academic progress rate

[Patrick Barron]

Sponsor note. There's nothing to emphasize the importance of contracts like a coaching search. Do you have a contract that needs to be drawn up? Would you like it to make slightly more sense than certain contracts of recent import? Are you thinking about starting a small business offering hugs to distraught Michigan fans?

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Richard Hoeg can help you with that. Hoeg Law is the is the MGoBlog of law firms: small, dedicated, in possession of strong opinions about video games. Stay strong. And get legal backing. At Hoeg Law.

I wondered when someone would notice. There are a lot of games at night now. So many that it might be smart to…

…yeah, that. Michigan should feature frequently in that slot, and as a person who likes to get home and see the end of the 3:30 games and then the night games I'm all about that. If your priority is encompassing all the madness of a college football Saturday, noon is the slot for you.

Doing the math. Numbers from the new media rights deal:

That is 13.7 million per school. Michigan could pay every one of their approximately 700 scholarship athletes 20k a year based on this jump alone. If restricted to the ~100 players on the two main revenue sports that's 140k a year.

Nico Collins under the microscope. Combining Josh Gattis with this guy could be shades of Allen Robinson and Chris Godwin:

Hail Warinner. To go from last year to this is incredible.

Find a tackle and Michigan's set to be a lethal passing attack.

[After THE JUMP: UCLA is incredible]

Bork! Last night Carl Hagelin had a case of deja vu when a ref blew the play dead despite a very loose puck in the crease. Luckily for him, the grave miscarriage of justice happened to the other team this time. Result:

Hagelin had the empty-netter to seal it, and that's Carl Hagelin: the guy you put on the ice with a minute left when you're up 1-0 in game six of the Stanley Cup finals. Congrats to the Penguins and their veritable horde of college hockey alums; nuts to all the people who call Sidney Crosby "Cindy."

Better than perfect. I don't know how Michigan is claiming a 1006 APR for one year, but they are indeed:

This is a much better thing to try to figure out than "what score do they need to not get nailed?"

Amateurism is bad and dumb, part 300. UCF has a kicker. You probably did not know this but could extrapolate it from facts. It is a certainty that no one wants to give this kicker money for playing college football. He plays for Central Florida. He is a kicker. He has zero career field goals. But he's also a minor Youtube star with 52,000 subscribers. Fly, meet nuclear bomb:

On Saturday, June 10, De La Haye uploaded a new YouTube video titled, “Quit college sports or quit YouTube?”. In the video, the kicker showed up to a meeting at the football offices exclaiming he felt like it was Judgement Day.

“Everything’s going to go well,” he said in the video. “We’re just going to talk about ways that I can keep doing what I’m doing and follow the rules.”

It’s unclear who the meeting was with, but upon returning, De La Haye said he was basically given an ultimatum of choosing between football or YouTube videos.

“The meeting went well, but it didn’t go well at the same time,” he said. “Basically, I’m not allowed to make any money off of my YouTube videos. I’m working hard basically as a job — filming, editing and things of that sort, and I’m not allowed to make any money. If I do, then bad things happen for me. I feel like they’re making me pick between my passion for what I love to do shooting videos and entertaining and my other passion, playing football.”

This isn't an anomaly. This is the ruthless logic of amateurism as practiced by the NCAA: not only will we not give you any money, but nobody else can give it to you either. Even if it has nothing to do with sports. Even if you are so obscure that you're not even an AAC school's primary kicker.

Lavall Jordan moving on up? Jordan just took over UWM but there's an opening at Butler and he almost got the job once before:

Jordan will certainly be a person of interest when Beilein decides to hang 'em up, and Butler would be a fine platform via which to confirm or dis-confirm the idea that he should be the successor.

What is even going on in Oxford. The Ole Miss saga—I can call it a saga because it involves men in helmets bellowing nonsense and ends with an axe going through someone's forehead—takes an odd twist:

A business in Oxford, Miss., has filed a civil complaint alleging defamation that could reverberate through the University of Mississippi’s ongoing NCAA case. Rebel Rags LLC, an Oxford-based clothing company, filed the complaint Friday in Lafayette County Circuit Court.

The suit alleges defamation in the NCAA testimony of two Mississippi State football players, Leo Lewis and Kobe Jones, and also Lindsey Miller, the estranged stepfather of former Rebel star Laremy Tunsil. In Ole Miss’s response to the NCAA’s notice of allegations last week, it attempts to deny the allegations that two recruits and the family member of a recruit—Lewis, Jones and Miller—received a total of $2,800 in gear from Rebel Rags.

The store in question is named as a booster and if disassociated will lose its ability to sell Ole Miss gear. This is a slight problem for a store that only sells Ole Miss gear. Therefore this, which cannot be good for Ole Miss. Either the NCAA will pause for the outcome of a court case, lengthening the recruiting purgatory that caused Hugh Freeze to refer to his 2017 class as a penalty, or it will do whatever it's going to do anyway. The general thought is that the NCAA will do the latter, leaving this defamation lawsuit as an attempt to exact some revenge on the folks who set the Ole Miss program on fire.

What is even going on in East Lansing. Another gent who won't be playing for MSU this year:

Former Michigan State lineman Cassius Peat says he felt "blindsided" earlier this week when coaches told him he didn't have a spot on the team less than a week from when he was supposed to report to East Lansing.

Peat told the Detroit Free Press that Michigan State coaches informed him Wednesday that he shouldn't return to campus for summer workouts.

"I have respect for them, and I understand it's a business," Peat told the Free Press. "But morally, man, as a 20-year-old kid with a family, for them to do that is -- I can't even put it into words, to be honest."

Peat was the ultra-rare JUCO guy who was set to return to his original school. Since he is an ambulatory person large enough to play DL and Michigan State looks set to have two walk-ons on their DE depth chart, this could not have been voluntary on MSU's part. Peat must have failed to get by the Clearinghouse.

The number of players MSU has lost to offseason attrition is truly prodigious:

  • OL Thiyo Lukusa: quits team, says he's giving up football, ends up at JUCO.
  • S Drake Martinez: probably a playing time transfer
  • DE Donovan Winter: dropped after armed burglary charge
  • LB Jon Reshcke: dropped N-bomb on teammate
  • WR Donnie Corley: charged with criminal sexual conduct
  • DE Josh King: charged with criminal sexual conduct
  • S Demetric Vance: charged with criminal sexual conduct
  • DE Auston Robertson, charged with criminal sexual conduct
  • DT Cassius Peat: probably not qualified?
  • CB Kaleel Gaines: JUCO transfer, academics related?
  • S Kenney Lyke: another JUCO transfer, academics related?

That might not be it, either. MSU's Scout site reported that CB Vayante Copeland and DE Robert Bowers were gone as well; Dantonio directly refuted that report but when insider sites report negative news there's almost always something to it. If those guys do end up gone MSU will be down almost an entire recruiting class of guys they expected to be on the team this fall. Add in the dismal finish to MSU's 2017 class and they're going to go into this season with a roster as depleted as a sanctioned PSU program was a few years back.

This is an amazing carousel. Via Get The Picture, an amazing thing about Florida:

Transfer quarterbacks are nothing new for Florida, which has seen six of its own quarterbacks transfer since 2010 and had signal-callers Luke Del Rio and Austin Appleby transfer in to the program. So far, the players coming in haven’t done much more than the players going out, and Zaire is hoping that all changes with him.

That's a transfer out per year. Since you usually recruit one quarterback a year… carry the two… some long division… take the cosine… that's bad.

Not bad enough for Florida to stop winning the SEC East, apparently.

Etc.: DJ Wilson #16 on the SBN mock draft. State theater renovations underway; end result will be four small theaters. Bruce Arena helped the US scratch out a draw at Azteca yesterday because he's not a goof pretending to be a coach. CMU to be a bodybag game for basketball this fall. This would be a good fix for illegal men downfield being hard to call. It's Harbaugh's job to find the loopholes though. Harbaugh goes to Washington. Wagner up to 245.

This is good publicity. This is a very Michigan Difference sort of thing.

Two amazing things. One: every member of Cass Tech's 2013 secondary is currently in the NFL. Two: ESPN found a picture of Delano Hill in which he looks younger than 45.

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The two guys not pictured, DaQuan Pace and DeJuan Rogers, both went to MAC schools and signed as UDFAs so this is likely to be short-lived. Nonetheless that is extraordinary. Jermain Crowell, the DBs coach at Cass Tech at the time:

He planned to take all four of his NFL-bound protégés out to dinner to congratulate them Tuesday night.

"This might be the last check that I pick up," he said. "This might have to be the last one."

Yessir.

Bits and pieces of the schedule. Michigan's added some guarantee games in 2018 and 2019. They'll play WMU in 2018 and MTSU and Army in 2019. The Broncos are likely to be far enough removed from the PJ Fleck era to be a major threat, but they're likely to be on another level from a low-level MAC opponent.

It's even tougher to project to 2019. FWIW, MTSU has been about .500 the last four years. They were competitive with Vandy (a 17-13 loss) and Illinois (a 27-25 loss) last year; this year they were hammered by Vandy but beat (a very very bad) Mizzou. Army has been the service academy it's safe to schedule for about 20 years now but they got off the mat for an 8-5 2016 with third year coach Jeff Monken.

Hooray for not worrying about this anymore. This site used to have annual posts dedicated to the Academic Progress Rate, because a late Carr falloff and disastrous transition to Rich Rodriguez had Michigan hovering near the Mendoza line. That 880 fell off a couple of years ago, and from there it's been about consolidating a spot at the top. Mission accomplished:

Oddly, I don't see Notre Dame on that list. Someone check ND Nation for fainting spells.

Excellent job all around here, and if you're scoring at home Michigan just had the most NFL draft picks, the third-highest APR in college football, and took a trip to Rome. Croots should be knocking the doors down. For real:

Michigan's coaching staff was just returning from an Italian dinner -- their final meal as a team in Rome -- in a 17th century Baroque mansion with marble door frames and elaborate chandeliers when their phones started to buzz again. A few thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic, the New York Jets had just selected Jeremy Clark with the 197th pick of the NFL draft. He was the 11th Wolverine to have his name called in Philadelphia, a new school record.

In one particular way it's tough being a McCaffrey. Zing:

Hurst will go high. PFF has always been about Maurice Hurst and it looks like that is approaching consensus in the draft analyst community. Todd McShay:

Hurst has started just four games at Michigan, but I love what I've seen on tape so far. He was frequently Michigan's best defensive lineman during the games I studied. And remember: That group just had three D-linemen selected in the 2017 draft.

He's projected to go 16th next year. Don't expect much else: Michigan has just eight seniors. Mason Cole is likely to be drafted and Mike McCray could play himself into the middle rounds. Khalid Hill might be a draftable fullback. Unless there are some very surprising breakouts from juniors that would be it.

Good luck with that. Per Athlon, both in-state teams have to replace a ton this offseason:

East Division

Team Offense Defense
Indiana 5 9
Maryland 6 6
Michigan 5 1
Michigan State 2 3
Ohio State 8 7
Penn State 10 7
Rutgers 4 7

We all know about Michigan's massive turnover; Michigan State actually has fewer returning starters. And they went 3-9. Have fun, guys!

Usually this dude trolls Penn State fans. David Jones puts together a list of Big Ten schools by football revenue and this is either a brilliant way to get me to link very boring content or the worst take of all time:

Though Dave Brandon was unseated as athletic director in Oct. 2014, the revenue monster he built breathes without him. Michigan always was a conference heavyweight but it has recently become the unrivaled giant of money-making B1G football programs, the first in the league to approach the $100 million mark in gross revenue. The 2015-16 figure is a whopping 10-percent increase over 2014-15's $88.3M. Michigan's $60.6 net after expenses is easily the conference's largest.

/head explodes

Jones must have missed the collapse of Michigan's season ticket waiting list and ~75,000 fans at the dismal Maryland game. The part of Michigan's revenue surge that isn't TV money lifting all boats is directly attributable to one Jim Harbaugh, not the athletic director he didn't want to work for.

Etc.: Wagner, Wilson decisions will be at the deadline. That's May 24th. Quinn profiles David DeJulius. Michigan is looking for new lax coaches. Kyle Rowland on the scary, scary hours for Grant Newsome after his ACL tear. Rookie wage scale in the NFL is devastating for running backs. Excellent post on evaluating OL.