Introducing... the Drevnometer

The first few days after Jim Harbaugh was hired were heady days for fans of pun-based offensive coordinator rating systems. First we got to retire the Nussmeter - which, let's face it - was a bit of a stretch and, honestly, too painful to update on a regular basis by the end of last season. The less said of it, the better.

Second, rumors swirled that Harbaugh was going to bring 49ers offensive coordinator Greg Roman with him. While bringing an NFL coordinator to the college game is usually a recipe for disaster, in this case, it was a recipe for an endless smorgasbord of puns! Popes! Sins! Emperors! Orators! Numerals! It was such an embarrassment of potential riches that we had already worked out three possible ratings based on the speculation alone. To top it all off, Greg Roman totally looks like Craig:

As soon as we got our hopes up, those hopes were brutally dashed when Harbaugh hired Tim Drevno as OC. It's like he doesn't even consider the punnability of his assistants' names when making hiring decisions! But we here at HSR have been making horrible puns for so long that when we started, Adam Jacobi was still calling puns the lowest form of humor.

So, undeterred, we looks for ways to make puns on the name Drevno. It's an anagram of "vendor." There's a Gene Drevno school in Torrance, California. And, uh, that's about it. Not much to work with. A search of articles about his time at Stanford indicated that his offensive line earned the nickname "Tunnel Workers' Union". That had a little promise. Whatever the hell's going on under Seattle's the bottom of the scale, Detroit-Windsor's somewhere in the middle. But can you name 10 famous tunnels off the top of your head? Neither could we.

Desperate for ideas, we went to Google Translate, typed "drevno" into the box, and clicked "Detect language." There was a hit - Croatian! - where apparently "drevno" means "ancient." There are lots of ancient things! Ancient Ones! We can work with this. There are dozens to choose from.

The problem is that it's hard to fit a good ranking system. Is Cthulhu worthy of a higher ranking than Sheb-Niggurath? Where does Azathoth fit into all this?  There are two many choices and, frankly, Dave Brandon's fired now, so it's time to leave unspeakable terrors in the past.

A solution was finally found on the Civ Fanatics message board. They had a poll rating the ancient wonders, which provided a convenient full ordering of ancient history. Science demonstrated that the Hanging Gardens and +6 food is the best, and the Statue of Zeus and a 15% city attacking bonus is the worst.

We therefore introduce, with much fanfare and rambling, the Drevnometer! May it last more than two seasons.

The Drevnometer kicks of the 2015-16 season at 2 because when you have two quarterbacks, you get a two. The Great Lighthouse lets you see further, but it's no help on grass.

Reign

This is going to be much harder next year when the answer is not just "pick the cool picture of Denard."  (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

You're going to get wet.  I think you need to realize that.  So you call upon your years of Big House experience to do the little things, like have your poncho at the ready, put your wallet in a Ziploc bag, put on old socks and old shoes, and then don't really move that much when you get to your seat.  But you have a plan and you stick to the plan and everything should be pretty much as good as it can be.

Illinois is not a very good football team.  I think that anyone who has looked at them in the post-Zook knows it's going to take them some time to get back to competitive, but they don't really have a Juice Williams/Mikel LeShoure level talent on this roster right now.  Nathan Scheelhaase isn't bad, but when he was knocked out of the game in the second quarter with a concussion, it pretty much assured that Illinois had no real shot of coming back.

I don't know that you can call 45-0 "workmanlike" because there were a lot of exciting plays in the game, three scoring plays of 49+ yards will do that, but the whole game just felt like "This is an opponent on our schedule.  Let's go out and do what we did in practice and everything will be A-OK."  Denard continued to look like the mature senior quarterback we wanted him to be (7 completions on just 11 passes in a rainy day in Ann Arbor when you didn't really need to do much more helps the cause.) Denard's 33 yard run in the second quarter when he returned to the game after tweaking his pinky is a perfect example.  Younger Denard would have tried to make the end zone, get the last ten yards and get the touchdown.  Instead, Denard ran out of bounds, took the first down and then two plays later ran it in for six yards for the TD.  Solid positive decision making.

(Also, a side note, I feel like this is an inversion of the 2008 "Juice Williams runs wild game" where Illinois whipped RichRod's first year team 45-20.  The skilled running quarterback just running roughshod over an overmatched defense.  Bigger difference is Michigan held Illinois to zero points.)

Meanwhile Jake Ryan is playing like a man possessed.  His stat line is  was a career high tying 11 tackles, including three and a half tackles for loss, one and a half sacks and a forced fumble.  If you wanted a Legends patch on someone playing like a legend right now, Jake Ryan is doing the things to earn that approbation and acclaim.

So now it's on to Michigan State and the Michigan State that stands before us at the present moment is not the titanic presence that we were told to expect in the pre-season.  They're 4-3 and while their losses to Notre Dame and Ohio State are comparable to Michigan's to Notre Dame and Alabama, the loss to Iowa yesterday was much more reminiscent of the pre-Dantonio era.  I have no doubts that Sparty will be up for the game (In fact, I wonder if there will be any talk of "looking ahead" to explain Iowa away), but I think Michigan knows what is on the line.  I think they know that the trip to Pasadena requires taking out this divisional rival, the first of five in a row, and "restoring order" to the universe.

Time will tell, but I feel alot better about this weekend forthcoming than I did three weeks ago.

"Go with the flow." (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)

Bullets (Updated!):

• I thought we had rid ourselves of "In The Big House", but no, now it has a music video.  Stop, just stop.
• My hands were too cold and my phone was ensconced in my jacket under my poncho so I could not get out my traditional "Damn You Journey" tweet out in time.  I do apologize.
• Dennis Norfleet, in addition to looking interesting on kick returns, was dancing along with "Seven Nation Army" on the sidelines.  Thought we wouldn't notice, but we did.
• Really, I could have like six anti-Special K bullets here, but will it really do any good?
• Josh Furman now holds my personal record for most obvious "Yeah, that's a penalty" I have ever seen.
• Michigan nearly covered the 48 O/U number without any help from the Illini.
• Um, what was up with the Wave going clockwise yesterday?  Are we blaming the weather?
• Props to the fans two rows ahead of us who helped out the dad with his elementary school age kid by giving them a poncho and trying to make a lousy wet Michigan fall day a bit better for a kid who was probably at his first Michigan game.  We often talk about negative fan experiences in the stands, but that was a great moment of kindness and deserves to be mentioned.
• It is only fitting that on a day when Gerald Ford was honored, Jack Kennedy got to complete a pass.
• That was win #899.  That should be kind of fun if things go well next weekend.  Also, it was Michigan's 352nd consecutive game with points, putting them just nine shy of BYU's all-time NCAA record for most games without being shut out.
• Man, these are way more fun to write than the dirges and elegies.

I'm confused by this Urban Meijer thing

I have to admit that I am befuddled by today's announcement that Ohio is hiring an Urban Meijer as their next head football coach. It was my understanding that the Meijer clan is exclusively rural and suburban, and having checked the central areas of Detroit, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Chicago, and Cincinnati, I am uncertain as to whether this Urban Meijer even exists. The smaller new concept store in Melrose Park, Illinois, near the CTA Blue Line may be the Urban Meijer, but I am not certain. I thought that Grand Rapids would be the most likely home of an Urban Meijer, but it turns out that even there they are merely suburban in location. It may be that Ohio plans to design, break ground, and construct an Urban Meijer in Columbus in time for the 2012 football season.

Having a store serve as head coach causes obvious logistical difficulties. Not only will Urban Meijer be unable to travel to road games, he (all news reports have been referring to the neuter Urban Meijer as a he) will not be able to fit inside Ohio Stadium without severely cutting into its seating capacity or covering up a significant portion of the field. No wonder, then, that there are rumors that Luke Fickell will stay on as assistant head coach, as Ohio will need a more ambulatory coach to handle gameday sideline duties.

Urban Meijer's inability to move will definitely affect his ability to recruit as he will be unable to make home visits to promising players - it goes without saying that hiring capable assistants as recruiters will be a must. However, when recruits come to Columbus on their campus visit he should be able to relate to them well: being ensconced in the inner city should give him a deep empathy for the problems of recruits with unstable family situations, and his competitive prices on thousands of items make it clear that he has something to offer every recruit.

The New York City-based Reputation Institute ranks him as one of the Top 30 most reputable coaches, but a scan of the Meijer corporate website shows a potential willingness to look the other way when it comes to NCAA violations. The first problem is their motto, "Higher standards. Lower prices." While higher standards are clearly laudable at any academic institution, I believe it was lower prices on tattoos that got Ohio into the NCAA mess in which they are currently embroiled. Looking deeper into the website, it appears as though Meijer offers team members the ability to "save instantly on thousands of products not at stores." If Urban Meijer participates in this offer Ohio will be looking at serious sanctions as a repeat rules violator.

Despite those concerns, I think Michigan fans should be wary of the many positives that Urban Meijer will bring to the Ohio program. Based on my scouting of the Ann Arbor-Saline Road and Carpenter Road locations, he will be up 24 hours a day, 7 days a week coaching his players, breaking down film, devising game plans for upcoming opponents, and he will always be sure to keep some of his focus on "that corporate headquarters up north." He will also have excellent ties with Big Ten Network sponsors as he will have shelves stuffed with Rotel products. If he brings the Meijer values of being customer-centered, having a competitive spirit, and promoting freshness and familyness to Columbus, he will definitely improve the Buckeyes' record next year while promoting teamwork and loyalty, and Ohio will be a force to be reckoned with on and off the field.

To begin the world over again

"We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now. The birthday of a new world is at hand."

--Thomas Paine, "Common Sense", 1776

I cannot write anything better than FOOTBALL SEASON IS OVER. FOOTBALL SEASON HAS BEGUN., really few among us could. In the end, what struck me was simply this, every September brings us the chance for renewal. Every September will be someone's first Michigan football season. It may be your first season you cared about the team, it may be your first as a student, it may be your first under any number of different circumstances, but even for someone who has been a lifelong Michigan fan, tomorrow is the first day of another first season. Because, before that first game, every season is your first season, every season holds the promise of what could be. Because hope is born again every September, and hope dies last.

Enjoy tomorrow, and enjoy the season, because, really, what is the alternative?