Would like to see the Lions get a stud on the DL interior in the second round. Jenkins, Newton (out of Illinios), Sweat (out of Texas) would be my ideal choices there. With that many options I think it is likely there is someone there to take when the Lions pick without trading up.
Also would like to see the Lions pick up a Safety or a good Edge to go opposite Hutch. I like Issac (out of PSU) as the Edge. Nubin (out of Minn) probably won't need a trade up to get him or Dejean (out of Iowa) for safety (almost certainly need a trade up to snag him).
I'd also be fine with Kool-Aid if he drops to us that deep in the second round. I do not think a trade up is smart in the second round unless Holmes/Campbell absolutely loves Dejean.
3rd round gotta hit the Oline. Would love to see them pick up Zinter and would be okay with them grabbing Keegan or Trente Jones. If Blake is available in the 3rd I think he'd be hard to pass up too, but the Oline is priority.
Harder to say in the later rounds but I think there is a good chance AJ Barner is available in the 5th round. I would take him there.
6th and 7th round is always a "best player available" choice for me regardless of team need. Maybe look at WR or add some depth at Safety or CB (the secondary is my main focus as you might be able to tell).
Are you asking why Michigan was singled out for violating COVID policies in the thread of penalties a different team has received as a result of violating COVID policies?
So I presume JJ and Blake and Mike, and Roman, and Zinter, and Keegan, and Trente and Jenkins, etc. etc.... are all now also "just the competition" unless drafted by the Lions?
If they don't trade back and QBs go 1-4, he takes Alt.
If Alt is off the board at 5 and they don't trade back, I could see them going a lot of different directions but I'd be stunned if he went WR (the most overrated position IMO). My guess is he might take a DT or Edge. Dallas Turner maybe or the DT from Illinois.
If they trade back, who knows... too many variables there to be mildly confident about anything, but if they picking after 10 and if Brock Bowers is out there I think he takes the TE.
Brian, I am very much in your Alex Orji excitement camp. Putting Edwards, Mullings in the back field and then splitting Edwards out should be our base. Lighten the box and beat them with power running from either Orji or Mullings. Short crossers from Edwards when he's drawn a LB should be easy reads and easy throws for Orji.
Fingers crossed this goes as well as it does in my mind.
Everything in College football moves slow. I wouldn't take this to mean that MAJOR changes are imminent. If a super league of sorts is to be made there are plenty of schools/teams in both of these conferences (looking at you Rutgers and Vandy) that will have to be jettisoned. That will not be easy. Hopefully, this is a first step on the path, but I'm not sure much will come of it in the short term.
Stop... Warde kept him when no one wanted him. Jim wants to be in the NFL. Warde is far from a perfect AD but should not be in hot water over this. If he hires Moore, he will be fine.
Juwan will get one more year (probably) on a Harbaugh-esque prove it contract.
Lots of reasons, but first among them is Brad Holmes the GM. He knows how to build a roster. He's recognized talent at all stages of the draft. He's hired the right coaches.
Undoubtedly there are XOs and Jimmy and Joes discussions to be had here but the biggest difference is the GM.
The genius of that hype video in it's various iterations is that it hits such a broader range of emotions than the typical "get jacked up" hype video goes for.
Part of getting "hyped" for your team is recognizing your scars and your pain and anguish. Marking time spent in the lows and recognizing the whole journey is so much more gratifying and emotionally impactful than just the video equivalent of "lets do some speed and run through a wall."
More camp 1. He did what we needed him to do. We have a man in waiting. You owe us nothing Jim. Pursue you dream. If that means staying, God Bless you. If that means going, you have my undying support.
Games are decided by unpredictable things like injuries, turnovers, individual matchups and in-game plans and adjustments.
The UM vs PSU game I think is a good example of this.
Injuries: not many in this game but JJ did get injured in the second half (ankle) kept him out of the run game mostly and limited his passing abilities
Turnovers: PSU's lost fumble out of the half and their fail on 4th down put the game out of reach
Individual Matchups: Barnhart's mismatch on the edge was a massive problem for UM. Forced us to play differently than we likely wanted to.
In-game Adjustments: UM adjusted to its Mammoth package and stuck to a choke the game out plan limiting possessions (and scoring opportunities) for PSU.
These things are mostly unpredictable. Games against outmatched opponents usually can be predicted just on the individual matchup metric because there will be so many wins for the more talented team that the other factors get overwhelmed (usually). In games where the matchups/talent is much closer to even these other factors play a much bigger role. There are no doubt a lot of models and educated guesses as to how the game will go or who has the upper hand. I bet it will come down to the factors listed above.
If M would just develop some Screen passes to Edwards I think so much of the Pass Pro issues could be mitigated. 1 Screen a quarter would do it. I'll never understand why that isn't the most obvious thing to do with Edwards. Has he ever been thrown a screen pass at M?
Totally agree with your take on the NFL. I feel so much less interesting to me. There just isn't the same history and passion there. Maybe some of this is just being a Lions fan for forever but even in this season, which is nearly an unprecidented success for the Lions, it just all feels so corporate. I can't imagine Frank Ragnow going down with a broken leg and Gibbs scoring a TD and flashing Frank's number. It's just not that kind of game at that level... lacks that kind of heart. I'm sure the guys care about each other and want to win, etc. etc. its hard to put a finger on but there is definitely something lost.
I hope Iowa's secondary likes tackling running backs. Sounds like a game to unleash Mullings. Also, I can't help but wonder how much of Iowa's defense is awesome comes down to Iowa's defense plays BIG West offenses. If Penn State can post north of 30, I think we'll be just fine to score more or less whatever number we want.
Do you think Rolder being in for a couple plays in this game and in the Maryland game has anything to do with Partridge being gone? Or is that just a coincidence?
I don't necessarily disagree with your analogy here. This rule (no in-person advanced scouting of opponents) for a program like U of M with essentially unlimited funds for it's football program is antiquated and shouldn't exist. The reason it does exist is because the vast majority of programs that make up the NCAA don't have those kinds of funds for their football programs and need to spend their athletics budget on things other than advanced scouting.
So there is this rule that doesn't make sense for U of M and a handful of other elite programs to follow but is kept around because the vast majority of NCAA member institutions like it (I believe this specific rule was revisited in 2021 and not changed). However, here is where I think your analogy to quirky antiquated State laws breaks down. The "fishing while facing east" law doesn't serve anyone's interests and is likely so antiquated that it no longer serves its intended function. This scouting rule does still serve, as determined by some number of schools, some kind of function and so is still on the books.
The issue I think we would both agree on here is that the spirit of this rule (leveling the playing field between schools like U of M and say EMU) is a farce because those two schools are not on the same level in a million other ways that the NCAA can't and doesn't try to regulate. This rule and many others at play in the NCAA rulebook can help EMU and WMU play on a much more level field but because U of M and the handful of other top tier programs haven't taken the long overdue step of decoupling from the NCAA we are still caught up in these same rules.
At the end of the day, we did agree to these (stupid) rules. We are a NCAA member school. The issue here, I think, is that we should not be an NCAA member school because this rule and many other rules don't serve us and the other top tier programs well.
Point well taken here and I appreciate your contextualizing that this "scandal" has been massively overblown and in the most generous of terms curiously sourced and unfairly discussed by many talking heads with both national microphones and message board usernames. Although I'm somewhat embarrassed to say it, I have, as I'm sure many of us have, lost actual sleep over this whole "scandal" and have let its existence occupy way too much of my mental and emotional energy. That said, I do not think the media has been wrong to report on it, and I don't think U of M should have escaped punishment for it.
There were rules broken here. Sure you can probably find a loophole like Stallions had his friends do the recording, and we can say that other programs break other rules and don't get caught, or don't get punished, or get punished in ways that are well below what the infraction would seem to call for. But this isn't about other programs or other rules or the media. This is about what Stallions and by extension U of M did. That other bad, nefarious, unfair, worse things are going on does not mean we shouldn't be called out (appropriately) and punished (appropriately) when we break rules. That we make a lot of money for the conference doesn't mean we should be allowed to break rules and go unpunished (this is not something you've raised here but many others have elsewhere). There has to be some accountability somewhere to the rules everyone (including U of M) agreed to.
Obviously, the scale/severity of this issue has been massively overstated, and I would argue the punishment (given what we know at this point) has been more than sufficient. I agree that all rules including tampering should be enforced and with an even hand that follows precedent and conducts investigations and considers evidence before making judgements. Many of those basic procedures were carelessly violated here and bad new precedents were established. I hope desperately that U of M will hold the BIG 10 to those precedents going forward (I doubt they will).
This whole experience these past couple months has made me more ready than ever to leave the NCAA behind, create a real super league with a real commissioner and payed players and an actual playoff etc. But since we aren't there yet U of M and all of us, I think, need to be the "do it the right way" kinds of fans and team we believe(d) we are. That means taking this bitter fucking medicine and not whataboutism-ing and loophole-ing our way through this "scandal."
Especially now, as we head to Indy, we are better than that. Go Blue!
And that is with those offenses playing mostly BIG West Defenses which certainly are better but hardly impressive. BIG has a truly terrible conference this year.
I hope all he know about us doesn't put any of our players at an increased risk of injury. Especially with Tony in the building Iowa should be careful. I would hate to see Ferentz get a suspension as a representative of an institution that is jeapordizing the safety of players.
The inexplicable Rolder snaps have to be at least somewhat connected to our new LB coach right? Didn't see Rolder basically all season and then he get in for some goal line snaps against Maryland and a couple in this one. Those are the two games immediately after Partridge was canned. That doesn't seem like a coincidence to me.
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Looks like Cade to me. At first glance I thought he had portaled back.
Would like to see the Lions get a stud on the DL interior in the second round. Jenkins, Newton (out of Illinios), Sweat (out of Texas) would be my ideal choices there. With that many options I think it is likely there is someone there to take when the Lions pick without trading up.
Also would like to see the Lions pick up a Safety or a good Edge to go opposite Hutch. I like Issac (out of PSU) as the Edge. Nubin (out of Minn) probably won't need a trade up to get him or Dejean (out of Iowa) for safety (almost certainly need a trade up to snag him).
I'd also be fine with Kool-Aid if he drops to us that deep in the second round. I do not think a trade up is smart in the second round unless Holmes/Campbell absolutely loves Dejean.
3rd round gotta hit the Oline. Would love to see them pick up Zinter and would be okay with them grabbing Keegan or Trente Jones. If Blake is available in the 3rd I think he'd be hard to pass up too, but the Oline is priority.
Harder to say in the later rounds but I think there is a good chance AJ Barner is available in the 5th round. I would take him there.
6th and 7th round is always a "best player available" choice for me regardless of team need. Maybe look at WR or add some depth at Safety or CB (the secondary is my main focus as you might be able to tell).
ESPN is basically the only way I get to watch Wings games.
Very interesting. Thanks for this.
Are you asking why Michigan was singled out for violating COVID policies in the thread of penalties a different team has received as a result of violating COVID policies?
This may be divisive but I prefer a soft cookie to a crunchy one.
2. I hope they…
1. No idea.
2. I hope they give themselves a raise or a bonus or invest in their kid's futures.
So I presume JJ and Blake and Mike, and Roman, and Zinter, and Keegan, and Trente and Jenkins, etc. etc.... are all now also "just the competition" unless drafted by the Lions?
Damn, that's a hell of a world view.
If they don't trade back and QBs go 1-4, he takes Alt.
If Alt is off the board at 5 and they don't trade back, I could see them going a lot of different directions but I'd be stunned if he went WR (the most overrated position IMO). My guess is he might take a DT or Edge. Dallas Turner maybe or the DT from Illinois.
If they trade back, who knows... too many variables there to be mildly confident about anything, but if they picking after 10 and if Brock Bowers is out there I think he takes the TE.
Brian, I am very much in your Alex Orji excitement camp. Putting Edwards, Mullings in the back field and then splitting Edwards out should be our base. Lighten the box and beat them with power running from either Orji or Mullings. Short crossers from Edwards when he's drawn a LB should be easy reads and easy throws for Orji.
Fingers crossed this goes as well as it does in my mind.
To be fair, this one is not like the others. There is some actual substance beyond "I don't like the way I feel and am taking it out on the AD."
If Warde does get fired, can we interview you for the position?
Everything in College football moves slow. I wouldn't take this to mean that MAJOR changes are imminent. If a super league of sorts is to be made there are plenty of schools/teams in both of these conferences (looking at you Rutgers and Vandy) that will have to be jettisoned. That will not be easy. Hopefully, this is a first step on the path, but I'm not sure much will come of it in the short term.
Hope he can work some magic with Orji. I think there is a ton of talent there just need to bring it out.
As a fan of the Gunners, I'm quite happy.
In the college football world this would be called Tampering.
Stop... Warde kept him when no one wanted him. Jim wants to be in the NFL. Warde is far from a perfect AD but should not be in hot water over this. If he hires Moore, he will be fine.
Juwan will get one more year (probably) on a Harbaugh-esque prove it contract.
I doubt very much Washington will be in the playoffs next year.
Lots of reasons, but first among them is Brad Holmes the GM. He knows how to build a roster. He's recognized talent at all stages of the draft. He's hired the right coaches.
Undoubtedly there are XOs and Jimmy and Joes discussions to be had here but the biggest difference is the GM.
The genius of that hype video in it's various iterations is that it hits such a broader range of emotions than the typical "get jacked up" hype video goes for.
Part of getting "hyped" for your team is recognizing your scars and your pain and anguish. Marking time spent in the lows and recognizing the whole journey is so much more gratifying and emotionally impactful than just the video equivalent of "lets do some speed and run through a wall."
The pain makes the glory sweeter.
More camp 1. He did what we needed him to do. We have a man in waiting. You owe us nothing Jim. Pursue you dream. If that means staying, God Bless you. If that means going, you have my undying support.
It seems there is a changing of the guard in football this offseason.
I half commit to dry Jan. Sober all week only 1-2 drinks a night on weekends.
Keeping it classy here. Win will get me into my bottle of Red Breast or Green Spot (1 rock). Just 1 drink with a late night and work in the morning.
My god. How much eligibility does this guy have?
Drink one for me. Hope they'll distribute my way some day.
Games are decided by unpredictable things like injuries, turnovers, individual matchups and in-game plans and adjustments.
The UM vs PSU game I think is a good example of this.
These things are mostly unpredictable. Games against outmatched opponents usually can be predicted just on the individual matchup metric because there will be so many wins for the more talented team that the other factors get overwhelmed (usually). In games where the matchups/talent is much closer to even these other factors play a much bigger role. There are no doubt a lot of models and educated guesses as to how the game will go or who has the upper hand. I bet it will come down to the factors listed above.
Seems like to me this is going to be the killer. Football probably needs to separate in some official way from the schools to avoid this issue.
Regular Season OSU would destroy Mizzou. OSU without MHJ and McCord and maybe some other guys on Offense and Defense might not murderize anyone.
Yes. Once Texas beat Bama, they became a package deal.
If M would just develop some Screen passes to Edwards I think so much of the Pass Pro issues could be mitigated. 1 Screen a quarter would do it. I'll never understand why that isn't the most obvious thing to do with Edwards. Has he ever been thrown a screen pass at M?
I think they compare better to Maryland. Mobile but erratic QB is nothing like Allar.
Bama is Maryland with a better HC and Secondary. Erratic but mobile QB.
Totally agree with your take on the NFL. I feel so much less interesting to me. There just isn't the same history and passion there. Maybe some of this is just being a Lions fan for forever but even in this season, which is nearly an unprecidented success for the Lions, it just all feels so corporate. I can't imagine Frank Ragnow going down with a broken leg and Gibbs scoring a TD and flashing Frank's number. It's just not that kind of game at that level... lacks that kind of heart. I'm sure the guys care about each other and want to win, etc. etc. its hard to put a finger on but there is definitely something lost.
Don't get hurt. Try to post 17 points in the first quarter and then put in the second team.
Thanks for the link. Says his Primary recruiter is Jay Harbaugh. I don't need to know anything else. Let's sign this kid!
I hope Iowa's secondary likes tackling running backs. Sounds like a game to unleash Mullings. Also, I can't help but wonder how much of Iowa's defense is awesome comes down to Iowa's defense plays BIG West offenses. If Penn State can post north of 30, I think we'll be just fine to score more or less whatever number we want.
Crazy that M v Maryland drew double the highest Stanley cup game.
I'd bet the highest SEC game will be this weekend.
Great numbers here. Would be interested to see how this stacks against the rest of the BIG.
We can start playing our Georgia Defense now.
Do you think Rolder being in for a couple plays in this game and in the Maryland game has anything to do with Partridge being gone? Or is that just a coincidence?
I don't necessarily disagree with your analogy here. This rule (no in-person advanced scouting of opponents) for a program like U of M with essentially unlimited funds for it's football program is antiquated and shouldn't exist. The reason it does exist is because the vast majority of programs that make up the NCAA don't have those kinds of funds for their football programs and need to spend their athletics budget on things other than advanced scouting.
So there is this rule that doesn't make sense for U of M and a handful of other elite programs to follow but is kept around because the vast majority of NCAA member institutions like it (I believe this specific rule was revisited in 2021 and not changed). However, here is where I think your analogy to quirky antiquated State laws breaks down. The "fishing while facing east" law doesn't serve anyone's interests and is likely so antiquated that it no longer serves its intended function. This scouting rule does still serve, as determined by some number of schools, some kind of function and so is still on the books.
The issue I think we would both agree on here is that the spirit of this rule (leveling the playing field between schools like U of M and say EMU) is a farce because those two schools are not on the same level in a million other ways that the NCAA can't and doesn't try to regulate. This rule and many others at play in the NCAA rulebook can help EMU and WMU play on a much more level field but because U of M and the handful of other top tier programs haven't taken the long overdue step of decoupling from the NCAA we are still caught up in these same rules.
At the end of the day, we did agree to these (stupid) rules. We are a NCAA member school. The issue here, I think, is that we should not be an NCAA member school because this rule and many other rules don't serve us and the other top tier programs well.
Point well taken here and I appreciate your contextualizing that this "scandal" has been massively overblown and in the most generous of terms curiously sourced and unfairly discussed by many talking heads with both national microphones and message board usernames. Although I'm somewhat embarrassed to say it, I have, as I'm sure many of us have, lost actual sleep over this whole "scandal" and have let its existence occupy way too much of my mental and emotional energy. That said, I do not think the media has been wrong to report on it, and I don't think U of M should have escaped punishment for it.
There were rules broken here. Sure you can probably find a loophole like Stallions had his friends do the recording, and we can say that other programs break other rules and don't get caught, or don't get punished, or get punished in ways that are well below what the infraction would seem to call for. But this isn't about other programs or other rules or the media. This is about what Stallions and by extension U of M did. That other bad, nefarious, unfair, worse things are going on does not mean we shouldn't be called out (appropriately) and punished (appropriately) when we break rules. That we make a lot of money for the conference doesn't mean we should be allowed to break rules and go unpunished (this is not something you've raised here but many others have elsewhere). There has to be some accountability somewhere to the rules everyone (including U of M) agreed to.
Obviously, the scale/severity of this issue has been massively overstated, and I would argue the punishment (given what we know at this point) has been more than sufficient. I agree that all rules including tampering should be enforced and with an even hand that follows precedent and conducts investigations and considers evidence before making judgements. Many of those basic procedures were carelessly violated here and bad new precedents were established. I hope desperately that U of M will hold the BIG 10 to those precedents going forward (I doubt they will).
This whole experience these past couple months has made me more ready than ever to leave the NCAA behind, create a real super league with a real commissioner and payed players and an actual playoff etc. But since we aren't there yet U of M and all of us, I think, need to be the "do it the right way" kinds of fans and team we believe(d) we are. That means taking this bitter fucking medicine and not whataboutism-ing and loophole-ing our way through this "scandal."
Especially now, as we head to Indy, we are better than that. Go Blue!
Anyone know what the "rating" means (9.0, 9.4, 13.0)? What is this a measure of in TV terms?
And that is with those offenses playing mostly BIG West Defenses which certainly are better but hardly impressive. BIG has a truly terrible conference this year.
I think he can take Saturday off. Iowa doesn't play WRs.
I hope all he know about us doesn't put any of our players at an increased risk of injury. Especially with Tony in the building Iowa should be careful. I would hate to see Ferentz get a suspension as a representative of an institution that is jeapordizing the safety of players.
The inexplicable Rolder snaps have to be at least somewhat connected to our new LB coach right? Didn't see Rolder basically all season and then he get in for some goal line snaps against Maryland and a couple in this one. Those are the two games immediately after Partridge was canned. That doesn't seem like a coincidence to me.
CJ has 1 bad drop per game and then is lights out. He got his out of the way on the first drive this time. I choose to believe that was his plan.
Surprised?! That means you think they are like 75% leaning on returning next year. That seems quite optimistic. I hope you're right though.
If you add in his intercepted pass yards he really blows away the record.