"On the whip!"

Last Thursday, Mitch McGary sent out a tweet that would change the course of my weekend, and perhaps even my life:

everyone follow me on #Tumblr Im new and gettin the hang of it! mitchmcgary4.tumblr.com#WeOn...

— Mitch McGary (@MitchMcGary4) May 9, 2013

My goodness, did he ever get the hang of it. McGary has actually had this Tumblr account for around six months; until last week, he'd posted three pictures when he first created the page—which is of course titled "WE ON"—and then gone into radio silence during the season. In the five days since that tweet, he has posted 120—I repeat, one hundred and twenty—pictures to his Tumblr, several with one- or two-word captions but mostly just "reblogs" of other people's pictures.

You'd never guess this, but Mitch McGary gets very excited about pretty much everything. Basketball legends? He covers everyone from MJ to Dr. J to Shaq to, er, Chris Anderson. But of course he posts basketball photos. It's everything else that makes McGary's Tumblr the best Tumblr.

Do you like lions? Mitch McGary does. Why? Because they're dream-chasers... with flow.

But McGary isn't a cat speciesist. He loves big cats of all types, especially if they're "chillen" in an SUV or fighting feline bigotry.

Video games? McGary prefers to throw it back, '90s style.

Naturally, Pokemon is his jam—and that extends to fake Pokemon cards of Gucci, the Stage 2 evolution of Gucci Mane. (The actual Gucci Mane has yet to evolve to Stage 3, in which he's immune to the laws of society. Let's hope this never happens.)

And superheroes! Man, they're the best. Especially Batman.

Is an object shiny? If so, it's probably attracted Mitch's attention. Chrome shoes! A gold Game Boy! A gold camera!

BY GAWD, IT'S A GOLD-PLATED POOP THRONE!

There is so much more—Mr. T in a suit! The "coolest tree"! A desert oasis! Virtual waterfall! PARTY DOG!—that I can't even begin to cover in one post. Start on page one, allow McGary's infectious joie de vivre to brighten your day, and try to convince me that a Tumblr has better fit a player's personality. You can't, unless Denard Robinson decides to compile every picture of him smiling into one place. (Please do this, someone. Denard's a bit busy at the moment.)

MORE LIKE AMBEARCROMBIE AND BEARFITCH, AMIRITE. Offensive linemen Kyle Kalis and Erik Magnuson as models of a certain variety:

Slight difference? Naw. Yes I am going to take this opportunity to note that Kalis seems closer to the field than Magnuson solely based on resemblance to Soda Popinski.

You are victorious. Savor your victory. Spencer will eat cheese, and refugees will be settled, and if any of them look like they might have a double-digit block percentage we're sitting pretty well.

Behold the eye lasers of Brady Hoke.

They are looking. Michigan's got a couple scholarships open and Hoke got locked into a luncheon where fans pepper him with questions so the first one everyone goes with is about the backup QB—could be worse, could be the starter. Answer:

"Yeah, we are (still looking)," coach Brady Hoke said Monday before the West Michigan Sports Commission Annual Luncheon at the J.W. Marriott in Grand Rapids. "But, it's one of those things where there's a lot of I's to dot and T's to cross to make sure it's the right fit."

Michigan's got a month and a half before their summer semester starts, and hopefully they'll be able to reel in someone by then.

The double troll. Hoke got a two-for-one in at the same event:

"The Notre Dame game, that rivalry, which they're chickening out of," Hoke said Monday ….

The remark drew thunderous applause from the crowd.

"They're still gonna play Michigan State, they're gonna play Purdue, but they don't want to play Michigan," Hoke continued. "I don't know how they made that decision."

Tell it like it is, man. Kicker JJ McGrath approves.

U MAD? Also on twitter (shut up Bry):

Our man Coach Mattison getting ready to chill in the community with his gold framed shades. #michigandifference twitter.com/JeffHecklinski…

— Jeff Hecklinski (@JeffHecklinski) May 11, 2013

#inthecommunity #intheweightroom #inurbasesteelingurdudes

Um, okay then. I guess if Michigan's going to have a nonconference game at a neutral site New York isn't the worst place:

"The reception we've had in New York every year we've played there has been tremendous," Beilein said. "I think it's the plan to get there often. How often, I don't know.

"Is it every year? Every other year? I don't know. Right now, it'll be two years in a row and there's a tournament down the line we're obligated to as well. We're going to get there often."

I would prefer games on campus in all situations, but it's less of a big deal when you have Arizona and Iowa State coming in. Michigan is generally going to be the defacto home team against anyone they play there.

Regional: acquired. Also: Super Regional. Michigan got knocked out of the Big Ten softball tournament in the semis, a disappointing result for team with a 91% win rate in conference play. Despite that, Michigan did get a seed, specifically the eighth and last. That means that not only does Michigan host an NCAA regional this weekend, but if they advance they will host the super-regional.

Central Michigan vs Cal kicks things off at 4:30 PM Friday; Michigan hosts Valpo at 7PM. Unlike the Big Ten tourney, NCAA regionals are double-elimination. Valpo is 34-25 and was 11-9 in the Horizon League; they should be a pushover. Cal had a good overall record but was 10-14 in the Pac-12; Michigan mowed CMU down 11-0 in a mercy-rule game about three weeks ago.

Moar replays, fewer charges. The NCAA basketball rules committee didn't do much. They allowed some late-game replays—just what the game needs, more stoppages—and changed the charge rule so that a defender need to be set before an offensive player "starts his upward motion" to pass or shoot to not get called for a block.

I am not a fan. The game's problems stem from a refusal to call obvious fouls, as anyone who's flipped on the NBA playoffs after immersing themselves in this year's Big Ten schedule has been shocked to find out. All that hand-checking? Yeah, gone.

Tightening up the charge rule in that manner just seems unfair to the defender, who can get there in plenty of time and still get nailed because he didn't anticipate that by the time he was getting plowed in the chest the offensive player would put his arms up.

I am vaguely hopeful the proverbial crackdown will be more effective. From Andy Glockner:

The other changes, which really are just a re-emphasis of existing rules on the book, will require officials to consistently and, perhaps exhaustively, crack down on handchecking, armbars, and other techniques used both on a primary ballhandler and on cutters moving through the lane. If the officials do call this regularly, we’ll end up with a lot of fouls and free throws early in the season, and then hopefully teams will adjust and we’ll see better, more free-flowing offense later in the campaign. The off-ball contact in the lane is an especially big problem in the college game, and it will again challenge coaches who teach this as part of their defensive approach to find another way to successfully guard.

If that actually gets called like the NBA, the game is going to get a lot cleaner once we get past the section of time when all games are horrible foul-fests. That would be great for Michigan, which is historically a low-foul team that uses a crapton of cuts.

I AGREE WITH NICK SABAN. I've been agreeing with Dave Brandon lately about things like "how many conference games should we have?" and "should we schedule Virginia Tech," so I may as well just agree with everyone about everything. Here we go:

“I’m for five conferences – everybody playing everybody in those five conferences,” theAlabama coach said Thursday night before speaking at a Crimson Caravan stop. “That’s what I’m for, so it might be 70 teams, and everybody’s got to play ’em. …”

Saban reiterated his desire for the SEC to expand from eight conference games to nine per year for each team.

I… I'm with Napoleon.

Hockey commits. Michigan picked up a commit from OJHL goalie Hayden Lavigne for either next year or the year after. So while the door for Rutledge is hypothetically still open, he's just picked up two competitors for the rest of his career. I don't think he's coming back. Lavigne started 18 games last year, posting a .922 and being named "second team All-Prospect" in his league. He was a third round pick in the most recent USHL draft even though his OJHL team expects him back this year.

The addition of Lavigne signals a sea change in the way Michigan is acquiring goalies. Used to be they'd plug and play a top prospect every 3-4 years. Now they're adding a third contender to the mix, and instead of first-round draft picks they're random guys. This can work. It's clearly not the best way to go about things, but Jeff Jakatis and various Miami goalies have proven that goalies are weird and can come from anywhere.

Michigan also picked up a commit from a USHL defenseman named Cutler Martin. He's a '94 (ie, he'll be 20 when he comes in next year) and has very little internet profile out there. Seems like he'll be a third pairing guy to fill out roster depth.

At what point does something become and out-and-out lie? Here's NBC Irish blogger Keith Arnold claiming "Michigan asked to stop ND series first" because Bill Martin wanted to put in one of the occasional two-year hiatuses that the series has seen since its resurrection. Is this merely dishonest or a flat out lie? I think it's actually the latter, since of course "stopping" the ND series is something you do when you, say, cancel all future games. Michigan never had any intention of doing that.

Etc.: More than you needed to know about the all-time-wins chase from the perspective of a Texas fan. Women's tennis hits the sweet 16, their fourth straight. Men go down to a first-round upset. Soccer brings in the #6 class in the country(!). More things you wouldn't buy on eBay. It's Mott Takeover week at WTKA.

During a wee hours period break of a wee hours Wings game last weekend, I ended up in a conversation about the #1 jersey and who might be the next player to wear it. The guy was really high on Chesson or Drake Harris or some future giant; I was like thatsracist.gif because the best receiver since Braylon is on the roster RIGHT NOW

Upchurch

Unless you’re just categorically against changing numbers for seniors (which I totally understand in all circumstances but this), if we’re truly honoring elite receivers with the 1 jersey it could be time we give it to Jeremy Gallon. The case against: is 5’8, has always been just mediocre at returning punts and kicks, is 5’8, took some time to work his way up the depth chart, would ideally be a slot receiver because he’s 5’8. The case for: is secretly 8 feet tall, among his various Inspector Gadget peripherals is a cloaking device that saved Under the Lights I, and the WAR stat for receivers says he’s the best in the conference by a wide margin.

When I was doing the receivers pages of HTTV last week I went looking for some more advanced stats to put in tables aside from the usual Bentley things like receptions, yards, TDs, games played, and what you can get by dividing those things together. I remembered cfbstats’s Marty Couvillan last year made all of those targeting data available to the public, with an assist from Bill Connelly of Football Study Hall.*

What Marty did is took that play by play ticker information that the NCAA makes available, and through some ninja text-to-columns work, managed to pull out data for when each receiver was targeted. This is groundbreaking work in receiver stats, knowing what happens whenever a ball is thrown in the direction of a player. It still doesn’t say how well it was thrown, how deep if it wasn’t caught, or how many defenders had to be shooed off, but until we have official scorers UFR-ing every game this is about the best we can get. Guys like Bill began building their own stats out of the new data and came up with YRPR, which formula is:

• The % of your team’s targets you receive
• Times how many yards you average per pass thrown in your direction
• Times an adjustment for the rest of your team’s passing game so we don’t just get the guys with great QBs and lines
• Times an adjustment for how often your team passes, so that we don’t just award wide open receivers on run-heavy teams, e.g. Roundtree 2010.

And what it said was…

2012 Big Ten Receivers by YRPR:

I know what you’re thinking: that top five includes three of the receivers I drafted in last year’s Draft o’ Snark, and my fourth is in the Top 10. That and our tiny receiver who looks like Snoop was best in the conference and 14th in the nation. Not “one of the best after Allen Robinson and Kenny Bell and Jared Abbrederis and those Ohio State and Indiana guys,” but best-best.

Nationally Gallon was one spot behind West Virginia’s Tavon Austin, also a 5’8 mite, also the first receiver taken in this year’s NFL Draft. In fact most of the guys above Gallon were drafted this year—only USC’s Marqise Lee, SJ State’s Noel Grigsby, Bama’s Amari Cooper, Vanderbilt’s Jordan Mathews, and Fresno State’s Davante Adams return among those who finished above Jeremy Gallon in this metric.

When Brian gets to the receiver previews later this offseason he will undoubtedly point out that Gallon blew up after Gardner stepped in, projecting to Braylon-like numbers if you extrapolate the Gardner starts across an entire season. Well, the advanced stats guys took his entire year and said he’s Tavon Austin.

* [Where’s LSAClassof2000? Follow those links and stop writing personal diaries.]

[After the jump, how Gallon’s 2012 compared with those of past M receivers, and how the Big Ten has fared against the others]

Previously: CB Reon Dawson, CB Channing Stribling

Did I say Michigan had recruited three oversized corners in this class? I may have meant four, as despite being a strapping 6'1", 190-and-counting pounds, Cass Tech safety Delano Hill also got the "we try you at corner first" spiel:

For Michigan a big factor was clearly the determination that the 6-1, 190-pounder can also play corner.  According to Hill, it’s not a position that is as foreign to him as some might think.

“At Cass Tech we play a lot of man to man coverage, so our safeties have to cover,” he explained.  “So (the safeties) cover the slot a lot.  And I’ve played corner.  I try to be versatile and play every position in the defensive backfield.  (Michigan) said I can play both, but they are going to start me off at corner.”

That was not a fluke, either. Hill started poking around before his Michigan offer and got some interest from Notre Dame. They were thinking about him in the same way:

"ND really likes Delano as a corner and he's starting to like them as well," Crowell said. "He's getting looks from everywhere all of a sudden. I'm pretty sure Arkansas is going to offer soon and Florida and Florida State are asking about him."

Whether that's at boundary or nickel I don't know, but a couple of recruiting analysts suggested it could be the former. It appears that everyone short of a 6'4" Jeremy Clark will be tried at corner first, with those who can't hack it moved to safety.

Somebody has to play there, though, and with Dymonte Thomas currently holding down the nickel spot the assumption here is that Hill's dalliance at corner is just that and by the second week of fall practice he's eyeing the two-deep at safety.

Michigan actually passed the first time around, only offering Hill a couple months after an eye-opening performance at the… er… Opening. By that time he had been committed to Iowa for months. He flipped in four days. Who is your daddy. Yes. Your daddy.

Anyway, Hill comes in with an enticing combination of size, speed and lick-depositing ability. He'd run respectable 40s at various camps in the 4.5-4.6 range; he laid down a 4.44 at The Opening, and backed that up with his play. A compilation of things said in the aftermath:

• Allen Trieu (Scout): "good sized safety who surprised by how he could move that frame … used that speed to make a number of big plays in 7 on 7s, including a pick six."
• Barton Simmons (247): "A safety with some size and physicality to him, no one expected Hill to be near the top of the list in the 40-yard dash. In fact, if we thought he had this kind of speed, his ranking would likely be a good bit higher."
• Keith Niebuhr (247): "always one of the better safeties in attendance [at camps]. With his performance this weekend he was once again one of the best safeties in attendance but among a much stronger field. … Iowa [erp!] is getting a star."
• A non-bylined 247 article talked up Hill's "movement efficiency," which Hill has "in spades." Sayeth 247, "He may not look like he is moving fast but he doesn’t take false steps and he gets where he’s going in an effortless manner."

The best 40 at the Opening was a just tenth faster than Hill's; combined with his size that's impressive.

That performance followed a series of other strong camp appearances. Hill won the Columbus NFTC DB MVP (hope you like acronyms!). ESPN picked an all-combine team that was Cam Burrows and three Michigan guys: Reon Dawson, Ross Douglas, and Hill:

DB: Delano Hill, 6-0, 194, Cass Tech (Detroit, Mich.)
Breakdown: Hill is the prototypical ball-hawking safety, impressing with his ability to up and get the ball over receivers. Easily made some of the days best plays and was awarded MVP of the group.

Yeah, Hill beat out the other two eventual M commits and OSU five-star-ish CB Burrows. Here's why($):

…made a lot of plays in one-on-one and 7-on-7 play. He sees the field extremely well from his safety position, and closes passing lanes quickly. In each of the events we have covered Hill at in recent months he has come down with a number of interceptions, and that was the case again on Saturday. Usually cornerbacks take home MVP awards from the defensive back group because a lot of the work is in man coverage. Hill's win as a safety attests to his abilities in pass coverage.

Scout mentioned that he is "not a corner, but can cover man to man" before going with "solid, dependable, and always seems to be making plays." At the Only Incompetent Germans invitational($), Hill played corner, showed himself "extremely fluid for a safety when he flips his hips to run with receivers" and displayed "outstanding field vision."

Meanwhile, that tackling stuff bit is also reputed a strength. ESPN's eval($) echoes the above assessment of his good-for-a-safety man coverage skills; they get a little gushy about the other important bit of being a safety:

Hill is an aggressive run defender with good zone coverage skills; also displays the athletic skills needed to cover inside receivers.  … a tough customer who demonstrates the open field tackling skills which not only limits yards after contact but should prove beneficial as a special teams coverage defender. We see the flexibility, agility and balance needed to play in space; does a good job coming out of his pedal and flipping the hips when covering inside receivers. … His run support is outstanding; will come up and force off the edge while demonstrating quickness filling the ally; is a very aggressive downhill run defender with the ability to move through traffic; displays very good long pursuit ability.

This is another eval that doesn't match up with an ESPN ranking. They place Hill a three star outside of the top ten kids in Michigan and this evaluation finishes by saying "he may not be an immediate starter" but it'll be tough to keep him off the field early in his career. Go figure.

In any case, Scout's Allen Trieu also notes that he is a "very sure tackler"

Tackling: One of his strengths is that he is a very sure tackler. He plays under control, has good technique, and I've rarely seen him miss tackles or take bad angles.

Bottom Line: Good size, good speed, and a good skill set. Hill is a great pickup for Michigan, as he brings a little size into this secondary class. He should be a great special teamer as well.

Trieu reiterates that on Hill's scout profile, listing instincts and tackling as assets:

A good sized safety and a sure tackler in the open field. Does a good job of diagnosing plays, finding the football and coming in under control when attacking ball carriers. In coverage, he can play over the tight end and slot and cover man to man or in zone.

And since he is a Cass Tech safety he of course must be ripped. Rivals:

Several of the players on this list are well-traveled on the off-season camp circuit, and that includes Hill. The frequent competition has helped Hill's progression but does not appear to have kept him out of the weight room. The 6-foot-1, 190-pounder gets thicker and more ripped every time we see him, yet he still is out there moving well and showing plenty of range from his safety position.

So this all sounds fantastic. Hill has speed, acquits himself decently enough in man coverage to get looks at corner from ND and Michigan, and brings excellent tackling ability to the table.

He's a fringe four star on three of the four sites, but it seems like there must be a catch, right? The scouting above is that of a consensus top 100 player, as it describes a reliable, heavy-tackling safety who can cover. The offer list is pretty meh though. Michigan took their sweet-ass time getting around to their offer. Maybe that was because they had an inkling he'd flip to them whenever they did, but, like, where's the Michigan State offer, let alone PSU/OSU/ND?

I don't know, man. That's the only red flag in a recruiting profile that otherwise indicates stardom beckons.

Etc.: Hoe is het met Delano Hill? Wilcher:

“Delano runs 4.4 and at worst a 4.49.  He runs between 21-something and a 22 flat in the 200.  He has good recovery speed and good footwork.  Great feet.  He can play anything.  He is tall, he is strong, and he is physical.  He is going to be able to go out there and lock up people (at corner) or he can drop back and play safety.  He has got it going on.”

Why a poor man's Marlin Jackson? At just over 6-foot-even and around 200 pounds, Jackson was a kick-ass run defender as a boundary corner, probably the best I've seen at Michigan. He was also a corner-safety tweener both at Michigan, which moved him to safety his junior year and back as a senior, and in the NFL.

He was also a near five-star recruit, which Hill isn't. Okay, so Hill's not likely to live on a five-star receiver's hip as a true sophomore. If he is really a boundary corner/safety tweener with "outstanding" run support, he may not be far behind. At the very least his cover skills can be an asset underneath and against tight ends.

Guru Reliability: Exacting. Hill hit a ton of camps, has electronic 40s, plays at Cass Tech, and the rankings above are an eerie consensus: #21 S, #23 S, #23 S, #25 S. I don't see why he doesn't rank higher—basically no one has a negative for him—but he's thoroughly scouted even if the rankings don't necessarily match the scouting.

Variance: Low. Already at pretty much college size, playing the position he projects to in college, a lot of experience, all the camps. Seems to have a good grasp of safety nuances already. High floor kid.

Ceiling: High. 200 pound safety running a 4.4 who has good hips for his position.

General Excitement Level: High? I guess so. I am usually skeptical about Cass Tech recruits because they just don't work out all that often (Joe Barksdale and Thomas Gordon are the only ones I can recall from probably about a dozen), but Hill is appropriately sized for his position and gets universal praise for safety skills… all of them.

The downside is offers. Hill did not pick up another elite offer other than the Michigan one, and while being committed usually slows down that sort of thing, Michigan had to be convinced late. What is the disconnect between the scouting reports, which sound great, and the offer list?

Projection: With Dymonte Thomas competing at nickel and Marvin Robinson gone, Hill has a clear path to early playing time on special teams with an eye to replacing his Cass Tech counterpart in year two. He'll have to wrest the job away from Jeremy Clark and possibly Thomas; I think he will.

Lawrence Marshall, Troll of the Year Candidate

Michigan's latest commit, Southfield DE Lawrence Marshall, was presumably headed to East Lansing before pledging to Michigan last weekend, according to virtually everyone who followed his recruitment. Another example of Brady Hoke's remarkable ability to change recruits' minds during their visits, right? Oh, no, it's much better than that, per Sam Webb ($) [emphasis mine]:

“I was thinking about committing (to Michigan) for like a month now, so I knew where I was about to go for a whole month,” Marshall said sheepishly.  “I just didn’t want nobody to know where I wanted to go.  I went up (to Ann Arbor today for a visit) and it was the perfect timing to commit.  I think I caught them by surprise. I don’t think they really knew that I was going to commit there today.”

Wait for it...

Now twist the knife ($):

One phrase Marshall has already been saying is that the "best players in Michigan go to Michigan". With that, attention now turns towards his strong-side counterpart and Detroit native Malik McDowell.

"I'd say Malik is that last part of the puzzle," he said. "Michigan is where the best players in the state want to play and he's the last one left. We'll be turning our attention on him and will try to get him to come on board with us because we're building something special here."

According to 247's composite rankings, Michigan has two of the top four in-state players in Marshall and (oh, hey) Drake Harris, with their sights firmly set on top-ranked Malik McDowell. The Wolverines also have the #9 player in Moe Ways. Michigan State has just the #6 and #7 players (Deon Drake and Byron Bullough) and no other commits among the state's top 25 prospects.

For comparison, Western Michigan now has the #5 and #8 prospects (Chase Stewart and Chukwuma Okorafor), along with 13th-ranked Jordan Van Dort. Only two uncommitted prospects remain among the state's top 13 players—McDowell and his high school teammate, OL Ka'John Armstrong, who's visited MSU several times but has yet to receive an FBS offer.

Where's the threat?

[Do I have to keep writing? I mean, that's the perfect place to stop. Okay, if you insist, hit THE JUMP for Chase Winovich's visit reaction, Jabrill Peppers running pretty fast, a look at the enormous foreign exchange student offered by Michigan, and more.]

abs, special teams: out

They're dropping like not-particularly-likley-to-see-the-field flies up in here. Over the last 12 hours, Scout's Andre Barthwell and Sam Webb broke the news that Michigan has lost Marvin Robinson and Mike Jones from the roster.

As departure impacts go, these are near the bottom of the scale. Both were going to be seniors (Jones was a fifth year) and neither was likely to see much playing time outside of special teams. These exits don't affect the two deep or the projected numbers for the 2014 class.

Robinson and his heralded abs never got a foothold on playing time, probably because he never shook the sort of bad habits that made him the primary culprit on that long run a couple of spring games ago where Robinson never figured out the WR he was trying to check was blocking him. He'll have to sit out a year and then he'll have one to play if he doesn't go I-AA. He probably should have moved to WLB immediately upon his arrival at M.

Jones meanwhile was not a touted recruit and never saw the field even when Michigan was scrambling at the WLB spot in 2011.  His main on-field contribution was to pick up a dumb personal foul against OSU last year. (Off the field, he provided many opportunities for people to say WHO? because of a rapper who is now ironically forgotten, or at least would be if his song wasn't about his name.)

The main downside is if their absence forces Michigan to play a couple kids who otherwise would have redshirted on coverage teams and the like. If Ben Gedeon plays despite not projecting to the two deep at MLB either this year or next, I'll be a little cheesed off.

Michigan now has a slot for a hypothetical fifth-year QB transfer, say Arkansas transfer Brandon Mitchell. Mitchell who is reported to be considering Michigan along with NC State and three smaller schools. As per usual these guys are leaving to play, though, so unless Michigan can sell Mitchell on a slash role a la Gardner he'll probably head to a place he can at least compete for the starting QB job.