I'm sick of people linking young, innovative coaching candidates with Rich Rod just because they share spread similarities. Just in case you didn't know, not all spread offenses are identical. Rich Rod's spread offense was run-oriented (heavy use of zone read). In fact, at West Virginia, he ran the ball almost 70% of the time. And when his QBs did actually throw the ball, they were generally inefficient - as they completed less than 58% of their passes, averaged about 7 yards per attempt, and had a paltry TD/INT ratio of 1.4. He leaned heavily towards the less efficient play (the run) and couldn't coach up his QBs to become great passers when they did throw. That's terrible considering so many people, at the time, believed he was a great offensive mind. Meanwhile, if you look at Walden's offenses, they've proven to be much more balanced (which is key characteristic of many championship-caliber teams). During his years as either an offensive coordinator or head coach, he's passed 47% of the time (as opposed to RR's 32%) while also getting a bunch of terrible QBs, RBs and WRs to play efficiently and break a bunch of school records. His QBs have completed almost 65% of their passes, averaged over 8.5 yards per attempt and had a TD/INT ratio of 2.5. Just imagine what he could do with Dylan McCaffrey, DPJ, Tarik and Nico.
I'd gladly take Scotty Walden from Southern Miss over Harbaugh. The old guard would consider it a controversial move because he doesn't have the "experience" they're looking for, but it's better than being complacent with slightly-above-average coaches who believe they're coaching in the 1950s. Innovation > Tradition
This is quickly becoming a popular opinion amongst the Michigan fanbase, but only a month ago some fans were being ostracized for suggesting that Dylan would be a better option than Shea. Go ahead and take a look at this thread. Most of the people were saying that it was completely obvious that Shea gave us the best chance to win simply because Dylan is an unproven player and Shea is a veteran - which is a stupid argument. Fans who were dissenting from the groupthink were getting negged to death and I believe one was even banned. I'm glad more people in the fanbase are finally seeing what's wrong with the football program; I'm just upset that it took so long when the problems have been there for some time now.
No team should play true freshmen just for the sake of playing true freshmen. But if there is a position where the incumbent starter is just average or is starting because he has more experience, they should absolutely make the switch to a younger player who was actually talented in HS.
For some reason, you seem to be associating groupthink with paranoia. Groupthink is "a psychological phenomenon whereby pressure within a group to agree results in failures to think critically about an issue, situation or decision." There is certainly groupthink going on within the Michigan fanbase (especially on MGoBlog). We (fans opposing the mainstream) don't feel like everyone is out to get us; we just recognize that you guys are living in your little echo chamber where you repeat the same thoughts without actually considering that there could be a conflicting idea that (shocker) could be just as good, if not better, for the team. And the worst part of it is that you try to keep these opposing ideas out of your precious echo chamber (and deter any additional dissent) by negging any contentious posts to death.
Also, everyone keeps talking about how Dylan is a very good player, yet the majority of fans agree that his best shot of earning the starting job would be in 2020 as a RS-Junior. Almost an entire fanbase believing that a QB needs four whole years of development before becoming the QB1 is not exactly a ringing endorsement of his talent.
So you'd stoop to lying just to try to prove a point? McCaffrey was much better in high school than that scrub Speight was.
McCaffrey:
63.6% completion percentage
8.8 yards per attempt
9.7 adjusted yards per attempt
8.7% TD rate
1.7% INT rate
5.0 TD/INT ratio
113.5 QB rating
Speight (junior & senior seasons):
50.0% completion percentage
8.9 yards per attempt
8.8 adjusted yards per attempt
10.3% TD rate
4.8% INT rate
2.1 TD/INT ratio
94.9 QB rating
Also, you can't seriously be ignorant enough to believe that everything magically resets after these kids are done playing high school football. They don't just become fresh slabs of clay ready to be shaped by their college coaching staff. For the most part, they are what they are as football players. Some great players from HS will be great players in college - and some will not be able to make this transition due to some deficiency affecting them in college which didn't affect them as much at the HS level (i.e. slow throw velocity). Most of the average players at the HS level will also be average at the college level - with a few having a single great season when they reach their Senior/RS-Senior year (i.e. Gardner Minshew). The vast majority of terrible players at the HS level will also be terrible at the college. Of course, there are rare exceptions (i.e. Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Lamar Jackson, Jimmy Garoppolo) who actually have the capability to improve. However, these are outliers and should not be used to excuse any current/future overhyped players who were terrible in HS (i.e. Joe Milton).
You keep laughing at comparing high school stats. Well, please do me a favor. Go compare Baker Mayfield's HS stats to Christian Hackenberg, Shane Morris, John O'Korn and Wilton Speights'.
Go compare Justin Herbert and McKenzie Milton's HS stats to KJ Costello and Malik Henry's.
Go compare Johnny Manziel, Dak Prescott and Marcus Mariota's HS stats to Bubba Starling, Anthony Alford and Jeff Driskel's.
Just about every single prodigious QB who has entered college has started as the backup to an inferior QB who, at the time, was considered better by the coaching staff and the fanbase.
Did Jalen Hurts suck? No.
Is Tua better? Absolutely
Did Kyle Kempt suck? No.
Is Brock Purdy better? Yes.
Did Dakota Prukop suck? Nope.
Is Justin Herbert better? Yup.
Was Kelly Bryant bad at Clemson? No.
Is Trevor Lawrence better? Of course.
Was Davis Webb a bad QB at Texas Tech? No.
Was Patrick Mahomes much better? Without a doubt.
Oh, this is not at all just a one-time thing. Look at Iowa State for the first few weeks. They thought it was smart to stick with RS-Senior Kyle Kempt because he was experienced and was the proven player. They were eventually forced to play a true freshman because of an injury to Kempt. Since that true freshman (Brock Purdy) took over, they've won six games and only lost one. And Purdy was able to post a QBR of 79.5 - 2nd highest for all true freshmen and 14th highest in the entire nation.
Valor Christian and De La Salle are both top 5 programs in their respective states, but you're putting way too much value in "competition." Even if Shane played tougher competition, shouldn't he be able to elevate his game to another level if he was as talented as everyone thought he was? Also, the stats that you want me to include are some of the worst stats to look at. I included stats that measure efficiency on a per attempt basis, which is the most important thing to look at for players going from HS to college.
If Nick Saban can switch QBs at halftime of a national championship game, I think we can switch QBs in the offseason without a substantial dropoff. I remember Chiefs fans who were hesitant to switch from Alex Smith to Patrick Mahomes because Mahomes was an unknown. Now he's an MVP candidate.
Ignoring what high school stats can tell you about a player is how a fanbase ends up liking a QB who completed only 47% of his passes and threw only 16 more touchdowns than interceptions
I think all of you are forgetting that these guys played high school football before they came to Michigan. That's 3-4 years of additional data for you. If you think there's any chance that Milton would be better than Dylan, then you're just delusional. Do me a favor. Look back throughout past quarterbacks and tell me how many went from being below 50% completion percentage QBs in HS to being elite college QBs.
Recent Comments
I'm sick of people linking young, innovative coaching candidates with Rich Rod just because they share spread similarities. Just in case you didn't know, not all spread offenses are identical. Rich Rod's spread offense was run-oriented (heavy use of zone read). In fact, at West Virginia, he ran the ball almost 70% of the time. And when his QBs did actually throw the ball, they were generally inefficient - as they completed less than 58% of their passes, averaged about 7 yards per attempt, and had a paltry TD/INT ratio of 1.4. He leaned heavily towards the less efficient play (the run) and couldn't coach up his QBs to become great passers when they did throw. That's terrible considering so many people, at the time, believed he was a great offensive mind. Meanwhile, if you look at Walden's offenses, they've proven to be much more balanced (which is key characteristic of many championship-caliber teams). During his years as either an offensive coordinator or head coach, he's passed 47% of the time (as opposed to RR's 32%) while also getting a bunch of terrible QBs, RBs and WRs to play efficiently and break a bunch of school records. His QBs have completed almost 65% of their passes, averaged over 8.5 yards per attempt and had a TD/INT ratio of 2.5. Just imagine what he could do with Dylan McCaffrey, DPJ, Tarik and Nico.
I'd gladly take Scotty Walden from Southern Miss over Harbaugh. The old guard would consider it a controversial move because he doesn't have the "experience" they're looking for, but it's better than being complacent with slightly-above-average coaches who believe they're coaching in the 1950s. Innovation > Tradition
This is quickly becoming a popular opinion amongst the Michigan fanbase, but only a month ago some fans were being ostracized for suggesting that Dylan would be a better option than Shea. Go ahead and take a look at this thread. Most of the people were saying that it was completely obvious that Shea gave us the best chance to win simply because Dylan is an unproven player and Shea is a veteran - which is a stupid argument. Fans who were dissenting from the groupthink were getting negged to death and I believe one was even banned. I'm glad more people in the fanbase are finally seeing what's wrong with the football program; I'm just upset that it took so long when the problems have been there for some time now.
Wow, I'm being met with such rational responses by the fine people of MGoGroupthink. I can now see how you got to 15,000 points.
No team should play true freshmen just for the sake of playing true freshmen. But if there is a position where the incumbent starter is just average or is starting because he has more experience, they should absolutely make the switch to a younger player who was actually talented in HS.
For some reason, you seem to be associating groupthink with paranoia. Groupthink is "a psychological phenomenon whereby pressure within a group to agree results in failures to think critically about an issue, situation or decision." There is certainly groupthink going on within the Michigan fanbase (especially on MGoBlog). We (fans opposing the mainstream) don't feel like everyone is out to get us; we just recognize that you guys are living in your little echo chamber where you repeat the same thoughts without actually considering that there could be a conflicting idea that (shocker) could be just as good, if not better, for the team. And the worst part of it is that you try to keep these opposing ideas out of your precious echo chamber (and deter any additional dissent) by negging any contentious posts to death.
Also, everyone keeps talking about how Dylan is a very good player, yet the majority of fans agree that his best shot of earning the starting job would be in 2020 as a RS-Junior. Almost an entire fanbase believing that a QB needs four whole years of development before becoming the QB1 is not exactly a ringing endorsement of his talent.
So you'd stoop to lying just to try to prove a point? McCaffrey was much better in high school than that scrub Speight was.
McCaffrey:
63.6% completion percentage
8.8 yards per attempt
9.7 adjusted yards per attempt
8.7% TD rate
1.7% INT rate
5.0 TD/INT ratio
113.5 QB rating
Speight (junior & senior seasons):
50.0% completion percentage
8.9 yards per attempt
8.8 adjusted yards per attempt
10.3% TD rate
4.8% INT rate
2.1 TD/INT ratio
94.9 QB rating
Also, you can't seriously be ignorant enough to believe that everything magically resets after these kids are done playing high school football. They don't just become fresh slabs of clay ready to be shaped by their college coaching staff. For the most part, they are what they are as football players. Some great players from HS will be great players in college - and some will not be able to make this transition due to some deficiency affecting them in college which didn't affect them as much at the HS level (i.e. slow throw velocity). Most of the average players at the HS level will also be average at the college level - with a few having a single great season when they reach their Senior/RS-Senior year (i.e. Gardner Minshew). The vast majority of terrible players at the HS level will also be terrible at the college. Of course, there are rare exceptions (i.e. Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Kirk Cousins, Lamar Jackson, Jimmy Garoppolo) who actually have the capability to improve. However, these are outliers and should not be used to excuse any current/future overhyped players who were terrible in HS (i.e. Joe Milton).
You keep laughing at comparing high school stats. Well, please do me a favor. Go compare Baker Mayfield's HS stats to Christian Hackenberg, Shane Morris, John O'Korn and Wilton Speights'.
Go compare Justin Herbert and McKenzie Milton's HS stats to KJ Costello and Malik Henry's.
Go compare Johnny Manziel, Dak Prescott and Marcus Mariota's HS stats to Bubba Starling, Anthony Alford and Jeff Driskel's.
Just about every single prodigious QB who has entered college has started as the backup to an inferior QB who, at the time, was considered better by the coaching staff and the fanbase.
Did Jalen Hurts suck? No.
Is Tua better? Absolutely
Did Kyle Kempt suck? No.
Is Brock Purdy better? Yes.
Did Dakota Prukop suck? Nope.
Is Justin Herbert better? Yup.
Was Kelly Bryant bad at Clemson? No.
Is Trevor Lawrence better? Of course.
Was Davis Webb a bad QB at Texas Tech? No.
Was Patrick Mahomes much better? Without a doubt.
Oh, this is not at all just a one-time thing. Look at Iowa State for the first few weeks. They thought it was smart to stick with RS-Senior Kyle Kempt because he was experienced and was the proven player. They were eventually forced to play a true freshman because of an injury to Kempt. Since that true freshman (Brock Purdy) took over, they've won six games and only lost one. And Purdy was able to post a QBR of 79.5 - 2nd highest for all true freshmen and 14th highest in the entire nation.
Valor Christian and De La Salle are both top 5 programs in their respective states, but you're putting way too much value in "competition." Even if Shane played tougher competition, shouldn't he be able to elevate his game to another level if he was as talented as everyone thought he was? Also, the stats that you want me to include are some of the worst stats to look at. I included stats that measure efficiency on a per attempt basis, which is the most important thing to look at for players going from HS to college.
If Nick Saban can switch QBs at halftime of a national championship game, I think we can switch QBs in the offseason without a substantial dropoff. I remember Chiefs fans who were hesitant to switch from Alex Smith to Patrick Mahomes because Mahomes was an unknown. Now he's an MVP candidate.
Ignoring what high school stats can tell you about a player is how a fanbase ends up liking a QB who completed only 47% of his passes and threw only 16 more touchdowns than interceptions
Not everybody is stupid enough to base their comparisons on stars that are arbitrarily handed out.
Morris at De La Salle:
51.1% completion percentage
6.6 yards per attempt
7.4% TD rate
3.7% INT rate
2.0 TD/INT ratio
81.5 QB Rating
McCaffrey at Valor Christian:
63.6% completion percentage
8.8 yards per attempt
8.7% TD rate
1.7% INT rate
5.0 TD/INT ratio
113.5 QB Rating
I think all of you are forgetting that these guys played high school football before they came to Michigan. That's 3-4 years of additional data for you. If you think there's any chance that Milton would be better than Dylan, then you're just delusional. Do me a favor. Look back throughout past quarterbacks and tell me how many went from being below 50% completion percentage QBs in HS to being elite college QBs.