SIAP: ND FB is Practicing with a Soccer Ball
I think the line just moved in Michigan’s favor...
August 26th, 2018 at 5:18 PM ^
With the collective news of the day, have to disagree about the line.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:21 PM ^
With the Tarik Black news, the ND game is firmly a 50/50 coin-flip imo.
It also makes me wonder what this staff is doing regarding WR recruiting. 2 transfers and only 1 low rated WR in 2018 and 1 3 star in 2019.
WR could easily be the next OT roster fiasco
August 26th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^
All TE, all the time.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:31 PM ^
You think ND doesn't know that we can only throw to our TE's?
August 26th, 2018 at 6:50 PM ^
Gentry is 6'8" and 250 lbs., if Patterson can get him the ball ND will have a hard time stopping him. Shea should have no problem hitting a target that size.
August 27th, 2018 at 10:15 AM ^
It sucks to lose Black, but I think DPJ, Perry, Nico, Martin, and whoever else they throw out there will be just fine.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:25 PM ^
Hard to recruit WR during a season when the passing game is 107th in the country
August 26th, 2018 at 5:30 PM ^
At this point I think WRs need to see a QB before they really look at Michigan. If I was a wide receiver, I would not have been impressed with what I saw last year from the QB crop.
August 26th, 2018 at 6:15 PM ^
I’m not so sure. It’s not the ranking of the guys we took, it’s the sheer amount of guys. We should be recruiting 3-4 guys/ year and hope some stick
August 26th, 2018 at 5:30 PM ^
Hire Zach Smith and get a corporate account at Deja Vu in Ypsi
s/
August 26th, 2018 at 5:40 PM ^
I am by no means a super optimistic fan, but even with Tarik out last year, Michigan had a legit to chance to win every game it lost except for one, and that’s with disastrous O Line and QB play. Can anyone dig up any posts last year where someone said “Man, if only we had Tarik Black everything would have worked out.”?
August 26th, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
Seriously? Tarik black is gonna be missed, no doubt. But to sit there and act like the world is cashing down on us is silly. DPJ, Collins, Martin, and perry is more than enough to carry us until Tarik returns. As far as wr recruiting, we're fine. Relax
August 26th, 2018 at 6:13 PM ^
Watch the landscape change as the wins pile up. Critical year in front of them.
August 26th, 2018 at 10:41 PM ^
I had no idea that Occam is still rocking one of these. A bit behind the times, my man.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^
LOL come on people. The Tarik Black news hardly moved the dial on the ND game odds. Man offseason fan speculation is something else.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:28 PM ^
I agree, as long as DPJ or Collins can catch the long ball well be ok
August 26th, 2018 at 5:31 PM ^
shit, as long as Shea Patterson can throw the ball ok, we'll be ok.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:57 PM ^
As long as Shea is given more than a few moments longer (than last year) to have his head taken off as a result of a collapsing Oline, we'll be okay
August 26th, 2018 at 5:32 PM ^
I'm trying to understand why so many people are acting like Black being out (again) is the end of our season.
Yeah, it sucks, but perhaps if we were one WR away from a disastrous season we weren't a very good team to begin with....
August 26th, 2018 at 5:34 PM ^
Not so fast my friend. Don’t forget that Black’s YPG (49.7) dwarfed the next best guy’s (Perry, 27.9). His time was limited but he was clearly our best receiving weapon by a large margin. His absence will be felt.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:44 PM ^
The problem with this is that the sample size we have is really small, and the fact that other receivers have developed another year since that time.
Yes, losing black will hurt us. I'm not convinced that we can't get by without him.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:47 PM ^
That was obviously sarcasm
August 26th, 2018 at 10:38 PM ^
Obviously not.
August 26th, 2018 at 8:04 PM ^
It's not just the sample size, he also benefited from playing while our best QB was still healthy and played against some of the weakest pass defense teams on the schedule.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:51 PM ^
You can't compare season stats on WR's last year to get any significant data about how their performance will be this year. Shea Patterson at the very least will bring up the level of everyone's play. WR's cant catch balls that dont make it to their hands.
Besides, every WR outside Grant Perry and Walk-Ons was a freshman last year. And they were all highly rated and have been raved upon in fall camp. We will be fine... This doesnt mean that Tarik Black isn't a loss. Those are not mutually exclusive.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:34 PM ^
Good Lord I hope I'm wrong, but I feel the people up-voting and discounting Tarik's injury are in for a somewhat rude awakening.
We could easily lose the ND game because we have no passing threat, they shut down Shea's ability to run because we have no passing threat, and our defense is on the field the entire game.
It would be great if we could see a passing game that was in the upper half of FBS statistics. We didn't have it for the 2nd half of 2016, all of 2017.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:44 PM ^
i feel the same about the people who keep saying fans who are trying to stay positive have their head in the sand.
yes, losing Black is a big blow to the team. No one is disputing that.
after that acknowledgement, people are trying more forward, not panicking, nor looking at 'what ifs'.
Black is out. There's a season of football to be played...
maybe people can let us know what the appropriate reaction ought to be so we aren't offending anyone...
August 26th, 2018 at 6:45 PM ^
"so we aren't offending anyone"
Not possible!
Common sense and logic are not welcome here, just homerism.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:44 PM ^
Right, we have no passing threat, because DPJ, Grant Perry, Nico Collins, Sean McKeon and Zach Gentry aren't enough receivers.
But a WR who played in 3 games last year as a true freshman is going to be the difference.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:48 PM ^
None of the players you cited have put up numbers that are all that impressive. Neither were Tarik's but he passed a few names on your list to become what would have been a starting spot in our game at ND.The onus is on Shea to get the ball to them this year, and the line to have a decent pass pro.
August 26th, 2018 at 6:16 PM ^
Nobody had good numbers because they had wilt ,o korn, and a little of peters throwing to them.
August 26th, 2018 at 8:38 PM ^
I'm waiting for someone with the moniker of Chicken Little and post that the sky is falling!
God...please let Sept. 1st get here soon.
August 26th, 2018 at 9:15 PM ^
So, receivers are the only passing threat?
Insert Morpheus "You-Think-That's-Air-You're-Breathing" gif.
August 27th, 2018 at 12:21 AM ^
DPJ could easily end up being better than Black. It is amazing what practice buzz did for Black's stock around here. Does losing him suck ? Of course. But if we were going to lose a starter on offense the best one would have been WR or maybe TE. Hopefully he can come back and work his way to 100% but the end of the year.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:30 PM ^
Eh skimming the article it makes sense. He's creating odd circumstances and trying to get his guys to learn how to adapt...when, as it does and will, shit hits the fan they're more prepared and comfortable
August 27th, 2018 at 12:33 AM ^
It's a good idea, really.
It's something we should look at, to improve our fragile performance on the road. We crumble at the first sign of adversity.
August 26th, 2018 at 5:39 PM ^
This definitely seems like something a team does right before they go 6-6 and everyone afterward is like “ah yeah that makes sense. They were practicing with soccer balls and strobe lights. I don’t know what we were expecting”
August 26th, 2018 at 5:42 PM ^
ND is a road game at night. That is enough cause for concern even before Black’s season ending injury. Don’t have any confidence in Harbaugh to take this team on the road and get a huge win.
August 27th, 2018 at 12:22 AM ^
that's fair.....but something tells me you will feel differently this time next week ;)
August 26th, 2018 at 5:46 PM ^
Michigan was going to win with defense and establishing the run game. Having a stud wr is great, but it doesn’t make or break you as a team. If WRs won games, the lions would have been in the playoffs every year. You need solid guys, which we have even without black. I think the one position we could afford an injury was wr. Praying for a speedy recovery
August 26th, 2018 at 5:54 PM ^
Of course the best way to improve at doing something well, is to deliberately practice doing that thing well.
But players really should be cross-training as much as possible.
Harbaugh's instinct for increased interest in multi-sport athletes is well-founded.
As adolescents, and now kids even, specialize more and more in their sport (and the "seasonal sport" turns into a "year-round" sport), repetitive stress becomes a real issue, compounded over years, with no rest period, it's extrememly taxing on the skeletal system and respective joints (nervous system as well). The prevalence of repetitive stress injuries in children have been going up and up for the last few decades (for a variety of reasons of course).
And some sports medicine theory as a whole wants to see "injury", itself, as repetitive stress-based (ACL injuries are a great example). Harbaugh's previous Performance Scientist Fergus Connolly (at both Michigan and the 49ers) was a proponent of that applied approach.
Think of a cyclist who's entire "athletic" performance takes place in a circular, motion, determined purely by the length of their crank-arms ~1 foot, millions of rotations, over the 30-40 years they compete (luckily they never reach joint-end-range-motion, which is why they can perform for so much longer than almost any pro sport). Wide-receivers, who's entire performance is spent quickly accelerating, and decelerating, and dead-legging, are definitely at particular risk. Pitchers, etc.
Cross-training from a purely injury prevention standpoint is ideal, let alone the skills transfer.
And it's been shown to prevent psychological burnout as well (from HS to the Pros)
It's win-win-win.
Saying this for those on the board that have kids or will, because a) it will keep the kids more fit/less injured, and b) sports are meant to be fun, let the kid select if they want to "be serious" about it, the more different ones they play the happier/healthier they'll be!
August 26th, 2018 at 6:03 PM ^
I'm going to worry if the football becomes deformed during play and becomes a sphere.
August 27th, 2018 at 12:50 AM ^
TBH I think there could be some upside to a coach putting a team through difficult situations to simulate the mental stress that can come from road games where things go wrong.
I used to think that Lloyd Carr should do something unconventional in his practices to get his teams ready for road games (Michigan always underperformed on the road under Carr and there was at least one head-shaking loss every year after 1997, 2006 excepted). I was thinking more like holding practices on hockey-sized indoor soccer fields or something, but running normal looks.
A soccer ball doesn't sound scary to me at all. But there might be something to the idea that a road environment, with loud opposing fans and somewhat unfair reffing and the occasional earthquake moments, might be something that a coach can prepare for by trying to throw off their players and teaching their players to adapt to difficult moments.
Michigan could have used that in 2016, IMO.
Don't get me wrong, I think our main problem on the road the last two years is that the team just wasn't as good as we wanted it to be, and it struggled in measurable areas of weakness. But there were moments where a touch more composure might have made a difference, and composure can be learned.