Maize n Brew - An Unofficial Michigan Football Blog that Hits like Ezeh and is Smooth like Gibson.

About Maize n Brew

Maize n Brew is a Blog devoted to the University of Michigan, its athletes, its sports teams, students and alumni. While primarily a Michigan Football Blog, Maize n Brew also follows Michigan Basketball, Michigan Hockey and all of its other athletic teams, with the devotion of a hungry puppy chasing a chuck wagon. Put simply Maize n Brew is a labor of love by its authors. While we have no inside information, connections or influence on Michigan Athletics, we like to pretend we do. So just about everyday we'll offer up our own unfiltered thoughts, opinions and insights into Michigan athletics. However, if you've got inside scoops, don't hesitate to contact us!

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Check Please

by Maize n Brew Dave on Feb 8, 2010 1:17 PM CST in Michigan Basketball Comment 1 comment

(A full write up on the Camp Randall Classic will be posted tomorrow. I'm still sorting through the hundred plus photos I took and trying to sort out how best to phrase some things. It was an amazing experience and tremendous game that, unfortunately, was marred by some horrible officiating at the end. In the meantime, I thought we'd look at the bigger picture today. - Ed.)

The last few months have been difficult for Michigan fans. And for once this has nothing to do with football. About a year removed from Michigan's first NCAA tournament in the prior ten years, the basketball team showed us why it's a questionable bubble team. A questionable NIT bubble team. Instead of performing like the NCAA tournament team they were supposed to be, Michigan played like the collection of mismatched parts we now know them to be in a blowout home loss to Wisconsin. Likewise, after nearly two straight decades of NCAA tournament invites, the men's hockey team (barring winning every remaining game and/or the CCHA tournament) will not have its name called at selection time. Despite dominating long stretches of the Camp Randall Classic, Michigan failed to capitalize on it's chances while allowing the Badgers to convert theirs. The result, a lost weekend.

Maybe I should be a little more disappointed about it, but I'm not. Honestly, it's kind of hard to get upset about it anymore. After almost twenty years of certainty on the ice and scores of players bolting for NHL/AHL paychecks, I guess it was inevitable that Michigan would miss the NCAA torunament. On the hardwood, Michigan seemed to cheat fate last year. Making the NCAA tournament after a 10 year absence and a roster littered with freshmen and guards posing as power forwards and centers. This year the tab came due, and Michigan wasn't able to ante up to pay their tournament bill. The result of it all is that neither hockey nor basketball will see a meaningful post season for the first time I can remember.

For me, the relative demise of the hockey team is not particularly surprising. This team simply can't put the puck in the net. They are blessed with speed and crafty hands, but are without a pure sniper or goal scorer. If you've followed Michigan for any period of time, that's shocking to say out loud. But years of attrition in our recruiting classes has come home to roost. High level recruits being lured away before they ever signed their letters of intent and others bolting before their junior seasons. Goaltending recruiting and play that has never panned out. The result of which is a team of second and third line players being asked to play above their capabilities. A team that is very different in make up and ability than any team I've seen Michigan field since 1994.

On the hardwood Michigan basically traded last year for this year in an even up swap. last year Michigan had no business (at least on paper) being as good as it was. Upsets over UCLA, Duke, etc... Freshman playing over their heads and ability levels. In hindsight, this year should've been last year. Flashes of consistency followed by maddening straights of bad. Michigan simply wasn't going to be able to compete this year without leadership, orperhaps more importantly, without additional size down low. Redshirts for potential contributors. A hip injury ending another big man's career. This wasn't the same team from the year before.

Watching the basketball and hockey games in Madison Saturday, there really wasn't much of a surprise. The basketball team was sloppy, rushed shots, and couldn't defend anyone. On the ice, Michigan controlled the tempo of the game but couldn't score and couldn't match Wisconsin's insensity on the penalty kill. It's been this way all season for both teams. It wasn't going to change over night.

It is what it is. A pair of mediocre teams that weren't able to live up to our high expectations. A another record or streak or whatever goes by the wayside and the only post season available looks like the NIT. A bill that's come due after a number of years of good living on the ice and another that popped up from living in the fast lane last year.

So we're paying the check that was bound to come due with this year. And if we're lucky, we're also putting a healthy down payment on future sucess as well.

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To Die of a Thousand Cuts

by Beauford on Feb 7, 2010 11:08 PM CST in Pro Sports Are Stupid Comment 0 comments

(ed. - this isn't about Michigan, so if you're so inclined, go ahead a skip it. But you won't, because you're bored at work too, and this sure beats that spreadsheet.)

Every time two teams put on helmets and shoulder pads, or lace up the skates, or put on the warmups, or take the stones out, there is a contest, followed by a winner and a loser (and, in the case of that last one there, most likely some vomiting). This holds true for every meaningful competition known to mankind. Even if the stakes are simply "next" on the court, there is a defined winner, and a defined loser. It's how competition works. What serves as both a great joy, and a great pain, is when you attach yourself to the competitors in such a way that you're living and dying with every movement they make, and feel pain - real pain - when the outcome falls in the "losing" catagory, despite the fact that you yourself sat on your couch and ate a chocolate chip cookie. Your chocolate chips, delicious as they may be, have not impacted the contest and therefore you should simply be happy with your cookie and your couch. And the fact that you yourself do not have to worry about a 330lbs nose tackle crushing your sternum. These are things to be thankful for indeed.

Yet, here I sit, in a hotel room in Ohio separated from my friends and family who I would normally be watching a game because of a scheduling snafu and an early morning meeting tomorrow. I watched the game by myself, and spent the second half on speaker phone with my wife - who hates football, and losing even more - just so that I'd have somebody to talk to. And the Colts lost. For the first time in my adult-ish life, a team that I cared deeply about lost a championship. I suppose the Fab 5 could count, but I can't really remember what happened with that particular squad. Something about boosters and timeouts. I must have blocked it.

What's more is that the loss is so fitting. This week, wearing my Colts hat has felt a lot like driving around with a "Bush/Cheney" sticker in Boston, which isn't to start a politics battle, but it's the best way I can describe it. I've had to make excuses as to why I would DARE root for the Colts after all New Orleans has been through. I've had to actually defend the fact that I grew up in Indiana, and grew up a Colts fan. You would think that the Colts team had personally electrocuted some of these people's puppies the way that public sentiment had turned against them. Nonetheless, I figured that the Colts would come out and start cruising to another somewhat boring victory tonight, and the world outside of Indiana would feel bad for the Saints and New Orleans, and we'd move on. Obviously, that's not what happened, and instead I'm going for the 2nd cookie and feeling bad about myself while the world celebrates with New Orleans, and I might have been one to go join them had it not been the hometown team that they onsided their way to victory over.

With time ticking down in the 4th quarter, and the Colts figuratively bleeding out from a thousands tiny cuts that the Saints had masterfully crafted, it still wasn't over. Manning had the ball with a chance to tie. There was too much time on the clock - had Manning scored that touchdown, Brees would have had around 1:30 to drive and get into FG range - entirely too much time. I could have handled that loss; it was fitting given the way the game was played. Never a big play, just a bunch of tiny gashes. Instead, with Reggie Wayne hobbled by an injury, Manning threw a ball that usually Reggie's there for - only this time a Saints defender just stepped in and could have cartwheeled into the endzone. What had been on life support had the cord violently ripped from the wall. If the Colts were supposed to lose, did it have to be like that?

So I'm sitting here writing all this down because somehow it helps me deal with these sorts of losses. In every meaningful competition, there is a winner and a loser. Losing is wretched. Winning is joyful. Tonight, while the rest of the country who have attached themselves to a city down on their luck proceed with their joyfulness, I will gladly serve as the counterpoint. Without this feeling right now - alone in a hotel room - there is no joy of winning, there is no attachment to a geographical team of your choice, and there is no point to all of this. Because when my team wins again - and they will win again - I'll gladly serve up some joy.

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Failsketball: The 2009-10 Michigan Basketball Team Isn't Unlucky, It's Just Bad

by Maize n Brew Dave on Feb 5, 2010 2:35 PM CST in Michigan Basketball Comment 5 comments

Northwestern's Michael Thompson puts defensive pressure on Michigan's Manny Harris as Northwestern beat Michigan 67-52 in an NCAA college basketball game in Evanston, Ill., on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Cherney)

More photos » Charles Cherney - AP

6 days ago: Northwestern's Michael Thompson puts defensive pressure on Michigan's Manny Harris as Northwestern beat Michigan 67-52 in an NCAA college basketball game in Evanston, Ill., on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010. (AP Photo/Charles Cherney)

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The second Michigan completed it's out of conference season flop, I wrote off our chances of making the NCAA tournament. There was no way the selection committee could overlook Michigan's abysmal away record and OOC misses. I was disappointed about it, but not unduly so. "Sometimes you don't get the breaks and sometimes you don't" I told myself.

The breaks. That's been a constant theme this year. A bounce here. A bounce there, maybe the season is different. Ken Pomeroy has a statistic for "luck". Sometimes you don't get a bounce. I get that. A shot rims out. A pass glances off of fingers. The puck his the outside of the post rather than the inside and bounces in. You lay into a pitch, but the ball flies straight into the third baseman's glove. Luck, from play to play, makes a difference. But over the course of a season you make your own luck. Good teams tend to have more luck than bad ones.

The more I watch this Michigan team the less I believe luck has anything to do with the outcome of our season. MGoBlog picked up a UMHoops tweet following the MSU loss that is as telling a statistic as any I've seen this year.

If my calculations are correct. Michigan is 2-6 in games that are within 4 pts in the final 2 minutes.

Out of 8 four-point-two-minutes games, Michigan has found a way to lose 6. That's not luck. That's a pattern. It's not the sign of a good team. Good teams find ways to win those games. Luck means you're 3-1 in games like that. A small sample size because there isn't enough data to come to a conclusion, so it can be safely written away by asserting one team was luckier than the other. But when you look at eight games and similar outcomes, luck has very little to do with it. Luck has even less to do with two pencil thin white dudes from Northwestern putting an exclamation point on a beat down by tossing a half court alley-oop dunk on your ass. The brutal truth is, this is a bad team. And to be perfectly honest, every reason for Michigan's .500 season was on on display Tuesday night in Evanston.

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Michigan Football Sign-a-palooza: Chewing Off Your Fingernails While Waiting for 18 Year Olds to Make up Their Minds on Colleges!

by Maize n Brew Dave on Feb 4, 2010 11:52 AM CST in Michigan Football Comment 10 comments

That's right folks. National high school football signing day has come and gone. It was the first chance for future college stars to sign on the dotted line and commit themselves to three to five years of this:

Side of bacon, fruit... and I'll take my brains scrambled, thanks.

For you creepy recruiting types, it National Signing Day is like Christmas in February. Weird creepy Christmas Where the decision of a 18 year old kid will throw thousands of college fans in delusional joy or suicidal depression. Woo! Merry Recruitingmas! Now come in off the ledge and listen to reason, you crazy bastards.

Is recruiting and/or National Signing Day that bad or that good? Neither. But it is fun. More importantly yesterday's signings lay the ground work for the next four to five years of Michigan football. Whether you're getting stars or backups, unless you have depth in college football you're never going to compete. Need proof? Look at Michigan last year. Three non-freshman DBs to play four positions. So yeah. Recruiting matters.

Going into yesterday, Michigan had several critical positions in ire straits: Defensive Back, Safety, Linebacker, Defensive Tackle, and Quarterback. As you read through this, you'll see that Rich Rodriguez and his staff addressed these issues fairly thoroughly in their recruiting this year. Sure there are holes. There are always going to be holes. But you'll never really have a gauge on how good or bad a recruting class is until three years down the line.

Given Michigan's good-on-paper-horrid-on-the-field defensive recruiting since 2005, you can't get too high or low on the numbers this year. What you should do is be thankful there are bodies coming in to fill the gaping holes in the secondary. Specifically bodies that are not walk-ons.

Overall, I think Michigan did an above average job of recruiting this year. Sure it's not littered with five star recruits, but this class fills a number of gaps that Michigan desperately needs to be filled. It's not an "A" type class due to the lack of "stars" on the list, but it is a solid B or B+.

So lets take a look at who's rolling into Ann Arbor for the 2010 football season, starting with the

OFFENSE:

Quarterback: Always a need. Especially when you only have two (real) scholarship on the roster.

Devin Gardner - Without a doubt, the crown jewel of the recruiting class. Gardner is Rivals and Scout's No. 1 Dual Threat Quarterback in the 2010 class and the perfect fit for the Rodriguez offense. For a big kid, measuring around 6'4"-6'6" depending on who you believe, he moves like the wind. To top it off, he's got a cannon of an arm. If you're looking for a comparision based on flimsy evidence:

Ncf_g_young_s_300_medium

Same frame. Same athletic ability. Please mop up your drool. There's only one problem. He's got a horrible throwing motion. It's Tebow-esque. Actually, scratch that. It's as bad as Young's was in college. Awful. Gardner had a great showing at the Elite 11 camps, actually fixing his mechanics and showing some great velocity when he had an actual quarterback coach to help him. But as the high school season went one it degraded. Bad. Here's what it looks like now:

Bottom line, he's not college ready. Not by a long shot. Gardner needs a full year of learning how to throw and reading a defense. If he's starting opening day against UConn, we're in real trouble. After two straight years of freshmen quarterbacks starting, we desparately need to let Gardner grow and mature. All that said, he's got the tools to be something special. Even better, he enrolled early. So he's ours. OURS! Muhahahaha! Gardner should not, barring something horrible happening to Tate and Denard, see the field this year. Best case scenario he redshirts year one, holds a clipboard year two, and sees some sporatic action in year three. Has two full years at the helm thereafter. Early Enrollee.

ahem.... moving on...

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Vote Maize n Brew: Loving America, Michigan Football and Awesome 80's Metal Since 2006

by Maize n Brew Dave on Jan 29, 2010 1:15 PM CST in Michigan Football Comment 7 comments

80s Metal Sucks? SUCKS!? Oh, it's on mfer.

We here at Maize n Brew love America with the power of a thousand Stanzis. That's right, the "Stanzi" is now the official unit of measurement for how much you love America. Just below our love of country is our love for the University of Michigan Football team and Michigan Stadium. America and Michigan Football, things that go together like bacon and more bacon. But something is troubling America, Michigan Football and Michigan Stadium. And that is why we are here before you today.

All of you are aware of the current state of the piped in music played at Michigan Stadium. It's a crisis of Biblical proportions that threatens to tear our Union asunder, and a crisis that can be ignored no longer. With this in mind, we at Maize n Brew recently proposed some modest changes to Michigan Stadium's playlist to help bring Michigan Stadium and Michigan Football into the 21st Century and help guide it on a path to righteousness.

Though we might prefer a more traditional form of musical entertainment at our Michigan Football games, piped in music is here to stay. Just like global warming, illegal immigrants, and American Idol. We can turn a blind eye, praying the issue will resolve itself (look a polar bear in Miami!). Or, like true Americans, we can be proactive and work toward a solution. That is what we have done. Offer a solution.

Our opponents, instead of offering solutions, have gone negative. Attempting to tear us down rather than build up America and Michigan Stadium. Not only that, they are trying to tear down 80s metal. What is more American than sex, drugs, chicks and rock n' roll? Nothing. It's impossible to be more American than that. You think Ricky Stanzi has Coldplay on his iPod? Hell No! J. Leman? Hell No! They have ROK music made and recorded here in the good ole U S of A. And when great American patriots like Leman and Stanzi listen to 80s metal, shouldn't you?

What is the alternative? Stay with the status quo? Crappy music that makes us cringe in our seats? A Band in the corner no one can hear? No. Our opponents say "lets go back." Back in time. Back to the past. Back to tradition. Now we don't want to go negative here, but you know where tradition got us?

We're just saying.

(more insanity after the jump....)

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Southern California Softball Star Chooses Michigan

by markusr2007 on Jan 29, 2010 12:53 PM CST in Michigan Softball Comment 1 comment

Another Gardner has joined Michigan.

Mandy Gardner, softball player from Aliso Niguel High School in Orange County, California. The announcement of her commitment to Michigan's softball team occurred way back in November.

It looks like UM landed one hell of a softball player and home run slugger here. She was ESPN California All-State as multi-purpose player. She's also a pitcher.

According to Strictly Softball, Ms. Gardner is apparently the "take no prisoners" type:

"Mandy earned a 0.43 earned run average, 91 strikeouts and 14-2 record through 97 innings pitched and batting .476 with 15 home runs and 27 runs batted in. Gardner was named the South Coast League MVP and led Aliso Niguel High School to the league championship."

Aliso Niguel's High School mascot: The Wolverines, of course.

And uh, about those home runs: l'd like to hereby advise all softball fans in Ann Arbor and around the Big Ten conference to please park their vehicles well away from the outfield fence. Thank you.

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Those Who Play Defense Will Be Champions

by markusr2007 on Jan 27, 2010 4:24 PM CST in Michigan Football Comment 2 comments

Ernest Shazor 2003

The last Michigan Big Ten conference championship in football was the 2004 season when they finished 7-1 in conference and 9-3 overall. This was a shared conference title with the Iowa Hawkeyes. Searching for Michigan's last outright Big Ten championship in football would take us all the way back to 2003 (7-1, 10-3 overall). The last time Michigan won a Big Ten title AND won their bowl game was a full 10 years ago, back in 2000 (6-2, 9-3 overall) following a Citrus Bowl win over Auburn 31-28.

The five year championship drought is one of the longest in Michigan football history. There was a 14 year gap between Michigan's 1950 and 1964 conference championships in football. Kind of hard to imagine waiting around that long for a piece of hardware to make its way into the university's athletic display case.

I take that back.

It's not so hard to imagine anymore.

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Improving the Michigan Football Game Day Experience: Part One, Music

by Maize n Brew Dave on Jan 27, 2010 3:49 PM CST in Michigan Football Comment 9 comments

Look. It's the off season. There is nothing fun to write about unless you're into following around 18 year-old kids and offering them candy to discuss their college choice. If you're doing that, shame on you. Leave that to the professionals. They have official looking pieces of paper that keep people from calling the cops. You don't. Perv. Anyway, here at Maize n Brew we'll be looking over the past season for things that can obviously, and not so obviously, be improved to make Michigan Football and watching Michigan Football that much better. We've ~~never~~ really thought this stuff through. I'm telling you it's ~~god-awful~~ genius! So, Dave Brandon, feel free to use any or all of our suggestions. Just make sure to thank us with a luxury box. I hear a few are still available.

As far back as the Big Ten Media Kick off music at Michigan Stadium was a topic of discussion. Whether it was behind the scenes or our in the open, it was clear that Michigan Stadium would, for the first time ever, have piped in music. There was wailing and much gnashing of teeth for all corners of the Mich'o'sphere, but mostly from Brian. Noooo RAWK MUSIK!

I'll put this out there: Personally, I like the stuff. When it's good. Only when it's good. The best example I can give is the Jagr-led Washington Capitals* at the ~~MCI~~ ~~Worlcomm~~ Verizon Center, whose PA dude put together the most awesome montage-collages of heavy metal/death rock this pathetic planet has ever known. That Caps intro would melt your face right into your beer cup. Sure they had the faux-organ (or, forgan, if you will), but they kept the majority of the music deafening and awesome. They knew their target audience and they fed it guitar heavy ROK like you'd feed makrel to a trained seal. We ate it up.

With that mindset, or at least with what I hope was originally that mindset, Michigan allowed music to be blared in the Big House. Lots of it.

And it was baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaad.

You there. Mr. Stadium-Music-Player-Selector-Guy. If you ever play the full intro to "Lose Yourself" by Eminem in Michigan Stadium again I take no responsibility for what happens next. Playing the intro piano rift is about as motivating as slamming your nuts in a car door. And at a time that our football team needs pump up music you're playing a slow moving song about a guy who chokes onstage. Real good. Yes. He's from 8 Mile. Yes. It's close to Ann Arbor physically. That doesn't make it a good thing to play. Ever.

And what the hell was up with playing Journey? I get it, "Don't Stop Believing" has the word "Detroit" in it and it worked for the Chicago White Sox in '05 (Which I still don't get. It's a song about people from Detroit. I guess "Sweet Home Alabama" was taken by the Phillies). But it's a baseball song. It's slow and boring. Just like the game. It fits in baseball. Not in a sport where maiming someone is a cause for celebration and flexing your enormous bicepts for the camera. Danzig. Motorhead. Wu Tang. They glorify pain in the abstract. Journey glorifies a lonely studio apartment life. Why you would ever play this is beyond me.

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