Thursday Morning Brews: Thunder

Happy Thursday, folks. Welcome to Morning Brews. The big news out of Michigan football is of course the cancellation of Saturday’s spring game due to expected poor weather conditions. While that’s certainly a setback for football starved fans, and one has to ask who thought it was a good idea to schedule something at night during the month of April in the state of Michigan, I’m afraid there’s simply nothing we can do. On the topic of football, we have several football related pieces of content this morning. We also check in with softball, who had games on both Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

As usual, there is a song referenced in this morning’s article. There are at least two clues. They may be words, phrases, or photos, and may reference lyrics, the artist, or the album. If you think you know this morning’s song, fire away down in the comments.

Let’s get to it:

Bummed that Michigan canceled the spring game on Saturday? Yeah, me too. Though it turns out that Michigan isn’t alone in doing so. Wisconsin and Northwestern join the Wolverines at Big Ten teams who looked at the forecast and said “thanks, but no thanks.” Outside of the Big Ten, Iowa State canceled their spring game on Saturday because the weatherman said “thundersnow” was coming. No, not thunderdome. Thundersnow, which I guess is a thing in Iowa? Regardless, some schools have said they would reschedule their games. As of now, Michigan appears to not have plans to reschedule. If that changes, we’ll be sure to bring you that news.

The arms race of football facilities has been heating up in recent years. Michigan continues to add new things to Schembechler Hall, Alabama has waterfalls, Oregon has Nikeville. This fall a new participant is coming to the stage with a beachfront—yes, beachfront— practice facility. And that school is... Northwestern? The Wildcats are opening a new $260 million athletics campus this fall, the crown jewel of which is an indoor practice facility on the shore of Lake Michigan. Check out the article linked above for photos of their new complex. It’s pretty cool.

I’m not wild about this take, but given how positive we are about Maurice Hurst here I figure it’s only fair to bring you guys a slightly less positive take. Stephen White is a former NFL defensive lineman. He started 15 games and appeared in 94 total games across a seven year career in the NFL. He recorded 72 tackles and 11.5 sacks in his time in the League. All this is to say that White spent some time in the league and should have a decent idea of what he’s talking about when it comes to evaluating talent. What does he say about Hurst? That he has a very high ceiling, but that he might have a hustle problem. For the full take, check out the article linked above.

Softball won both of its mid-week games, bringing their winning streak to nine games. On Tuesday, Michigan’s Tera Blanco threw a no-hitter en route to a 4-0 win over Eastern Michigan. As the tweet above states, Blanco’s was the fifth no-hitter by a Michigan pitcher this season and she’s the third person to throw a no-hitter for the Wolverines this season—both program records. Yesterday, Michigan recorded a 1-0 win over Michigan State. The Wolverines are now 33-7 (8-1) on the season. They’ll be back in action this weekend against Rutgers.