keith washington

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Fumble numbers. We had the Mathlete run the numbers on Michigan's fumble rate and ahyup this is an absurd outlier. Here's a graph of fumbles lost on run plays during his D-1 college career (ie, Stanford and Michigan):

Over the years in his database the average teams fumble on 2.2% of plays and lose those 1.1% of the time; Harbaugh has been at 1.8% and 0.9%; this year it's 4.5% and 2.2%. So: Harbaugh teams generally fumble a little less than average and while that's probably just luck it is also luck, of the very bad and hair-pulling variety, that Michigan's losing fumbles at double the rate of an average team out of nowhere.

[After THE JUMP: Onwenu arises.]

[Bryan Fuller]

Per Sam Webb, Keith Washington has given word that he intends to depart from Ann Arbor.

Got word today that Michigan soph DB Keith Washington gave word of his plan to transfer. Stay tuned for more on this story in hours to come. pic.twitter.com/00BUlNeip8

— Sam Webb (@SamWebb77) August 21, 2017

A 3-star recruit out of Prattville and one of Harbaugh's first recruits, Washington redshirted in 2015 and appeared in nine games last year. He was reportedly in the mix for the second corner spot, and Mike Zordich mentioned earlier today that we may see him in different roles as well. Apparently, this is not so.

The starting corners will now likely come from the group of Lavert Hill, David Long, Brandon Watson, and Ambry Thomas. Drake Harris and Benjamin St-Juste are also extant, as is Jaylen Kelly-Powell. 

[Fuller]

How are those young corners coming along?

“Not fast enough.” [/laughs] “Not fast enough. They show flashes. I’ll say this: Lavert has, since his injury, he’s been pretty consistent and you can see him increasing every day and getting better. The other guys, they’ve shown flashes. They just need to grab it. Somebody’s got to grab it and run with it and take it. It’s just not happening. Hopefully somebody will in the next five to seven days because we’ve got to get ready for a game in less than two weeks.”

So Lavert’s responded to whatever challenge you—

“He has. He absolutely has. He came back. He didn’t practice much in the spring. We were very disappointed about that and we expressed that with him. This summer he really worked hard, then unfortunately he gets injured. But he came back and just picked up and the arrow’s going up. The arrow’s going up. Can’t say that about the rest of the guys. Again, you see some flashes. You know they can do it, but they’ve got to do it every single day.”

How often have you gotten to a point in camp where you feel like that and in other years have seen a group, a secondary, come along and do what you want?

“Well, I’ll go back to when I was in Philadelphia coaching with the Eagles. My second year there we had some new faces but they came together and played well. Certainly we’ve got new faces—I guess I can say young faces—and they’re not coming together. I don’t know if they’re just afraid to make plays because, again, they have the ability and they’ve shown the ability and they’ve done it in live situations out here. It’s just for them to understand that it has to be on a consistent basis and that is just not happening right now.”

Is it just a matter of experience?

“Possibly. It could be. It could be experience. It may be. It may just be that they don’t know how to dig a little deeper and to find it. That could be part of the problem, too.”

Is anyone closer? Do you feel like anyone’s making more flashes than someone else?

“No.”

Are you sure this isn’t coachspeak?

“No. No. I’m not—I’m not gonna tell a story that isn’t true. That fair enough?”

That’s fair.

“I mean, we got a game to play in, what, twelve days? They’re working hard, they just gotta work hard more consistently and do the right things more consistently.”

[More honesty (and WR and JKP and Brad Hawkins hype) after THE JUMP]