Kwity Paye is #1 on Bruce Feldman’s yearly “Freaks List” over at The Athletic (LINK).
Only three power-five WRs moved the chains on every 3rd-down catch last season:
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 21, 2020
➤ Jauan Jennings, Tennessee
➤ Ronnie Bell, Michigan
➤ R.J. Sneed, Baylor pic.twitter.com/MoTSDpbI8F
Hit the jump for more.
More watch lists!
- Ambry Thomas is on the Thorpe Award watch list (best defensive back)
- Giles Jackson is on the Paul Hornung Award watch list (most versatile player)
- Cam McGrone is on the Butkus Award watch list (best linebacker)
- Adam Shibley is on the Wuerffel Trophy watch list (player who combines community service, academics, and athletics)
- Michigan commits Junior Colson, Jaydon Hood, and Tyler McLaurin were named to the high school Butkus Award watch list
Former Michigan defensive end Aaron Lewis, Jr. is transferring to Rutgers:
After deep discussions with my family, I’ve decided it’s best for me to continue my academic and athletic career at Rutgers University where I will be closer to home. @RUCoachFran @CoachPanagos @GregSchiano pic.twitter.com/RMp1tVAC61
— aaron.lewis84 (@aaron_lewis71) July 20, 2020
Michigan State had to pause its workouts due to a positive COVID-19 test for a staff member:
Michigan State football is pausing its workouts after a staff member tested positive for COVID-19. pic.twitter.com/FSlBKOU5HS
— Colton Pouncy (@colton_pouncy) July 23, 2020
Sorry if this is just me, but I thought this was hilarious:
I already have a clip of the Rams 2020 offense pic.twitter.com/1QibaNT0gJ
— seth galina (@pff_seth) July 23, 2020
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Encouraging to see that about Paye. Also kind of surprising for a guy who never really popped off the screen as a pass rush threat.
Fun to look back on his commitment.
https://touch-the-banner.com/kwity-paye-wolverine/
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Just read that post; I think Thunder did surprisingly well, especially with a recruit from Rhode Island of all places
As for the Comments, I know WCB comes off as never happy, always critical, but, was he wrong? Not about paye specifically, because he wasn’t being specific toward one guy – he was expressing concern about the strategy, and the risk of falling further behind
Since then, we do really well against 6, 7, even most 8 win programs. But his concern was against the elite. Since then, ohio has blown us out of the stadium, we’ve lost all our Bowl games, and Bama’s lowest performing team of the decade outscored us 5 TDs to 1; they had a RB at nearly a century & a half, and a WR at 200 … with a 3star backup QB
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Wasn’t done
Our DL, the group Paye was slated to, has become our weakest link, getting trampled in 3 of our 4 losses, and unable to create pressure in 1on1, or helpful in keeping our LBs clean
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It’s hard to say because sometimes it’s difficult to nail down WCB’s actual point. It’s easy to say he was right because of the scores against OSU the past couple years, but that doesn’t mean recruiting guys like Paye is the reason. Paye is obviously outperforming the higher ranked guys like Luiji Vilain.
Meanwhile, Michigan had Rashan Gary and Ohio State had Chase Young, both of whom were top-15 picks. Sam Hubbard and Tyquan Lewis (OSU’s starting DEs when Paye committed) were picked in the 3rd and 2nd round, respectively. Where will Paye and Hutchinson get picked?
There’s something else going on. I don’t think it’s anything sinister. But the talent disparity between Michigan and OSU is not so significant that Michigan should be letting up 60+ points. It’s a mental thing. But Michigan’s evaluations of these lower rated guys have been pretty dang good. Maybe a 3-star from Rhode Island isn’t Chase Young, but he’s on par with some of these top 50-300 guys that OSU is landing.
I’ve said something similar before, but one big difference between Michigan and OSU is that OSU’s 5-stars/elite recruits are playing like 5-stars, and Michigan’s 5-stars are playing like 4-stars.
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I think it’s split: QB has been subpar. I do not lay all blame on Shae, or even Speight, but we need better in big moments. To your point, I agree there’s a mental shortfall against ohio, and it also shows up when we struggle: Florida Bowl game, Wisconsin last year, etc. Too many moments that remind me of RR’s team against MissSt (the last game I attended)
“It’s a mental thing”
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OSU’s QBs aren’t doing anything special once they leave Columbus (unless you want to count Baton Rouge).
I think it’s about the system (say what you want about Meyer but he wins everywhere he goes), the talent (including the Ohio pipeline), and surrounding environment (from academics, to law enforcement, ‘benefits’ to the uhhh lets call it passionate fan culture, to the lack of in-state rival). It’s all that stuff.
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I thought we were talking about CFB
When the NFL comes up, it’s usually quite clear
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“big difference between Michigan and OSU is that OSU’s 5-stars/elite recruits are playing like 5-stars, and Michigan’s 5-stars are playing like 4-stars.”
OSU has plenty of busts too – they are just recruiting a whole lot more elite talent than Michigan. Our 5-stars are either playing like 5-stars (Gary, Peppers), 4-stars (DPJ) or 3-stars (Green) or they just transfer before we really find out (Solomon). That’s about what you’d expect and about what’s happening at OSU.
And of course – teammates raise each other up so guys like Young and Gary are going to do better when they are surrounded by future NFL players than if they are covering for guys who seem like a better fit at Rutgers than Alabama.
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The ultimate point was, and is, that Harbaugh is not the championship-level coach that so many people were predicting he was going to be when we hired him. That his recruiting was not gong to get us there was obvious (to some) four years ago, and he has proven incapable of the kind of player development, scheme development and in-game strategy that might make up for that against high-level opponents.
We’re five years in on Harbaugh, and we’re still stuck in the same 9-3 rut, with no change in sight. Be delighted with that if you need to be, but don’t pretend that Harbaugh has lived up to expectations or that he’s likely to.
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Setting reasonable expectations is important.
Harbaugh has lived up to mine. Michigan is back to being Michigan.
The one, very important, caveat is obvious to everyone. OSU.
OSU isn’t a constant bar (as we saw in 2011). They are better than they’ve ever been.
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Ever notice that it tends to be that the same people who will grill Harbaugh for not beating OSU at it’s historical pinnacle and discredit Denard Robinson for beating OSU, because they had a down year?
It’s almost like they will find a way to be negative no matter what.
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Yeah, Michigan fans will find a way to not be positive about losing to our biggest rival 15 times in 16 years. Go figure.
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How many head coaches has OSU fired in the last 16 years?
Your proposed solution (a coaching transition) has been a big part of the problem.
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Except that I haven’t proposed firing Harbaugh as a “solution”. Ever. Nice to see that lying and making shit up about what I’ve said is still your favorite tactic.
And do you really think that if Michigan had beaten OSU 15 out of the last 16 times, that their fan base would find some excuse to be negative about that? Or that OSU wouldn’t have fired at least one coach in that stretch? 🙄
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My mistake. I have the impression that you think we should get rid of Harbaugh. Is that incorrect? Do you think we should keep him?
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I gave you my opinion in my very first post above. In actual words that you can presumably read. Anything else you attributed to me is a made up lie on your part. Are we agreed there?
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I don’t think you’re answering. You seem upset that I think you are saying fire Harbaugh but you won’t say if you think we should keep him or not.
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No, they’re really not. “Michigan” won conference championships. “Michigan” beat OSU a reasonable percentage of the time.
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Because OSU wasn’t as good.
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Tell that to Michigan State.
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If MSU wants to brag to Michigan fans that they are 1-4 against OSU while averaging 10 points a game they certainly can.
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Neglecting to mention (what a shock!) that in four of those five years, MSU performed better against OSU than we did (while going 0-5). Or that MSU has beaten OSU 3 times in the last ten years (twice when OSU was ranked in the top 5). It’s just blathering nonsense to argue that OSU is too good for us to ever expect to beat them.
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Is this the part what I should act really insulted about you saying things I didn’t say?
Harbaugh can’t be blamed for shit that happened 10 years. MSU has been getting whooped by OSU just like us, and worse in the last few years.
More importantly – UM is better than MSU but you want to cherry-pick.
OSU is whipping up on everyone in the big10. Wisconsin, MSU, PSU, Michigan. Nitpick that if you like.
This is what usually happens when elite runs up against not elite.
But yeah, I’d rather win 20% of the time than 0%. In reality, that’s the difference between a break going your way or not.
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On the cusp of elite
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Accurate description for a top 10 program.
Still waiting on someone to name 10 clearly better during the Harbaugh era.
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Thought experiment: If you had polled Michigan fans in the spring of 2015 and asked them if, after 5 years, Harbaugh is 0-5 against Ohio State, 1-4 in bowl games, with no division or conference championships, no playoff appearances and every season within one win of 9-3, will that completely satisfy your expectations?
My guess as to the results:
Lank: Yes, absolutely and completely! That’ll be the Michigan team we all know and love!
Every other Michigan fan on the planet: Heck no!
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Here is my take on the Harbaugh era relative to expectations in the year of our lord five.
Bad/worse than expected:
-QB development
-lack of stability on offense (related to first point)
-the Mattison fiasco*
-0-5 vs OSU*
-defense vs OSU trending backwards*
-0 conference championships*.
Better than expected
-No embarrassing upsets in 5 years is really hard to do (e.g., OSU losing to Purdue).
-number of elite players coming through (as evidence by the 1 rounders)
As expected:
-Turning around the OL
-Flipping the MSU rivalry
-Program stability restored
-Program traditions and values restored (Hoke helped here)
-Offense improved
-top 5-15 in recruiting
-top 5-15 in results
-not Alabama
*All related to OSU ascendance to historical heights which I did not expect and is hard to pin on Harbaugh though he could have done more to overturn it or just gotten a damn call in Nov 2016….
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Michigan is more consistent than I expected, for better and worse. If you had told a Michigan fan in 2015: Your team will win 9 or more games in 4 of the next 5 years, outscore MSU 130-81, and not be embarrassed by anyone like Toledo or App State. They would have taken it.
You can pretend like Michigan wasn’t struggling with the 500 bar over the previous decade if you want. You can pretend like anyone could do this when maybe 10 or 20 could. And how many of those would be able to do it while restoring the much valued culture?
The problem with the constant Harbaugh bitching over many years is that you haven’t named a better option. A lot of people would have said Les Miles a few years ago. Or maybe you want to try some hotshot offensive whiz taking a program above their historical peak at Michigan, again. Or better yet we can ID some other Super Bowl coach that is going to take a paycut to come coach at Michigan because of his childhood allegiance. Hey what’s John up to?
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No, they would have said “and how will we do against Ohio State?” To which you would reply…”Ummm..errr..well, they’ll sorta, kinda be 0-5.”
At which point, no, they wouldn’t “take it”. Sorry, you’re off your rocker now, just as you always are when your arguments get demolished.
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“I don’t care about anything other than OSU” was definitely not the majority view of Michigan fans in the 2015 offseason.
Not after averaging 6.5 wins over the last 7 years.
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Like Thunder said Paye isn’t the reason Michigan is losing to OSU. So yeah, he was wrong. Higher rated recruits like Vilain and Marshall haven’t been as good and that mostly with Mattison around. Another Rashan Gary would be nice – sure – but people seem dissatisfied with him anyway.
Bottomline — There is no reason to expect Michigan should out-recruit OSU. You can’t just want it. Complaining isn’t helpful to anyone.
Extrajuice’s comment near the bottom holds up well.
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But he wasn’t posting specifically about Paye, he was ranting about the strategy as a whole
By your last post, you seem to agree: because they get very highly rated players, and so many of them, we will not catch up, and risk falling further behind. Also predicts as much in a 3-4 year outlook. Well, we’ve gone from competitive in 2016 and consecutive 10-3 seasons, to blowouts and 9-4 season last year and another likely 9 win season this year (if we play that many)
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It’s not a strategy. Michigan isn’t sitting there saying “no thanks kid” to 5-stars because they feel like it.
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Nor did anyone say they were. You’re back to making stuff up. I recognize the cycle, and will opt out this time. Too much going on to contribute to another breakdown
Stay safe & Go Blue
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Nobody said “he was ranting about the strategy as a whole” ever.
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Did Lewis ever attend a class at Michigan? If not, do we still call him a former Wolverine?
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He enrolled in January.
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