is the 2020 class here yet
The Question:
BLACK, BROWN, OR GRAY SQUIRRELS?
Ace: I have photos for this.
Brian: Focus guys, there's news. Hockey is back.
Seth: What about the months of content we had planned? I was just getting ready to post Round 1 of the Draftageddon of Past Draftageddons.
Next week Heiko drafts a goat.
BiSB: The plural is "Draftsageddon"
The Mathlete: This is the most MGoBlog comment of all time.
Brian: First overall pick is the one where Heiko drafted Kirk Cousins to play OL.
Ace: We’re getting closer…
BiSB: Speaking of sports where sometimes you run out of dudes at a position group...
FOOTBALL BACK.
Brian:
— Pat Fitzgerald (@coachfitz51) September 16, 2020
Ace: Feeling for the Northwestern players who had to quarantine in Lake Michigan.
BiSB: Cant' catch a respiratory virus if you don't respirate. Also can't coordinate any union activity.
Ace: Let’s get ready to compartmentaliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiize. The good news is we’ve covered college sports long enough to be well-practiced at this.
BiSB: Do you think Fitz didn't know what the word "quarantine" meant, and was too afraid to ask anyone, so that was his solution?
Brian: Anyone associated with Northwestern football knows what quarantine means because they were quarantined from the endzone last year amirite
Ace: It feels good to get these jokes off again. Context be damned.
[After THE JUMP: Who's in?]
The Question:
What do you want to hear from 'fall' practice?
The Responses:
BiSB: Did anyone else just involuntarily yell "DEFENSIVE TACKLES?"
Seth: I was planning on having some concern about replacing 80% of the offensive line fir---DEFENSIVE TACKLES
David: So, wasn't there a quote from an opposing coach relatively recently that talked them being good on the OL? Which I thought was interesting, given they lost 4/5 starters...
Alex: Excited to see which Veteran At A Position Of Need Who Hasn’t Done Anything Yet they single out to describe as Having A Strong Fall Practice And Really Growing As A Leader only to inevitably play like 5% of snaps this year.
David: I feel like a number of those candidates transferred, so now it will really be interesting.
Offensive Line
Brian: Honestly despite losing four starters I'm fairly comfortable with the situation on the line? You've got Mayfield, who looks like a burgeoning star after shutting off Chase Young, and Stueber, who was neck-and-neck with him until he got hurt. You've got Ryan Hayes, who looked functional well before he should have last year. You've got Vastardis/Filiaga/Honigford on the interior, and then you've got that six-man line class that's getting talked up extensively.
Add in Warinner and it's fine.
Seth: You didn't even mention Zach Carpenter, whom they say is going to start at center. He was another guy getting the coach talk before it's warranted.
David: He mentioned the six-man class.
BiSB: The floor on the OL seems pretty high.
Brian: That's the one thing I do want to hear about the OL: there is a center and the choice is obvious. The Cole-Kugler-Ruiz rollercoaster really emphasized how important it is to have a C who can get the line calls right almost all the time.
David: Brian, do you remember charting Vastardis a bit? I think he played a couple of drives vs MSU...I thought he was fine?
Seth: The other guy they talk about a ton is Karsen Barnhart. They keep comparing him to Bredeson.
BiSB: Rumler is sitting there, too.
Ace: I’m encouraged that the guys getting hyped from that class aren’t Rumler, whose floor seemed very high.
Brian: Vastardis only got a half-dozen plays so the evidence is thin but he was fine in them.
Ace: I know we have precedent but I’d still prefer they don’t start a former walk-on. I’d like to hear “no walk-ons starting” out of fall. That’d be good.
BiSB: But, to Brian's point, the "this guy is the center" guy isn't as clear cut as it has been.
Brian: One walk-on starting is fine, team-wide.
Seth: (Glasgows not included.)
Ace: I like one walk-on as a key backup better.
[After THE JUMP: the people demand more WHEELs]
Today: Twitter questions. Tomorrow: your emails (and it's not too late to send those in).
So on a scale of meh to OH DEAR GOD, how much does Michigan miss Livers?
— Hoover Street Rag (@hooverstreet) January 14, 2020
More specifically, what do you think is the most underrated aspect of what Michigan misses about him in his absence?
I went to Hoops Lens and their on/off numbers to confirm, and while it may not quite be an all-caps situation... oh dear god:
guarantee games removed
As the numbers indicate, Michigan misses Livers even more on defense than they do on offense—and they miss him quite a bit on offense. While you can usually chalk up an 11+ percentage-point drop in three-point shooting to a lot of bad luck, it's less easy to argue that when replacing a shot-maker of Livers's caliber with a hesitant shooter like Brandon Johns. Some of that drop is Eli Brooks hitting a major shooting slump that's largely independent of Livers's absence; a lot of it is losing the team's best outside shooter and not having a reliable replacement in that regard.
But while Michigan has shown the ability—if they can shoot straight—to somewhat approximate their full-strength offensive effectiveness without Livers, the same cannot be said about their defense. The gap in two-point defense is a hair under ten percentage points, a massive difference. The Wolverines also rebound significantly better and foul far less often when Livers is on the floor.
Livers is the only wing defender on the team who can switch two through four without getting burned, and he can even guard point guards and centers in certain situations. Michigan didn't lose to Minnesota only because they couldn't stop Daniel Oturu in the post; when they tried to inject some offense by playing Franz Wagner at the four in the second half, he was the primary culprit in allowing 6'9", 235-pound senior Alihan Demir, not normally a major scoring threat, to pour in 13 second-half points. Wagner wasn't strong enough to keep Demir out of the paint; that wouldn't have been the case with Livers.
The shooting Livers provides gives Michigan's offense a major boost. His defensive ability and versatility, however, is what unlocks the lineup combinations that currently make the difference between an excellent defense and a bad one.
[Hit THE JUMP for a lot of questions about the centers and defensive strategy, plus keeping an eye on the future.]
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