Warde Manuel doesn’t make a damned decision unless he has let the situation drag on so long there is no option and he’s been forced into the single remaining path in front of him. As long as Harbaugh and Howard were keeping their heads above water, Warde could pretend as if a lack of NIL wasn’t holding Michigan back. Because he can no longer pretend that and there’s literally no other choice, he has made the obvious decision in front of him to set up an organized NIL program.
My comment on this is that Warde’s behavior is weird because he acts like he’s 1) in danger of losing his job if he makes a single wrong move, or 2) a character in the Foundation novels. He doesn’t act like one of the most powerful people in college football.
the grammatically incorrect “dedication” “poem” was the least pretentious thing about that house…
I have a friend who met Dave Brandon once, he said Dave was every bit the self-confident “used car salesman energy” all-style-no-substance try-hard. So, basically, as expected
Ends don’t justify means, and it’s ok to admit that we have a structural NIL problem that needs to be solved going forward. That doesn’t take away from our successes. In fact it makes them MORE impressive.
A lot (mmm…let’s say a few of the ones I’ve talked to) of MSU alumni - while still being fanatically supportive of the football program - are feeling a bit burnt by the university and the athletic administration.
Jonathan Smith is a good coach and a good hire, but he’s facing an uphill battle. MSU still has the aftertaste of the BoT wars, two massive payouts looming, and alumni are still cringing from the LAST aggressive fundraising effort that went straight to settlements/payouts (and Engler’s cronies).
Add that to last year’s NIL debacle: their official NIL deal canceled all contracts out of the blue.
Plus, you just KNOW that MSU’s Title IX office is sitting on some land mines we haven’t even heard about yet.
I can’t blame any Sparty legacy for adopting a “let’s see how this all shakes out…” attitude
I’m happy that St. Mary’s is playing with fire here. The impending lawsuit will establish that no, in fact, you CANNOT force an athlete to play at an institution against their will.
We need mutually-binding contracts, or mutually-non-binding contracts
I partially agree with you, but 2017 had Higdon, Chris Evans, DPJ, Gentry, Eubanks, and Ty Isaac.
The problem was QB play - or lack thereof - and absolute coaching malfeasance.
I will never get tired of using last season’s Nebraska team as an example: Matt Rhule went through like 3 different offensive systems in an attempt to score points, in spite of terrible QBing. And this in a year which was an acknowledged Year Zero, with a decent but not great defense and no real ambitions within the conference. Imagine how innovative he would have gotten if Nebraska was in contention.
If Nebraska can roll with the triple option in 2023, we could have done better in 2017 than an offensive philosophy of “John O’Korn, the ghost of Brandon Peters, and the tattered remains of Wilton Speight are fine, we’ll just lean on the defense again”
The jump from 2014-2015 cannot be overstated: it was the single greatest jump in scoring in modern Michigan history. We went from “rock bottom” in 2014 to “made a Florida team full of NFLers quit” with an NFL-bound QB in 2015. Just a masterful job of piecing together a season.
…and the drop from 2016-2017 likewise cannot be overstated. It was the single greatest DROP in scoring in modern Michigan history. There was a LOT to like about Michigan at the end of the 2016 season (including a shoulda-had-it game vs OSU), but the offense in 2017 was absolutely terrible and I will never understand how Harbaugh & co. went through the season with a “we can fix this by next week just by doing what we’re doing” attitude.
I actually don’t believe it’s a white label product. I think he actually does own the process end to end. Obviously the mash is made in Kentucky, but it’s definitely barreled and bottled in California because it uses the Woodson wine barrels for aging.
I don’t have a bottle in front of me, but I think it’s a 2 year whisky with rapid aging.
For the skeptics, Charles Woodson Whiskey is LEGIT good.
This isn’t just a “support a Michigan guy” thing - you’ll genuinely enjoy drinking this if you like bourbon. In that price range, I switch between Woodson and Angel’s Envy as my personal favorite.
Oh, and Woodford Reserve made a National Championship bottle too. VERY good.
There was a “journalist” who apparently decided that his schtick was going to be “getting confrontational and insulting towards people”, and decided to make Marcus Thames his next victim.
Problem was, Marcus Thames was (maybe is?) one of the nicest, quietest, gentlest (unless you were a hanging curveball) players in the league, and once word got around, people prepared for this “journalist”, basically either refusing to engage or throwing it right back in his face.
Lewan isn’t going to get many more interviews if word gets around that he tries to trick people into saying things that aren’t in their best interests.
Taylor Lewan is clearly trying to get attention any way that he can. Between trying to goad Jalen Milroe into a clickbaity quote and a whole news story about getting into a chugging contest with his daughter, it’s just a matter of time until he reaches [name redacted] level of hot takes.
Everything I hear about this guy is against my will. If he ever does anything nice or supportive or mature, please post that and I’ll duly upvote. Until then, can we treat him like any other person who obviously hasn’t matured since middle school?
Does this answer the UFR question of “hey, is he being COACHED to ‘cover grass’??”? It seems to indicate that his college coaches have been very happy with his performance.
It’s gotta either be that, or maybe the coaches believe he’s THIS close to putting it all together and that when he does he’ll be the steal of the draft
Listen, I love Michigan, but this is recency bias personified for YouTube clicks.
It’s SUPER impressive that Michigan was able to beat two opponents (one on the field, one off) every week after the bye, but calling us the “last” great playoff team is a stretch.
This is giving me “game of the century” - of which there are apparently three every year - vibes. It’s ok to enjoy our championship without declaring that ‘greatest’ is settled. Of course it’s the greatest: it’s ours. Our next one will be the greatest too.
I literally spent all season making fun of the guy, but he’s an A+ OL and TE coach, who put a solid string of people into the NFL from Iowa.
He also coached the Patriots TEs during their “we have Gronk and Aaron Hernandez, auto-win” era.
I’m also pretty sure he never lost to Rutgers as OC. Last season he put up over 400 yards on Rutgers. So if you’re looking to keep your football program out of last place in the B1G, he’s got some secret sauce.
Just keep him far away from the QBs and the play calling.
Taylor Lewan fishing for the clickbait, and Jalen Milroe with very classy deflections.
I didn’t think I’d ever have nice things to say about Alabama, but after a PhD-level football game, Saban was classy about losing to us, and Milroe is classy about the loss AND avoided throwing anyone under the bus.
Lewan…man, what a piece of work. Exhibit A for “getting older =/= maturing”
A divorce attorney will have to weigh in, but I didn’t see anything UNUSUALLY shady given his legal troubles. Definitely normal Tuck level of shadiness, but there’s a lot of facts missing which matter in this case.
$1.5M spent on Legal fees is worrying, but the article says it’s from a joint line of credit, so if it’s not a marital expense (an easy argument to win for the former Mrs. Tuck), then it’ll be a liability that gets assigned to him.
I’m more interested in her complaint re: his retirement accounts and his moving that money into an account which is only in his name. That’s…an iffy thing to complain about IMO, if those were his accounts and not theirs jointly. I’ve seen cases where a vindictive ex-spouse cashed out retirement accounts, and undoing that damage can take years.
A TRO on moving money around seems like a good idea in this case. Tuck is spending a lot of money, and if I was in her shoes I’d definitely want to make sure that the dissolution of marital assets is fair and doesn’t saddle her with his legal debts.
This is probably going to be a protracted process, with grab-your-popcorn levels of drama, given Tuck’s penchant for pettiness and greed.
Joe Milton is on record admitting he didn’t apply himself until he got to Tennessee and lost the QB battle to Hooker. He said that he felt like he was going to just be handed the QB position at Michigan, so he didn’t feel like he had to develop himself.
Thing is, he was RIGHT. I have no idea what Harbaugh was thinking between 2019 and 2020, but it was absolutely clear that Milton was going to be our starter no matter what. And when it became even more clear that he was in over his head, it took 4 more games before he was benched. He got more unearned chances than most.
Milton spent 6 years in college and only started TRYING to be a good QB after…4.5? Yeah, he’s got plenty of upside left. Only question is whether the Patriots’ QB coach can fix bad habits he’s had since high school. I hope so, but I have my doubts. Wishing him the best of luck.
Nick Saban had a preternatural ability to recognize when it was time to change his approach to football. He moved from super shutdown defenses to light-em-up offenses, then switched from QB running to spread passing, then back to QB running, benching and then un-benching a guy like Jalen Milroe.
How many people would have started true freshman Jalen Hurts, then BENCHED Championship QB Jalen Hurts in favor of Tua?
I may hate Nick Saban, but I have to respect his ability to be flexible. His 6 championships were probably won 5 different ways.
All the non-draftees have a great opportunity in front of them: rookie contracts for UDFAs are shorter than drafted players, and they get to choose their team!
…UK’s schedule doesn’t look particularly promising for a team that gave up a 67% completion rate and 350+ yards of total offense per game last year. There’s maybe 2 gimme games, and 3-4 “oh god not in the face!” games.
I hope he gets the money he’s been promised. And I hope it’s worth it if he does.
He might be CB1 on Kentucky’s defense…but either 1) his coverage stats go down because the DL isn’t ending plays early, or 2) he does really well but has to watch from across the field as his teammates give up bombs.
IMO, there is a reasonable question for JJ: “what does a pass-first offense with JJ McCarthy look like?” We don’t know. Nobody does. We don’t know what a Harbaugh pass-first offense looks like. It never happened at Michigan.
It didn’t even happen with Andrew Luck in 2010 (check the rushing stats from that year!). It KINDA happened with Josh Johnson in 2007…but Johnson was also running it all over the field too; Harbaugh’s offense that year was “our QB can out-athlete you.”
So yeah, if you’re an NFL team and you’re looking to play a passing spread, then JJ is the QB with the most projection. But saying that the offense didn’t have pro-style elements, that’s just a lie.
Or it’s trolling. Remember that trolling Michigan fans is a tried-and-true business model when you’re looking for clicks.
I came to terms a long time ago that the teams who are running up the scores, stat padding, keeping their hero-ball QBs in the whole game, etc…are doing the “right” thing.
I disagree with that approach…but there’s demonstrated rewards for doing so. Between draft evals which seem to take box scores as some holy divide between “good” and “bad”, awards which seem to only look at the number of TDs thrown, and a Playoff Committee which has ADMITTED that they take style points and score differential into consideration…there’s actual, tangible punishment for shutting your offense down after a game is functionally over.
I’m not defending the pick, it was a terrible decision by the Falcons, and I completely agree with Cousins that there were instant contributors available instead of a massive overreach in Penix.
But dude, maybe he could cool it with the pettiness, or at least the public insults. Penix isn’t responsible for the Falcons making this bonkers decision, and now he gets to walk into a fractured locker room with a starting QB who resents him.
Once again I’m obliged to feel bad for Michael Penix Jr.
There’s been nothing but hate coming out of Cousins’ camp about this pick. “Blindsided”, “cheating”, “undermining”. He’s acting personally betrayed.
Kirk Cousins is a 35 year old veteran who was CLEARLY signed to lead the team and teach the young guys …and he’s acting like a petulant child for…not being the only QB on the roster???
$1 says that Penix gets the silent treatment, and absolutely no mentoring, from Cousins.
Reminds me how Penn State QBs got to the draft and the consensus on them was always “wow, these guys would be really good if someone had bothered to coach them at any point!”
Anthony Morelli, whose legacy is one of the best pictures ever to come out of Michigan football, was once a top top TOP level recruit who was ranked higher than Chad Henne. His draft eval was “acutely undercoached.” Christian Hackenberg’s wasn’t any better.
HOW you win games, again, my opinion, is of utmost importance. It takes nerves of steel to say “Penn State ain’t gonna score, so all we have to do is hold on”…but that’s dangerous because mistakes happen.
There’s a world of difference between “we don’t have to pass” and “we can’t pass”. Penn State was more the latter than the former, which wasn’t on McCarthy as much as the OL.
I’m always going to be in favor of a win over a loss (duh), and PSU had a top 5 defense. Context matters, and if it was just the one game I’d be fine calling it an outlier. But when JJ got hurt, the passing game basically shut down. For like 5 games, maybe 6. Our coaches were content to win with defense, which is fine I guess when you have literally the best defense in football.
But saying “we won” doesn’t mean that you can ignore an offense which had a material deficit in its ability/willingness to put up points.
The callousness of people who write off a highly rated recruit after a redshirt freshman season in which he played in 1 game (IIRC) and then got injured…after being a basketball player for most of his life…is a level of copium from Sparty that I wish I was surprised about
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Ginger for sure
Not-so-fun-fact: The actress who played Ginger, Tina Louise, is the last surviving cast member of Gilligan’s Island, at age 90
I’m honestly surprised: Chip always struck me as an equal opportunity asshole…
I feel bad for The Onion. The past…9??…years have been increasingly surreal
Here’s how I interpreted it:
My comment on this is that Warde’s behavior is weird because he acts like he’s 1) in danger of losing his job if he makes a single wrong move, or 2) a character in the Foundation novels. He doesn’t act like one of the most powerful people in college football.
NIL - for all its shortcomings - has been WILDLY successful in getting the hypocrites to reveal themselves
RL Stine?
Kim Deal (who attended but did not graduate)
the grammatically incorrect “dedication” “poem” was the least pretentious thing about that house…
I have a friend who met Dave Brandon once, he said Dave was every bit the self-confident “used car salesman energy” all-style-no-substance try-hard. So, basically, as expected
Bad take.
Ends don’t justify means, and it’s ok to admit that we have a structural NIL problem that needs to be solved going forward. That doesn’t take away from our successes. In fact it makes them MORE impressive.
But the problem needs solving.
A lot (mmm…let’s say a few of the ones I’ve talked to) of MSU alumni - while still being fanatically supportive of the football program - are feeling a bit burnt by the university and the athletic administration.
Jonathan Smith is a good coach and a good hire, but he’s facing an uphill battle. MSU still has the aftertaste of the BoT wars, two massive payouts looming, and alumni are still cringing from the LAST aggressive fundraising effort that went straight to settlements/payouts (and Engler’s cronies).
Add that to last year’s NIL debacle: their official NIL deal canceled all contracts out of the blue.
Plus, you just KNOW that MSU’s Title IX office is sitting on some land mines we haven’t even heard about yet.
I can’t blame any Sparty legacy for adopting a “let’s see how this all shakes out…” attitude
I’m happy that St. Mary’s is playing with fire here. The impending lawsuit will establish that no, in fact, you CANNOT force an athlete to play at an institution against their will.
We need mutually-binding contracts, or mutually-non-binding contracts
Good thing the weather will be mild! Because fuck dat hot shit an dat cold shit, he much prefers the middle.
I partially agree with you, but 2017 had Higdon, Chris Evans, DPJ, Gentry, Eubanks, and Ty Isaac.
The problem was QB play - or lack thereof - and absolute coaching malfeasance.
I will never get tired of using last season’s Nebraska team as an example: Matt Rhule went through like 3 different offensive systems in an attempt to score points, in spite of terrible QBing. And this in a year which was an acknowledged Year Zero, with a decent but not great defense and no real ambitions within the conference. Imagine how innovative he would have gotten if Nebraska was in contention.
If Nebraska can roll with the triple option in 2023, we could have done better in 2017 than an offensive philosophy of “John O’Korn, the ghost of Brandon Peters, and the tattered remains of Wilton Speight are fine, we’ll just lean on the defense again”
Sorry, I’m bitter af.
2016 had a decent offense, but once again it was the defense that carried that team. Top 5 defense in SP+, and the #1 defense in points per drive.
The offense was…top 25. Not bad. Scored a lot of points. Not elite. It’s a shame, because we wasted one of the best defenses in the country.
If anyone wants to know what Iowa could have accomplished over the past 3-5 years with a decent offense, 2016 Michigan isn’t a bad comp.
The jump from 2014-2015 cannot be overstated: it was the single greatest jump in scoring in modern Michigan history. We went from “rock bottom” in 2014 to “made a Florida team full of NFLers quit” with an NFL-bound QB in 2015. Just a masterful job of piecing together a season.
…and the drop from 2016-2017 likewise cannot be overstated. It was the single greatest DROP in scoring in modern Michigan history. There was a LOT to like about Michigan at the end of the 2016 season (including a shoulda-had-it game vs OSU), but the offense in 2017 was absolutely terrible and I will never understand how Harbaugh & co. went through the season with a “we can fix this by next week just by doing what we’re doing” attitude.
Harbaugh giveth and Harbaugh taketh away.
I actually don’t believe it’s a white label product. I think he actually does own the process end to end. Obviously the mash is made in Kentucky, but it’s definitely barreled and bottled in California because it uses the Woodson wine barrels for aging.
I don’t have a bottle in front of me, but I think it’s a 2 year whisky with rapid aging.
Both Woodson and Angel’s Envy are smooth
For the skeptics, Charles Woodson Whiskey is LEGIT good.
This isn’t just a “support a Michigan guy” thing - you’ll genuinely enjoy drinking this if you like bourbon. In that price range, I switch between Woodson and Angel’s Envy as my personal favorite.
Oh, and Woodford Reserve made a National Championship bottle too. VERY good.
Dude just casually nailing the most badass lines in the movies. The behind the scenes documentary made it seem like he was a great guy too.
In fact, it seems like everyone on set was a great person just happy to be there
I would pay Kevin Hart to retire. It’s a shame he’s going to be involved with this, because now I’m going to deliberately avoid it.
And what’s with the attitude OP?
Is he perhaps…a…teenage dirtbag???
Yes I’m getting older
THAT is the kind of Lewan content we need! Upvoted
Well the ones that hung up in the zone frequently made it past the center field fence.
The curveballs that actually curved made it into the catcher’s mitt, idly glancing up at the shadow of a bat passing harmlessly over them en route.
Reminds me of an MLB situation.
There was a “journalist” who apparently decided that his schtick was going to be “getting confrontational and insulting towards people”, and decided to make Marcus Thames his next victim.
Problem was, Marcus Thames was (maybe is?) one of the nicest, quietest, gentlest (unless you were a hanging curveball) players in the league, and once word got around, people prepared for this “journalist”, basically either refusing to engage or throwing it right back in his face.
Lewan isn’t going to get many more interviews if word gets around that he tries to trick people into saying things that aren’t in their best interests.
Taylor Lewan is clearly trying to get attention any way that he can. Between trying to goad Jalen Milroe into a clickbaity quote and a whole news story about getting into a chugging contest with his daughter, it’s just a matter of time until he reaches [name redacted] level of hot takes.
Everything I hear about this guy is against my will. If he ever does anything nice or supportive or mature, please post that and I’ll duly upvote. Until then, can we treat him like any other person who obviously hasn’t matured since middle school?
VERY interesting note about Junior Colson.
Does this answer the UFR question of “hey, is he being COACHED to ‘cover grass’??”? It seems to indicate that his college coaches have been very happy with his performance.
It’s gotta either be that, or maybe the coaches believe he’s THIS close to putting it all together and that when he does he’ll be the steal of the draft
The world needs a Ben Mason press conference. PLEASE let this man score a game-winning TD or something.
Listen, I love Michigan, but this is recency bias personified for YouTube clicks.
It’s SUPER impressive that Michigan was able to beat two opponents (one on the field, one off) every week after the bye, but calling us the “last” great playoff team is a stretch.
This is giving me “game of the century” - of which there are apparently three every year - vibes. It’s ok to enjoy our championship without declaring that ‘greatest’ is settled. Of course it’s the greatest: it’s ours. Our next one will be the greatest too.
Solid hire.
I literally spent all season making fun of the guy, but he’s an A+ OL and TE coach, who put a solid string of people into the NFL from Iowa.
He also coached the Patriots TEs during their “we have Gronk and Aaron Hernandez, auto-win” era.
I’m also pretty sure he never lost to Rutgers as OC. Last season he put up over 400 yards on Rutgers. So if you’re looking to keep your football program out of last place in the B1G, he’s got some secret sauce.
Just keep him far away from the QBs and the play calling.
That sounds like he was in a downward spiral
He’ll never be able to do a collaborative Zoom meeting, because he’d rather die than give you control.
First midterm:
Taylor Lewan fishing for the clickbait, and Jalen Milroe with very classy deflections.
I didn’t think I’d ever have nice things to say about Alabama, but after a PhD-level football game, Saban was classy about losing to us, and Milroe is classy about the loss AND avoided throwing anyone under the bus.
Lewan…man, what a piece of work. Exhibit A for “getting older =/= maturing”
Are you an attorney? Any advice about a post-nuptial agreement?
A divorce attorney will have to weigh in, but I didn’t see anything UNUSUALLY shady given his legal troubles. Definitely normal Tuck level of shadiness, but there’s a lot of facts missing which matter in this case.
$1.5M spent on Legal fees is worrying, but the article says it’s from a joint line of credit, so if it’s not a marital expense (an easy argument to win for the former Mrs. Tuck), then it’ll be a liability that gets assigned to him.
I’m more interested in her complaint re: his retirement accounts and his moving that money into an account which is only in his name. That’s…an iffy thing to complain about IMO, if those were his accounts and not theirs jointly. I’ve seen cases where a vindictive ex-spouse cashed out retirement accounts, and undoing that damage can take years.
A TRO on moving money around seems like a good idea in this case. Tuck is spending a lot of money, and if I was in her shoes I’d definitely want to make sure that the dissolution of marital assets is fair and doesn’t saddle her with his legal debts.
This is probably going to be a protracted process, with grab-your-popcorn levels of drama, given Tuck’s penchant for pettiness and greed.
Their fandom might triple!! … from 3 fans to 9!
JarJar Binks: directly responsible for the fall of the Old Republic
Joe Milton is on record admitting he didn’t apply himself until he got to Tennessee and lost the QB battle to Hooker. He said that he felt like he was going to just be handed the QB position at Michigan, so he didn’t feel like he had to develop himself.
Thing is, he was RIGHT. I have no idea what Harbaugh was thinking between 2019 and 2020, but it was absolutely clear that Milton was going to be our starter no matter what. And when it became even more clear that he was in over his head, it took 4 more games before he was benched. He got more unearned chances than most.
Milton spent 6 years in college and only started TRYING to be a good QB after…4.5? Yeah, he’s got plenty of upside left. Only question is whether the Patriots’ QB coach can fix bad habits he’s had since high school. I hope so, but I have my doubts. Wishing him the best of luck.
Anyone who was ever coached by Josh Gattis should get extra college eligibility so they can unlearn everything he taught them
Nick Saban had a preternatural ability to recognize when it was time to change his approach to football. He moved from super shutdown defenses to light-em-up offenses, then switched from QB running to spread passing, then back to QB running, benching and then un-benching a guy like Jalen Milroe.
How many people would have started true freshman Jalen Hurts, then BENCHED Championship QB Jalen Hurts in favor of Tua?
I may hate Nick Saban, but I have to respect his ability to be flexible. His 6 championships were probably won 5 different ways.
All the non-draftees have a great opportunity in front of them: rookie contracts for UDFAs are shorter than drafted players, and they get to choose their team!
…UK’s schedule doesn’t look particularly promising for a team that gave up a 67% completion rate and 350+ yards of total offense per game last year. There’s maybe 2 gimme games, and 3-4 “oh god not in the face!” games.
I hope he gets the money he’s been promised. And I hope it’s worth it if he does.
He might be CB1 on Kentucky’s defense…but either 1) his coverage stats go down because the DL isn’t ending plays early, or 2) he does really well but has to watch from across the field as his teammates give up bombs.
IMO, there is a reasonable question for JJ: “what does a pass-first offense with JJ McCarthy look like?” We don’t know. Nobody does. We don’t know what a Harbaugh pass-first offense looks like. It never happened at Michigan.
It didn’t even happen with Andrew Luck in 2010 (check the rushing stats from that year!). It KINDA happened with Josh Johnson in 2007…but Johnson was also running it all over the field too; Harbaugh’s offense that year was “our QB can out-athlete you.”
So yeah, if you’re an NFL team and you’re looking to play a passing spread, then JJ is the QB with the most projection. But saying that the offense didn’t have pro-style elements, that’s just a lie.
Or it’s trolling. Remember that trolling Michigan fans is a tried-and-true business model when you’re looking for clicks.
Not saying they’re going to turn out the same, but wasn’t the book on CJ Stroud pretty similar?
I came to terms a long time ago that the teams who are running up the scores, stat padding, keeping their hero-ball QBs in the whole game, etc…are doing the “right” thing.
I disagree with that approach…but there’s demonstrated rewards for doing so. Between draft evals which seem to take box scores as some holy divide between “good” and “bad”, awards which seem to only look at the number of TDs thrown, and a Playoff Committee which has ADMITTED that they take style points and score differential into consideration…there’s actual, tangible punishment for shutting your offense down after a game is functionally over.
I’m not defending the pick, it was a terrible decision by the Falcons, and I completely agree with Cousins that there were instant contributors available instead of a massive overreach in Penix.
But dude, maybe he could cool it with the pettiness, or at least the public insults. Penix isn’t responsible for the Falcons making this bonkers decision, and now he gets to walk into a fractured locker room with a starting QB who resents him.
Once again I’m obliged to feel bad for Michael Penix Jr.
There’s been nothing but hate coming out of Cousins’ camp about this pick. “Blindsided”, “cheating”, “undermining”. He’s acting personally betrayed.
Kirk Cousins is a 35 year old veteran who was CLEARLY signed to lead the team and teach the young guys …and he’s acting like a petulant child for…not being the only QB on the roster???
$1 says that Penix gets the silent treatment, and absolutely no mentoring, from Cousins.
It took balls of steel to wait and wait and draft McCarthy at 10, especially after the bonkers pick of Penix even earlier!
I’m not even a Vikings fan, but that was impressive draft management
Reminds me how Penn State QBs got to the draft and the consensus on them was always “wow, these guys would be really good if someone had bothered to coach them at any point!”
Anthony Morelli, whose legacy is one of the best pictures ever to come out of Michigan football, was once a top top TOP level recruit who was ranked higher than Chad Henne. His draft eval was “acutely undercoached.” Christian Hackenberg’s wasn’t any better.
That’s a dangerous take IMO.
HOW you win games, again, my opinion, is of utmost importance. It takes nerves of steel to say “Penn State ain’t gonna score, so all we have to do is hold on”…but that’s dangerous because mistakes happen.
There’s a world of difference between “we don’t have to pass” and “we can’t pass”. Penn State was more the latter than the former, which wasn’t on McCarthy as much as the OL.
I’m always going to be in favor of a win over a loss (duh), and PSU had a top 5 defense. Context matters, and if it was just the one game I’d be fine calling it an outlier. But when JJ got hurt, the passing game basically shut down. For like 5 games, maybe 6. Our coaches were content to win with defense, which is fine I guess when you have literally the best defense in football.
But saying “we won” doesn’t mean that you can ignore an offense which had a material deficit in its ability/willingness to put up points.
The callousness of people who write off a highly rated recruit after a redshirt freshman season in which he played in 1 game (IIRC) and then got injured…after being a basketball player for most of his life…is a level of copium from Sparty that I wish I was surprised about