Who Said What is Feeling Nostalgic

Note: "Who Said What" is our periodic rundown of news and links that I find interesting enough to post here (with some YouTube videos sprinkled in for fun). There are a lot of very talented bloggers/writers out there who cover Michigan sports. These posts are to try and promote their hard work and get more people to visit their sites. Hope you enjoy.

They come and they go, Hobbs. They come and they go.
John Falk is awesome.

I love this video.

Somehow the hiring of Brady Hoke has sparked my inner-nostalgic Wolverine. No place better to share that than right here.

Goddamn I love Michigan.

Not gonna lie. We don't cover recruiting much.
Actually, not much at all. We leave the heavy lifting to the experts. Yes, Michigan has had some nice recruiting classes through the mid-2000s. We even did modestly well from 2007 through 2010. Yes, we have very little to show for it. So much so that Dr. Saturday has named Michigan the 2nd most underachieving college program.

The recruiting cycle in question opened with Appalachian State's apocalyptic upset over the fifth-ranked Wolverines in the Big House, only the first of many plagues the Wolverines endured in the Great Tribulation that followed a serious national championship run in 2006. A combination of injuries and massive attrition undermined Michigan's continued presence at the top of the Big Ten recruiting charts under Rich Rodriguez, who presided over multiple losses to middling recruiters Illinois, Iowa, Michigan State, Purdue and Wisconsin, on top of losses to Utah and Toledo in 2008 and the Gator Bowl flop against Mississippi State that sealed his fate earlier this month.

On paper, the Wolverines ranked right alongside Ohio State as the most talented team in the Big Ten throughout Rodriguez's tenure. In reality, they turned in losing records to everyone in the league except bottom-dwellers Minnesota and Indiana. If not for the Fighting Irish, convenient victims of early, reaffirming Michigan wins three of the last four years, there would be no positives to speak of.

#1 on their list, you ask? Our good friends from South Bend. Filling out the top 5 are ND, Michigan, UCLA, Texas A&M and FSU.

mgoblog responds.

Hurray! In Michigan's case the underachieving is due to massive attrition, a change in program philosophy, the program delightfully eating itself alive, and the dumbest hiring decision in the history of the world. Notre Dame had a decided schematic advantage.

The rest of the lame are UCLA, Texas A&M, Miami, and FSU. Unsurprisingly four of these teams have changed coaches in the last two years. UCLA is going to have a hard time not firing Neuheisel next year, leaving A&M the only school that may be able to dig out under the current leadership.

Spot on? Yeah.

"Impossible Expectations" for Forcier?
Speaking of spot on. The Wolverine Blog took apart a recent AnnArbor.com article which claimed that Tate Forcier had "Impossible Expectations" that he had to endure while in Ann Arbor. His thoughts are much more thought-out and well said than mine are. But my take on Forcier is this...

Tate came to Michigan with the expectation that he wanted to be the QB for Michigan, no matter who else was going to be here. Tate is a competitor, and he has great ability, no doubt about that. But unfortunately, when the 2009 season took a nose-dive, Tate's swagger and confidence took a nose-dive with it. Once that was gone, Tate's immaturity was exposed and he suffered because of it.

What we know now is that Tate basically just stopped trying in his classes, and also just stopped trying on the practice field. We all remember "Wing-gate" last summer. Turns out that was a much bigger deal than we originally reported.

Tate has a lot of growing up to do, that is clear. But impossible expectations? We had just come off a season with Nick Sherridan and Steven Threat. I'd say expectations were at an all-time low. 2007 expectations for Henne, Hart and Long? Now THOSE are expectations.

Old 98, Tom Harmon is Big Ten Icon #5.

Via MVictors. The show will air on BTN at 2:30 on Super Bowl Sunday, so put on some Ro-Tel dip and tune in. The man earned a standing ovation in Columbus (see image above). That's gotta be worth about a million Big Ten Icon points, right?

As usual, Greg finds a great story.

It was in high school that Harmon also settled on the famous 98 jersey.  The stories differ, even in the Harmon family.  Basically it goes something like this:  Tom was a freshman on his high school team and he got in trouble with the coach for chewing gum and blowing bubbles.  (Some versions have him being sent to the locker room to take off a jersey he’s already wearing.   In others he’s not wearing a jersey at this point).   As a sort of punishment, he’s asked to return kick-offs against the varsity and of course no one can catch him.    The coach, seeing his brilliance, asked him to go grab a uniform.  Young Tom picked out the best available gear in the locker room and returns to the field.  The coach noticed that Harmon chose the jersey number of the star running back and sent him back to the locker room to pick out something else.  All Harmon can find is a dingy #98 jersey in the corner and he threw it on.   He embraced it.

The nostalgia continues, this time in child form.


Twitter is evil good. Wait...no. Evil.
 Anyone who follows any number of Michigan media and/or FB players who happened to be online when Stu Douglass hit that 3 pointer at the end of the MSU game were treated to quite a spectacle as just about everyone on my feed tweeted "STUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!". It was quite something.

The WLA would like you to believe that Twitter can be used for good (see: @bacari34), but can also be used for evil. Sometimes just plain stupid. But it's always entertaining. Don't believe me? Follow me. Now.