jabri abdur-rahim

Gattis, tracked. Michigan's pursuit of Josh Gattis was abrupt and fevered:

When Gattis arrived at the office, he and Tide coach Nick Saban had a conversation about the 35-year-old coach’s future. Gattis was hoping he’d get the shot to replace Locksley, but Saban said he didn’t want a first-time play-caller on offense. He wanted Gattis to help with the gameplan and install the offense, but someone else would call the plays.

“So, in order for me to show you that I’m good at calling plays, where I have the utmost confidence, I gotta go do that,” Gattis told Saban.

Around 9 a.m., Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh phoned Gattis, who said he was honored to get the call but asked to talk specifics.

“This is to be the offensive coordinator,” Harbaugh said. “You run your system. You run the offense. Your verbiage. Your terminology. It’s fully in your control.”

To say that's a departure for Harbaugh significantly undersells it. That's part of an extensive Bruce Feldman article at the Athletic* detailing not only the hiring process but why Michigan was sold on Gattis without so much as an interview:

Michigan had done its own due diligence on Gattis. Former NFL executive Tom Gamble had helped Michigan gather intel, calling around former colleagues of Gattis and tracking the young coach for two years. One of the people Gamble connected with was Joe Moorhead, the offensive coordinator who coached with Gattis at Penn State in 2016 and 2017 and now is the head coach at Mississippi State.

Feldman launches into an anecdote about the end of the 2017 PSU-Iowa game, which was a last-play win by Penn State on which Gattis sold Moorhead on changing a play on the fly because he'd seen the safety bite on a corner route. It worked:

It almost didn't work because PSU forgot to change the drag route underneath the post, almost drawing an underneath defender into position to get a PBU. Fun stuff.

*[My subscription expired yesterday and I was wishy-washy about renewing, and then I had to because there were three different things I had to read. Hope they're making money.]

[After THE JUMP: Martelli, breakfast cereal]

Swing and a miss. William and Mary grad transfer Justin Pierce is going to UNC.

So what's next? On WTKA this morning, Sam brought up Oakland grad transfer Jaevin Cumberland. Cumberland is a straight-up sniper SG and is thus a cleaner fit than Pierce, but until this year he'd been stuck playing deep bench minutes at a Horizon League school. His bust out this year was an alpaca out of nowhere experience, as he suddenly played 37 minutes a game and hit 40% of his 263 threes. Here are some highlights that will make you think it's 2005 again:

Mmm. Grainy.

Cumberland did get about a third of his shots inside the line last year and made most of those shots by attacking closeouts, but a 56% conversion rate at the rim against mostly low-major opponents is a strong indicator Cumberland would be Just A Shooter. This is fine for a lot of schools: he visited Oregon and Purdue and has NC State after him. FWIW, Purdue just landed High Point transfer Jahaad Proctor and is probably going to bank their last scholarship for 2020.

Cumberland's cousin is Cincinnati star Jarron Cumberland and the other Cumberland was rumored to have some Michigan fans in the family when he was briefly recruited by M a few years back. Hopefully that carries over.

Michigan's other shooting guard prospect, Bones Hyland, may need a prep year to get his grades in order after the ordeal that the last year of his life has been. That was briefly alluded to in this 24/7 article…

For now, Hyland is leaving all options open. Because he missed so much time and was off the radar, there was some thought of going to prep school, but for now that appears to not be the case.

“The plan right now is definitely to go in the class of 2019, but whatever happens, happens,” said Hyland.

…and Sam said something along those lines on WTKA today.

As far as the potential Iggy replacement goes, it looks like it's Franz or bust.

[After THE JUMP: basketball recruiting on trial! also just plain ol' basketball recruiting. And Tru Wilson]