USA Today: Michigan One of the "Losers" on Signing Day; WTH?
What the hell am I missing here? It seems like everybody is punishing us simply because we had a small class.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/recruiting/2015/02/04/colleg…
In three weeks, Harbaugh flipped guys from Texas, Nebraska, Iowa, UConn and whatever else I'm missing. He flipped the No. 4 QB in the class. He got four-stars that Florida, Alabama, FSU, Arkansas and ND wanted. How does that make us a "loser"?
February 5th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:18 AM ^
Question for the board: Is anyone else confused as to why Pitt is the only other school that had a small class like us?
Is it just me or does every school recruit 20-25 people yearly without roster overflow?
February 5th, 2015 at 10:19 AM ^
Lower retention? Also, why are we giving this troll article clicks?
February 5th, 2015 at 10:37 AM ^
The only thing the USA Today is good for is wiping your feet when you walk out of your hotel room in the morning.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:10 AM ^
Don't diss the crossword/puzzle page...
February 5th, 2015 at 11:16 AM ^
It's a NEWSpaper that takes the weekend off. I was always amazed by that.. However, I do like me a good Friday USA Today crossword every once in a while.
February 5th, 2015 at 12:13 PM ^
I also enjoy the colorful weather map on the back page.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:47 AM ^
Also good for this
February 5th, 2015 at 12:21 PM ^
don't be such a hater.
February 5th, 2015 at 1:56 PM ^
so when I eat it I use USA today since there is nothing I would want to read again. Main problem is that I can read both pages in about a minute .Too bad it is so few pages, it's so flimsy when it gets wet
February 5th, 2015 at 10:32 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
O-VER SIGN-ING
/Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap
February 5th, 2015 at 10:19 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
I'm not trolling. I know why we had a small class this year. I'm just wondering how other schools literally recruit 20-30 people a year. Unless everyone and their mother are oversigning, I don't get it. We were never going to hit the 20 mark even with a loaded class.
Or that's just a lot "lower retention"
February 5th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 11:45 AM ^
Was it 1934 AKA 1933 AKA 1932 AKA 1931 AKA 1930 AKA 1929 AKA 1928??
February 5th, 2015 at 12:00 PM ^
Username was "ihateMichigan". I know, you're thinking it's incredible that we were able to see through such a clever troll disguise....
February 5th, 2015 at 11:08 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 11:49 AM ^
We haven't had much attrition under Hoke, and signed some big classes recently. That's really all there is to it man.
Even if a school had zero attrition, they could take 21-22 players every year. (If they also dumped all 5th year seniors). Since most schools have a lot more attrition than zero, it's not all that complicated to see why most can sign 20-30 each year, even while not oversigning.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:19 AM ^
Clicks.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
They clearly don't what they're talking about, so don't bother clicking.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:31 AM ^
*Don't KNOW. Fixed it for you. It's due to the fact that a lot of the players we were in on for signing day ended up spurning us and signing somewhere else. Losers as in lost out on players we were in it for til the end. Not hard to understand.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:48 AM ^
Yeah I think it depends on how you define "Losers." Like you said, we lost out on some guys we were going for. But by most metrics, 247 class rankings for example, we were big winners.
Calling us losers will grab the attention of lots of fans though, especially places like mgoblog where we take this stuff quite seriously
February 5th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^
Posting here is a sign we take it seriously and if we frequent this site then we should also understand that the winning and losing that counts is done on the field for a school like Michigan. We'll always get above average players at the very least on the trail. The bullshit in that article is easily picked through if you can critically think so I wouldn't worry about perception.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:04 AM ^
That's not really true though. He has MSU (oddly) as a winner, not for what happened on signing day, but for brining in a top 25 class. That's a measure of their entire class, not just signing day.
And if this were true, it's lazy: Michigan did miss on high profile targets, but only Clark and Weber were really 50-50. Weber almost came, in fact told Harbaugh he was Michigan-bound the night before (according to Sam Webb). It also ignores the fact that we flipped Higdon and Washington (who didn't even visit), stole Shelton Johnson from FSU, and landed Tyrone Wheatley Jr. All on signing day.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:09 AM ^
Weber, Clark, Marshall, Jefferson, Smith, and whoever else. Most of the guys who were flipped were lower on the rankings scale. I don't know what all of you people expect. If you want someone in this guy's position to write a really detailed take where an abundance of research was undertaken then you're the ones who are delusional. We see this same scenario play out in most other arenas as well. Unpuker your chocolate starfish and take a deep breath. This is commonplace.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:16 AM ^
Your response is a bit... aggressive. It seems like you're the one who probably needs to calm down.
I already covered Weber and Clark, true losses. Marshal was never coming here. Smith isn't a loss because he hasn't signed anywhere yet. Jefferson... had you ever heard of him a week ago? And landing four guys balances out most of that. Johnosn is more important to this class than Weber, and Wheatley fills the TE hole left by Clark.
Commonplace doesn't make it OK. People are allowed to call out something they see as poor logic or reasoning, or lazy writing. It's not too much to ask for a major paper to have some basic understanding of his subject matter before posting an article. It's OK for this guy and others to expect more.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:26 AM ^
Lazy reporting is something that we've seen time and again. This joins the ranks with all of the others. The guy needs to give a blurb and does just that. If questioned I'm sure he would recant when facts were made clear to him. We should expect more but unfortunately it is rarely the case to be given competence.
February 5th, 2015 at 1:03 PM ^
Imagine how long an article would have to be to go into that kind of detail for every team on the list. Not to mention explaining why other teams aren't on the list.
February 5th, 2015 at 11:06 AM ^
By that definition, every single team is a loser.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:20 AM ^
Because it's hard to justify UM as one of the winners, and you can't simply leave UM out of the article. UM makes an article better by its mere presence.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
I feel strongly that you should not be allowed to have a platform to reach others unless you understand the use of and the underpinnings of logic. Maybe we need to mandate more science in high school or something. Maybe its just that they truly don't have the capacity to understand or undertake an investigation into context.
Its just embarassing how little anyone thinks before they write. How AWFUL it would be to have such a limited mind that you could only make X vs Y comparisons. Seriously, think about having that kind of brain.
I don't feel anger (lying, I do), but I do feel pity.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:21 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:25 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 11:50 AM ^
We did score big names. Gentry, Cole, and Malzone are big-time recruits. Kinnell isn't too shabby either.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:21 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:32 AM ^
is the New York Times for idiots.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:22 AM ^
We've had a great recruiting class the last, how many years? And nothing has translated on to the field. Do not even freak out over this.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
when you consider that 247 listed UofM as one of the "signing day winners"
February 5th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
USA Today.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:25 AM ^
Click bait journalism at its best.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:25 AM ^
February 5th, 2015 at 10:26 AM ^
I know it sucks, but no one will remember this in a few months. It's an outstanding class given the circumstances, with QB and DE needs met.
It's an odd list. MSU is included as a winner for bringing in a so-so class. Good, but not great (as many have noted, Michigan actually has more 4* recruits with a much smaller class size, coach who's been here for 5 minutes). It seems like there were several other clear winners on the day that would rank far ahead of Sparty.
If Weber had gone blue, I bet this writer would have had M in the winner column. And that lack of thought and analysis would tell you all you need to know about the article.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
For the situation UM/Harbaugh was in, the recruiting class turned out pretty decent. I think what we can reaffirm is that relationships win in recruiting a majority of the time. JH just didn't have enough time to build decent relationships with their top targets. Also, two of their top targets were de-commits and de-commits don't usually come back. We hoped Weber and Clark would be a part of the class but we can't really be suprised they were not.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:29 AM ^
Another way to figure out that they have no idea what they're talking about is that they expect a 25 man class next cycle, when we have spots for about 17-20 right now. They obviously just looked at the big names and saw how many people/starz they have.
February 5th, 2015 at 10:30 AM ^
I would agree with them. We lost out on our five biggest recruits on the board. Weber, Clark, Van Jefferson, Smith, and Marshall. Just because we flipped guys from other schools does not make us a winner.
Now, Jim can coach these guys up. I'm not worried. I think we have a pretty solid class given Harbaugh being here for a month and a small number of available scholarships to give away.