Should have done this yesterday, but: have at it. Arizona pulled away from EMU in the eight inning yesterday and Michigan has just finished a 7-5 win over Kentucky after a rain suspension. EMU and Kentucky have an elimination game starting at 2; Michigan and Arizona play at seven.
Relevant pitching bits: Putnam had to leave after five innings due to the rain delay, leaving Eric Katzman (2.1 IP) and Michael Powers (1.2 IP) to finish the job. Neither is likely to be available for Arizona.
The Wildcats, meanwhile, saw their starter chased after just 4.1 innings and had to use all three of their big bullpen guys for more than an inning. It'll be interesting to see how effective they are.
One big downer for Michigan: Nate Recknagel left the Kentucky game with a hand injury; unconfirmed reports say it's a broken wrist and he's done for the year.
Update: M loses 4-3 to Arizona and will face Kentucky in an elimination game in a couple hours. The good news: Wildcat ace Chris Rusin, who got chased in the second inning of the Friday game and could hypothetically go again today since he had such a limited outing, is injured and won't be available. Also, with Chris Fetter going 8 full innings last night Michigan will have everyone except the two starters available. Game starts at 2.
In cool but not immediately relevant insider news: the Mets are planning on replacing their enormo-scoreboard sometime soon and Wilpon plans on donating it to Michigan if they can just figure how to move it cross-country.
MGoBlog has moved. The new site can be found at MGoBlog.com
Saturday, May 31, 2008
[+/-] |
Belated Regionals Open Thread |
Friday, May 30, 2008
[+/-] |
Baseball Regional Preview |
45-12, 26-5 Big 10
Schedule / Results
Roster
Statistics
Head Coach Rich Maloney
Baseball Home
Baseball Media Guide
Michigan
Your warrior-poets were completely dominant against any team north of the Mason-Dixon line, setting a Big Ten record for most conference wins and sweeping through the conference tourney in three games. But college baseball being what it is, most of those teams suck hard. According to some guy named Boyd, Michigan's schedule ranked 114th -- actually not that bad since nearly 300 teams play D-I baseball. According to some guy named Warren, Michigan's schedule was #125 despite a challenging-ish nonconference schedule that featured four games against #1 seeds.At this point, Michigan's program is the college baseball equivalent of Gonzaga in 2000. In 1999, Gonzaga's basketball team ignited by making a run to the Elite Eight; last year Michigan took out national #1 seed Vanderbilt and reached the super-regionals. Like Gonzaga, Michigan looks poised to totally dominate a mid-major conference, hover around the high teens in the polls with consistency, and totally rely on the NCAA tournament to validate its program as legitimate.
Michigan will trot out two excellent pitchers in second-team All-Americans Zach Putnam and Chris Fetter. Fetter had the slightly better year, going 10-1 with a 2.39 ERA and striking out 7.8 per nine innings. Putnam was slowed by injury early but recovered well, going 8-0 with a 2.64 ERA and striking out 9.4 per nine innings. Michael Powers also has a 2.64 ERA and is the primary reliever; expect to see a lot of him.
Past that, things get a little dicey. No Wolverine other than Putnam and Fetter started more than 9 games, and the nine game starter is Canadian Chris Wilson, who imploded this year after a promising 06-07. His 8.73 ERA is worst on the team. Eric Katzman (36 IP, 3.25 ERA) or Travis Smith (43 IP, 4.40 ERA) will probably get the starting not in a hypothetical third (or fourth) game as Michigan uses its bullpen liberally.
At the plate, first basemate Nate Recknagel is also a second-team All American; Kevin Cislo, Adam Abraham, and Putnam are the other big bats.
42-17, 16-14 SEC
Schedule / Results
Roster
Statistics
Head Coach John Cohen
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Baseball Media Guide
Kentucky
The baseball field is not strictly seeded like the basketball field, but if you extrapolate from Michigan's potential super-regional matchup with the winner of the Miami regional you can infer these things:- Arizona is the last #1 seed (which is why they're the only one getting shipped).
- Michigan is the top #2 seed.
- Kentucky is the worst #3 seed.
Common opponents:
Michigan | Kentucky | |
---|---|---|
Oakland | W 7-4 | W 15-5, W 12-2 |
Eastern Michigan | W 5-3, W 20-5 | W 18-5, W 8-6 |
Purdue | W 6-1, W 3-2 | W 3-2, W 6-1, W 4-3 |
Not much to choose from.
Michigan will be facing Friday night starter Chris Rusin, who's actually from Michigan. Baseball America on Rusin:
Rusin has a legit four-pitch mix highlighted by a plus curveball and a lively 88-89 mph fastball, and he gives Kentucky an experienced Saturday starter.Rusin's 6-2 on the year with a 2.84 ERA, striking out 6.8 per nine innings; he sat out Kentucky's WLL performance in the SEC tournament and will be well rested for Friday's game. Read this if you want to be slightly depressed at both the vagaries of fate and the state of newspapers:
He'd grown up attending Michigan football games at The Big House, hailing the victors valiant. And when it came time to choose a college baseball program, the two-time All-State Dream Team member had hoped to sign with the Wolverines.I'm pretty sure the article is in error and two-sport star Michigan was courting was Adam Abraham, who could have been a mid-round NHL draft pick if he chose to play hockey. Abraham did sign with Michigan and is currently hitting .342.But, remember, things never actually work out the way you want them to.
There are two periods during which high school baseball players can sign national letters of intent.
Rusin was determined to sign with a university in the fall. The Wolverines, though, were in pursuit of a two-sport star who hadn't yet chosen between football and baseball scholarships.
Michigan asked Rusin to wait.
Even for the Wolverines, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
"(UK) was the next-best school I was ready to go to, so I got it done," Rusin said.
Two big bats in the outfield power Kentucky's lineup. Sawyer Carroll leads the SEC in batting average (.416) and RBIs (77). This is his OPS: 1.172. Zounds. Colin Cowgill, meanwhile, returned from an injury that cost him the entire 2006-2007 season and bashed 18 home runs whilst batting .362. Baseball America mentions that UK's numbers are inflated by their 17-0 start against terrible competition, FWIW.
Michigan's main advantage over UK is their heavy reliance on lefthanded pitching. Rusin, their second starter, and their main reliever are all lefties. Michigan's big bats are all righthanded.
38-17, 12-12 Pac 10
Schedule / Results
Roster
Statistics
Head Coach Andy Lopez
Baseball Home
Baseball Media Guide
Arizona
Earlier in the week I was concerned that Arizona would throw out their #3 starter against Eastern and give themselves a huge advantage against the rest of the field for the remainder of the regional. Baseball America, however, indicates that Arizona might not have much of a distinction between their top three arms:the starters have had their ups and downs this season. Of particular concern is ace righty Preston Guilmet (6-4, 3.89), who went 0-2, 10.29 in his final three conference starts. Lefthanders David Coulon (7-3, 3.54) and Eric Berger (7-3, 4.53) both pitched well in wins against ASU in the final weekend.(If none of those ERAs looks intimidating in relation to Fetter and Putnam, please keep in mind that Arizona's SOS is an outstanding 21st.) Arizona can either keep the ace on the shelf if they're eying a potential matchup with Michigan's aforementioned right-handed sluggers or they can get his wobbly pitching out of the way against Eastern. Either way, it looks like Michigan will be facing a lot of quality:
Arizona's calling card is its pitching depth, and it has an unrivaled trio of power bullpen arms in lefthander Daniel Schlereth (2-0, 1.73 with 73 strikeouts in 52 innings) and righties Jason Stoffel (3-2, 3.51 with 67 strikeouts in 41 innings) and Ryan Perry (5-3, 3.21 with 63 strikeouts in 67 innings). All three have mid-90s fastballs and devastating breaking balls.That kind of depth doesn't get called into play much during the season; in the regionals, however, it can be critical.
Offensively, Arizona goes deep. Four players have more than ten home runs, led by first baseman CJ Zeigler's 19. Bryce Ortega and Colt Sedbrook are both averaging better than .340, but many of the BAs are low for college baseball. If Michigan can keep the ball in the park they might have a shot.
Common opponents:
Michigan | Arizona | |
---|---|---|
Notre Dame | W 15-12 | W 16-0 |
Arizona State | L 4-15, L 4-8 | L 5-6, L 13-6, W 4-3, W 7-4 |
Herein is the reason Arizona got the #1 seed in this regional over Michigan: a season-ending series against power Arizona State during which they took two of three games (the 5-6 loss was much earlier in the year). Michigan, playing on the road early in the season, got housed twice.
25-32, 15-8 Mid-American
Schedule / Results
Roster
Statistics
Head Coach Jake Boss
Baseball Home
Baseball Media Guide
Eastern Michigan
...should be happy to be here. In four games against Kentucky and Michigan, the Eagles were outscored 51-19. They're under .500 for the season and are only in the tourney because someone had to win the MAC tournament. Baseball is a weird game, but if they do anything other than two-and-out it'll be a minor shock.Elsewhere: Maize 'n' Brew and A Sea Of Blue bat questions back and forth. Also, this man exists:
Woo!
Outlook
I think Michigan has a slight advantage against Kentucky because of their predominantly lefthanded pitching. They were basically a .500 SEC team, and much of their record outside the league was built on teams like... uh... Oakland and Eastern Michigan. When they played Purdue the results were basically the same as when Michigan played Purdue. Anyone who expects Michigan to advance is being foolish, but it might be 55% or 60% instead of a coin flip.
If they win their first game they might have a decent shot at Arizona, either getting AU's struggling "ace" or another lefty. I would pitch Fetter in game one with the hope of getting Putnam up against Arizona's HR-heavy lineup. Putnam's a ground-ball pitcher with a killer sinker; he's only given up four HRs all year. Win that game and you're forcing Arizona to play another game against UK and killing their pitching depth. Lose either of the first two, and you're looking at a long, tough road with dodgy pitching.
So: I think Michigan has a pretty decent chance as long as they stay out of the loser's bracket, but Wilson's implosion has really stressed the pitching depth and if they have to eat an extra game's worth of innings as Arizona eats cheeseburgers they'll be scratching and praying in the finale, assuming they get that far.
Broadcast
The Big Ten Network couldn't scramble trucks or whatever to get the regional on the BTN, even though it was expected well ahead of time that Michigan would get to host, and there is thus no TV. Big Ten Network: minus 450 points.But! If you don't mind staring at your computer, MGoBlue.com will stream Michigan games live. if that doesn't work, you can listen to a radio call. It's better than nothing. Unless it doesn't work, in which case it's just taunting evil.
Thursday, May 29, 2008
[+/-] |
Airing Of The Sportsblog Grievances |
Baseball regional preview comin' up. But now...
I GOTTA LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH YOU PEOPLE! THESE ARE THE PROBLEMS I HAVE WITH YOU PEOPLE!
1. Creepily Stalking Hotties. Cheesecake is one thing. Everybody loves cheesecake. But when every other post of yours contains a picture of the same celebrity accompanied with some caption that generally boils down to "I tell ya I tell ya I tell ya... boy would I like to bone her!" you have crossed the line and entered the sad, depressing parts of the internet.
I'm looking at you, Roll Bama Roll and Dawg Sports. And, like... could you have picked less hot hotties? Okay, Kristen Davis is the only cast member of Sex In The City I wouldn't taze on sight, but there are dozens of better choices. And who is Katherine McPhee and why would anyone care to look at her?
WITH THIS WOMAN THAT'S JUST HOW GODDAMN
HETEROSEXUAL I AM BOY HOWDY I TELL YA
Exceptions: Creepy stalking of Scarlett Johansson is still creepy, but somewhat forgivable.
2. Erin Andrews. I mean no offense to Ms. Andrews, who is among the least annoying sideline reporters on television. Truly, her ability to get names vaguely correct places her leaps and bounds beyond Stacey Dales-Schuman, Stacey Schuman-Dales, Stacey Dales, Stacey Schuman, and the rest of the oppressive flock of somewhat pretty ex-cheerleaders that scour the nation's sidelines looking for the opportunity to ask Michael Vick what sort of hot wings he's eating. I appreciate anyone of this ilk who doesn't make me want to throw my shoe at the TV.
No, it's the rest of you lonely, sad perverts taking screencaps every time they show her ass that I've got a problem with. Erin Andrews is doing the spelling bee! Erin Andrews is photographed! Or smoking hot! Or winning a "would you do" competition! Or has twelve pages of Ballhype hits!
Yeah, there's a reason she thinks the internet is a perv factory: it is.
Exceptions: None. Keep it your pants, bucko.
3. Picks Columns. Picks columns suck almost without exception. The general format:
Team A vs Team B (-3). Here is the first poorly thought out sentence that reveals nothing you did not already know. Here is the second poorly thought out sentence; this one probably contains some completely unsubstantiated assertion. End thorough and useful opinion.Repeat this ad naseuem, then stick in your (horrible) record from last week and add it into your season record -- always five games below five hundred. Then make the world's most hackneyed joke and move on. Nobody really cares about your two-line opinion on Ole Miss-Arkansas unless you are a professional handicapper.
Exceptions: obviously anyone who's actually beating the vig on sportsbetting is permitted the arrogance of one of these. Also those articles where people make obviously meaningless picks based on shoe color.
4. "BLANK Nation." I blame the 2004 Red Sox and Kos for this. There is no Spartan Nation. There is no UAB Nation. There is no Badger Nation. Unless you are named Chad and everyone on your team is also named Chad, there is no nation for you. BLANK Nation jumped the shark two seconds after the 2004 ACLS. Shut up about it.
Exceptions: Red Sox Nation, and Red Sox Nation only, and even then you kinda sound like a prick. Or worse: Dan Shaugnessy.
5. Countdown posts. You know the sort: 99 days until the season, and then it's tomorrow and the site does the math for you and helpfully informs you that there are 98 days until the season. These posts invariably contain a single picture with a short caption, communicate nothing, and jam my RSS feed something wicked.
Exceptions: I could see a seven day countdown the week before the season or something. 100 is pure sandpaper to the groin.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
[+/-] |
Unverified Voracity Seeks Help |
Banner contest reminder: Entries are due on Monday. Due to the large number of entries we'll have a two-stage polling process. Stage one will whittle down the entries to four or five, and stage two will pick a winner.
It begins. With Hail to the Victors 2008 mostly put to bed, attention now turns to the other major project of the offseason: getting MGoBlog off Blogger and onto a platform that supports a bunch of other features I've wanted forever-ever. After evaluating a bunch of blogging platforms and CMSes, I've settled on Drupal.
After a few days pounding away at MGoBlog 3.0, my initial reaction is: this is going to be so cool if I don't go insane and do something rash like challenge Charlie Weis to deep-fried-butter-eating contest or try to dunk on Jason Maxiell. If you've got mad Drupal chops and can answer questions like "Images: wtf?" and "WYSIWIG editors: wtf?" and "am I going to kill performance by enabling like 600 modules, wtf?" please drop me a line.
It's on. Michigan did get its regional, but the vagaries of the seeding were pretty harsh to their chances. After losing their first seventeen games of the year, Eastern Michigan ran through the MAC tournament to earn an autobid. They're still below .500; they're one of the worst teams in the tournament. They get Arizona in the first round. This is bad in two ways:
- Eastern's unlikely to do Michigan the favor of knocking off Arizona, and
- Arizona's likely to throw their #3 starter out against the Eagles in the hopes they can get their #1 and #2 in favorable matchups against Michigan or Kentucky.
Maloney talks smack:
"Everybody else is saying we don't have any chance," Maloney told the players in their locker room. "So we've got to go out and show them. ... They're crying because they have to come here."Ticket information is here; if you're in town you should try to make it out.
Bring the barf bags. I probably shouldn't even link this since it will cause an eruption in the comments, but Jesus, man:
Yeeech.
A palate cleanser:
[+/-] |
Monday Recruiting, Sort Of |
Whoops! Due to Memorial day, forgot about the old recruiting update, not that there was much going on...
Update 5/26: Noted OSU lead for FL RB Jaamal Berry. Linked to articles on CA QB Tate Forcier, FL DT Antwan Lowery, MS S Dennis Thames, OH S commit Isaiah Bell, MN WR commit Bryce McNeal. Also linked a couple videos on OK RB David Oku and three on VA QB commit Kevin Newsome: Newsome, his track coaches, and his brother. (Via MSC.)
Added VA OL Morgan Moses, FL LB Brandin Hawthorne, NC CB Terry Shankle, MI OL Charles Chapman.
Removed MI QB Keith Nichol (MSU), LA OL Chris Faulk (LSU), MI OL Reid Fragel (OSU), MD DE Sean Stanley (PSU).
Didn't re-add FL WR Nu'keese Richardson, but he is deciding on the 30th between five schools, one of which is M, and he just dropped M again so bully for me.
Editorial Opinion: As speculated in a previous edition of Monday Recruiting, the Michigan State depth chart was indeed more appealing to Keith Nichol, especially once Conor Dixon transferred and especially especially after Nick Foles followed Dixon out the door, though Foles waited for Nichol to announce his transfer first.
Meanwhile, Faulk maintained LSU as a heavy leader from day one and Fragel really wanted to be a tight end; Michigan was maybe going to offer as an OT if he came to camp. Neither is an unexpected loss. MD DE Sean Stanlely, OTOH, had an offer, plays at a position of need, and had mentioned Michigan prominently as a potential destination.
The rest of this week's possibly useful information concerns commits. Scout interviewed Bryce McNeal's coach, who gave a lot of stock answers and a potentially illuminating scouting report:
“We have had several wide receivers play division one football, but Bryce is special. He is 6’2, 185 pounds, and to try to compare him to somebody that is in your backyard ... it might be a Mario Manningham type player. I know Bryce is a lot bigger, but he has that type of athleticism. He separated himself from what we have our program and what we ever had with his hands, his route running, and how he handles himself. That is really a tough question because I hate to put that type of pressure on Bryce.”The above article also mentions that McNeal will not enroll early.
GoBlueWolverine: How do you rank his different skills and abilities?
Coach Ohm: “His hands are legit and I would rank them number one overall, with his route running next, then his speed followed by his strength. He has good speed, but I want him to have that breakaway speed which he is working on, with 4.4 - 4.5 speed right now. If he can keep working on that, he will have that total package. You know how coaches are -- they are never satisfied and they always want more, so we want him to keep working hard. I might be 'dating' myself here, but he has those Lester Hayes type hands without the stickum where we just throw the ball up to him and he always comes down with the ball. It is very rarely that you see the ball hit his hands and see him drop the ball -- it is one of those things where he might hear footsteps or lose concentration, but it's very rare that we see that happen. Also, I forgot to add that his jumping ability is impressive as well. I am not sure what his vertical is, but we can throw that jump ball up to him and we know he will come down with the ball -- and in fact it happened twice last year at the end of the game for him to help win the game.”
Meanwhile, ESPN put up some fluff on OH S commit Isaiah Bell. The article is unremarkable but for the release of Bell's panting scouting report into the wild. Here it is in full, with the most ridiculous parts bolded:
I don't know if the "I" in Isaiah stands for interception or the "B" in Bell means big playmaker, but one thing for certain, this guy is a good football player. He shows outstanding ball skills and at 6-2, 200 pounds, he is a big safety.That's so over the top it reads like a parody in sections; I eagerly anticipate the release of ESPN's top 150 to see just where Bell is slotted and how vociferously Scout and Rivals disagree.
He rules the secondary as a free safety. Has great instincts and plays outstanding zone coverage especially in the 3 deep. Should be a solid halves player also in two deep zone. A real competitor who can break a game wide open. Breaks quickly on the pass with a burst to the football. High points the football and has great timing on the interception. Makes things happen after the interception; not unusual for him to bring the pick back for a touchdown.
A magnificent kickoff return specialist; has good speed and can read his blocks. Has a second gear and can kick it in to blow by would-be tacklers. Has the courage to field the ball in traffic and bring it right back at the coverage team. A good open-field tackler who needs some work in terms of tackling fundamentals; would like to see him use his size when making the tackle on run support by being more physical. Very athletic football player who has good foot agility and shows flexibility in the hips. Can change direction without loss of speed or balance.
Bell will be a big-time player at a big-time college. Just a little fundamental work is needed.
Wobble? Unfortunately, two of Michigan's three top 50 commits bear watching for a potential decommit. One is Cass Tech DT William Campbell, who's always maintained he will go on official visits in the fall. In a recent interview, Campbell described himself as "open, but probably going to Michigan." He is a soft commit and should be regarded much like a kid who claims Michigan a heavy favorite, IMO. Don't think he goes elsewhere but the chances are better than 10%.
Also, there's some chatter that Kevin Newsome hasn't told other colleges to talk to the hand as much as you, the Michigan fan, might want. Penn State thinks they might get him up for an official visit in the fall, and Virginia Tech remains a presence. Something to keep an eye on. I'm not too concerned since the structural advantages Michigan had in Newsome's recruitment -- largely the existences of Jay Paterno and Tyrod Taylor -- remain intact.
Here's an interview, FWIW:
Aaand the track coaches:
One last bit, this on MS S Dennis Thames. This is what terrifies me about recruiting in the South:
Either way, in-state favorite Mississippi State is going to be hard to beat. "They are only 30 minutes away and I'd prefer to stay close," he said. "It would be nice to be able to come home during the weekends and have my family come see me play. That definitely helps."Not so much on the "turning around" despite appearances, Mr. Thames. Some years ago Michigan was recruiting a highly touted corner from Mississippi -- Derek Pegues -- and thought they had an excellent shot at him; he went to Mississippi State, where he's been All-SEC in the service of the perpetually moribund Bulldogs. I think Jay Hopson's haul this year is going to be disappointing.Thames also says he likes the coaches at Mississippi State. "Coach Sylvester Croom is a great guy and he's a good coach," he said. "He's turning things around over there. Plus, I know a few guys there already and I'm real comfortable there and like the atmosphere."
Thames on M, FWIW:
One school that Thames is looking forward to visiting in particular is Michigan. "They are a big school and I like the new spread offense they are gonna run," he said. "I think I'd fit in really well in their offense and I'd love to play receiver for them. They've talked about both offense and defense, so we'll see."Indeed, we shall.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
[+/-] |
The All-Carr Team: Defense |
Now that Lloyd Carr is spending his days golfing and his nights at manga conventions, it's time to go over this career. First we play nice, assembling the Carr Era dream team. First up: the offense.
Rules: each season is judged independently. It makes no sense to compare one year of Drew Henson with four years of Chad Henne. Each player can only appear once: no receiving corps of Braylon, Braylon, and Braylon.
Update: Yes, NFL careers and draft positions do have some small bearing. These teams are based solely on college performance, but fans can wildly mis-rate players they've watched. NFL draft status and the performances they put in early in their careers can provide a valuable check.
Previously:
Defensive End
Lamarr Woodley, 2006. Woodley was consistently excellent from the midpoint of his freshman year on, but it was in 2006 he did this:
co-captain ... Lombardi Award winner ... Ted Hendricks Award winner ... American Football Coaches Association All-America ... Walter Camp Football Foundation All-America ... Football Writers Association of America All-America ... Associated Press All-America first team ... The Sporting News All-America first team ... Rivals.com All-America first team ... Rivals.com National Defensive Player of the Year ... SI.com All-America second team ... CollegeFootballNews.com All-America second team ... Bednarik Award finalist ... Ronnie Lott Trophy quarterfinalist ... Bronko Nagurski Trophy candidate ... Outland Trophy candidate ... Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year (coaches and media) ... Big Ten Defensive Lineman of the Year (coaches) ... consensus All-Big Ten first team selection (coaches and media)The Ted Hendricks Award is another one of those fake-o awards that just popped up in the past few years and is awarded by the Upper Skokie Elks Club, but the Lombardi has been around a good long while and a Michigan player had never won it until Woodley reeled it in. Woodley was a killer pass rusher that year, tying David Bowens' school record with 12 sacks, and was also a major factor in Michigan's suffocating run defense. The only thing he couldn't do was run the 4.3 40 that would have gotten him to Troy Smith before he could get his passes to wide open WRs off.
MGoBlog is particularly indebted to Woodley, since it was his scoop-and-rumble to cap the f-ing beatdown of Notre Dame in 2006 that inspired "Brady Quinn for Heisman," which I can still watch six times in a row:
For this, and many other things, Woodley is the winnerest.
Glen Steele, 1997. Steele was one of a number of mid-nineties Michigan defenders with quintessential football names, (Jarrett Irons, Sam Sword, and Rob Swett were also charter members) and Steele lived up to his. The other All-American on the Michigan defense during the national championship season, Steele was a terror against both run and pass.
When Ohio State trailed Michigan by six points late in the 1997 edition of the Game, it was Steele who throttled the Buckeyes' final drive with two sacks and another TFL. It was also Steele, along with Swett, who forced Stanley Jackson into the worst interception ever (4:46 in) and gave Michigan the 20-0 margin they'd defend for the rest of the game.
Steele went in the fourth round to the Bengals and spent several years as a backup in the NFL.
Second Team
James Hall was always terribly underrated. He didn't even make the All Big Ten team his senior year -- though, bizarrely, he was an All American to the Sporting News and a Butkus semifinalist -- and went undrafted. He's still in the NFL.
And, finally, the great disappointment of David Bowens, 1996. It was Bowens' record that Lamarr Woodley tied in 2006. Bowens' accomplishment may have been even more impressive since he did it in just eleven games (he missed the bowl game due to academic suspension, IIRC, and the twelfth game didn't exist then) and was just a sophomore when he did it. But he bombed out of school and ended up at Western Illinois. Rats.
Defensive Tackle
Alan Branch, 2006. Defensive tackles are by nature statistical wastelands and must get by on reputation. Or, if you're Alan Branch, one of the most iconic photos in Michigan football history:The 6'6" terror from New Mexico was statistically unimpressive during his final season in the winged helmet, racking up a paltry 25 tackles, 6 TFLs, and just two sacks, but the above impact and many others like it didn't register.
This is Alan Branch's impact, registered:
Every UFR that year was a rhapsody to Branch, and when I checked out Michigan's third down performance in 2006 this happened:
You can see 6'6", 330 of angry New Mexican hauling the tail end of that graph down like a black hole in spacetime. That's Alan Branch. 33 percent! On third and one! Six of eighteen! SIX OF EIGHTEEN!When he entered the draft after his junior year, Michigan fans universally expected he'd be a top five pick and were notably disoriented when he fell to the first pick of the second round. No other Michigan defensive tackle under Carr has come close, statistics be damned.
Jason Horn, 1995. I confess I remember less than zero about Jason Horn. I was 16 when he was a senior and not quite the raving fanatic would become later. (When high school extracurricular events would interfere with games I would just find out what happened later I remember listening to Colorado try a Hail Mary the year after the one that worked in a car.) So when I perused the Bentley Library's records of the 1995 team and saw two All-Americans, one of whom was named "Jason Horn," I said "who?"
Well, in 1995 Jason Horn had 67 tackles, 11 sacks, and 18 TFLs and was named All Big Ten and All American by everyone. No Michigan defensive tackle can match that set of statistics and accolades, not even Branch.
Second Team
Will Carr, 1996. For God's sake don't give him the ball. But, like, other than that Carr was pretty good, lodging an incredible 160 tackles over his last two years and being named a first-team All American in 1996.
Gabe Watson, 2005. It's either him, Rob Renes, or Josh Williams. Renes was an All American to TSN in 1999 and All Big Ten; he was drafted in the seventh round by the Colts and stuck around the league for a little while. Watson was a planetoid force of nature more interested in cheeseburgers than weights who spent half the game panting and half the game wrecking fools. Do you want the scrappy overachiever or the guy who kinda sorta wasted his potential? Maybe it's too much Fire Joe Morgan, but screw that Eckstein noise: I'm taking Watson.
Linebacker
David Harris, 2006. Harris will forever be the gold standard for Michigan middle linebackers. Agile, fast as hell, brilliant, and a crushing tackler, Harris probably should have won the Butkus his senior year. The insane badassery of Michigan's defense held his tackle numbers down, though, and the award went to some undeserving Penn State guy, like it usually does.Harris started nine games in the NFL last year, racking up a season's worth of stats: five sacks, 127 tackles, and one traded Jonathan Vilma. Michigan's run defense took a spectacular nose dive.
Michigan listed two "inside" linebackers throughout most of Carr's tenure as Michigan stuck to Jim Herrmann's odd player designations that treated Michigan's players like they were in a 3-4, but in reality the two outside linebackers had more in common with each other than the true middle linebacker. Michigan would often flop players from the strongside to the weakside over the course of their careers, causing a logjam of killer weakside linebackers and a paucity of good senior guys on the strongside. So I'm discarding the distinction, declaring all OLBs OLBs, and picking two of these gentlemen:
Player | Year | Tackles | TFL | Sacks | PBr | Int | Honors | NFL |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Larry Foote | 2001 | 82 | 26 | 6 | 7 | 0 | ABT, BT DPOY, 1 1st team AA | 4th round, average starter |
Pierre Woods | 2003 | 67 | 14 | 7 | N/A | 2 | ABT (2nd) | undrafted, end of roster |
Victor Hobson | 2002 | 99 | 17 | 6 | 1 | 0 | ABT(1st), 1 4th team AA | 2nd round #53, average starter |
Ian Gold | 1999 | 95 | 10 | 4 | 2 | 1 | ABT(1st) | 2nd round, #40, 1 Pro Bowl |
Shawn Crable | 2007 | 90 | 28.5 | 7.5 | 1 | 0 | ABT(1st), many second-team AA | 3rd round #78 |
So there are two gentlemen here with eyepopping TFL numbers: Foote and Crable. Crable is out despite his Michigan record of 28.5. The defense this year was terrible against the run. Crable himself spent much of the year at defensive end against the spread, frequently gave up contain when not making his TFLs, took a bunch of personal foul penalties, and was the final goddamned nail in Michigan's coffin during the Horror. No.
Foote, on the other hand, is in, as the only Michigan OLB to come down with Big Ten defensive player of the year honors in Carr's tenure, and the only one to pick up a first team AA nod. For the other spot you're really splitting hairs between Hobson and Gold. My personal preference is for Hobson, who I remember being more of a safety blanket for me. Hobson was also the one really good player on a front seven featuring Zack Kaumfan as one of the other linebackers and a line of Rumishek-Bowman-Heuer-Stevens. Gold got to play with Dhani Jones, Rob Renes, and James Hall.
So there you go: Larry Foote 2001 and Victor Hobson 2002 join Harris.
Second Team
In 1996, Jarrett Irons finished up this third straight year of more than 100 tackles and was named a first team All American by multiple outlets. Sam Sword ('97 and '98) and Dhani Jones (2000) can't measure up.
The outside linebackers: Gold and Woods from above.
Cornerback
Charles Woodson, 1997. This needs absolutely no justification, but I can give you plenty anyway. In 1997 Woodson had eight interceptions, second-most in Michigan history (Tom Curtis had ten in 1968) despite being avoided as much as humanly possible. Michigan finished #1 in total defense, scoring defense, and pass efficiency defense en route to a perfect 12-0 season and a national title.And, like, all this stuff:
Update: oops... should probably include the Woodson highlights.
He also won that Heisman thing.
The obvious out of the way, we're left with two candidates for the other starting spot:
- Leon Hall, 2006. Hall was a Thorpe finalist and first-round NFL draftee and the best player in Michigan's secondary during their other great defensive year. Minuses: could to little to stave off Troy Smith's passing in the Ohio State game and got dusted by Dwayne Jarrett late in the Rose Bowl.
- Marlin Jackson, 2002. This was actually Jackson's sophomore year. In his first game he spectacularly battled Washington's Reggie Williams, who would be amongst the top receivers drafted that year, into an unproductive game. He would set a Michigan record for pass breakups in a single season.
Second Team
Jackson 2002, obviously, and then how about Jeremy LeSueur in 2003? LeSueur came a long way from his "brain freeze" against Michigan State in the Spartan Bob game. In 2003 he was second-team All Big Ten and Michigan's best corner on their excellent 2003 Rose Bowl team. He essentially shut out Mike Williams back when Mike Williams gave a damn. Unfortunately Markus Curry got burned twice by Keary Colbert, John Navarre was under siege all day, and USC got gifted a fluke touchdown when Braylon Edwards back-heeled a ball right to a Trojan defender, but none of that was LeSueur's fault. He was drafted in the second round by the Broncos.
Safety
This has been by far the weakest position over the course of the Carr era. The only All-American listed by the Bentley Library is Ernest Shazor, who was indeed an All-American up until the moment he disemboweled Dorien Bryant and saved the 2004 Purdue game. After that, uh...And, like, there's more. (That first video was posted by a Spartan, who gloats that Shazor is slow and Spartan Bob must have crowned the field at the Big House... in a video from the 2004 Michigan-Michigan State game! Remind me how that turned out again? Sparty, no!)
Anyway, Shazor earned his rep the first half of the season and... er... blunted it in the second half. By the time the NFL draft rolled around, Shazor had plummeted all the way out of it. He cannot be added to the list.
Who's left?
Marcus Ray, 1997.
Ray's senior year in 1998 was marred by a six-game suspension for contact with an agent, so 1997 was it for Ray. It was a pretty good it, though: one #1 ranked pass efficiency defense, one SI cover, one national championship.
Jamar Adams, 2007. Don't get me wrong, Jamar Adams was a fine safety. I can tell because I didn't hate him despite his existence during the era when I carefully comb over every play the defense makes in case there's something to hate therein. Any college team would be totally satisfied to have him as one of their starters.
But Adams is the only player on the first team to never make first-team All Big Ten (he was second-team) and is one of very few to go undrafted. As one of Michigan's best safeties over a 13-year period, uh... that's depressing.
Second Team
There is no second team. Seriously: Julius Curry? Tommy Hendricks? Ryan Mundy at West Virginia? There is no second team.
Monday, May 26, 2008
[+/-] |
Happy Holiday Of Choice |
You ever notice that when a blogger puts up a post titled "Happy HOLIDAY X" it's just his way of copping out of a post that day? Yeah.
Happy Memorial Day!
Here's a conciliatory youtube video:
Also, Michigan's regional for the baseball tourney:
1. Arizona
2. Michigan
3. Kentucky
4. Eastern Michigan
The puck drops Friday at the Fish, and then they'll probably pick the puck up and play some baseball.
Friday, May 23, 2008
[+/-] |
Unverified Voracity Lists Insultees |
Apologies. Most of this UV is old news; I've been having increasingly severe computer issues over the last few days that have taken up large blocks of my time. I think I'm going to have to send Laptop 1 in; Laptop 2 may or may not be dead, in which case posting would be sporadic whenever Laptop 1 is getting fixed. FYI.
Anyway...
Hey, Desmond said stuff! Last person on the internet to remark on Desmond's remarks on Kirk Herbstreit (a "seemingly intelligent" guy) and Justin Boren (a "complainer"). Oh snap to both. The full smackdown on Herbstreit:
[Herbstreit's report] was wrong on so many levels. As a former player, unless I spoke to that coach and he told me it was cool, I would never have done that because he was still coaching a team that's about to play in a (SEC) championship game. ... His team, the first thing they saw when they woke up was that report. It was not fair to him and not fair to the players.And on Boren:
At first, I was like, 'Wow, he's talking about family values.' And sometimes you use key words, and I read that, and I was like, 'Damn, this thing is just blowing up.' So I came up here (to Michigan) and I watched them practice. I was in the weight room working out, and two players started talking to me, and in general conversation they said, 'This guy, Desmond, was a complainer. He complained about workouts, he complained about practices.' And this is what they told me: 'Really, we're better without him.' I said, 'Wow, that's a different side of the story I hadn't even thought of.' I knew they were training in a way they've never trained before.Howard also referenced the "raggedy" search process, which is kind, IMO.So then he went to Ohio State, and I was like, 'Well, how loyal can this guy be? All the colleges available to him, and he goes to Ohio State?' I talked to Rich, and Rich told me he talked to him, and Rich said (Boren) never was really happy no matter what they did. And Rich said, 'Desmond, I've got to do things my way.'
The reaction here is, of course, "go Desmond." Rodriguez's lack of a family atmosphere has been so horrible it's run off exactly one player -- Mitchell, Ciulla, and Mallett all decided to pack it in before Barwis workouts even started. The manner and destination of his departure indicates a serious lack of character, and Michigan's not likely to miss him.
Hey! Gregg Easterbrook's a dummy! Remember this?
A preseason favorite for the BCS title, West Virginia was poised to qualify for the BCS Championship Game, needing only to beat 28-point underdog Pittsburgh in its final game, at home yet. The Mountaineers lost. We now know that in the days leading up to this huge upset, West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez was negotiating for the Michigan job -- that is, was furiously engaged in stabbing his school in the back. The West Virginia team played very poorly in a game staged as the coach was working behind the scenes to shaft the school. Strange coincidence?Easterbrook wrote this in a huffy section of his interminable TMQ in January without providing one shred of evidence this was the case. MGoBlog duly called him a loser.
Now, thanks to the magic of West Virginia's we want more money, guy campaign, there is rock-solid proof Easterbrook is full of it:
As part of the ongoing lawsuit filed by WVU to collect Rodriguez’s $4 million buyout for leaving, the attorneys asked for all correspondence between Rodriguez, his representatives and Michigan regarding the position.December 11th, ten days after the Pitt game, was the first contact between Rodriguez and Michigan. But why care about common sense or facts when you can leer at cheerleaders? As I wrote in January:
A representative of Rodriguez’s contacted Michigan on Dec. 11, WVU attorney Jeffrey Wakefield said on Wednesday. The contact occurred three days before Rodriguez met with U-M president Mary Sue Coleman and athletic director Bill Martin in Toledo to interview for the position.
Scenario A: Rodriguez -- who doesn't care even a little bit about maybe winning a national title -- and Michigan secretly begin talks before the Pitt game. No insider gets wind of this and no one reports it during a period of time in which Michigan's athletic department was leaking like a sieve. He then spends every waking hour thinking about the Michigan job, thereby sabotaging WVU's preparations.Expecting an apology from TMQ in 3... 2... 1... never.
Scenario B: Michigan contacts Rodriguez in the thirteen days between the Pitt loss and the first meeting using a "telephone."
Scenario A is so unlikely that it would be dismissed by anyone except Easterbrook, who's the kind of pundit who will cram any available evidence into his extant theories no matter how square the peg and round the hole.
And it begins. Not the streak, but the Penn State-Michigan series:
Michigan would lose the next three before embarking on its current 650-year win streak, which started when Joe Paterno was only 6,000.
Quiz for the future. Clay Travis is a young, bearded man who writes for CBS Sportsline. His latest column tackles the Buzz Bissinger thing -- which I really meant to say something about but never got around to -- in a way I wish I had. It's one of those columns that crystallizes something you've been kicking around in your head for a long time but never managed to figure out how to say. Key section:
What none of this banal criticism recognizes is that sports blogs exist -- and find an audience -- as a natural reaction to the patently false athletic images sold by the professional sports leagues and the majority of the mainstream media who cover these athletes. We know that athletes aren't saints and that in real life, outside the locker room, they don't walk around spouting the same tired responses to the same tired questions night after night after night.I felt strongly about three things in the whole Bissinger meltdown:
Yet, athletes have become so coached in their responses to the media that it's the rare individual who is willing to step outside of the cliché and say something interesting or revelatory. I challenge you to read the write-up of any game and see any quote by any player that you haven't seen a thousand times before. We've all been down this path before. Welcome to the sportswriting matrix, where we're all in crypto-sleep waiting for something to change.
- It was completely disingenuous of Will Leitch to claim "they're just commenters" when Deadspin is a Gawker blog that specifically picks people out of the rabble to be approved commenters and cultivates an aura of snark-snark-snark that leads to things like "Salisbury is a penis" or whatever. It's one thing if your comments are largely unregulated. Deadspin's are carefully groomed.
- Further, Leitch does the entire sportsblogging community a disservice by being presented as The Voice of The Internet when his blog is only tenuously a sports blog at all. I think of Deadspin as a Gawker blog about sports, with all that entails, more than a sports blog run by Gawker. Next time, Will, say thanks but no thanks and let Orson or Alex Belth or anyone else do it.
- A much more convincing defense of the Matt Leinart pictures would have been that for the majority of young people, those pictures make Leinart more likable because they are not pre-packaged "they played hard" comments.
- (four... four things I felt strongly about!) I kind of agreed with Bissinger, if you can agree with spittle. The whole Big Daddy Balls-Kissing Suzy Kolber aesthetic is a nihilistic and depressing thing unrescued by the blind hope of fandom, and I'm kind of embarrassed those guys get as much play as they do. This is also pretty much Will Leitch's fault.
So... yeah, it's kind of awesome and kind of awkward that Clay Travis is trying to put together a five-on-five charity Quiz Bowl challenge with myself and Orson and Leitch and a couple of the KSK guys versus five blog-bashers. I was captain of the Quiz Bowl team in high school, you know. That's strictly Al Bundy small potatoes, though: one of the HSR guys won College Jeopardy(!), if Travis is looking for a ringer.
It's not me. Cris Carter wants to beat some Michigan blogger up because said blogger called him an asshole; this is not me. This a comprehensive list of all the people I've called assholes in this space:
- Mike Boren (indirectly)
- That guy who blocked that field goal during The Horror.
- Charlie Weis, which, in retrospect, is totally obvious
- Bret Bielema
- John Pollack, the hero of Tienanmen Square
- Terry Foster
- The ref who gave TJ a ten minute misconduct during the 2007 North Dakota game
- The universe
- yrs truly
- Coach K
- Alonzo Mourning ("our greatest asshole," according to Fictional Hubie Brown)
- Jason Whitlock
- Chris Webber
Sword located. A "where are they now" on former MLB Sam Sword:
Sam Sword, a city recreation supervisor who played football at the University of Michigan and in the NFL, said preregistration was slow early in the week but the number of participants nearly doubled when youngsters showed up with parents on the day of the meet.Sword lives in Palm Coast, Florida, and appears to be overcoming the indignities of his Michigan education quite nicely.
(Via Big House Blog.)
Etc.: Good piece in Slate related to Travis' "these guys are packaged and shiny" theory; Michigan has a German for next year or maybe the year after but he's six ten and can shoot. If you've got a hundred bucks you can sign up for Barwis' strength clinic and go "eeeeee" the whole time, or at least until he punches you in the trachea.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
[+/-] |
The All-Carr Team: Offense |
Now that Lloyd Carr is spending his days golfing and his nights at manga conventions, it's time to go over this career. First we play nice, assembling the Carr Era dream team. First up: the offense.
Rules: each season is judged independently. It makes no sense to compare one year of Drew Henson with four years of Chad Henne. Each player can only appear once: no receiving corps of Braylon, Braylon, and Braylon.Quarterback
This will be a hellacious battle. The candidates:
Name | Year | Att | Comp | Int | % Comp | Yds | YPC | TD |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
John Navarre | 2003 | 456 | 270 | 10 | 59.2 | 3331 | 12.3 | 24 |
Tom Brady | 1999 | 341 | 214 | 6 | 62.8 | 2586 | 12.1 | 20 |
Chad Henne | 2006 | 328 | 203 | 8 | 61.9 | 2508 | 12.4 | 22 |
Brian Griese | 1997 | 307 | 193 | 6 | 62.9 | 2293 | 11.9 | 17 |
Drew Henson | 2000 | 237 | 146 | 4 | 61.6 | 2146 | 14.7 | 18 |
Ryan Mallett | 2007 | 141 | 61 | 5 | 43.3 | 892 | 14.6 | 7 |
Navarre has the most yards, touchdwns, and interceptions but he also has the most attempts by over 100. His YPA was a healthy 7.3, but Brady (7.6), Henne (7.6), and Henson (9.0!) exceed it. He's out. Griese goes, too, as the pilot of an efficient-ish but by no means dominant 1997 attack. His YPA also falls short. Mallett... uh.
We're left with Brady, Henne, and Henson. You know all about Chad Henne, whose senior season might have dusted everyone on the list if he had, you know, got to play it. Brady is the god-king of New England, currently siring a litter of future foot-bots with supermodels. Drew Henson is nothing, a failure at both football and baseball, the man who subjected all of us to John Navarre's 2001 season.
And... he's the guy. 9.0 YPA is ridiculous. 18 touchdowns against 4 interceptions is ridiculous. Completing over 60 percent of your passes for almost 15 yards per is ridiculous. Doing all this despite missing Michigan's opening tomato can games against Bowling Green and Rice is even more ridiculous. Michigan's 2000 offense scored 30 or more points in nine of twelve games, lit up Penn State, Ohio State, and Auburn to close out the year, and averaged 34 points per game. Henson benefited from a host of weapons, a killer offensive line, and that year's nightmare secondary (which forced Michigan to keep the pedal to the metal at all times), but... Jesus, the numbers don't lie. Damn you, Steinbrenner.
Second Team
Tom Brady 1999. I spent the first half of the Orange Bowl screaming, writhing, pounding the floor, begging them to "throw it to Terrell." They did, eventually, but only after finding themselves in a 14 point hole.
Third Team
Chad Henne 2006. Sigh.
Note: two of the best three seasons from a quarterback under Carr were from juniors whose senior seasons more or less didn't happen. How much different does Carr's legacy look if "Henson 2001" and "Henne 2007" are two of the top three?
Wide Receiver
First TeamAnd now for the least surprising selection ever ever...
Name | Year | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Braylon Edwards | 2004 | 97 | 1330 | 13.7 | 15 |
Braylon's 2003 season is a close runner-up, but two things put his 2004 over the top: sheer production (12 additional catches and about 200 more yards) and the single most dominating performance by a Michigan wide receiver in the last six minutes of an embarrassing loss turned ridiculous victory ever:
Yeah, a winrar is he. Now we're left deciding between these gentlemen:
Name | Year | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M. Manningham | 2007 | 72 | 1174 | 16.3 | 12 | |
Marquise Walker | 2001 | 86 | 1143 | 13.3 | 11 | |
David Terrell | 2000 | 67 | 1130 | 16.9 | 14 | |
Amani Toomer | 1994 | 54 | 1096 | 20.3 | 6 |
(Toomer isn't eligible since he left right before Carr's first season (1995), but I just wanted to throw out his stats so I can ask this question: how in the hell did Amani Toomer average over twenty yards a catch and only have six touchdowns?)
There's not much to choose from, but some context: Manningham managed to haul in all those passes despite being saddled with Ryan Mallet a third of the year and a broken Chad Henne for another third. Walker was the lone threat on Michigan's dire 2001 offense helmed by a not ready for primetime John Navarre. TE Bill Seymour was next on Michigan's receiving charts with 27 catches. The year before, Terrell had Walker as a competent sidekick and Drew Henson throwing to him.
Could it be that Mario Manningham's 2007 season, which virtually every Michigan fan was disappointed with, was the second-best in the Carr era? Maybe. But I remember David Terrell as an all-around threat who could beat you deep or catch a slant, and though he flamed out in the NFL he was the #8 pick in his draft year. I
Second Team
Walker 2001 and Manningham 2007 are significantly better than their challengers...
Third Team
Name | Year | Yards | Avg | TD | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Tai Streets | 1998 | 67 | 1035 | 15.4 | 11 |
Jason Avant | 2005 | 82 | 1007 | 12.3 | 8 |
Jason Avant in a nutshell:
!!!
Tailback:
I will accept my stoning at noon tomorrow: it's not Mike Hart. It's not even close to being Mike Hart. Hart's best season was probably his junior year, wherein he had 1562 yards on 318 carries, 4.9 per. He had 144 yards against Ohio State in a sorta-kinda close loss.
In 1995, some guy with a funny name did this:
His name was Tshimanga Biakabutuka, and in 1995 he had 1818 yards on 303 carries, six yards per. 313 of those came against Ohio State in a 31-23 win. 1818 yards remains the Michigan single-season rushing record. Michigan football comes up regularly in conversations with my mother and about twice a year she lingers over the many syllables of "Tshimunga Biakabutuka" two or three times apropos of nothing. He was selected in the first round of the NFL draft and during the brief period in which I played fantasy football, he was always but always on my team, injured half the time (always when playing) and running for 160 yards and two touchdowns the other half of the time (always when benched).
And I wasn't even a little mad.
Second Team
Statistically, this is Anthony Thomas. His 2000 season is the second most-prolific in Michigan history, with 1733 yards at 5.4 YPC and 18 touchdowns. And if it's not Anthony Thomas, it's Chris Perry. In 2003 Perry rushed for 1721 yards and 18 TDs at 5.0 per. Against Michigan State he set an all-time record with 51 carries. In the history of game-worn jerseys, his is the most worn.
But... Mike Hart's offensive line in 2006 was Jake Long and four guys who can only see an NFL game if they buy a ticket. And he never fumbled. And he windmilled his little legs and stoned Dan Connor over and over again, and I just like him better. So it's Mike Hart 2006, with apologies to the aforementioned duo.
Fullback
First TeamI guess it depends what you want in a fullback. Do you want a quasi-tailback? Then BJ Askew's your guy. Do you want a quasi-tight end? Aaron Shea's your guy. Do you want someone to crush a linebacker into a white-hot furrow of snapped limbs and smoke?
Maybe I've been hopelessly biased by this lingering image of Chris Floyd giving the business to some poor Wisconsin defensive back (in the snow, no less), but for my money Floyd was your #1 limb-snapper fullback in the Carr era. He was such a badass that Michigan gave him the ball some 30 times his senior year lest he eat one of the freshmen.
Second Team
If Floyd was the #1 limb-snapper, Chris Dudley was 1A. He plowed a path for Mike Hart's breakout freshman season. Also, Owen Schmitt didn't play at Michigan or under Carr but he did play for Rich Rodriguez, who has met Lloyd Carr, and is so awesome that we should figure out some way to claim him, too. We will never rest until everything good about West Virginia has been appropriated for our purposes!
Tight End
This is a two-man battle. (Ha!)Name | Year | Rec | Yards | Avg | TD | TD |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Bennie Joppru | 2002 | 53 | 579 | 10.9 | 5 | 2002 |
Jerame Tuman | 1996 | 33 | 524 | 15.9 | 5 | 1996 |
Joppru came from nowhere to be John Navarre's safety valve and go-to third down receiver his junior year. He is now the shining archetype of a bad-senior-gone-good that excessively optimistic types trot out every fall when things like "Chris Graham, starting OLB" are suggested. Tuman caused Michigan fans to fall in love with the waggle. 1996 was actually Tuman's sophomore year; his '97 was slightly less productive and by '98 his YPC came down to around 9.
This is terribly close and depends on what you value. 16 YPC out of a tight end is something else, but Joppru was the Jason Avant of 2002. Joppru seemed to be more integral to the offense, with a knack for spectacular catches and critical third down conversions, and was more highly regarded by the NFL, so I think he wins.
Second Team
Tuman; flip a coin between '96 and '97.
Offensive Line
First TeamNo stats here, but no need:
LT Jake Long, 2007. All American, first pick in the NFL draft.
LG Steve Hutchinson, 2000. Two-time All American. Four year starter. Probable NFL Hall of Famer.
C Rod Payne, 1996. All American.
RG David Baas, 2003. All American, Rimington Award winner (in 2004).
RT John Runyan, 1995. All American. Long time NFL pro bowler.
Holy God. The best way to sum up this collection is to list the players left out: Jeff Backus, Jon Jansen (All American, 1998), Maurice Williams (longtime NFLer), and Jonathan Goodwin. There is some weakness at guard, where Damon Denson was the best prospect left out and David Baas' junior season was used so Rod Payne could get on the hypothetical field.
Second Team
LT Jeff Backus, 2000
LG Jonathan Goodwin, 2000
C Dave Pearson, 2003
RG Damon Denson, 1996
RT Jon Jansen, 1998
Yeah, Mo Williams still doesn't get on the field.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
[+/-] |
Mailbag! |
Brian,Well... no on the "hot destination." Don't get me wrong, Michigan is doing well on the recruiting trail and has locked up all manner of exciting skill position players, but you'd be hard pressed to separate Michigan's results to date from their results the last several years under Carr. Michigan's recruiting of late (numbers, as per usual, are Rivals'):
As an alum who witnessed mid 90s success but has suffered through the last few years of football stagnation, is it premature to be excited by this early recruiting success by Rodriguez? I know Lloyd and staff were relatively strong in the recruiting department, but it seems like a new kind of athlete is being recruited by this staff - the speedy dread-locked guys that may not translate that well to the pros but cause hell in college. With Barwis and the early recruiting returns I am more excited about Michigan football than I have been since 97 through 2003, when I really believed Michigan could contend for national titles every year. Basically, I am asking, even before Rodriguez has even coached a game, if there is some momentum in this program. Is Michigan becoming the new "hot" destination for recruits, ala USC, LSU, and Florida the past 8 years, or is this just my hopeful bias acting up?
JD
Year | Rank | Star Avg |
---|---|---|
2008 | 10 | 6(T) |
2007 | 12 | 10 |
2006 | 13 | 6(T) |
2005 | 6 | 10 |
2004 | 5 | 3(T) |
2003 | 17 | 1 |
2002 | 16 | 10 |
(2003 is perhaps the best example I can find of how screwed up the recruiting sites' team rankings are. Michigan finished a lowly 17th that year despite raking in Lamarr Woodley, Prescott Burgess, Leon Hall, Shawn Crable, and others. Michigan had two five-stars, eleven four-stars, and just four guys with two or three stars, one of whom was a kicker. They finished behind Oklahoma State's class of 31 losers and Cal's class of 28 non-losers. Those teams had eight four-stars between them. In 59 players. WTF?)
You can see the epidemic of southern oversigning and attrition in the disparity between Michigan's class rating and their star average. Every year save 2005 -- an unusually large class of 23 -- was better in the latter metric, usually by a significant margin. Over the time span listed here, Michigan finished between 6th and 7th nationally in star average. It would be hard to improve that in any meaningful way without kicking MSU into the MAC.
However, the point about the little guys with dreads is an apt one even if none of the guys we've reeled in actually have dreads. Guys like Odoms and Robinson and (Pitt signee) Cameron Saddler are routinely downgraded for their size. If Rodriguez can regularly take little three-star guys and get five-star production out of them, Michigan could start to outperform their recruiting rankings. Or, like, just perform to them. That is the Barwis hope in a nutshell.
The other side of the coin:
Hello Brian,Maybe a little. Last year they were third in star average, the year before that fifth, and
I've been noticing Ohio State's recruiting of late. They're starting to look
like a Midwestern USC, as one of my friends pointed out. Could you
please discuss this topic?
-omar
this year they're off to an extremely strong start. If the smug truckers with names like "BucksLOL!!1!" on their message boards are right -- and since internet confidence usually trickles down from insiders on high, they probably are -- they're the favorite to reel in another set of OMG shirtless sorts. This is a slight improvement on their results from earlier in the decade.
But this is nothing particularly new. Ohio State and, except for a period when Willingham was incredibly inept, Notre Dame have always recruited well. The numbers above show that Michigan has, too. It will always come down to coaching. And luck.*
Anyone expecting Ohio State to drop off in the near future is going to be disappointed. Tressel is 55 and at least ten years from falling off into Bowden-Paterno senescence. They're going to be a power. Michigan is hoping for Ten Year War II.
*(consider how differently this Tressel-Carr thing looks if 1) Drew Henson doesn't sign a baseball contract, 2) Braylon Edwards doesn't get a dodgy offensive PI call in the 2002 game, 3) Carr goes for it on third and four in the 2005 game, and 4) Chad Henne's shoulder exists in 2007. You figure #1 is a clear win and Michigan probably takes one of the other three, which would put the Tressel-Carr record at .500. Thin margins, always.)
On the APR:
Brian,Central Michigan, though it was one of the teams to get hit by APR penalties, was not one of the teams referenced when I was advocating for I-A to get 20 teams smaller. When not coached by Mike Debord, Central is one of the better teams in the MAC and has the resources to compete at a reasonable level. They'll get their scores up soon and will avoid serious punishment.
I attended Central Michigan, until I graduated last year. My first two years there I was one of the "lucky" kids who wasn't able to get into the normal dorms, and instead was put in the athletes dorm. Basically, I got to know many of the football players on CMU. Many of those guys left before their 4/5 years was up, but it had nothing to do with the reasons you outlined (money) as to why small schools suffered in the APR.
First, especially at the time, CMU wasn't a known football power. Kids want to be loved, respected, and have some sort of fame. Yet, when you play at a bad MAC school or something, nobody cares. It isnt a big campus with 80,000 people every Saturday. They dont see themselves on TV a whole lot, and when are on TV, nobody pays attention to them. Players at the bigger school have much more incentive to stay because they are better players, have more fame, and have more going for them.
Next, many of the kids schools in the MAC, Mountain West, etc. recruit aren't from the area. CMU has their share of Michigan kids, but needs to recruit kids a whole hell of a lot more from Florida, Georgia, etc. than schools like Michigan and MSU do. Thats because the talent pool isn't as big in Michigan, and Michigan and MSU scoop all the talent up. CMU and other MAC schools needs to get players from the south so they can compete. This is hard though because not only will those kids have the same problems as I stated in the previous paragraph, but they are waaaaay more likely to get homesick and leave. I saw many time where CMU would recruit a kid from inner city Miami, then redshirt him. The kid isn't happy being redshirted, has trouble adjusting to a MAC town, and then once that first snowfall and bad weater hits, boom, they are outta here for Christmas break and never return.
It is just very hard for teams in smaller conferences to retain players than it is for bigger schools. Yes, sometimes it may have to do with what you said, but that is a lot smaller of the percentage. I can see why you feel that way since you went to a big school. However, until you attend a smaller school and see the disadvantage first hand and hear it and see it from many of the players you are friends with, then you don't really know the whole story.
I don't have much sympathy for smaller schools even if it's tougher for them to keep scores up for reasons beyond their control. You can make an argument that a player at Michigan or Oklahoma or wherever is being completely reasonable when he puts everything into being an NFL caliber football player. Not so much at San Jose State, where any kid who flames out is going to be lifting boxes.
Yesterday, I mentioned that WVU's possessions were some way short of what seemed like an average number, but I didn't go back and calculate those numbers myself. A reader chips in:
Hi Brian,The "13 or 14" cited in the UFR appears to be a little high. Over the spans provided here, Michigan averaged 12.7 drives per game; West Virginia averaged 12.2. The PPD numbers show that West Virginia's performance against Rutgers (3.44 PPD against a top-twenty scoring defense) was statistically excellent, if reached a little flukily.
I've been an avid reader of your blog for quite some time and appreciate all the work you do. I post under this handle on Rivals premium and Scout free boards. I'm also an amateur nerd and play with numbers in my free time. One such venture was to calculate the scoring efficiency of certain offenses. Specifically, I calculated the points per drive of the Michigan offense (and others.. did this during the coaching search) over the past 4-5 years using data available from the ESPN website (it's good for something). An offense that scores 35 ppg while reducing the game to 10 possessions per team is more dangerous than the offense that racks up the same total but expands the total number of possessions in the game (Purdue, Cal).
Obviously the flaw in this research is that some offenses try to build a small lead then sit on the ball while others simply try to score as much as possible. However, I found it to be an interesting endeavor nonetheless. To do the calculation I counted the number of "meaningful" drives (I excluded the apparent take-a-knee-before-the-end-of-the-half drives) and counted only offensive points. Throwing out pick-sixes and punt-return TDs was difficult since they do affect the thinking of the offense, but ultimately they're not the result of the offense.
I have all this data broken down on a spreadsheet into the single game performances, but here are the year-long results...
'07 Michigan -- 13.2 drives/gm, 27.2 off ppg, 2.07 pts per drive (ppd), 2:16 per drive (TOP)
'06 Michigan -- 12.6 drives/gm, 27.2 off ppg, 2.15 ppd, 2:39 per drive
'05 Michigan -- 12.8 drives/gm, 27.0 off ppg, 2.12 ppd, 2:29 per drive
'04 Michigan -- 13.0 drives/gm, 28.1 off ppg, 2.16 ppd, 2:28 per drive
'03 Michigan -- 12.2 drives/gm, 32.5 off ppg, 2.65 ppd, 2:38 per drive
'02 Michigan -- 12.8 drives/gm, 27.2 off ppg, 2.13 ppd
'07 West Virginia -- 12.6 drives/gm, 38.5 off ppg, 3.05 ppd, 2:23 per drive
'06 West Virginia -- 11.2 drives/gm, 39.6 off ppg, 3.55 ppd, 2:46 per drive
'05 West Virginia -- 11.8 drives/gm, 28.3 off ppg, 2.41 ppd, 2:38 per drive
'04 West Virginia -- 12.3 drives/gm, 27.8 off ppg, 2.26 ppd, 2:23 per drive
'03 West Virginia -- 13.0 drives/gm, 27.3 off ppg, 2.10 ppd, 2:12 per drive
The Florida spread-option...
'07 Florida -- 11.2 drives/gm, 40.3 off ppg, 3.61 ppd, 2:41 per drive
'06 Florida -- 11.1 drives/gm, 27.4 off ppg, 2.46 ppd, 2:48 per drive
'05 Florida -- 11.8 drives/gm, 24.8 off ppg, 2.09 ppd, 2:46 per drive
Ultimately, I think RRod's offense will reduce the avg number of possessions by 0.5-1.0 per game. While Carr's offense was good at eating up clock, I think a lot of that had to do with the defense giving them the ball back. The offense neither reduced the number of possessions nor sat on the ball particularly long when they got the ball.
Cheers,
Jokewood (Nathan)
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
[+/-] |
Upon Further Review: WVU Offense vs Rutgers |
Generally on these the reader knows what happens before the UFR hits the page, so: West Virginia beat Rutgers 31-3. Total yards for RU: 314. For WVU: 398. Turnovers, inopportune penalties, and missed field goals hurt Rutgers badly.
I picked out this game because 1) it was available, 2) Rutgers was a slightly better than average run defense that looks just average because it had to play West Virginia, and 3) Greg Schiano is reputed to be a fine defensive mind.
No video; I'm having trouble getting VirtualDub to recognize whatever these files were encoded in and thus can't slice out individual plays.
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
M33 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | 5 |
Schmitt used as a lead-blocker on a zone stretch play that looks eerily familiar minus the whole shotgun thing. Rutgers is doing a weird blitz where the WLB/SS guy blitzes off the slot receiver and the DE flows down the line instead of attempting to deal with the zone read. He ends up overrunning the play – jammed pretty well on the frontside – as Slaton cuts back; the threat of White caused the blitzer to delay just enough for Slaton to pick up a decent gain. Does Steven Threet inspire the same respect? | |||||||
M38 | 2 | 5 | Shotgun 5-wide | Run | QB Draw? | White | 4 |
I won't know what the personnel is on any of these so I can only give you formations. I'm sure Slaton's still in so “five wide” is not right. I'm not sure if this is a read or a draw or what, but this appears to be a screen to Reynaud – WVU bunched four guys to the bottom of the screen. White pulls it down and takes off, scrambling for a few yards. | |||||||
M42 | 3 | 1 | I-Form Twins | Run | Iso | Slaton | -2 |
Ur? On fourth and what looks like a foot – sneak distance – they hand it off and get stuffed. The DT shed the center and shot into the backfield as Rutgers sells out to stop this. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Punt, 0-0, 10 min. Fireworks not so much yet. Schiano was asking for a bubble screen in his face on first down. High risk, high reward here. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M38 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 3-wide | Pass | Slip Screen | Jalloh | 5 |
This is set up very well and looks like a potential big play but for two issues: White's a little late and upfield with the throw (just a little), and the defensive end did not get chopped by the OT, reads the screen, and makes a great play backtracking downfield. (CA, 3) | |||||||
M43 | 2 | 5 | I-Form Twins | Run | Inside Zone | Slaton | 8 |
Reynaud comes around on an end-around fake. Slaton's already taking it up the gut. A double from the C and G blows the undersized Rutgers NT back; the other DT is cut and Schmitt obliterates the MLB. A diving tackle attempt from the unblocked DE is stepped through and Slaton's got his first chunk of the day. | |||||||
O49 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | 6 |
Rutgers with only seven in the box here, one of them nominally covering the slot guy, both safeties back. Backside scoop on the DT works well enough and gets an OL into the second level, causing the Rutgers WLB to start cheating over there in case Slaton takes it directly up the middle. He bounces it between the G and T instead, where there's a crease. Rare instance of passive D from Rutgers. | |||||||
O43 | 2 | 4 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | QB Draw | White | -2 |
It's actually pretty interesting to watch the Rutgers D at work here. They're stunting and blitzing like mad from all angles; here they get the TE blocking no one as the DE stunts inside and through; White can't take it outside because of another blitzer and gets hit for a loss. I have no idea what happens in this game other than a WVU win... I get the feeling there are going to be some big plays when Rutgers rolls the dice and comes up craps. | |||||||
O45 | 3 | 6 | Shotgun 3-wide | Pass | Circle | Reynaud | 7 |
Man free for Rutgers as they bring another blitz, with a catch: it looks at first like there are seven blitzers but two peel off to cover receivers... poorly. Reynaud is nominally covered by a safety rolling up to the line but is open and darts for the first. (CA, 2, protection 1/1) | |||||||
O38 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | 38 |
Uh, check on the ol' big plays. Rutgers is consistently shooting the backside DE down the LOS and bringing the slot-covering WLB in as the contain guy. It's been pretty effective, as the weakside DE shot into the backfield and caused a cutback on an otherwise very well-blocked play. Problem: the backside contain decides to plow White and trip over his prone body. Slaton is – WOOP – gone. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Touchdown, 7-0, 4 min 1st Q. No wonder Bo liked this guy: one real pass so far, and that because of a third and medium. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M39 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Pass | PA Flare | Schmitt | 13 |
Same late shift with the slot blitz and DE shoot; this time WVU goes play action, faking the same frontside zone read they've run a couple times before. This time Schmitt releases to the backside. He could pick up the blitzer but instead dummies him and slips into the flat; White hits him and it's beer truck time. (CA, 3) | |||||||
O48 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Pass | Bubble Screen | Reynaud | 5 |
Good job by the Rutgers corner here to cut down on the gain here; Rutgers had again blitzed off the corner. (CA, 3) | |||||||
O43 | 2 | 5 | Ace 3-wide | Run | Inside Zone | Slaton | 4 |
Slaton's got a nice hole up the middle as a scoop block seals one DT and gets a lineman out to a linebacker; Schmitt kills a DE and wipes out a weakside blitzer in the process. If you get your hands on these guys they crumple. Also: another end-around fake. | |||||||
O39 | 3 | 1 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | QB Lead Draw | White | 4 |
Schmitt in the backfield with White; Slaton split. ISQD is the call. A Rutgers DE zips right past the WVU RT and into White's path; White jukes past him and the unblocked weakside blocker to pick it up. | |||||||
O35 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | Zone read keeper | White | 3 |
Same slot blitz gets in an unblocked player; he tackles Slaton, leaving a major gap in the middle of the field. Unfortunately for WVU, the OL on the second level does not have an angle on the MLB. He meets White at the LOS. White spins out of it; the delay allows a safety to fill. | |||||||
O32 | 2 | 7 | Shotgun 3-wide | Pass | Flare | Slaton | Inc |
Bad snap and a bad block from the RT allows the DE to knock it down. (BA, 0, protection 0/1, RT). I don't think this RT is very good. | |||||||
O32 | 3 | 7 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | ND-style fiasco | -- | -23 |
Snap flies over White's head. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Punt, 7-0, 11 2nd Q. White is all like “dude, snap it to me.” Punt hits a gunner and goes back to WVU. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
O31 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun Trips | Run | QB Draw | White | 19 |
Again, I'm not sure if White actually has an option to throw a screen here or if it's just a decoy. In any case, both Slaton and White take off towards the trips side of the field. The weakside DE gets way too far upfield – the proper angle if this was a zone read with White peeling out to his side of the field, but it ain't – and opens up a huge cutback lane that White exploits. | |||||||
O12 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun Stack? | Run | QB Sweep | White | 2 |
Two WR, a TE, Schmitt and Slaton lined up approximately over the TE. This turns into something kinda like the sweep that was so deadly with QB Eagles in Techmo Super Bowl. Good contain from two separate players on Rutgers forces it back up inside for a minor gain. | |||||||
O10 | 2 | 8 | I-Form Trips | Run | FB Dive | Schmitt | 1 |
Jammed in the center. Schmitt does what FBs do, which is run directly forward until they've hit the ground. | |||||||
O9 | 3 | 7 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | QB Sweep | White | 8 |
Rutgers is blitzing from the weakside and bailing a safety out into a robber zone on the playside, leaving three guys chasing uselessly and one running his way out of the play. Almost doesn't matter as the RT gets beat again, forcing Schmitt to pick his guy up and allowing the DT to continue flowing down the line against a not-so-effective reach block. Schmitt gets enough of a push on the other guy to create a hole; the diving DT causes White to stumble but does not bring him down. | |||||||
O1 | 1 | G | Ace | Run | QB Draw | White | 1 |
I think I need some differentiation between QB draws here. On this one, Schmitt is the single setback and White looks like he's going to give him a zone handoff before keeping the ball, using Schmitt as a lead blocker, and hopping into the endzone. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Touchdown, 14-0, 9 min 2nd Q. White actually fumbled into the endzone but recovered his own fumble. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M15 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | QB Sweep | White | 22 |
Schmitt the only setback. This play is actually gap blocked with the TE and LT blowing the Rutgers DE way off the ball – sort of like the Navy offense, when you get these guys expecting not to get blocked and then they get hammered the results are not pretty – and pulling the backside guard around. Schmitt picks the corner off and a filling linebacker gets swallowed by the guard; White lopes into the secondary. | |||||||
M37 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun Trips | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | 5 |
Nice zone block by the center to carry the DT out of the play; big hole in the middle is filled by a couple meh second level blocks. | |||||||
M42 | 2 | 5 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | QB Draw | White | 0 |
Well-timed blitz from Rutgers gets a guy into the backfield, as two OL were scooping a DT and did not get out on him in time. Result is a mess. | |||||||
M42 | 3 | 5 | Shotgun 4-wide | Pass | In | Jalloh | 11 + 5 |
Jalloh comes open in man, as the lack of safeties cause the cover guy to be cautious. Easy pitch and catch for the first. (CA, 3, protection 2/2). Incidental face mask tacks on five. | |||||||
O42 | 1 | 10 | I-Form 3-wide | Penalty | False Start | Some Guy | -5 |
O47 | 1 | 15 | I-Form 3-wide | Pass | Waggle! | Jalloh | 13 |
They fake an iso or inside zone to Slaton then roll White out of the pocket. Schmitt, releasing into the flat, gets a hit on a linebacker and gives White enough time to fire a strike in front of rapidly-closing defender. (CA+... aw... DO, 3, protection 1/1) | |||||||
O34 | 2 | 2 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | 1 |
Two guys come up to the wide side of the field and a guy backs out into zone on the other; WVU zones away from the rolled-up secondary. This should be a good gainer or at least a yard or so and a really short third down but Slaton decides to cut back needlessly and ends up losing ground. | |||||||
O35 | 3 | 3 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | QB Sweep | White | 13 |
Rutgers sends the house with six guys coming through the LOS and a seventh trying to clean up. One cut block is quite effective and White sets up blocks from both Slaton and Schmitt before bursting upfield and picking up the first down and considerably more. | |||||||
O22 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Pass | Bubble Screen | Reynaud | Inc |
Zone read fake to the bubble screen; White throws it well over Reynaud's head, possibly in an attempt to get it over the hands of onrushing linemen. (IN, 0) | |||||||
O22 | 2 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Pass | Seam | #4 | Inc |
There are 30 seconds left in the half now, so WVU is pressed for time and Rutgers is kinda expecting pass. White throws this into coverage, unwisely. (BR, 0, protection 0/2) | |||||||
O22 | 3 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | QB Draw | White | -2 |
Rutgers sends two guys right up the middle and almost right past White, who is this close to breaking a tackle and shooting into the secondary for at least a first down and very probably a touchdown when he goes to the ground. Roll them dice, Schiano. | |||||||
Drive Notes: FG(42), 17-3, EOH. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M28 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | Zone read keeper | White | -7 |
Slot blitz as per usual, but no stunt. The DE shoots right into the backfield unblocked – unclear whether this was intentional or not – and tackles Slaton; Slaton doesn't have the ball. White keeps and starts rolling out; the tackle blocks the corner. Unfortunately for WVU the guard who moved directly to the second level does not get to the LB, who makes an excellent, quick read and shoots into the gap. White was planning on taking it up into the hole; he starts backing off and looks like he's going to throw the bubble screen, then hesitates and is lost. | |||||||
M21 | 2 | 17 | Shotgun 2-back | Pass | Bubble Screen | Reynaud | Inc |
Poor throw; slot blitz and this was open. (IN, 0) | |||||||
M21 | 3 | 17 | Shotgun Empty | Pass | Corner | Jollah | 14 |
Nice throw, though it's short of the sticks and Rutgers closes Jollah down. Rare dropback pass. (CA, 3, protection 2/2) | |||||||
Drive Notes: Punt, 17-3, 14 min 3rd Q. Rutgers goes on a 7-minute drive that features a dropped touchdown pass and gets no points out of it. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M25 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 3-wide | Pass | FB Flare | Schmitt | Inc |
Schmitt as an off-the-line TE. Same corner blitz; Zone read fake suckers in everyone and Schmitt shoots into a wide open flat. Big gainer but for the pass getting batted down. (BA, 0) | |||||||
M25 | 2 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | -3 |
Corner blitz + DE stunt combo again. This allows the NT, who's shaded to the frontside of the play, to really shoot hard. He does so, and a poor cut-block on the backside plus the stunt leave Slaton surrounded. | |||||||
M22 | 3 | 13 | Shotgun Empty | Pass | Jailbreak screen | Slaton | 51 |
Three man line and two blitzers up the middle; everyone rushes hard and takes themselves out of the play. Left side of the line releases; great cut block on an attacking safety by the LT, and excellent downfield blocks by the wide receivers. Slaton sprung, runs far. (CA, 3) | |||||||
O27 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | Zone read keeper | White | 1 |
The usual stunt-blitz. White pulls it out of Slaton's belly and attempts to shoot upfield past the CB; a diving shoestring tackle limits him to one yard; LB coming up may or may not have had an angle. | |||||||
O26 | 2 | 9 | Shotgun 4-wide | Pass | Bubble Screen | Sanders | 6 |
Crappy block from the outside WR forces Sandesr to deal with the defender a yard or two after the LOS; he stiffarms his way for a number of yards. (CA, 3) | |||||||
O20 | 3 | 3 | Shotgun Trips | Run | ??? | White | 15 |
This appears to be a flare screen for Slaton designed to exploit the corner-blitz-mad Rutgers D. White bobbles the snap, however, and he never makes the throw. So he's got four defenders in his face and one guy who's made an attempt at a cut block. White just sort of darts up through the crack and is loose in the secondary just like that. Bad cut downfield or this is a TD. | |||||||
O5 | 1 | G | I-Form 3-wide | Pass | PA Rollout | N/A | Inc |
Iso fake to Slaton coupled with a White rollout. No one open, so he throws it away. (TA, 0) | |||||||
O5 | 2 | G | Shotgun 2-back | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | 5 |
Hard to tell what Rutgers is doing on this play since we get a terrible camera angle and the replay's not much more helpful. This is another cutback from Slaton though, and one that picks up a block from White. | |||||||
O1 | 3 | G | I-Form Twins | Run | Off tackle | Slaton | 1 |
Another excellent job by the LT to seal the DE and use his hands to delay pursuit from two separate players. Schmitt, leading, can't find anyone to plow until he's five yards into the endzone. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Touchdown, 24-3, 4 min 3rd Q. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M27 | 1 | 10 | Ace Twins | Run | Inside Zone | Slaton | 3 |
Reynaud with the end-around fake. Excellent play from the MLB to shoot into an offensive lineman, get playside of his shoulder, and make a tackle around the LOS. | |||||||
M30 | 2 | 7 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | MSQD | White | 3 |
Schmitt the only setback; Slaton in the slot... and yeah, you can kind of see this coming. A Mildly Surprising QB Draw. Nice push froom the OL but the stunting DE gets in, as does the blitzing corner, and another LB... Schmitt sort of stops to set up a block on the outside guy; White runs into him. | |||||||
M33 | 3 | 4 | Shotgun 2-back | Pass | FB Flare | Schmitt | 19 |
Woo! Zone read fake coupled with Schmitt shooting to the backside of the play. White keeps, draws attention, and dumps it to Schmitt, who McGuffies some kid ten yards downfield, rumbling for excellent yardage. Side note: you know what this play reminds me of a lot? Carson Butler shooting backside against Oregon for 50-some yards. (CA, 3) | |||||||
O48 | 1 | 10 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | Zone read handoff | Slaton | -10(pen) |
Schmitt now in the slot. Zone read handoff is well-contained; holding called anyway. | |||||||
M42 | 1 | 20 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | QB Draw | White | 3 |
Trap block blows up an OLB; slanting from the DL gets the playside DE in past his assigned blocker; he delays White long enough for help to converge. | |||||||
M46 | 2 | 17 | Shotgun Trips | Penalty | ??? | N/A | -5(pen) |
I don't catch the call; either a false start or delay. | |||||||
M41 | 2 | 22 | Shotgun Trips | Pass | Scramble | White | 0 |
Ton of time for White; he can't find anyone open. Eventually he scrambles out and gets back to the LOS. There's gotta be an outlet or something on second and long and any moderate gain significantly increases your chances of picking up the first, so... (BR, 0, protection 3/3) | |||||||
M41 | 3 | 22 | Shotgun Empty | Run | QB Draw | White | 17 |
A give-up-and-punt; White's dangerously close to making this a first down. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Punt, 24-3, 14 min 4th Q. | |||||||
Ln | Dn | Ds | Form | Type | Brief | Player | Yards |
M34 | 1 | 10 | ??? | Run | ??? | Slaton | 3 |
We're watching some damn horse race instead of the game. | |||||||
M37 | 2 | 7 | Ace Twins | Run | End-around | Reynaud | 6 |
Rutgers has this contained until Reynaud makes a jab step upfield and bursts outside; the containing DE took a step in and when he tried to come back out he slipped. Reynaud has the edge and a decent gain. | |||||||
M43 | 3 | 1 | Shotgun 4-wide | Run | QB Sweep | White | 7 |
Schmitt lone setback... not quite a MSQD but close. This is a sweep play with Schmitt lead blocking. He crushes a linebacker, blowing him back on his ass and giving White a lane. | |||||||
50 | 1 | 10 | I-Form 3-wide | Run | Inside Zone | Slaton | 0 |
No creases in the front; when Slaton bounces it out he's got an unblocked linebacker to deal with. | |||||||
50 | 2 | 10 | Shotgun 2-back | Run | Broken play | White | -6 |
Snap is high. White bats it in the air; when he comes down with it it's too late to do anything but get to the ground. | |||||||
M44 | 3 | 16 | Shotgun 3-wide | Run | QB Draw | White | 50 |
Safety blitz comes up late; this is the Wrong Answer. White reads his blitz and zips past him with the help of a last-ditch push by an OL, and then there's one guy with a shot at him, a DE who's been blocked four yards off the LOS by Schmitt. Can he catch Pat White? No. A cutback turns a first down into a near-touchdown. | |||||||
O6 | 1 | G | I-Form Twins | Run | Off tackle | Slaton | 6 |
Clearly running over the strongside tackle. After momentarily blocking the DE, the LT passes him off to Schmitt and heads downfield to seal off anyone with an idea of getting to Slaton, eventually cutting the last hope of preventing a touchdown. | |||||||
Drive Notes: Touchdown, 31-3, 8 min 4th Q. Up four touchdowns, WVU calls the dogs off. EOC. |
Well, that was... different.
In many ways, yes. The most striking to me is the protection tally, which is 9/12. For a game. Michigan would do that on some drives last year.
And yet...
Not so different in all ways. The West Virginia run game is not much different than the zone stretch stuff Michigan ran the last two years under Mike Debord. The two major differences:
- The quarterback is in the shotgun, and
- said quarterback can reach a cruising speed of 600 kph.
I feel conflicted about whether this was a dominant performance or a kinda meh outing rescued by a few huge plays.
You and I both, hypothetical guy who talks in bold. West Virginia got stuck in third and long twice only to be bailed out by 1) a screen that would have every Michigan fan howling until it reached the sticks, then muttering until it passed 30 yards, then grudgingly pleased, and 2) Pat White going "woop" past several blitzers on a broken play and gliding for days. Both plays went for better than 50 yards and turned what otherwise would have been limp, punt-terminated drives into touchdowns. Similarly, WVU's first touchdown was opened up by a colossal Rutgers screwup -- banging into Pat White, who obviously did not have the ball.
Without that, West Virginia's day was kind of a sputtery mess, and it's reasonable to question whether or not the offense relies on opponent screwups to function.
On the other hand, this was a remarkably short game. West Virginia had nine meaningful drives, only one of which started in opponent territory, and scored four touchdowns and a field goal. I should really go back and get a number for Michigan drives per game over the last couple years, but I can tell you nine is probably tied for a record low. More realistic numbers are 13 or 14, which likely would have seen WVU put up 40-some points against an opponent that went 8-5, was 17th in total yards ceded, and allowed opponents only 22 PPG.
Charts?
Charts. White's passing chart for the game; I've taken the additional step of breaking down his throws into screens (which also include little flares and the like -- anything that doesn't cross the LOS, basically) and downfield attempts.
White | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Team | DO | CA | IN | BR | TA | BA | PR |
Overall | 1 | 9 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
Screens | - | 7 | 2 | - | - | 1 | - |
Downfield | 1 | 2 | - | 2 | 1 | 1 | - |
You can see why White isn't often tasked with going downfield: here his positive results are just three of seven throws. For comparison, Chad Henne's chart for all the games he played more than half of:
Henne | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Team | DO | CA | IN | BR | TA | BA | PR |
Purdue | 3 | 20 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Illinois (2/3) | 5 | 15 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
MSU | 5 | 14 | 9 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
OSU | 1 | 13 | 12 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 |
The receiver chart is really boring and is omitted. There were no drops, and the only catch rated harder than an easy '3' was a third-down conversion early that was only tough because Darius Reynaud is a smurf.
So... is any of this replicable by Michigan next year?
Not much. The similarities between the two sets of personnel are a good, fast running back, -- we don't know who Michigan's is yet but there are six of them, someone will step up -- a good left tackle, and a bad right tackle. Things WVU has that Michigan does not:
- Pat White
- little slot buggers (maybe)
- Pat White
- a facemask-busting maniac fullback
- Pat White.
- receivers the NFL will not laugh at
- sixty-five tight ends
- hypothetically, a strong-armed quarterback.
What was the deal with Greg Schiano's mad blitz-stunt scheme?
I don't want to steal too much of my own thunder here, since one of my articles in the upcoming Hail To The Victors 2008 is all about Schiano's response to the West Virginia zone read, but this is the basic concept:
Shooting the defensive end down the LOS as shown above makes him useful again, and allows the defensive tackle on the playside to have one-gap responsibility. It slowed West Virginia's attack down considerably. Many of their rushing yards came from a variety of White draws, and Slaton was a nonfactor outside of his... uh... 38 yard touchdown run and 50-some yard screen. So it's got a fatal flaw: the cutback. The HTTV article has much more.