2015 preview

The question:

So, my dear Harbaugh doubters and Maryland player drafters, how have your expectations changed for this year?

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The responses:

David: Starting last New Year's Day, I think I backed the idea that M was going to go 8-4 with a probable ceiling of 10-2. As M landed RuDock and Brian UFRed most of his 2014 games -and, admittedly, the Drake Harris hype train hit full steam ahead- I was getting confident in 9-3. Harris hasn't hit it big, yet, and RuDock is still coming along. But that defense looks, no, IS...really frickin' good, man. I thought they would be better than the past few years, but they could be the best M has had in quite a while. I wasn't too discouraged after Utah, but said to my buddy, as we walked away from the game, that I thought BYU would be the big measuring stick to tell us how we'd developed over the next month. I'm going to say that Michigan passed.

The rest of the league? Maybe not so much. Teams with good coaches grow and get better. And that could happen in a couple of places but not that many. Let's see some consistency out of the Penn State OL and Minnesota's offense. Brian mentioned that the Michigan State game looks a lot more tractable and I have to agree. It seems like it might finally be a more even game that its been over the last couple of years, obviously. With Michigan State's line of injuries over the past few weeks and some of their performances looking a tad spotty, despite playing lower level opponents, I am actually starting to like this matchup for Michigan. The Ohio State game? I feel better about it than I did a month ago, but if Ohio State executes to their highest ability, I'm not sure any other team in the country beats them. Obviously, that is a throw-out-the-records Game and just about anything can happen, but those are the types of things that are impossible to predict. If both teams play their best, I think Michigan still gets edged out. Ok, it's official. I have talked myself up to being confident in 9-3 and maybe even a little disappointed in not going 10-2*.

*obligatory mention barring major injuries to very key players: RuDock, G. Glasgow, Butt, Lewis, Peppers.

[after the jump: we jump but maybe not as high as Amara the American]

[For the new, this is our weekly roundtable that hasn't been weekly]

Harbaugh, upon being asked if he's too Harbaugh to Harbaugh.

The question:

Ace: Given the current roster, the schedule, and Harbaugh, what are reasonable expectations for 2015?

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The answers:

Seth: If they do indeed hang on to everybody, particularly Mattison, I think we're looking at a season that starts rough and ends strong. The defense trades Frank Clark and Jake Ryan for another year on everyone else, plus Desmond Morgan and Jabrill Peppers back from injury.  They could be awesome. I'm a bit worried about staff gelling—Mattison is as close to a Hanlon assistant as you can get, but he's not going to take a Fred Jackson/emeritus role, and I won't be comfortable until I'm reading stuff about how he and Durkin are best buds having suds.

Luck, yeah, but Harbaugh also was hot after RGIII as a recruit. Guy can spot 'em; can he make them is the more immediate question. [photo: getty via SF Examiner]

On offense I am biased against offensive line coaches who become OCs because DeBord/Terry Malone/Les Miles have convinced me that on the conceptual spectrum of cleverness to manliness they tend to be "execution and toughness" extremists. But as long as Harbaugh's there contributing his special brand of messing with defenses, Drevno can preach the Tao of ass-kicking to his heart's content.

Michigan's biggest question mark is whether their talented but heretofore totally lost quarterback can be fixed in an offseason. That I don't know the answer to, but Harbaugh's on any short list of quarterback gurus who might pull it off.

Harbaugh's offensive leaps are tough to track because he inherited horrible teams at Stanford and San Diego, then rebuilt with his dudes. So the one relevant data point, and indeed all hope for a speedy recovery, is San Francisco. Remember Harbaugh took over in the lockout season so he (and the rest of the league) had barely more than collegiate time to prepare their teams. He then took them to 13-3, in the process turning Alex Smith from a brooding disappointment, to a team leader and efficient guy who doesn't turn it over.

I was already starting to get bullish on the offensive line by OSU. Whether they keep the zone or just parts of it, Michigan has, and paid dearly for, six to seven guys with extensive starting experience, most of whom are due for that big So. to Jr. leap. There are enough bullets in the RB and WR chambers that somethings will hit the target.

Dave Brandon's lasting legacy will be the even-odd schedule dichotomy, but that works out for 2015 at least. With MSU and OSU at home and a manageable Big Ten road schedule there are a lot of ways for Michigan to finish strong next season. Oregon State and maybe Utah will have new coaches (the Utes at least lost their top staff) so who knows what shape any of those teams will be in. BYU should be decent; that offense scares me, especially since several freshmen displaced senior multi-year starters (and ripped Texas 41-7) this year. Expectations are centered on Gator, or whatever 4th place in the Big Ten is these days, but I'm optimistic for a rivalry win and a Citrus Bowl where we wipe some overrated SEC team.

[Jump for Dave Nasternak's long-winded debut]

Meta: New interim column name is interim. Rhymes with "talkin' points" if you have a heavy Midwest accent. Hakn means to nag in Yiddish, literally to bang on […a pot or teakettle]. The reference.

Every touch is a little bit of magic. [Fuller]

Early last month Brian forwarded me a reader question about the relative experience of Michigan's players, and asked for a lot of research:

What has been the average age and game experience of each of the teams’ skill groups over the course of the season for each of Hoke’s years coaching here?

I’d love to see a table or graph that showed age/game experience by skill group by year of tenure for all the skill groups.  Just data.

Everyone says – players aren’t developing.  I’m not sure whether it’s true or a function of getting better but younger less experienced guys on the field.

My impression Defense is improving – and that’s where Hoke started recruiting (if memory serves) – those are some of his third year guys now (still juniors and RS Sophs) – getting better all the time.  Offense – a year behind defense from age/experience.  Mostly Sophs and RS Fresh.  If that pattern is right and holds, a defense of 4th and 3rd year guys next year and an offense of 3rd and second year guys should continue to improve the product.  No?

Off the cuff, we were plotting out age progression of Hoke's recruiting classes back in 2012 (when most of the 2013 class was signed) and concluding that 2015 was the probable germination point. I think a big part of why Hoke was let go was Michigan doesn't at all seem on track for that to happen. As Hackett mentioned in his press conference, the 2015 team should be one of the most experienced we've fielded in memory across the board (provided there's no mass exodus, which is hardly a guarantee).

Yay for Good News! How Good's Our GNews?

To get a real answer I really think we'd need other teams to compare it with, and that's way too much work. Also not all positions are created equal and relative experience does not say how quality the experienced players are: the 2003 and 2005 teams were nearly identical, but the 2003 was one of the best under Lloyd while the latter we thought of at the time as painful. Deciding which positions mature at what rate and have which effect of outcome is beyond the scope of this study.  But I found two ways to approximate an answer:

1) Long ago I started keeping a spreadsheet of players, going back to the mid-'90s, with what years they were on the roster, when they left, and why. With some updating that was able to produce a list of how many scholarship players Michigan had available each year back to '97, broken up by year-in-program and eligibility and whatnot. By that count Michigan has the oldest team in 2015 in the post-championship era, with 85 accumulated years (average at UM for 1997-2014 is 68) since high school on offense and 83 (average is 61) on defense.

2) I scoured the Bentley team history pages (the links at the right on that page), for how many starts each player had. This turned out to be quite the rabbit hole, hence why it took me so long to produce a response. After fixing a bazillion duplicates and spelling errors and whatnots (like for example they have the Gordons mixed up), I had a list of starts by season of every Michigan player going back to 1994, which I've put on Google Docs for your perusal.

There's some other good tabs at that link if you like exploration.

[Money chart and more after the jump]