Tuesday, November 29, 2016

The Big Ten's Glass House

You know you are getting to big and powerful when you can't look at your organization and see faults, issues or problems.   There is no perfect organization.   Apple has issues, Microsoft has problems, Google is not always great.  The best organizations look at everything and evaluates where they can get better.     Leadership is not guiding the boat in calm weather, its captaining the ship in a hurricane.

Jim Delany thinks the water is calm in the Big Ten.   It's not, it's choppy as hell and he can't see it or will even take questions on it.  

This happened yesterday, which we knew was coming:

Big 10 reprimands Jim Harbaugh for violating the Big Ten Sportsmanship Policy, fines school $10,000.

Big Ten take some god damn responsibility for putting that officiating crew on the field!   Mike Pereira the officiating expert for Fox Sports, said the Big 10 reviewed the game and only found one mistake. 

I'm betting there was probably 20 mistakes made, I will give you two calls that were clear mistakes:  Darboh gets tackled in the first quarter on a pass route which is a clear PI call and Grant Perry gets hooked and no PI call in overtime.    The Hill PI call could have gone either way, the argument is the ball was not catchable.    The spot is also a 50/50 call.  

There is enough smoke to make "the game was fixed" fire and as of today Jim Delany has his head in the sand. 

If I was Michigan's AD and/or President, I would have a serious talk with Jim Delany on the officials they put on the field.   It's time Michigan threw it's weight around and got some damn answers.   I'm tired of decisions of having to play MSU in East Lansing two years in a row and putting Ohio State fans on the field to officiate a Ohio State - Michigan game. The Big Ten holds 100% responsibility for that decision which breaks the Big Ten Sportsmanship policy in my mind. 

Jim Delany if you don't address the mistake in the putting Ohio officials on the field in Ohio Stadium, you aren't a leader and completely tone deaf.     

Only in the Big Ten could you have the 3rd and 4th best teams playing for a Championship this Saturday.  

Hopefully, that is the last post on the damn officiating in the OSU game.

  • Michigan WR target Tarik Black is planning to decide in December in the next 2-3 weeks.  His original plan was to announce at the Army All American game.

  • There have been some buzz that Michigan might have cooled a bit on Nike Opening star IA WR Oliver Martin as they feel confident about 3 other WR's.   I hope that's not the case, I like Martin a lot and think he is going to be a very good WR at the next level.   The thinking is he might now sign with ND.

  • Did you know that Brian Kelly, Rich Rod and Mark Dantonio combined for 10 wins this year? Strange year.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

It was not about sportsmanship or fair play. It was about money and prestige in the possibility of having 2 Big10 teams in the playoffs. OSU winning gave the Big10 the best chance for that to happen. The problem was OSU needed too much help on OSU non-calls and UM 50/50s that exposed the refs.

Unknown said...

I wonder if these same refs worked the Northwestern game in Columbus earlier in the year?

szanreno said...

Maybe it should be looked at to see what other OSU games they officiated.

Voice of Reason said...


My original thought about petitioning the B1G and NCAA about this fiasco in Columbus this past weekend wasn't so much about trying to get them to let Michigan into the playoffs or the B1G championship as it is about using this opportunity to shine a big spot light on this subject with the public.

Like I've stated yesterday, this time next week this game will be long forgotten by the general public as they focus on the CFP playoffs. Moreover, the practice of this form of cheating will continue because no one will be forced to address it. The common political thought about any type of scandal is "ride out the storm, it will pass and will soon be forgotten...and we will have business as usual." My concern is that if they get away with it then it will happen the next time Michigan is in Columbus, and osu will do the same thing to other teams. It can't be okay with us, Michigan or the sports world.

King Solomon once said, "To everything there is a season and a time for every purpose under heaven." (Ecclesiastes 3:1) Later on in his statement he says there is also "a time to fight," a time to stand up. It may not benefit this year's team but it could help future teams that have to go to ohio state.

This administration has GOT to protect their teams. Cheating isn't new, I believe that is why the former Michigan coach purchased what we call the Little Brown Jug, because he knew our opponents get desperate and will stoop to anything to win. Simply being a good guy won't protect this team, the administration needs to be proactive in addressing this. We won't be popular but then again... News flash!!! They hate us anyway! Our administration needs to protect this team, no one else can do it.

Listen, we know ohio state cheats, that is what they do. There were all sorts of stories coming out of Columbus about what they were doing and when the NCAA found out about them they only got a pat on the wrist. It wasn't enough to deter them from cheating again which means that the punishment was worth the risk. The NCAA will not give Alabama or osu the death penalty but Michigan MUST use all of it's influence (which is substantial) and make them fully accountable. This must not happen again. Our kids deserve their protection. These kids as well as the kids from other institutions work too hard for osu, NCAA, and the B!G to continue to make a joke out of this type of practice. When will our administration put on their big boy pants and get to work. We'll spend millions of dollars on facilities but we won't spend the time and money to fight for our kids? If they don't do anything about this then this institution isn't the leaders and best after all. IMHO!!!

c******19 said...

Bob, love the blog. Thanks. Never had a reason to comment before, but today I think I do. I’m posting an excerpt of a comment from MGOBLOG earlier this week:

“In order to believe there weren't a bunch of non-calls against OSU, you'd have to believe that in a DOUBLE-OT game, against their MOST HATED RIVAL, in which the CFP was ON THE LINE, in a FRENZIED environment like the Horseshoe, that the OSU team was zen-like in their execution & played approximately 9 times cleaner than their average game all season long.

Bullsh*t.”

In this instance “bullsh*t” can be measured.

Using the penalties from the previous 11 OSU games and assuming a normal distribution (questionable, but reasonable enough for internet discussion), the likelihood of OSU getting 6 penalty yards is a bit less than 1 in a 100. Significant by standard statistical metrics. Certainly odds you would take to Vegas. Comparatively, the 59 UM penalty yards are not statistically remarkable and comparable to the 40 or so on average for OSU opps.

The more telling stat is the difference in penalty yards between OSU and opponents. On average, OSU had 14.8 more penalty yards than opps up to Sat. The difference in Saturday’s game was 53 yards in OSU’s favor (so almost a 68 yd swing from average). The likelihood of that happening is about 1 in 200 – a bet that any statistician would take. Even factoring in trending throughout the season, that difference should have been more than 1.5x less than it was.

Leaving aside bias, conspiracy or any other cause, the results are unusual … at best. Go Blue.

Che said...

The Big Ten would never have allowed officials from Michigan that were known University of Michigan fans to ref this game. The University of Michigan should threaten to leave the Big Ten for another power 5 conference if they can't insure impartial officials. The University of Michigan generates a lot of money for the Big Ten. If Harbaugh threatened to move Michigan he would have to be taken serious because of the value of the program.

GoBlueGuy said...

It's clear that Ohio State is the pretty boy of the Big Ten and ESPN. Michigan needs to start throwing their weight around and start demanding respect from the Big Ten office and others. I for one am sick and tired of being treated as a second class university when we don't have any legitimate scandals with coaches and athletes.

ScottyDoggs said...

Nice posts by the "newbies" like "twilight"THE MOVIE... C******19 stats are quite compelling... Che Karega idea of using our leaving to the big 12 (OR SOMETHING)as leverage is a great idea! What took you guys so long to comment, sometimes it was only Scott K, (although very informative posts), and myself(SOMETIMES OFF THE WALL) sometimes VOR(BEST POSTS) and Tim... but boring (a little) more comments the Merrier! I am psyched about moving to big 12 (IF ONLY A DREAM).

Voice of Reason said...

Regarding the thought of Michigan leaving or threatening to leave the B1G conference, we need to remember that Michigan was not always a member of this conference. In fact, we're not even one of the original members of this conference. We reportedly join but was voted out in April 1907 as the bad boys of the conference (my words), and after a nine year hiatus was brought back in November 1917 (all from Wiki).

If that is the case, which I believe it is, Michigan has proven that it can play the Notre Dame card and schedule who we want when we want and keep the checks, or move to the SEC East (I know I'm being bad but I love it), and rattle Nick Saban's cage each year while taking his recruits. We can go to pretty much any of the power five conferences and make an impact, and yes our money and fan base would go with us. The B1G would not be the same and osu could run rough shod over the conference and you'd have to hide the women and children from them. Something to think about. IMHO!!!

Scott K said...

So Kai-Leon Herbert is going to take visits to Miami, Florida and Kansas because they will offer him playing time as a true freshman, and at Michigan he will have to compete to get on the field next year.

I think we just made room for another o'line recruit. I doubt Coach Harbaugh will be thrilled to hear that this guy isn't down with competing for playing time.

GO BLUE...
GO Buffs!