Posts under: Blog

What I’ve Been Reading: Bleachers by John Grisham

Bleachers by John Grisham is a short novel that talks about what many of us probably know from our younger days: high school football. Messina High School in Mississippi is historically a powerhouse program, and the legendary former coach, Eddie Rake, is on his death bed. The main protagonist is Neely Crenshaw, a former All-American quarterback from Messina who went on to play college ball but got injured. As Crenshaw and a host of other former players return to Messina to pay their final respects and attend the funeral, they start to reminisce about Rake and their glory days.

This was my first Grisham novel, even though he’s written a bunch of more popular legal thrillers and such. He supposedly played some quarterback in high school, and I wonder how autobiographical the story is (though Grisham was not a star QB). I don’t know how your relationship was with your high school coach – whether it’s football or some other sport – or your band director or your academic team coach, but I revered mine. I’ve played for and worked for coaches I didn’t think of so highly, but I couldn’t really relate to these former players, who had a love-hate relationship with Rake. I also thought some of the stories from high school ball were a little over the top, which I didn’t really expect from Grisham. Maybe they’re not so out-of-this-world for football in the deep south. Someday I would like to spend some time in Texas or Louisiana or Mississippi in the fall and see how those communities support their football teams.

What have you been reading lately?

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Attractive Michigan Girl of the Week

If you have any other pictures of girls wearing Michigan gear, drop me an e-mail. Go Blue!

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A quick look at Michigan’s 2017 schedule

There’s been a lot of talk about Michigan’s 2017 schedule. Some people think Michigan blew a prime opportunity to go undefeated and make the playoff in 2016 because of an easy schedule, and now they’ll have a tougher go of it in 2017. Here I’ll take a glance at what’s coming this fall with the teams’ 2016 win-loss records in parentheses:

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Jedd Fisch, Ex-Wolverine

Jedd Fisch

Michigan passing game coordinator Jedd Fisch, who had signed a 2-year extension for the 2016-2017 seasons, is headed to UCLA to be Jim Mora’s offensive coordinator. Fisch was hired by Jim Harbaugh after a two-year stint as the Jacksonville Jaguars offensive coordinator. Fisch worked with the receivers and quarterbacks and was involved with the play calling during his time in Ann Arbor.

Options to replace Fisch are varied, especially because Harbaugh has hired from outside of his sphere several times. He had no previous connections to Fisch, he didn’t know Don Brown before bringing him on board, and he had no real connections to Tyrone Wheatley or Mike Zordich, either. I’ll go through a few of the obvious names, though, since it’s hard to comb through the entire sport of football for possible replacements:

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David Dawson, Ex-Wolverine

David Dawson

Offensive guard David Dawson, who would be a fifth year senior at Michigan this fall, is seeking a graduate transfer elsewhere. He announced Monday via Twitter that he would be leaving.

Dawson attended Detroit (MI) Cass Tech, transferred to Texas for his junior year, and then returned to Cass Tech as a senior. He committed to Michigan in February 2012 as a part of the 2013 class, decommitted, and then later recommitted to the Wolverines. In fact, he broke Brady Hoke’s infamous “no visit” policy when he took a recruiting trip to Florida while committed to Michigan, so the coaching staff moved on without him. Eventually, fences were mended and he was “re-offered.”

I took a lot of flak for my thoughts on Dawson when he committed (LINK). You can see there that I was not fond of his abilities, and people were annoyed in the comments. My Twitter mentions weren’t a happy place, either. I gave him a TTB Rating of 71 (at the low end of being an eventual solid starter), and even that was generous. I didn’t see great bend in him, nor did I see a lot of nastiness in his play. Those things seemed to play out at Michigan, as well. He played in twelve career games without ever starting, and when he did play, he did not excel. He played in just three games as a backup in 2016, though an arm injury in the spring hampered him somewhat.

You’ll also see in the link above that I was afraid Michigan would fill up in the 2013 class without having room for the likes of Ethan Pocic. In fact, Pocic was turned away by Michigan and ended up signing with LSU. How did Pocic’s career go in Baton Rouge? He was First Team All-SEC in 2016, Second Team All-SEC in 2015, and started for his entire sophomore year after backup duty as a freshman. He’s considered to be one of the top couple center prospects in the 2017 draft. Imagine if Michigan had an all-conference center the past couple seasons to free up Mason Cole or Graham Glasgow to help at tackle or guard. Considering Michigan lost three games by a total of five points this season, it’s not inconceivable that it could have put Michigan in the playoff, if not at 12-0 in the regular season.

The loss of Dawson should not affect the team much in 2017. He was not expected to start, and he probably would not have been a key backup, either. He was obviously passed on the depth chart by the likes of freshman Ben Bredeson, classmate Patrick Kugler, sophomore Grant Newsome, redshirt sophomore Juwann Bushell-Beatty, and others. Next year’s starting interior could very well be Bredeson, center Mason Cole, and rising sophomore Michael Onwenu. With some highly rated recruits coming in and with some other promising young players, Dawson would have been battling just to be second string.

Michigan has 87 scholarship players scheduled for the fall of 2017 (LINK), so I expect some more departures. Quarterback Shane Morris and long snapper Scott Sypniewski have already begun seeking grad transfers, too.

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