Unverified Voracity Saw A Lion Floating Through Ether And Bought Some Paint
I have proxy regrets. Michigan did not pursue instate DE Bryce Mostella much. As a person who generates internet content I now declare this a disaster of epic proportions.
Decision announcement coming Friday 2:47 p.m. you might be thinking "that's a random time" well you'll soon find out im a random young man
— Bryce Mostella (@BryceMostella) July 4, 2019
— Bryce Mostella (@BryceMostella) July 5, 2019
This is now his twitter avi:
Congratulations, Penn State internet. May you ask Bryce Mostella to rip your fingernails out with your Hello Kitty pliers or whatever it is that you're doing out there with your vape pens.
[After THE JUMP: Metellus can play, Franz can guard, college baseball can't have nice things]
The GOAT. Charles Woodson, devious person:
Yooooo @CharlesWoodson this is the play where you finessed us!
— Will Blackmon (@WillBlackmon) June 30, 2019
Clearly we are in cov2.
I have the the flat, but here You told me last min to play soft in my coverage & sink more with my guy.
I was confused cuz it was 3rd & short, but I trusted you
pic.twitter.com/eZvAzY6Stv
PFF bits. This was aided by Michigan's scheme somewhat (Michigan lined Metellus up with outside leverage and gave him LB support on slants) but Josh Metellus is pretty good at coverage nonetheless:
Throw on Josh Metellus at your own risk: last season he only allowed a 41.8% completion percentage, nabbed 3 interceptions and held opposing quarterbacks to a 34.3 passer rating pic.twitter.com/AdQQz2sVEQ
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 4, 2019
Their Patterson stats are getting sliced pretty thin but here are a couple more:
By having a 51.9% adjusted completion percentage on deep passes last season, Shea Patterson leads the returning contingent of B1G Quarterbacks. pic.twitter.com/MlfUfxF31B
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 8, 2019
Shea Patterson DOMINATED on 3rd and 4th down for Michigan last season. pic.twitter.com/tJ5NfT9PC4
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 8, 2019
Collins and DPJ help out on the deep balls, but also those guys are both back so bombing away should be on the menu again.
And this time it might even continue against good teams. We all know the reason for this statistical cliff:
If ... Shea Patterson finds a No. 1 receiver. Patterson's full-season numbers were decent (65 percent completion rate, 12.4 yards per completion, 82.0 QBR), but that's mostly because he torched lesser opponents. In games against more evenly matched opponents, the passing game was harmless.
Against five opponents that finished the year ranked, Patterson still completed 62 percent of his throws, but at just 11.3 yards per completion. It was 10.3 in three losses. Donovan Peoples-Jones averaged 18.4 yards per catch against unranked foes and 8.7 against ranked. Be it Peoples-Jones, Nico Collins, a finally healthy Tarik Black, or someone else, the Wolverines need a playmaker against the teams with the strongest pulse.
It doesn't have anything to do with Patterson or the playmakers, and has everything to do with the fact that Michigan's entire season was built around mitigating the fact their tackles couldn't pass protect. Gattis's system promises less in the way of traditional takes-forever drop-back passing, which will hopefully blunt opposing DEs when Michigan does try to go long. And hopefully the right tackle is a large upgrade on Juwann Bushell-Beatty.
6'9" shooting guard, okay. Sam Webb got in contact with Derrick Walton to talk about Franz Wagner and Juwan Howard; all of it is interesting but for Michigan's minutes distribution this is probably the most interesting bit:
“(He’s) really good at being able to pick things fast, and that will definitely allow him to be able to make an immediate impact. He shoots it really well. He's long and is an active defender. (He has) good hands and quick feet. (He’s) really able to guard one through three, (and) possibly the four with this length.”
Walton's been guarded by Franz so he'd probably know. If Franz can guard twos and threes that gives Michigan flexibility to pick whoever emerges from the Brooks/DDJ/Nunez/Bajema/Johns scrum, no matter their position. My money is on Johns being the fifth starter since Michigan has an elite big-man developer and Johns' lack of minutes last year is more attributable to his status as a miscast 5 than talent issues.
Walton also has the standard encomium about what a good dude Howard is; the two overlapped in Miami for a bit.
All right, guy! Getting Franz is a big deal; this is less of a big deal but it's still a good sign:
Michigan, Tennessee, North Carolina, Memphis, and Florida, make up the final-five for Jaden Springer, five-star rising senior. He’s taken an official visit to Tennessee.
— Jake (@jakeweingarten) July 9, 2019
Another takeaway, Juwan Howard getting Michigan in the final-five for Springer. He’s been impressive.
I had never heard that guy's name until he put Michigan in his top 5; he's a 6'4" shooting guard currently ranked 11th in the 2020 class. That brings the number of top 50 2020 recruits Michigan is in on up to approximately 10. In addition to Springer, they're in the picture for Josh Christopher, Walker Kessler, Isaiah Jackson, Nimari Burnett, Hunter Dickinson, Dawson Garcia, Mady Sissoko, Lance Ware ("it is Michigan basketball, you don’t have to say much about it; the name says it all”) and Jabri Abdur-Rahim. Whether they get any of these guys is an open question; it's clear Michigan's recruiting focus has shifted under Howard.
Cumong, baseball guy. Most of the Big Ten voted to shoot down a third paid assistant in baseball, including Warde Manuel. This has southern programs irritated, which is good. Because this guy is glossing over the dumbest schedule in sports when he makes this assertion:
Now that Michigan has reached the pinnacle of college baseball, it’s time for the rest of the Big Ten and even the Wolverines to establish consistency.
It’s not realistic to think Michigan can be in Omaha every couple of years. Even programs like LSU and Texas are unable to accomplish that goal. But the league has enough resources to become a consistent force on the national level, while with a couple of breaks, it gets a team to Omaha every couple of years.
Do that and everything else should fall into place. More administrators will support programs with more robust salaries and facilities upgrades, academic rules could be eased to make it a little easier for prospective recruits, more recruits in the region will spurn the glamour of the SEC and ACC to stay at home and become the next Joe Donovan in Omaha.
And to top it all off, perhaps the next time we vote on a third assistant, it will be considered a no brainer like it was in the SEC and other leagues.
The Big Ten will never be more than the A-10 of college baseball as long as their teams spend the first month of the season on the road because it's in February, and the second month of the season freezing their butts off. Saying the "Big Ten needs to get serious about baseball" is like saying the SEC needs to get serious about outdoor hockey games.
And Kendall Rogers knows this since he just wrote this bit in the piece on Bakich being coach of the year:
The reality is that it’s just a lot harder for a cold-weather team to climb to the top of the mountain in a warm-weather sport when the season starts in mid-February. It’s harder to recruit, it’s harder to win nonconference games when the weather forces you to travel for the first six weeks of the season, and that makes it harder to put yourself in a position to host regionals and supers — which is the key to consistent postseason success.
You want a third assistant? Move the CWS back two weeks. You want more scholarships? Move the CWS back two weeks. You want anything? Move the CWS back two weeks.
NIL discussion. The State compiles some quotes about the prospect of name and image rights reverting to the players; it's a mix of the standard oblivious quotes from suited muckety-mucks…
“This is personal opinion but when I see name, image, likeness it makes me feel like it is pay for play,” South Carolina’s athletics director said. “I’m like, ‘This gives me angst.’ ”
Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey feels the same way.
“My stance hasn’t changed since I testified in the (Ed) O’Bannon case,” Sankey said. “I think the funding and financial support provided to student-athlete is appropriately tied to their educational pursuits. There is a period at the end of that sentence.”
…and somewhat surprising takes from the coaches:
South Carolina football coach Will Muschamp and many of his colleagues were supportive of the idea.
“I’m absolutely in support of it,” Muschamp said. “As much as we can help the players, we need to.”
Georgia basketball coach Tom Crean went even further.
“Something needs to be done and I think the fact that the committee is being put together means it will be done,” Crean said. “I don’t think there’s any question that something needs to be done.”
When even the coaches, whose giant salaries are inflated by athletes playing for free, think things should be opened up maybe they should be opened up. Money quote:
“I think it’s an interesting thing that they are now going to explore going against something they spent millions and millions of dollars trying to defend. I think it’s going to make a whole lot of the things the NCAA has stated for the last 20, 30, 40 years look in many ways quite foolish.”
Etc.: Game three of the CWS finals was the most-watched baseball broadcast on ESPN this year. Daily alum J Brady McCullough on the NCAA having it both ways. Local chefs' favorite places to eat. It's a dive-heavy list. Nixon? Nixon.
The best pro teams Juwan was involved with featured Chris Bosh playing the 5. I don't think he'll be as wedded to post play and playing big lineups as many people seem to think.
Michigan's entire season was built around mitigating the fact their tackles couldn't pass protect.
I agree that Michigan was risk averse in their offensive play calling and that is what killed the offense. I do not see that mitigating the weakness in pass blocking by the tackles was demonstrably the reason for their risk averse play calling. If that was the case then why when they did pass were they always using such slow developing routes rather than slants and the various things that good teams used to mitigate the Michigan pass rush so successfully?
The run/pass ratio in 2018 was not that different from previous seasons. It was just that in previous seasons, the passing worked much better. I think that Pep Hamilton is a very risk averse and not very creative play caller more than anything to do with the tackles.
I think that there is reason to hope that Gattis will design and call plays that mitigate poor passing blocking much better than Pep Hamilton did. Like OSU did to Michigan in 2018.
Run/pass ratio doesn't have anything to do with it. It's that when the threw against good teams they didn't have much time because of the tackles, and hence run shorter quicker routes.
The article concluded that it was somehow the receivers at fault for getting far fewer yards against good teams. It was not their fault. It was the pass protection that caused the play calls that only got DPJ fewer than 10 yards per catch.
I'm in favor of greater benefits for the athletes, especially in light of the high number of coaches and staff, the ridiculousness of the facilities, and the high salaries of coaches and staff. But please stop saying the athletes are playing for free. Any parent who has paid out of state or private school tuition as well as room and board knows the real value of those all inclusive scholarships. Out of state U of M $275K+ for four years.
Following up on a previous poster's NCAA Rant---
You are right, delmarblue--
The athletes are most certainly not, "playing for free." However, huge percentage of them ARE playing for grossly less pay than they'd otherwise get in a free market. Take any of your friends making $X in annual salary or as an hourly wage. Then tell them they are only going to make a fraction of that instead. Now gauge their reaction.
The NCAA and schools are colluding to create a restricted market. If any 18 year old--or hell--any MINOR--were to play any sport outside the NCAA, they'd be getting paid their market value either in direct salary from a team, or indirectly from NIL endorsement deals. Teenagers as young as 13, 14, and 15 years old ROUTINELY win Olympic Gold, play on the professional tennis circuits, and play in professional soccer leagues. Kids who are actors or musicians cash in on their stardom in TV, film, song writing credits etc. Every single one of them can bank their fair market value. But if you're a 20 year old globally elite football player, you're pretty much screwed. You better be good at playing school (or at least faking it), and hope you don't get injured (in a sport known for it's brutality) over the next 2-3 years.
To that end, an alternative to forcing the NCAA to reform itself would be to just break the virtual monopoly the NCAA has. If any of those alternative NFL football leagues ever became legitimately economically viable (Euro/Japan; Arena League; XFL, etc.), I could see a certain % of recruits just opting for those routes instead--just like the best hockey/baseball players don't necessarily come through the college ranks now. The problem is, it's easier said than done because momentum is a hell of a thing.
The NCAA football system is already well entrenched. The NFL barely has any development infrastrucure, because there's no reason to develop it--the NCAA schools do it for them gratis. My understanding is that the reason there is a viable MLB & NHL minor league/farm network is that that infrastructure was around before the NCAA really got commercialized traction in those sports (although it seems the winds are shifting towards the universities now that they're starting to follow in football & basketball footsteps).
Meanwhile, it is MUCH harder for any new alternative system to gain major traction because NCAA schools enjoy a massive subsidy exclusive to them in the form of vastly lower player overhead costs. The NCAA schools take the saved money & plows it into incredible facilities/stadiums, juggernaut marketing/hype machines, thus pressing their comparative advantage even more. The NFL wins because the NCAA is subsidizing/paying for their farm/development system, so there is no incentive for them to change their own rules much. The NCAA & Athletic Departments win because although they are "nonprofit" from an entity standpoint, this set-up is a massive cash cow for them--spraying excess money EVERYWHERE they can other than the actual players. The individuals running the "non-profit" organizations (most coaches, administrators, commissioners) certainly view their own PERSONAL income/bonus structure through a for-profit lens.
To be clear though--I am not necessarily advocating a 100% free market system. As others have noted, even the professional leagues are have collective bargaining agreements, certain rules restricting the movement of players, etc. But the status quo is untenable.
It's not a huge percentage of them. It's actually a very small percentage of them that are compensated less than their market values.
Also, no one is forcing these guys to "work below their market value." If they were worth that much, they can apply for a better job (i.e. enter the draft) at any time. Attending a university is always a personal choice, regardless of field - one that involves delaying immediate compensation for the chance at improving one's future earning potential.
All good points. But also remember that $275k is paid with after tax dollars, or in other words is tax free as far as I know.
Dance off Norfleet vs Mostella.
always sad when an awesomely strange kid goes elsewhere; you'd think harbaugh's football autism would attract that kind of recruit. good luck to the young lion.
Sooo... The restaurants listed all seem good. Too bad I'm not in AA to try any of them. I will say, though, that Seoul Street is awesome and I'm not just saying that because my college roommate is one of the founders/owners.
I guess UofM's Avant Garde Cinema Program couldn't compete, eh?
I understand that in today's world, if the nation is interested in one's college commitment decision, why not get a few youtube hits, likes, and retweets. On the one hand, I appreciate the young gentleman's creativity, on the other, wow? What were you thinking?
Musing question, let's say that his video was put on his youtube channel and it gets 5MM views. At that level of viewership, the video would be monetized. Could the athlete keep the money from the commitment video? The NCAA is going to have some work to do to stifle the our ever changing economic opportunities from the young adult the NCAA preys upon.
Probably not. This happened to a UCF kicker a couple years ago. He had to quit football or shut down his YouTube channel.
Why can't we have bryce things?
Especially since Bryce Austin looks to be boilermakin'.
Nixon?
That last link that Brian provided got the better of my curiosity, so I clicked. Good troll job, fearless leader.
Dick Nixon. Because he would have dicked all of us, given the opportunity.
Wow, look at all those DOMINATING stats on our players from PFF! We must be on some kind of roll against Ohio State! :D
Best commitment video I've seen. Kid embracing his weirdness. Good on him.
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