Name: Nolan Rumler
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 310 lbs.
High school: Akron (OH) Hoban
Position: Center
Class: Freshman
Jersey number: N/A
Last year: Rumler was a senior in high school (LINK).
TTB Rating: N/A
Rumler was an Under Armour All-American who ended the 2019 recruiting cycle as a 4-star, the #10 offensive guard, and #174 overall. He was a heavy Michigan lean for years before he ended up committing.
I have Rumler as the most likely freshman lineman to play, but he’s still all the way down here at #85. Why? Because Michigan should have a pretty solid two-deep that won’t need much help from freshmen. There’s a possibility that an injury or two could force Rumler into the rotation, but I still think he’ll have at least a year on the sideline before playing. He’s probably headed for center eventually, and Michigan has both Cesar Ruiz and Stephen Spanellis as relatively experienced college players.
Prediction: Redshirt
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It is encouraging to see these big bodies able to red-shirt. I only wish we were in a position to red-shirt more left tackles.
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Because of how tough Michigan’s schedule is, it could be that Ed Warinner will want to rotate more offensive lineman than he usually would. He may want to keep the 2 deep healthy for those tough games. Michigan may have the toughest schedule in college–at least in the top 5. They really could have done with a cupcake game after the Penn St White Out Game instead of Notre Dame. So with the tough schedule, the 1st string may play less, and the 3rd string may get in more. Nolan Rumler and Trevor Keegan are the two that may play more because of it.
But I’m just speculating.
I see a lot of potential in Nolar Rumler with Ed Warinner.
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Have to win games big in order to rotate your OL. Hopeful the new OC keeps us from playing pattycake with the likes of teams inferior
as SMU
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Michigan should be ahead big, and early, against Middle Tennessee, Army, Rutgers, Illinois, and possibly Maryland and Indiana. If they aren’t ahead big against Middle Tennessee, Army, and Rutgers this could be another 3 loss season. And I don’t think that’s going to happen.
Michigan fans seemed to have forgotten how great Michigan was in 2016 with Jedd Fisch. Remember all the blow out games? Things, for whatever reason, haven’t worked out well at all on offense the last 2 seasons. I think it’s going to be different on offense this year. The 3 deep on the offensive line may be playing enough for maybe 3 redshirts to be burned.
But I’m just speculating.
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We’re breaking in a new offense
Army’s ground game could keep that new O off the field
Indiana has been and will continue to be a fun game – don’t see a blowout
Rutgers & Illinois are best bets though
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Army will also be a good opportunity for the back up O line to get experience, and for Dylan McCaffrey, and a little for Cade McNamara. I think we’ll be seeing less of Joe Milton with Pep Hamilton gone. Milton seemed to be Pep Hamilton’s prize recruit. But I don’t think he’s copacetic with Josh Gattis’ offensive style. I don’t think he has the accuracy that’s needed. I don’t think he would have been recruited by Gattis.
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The 2018 offense ranked 25th in the country. The 2016 offense was 35th. Pep made things better.
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Pep also modernized the offense – largely eliminating the full-back and moving to shotgun heavy formations despite working around limited options at WR.
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Limited options at WR? How many teams on our schedule would trade for DPJ & Nico?
In 2017 we had young WRs and crap at QB, but 2018 was clock mismanagement, organizational clusterF, and still too much reliance on everything but WRs
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A modern offense needs more than 2 receivers. Beyond the 2 sophomores,the primary options were unexceptional 3-star talents (like Perry and Bell), walk-ons, or stone-hand TEs. They went with the TEs.
The dearth of options at WR is reflected in the ’19 class recruiting strategy and Mike Sainristil’s immediate ascension to a ‘starting’ position in the spring. With the incoming talent and Black’s return to health, not to mention DPJ and Collins being more experienced, Gattis will have far better options at WR and, as a result, will be more able to implement a modern scheme.
My go-to analogy is Amaker laying the foundation for Beilein. Things were not terrible on offense, but they were antiquated and uninspiring. Hamilton wasn’t the ultimate answer but he made some progress in moving on from Drevno and Fisch love for 90s formations. It takes time to change from FB/TE-heavy personnel. Gattis will continue what Hamilton started.
When talking about Hamilton vs Fisch it’s worth comparing the receiving talent they brought in while at Michigan. Fisch got the ’16 class that was a flat-out disaster. Hamilton got DPJ, Black, and Collins and most of the ’19 class.
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The whole narrative around the 2017 season is messed up IMO. Hamilton is a scapegoat of sorts because he was (sort of) the OC, while Fisch gets fetishised because things fell off right after he left. But that narrative ignores the bad situation in 2017 that Fisch help set up (see offensive personnel from the ’16 class) and that Hamilton had to work through. 2018 was far better and Hamilton deserves a good bit of credit for it (though certainly Warriner and Patterson play a big role too) it was Hamilton who deserves the most credit for wildly improved the talent at QB and WR.
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None of what you said accounts for the limited USE of DPJ/Collins/Black. We had more formations with Gentry/McKeon than those three. It was criminal
Sure, it would have been nice to have more than those three, but 2018 WR recruiting was… Bell. I’d hold off on complimenting Pep on WR recruiting with that head-scratcher
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Black was injured last year. When he returned he was not the guy that looked like the best WR on the team to start 2017.
The choice came down to using Gentry in the slot or Perry/Bell.
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Black played half the season. No excuse for us to have 2 or 3 TEs out there more often than our 3 best WRs. By the Bowl game, it was sad if not comical
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Ypa passing was 8.1 in 2018, and only 7.4 in 2016. Over a whole season, that’s not a trivial difference. YPC was better in 2018 too, 12.6-12.1.
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Michigan was 10th in scoring in 2016:
https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/points-per-game?date=2017-01-10
Michigan was 19th in scoring in 2018:
https://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/stat/points-per-game?date=2019-01-08
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Do you have the link to where it says Michigan was 25th in offense in 2018?
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https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa
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I see. You don’t have actual stats.
You can honestly say the offense this past season was better than in 2016?
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The 2016 offense scored more points, but the 2018 offense was actually more effective at moving the ball. YPA and YPC passing were both better in 2018, and so was 3rd down conversion % and total YPP. YPC rushing and total yards were very close those two seasons.
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Those are actual stats and WCB gave you more. If you’d rather lean on lazy narratives than facts that’s on you.
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No, those were not stats.
And you didn’t answer my question.
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Your S&P numbers are not football stats. They are numbers derived from a metric made up by the people at S&P. In other words, the metric is a formula. Did you know there is a difference between a formula and actual stats taken from a football game?
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There are plenty of actual stats from football games that show the 2018 offense doing as well or better than the 2016 offense at moving the ball. They’ve been cited for you, but you seem to be ignoring them, while providing no stats to support your own argument.
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Points per game, yards per carry, and completion percentage all come from formulas. I presume you consider these to be ‘actual’ football stats so the difference seems to be math you understand and math you don’t.
I don’t want to pick on anyone online particularly young people but you’ve exposed your ignorance. While you certainly won’t be alone, if you go through life disavowing things just because you don’t understand them you won’t do well. Better to question and explore.
That doesn’t obviate the need of people who put together these complex metrics to be clear about methods, assumptions, and limitations and improve their communication. Explaining math you can’t just do in your head is a challenge for all people but especially technical folks like stat-heads.
S&P, I think, has done a pretty good job with it though. Better than FEI. So even though my opinion is that drive-based analysis SHOULD be better than play-based analysis, I tend to reference S&P because there’s a better chance it’ll be understandable. And the results have seemed to pass the smell test a bit better to me, though I remain open to revising that opinion.
Anyway, a useful primer on college football stats you can’t just do in your head is available here:
https://thepowerrank.com/guide-cfb-rankings/
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In which year did the offense look better, in 2016 or 2018?
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WindyCityBlue
I think what you did is projection.
Michigans offense ran much better in 2016 than in 2018.
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Lanknows
What’s up with the personal attacks?
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You’re welcome to offer evidence that Michigan’s offense ran “much better” in 2016 than in 2018. So far, you haven’t cited a single statistic to support that assertion, despite your appeal to real stats from real games. I think we both know why.
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No offense intended.
I’ve said repeatedly that the 2018 offense was better. I said so because it looked that way to me but also, more importantly, because the available evidence (i.e., stats) says so.
The 2018 offense looked more modern and the most important player – QB – looked more dangerous. They didn’t have to throw a freshman out as a starter on the OL. The RB and TE positions weren’t as good as 2016 IMO, but I don’t think RB matters that much and I’m sure Thunder and others disagree with that anyway.
Butt was a lot better than Gentry but that’s about it.
I’ve defended the 2016 offense many times in the past – Smith and Speight were scape-goated and the OL has proven to be fairly talented – it was better than it was given credit for. But 2018 was better and I think that’s in large part due to the coaching and philosophy of Hamilton and Warriner vs Fisch and Drevno.
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Said it before – but it’s great to see these guys headed for what seems like clear red-shirts. And, assuming reasonable health on the OL, if these guys do play enough to burn their red-shirts – it will be due to merit.
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Worth comparing the QB and WR recruiting of Fisch vs Pep.
Fisch WR: Crawford, Johnson, McDoom, Perry
Pep WR: DPJ, Black, Collins, Martin, Bell
Fisch QB: Rudock, O’Korn, Peters, Malzone
Pep QB: Patterson, McCaffrey, Milton
Pep recruited dramatically better players to Michigan across both positions — and that’s without accounting for the impressive list of ’19 who mostly committed while Pep was here.
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IDK, I’m not a recruiting guy, but 247 has Pep rated #55 (twice) and 100 — in the conference
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In 2017 the 111th ranked passing game.
In 2018 the 80th.
The biggest issue the past 2 years has been scoring. Michigan had regularly settled for FGs this past seasoninstead of going on with drives to get TDs. That was not the issue in 2016. In 2016 Michigan lead the BIG10 in scoring:
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/conferences/big-ten/2016-team-offense.html
In 2017 they were 8th in the BIG10 in scoring, a significant drop off:
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/conferences/big-ten/2017-team-offense.html
In 2018 they were 2nd:
https://www.sports-reference.com/cfb/conferences/big-ten/2018-team-offense.html The Ed Warinner and Shea Patterson effect.
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Come on, man. I didn’t even want to get into this conversation, but you’re REALLY reaching when talking about the QB and WR recruiting of our co-coordinators.
On top of that, Jedd Fisch left Michigan for UCLA in January of 2017. He’s listed as Donovan Peoples-Jones’s primary recruiter (along with Tyrone Wheatley) on 247 Sports. Peoples-Jones enrolled at Michigan in January of 2017. Yet you’re giving Hamilton credit for Peoples-Jones? Not only is it a reach, but it’s just not the truth. And Grant Perry committed to Michigan about a month after Jim Harbaugh/Jedd Fisch were hired. You’re acting like he was some long-identified recruiting battle that Michigan won because Jedd Fisch worked him out and thought he was top-notch. No. He was a dude who got an offer a few days before National Signing Day when Michigan was struggling to put together a class.
You’re making too big of a deal out of Hamilton vs. Fisch as recruiters.
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In no way was I “acting like he was some long-identified recruiting battle that Michigan won”. That’s just a lie.
The point is that the blame for 2017 isn’t on the new passing game coordinator alone but also the lack of talent at QB (particularly the depth), the disastrous WR and QB recruiting in 2016 and so on. Fisch played a huge part in that. Given his job title – he bears more responsibility than anyone else.
Beyond recruiting struggles (regardless of helping on the once-in-a-generation local WR talent) he ran an antiquated offense that never produced a stand-out season. The results speak for themselves — Michigan was better in 2018 than at anytime that Fisch was here.
The conventional narrative here is very simplistic — Fisch brought the “good shit” and the 2016 offense was held back by Speight. 2017 is on some combo of Hamilton, Drevno, and QBs, 2018 success was Warriner and Patterson.
But Patterson was recruited over by Hamilton. Warriner doesn’t call the pass plays or decide that Michigan is going to get rid of the fullback or recruit a ton of “slot” WRs. Fisch had to manage Hoke’s leftovers in 2015 and Hamilton had to manage Fisch’s in 2017.
My whole point is that it’s not all on one guy (re: 2017) so yeah the story is deeper than that. Things got better while Hamilton was here and a lot of that centered on what Hamilton was in charge of.
I have nothing against Fisch. I suspect he’s a good Xs and Os coach in the nfl context, but there’s way more to it than that at the college level and Fisch seems to have failed badly in several aspects while never producing great results. Hamilton, at least, made progress.
I also think it’s suspicious that Fisch never spends very long anywhere, jumping from job to job. It may be that his greatest strength isn’t Xs and Os but identifying good and bad job opportunities.
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All of that is fine – but the posts about recruiting are irrelevant, as I mentioned.
You make a good case against Fisch. I don’t care much one way or the other about the Fisch vs. Hamilton debate. Both are gone now, and I think we’re in better shape with Gattis.
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Oh I agree about Gattis. I think Hamilton is better than Fisch but I’m also ready to move on to a higher ceiling coach (Amaker to Beilein).
I’m arguing against the lazy narrative that puts ’17 on Hamilton. In my view it was on him, Fisch, Harbaugh, Drevno and QB injury.
Why Fisch when he was gone? because A) he didn’t do a good job recruiting (sorry — but recruiting IS relevant*) and B) he was a guilty party in keeping the offense in the stone-age (though I put that on Drevno and the guy that decided to hire and retain him over Fisch, Fisch was an enabler in the process).
*And we can quibble about the WRs if you want but the difference in QBs alone is enormous.
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I admit I’m being unfairly harsh on Fisch’s recruiting, but somebody deserves blame for the terrible 2016 QB/WR recruiting class and I think he had to have played a key role in that.
I don’t think Fisch is terrible I just think Michigan fans are giving him a pass and holding him up as a goofy hero despite the evidence.
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