ThunderNobody wants money, huh? I guess I’ll have to up the ante for the next game…
Thunder1. Now with some time as a coach under your belt, what would you go back and teach to a freshman Kevin Koger? What do you wish you had known when you entered college?
2. What was the attitude of the team coming off the 7-6 season in 2010? Did you expect a coaching change, or were you expecting to take the next step forward with Rich Rodriguez after 3-, 5-, and 7-win seasons?
ThunderGreat job lining up the Kevin Koger interview! If he had played in the 1990s, early 2000s, or for Harbaugh, he would have been a standout TE, in my opinion. Unfortunately, he came to Michigan at a bad time.
ThunderAlso, I haven’t seen any 4.48s listed for Stribling at all. He initially ran a 4.68.
ThunderThe main reason it’s negative compared to PFF is that I don’t agree with them. They apparently don’t take run defense into account (thus the elite overall grade when the run defense grade is terrible). You and I disagree in regard to Stribling.
ThunderI don’t lock into assessments. Yes, there’s a baseline of expectations to begin, but I give credit where I think credit is due, and I hold myself accountable for mistakes. You yourself have thanked me for going back, commenting on, and posting about my pre-season predictions, my TTB Ratings, etc.
As for Stribling himself, I gave him a solid grade coming out of high school. Why would I undermine myself for no good reason? I call it like I see it, and that’s it. If you don’t like my assessment, that’s fine.
ThunderYeah. Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Deboard’s career at Indiana last one year or less.
ThunderNo, it’s not exactly clear because there can be any number of spots. However, former senior defensive analyst Dave Adolph passed away, and Michigan also lost Rick Finotti as a defensive analyst. So I would assume Lempa is replacing Adolph, but he’s probably taking the spot of one of those two guys.
ThunderWell…maybe. He hasn’t played yet.
ThunderI do have Amazon, too, but I don’t watch it much. Some of those shows are on Netflix. “Luther” has me intrigued because I really like Idris Elba. “Schitt’s Creek” looks good, too.
Have you tried watching “Sneaky Pete” yet? I’ve thought about starting to watch that.
Thanks for the list!
ThunderLook out, Archie Griffin! Here comes Fast Freddy.
ThunderShoot, they would be a big hit with me, too. I’m going to have to check those out.
ThunderThanks. I haven’t even heard of a couple of those things (Wentworth, The 4400, 3%), but I’ll check them out.
“The Killing” was an awesome show. I watched all three seasons in about two weeks.
ThunderI watched “Bloodline.” It started off slowly, but it got to be really good. This is a side note that makes me super nerdy, but Norbert Leo Butz (who plays Kevin, the bearded brother) is a Broadway star who was in “Wicked” and other things. That made it a little extra interesting to me, because I like him as a performer. There’s some good acting in that show.
“Narcos” is a good suggestion.
ThunderInteresting. I hadn’t heard of it, but I just looked it up and watched the trailer. I’ll add it to my list. Thanks!
ThunderGood article. Thanks. There’s also a section in there on recruiting high school QBs, which is also a plus in my book.
ThunderYeah, this would be very disappointing. I had Asiasi as the best offensive recruit in the 2016 class. And even if that doesn’t quite hold true (Ben Bredeson? Chris Evans?), he played very well as a true freshman last year.
ThunderI don’t have a whole lot to say, since I’ll be making a post like this next week on the front page. But thanks for posting! It’s well thought out, and I can’t really argue with too much.
ThunderWhether it’s good or bad, there have been times that I refused to vote because I didn’t pay enough attention to politics at the time. I think an uninformed vote is worse than no vote at all. This past election was not one of those times, but when I was younger, I just wasn’t interested in politics.
ThunderI have no delusions that I’ll be the top Michigan blog out there. It’s tough to do when it’s not your primary gig. As long as “that other site” (the one you’re referencing) keeps its doors open, I’ll be playing second fiddle, if not third. But I do think it’s a poor business choice to enter the political realm. There are outlets for my political thoughts, but this is not one of them.
As for you and others, I really don’t care whether you discuss politics here or not. I won’t support or allow hate speech, racial epithets, etc., but if people voice their political opinions, more power to them. Frankly, I don’t think we talk about politics enough in this country, partly because people get too emotional rather than sticking to the facts.
ThunderYou make it sound all conspiracy-like…
I think Rome can be a very educational place. It’s a destination where many students who study abroad end up. A very good friend of mine studied abroad in Rome. Even if there’s some drive to get Roman Catholic football players to end up at Michigan, I don’t think it would be a strong enough need for Michigan to build that up when they’ve done pretty well recruiting, anyway.
It’s an interesting thought. And for all I know, maybe it did factor into Harbaugh’s thinking a little bit. But in my opinion, I think it’s more about Harbaugh saying:
“NCAA, I dare you to take away chances for student-athletes to travel and study abroad in Rome when you talk about the best interests of student-athletes.”
ThunderHe sounds pretty good, but I have yet to see film on him to come to my own conclusions. I’m really interested to see him.
ThunderYeah, I’m really hoping for a grad transfer this year. Even if it’s Logan Tuley-Tillman. The options currently on the team are questionable.
ThunderYeah, I think Gay is the best case scenario, too, for the defense overall. I think he would play from day one. I’m not a big fan of Metellus right now, although he was just a freshman.
ThunderYeah, I’m guessing this is an attempt to mitigate the eventual loss of Drevno. Harbaugh is known for always thinking one step ahead and thinking of contingency plans, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Frey is the “OC-in-waiting” or “run game coordinator-in-waiting.”
ThunderMoosman wasn’t supposed to be a center. He moved to center in 2009, but he started all 12 games at right guard in 2008. He wasn’t great, but he played well at times when he was a guard.
Thunder1. I think the primary reason is that offering is the way of the world these days. You can’t get your foot in the door if you don’t offer. It’s an insult, just like we saw with Antjuan Simmons. Even though we offered him about 15 months before National Signing Day, he was peeved that “took so long.”
2. I don’t necessarily think Harbaugh even knows whom he ideally wants when signing day comes around. A guy looks fantastic one day, and then something pops up or a better prospect comes along, and now he wants another guy instead. He’s a good evaluator of talent (IMO), but he can somewhat afford to be picky.
3. I think Harbaugh is kind of turning the recruiting process on its head – not by himself, because other schools are offering 300+ players, but with others. It used to be that you had to work for an offer, so it was a competition to get an offer. Now you have to offer, so Harbaugh’s like, “Fine, here’s an offer because we’re interested. But that doesn’t mean I want you to commit.” So then it becomes a competition to earn your way into the class, or to get a spot in the class before it fills up.
4. Michigan isn’t at a point where it can be extremely picky about who it offers. Alabama, Ohio State, etc. can be very selective because they have the pull to reel in a high percentage of guys they want badly. Michigan needs to offer 200+ kids, at the very least, to get enough highly regarded talent to make it work.
ThunderI don’t think so, really. Michigan already runs a lot of inside zone, and Indiana has had a lot of success with that (Jordan Howard, Devine Redding, etc.). He’ll have to teach power, trap, etc., but that shouldn’t be too difficult.
ThunderYep. He helped recruit guys like Schofield and Lewan, and he helps make solid offensive lines with the likes of David Moosman, Tim McAvoy, Mark Ortmann, Perry Dorrestein, etc. I think he’s got a pretty good resume.
ThunderIn April Michigan should be able to hire a 10th position coach (for 11 total coaches), so he and Drevno could co-exist. It’s possible that one could coach TEs or TE/OT with Jay Harbaugh moving to RB coach.
ThunderI don’t know where he’s headed. A lot of former Michigan players end up at CMU or WMU, so that would be my guess. I think Ferris State might be a potential landing spot, too.
Thunder1. No, it doesn’t change the number of recruits we’re bringing in. Not really, anyway. Technically, it means we have one more spot than we were supposed to have, but…
2. …yes, this was entirely suspected.
ThunderTaylor ended the season with 191 carries for 930 yards and 14 touchdowns, plus 19 catches for 296 yards and 4 touchdowns.
ThunderI do think he did a pretty good job. He got a couple of young guys ready to play (Evans, Higdon), I thought Ty Isaac improved, and De’Veon Smith seemed to read his blocks better this year. And the staff felt comfortable enough during that time to play at least four running backs. Some years we only really saw 2 or maybe 3.
ThunderAlex Marvez is a Sirius XM radio host and Sporting News columnist. It’s not clear yet whether his report is accurate or not.
Wheatley has been at Michigan for two seasons. He was previously the RB coach for Doug Marrone at Syracuse and with the Buffalo Bills, and Marrone was just hired by the Jaguars. For a guy (Wheatley) who wants to bea head coach, it’s somewhat lateral to keep taking RB coaching jobs. It would seem like he should wait until a suitable OC job or run game coordinator job comes along.
ThunderAgreed. You want at least 15 offensive linemen on your roster at all times. Michigan had 13 this past season. There are 9 returning scholarship linemen, so 6 linemen in this class puts you at 15 (if nobody else leaves).
ThunderI agree. Michigan needs help on the OL, and I don’t think Tuley-Tillman needs to be in purgatory forever. He did a couple dumb things, but they can be attributed to youth. That doesn’t make them okay, but I’ve seen worse problems.
ThunderI agree that he would be nice to have. I don’t think it will happen (it sounds like Nebraska is in prime position to land him), but he would be a good slot receiver/returner.
ThunderIf it means anything, LTT was a starter at Akron but did not earn any post-season awards or accolades in the MAC. Sometimes those all-conference awards are basically lifetime achievement awards, but if he were a true standout, I would expect him to at least get Third Team All-MAC.
ThunderWhere did you hear that his credits already transferred to U of M? I know he got a Michigan degree in December, but sometimes that happens when people graduate earlier in the 2016 calendar year and want to be a part of a big ceremony. For example, if he graduated from U of M over the summer, he could have transferred to Akron but still participated in the grad ceremony in December.
ThunderYeah, I don’t know that he looks like a future NFL star, but he does look like a beast of a high schooler. I think he’s someone who has been helped by good strength and conditioning over the years. He looked a little stiff back in the old days.
Of course, it helps that he plays with one of the greatest QBs in history.
ThunderThe coaches like Peters. He just had some maturing to do physically, which you could see coming. He’s also a very quiet kid and needs to become more of a vocal leader.
Long had a nagging injury throughout the year, which stunted his development.
I haven’t heard anything about those guys leaving. They may have had illnesses, injuries, funerals, etc. that might have caused them to miss the trip. It doesn’t automatically mean they left the team.
ThunderInteresting. Yeah, I don’t think I remember seeing that before, but I guess it has probably happened…
ThunderI haven’t heard anything specific on Shelton Johnson beyond the suspension at the beginning of the year. You’re right that he wasn’t on the bowl game roster. I do not believe he’s on the team anymore, but I haven’t heard anything concrete.
FWIW, there were some other absences from the bowl game roster, too: Brandon Peters, David Long, Nick Eubanks, and Devin Gil.
ThunderI wouldn’t even put it past Mason to play in the fall. When Mike Wroblewski is your backup MIKE and then you lose your starting MIKE, anything can happen. Personally, I think McCray will move to MIKE and Bush will step in at WILL. But you still need a couple guys playing backup roles. There will be a couple redshirt freshmen waiting in the wings, too, but Mason is already a big kid who might be able to hold up physically in the middle.
ThunderI don’t think that really matters. If he’s better than Cole, he’ll play. But that probably won’t be the case. Either way, both guys can play C and OG, and Cole can play OT.
ThunderThe recent developments aren’t positive, but I’m sticking with it. Now that I’ve made the Crystal Ball pick, there’s no reason for me to change it. (I can’t pick Alabama since he’s already committed.) I haven’t heard anything more from the person “in the know” but I haven’t asked.
FWIW, Sam Webb says Harris’s mentor works for an airline, so he can change his flight anytime he wants and make it work. The Alabama thing could be to throw people off the trail or it could be misinformation, although I’ll admit that seems like a stretch. Stranger things have happened, though.
ThunderWhile all of that is true, he did take an official to Michigan. And when given opportunities to reaffirm his commitment to Alabama, he has avoided doing so. So there’s certainly some…uncertainty. I won’t be extremely upset if he stays committed to Alabama, because like you said, he “was never ours to begin with.” But Michigan is definitely giving Alabama a run for its money.
ThunderThanks – I need an editor!
ThunderHe’s not quite as big, but Derrick Henry is the direction I would go with that comparison.
