Yardbarker: Larry Foote

Steelers Breakdown Part II: Defense

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 22:12:24 -0500

After last Saturday's debacle in Minnesota, where the Pittsburgh Steelers vaunted offense couldn't manage a touchdown, the new look offensive line played downright offensive, and supposed superstar rookie RB Rashard Mendenhall couldn't keep his hands on the ball, I suppose for our collective sanity w

Steelers Wait on the Status of Foote

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:33:37 -0500

The Steelers are hoping that further tests on the injured knee of linebacker Larry Foote. Foote left Saturday night's exhibition game with the Minnesota Vikings with the injury that Coach Mike Tomlin categorized as fairly minor. The Steelers scraped out a 12-10 victory over the Vikings on a 47-yard field goal with four [...]

Steelers Wait on the Status of Foote

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:33:37 -0500

Links for 2008-07-26 [del.icio.us]

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 21:52:40 -0500

Big Ten Notes: Rodriguez finds good help
in which Dienhart owns me
Foote to MSU: "y'all always gonna suck" (audio)
very subtle, that Larry Foote
Mark Dantonio is sure Spartans won't look past the Wolverines
that is their big problem, after all

LATROBE IS LOOMING

Fri, 25 Jul 2008 17:04:32 -0500

In just a few days, the Pittsburgh Steelers will make their annual trek to St. Vincent's College. No, Rashard Mendenhall and Limas Sweed are not in the fold yet, but it's just a matter of time on that front. There are storylines a-plenty, and some actual, real-life position battles to look forward to. Will Max Starks be paid millions to be a backup? Is Larry Foote really facing the possibility of a demotion? Who's going to be the starting center? Will Steely McBeam be back for a sophomore campaign?

Personally, I'm so starved for football that I've started watching portions of old pro and college games on re-runs on some sort of CBS Classic network and the NFL Network. Regular season Titans-Chargers game? Yes, please! It's pathetic.

So to further get us in the mood for training camp, here's the NFLN's Top 10 Steeler plays of 2007. That Roethlisberger kid is worth every penny, I tell ya.

SEND YOUR LIVEBLOG LINKS: mondesishouse@gmail.com

Is a Starting Job for Timmons a Shoe-in?

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:43:21 -0500

From: Pro Football Weekly Steelers observers will be keeping an eye on the number of reps that second-year ILB Lawrence Timmons will be getting with the first-team defense in training camp. It has been widely assumed that Timmons will likely push Larry Foote out of the starting lineup, but as a source close to the club [...]

Is a Starting Job for Timmons a Shoe-in?

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 19:43:21 -0500

Even Unverified Voracity Is A Little Tired Of Barwis Porn

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 17:07:48 -0500

Programming note: there was a lot of negative feedback on the "Anti-Carr Team"; it appears most found it meanspirited, and I have to agree. It was fun in concept but not execution and has been discontinued. If you need a complete team, there is a diary entitled " The Game I'll Watch In Hell ."

Blog fixes. You should notice the MGoStore block is back. Click for sweet t-shirt action. Also: the "more" links in the diaries tab now lead you to something that's not totally useless. Before, they actually had worse functionality than the tabs, as they'd give you five posts without any option to see another page. Now they'll show you 25 and there's a full pager. Also, the Fanhouse links on the left sidebar are fixed.

Crankiness level: medium. Red Berenson has always been admirably straightforward about how damned ornery NHL teams picking off his best players makes him. Sometimes he's okay with it (Jack Johnson); other times he's near livid (Mike Cammalleri). The Pacioretty reaction falls in the middle:

Q: Was he frustrated with your decision?

Pacioretty: A little bit. He's very understanding. He knows I want to be a professional hockey player. Sometimes, not everyone has the same mindset for developing as a hockey player. I think there might have been a little bit of friction there, but not too much. I know he supports my goal to one day play in the NHL.

The official word:

"We're disappointed that Max Pacioretty has chosen to forego his eligibility at the University of Michigan," Berenson said in a statement released by the school. "Max was certainly a positive force on our team last season. We would like to wish him well in his pursuit of his dream to play in the National Hockey League."

Eeeeeeeeeeee. Again. Okay, even I'm getting a little tired of reading about Superhero Mike Barwis. Mere days after ESPN published three separate items about the former ninja who may have assassinated Prince Moriyoshi in 1335 comes a Dennis Dodd piece. Naturally, it starts with wolves:

The pet wolves died last year. Mike Barwis had two of them which, to anyone who knows Michigan's strength and conditioning coach, is hardly a surprise.

The rest of it is per standard. Barwis makes grown men cry. Larry Foote can fly now. Player X came in a 200 pound fatty and now bends steel bars with his forearm hair. Barwis ate a baby once and crapped out Lawrence Taylor. Barwis got in a time machine, travelled back to the Indian subcontinent when it was still floating in the ocean and got the natives so fired up they threw it into Asia.

Barwis invented flour.

Also there's this quote from Threet:

"We have to scare people again," Threet said. "There used to be a certain intimidation factor. You'd see Michigan run out and touch the banner and you knew you were in for a long day. Some of that has started to go away."

Word.

Historian. The 2000 Michigan State game for your edification:

Meanwhile. The Ann Arbor News' editorial leadership has taken every possible opportunity to criticize the Michigan athletic department this summer. Meanwhile, in Lansing they're publishing 4,000 word puff pieces about the new athletic director's little league baseball coaching:

Runners stand on first and second. It's 6:33 p.m. on Monday, June 9, at a baseball field behind Chippewa Middle School in Okemos. Coach Mark Hollis gives the sign to his baserunners: double steal. As the next pitch crosses the plate, both break into a sprint.

"Get there!" Hollis barks, and both do with ease.

It is, after all, little league baseball.

Michigan State's athletic department is consistently in the red, features a football team one point above the APR's minimum, and has a coach that provided more ammunition to Michigan fans in one year than John L Smith did over his entire tenure. Also his last recruiting class sucked. (This one? Pretty good so far.) But the rush to lionize is on.

Diaries of note. A number of good things in the Diaries: gsimmons85 tackles press coverage as Shafer will apply it:

You wont see a lot of straight jam technique, rather the press is an inside shade, outside foot back, inviting the fade (michigan corners will know how to play the fade better than any other corners int he country) then on the snap of the ball, they execute what is called a shadow technique. Shafer describes it as imagining that the sun is setting behind the offensive player, and the defender gives ground, with short shuffle steps, and tries to stay in the shadow as long as possible. Forcing the offensive player to make the first move, makes it harder to get a corner off balance with a missed jam.

Simmons is a high school defensive coordinator who's used Shafer's schemes for the past four years and is very complimentary of his stuff over on his home blog Three And Out.

Meanwhile, Blue Seoul interrogates the Barwis hype. In doing so he accidentally stumbles over some interesting numbers about fourth quarter swings. Over the last five years:

Michigan was outscored in the 4th quarter 19 freaking times. 6 of those were 4th quarter collapses where we lost the lead, and 4 of them were double digit 4th quarter leads. WVU was outscored in the 4th 21 times, BUT ONLY 1 RESULTED IN A LOST LEAD. One! One freaking game did they lose in the 4th quarter. ... Conversely, WVU only won 7 games in the 2nd half, 2 of those in the 4th. Michigan won 7 games in the 2nd half, but 9 in the 4th.

I cosign the proffered explanation:

I think this has more to do with coaching. Lloyd would sit on a lead, lose the third quarter and then open up a bit to win in the end. Whereas with RR he doesn't hold back. He's either going to beat you and put you away in the first half, or just trail for the entire game.

(There's probably an element of luck in there, too.) An interesting thing about the Rodriguez offense as it was constructed at West Virginia: you can't turn off the "scoring offense." Michigan could grind into the line a few times, throw on third down, avoid risky plays, etc, etc. West Virginia could try to do that, and Pat White would rip off a 50 yard run or something. The downside to this is the lack of comebacks: WVU had one kickass dimension, but if you shut that dimension off you were going to win.

I don't think this is the ideal for Rodriguez, but when you've got Pat White -- especially as a freshman and sophomore -- that's just what you've got. It would have been interesting to see if Rodriguez added more passing to the WVU offense with a senior quarterback, as Carr always did.

Also:

QB Waggle continues his excellent series on Michigan players in the NFL. (Note the use of bold for headers and italics for subheaders to break the text up into nice readable chunks.)
Dex of the WLA concludes the Kevin Grady adventure.
Keegan provides his own Slocum eulogy; There is more at the WLA.

Etc.: More LLP in Taiwan; he goes for 22 against the hosts; Purdue blog Off The Tracks interviews yrs truly.

SILVERBACK PLAYED TWO

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:21:43 -0500

Big Ben: too cool for socks

For all of you concerned, the Steelers' softball extravaganza went off as planned on Saturday.

The "early" game at North Allegheny High School featured big names such as Hines Ward, Ben Roethlisberger, Charlie Batch, Nate Washington, Deshea Townsend, James Harrison, Max Starks, Larry Foote, WDVE's Jim Krenn, KDKA's Sonni Abata, and WTAE's Jon Burton AND Sally Wiggin, who undoubtedly drew the biggest cheering section.

No one ever gave him a chance as a softball player

Santonio Holmes also suited up and delivered on a called shot, joining Babe Ruth and Petr Sykora in the annals of sports history.

The "late" game in Washington, PA, didn't have quite the same level of star appeal, but it managed to snag James Harrison (who appears to have played in both games), Chris Hoke, insurance salesman/TV analyst/former Steeler Edmund Nelson, and the omnipresent Louis Lipps, among others.

The Steelers, apparently wearing the same uniforms they recently donned in their charity basketball tour, ultimately dropped this one, 14-6, to the Wild Things alumni. As shown, a good time was had by all.

And before you ask, yes, I felt this recap was more relevant than the Pirates' incredibly disappointing 7-6 loss to the lowly Nationals, which featured Paul Maholm allowing four home runs (including three in one inning) and Matt Capps serving up a gopherball to Lastings Milledge in the 9th inning. Bob Smizik is not happy. Then again, he rarely is.

HINES WARD CELEBRITY SOFTBALL RECAP [Kiss 96.1]

[Thanks to Shawn Jurik of Washington, PA for the photos and recap from the Wild Things game]

Please insert Foote in Mouth

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:57:51 -0500

Larry Foote of the Pittsburgh Steelers takes some cheap shots at MSU.

2002 all draft team

Sun, 08 Jul 2007 02:35:19 -0500

If you look back at this draft you can see some of these picks are by default. This was definitely a terrible quarterback class as Carr isn't even that great but compared to the rest of the guys he looks like a stud. It was also a weak class for linebackers. Lets just say except for some defensive players this wasn't that great a draft. Offense QB: David Carr Round 1 Pick 1 RB: Clinton Portis Round 2 Pick 51 RB: Brian Westbrook Round 3 Pick 91 WR: Javon Walker Round 1 Pick 20 WR: Deion Branch Round 2 Pick 65 TE: Jeremy Shockey Round 1 Pick 14 T: Bryant McKinnie Round 1 Pick 7 G: Kendall Simmons Round 1 Pick 30 C: LeCharles Bentley Round 2 Pick 44 G: Toniu Fonoti Round 2 Pick 39 T: Levi Jones Round 1 Pick 10 Defense DE: Dwight Freeney Round 1 Pick 11 DT: Rocky Bernard Round 5 Pick 146 DT: John Henderson Round 1 Pick 9 DE: Julius Peppers Round 1 Pick 2 LB: Larry Foote Round 4 Pick 128 LB: Napoleon Harris Round 1 Pick 23 LB: David Thornton Round 4 Pick 106 CB: Lito Sheppard Round 1 Pick 26 CB: Brian Williams Round 4 Pick 105 S: Roy Williams Round 1 Pick 8 S: Ed Reed Round 1 Pick 24