Initial thoughts. . .

I appreciate football season more than ever, now that I’m working at the jail.  Even a meaningless exhibition game like Saturday’s Lions - Patriots scrimmage keeps the inmates attention glued to the flat screen, and away from my counter with all their pathetic begging for extra free phone calls, jail jackets, sack lunches or their unanswerable legal questions regarding their latest rape, assault, robbery or drug case.

Michigan starts their season Saturday against MAC punching bag Western Michigan.  This is the kind of game in which old coach RichRod’s offense would pile up 700 yds, and the defense would look adequate in a 35 to 50 point rout.  But now we begin the Brady Hoke era.  An era I dearly hoped would never happen.  Harbaugh apparently had his heart set on the NFL, and it seems like Brandon immediately went to Michigan Man Plan B From Outer Space: 

Brady Hoke, a tubby mid-major coach with a flabby sub-.500 career record. . .which is hard to do when your career  includes a 12 - 1 season, which Hoke had in his last year at Ball State.  It seems Brandon’s top priority in his bizarre coaching search was to find someone who could trot out all the old Bo-era Michigan slogans, and so a former Lloyd assistant with a losing record like Hoke scores much higher than a nearly unbeatable Gary Patterson. . .oh, well. . .I figured another 3 or 4 years of 6 or 7 victories, then maybe Harbaugh would be sick of the NFL, and take pity on his alma mater. . .

BUT,  I have to admit a few things in Hoke’s favor since he was hired:

Local Media, who despised RichRod from the beginning and eagerly aired all the dirty RichRod laundry the Lloyd Carr faction fed them, including the whole practice hours scandal, have fawned all over Hoke and his Bo-era sloganeering.  Hoke can do no wrong, and the local Media have been polishing the Michigan brand once again, which I believe has played a small but valuable role in:

Hoke’s very good initial recruiting efforts.  Hoke blew past Dantonio in just a few weeks and took the best of the Michigan high schoolers, and took advantage of the OSU scandal to land some of the better Ohio players.  Of course, part of the recruiting success is due to:

Hoke’s best move, by far:

Bringing Greg Mattison back to Michigan.  Mattison is an ace recruiter, and was a decent defensive coordinator in his previous stint at Michigan.

In short, in contrast to RichRod, in which everything was NEGATIVE from Day One, and never changed, everything has been POSITIVE with Hoke.  BUT. ..

Now Hoke .and Mattison have to actually fix the worst special teams and defense in college football. ..it’s time to play the games. . .we’ll see how far slogans and NFL reputations built largely on the work of others (Mike Nolan and Buddy Ryan) go in building a competent Big 10 team.

When Hoke was initially hired, I figured Michigan would win 3 games:

Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan and Minnesota.

After hiring Mattison, who should be able to expand the defense’s attention span past the ten minute mark, something RichRod and his crew never could do (the RichRod defenses always looked like they were the Joy Division of college football, forced to wear the Maize and Blue and play the dumb 3-3-5 schemes, their hearts definitely not in it), the defense ought to at least be able to hold San Diego State and Purdue under 30 points, and give Michigan a chance to win 5 games.

Notre Dame in the First Night Game at the Big House?  Michigan has NO CHANCE.  If MIchigan only loses by 14, it will be a miracle.  If Michigan somehow manages to win the game, it will be evidence I vastly underestimated Hoke. . .not likely.

We’ll see just how shitty the Big 12 really is, after Nebraska, the preseason pick to win the Big 10, loses at least 3 Big 10 games. 

Oregon is my pick to win it all. . .

In the NFL, my beloved Lions finally look to have once again become an average NFL team, and if they can somehow keep fragile Mathilda Stafford on the field for the whole season, they might even be able to post a winning record. 

All this nonsense about Suh being a dirty player shows just how much of a pantywaist league the NFL has become.  A couple of moderately rough sacks, and a slap to the head in an after the whistle skirmish, and Suh is some kind of maniac?  Nondescript lineman like William Gay used to do far worse on a weekly basis, and nobody even noticed. . . 

Is it really true?  For the first time in living memory, an entire NFL season without a dumb game ending Brett Favre INT?  Ha ha ha. . .good riddance to the most over-rated player in NFL history.

The three best teams in the NFL are in the NFC:

Green Bay, New Orleans and Philly.  I’ll go with the Packers to repeat, and beat San Diego in the Super Bowl.