Amara Darboh
Fourteen Michigan players participated in the 2017 NFL Draft Combine. Without being in the interview room, here’s my take on who gained ground, who’s treading water, and who had a less than stellar performance:
Seattle (WA) Garfield DE Sav’ell Smalls (image via NWPR)
It’s been a while since I’ve done a 2020 recruiting update, but I’ll combine it with a few bits from the last week on the 2018 class.
Ramsey (NJ) Don Bosco Prep running back Jalen Berger was offered by Michigan. He’s a 6’0″, 175 lb. prospect with offers from Maryland, Rutgers, and Syracuse. Don Bosco’s head coach recently retired and was replaced by former Rutgers quarterback Mike Teel.
Brooklyn (NY) Poly running back Lamy Constant (formerly Lamy Montini) was offered by Michigan, his first. He’s a 6’0″, 188 lb. prospect with one other offer from Boston College. He attends the same school as Georgia-bound offensive tackle Isaiah Wilson.
Hit the jump for several more 2020 offers.
Back in 2001, before the world went nuts for The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown wrote a political, science thriller named Deception Point. I truly haven’t been a huge fan of the Robert Langdon series, although I find the involved pseudo-history interesting. The reason I’m not a fan of the Langdon series translates directly to Deception Point, too.
Deception Point starts with the premise that NASA has discovered a meteorite buried under 300 years’ worth of snow and ice on the Milne Ice Shelf in the Arctic. Not only that, but the meteorite contains evidence of extraterrestrial life. This is, of course, a huge discovery for NASA. There are all kinds of scientific, historical, and political ramifications. The female protagonist, Rachel Sexton, is a government official who happens to be the daughter of a U.S. senator who happens to be embroiled in a tight race for the presidency, and Rachel gets sent to the Arctic to investigate. Action ensues.
The aforementioned issue I have with Brown’s writing is his insistence on clean, stilted dialogue. Robert Langdon, Rachel Sexton, and virtually every other character speak like they’re writing a research paper for a Master’s degree. There is no chummy banter, no natural relaxation at any point. For the entirety of the series of events in each book, every character is at the top of his or her game for fear that someone might notice an absence of a five-syllable word in even one sentence.
The first half of the book did actually have me intrigued. Brown is very good at setting up cliffhangers. The setting, the premise, and the political maneuverings are all very interesting. There’s a little bit of a House of Cards thing going on at times. But the dialogue and the conclusion left something to be desired.
What have you been reading lately?
Jehu Chesson (image via Twitter)
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Michigan has 14 players participating in the 2017 NFL Draft Combine. Take a look at a roundup of the results:
Jake Long (image via The Michigan Daily)
There’s been a lot of talk in the last year or so about the offensive tackle position, largely because Michigan has seemingly struggled to recruit elite tackles. Devery Hamilton flipped to Stanford, Isaiah Wilson brushed aside Michigan for greener pastures in Georgia, and Kai-Leon Herbert stayed home in Florida. That’s not to say the Wolverines have whiffed entirely on tackle prospects – Grant Newsome, Ben Bredeson, Chuck Filiaga, Joel Honigford, Andrew Stueber, and others all would disagree – but those surefire left tackle prospects have been fleeting.
There are certain things I look for when evaluating offensive tackle prospects – not only their skill level, but whether they will have to move to an interior position. The three main categories I look for are below: