As we get closer and closer to signing day, Michigan nabbed two quality commitments this week in instate LB Desmond Morgan and Maryland DB Blake Countess. Michigan is currently at 13 commitments, which leaves anywhere between 5-7 more spots open. A few updates from this week, and a look at what could happen going forward:

Roderick Ryles

6'1", 185 lbs.

Safety

Orlando, Florida

I'm sure everyone has noticed that Roderick has an outstanding set of dreadlocks, always key in recruiting. Ryles was committed to Arkansas, but recently decommitted/had his offer pulled from the Razorbacks. He has opened up his recruitment, and Michigan will be part of the process.

I'm not with Arkansas anymore, so it's back open with everybody. I'm definitely interested in Michigan. I just talked to Coach Smith on Thursday (10/9).

Dr. Phillips just lost in the state championship game so Roderick will be focusing on recruiting going forward. He hasn't set up his visit date yet, but is looking to do that soon.

Darian Cooper

6'1", 275 lbs.

Defensive Tackle

Hyattsville, Maryland

I'm not sure where it originated, but there was a rumor that Michigan was out of it for Darian Cooper. That's not entirely true. This was somewhat discussed in this thread earlier, and this is what Darian had to say about it.

Tony Dews came out on Thursday, and we talked about some things. I asked him about the coaching situation and he said that we'll know on January 1st. They're not out of it yet, I'm just concerned with what's going on with them because I had a friend go through that too.

While Michigan isn't out of it for Cooper, they are slightly behind the likes of Penn State, Georgia Tech, Iowa, and Michigan State. We won't know if Michigan is back in it until we know the fate of the coaching staff.

[Ed.: That's quite a statement from Dews, if second-hand. Not even a "we'll be back." Everybody limbo.]

Jack Tabb

6'4", 230 lbs.

Tight End

Red Bank, New Jersey

Jack Tabb and recently offered Glenville prospect Frank Clark are the main tight ends on Michigan's board these days. Tabb has decided that he's ready to announce his decision after visiting Michigan, Arkansas, Iowa, and North Carolina.

I'm announcing either Wednesday or Thursday, I'll find out tomorrow. I'll have hats for Arkansas, Michigan, North Carolina, Rutgers, and Iowa.

The coaching situation at Michigan has also been in Tabb's mind recently. He really liked his visit to Ann Arbor, but I wouldn't get your hopes up with him. 

Extra:

• Commit Demetrius Hart told reporters last night that he will officially visit Florida, and still plans on enrolling early wherever he decides to go. If Rich Rodriguez stays, then I think Dee will too. If Rich Rod goes, then so will Hart.
• Instate DB Raymon Taylor was offered by Michigan this week. He's a lifelong Michigan fan, and barring anything out of the ordinary there's a good chance he'll be a part of this class. Taylor is a Rivals four star who was committed to Indiana before their coaching change; the other sites have him a generic three-star.
• The Army All American game will be played on January 8th, and Michigan fans will have reason to watch. Michigan commits DB Blake Countess and RB Demetrius Hart will be in the game. The two prospects announcing their decisions during the game to keep an eye on are FL S Wayne Lyons and NC ATH Kris Frost.
• There's a dead period that starts today that will run through January 3rd. The next big recruiting visit weekend will be that following weekend of the 7th. We'll have more as it gets closer, but so far WR Devin Lucien, TE Frank Clark, DB Sheldon Royster, DB Dallas Crawford, and DE Deion Barnes are scheduled to be there. 

12/18/2010 – Michigan 69, Oakland 51 – 9-2

This doesn't happen so much anymore, but back in the day there was a point in the lifetime of any Windows installation at which the operating system was so loaded with cruft that the only thing to do was take it out back, shoot it in the head, and reinstall. During this process there was always a moment when the computer reminded you in all caps that you were about to shoot it in the head.

The moment when you hit "Y" was always slightly* thrilling. At that time you had to beat your head against extended memory to get Master of Magic to play—there was always a chance your brilliant reinstall plot would end with you banging your head against the case screaming vile things about Bill Gates's parentage. But if things worked out you'd be able to open your word processor without it automatically typing "I hate you and you are stupid."**

Watching this year's basketball team is like sitting in front of a blue screen that asks you if you'd like to format C:. Last offseason John Beilein saw that prompt and hit "Y," and how. This was not entirely voluntary, since DeShawn Sims had run out of eligibility and Manny Harris tolerance for college, but Beilein also lost Anthony Wright and Laval Lucas-Perry to smaller schools in the area—seemingly by his choice, not theirs—and fired his entire coaching staff.

As a result Michigan entered the year without five of the nine players Kenpom had individual stats for last year. Only one—seldom-used freshman Matt Vogrich—used enough possessions to escape the "limited roles" dungeon. Here's what the very bottom of Kenpom's "height and other stuff" shows when you order by average experience:

Anyone who had coached the straggling returners and a couple of redshirt freshmen was out the door as well. An entirely new coaching staff started burning up twitter with exclamation points, installing a man-to-man defense, and trying to get three pointers to fall. The Big Ten was projected to be brutal, with Michigan a speed bump. This was to be a year of banging the head upon the case without even much hope that it would amount to anything.

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

Eleven games in, Michigan has essentially completed the nonconference schedule. A game against 1-9 Bryant remains and Michigan bizarrely takes on Kansas in early January, but we've gotten all the information we're going to get before Michigan's brutal Welcome To The Big Ten And Kansas stretch (all numbers Kenpom):

• Dec 28: #11 Purdue
• Jan 2: #74 Penn State
• Jan 5: #9 @ Wisconsin
• Jan 9: #2 Kansas
• Jan 12: #3 Ohio State

That still looks like pain, but after three bludgeonings of okay teams and one stirring comeback against Tommy Amaker's Ivy League favorites the chance Michigan swipes one of those uphill battles is something less than infinitesimal. They'll be worth watching, at least. The stretch after that is littered with teams from 15 to 81, with just two forays back into the top ten after, and with Kenpom wavering between 7-11 and 8-10 for the league record both math and your lying eyes suggest this is an NIT team.

So that's weird. Weirder still is how this is being accomplished: with fierce man to man defense. After shutting down Keith Benson Michigan is now 16th in defense, and we're getting to the point where you can't wave away the results as small sample size against poor competition. UMHoops:

Michigan’s defense held Oakland – a team that has already faced West Virginia, Purdue, Illinois, Michigan State, and Tennessee – to their worst offensive output of the season. I’ve been hesitant to believe that Michigan’s defense is the real deal, because making bad teams look terrible only goes so far, but right now there’s no denying that Michigan is playing great defense.

On one particular possession on Saturday, Michigan did so well over 35 seconds that the crowd rose to its feet like the hockey team had just killed off a 5-on-3 power play. With the offense still bombing away from 3 (sixteenth nationally) despite not making any of them (253rd), the primary difference between this year and last year is a switch-mad man-to-man that is totally unlike anything Beilein's ever put on the court before.

That, the complete lack of seniors, and the expectation the team's best player returns. We're about to hit the stretch in the format process where the drive makes horrible noises and bad sectors pop up, but the path from here to the point where our word processor loves us again is far clearer than it was two months ago. This, too, is slightly thrilling.

*(very, very slightly)

**(Things like this actually used to happen. They were called macro viruses and I managed to get one back in the day when I shared a spreadsheet with a lab partner. I don't remember exactly what the cryptic message was, but whenever I opened Word it would type a bunch of stuff, delete it, and then type something else that might have been "ferret" but is probably just me misremembering things.)

Non-Bullets

The All-Seeing Eye. You know it's a good game when the thing that makes you wince in the second half is when the other team goes on a run to cut the lead from 20 to 10 because the all-seeing Eye of Kenpom will disapprove. Fouling and whatnot pushed Michigan's final margin out to 18, and the Great Eye is pleased—Michigan has run itself from triple digits after the UTEP game to 52nd. They've cleared Penn State and Iowa and are in a virtual dead heat with #50 Northwestern, #51 Minnesota, and #54 Indiana for the title of Sixth Best Team In The Big Ten According To Ken Pomeroy.

As far as tourney resumes go, Michigan is clearly behind Minnesota and their wins over UNC and  WVU but well ahead of Northwestern (one decent win against GT and that's all) and Indiana (best win over Wright State). If the Big Ten is destined for seven bids, the last one seems up for grabs with Michigan in the conversation. I don't think the BT is going to get seven mostly because none of the three teams after Minnesota has a nonconference win that would cause the committee to sit up and notice, but Michigan could be vaguely on the bubble late this year.

Put this in your pocket. Illinois suffered a demoralizing loss to their version of Oakland, barfing up a 57-54 stinker against Illinois-Chicago. The difference is UIC isn't secretly pretty good—they're 5-7 and have already lost to Akron, Illinois State, Central Michigan, and other less than awesome teams. Here's a reason why:

When UIC took the 1-3-1 zone against us, we looked lost, and since we were unable to shoot ourselves out of it, we were flailing.

Well, then. Michigan plays the Illini only once and that's in the middle of February, so maybe this won't have a huge impact. But if Michigan pulls the 1-3-1 out against Illinois remember this post.

(Side note: Central Michigan is completely awful despite having what must be the most talented player in the MAC. Trey Zeigler and company are 2-8 and just got obliterated by Detroit. This is depressing but from the Zeiglers' perspective the only thing keeping dad around is the presence of his son so the decision makes sense.)

Doubling down. Michigan doubled Benson the instant he got the ball, which was new. They hadn't helped out their center all year even when Harvard's counterpart was tearing Morgan up; in this game they forced turnovers and kickouts from Benson all day. Morgan held up pretty well with the help.

Infectious coaching. Beilein must have gotten a tiny thrill after Jon Horford gave up an and-one to Benson in the first half when both Zack Novak and Darius Morris went over to him to demonstrate what he did wrong on the play. Novak even provided helpful "arms straight up" versus "whatever you were doing, freshman" pantomimes.

I know how you feel. The UMHoops game preview said "expect a lot more zone" and I thought "that's a really good thing to put in the preview because it's probably going to be true" and then the only zone we saw was a single possession of 1-3-1 at the end of the first half.

How Darius Morris makes the defense go. Thanks to their huge point guard, Michigan's perimeter rotation of Morris, Novak, Douglass, Hardaway, and Vogrich is all about the same size, which allows them to switch relentlessly on all screens, which goes a long way towards making up for a lack of quickness from the pastier guys in the rotation, which means teams get few opportunities to drive the lane because there's always a dude right in front of them.

Michigan's defense is now Wisconsin's: built on never fouling you, never blocking your shots, never stealing the ball, but forcing you into a wide array of not-very-good shots. Michigan is 10th in three point D, 57th in two point D, 11th in FTA/FGA, 14th in eFG%, and well down the list when it comes to forcing turnovers and getting blocks. Instead of leaving their feet they get in spots to take charges and get their hands in the air.

It's the exact opposite of the 1-3-1, which might make the 1-3-1 pretty effective if they 1) figure out how to use it, and 2) deploy it as a change up.

Elsewhere

UMHoops game recap. Beilein on guarding Benson. The Wolverine Blog talks about the defense. Morgan fluff from the News. Five Key Plays from UMHoops features this assist, which wasn't key but it was awesome:

There is a shaky but extant torrent.

New commits for Michigan and it's time to hit the front page. Action since last rankings:

12-13-10 Michigan gains commitment from Desmond Morgan. Minnesota loses commitment from Matt LaCosse, Illinois gains commitment from Matt LaCosse. Illinois gains commitment from Nick North. Indiana loses commitment from Nick VanHoose, Northwestern gains commitment from Nick VanHoose.
12-14-10 Minnesota loses commitment from Marquise Vann. Northwestern gains commitment from CJ Robbins.
12-15-10 Illinois gains commitment from Patrick Flavin. Iowa gains commitment from Dan Heiar. Purdue gains commitment from Sterling Carter. Minnesota gains commitment from Foster Bush.
12-16-10 Michigan State loses commitment from Mika'il McCall. Nebraska gains commitment from Darien Bryant.
12-17-10 Illinois gains commitment from Jeremy Whitlow. Michigan gains commitment from Blake Countess. Wisconsin loses commitment from Trayion Durham. Ohio State gains commitment from Ryan Shazier.
12-18-10 Nebraska loses commitment from Darien Bryant. Minnesota gains commitment from Josh Campion.
12-19-10 Iowa gains commitments from Jacob Hillyer, Rodney Coe, and Mika'il McCall.

Rivals rankings are on the "RR" scale, which is on a scale from about 5 to about 6.1. Unrated prospects are given a 5.1 rating, on par with the worst of any Big Ten commit last year. Scout is on the 5-star system (unranked players earn 1 star), and ESPN uses grades out of 100 (unranked is 40 or 45, except JuCo players, who aren't included in the average).

Full data after the jump.

I hope your monitor likes cyan…

Dear Diary,

I've never been much for criticizing someone else's taste in art. It's a fact of life that some people (my wife) will think a Chagall* is perfect where another person would have a motivational poster or, I dunno, someone's copy of the cover of the Michigan Daily from early January, 1998. Who am I to judge?

Of course, people can come to a general consensus on some art based on a particular work's evocation, effort, insight, execution, etc. For example, 90 percent of Big Ten fans who bothered to approach Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany this week think this is bad art:

<---

And apparently, the commish is listening:

"I think we have enough experience with names, and expansion and development of divisions, to know that you never, rarely, get 90 percent approval rating," Delany said during the interview. "But to get a 90 percent non-approval rating was, you know, really surprising."

Six Zero, official MGoArtist, chimed in with a professional perspective on logo creation, stressing there's a lot more that goes into a logo design than creating something that looks good on a blog. Like writing all the documentation that goes with it, and various formatting options, and vectoring. Suffice to say, your version of Paint probably isn't powerful enough to design the next official Big Ten logo, let alone the accompanying paperwork:

For example, the UM sports department probably issued a new brief last year telling everyone NOT to use the block M with 'MICHIGAN' through the middle, and not to use the one with the blue stroke, and instead use only the single color block M. It might also say you cannot add to the mark, rotate the mark, use different typography for the mark, etc etc.  All of this has to be prepared, developed, and considered so that no handling or manipulation of the logo is open to interpretation.

Here's the available literature on Michigan's logo and use. It's enough to fill a small Web site, but it's really not so much that a savvy marketing student couldn't hammer out over a Christmas Break. From Six's description, the image side doesn't seem impossible for someone with the right Photoshop/GiMP/Inkscape plugins. His point, however, is well taken: the difference between putting up a cool-looking logo on MGoBlog and designing the Big Ten's logo is the difference between coming up with the name/logo/jersey design for the H.R.M. Jack Tars ("Halifax Jacks" for short) and starting a hockey team in Nova Scotia.

Of course, none of this excuses the sad and obvious lack of effort and creativity that went into the artwork itself.

On the other end of the spectrum, 99.9 percent of MGoBlog readers who have read more than one recruiting article since coming to this site agree that this is spectacular art:

Michigan's first battery powered defensive backfield recruit is welcomed by UMAmaizinBlue, who wrote an entire "Hello:" post for this guy, including guru rankings, the Scout screenshot above, offers, high school stats, fake 40 time, and Video? Video!!! Just put this thing on Lock-Down mode and watch all of your metaphors come true:

"His hips are always on a swivel: no seriously, his hips are welded to a swivel. As a result, Michigan Robot can allow his body to follow a tackle through to completion even if he doesn't get the initial stop on first contact, which never happens, so disregard that. How is this guy even legally eligible to play against humans?"

If you made it this far without clicking any of the above links to this excellent diary, my advice is click. This is what good art looks like: well thought out, satirical, pointed, and brilliantly executed. This is your Diarist of the Week.

And speaking of high art, y'all are gonna have a cow…

…for your weekly monuMental wallpaper. If you're heading south this New Year's, your standard MSU (YTMSU) jokes still apply.

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* To be perfectly honest, I love the Chagall.

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Oh Right, We Have Another Football Game!

As such, we continue with our regularly scheduled obsessing over Michigan's next football opponent. Obsessed Guy Number One, please step forward…

BlueSeoul: (waves) Hello.

Obsessed Guy Number One is a Wolverine-American wordslinger from Dictionopolis in the Kingdom of Wisdom, who enjoys watching Mississippi State's 2010 entire season and then shooting off game notes in bullets, to varying degrees of graphicality (yes, Windows Live Writer spellchecker, I made that word up). The barrage continues this week with Alcorn State (with pics), Florida, Alabama-Birmingham, and Alabama.

Thank you, Obsessed Guy Number One. Obsessed Guy Number Two, please step out here…

Enjoy Life: (thumbs up). Glad to be back.

Obsessed Guy Number Two is a maize and blue number cruncher from Digitopolis in the Kingdom of Wisdom. By this I mean he likes to take numbers and crunch them down so that hundreds of digits will fit in a diary-width graph:

A satisfying, tasty, mint-berry crunch.

EJ's weekly rundown of college football's sabermetrics predicts Miss St. a 5-point favorite. It's inspiring work, as it inspired this next guy too. Obsessed Guy Number Three, come on down…

Misopogon's bolded subconscious: Free Mo! Free Mo! Free Mo!

Miss St. Preview, and Bowl Watchability Index Using FEI

Remember last week when I used the Fremeau Efficiency Index from Football Outsiders and used it to calculate Bowl Watchability? At the time, the point of this exercise was twofold:

• Cheating at my (ESPN confidence) office bowl game pool.*
• Calculating how to maximize my enjoyment of Misopogal's 2.4 football games per week limit before asking why I spend so much time watching football in the bedroom instead of Real Housewives shows with her.

Then I realized the stats lend themselves very well toward predicting what the Miss St. game will look like as compared to other FBS Michigan opponents from 2010.

First, the Watchability Index revisited. I compared each bowl by three metrics of things I think make for a fun bowl-watching experience:

1. COMP: Competitive (how close are the opponents in FEI?)
2. PERF: Quality of opponents (total FEI of opponents combined)
3. OFF: Lots of offense (each team's OFEI plus opponent's DFEI combined)

Google spreadsheet lives here. You can mentally add a 4th for Big Ten games and a 5th for stupid names (Chick-fil-A is a stupid name). I'm trying to make this universal. The numbers are percentiles, a 0 to 100 scale, so high is always better. The results:

Changes from previous: we look a lot more competitive when you put it that way. There's a lot of bowls with good matchups but our matchup is much closer to Arkansas/Ohio State than Alabama/Michigan State in how confident you should be of the outcome. On the other hand, the teams are decidedly middling.

The big question on my mind is where Miss. St. falls among our other opponents this year. So I did that too. I pulled comparisons of each opponent's O versus our D, their D versus our O, and their total efficiency versus ours. Field Position and Field Goals are there too. FCS opponents are removed. The results are all zero-ed at Michigan's numbers, so negative means we're better than them at this, and positive means they're that much better than us at it:

Wow does this ever tell the story of this year: our offense is better than any defense we faced, sometimes murderously so; our defense was worse than any offense we faced except for a MACrifice and a Purdue team whose plan for the Michigan game was to use their 3rd string running back with a gimp leg at QB and have him pass to the quarterback with a broken hand except then the RB/QB guy got injured on the first play. Field position was terrible except against…Indiana? And we never met a team who was a tenth as bad at kicking field goals as we are.

So in Total FEI, Mississippi State is a slightly better Illinois, and marginally behind Notre Dame:

Both games on either side of MSU were very close wins. We have one loss on a terrible performance below it, and other than ND no wins above it. Michigan is actually in an FEI virtual tie with BCS-by-segfault UConn (fact: Rich Rod teams would dominate in the Big East), so beating ND and Illinois were both reaches for us. But this thing is winnable.

MSU Offense vs. Michigan's Defense:

This is good news. Their offense is going to be among the worst we've faced, slightly below Penn State's half-McGloin/half-disaster total. If you look at the first chart with all the OFEI versus our DFEI, you can see this still makes their offense better than our defense (only BG and Purdue could be counted on to shoot themselves in the foot). If anything, this number is probably low for Miss St., since their offense relies heavily on a mooseback quarterback and the SEC West is the home of large and ponderous front sevens who depress the efficacy of moosebacks. Still, this is not Wisconsin's attack, nor the MSU/OSU slow murder. Maybe bump them up mentally to Illinois, but no further.

MSU Defense vs. Michigan's Offense:

The story of our defense is told above. Some teams we could simply run all over. Some gave us a few fits. Some were actually capable of stopping us. MSU is very much in the latter:

After Ohio State, this is the most efficient defense we've faced, according to FEI. They're not Ohio State, but rather indistinguishable from Iowa and Michigan State, two teams who ostensibly looked good against Michigan. Except, really, we were fine at moving the ball against those guys as they played bend-don't-break against us until we got to the red zone and inevitably threw an interception or Lewan got flagged for a false start or something. Forcier shredded Iowa in the just-short comeback. And neither of those defenses should be anything like what Mississippi State throws at us. As Brian's been pointing out, MSU is a blitz-happy squad, whereas MSU and Iowa defended against Denard by sitting back and trusting their linebackers and DEs to contain Denard. The blitziest opponent we faced this year has to be Notre Dame, but then they had the most success against our offense when the Irish stopped blitzing and went to a disguised 4-man front. This is as bad a matchup for MSU's defense as our defense is for their spread-n-moose offense. I expect them to look more like Notre Dame; if they stick to what they do best and send blitzers against Denard the whoop-master, well, good luck with that.

Special Teams:

This doesn't get its own chart, but it's kind of encouraging in a kind of we've been to hell so what's Guantanamo kind of way. Little Miss State over here is in the Penn State/Iowa/Illinois field position range of better-than-M-but-so-is-everybody-else. HOWEVEA, in field goals they're the worst team we've faced since Bowling Green (who was using our old kickoff specialist. In kicking competence, they're probably good for 3 more points this game than Michigan will get.

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* Guess what, readers from my office: I updated my picks after the latest FEI rankings came out, so if you're using my own table to beat me, yours was made with old data. Also, what's with like four people naming their entries some form of "I want Harbaugh"?

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Other Adventures in the Tollbooth World

As we travel through the country of Wisdom, this week witnessed some great analytical work on dogging questions from the Rich Rod era and college football in general.

Is There a Barwis Effect?

You will come here. You will be destroyed. You will be rebuilt. You will be Barwisized. User bonobojones did the single most interesting thing yet with those weight stats that we have in plenty but are hard to glean any useful information from beyond "look how much the hog-mollies weigh at Wisconsin." This highly intelligent primate, who is unfairly hard on himself for something so interesting, takes three years of team weights and discovers there is a Barwis effect of losing bad weight and gaining good weight demonstrated in our players' progressions. Players tend to lose weight or gain it marginally from freshman to sophomore years, then gain quickly as upperclassmen. This was especially true, it seems, on defense. It's not nearly enough data to support a conclusion, but he offers one for the sake of argument:

Looking at the large changes taking place with OL, DL, and LB, it's obvious that these players should not be playing young. Or at least we should not be judging them so much based on performance in their first couple of years.

With over 100 comments, the argument has been healthy.

Does Time of Possession Mean Better Defense?

SmithersJoe came in with a graph-heavy breakdown of time of possession and how it relates to defensive efficiency (again, using Fremeau). In an addendum, he tried again to find a correlation in number of offensive possessions and defensive efficiency, to see if the style of offense has an effect. In both: not statistically significant:

What this says to me is that there are too many variables that influence how a defense performs; one cannot boil it down to a simple thing like Time of Possession (or experience on a depth chart, for that matter). All of those factors may play a part, but no one individual factor is significantly correlated to a team’s performance on defense. Football is just too complex to boil down into simplistic truisms.

Is Experience Necessary for Good Play?

The post linked in the above quote is that from ebv this week which takes a fresh look at experience independent from talent to see if gross years on a team make a big difference for how a defense or offense performs. The results: again, not statistically significant.

Translation: if this mattered a lot, the dots should look kind of like they're bunching around an imaginary line that angles from lower-left to upper-right. Rather, it's just…spotty. The other thing spotty about this: the blue crosshairs that represent Michigan show us to be an above-average team in experience. Wait…what?

Is it possible that we need more variables to make sense of this data?  (Any stat experts know whether you can underestimate an effect by having too few variables?)  It’s also possible that an interaction between several variables might provide a good explanation for our data; for example we might need experience, NFL-worthy talent and great coaching to produce an elite defense, but none of the three alone will do it.

Or it could be the obvious: you're giving as much credit to a team starting Adam Patterson and Courtney Avery (=2.5) as one starting two 5-stars, one a junior and another a sophomore, both whom started the year previous. But keep checking in on ebv's work here, because it sounds like he's building a good database that will yield some results once stuff like this is accounted for. My feeling is you need to judge performance versus expectation (based on Rivals Rating). You can pretty simply total up the recruiting average (dropping the lowest 25 percent of results from each class?) for each unit and compare that with FEI. Then see how much the difference between RR and FEI correlates to academic year.

Till next week, folks, stay out of the Doldroms.

Rich Rodriguez met with the press prior to practice today, discussing preparations for the Gator Bowl. I'll update with video when it's ready to go. For the record, I saw two recruits of note at the practice - 2011 MI CB Raymon Taylor and 2012 MI LB Hunter Matt. Justice Hayes tweeted that he would be there, but he must have arrived after I left for the basketball game.

Actual News

The guys who are out for the whole season (Martavious Odoms, Mike Jones, et al) aren't going to play in the bowl game. Some of them are practicing with limited contact though. Devin Gardner will seek a medical redshirt, and that process will begin immediately following the bowl game. Tae Odoms got injured too late in the year to apply for a medical redshirt.

Darryl Stonum, Junior Hemingway, and Denard Robinson should all be fully healthy. Je'Ron Stokes is close, though he didn't practice with full contact today. Vincent Smith, Michael Shaw, Stephen Hopkins, and (are you sitting down?) Fitzgerald Toussaint [Ed-M: Now pitching for Detroit, Joel Zumaya...] are all healthy.

The kicking game is still being worked out. The competition is between Brendan Gibbons, Seth Broekhuizen, and Kris Pauloski. It's hard to evaluate them, because "they kick like champions in here." Indoors, they haven't had any trouble. Hopefully, they'll practice outside once in Ann Arbor before traveling to Jacksonville.

Grades won't be posted until about Christmas. The staff doesn't know yet if any players will miss the bowl game due to academic issues, but they don't anticipate that anyone will have trouble. "I think guys are working hard at it. I expect a really good semester academically."

The team has been mostly having a spring practice-type practice schedule. They've focused a little bit on Mississippi State, but they'll mostly worry about that once they get to Florida. With the game on a Saturday, they should have a normal game week schedule in Jacksonville.

Today was a physical practice with full tackling. The guys need to get a chance to have some physical play in the long layoff.

The team has practice the morning of the 22nd, then players go home for Christmas. On the 26th, the team will fly charter down to Jacksonville. Some players will join the team down there instead of coming back to Ann Arbor first. There's a practice the afternoon of the 26th.

Rich's staff evaluations will come after the bowl game. He is always evaluating coordinators and position coaches, offering suggestions, etc.

The Will Campbell/Quinton Washington swap will stick as a permanent change.

Mississippi State

Coach Rod had a few chances to watch Mississippi State during the season. "Watching how aggressive their defense is, they bring a lot of different pressures, they're very aggressive, blitzing-wise, very athletic defensively. Offensively, they're similar to us in some respects. They'll probably run in between the tackles more because they've got a bigger quarterback."

The Bulldogs played well much of the year, and impressed in their wins, but also some of their losses. "They probably did the best job of anybody all year against Cam Newton and Auburn. I think by far they did the best job defensively against him."

Everybody's spread is a little bit different, but it's possible to learn what Mississippi State might do against Denard by seeing what they did against Cam Newton. There's been a lot of time for the team to prepare some new things, however.

Jeremy Gallon is simulating Chris Relf in practice. "He's a good runner; they have a good runner at quarterback."

Recruiting

After practice ended today, the assistant coaches hit the road recruiting. The contact period ends after the weekend, and the staff has done a good job balancing bowl preparation with recruiting. There should be 19-20 recruits in the class. It's "a little bit of a fluid situation," but Rich expects 2-4 recruits to enroll early.

The staff combats negative recruiting about their job status by focusing on their relationships with the recruits. "They feel comfortable with our coaches and what we're telling them, and obviously the school."

"You don't know until the first Wednesday in February exactly what your class is gonna entail, and you probably don't really know for another year or two how that class is gonna turn out." There's too much focus in the media on recruiting classes before we know how good the players will be in college."

Etc.

Denard's "legs seem fresher." He also had a lingering shoulder problem later in the year, and "I think his arm feels a lot better as well."

Since many of Michigan's players haven't played in a bowl game before, the upperclassmen have the responsibility of making sure the young guys understand how to handle a bowl game, and how to prepare for one. "We've talked about - quite a bit, I'll remind them at the beginning of every day - about keeping the main thing, which is going down there to win the game."

Michigan's players from Florida are excited that their families will be able to come see them play (though most have been to a game in the Big House). Everybody gets six tickets so a lot of those guys are trying to get the extras that their teammates won't use.

Sometimes it feels like Rich has been coaching at Michigan for a long time, and sometimes it feels like time has just flown by. He can see the progress in individual players and the program on the whole. Guys like Kevin Koger, Patrick Omameh, Steve Schilling, and David Molk are extensions of the coaching staff.

Practice was open to the media today because Rich wanted the opportunity to give some access before going down to Jacksonville. "I wanted to see if y'all had any questions - especially in a positive manner."

Several young guys who are redshirting have caught Rich's eye during practices. Josh Furman "a big safety/outside linebacker... He looks like he's going to be a real good player." Defensive line standouts: "Richard Ash and some of those guys look like they're going to be good in the future as well."

Rich had been mostly unaware of the "controversy" surrounding the Big Ten division names. "I guess I should know which one is ours." He likes using the past greats to name the conference awards.

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Michigan has quietly put together a solid start to the 2010-11 season, with a small handful of games against top competition amongst blowouts over the weaker sections of Division 1. Oakland, on the other hand, has been tested in nearly every game this year, losing to top-20 competition in West Virginia, Purdue, Illinois, and Michigan State before finally getting a showcase win against Tennessee on Tuesday. All of those were on the road except the Michigan State game, played at the Palace of Auburn Hills, a "neutral site" that skewed pro-Spartans.

The Golden Grizzlies are tested, and not a team Michigan can bully around in Crisler Arena tomorrow. They have to be concerned about the inverse. Oakland has an excellent duo in 6-11 center Keith Benson, a likely NBA Draft pick this spring, and diminutive junior guard Reggie Hamilton. PF Will Hudson has good size at 6-9 and leads the team in eFG% without attempting a single 3-pointer. With a number of capable role players to round out the roster (though erstwhile Wolverine Laval Lucas-Perry is ineligible to compete until next season), this is a solid squad.

Michigan, meanwhile, has had a nasty habit playing to the level of their competition--which has been mostly down. Their last time out was an uninspiring performance against North Carolina Central which featured abysmal shooting and indecisive offense, especially against zone. A young team like the 2010-11 Wolverines could use an early confidence booster, but Oakland may not provide it. With a win over the Golden Grizzlies, Michigan has a good chance to play themselves into the NIT during the Big Ten season.

Tempo-Free Breakdown

With a few games under each team's belt, it's finally reasonable to look at the stats. If you need an explanation of the stats, check out Ken Pomeroy.

Difference of more than 10 places in the national rankings get a 1-letter advantage, more than 100 gets a 2-letter advantage, more than 200 gets a 3-letter advantage, etc.

Oakland's tempo-free numbers aren't that impressive, but considering the schedule they've been doing it against, they're performing well. Michigan has a big advantage in holding onto the ball, while the Grizzlies have an advantage in not sending Michigan to the line.

The size of Oakland may give Michigan troubles, as the interior defense has been OK at best for most of the year. Drawing charges early against Utah got Jason Washburn and David Foster into foul trouble early, negating Michigan's height disadvantage. If they can get Oakland's talented big man into trouble early, they should be able to succeed on both ends of the court with Benson on the bench. Michigan's depth among big men has improved with the emergence of Jon Horford, so they can afford giving up a couple fouls trying to draw charges.

Making good decisions offensively will be another key for the Wolverines. Though they haven't been turning the ball over much, shot selection has been questionable lately. Players were passing on open shots against NC Central, and then forcing well-defended shots later in the shot clock. Taking what's available will make the offense run much more smoothly.

Predictions

Oakland isn't going to come into Crisler Arena scared of the atmosphere. They've played in tougher venues several times this year (and against better teams, too). However, they may be out of gas early in the game, and have a letdown from finally getting that big-name win (or even a look-ahead to Ohio State on Thursday). At the first TV timeout, I think Michigan will have a small lead.

However, by halftime, I think the Grizzlies will have settled into a groove, so Michigan will have to get the confidence rolling early, knock down some shots, and hopefully get out on the break a little bit. The game should be within a couple possessions either way at the half.

The Wolverines have a tough task to handle against the best post player they've seen so far, and this will probably be the first time we see a Wolverine foul out this season. That means more evenly-distributed minutes than we've seen lately among the big men, an a lot more Colton Christian.

At the end of the day, I think Michigan's players and coaches will have good focus in preparation for this game, as they understand its importance. This could be the difference between the NIT or no postseason. That motivation, and the biggest crowd we've seen at Crisler this year (tickets available here) will help the Wolverines pull out the win, by a 69-62 score.

Elsewhere

Golden Grizzlies Gameplan previews the game, and UMHoops talks with Corey about the game. There's also the usual preview from UMHoops.