Marcus Ray to be a DB Analyst?
Sam Webb alluded to Marcus Ray becoming a DB Analyst for the 2015 football team. This was the first time I've heard Marcus's name mentioned for a coaching position. Does anyone know where these rumors are coming from? What is the difference between a coach and a coaching analyst?
January 9th, 2015 at 8:20 AM ^
I'm only going off of your comments, I haven't heard anything about this, but my guess is it would be in some form of a volunteer capacity. Maybe he comes to practice every so often.
January 9th, 2015 at 8:35 AM ^
During yesterday's round table Sam made quick mention of Alabama's recruiting department in conjunction with the NFL model Harbaugh is using to structure his coaching staff. Part of that discussion, which Sam sourced through Doug Nussmeier, detailed how Alabama's football program has a dedicated recruiting department with several people, non coaches, analyzing tape before passing recommendations/reports on to coaches for further evaluation. I wonder if this is the kind of postion Ray has been offered. If so, I would imagine its a paid position.
January 9th, 2015 at 8:54 AM ^
+1 Informative
January 9th, 2015 at 9:17 AM ^
Wasn't Kiffen some kind of part-time analyst for Saban/Alabama before he was hired full time?
January 9th, 2015 at 9:27 AM ^
the direction Michigan will go (no inside info though). It makes sense, but it takes extra $$ to pay for the extra staff positions. Michigan and Alabama have the budgets for it. I would think though you need people who have some playing or coaching experience since they need to be able to evaluate skills. We should be able to find the money for these new people by getting rid of the remaining Brandon yes-people who still might be employed.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:38 AM ^
1) What's an analyst?
2) Aren't there rules about how many coaches you can have on payroll? Is this some kind of way schools are using to skirt that?
3) If he does that, does that mean he has to give up the BTN gig?
January 9th, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^
These analysts don't coach. They are basically administrative.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^
And since we don't have a marketing director anymore (or whatever the hell that was), there's some money available to do something like, you know, create positions that help the team be successful.
January 9th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
Lochmann was probably making $200M+. You could get 3 or 4 quality recruiting analysts with his salary alone
January 9th, 2015 at 11:17 AM ^
$215k to be exact
http://www.umsalary.info/?FName=&LName=lochmann&Year=0&Campus=0
wait did you mean to type 'M'?
January 9th, 2015 at 2:31 PM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 4:33 PM ^
My company (and I believe much of the financial word) indicates thousands as 'M' and millions as 'MM'. I've just gotten used to writing it like that
January 9th, 2015 at 10:10 AM ^
The round table made it sound as if there were little to no NCAA rules governoring these admin positions so long as these staff members were kept in an explicitly non-coaching capacity.
It seemed like these positions cut a lot of time out of the recruiting process of coaches and made the entire process more effecient for Alabama and its coaching staff.
How Ray can maintain this position and his BTN broadcasting job is unclear to me. I do wonder if these types of positions are another route into the coaching profession for guys not wanting to go the GA route.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:30 AM ^
You mean Marcus Ray will be joining the posters on MGoBlog in analyzing and over-analyzing Michigan football ?
January 9th, 2015 at 10:27 AM ^
Could get unruly, but you could get valuable inputs if you had a controlled crowd of contributors who understood player evaluation
January 9th, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
We need to analyze your suggestion.
January 9th, 2015 at 8:21 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 8:24 AM ^
drinking and go to bed
January 9th, 2015 at 8:24 AM ^
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January 9th, 2015 at 9:00 AM ^
You're talking about being an analyst of douchebags. His radio work over the past few months indicates he is already a douchebag analyst.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:22 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 8:23 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 9:07 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 8:28 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 8:31 AM ^
like something a GA or unpaid intern would do,
January 9th, 2015 at 8:41 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 9:00 AM ^
Other schools have paid staff who do this, and Michigan needs to as well.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:44 AM ^
This is where I'm at, but at the same time it seems Alabama's recruitng analysts make easy money. Alabama seems to only offer the 3 star guys who are already blowing up or 4/5 star guys anyway. I can't remember the last time Saban was given credit for finding some daimond in the rough that no one else already saw the potential of. But I don't follow recruiting that much, so maybe his staff does do that but just not at the level of, say, a Dantonio.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:52 AM ^
Bama obviously has no problem recruiting, but there are busts at the 4/5-star level and they never seem to be in Tuscaloosa.
January 9th, 2015 at 10:07 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 10:11 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 10:49 AM ^
This is correct. He was also competing with Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy, and TJ Yeldon. Pretty sure he was moved to DB at one point. He was quite good at CSU this past year.
January 9th, 2015 at 8:36 AM ^
whoops, missed this comment but I thought the same thing
January 9th, 2015 at 8:29 AM ^
The rumors are probably coming from Marcus Ray himself.
Analysts are paid positions, AFAIK. They are not coaches on the field, but they watch film, evaluate players, etc. I don't believe that all positions have analyst jobs attached, so I'm wondering if Ray would be Greg Jackson's help at the defensive back position. That might mean that Roy Manning won't be kept around to help with the defensive backs, but don't quote me on that...
January 9th, 2015 at 8:39 AM ^
To add to what Magnus said, coaches don't just breakdown game film, but also practice film, etc. People scoffed a bit about Singletary watching recruiting film, but I bet he's one of the first filters before it actually goes to the coach's level. There is just so much to be done in a college program and only so much time. Watching upcoming oppenents, self-scouting, recruiting, etc. You need these analyst positions to help out in today's game.
My guess, if this is real, would be that Ray would breakdown predominantly practice film so that it was immediately ready to go over following practice. It's another way to teach it while it's still fresh in the players minds, and it's useful to have someone that knows a thing or two about the position because they can pick out coaching points and know the appropriate things to look for.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:15 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 9:21 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 10:36 AM ^
People scoffed a bit about Singletary watching recruiting film, but I bet he's one of the first filters before it actually goes to the coach's level.
I just wanted to pile on this thought a bit more. I'm a social science researcher (in the education field) and one of the things that we do is study video of classroom interactions. The technology and techniques that we use are not altogether different than those used by athletic departments. In fact, the software that we used in my previous job was the same as the software used by the basketball team at our institution.
The cool thing about having video data is that you have TONS of data to look at. As a scientist (my roots are in physics) I firmly believe that having data is COOL! But a big problem is that much of the data is CRAP. So we collect tons of data, so that we can learn what we want to study. With minimal training, someone who does not have deep expertise in the field can watch the video and code different events, marking them with different labels and create videos which can be watched by others who do have an eye for detail. For example, let's say I wanted to do this with a football game to match a UFR style analysis. An event is a play, which must be labeled with a few important things: Down & distance, who has the ball, personnel, formation, type of play run, was there a penalty, yards gained (lost), etc. And this can be using multiple synced video sources with multiple angles (all 22, line of scrimmage, other angles???) Then they can generate specific video packages for different coaches. For example, the OL coach will want to see the line of scrimmage view for all offensive plays with the run plays and the pass plays sorted out to analyze run blocking and pass protection separately. He may want to generate video to analyze 1st and 2nd string separately. Or label plays where the defense sent a blitz and watch how they picked it up. Then he can take some of the themes that he noticed and bring them to the attention of the OC and even the HC.
Like I said, I'm in science, not sports, but I know how video analysis works. And I think that this is a decent idea of how this might go on in a real athletic setting. (Although, I've made it a little more solitary than it might really be in practice.) I just want to highlight the role of pre-processing in the video analysis process. We don't need to hear Brent Musberger talking about AJ McCarron's girlfriend...we just want to see what happened on the field.
January 9th, 2015 at 8:44 AM ^
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January 9th, 2015 at 8:44 AM ^
staff in comparison with what Michigan has had. This was from a conversation he had with Nuss. I'm wondering if this could also involve breaking down film on recruits.
He did mention today that he believe the coaches can have assisitants as long as their isn't coaching being done with the players. I think Michigan will take any means permitted to comptete with Alabama and others.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:28 AM ^
Manning (or another CB coach) and Ray. He sounds convinced that Harbaugh will hire a second coach for the secondary.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:34 AM ^
"secondary coach for the secondary", which makes much more sense than a LB coach for the secondary.
January 9th, 2015 at 8:38 AM ^
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January 9th, 2015 at 8:41 AM ^
Hopefully he's better at analyzing DBs than he was evaluating the coaching staff and team during this past season.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:27 AM ^
I imagine there is a large difference between offering a homer opinion vice offering an analyst opinion that has to be right so one can remain employed.
January 9th, 2015 at 9:39 AM ^
was an unwillingness to speak the truth about UM which was motivated by a desire to stay in good graces.
January 9th, 2015 at 10:14 AM ^
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January 9th, 2015 at 8:51 AM ^
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January 9th, 2015 at 9:17 AM ^
January 9th, 2015 at 9:21 AM ^