Come back soon, Goldilocks From Hell. (AP)

In our second Viking-headed news bit of the day, ill tidings out of Ann Arbor: linebacker Jake Ryan, Michigan’s leader in sacks and tackles for loss, tore his ACL in practice on Tuesday. Brady Hoke released the following statement through the athletic department on the development:

You always hate when anyone gets injured and unfortunately we’ve dealt with our share of injuries in the last 12 months,” said Michigan coach Brady Hoke. “We will support Jake to make sure he has everything he needs to get through this. I know he will attack his rehabilitation just like he does everything else and will be back when he’s ready.”

It’s a setback you hate to see for any athlete, but the absence of somebody as fun to watch as Ryan will be keenly felt. Our very best wishes to the guy we’ll always remember one MGoBlog denizen calling “Goldilocks from hell.”

Tracking the zeitgeist through college football’s opening weekend.

I like that when we play overseas, we send Navy. Just in case.

— Brody Logan (@BrodyLogan) September 1, 2012

Mark Richt has lost control of my bougainvilleas.instagr.am/p/PC6_QMrv3n/

— sarah sprague (@sarah_sprague) September 1, 2012

Casual Todd Blackledge is disconcerting, like seeing your teacher at the grocery store

— Bobby Big Wheel (@BobbyBigWheel) September 1, 2012

Somewhere, I imagine Derek Dooley’s mom visibly seething that her son is on national television with his shirt untucked like a heathen.

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) September 1, 2012

Read More…

Brady Hoke grapples with the shame of finishing his first year at Michigan with a mere Sugar Bowl berth. (AP)

• Can’t fault his logic. Summer is the most frustrating point on the college football calendar when it comes to parsing coachspeak for actual facts. Every team had a really great summer. Every team’s new strength coach has moved it light-years beyond last year’s benchmarks. Offenses are crisper; defenses are really hunkering down (while playing faster at the same time). And every program’s immediate and entirely attainable goal is to win a conference championship.

Brady Hoke, like everyone else in his profession, spoke along these lines when he first took the reins at Michigan last year. The Wolverines went 11-2 and won the Sugar Bowl. Those two losses were conference losses and cost them a shot at the Big Ten title. Hoke’s self-assessment, therefore, is that he failed in his first year. This is our favorite thing any coach has said in months.

Elsewhere in Wolverenia: The starting running back gig is publicly up for grabs, and the receiving corps is thinned for the moment following Roy Roundtree’s knee surgery.

• We return one more time to Friday’s well. Previously on INTEGRITY OF THE COACHES’ POLL: Lane Kiffin and USA Today got in a snit over his vote in their poll party. Today’s episode: Kiffykins gives no bothers, and doesn’t even want to be in your stupid Coaches’ Poll. While we’re all here, this is a fine time to argue over USC’s crime statistics versus UCLA’s.

Read More…

Brady Hoke, Michigan men’s basketball coach John Beilein and UM athletic director/pizza magnate Dave Brandon are featured speakers in a “six-day executive education program intended to teach business leadership through lessons learned in U-M sports.” We cannot attend ourselves, but imagine the week will be overflowing with pizza-based metaphors. Below, an artist’s rendition of the Wolverines’ defense under Greg Robinson: