dan enos

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[Fuller]

“Hello. Good to see everybody.”

Jim, couple misses today but the new guys that you did get, what do you think about the class?

“Very excited about the class. First time we’ve had two signing days, so many that you know about and proud to announce, officially, Shea Patterson—talked about him; Ronnie Bell, can officially announce Ronnie; Casey Hughes, who’s also a graduate transfer; Vince Gray; Michael Barrett. So, welcome to the Michigan family.”

You started talking about Ronnie the last time inadvertently, but what is it that you like about Ronnie?

“Love all his athletic ability. Start off with production: 86 catches, close to 1200 yards, Simone Player of the Year in Kansas City, player of the year in football. He’s also an excellent basketball player and…love the family, love him. Production. Production being the key thing.”

MGoQuestion: What are you getting in Michael Barrett and do you envision him starting off at quarterback or running back or somewhere else?

“Envision him getting the ball in his hands. Wide receiver, slot receiver, running back: those two areas primarily for him. Spent some time with Anquan Boldin, who was also a high school quarterback. Played some quarterback in college, and eventually wide receiver. Somebody that can get the ball and make yards after the catch or yards after contact. A receiver who can run like a running back and, also, I think he’ll have the ability to be a running back. So, different areas that Michael could get the football, including quarterback.”

Now that it’s all over and you’ve had the two signing days, you’ve had the coaches moving in between, with all of it together, what did you learn about this…new world, I suppose? What did you take away from it overall?

“I don’t know what the numbers exactly will be but somewhere around 80% seemed to sign on the first signing day, and then there was 20% more that signed throughout college football. I think our numbers will be pretty close to that. There was a priority for the youngsters to sign on the first signing day. That’s the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway.”

[After THE JUMP: possible positions for Ryan Hayes and Casey Hughes, another spring abroad, and thoughts on new staff additions (including those no longer here)]

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rick pa knew [Patrick Barron]

Smearing the Pitinos' good name. Minnesota suddenly suspended center Reggie Lynch a few days ago because he was ruled "responsible" for a sexual assault by Minnesota's Title IX office. He is banned from Minnesota's campus until 2020, pending a potential appeal.

The best-case scenario here is that Minnesota pulled a Brendan Gibbons: they played a guy who they had to know was very likely to be booted off campus, telling no one and hoping that they could sweep it under the rug. That does not appear to be the case:

There are a lot of extremely pissed off locals on Twitter talking about how Lynch's behavior was widely known and nothing was done about it. Honold did have that meeting:

Honold said Friday that she told Coyle months ago that she knew of “multiple other victims” of sexual misconduct involving Lynch.

“This is a pattern,” she told Coyle and urged him to investigate further.

“But it did not really fall on open ears,” Honold said. “The only person who really responded told me, ‘Well, this sounds awfully personal, how would you even know all of this?’ And, ‘This is irrelevant because they didn’t report to police.’

Minnesota's athletic director pleads incomprehensible corporate nothing-speak:

That is a bald-faced lie in an attempt to cover his own ass and dude should get fired like Minnesota's previous sexual assault idiot AD. And their former associate athletic director. Or a gymnastics coach. Burn the whole department to the ground.

This sounds educated, so that's good. The Daily transcribed a bit of new S&C guy Ben Herbert's philosophy:

“From a weight room development standpoint, the most important thing right out of the gate for our young guys when they come in is developing their lower body and developing their back,” Herbert said. “A lot of guys spend a lot of time (bench) pressing in high school. They don’t spend a lot of time pulling and they don’t spend a lot of time training their lower body. That’s where we see our biggest gains.

“Teach guys how to eat well, teach them how to hydrate properly, teach them how to train the right way, focusing on lower body and back development, and we set them up for a great result.”

One of Herbert’s biggest success stories at Arkansas, former tight end Hunter Henry, tweeted out support of the hiring on Dec. 30.

“One of the best hires in the country!” Henry, a second-round NFL Draft pick, wrote. “This guy is legit. Might have to make a trip up to Ann Arbor now.”

I'm looking forward to the inevitable war between Herbertites and Anti-Herbertites that erupts the first time anyone has a ligament injury.

I did not know this. Apparently when Kirby Smart was hired at Georgia the first guy he wanted to call was Dan Enos, but Jeff Long had created a contract that prevented him from making a move:

“Kirby called me early (Monday), asked me for permission to talk to Dan," Arkansas head coach Bret Bielema revealed. " (I) just basically said … ‘I understand if you’ve got to talk to Dan if that’s something you want to do, but he’s got a non-compete clause in the SEC. So that kind of null and voids those things from really becoming real within our conference.”

It's tough to judge Enos's ability in a vacuum since he's going up against Alabama with a shooter and only one bean, but he appears to be well-respected in the SEC.

TV Teddy has a sad. Embarrassing toolbox Ted Valentine may have finally gone too far with his on-court antics after this flatly disrespectful action in the aftermath of a call he obviously missed:

Valentine was yanked from a couple of Big Ten games this weekend, including OSU's surprising mud-stomping of MSU, and now THREATENS TO RETIRE as a result.

"I'm thinking about retiring," Valentine told The Athletic's Seth Davis. "I've had enough of people blowing up stuff. I think I've had a stellar career, and I think it's time to get ready to walk away."

At least he thinks he's making a threat. The rest of the world sick of his histrionics looks at that as a promise. Valentine might not be the worst ref in the world, but he is the most annoying. It's long past time for that dude to hit the bricks. Hopefully his Big Ten ban is permanent. Something ain't right with that man.

So much for that defensive logjam. Michigan Hockey Winter strikes twice, with 2019 D Mike Vukojevic defecting to the OHL in the middle of a USHL season—bizarre—and 2018 D Mattias Samuelsson apparently decommitting so he can join his brother at... Western Michigan?

FWIW, Lukas Samuelsson was a Michigan commit but is now a WMU freshman... with zero games played. He's got to be a walk-on. Tremendous, tremendous screw-up on Michigan's part to let Lukas walk for another program where he wasn't going to play. Since Samuelsson dropped off Michigan's commit list more than a year prior to his enrollment at WMU this is more of a Red thing than a Mel thing.

Michigan does still have a top-ten-ish pick coming in in Bode Wilde, so it's not a crisis or anything. But the mega-D does not appear to be happening.

David DeJulius gets after it. He took on Clarkston, which features MSU-bound PG Foster Loyer, and went to work:

Very much a Walton vibe there. He's comfortable pulling up from three and the midrange and attacks downhill like Walton did early in his career. Dunno how well that aspect of his game will translate to college—Zavier Simpson was a huge scorer in HS and that went away—but the shooting and all-around dawg-ness should stick.

Etc.: Vital stuff. Equanimeous St Brown leaves ND, enters draft, avoids getting worked by Lavert Hill and David Long next year. Ditto ND RB Josh Adams. Greg Roman staying in NFL. Season summary of Wolverines in the NFL. Isaiah Livers is comin'.

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Per Bruce Feldman, Michigan is hiring another former Arkansas assistant:

For what is as of yet unknown. Rumors that Pep Hamilton and/or Tim Drevno are on their way out seem likely to come to fruition as a result of this, since Enos is another offensive architect type and not a recruiting-maven/position-coach sort.

Enos is a former MSU quarteback who entered coaching immediately after his playing career ended; since 1991 he's been a college coach. After bouncing around small schools for a decade he landed at Cincinnati as Mark Dantonio's QB coach and followed him to MSU for four years; he landed the head job at CMU in 2010. That didn't go that well—a couple of 3-9 seasons to start followed by .500 ball after—but he was something of a trendsetter in college football when he voluntarily left the CMU job to go be a P5 coordinator, joining Arkansas as OC in 2015.

His tenure through the lens of S&P+:

RUSH O PASS O OVERALL
2015 5 1 2
2016 74 22 39
2017 9 47 43

That's better than I expected in the SEC West; Bielema would probably still have a job if his defense hadn't cratered to the 113th this year.

Enos is a college guy whose most prominent stints as an assistant were at mashing pro-style programs, and he had good results despite working at a substantial talent disadvantage. College-lifer pro-style coaches are an endangered species, and while Enos doesn't have a Don Brown resume he's probably the best available coach who's at all a fit for what Michigan wants to do.