The wishful thinkinf of rival fans that UM is in a tailspin and Rodriguez is already on the hotseat continues. Too many threads to lnk and not trying to call out any particular fans by linking posts, but even 8-4 will be greatly disappointing to many rivals. Too many are thinking 5-7 and talking about it being their chance to take revenge. It won't happen.
Along those lines, talk has come up time and again of the UM 2008 line being a lot like the ND 2007 line, and warning Michigan fans to anticipate that manner of Keystone Cops futility. It won't happen. As simple as that, it won't happen. I have never, in over 25 years of watching football, never seen a major college offensive line as badly coached as Notre Dame's was last year. That was not just a lack of inexperience, it was a lack of coaching.
And while we're at it, the other way around, I see some growing use of bust-like language to describe Steven Threet. People are worried that he can't hold off a walkon. He is a freshman. Freshman often struggle. Take the 5* rating away from Mallett, and Mallett's performance last year would have had us longing for a walkon to beat him out.
Some links with comments
Audio links from The Huge Show:
Mike Barwis sounds like he smokes 20 packs a day.
After 8 months of hearing what Rodriguez and Shafer and Barwis et al want to do, nothing they say anymore can hold my interest. Short of "We are going to start by running a counter to Brandon Minor on the 1st play," nothing they can say hasn't been said before. It's time to see the finished product. It is officially game week, after all.
Kansas City Star
This has been posted so many places by so many people that I can't offer the credit to anyone for bringing it to my attention. It seems bizarre that the KC star has a long, thought out article on UM football until you find out it was written by a Michigan alum. It's an excellent article. It does dole out some criticism to the prior regime, but backs it up with quotes from players, not just armchair QBs. Like Brandon Graham saying "Everybody knew exactly what we were going to do," and expressing some frustration with the arrogance of the game plan.0
MVictors.com I had never noticed this (shame on me, perhaps) but MVictors.com keeps track of UM memorabilia auctions for your bidding enjoyment, and he found an ongoing auction for a 1931 football jersey. Interesting - when the page loaded, before I read any of the text, I thought it was a Michigan onesie for toddlers.
WLA I'm behind on this one, too, but Wolverine Liberation Army is some fantastically bizarre stuff.
Greatest Rivals Another blogger sent me a link to his page, part of a greater site on rivalries. This one may be a check back as OSU nears type of page (you're on notice, Andy: you better have something *big* for the game this year). Looking back at the 2003 highlights, how exactly does a 14 pt win feel like such a blowout? I guess the same way OSU's 2007 11 pt win feels like a blowout: a feeling of inveitability.
Just to get this out of the way - players who may not play against Utah
Corey Zirbel (out - knee)
Terrance Robinson (out - knee)
J. R. Hemingway (questionable)
Kevin Grady (questionable - suspension?)
With that out of the way
What You Might See Against Utah
Quarterback: Nick Sheridan starting, but Steven Threet getting significant snaps. With Sheridan, the game plan is to get the ball out of his hands quickly and to players who can make things happen in one on one situations. The risk is that the opponent covers well, tackles well and our offense sputters its way to several punts. The game plan with Threet is to take more chances down the field, to hope that our wide receivers and tight ends can make plays by getting seperation, and then getting them the ball. The risk is negative plays - sacks and interceptions.
Runningback: At least four will play; Minor, Brown, McGuffie and Shaw, and not necessarily in that order. They will move all over the field, especially Brown and Shaw. They will be used in 18 different ways, some of which people who have only watched Michigan will have never seen before. There will be more confusion and misdirection than has been seen in Ann Arbor since the Mad Magicians of 1947. Expect to see any combination of two in the game at a time, not with one masquerading as a fullback but with both being legit RB and or slot receiving threats. Mark Moundros will get the bulk of the snaps at FB.
Wide Receiver: The short game will feature Greg Mathews, Toney Clemons and Martavius Odoms and be complemented by running backs lining up in the slot and catching passes out of the backfield. The downfield game will feature Mathews, Clemons and Daryl Stonum, and be complemented by tight ends Carson Butler and Michael Massey. With the exception of Greg Mathews, it will be hard to tell who is 1st string and who is the backup. Look for the tight ends to be blur the line between tight end and receiver. Both Butler and Massey will line up wide, away from the line, and try to create opportunities by dragging linebackers away from the box.
Offensive Line: Ortmann-McAvoy-Molk-Moosman-Schilling? Maybe the single most important thing to watch. Expect to see lots of movement on the OL and lots of substitution. Herd the opponent the wrong direction instead of trying to bull them out of the way. Zirbel was reportedly the best bull on the line, and he's not there. Expect some bad snaps and QBs diving on the ball, too. We appear to have a good stable of promising guards, but no shotgun centers. Don't be surprised if some backups get meaningful snaps subbing in one or two at a time. Some teams like to play units on the o-line and reserves only get snaps in garbage time. At least early this year, Michigan may not do it that way.
Defensive Line: Graham, Johnson, Taylor and Jamison starting with VanBergen, Martin, Sagesse/Kates and Banks/Patterson. Here, there's a clear 1st vs. 2nd string delineation. It will be interesting to see how much rotation and rest Shafer and Tall go in for. The 1st to 2nd string dropoff could be enormous.
Linebackers: Starters still up in the air. Panter and Ezeh will start. Maybe Evans at WLB and Panter at MLB. Maybe Thompson at WLB and move everyone around? Mouton and Chambers will get snaps at the WLB spot, almost turning the 4-3-4 into something halfway to a 4-2-5 (Mouton is 100% LB, but still in the "almost a safety" mold). All the players mentioned will play significant minutes, though Mouton's and Chambers's minutes may be scarcer against Utah than other opponents for matchup reasons.
Defensive backs: Trent and Warren with Woolfolk and Cissoko both getting ample chances to play as the #3. They'll play press, and look to see if Trent is more physical this year than he was last year. It's all that is standing between him and an All Big 10 caliber season. Harrison and Brown will start at safety, though you could see quite a bit of Stewart as well. Brown could be the wildcard and key to the prognosis of the secondary.
Return Game: I don't have a name, but look for big names. Don't discount the possibility of starters at return jobs, potentially Donovan Warren, Morgan Trent, Steve Brown, Brandon Harrison ... basically, the entire starting secondary.
The season is close enough that we can actually start putting some stock in the various practice reports that are floating around (after we set aside 30 seconds to take in the fact that it seems like, with this new regime, everyone except for me has an open invitation to visit practice whenever they feel like it).
It Sounds Like
Quarterbacks: Not where we expected, and our expectations weren't realistic. Yes, Threet was a 4* QB coming out of high school and we should expect him to be a productive quarterback. Some day. He is a sophomore who has never played a down of college football, and he is in effectively his 3rd offensive system since leaving high school (Georgia Tech for a semester, Lloyd Carr's pro-style attack and now the spread). That he's struggling with his timing, that he's having difficulty with pressure and having trouble keeping up his confidence is not surprising. Sheridan catching him is either bad news (that Threet didn't seperate) or good news (that Sheridan's improving), depending on how you look at it. There's been lots of talk that Sheridan has an edge on Threet because he is a bigger threat running the ball, something that Rodriguez's offense is almost built around, but equally important is how quickly the QB can set his feet and deliver the ball. The Rodriguez offense features a lot of quick timing passes, and a QB who takes his time getting set will struggle. Edge Sheridan, and it may not be ephemeral. But no matter who starts, all we can realistically ask of the QB position this fall is that it not cost us games. If either QB proves capable of actively winning us games, that would be an unexpected bonus.
Runningbacks: Right where we expected, and our expectations were optimistic. For all the recruiting hype and flashes of excellence shown by our top three returning backs, Grady has had a disappointing career to date and Minor has never had a good game against a good team. And fans were expecting a lot out of two true freshman in Sam McGuffie and Michael Shaw. And so far, of those 5 backs mentioned, 4 have delivered what the optimistic fans expected. The only exception is Carlos Brown, who hasn't shown much due to injury, but who is also (in a way, at least) the most proven of the backs. Look for all five to play, as they give Rodriguez the ability to present lots of different threats to the opponent. Look for us to feature 2-HB formations (and not just with Grady or Minor lining up at FB). Look for McGuffie, Shaw and maybe Brown to move all around the lineup.
Wide Receivers: Right where we expected, and our expectations were optimistic. Mathews is what he should be, on his path to being Jason Avant, perhaps. Hemingway has been dinged up and Clemons has been cross-training at various positions, but the news has been the freshman. Stonum lit up the spring practices and continues to do so, way ahead of schedule for a true freshman. The very early returns on Robinson and Odoms are exactly what one would expect, that they explosive and elusive, though a bit inconsistent. Roundtree's name has yet to surface much, but we'll see. Verdict? We should easily have 4 credible WRs ready to go (Mathews, Hemingway, Clemons, Stonum), with the only problem being that none of them is truly the speedy midget-slot that Rodriguez seems to like, which is why the progress of Odoms and Robinson merits watching. If they aren't consistent enough, Clemons will have to make use of those hours at the slot position.
Tight Ends: Better than we expected, maybe even. Better in two ways. We expected Butler to be a freak, and he appears to be freaking as expected. But Massey has apparently worked his way into a 2-man TE rotation, and maybe just as importantly, it appears that Rodriguez was very serious about modifying his offense to incorporate a TE if he can find a mismatch to exploit. Butler can certainly provide a mismatch.
Offensive Line: Who knows? There are some very positive reports, but those reports may be a reaction to some pretty modest expectations. When you say your LT (Ortmann) is looking good and your LG (Zirbel) has had a breakthrough off-season, but both still need work in pass protection, that's a bit of a mixed signal. We also seem to have a couple of promising, steady centers who would both rather be playing guard (Molk and Moosman). Schilling is the one all-around given on the line. And those who were down on his play last year, please keep in mind he was in his first year starting, being asked to play two positions, and playing tackle at times next to a rotating guard corps. Not easy. Oh, and none of the guys I mentioned can afford to get hurt. We have 1 or 2 backups ready for meaningful snaps (Molk and maybe Dorrenstein) but after that it's true freshman offensive linemen, and that's scary.
Defensive Line: Better than expected and our expectations were optimistic. Every projected starter on the line has drawn raves for some time now. The only question mark in spring was whether Taylor would buy into the workout routines, and he has done so entirely. Graham and Jamison are noticably fitter and Jamison looks exceptionally quick in the little footage we have seen. Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen have impressed in backup roles, and if Jason Kates keeps up with the routine, he could answer the one question that had him rated as a 2* recruit at one site and a 4* at the other. Quality starters, any of which could be All Big 10, and some quality depth. Can't ask for more.
Linebackers: A bit better than our modest expectations. Better in that Austin Panter, who was the star of spring, is still fighting for a spot, and not becaue he's regressed. Better in that Ezeh has the makings of a star and Evans is way ahead of schedule. A bit behind in that many were hoping Mouton would be an early contributor and a star, and he may not factor that much if he can't beat out Evans. In the end, all we are asking of the LBs is that they be steady and good, not great and not the heart of the defense (that will be the D-line), and they look up to it.
Cornerbacks: Better than expected, and we expected a lot. Warren and Trent are right where they shoudl be, and Cissoko is as expected. The nice bonus is that Troy Woolfolk appears to be ahead of schedule, not at all the track star project that some thought he might be. We have two very good corners, a potentially good nickelback (Woolfolk) and depth (Cissoko). Along with d-line, this should be the strength of the defense.
Safery: I don't know. I have not heard, read or seen much about the safeties. Little scraps ... that Steve Brown is on target, that Harrison looks quick and has taken to the defense. But not much, good or bad.
Bottom Line
Position by position, we are ahead of where we (the consensus as I read it) expected us to be, but that has to be taken with a grain of salt. Replacing basically the entire starting offense, both safeties and much of the LB corps, we were expecting many of the players to struggle, and for Rodriguez to be the guy to figure out how to win despite that. And the faith in Rodriguez to get that done was probably unrealistic. If the OL really struggles in the way 4 new starters often do, and if the QB position performs the way first year QBs often do, the offense will be poor with or without any schematic advantage Rodriguez brings. Rodriguez can only do so much; the players need to do the rest, and so far it sounds like they are ahead of schedule there.
I mentioned some time ago that I'd been looking into ESPN's foray into recruiting ratings, now four years old and presumably gaining some consistency. In part 1, I talked about my frustration at trying to find some consistency in the ESPN ratings that would allow me to create a mapping from ESPN's 100 pt scale to Rivals' 6.1 pt scale, something that would let me say "This kid was rated 79 by ESPN but 6.0 (high 4*) by Rivals, so Rivals clearly has him rated higher. Such a mapping was hard to create because ESPN's use of the 100 pt scale seems to vary widely from year to year.
But I said I'd keep trying. I said I'd report back in a few days. That was on June 19th.
In Part 2 (this), I'm looking at one very specific issue: Michigan.
That is, I've tracked the Rivals and Scout evaluations of Michigan's recruiting classes for a few years now, and while there are multiple cases each year where one is more bullish on a recruit than the other, in the end, it seems to be a crapshoot. That is, they have differences of opinion (which is why it's worth following both), but there seems to be no inherent bias. You can't say "Scout is always more bullish on Michigan recruits than Rivals is" or "Rivals always thinks more highly of Penn State recruits than Scout does."
I wanted to throw ESPN into the mix.
So here's what I did:
I added 2009 recruiting rankings from ESPN to the mapping and tried again. And I came up with this.
In the 2009 Rivals class, there are 25 5*s (6.1), 57 high 4*s (6.0), 75 mid 4*s (5.9) and 162 low 4*s (5.8). The mapping I came up with was
Rivals: ESPN (# of players / year per ESPN)
6.1: 84->100 (33)
6.0: 82->83 (50)
5.9: 80->81 (112)
5.8: 78->79
5.7: 76->77
Then I pulled in 3.5 years of recruiting classes for Michigan (Feb 2006 -> Feb 2008 and ther current, unfinished class). I also brought in the 3 other midwestern powers: Ohio State, Penn State and Notre Dame, then quickly dismissed Penn State because (no offense Penn State fans) they have not recruited at the same level as Michigan, OSU and ND and that affects the comparison.
And having established (though not published here, because it's a boring hypothesis to lay out evidence of) that Rivals and Scout seem fairly in line, I figure I am, as best as can be done, comparing ESPN to a consensus of 2.
I also allowed for minor differences in ranking. If one site says a player is 50th, a high 4*, and another says he is 25th, a 5*, that's not a difference worth noting. So translated to the Rivals 6.1 system, I noted the ratings as being significantly different if they were at least 0.2 apart - a 5* compared to a mid 4*, a mid 4* compared to a high 3*.
I also made some assumptions and threw out some data, and these are just my judgment, to be trusted or not trusted as you see fit:
1. I ignored players who were rated mid 3* or below by both services. I am not interested in whether Rivals and ESPN disagreed on just how mediocre the bottom of the class was, and there is too much noise in those ratings.
2. I ignored players where I did not have Rivals ratings or where there appeared to be good reason for not having ESPN ratings (Junior College transfers, foreign players).
3. However, if (to the best of my knowledge) a recruit was a conventional American high school recruit and was rated as a decent prospect by Rivals and simply not scouted by ESPN (usually carrying a grade of 40, which is ESPN-speak for "unrated), I think it is fair to say ESPN thinks less of this player. This player is marked as one that Rivals rated higher. I figure if Rivals thinks a kid is solidly Big 10 level, and ESPN simply chooses not to scout him (despite scouting over a thousand, maybe over two thousand kids), then ESPN doesn't think much of the recruit.
From there, I looked at one basic thing: how many players, by team, were rated higher by Rivals than by ESPN, and how many were rated higher by ESPN than by Rivals. If there's no bias, and with a decent sample of 68-78 comparable recruits for each team (3.5 recruiting classes) you'd expect it to be some high, some low, and a near washout.
School: Rivals is higher / ESPN is higher / Sample ... Effect
Michigan: 13 / 6 / 68 (-10%)
Notre Dame: 5 / 14 / 78 (+12%)
Ohio State: 14 / 8 / 75 (-8%)
Effect = (ESPN high - Rivals high) / Sample size
Positive = ESPN likes the classes more. Negative = Rivals likes the class more.
8%, 10%, 12% ...
Keep in mind, when I did this for Rivals vs. Scout, the numbers came out Michigan 2%, Notre Dame 4%, Ohio State 1%. By comparison, these are wild an enormous numbers, 8%, 10% and 12%. It does *not* mean that ESPN and Rivals agree more often than Rivals and Scout do. In fact, the # of matches is very similar. What it means is that while when Rivals and Scout disagree, it's as likely to be Rivals higher as it is to be Scout higher, when ESPN and Rivals disagree, it's usually to Notre Dame's benefit and Michigan's and Ohio State's detriment.
Bias? Not ready to say that.
First off, there could be a statistical bias here. Rivals and Scout have stable ratings systems. There may be 30 5* recruits one year and 36 the next, but it won't just from 50+ to mid 20s the way ESPN's did (for players rated 84 and higher). There won't be a 30-40% reduction in 4* players for one year, and then a jump back up, as there was between 2006, 2007 and 2008 for ESPN. Those wild swings could make a difference if, say one team had a small class and another had a large and blockbuster class in a year where ESPN was stingy. One team minimized the exposure to ESPN's stingy year, while another was fully exposed.
Another possibility is that it could be regional or positional. Maybe ND recruited a *ton* of offensive linemen and ESPN is just more generous with OL ratings than Rivals and Scout are. Those things (stripped of the school issue: just position and region) are things I will look at in part 3.
But before I get to part 3, one quick way of looking at the results of part 2.
If you just take the RR Rivals ratings and average them by team, what you get for this 3.5 year sample is
#1: Ohio State - 5.81
#2: Notre Dame - 5.78
#3: Michigan - 5.76
Not much of a difference. A difference of 0.03 over a class of 20 = trading 3 high 3* players for mid 4* players, noticable but not a huge difference.
If you average the mapped ESPN ratings, you get
#1: Notre Dame - 5.81
#2: Ohio State - 5.75
#3: Michigan - 5.72
The difference between that 5.81 and 5.72 is basically the same as if you took every single kid in Michigan's recruiting class and bumped them up a notch (from high 3* to low 4*, from low 4* to mid 4* ...). That's an enormous difference. And pwhat's driving it is that ESPN is just not impressed with the Michigan recruits that ESPN considers the elite among our classes. Michigan has 5 Rivals 5* players in the sample (Ryan Mallett, Brandon Graham, Donovan Warren, Steven Schilling and William Campbell) and only 2 of them carry even top 100 grades from ESPN (Mallett and Graham). 3 of Michigan's 9 "high 4*" players by Rivals are rated lower than that by ESPN (Justin Turner and Jonas Mouton as mid 4* and Boubacar Cissoko as a low 4*). And on the flipside, if that's the definition of elite, only 1 player has been named elite by ESPN that was not elite per Rivals (J.R. Hemingway).
On the flipside, there are 5 players that carry 5.9 or lower ratings by Rivals (mid 4* or lower, not top 100) that carry 5* / 6.1 grades from ESPN, and four more that are rated high 4* / 6.0 by ESPN.
Anyway, that's just data.
I want to dump things out by region, by position, by year and see what else turns up.
Basically, I want to look into this and see if there's consistency or bias in ESPN's ratings and whether I should continue paying attention. Of course, the best test will come on the field, when we can see the players that the services disagreed on and evaluate who was right and who was wrong.
I pulled the top 10 for each decade (including 2000-2007 as a decade) from Chris Stassen's website.
Overall # of appearances (# of times a team was top 10 nationally in win %age for
a decade)
1. Michigan: 6 times (1900s, 1920s, 1940s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s)
T-2: Notre Dame: 5 times (1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1970s)
T-2: Penn State: 5 times (1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s)
T-2: Texas: 5 times (1910s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s, 2000s)
T-5: Alabama: 4 times (1930s, 1940s, 1960s, 1970s)
T-5: Nebraska 4 times (1910s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s)
T-5: Ohio State 4 times (1960s, 1970s, 1990s, 2000s)
T-5: Tennessee 4 times (1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1990s)
Most consecutive decades
Notre Dame: 4 (1910s-1940s)
Penn State: 4 (1960s-1990s)
Miami Fla: 3 (1980s-2000s) <= longest actve streak
Michigan: 3 (1970s-1990s) <= 1 game off the pace in the 2000s
Nebraska: 3 (1970s-1990s)
Tennessee: 3 (1920s-1940s)
# of times appearing in the last half century (1960s-2000s)
T-1. Ohio State: 4 times
T-1. Penn State: 4 times
T-3. Miami Fla: 3 times
T-3. Michigan: 3 times
T-3. Nebraska: 3 times
T-3. Oklahoma: 3 times
T-3. Texas: 3 times
Top 10 programs all time and last appearance
1. Michigan: 1990s
2. Notre Dame: 1970s
3. Texas: 2000s
4. Ohio State: 2000s
5. Oklahoma: 2000s
6. Alabama: 1970s
7. Southern Cal: 2000s
8. Nebraska: 1990s
9. Tennessee: 1990s
10. Penn State: 1990s
Commentary in the comments section. I'll leave the stats to speak for themselves here, in case you think they are saying anything.
I wrote this in another forum, in response to one or two West Virginia fans and some others going on at lengths about Michigan's buyer's remorse at having hired the slimeball Rich Rodriguez, but I thought it might be appropriate in a more general sense, as a response to the bizarre idea that's spread through various non-Michigan fan forums that Michigan has some early concerns about Rodriguez's behavior, and ethics. I don't usually try to speak for the entire Michigan fan base, but ...
I think a lot of people outside Michigan have this notion that
Rodriguez's honeymoon is over, that Michigan fans are somehow wary of
what they've gotten into, that the administration may be upset ...
None of that is really true.
There haven't been any concerns about his recruiting, not the kinds of
kids he's pursuing or how he is pursuing them.
There have been no real concerns about his ethics.
No one except Rosenberg (of The Detroit Free Press) has raised
questions about his "serial job searching" or whatever Rosenberg called
it. If he stays at Michigan and is successful for 10 years, great. If he
has a good run and gets an NFL offer and leaves, then that's the risk
you take in hiring a good coach.
There really has been one concern raised at all about Rodriguez locally
that has gained any kind of traction with the fans and insiders, and
that is with respect to language. Rodriguez, and more so a couple of his
assistants, apparently swear like soldiers on leave. But you know what,
Bo swore too, and no one minded it.
Are the players hating it? Well, from the reports coming out of
practices, the best word to describe the players' attitude in
spring/summer would be 'giddy'.
Of course some kids don't like it. One of those kids was Justin Boren,
who apparently not only dislike the language but also hated the running.
Even under Carr's less intense program, Boren reportedly had 'opted out'
of some of the more intense workouts and Carr had let him get away with
that. Rodriguez stopped that special treatment. Boren started
complaining vocally during the running drills, and the OL coach and S&C
coach let him have it repeatedly in front of everyone. Boren went to
Rodriguez to complain and Rodriguez wasn't sympathetic.
Was the language insulting? It probably was. The staff is developing a
reputation for making examples in front of everyone of players,
especially veterans, who are not giving full effort. Without going into
too much detail, there was lots of evidence that the players were not
being held accountable for their effort and dedication in the later
years under Carr, and that Rodriguez is giving them a crash course in
consequences.
We've lost one player so far, and for a new coach that's so much
different than the old, that's not really troubling.
I wanted to do something I thought was interesting. In fact, I'm still going to do it, but it's left me frustrated. I've never really looked at ESPN's recruiting ratings much, but I wanted to look into them a bit. I wanted to see if there was a difference, a bias, a trend of any sort; is there a particular position or school or region that they are more bullish on than Scout is or than Rivals is.
Step 1 seemed simple: try to map the ESPN rating system to the same scale Rivals uses. Rivals has this scale that goes to 6.1 and lets you seperate not just the 5* players from the 4* players, but the high 4* players (6.0) from the low (5.8). I figured I would take the ESPN ratings, map them to the Rivals system and then identify players with a significant difference in rating (0.2 or more).
First step, define the mapping. Should be easy: Rivals is fairly consistent in how they apply theirs, and it's approximately
1-35: 6.1
36-90: 6.0
91-180: 5.9
181-380: 5.8
381-?: 5.7
I dumped out ESPN's ratings for 2008 and figured I'd find the rating that was the cutoff for the top 35 players, and that's 6.1. I'd find the cutoff for the top 90 players, and that's 6.0. And here's what I found, using the 2008 ratings
Cutoff for 6.1: between 83 (23 players) and 84 (49 players)
Cutoff for 6.0: 82 (91 players)
Cutoff for 5.9: between 80 (240 players) and 81 (143 players)
Cutoff for 5.8: 79 (acutally 365 players)
Good, right?
But just to make sure I wasn't using a bad mapping, I tried it on the ESPN data for 2007 and 2006, too. And here's what I found: a chart of how many players *achieved or exceeded* a given ranking in each year, according to ESPN
Rating
2006
2007
2008
91
13
1
5
88
25
4
10
86
34
10
15
84
52
28
23
82
97
53
91
80
192
109
240
79
231
230
365
78
321
359
539
Think about what that means. They are saying that the 2nd best player of the 2007 class (Chris Galippo, LB) would have been, at best, the 14th best player in the country if he'd graduated in 2006. That's a pretty steep dropoff in top talent. The 11th best player in 2007 (Marvin Austin, DT) would have been no better than 35th in 2006.
But as striking as the numbers at the top are, they are at least in some strange world plausible. We've all seen NFL drafts where people are excited about 3 possible #1 picks, and others where no one wants that top pick at all. A 13 to 1 change is a bit out of the realm of reason, but it's not nearly as bad as what happens when you compare 2007 to 2008. When you compare 2007 to 2008, you have to believe one of two things:
1. ESPN thinks that there was approximately twice as much top shelf talent in 2008 as their had been in 2007. 10 players at 88 or higher compared to 4 (a 150% increase). 91 players at 82 or higher compared to 53 (a 72% increase). 240 players at 80 or higher compared to 109 (a 120% increase). The 250th best player of 2007 would be borderline top 400 for 2008.
2. ESPN is being wildly inconsistent in how they grade players.
I think the latter is more believable. I think that if they gave a kid an 80 in 2007, they were saying he was a true stud recruit, a top 100 kid, what Rivals would call a "6.0". But if they gave a kid an 80 in 2008, they are saying something less; they are saying he is what Rivals would call a "5.9", or maybe even a "5.8" ... mid or maybe low 4*. It makes it hard to pay attention to ESPN's analysis if all you've got is a number which changes meaning and their verbal descriptions.
And while I'm at it, a couple more jabs at ESPN's ratings:
1. They have something called a "ESPN 150 Watch List". This is something other services have done before, too. Rivals used to do a "Pre-Evaluation Top 100 Watch List" which contained the names of 100 players to keep an eye on as potential candidates for the first ordered list. You'd expect ESPN's is the same, right? Except ESPN's "150 Watch List" contains a whopping 543 players. Why call it a "150 Watch List" if it's got 543 players? I know what they'll say ... "these are players that may make the Top 150", but really, *I* may make the Top 150 if I suddenly go back to high school and throw for 52 touchdowns this year. Don't give us a "watch list" with everyone on it. I could dump out the rosters of every team in 1-A and call it my "Heisman watch list", but there's really no value in it.
2. This one isn't just for ESPN, it's for anyone who has a numerical ranking scale and doesn't use it. Rankers are so focused on getting #1 vs. #2 vs. #3 right, and just generally throwing the rest into broad categories, that you often wind up with lists like ESPN's, where the first 15 points in their scale are sparsely populated, and then the rest are just crammed full. DaQuan Bowers got a 95. DJ Grant got an 85. There are 14 players between them. TJ Bryant got an 83. Keenon Cooper got an 81. There are 120 players between them. I understand that stars seperate, but that's not real.
And Rankers *never* start their scale at 0. I guess it offends people. Movie reviewers give 1* to movies they detest. Rivals gives an automatic 4.5 out of 6.1 to anyone who knows how to buckle a chin strap. Why would you come up with a ranking system with a bizarre top grade like 6.1 if you are going to start it at 4.5? I guess because giving a 4.5/6.1 sounds charitable, but 0/1.6 sounds mean.
Anyway, I'm going to go ahead. I'm going to do my mapping based on averages across 3 years, I guess, and report back in a couple of days. We'll see.
Why 1969? Because I'm a Michigan fan, and 1969 is very important to Michigan fans. Anyway, since 1969, the programs with the least variance in year to year results (as measured by winning %age) are
1. Michigan (var = 1.1%, mean = 77.6%) 2. Ohio State (var = 1.7%, mean = 76.6%) 3. Nebraska (var = 1.8%, mean = 80.0%)
(for the statistics novices, variance is a measure of how close individual points in a dataset are to the mean of the dataset - so a basketball player who scores 20 points each and every game has zero variance, while a streak shooter who scores single digits one night and 30+ the next has a very high variance)
Not surprising results; you've got three programs that have been consistent winners over that time frame, and consistency = low variance. When you go 39 years without a losing season, only one .500 season and only one perfect season, you're posting the most consistent results in football.
But what do you make of ... 4. Michigan State (var = 2.0%, mean = 51.3%) Consistently mediocre? Perennially average?
For the record, the highest variance belongs to K-State (var = 7.0%, mean = 46.7%). The lowest variance for a sub .500 team, call it "the most consistent loser in 1-A", belongs to Vanderbilt (var = 2.5%, mean = 30.9%). Keep in mind, re: Kansas State in particular, this is not variance against a trend line. Kansas State may not be "high variance" as much as it may be changing its profile, from a perennial cellar dwellar to a respectable program.
This could become a recurring feature here, stats that don't seem to be prompted by anything and don't seem to be headed anywhere. Today, returning to something I look at on occasion, the top 10 programs in college football history. That's not a subjective statement, just taking the top 10 in winning percentage, from Chris Stassen's webpage and James Howell's database.
In particular, a new and improved statistic, a revisited and revised version of something I've posted before. It's a quick look at how the top 10 teams in cfb history have done, head to head, against each other. It's new and improved in that I spent the 20 minutes researching games that were not included in James Howell's database (presumably because Howell does not consider the teams to have been "major college football programs" at the time the game was played).
As shown at the link above, the top 10 teams in cfb history, sorted by winning %age, are
1. Michigan 2. Notre Dame 3. Texas 4. Ohio State 5. Oklahoma 6. Alabama 7. Southern California 8. Nebraska 9. Tennessee 10. Penn State
Against each other, again sorted by winning %age:
1. Michigan: 96-70-8 (57.05%)
2. Texas: 81-61-6 (56.8%)
3. Notre Dame: 99-80-8 (55.1%)
4. Alabama: 67-62-10 (51.8%)
5. Southern California: 72-67-8 (51.7%)
6. Oklahoma: 91-111-10 (45.8%)
7. Penn State: 45-55-1 (45.0%)
8. Nebraska: 61-76-6 (44.8%)
9. Ohio State: 69-87-7 (44.5%)
10. Tennessee: 47-61-8 (44.0%)
And ordered by total games played:
1. Oklahoma: 214
2. Notre Dame: 187
3. Michigan: 174
4. Ohio State: 163
5. Texas: 148
6. Southern California: 147
7. Nebraska: 143
8. Alabama: 139
9. Tennessee: 116
10. Penn State: 101
The list includes the following games not included in James Howell's database:
3 wins by Michigan over Notre Dame in 1887 and 1888.
3 wins by Texas over Oklahoma in 1900 and 1901.
A tie between Alabama and Tennessee (date unknown)
I have not yet confirmed the 'completeness' of James Howell's figures for:
Alabama vs. Southern Cal: 5-2
Alabama vs. Texas: 0-7-1
Southern Cal vs. Texas: 4-1
Like I said, this isn't going anywhere. Yet. It will eventually.
Matt Pargoff of The Wolverine dug up an article from August (yes, August: I was busy in August) which documents the number of Feb 2007 football commitments that did not end up enrolling at their program of choice in August. I'm sure it was discussed. But I'd just like to point out once more Oregon State: from 2004-2007, they brought in 133 recruits. The official limit / year is 25. 25x4 = 100. They "oversigned" by 33! If I had been recruiting against Oregon State, I would have printed that article out and shown it to every kid, saying "if you sign with Oregon State, there's a 25% chance you won't make it to campus. They won't even have a spot for you."
By the way - tally - SEC 43 players who never signed. Big 10 ... 4. The *average* SEC team has as many such kids as the entire Big 10 conference. Keep that in mind next time you are looking at composite recruiting rankings.
And this may have been shown and linked before, too, but I'd like to share it again. From orangehammerfilms
At times shows, at times speaks to some of the things that made him special. 2nd clip - takes the massive hit, stays on his feet, keeps moving forward. Head-shaking. The catch against Indiana ... no other receiver I've ever seen stays on his feet after that hit at the 25.
I know there's a rumor that Charlie Weis was an NFL offensive coordinator at one point, but the more he talks, the more convinced I am that he's actually a message board poster with a fake resume. A bad message board poster.
Check out this link (thanks dayoop and danb for bringing this to a wider audience):
Listen to Weis's comments about 1 minute in.
"We'll listen to Michigan have all their excuses."
You don't need an excuses for 47-21 or 38-0. You may need excuses for 21-47 or 0-38. You know, really bad excuses like "I could get hoodlums and thugs and win tomorrow. I won't do it that way." That would be excuse making. Going 3-9 in your THIRD YEAR and blaming the talent that the previous coach left behind would be excuse making. Going out there and drubbing your rival 38-0 with a true freshman making his first start in place of an injured starter ... that's not excuse making.
Bryce McNeal Secretely Goes Public And Voices A Silent Verbal
A couple of Michigan blogs (mgoblog and Varsity Blues) reported yesterday that Bryce McNeal (4* WR, MN) had committed to Michigan. This was based on e-mails detailing myspace messages between McNeal and (say it with me, ewwww) Michigan fans who had sent him messages over myspace, in which McNeal told these newfound friends that he had done exactly that.
(Requisited ed. note: it's generally interpreted as a potential NCAA violation for fans to message recruits on myspace, facebook, etc. Fans are not expected to know the entire NCAA rulebook, but are advised to not engage in any recruiting themselves)
This news of a commitment was disputed by the "pay sites" (Scout and Rivals), and was generally categorized by most as "untrue", "premature" or "unofficial". Those three words mean three very different things, and I suspect the middle one is the most accurate. There's a variety of statuses (stati?) recruits fall into. There's commit (said so publicly), soft commit (said so publicly but seem to be wavering or at least listening to other schools), silent commit (told the coaches but isn't ready to go public) and "lean" (they have a favorite, but aren't ready to end the process). Even thought a commitment is not binding, there's some feeling that it is official, that a public announcement carries some weight. And the pay sites and mainstream media have a monopoly on the official announcements because the proprieters of mgoblog, Varsity Blues and iBlog for Cookies are not authorized to call recruits and get the news directly (see ed. note above); we are only able to get the news from the mainstream media.
That, unfortunately for us, means we can never break an official commitment, unless we scoop a mainstream media source (say, a TV show was taped and will air tonight and a friend at the station called to give me the info). But in general, as sad as it may be, we cannot break the story.
One thing we can do is predict commitments, by reading (hopefully free) tea leaves and interpreting and scouring the web for whatever free sources we can find.
One ther thing we can do (if we have good information) is report silent commitments. Maybe a source inside Schembechler Hall gets all giddy and tells a friend that Joe FiveStar called Rodriguez and committed yesterday. Now the word has started to pass around the e-mail circuit. You can get into the whole "The kid has a reason for keeping it quiet; if you report the silent commitment you jeopardize it" vs. "It's news, and I report news. As a journalist, I can't promise not to hurt Michigan's recruiting" debate. Have at it, but preferrably some other day.
The bottom line here is this; we have two sites each reporting that multiple people told them that McNeal has decided on Michigan. It could be that they are wrong, that it's an elaborate scheme to trick Michigan bloggers or that they independently made up the same story. All those explanations seem somewhat unlikely. What's far more likely is that McNeal likes Michigan a lot, reached some kind of tipping point and got chatty about it, and that these two blogs ran with a factually correct story that simply did not use the normal catchwords of the recruitnik. If those are the facts, McNeal is either a Michigan "lean" or (if he told the coaches what he told the friends) a "silent commitment".
Maybe McNeal has told people he's coming to Michigan, but he hasn't yet told the people he needs to tell in order for the recruitniks and recruiting sites to call it a "commitment". That's my take.
The Rock Report Tries to Savage Michgan and Savages Notre Dame by Accident
NDNation's "The Rock Report" let loose with one of its typically uninformed and sanctimonious loads of horse manure yesterday, attempting to laud Notre Dame for its tremendous academic standards.
A few points need to be straightened out.
a) Referred to in the piece is a quote from Charlie Weis earlier this week in which he says "I could get hoodlums and thugs and win tomorrow. I won't do it that way." Not only is it insulting, it's bizarrely arrogant, untrue and silly. First off, Notre Dame's recruiting has been spectacular under Weis. There's little improvement he could possibly make by changing the players he goes after. Arguably, only USC has had a better run of 3 recruiting classes, so for Weis to imply that the struggles are due to turning away talent is nothing more than an attempt to deflect attention from where the blame really lies. Maybe, as Ramzy Nasrallah suggested (on an unarchived message board), maybe he needs to load up on those Air Force and Navy thugs and hoodlums who beat Notre Dame last year. Basically, Notre Dame went 3-9 last year not because their pristine roster lacked the talent that it needed, but because Charlie Weis and his staff did a horrible job preparing the team to play.
b) The Rock discredits the new NCAA grad rate formula as rewarding "teams who use and discard student athletes" because it no longer counts transfers as failures in the grad rates. It's an idiotic accusation. The NCAA's revised formula (GSR) removes from the sample students who were in good academic standing and left the university for "allowable" reasons ... flunking out, being cut, legal problems, etc are not among them. No one with an eye on reasonability would suggest that the new formula is worse than the old. One wonders whether The Rock believes that Notre Dame "used and discarded" Zach Fraser and Demetrius Jones.
c) The Rock crows about ND's graduation rate. The Rock apparently doesn't understand the concept of a diploma mill. Notre Dame is a diploma mill, and that is not a good thing. That is not something to be proud of. When kids who have SAT scores and GPAs so far below the class mean that a non-athletic admissions office would scoff at their application still manage to graduate 95% of the time, Occam is screaming at you that the school is simply handing out diplomas. That is an abrogation of academic integrity. If you can pull a random kid and drop him into the most difficult program on campus and all but guarantee me that he will graduate in four years, you are saying more about the lax standards you employ when dispensing diplomas than you are about your entrance criteria.
Harvard, Yale, etc have high grad rates because in order to get in you have to be extremely gifted in the classroom. You'll never get into those schools with a 3.1 HS GPA and an 1130 on your SAT (no offense to those carrying those credentials, but you're not Harvard material). When you're looking at a student body of 3.9s and 1540s, a 95% grad rate is at least defensible. When you're looking at football players with 3.1s and 1130s competing against kids with 3.8s and 1400s, it's embarrassing.
a) The recruiting services do not hate your school, they are not biased against your school and they do not automatically drop kids in the rankings as soon as they commit to your school. Kids move up and down and rankings are volatile. When a commited kid moves up, that school's fan say "finally; he was way underrated before." When he moves down, they say "Ridiculous; the gurus are punishing him for picking (my school)."
Try this on: maybe the gurus aren't biased; maybe you are.
b) Not every 3* kid who commits to your school is a "sleeper". Sometimes, he's just a 3*. If he ran a 4.42 with a 38" vertical, and you find yourself saying "The scouts are insane to have a kid with his athleticism ranked as a 3*," stop and remind yourself that the recruiting services already know about his 4.42 and 38" vertical. Maybe he got as high as 3* because of his pure athletic ability. Maybe other than those two things he doesn't have much to sell you on at all.
c) In 90% of cases, until a kid has played college football and established what he is capable of, the recruiting rankings and scouting analysis is all you've got (unless you're a scout yourself and have access to game film: raise your hand if that's the case). If you trust the services, then a 5* is a 5* and a 3* is a 3*. Sure quibble a bit because you've got your biases in terms of style or fit, but that's on the margins. If you don't trust the services, then don't get excited when your school lands a blue chip prospect. What's silly is when a fan base lands the 30th best recruiting class in the country, by the numbers, and the fans say "The recruiting rankings are junk; I wouldn't trade this class for anyone's except maybe USC's."
d) The other teams are not scared of you and the other coaches are not scared of you. Your rival didn't just offer that 5* corner because he saw the WRs you are bringing in. He didn't panic, thinking "Oh my god, we need more corners!" And your conference opponents are not panicking at their inevitable failure to block all your blue chip d-linemen. You just got a couple of blue chip corners in this class? Great. Don't trot out the tired "No one's going to be able to throw on us in 2 years" nonsense, because your cross-state rivals just happened to land 2 blue chip WRs and is thinking "No one's going to be able to stop our passing attack." All across the country there are blue chip WRs being covered by blue chip corners, and sometimes these guys win and sometimes those guys win.
e) Not every kid who takes a depth chart into consideration is "afraid of competition." Some of them are just being practical. It's one of the most prevalent double standards in recruiting; a kid that turns down your school because you are deep is afraid of competition, and a kid who turns down your school despite a glaring need is crazy if he thinks he is going to crack the depth chart at the school he did pick.
f) If you had an All-American linebacker who came in at 6'3" 220 with a 4.55 40, and you just recruited a linebacker who's coming in at 6'3" 220 with a 4.55 40 ... you can see where this is headed, right? It doesn't mean anything.
g) "I want kids who want to play for (my school)" is a nice sentiment, but it's comfort food for the recruitnik. It basically means every kid who turns you down is a kid you didn't want, and every kid you landed is the kid you did want. End result: you got exactly the class you wanted. Yay!
h) on (g), see also "Trust the coaches." I trust the coaches. I love the coaches. If the coaches offered 3 QBs and they all turned you down and he went and found a "sleeper", do not insist that he is a great prospect just because you "trust the coaches". The coaches had him as Plan D. If the coaches go out in April and offer a lower rated kid *before* they offer some of the blue chip prospects, yes, trust the coaches. They must have had a reason for making the offer. But parcel your trust our carefully. It's not a universal defense for poor recruiting.
i) Do not offer up proof by anecdote; it makes you look simple. Yes, Braylon Edwards was a 3* WR. Guess what ... he's one in a hundred. Adrian Arrington, Mario Manningham, David Terrell, Marquise Walker, Steve Breaston and Jason Avant were 4*s and 5*s. I'll take my chances on the blue chip prospects instead of betting that every 3* is going to turn out to be Braylon Edwards.
j) The kid you just recruited is not "a faster Mike Hart", "a more athletic Chris Spielman" or "Vince Young, except with better mechanics." A faster Mike Hart would be ... well, Barry Sanders. IOW, one of the best backs you've ever seen at any level. A more athletic Chris Spielman would have been inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a college sophomore. Aim lower.
A couple of years ago, Notre Dame landed two fairly highly regarded QB recruits in 4* prospects Zach Fraser and Demetrius Jones. When 5* QB Mitch Mustain decommitted from Arkansas and was looking around, the presence of Jones and Frazer in ND played a big part in his reconfirming with Arkansas.
Shortly after that, we started hearing in Michigan that Mustain's commitment to Arkansas put us in good stead with Ryan Mallett. Mallett eventually whittled his choices down to Michigan and Texas, where Mack Brown put on the hard sell. Brown was on the verge of filling his 2 person QB class with John Chiles and John Brantley.
The hard sell didn't work on Mallett, who all but eliminated Texas at that point and committed to Michigan soon afterward. With Mallett in the fold, Michigan had little need to pursue the top in-state QB that year, Steven Threet, who wound up at Georgia Tech.
And now we're hearing that QB depth charts could be a major factor in the decision of the top dual-threat QB for 2009, Russell Shepard, who is deciding between Texas, Michigan and Florida.
So why did I engage in this little trip down memory lane?
Count 'em off, in order of appearance as they say in the movies: Zach Fraser: transfered from Notre Dame to Connecticut Demetrius Jones: transfered from Notre Dame to Cincinnati Mitch Mustain: transfered from Arkansas to USC Ryan Mallett: transfered from Michigan to Arkansas John Chiles: still at Texas John Brantley: decomitted from Texas and signed with Florida Steven Threet: transfered from Georgia Tech to Michigan.
The moral of the story? If you're a hotshot QB, just go where you want to go and don't worry about the depth charts. Those guys may not even be there two years from now. Three of the five transfers on that list (Mustain, Mallett and Threet) didn't get beaten out by other highly rated QBs; they left for various other reasons.
Martavius Odoms (WR FL) has joined the class, turning down a track scholarship from Miami. Odoms is a speedy, 5'8" WR who makes this maybe the fastest class in recent Michigan history and almost certainly the shortest since the advent of the "Milk - It Does A Body Good" ad campaign. For the record, that makes 3 players listed at 5'9" or below (Odoms, WR Terrance Robinson and CB Boubacar Cissoko).
Why the rash of slot receivers (Odoms and Roundtree) and RBs/athletes that Rodriguez wants to turn into receivers (Robinson and Shaw)? Rodriguez has preached before about the need for numbers at WR, and he particular needs some depth at that "slash", playmaker position that he wants to utilize. Since Carr had few available, it became a major priority for the Feb 2008 recruiting class.
Second note: the top "dual threat" QB prospect for Feb 2009 would appear to be Russell Shepard of Houston Texas, who loves Texas and would love to play QB at Texas, but isn't sure if he'll get a shot at that position (given the verbal commitment given to Texas last week by projected 5* drop back QB Garrett Gilbert).
Well, after visiting Texas this weekend and receiving an offer, albeit at WR and not at QB, Shepard had this to say (thanks to curt of Victors for the link): "I would say Texas is still up there, but Michigan is really at the top of my list, especially if they don’t get Terrelle Pryor.
There is obviously a long way to go, but that's a nice start.
The class is in
t's thick through the middle, filled with lots of well regarded but not top 100 players ... the "mid to low 4*" players, in recruiting website parlance. So let's dive into how it stacks up.
I've lectured boringly before about my "recruiting efficiency" algorithm. In short, it's an algorithm for taking recruiting ratings (from Rivals, in this case) and team needs (my own assessment) and measuring how well a team did not only in securing talent but in securing the talent it needed.
The idea: 1. To measure how well a program addressed team needs 2. To establish diminishing returns on class size, so that 30 member "oversigned" classes with tons of non-qualifiers don't get overrated every year. 3. To establish diminishing returns on an individual position, because the 3rd RB you bring in doesn't improve the roster as much as the first DT.
The drawbacks: 1. Someone has to assess team needs, and I'm only qualified (barely) to assess Michigan. 2. Team needs change. You may sign 2 QBs this year and think the 2nd is a luxury, but when 2 upperclassmen transfer ... 3. It is hard to quantify the need to add a single elite player at a position. You may have a depth chart full of good #2 corners, but desperately need that #1. It is hard to put a number to that.
But here's the process in short:
Identify class size, split it into 5 categories from highest priority (5) to lowest (1), with some buffer built in (for example, a 25 member class may have 6 in each spot instead of 5), slot the players in with their Rivals rating (in this case, the finer "RR" number, which splits 4*s into high/medium/low, for example) and do the math. The rating shown below is the ("RR rating" - 5.1), with a minimum of 0.1.
Here's the mathematical answer
Position
Importance
Player
Rating
Points
Max
QB
5
Feagin
0.6
3
5
LB
5
Fitzgerald
0.8
4
10
S
5
Smith
0.8
4
15
OT
5
O'Neill
0.9
4.5
20
WR
5
Stonum
0.9
4.5
25
DL
4
Martin
0.7
2.8
29
OL
4
Mealer
0.7
2.8
33
RB
4
Shaw
0.8
3.2
37
TE
4
Koger
0.8
3.2
41
CB
4
Cissoko
0.9
3.6
45
CB
3
Floyd
0.4
1.2
48
QB
3
0
51
LB
3
Witherspoon
0.7
2.1
54
WR
3
Robinson
0.7
2.1
57
DL
3
0
60
OL
2
Wermers
0.5
1
62
LB
2
Hill
0.7
1.4
64
OL
2
Barnum
0.7
1.4
66
RB
2
McGuffie
0.7
1.4
68
TE
2
Moore
0.7
1.4
70
OL
1
Morales
0.1
0.1
71
OL
1
Omameh
0.1
0.1
72
OL
1
Khoury
0.6
0.6
73
RB
1
Cox
0.6
0.6
74
LB
1
Demens
0.7
0.7
75
WR
1
Roundtree
0.7
0.7
76
It adds up to a total of 50.4 points out of a max of 74 (74 = if we'd used 24 scholarships but met all our priorities with all 5* players). That's 68.1%.
To put that in perspective, a class which perfectly addresses needs, and does so entirely with mid 4* players (RR rating of 5.9) would get a rating of 80%. A class that perfectly meets needs, and does so entirely with low 4* players (RR rating of 5.8) would get 70%. All high 3*s would be 60%, etc. The 68.1% indicates we met our needs mostly with mid to high 4*s (start in the low 70s) but missed a few needs (deduct a few points there and drop to the high 60s).
How Did We Get There?
Top Priority (5* needs) QB: Justin Feagin - 5.7 (3*). Adequate, but not a home run. OT: Dann O'Neill - 6.0 (4*). A perfect bookend to Steve Schilling in 2 years, I hope. WR: Daryl Stonum - 6.0 (4*). Another of the prototypical Michigan WRs. Nice. LB: J.B. Fitzgerald - 5.9 (4*). An excellent and much needed pickup. S: Brandon Smith - 5.9 (4*). Another excellent and much needed pickup. Overall ... a very, very good job. Not great, because there were no 5* players at the big need positions (or anywhere) and because we didn't pick up a "can't miss" prospect at QB to fill that most glaring of needs.
High priority (4* needs) RB: Michael Shaw - 5.9 (4*). Listed at RB, but hard to pin down.
TE: Kevin Koger - 5.9 (4*). A good TE well suited to the Rodriguez offense. OL: Elliot Mealer - 5.8 (4*). Guard or Tackle, either way, we need both. DL: Mike Martin - 5.8 (4*). 4-3 Tackle. 1 is enough for this class, but at least 1 was critical. CB: Boubacar Cissoko - 6.0 (4*). With numbers (including a 5* last year), we needed 1 blue chip CB and he is it.
Overall .. excellent. You don't expect to land 5* kids everywhere, so filling *all* of these with 4* kids is fantastic. No holes yet in the recruiting.
Moderate priority (3* needs) QB: (no one). We could really use a 2nd QB, not just because of the changing system but due to depth. WR: Terrance Robinson - 5.8 (4*). A perfect slot fit for Rodriguez, filling a position that didn't really exist in Carr's offense (the dedicated slot WR). DL: (no one). Could have really used a DE in this class, after only Van Bergen (who could be a DT) in last year's. Losing Perry hurt. LB: Marcus Witherspoon - 5.8 (4*). We needed numbers at LB, and filled them. DB: JT Floyd - 5.5 (3*). One of the lowest rated recruits in the class, but as the #2 CB in the class.
Overall ... this is where the problem lies. We didn't get the #2 QB, we didn't get a single DE and we left those needs unfilled. That's what's going to become the biggest need in next year's class. And that's why landing Perry and/or Pryor would have made this class not just a damn good one but one of the best I've seen at Michigan.
Lower priority (2* needs) RB: Sam Mcguffie - 5.8 (4*). It's hard to say Sam McGuffie is a low priority. One of my favorite recruits in this class, on potential. TE: Brandon Moore - 5.8 (4*). Listed TE twice in case Rodriguez moves Webb to WR. OL: Barnum - 5.8 (4*). Always need numbers at OL OL: Kurt Wermers - 5.6 (3*). Always need numbers at OL. LB: Taylor Hill - 5.8 (4*). Had a real depth issue at LB and needed at least 3. Overall ... excellent. To fill the #16 - #20 needs with primarily 4* players is a great job of building quality depth and making sure that even when the inevitable happens and a few players don't pan out, that the depth is there to fill in.
Luxuries (1* needs) RB: Mike Cox - 5.7 (3*).
OL: Patrick Omameh - 5.1 (2*).
OL: Rocko Khoury - 5.7 (3*) LS: George Morales - 5.2 (2*) WR: Roy Roundtree - 5.8 (4*) LB: Kenny Demens - 5.8 (4*) Overall ... It's nice to get 2 4* players and 2 3* players to fill in "luxury" spots in your recruiting class, but it's not what makes or breaks you.
Grand total: As mentioned earlier, 68.1% ... that's pretty damn good, but not outstanding.
It's as high as it is because Rodriguez filled almost all those need positions with 4* players (RB, WR, OL, LB). It's not higher because we didn't get the 2 QBs or the DE and because there were no 5* players in the class.
I realize that to everyone here, that number is meaningless, so here's some comparison. 2004 Michigan (Henne, Dutch, Arrington, Martin ...): 68.4% 2005 Michigan (Slocum, Germany, Grady, Bass ...): 65.3% - because the top talent was not distributed to all positions of need. 2006 Michigan (Graham, Schilling, Brown, Mouton, Boren ...): 69.5%. Outstanding class that had 2 5* recruits at two of the biggest needs. 2007 Michigan (Mallett, Warren ...): 62.7%. The worst class in recent Michigan history, buoyed by two critical 5* gets (although that Mallett get didn't last long, did it?)
And to put that in perspective with another school, admitting that by ability to diagnose another school's needs is in question 2006 Notre Dame (Young, Aldridge, Frazer, Jones ...): 65.9% - because of failures to address DT and LB 2007 Notre Dame (Clausen, Kamara, Romine ...): 67.4% - really hit hard by failure to address DT again. 2008 Notre Dame (Crist, Floyd, Rudolph ...): 76.1%. A truly outstanding class with top 100 players recruited at positions of great need.
That, in the 76% territory, is where the Michigan class would have landed if we had gotten Perry and Pryor. Pryor alone would push us to 72.3%.
That's the mathematical answer.
And here's the subjective answer
QB: We did okay. I doubt we get Pryor, who seems to be a battle between OSU (Pryor's choice) and PSU (his father's choice). In getting Feagin, what we did was push back the need for a QB by a year. There is potential, there is at the very least a player in the system that can run Rodriguez's system, if not to perfection (though, of course, he will get his chance to prove he can do even that). It's almost a draw.
RB: Home run. Sam McGuffie is exactly the back this system needs. He is a threat to go 75 yards on any play, and that is what makes this offense deadly. He is the perfect spread option back. Mike Cox ... I will admit, I know little about Mike Cox.
WR/TE: Another home run. We were stocked with flankers and ends (Mathews, Savoy, Hemingway, Clemons and the possibility of Babb or Rogers moving), and Carr locked up another great prospect (Stonum), so Rodriguez set about to fill the one WR position that his offense calls for and Carr's did not - the shifty slot WR who beats bracket coverage and can't be handled by a LB. It is, almost, somewhere between an RB and a WR. And we got two ... Terrance Robinson and Michael Shaw. Both should work in that position. I do not know much about Roundtree, who emerged very late in the process. Add in two very promising pass-catching TEs, and we couldn't have done better.
OL: This is getting repetitive, but a couple of late moves made this a big class. Tackles and guards and centers and long snappers, blue chippers and late bloomers ... there is variety in this class, and enough high end prospects to make it a promising one.
DL: Perhaps one of the few troubling spots. Mike Martin is a great pickup, the mauling, wrestling defensive tackle Carr locked up fairly early. But the defection of much anticipated Omar Hunter (DT) to Notre Dame and then Florida and the loss of blue chip DE Nick Perry to USC hurt the DL class tremendously, and left us with DE as possibly the second biggest recruiting need for 2009 (behind QB). DT will survive, with the class we brought in last year.
LB: Wow. 4 4*
LBs. No top 100 blue chippers, but 4 very promising LBs, and a couple who can probably go anywhere from Will to Mack. Fans go back and forth on whether Fitzgerald or Witherspoon is the top man in, but it doesn't matter ... between those two and Hill and Demens, the LB corps is the strength of the defensive class. In time, don't be surprised if one of these LBs winds up as a DE, or at least as a situational DE
DB: Only three, but with a decent number of DBs in last year's class the big need was 1 top CB and 1 top S and we got that (in Cissoko and Smith). It was not a home run, but it was adequate to very good.
Summary: Very good. Not perfect, not the best I've ever seen at Michigan, but outstanding considering the situation we were in. Normally, the transition year is a tough one for recruiting, and it's the first full year where the coach gets a "bump". If this is what Rodriguez can do with a tough situation, then watch out for his bump.
Joe Tiller is not happy with the last minute defection of 4* WR Roy Roundtree to Michigan. In fact, he's doing something coaches rarely do - he's spouting off to the press about it (of course, he's only piping up because he's retiring and doesn't care).
"If we had an early signing date, you wouldn't have another outfit with a guy in a wizard hatselling snake oil get a guy at the last minute, but that's what happened."
How many ways could Tiller be wrong in one short soundbite? I count three.
First off, no, this is not why we need an early signing period. In fact, this is exactly why we shouldn't have an early signing period. Roundtree described a Michigan offer as a dream come true. He said he always wanted to play for Michigan. He got the offer, he gets his chance, and that's a happy ending for Roundtree. If he committed to Purdue, changed his mind and then decided to play for Michigan, it's the original commitment to Purdue that was a mistake, not his change of destination. Put Michigan's and Purdue's views aside, what Roundtree wants is to be at Michigan.
An early signing period does not prevent kids from making mistakes, it locks them into their mistakes. Instituting an early signing period to prevent kids from changing their minds is like keeping families together by outlawing divorce. An early signing period benefits schools and coaches, and maybe even obsessive message board posters who (act like they) live and die with these decisions, but it does so at the expense of the recruits.
But I do have a proposal that helps the kids, and it's one I've mentioned before: a non-binding letter of intent.
Allow recruits to sing a non-binding LOI any time from, say, July 1st leading into the senior year. Once they file the letter, their scholarship to that school is secure, and in return for that guarantee, the recruit agrees to have no contact with coaches or recruiters from other schools and not to make any official visits to other campuses. It also has the benefit of preventing other coaches from calling recruits who filed these papers (contacting them would be a violation). But, if a kid were to change his mind, he could simply file paperwork to rescind the NBLOI, at which point it's like he never filed one, and recruiting is back on.
Advantages?
Kids can get the process done with, secure the scholarship and get back to class/football.
Kids receive some protection. No fear of commiting to a school and having the offer pulled at the 11th hour when a better player shows interest.
Kids can get persistent coaches off their backs.
Coaches know where they stand with a recruit. If the NBLOI is in, they know the commitment is (relatively) secure and that they don't have to worry about other coaches poaching. If the NBLOI is not in, they know the kid is still open. If the recruit files an NBLOI and then rescinds it, the school knows the kid is wavering and has to be recruited all over again. There is no "I'm 100% committed, but I'm still taking visits".
Kids know where they stand with a school. If they request an NBLOI and the school hesitates to give them one, then they know they are not priority #1 for the school.
And kids still have the opportunity to change their minds.
Michigan has been stung a number of times, whether it be known cases of players who committed and then decommitted or just kids who (supposedly) told the coaches they were coming and then changed their minds. But in the end, if the kid has decided in February that he doesn't want to be at Michigan then he shouldn't be at Michigan. And if we're the beneficiary, that's great. Either way, the kid should be where he wants to be, and an early signing period is not a step in that direction.
That's point #1 where Joe Tiller is wrong. Or just being selfish and seeing things only from the standpoint of the coach and program.
Point #2 where he is wrong is in implying that Rodriguez is "selling snake oil". FIrst off, I don't think Tiller knows that phrase means. He probably just thnks "Well, it has something to do with being slimy" but doesn't exactly know what. But beyond that, to imply that Rodriguez did something slimy here is absurd
Tiller is angry that Rodriguez violated some unwritten gentlemen's agreement between Big 10 coaches. The coaches have agreed to certain rules on how to approach committed prospects, two in particular:
1. You ask the recruit once, and if he's not interested then you back off - obviously Roundtree was interested. Duh.
2. The recruit has to tell the coach he is committed to that he is looking around. Ya, and what if the offer comes at the last minute? "Coach, I'm about to announce in 3 minutes that I am switching to Michigan." Whee! Pointless. And more importantly, not under Rodriguez's control. What Roundtree did or did not tell Tiller is Roundtree's business.
This isn't new and it isn't something Rodriguez is doing that no one else does. The Big 10 coaches made a wholesale assault on the UM commit list during the transition period and it didn't stop when Rodriguez took over. Boubacar Cissoko committed to Michigan but was still recruited by Illinois and Penn State. John Wienke committed but visited Iowa and switched his verbal. Half of Michigan's recruiting class was contacted by Mark Dantonio and a handful here and there were contacted by Jim Tressell.
Tiller's just being an ass.
And Point #3 where he is wrong is in describing Rich Rodriguez as some guy in a wizard hat. Joe Tiller has clearly never played any role playing games. If there's one midwestern coach who is a guy in a wizard hat selling snake oil, it's Charlie Weis. Let's be clear on who is who, here, or our party is doomed to failure:
Charlie Weis: the wizard with the spells to make chickens blow up at 300 feet, but get into a nasty fight with a balrog or something and he's pretty much useless. He can make the balrog dance the macarena if you want, but come fighting time, he's going to be standing in the back saying "Ya, I don't really fight. I've got a slingshot!"
Rich Rodriguez: the archer who hangs back and picks off enemies from a distance. And when the room is clear, he's the first guy to the treasure chest in the corner, stuffing his pockets full of gold, while telling the rest of the party "Weird, this one's empty, too."
Jim Tressell: the thief / assassin dual class with a backstab multipler of x3. So keep your eye on him, because when he sneaks up on you, you are dead.
Bret Bielema: the meathead barbarian who runs headlong into battle just for the fun of it, and laughs at the pretty, pretty sight of his own blood spurting. "Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice!"
And poor, poor, John L. He's clearly the elfin cleric who wants to help, who gets caught up in the battle while trying to heal a wounded friend and ends up getting her head chopped off.
Manningham has gone pro: We knew this would happen the day he signed his LOI. If he was good enough that we'd worry about it, he would be gone. Barring something unpleasant happening between now and draft day, Manningham is a first round talent who will test like a first round talent. He's got speed, he runs superb routes and he has a long track record of making big plays. He's a first rounder.
Arrington has gone pro: His stock may never be as high as it is right now. Yes, he could come back next year and maybe put up Marquise Walker-like "I am the only offense you have" numbers. But that's a gamble, and even then, his stock may never be higher than it is right now. It's got a natural cap (one that is measured in seconds and fractions of seconds) and he is bumping up against it. Late 2nd, maybe 3rd, but he could come back next year and break records at Michigan and still not go any higher than that.
Ryan Mallett has gone Razorback: On one hand, it's a damn shame. He has the makings of a great QB. On the other hand, he made no friends in his time in Ann Arbor and you started to get the impression that he was always one bad moment from transferring. Didn't like that 3rd down playcall? He's got the paperwork ready. At least he did it now instead of using up starter's snaps in practice, scaring off recruits and then doing it at the end of spring.
Noel Devine no longer exists: at least, that's what I gather from this report, which cites unnamed West Virginia sources as basically accusing Rich Rodriguez of deleting everything associated with the football program at West Virginia? Noel Devine? Anonymous athletic department staffers witnessed Rich Rodriguez and Peter Stormare shoving him into a shredding machine last Monday afternoon.
Academic records? Scholarship payments? All gone, because apparently West Virginia does not believe in fancy schmancy computer technologies and all relevant records are kept on paper in the head football coach's office.
What, what's that you say? Maybe that report wasn't quite accurate? Maybe there's a good, non-criminal explanation for some document shredding and West Virginia was just acting like the bitchy half of an ugly divorce proceeding, hurling accusations in the hopes that Rodriguez will give up custody and the family home in exchange for some peace and quiet? Okay, I buy that.
Terrell Pryor? We have a shot. We have an even shot. If he goes to OSU, it'll suck, but so be it. If he goes to Oregon, I will make unsupported allegations about their recruiting tactics. Some things defy explanation.
Not a lot of love for Michigan recruits in either. Boubacar Cissoko and Daryl Stonum make both top 100 lists. O'Neill rises to top 50 in the Rivals list. Brandon Smith and Boubacar Cissoko make top 100 per Scout (but McGuffie is noticably absent on the Rivals 250 list, let alone 100, despite a very impressive showing during Army All-American festivities).
Remaining targets: Terrell Pryor is #1 in both lists and Nick Perry is mid 50s.
It's nice having a coach who has an offense that's actually worth diagramming on the white board. So take a look (it's about 10 minutes long - thanks Victors' Cap for the link).
A few quick thoughts:
Some folks may think "Damn, he's letting all his secrets out!" Not a big deal. Not only can any coach worth his salt figure much of this out from game film, Rodriguez has been open about running camps and meeting with other coaches to show off his offense. Both Jim Tressell and Charlie Weis have made that pilgramage to Morgantown to learn from Rich Rodriguez (that's a fun fact to remember when the ND fans talk to us about their offensive genius).
I like some of the small tidbits in here. I like that he considers the QB a blocker. Why? Why not. I like that he is willing to discount a safety in the box because he just doesn't think that's going to stop his RB.
Keep in mind, he is talking primarily about the run part of the game here, so even when he's talking WR alignments and coverages, he's looking at how they affect the run game. One can only imagine what he has in mind for a WR corps that should be better than any he worked with at WVU.
But in all, the video only lays out what we already know; this offense more than anything stresses two things - the ability to read the defense and find the open area, and the speed to attack the weak spots before the defense can recover. Nothing revolutionary, but interesting.
Thoughts on Manningham, Arrington and Mallett will be coming soon.
