide team it just beat.

- Clemson, Boston College, Missouri, South Florida, and Purdue may all be overrated.

- I don't love having Miami and Virginia Tech, but the former just convincingly beat a team I was voting for last week and the latter is probably better than it showed in that reality check against the Bayou Bengals.

- Am I missing anyone?

It Was Obviously a Slow Day in Connecticut

What the Eff?

My life has been and continues to be a little too busy right now, so I apologize for the interrupted service. Regularly scheduled broadcasts should resume later this evening save for any final unforeseen scheduling issues.

We Own...

...Penn State.

But no thanks to gutless, run-run-run-punt, oh-can-I-please-volunteer-to-punt, thank-god-we-can-just-take-a-knee-here-punt-and-then-run-out-90-seconds Lloyd Carr. He is so pathetic. As is Mike DeBord.

But even they aren't as pathetic as the Penn State offensive brain trust. We will miss you guys when JoePa hangs it up. Just as we'll miss Anthony Morelli; he's fun to embarrass.

It's a Bird. It's a Plane. It's...the Texas Longhorns.

I am criminally late on this, but I just spotted it on Ballhype and died.

Do you know what I’d give to ever see a Michigan football team doing this? You probably don’t, because I’m not even sure. That’s how incomprehensibly awesome it would be.



Bonus video:

Blogpoll Roundtable: Storylines Emerge

At Straight Bangin', we're pointing toward a brighter future.

There is a dude named Peter who blogs over at Burnt Orange Nation. He does an excellent job. He's hosting the latest BlogPoll roundtable.

1. Handicap your team's chances to win your conference championship. If your team is not the favorite, who is?
Had it not already become quite evident, this season has reinforced that Michigan cannot defend a spread offense orchestrated by a mobile quarterback. From defensive backs who can't cover to bad personnel packages that see linebackers running with wide receivers to simple errors like missed tackles, Michigan is just a disaster in those situations. It has no answer, and there is about a decade's worth of evidence, from Donovan McNabb to Dennis Dixon, to be used at Lloyd Carr's trial.

Fortunately, there aren't any more spread-mobile attacks on the horizon as Michigan enters Big Ten play. So that's nice. Unfortunately, the problems don't end there, and the team's early-season struggles reflected an inconsistent defensive line, linebackers with limited skills, an offensive line that is good but not great, receivers whose talents are not being fully exploited, and a quarterback that has been mediocre at best. The quarterback is now hurt, but his replacement is a freshman who's not only inexperienced but who will be given a short leash and few plays to run.

It all adds up to slim prospects for a Big Ten title. Though games against Northwestern and Minnesota don't inspire much fear, every other game carries a risk factor that most people did not foresee during the summer. The Columbus League of Extraordinary Inbreds has a defense that looks fantastic, athletic and fundamentally sound enough to solve Michigan's two-play rushing attack; Wisconsin, though shaky, has another sturdy defense and an offense that seems capable of doing enough to gash UM's back seven; Penn State has the receivers needed to embarrass the UM secondary and a defense needed to neuter the ground game; Illinois has the night-game atmosphere and the Juice, whose mobility poses an inherent threat; Purdue might have its act together; Michigan State may finally be competent and will have special motivation when UM travels to the land of not-quite-good-enough.

Perhaps Michigan's defense will use its domination of South Bend High to grow into an improved, confident group that compensates for its inexperience with intelligence. And perhaps the cautious, at-times-discombobulated offense will now take off. But there are just too many outstanding concerns and too many teams equipped to threaten UM in some meaningful way to reasonably tout Michigan as a favorite for the Rose Bowl berth. I'd put Michigan's chances around 20%.

The team to beat may again be the one wearing the scarlet-and-gray jump suits. Defense will win a lot of games against the limited fire power that Big Ten teams are trotting out, and the one in Columbus looks very good. If Todd Boeckman can manage games well and Chris Wells continues to emerge, I think the Buckeyes will be back in the BCS. I have been high on Penn State, too, but having seen Notre Dame's historic awfulness, I am not sure what the Nittany Lions have truly accomplished.

2. Outline the (realistic) best case and worst case scenarios for your team.
Best case: Penn State remains the property of Michigan Football after this weekend as Mike Hart ball-controls the Nittany Lions to death and the Michigan defense remembers from last year just how much fun it can be to lower Anthony Morelli's IQ even further. From there, Michigan uses games against Northwestern and Eastern Michigan to improve its defense and get Chad Henne healthy. October then brings with it character-building wins against a mid-tier slate of teams (Purdue, Illinois, Minnesota) and new blunders perpetrated against his own team by Ron Zook. The Wolverines arrive at November 7-2. They put Michigan State in its place before losing to Wisconsin and finally beating Ohio State again. Lloyd Carr finishes another regular season with 3 losses, and he sleeps well knowing that he's done the job he always intends to do. Russell Crowe gives Lloyd a reach-around as the cherry on top of his personal sundae.

Worst case: Penn State comes to Ann Arbor this weekend and gets its once-a-decade win against Michigan, prompting posters on BWI to break the internets because computer circuits cannot handle that much delusional catharsis and that many aren't-we-so-smart uses of the term "scUM." A state of emergency is declared in Pennsylvania as the elation wears off and everyone realizes that people still don't really respect Penn State football. Tom Bradley also pens 75 hand-written letters a day to Justin King for the rest of the season thanking him for being so dreamy. After that disaster, Michigan gets to 3-3 before being ambushed by Purdue and Illinois. At 3-5, a win over Minnesota is no consolation, and UM suffers the ignominy of being swept in November. Michigan State cancels the remainder of its fall semester to riot; Wisconsin kids spend even less time cheering for their own team and instead taunt visitors that much more (seriously, that school doesn't seem to have a single positive cheer); and the toothless wonders of American's worst state continue rejoicing, pretending that their cheating and general nastiness compensate for the bullshit education and inability to hold a fair election.

P.S. Lloyd Carr says he's staying until he dies on the sidelines. In response, I die.

3. We're only three games in to the season, but teams and storylines are starting to take shape. Compare your team to a character or theme from a fable or children's tale.
What's the children's tale about the once-proud institution whose inadequate leaders and misguided fans allow said institution to become a joke? Oh, there isn't one?

4. Imagine you're the coach of your team. Give three specific changes you'd implement immediately which you think would have the biggest impact on improving the team.
1) I'd stop telegraphing plays with my personnel packages. If fans at home know what's coming, opposing teams certainly do, too.

2) I'd do away with the wide receiver screen pass. Whenever I felt the urge to waste a down, I would instead try to throw down field or perhaps run more intermediate crossing patterns.

3) I'd fire the offensive coordinator, call the plays myself, and use the suddenly available coaching vacancy to hire a dedicated special teams coach. The special teams coach would teach my team how to line up for extra points, how to block for extra points, and how to block an opposing team's kicks. He'd also find a player who could not only catch punts, but could also try to evade tacklers after having done so.

5. USC, LSU/Florida, and Oklahoma have established themselves as the frontrunners in the early going. Which other team or teams are you eyeballing as potential BCS party crashers?
The winner of the Oregon/Cal game has the best chance, other than an undefeated Big East champion.

Stream Me Up

Love Experience is slept on.

A few audio streams that I got in the mail...

- Raheem Devaughn, "Woman" - WMV | Real
Raheem makes a lot of that easy-listening R&B. Very pleasant.

- Sean P, "Everywhere We Go" - WMV | Real
Not that Sean P, but rather, the dude from the Youngbloodz, whose last album I kinda liked.

John Kerry Is a Loser

Why doesn't Kerry do anything to help this kid? Pathetic.

Recognize

Ian's been pushin' () these dudes for a while, and now it's my turn (): The Real, some ill satire videos. The latest:



Also, peep game: Not a Blogger. Some ill hip-hop insight and writing.

You Know It's Hard Out Here for an Isiah Thomas

Ah yes, Isiah's halcyon days, back when he was ruining other people's lives, not just his own.

If you don't feel bad for Isiah Thomas these days then you're just not a human. Do you realize what this man is going through right now? A scorned, dejected lover seeing his affairs of the heart reduced to tabloid headlines? Seeing his private matters aired publicly? That's foul. And worse, it has to be humiliating that he's being portrayed as someone who can't properly seduce a subordinate through coercion, intimidation, and disrespect. You don't go after a man's professionalism and management skills like that.

It has to be agonizing, not getting "no love" from Anucha Browne Sanders. Were this Shakespeare, we'd weep for our protagonist, a man whose righteous, heavenly paramour seems to ever evade his lustful grasp.This is a woman who spends her time collecting big money--like, Jim McIvaine paper--while emailing the head of Madison Square Garden to ask important questions, like why her name isn't listed higher in the team's media guide. That's what marketing directing is all about! That's some sexy shit right there. She's just so busy playing hard to get, always with the highly coveted corporate administrivia of the C-suite and VP levels. Who could resist such a comely, coy tax evader and her licentious office flirtations, like asking the General Manager to hand-sign letters to season-ticket holders? You'd be calling her "bitch"--not in the middle of sentences, but certainly at the beginning or end of them--at the workplace, too.

What is a man to do in that circumstance? To quote the Bard, "For to deny his growing masculinity (ifyouknowhatI'msayin'), surely criminal it would be." How could you not tell an employee that you wanted to take her "off site"? How could you not introduce her to people while complaining that she made it hard to get work done because she was just so easy on the eyes? I think that's downright romantic. Isiah's burning passion turned into a conflagration of the heart due to the drawn-out courtship--that's powerful! And still so tragic. I'm telling you, this has likely been a sterner test than the late-80s Lakers. How do you mend a broken heart?

Before you protest, before you say that this is not one of the great love stories, that Isiah has not suffered that much, try to picture the scene: There's Isiah, a man who's spent more than a year coveting a subordinate, a woman who's proven to be quite the coquette as she's rejected her boss's come-ons and somehow ignored the loving insults he's hurled (and trust me, "bitch" would sound loving coming from Isiah because he's black. As he says [8th paragraph], it's different if a black man says it. Check the tape. Literally.) In the company of strangers, he has draped his arm around Sanders as she ever so subtly pulls away, the body language of disgust serving as a key reinforcement of just how intensely their loins burn for one another. He then looks upon her with a soft, pensive glance of appreciation and says, "This bitch makes it hard to get work done."

Wouldn't you just melt? Feel Isiah's pain.

I'm telling you, it's hard out here for Isiah these days.

Music for a Monday: The Sweet Sound of Demise

Hey, have you ever heard about him getting shot?

First, let me apologize. I am sorry. This review should have gone up sooner, but it took me this long to actually make my way through the album. It's that horrible.

There are a lot of rappers and rap groups that have made one good, or sometimes even great, album and then revealed themselves to have reached their respective limits. For whatever reason. Off the top of my head: Method Man only had one good album in him. Lauryn Hill made one great joint and then went crazy. Everyone loved that first Arrested Development album and never cared again. Black Sheep, Ludacris, Mos Def (as a soloist). Little Brother might be headed in that direction.The list goes on and on.

I think we can officially cement 50's place among that group, as well. Quite simply, the dude has nothing to say, and he now spins his lyrical wheels over production that progressively grows worse and worse. Just consider this synopsis of Curtis:

1) "Intro" - Some stupid movie clip about violence and guns.

2) "My Gun" - Empty gully-speak about violence and guns.

3) "Man Down" - Crappy synthesizers underneath 50's horrible role-play crime rap.

4) "I'll Still Kill" - Akon. Ugh. And more studio thuggery.

5) "I Get Money" - Some Audio Two theft and generic rhymes. I am still unimpressed.

6) "Come and Go" - Dr. Dre made this? Him? 50 brags about things.

7) "Ayo Technology" - The musical equivalent of a terrorist attack (HT: HR).

8) "Follow My Lead" - Shockingly listenable. But also incredibly boring. Nice singing, Ja.

9) "Movin' on Up" - First solid beat on this album (we'll be back to this). Rhymes about hustling.

10) "Straight to the Bank" - 50 is richer than you. With some weak-ass plinkling piano. Tony Yayo tries out for the local pen's reenactment of Queer Eye.

11) "Amusement Park" - Most. Boring. Song. Of. The. Year. And so derivative. I am offended that this was a "single."

12) "Fully Loaded Clip" - Insults, drug talk, a violence metaphor, and bragging. A poisonous cocktail of 50. This is hip-hop?

13) "Peep Show" - Eminem is the worst producer ever. Seriously. And he can't rap anymore.

14) "Fire" - A post-apocalyptic thug love song. Destined for a long life in German S&M clubs.

15) "All of Me" - Second solid beat (again, remember). The rhymes are 50 Lite, saving him from himself.

16) "Curtis 187" - The bass wanted to be Mobb's "The Realest." Too bad it's not. Given how bad everything else is, this mediocrity passes as good.

17) "Touch the Sky" - Tony Yayo gets off the welfare line. And seventeen tracks in, we finally have a non-soul beat that works and some rhyming that doesn't make you mad.

That just screams out "Album of the Year," doesn't it?

To recap if you lost count: We have seventeen tracks. Three of them are fine. Two of them are between "OK" and "Tolerable." Twelve range from "I hate this" to "I hate myself for listening to this."

50 Cent has always occupied an odd niche. When Get Rich or Die Tryin' dropped, I think that the consensus concerning its artistic merit settled upon good-but-not-great. It had those club songs, 50 was among the few who could credibly (and unabashedly) pull off the New York street-thug routine, and he represented an intriguing amalgamation of talents culled from Dre, Em, and Curtis. The rapping may not have equaled some of his unrefined underground work, but his progression as a song writer and his understanding of pop appeal seemed to compensate for whatever technical regression was evident. Over time, the album has taken on greater significance than its music might otherwise command: it is now deservedly seen as having initiated 50's ascension and altered the East Coast landscape. This historical place has also perhaps lent it undue critical appreciation, as people remember it in a warm way that belies reality. The album is now more significant, though not actually better.

But more than establish 50 as a rapper, GRODT established 50 as a media baron. All too happy to play the character cohesively developed in nearly every public thing that he did (and still does), 50 emerged as the mainstream's tacitly beloved supervillain. Albums, movies, video games. It was a perfect role for such a dishonest and manipulative person, and he was exactly what our hypocritical popular culture craved.

We won't teach our children about sex, but we use it to sell everything imaginable. We make a big deal about September 11th, but we don't try to fight the guilty parties. We are scared of teenage substance abuse, but we worship the underage escapades of Lindsay Lohan. We claim that racism is bad, but we are happy to live with it. We care about education, but we don't actually want to pay for it. 50 Cent is probably among the most American people in this country because he is a perfect idol for this conflicted culture.

As Ice Cube said, "Payback's a motherfucking n***a." I tend to think of it as a pain in the ass. With the success of GRODT, America had a new hip-hop star that it could love to hate. This is a country where street violence is always a grave problem and its participants are often vilified; it's a country where the everyday rhythms of hip-hop culture are decried as corrosive; it's a country where "gangsta rap" music is that ghetto shit. So of course, people seemed to think that it was kind of cute that 50 had been shot so many times; those who weren't ignorant enough to take 50's flippant radio beefs and misogyny seriously cast a bemused eye upon this dynamic actor; and critics, parents, and the straight-laced got off saying and writing "Fiddy." Curtiiiiis had become this festishized, alien other, his dark skin and muscular physique only enhancing the caricature. We had a new Mantan.

And we still have him. Only, he's no longer making remotely interesting music. Like the aptly-titled-for-the-wrong-reasons Massacre, Curtis is lazy, uninspired hip-hop tripe. A more skilled (or perhaps just more engaged) rapper might paint a cinematic picture of street life to lend his rhymes an artistic, engaging style, but 50 just barrels ahead, going through the motions. The cadences, the couplets, the vocabulary--it's all simple and routine. And motivated always by money and a much-longed-for authority supposedly conferred through record-sale success (talk about intellectual dishonesty and idiotic radio-show rhetoric), 50's music always has that aggressive, dramatic aesthetic, even though it rings hollow. Unless the beat is a club banger, 50's production in recent years has tended toward the low end of the quality scale. That's no different here, although he still sells records. That's sad.

To be fair, there is a positive in all of this: As 50's music has regressed and his celebrity has become ever more insincere, he's put together a few, rare songs that can carry some emotional heft when set in relief of everything else he makes. I find it telling that 50's best tracks in recent years, like "Hustler's Ambition," are those soul-sample loops on which the production deemphasizes his street appeal and the overall sound is less jagged and more earnest. Don't misunderstand me--the dude knows his audience and fucks with it (). But, there are some 50 songs on which the street talk feels less manipulative and his routine can be appreciated. It's one thing to effectively menace an audience with hackneyed rhymes and aggressive synthesizers--that can be initially titillating. It's another to place the same rhymes in a more sincere or benign context--that can be somewhat more meaningful. He does that on a track every now and then, and it makes him a more intriguing fellow.

Those moments are uncommon throughout Curtis, though, and the record will hopefully mark a tipping point in Curtis's career. It's gonna be outsold by Kanye, the first three singles were bricks, and the public seems to have lost some of its appetite for the bullshit that 50 has been serving for most of this decade. It's a fortunate turn of events, this potential loosening of his grip on the radio and the trends. Although, as he has evidenced, someone with so many foibles can become a massive star. So, I shudder to think what might be coming next.

- 50 Cent, "Movin' on Up"

- 50 Cent, "Hustler's Ambition"

BlogPoll: Ballot #4 (Draft)

Comments? Feedback? Hit me.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	--
2	Southern Cal	1
3	Oklahoma	1
4	Florida	1
5	California	1
6	Ohio State	2
7	West Virginia	1
8	Boston College	1
9	Wisconsin	2
10	Texas	--
11	Rutgers	1
12	Penn State	1
13	South Carolina	1
14	Oregon	1
15	Clemson	7
16	Alabama	7
17	Kentucky	9
18	South Florida	8
19	Cincinnati	7
20	Texas A&M	6
21	Nebraska	5
22	Missouri	4
23	Arizona State	3
24	Purdue	2
25	Texas Tech	1

Dropped Out: Louisville (#11), UCLA (#17), Arkansas (#18), Hawaii (#19), Washington (#20), Georgia Tech (#21), Georgia (#24), Virginia Tech (#25).

- Louisville hasn't beaten a good team and lost to the only team of significance that it played, so the Cardinals are gone.

- UCLA--what?!

- Arkansas just lost its first real game.

- Hawaii should have been out last week after the joke against Louisiana Tech.

- Washington has to show me something, like a better offense.

- Georgia Tech is suspect given how it lost and the fact that its signature win is over a glorified high-school team.

- Georgia and Virginia Tech were default rankings, anyway. Why not show some love elsewhere? The last five on the ballot are questionable. Still don't know enough about all the teams.

How Ironic: God Appears to Hate Notre Dame

New year, same result. Why get a new picture? Shawn Crable owns Notre Dame quarterbacks.

What, me worry?

Ron English loves those "real" teams that don't have new-fangled offenses with their "good players" and their "spreads." Nothing like playing a bunch of losers who don't block.

Let us now take a moment to weep for Charlie Weis and Jimmy Clausen. Didn't you hear? They are entitled to better; just listen to their press conferences. Or the media.

What kind of team gets shut out by a team that lost to Appalachian State and allows 506 yards a game? That wouldn't have happened on Ty Willingham's watch.

UPDATE - A few gripes:
- Even when blowing someone out, Lloyd Carr coaches like an idiot. Why didn't Michigan throw more in the second half? Do Lloyd and DeBord not want Ryan Mallett to get some more experience before playing a real team next week? I understand that you perhaps want to protect your backup QB since there isn't anyone else at the position who can play, but Michigan used what was pretty much a 100% run offense in quarters three and four. Why not allow Mallett some opportunities to develop more rhythm with his receivers, practice his touch passing, and get comfortable with some more plays? This will come back to hurt Michigan next week when a defense shows up that doesn't just fall over and beg for it to be over.

- Special teams--what the fuck? Michigan's tackling was atrocious, it twice didn't line up properly, and Greg Mathews is a disaster as a punt returner. He has neither speed nor moves, pretty much the worst combination possible. Avery Horn, Steve Brown, Donovan Warren, Mario Manningham--none of them can return a punt? I'd include Carlos Brown in that group but his cast makes it impossible for him to hold onto the ball.

- "If ain't broke, don't fix it" seems to have been the rallying cry of the day for Mike DeBord. Why doesn't Michigan ever run anything different or tricky or daring? I think Mike Hart once lined up as a receiver and caught a short pass. Other than that, it was a lot of run run left and fade routes. With a 31-point lead for the entire second half. Against a team that might be one of the ten worst in 1A. If not today, then when, ever, might Michigan try new things? Against real teams in real situations, Urban Meyer and Pete Carroll take chances and embolden their players. Against a shit team with a bewildered offense and a defense that looked horrible, Michigan passed on a chance to improve. What a joke.

I Don't Like Today

Let's fondly remember better days.

Today's Notre Dame-Michigan game has all the makings of a classic Michigan loss:

- The new, inexperienced quarterback will lead to a bland, scaled-back offense;
- the Michigan secondary that can't cover anyone and the linebackers who can't tackle will allow a previously anemic Notre Dame offense to come alive (like Franklin);
- Michigan's inability to reliably make field goals will not only lead to close-game disappointment, but it will probably inform strategic decisions that further compound these other problems;
- Mike Hart will get hurt. It happens every week.

Notre Dame 23, Michigan 17. Ugh.

Two related questions to ponder:

1) Many teams lose players to graduation and the NFL Draft but remain competitive year after year. Why is it only Michigan that can't coach up new guys and can't develop quality depth?

2) Despite the myriad recruiting losses (Jai Eugene, Justin King, Victor Harris, Myron Rolle, Taylor Mays, Antwine Perez, seemingly every LB anyone would want), Michigan has still recruited well, with consensus top-10 and -15 classes. Why does this defense look so untalented?

While You Digest Graduation and Curtis...

A lot of deep stares.

Some quickies:

- Havoc, "What's Poppin' Tonite"
I'd imagine that T.I.'s weak record will earn plenty Most Disappointing designations when year-end lists come out, but for me, Havoc's Kush might be the leading candidate. It's not only that the album is boring (which it is), but rather, this thing is just more of that same, uninspired Mobb music that's become the group's contemporary trademark. Lyrically Havoc's gone nowhere and that wouldn't even bother me so much were the production fresher. Kush affects the usual grim aesthetic, but it offers little unique value. Hav probably should have called this album Hollywood Hav Goes Through the Motions.

- 9th Wonder ft. Chaundon, Legacy, Skyzoo, and Torae, "Merchant of Dreams"
- 9th Wonder ft. Strange Fruit Project and Median, "Special (Remix)"
This is pretty easy: if you like Little Brother and the more soulful productions put out by the Justus League, you'll like the new 9th Wonder album, Dream Merchant, Vol. 2. I wouldn't call it innovative, and the producer-driven studio mixtape model doesn't usually bring out everyone's best lyrics, but DM2 is nonetheless an easy listen.

One note of caution, though: As usual, Joe Scudda, who must have compromising pictures of someone since he continues to appear on actual rap albums, sounds like a complete asshole. If he never rapped again, he might be eligible for beatification. That's how much of a public service it would be.

- Mighty Infamous, "Turn the Radio Off"
New kid from the Bronx. He's got an easy flow and he's picked himself a nice little soul loop.

Peep Game...

- wejetset, the ill travel site. Soon.

- SkreemR, the ill mp3 search site (HT: StSaling).

- Forty One Acres, the ill blog.

- Art of Rhyme, the ill hip-hop content.

- The Blowtorch, the ill blog.

Knicks Basketball: F*@% Those White People. And Interns

The 2007-2008 New York Knicks: We're on the prowl!

It feels as though eons have passed since I called Henry while overcome by the excitement initially generated by the Knicks acquiring Zach Randolph. Of course, since then, I've calmed down, but still--it was just surreal to experience a moment when I wasn't ashamed of Isiah Thomas, and the alien sensation caused me to get a tad carried away.

Whatever piece of my constitution was reached by the Randolph acquisition resurfaced this week. Football is no longer a collective summertime longing, warm weather is no longer a guarantee, and brown is steadily replacing pastels among the sartorially savvy. In other words, NBA training camps open in less than a month! That realization emerged this week and it pushed me so far as to solicit interest in buying Knicks tickets among my friends. I'll tell you what I told them:

When Isiah Thomas took over my beloved Brickerbockers, I vowed to not financially support the team until he was gone. When the Dolans countenanced his outrageous management and behavior, it only strengthened my resolve.

But I've broken down this off-season as Boston has beefed up its roster and Kevin Durant has come to the Lig. I now find myself on the market for tickets to a few Knicks games this year. I guess I just can't resist our sprint toward mediocrity.

I remain fully enthused about the NBA (and that will surely be reflected on this website as we march on toward opening tips around the Association), but when it comes to the Knicks, I think I now mostly just can't resist our sprint toward debauchery. Do you realize how good it's going to be rooting for this no-defense-playing, overpaid, oddly assembled team? Forget the basketbal; look at the extracurriculars:

The duplicitous, likely racist Coach/GM is allegedly saying, "Bitch, I don't give a fuck about these white people." He's comparing his life to Love and Basketball. He's pulling women aside and using the word "ho" at the workplace. You don't get that with other teams. You might get some low-level transgression, but you don't get some R. Kelly-style real talk. As Biggie might have said, because of Anucha, Isiah's on some real eff-a-chick shit.

And were that not enough, we've got a star point guard who tempers his admirable instincts to serve as a role model by keeping it real and turning out interns. Interns who work for the team. That he can pick up after they've been dropped off by his cousin. After accompanying said cousin to a strip club. By asking, "Are you going to get in the truck?"

If you had to use one word to describe the Knicks, it would likely be "classy." Am I wrong? I'm not, and that's why I stay loyal. The team never breaks my heart, always tries hard, and just does things the right way. You don't go around starting conversations with any old person by saying "bitch." That's the kind of professionalism that you save for coworkers whom you intermittently taunt and harass. And you don't sleep with any old intern just because you have power and celebrity. You wait to swoop in on the ones who work for you and go to strip clubs with your cousin. That might not be the way that the "San Antonio Spurs" do things, but that's how we do in New York.

So print that on the season-ticket forms for all those white people. "Knicks Basketball: We do things the right way. The ski-mask classy way."

Real talk.


- Also: Henry's take.

- R. Kelly, "Real Talk"

Music for a Monday on a Tuesday: Graduation

I think he's trying to reenact the Halloween dance from Karate Kid, but with a red skeleton suit.

It is without the pretentious ambition that gets internets rap critics going nuts. It is marked by the sort of self-indulgence that fuels the haters who loath his personality. And it bears the self-conscious and at-times-stilted rhyming so commonly cited by detractors of his rapping. Yet, for all that it lacks and all that it offers, "Last Call" remains the most important song Kanye West has ever made. The closing of College Dropout is quintessential Kanye: inviting music, infectious rhythm, seductive creativity, refreshing honesty, disarming vulnerability, amusing humor, fleeting lyrical wit, grating lyrical clumsiness. "Last Call" is Kanye West.

"Last Call" is also a frame for Graduation because Mr. West is back to making earnest hip-hop following the empty media-star grandeur and pop dalliance of Late Registration. Though Registration and its varied, reaching sound had its limited few moments, most notably "We Major," it too often felt forced and hollow. The rhymes may have been introspective (and even that felt contrived to some extent), but the production and collaborations were so painstakingly different merely for the sake of being so that the entire album ultimately felt like an unfortunate manifestation of ego. It was the kind of album that a person makes when he's convinced himself that all of his ideas are revolutionary and no one will say otherwise. It was like a home-run hitter coming up to bat and swinging too hard because he'd decided ahead of time that he was putting one out: the attempt may have been spectacular at times, but the strikeout was what ultimately endured. Late Registration was Kanye at his worst. "Last Call" was a memory, no longer an identity.

It seemed as though Kanye was going to continue down that path when "Can't Tell Me Nothing" first dropped. There was something too easy about its professed conflict; I felt manipulated (and disappointed) listening to an ambling beat accompanied by a trite personality conflict. (Although, nothing will surpass T.I.'s bullshit internal struggle any time soon.) But heading into Memorial Day, Kanye dropped his Graduate mixtape, an energetic and exceedingly listenable cocktail that gave "Can't Tell Me Nothing" a musical context and its subject matter some depth. Kanye spoke about his ascension, his relationship with the media. He flashed his sense of humor and his understanding of his place. The beats were different--more electric, less soulful--but the progression was engaging, not annoying. It didn't feel like he'd deliberately concocted something that he wanted hailed as new and innovative. It sounded like he'd done what interested him. The authenticity was back.

The sense that you're hearing a genuine effort is among Graduation's greatest strengths. There may be moments that make you want to roll your eyes--such as the hackneyed lesbian fixation of "Stronger," the premise of "Drunk and Hot Girls" (which, I have to say, makes me chuckle), or the disposable collaboration with Most Overrated Rapper Alive Lil' Wayne (there I go again...)--but they are foibles outweighed by the openness of "Everything I Am," the bluntness of "Big Brother," and even the breezy reminiscence of "Champion." Kanye is many things, among them corny and willing to submit to the superficial, but that he is open about it, at times rattling off his excesses with tongue-in-cheek awareness, makes him real. Paired with his direct lyrics and bruising cadence (his lines might be smooth but his flow can still be somewhat awkward), Kanye's performance on Graduation is a return to the personable microphone persona he affected on Dropout. It again sounds like a friend is doing his thing; a star has not deigned to grace you with his presence. The fellow from "Last Call" who put together Ikea furniture while boasting to A&R's that they had to sign him is in effect.

While its inviting emotional tone is a relief easy to dwell upon, Graduation's music shouldn't be overlooked. As has been suggested, the album is synthesizer-heavy, and though it isn't bothersome, it is immediately noticeable. Unlike so much repetitive, monotonous synth-driven rap music notably emanating from the South, though, Kanye's foray into electronic noise is marked by a musician's curiosity and intricacy. This isn't Dream Theater; the musicianship is not the main event. But the smart drum and synthesizer arrangement of "Flashing Lights" and the rich collage of sound that gives "Big Brother" additional resonance are two examples of a producer and his collaborators forging a new sound without sacrificing quality, hip-hop fundamentals, or a listener's attention. More impressive, Kanye blends so many elements: the chipmunk soul of "Glory" next to the lonely minimalism of "Everything I Am," two beats reminiscent of Kanye's older work ("Izzo" and "Guess Who's Back," respectively) but at the same time new; the synth-pop party joint "Good Life," one of my five favorite beats of the year, and the winding electronic hip-hop of "Stronger." It's a creative record that starts strongly, lulls a bit in the middle, and then finishes impressively, all the while making a listener excitedly wonder what is next. Graduation has recaptured the promise that made Kanye a hit in 2003, when the old- and new-school heads could agree that he was offering an auspicious new take on the genre's staples.

Kanye is also an improved rapper. He can rhyme in more ways, he can put together more complicated rhymes, he can use his jokes and wordplay to advance his narratives--he is capable. That said, he's not great, either. "I Wonder," though musically interesting, is lazy rapping, especially when he has to fill otherwise dead syllables with curses, a true crutch. Similarly, he can still sound silly at times, making references that are only smart for a moment and ultimately too obvious or immature. He's not even the best rapping producer--that would be Black Milk. Oddly, Kanye's pedestrian rhyming skills--and we'll use "pedestrian" relative to the top-tier MCs, for he can obviously rap better than the average person--reinforce some of his identity. I don't think he'd be as interesting a figure and musician were he Nas in the booth. His finite rhyming skills render him a gifted peer, a guy with a great ear who is always sort of messing around. That--like the hedonistic fantasies which play out as though he were writing episodes of Entourage and like his willingness to admit to things like being too shy to approach Jay-Z initially--makes Kanye a rapper it's hard to hate. He isn't a vainglorious drug dealer or some bizarro ghetto superhero. He's pretty much a regular person who watched too much TV and lived vicariously through too much celebrity gossip for too long. He'd be different were his rhyming style evolved or his technique better.

The return of the good Kanye fittingly ends with the ambivalent cataloguing of his relationship with Jay-Z on "Big Brother." Simultaneously Jay's adoring fan, amicable peer, and conflicted rival, Kanye walks us through their complicated relationship using the tell-all style that made "Last Call" such a significant song. Though not the same epic and without the same innate advantage of nostalgia, "Brother" again captures what makes Kanye West different. No other rapper can be as direct, as assured, and as humbled at once. Kanye wields a distinct hip-hop humanity that is on full display, and it is nice to have that back.

- Kanye West, "Big Brother"

- Kanye West, "Last Call"

- Can, "Sing Swan Song"

BlogPoll: Ballot #3

Oh how I long to root for a real team.

Another week, another Michigan shit show. What's a Wolverine voter to do? Ah yes, focus on the team being led by a presumptive Carr replacement...

Rank	Team	Delta
1	LSU	1
2	Oklahoma	1
3	Southern Cal	2
4	California	2
5	Florida	--
6	West Virginia	1
7	Wisconsin	3
8	Ohio State	1
9	Boston College	2
10	Texas	--
11	Louisville	3
12	Rutgers	2
13	Penn State	2
14	South Carolina	12
15	Oregon	11
16	Nebraska	1
17	UCLA	4
18	Arkansas	--
19	Hawaii	2
20	Washington	6
21	Georgia Tech	2
22	Clemson	2
23	Alabama	2
24	Georgia	8
25	Virginia Tech	13

Dropped Out: TCU (#19), Boise State (#20), Auburn (#22).

This is a time of year when voting is tough. Teams have not yet assembled meaningful bodies of work and conference matchups have been limited, so relative measures are hard to come by. As a result, a team like South Carolina or Oregon can rocket up the rankings due to an impressive showing because there is so little else to go on. I anticipate that my fifth ballot, submitted after four weeks of action, will start to take on a reasonable shape. Until then, Alabama continues to get the benefit of the doubt because its coach knows what he's doing; wins over Notre Dame continue to mean little; and Virginia Tech gets to linger for one more week until someone gives me a reason to drop a team that is now starting a freshman at quarterback and got raped on national television. Like Michigan.

Some other notes:
- LSU beat a real team in national-championship fashion. That trumps a win over Idaho, USC fans.

- Oklahoma ran an offensive train on a team with a loaded defense. That, too, trumps a win over Idaho, USC fans.

- Teams I am likely overrating right now: Florida, Boston College, South Carolina, Arkansas.

- Teams I am likely underrating right now: Penn State, TCU.

- Teams not likely to appear on this ballot all season: Michigan, Notre Dame.

- In my zeal following Michigan's loss to Appalachian State, I wanted to rank ASU. But thank God that we can't--what a foolish idea. ASU will not play another team that I've heard of all season and it will be impossible to gauge where they may fall in the larger pecking order. Plus, what happens if ASU loses? Does that 1-AA team deserve to be ranked? Real-world voters couldn't help themselves, I guess.

My ballot isn't due to be finalized until Wednesday at 10 AM. Any suggestions? Problems? Omissions?

Broadcast Schedule to Resume Shortly

Not content to suffer on the sidelines, so to speak, I am coming to you live from Ann Arbor, where I will be all weekend. Should get back to some hip-hop later today. One yourselves until then.

Trolling the Depths of Sorrow

A quick note for those Straight Bangers who do not come here to read as I eviscerate Lloyd Carr:

I apologize. This site has become some sort of de facto RSS feed dedicated to my qualified admiration for Kanye West's music and, more recently, my supreme dismay following Michigan's loss to Appalachian State. I recognize that. And again, I am sorry. It will be over soon; the general-interest hating will resume shortly. But in the meantime, I plead for your understanding. Dave has posted something that might begin to help one who can't empathize better grasp what the die-hard Michigan fan is dealing with.

"It's just football" is both resonant and hollow. I still have my health, my family, my friends, my job, and Space Jam Jordan XIs in deadstock condition. Life is good. But the football team is more than an engaging form of entertainment: it is also a symbol of an institution that has shaped my life; it is also an agent of social cohesion that unites friends and strangers; it is also a platform on which those of us who love the University of Michigan can see that deep esteem coalesce. The school, its people, and the education dispensed in Ann Arbor may not have been materially altered, but that doesn't stop someone from seeing that maize and blue and immediately shaking their head, laughing, or worse. Michigan took a hit and that hurts those of us who love it. Perhaps that might earn your patience. It would be appreciated.

Now that that's said, here's the latest gift you can thank Lloyd Carr for, arriving on newsstands tomorrow:



I only wish that they'd put Carr, himself, on the cover. Maybe the jinx would have manifested itself in retirement.

The Liberal Media is a Myth

There is an article in the latest Vanity Fair that explores how mainstream media coverage, especially that peddled by "liberal" sources such as The New York Times and Washington Post, influenced the 2000 election by casting Al Gore as some lying, pandering, awkward bore. It is incredibly infuriating if you're someone, like me, who would prefer that the media actually report facts and dispense with the lazy memes and formulas. Take this, for example:

Building on the narrative established by the Love Story and Internet episodes, Seelye, her critics charge, repeatedly tinged what should have been straight reporting with attitude or hints at Gore's insincerity. Describing a stump speech in Tennessee, she wrote, "He also made an appeal based on what he described as his hard work for the state—as if a debt were owed in return for years of service." Writing how he encouraged an audience to get out and vote at the primary, she said, "Vice President Al Gore may have questioned the effects of the internal combustion engine, but not when it comes to transportation to the polls. Today he exhorted a union audience in Knoxville, Iowa, to pile into vans—not cars, but gas-guzzling vans—and haul friends to the Iowa caucuses on January 24." She would not just say that he was simply fund-raising. "Vice President Al Gore was back to business as usual today—trolling for money," she wrote. In another piece, he was "ever on the prowl for money."

The disparity between her reporting and Bruni's coverage of Bush for the Times was particularly galling to the Gore camp. "It's one thing if the coverage is equal—equally tough or equally soft," says Gore press secretary Chris Lehane. "In 2000, we would get stories where if Gore walked in and said the room was gray we'd be beaten up because in fact the room was an off-white. They would get stories about how George Bush's wing tips looked as he strode across the stage." Melinda Henneberger, then a political writer at the Times, says that such attitudes went all the way up to the top of the newspaper. "Some of it was a self-loathing liberal thing," she says, "disdaining the candidate who would have fit right into the newsroom, and giving all sorts of extra time on tests to the conservative from Texas. Al Gore was a laughline at the paper, while where Bush was concerned we seemed to suffer from the soft bigotry of low expectations." (Seelye's and Bruni's then editors declined to be interviewed for this article.)

Are you kidding me?! The New York Times is a liberal mouthpiece? The agenda-setter that miscast Gore, made Bush out to be some lovable frat boy, and saw narcissistic liars such as Judith Miller prod us toward war? This country has a serious problem when Conservatives and the news outlets that love them are loud enough to convince most people that newspapers like the spineless, softball-lobbing Times are liberal outlets. The New York Times gave you George Bush, the most conservative retrograde President in the last 100 years.

Read the Vanity Fair piece. It's awesomely enraging.

BlogPoll Roundtable: Everything Changed After ASU

Blog fights!

Doug of Hey Jenny Slater, an SB favorite, is hosting the latest installment of the BlogPoll Roundtable. Please note the he's implored respondents to avoid obsessing over Appalachian State when possible. I will try. Away we go...

1. By the end of the season, some previously unheralded teams' bandwagons will be so full they'll be having to bump passengers and offer them free vouchers and first-class upgrades; others will have emptied out in a big way. On whose bandwagon are you already scrambling to save a seat? Conversely, which team's bandwagon is being driven by Toonces the Driving Cat, prompting you to leap off now before it careens over a cliff to its fiery death below?
I hate that I am writing this, but put me down as riding with Penn State (although I am sitting shotgun and hoping for a crash from which I can walk away thanks to the airbag). There is returning experience, speed on the offensive and defensive perimeters, strong linebacker play, and a favorable schedule. Jimmy Clausen is not going to be ready for a 6 PM kickoff at Beaver Stadium; Wisconsin and Ohio State are at home; PSU will come to Ann Arbor and end a decade of futility (has to happen some time, and PSU almost did it last year against a departed Michigan defense that wouldn't let the Lions run); and the hardest road trip is the contest in Champaign. PSU may lose, but it's schedule and solid defense will carry the Lions to a good year. Then things can get back to normal, though, and the Nits can be mediocre again since the recruiting isn't exactly popping off.

I would like to hop off the caravan following Florida State, if it's even still there. The Noles didn't show much against Clemson and the schedule is brutal: trips to VaTech, Florida, and BC; a home game with Miami; and a neutral-site battle with Alabama all remain.

2. What do you think was opening weekend's biggest mirage -- either a "big win" over a team that isn't really as good as everyone thinks, or an embarrassing loss (or embarrassingly close win) that won't seem quite as embarrassing by season's end?
Michigan State needs to have, like, a decade's worth of success before anyone takes the program seriously. Sorry, Spartans.

3. Compared to how you felt Friday night, how do you feel now about your team's chances this season? I'm not just talking about your impressions of your own team -- also take into account their prospects relative to this year's opponents, whom you've also gotten a little more acquainted with after this past weekend's action.
Before the season, I thought Michigan would go 10-2, losing a game in September and the game in Madison. But then I saw Chad Henne looking mediocre-at-best, Mike DeBord using a game plan devised in 1987, Ron English failing to teach his players much, and a team that was thoroughly unprepared and shallow. I now think Michigan emerges from September no better than 3-2, with losses imminently possible against Oregon, a team whose spread offense is something Lloyd Carr won't acknowledge, let alone defend, and Penn State. October looks better, but the night game in Champaign looms because Michigan does its best to make every mobile QB look like the next Vince Young. Beating Wisconsin is out right now, and Ohio State is still too murky. But it is an understatement to call last weekend alarming.

4. Looking at how those future opponents performed this past weekend, which developments are you most excited about? Which of your opponents' performances have you a little worried?
I've inadvertently answered this question already: Oregon running the spread, Penn State playing fundamentally sound ball, and Wisconsin doing it even better all has me concerned. Not a single thing from last weekend made me feel better about anything having to do with Michigan football.

5. There are now 32 bowls in D-IA football, meaning 64 bowl teams, meaning any given team now stands a better-then-50-percent chance of going to a bowl. To get that number under 50 percent, we'd have to eliminate three bowls. Which ones would you get rid of?
Whichever ones are most prone to take Notre Dame, the captain of the all-undeserving team.

6. And finally, in 50 words or less, how happy are you that it's finally football season again?
*SIGH*

BlogPoll: Ballot #2

Coming to a Chris Graham missed tackle near you.

So, aside from you know what, it wasn't a terribly eventful week in college football-dom. The schools that were supposed to win generally did so, and as a result, not much has changed for this pollster.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Southern Cal	--
2	LSU	--
3	Oklahoma	1
4	Wisconsin	1
5	Florida	1
6	California	6
7	West Virginia	1
8	Louisville	1
9	Ohio State	2
10	Texas	7
11	Boston College	2
12	Virginia Tech	1
13	UCLA	5
14	Rutgers	3
15	Penn State	--
16	Georgia	3
17	Nebraska	1
18	Arkansas	3
19	TCU	5
20	Boise State	5
21	Hawaii	5
22	Auburn	2
23	Georgia Tech	3
24	Clemson	2
25	Alabama	1

Dropped Out: Michigan (#10), Florida State (#14), Iowa (#22), Navy (#23).

A few notes:
- I wanted to vote for Appalachian State (and would have slotted them at 25, although in my zeal to indict all things Michigan, I thought about something as high as 18) but the boss man says that we're not allowed to rank Champ-O-Matic Pop Warner Division teams.

- Cal jumped up six spots on the strength of the season's best win to date. I wasn't sold on Tennessee as a top-25 team, but the Vols weren't far off, either.

- Consider me among those who thought that an off-season purge would instantly resuscitate Florida State. I was wrong. The team wasn't ready to play in the first half, and the offense still looks pedestrian. Clemson gets a nod for the win, although that second half made me realize that we can likely just cancel the Tigers' season, award them 8 wins, and see them again in January at a yet-to-be-determined bowl that no one will care about. Maybe they can play Michigan.

- Teams that moved down while winning: Ohio State didn't look better against its baked good than either of the teams that moved up; Texas set out a bunch of warning flags; VaTech's offense needs work; I am waiting to judge Nebraska but liked how Georgia looked against a real team; how did Jeff Bowden find the technology and precision needed to take Al Borges's face?

- Iowa's game was closer than comfortable, and Navy only beat Temple by 11? Instead, I'll take a flyer on Alabama and will gladly reward any team that goes to South Bend and leaves all of the generic white people to sob into their beers at the Linebacker, America's crappiest go-to college-town bar.

- Most ballots likely can't mean much through the first month of the season as teams get sorted out. Related: the bottom five is liable to change a bunch early on.

- Unrelated (sort of): LD has brought back one of the great recurring college football features online, the Gameday Recaps.

The Pied Piper of Our Inexorable March Toward the Middle

Update your resume. We beg you.

Since I've been depositing my thoughts on this interweb, people have left angry, self-righteous comments in response to my criticism of Lloyd Carr. In fact, it happened just last week. They say that Carr critics are unreasonable, that those with the temerity to voice their dissent are "crazy." They like to retort that he's won the Big Ten five times, that he's gone to three Rose Bowls in four years, that he's won a national title, and so forth. These sorts of Michigan fans cite these statistics to feel good about the football program. They wield them as supposed proof that the program hasn't fallen off, that the coach isn't completely antiquated, that Michigan is a leader in college football. And it's pathetic because it's delusional.

Michigan fans need to get real.

Lloyd Carr needs to get out.

Supposedly, no one could have seen Saturday's loss to Appalachian State coming, but yet we all sort of did, some more readily than others. These sorts of things--the embarrassments, the mind-boggling stubbornness, the routine failure on the big stage, the inability to defend the spread, the suspect special teams, the bland and unimaginative offense, the recurring problems from year to year and class to class and coordinator to coordinator--are not new. They happen a lot. For instance, when Appalachian State players were quoted after the game as saying that they felt good about their chances because they'd studied film and knew Michigan's simple schemes, were there not flashbacks to so many losses previous? USC, alone, seems to know Michigan better than the Wolverines do, and they only study the film for bowl game. What do you think Jim Tressel says? Lloyd Carr has made these absurd realities as much a part of his legacy as he has that one miracle season which he will never duplicate. Ever. Lloyd Carr football has been timid, self-defeating, predictable, naive football, and Michigan fans need to demand more.

Yet for years, most Michigan fans have tried to shout down any polemicist who has tried to point out the cracks in the foundation. Mainstream writers like Jim Carty and Drew Sharp are ridiculed on message boards for their anti-Carr bias; bloggers are nattering nabobs of negativity who can be easily dismissed as fringe crackpots; and even casual fans who'd like more from a program than empty consolations are told to be realistic. What's unrealistic about job accountability? What's so wrong with wanting a football team that doesn't make you fear a collapse or gird for disappointment? Is there any powerhouse program that does less with more? That makes winning feel like losing so often? That is so vainglorious that it will happily adhere to its old-world tactics, training regiments, and public relations protocols while everything else changes around it? Lloyd Carr is the man who inherited this great institution of college football and has allowed for this steady decay. And he no longer even runs a clean program, so what is he doing all day aside from seeking out more sand in which he can bury his head?

The saddest part, though, and perhaps the most damning, is that this has all been countenanced by the fan base at large. No Michigan alumnus or fan--not me, not my friends, not other "haters" who speak out of frustration and not malice--wants to see the school compromise its values or elevate winning to a place that forces the University of Michigan to become Ohio State. But there is a long way in between that and the prevailing mindset now: led by Carr, a culture of inertia and acceptance of mediocrity has enveloped Michigan football. It's the reason that Carr can fail in predictable ways year after year without being held accountable or asked to make real changes. And it needs to end if Michigan is still serious about college football.

I certainly didn't envision Michigan losing to a team that isn't even eligible for the BCS, but Saturday's loss to Appalachian State was just a miserable capstone in the continued decline Lloyd Carr has presided over. Anyone who can't see that, or who wants to pretend that lost Rose Bowls mitigate these damages, needs to move to whatever alternate reality Lloyd Carr has found.

What More Can I Say?

The face of disappointment.

I know that he doesn't throw passes or miss tackles, but a head coach is ultimately responsible for the fortunes of his program, and today's disaster is not an isolated incident. Michigan is just always that team--unprepared in big moments, unimaginative, behind the times, and always failing to fully correct errors.

Michigan needs a new football coach. End of discussion.