Mr.TaterSalad

The topic on 97.1 the Ticket today is will the Lions draft Michael Mayer, TE out of Notre Dame, with their second 1st round pick. UGH, here we go again! 😞

I feel that if you have a rockstar assistant coach that's been with your program for a while, achieving sustained success along the way, like a Brent Venables at Clemson, then you have to interview external candidates and can't focus solely on internal guys. How would promoting Jesse Minter, Sherrone Moore, or Matt Weiss be any better than when Lloyd wanted Mike DeBord promoted to replace him after he left? Not that looking outside and hiring Rich Rod worked out, it didn't. But hiring Les Miles would almost certainly have worked and promoting Mike DeBord would have likely flopped. I feel the same way if Minter, Moore, Weiss, Hart, whoever were to get promoted as they haven't had sustained success with the program as an assistant like a Venables had in Clemson. Promoting from within feels like a program that isn't doing its due diligence to hire the best candidate possible. Look at Wisconsin, they didn't just promote Jim Leonhard, they went out and made a big time hire and got Luke Fickell. If Harbaugh leaves I know we won't be so much as contacting Urban, which is a mistake. The even bigger mistake though would be to promote from within IMO without interviewing at least a couple of external candidates. If they do a round of interviews and decide the best candidate comes from within then that's fine. They just can't limit themselves to someone already on the coaching staff and not interview anyone externally.

If you want to win in college football, hiring Urban Meyer gets you wins. The guys is 187-32 with a lifetime winning percentage around .850. He is a scumbag and treats people like shit, but to my knowledge he has not broken any laws or had serious NCAA violations ala a Rick Pitino or Steve Fischer/Ed Martin, Jim Tressel or Joe Pa. Are you looking for smoke out of the Vatican to anoint a new Pope or are you looking to win football games and hoist national championship trophies? If you want the latter and you are serious about winning, Meyer has to be at the top of your list if you are a big time program. It doesn't matter if you are a big time program in the Big Ten or any power 5 conference. I know that Michigan won't such much as pick up the phone and call Urban if Harbaugh was to leave. I doubt he'd even answer if he saw Warde's 734 area code on the caller ID. But I can guarantee you with 100% certainty if Harbaugh left and by some miracle Meyer did come in and we won a national championship, no one would care about his past any longer. No fan or person in the athletic department during the trophy presentation, whether attending the game or watching on TV at home, would be thinking to themselves "geez, I wish we wouldn't have hired that scumbag Urban Meyer, this really taints our national championship win." They'll be knocking back beers, partying and celebrating that Michigan won it's first national championship since 1997. If Meyer wants to coach again someone is going to hire him and he will likely win wherever he goes next in college football.

I'm guessing this is related to personal conduct off the ice no?

I agree that it would not even be in the realm of possibilities that Michigan talks to Urban. That said, if I were Warde Manuel I would absolutely extend the invitation to Urban Meyer to interview to replace Harbaugh. In spite of all of his problems, of which there are many, he does what you expect of him most, win. Is Urban a jackass? Yes, of course. Does he treat his players and coaches like shit? It seems that way. Does he have a history of "getting sick" and/or leaving programs in a lurch. Yes, he's done that multiple times now. Should he be lap dancing with young women at the bar? No way. But does he win at the collegiate level everywhere he goes? You bet he does. As you said, if all you care about is winning then you'll hire Urban Meyer. I think Michigan cares more about that and sees themselves as above hiring or even interviewing a guy like Urban and thus they won't do it. That's a shame, because winning is very important and Urban sure does win a lot.

I have to admit that I am now disappointed that Wisconsin hired Luke Fickell already. At first I was excited for them because the Big Ten West desperately needs better programs and I think Fickell could bring Wisconsin back to being a strong program. But now, if Harbaugh does leave, which seems likely, Fickell would have been the perfect hire for Michigan. Oh well.

Condi Rice is going to war to get the candidate she wants and they'll probably just bomb out in the end after feeling cheated and lied too.

As a pro wrestling fan I remember when this happened on WWE Monday Night Raw. All of a sudden Lawler passed out and was gone from the broadcast. Michael Cole, the other announcer, was suddenly alone announcing what happened to Lawler. WWE continued their show, as they shamefully did when Owen Hart fell to his death at a PPV event. Lawler didn't die but his situation as extremely serious.

ESPN saying the game has been officially suspended.

The remainder of the Red Wings game was cancelled when Jiri Fischer collapsed if I remember correctly was it not?

What a piece of shit. A young man is potentially battling for his life and you make a statement like this? You cancel the damn game because another human beings life is on the line and worry about anything else, playoff position or otherwise, later on.

Roger Goodell needs to do the right thing and call the game for now.

The NFL needs to call this game and pick it back up another day if indeed the worst scenario happens to Damar Hamlin God forbid.

A really scary situation on Monday Night Football for Buffalo Bills Safety Damar Hamlin. They were administering CPR on the field to him. I haven't felt like this since I was a kid watching the Reggie Brown injury with the Lions. Prayers and strength for Damar Hamlin. 🙏

41-3 now. Absolutely comical!

And the Vikings only had 10 men on the field lol

Really disappointed to see Minnesota sit the bed today. They haven't given up a 100 yards rushing all year . . . Until today when we needed them to show up.

We allow mobile QBs to get out of containment frequently. We suck against mobile QBs, but suck worse against the run period.

Can't give up two pick sixes, plus a third turnover, and expect to win in a big game, against a top tier opponent like TCU. JJ's mistakes really hurt independent of the disgraceful officiating that occurred.

They just kept torched on big play after big play. Their secondary couldn't defend the middle and when they were going deep.

I still can't get over the Roman Wilson touchdown that wasn't. That was a total job.

Isn't great QB play what really separates Buffalo, KC, and Philly? If you put Goff on either of those 3 teams are they still in the elite class of the NFL? And doesn't that then make the case that if you want to be elite like those teams are that you have to move on from Goff? I'm not saying I want to move on from Goff, just that it's basically one player at one position that separates those 3 teams from the rest of the league.

Janis Joplin and Amy Winehouse are two artists whose music I love. Many people love them on their voices alone. They sold many millions records and made lots of money on their incredible voices. While both Amy and Janis were weird and eccentric in their own ways and tried at different points in their career to push the envelope and be a bit provocative, I don't know that eithers career was built around the idea that the more pretend provocative they were, the more money they would make. I could be wrong about that, but it felt like their careers and success were more centered around the music they sang and less about some persona they had carefully developed, in concert with a record label and professional brand and marketing team. Lady Gaga is different because she wants her fans, or Little Monsters as created by her marketing team, to believe that she really is so eccentric and different than you and I are. That she likes wearing dresses made of meat and hatching out of egg shells. She also wants you to believe that she's Woodie Guthrie, and a huge advocate for change for the LGBTQ community and other causes. If LGTBQ individuals feels she is and want to look upon her as such an icon, then that is their right to do so and I hope they find happiness and peace in doing so. In my view though, she has developed a wrestling-like gimmick, no different than Stone Cold Steve Austin, Hulk Hogan, or the Undertaker. Sure, there may be parts of that gimmick that are who she really is, but I doubt that most of her life is actually like the gimmick on stage that she and her marketing team have carefully crafted. With a gimmick or character crafted by a marketing team, it her career becomes less about just being a good pop singer, out to produce quality music and sell records and more about getting you to tune in or buy records because she might do something even more strange and eccentric next time you see her. I like a band previously mentioned here, and that is KISS. I enjoy the music and stage presence of KISS. Sure, there was a period of time where KISS wouldn't appear in public without makeup on to keep up the gimmick. But even then, did most fans in the KISS Army actually think Gene Simmons or Paul Stanley went around spitting blood and fire all the time? Gaga and her marketing crew want you to think she really does like being and acting that way, that she was born this way. When by all accounts, the lady behind the gimmick was a reasonably normal person growing up who created a character, unauthentic to who she really is, and then made millions of dollars off of it.

I think her voice is good enough, but I'm not blown away by it. I also refuse to believe the stories from her and her marketing team that she was too weird and eccentric to fit in high school and that she was always a social outcast. I think that was a construct to try and market her as eccentric later in life. Just as I don't believe she likes dressing in dresses made of eggs over easy and hatching or wearing one made out of chuck roast and ny strip steak. She's just trying to be a more eccentric version of Madonna because her and her marketing team thinks that's what will sell records. She's probably wearing sketchers and dockers while laughing at all the "Little Monsters" who thinks she's this weird idol.

Damn, Tommy Prine, son of the late John Prine, put out one helluva song.