jordan whittley

9/11/2021 – Michigan 31, Washington 10 – 2-0

It is not, in fact, true that the Michigan fanbase is unique amongst fanbase in its capacity to self-immolate amongst news that in any non-sports context would be taken as "good." Take it from someone who spent years writing This Week In Schadenfreude, a trip through the most psychotic reaches of college football's internet underbelly. TWIS often featured teams who had won (in the sense that their team had a bigger number than the opponent) but had lost in a much more immediate and real way (because the third-string cornerback gave up a touchdown that one time). Sports brain always works the same way.

However, your author will concede if there was a national championship for hand-wringing, Michigan would be in the playoff conversation annually. On the one hand, this makes total sense given the last seventeen years. On the other, it is very annoying. The responses I got to this tweet…

Yeah Michigan can probably kneel this game out but it's real ominous that they're acting like they have to.

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) September 12, 2021

…were split between "this tweet is annoying" and replies like "JJ MCARTHY NOW" that I found annoying. Sports tweeting is like driving: the only appropriate speed to be going is exactly the speed you are going. Everything else == jail.

In the cold, hard light of day on this Monday I can see both sides of the equation. Yes, it is pretty good that Michigan took a P5 opponent with some recent history of being a good defense and paved them in a way I haven't seen in a long time. On the podcast I referenced the 2019 ND game, but even that featured a large number of stuffed runs interspersed with big plays based off misdirection. In this game if Michigan didn't get four yards on a run it was a surprise. When's the last time that happened? Probably at some point when honorary captain Steve "Not Aidan's Dad" Hutchinson was roaming the field. And honestly, my recollection of Lloyd Carr offenses doesn't have anything like this in it. This felt like a game from the 70s.

Yes, it is pretty bad that Michigan seemed to have an aversion to passing that was also out of the 1970s. You can say this makes sense given the game context, and maybe it did. But it nonetheless feels bad when you end up in situations that are obviously passing downs and then barely pass. It conjures up ideas about what the offense will look like when it inevitably runs up against a team that doesn't get paved.

You can be forgiven if the internet has beaten this fact out of your head but it is possible to hold both of these thoughts in your head at once. I am not immune to this, either, despite my clucking. On the podcast I said that I didn't think this offense could beat Ohio State, and then immediately apologized because my expectations going into the season weren't "beat Ohio State," they were "ehhhh… bowl eligible?"

This is the grandeur and glory of sports fandom: you literally never have to be sane or happy. You can hop from grumbling about 7-5 to grumbling about 9-3 to grumbling about beating a P5 team by 21 in a game that wasn't actually that close, spiritually. These avenues are open to you, and you can take them, and anyone not going at your speed will seem insane. But also you can literally never be dissuaded from optimism. There was a certain kind of Cubs fan who thought this was the year, every year, and anyone not going at that speed was insane.

So you get these camps of people and give them a common allegiance and a way to communicate to each other and you get a great firestorm of anger in the midst of Michigan grinding a name brand Pac-12 school into a fine dust. Here too there is a choice. This is what is great about sports; this is what is stupid about sports. If you sit very still in a forest for several months you will find they are the same thing.

AWARDS

Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week

mmm dump truck holes [Fuller]

you're the man now, dog

#1 Your Offensive Line. This column generally punts on specific OL for this section because it does not have time to form an opinion on every dang guy; that's a process that requires UFR. So when the OL needs to be in this bit of the column they get it as a unit. Their placement here should be self-explanatory. If you need an explanation: 345 rushing yards on 55 carries.

#2 Aidan "My Dad's Name Is Chris" Hutchinson. 2.5 sacks and down-to-down terror whilst being frequently matched against a tackle that people think could go in the first round of the draft. One of the lingering Qs from the WMU game was whether Hutchinson could be an every-down problem. The answer appears to be an emphatic yes.

#3(t) Hassan Haskins and Blake Corum. 155 and 171 yards, respectively, maybe not a missed cut between them, and plenty of yards generated themselves after the OL set them up. Full points for both! They're made up and don't matter!

Honorable mention: Mazi Smith got a ton of push on the interior. Josh Ross was quite a bit more active and ended up with 11 tackles, a TFL, a PBU, and three hurries. Brad Robbins had 4 punts with a 46 average and one return for four yards. Jake Moody had a 52 yard field goal and put almost all of his KOs out of the endzone.

KFaTAotW Standings.

(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)

8: Ronnie Bell (#1 WMU), The OL (#1 Wash), Blake Corum (#2 WMU, T3 Wash)
6: Aidan Hutchinson (HM WMU, #2 Wash)
4: Hassan Haskins (HM WMU, T3 Wash)
3: Dax Hill (#3 WMU)
1: Andrew Vastardis (HM WMU), AJ Henning (HM WMU), Mike Sainristil (HM WMU), Brad Robbins (HM Wash), Jake Moody (HM Wash), Josh Ross (HM Wash), Mazi Smith (HM Wash)

Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week

lol nope [Barron]

Blake Corum. Meep meep.

6⃣7⃣ yards, untouched.@blake_corum runs by Washington for the game's first TD. pic.twitter.com/MpKgi8ahBZ

— Big Ten Network (@BigTenNetwork) September 12, 2021

Honorable mention: Pick anything off the third quarter drive that was seven runs, zero passes, and a touchdown. John Donovan calls a run play on fourth and four. McNamara and Cornelius Johnson execute an excellent back shoulder throw to convert third and long.

​MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.

This one goes out to the people in the crowd booing when Michigan was up 10-0. Yeah, some frustrating playcalling. Let's get it together.

Honorable mention: Haskins is stuffed on fourth and goal from the one. Various McNamara dropbacks go Not Well.

[After THE JUMP: successful coordination, shirts edition; unsuccessful coordination, football edition]

Board lives here.

We have a lot to get to, with a brewing war on the horizon with USC (don’t panic), some major changes on the board at quarterback and cornerback, and the NCAA finally allowing on-campus visits and camps again after a pandemic’s worth of naught.

But first, we’ve got to talk about The D (NNTTD), for Michigan declared yesterday Detroit Day. This was the scene in Ann Arbor:

Not pictured: an unkindness of Ravens

For one day in Ann Arbor, all T’s were pronounced as D’s* all soft TH’s became Z’s, company names were given apostrophized possessives and pizzas were served square and bubbly. Coneys and looseburgers were piled onto the serving staff’s arms and washed down with pop, followed by Sanders on Stroh’s. Harbaugh shared his powerpoint Hall of Fame case for Lou Whitaker, traded gear for jars McClures from Eastern Market, and everyone went home with Pewabic tiles, most of which survived the potholed ride home on 94, which still nobody calls the Ford. I made an all-Motown team for the occasion. Also 30 area recruits for 2022-‘24 were on hand (free), which hand doubled as a map for a spirited, three-hour debate about which route everyone should have taken to get there. That list also turned out to be incomplete($). Rivals’ EJ Holland got reactions($), with Cass Tech OL Jackson Pruitt’s ⬆ the most interesting.

Whom they met along the way is best detailed by the 24/7 crew, who broke down who’s who on the remade recruiting staff on their latest podcast. Lorenz also broke down Michigan’s greatest positions of need which became a high-view state of the class and hosted a VIP chat($) for those looking for the gritty—it’s a few weeks old but has some good bits on Deone Walker and tight end recruiting. Steve is also keeping the visitors list as updated as he can.

The board is also shifting daily. This was expected—after a year and a half of no visits, few camps, and scattered football we knew the late-rising 2022s and all of the 2023s were going to be left unevaluated, both in terms of their football projections and their real interests in schools, until way deeper in the cycle than usual. We’re now starting to see all sorts of guys show up to camps and earn serious offers, and it’s only been a few days since they’ve been able to officially interact in person with these schools and gauge how serious they are.

⬆⬆⬇⬇⬅➡⬅➡BA

People liked the NCAA Football game-inspired arrows last time so I’m going to use them some more. Ups and downs mean trends based on where they were last writeup. Lock means commit or near to it. Peepers is we’re watching for something to happen soon. Right arrow is steady on, or no change despite news, or Connor Jones’s coach is giving quotes again. Left arrow is just there so I could reference a videogame code that’s twice as old as the players we’re talking about.

* [I once seriously confused my bud from from France when I told him to find us a restaurant in a specific New York neighborhood and he spent a half hour searching for somewhere called Liddliddle Lee.]

[Hit THE JUMP for the position-by-position breakdown]

Michigan picked up a big old grad transfer commitment today to boost their depth on the interior defensive line, as Oregon State nose guard Jordan Whittley announced he’ll be finishing his long college career in Ann Arbor. He was last listed at 6-1/358 on the Beavers’ roster, which is many. He’s also 25 years old, has already been through three universities, a major position change, an ACL tear, and survived a heart tumor.

Bottom boy surviving, hard time living, ima make sure you don’t forget it…. 100% committed #GOBLUE pic.twitter.com/hGFm82UOh1

— Jordan Whittley (@Thatjacka__) May 21, 2021

It’s big for the program too. Michigan’s thoroughly Don Brown-ified roster was hardly sized for the huge fronts new defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald ran in Baltimore, where 6-1/336 Brandon Williams played alongside 6-0/340 Michael Pierce, 6-4/340 Haloti Ngata, and the like. Whittley will most likely share snaps with Mazi Smith at nose guard, in a late-career Bryan Mone role.

That fits, because Whittley is the same age, and from the same high school class, as Mone, IE Whittley was once a 6-2/225 running back commit to San Jose State in 2014. He didn’t qualify academically, instead ending up at Laney College in Oakland in 2015. Whittley told Sam Webb (shared on the latest Michigan Recruiting Insider podcast) that he had an ACL injury early in his Laney career, and juco medical care being what it is, he was sidelined a long time and put on 100 pounds. When Whittley came back he moved to defensive line, finally playing in 2017 and 2018 for Laney, the latter as an All-American. That earned him a transfer to Oregon State, where Whittley made it into the regular rotation at nose tackle and was awarded a clock extension for his lost 2015 and 2016 at Laney. Last summer he discovered a tumor in his heart and spent the year on the sidelines getting through that. The NCAA also awarded everyone a free year of eligibility so Whittley gets one more go.

These are his 2019 JUCO rankings, meaning the positional rankings are among junior college transfers:

FWIW Whittley was a 3*, 70, #287 ATH, #266 CA two-star to 24/7 in 2014, which is long enough ago that this was probably a Scout.com rating when it was made.

[Hit THE JUMP for scouting, video, and the rest.]