First things first: I think I finally get the Nike hype:

Correct, oh merchants of swoosh.

So…

If you got your copy of HTTV this year (if you didn't it's probably too late for a hard copy since we are a few copies away from selling out), you probably already read Ian Boyd's article on John O'Korn, which included several Harbaugh staples that really use the specific talents of Michigan's offensive skill position players.

One of the mainstays of Harbaughffense in every stop before now was this: Y Banana. Gruden's QB camp episode with Andrew Luck spent a good chunk of time on this play (start at 8:38 here and then watch part ii), and if you watched Michigan under Carr you'll recognize the hell out of it too. So if you watched Michigan last year knowing these things, Y Banana might have seemed noticeably absent.

I already covered one play that is basically banana, which I called Levels TE drag.

The only real difference here is instead of an X receiver on the "strong" (field/Butt's) side, Harbaugh put AJ Williams on the playside and had him run the TE's level, making Butt the backside read.

I still would like to get into this again however because the above was a reaction to the 2015 personnel, while the base thing may be a perfect fit for Michigan's 2016 guys, provided they can run.

[Hit the Jump for John Gruden yelling at Andrew Luck to throw it to the fullback]

via Michigan's new apparel site, which also has many detail shots

Michigan officially unveiled their new Jordan brand football uniforms in a totally understated setting this afternoon, and for the most part little has changed except the logo. This is good, especially if you're a fan of the all-white road uniforms. I count myself among that number, and so does Jim Harbaugh:

Harbaugh says the white pants on the road will be a permanent thing. He's a fan of that.

— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) August 2, 2016

Nike did make a few minor alterations. The number font is new, which you can see in both the '4' on the home uniform and the '2' on the road. The road uniforms now feature two sleeve stripes (late 80s/mid 90s style) instead of the three they wore last year [edit: my mistake, it's still three stripes—the bottom one was hard to see] and the sleeve numbers have moved from the side to the top of the shoulder. The rest is the same, and mercifully clean, too—I was worried the Jumpman logo would be too large, and that's not at all the case.

There is one major change, and it's to the most legendary aspect of the uniform:

Those are matte helmets. Michigan spokesman says the plan is to wear those this season. That's new. pic.twitter.com/5taVBAjmWs

— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) August 2, 2016

I'm ambivalent about the paint style of the helmet, but I might be in the minority there.

I'll hold off on diving into color analysis—at first glance, both the maize and blue look a little darker than past years—until we get some photos in normal lighting.

Previously: hockey, soccer, basketball, football.

10. No warmup pitches for relievers.

What did you just spend 15 minutes doing in the bullpen? Why are you wasting our time like this? I have things to look at that aren't you! Ever heard of a book, buddy? Yeah, probably not.

9. Every time a pitcher throws to first he has to put on another hat.

If the hats fall off before the end of the inning that counts as one ball per hat that falls off.

8. Balks are cool.

Balk away.

7. I don't have any other ideas.

Baseball! It's good if you want to drink beer outside with something else going on vaguely in your perception. The exact structure of the game is beside the point.

6. Wait, wait, now I do.

Remember Basewars? Yeah, do that.

I prefer robots but if we can get this on the road with people I'm down. You want me out? Put me out. I do not recognize the authority of this "ball" you have tagged me with.

5. This is a bad post.

You can think that. It's okay.

We are drafting Big Ten teams because "Top 100 players in the Big Ten" content wouldn't make us hate each other nearly as much.

Previously on Draftageddon:

1. Rounds 1-2: A Heisman candidate QB and the reigning Thorpe winner go after two members of Michigan's secondary. (M players: Peppers, Lewis, Butt)

2. Rounds 3-4: An underwhelming first swing through receivers, and lots of linemen. (Chesson, Cole, Wormley, Glasgow)

3. Rounds 5-6: A Michigan second-teamer goes before Purdue J.J. Watt. (Charlton, Hurst)

4. Rounds 7-8: Hodor. (Taco, Hurst)

5. Rounds 9-11: We go on a mini Iowa binge, and Brian takes a true freshman (YTTF).

6. Rounds 12-14: A grueling three-rounder with safeties, RBs, and MSU legacies flexing. (O'Korn, Braden).

How things stand:

We ran three rounds again last time, which was probably too much. Just trying to get these all out before the season; would you rather very long Draftageddons or multiple Draftageddons per week?

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ACE: Round 15, Pick 1: Brandon Bell, linebacker, Penn State

[Upchurch]

OFFENSE: QB CJ Beathard (IA), RB Saquon Barkley (PSU), WR Jehu Chesson (M), SLOT Curtis Samuel (OSU), TE George Kittle (IA), OT Nick Gates (NE), OG Jacob Bailey (IU), WEAPON Jabrill Peppers (M)

DEFENSE: NT Ryan Glasgow (M), DT Jake Replogle (PU), DE Sam Hubbard (OSU), MLB Josey Jewell (IA), OLB Brandon Bell (PSU), OLB/NICKEL Jabrill Peppers (M), CB Jalen Myrick (MN), S Nate Gerry (NE)

SPECIAL TEAMS: KR Jabrill Peppers (M), PR Jabrill Peppers (M)

Seth, our resident PSU fan, chose Nyeem Wartman-White in the sixth round of this draft. Even when fully healthy, however, he’s not PSU’s best linebacker—that honor goes to Brandon Bell. Here is eight minutes of Bell doing every damn thing you’d want from a linebacker:

Bell is a prototype walkout linebacker, and at 6’1”, 231, he’s strong enough to play on the inside as well—there are several impressive snaps above where he lines up at WILL and makes a play between the tackles. In 11 games, he tallied 67 tackles, 12.5 TFLs, 5.5 sacks, three forced fumbles, and an interception. He did all of this while playing much of the season injured:

That's because the New Jersey native played most of the season injured. A shoulder injury was obvious, and the defensive coordinator said there were lower body issues, as well.

"You look back at the year Brandon Bell had, despite missing a couple of games, playing with two bad wheels, a shoulder that kept popping out; when I go back and watch the cutups from the fall, just really impressed with the way Brandon plays," Pry said.

I’ll happily take Bell over the relatively interchangeable MIKEs who’ve gone off the board in the last couple rounds, especially since there are still a couple quality ILBs left on the board if I want to reconfigure my defense. For now, I’ll take a linebacker trio of Bell-Jewell-Peppers that will murder anything on the outside, provide great coverage, and allow my hypothetical squad to avoid having to substitute much against spread teams.

---------------------------------------

Seth: I would argue except "Well most Penn State fans think..." is the Alabama of bad ways to begin an argument.

Brian: You'd think Ace would know that after drafting nothing but PSU TEs for skill positions last year.

Ace: I’ve made some regrettable choices. Meanwhile, Wartman-White is in a battle just to get his MIKE spot back. Jason Cabinda is good, but nobody’s touched him yet in a draft heavy on ILBs.

Seth: That battle is the mother of offseason pablum. NWW will play wherever they want him, and Cabinda is more Desmond Morgan than Larry Foote.

Ace: They’re all going to start, but it’s tough to spin “ripped up his knee, is ​_still_​ not fully healthy, might not be the QB of the defense anymore” as anything but a negative. I certainly don’t think he should’ve gone in the 6th round of a draft in which Jermaine Carter lasted until the 14th.

Brian: Yeah i mean how likely is it NWW is better than guys like Jewell and Carter? Possible, but not that likely. And the downside is kind of severe.

Ace: And Bell is a more versatile player than Jewell/Carter/NWW/Bullough. Figured someone would grab him as a spacebacker much earlier. I only waited this long because I already had Peppers.

Seth: When i did the Googling for that guy I had to sift through a Draftageddon's worth of articles from last year where teammates bemoaned his loss. It must have been a weekly feature. Meanwhile the list of guys I can watch live and immediately pick out that they're special is quite short. That meant a lot to me in choosing a linebacker, since draft rankings and all-X lists barely look past number of tackles.

And I was waiting to draft Bell because everybody had an outside linebacker already.

Ace: You say that like the rest of us haven’t watched film, too.

Seth: Live-live. Like you can see it from section 18. This is more explanation than argument. I develop sentimental attachments to players I personally identified

Ace: I rest my case, then.

Seth: There are also the guys I read about then watch tape and see just a guy ​*cough* Hardy Nickerson. (Also *cough* sometimes that guy is Jordan Howard *cough myself*)

Adam: Hey don't try to drag me into your mess. I waited until the 13th round to make my feelingsball-based reach.

Seth: Like I said, I gave up this fight when I realized the credibility of my source killed it before I got to the first predicate.

[After the jump: more self-refuting sentences involving Penn State]

Watch This At Your Own Peril

The above is a 20-minute long junior highlight reel of the nation's #1 overall recruit, Antioch (CA) RB Najee Harris, who's currently committed to Alabama. It is now relevant to your interests, per 247's Steve Lorenz:

Michigan will host the nation's top overall prospect for their BBQ at the Big House, as Antioch (CA) 2017 five-star running back Najee Harris will be in Ann Arbor on August 6th for the annual recruiting event.

The visit was actually set over a month ago when Michigan, in a remarkable coincidence, hosted a satellite camp at Harris's high school. While Alabama insiders feel confident in the Tide's chances of holding onto Harris, Lorenz isn't ruling out M's chances of a flip:

We've written a lot lately about Michigan narrowing their recruiting board down heading into the season. Linebacker...cornerback....wide receiver...these are all spots where Michigan has concentrated their efforts on the nation's elite. At running back, it currently appears to be Najee Harris and everybody else.

I think the staff's chances with him are better than people realize. A visit on his own dime is of course noteworthy as it always is, but in talking to some sources closer to the Michigan side of things following the Antioch camp, there's a belief that he's a fit for Jim Harbaugh's culture and what he's trying to do at Michigan.

Don't watch that video unless you want to get dangerously excited about the possibility of landing Harris, which won't be easy at all—Bama isn't Michigan's only competition, as USC, UCLA, Oregon, and Cal are also in contention.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the roundup.]

Event reminder. We're having a Hail To The Victors kickoff party/thing on Friday at Circus Bar. Hopefully it will be as crazy as last night.

This also happened (photo by @MelanieMaxwell) pic.twitter.com/gNfdUYgwvL

— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) August 1, 2016

About last night. I don't get WOO NIKE. I have no strong feelings about clothing brands, except insofar as I would like them to put the sports teams I like in uniforms that 1) stay in one piece, 2) are legible from distance, and 3) don't make me envy the dead. I'm in the same realm of bafflement Dan Murphy was last night:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- They lined up for T-shirts.

All day, Michigan fans stood in line for T-shirts. And when the sun went down they chanted and painted their faces and counted down the last few seconds like it was New Year’s Eve for T-shirts, ones with a tiny lopsided parabola in the corner instead of a striped triangle. ...

“I’ve lived 52 years, a lot of them right here in Ann Arbor,” Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh said into a sea of fans recording on their cell phones. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

LIST OF SHIRTS I WOULD STAND IN LINE TO BUY
1. if it was the 12th century and they sold indulgences on shirts
2. Harambe-skin

— mgoblog (@mgoblog) August 1, 2016

But I'm happy you're happy, and happy that recruits and players are bonkers for the stuff. There are many many variations of this on Michigan player twitter:

thank you for blessing us @Jumpman23 pic.twitter.com/EmaDCvCBJu

— Moe Ways (@MoeWays) August 1, 2016

It's probably better that Michigan's back with marketing folks who can inspire the kind of devotion that results in a walk-on basketball player crowdsurfing like he's 1992 Eddie Vedder. The gap between the Only Incompetent Germans and that 190-proof blast of capitalism is obvious. While the headline number* on Michigan's apparel contract has been beaten by a few different schools since it was signed a year ago, Jumpman exclusivity looks like a big deal for players and recruits—you know, the people who help you win on the field.

I have one hope, and that's a football version of Jumpman. Pick one of Desmond or Woodson:

A permanent logo swap ain't happening, but if Nike wants to do a special edition thing that will sell a lot of merch and not piss off traditionalists this would be killer. (I think? I obviously have no idea what I'm talking about in this department. Later today I will advise rappists on the finest iambic pentameters. The very best.)

I have one concern. The hockey jerseys look weird and wrong.

Mismatched blues, a weird sheen on top, really not digging the jersey with one maize stripe across the top and nothing else anywhere. A closeup of the hockey jersey does seem into indicate it's regular jersey material and not, like, shimmery. I'll reserve final judgment until I see them in the wild, but I'm not hopeful.

*[I say "headline number" here because it looks like various other schools have structured their contracts such that theirs is the "biggest ever" to the press but not in reality. For example, OSU's "biggest ever" deal with Nike is actually worth $13 million less in cash than Michigan's over the same timeframe. They just pad it out with more gear at an inflated price. I haven't looked into the details of UCLA and Texas but it's possible—probable in UCLA's case—that the same thing is going on there.]

This is completely rational. I retract my tweet at Nick Baumgardner yesterday:

"I definitely think its symbolic, it's a new age for Michigan," Gozdor said. "A lot of my friends are saying they're going to burn their Adidas gear and forget the whole entire thing ever happened."

He was right.

Jeremy Gallon finally gets to be taller than some people. An alert reader points out that the Nojima Sagamihara Rise, a team in Japan's "X-League," is currently listing Devin Gardner and Jeremy Gallon on their roster. (Also included is former Illinois safety Earnest Thomas III.) Thorough research* reveals that only two foreign players are allowed to be on the field at any one time; the Rise must be planning on Gardner to Gallon for 50% of their plays. This is a good plan.

[Update: now there is an article on this occurrence:

“Everybody here is so respectful, so nice. It’s almost like a compete 180 from in America,” said Gardner, who made 27 starts at quarterback for the Wolverines, with a smile. “They (the Americans) are nice people but I’ve never been to a place where everybody is so kind and so respectful, and it’s just part of the way everyone is here. It’s pure refreshing to get a chance to experience it.”

No Michigan State or Ohio State fans in Japan, I take it.]

*[googling the league's wikipedia page]

I'd be happy to be wrong here. Erik Magnuson doesn't strike me as a guy who the NFL will consider drafting early unless he takes a big step forward as a senior, but CBS's Dane Brugler disagrees with that take, naming him one of the top ten senior OTs in the country and saying he "played like a legitimate NFL prospect":

...moves with a smooth shuffle and wide base, transferring his weight well in his kickslide to mirror edge rushers. He stays low off the snap and prefers to use his hands to control the point of attack to out-leverage and out-power defenders. Magnuson is able to secure downblocks and anchor at shallow depth, driving his legs to finish in the Wolverines' power offense. He has also been praised by the coaching staff for his leadership and consistency during the week.

Although hustle and effort aren't an issue, Magnuson has sloppy tendencies with a bad habit of lowering his head and losing sight of his target, ending up on the ground. He tends to be a waist bender and lacks ideal length to compensate, which allows savvy rushers to get him off balance and leaning. While powerful when squared to defenders, Magnuson will struggle to recover once defenders attack his shoulder.

I thought Magnuson was okay, and only that, a year ago. I get the vibe that PFF agrees with me since they haven't posted anything about him, or the rest of the Michigan OL not named Mason Cole. They tend to have an "if you can't say anything nice..." policy.

I'd be happy to be right here. Ryan Glasgow makes ESPN's list of the top 25 Big  Ten players... at #25, which I'm sure I'll find is an outrage once they get around to putting a punter at 16 or whatever. Even so, thank you, ESPN, for not consigning Glasgow to a Wally Pipp role just yet. PFF also names Glasgow their #3 breakout player this year, though they do admit that's a bit of an injury-induced slam dunk:

2016 grade: 84.8 | 2015 snaps: 332 | PFF College 101 rank: 72

The argument could be made that Glasgow has already broken out as he boasted the nation’s No. 19 run-stopping grade before going down to injury last season, but since he only played 332 snaps, he still qualifies as a breakout candidate. He’s seen the field for 753 snaps the last two seasons, posting a strong +32.7 grade against the run, and last year he improved his pass rush grade to +9.0 on the strength of a sack, four QB hits, and 12 hurries on 179 rushes.

Taco Charlton shows up at #7 for the same reasons we're hyped about him around here: a lot of production in under 400 snaps. There are scattered Big Ten players to round out the list plus a couple of old names for recrutniks: both Cal RB Vic Enwere and Arizona State RB Kalen Ballage make the tail end of the list.

Spreading the wealth. Michigan probably has four guys on that aforementioned top 25 B10 players list (Lewis, Peppers and Butt are probably locks and Glasgow snuck in) so it's not exactly crazy that these gents missed it...

Michigan DL Chris Wormley and receivers Amara Darboh and Jehu Chesson: Wormley is one of the more versatile defensive linemen in the league, with the ability to move between end and tackle, and he had 14.5 tackles for loss and 6.5 sacks in 2015. Some of us argued for his inclusion, though we ultimately went with a different player in his position group. As for Darboh and Chesson, they are clearly two of the better wideouts in the league. Yet neither had huge numbers last season, and even Jim Harbaugh will tell you it's a coin flip on who is the better player. They sort of canceled out each other for purposes of this list.

...but since two of those guys are seniors getting first round draft hype it is a little bit crazy. Also:

When passing to WR Jehu Chesson, Michigan QBs posted a 127.9 passer rating, best of any returning #B1G receiver. pic.twitter.com/VhWKyvIfVy

— PFF College Football (@PFF_College) August 1, 2016

Meanwhile Feldman named Michigan's receiving corps the #3 unit in the country. Michigan could be all right this fall.

Etc.: Peppers gets votes from current Big Ten football players as the Big Ten's best defensive player... and its best offensive player. PSU fans expect a punter to be their biggest impact freshman... and they're probably right. Y'all probably don't know how bad PSU punting has been the last few years. TV networks not a big fan of the Big 12's naked cash grab. Always weird when some guy you remember as like 15 is now writing for the Daily. I'm old and DEATH DEATH DEATH.  ND contract details.