██████ ████ ████ ████████████ and the ████ ████████ of ████████ out in the ████ - █████ not run by ███████ ████████████. ████ the web █████. ████ ██████████ █████.

If you're reading this, chances are really good you're part of the overwhelmingly large majority of internet users who frequent websites that involve "user created content." Basically any website that allows "user created content," be it comments, or forum posts, or the uploading of funny pictures or cute videos of your puppy and/or child, along with pithy quips on pop cutlture or the sharing of links to some good music fall under the umbrella of "user created content sites." Facebook, Twitter, Google, HLS, NDN, every sports "blog" you'll read today, any fan forums, and all sites that let users contribute to create an online community are under a very real and very big threat of becoming untenable due to legislation being pushed through Congress as we speak. Essentially, if this legislation were to pass, it would be too dangerous for us to run HLS any longer. Further, and even worse, it would threaten our right to free speech.

All because some bigwigs in Hollywood with a lot of cash, and a lot of lawyers, hate that they never adapted to the way the world communicates since about, oh, 1993.

HLS is really important to me, but even more important to me are sites and services I've built in the past that help teach children how to read, help teachers better communicate with their students' parents, and help schools find the resources they need to provide a better educational experience for kids. The very same legal forces at work that could, and would, shut down a trivial venture like HLS absolutely could, and would shut down those sites too.

Please go here to learn more, contact your congressional representatives, fight for the internet, and fight for the future. Thanks.

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HLS nation, thanks once again to Matt, biscuit and the rest of the HLS crew for allowing me the opportunity to provide my genius insights into the ND-UM game. This marks the 5th year that I've been able to do this, and I'm 4-1 straight up to date, so pay attention some of this might actually be worth while.

Based on last week's game, it's kind of tough to get a good feel for this UM team but god help me if it doesn't feel like "morning in Ann Arbor". The RichRod era has ended, and I would feel remiss if I did not take this chance to express some thoughts. Yes, Rich Rod deserved to be fired, but much like many of ND's fans I can't help but still like the guy on some level. Yes, he absolutely was "punching above his weight" as the HC of a top 10 program (in terms of prestige of the job, not results obviously) but so many things both of in his control and not seemed to work against him. On the bad side whether it was questionable recruiting or inability to let someone competent completely run the defense or the horrible decision to let Kevin Grady play, it seemed sometimes like he just couldn't get out of his own way. On the flip side, he was pretty much the only D1 coach to promise Denard a chance to play QB or that he brought in a group of kids (the Pahokee kids) that I will turn Brian Kelly shades of purple rooting for both on the football field and in life and there is a small, small part of me that wonders what would have happened if he had gotten the 4th year. Ultimately what sealed his fate for me was tearing up while playing Josh Groban (and the horrible bowl performance vs Miss State).

So now we enter the Brady Hoke era, a promise of the return to old style UM, complete with fullbacks, tight ends and wasted potential on defense (hopefully not on that one). I like Hoke, he comes from a DL background (IMO, along with QB the most important position in CFB) and so far has shown that he can delegate those areas of the game that are not his strongest to capable, empowered assistants, which was Rich Rod's biggest undoing IMO (last mention of Rich, promise).

Offense:

I think they ran about 8-10 different plays against WMU, kind of hard to get a good read but once again but it seems like as long as Denard is available there will be elements of the old spread and new power looks.

Quaterback: Denard, not much more to say. ND fans know him all too well, I doubt he will repeat his video game like numbers from last year, due to the fact that the O will not be as up tempo and just , like, damn how could you possibly ask someone to do THAT again. If Denard goes out Devin Gardner will come in. I guess the closest comparison I could give to Devin would be Dayne Crist, strong-arm, dangerous enough with his legs to make you sweat on D. Of course, there is no evidence that Devin is the the turnover machine that Dayne is, but we don't really have a big enough sample size to be sure.

Running Backs: UM may actually have a one in Fitzgerald Toussaint. He's battled injuries during his brief time at UM but last week got the start and showed some speed, shiftiness and power in varying degrees. Right now he seems like a poor man's version of a faster Mike Hart, we'll see what he can do against ND's line. Mike Shaw is fast, does not always hit the right hole though, if he gets into space though, he's a threat to go all the way. Vincent Smith seems to be evolving into a 3rd down, 8-10 carries a game type of back. Not a huge big play threat, but a good blocker and pass catcher. Stephen Hopkins is back from suspension, for reasons unknown, and provides the more prototypical power back look. John McColgan is the "make hulk want to smash" type fullback this future O will rely on more heavily.

TEs: Kevin Koger can make the great catch, drop the easy one. He's a decent deep threat for a TE, needs to step up the blocking for ND. Not a lot of depth at TE though, Brandon Moore has not played a lot.

WRs: Stonum is red-shirting (suspended) this year, that loss hurts in the KR and WR positions. In his place, Roy Roundtree and Junior Hemmingway need to be able to stretch the ND D vertically a bit. Neither are true blazers but are both potential All Big Ten 2nd team type of guys, Roundtree the more reliable target Hemmingway the big play guy. Again, not a lot of depth here at WR, some slots (Drew Dileo, Kelvin Grady, Tay Odoms) keep the chains moving and help out at PR and KR.

O-Line: I would put UM's top 6 of Lewan, Barnum, Molk, Omameh, Huyge and Schofield up against any line in the Big 10, but again like many other positions on this roster there does not appear to be a lot of quality depth. It will be interesting to see how the interior line for UM matches up against the hype of ND's supposedly superoir DL.

Defense:

What else can I say, the coaching change in this group alone should be able to change this group from disasterous to maybe adequate this year. One thing I do like about Hoke, he seems to have a pretty high set of standards for this D, even in its current state.

DL: Mike Martin is a beast, potential NFL 1st rounder. Rumor is that he is dinged up a bit, seemed to come off the field a lot against WMU, thing to watch here is how much does he play against ND. If it is less than 75-80% of snaps, I will be worried, not only for this game but the rest of the year. William Campbell was once upon a time a very highly touted recruit who has just not lived up to expectations. Like Vince Vaughn in Rudy, hopefully there is some magic left in his remaining years at UM. Ryan Van Bergen will not fill the stat sheet, but will take on double teams and generally do what is expected of him to keep OL off of the LB's. Craig Roh needs to step up and regain some of his pass rush magic he had as a FR. Jabreel Black has shown flashes, needs to be better against the run. True freshman Frank Clark also showed a litle bit at Rush End last week. Nathan Brink and Will Heininger are both former walk-ons who fill in some depth.

LBs: A worrisome group, as there already seem to be some injuries here. Kenny Demens is the only somewhat surething as a starter here, plays a decent MLB. Brandon Herron was the team's leading scorer last week, hopefully that trend can continue this week. Looks like a much improved player under the new staff. Jake Ryan, looks like an All Big Ten type of player in a year or two, great motor, tenacious. Many other LB's have been hurt, not sure who else will fill out the rotation this week but Brennan Byer (another true FR) may play a bit.

CBs: Suprsisingly a bit of depth here. I don't think one of them is going to lock down Mike Floyd but I expect them to make a few plays here and there. Troy Woolfolk (please stay healthy) and Courtney Avery seem to be starters for now, JT Floyd and Blake Countess the primary backups.

Safety: Before the WMU game, the only way I think SS Jordan Kovacs could have been a more polarizing figure would be if his name were Barack Bush. UM fans seemed pretty evenly divided into love or hate for Jordan. Last week was a true revalation, made some big hits and generally acted as the captain of the DB's, making audibles and checks like I never would have thought possible. I still worry about him in pass coverage but wow, what an improved player he seems to be. Thomas Gordon is the FS, did not see enough of him last week to form an opinion one way or the other. If there is a UM equivalent for LNIII (hyped recruit, adored by the internet fan base, unreal expectations) it is Marvin Robinson. May ultimately be headed to LB but a great athelete in the backfield for now.

Special Teams:

UM needs to improve in a big way this week. KO coverage was horrible, at least 30 yards per return. Will Hagerup is a great punter, unfortunately suspended for the first 4 weeks. Wile did okay in his place, but Hagerup is a weapon. FG's have been an adventure for a while, but I think this week Brendon Gibbons actually hits one. The returners are all the aforementioned slots, the seem average to above average, doubt they break one though.

Predictions:

Please remember that I am 4-1 straight up in these prediction columns, so don't discard this out of hand.

DRob goes for 130 rushing, 200 passing
Fitz goes for 80 yds on the ground, Shaw for 50.
Floyd goes over 100 in the 1st half, only picks up 20-30 in the second.
UM D gets at least 2 TO's
UM 31 ND 27

Bonus Predicitions:

1. UM and ND don't play next year, there may or may not be an actual signed contract for this series. Also UM opens with Bama next year, they may look to soften the schedule a bit. 7-1 odds
2. Texas never joins the Big 10, but ND does in the next 3 years. 3-1 odds
3. Biscuit and I rent an RV and tour around the country with our families promoting a feeling of goodwill between ND and UM fans. 1000000000000-1 odds.

Or, or you could just click this link, and meditate on the picture below, and get a much more immersive and representative experience of the entire affair. Your choice.

(HT: Bad Kermit, who used to write here, but he's been busy.)

By joining the Big Ten, the Irish could increase their annual TV revenue from roughly $12 million to $22 million per year, get a national TV platform (the Big Ten Network) for its top-notch Olympic sports and decrease travel costs for its teams.

And pretty much ever since, various ND forums have gathered in discussion trying to figure out what source or math helped produce the numbers Teddy's reporting as fact.

We went ahead and asked him and his publisher.

@TeddyGreenstein / @ChiTribSports what's your src for the 12MM vs. 22MM ND television revenue numbers? (RT this until he answers).

We don't expect a response.

To be clear, we're not accusing him of lying. We just don't know where he's getting the numbers, and we find the rather common journalistic habit of stating such facts without citation to be extremely annoying and tired. We as a populace are far too eager to accept facts of any sort so long as they're in print, and in particular from a "trustworthy" news source. So We're simply asking him and his publisher for a source. We can't imagine that such numbers are of such sensitivity that the source need be protected. Heck, Teddy doesn't even bother with a quotation from a "source who wished to not be named." He just states the numbers as if they're available in public records. But they're not. At least, the dollar amount ND currently makes isn't publicly available and probably never will be.

So I'm sorry for misleading you with the title of the post. Fact is, I've no idea where Teddy gets his numbers. I welcome anyone who might want to take a gander at how he formulated 12 million to leave their guess in the comments, but I really don't think a rational explanation will be delivered. And it doesn't matter. Made up or not, they're probably not presented to serve ND's interests at all. Multiple people have expressed that it's absurd to think that such numbers would be made up because it makes no sense to write something to justify Notre Dame making a move that would improve ND's financial situation if that writer really had it out for Notre Dame. True, and I don't think Teddy really has it out for Notre Dame. I tend to think Greenstein is too lazy to have it out for anyone or anything. Such behavior requires passion, and I think of Greenstein as more of a soulless automaton driven by corporate will than a human with an internal locus of self-control. But I do think that the "Notre Dame has Reason to Join A Conference" angle is a valuable one in the bland, uninspired arsenal of the typically mediocre journalist, and by establishing that ND could gain financially from joining the Big Ten, Greenstein establishes a motive for ND taking such action, and thus guarantees himself easy storylines into perpetuity. If ND still hasn't joined a conference by 2020, Teddy can continue to write about how they just might sometime soon.

So are the numbers made up? No idea. But Greenstein has managed to feed the media machine by being the first journalist of the Spring to put those numbers out there. And we've noticed that fellow corporate automatons have since quoted him (or hell, just lifted the numbers and didn't even bother to attribute them to Teddy. He must be pissed.)

Mitch Albom was conceived by parents who should have known better. He was born. He's 52, two years over the age to get AARP benefits. The public thinks he's a pathetic windbag. This would be a tragic story if it were an isolated story.

It's more tragic because it's not.

Albom was not the first unfortunate spawn born during the heady post-Atomic era. He wasn't the first born in New Jersey, nor was he the first in Passaic. Just 7 years earlier, Joe Piscopo was born there too. His parents probably did the same thing. Alcohol, according the the town folk, were likely involved in that conception too.

Mitch's stories get more attention than they deserve because he's an untalented, amoral hack who generates a lot of consternation, and thus a lot of ad revenue for the Detroit Free Press and ESPN, a figure most noted for its framing by two elephantine ears and hair that's looked like a bad wig since he was in the 6th grade. Since his career began, the populace has been robbed by opportunity costs and left to wonder what it could have done with all those precious minutes lost reading his tripe. Mitch Albom is widely regarded as a monster or a ghoul.

Many wonder how it is that Albom was never given up for adoption. Most think it preposterous that he earns his living writing opinion pieces for a major media outlet rather than leaping from burning stage pieces into tiny, shallow pools.

Everyone wants to know how a 52 year old man is allowed to contribute to the deterioration of the nation's overall allocation of funds or why nobody will stop him from hurting America in general. Imagine how many auto workers could feed their families on his salary.

In fact, when we ask members of the media about Albom's employment, we're often told that we're being naive, and that his lack of any or all actual literary talent doesn't matter so long as he generates advertising revenue for a dying paper.

Perhaps. And that's the entire problem.

We're not naive about it at all.

If anything, the trade in of talent and integrity for ad revenue is the real story here. Since Albom's journalism and writing career began, he's been published in dozens of advertising outlets. Read that again. Dozens. And I call them advertising outlets because, when it comes to what they really want to serve the public, that's what they are.

Which begs the question, especially given the public's options these days: Why is Albom still able to keep a job? Since when is one poorly explored concept spread across 700 words a good idea for reading material?

How much more evidence do we need to understand that Mitch Albom needs to be put out to pasture? There is an awful history of trite, banal writing with a heavy glaze of saccharine schlock atop it within his body of work. Sometimes, he's busy writing things that many people leave unsaid because most people have too much class to say it, fully understanding that one small anecdote could be forced into a bigger picture if they wanted to serve their own interests of advertising revenue generation at the expense of a grieving family. Sometimes, he's writing Tuesdays with Morrie. Worse still, sometimes he's writing The Five People You Meet in Heaven.

And sometimes, he's the guest on Oprah between the episode featuring Jenny McCarthy's "cure" for autism and the episode where Oprah gets a bunch of women to act like yippy little lap dogs by offering up free slippers.

In any and all cases, Mitch's work is work without any contribution made to his fellow man. I don't care how many times he might earnestly deliver a line during a Sports Reporters monologue. I don't care how many papers syndicate his columns. And I really don't care what his readership say. Come on. Most of us were blessed with a brain. Between the pressure to generate ad revenue, the ease of keeping Albom on staff rather than hiring some actual talent, and the likelihood that Albom will think of any contrary notions as "a good angle," Albom's "work" will always be a waste of resources that harms this planet.

How do you mitigate that?

You don't read his stuff.

Now of course, our prayers go out to the major media players. Watching this country's free press try to kill itself with poor attempts at evolution and the continued employment of high-dollar, low-talent people like Albom is heartbreaking.

But dying in a war is one thing. Dying because you refuse to adapt to the major technological advances of the century is another. There is no kind way to say this. But you cannot, in good conscience, paint the newspaper industry as a tragic hero. At best, it is a victim of folly, thinking that if they just ignore new media and the influx of talent, it'll all go away.

At worst, and more likely, the newspaper industry is an example of brazen hubris that major, institutionalized corporations exude, inevitably with deadly results. What, one imagines, could possibly have made these institutions think that the romance of the presses and their over-inflated staffing numbers in the newsroom would be enough to save them?

Probably something that would make you say, "Eh. That's the way the institutions work." And that's the point. If you are involved in one of these institutions, then you're part of the problem, and you need to fix it. Then, hopefully, Mitch Albom will become unemployed.

Note: After this exercise, I found Albom's style of writing so horrendous that I found the results of the exercise difficult to review. Apologies for typos or anything that doesn't make sense.

At Florida, however, there's a little extra thrown in, apparently...

“No stealing, no drugs, no weapons!” Meyer barked at his players. “There’s a good decision and a bad decision. Make that good decision!”

Kudos to you, Coach Meyer. You've clearly identified an issue with the young men on your team - men you recruited - and are seeking to fix that issue.

Sigh.

There are fans who celebrate that one of their coveted recruits didn't manage to qualify for a competing program. There are the fans who friend recruits on Facebook. There are the fans who declare that a new coach's leash is a lot shorter with them now that a kid they didn't approve has gleefully accepted a scholarship offer to fulfill a dream. There are fans who speak of "cohorts" and stars as though the future of a kid can be determined via those pieces of information with any level of success. There are fans who speak in outrage over recruiting and depth chart decisions without being able to so much as muster the ability to create an informed opinion on their nation's politics. And there are fans who will demolish a recruit from one side of their mouth while trying to maintain their "classy" reps with faux shows of support from the other side.

And then there are probably the worst fans of all: The fans who take the pride they hold in their college football programs to levels that the bible has warned us about. The sort of pride that makes you fully understand why it's a cardinal sin; because it's flipping annoying, and anyone who would willingly be that annoying to the rest of the human population probably should do some time in hell.

To watch massive numbers of presumably grown people go into moralistic conniption fits that nearly threaten their imperfect balance on their high horses over who gets what offers - what the hell does that have to do with a moral plane anyway? - is just maddening. How the hell will humanity ever figure out... anything?

And save me your "pot, kettle" retorts and you what little wit you may possess if you disagree. I get it. I'm probably a part of the problem by hosting this site. Believe me, I'm considering what to do about it. But frankly, there are much larger, much more popular sites that are wrought with myopia and mental fumbles that would make stroke victims feel pitty, and so long as they're around, until we find a better way, we may as well use whatever opportunity we have to point out their absurd lapses of critical thinking and the ugliness of their thoughts.

God damned people.

“Sharrif was really confused and put a call into Coach Meyer. When they spoke Coach Meyer told him that he had a ‘dream’ the night before, and that Coach Meyer saw himself on the sideline coaching Sharrif. Told him that is was a "message from God that I should come back and coach, as I guess if it’s my time to die, I’d rather die on the sidelines coaching you than anywhere else in the world.

“Sharrif talked to us the next day and said Ohio State is great and all, but Coach Meyer said he would DIE for me. That’s pretty intense…

Urban Meyer is going to be on the sidelines at Florida in 2010. At this point, we are certain of that, and we're pretty sure that Urban Meyer is a heartless football coaching robot. We imagine it must be difficult for Urban's children to deal with the knowledge that they're somehow, through the miracle of modern science, genetically related to a man with a fission device where his heart should be.