Unverified Voracity Says Furk
UFR is delayed. It's due to crippling bouts of ennui. I'm sure you understand. Anyway, let's have some fun!
The situation. A follow-up from the stat on the podcast about how Michigan has failed to cover the last six spreads by at least two touchdowns from Dimitri Nakassis:
On the bright side, when you click to the big version of an image on twitter and save it, twitter no longer gives you a ".jpg-large" file that has to be renamed before you can actually use it. So I got to skip that step while inserting the neat summary of a half-season stretch in which Michigan has vastly underperformed expectations.
Oh God I just remembered why this graph looked strangely familiar.
RIP, Prevail and Ride. Also us.
[After THE JUMP: surely it gets more cheerful!]
Well, there's that. Adam Rittenberg gets some useful anonymous coach quotes that attempt to explain what is happening to Michigan's offense. "Speed in space" is just a rumor as Michigan plays without Mike Sainristil and doesn't do any speed in space things:
"There's no tempo in the offense," a Big Ten assistant told me. "There's no hurry-up ... and there's no get-the-ball-out-quick on the perimeter."
Against Wisconsin, Michigan's wide receiver screens went to a tight end.
And Shea Patterson is almost never finding someone to throw to in rhythm:
A coach who studied Michigan told me, "The ball is supposed to come out on a plant-and-throw or one hitch. If the quarterback's on his third hitch and the ball ain't out, that's a problem. To blame the O-line is outrageous." A former Big Ten coordinator added of Patterson, "He's not a quick-trigger guy, he's just not. He's a run around and make plays guy. It's a problem."
The problem isn't so much that Patterson can run around and make plays, it's that way too many plays end up breaking down into that after the actual design fails to do anything, whether that's because Patterson isn't finding receivers or everyone is covered.
Toughness: a thing people talk about. I'm not sure how you measure it or how to judge how it affects football games, but it's a press conference staple when things are going badly, and this is no exception:
“Emphasis on physicality, emphasis on toughness and emphasis on hustle,” Harbaugh said. “We’ll make that part of the practice plan more and also playing the players that are dedicated and playing physically at all times. Get those players in the ballgame.”
Ben Mason is tough but Ben Mason is legislated out of this offense; Carlo Kemp might be tough but he's also Just A Guy at DT—if that. Michigan didn't set an edge on Taylor's long TD, and repeatedly flew out of the middle of the field on draw plays and traps. Is that a toughness issue? It seems like a coaching issue when Wisconsin inserts their fullback to the backside of the formation and runs opposite it, like they do all the time, and your linebacker/safety level continually falls for it.
This guy cracked the code. Sometimes signals are not subtle.
And guess what? They sent the blitz and played man free. All DC's are like this. If I'm a college coach, I'm literally going to put a guy on signal duty with binoculars and wait til the defense signals the play before I call my offensive play. pic.twitter.com/5MlrKY6JCJ
— Seth Galina (@SethGalina) January 2, 2018
It's a tough blitz though.
Good for the gander. The NCAA is really grooving their fastballs these days:
“This could potentially destroy everything we know and love about college sports. I am absolutely a huge opponent of it.”
— Dan Murphy (@DanMurphyESPN) September 25, 2019
-- The athletic director of a Big 12 institution two days ago when asked about college athletes accepting endorsement money. https://t.co/D9NeGulkFn
Restoring name and image rights to athletes won't reduce the overall pool of money available but may redirect it towards athletes as donors cut out the middleman. This is bad news for people running organizations of middle-men. Not bad enough to turn down a hard seltzer sponsorship, apparently.
Murphy's referencing TCU's AD, by the way. Prepare for word salad:
“I understand the free market concept and I understand the country we live in is exceptionally prideful and that’s part of our freedom,” Donati said. “But I also think there’s a tremendous amount of monetary value in place on these kid’s educations. That’s a tremendous investment we’re making investing into this amateur model.
“I just think it’d be a shame to throw it away so haphazardly from what I’ve heard. It has potential to be a wild, wild west situation, which is scary as an athletic director."
The Skinner bill has the potential to be the wild, wild west in the same way that legalizing marijuana does: legalizing and regulating a black market economy is the exact opposite of a lawless free-for-all.
They have come for Kansas. The NCAA dropped off a hefty notice of allegations on Kansas's doorstep:
Kansas has been charged with lack of institutional control, three Level I violations in men’s basketball and there is a head coach responsibility charge against coach Bill Self, according to multiple sources. There also are allegations against football, sources added, although those are Level II violations. The football allegations include charges of allowing an extra coach to work during practice under former head coach David Beaty.
The Level I violations are tied, in part, to the recruitments of Billy Preston and Silvio De Sousa. Court testimony and documents tied to the federal basketball corruption cases over the past two years included details of veteran adidas consultant T.J. Gassnola having “conspired to illicitly funnel approximately at least $90,000” to the mother of Preston. Gassnola also testified in court that he paid De Sousa’s guardian $2,500, although he denied arranging a $20,000 payment that had been discussed on wiretaps.
The charge against Self will potentially prove a compelling and high-profile application of the NCAA’s head coach responsibility bylaws. Evidence tied to the case included Gassnola and Self talking openly in text messages about Adidas helping Kansas recruit players. “I’m happy with Adidas,” Self wrote Gassnola. “Just got to get a couple real guys.”
Will this be enough to result in meaningful penalties? If not this, then nothing will. When Yahoo showed the NOA to a "veteran compliance officer" his reaction was thus:
“That’s everything that compliance is employed to prevent. That’s the trifecta, that’s unbelievable. That’s the reason why compliance exists, just thinking about it gives me anxiety.”
Anything short of a long-term nuking of Kansas, Arizona, and especially Louisville basketball is an invitation to keep it going.
This space is in favor of nuking these teams because that will convert those fanbases from organizations that support the status quo because it benefits them to fanbases who want to burn the whole enterprise down. This is naturally why programs do not suffer long-term nukes. The NCAA is bedfellows with the black market; the two work together. The guys funneling chump change to players aren't noble vigilantes, they're symbiotic bacteria that help smooth amateurism's ability to digest giant piles of money.
For its part, Kansas is set to engage in a fistfight:
“In its haste [two years after the FBI investigation was announced] and attempt to regain control, the enforcement staff has created a false narrative regarding me and our basketball program,” Self said in a statement. “The narrative is based on innuendo, [court proceedings] half-truths, [wiretaps] misimpressions [facts] and mischaracterizations [also facts]. In reality, we all know there is only one version of the truth [Kansas pays players and Self knows it]. The truth is based on verifiable facts, and I am confident the facts we will demonstrate in our case will expose the inaccuracies of the enforcement staff’s narrative.”
This might be good? Usually programs get the NOA, complain a little, take their solitary year of post-season ban and light scholarship restrictions, and move on. Here Kansas looks set to fight because not doing so may bring the NCAA's first real punishment in forever. It might happen! The Athletic's roundtable on the situation is pretty interesting:
O’Neil: The depth and scope is pretty massive. The NCAA clearly is cashing in all of its chips to take some very serious allegations — paying Billy Preston’s mother and Silvio De Sousa’s handler — and padding them with others equally damning, albeit less sensational. There is federal testimony, text messages and phone records, and all of it includes multiple infractions involving more than one player. Those are not easy things to get over.
Moore: The allegations that Self and his staff were aware of T.J. Gassnola’s recruiting attempts and allowed it without reporting. The NCAA is attempting to establish a pattern of negligence and show the athletic department also tried to hide violations it knew were occurring. …
Davis: The most important dynamic in play is that Kansas has already challenged these allegations. That means we are going to see the very first test of the NCAA’s new Independent Resolution Panel. This was put in place as part of the Complex Case Unit that came out of Condi Rice Commission’s recommendations, and it will effectively take the case out of the hands of the NCAA and its Committee of Infractions. First, an independent group of investigators will gather to ascertain all the facts. These are people who are professional investigators, prosecutors, etc. Then they will present those facts to the panel. If you look at the roster of panel members, you will not see a lot of familiar names and organizations — or any, really. Again, these are professional legal and compliance minds who are for the most part not technically part of the NCAA. To say all bets are off does not do justice to the uncertainty at hand.
Burn it all.
A divergence in efficiency. Off the bounce threes are increasing in number despite remaining inefficient options overall:
Off the bounce three-point shooting volume and efficiency trends in the NCAA and NBA: pic.twitter.com/kWA82Tcccf
— Jordan Sperber (@hoopvision68) September 21, 2019
Those NBA numbers are wild, man. In college off the bounce threes remain a meh option, though some guys (Derrick Walton) can make it work.
Etc.: More on state challenges to the NCAA. Emmert calls this an "existential threat." I do not think he knows what that word means.
September 26th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
Would you say that Devin Gardner was not highly successful at Michigan because he was not properly motivated/tough or that he was in a poor scheme?
September 25th, 2019 at 6:31 PM ^
Michigan is so much worse than last year. What's the more likely explanation? Suddenly all the toughness instilled by Harbaugh magically disappeared? The players got soft because of...? Or the team is struggling with a new offense that wasn't installed well and doesn't stretch the field horizontally? They can talk about toughness. And Brian can post screenshots of Army's CBs 10 yards off the LOS in short yardage.
September 25th, 2019 at 5:12 PM ^
I'm glad the other coaches pointed out that the main problem isn't the offensive line. Patterson holds the ball for forever. He's better outside of the pocket because then he only has to read half of the field. This shouldn't be a problem with a senior QB, but here we are under the QB guru. Watching the DB on Nico Collins fall on his ass to start the play and then watching Patterson hitch three times in the pocket and then throw into coverage is tragicomedy.
September 25th, 2019 at 5:13 PM ^
"The Skinner bill has the potential to be the wild, wild west in the same way that legalizing marijuana does: legalizing and regulating a black market economy is the exact opposite of a lawless free-for-all."
The NCAA is bedfellows with the black market; the two work together. The guys funneling chump change to players aren't noble vigilantes, they're symbiotic bacteria that help smooth amateurism's ability to digest giant piles of money. "
Exactly this.
During the Prohibition Era, it's no accident that "Baptistis and Bootleggers" were both strongly against repeal. The reason organized crime families were so successful at the bootlegging business was also because they had caputred the loyalty of the political & law enforcement mechanisms. The same thing is happening with amatuerism in big time college football & basketball.
The elite programs aren't THAT much more clever in designing schemes, aren't THAT much more charming when recruiting players, and don't have facilities that are THAT much more amazing than the other 15-20 "good" well financed programs out there. The primary (and growing) differentiator between the elite programs and other programs is their willingness to consistently and brazenly violate the rules governing the sport. As a result, the pool of their TRUE competitors abiding by the same set of rules (i.e., no rules) is very small. They're essentially operating in a totally different world.
Normally there is a risk premium that these kinds of organizations pay, which limits their behavior. But if the enforcement organizaiton is too weak to do anything, that risk is near zero. When the enforcement agency has been co-opted, not only is there no risk premium for the established organizations, but the co-opted enforcement organization can now be weaponized to prevent would-be new entrants into the market from doing it.
The established elite football/basketball powers that routinely flout NCAA rules are like Prohibition Era mobster bootleggers. Sure, the bootleggers are organized and work hard. But the reason they dominate their market isn't because other organizations don't have the ABILITY to produce a similar or superior product. The reason is becasue the other would-be competing organizations dare not TRY--either because of their own moral codes, or because they try & are selectively targeted for punishment by the corrupted rule enforcement agency.
Bootleggers didn't produce truly superior product to the legitimate existing German brewery companies or to the other would-be organized crime families trying to enter the illegal market. The previously established legitimate German brewing companies just had too much to lose to risk their reputation, so they produced other things like ice cream, soft drinks, and non-alcoholic beer. Similarly, when other would-be criminal bootleggers tried to enter the market, the established bootletters just had the politicians and policemen on their payroll bust the would-be competitor's operation.
Michigan and certain other schools are like the established German brewing companies. When the regulatory regime switched (in this case, a gradual subtle shift rather than a sweeping public reform), some of them were shrewd, nimble, and morally flexible enough to undertake the initial risk premium & just go the bootlegger route hoping not to get caught. Others like Michigan decided to just keep it clean, even if it meant shifting to producing "near bear" or other products other than alcohol. Over time, the bold & morally flexible programs got powerful enough to neuter & in some case totally co-opt the enforcement regime so their "risk premium" they have to pay has dwindled to almost nothing.
There is NO WAY in hell that the established bootleggers of college football want to see the current system change. And--like the creation of Elliott Ness & the FBI to hunt mobsters--unless some outside bigger force like federal law or a SCOTUS ruling steps in, there is no way the weakened & co-opted NCAA enforcement mechanism will ever change the status quo.
Just as the established legitimate breweries who managed to survive Prohibition were the cheif beneficiaries of the repeal of Prohibition, if & when the players get NIL and other payments above board, Michigan is likely going to be one of the major beneficiaries.
September 25th, 2019 at 7:22 PM ^
I said all along that Shea was "Street Ball" and had almost zero mechanics or ability to read coverage. If you look at most of his highlight throws last year, they were jump ball or wide open situations from broken plays. Street ball guys are hard to build an offense around. Apparently he is not intelligent enough, or does not put in the necessary time to develop those QB skills. Time to switch to D-Caff permanently once his head is healed.
Comments