Monday, September 10, 2007

Logical Leap or Leap of Logic?

The talk of the college football world these days seems to revolve around Ann Arbor, MI, where Lloyd Carr is probably already filling his luggage and signing an agreement with U-Haul. It is critical, then, for the wizards of Hogville.net to make known their feelings about the shipwreck that is the 2007 Michigan Wolverine football team.

Obviously, there's a subplot at work here. Supposedly, Michigan true freshman quarterback Ryan Mallett was heavily recruited by the goons in Fayetteville, and there was even some talk during the spring that he was unhappy up north and might consider transferring to U of A (never you mind that literally NONE of this was ever substantiated). So the name "Ryan Mallett" naturally came up again over the weekend when the young gunslinger from the Texas side of Texarkana got his first varsity action in mopup duty in the Wolverines' embarrassing 39-7 loss to Oregon.

Hogville appropriately--read: stupidly--assumed that the horrible misfortunes for the Maize and Gold would translate to immediate dividends for the Red and White. In other words, there is a thread on the Monday Morning Retard Exchange that basically suggests that Mallett has to be considering a transfer now that he is playing for a third-world program, and that he would almost have to be drawn to the high-octane forward pass innovator known as H. Dale Nutt for his next mentor. There are a few post (ed. note: we will try to make "post" the preferred nomenclature here in honor of Lanny's phenomenal inability to pluralize this particular word) on this thread holding out such misguided hope, and then it takes this guy to bring us back to reality:

http://www.hogville.net/yabbse/index.php?topic=153850.msg2410522#msg2410522

From what I saw of Mallet Saturday, I'd rather he stay at Michigan.

Mallett, for the record, was indeed unimpressive against the Ducks: 6-17, 49 passing yards, one interception, and -16 yards rushing on five carries. Of course, you just might expect that kind of showing from a 19-year-old who gets sent onto the field for the first time in front of 100,000+ booing fans, but then again, nobody stops a Hogville pundit from making an ass of himself. There are lies, damn lies, and statistics, and according to a bunch of morons in Arkansas who fire off musket volleys over the series of tubes known as the Internet, Ryan Mallett is either coming to Fayetteville because life sucks in Ann Arbor, or he'd better stay there because God knows we don't tolerate that kind of mediocrity from our signal-callers.

Smarter Hogville Analysis: Ryan Mallett, don't you even think about leaving Michigan! We are perfectly settled at the position. We love our Dicks and no 6'6", 245-pound pocket passer with a slingshot right arm will be suitable for our offense. You stay up there and just deal with being the centerpiece of Project: Wolverine Reconstruction.

Oh, what's that? You never wanted to come here anyway? Well, who could blame you? Our coach ran off the best high school quarterback in the nation last year. Best of luck to you, and most of all, FIRE NUTT!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

After reading this ...
The column, of course, makes Feldman just another of the national writers who seem to have no clue just why ONE fan FOI'd the coach's phone records. These days, it's blamed on the whole fan base, and the whole fan base is accused also of trying to sue the university over "emailgate," when all of us around here know it was only one guy and his lawyer -- OK, it was a few more guys behind that one guy, but you get the picture: it ain't 72,000 fans frothing over phone records and trying to sue.

...on Jim (who doubles as Hogville's Drakehog) Harris's blog. I'm beginning to wonder if it doesn't need some SmarterHogville.
Some points:
"ONE." Per the Democrat-Gazette's reporting SEVEN fans FOIed the University for records, including fairhaired golden child Mitch Mustain. Why has that not been really reported?
While seven isn't the entire fanbase, SEVEN is more than ONE.
(Complete list follows.)
And why is it that everytime a national writer comes in they report the same thing, "Arkansas's fans are batshit crazy." Yet those same fans say that the national media don't understand. But when the national media comes in and does a big takeout on McFadden, the piece is viewed as a heartbreaking work of staggering genius by the same people who think the national media doesn't know what they are talking about?
I mean really, at least try to be consistent.
The reality is that a small group of media members - Dana Caldwell, Harris, Mike Irwin, Scott Faldon, among others - have used hogville and the mods-only board to advance an agenda, one point of which was to make Houston Nutt's life a living hell.
Plain and simple, for some, like Harris, it is because Orville told him years ago that Nutt couldn't coach and for others it was because they just enjoy the shitstorm.
As for me, I don't think Nutt can coach. The loss to South Carolina when he went for it, instead of punting did the trick. But I also acknowledge that Arkansas really isn't the Athens of the Ozarks that some make it out to be. Hard place to recruit and he gets paid diddly squat compared to other SEC coaches. While Arkys might get all bugged eye at anything more than a million dollars, that isn't that much when you look at others.
Nutt is extremely productive for what he has and he has made marginal players better. And better to the point of going to the NFL.
My other real problem with him is that he has missed on the small-school Arkansas players who have later went on to become extremely successful in the NFL.

The FOI list
Feb. 28, 2007 - Thomas McAfee, Searcy: Houston and Danny Nutt correspondence
March 1, 2007 - Dustin Sahlmann, Little Rock: Broyles, H. Nutt, John White correspondence, phone records
March 5, 2007 - Dustin Sahlmann: Houston Nutt phone records
March 4, 2007 - Michael Geater, Stuttgart: H. Nutt, D. Nutt e-mails
March 4, 2007 - Michael Geater: H. Nutt, D. Nutt phone records
March 4, 2007 - Michael Geater: H. Nutt, D. Nutt text messages, e-mails
March 6, 2007 - Jessica A. Middleton, Little Rock: FOI requests for H. Nutt, D. Nutt records
March 12, 2007 - Jessica A. Middleton: Documents provided via FOI requests by [Bob]Holt, McAfee, and Sahlmann.
March 14, 2007 - Joshua K. Fendley: Recruiting expenses, Gus Malzahn phone records, e-mails
March 14, 2007 - Mitch Mustain: H. Nutt, D. Nutt, Broyles phone records
April 13, 2007 - Ryan Jones, Springdale: H. Nutt, D. Nutt credit-card records
Undated - Jason W. Kincy: Malzahn phone, credit-card records
* exlcudes media FOI requests