January 16th, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^
Peace out bro, UM will survive
January 16th, 2011 at 10:25 AM ^
As long as we can avoid needing game-winning field goals.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:28 AM ^
We still have Gibbons. I think he will greatly improve.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^
Why in the world do you think any of our kickers will be better? Also even if they do get alittle better,they will still suck! We need a kick and we need one really bad. If you wanna go into next season with the kickers we have then God help ya.
P.S. wasnt Gibbons the kicker on ship that got passed over by a walk-on??
January 16th, 2011 at 11:44 AM ^
Hoke.
EDIT: /s
January 16th, 2011 at 11:09 AM ^
According to his highschool profile he has a pretty good leg. So I don't think its out of the realm of possibility that as he get older, his mental toughness and approach to his craft matures. Also, hopefully he has adjusted to being a student athlete in college.
January 16th, 2011 at 11:48 AM ^
His technique is horrendous. His plant foot is never in the right spot and if you watch on his follow though he isn't on balance. He doesn't hit the ball in the right spot and his kicking-foot-angle is bad. I've even seen his plant foot roll over onto it's side on follow-through as he leaned to the SIDE. Sometimes he leans back/fades away. It's terrible.
And the real indictment that he stinks is that he can't kick off. The ball is where it is on the tee. There are no moving parts, no snapper or holder to blame it on and you get a tee. If you can't figure out how to kick off right, and/or don't have the leg to get it far enough down field while being high enough, you should not be kicking at a B1G school, and certainly not at Michigan.
January 16th, 2011 at 1:53 PM ^
If you are looking for reasons to improve, poor technique is as good as it gets. All of those things that you said he is doing wrong are all things that through practice he can improve on.
January 16th, 2011 at 3:19 PM ^
If absolutely EVERYTHING is wrong with his technique, you could literally pick just about anyone on campus and teach them how to kick, and there's a decent chance they would be better. Plus, if that random person had never kicked before, you wouldn't have years of poor muscle memory to overcome.
Of course, this is all predicated on us actually having someone on staff that can teach people to kick.
January 16th, 2011 at 4:26 PM ^
lefty. Lefty kickers always seem a tad unstable*
*I am a lefty myself so it's ok for me to rip on one of my own "kind."
January 16th, 2011 at 11:27 AM ^
I played against John Hall in high school and he was horrific. He had a strong leg (put every kickoff through the goal posts) but couldn't hit a field goal to save his life. I was shocked when I heard he was going to Wisconsin, but alas, he obviously got coached up there and had a pretty good professional career. You can't coach leg strength, but you can coach technique and mental approach (to some extent). If they lock up a better, more reliable kicker, great, if not, they have to work with what they have so hopefully there will be someone there to coach them up.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:13 PM ^
RR didn't even employ a kicking coach. The kickers all just practiced on their own, obviously it wasn't working. Hell we even had a kicking coach in high school. I guess my point is there probably is room for the current kickers to improve.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:22 PM ^
Little secret: Michigan hasn't had a dedicated special teams coach since the Jim Boccher debacle.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:38 PM ^
January 16th, 2011 at 10:45 AM ^
lol greatly improve? He has been on campus for two years.. we don't have a kicking coach.. and you think he is going to get better?
If we go into this next year god help this team
January 16th, 2011 at 2:34 PM ^
I'm sure Hoke could borrow a laptop, find a how-to-kick video on youtube, set it on the field during practice and Gibbons would have the opportunity for the same amount of improvement if we had hired a kicking coach.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:51 AM ^
Theres got to be another kicker out there that we can nab...
January 16th, 2011 at 11:47 AM ^
still hasn't committed, was high on his Michigan offer, ranked above Goudis in Rivals, wants U with good academics, etc.. (I know, I'm getting repetitious. My kicker-hope mantra.)
EDIT: Ah. Others already remembered him below.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^
Reality TV Show: Michigan Kicker.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:31 AM ^
January 16th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^
Speaking of USC, ESPN has an article about how they have a boatload of top level recruits coming in along with an explanation on how they are able to recruit so many despite the "probation" terms levied upon them.
For another kick while you're down, it also talks about how Brian Kelly is getting his type of recruits.
No mention on how the national impact of Brady Hoke being brought on as coach is causing many recruits to look at Michigan's football program however.
Link: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncaa/recruiting/football/news/story?id=6022708
January 16th, 2011 at 11:22 AM ^
its not like we even knew if he could actually make them in the big house,, see ya goudis, good luck.
January 16th, 2011 at 11:43 AM ^
what are the chances we sign another kicker? or that get any new name big time recruits?
January 16th, 2011 at 12:54 PM ^
killer press conferences and basketball game appearances! So we got that goin' for us. Which is nice.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:20 AM ^
YTM or NNTM?
January 16th, 2011 at 10:21 AM ^
(YTM)
January 16th, 2011 at 10:22 AM ^
Al Golden Shower, plz stop stealing our recruits, thx.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:23 AM ^
Loftus is still uncommitted...
January 16th, 2011 at 11:16 AM ^
Yeah, and he only has offers from M, Boise St, UNC, Airforce, Navy and NCSU. Of those, I think the choice is obvious, especially because he apparently cares a lot about academics and has a 4.9 GPA.
January 16th, 2011 at 3:53 PM ^
You know Air Force and Navy don't take a backseat to Michigan in terms of academics, right?
January 16th, 2011 at 10:26 AM ^
So what are we down to now?? About 10 kids or so...good thing the last 2 weekends have been cancelled....not like those would have had any impact on this class or anything.
Just really dreadful right now...I really hope completely killing a recruiting class was all worth it.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:42 AM ^
Did Signing Day come and pass already, or are you just being a melodramatic fool?
January 16th, 2011 at 11:26 AM ^
you often post a lot of BS on this site and for the most part I just let it go but this is insane. I know you wanted RR gone and are all over Hoke's jock (which is fine, there isn't anything wrong with getting behind the new coach) but if you are attempting to imply that all the shit that has transpired since the OSU game hasn't impacted recruiting simply because NSD hasn't come and gone yet you are beyond help.
Do you really need to see a finished product in order to determine that something has been impacted? If you were building a house and found out after the foundation was poured that it wasn't level, would you keep building on it? Because by your rationale, you wouldn't be able to be sure there was a problem until the product was finished.
If you can't see and admit, based on the fact that D. Hart, A Zettel, K Frost, M Goudis etc have all left for other teams, that this has had a massive effect on recruiting this year you are either being wilfully ignorant or know aboslutely nothing about college football.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:12 PM ^
I have been watching college football for over 25 years so I know something about it.
One of the benefits of not being 20 years old anymore is that you wait until something has happened before you pass judgment on it.
There are still 2 1/2 weeks before Signing Day, how about waiting before we whine.
And yes, I realize what has happened has affected recruiting. I also understand that me whining about it and passing judgment on people about it means nothing in the grand scheme of life.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:29 PM ^
If the rip out the foundation and repour it..and the house turns out great in the end..then yes your crying before it was finished was pointless.
We lost some recruits. It would have happened whether RR was fired in Nov or Jan. Has there been a year in the past 3 where we didnt have some recruits decommit? Not to mention half the guys you mentioned never comitted here in the 1st place.
January 16th, 2011 at 11:29 AM ^
we might lose Jake Fisher, Beyer, Kellen Jones, and Blake Countess have already lost Dallas Crawford and Dee Hart, ahd have lost out on Zettel, Kris Frost, Avery Walls, Jack Tabb and a number of other guys.
We have a shot at adding Chris Bryant, maybe Kris Frost because Auburn won't take him, and Devin Lucien.
There is essentially no way whatsoever that this class will end up a top 25 class, and I think we're allowed to talk about that even though signing day hasn't yet passed.
January 16th, 2011 at 11:36 AM ^
I heard if you constantly whine and complain about it on message boards, it might improve the situation!
January 16th, 2011 at 11:41 AM ^
it is a board for talking about things related to the Michigan football program. One of the things related to Michigan football is the 2011 recruiting class, which is a shambles.
When did this site get so Panglossian?
January 16th, 2011 at 11:54 AM ^
Since this is a message board, everyone should act like the sky is falling at all times.
I mean, do you really think we're going to lose Beyer and Kellen Jones?!? If so, I have some swampland real estate to sell you.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:00 PM ^
and is going to Miami next week.
Do I think we lose him? Probably not. But he's visiting Miami (YTM), and it's January. That is never a good thing.
Sometimes the sky actually is falling.
January 16th, 2011 at 1:27 PM ^
Actually, the sky has never fallen.
It's science.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:28 PM ^
Once upon a time not too long ago, the near-unanimous consensus among MGoBlog posters and commenters was that Zettel was basically a lock for Michigan.
You're probably correct that Beyer and Jones will not decommit, but I'm not sure your supremely confident dismissal of any chance that they could go elsewhere is warranted.
January 16th, 2011 at 12:31 PM ^
If Zettel had actually committed to us, I doubt he would be wavering right now.
January 16th, 2011 at 3:11 PM ^
January 16th, 2011 at 4:38 PM ^
All of those programs were in significantly better positions player-personnel-wise and recent success-wise than Michigan is currently. They could "afford" to have the small of a class and be ok. If we get 10 guys in this class we will be roughly 10 scholarship players under the limit for the team next year, then graduating a lot in that next class and may not be able to make it up with the next class. So...theoretically, we could be short on scholarship players for 3 seasons. AWESOME. Way to self-impose sanctions DB.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:29 AM ^
those who stay (committed) will be champions.
January 16th, 2011 at 2:43 PM ^
I know Bo coined it, but those that have stayed haven't been champions in a long time on the football field. Only mantra I hate more is "Michigan man" which the MSM and some alums have made to be something that Bo didn't intend.
That's the weird thing about some traditions sometimes they become irrelevant. I remember helmet stickers, frozen marshmallows being tossed, toilet paper rolls missing from the RH bathrooms on game day.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:30 AM ^
Miami does have slightly nicer winters than Michigan so this move isn't a head scratcher.
January 16th, 2011 at 10:32 AM ^
Maybe academics couldn't compete with beaches?
January 16th, 2011 at 10:36 AM ^
has beautiful beaches!