WindyCityBlueI guess the question is, has Evans improved over last year, and Higdon has just improved more, or has Evans been passed because he hasn’t gotten any better? Hopefully the former.
WindyCityBlueWell, yeah…having Peppers last year but not this year will make it much tougher for this year’s group to be as good. The 2015 defense was very good, but 2016 took a significant step even beyond that in making big plays. 46 sacks vs 32. 121 TFL vs 88. 57 QBH vs 23. And the 2016 numbers are in slightly fewer snaps. Going to be very tough for 2017 to improve even further.
WindyCityBlueQB is exactly as expected for realistic people. Barring injury, there is virtually zero chance for anyone but Speight to start the opener. Meritocracy yes, but Peters would have to play almost impossibly well for Speight’s experience to be outweighed in the eyes of the coaches.
Not surprised that WR will be highly competitive, either. In fact, I would not be surprised if the starting group was still in flux for at least a few actual games.
I’m a little more skeptical that our LBs will be better than 2016. Our starters had 254 tackles, 44 TFL and 13 sacks last year. By comparison, our top 3 LBs in 2015 had 14.5 TFL and 4 sacks. Last year’s was an incredibly productive group. I’d love to think that we’ll top those numbers this year, but I’ll wait to see that on the field. Better depth, very possibly, but better performance from the starters would be difficult.
WindyCityBlueJust seems like we’ve been relying on too many guys like Mason lately…lower rated guys who are “tough”, “gritty”, “hustler”, “hard worker”, but who just simply lack the speed and athleticism to get it done against elite competition. Coaches and fans like their attitude and work ethic, and they make some plays and look pretty good out there, but just not enough.
WindyCityBlueOh, good grief…did we not hear enough of this nonsense about Gardner? Speight is not going anywhere early, and he will be no better than 3rd or 4th round when he does go. Speight has limited accuracy and arm strength and he does not hit the deep ball consistently enough to make anyone in the NFL sit up and notice. He is definitely not a big game QB, and will be backup level if he gets drafted.
As far as the battle for backup goes, Peters and O’Korn may be close to each other, but do you have any confidence at all that either could engineer a touchdown drive if we needed them to? If Speight goes down, it’s a very big drop-off.
WindyCityBlueFor the time being, our back 7 is probably no better than a C+/B-…that’s not being too harsh. LB is not a train wreck, but no one is looking like a star, either. McCray is good, but probably not great, and Bush is limited in size and athleticism. We have a VERY good group coming in at LB, though, and I have some optimism that at least one will be contributing by mid-season. We probably have better talent at CB, but very limited experience. Over the course of the season, this could develop into quite a good group. Safety will probably be no better than solid, and if injuries hit that position, worry. Look for/hope for noticeable improvement over the course of the season.
WindyCityBlueSure, if you’re going to inflate grades, you can move anyone up to an A level. My evaluation was based on the best being an A, with no A+ awarded. But you’re assuming that Speight has it in him to make a “significant” step forward. He has good coaching, yes, and will likely improve, but his limited arm strength and lack of running ability and overall athleticism cannot be fixed, and will put a ceiling on how good he can be, compared to QBs who have all of those. If a QB is not a threat as a runner in this day and age of college football, it’s hard to give him an A unless he is an absolutely elite passer, and I doubt that Speight will be.
And as noted elsewhere, losing your starter at TE makes it a huge stretch to predict “A” level performance for the next season. That’s just the way that position is. This far in advance of the season, the only teams I would give an A to are the ones with a productive returning starter. Sure, some teams that don’t have that may end up with a new guy breaking out big, but forecasting which ones will at this point involves heavy doses of guesswork and wishful thinking.
WindyCityBlueSpeight is not backed by “solid depth”, unless by “solid depth” you mean “other guys listed at the same position on the roster”. Hill is not potential all-conference, since they don’t even include the antiquated position of FB on the all-Big Ten team. Or H-back, if you’re thinking of going there. Bunting and Wheatley have done essentially nothing that would project to all-conference performance at TE. Are you really saying that they are among the top 3 or 4 TEs returning in the Big Ten this year? They had 8 catches between them last year. That’s just the way it is at TE, when your starter who got most of the catches is gone. You’re not going to have two guys that productive on the same team, so if you lose your #1 guy, you’re left with finger-crossing, especially compared to teams that have their starter back. Nothing else justifies an A.
And if you’re projecting all-conference, why not Cole? He was actually 2nd team last year.
WindyCityBlueQB-Too high. If DeShaun Watson is an A, we’re not an A-. Speight is a quality QB, but nothing special, and we have nobody with proven game performance behind him. I’d give Speight a solid B, but he has too many weaknesses to go higher than a B+ at best. He’s certainly not a liability, but neither is he capable of carrying a team on his shoulders.
RB-probably about right. There’s potential, some proven production, and decent depth here, but the lack of a returning starter keeps us below A level for the time being.
FB/TE- Agree with A- for FB. Hill is very good here, and Poggi is a decent backup. TE is a B at best, with no proven pass-catching production coming back this year. Like RB, potential and decent depth, but less proven talent. Blocking alone doesn’t get you to A level.
WR-B is reasonable for now, but I would not be shocked if we are at A level by the end of the season. Lots more potential than at TE, but very limited on proven production, and still not sold that Perry will be playing this fall.
OL-Too low, if this is on a curve taking into account all of DI-A. We may be average or slightly below average for a 1-A team, but not that far below average. If 60-70% of 1-A teams have better Oline performance than us this year, Drevno needs to lose his job.
WindyCityBlueSorry, but where did I say that you were arguing against player development? Nowhere. You tried to argue that recruiting more and more players at a position to compensate for a poor batting average in development is just as effective a solution as improving your player development. That’s nonsense. As noted, it isn’t. And I’ve given my solution for the Oline. If Drevno is still not getting the job done after this year, fire him and hire someone who can. There are plenty of OL coaches out there getting much better performance than we are, with mainly 3 star talent. Someone who could be effective with a lot of 4 star talent would not be that hard to find and attract.
And it’s only your opinion that RB and WR have an overabundance of players. We only had two effective pass catchers at WR and no elite RBs last year, so why not pile more recruits on at those positions to try to improve that? Some people think that 20 scholarship Olinemen is excessive.
WindyCityBlueNot sure where you’re getting 18 at this point. We only have 9 guys in their final year in 2017, and only 11 RS juniors, of whom we’d have to ditch 8 or 9 to get to 18 slots (depending on whether we go into 2017 with an open slot) and that’s not happening.
Yes, some other attrition may occur, and probably will, but then those gaps will have to be addressed specifically, above and beyond the numbers you’ve totslled. I’m starting my thinking at more like 15 spots for 2018, and that gets to the point where some position will go begging.
WindyCityBlueI would rather have had Solomon, and it’s not even close. Gay would have been nice, but Singleton and Anthony are both high level, athletic guys who could easily contribute or even start this year. We had no one else in this class even close to Solomon’s level at a pure DT, and he is playing at a position where you really want to rotate guys, even in a close game against tough competition. Vilain is not going to play inside any time soon, and whether Hudson, Jeter and Irving-Bey are going to be playable their first year is very much a question.
As far as Ruiz, great get, but let’s just say, I really hope he ISN’T important this year. You don’t rotate on the OL, so the only way a guy like him is important is if he starts, which would mean a whole lot of bad shit happened ahead of him. I hope he plays this year and starts next year, but if we end up really needing him this fall, our Oline is probably in deep shit. It would probably mean that a couple of starters got hurt, or Bredeson and Onwenu are showing no improvement at all.
WindyCityBlueExcept that the two solutions are not in any way equal. The difference is that better player development is not a zero sum game, and doesn’t exact a cost at other position groups. Piling on extra recruits at OL does. It means you have fewer players to cover other positions. If you “fix” the OL that way, then you have to concede by the same argument that you have dimished your prospects at at least one other position group, and in the end may not have made the team any better overall.
WindyCityBlueWould have liked to see them land a quality TE in this class. No, it’s not a critical need looking at the roster right now, but in a 30 man class, you really need to address all position groups. Yeah, you have to go with what presents itself, but next year’s class will probably be only half this size, and we’ll either have to squeeze a TE in at the expense of something else, or go two years without one, which virtually guarantees a roster hole down the road. It’s especially surprising given Harbaugh’s supposed penchant for running a TE-heavy offense.
As far as the Oline, our problem is as much player development as it is numbers. If you’ve got sub-par coaching, you can only do so much by throwing more and more guys into the mix with the same coaches. If you’re struggling to produce a quality starting unit and decent backups with 18 scholarship offensive linemen, then you need to fire your Oline coach instead of taking more and more recruits from other positions to fuel a failed effort.
Solomon was the most important recruit in the class, by far. We badly needed a pure DT, not just guys who might develop into decent SDE-3 tech tweeners a few years down the road. We’re over-heavy on DE types, and we haven’t done a very good job of developing the ones we already have.
WindyCityBlueKlctlc, I never said you were conservative, though frankly, the whole “I’m a fiscal conservative but a social liberal” dodge is pretty hollow and transparent. But your point seemed to be that you’s rather not have politics intruding into sports, and I’m just letting you know that we’re past the point where sports is enough of a common ground to paper over political differences.
Thunder can run his website as he sees fit, of course, and I wouldn’t blame him for wanting to keep it focussed on Michigan sports and free of politics, but in real life, in the big wide world, that’s no longer an option for anyone who gives a shit.
WindyCityBlueGuess what…this is no longer about disagreeing amiably with your conservative buddy while you chug beers and watch the Michigan game. This is war, for the soul of this country, even if you don’t realize it yet, and like it or not, you’re going to have to choose a side. If your response is “We’re all Michigan fans..can’t we just get along?”, the answer is no. Some things in life and some things about being a Michigan alum are more important than sports.
WindyCityBlueWait…aren’t we were supposed to “trust the coaches”? At least, that’s what everyone says when we’re talking about spending a scholarship on a recruit no other decent program wants and who’s never even been on campus. Why does the same thinking not apply to Onwenu, who’s been on the team and coached up for a year?
And I’m not talking about Onwenu as a freshman. I’m talking about him after two years of coaching and conditioning. And if it’s going to take 4 years to turn high quality recruits into high quality players, it’s pretty hard to consider this an elite coaching staff. The standards of the Michigan fan base for player development have gotten very low, frankly. Teams like Alabama and OSU have lots of guys going full bore by their second year. That’s why they get to the playoff and win championships, even when they have heavy attrition. If this coaching staff can’t do the same in a season like 2017, this is going to remain a second tier program at best.
WindyCityBluePerhaps not, but as noted, Onwenu is not most people. Jim Harbaugh thinks he’s an exceptional player, and that’s AFTER having him on the roster and seeing him in practice and games. So why should it take as long for him to develop into a quality starter as it would for any run-of-the-mill guy?
WindyCityBlueYes, we really need Onwenu to fill one of the guard spots. And there is no reason why he shouldn’t. Harbaugh absolutely raved about how special this kid is, and he has the best developer of offensive lines in the country coaching him (I read that on MGoBlog), so why should we have to wait the usual 3-4 years for him to be a journeyman starter?
WindyCityBlueA good rough rule of thumb is to take one OL for every five signees, and never take fewer than three in a class. Of course, it would help if our coaching staff were actually developing some of the ones we sign into quality players. As I’ve said before, time for Drevno to start producing, or be replaced.
