Welcome to football week! Here’s what you can expect from Maize n Brew this season

Ahoy! So, I just rolled out of bed after a seven-month hibernation, and Anthony is telling me that it’s football season once again. So, let’s roll through some of the changes that have apparently happened to this site during the off-season, and also what you can expect from us this fall. Because, well, football is kind of a big deal.

Photo credit: Bryan Fuller, MGoBlog

First of all, we have steadily been building a larger group of writers than we’ve had in years past. In particular we were trying to add as many Andrews (we have three) and Michaels (we have two) as humanly possible to make things decently confusing for everybody. If your name is Andrew or Michael, please let us get to know you on a first-name basis so we can complicate things even further.

One nice thing about having a larger group of writers is that we can delve into more things in new ways than we used to, which is exciting. We’ll have more articles and longer-form analysis, but also some roundtables and podcasts to highlight these guys’ personalities and opinions and keep things fairly accessible. (We’re not going to be Cowherd and ESPN, don’t worry.)

We want to be a good place to come and talk about football, without a lot of issues with trolls or hiveminds. Hopefully you find some writers you can get to know and enjoy reading, and make some friends along the way in the comment section as well.

While we’re on the subject, let’s run through a list of the roundtables you’ll be likely to encounter this fall - call it a menu, as it were:

Staff roundtable: Ed Murray, rotating cast of writers, Fridays

Post-game roundtable: Kevin Bunkley, Drew C. Hallett, Josh LaFond, Sundays

Big Ten roundtable: Nick Bodanyi, Andrew Bailey, Ed Murray, every other Wednesday

Recruiting roundtable: Nick Bodanyi, Von Lozon, David Noe, Michael Cooper, every other Wednesday

Fan roundtable: Nick Bodanyi, rotating cast of commenters, periodically

The Michigan Sports Roundtable that you may remember from this past off-season - with me, James, and Will - will be going on hiatus because each of us will be very busy. Hopefully we can get that going again in January to talk about football, basketball, hockey, and more.

We also have three regular podcasts for you to keep an eye out for - The Michigan Man Podcast with Mike Fitzpatrick, Victors Valiant with Von, Kullen, and Andy, and The Going For 2 Podcast with Andrew (aha! see? you don’t know which one, do you?) and Jared. Try them out, get a feel for them. They’re all great guys and very knowledgeable, and they’ll develop their own styles and motifs.

On top of the articles and roundtables, we’ll have more statistical analysis - Inside the Numbers with Drew Hallett on Tuesdays, plus various pieces by Kyle Yost and other writers - and we’ll have more polls and fan outreach. It’ll be a bit hectic at first, but it should be a lot of fun and we’ll be exploring a lot of directions.

You may have also noticed that SB Nation remodeled the site this summer. Hopefully you’ve gotten used to the changes; I almost have, but not quite. (Then again I was hibernating.) We’re also going to adapt to it by having a section near the top called “Pages on Tap,” and another “Recruiting Pages on Tap” a little further down. Those will have cool resources that we will update regularly - I’ll make sure to get it up and running this week.

We’ll also have an interactive prediction pool on Fridays where you can try to predict how players will do and compete against other fans. Will it work? Will it be a dud? We’ll find out. But it’ll be fun to try.

Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports

Ultimately, at the end of the day, it’s not about the ideas or the platform you have, though, it’s about the people. We want to be a great place to come and relax, and we’ll be diligent and understanding when trying to moderate comments and welcome outside fans. If you have any issues, comments or concerns, email me (septoranges@gmail.com) or Anthony (abroome1110@gmail.com) any time. Or just yell at us in the comments, we’ll see those too.

In the meantime - Go Blue. Thanks for your patronage, and we appreciate the chance to hone our craft and entertain an amazing group of fans at the same time.