Wouldn't say it's worse than Blake Corum's injury in 2022. We probably don't beat Georgia in the final, but can't see us losing that TCU game if we have Corum. Likely cost Corum a trip to the Heisman ceremony as well.
Please not Smith or Fisch. Smith has done an unbelievable job at Oregon St. and I think would make them a perennial playoff contender (in the expanded playoff era).
Glad you enjoyed it and like you I have mostly fond memories of this era despite all the heartbreak! It does feel to me too that it was easier back then to get over games, but that may be recency bias. Being from West Michigan there were a lot of Notre Dame and Michigan State fans who liked to rub salt in the wounds throughout the school week following those brutal losses. I do think as a kid though it is easier to let those losses go after a bit of time, whereas now I'm still expecting kharmic retribution for things that happened years ago (we're still owed a shitload of make up calls for 2016 OSU and last year's MSU game).
Ha ha, I did have a hard time pulling the trigger to actually post this. Wasn't sure if it was going to come across as too negative or not. I went ahead though cause even though it focuses on negative stuff, it brought back a lot of good memories for me as well, and hopefully it will do that for others.
Is Sagarin that bad of a rating system that they have a Texas team that went 37-25 over that time frame ranked four spots ahead of a 41-18 Michigan team in that same time frame? I guess having a worse record in a much worse conference = better to Sagarin. Maybe bonus points for losing to Maryland multiple times? Time to switch to a ranking system that isn't complete horseshit. Hard to take any of this seriously when you see that kind of stuff.
Thanks for this post. Mostly I'm glad that I now know Idlewild is a real place and not only is it in Michigan, but it's only two hours from Kalamazoo where I grew up. My mind is kind of blown. I'm assuming the Outkast album of the same name was inspired by this Idlewild? Here's a short article of the history of Idlewild for those who like me had no idea this place existed.
What floor were you on? I would have been fifth floor at South Quad that year. I'm sure we would have encountered each other at some point.
I agree that Izzo doesn't deserve to be in the same category as coach K or Wooden, or the all-time greats, but he's probably somewhere in tier 2. He's kind of similar to the way I feel about Harbaugh right now - his teams' floors are extremely high (except in pandemic years or when Brady Hoke left a crater in roster talent in Harbaugh's case), and most years there going to be a top 10ish team, but not a team that can win it all. Hopefully I'm wrong about that for Harbaugh. Izzo I hope continues to wallow in coming up just short.
Frustrating team. They play really hard but make huge mental errors at inopportune times and just have no idea what to do in the final 3rd. Wonder if Weah would have made a difference in this game.
Man, feels like the US has had the ball on Canada's side of the field for 80% of this half. Canada is lethal with the counter attacks though, and really made the most out of their limited opportunities. Feels like when the US has the ball within 25 yards of Canada's goal they get sped up and always make the wrong play. Think we're (the US) going to have to score on a set piece to equalize this.
I really don't get why defensive ends aren't banging down the door to come to Michigan. Just off the top of my head since Harbaugh has been coach, we've had:
1. Chris Wormley - having a fantastic year with the Steelers
2. Taco Charlton - also with the Steelers, and last week given a lot of PT to help shut down the Vikings running game in the second half
3. Rashan Gary - key player for the Packers
4. Chase Winovich - not sure how he's doing this year, but was ranked one of the best in the NFL at generating pressures last year
5. Josh Uche - 3 sacks for a very good Pats defense this year
6. Kwity Paye - Having a decent rookie season for the Colts
7. David Ojabo - Likely first round pick despite coming into the season as an unknown.
8. Aidan Hutchinson - Possible first overall pick and runner up in the Heisman
That's 8 NFL players from 7 years at a position where only two players see the field regularly, 5 of them first rounders. Only one of which was a five star, and two of which were middle of the pack 3 stars. There's no way any other school has nearly as good a track record as that. 5 stars should be begging Harbaugh to come here, instead we've got 3 stars decommitting. Frustrating.
Gotta ask, at what point does being head coach at LSU make people go insane? Is it the moment pen touches paper while signing the contract? Is it when the plane lands to bring you to campus for the first time? Is it when the coach starts his first relationship with a student there? Gives me more respect for Saban that he's just a curmudgeon and not full on bat shit insane like the others.
Also, I've been a huge Harbaugh supporter (which has become much easier now), but pretty sure if he were in a video like this I would be calling for his head.
As others have said think a lot of decisions will be coming when the early signing day opens up on Wednesday. Some recruiting news that I have found the last couple of days is that Deone Walker did make it to Michigan for his official visit prior to the weekend. It's hard to tell if we made up any ground on Kentucky where he's visiting/visited this weekend, but it's good news he made it in. Walker visit
The other news is that 3 big time prospects were expected to be on campus this weekend. Derrick Moore (DL ranked 79 overall), Darrius Clemons (WR, #130 overall) and Alex Orji (Ha ha, he said Orji, QB ranked 415 overall). There were also two very intriguing transfer targets on campus. Visitor List
Also seems like we're still the odds on favorites to pick up Keon Sabb and flip Amorion Walker from Notre Dame.
A lot of these guys you mentioned seem to be newer targets for Michigan (at least to public knowledge) so I had to look them up. Thought I'd share rankings for other people like me who aren't that familiar with these names (particularly the 3 at the top). All rankings will be from the 247 composite.
Zeke Berry S De La Salle (CA) .9121 rating, 227th overall
Keon Sabb S IMG Academy (FL) .967 rating, 80th overall current Clemson commit
(Didn't we recruit a Sabb in a recent cycle that ended up at Clemson? Is this a younger brother?)
Ethan Burke Edge Westlake (TX) Unranked (this is the only Burke I could find, is this the right guy?)
Amorion Walker ATH (Believe we were initially recruiting him as a DB, but now as a WR) Ponchatoula (LA) .8784 rating, 518th overall current Notre Dame commit who a couple of weeks ago seemed like a sure thing to flip, but it sounds like that's not as certain now
Domani Jackson Mater Dei (CA) .9965 rating, 6th overall. USC decommit, thought to be leaning Alabama, but who knows now as he visited for the OSU game and seems to be a guy who really gets swayed by his visits
Deone Walker DL/OL Cass Tech (MI) .9106 rating, 241st overall. We seemed to be in the driver's seat here until the Eugenio decommit, and as of a few weeks looked to be a major fight with Kentucky. Anyone got any more recent news on him?
Kiyaunta Goodwin OT Charlestown (IN) .984 rating, 30th overall, Kentucky commit. I've heard nothing about this guy and have no idea about our chances of flipping him.
So, based on what the OP wrote, sounds like our safety recruiting will finish strong. Too bad Conerly didn't make it as getting a second (or would it have been a 3rd?) visit from him would make it hard to believe we wouldn't land him.
Nice post OP. I did some similar research a few years back also using OddShark looking at all the Power 5 conference teams, and while it's a bit dated, I think it's interesting so I'll share some of the data here.
My research went from the 2008-2017 seasons, or the last 30 games dating back from the end of the 2017 season (the database wouldn't show more than that at that time for this search). At that time Michigan was one of only four teams to not win single game as more than a 7 point underdog, and they went 0-12 in that span. The others were Tennessee (0-30), Alabama (0-1, yup only a major underdog one time in 10 years!), and LSU (0-5). So, the inability to win as big underdogs has been a problem going back through the last 3 coaches, not just Harbaugh. Some records of note as being quite good as big underdogs were Ohio State (2-4), Michigan State (4-13), Minnesota (8-22) and Northwestern (11-19!).
Michigan was good as big favorites, but terrible in toss up games (toss up defined the same way the OP did them). They were 19-36 in toss up games, and I found a website that gave the likelihood of wins based on pre game spreads, so then calculated that Michigan was expected to win 27.54 of those 55 games (I had to divide up games into more specific spreads to get that number). That 8.54 games under expectations was the worst of all Power 5 teams with only Virginia at 8.35 games under expectation coming close. No other team was at more than 6 games under expectations. I think there is something to Michigan fans altering betting lines with over optimism (I'm a fairly optimistic fan, but I don't get how people are willing to put money behind that!), but at the same time Vegas is not going to alter the spreads a crazy amount lest they get burnt. These data tell me it's pretty clear that Michigan football struggles against the weight of expectations has been a problem, and continues to be a problem under Harbaugh (duh doi!)
I wanted to share another set of data as well since you mentioned comparing Harbaugh's record with Carr's. It's not quite the same as spreads, but I looked at Harbaugh's record vs teams in certain ranking ranges vs. Carr's, and I thought it was quite enlightening. I used Sports reference's postseason Simple Rating System to get the rankings. Oh, also I did this after the 2019 season so this doesn't include the last two years:
Carr was great against top 25 teams, but really struggled against the middle of the pack teams. That was the frustrating part of his tenure - we would look great in knocking off a top team, then play tight in a game against inferior competition. Harbaugh is pretty much the opposite. Terrible against top teams, but very rarely do his teams lose to inferior competition (last year was the exception, but that was a weird year). He's steady Eddie. The problem for Harbaugh is the schedule has been so skewed to playing Top 10 teams, with him having to face over 3 of these teams a year. I can't imagine any other team in the country has faced that many top ten teams without a single conference championship game or being in the playoffs.
Okay, that's enough. What I thought was going to take me 10 minutes to write out just took me an hour. Hopefully someone enjoys this data dump.
That's 76 snaps on special teams and 20 on defense, so it looks like he's pretty much just a special teamer. Guess the new defensive staff just likes the linebackers a bit bigger in the new scheme. I believe Barrett was the one who ran the fake punt against Washington, so the coaches are trying to keep him involved a little bit, but it is surprising that he has almost no role on the defense considering how good he looked in the Minnesota game last year.
(Edit w/ additional info) - Of the 20 defensive snaps, 5 came against WMU and 15 came against N. Illinois.
I'm really surprised about Barrett - he went from looking like a star after the first game last year to barely getting any game time even in garbage time. I thought maybe he was injured, but he was on the participation chart via MGoBlue. Wonder if he's just struggling to pick up the new defense. Too bad as we could really use another talented, experienced linebacker on this roster.
If you've ever played ultimate Frisbee, you've had a throw come at you that you thought would be an easy interception, but instead it rises just above your outreached arms and drops into the hands of the intended target. That's what McCarthy's throw looked like it did. The ball seemed to see the defender and say, "hey I'll redirect over that guy" then seemed to jump up a little bit like a rock skipping across a lake, and then fell right into Baldwin's lap (who made a nice adjustment). It was a thing of beauty.
The only reason I expressed disappointment in my OP was because I thought the measurement would come out closer to 60 yards, so 48 felt a bit underwhelming.
You might be right about the 4 yards for McCarthy, but I think 12 yards is about as close as you could argue for Baldwin. I do data collection for PFF and have to input player widths across the field, and 10 yards would basically be just inside the numbers. Baldwin is definitely a few yards inside the numbers.
So, let's say the throw carried 37 yards across the field instead of 34, redoing the calculations we get a 50.25 yard throw. I like that, let's go with that
Maybe Henson? I think Mallett had the arm strength, but not the accuracy. Henne I don't think quite had that kind of arm strength. Yeah, I really don't know, but that throw definitely got me excited for the future.
Wow, I had completely forgotten about the recruiting profiles.
I wouldn't hold your breath. I feel like Brian usually starts those early in the off-season and puts out one or two a week throughout. Don't see him pounding out twenty plus of them with only a couple months to go before the season starts. That's a shame, he really doesn't seem to want to cover the football team at all anymore.
Thanks for posting this. I had been Google searching Anthony every couple months or so to find out what happened to him and I couldn't believe such a highly touted recruit wasn't able to find a landing spot. He was ranked 107th in his class to the 247 composite!
Impressive that he was able to graduate from Michigan in three years, and I'm hoping things work out for him at Troy.
But Hoke had the two best Michigan QBs since Brady and Henson, with the possible exception of Henne. He just didn't know how to use Denard, and he got Gardner killed with the porous offensive line. So, I'll agree with you he built a good defense, especially with how depleted the roster was on that side of the ball, and the offensive line was a disaster, but can't agree with you on the quarterback situation.
Morris didn't even need to be playing by the way, he was subbing in for Gardner. His busting was irrelevant to Hoke as he was still second string QB during Hoke's time there. His busting was a problem for Harbaugh who came in with basically zero division 1 quality quarterbacks on the roster.
Yeah, they basically implied Day will be higher up the list soon. I like the area they put him, two years is not enough to have him in the top 5 imho.
I think they did a pretty good job with the top 10, but I agree, I'd move Ferentz behind Fitzgerald and Chryst. That would also move Franklin behind Chryst, and I think I'd move him below Day as well. I just really dislike Franklin, so that's my bias speaking, though I reluctantly admit he does deserve to be ahead of Harbaugh.
The other change I'd consider is Dantonio over Tressell. Tressell has the national championship, but that was probably the flukiest championship in my lifetime in college football, and Dantonio getting MSU to a playoff berth is more impressive to me. I know there's more to it than just that, but I think it's a close call between those two.
Hey Magnus, you think there's any reason to be worried about Michigan losing out on Dillon Tatum? Seems like he was a lock, but I saw that he just extended his commitment timeline following the staff turnover we just had. Is MSU making a legitimate push, or is this nothing to see here?
I'm just a guy who listens to the Michigan Insider recruiting podcast for my inside info, but here are some things I've gathered from that on defensive tackle recruiting.
Jordan Phillips 6-3 290 lbs., overall ranking 604 - Is basically a Michigan lock at this point. Sam Webb thinks he's really underrated. I personally wasn't blown away by his film, but he looks like he'd at least be a guy and not a liability.
Deone Walker 6-6 340 lbs., overall ranking 362 - Probably a 75% chance he ends up at Michigan, but still early in his recruitment. He showed up at a camp this spring looking much lighter and quicker, so he's in line for a rankings boost, but that also might mean a lot more suitors come calling.
Walter Nolen 6-4 300 lbs., overall ranking 2 - Maybe a 20% chance Michigan lands him because he's from the south (Tennessee) and is so highly ranked. But Michigan has a lot of people close to him in his corner, and so far have absolutely killed it with his recruitment. Michigan's probably one of the leaders right now, but no one wants to get their hopes up too much as it seems like a race Alabama pulls out in the end.
This is awesome news! I thought Clinkscale was just a delusional Michigan fan pipe dream. What a roller coaster following this program is.
Hope he can help us hang on to Kody Jones. Pretty sure he committed based on his relationship with Linguist, so figured he was gone. Maybe this gives us a fighting chance. Love Jones' film and think he's massively underrated, so would love to keep him.
I agree that it is a weird situation, and hopefully someday we get some inside info. Maybe now that he just got drafted, a WFT reporter will do a profile piece on BSJ and actually ask him what happened with his health there. It has been weirdly hush hush.
Anyways, I appreciate your input, and thank you for keeping this conversation civil.
It is possible that St. Juste was processed. We don't have any insiders saying one way or the other. If someone with inside knowledge told us he was processed, okay, I'd believe it. But without that information it seems weird to make that jump that the coaches here didn't want him. They played him a lot and talked him up a lot, and not just in public. Reports from inside the program were that the coaches loved him. We've seen the hoops our admissions department makes transfer students go through to transfer credits, why is it such a leap to think that our doctors might also be overly careful and conservative when clearing a player medically?
This idea that St. Juste was processed is one that has been repeated ad nauseam for the last couple of years, mostly as a way to pile on the Michigan football is a dumpster fire theme. (Not saying that's what your doing here, but a large amount of MGoBlog posters have done that). The implication is that Harbaugh and his staff are bad at identifying talent. There are many things to criticize this program for, but identifying talent is not it. Josh Uche, Kwity Paye, Devin Bush, etc. and just the total number of draft picks under Harbaugh show that finding talent is not the problem. I wish posters here would rip on the program for things that actually are a problem such as retaining talent and for not getting playmakers involved in our offense, and not try to find problems in things that have been a positive.
Not buying that St. Juste was processed. He played in 12 games as a true freshman and all the chatter was that the coaching staff was high on him down the road. Doesn't sound like the kind of player you process.
Recent Comments
Wouldn't say it's worse than Blake Corum's injury in 2022. We probably don't beat Georgia in the final, but can't see us losing that TCU game if we have Corum. Likely cost Corum a trip to the Heisman ceremony as well.
Please not Smith or Fisch. Smith has done an unbelievable job at Oregon St. and I think would make them a perennial playoff contender (in the expanded playoff era).
This. His offense is a nightmare to defend
Does this exclude special teams plays? I looked up the average plays per game last year recently and it was closer to 160/game.
Regardless, sad to see the solution to shortening games be playing less football and not showing fewer commercials.
I'll bite. What was your Grbac question?
$150,000 raised for a $35,000 goal. Fuck yeah Michigan money cannon, makes me proud. I hope you beat this thing Meechie.
Agreed. Let's get that crap off the front page!
Glad you enjoyed it and like you I have mostly fond memories of this era despite all the heartbreak! It does feel to me too that it was easier back then to get over games, but that may be recency bias. Being from West Michigan there were a lot of Notre Dame and Michigan State fans who liked to rub salt in the wounds throughout the school week following those brutal losses. I do think as a kid though it is easier to let those losses go after a bit of time, whereas now I'm still expecting kharmic retribution for things that happened years ago (we're still owed a shitload of make up calls for 2016 OSU and last year's MSU game).
Ha ha, I did have a hard time pulling the trigger to actually post this. Wasn't sure if it was going to come across as too negative or not. I went ahead though cause even though it focuses on negative stuff, it brought back a lot of good memories for me as well, and hopefully it will do that for others.
Is Sagarin that bad of a rating system that they have a Texas team that went 37-25 over that time frame ranked four spots ahead of a 41-18 Michigan team in that same time frame? I guess having a worse record in a much worse conference = better to Sagarin. Maybe bonus points for losing to Maryland multiple times? Time to switch to a ranking system that isn't complete horseshit. Hard to take any of this seriously when you see that kind of stuff.
Thanks for this post. Mostly I'm glad that I now know Idlewild is a real place and not only is it in Michigan, but it's only two hours from Kalamazoo where I grew up. My mind is kind of blown. I'm assuming the Outkast album of the same name was inspired by this Idlewild? Here's a short article of the history of Idlewild for those who like me had no idea this place existed.
What floor were you on? I would have been fifth floor at South Quad that year. I'm sure we would have encountered each other at some point.
I agree that Izzo doesn't deserve to be in the same category as coach K or Wooden, or the all-time greats, but he's probably somewhere in tier 2. He's kind of similar to the way I feel about Harbaugh right now - his teams' floors are extremely high (except in pandemic years or when Brady Hoke left a crater in roster talent in Harbaugh's case), and most years there going to be a top 10ish team, but not a team that can win it all. Hopefully I'm wrong about that for Harbaugh. Izzo I hope continues to wallow in coming up just short.
Frustrating team. They play really hard but make huge mental errors at inopportune times and just have no idea what to do in the final 3rd. Wonder if Weah would have made a difference in this game.
Hey, he booked Buchanan! Only got away with a couple dozen fouls before that one!
Man, feels like the US has had the ball on Canada's side of the field for 80% of this half. Canada is lethal with the counter attacks though, and really made the most out of their limited opportunities. Feels like when the US has the ball within 25 yards of Canada's goal they get sped up and always make the wrong play. Think we're (the US) going to have to score on a set piece to equalize this.
According to ESPN's reporting the police officer is fearing permanent injury to his right eye. So, seems like he's already hurt people unfortunately.
https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/33092379/cleveland-browns-dt-malik-mcdowell-arrested-battery-officer-resisting-arrest-public-exposure
I really don't get why defensive ends aren't banging down the door to come to Michigan. Just off the top of my head since Harbaugh has been coach, we've had:
1. Chris Wormley - having a fantastic year with the Steelers
2. Taco Charlton - also with the Steelers, and last week given a lot of PT to help shut down the Vikings running game in the second half
3. Rashan Gary - key player for the Packers
4. Chase Winovich - not sure how he's doing this year, but was ranked one of the best in the NFL at generating pressures last year
5. Josh Uche - 3 sacks for a very good Pats defense this year
6. Kwity Paye - Having a decent rookie season for the Colts
7. David Ojabo - Likely first round pick despite coming into the season as an unknown.
8. Aidan Hutchinson - Possible first overall pick and runner up in the Heisman
That's 8 NFL players from 7 years at a position where only two players see the field regularly, 5 of them first rounders. Only one of which was a five star, and two of which were middle of the pack 3 stars. There's no way any other school has nearly as good a track record as that. 5 stars should be begging Harbaugh to come here, instead we've got 3 stars decommitting. Frustrating.
Gotta ask, at what point does being head coach at LSU make people go insane? Is it the moment pen touches paper while signing the contract? Is it when the plane lands to bring you to campus for the first time? Is it when the coach starts his first relationship with a student there? Gives me more respect for Saban that he's just a curmudgeon and not full on bat shit insane like the others.
Also, I've been a huge Harbaugh supporter (which has become much easier now), but pretty sure if he were in a video like this I would be calling for his head.
As others have said think a lot of decisions will be coming when the early signing day opens up on Wednesday. Some recruiting news that I have found the last couple of days is that Deone Walker did make it to Michigan for his official visit prior to the weekend. It's hard to tell if we made up any ground on Kentucky where he's visiting/visited this weekend, but it's good news he made it in. Walker visit
The other news is that 3 big time prospects were expected to be on campus this weekend. Derrick Moore (DL ranked 79 overall), Darrius Clemons (WR, #130 overall) and Alex Orji (Ha ha, he said Orji, QB ranked 415 overall). There were also two very intriguing transfer targets on campus. Visitor List
Also seems like we're still the odds on favorites to pick up Keon Sabb and flip Amorion Walker from Notre Dame.
My expert opinion is that we should shoot over 50% from three in every game. You're welcome.
The comparison Sam Webb has made a few times on his podcast is KJ Hamler, so an undersized, slippery in the open field, slot receiver.
Thank you for this. Didn't think the win could get sweeter, but this did it. To dominate them when their fanbase was this cocky is so, so delicious.
A lot of these guys you mentioned seem to be newer targets for Michigan (at least to public knowledge) so I had to look them up. Thought I'd share rankings for other people like me who aren't that familiar with these names (particularly the 3 at the top). All rankings will be from the 247 composite.
Zeke Berry S De La Salle (CA) .9121 rating, 227th overall
Keon Sabb S IMG Academy (FL) .967 rating, 80th overall current Clemson commit
(Didn't we recruit a Sabb in a recent cycle that ended up at Clemson? Is this a younger brother?)
Ethan Burke Edge Westlake (TX) Unranked (this is the only Burke I could find, is this the right guy?)
Amorion Walker ATH (Believe we were initially recruiting him as a DB, but now as a WR) Ponchatoula (LA) .8784 rating, 518th overall current Notre Dame commit who a couple of weeks ago seemed like a sure thing to flip, but it sounds like that's not as certain now
Domani Jackson Mater Dei (CA) .9965 rating, 6th overall. USC decommit, thought to be leaning Alabama, but who knows now as he visited for the OSU game and seems to be a guy who really gets swayed by his visits
Deone Walker DL/OL Cass Tech (MI) .9106 rating, 241st overall. We seemed to be in the driver's seat here until the Eugenio decommit, and as of a few weeks looked to be a major fight with Kentucky. Anyone got any more recent news on him?
Kiyaunta Goodwin OT Charlestown (IN) .984 rating, 30th overall, Kentucky commit. I've heard nothing about this guy and have no idea about our chances of flipping him.
So, based on what the OP wrote, sounds like our safety recruiting will finish strong. Too bad Conerly didn't make it as getting a second (or would it have been a 3rd?) visit from him would make it hard to believe we wouldn't land him.
These guys fuck
Nice post OP. I did some similar research a few years back also using OddShark looking at all the Power 5 conference teams, and while it's a bit dated, I think it's interesting so I'll share some of the data here.
My research went from the 2008-2017 seasons, or the last 30 games dating back from the end of the 2017 season (the database wouldn't show more than that at that time for this search). At that time Michigan was one of only four teams to not win single game as more than a 7 point underdog, and they went 0-12 in that span. The others were Tennessee (0-30), Alabama (0-1, yup only a major underdog one time in 10 years!), and LSU (0-5). So, the inability to win as big underdogs has been a problem going back through the last 3 coaches, not just Harbaugh. Some records of note as being quite good as big underdogs were Ohio State (2-4), Michigan State (4-13), Minnesota (8-22) and Northwestern (11-19!).
Michigan was good as big favorites, but terrible in toss up games (toss up defined the same way the OP did them). They were 19-36 in toss up games, and I found a website that gave the likelihood of wins based on pre game spreads, so then calculated that Michigan was expected to win 27.54 of those 55 games (I had to divide up games into more specific spreads to get that number). That 8.54 games under expectations was the worst of all Power 5 teams with only Virginia at 8.35 games under expectation coming close. No other team was at more than 6 games under expectations. I think there is something to Michigan fans altering betting lines with over optimism (I'm a fairly optimistic fan, but I don't get how people are willing to put money behind that!), but at the same time Vegas is not going to alter the spreads a crazy amount lest they get burnt. These data tell me it's pretty clear that Michigan football struggles against the weight of expectations has been a problem, and continues to be a problem under Harbaugh (duh doi!)
I wanted to share another set of data as well since you mentioned comparing Harbaugh's record with Carr's. It's not quite the same as spreads, but I looked at Harbaugh's record vs teams in certain ranking ranges vs. Carr's, and I thought it was quite enlightening. I used Sports reference's postseason Simple Rating System to get the rankings. Oh, also I did this after the 2019 season so this doesn't include the last two years:
Carr was great against top 25 teams, but really struggled against the middle of the pack teams. That was the frustrating part of his tenure - we would look great in knocking off a top team, then play tight in a game against inferior competition. Harbaugh is pretty much the opposite. Terrible against top teams, but very rarely do his teams lose to inferior competition (last year was the exception, but that was a weird year). He's steady Eddie. The problem for Harbaugh is the schedule has been so skewed to playing Top 10 teams, with him having to face over 3 of these teams a year. I can't imagine any other team in the country has faced that many top ten teams without a single conference championship game or being in the playoffs.
Okay, that's enough. What I thought was going to take me 10 minutes to write out just took me an hour. Hopefully someone enjoys this data dump.
Refs -2
Barrett's snaps by position according to PFF:
DLine: 3
Box: 15
Slot Corner: 2
Kick Coverage: 29
Kick Return: 12
Punt Coverage: 12
Punt Return: 22
FG Block: 1
That's 76 snaps on special teams and 20 on defense, so it looks like he's pretty much just a special teamer. Guess the new defensive staff just likes the linebackers a bit bigger in the new scheme. I believe Barrett was the one who ran the fake punt against Washington, so the coaches are trying to keep him involved a little bit, but it is surprising that he has almost no role on the defense considering how good he looked in the Minnesota game last year.
(Edit w/ additional info) - Of the 20 defensive snaps, 5 came against WMU and 15 came against N. Illinois.
I'm really surprised about Barrett - he went from looking like a star after the first game last year to barely getting any game time even in garbage time. I thought maybe he was injured, but he was on the participation chart via MGoBlue. Wonder if he's just struggling to pick up the new defense. Too bad as we could really use another talented, experienced linebacker on this roster.
If you've ever played ultimate Frisbee, you've had a throw come at you that you thought would be an easy interception, but instead it rises just above your outreached arms and drops into the hands of the intended target. That's what McCarthy's throw looked like it did. The ball seemed to see the defender and say, "hey I'll redirect over that guy" then seemed to jump up a little bit like a rock skipping across a lake, and then fell right into Baldwin's lap (who made a nice adjustment). It was a thing of beauty.
The only reason I expressed disappointment in my OP was because I thought the measurement would come out closer to 60 yards, so 48 felt a bit underwhelming.
You might be right about the 4 yards for McCarthy, but I think 12 yards is about as close as you could argue for Baldwin. I do data collection for PFF and have to input player widths across the field, and 10 yards would basically be just inside the numbers. Baldwin is definitely a few yards inside the numbers.
So, let's say the throw carried 37 yards across the field instead of 34, redoing the calculations we get a 50.25 yard throw. I like that, let's go with that
Ha ha, this was the type of comment I was expecting. I maxed out my math abilities above, so am expecting someone else to take the torch from here.
Yeah, just looked it up. That is very similar. I pinky swear that I did not see that before creating this.
No, I didn't see that. Got a link?
Maybe Henson? I think Mallett had the arm strength, but not the accuracy. Henne I don't think quite had that kind of arm strength. Yeah, I really don't know, but that throw definitely got me excited for the future.
Wow, I had completely forgotten about the recruiting profiles.
I wouldn't hold your breath. I feel like Brian usually starts those early in the off-season and puts out one or two a week throughout. Don't see him pounding out twenty plus of them with only a couple months to go before the season starts. That's a shame, he really doesn't seem to want to cover the football team at all anymore.
Thanks for posting this. I had been Google searching Anthony every couple months or so to find out what happened to him and I couldn't believe such a highly touted recruit wasn't able to find a landing spot. He was ranked 107th in his class to the 247 composite!
Impressive that he was able to graduate from Michigan in three years, and I'm hoping things work out for him at Troy.
Alan Branch 2.0? One can hope.
But Hoke had the two best Michigan QBs since Brady and Henson, with the possible exception of Henne. He just didn't know how to use Denard, and he got Gardner killed with the porous offensive line. So, I'll agree with you he built a good defense, especially with how depleted the roster was on that side of the ball, and the offensive line was a disaster, but can't agree with you on the quarterback situation.
Morris didn't even need to be playing by the way, he was subbing in for Gardner. His busting was irrelevant to Hoke as he was still second string QB during Hoke's time there. His busting was a problem for Harbaugh who came in with basically zero division 1 quality quarterbacks on the roster.
Yeah, they basically implied Day will be higher up the list soon. I like the area they put him, two years is not enough to have him in the top 5 imho.
I think they did a pretty good job with the top 10, but I agree, I'd move Ferentz behind Fitzgerald and Chryst. That would also move Franklin behind Chryst, and I think I'd move him below Day as well. I just really dislike Franklin, so that's my bias speaking, though I reluctantly admit he does deserve to be ahead of Harbaugh.
The other change I'd consider is Dantonio over Tressell. Tressell has the national championship, but that was probably the flukiest championship in my lifetime in college football, and Dantonio getting MSU to a playoff berth is more impressive to me. I know there's more to it than just that, but I think it's a close call between those two.
Top 10 for those without an Athletic subscription:
1. Meyer
2. Tressel
3. Dantonio
4. Ferentz
5. Fitzgerald
6. Franklin
7. Chryst
8. Day
9. Bielema
10. Harbaugh
Nice, that's what I was hoping to hear.
Hey Magnus, you think there's any reason to be worried about Michigan losing out on Dillon Tatum? Seems like he was a lock, but I saw that he just extended his commitment timeline following the staff turnover we just had. Is MSU making a legitimate push, or is this nothing to see here?
I'm just a guy who listens to the Michigan Insider recruiting podcast for my inside info, but here are some things I've gathered from that on defensive tackle recruiting.
Jordan Phillips 6-3 290 lbs., overall ranking 604 - Is basically a Michigan lock at this point. Sam Webb thinks he's really underrated. I personally wasn't blown away by his film, but he looks like he'd at least be a guy and not a liability.
Deone Walker 6-6 340 lbs., overall ranking 362 - Probably a 75% chance he ends up at Michigan, but still early in his recruitment. He showed up at a camp this spring looking much lighter and quicker, so he's in line for a rankings boost, but that also might mean a lot more suitors come calling.
Walter Nolen 6-4 300 lbs., overall ranking 2 - Maybe a 20% chance Michigan lands him because he's from the south (Tennessee) and is so highly ranked. But Michigan has a lot of people close to him in his corner, and so far have absolutely killed it with his recruitment. Michigan's probably one of the leaders right now, but no one wants to get their hopes up too much as it seems like a race Alabama pulls out in the end.
Jeez Gee, you might want to work on those abs if you're going to show them off so much. You should be striving to be like this guy:
This is awesome news! I thought Clinkscale was just a delusional Michigan fan pipe dream. What a roller coaster following this program is.
Hope he can help us hang on to Kody Jones. Pretty sure he committed based on his relationship with Linguist, so figured he was gone. Maybe this gives us a fighting chance. Love Jones' film and think he's massively underrated, so would love to keep him.
I agree that it is a weird situation, and hopefully someday we get some inside info. Maybe now that he just got drafted, a WFT reporter will do a profile piece on BSJ and actually ask him what happened with his health there. It has been weirdly hush hush.
Anyways, I appreciate your input, and thank you for keeping this conversation civil.
It is possible that St. Juste was processed. We don't have any insiders saying one way or the other. If someone with inside knowledge told us he was processed, okay, I'd believe it. But without that information it seems weird to make that jump that the coaches here didn't want him. They played him a lot and talked him up a lot, and not just in public. Reports from inside the program were that the coaches loved him. We've seen the hoops our admissions department makes transfer students go through to transfer credits, why is it such a leap to think that our doctors might also be overly careful and conservative when clearing a player medically?
This idea that St. Juste was processed is one that has been repeated ad nauseam for the last couple of years, mostly as a way to pile on the Michigan football is a dumpster fire theme. (Not saying that's what your doing here, but a large amount of MGoBlog posters have done that). The implication is that Harbaugh and his staff are bad at identifying talent. There are many things to criticize this program for, but identifying talent is not it. Josh Uche, Kwity Paye, Devin Bush, etc. and just the total number of draft picks under Harbaugh show that finding talent is not the problem. I wish posters here would rip on the program for things that actually are a problem such as retaining talent and for not getting playmakers involved in our offense, and not try to find problems in things that have been a positive.
Not buying that St. Juste was processed. He played in 12 games as a true freshman and all the chatter was that the coaching staff was high on him down the road. Doesn't sound like the kind of player you process.