Diaries

“THEY CAME TO PLAY: A GEOGRAPHIC SURVERY OF WOLVERINE FOOTBALL FRESHMEN”

(Thanks should go to Yo_Blue for catching the error in the title - now corrected. My fail there.)

Since 1960, there have been 1,695 individuals who began their first year at the University of Michigan as a student and as a freshman listed on the football roster. They may not have necessarily seen action, and some of them did not stay the whole time, but they came here first – they came to play for the Wolverines.

One thing I will note now is that, going back as far as I wanted, I decided to simply use freshmen on the roster and not break it down between walk-on, scholarship athlete and someone who simply survived tryouts, if in fact those were available in a given year. It would be interesting, however, to do a narrower version of this survey and look at scholarship targets specifically, in part because you might see how rule changes through the years affected where we went to recruit players.

It will come as no surprise to anyone that the largest contingent of this select group came from the state of Michigan. To be exact, 714 of them called Michigan their home when they came to campus, and indeed, some of them probably could have walked from their parents’ house to the stadium, for there are several from Ann Arbor.

The second biggest contributor of freshmen to the Wolverines also will not shock anyone, and that is our neighbor to the south and slightly east – Ohio. Since 1960, the state of Ohio has sent 340 freshmen in our direction. Rounding out the top five, you also have Illinois (158), Pennsylvania (63) and Florida (56). As you will see later, however, the distribution has changed significantly from decade to decade, and only recently has the state of Michigan climbed back into a commanding spot at the top.

Below those, you will find Indiana, Texas and California, then a steady progression towards the seven states that, in the studied period, sent us a single freshman. There are even a few states as exotic as Idaho and Vermont that haven’t sent us a single player in all that time, if ever. Perhaps we should consider scouting Vermont, right? *ducks*

Another interesting trend that appears as you look at the tables by decade is the expansion of our recruiting footprint and reach. In the 1960s, Michigan’s freshmen can from 20 states and Canada, whereas the footprint in the last decade or so spans 31 states as well as Canada. I created a table where you can sort of see the shift as time passes as well.

DATA:

In this first series of tables and graphs, you will find the overall number of freshmen by state in both bar graph and pie chart form, as well as a table with overall percentages and a table which shows the pattern by location as well as by decade.

The 1960s - BAR GRAPH AND TABLE

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The 1970s - BAR GRAPH AND TABLE

The 1980s - BAR GRAPH AND TABLE

The 1990s - BAR GRAPH AND TABLE

2000-PRESENT - BAR GRAPH AND TABLE

EXTREMELY BRIEF DISCUSSION:

Even looking at this in a broad view, you can observe shifts and see “gates” open and close, possibly do the influence of other conferences and schools gaining prominence through the years, at least in their home regions. It is rather my hope to leave this one a bit open-ended so people can make their own observations here.

OBLIGATORY:

I, like some other folks out there, took a bit of umbrage with Urban’s open criticism of the other B1G coaches for failing (at least in his eyes) in their recruiting because the SEC has almost all its schools in the Top 25 and apparently that is the only thing that matters.  So I wondered what a closer examination of the results might say about how the B1G did comparatively to other conferences when considering more than simply the total score that a site gives based on number of recruits and their number of stars.  I wanted to look at where the recruits come from and how much of an advantage certain schools may have because the easiest hunting is always in your back yard. 

For a bit of background, I went to Scout and compiled the 2013 recruits (home state and Scout ranking) who committed to schools in the ACC, B1G, Big East, Big XII, Independents (BYU and ND), PAC12 and SEC.  As it turns out, this was a major pain in the butt.  I was planning to include the other 3 services in this my first foray into sports “analysis”, but based on the amount of time Scout took and considering I wanted to at least get something out in a week, that was not going to happen with completing time demands from a job and girlfriend.  Anyway, now that I have my excuses out of the way, down to it!

In addition to the location and ranking of recruits, I divided the US into conference footprints to get an idea of where the talent lies.

Chart?  Chart. (I always wanted to say that!)

As you can see, there is a hefty amount of talent in the SEC with over 1/3 of the 5*s coming from those states (BTW, I considered Texas as Big XII and Georgia/South Carolina as SEC although the SC designation could arguably be considered ACC country).  Here is the same chart with percentages which expresses the advantage more plainly. 

Well that just confirms the obvious.  Next I looked at how the respective conferences performed in the final tally with recruit signings.

As you can see the ACC…not so good and well Big East, but talk about stating the obvious.  This chart shows that the ACC only landed 7% of the 5*s in this class (according to Scout) whereas they had 14% of the 5*s in their conference footprint.  The other conferences pretty much performed close to where they should, save the Big XII 5*s .  But this still doesn’t tell the whole story since you can’t see if all the ACC’s 5* recruits came from the ACC footprint. 

Next I looked at how well conferences held on to home grown talent, let’s call it “retention”.  I’ll use the ACC as an example since this table is repeated for each major conference.

As you can see, of the 6 5*s in the ACC footprint (see first chart), only 1 signed with an ACC school (17%).  To prevent chart overload (is there such a thing?) I consolidated all the conferences results into one chart which is below.

I was a little surprised that the PAC12 did REALLY well in retaining their talent with the SEC doing the next best.  So looks like Urbs might be right that the recruiting didn’t go so well for the conference and the B1G needs to step up the effort.  But there is another side to this coin and it is something I called “poaching”. 

I defined poaching as a recruit who commits to a school outside of his hometown’s conference footprint (ex. Green from ACC land going to Michigan).  Again, I’ll use the ACC as an example. 

ACC schools inked 2 5*s from outside of their footprint from an available pool of 36 5*s which is 6%.  Again, the consolidated chart.

This time the SEC is top dog but the B1G did a pretty good job of poaching talent from other areas compared to the other conferences.  Interesting that the PAC12 is very strong at retention but not so good at poaching, but if you don’t need to hunt in your neighbor’s yard, why bother?  

I am left with a couple take aways from this.  First, the SEC has an unparalleled advantage when it comes to quantity and quality of recruits.  Second, the PAC12 is awesome at keeping talent who are in their footprint.  Those two factors combined create an uphill battle for the other conferences that are not flush with recruiting riches.  Although there is some truth to Urb’s statement, I disagree with the rather dire assessment of the B1G’s recruiting performance.  The retention of talent could certainly increase which should be a focus (Hoke’s emphasis), but the schools aren’t slouches when competing for guys who are not in the B1G footprint and in fact are one of the better conferences at doing so.

For even more detail, I examined the schools in the B1G because I wanted to see how significant the Big 2 - Little 10 (soon to be 12) is developing in the recruiting realm but I don’t think anyone will be surprised with those results.  However, this post is already too long and that could give me a chance to make follow up post if folks felt this was worthwhile.   

Note: I know these rankings are a little simple, so if you want to know how I'd personally rank these classes, my favorite method is The Mathlete's. 

It was a relatively quiet Signing Day, but there was still some movement in the B1G rankings, especially at the bottom of the board. While the top five remained steady, Purdue leaped from 10th up to 5th and Indiana jumped to 9th, leaving a couple big names (and Minnesota) to bring up the rear. Changes since last rankings:

2-3-13: Purdue picks up Keith Byars II.
2-4-13: Ohio State picks up Dontre Wilson. Purdue picks up Dalyn Dawkins. Wisconsin picks up Tanner McEvoy. Minnesota picks up Daletavious McGhee.
2-5-13: Nebraska picks up Dwayne Johnson. Purdue picks up TyVel Jemison. Iowa picks up Reggie Spearman. Wisconsin picks up Donnell Vercher. Minnesota picks up Donovahn Jones.
2-6-13: Notre Dame picks up Eddie Vanderdoes. Ohio State picks up Vonn Bell and James Clark. Taivon Jacobs decommits from Ohio State (Maryland). Maryland picks up Taivon Jacobs and Jacquille Veii. Purdue picks up Da'Wan Hunte. Iowa picks up Jonathan Parker. Indiana picks up Maurice Swain, Laray Smith, and Chris Cormier. Nigel Tribune decommits from Indiana (Iowa State). Minnesota picks up De'Vondre Campbell.
2-7-13: Johnny Townsend decommits from Ohio State (Florida).

Chart? Chart:

^The average of the average rankings of the four recruiting services (the previous four columns). The figure is calculated based on the raw numbers and then rounded, so the numbers above may not average out exactly.

*The product of number of Commits and Average Average

NOTE: Unranked recruits are counted as two-star players.

On to the full data after the jump.

  19-4 (9-2)

Wins vs Top 100

Losses

Starting Five

FR. Gary Harris. G. 6'4" 205lbs.

12.7 PTS. 4.6 3PA. 43% 3PT.

JR. Keith Appling. G. 6'1" 190lbs.

14.1 PTS. 4.1 AST. 3.5 REB

SO. Branden Dawson. F. 6'6" 230lbs.

10.9 PTS. 6.5 REB. 1.8 STL

JR. Adreian Payne. F. 6'10" 240lbs.

9.5 PTS. 6.8 REB. 1.2 BLK.

SR. Derrick Nix. F. 6'9" 270lbs.

9.2 PTS. 6.3 REB. 52% FG.

Key Bench Players

FR, Denzel Valentine. G. 6'5" 220lbs.

21.0 MIN. 5.3 PTS. 4.0 REB.

SO. Travis Trice. G. 6'0" 170lbs. (Has not played last two games)

20.2 MIN. 5.5 PTS. 3.2 3PA. 41% 3PT.

How they compare to Big Ten

The Good

1st - ST/Game (8.63)

3rd - FG% (47%)

3rd - FT% (71%)

4th - 3PT% (36%)

The Bad

11th - TO/Game (13.7)

9th - Asst/TO (1.01)

8th - Off Reb (11)

Part one last weekend: http://mgoblog.com/diaries/look-big-ten-remaining-schedules

WARNING:

This is long- if you don't like that move on....

First up current standings:

....shakes fist at Wisconsin.....

Next- upcoming schedules, with some scheudle notes:

You may have noticed from last week I dropped Minnesota.  With 5-losses their odds of competing for a crown have faded too far to include them this time around.

NOTES:

Projected wins and losses are done by better than 50% or worse than 50% to win that game.  After each team’s write-up I will delve into deeper odds (since most teams win/lose unpredictable games obviously- and you can project which games those could be)- so the projected final is if every expected win is a win and every expected loss is a loss...

INDIANA:

Projected Wins: NEB, PURD, @ MINN, IOWA, OSU

Projected Losses: @MSU, @ MICH

Simplified Projected Final: 14-4

Middle of the pack schedule of remaining teams- road games at Michigan and Michigan State are very tough- they win one or both of those their chances of winning the conference shoot up.  Sleeper games- At Minnesota, and OSU and Iowa at home- all are possible L’s- they let any of those games slip their chance at the title could slip with it.

MSU:

Projected Wins: MICH, @ NEB, IND, WISC, NW

Projected Losses: @ OSU, @ UM

Simplified Projected Final: 14-4

Hardest schedule of remaining teams- at least 3 of the 5 games against top 5 are at home- but all three of those home games- Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin are all very, very losable.  Road games at Ohio St. and at Michigan are both likely losses.  Their 14-4 projection is a little tenuous.  While they are favored in my opinion in the three top home games my guess is that there is a slightly better than 50-50 chance one of those becomes losses and they end at 13-5.

MICH:

Projected Wins: PSU, ILL, @ PSU, MSU, @ PURD, IND

Projected Losses: @MSU

Simplified Projected Final: 14-4

Bold potentially, but the schedule is Michigan’s friend relative to other top-5 teams.  Splitting against MSU seems likely, and the final home game against Indiana very well could decide the conference.  Sleeper game is at Purdue, maybe home at Illinois fighting for the tournament at-large.  PSU twice is a very pleasant upcoming stretch.

WISC:

Projected Wins: @ NW, NEB, PURD, @ PSU

Projected Losses: @ MINN, OSU, @ MSU

Simplified Projected Final: 12-6

Maybe a little low on Wisconsin because of sheer madness of thinking about the last game but I think they have a tougher chance at winning the conference.  Their projected wins are all safe bets- although home at Purdue could be a sleeper game.  Home at OSU I think they lose because I think OSU is a very good team, and will guard the 3’s better than we did- and I don’t think they have an answer for Thomas- they lost at Ohio State by nine and even though the next game will likely be close I say they lose.  At Minnesota very well could be a win- but I think Minnesota will be playing for a lot in that game and will hold out at home.  At MSU seems very likely to be a loss.

OSU:

Projected Wins: NW, @ WISC, MINN, MSU, @ NW, ILL

Projected Losses: @ IND

Projected Final: 13-5

Another bold predicted finish.  Although I favor them against Wisconsin on the road and MSU at home it is 50-50 or so one will be a loss.  At Indiana will likely be a loss, and home against an Illinois team fighting for the tournament and away at NW could be tough- as could Minnesota.  They have a tough schedule- but are the favorites in most of them.  If they hold onto all of the games I have them favored in they could definitely compete; however, they have a lot of tough games that could be road blocks for them.  Plus, with 4 losses already they are realistically shooting for a split crown most likely.

OVERALL:

 I have a 3 way tie at 14-4 in conference with Indiana, MSU, and Michigan.  But all 14-4 projections are not equal.

One, Indiana and MSU are projected to lose 2 games and UM (OSU also) only 1.  Projecting fewer losses always leaves more room for error.  Even though Wisconsin’s schedule is easier than most of the other top-5’s I do see them falling off. 

MSU has likely the hardest schedule left.  5 games against the top-5, but only two on the road; however, those are the two I see them losing (OSU and Michigan).  I think those are most likely losses, and the chance they lose 1 out of: Michigan at home, Indiana at home, and Wisconsin at home seem decently high.

Indiana also has a tough schedule.  They close at Michigan a distinct disadvantage in that it is the hardest last game of a top-5 (although Michigan home against Indiana obviously is close).  Losing at Michigan and Michigan State seems most likely.  At Minnesota and home against OSU/Iowa/Purdue could all be tricky though.  They could also win one of the games (or both) in the state of Michigan however, so their 14-4 to me seems more likely than MSU’s.

Michigan has perhaps the easiest schedule (Wisconsin could be a bit easier) which is why I have one more loss predcted.  Unfortunately it is the next game- @ MSU.  I have predicted wins at home against MSU and Indiana as well- both of which are hard games.  The rest is easier- 2 games against PSU, and home against Illinois are likely wins, and @ Purdue is hard but winnable.  I actually think Michigan finishing with a loss or less is as likely or better than both MSU and Indiana due to the schedule.

OSU is the other team I said has 1 loss- but they will be hard pressed to do it.  The @ Indiana game is the projected loss; however, the odds of them losing at least one of: @ Wisconsin, Minnesota, MSU, or Illinois seem to be high.  So they have the hardest chances in my opinion to win the conference- particularly outright of any team besides Wisconsin. 

Wisconsin may have the easiest schedule looking at top-5 games (only 2); however, those games (OSU at home and @ MSU) are both games I think they are more likely to lose.  Plus, the next game, @ Minnesota they have likely slightly better than 50% chance of losing.  Although the rest of the schedule: NW home and away, Nebraska t home, Purdue at home, and at PSU seem very likely to be wins- and although they could lose 1- most likely @ NW or home at Purdue they should be able to win all of those- and to win the conference they have to.

OVERALL ODDS:

Note: I give the odds I estimate as well as the most likely outcome to reach that won-lost record.

In conclustion (if you have read this far):

I see very little chance of MSU or IND winning out- obviously if they do they win the conference.

I see three teams with a shot at 3 losses (Wisconsin not so much)- in Michigan, Indiana, and Michigan State.  None of these teams are likely to go 15-3 in my opinion- with Michigan a 5% chance, MSU twice that, and Indiana 3 times that.

Most likely the winner (or co-champs) will be 14-4.  All three of Michigan, Indiana, and Michigan State have a 50% chance of going 14-4.  So I have Indiana as a slight favorite, followed closely by Michigan State and Michigan.  OSU with 4-losses already is unlikely to win with a 2 game hole, and Wisconsin I see as falling off a bit, and only having a very outside chance at splitting a championship at 14-4.  There are so many tough games left that it's possible 13-5 may be co-champ worthy again- but with two 9-2 teams, and Michigan's schedule it seems very unlikely- although you never know with the BigTen and looking at all the hard games remaining it is possible we see a lot of upsets ahead.

Hope you all enjoyed- and GO BLUE!!!!  If we win at Michigan State coming up be very very pumped- and if we lose don't be do disheartened- the odds are still good for us if we can split with MSU and hold on at home against Indiana.  Also thank god for playing PSU twice!!!

In the style of

Yankees Fans: The Stories Behind the Gif

Kevin Johnson arrived in Ann Arbor in the fall of 2007. The first athletic event he attended would forever shape the rest of his 6 years on the University of Michigan campus. Kevin found himself jumping up and down with joy on a typical Ann Arbor fall Saturday afternoon as Mario Manningham was dragged down after receiving a 46-yd pass from Chad Henne in what assuredly was going to be the key in avoiding an embarrassment of epic proportions. When Mountaineer Corey Lynch blocked the would-be game winning field goal, every Wolverine fan was stunned. Kevin, however, fell into a deep depression.

Kevin would go on to attend Michigan football and basketball games with regularity. The 2008 return to the NCAA tournament was just a slight reprieve from what was a year of routine disappointment for Kevin. By sophomore year, Kevin attempted to live the life of a regular UM student. Kevin settled on a political science major, hung out with friends and held down a campus job. Still, the pain from the Horror of 2007 stuck with Kevin. By the time graduation came in 2011, Kevin was at a loss. His inability to move past the Horror resulted in his girlfriend dumping him.  After failed internship interview after failed internship interview, Kevin decided that grad school was his only choice.

In the fall of 2011, Kevin enrolled in Law School with a renewed vigor and things started to look up. Michigan football exceeded expectations in Brady Hoke’s first year and Kevin began dating Annie – who he quickly fell in love with. The following summer was full of promise, though Kevin still worried – was he past the unmentionable start to his college career? As the penultimate semester concluded Kevin’s life again was thrown into shambles. After an intense outburst following Michigan’s loss to Ohio State, Annie left Kevin, saying she could never date a man who put a sports team ahead of his girlfriend. Parents and friends warned Kevin of his impending massive debt and grim career prospects in the law field. The malaise returned, with no end in sight.

Still, Kevin kept going to athletic events. On February 5, 2013 Kevin witnessed the unthinkable – a Michigan basketball program cement itself as the nation’s top team. After six tumultuous years, it was suddenly worth it. As if the heavens said “All your travails have been for this moment. Enjoy it, my son.” Kevin would walk home on air that night, proudly wearing his banana suit. There was nothing in the world that could hold him back.

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Feel free to add the stories of the other characters in what will be the greatest story told on MGoBlog since the Naked Banner Guy.