Unverified Voracity Has The Rutgers Offensive Line
Bowl tickets available. From the Alumni Association:
We have a limited number of tickets available in the Michigan Alumni Section. These are lower level tickets in section 110. We are selling them for face value at $245. You do not have to be a member to purchase these tickets, all you need to do is call our Alumni Relations team at 800.847.4764 during normal business hours. Like I said, we have a limited number of tickets available, first-come, first-serve.
If you're still looking.
Florida State also has tickets, but there's a catch: you have to start at safety. Tomahawk Nation reports that starting safety Ermon Lane will miss the bowl game with a foot injury. Derwin James, who missed much of the season, is also confirmed out. This is bad, and the situation in the FSU secondary makes it worse:
FSU will be incredibly inexperienced in the back end of the defense, and it is not known exactly what combination of players FSU will use to sure up the back end against the Wolverines, who feature tight end Jake Butt and a strong running game. Trey Marshall and A.J. Westbrook will receive a lot of playing time, with true freshman Carlos Becker likely to play more snaps unless Lane can somehow play.
Lane was even in PFF's grading; the two guys mentioned at his replacements were moderately negative (-5.1 and –2, respectively). Becker's only gotten 40 snaps this year. The worst bit for FSU is that Lane's absence might force third corner Marcus Lewis to play more. Lewis has the worst coverage grade in the FSU secondary on under half of their snaps.
Preview preview. Speaking of PFF's grading, FSU breaks down into four tiers:
- Three incredible players: RB Dalvin Cook, DE DeMarcus Walker, and DT Derrick Nnadi all carry massive PFF grades and have the stats and NFL hype to back those up.
- A good to very good receiving corps, depending on how much you want to ding their run blocking.
- Several units that are average. Francois is up and down as a passer and got most of his points running; the linebackers are the definition of average; FSU has a couple of good players and a couple of not so good players in the secondary. Aside from the two NFL first round types, the rest of the DL is just okay.
- Rutgers's offensive line. Grades for guys with 350+ snaps this year: +11.2, –14, –5.6, –20.4, –8.4, –4.3, –11.5, –9.2. Your lone acceptable OL is LT Roderick Johnson. Everyone else is a disaster. This is why whenever you turned on an FSU game this year Francois was neck-deep in defenders.
Michigan's most difficult task will be containing Walker, who has 15 sacks this year. If they can do that they should get enough offense to win since the opposition is going to have serious trouble blocking Michigan's DL.
PFF's freshman All-America team is not great for last year's LB scouting. There are a couple of familiar names here:
Linebacker: David Reese, Florida; Shaquille Quarterman, Miami (FL); Caleb Kelly, Oklahoma
Injuries opened the door for Reese to start down the stretch after impressing in a backup role early on. He played well in coverage while missing only six of his 50 tackle attempts. Quarterman paired with Michael Pinckney to form the best true freshman linebacker duo and he led all Power-5 freshmen with 44 stops. Kelly came on strong down the stretch, keeping the ball in front of him in coverage while finishing with a solid 70.6 grade against the run.
Reese decommitted after Michigan told him they didn't have an early enroll spot for him and Caleb Kelly seemed way more interested in Michigan than Michigan was in him. Hopefully this was a DJ Durkin problem; he was both the DC and the LBs coach a year ago. Also in (slightly) painful inclusions, albeit for a different reason: Isaac Nauta and his 27 catches for 353 yards. He probably made the right decision because he wasn't going to get that at Michigan, but he'd be nice to have on the roster.
No Michigan players made it and that seems right. Rashan Gary played well but didn't play much on Michigan's ultra-loaded DL, and Ben Bredeson was middling at best.
Michigan should still be pretty good next year. Get The Picture points out a story about the stunning youth of most of this year's playoff participants:
Alabama entered the season with the SEC’s least experienced roster. Ohio State did the same in the Big Ten. Ditto for Clemson: bottom of the ACC. But it was actually much starker than that. Phil Steele, the king of preseason mags, uses a five-part formula to determine experience, and he ranked the Tide roster 116th out of 128 FBS teams. Clemson was ranked 101st. Ohio State was dead last at 128th.
So if you’re scoring at home — and recruits are — then three of this year’s best four teams were also among its youngest, somehow surviving one of the most unpredictable regular seasons in recent memory. The holdout is Washington.
These days if you're recruiting at a very high level you can get away with inserting a bunch of untested sophomores and juniors, because the top end is much more ready to go than they were in the past. Michigan will insert almost entirely touted recruits into their starting lineup, and most of them should have one or two apprentice years to their name.
Nothing is more annoying about DCFC than this. Detroit is a name frequently proposed for MLS expansion because it makes a ton of sense. It's an excellent sports town and it's smack dab in the middle of the Toronto-Chicago-Columbus triangle. But Detroit City is vehemently opposed:
...for this team and its passionate supporters, being included would have also presented another conundrum: DCFC’s identity is homegrown and supporters say it would disintegrate under MLS’ sanitized fan control policies.
For them, the only way to keep growing soccer in Detroit, the only way they saw the sport as having a real future here, was to keep it community and supporter-focused. The Detroit sports landscape, Wright said, was too treacherous for any team to turn their back on that model.
That is absurdly self-important and aloof. Many MLS environments are excellent and homegrown because the league was able to establish a détente with existing fans. The league has done a terrific job of crossing over from Family Fun to actually fun environments in Toronto, Seattle, and Portland.
The same can happen in Detroit, because the DCFC hardcore are not 1) particularly numerous and 2) the only soccer fans in the city. If DCFC wants to finish out of the playoff slots in the NPSL because MLS would frown on them saying "fuck" 300 times in a 90 minute match, that's their prerogative. It should have no impact on MLS's decision to come to Detroit or not. There's no reason the two teams can't coexist since they serve different markets. One will draw the interest of soccer fans; the other will draw the interest of people who like to act tough and watch colored smoke instead of soccer.
Etc.: Iowa didn't shake hands with North Dakota after a basketball game, and it's a very big deal. Zach Hyman finds his spot in the NHL: next to Auston Matthews. Analyst Jimmie Dougherty gets a position coaching job under Willie Taggart. Could Arizona have a better Michigan recruiting class than MSU? Probably not! But it's close!
Speight, Peppers, and Charlton make PFF's list of best single game performances in the Big Ten. Charlton's against MSU should have been even more astounding but for "multiple holding violations that he caused but went uncalled."
2017 chatter from Angelique and Isaiah Hole.
December 21st, 2016 at 5:04 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 5:05 PM ^
So what you're saying is that Wilton Speight should throw for 400 yards against FSU? I'll take that.
December 21st, 2016 at 5:06 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 7:31 PM ^
Harbough won't let a Mochigan team fall voctim to that. We will atifle their run game.
P.S. Your username is starting to make sense
December 21st, 2016 at 7:54 PM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 1:01 PM ^
expectations this year for several reasons. However, many see a very talented and strong team. Dalvin Cook averaged 7.4 ypc last year, and he is excellent at finding the crease on midzone and widezone toss plays. He has the speed to go long if he finds that crease. With the attention we have to pay to stop Cook, the presssure will be on our cornerbacks and safteys in single coverage. I expect they will not go pass crazy with a quarterback who can also run, but their wideouts may have some success given the huge Cook threat. FSU's defense has speed on the edge, it will be a challenge to run on them. UM's OL must turn in a superior performance in this game. FSU plays soundly and very hard. It should be a great game.
December 21st, 2016 at 5:09 PM ^
RIP to your mentions on the DCFC comments. They are very tough and say Fuck a lot on Twitter, too.
Hilarious.
December 22nd, 2016 at 9:48 AM ^
beer with you all to discuss soccer in Michigan (as well as M football, of course)... it seems to me the DCFC folks are trying to leave room for growth of their team into a Green Bay Packer-style community ownership model of a club that might then someday have the resources to join MLS. Now for me, the barriers for entry to MLS are pretty high (financial, legal formation, ownership model, etc.), so even in the best case scenario where the chips fall beneficially for them, it seems like "success" in that vein is still well beyond 5 years off...
they did show, at least, that you can essentially crowd-fund a modest stadium refurbishment, and in a way that looks like it will net out some investment returns for those who had the funds to kick in last year, but even under the MILE Act that folks throughout the state are still learning to work with, i think true community-ownership a la Green Bay is quite a ways off...
December 22nd, 2016 at 11:57 AM ^
The barrier is extraordinarily high at this point for entry into MLS.
Garber announced last week that the expansion fee is $150 million including soccer specific stadium plans.
I love the idea of a publicly owned team like the Packers but the reality of the situation is that Gores/Gilbert offer the only viable ownership option simply due to the money at stake. DCFC, while a great story, won't attract that MLS-level money. Nashville FC just paid a $4m expansion fee to join USL.
If DCFC is serious (at all), they need to move up from the semi-pro NPSL to at least the USL like Orlando City FC did. They started in 2010 with a wealthy investor group with the specific goal to have the club in MLS within 5 years and succeeded.
December 21st, 2016 at 5:17 PM ^
*still trying to figure out connection between soccer and ben gibbard's band
December 21st, 2016 at 5:19 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 6:42 PM ^
Isiah Hole is worth a look as well. A lot of it is the same as Angelique's piece, but his is longer and includes more player comments.
December 21st, 2016 at 5:27 PM ^
Also of note, Andrew Cogliano just played in his 738th straight game, passing Jay Bouwmeester, to move into 5th place for streak of consecutive games played. He also lit the lamp in the game.
Over his career, he played 328 games for the Oilers (2007-2011), and 410 games for the Ducks (2011-present).
Who remains above Cogliano?:
1. Doug Jarvis with 964 games
2. Garry Unger with 914 games
3. Steve Larmer with 884 games
4. Craig Ramsey with 776 games (Cogliano can pass Ramsey this season)
Other active streakers:
Keith Yandle with 577 games
Patrick Marleau with 542 games
Phil Kessel with 528 games
December 22nd, 2016 at 4:49 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 5:30 PM ^
Quick thoughts about youth/depth for 2017:
- QB - Returning starter and talented depth. Yay!
- RB - Loads of talent and experience
- WR - Unproven, but variety and the steady Perry to hold things together
- TE - Monsters
-
OL - Yikes.....this is scary. Disappointed that Harbaugh hasn't had more of an impact here by year three. Could make or break the season. Cole/Bredesen/Owenu/?/?
- DL - Critical that the starters stay healthy and someone develops from the backups
- LB - Remember how worried we were this year? Let's hope that magic works again
- CB - Clark + talented and unproven masses should be fine
- S - Uh.....Kinnel and ?
So OL, LB, and S are the concerns. The depth on defense takes a huge hit too. The offense will need to carry more of the load behind a shaky OL to give the D time to develop.
December 21st, 2016 at 5:37 PM ^
What's Harbaugh supposed to do about all the losses on the OL?
December 21st, 2016 at 5:44 PM ^
Lorenz recently put out recruiting grades for Michigan as of 12/20. Here is a snapshot:
QB: A+
RB: B (with a note if we get Najee it goes to an A+)
WR: A (with a note if we land Nico Collins it goes to A+)
OL: B+ (with a note if we land Filiaga it will raise our grade)
DL: A- (with a note if we land Solomon/Tufele would raise the grade)
LB: B (with a note if we land Anthony/Singleton/Gay the grade would go up)
DB: A (not likely to change if we land Hicks)
To take what you summarized and put them into grades for returning talent:
QB: A+
RB: A
WR: B+/A-
TE: A
OL: B-/C+
DL: B+
LB: B
DB: B-
December 21st, 2016 at 9:10 PM ^
However, if Rashaun makes the leap I think he will - and it was to his and our advantage that we did not need the No.1 recruit to be an Ed Oliver this season - he is going to bounce that grade up by a half a mark. He will require double teams by almost every team we face. I was fully aware he had the speed that he showed this season, but by constantly running down ball carriers from the backside as his teammates strung the plays out, he showed a motor that was higher than I predicted. Many players have measureables that don't seem to show up at all times. Such is not the case with him. I believe his presence alone is going to make the interior of our DL much stronger than it appears simply by looking at the list of names who will be playing alongside him. Hurst showed that he will demand much more attention than we thought originally and when you line him up next to Rashaun, you will have OCs thinking like they did when they were planning against our '06 DL;. One - Rashaun - can cause headaches by themselves. But when you place two that at times seemed unblockable this season side by side, that same OC is not going to be leaving campus until the wee hours of the morning. This is why I am not as concerned as most i.e., Chase Winovich. He is going to be playing next season with a heightened air of confidence. He and Noah both showed a Boulwaire like ability" to find the soft spot on the DL on their h.s. tapes. I believe this young man is really going to be a positive for us next season. And while true we are losing a ton of experience from this year's squad, those returning on the defensive side will be doing something no one else has done under Brown at MI, returning for their seccond season. That alone will benefit us much more than the detractors realize.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:59 PM ^
Rashan not Rashaun
December 21st, 2016 at 6:06 PM ^
If he gets his 6th year it'll be interesting to see how he comes back. While he has more time to rehap than Chesson, I wonder if Chesson's injury played a big role in him not being as effective as he was last year.
The old rule of thumb with knee injuries (not sure if it's still the case) is that while a player may make it back in a year or less, it sometimes takes longer until they get back to the level they were pre-injury.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:07 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 6:40 PM ^
At safety, Metellus looked good to my untrained eye. We've also got a couple good looking safety prospects coming in though freshmen starters can be a little a scary there.
December 21st, 2016 at 9:24 PM ^
but they are mitigated to a large degree by a staff that knows how to maximize the talent on hand. This was evident from Game 1, 2015. These three men - have no idea how much weight Jay carries other than from the technical aspect with the TEs - are extremely bright at putting in wrinkles the players seem to be able to carry out without much trouble. I recall, even with the limitations of Jake through his first 6 to 7 games, how each week the staff would introduce new formations, personnel packages, etc., to provide us with many more pts than I anticipated. Many of these young men Harbaugh and company will be looking at for the third year. They know what they are going to get with each of them. I anticipate hearing from and seeing a lot fromp layers that haven't been showcased yet such as Gentry, Kareem Walker for different reasons, and one or two(really want Samuels commitment to stick) of the new batch. Both Evans and Higdon, although a lot alike in what they bring, will each have an additional year of experience and Evans, in many instances, seemed one cut away from breaking some huge ones last season. With the pieces we have coming back, I don't expect a regression from the play of an equally questionable OL we saw in 2015.
Like you, I would have hoped for a few more RS Sophs to be lining up on that unit next season, but it hasn't played out that way yet. However i don know this team has been growing each week since the arrival of this staff. A lot of these players are getting to the point where they have a damn good understanding of this staff and what is expected and what they have to bring to become starters. I think next season is the year that players we did not necessarily count on to make an impact start to really show the "Harbaugh Difference." It's definitely a program thing and year three is when we should have his signature all over it.
December 22nd, 2016 at 12:00 AM ^
Kinnel and Metellus
December 21st, 2016 at 5:59 PM ^
Bummed about the LB stuff - David Reese was practically begging us to take him. I don't remember Caleb Kelly us not being interested in - I thought he was very highly rated and the main talk was "Michigan doesn't have him as highly ranked as the scouting services so no big deal we lose him." At the point we were last year we should not have been turning our nose up on a Caleb Kelly type as we lack depth at that position.
Nauta is Nauta - he decided not to come here so I don't worry about that as much as guys we turned our back of hand to like Reese.
As for the DCFC - I believe MLS Orlando was born out of a local club who brought their fan base over when they made the jump to the big leagues. So it can happen. But I don't think Gores and especially Gilbert are the type who would go that path.
Based on PFF, I think the game will be SORT of like vs OSU but I expect FSU to gash us more IF they can get run blocking going. It sounds like we will be in their backfield a lot as we were vs OSU and we held down the offense until the 4th; will we tire in the Miami heat? 4th quarters have not been kind to us vs legit teams. Will it matter? Maybe we will be up big. Speight also sounds like he will be under some duress - can we run against FSU? The largest tactical advantage certainly seems our pass offense vs their pass defense.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:06 PM ^
The thing is that Reese and Kelly wouldn't have played much if they had come here. Gedeon, McCray, and of course Peppers all stayed relatively healthy and were all good to excellent this year. So we don't know if the guys we took over Reese and Kelly are better than them because they didn't get the chance to do much.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:22 PM ^
Bush actually saw some time. Obviously not as much as Reese and Kelly did. The catch is those misses mean there isn't a lot of depth right now. Looking at the two non-Peppers spots on the MGoBlog depth chart, it's: McCray, Bush, Wangler, Mbem-Bosse...and whatever freshmen end up in the class.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:55 PM ^
I would like to have 2 freshman All American LBs on my roster right now no matter if we got someone better than them. Especially when 1 was banging on Durkin's door to be let in. Let's say we did get someone who is better than them - we'd have 3 great LBs set up for the next 2-3 years.
Something ironically about a bird in hand vs bush would go here.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:16 PM ^
Yeah those hurt. In his first 2 (soon to be 3 recruiting classes) Harbaugh seems to have done a really good job stock piling recruits at most position groups. There's still a couple spots though that seem a bit thin - OL (particular tackle) and LB. It'd be real nice if they can hit on some of the remaining LB and OL recruits left on the board.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:01 PM ^
Not going to look before I ask because you can't make me...
FSU's is the same Marcus Lewis who decommitted from Florida to commit to Michigan, but then couldn't work things out academically to go to U-M, yeah? From DC Gonzaga.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:02 PM ^
I cheated. It is.
December 21st, 2016 at 6:04 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 6:17 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 9:26 PM ^
I remember reading that SBNation article and coming away with "wow, these guys really care about the display of supporting soccer, but I'm not sure they really care about the sport all that much." I mean, they care about watching the sport, but they seem halfway up their ass about being "authentic" that they miss the fact that having more of a sport, at multiple levels, is a net positive. And who cares if the stands at an MLS game aren't full of guys who drink and swear for 90 minutes? It really shouldn't affect how they enjoy their game.
December 21st, 2016 at 10:51 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 7:19 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 7:26 PM ^
I feels similar to someone who doesn't want their favorite indie band to make it big, because then they'd be "sellouts."
December 21st, 2016 at 8:04 PM ^
extremely poor form.
No matter how much the local media touts them, Brian nailed their hipster shtick perfectly.
December 21st, 2016 at 7:51 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 8:13 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
December 21st, 2016 at 8:49 PM ^
With Butt being an AA, Jehu being named on one or two teams last season and with the dramatic improvement of Darboh this year; add in Grant and Wilton having over a month to heal, I think this will give us a decided schematic advantage going into the game. I would prefer they be at full strength, although I do realize their talent level is probably that of a USC or Clemson, basically 1A, with Bama being the clear cut, perennial 1.
I am sure Fisch, Drevno and Harbaugh planned on an aerial assault anyway, but with the success we should realize via the absence of their starters its an almost certainty that our rushing game will have great success due to their game plan probably using many nickel and dime packages to give the support to their pass defense their coaching staff probably deems necessary due to being thin in that deparment.
I think Vegas had us as an early 7 point favorite, even though many of the analysts - code for being not good enough to coach - on national t.v. buying into the accepted talent differential between the northern and southern schools. I am not contradicting myself because although they do have tremendous athletes, they will be very inexperienced playing non-starters and our D has as much talent this year since the unit we fielded in '06. As I think back to that unit, I think the greatest difference was in the lbing corp and Brown's scheme has either allowed for better lbing play due to scheme or minimized the possibilities of lbing being placed in one on one situations against some of the nation's best rushers. With as much tape as our staff has on the Seminoles, I imagine a game plan that allows us to be every bit as successful against the Noles as we were against in-state UF.
December 22nd, 2016 at 10:36 AM ^
I too am puzzled why they would want to aspire to something other than the top level of soccer in North America.
How is it hard for anybody who's passionate about college sports to understand this? How is it hard for anyone who lived through Dave Brandon to understand this?
I'm a rabid DCFC supporter, in the midst of all of the flags and drums and smoke with my wife and son. We fell in love with the club in 2012 in its first season and never looked back.
We're Michigan football season ticket holders, but probably haven't been to a Lions game in five seasons even though Ford Field is a half-hour closer to where we live. We've got access to the football version of the "top level of soccer in North America" (which I'd heartily disagree with, the Mexican Liga MX is undeniably better than MLS), so why should we waste our time and money on lower-quality Michigan football?
It's because Michigan is ours. The NFL is not.
DCFC is to MLS as Michigan football is to what Dave Brandon thought it should be. Organic versus plastic, fan-centered versus money-centered, ours versus theirs. Our opposition to MLS isn't about whether we can say "fuck" a lot, it's about whether the thing we love stops being run for the people who love it and starts being run for the people who'd just want to profit from it.
DCFC's owners are five regular guys with day jobs who wanted to create a soccer club that they'd feel like supporting. They did, and thousands of others followed. DCFC's crowds are unheard of in amateur soccer in America, and that's a signal that something about the club's culture and what its supporters are doing is resonating in an important way. We think it's worth giving it a chance to grow and see what happens.
(And for the record, I'm a middle-aged gray-haired guy who wears a suit to work every day. I'm as far from a hipster as you can get without unironically listening to REO Speedwagon.)
December 22nd, 2016 at 2:00 PM ^
I became very interested in DCFC late last year, tracked the renovation and move to Keyworth, even started following the NGS and DCFC Twitter accounts. I watched the Manchester game on a live stream and attended my first game against Ann Arbor FC.
I walked away horribly unimpressed. The NGS crowd is about 5% people who are actively watching a soccer game, 95% drunk 20-somethings more interested in doing the Tetris dance and hammering Stroh's. They light off a billion smoke cannisters the last 5 minutes of each half. So in the last 5 minutes of this 1-goal game with AAFC pushing for an equalizer, none of these boners could even see the field.
Overall, the NGS is a clown outfit. Their social media presence is an embarrassment and they continually walk the wrong side of the F-bomb debate like petulant teenager.
Regarding the club itself, the quality of play is poop and they play about 12 games a year. It's impressive to draw that support for such a nothing product, but if you can round up 7,000 drunks to attend a little league baseball game, sorry, I'm not going to that either. This is lightyears from reaching pro ranks on every level and I can understand why people don't want to wait for something to organically grow when they don't really care for that entity in the first place.
Anyway, long story short, I stopped paying attention to DCFC almost immediately after attending my one game. Until professionals step in and mop this up, I'm not interested. It took one afternoon (and a couple months worth of sucking at Twitter) to murder a well-intentioned sports fan's genuine interest.
I have a t-shirt to donate if anybody wants it.
December 22nd, 2016 at 3:39 PM ^
I've been to one DCFC game. It was kind of fun. I'm not sure I'd describe the atmosphere as "organic" though - it felt to me like the crowd was trying really hard to copy a European club's ambiance, with the flags, smoke bombs and whatnot. It felt scripted.
December 21st, 2016 at 9:01 PM ^
I don't get the whole Detroit soccer thing, but it sounds like they have a carefully crafted artificial authenticity that they wish to maintain at all costs. Pretentious hooligans?
I guess I prefer the organic swearing, yelling and chirping that surrounds my son's HS hockey games.
December 21st, 2016 at 9:02 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 9:19 PM ^
FSU is going to be a dangerous team, but they seem to have weaknesses (secondary, offensive line) that play into UM's strengths, while UM's weaknesses seem less exploitable unless the offensive line is just run over by FSU's line. I think the ceiling for the offensive line isn't all that high, but the floor is "competent", and that should be enough.
December 21st, 2016 at 10:06 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 11:07 PM ^
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