angry tarik black foot-hating god

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Preview 2018: Wide Receiver
Brian •

Previously: Podcast 10.0A. Podcast 10.0B. Podcast 10.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back.

Depth Chart

WR Yr. WR Yr. SLOT Yr. SPREAD H Yr.
Tarik Black Fr.* Donovan Peoples-Jones So. Grant Perry Sr. Chris Evans Jr.
Nico Collins So. Oliver Martin Fr.* Nate Schoenle So.* N/A  
Ronnie Bell Fr. Jake McCurry Fr.* Oliver Martin Fr.* N/A  

Say it with me: Freshman Wide Receivers Suck. Last year this space faced down an outside WR situation featuring true sophomore Kekoa Crawford and a fleet of freshmen. Numbers were cited. Folks checked the recent history of the highly touted. It was hoped that one of Michigan's four lottery tickets would come good immediately. And one probably did! Then he broke his foot in game three.

Also the sophomore was a complete disaster...

Michigan's opening snap was a bomb in [Crawford's] direction, and hoo boy do I hate this:

Crawford has no idea how to judge this ball. It's in the air, he's staring at it, and he still fades to the sideline like he's Kevonte Martin-Manuel trying to bring in a Jake Rudock seam throw. (YES I AM STILL BITTER ABOUT THIS.) The ball hits about a yard from the sideline, and it's a little short. A ton of wide receivers catch this ball, or at least force a PI out of the DB. Crawford does neither, and I'm immediately reminded of Darryl Stonum. This is the kind of throw where you have given your WR a shot, and it deserves better.

...to the point where he transferred out despite getting the second-most targets of any outside WR last year. It's bad when a returning starter transfers for playing time. On the bright side, it does give me an excuse to post this photoshop.

pasted_image_at_2015_08_28_12_09_am

spiritually pictured: Michigan receiving, 2017 [Seth]

With the lottery ticket sidelined and the sophomore auditioning for an Unnecessary Roughness reboot, Michigan turned to five-star Donovan Peoples-Jones, who was definitely open on several hundred deep shots, half of which were not thrown because of QB or OL malfeasance. The other half sailed forlornly into the East carrying a bunch of damn Elves. Why are we talking about this again?

The combination of youth and a lack of coaching was poison to an already extremely dead passing game. The players hope to repair the youth by being slightly older. The program did get an actual WR coach after a year of pretending Pep Hamilton had anything to do with being that sort of position coach. And yes, for all his many flaws Jim McElwain does have a decade-long tenure as a WR coach in his past. It sounds like he and GA Roy Roundtree are doing some stuff the previous setup was not:

This spring, Martin says, the coaching staff - led by new wide receivers coach Jim McElwain - has made it a point to emphasize point of contact at the line of scrimmage.

Getting clean breaks. Not getting jammed up. Both were issues last season, evident by Michigan's difficulty finding an open receiver.

"Just getting our feet active, swiping hands off of us," Martin said. "They've broken it down from a technical standpoint really well, and we were able to do the releases that we are equipped with."

So stay healthy, get crafty, and-

what

no

DAMMIT

OUTSIDE WR: STRIKE ME DOWN AND I WILL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY AW POOPERS YOU STRUCK ME DOWN AGAIN NVM GG

RATING: 4 3

So, TARIK BLACK

hey

What are you doing here, bolded alter ego? I'm busy weeping and striking through all the stuff I wrote about Tarik Black.

you know you can just delete that, it's a computer

Please get to the point.

that kind of is the point you're being a little weird

one drinks and weeps and drinks tea at times like this, it is known

oh hey but...

"He'll be out for some weeks," Harbaugh said of Black. "He has a right foot injury. He had one fixed last year, this injury is very similar to the one he had last year. The good news is that both will be fixed. He's being evaluated right now."

"some weeks"? eh? eh? eh?

Fine. So. TARIK BLACK

stop that

TARIK "Ol' Santana Guitar Solo" BLACK [recruiting profile] has been hewn down before he can even build up a head of steam and will once again observe Michigan's progress from the sideline. For... a while. An unspecified while. One that if it is indeed similar to last year's injury should take him out for at least eight games and possibly longer.

The amount of suck this contains is lots. Black's 11 catches in his two-and-change games project out to a palpable freshman hit; 8.8 yards per target was nearly two yards better than Michigan's #2 WR in that department. That's a little data we are making big, but also Black just felt like he had The Proverbial It. Every other word in his above recruiting profile was "smooth," thus the prospecting name, and that translated. His touchdown against Florida was a post on which his drift outside seemed to dupe the UF safety into passing him off...

...and when he set up for shorter stuff it was just... smooth, man.

His high school coach got into some detail about what all the smoothness actually translated to on the football field, and we were in the early stages of seeing a college version of that when the above play knocked him out last year:

"It was clear to me two weeks into his freshman year how special he was going to be. Unbelievable ability to catch the ball, run routes. … I think his route-running ability is freakish, to be honest. He has an innate ability in and out of a cut and create separation, no matter what you're doing."

There were some freshman dorfs, as there always are...

 

You said in the game column that you thought there were a bunch of subtle WR screwups that were hurting the offense. Find any?

Yes. Some weren't that subtle. Black twice failed to crack block, once on an Eddie McDoom bubble that he juked back into productivity...

...and once on one of those redzone plays.

But the combination of early productivity, recruiting hype, and program chatter pointed towards a genuine breakout year last year, and talk this year was that Black had maintained his lead over his classmates despite missing all that time at the worst possible juncture. This space was going to project an 800 yard season. Instead it will kick dirt and be sad. I won't bother you with the various hype items he's gathered over the offseason; they would only depress.

[After THE JUMP: Persons who are Available!]

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Tarik Black Has A Foot Injury
Brian •

Michigan states what they know so far about the injury rumors flying around last night:

Feldman provides some additional, unfortunate detail:

The appropriate response to this is to yell an expletive and think about throwing your coffee mug but not actually throwing it. It'll be fine! Maybe!

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