Mega newsletter: Thoughts on NCAA investigation, Daily/State News game, Week 8 viewing guide, B1G power rankings and more
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Like I said in my column at the start of the week, this has been a very different Michigan-Michigan State week than I expected. Because of this, we’re going to be doing things a little differently in the lead-up to Saturday night’s game.
While I did get this week’s radio recap audio/transcription sent out earlier this week, the other weekly staples (Big Ten Power rankings and the Week 8 viewing guide/predictions) will be condensed into one newsletter (this one!). I will not do a subscriber Q&A this week, but fully intend to have those return next week.
Along with my viewing guide, predictions and power rankings, though, I will have a couple other things included in this newsletter, too. First will be my initial reaction to today’s news about Michigan being investigated by the NCAA for stealing signs. In case you missed that news, Yahoo! Sports broke the story, and The Athletic had some new (and hilarious) details, too.
In addition to that, I had been working on a bonus newsletter for this week surrounding the cancellation of the Daily-State News annual touch football game between the two campus newspapers. I wasn’t able to finish it and make it into its own separate entity, but I have some elements of that which could be of interest to readers, too, so that’s also included here.
Before diving into all of that, though, I wanted to extend a very sincere thank you to everyone for their responses to my column about my mom earlier this week. I know that was a very different piece than I typically write in this space, and I was a little worried about how that level of vulnerability might be received — especially during a week like this one. And I’ve been blown away by the reception and the response from everyone.
I attempted to respond back to everyone individually, but I’m certain some things fell through the cracks. The e-mails, Twitter/Facebook responses, DMs, texts and everything else have been overwhelming in the best way possible. Hearing great stories from people who knew my mom, having others who are going through or have gone through similar things and just having so many genuine people offer their prayers and express their gratitude have been more helpful to me and my family than you could ever know. So please take this as a thank you to everyone, particularly if I didn’t get back to you personally amidst all the chaos of this week.
And with that, let’s get to the coverage.