Michigan expecting UMass DB transfer Josh Wallace for a multi-day visit this week.
From some googling I've gathered he was a 4 year started at UMass (coached by Don Brown) and a multi-year team captain. He was a 3 star recruit out of DeMatha. Here's a write-up from Maize n Brew from when we offered him a couple days ago.
OT: kudos for Brown for getting another HC job at UMass. I hadn't known that. A 1-11 start, not that promising, though.
I learned this weekend a friend of mine played for Don a long time ago. A few good stories but the most important take away was that Don has a heart of gold. Not surprising.
Brown was a great coach for a good bit of time, but damn stubborn as hell. You cannot knock his work with the Front-4. His ability to churn out NFL pass rushers from guys we didn’t expect (Uche, Chase, and to an extent Paye; along with unlocking Taco) was phenomenal.
His blitz heavy stuff worked when you were able to send Devin Bush and put guys like Lewis and Long on an island. Not so much when he expected a lot of side to side stuff out of someone like Ross who was suited for the box, and players like Watson chasing slots and Gray in 1-1 on the outside.
You knew, he didn't. Lotta people here knew, he didn't. So often the way with these myopic coaches. And the solutions, so often, are staring them in the face!
I guess Neil Young can call off the search?
A 1-11 start ain't great, but it also seems fine considering that it's UMass. And our old friend Jedd Fisch (who tookover from Kevin "just here for a paycheck" Sumlin) started 1-11 as well, and nearly got an awful U of A team to a bowl last year. So Don's got time to turn it around
It's ducking UMass. C'mon man.
UMass' last 7 seasons:
3-9
3-9
2-10
4-8
4-8
1-11
0-4 (covid)
1-11
1-11 (Brown's first season)
They joined the FBS and immediately became one of the worst programs.
I wonder what would have happened to DB if we wouldn't have been cheated at OSU for the fake first down spot in 2016? Would we have performed better in recruiting and therefore been able to cover a crossing route?
I will always like Don Brown even if never beat OSU in his tenure.
I loved Det. Don Brown but LB's can't cover NFL WR's, as OSU demonstrated for us in 2018.
The problem was that Don Brown D was it was made to stop exactly what JT Barrett was - a mobile QB with limited throwing. But OSU hired Ryan Day as offensive coordinator and moved to a spread passing attack, which Don Brown had no answer for.
I don’t know that Don didn’t have an answer for it, so much as he built a defense and scheme for something else. You can at that point scrap everything and rebuild or you can try to adapt. He tried to adapt and it didn’t work
I wonder what would have happened to Michigan as a program if the B1G didn't gift OSU that game. It was more than the spot.
I still have friends who don't watch college football because of that game.
The 2016 OSU game was the worst officiated game of any sport I have ever seen, And it wasn't incompetence. It was blatant cheating. I still can't believe what I saw, and what makes it worse is that I have yet to meet a Buckeye fan who will admit that any of the calls were bad. Never feel sorry for them.
"It was blatant cheating."
Conspiracy theorists are the problem with everything.
Stop it. The conference let THIS guy officiate in this game.
Lack of conspiracy, my ass. Or, well, Mike Weber's ass.....
Conspiracy theorists are the problem with everything.
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The one thing I will say about fans is they look for injustice on their side and their side only. For instance Ive been watching Michigan football for over 40 years and can name at least a half dozen ref jobs that cost us a game and not one that some other team got screwed on. That probably means I wouldnt care at all if it looked like the refs were cheating on our behalf versus OSU we would take the win and go about our merry way.
OSU fans complain about refs a lot. I can name the Marvin Harrison Jr. no target play and there is one particular Clemson game they are really mad about. The ones I know also complain about Alabama and Georgia's recruiting as unfair...
In the end, we're basically the same people making the same arguments just for different names and colors. If you can't live with OSU fans you can't live with yourself.
No...they shit in coolers.
They ARE definitely a different breed.
I can name two questionable calls that led to Michigan wins:
- M @ Illinois in 2000: A-train fumbled as M was going in for the winning score late and Illinois recovered. However, the officials ruled that the play had been blown dead before the fumble so M kept possession.
- Penn State @ M in 2002: Late in the 4th quarter, Penn State throws a pass and the receiver catches it along the sidelines. Gets both feet in-bounds, but the officials rule him out. The play would have set Penn State up for a game-winning FGA. Instead, M forces the game to OT and wins.
But your point stands. I could probably think of at least 10 lousy calls that cost M wins (or chances to win).
To me that's apples/oranges, simply because those games pre-dated in-game video review. Refs screwed up calls all the time, going both ways.
Refs blow plays dead prematurely all the time. That affects every team.
I've seen games where refs are fairly consistently spotting the ball favorably/unfavorably to a team. It happens, and not just to M. Hiring a partisan ref and another ref that had disciplined for botching calls for The Game, I mean c'mon, what kind of outcome would you expect when you do that?
10 lousy calls in one game (OSU 2016) is the problem.
I'm sure your right, and the Phantom Touchdown was clearly one of them for me. That one still kills me. USC then rose to #1 in the UPI after this win to add a little more to the conspiracy theory.
They didnt get much help from the refs but FFS you cant throw a pick 6 and fumble a snap in the red zone. They had the lead and played well enough to win. IMO those 2 turnovers prevented them from winning in regulation.
If we won that game we would have gotten the last two years 3-4 years earlier.
How? We had sub par QB play and the roster was not yet up to snuff with OSU.
Auburn beating Alabama every few years is exactly where Michigan would have been if they won in 2016. A false sense of greatness.
Now though, Michigan is set to compete and beat OSU on a yearly basis.
I like what you say, but we had a better team in 2016. Receivers, jabril, defense, taco, Lewis.
Yes, except at QB.
What the previous poster stated about execution gaffes by M in the 2016 game is what prevents me from getting to focused on the bad spot. M had a chance to win that game but made too many mistakes. If you put the game in the hands of partisan/incompetent refs, you get what you get and it sucks.
Maybe.
But Harbaugh also brought in new coaching and made changes that have improved the level of play on the field.
That game may have slowed our rise but I think the adversity has raised our ceiling.
I think Rhino77's take is closer to the truth.
A win in 2016 doesn't make the QB situation or overall roster composition in 2017 any better.
I don't think recruiting would have made difference. He went with a tiny front that won't hold up in the Big Ten.
I liked Brown, but never again...won't work in the Big Ten.
To make him feel more at home given he has played on a Don Brown defense, one day will be spent all by himself on Island Park.
Everyone wants to be part of what Michigan has going on. DB probably put in a good word for us, too. Good for him.
Chuck Norris doesn't crack bucknuts. He crushes them with his sheer will at a rate of 23-45 per second. Other times at 27-42.
Chuck Norris's furnishing/decorating style isn't Spartan. He just has "Tom Izzo Being a Little Crybaby Day-to-Day" wallpaper.
are the ballz turning blue?
Experienced CB depth? Would absolutely be happy to take.
Grad transfer so less worry about admissions too.
Was reading the comments and it turned into something other than the transfer but word is if he likes what he sees and hears he is commiting. He is a bigger CB at 6 foot 1 and 190 or so. He also is a 2 time captain which Michigan likes it get in the transfer I believe 4 or 5 of the other FB transfers were captains also.
You’re right. LaDarius Henderson, Drake Nugent, Jack Tuttle and AJ Barner were all captains.
Yeah it got a little silly.
OK so he’s on the tall side for a CB. I hope he’s got enough speed. Gray survived against OSU (holy crap Clinkscale) but I’d rather not see a matchup like that again.
He could dunk pretty easily in high school and was offered to play DiV 1 basketball out of highschool, so he is pretty athletic and explosive but as far as football numbers I couldn't find any. The offers he is getting out of the portal suggests he has some good talent because alot of good teams are going after him. One team that is weird is PSU cause they had a good CB leave be suse he wasn't going to start over the other 2 at PSU. King is everyone's All-American this year or one of the first CB to go in the draft. Sucks we missed out on him right in our backyard.
The Don Brown revisionism on this message board is insane. He was a great fucking coach who got got by Ryan Day. It happens and Harbaugh was right to move on but let’s not act like he was a bum.
Anyways, I’d love to have this kid. I’m sure he’s great at press man!
Yes...fandom can be pretty thin and fickle...loved one minute and a bum the next..and in Harbaughs case loved again.
100%. There are subtle levels of ability and how good a player or coach might be. In today’s world, especially out here on the boards or Twitter, everyone is really good or awful with no nuance or shades of gray. Don was a great coach here for a period of time. Day and his thin DL recruiting were his kryptonite. We also need to remember the lean years offensively where his D got little support. I am thinking of 2019 vs Iowa for example. I think that was. 10-3 win at home where the O was fairly putrid. In many games the offense would leave the D with little room for error.
still a little cheesed off he pretty much tanked the DT position. Didn't have a prayer stopping Wisconsin and any team that wanted to run right up the middle. I also didn't like how there were several plays per game where we got caught with our pants down because we were predictably aggressive. I think big ten coaches had Brown's scheme downloaded by 2018.
I wonder. His D-line coach was Greg Mattison and our DT depth cratered due to injuries, recruiting losses and transfers before Mattison went to. . . Ohio State, with Brown’s playbook in hand.
Not that it would’ve helped Brandon Watson cover crossing routes, but for this part I think it’s more likely Mattison salted the earth on his way out.
He was also got by a crappy MSU QB on a bad MSU team who could read exactly what the D planned by their formation. There was a reason Day thought he could hang 100 on M.