The excuse of Age
One of the big things we have heard all year was how age would be a huge problem for this team. It's roundly said here and pretty much everywhere, and is also roundly decried by opposing fans from their coolers and farm yards. I was considering doing a breakdown on age and it's true effects, but before I wasted any of my time was curious if anyone had already done something similar. We saw a very young QB in GA and AL play in the national championship, but are those aberrations, or does age really have little to do with the outcome.
January 11th, 2018 at 9:44 AM ^
I will make this as simple as possible for you. You can win with Youth.
You cant win with a half ass pass protection and 3 different quarterbacks who regress as the year goes on.
January 11th, 2018 at 9:58 AM ^
Having talented, experienced players with some youth sprinkled in, makes it a lot easier to win with youth.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:51 AM ^
So our two senior offensive linemen, senior tight end didn't count as experience? Or the fact that our second year starter and 4th year qb couldn't make the offense work either?
We weren't good this year. It was a playcalling and talent issue, not a youth issue. Lewerke was less experienced and younger than Speight throwing to a wr core that had all of one player above sophmore experience and 4 freshmen and was playing behind an offensive line that started a true freshman, redshirt freshman, redshirt sophmore, rs jr and one single senior. I.e. a younger line. That offense outperformed our offense in a road game against a superior defense. The offense was bad this year because the players weren't good enough and the coaching and gameplan were atrocious, it had nothing to do with age or experience.
January 11th, 2018 at 11:04 AM ^
strictly bad coaching and play calling offensively the whole year besides the osu game, M was kicking osu ass that first half and osu is most talented team in country next to bama and uga, lost that game cuz okorn, and if refs knew what a hold was on hurst osu wouldnt have scored.
get some good play calling out of offense and creativity and this team could be very special next year. lots of talent. top 7 classes 2016 and 2017 and some other good players sprinkled in, they r second most talented in big ten behind osu.
Next year is no excuse, talent and experience there. big ten champ or bust
January 11th, 2018 at 11:42 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 3:45 PM ^
You're absolutely right.Talent CAN make up for bad playcalling... and it did. Look at DPJ's punt return vs. AF, or Higdon bailing us out against Indiana. Michigan has good players and this season could have gone far worse if not for their heroics. Imagine the meltdown had we blown it at Indiana (thanks, Karan!)
However, raw talent only gets a team so far (see Ole Miss doing nothing under Hugh Freeze, or OSU the one year under Fickell, despite the ridiculous amount of talent). The offense here has major problems, but talent is far from one of the biggest if you ask me. It should be so much better, even with apparent QB deficiencies.
January 11th, 2018 at 5:09 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 1:03 PM ^
Senior TE? Maybe I'm suffering from PTSD, but I recall our TEs being mostly of the Sophomore variety.
Sure why had some age at some selected spots on O, but age <> talent and experience.
January 11th, 2018 at 3:08 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 3:33 PM ^
Ian Bunting was a senior I believe. He got beat out by younger players but was on the two deep to start the season.
Our defense was the young side of the ball, not the offense. The offense to start the year against Florida had two senior offensive linemen, a sophmore with a full year of starting experience, a rs jr QB with a year of starting experience and 2 years under Harbaugh, who was backed up by a SR QB with a year of starting experience and 2 years under Harbaugh.
The starting TE was a rs jr in Bunting and the inline TE was a rs sophmore with a fair amount of experience in Wheatley. The WR's were young but still brough back Perry, Crawford, and McDoom who all had extensive playing time as backups or in the case of Perry starting experience. That is the offense that struggled with Cincinnati, Air Force, and the first half of Purdue. Sure they could have improved and injuries set them back, but the offense was bad enough that people were calling for Okorn to start by game two.
January 11th, 2018 at 5:03 PM ^
When you put it this way, it makes me kind of worry.
Here's to hoping it was just a couple of misfires by Harbaugh when it comes to coaching.
January 11th, 2018 at 6:30 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 7:48 PM ^
After the way Bunting played in last years bowl game, I thought he was going to be the next Butt. I though this would be the season Wheatley was going to step it up. Overall the QB, WR and OL development really did not happen this season. I hope things get back on track and I think it will start with who ever wins the QB competition. Peters did not help himself in the bowl game but I think all 3 will be starting out as equals by the summer camp.
January 12th, 2018 at 11:27 AM ^
Isn't this kind of alarming though?
Guys who showed promise not following through?
I don't know if that speaks to player development or what.
January 12th, 2018 at 1:06 PM ^
I would rather have a returning starter that was a sophomore than a first year starting senior. Notice that out of the three youngest teams only one won less than 10 games. One of them beat us at home. So please continue with the excuses.
January 11th, 2018 at 4:48 PM ^
If our performance this year had nothing to do with age or experience that would mean that Bredeson, Ruiz, Onwenu, Stueber and Hudson aren't going to get any better. Good news. They will.
January 11th, 2018 at 5:06 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 9:32 PM ^
Sure but that is a different argument than youth was the problem. That argument is that the players weren't good enough, not tied to youth. Our hope for next year is that players will develop and be good but our just ignoring that the failure of this teams offense (and it really is just the offense) was due to players not developing. If Kekoa Crawford develops like you think a highly rated sophmore receiver with experience should he and Grant Perry form a good enough receiving core that DPJ and Tarik Black would have filled out a good receiving core. Sort of like how Bama's third best receiver was a true freshman.
MSU built a better right side of their offensive line with a true freshman and RS freshman than we could build out of a sophmore and rs jr/sophmore/freshman shit rotation. Yet our hope of next year is that a group of sophmores will develop and be good when the staff didn't do it successfully this year. It is certainly possible, but it didn't happen this year and it wasn't a youth problem, it was a player development and offensive playcalling issue.
January 11th, 2018 at 3:05 PM ^
January 12th, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^
to take a look at the list and see some of the other teams that were really young?
129th - USC. Pac-12 Champs
128 - MSU. 10-3.
118 - Stanford. Won the Pac-12 North.
112 - ND. 10-3.
106 - Alabama. National Champs.
103 - Clemson. ACC Champs and made the college football playoff.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:11 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 10:43 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 11:15 AM ^
Alabama has 16/22 players on their starting depth chart that are juniors or seniors. 17/22 Georgia starters were juniors or seniors. They had young QBs, but they had incredibly experienced and talented rosters. Michigan had 10/22 that were juniors or seniors, including a QB that was a senior that got hurt. They were way more experienced and better.
January 11th, 2018 at 12:13 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 7:53 PM ^
Sparty went 3-9 the previous season, so a bounce back was going to happen. I just think if we had Peters starting the MSU game we would have won.
January 12th, 2018 at 5:34 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 1:56 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 3:17 PM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 9:44 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 9:56 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 9:59 AM ^
There will always be exceptions when over 99% of college football players are not 5 stars. But it true that a 5 star generally will turn out to be a better player than a 3 star. And Bama has a lot of them.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:10 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 10:13 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 2:13 PM ^
Who is "we"?
January 11th, 2018 at 10:21 AM ^
THANK YOU. Academics, lack of high end bag man ops, whatever - We aren't going to recruit at Bama/OSU level, probably ever. Beat them according to class rankings once every 5 years? Maybe. Even if we were to win a National Championship next year, it's not going to line up 5 star dudes begging to play here. Accept that we will recruit well, and we will have down years when we're low on experienced guys and end up young at a few too many positions. Such is life for basically every good to great program in CFB outside of a couple.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:21 AM ^
Yes they cheat. That doesn't change the fact they get the players that they do. I'm not expecting Michigan to beat Bama on the recruiting trail, we shouldn't considering the success they've had on the field. Just saying a 5 star is more likely to hit than a 3 star.
January 11th, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^
What evidence is there that they cheat and we don't? The reason 5*s want to go to OSU/Bama is because they have a much longer and better track record of playing in big games and winning championships. Notre Dame outrecruited us this year and won a bunch of recruiting battles where it was basically head to head with Michigan. The academic requirements are also pretty overblown, because a lot of the guys Alabama signed, Michigan worked their ass off to sign. We won't recruit at Alabama's level because we're not nearly as good, and because our coaching staff isn't as good.
January 11th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
Dude, come on. If there was ample obvious evidence they would eventually get busted (see Ole Miss). Bag man networks that are "smart" are hard to catch. Start here:
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2014/4/10/5594348/college-foo…
Unless, of course, you think that article was just completely made up. If so, I can guarantee you don't live in the south because this stuff is well known and accepted here.
January 11th, 2018 at 12:25 PM ^
If Harbaugh wants a 5 star dumbass then Harbaugh will find a way to get the kid.
it seems like all the winners cheat and all the whiners accuse the winners of cheating.
January 11th, 2018 at 1:01 PM ^
Harvard doesn't care if they win, Alabama doesn't care if they cheat. Michigan (the school, maybe not some of the fans) cares about both. It is what it is.
The actual gap on the field created by cheating is not that huge, and we definitely can and need to find a way to win regardless. To borrow a good perspective from Sam Webb, college football is mainly your top 30 guys vs. the other team's top 30 guys. 4th and 5th year 3/4 star guys will frequently match up well against frosh/soph/junior 4/5 star guys with good coaching.
The whole 85 man roster and massive recruiting depth comes more into play over the course of the year with injuries and guys that just don't work out, or when early NFL draft entry or attrition takes a huge chunk of your talent "off schedule." Extremely high level recruting (top 5ish every year) offsets a lot of the bumps in the road, and I would surmise that almost all of the teams that are always in that range for recruiting are a bit questionable.
January 16th, 2018 at 5:43 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 7:57 PM ^
He'll have 5 stars knocking down the doors to get in. Especially if he keeps the strong NFL pipeline going.
January 12th, 2018 at 1:15 PM ^
unless Florida, Florida State, Tennessee, and UCLA can't find enough players. Texas A&M may also pass us as they currently only have 14 commits.
January 11th, 2018 at 10:18 AM ^
Unfortunately we've had quite a few exceptions... Will Campbell, Ondre Pipkins..
January 11th, 2018 at 10:28 AM ^
January 11th, 2018 at 10:33 AM ^
should be 245, not 220. : (
That kid was SUCH a disappointment, like most of Brady Hoke's recruiting "wins."
January 11th, 2018 at 1:53 PM ^
Kyle Kalis was most frustrating to me. Overhyped to the moon. He at least played 4 years, unlike Pipkins, Campbell, etc., but all just total 5* busts.