Harbaugh's offensive philosophy

So who remembers a time when Michigan recruiting wasn't wholly depressing, and we had a recruiting tracker wiki to follow the names and their respective levels of interest?

Your new friend for January. Find it under Useful Stuff.

: I do! I do!

Mr. Blue! Hi there Mr. Blue!

: I'm so excited to get everyone on campus and build this class. TEXT ALL THE RECRUITS!

Well you can do that Mr. Blue.

: Hey, I've been getting those texts. We should all come visit together guys. Is it true Tyrone Wheatley is on staff?

: As have I. Verily this is all data I must consider.

Happy teeth! Data! Guys, it's been forever!

: Wait, I missed those. Do you have my number right?

: I remain 100% committed to Just Fired the Coach I Committed To U, but can you guys add me to the chain anyway?

: Sure thing Nefarious Eduardo!

: I've been following you guys on the tracker that umhero put together but if you want to add me too it's spelled S.a.d. J.o.s.h and my cell is 734-…

So those fellas have returned thanks to the work of umhero. I made it a wiki and added it to the bar above.

Well they're not from the Midwest. EGD had an interesting point to make regarding the comparison of Harbaugh's staff to Hoke's. Brady's guys were all very familiar with the Midwest, and that bore out with a very strong regional recruiting profile. It was already a good assumption that Harbaugh would be stretching his territory from sea to shining sea. I map each coach's region of greatest competence:

The only Texas connection they have is Fisch's short tenure with the Texans. Harbaugh prefers his staff to recruit their own positions but these regional connections matter a great deal in getting that guy in with coaches and players.

In a World Where Everybody Has to Say What They Mean in Pictures. Ron Utah imagined what various dudes in the Great Harbaughning would have said if they'd been absolutely candid. I actually think he got a lot of the thinks wrong, so I'll take a stab at them:

: So Jim when did you decide you wanted to be the head coach of Michigan?

: .

: I mean as an adult, when did you actually decide you were going to take the job?

: .

: So why did you take the 49ers position in the first place?

: ,

.

[After the jump: more of Jim Harbaugh's pictorial answers to the CC questions, and where recruiting happens]

: Was there anything keeping you in the NFL after your split with the 49ers?

: .

: What was the difference between Michigan's approach to you in November of 2010 vs now?

:   …   ,

: Why didn't you demand like $8 million/year or something?

: .

: Mr. Hackett, did you have a backup plan if Harbaugh didn't come?

: .

: Are you still an interim AD or are you interested in keeping the position indefinitely?

:

Rtrg Strtrs b Phl Stl. Steele's returning starters lists are always a gold mine for diary data, and diary all star alum96 mined it for most/least experienced lists and teams of interest. Michigan and Purdue are tied atop the Big Ten in returning starters.

One thing I found interesting is Mississippi State has only seven starters back next year; Dan Mullen is one guy who's probably not happy Michigan got the fifth best NFL coach of all time (by winning %) to come back to college.

Thank Bo Nobody Cares About My Fantasy Team. Somebody scored Draftageddon using All-Conference and All-American votes. He gave 3 points for making a coach or media first team all-B1G, 2 points for 2nd team, and 1 point for HMs. The one important takeaway:

I thought that Ace had the best o-line originally, but his picks of Johnson (RU), Marz (UW) and Walsh (Iowa) earned only four points. Lindsay didn’t see the field. All but one of Brian’s offensive line points were via Wisconsin players. Seth got at least one point at all five positions.

If anybody in my backfield had actually played this year they would have totally appreciated that. Unfortunately Ace and Brian only remember that I talked epic amounts of shit, and not that I was absolutely correct on every point of shit I talked except Connor Cook. Also I predicted BiSB would win, and he did.

Fun times in Cleveland Ya!

MGrowOld charitably described my contribution to the panel as "moderating." Actually I realized I was sitting between Brian Cook and John U. Bacon with two of Bo's favorite players further down the table, and anything I might add they could cover.

Etc. Back to the Wallpaper.

Best of the Board

RECRUITS PER CAPITA

A should-have-been a diary post by alum96 uses a USA Today database to show how many per capita NFL players are produced by each state. The results are unsurprisingly Confederate:

MaxPreps made a map.

1. Louisiana
2. South Carolina
3. Mississippi
4. D.C.
5. Alabama
6. Florida
7. Montana
8. Georgia
9. Virginia
10. Ohio

Alum considered removing D.C. because he didn't know how to separate those seven guys from Maryland and Virginia. He needn't bother; a quick internet reveals Arrelious Benn, Marvin Austin, Josh Morgan, Vernon Davis, Cam Johnson, Vontae Davis, Tavon Wilson, Johnson Bademosi and Josh Cribbs were all born in D.C. proper.

Football may have been cooked up by Northeastern elites looking to prove their manliness, but once it moved beyond that, like most popular sports, it's drawn its talent from disproportionately poor and awful places. That can easily be stereotyped—once a guy's at the level that Michigan recruits he's already well past the average American in commitment level and chops. But finding guys willing to throw their bodies into the small hope of a pro contract has always been linked to hardscrabble places where there aren't a lot of other good options.

HOW RECRUITING GETS URBANIZED

Alum should have made this a diary too: a study on Urban Meyer's recruiting profile versus that of Tressel. I expect the difference to line up with Harbaugh vs. Hoke:

Easy takeaways:

• Urban era shows about 40-45% of players are from in state.  Tressel era 55%ish. A significant reduction.
• Urban is not surprisingly grabbing a good chunk of players from the "South" (SEC/southern ACC footprint).  Whereas it was just under a quarter of the class on average in the Tressel/Fickell era, it's one third of a typical Urban class.
• Again the 2009-2011 class is not indicative of what an OSU class looked like in say 2004-2006; Tressel's classes were generally smaller so Urban is cycling kids thru his program much quicker - part of that might be less redshirts and part of that might be "aggressive attrition" that we see in parts of the SEC.

There has been zero over-signing at Ohio State under Meyer so that last part is unfair. The difference in Urban's class size has a lot to do with that they were coming off of Tressel's sanctions, and therefore had more spots to fill. Tressel did indeed have a weirdly high retention among NFL-ready guys; you'd expect the allure of driving better than a crappy used car, and the chance to furnish your apartment and stuff would have caused more of those guys to go pro. Weird.

MAKE THIS HAPPEN ENGINEERING PEOPLE!

You guys you guys you guys!

Imagine if instead of operating a two-ton machine on your way to the game you could be reading MGoBlog on your phone the whole time. Get this installed on M-14 right now, and have it on I-75 before my kid's old enough to be really annoying on trips up north.

ETC. We don't forget lemon bets around these parts (he's doing it). The 2014 class so good so far. No on Hogan. Good luck with your Brady Hoke except not an awesome dude, San Francisco. Required donations for parking just went up, though I think that's just because there's another home home. Harbaugh gifs thread. Charles Woodson: cornerback, safety, receiver, Globetrotter.

Your Moment of Zen

Dum dum…chee, cheee.

Dum dum dum dum dum dum chee.