devin gardner

Cracks in Fort Schembechler

This week we got a couple of very short glimpses into the otherwise locked-down existence of Michigan football. Normally under the current regime, we don't hear or see much of anything between the end of Spring ball and the beginning of fall practice unless a player is hit by a meteor (i.e. "suffered some off-season setbacks"), gets arrested ("has some learning to do"), or gets frozen in carbonite ("has struggled to get in game shape"). So when you get six seconds of live-action footage, YOU TAKE IT.

Enter: Devin Gardner's Vine account.

THINGS WE LEARNED:

• Fitz still has two legs. Those legs can support the weight of a human being as that human being does various physical activities. MEDICAL SCIENCE: HOW DOES IT WORK?
• Fitz has some dance moves. I have no idea what kind of moves, mind you... but they are moves nonetheless.
• Jeremy Gallon hates shirts
• Gallon's cloaking device still works, and is so now effective that the coaches have insisted that he carry a bell around with him so he can't sneak up on people anymore.

THINGS WE LEARNED:

• If you hang around on State Street long enough, Blake Countess and Devin Gardner will entertain you.
• Countess can do a standing back-handspring back-tuck.
• When Countess does a standing back-handspring back-tuck, I try to spot him through the computer screen so he won’t get hurt.
• Most urgently, the only logical explanation for this video is that the surgeons must have botched Blake Countess's surgery. It's kinda like Rookie of the Year, except instead of gaining a wicked fastball, Countess has lost the ability to backpedal. The only way he can move backwards is through some combination of back handsprings and back tucks. And sure, that might work on short and intermediate routes, but what of the deep ball? Even if he gets back there, he'll be too dizzy to make a play on the ball. No, no, no, this is all wrong.

[Side note: Countess is not the first Michigan football player with some gymnastics skillz. Brandon Graham was once a guest judge for the UofM Women's Gymnastics team's intra-squad scrimmage, and as part of that event he put together a video of himself doing some legitimate tumbling. If anyone has this video, you are needed at the Youtube. Also, it confirms Bo's lesser-known mantra that Those Who Do Gymnastics Will Be Really Good Defensive Players]

[ED: Ace has located additional backflip footage of Kenny Demens and Brandon Graham from Mock Rock 2009, starting at 2:00

]

[JUMP]

more like #gameofthrowns amirite

In ur pocket, disrupting ur mechanics. Bruce Feldman started tweeting pictures of some guy shoving a broom at Devin Gardner and I was like "er?" Turns out one George Whitfield is a famous quarterback-coaching guy. QB Yoda, if you will. The broom is an effort to break a quarterback's mechanics down:

I talked to some front office guys, scouts and coaches, and two AFC East teams did a study of pocket-passing analytics. Both teams found that 60 percent of the time the quarterback had to make some sort of adjustment or escape before getting a throw off. Only 40 percent of the time did he take the designated drop and make a clean attempt at a throw.

If that happens behind millionaire offensive linemen being coached by millionaire coaches in billionaire leagues, you don’t get any higher than that. Two in five plays.

The first thing we do with elementary-aged kids is start them throwing on the run. I don’t care about his three-step drop. You can really improve his football quality of life if you can teach that little guy how to throw on the run.

He's all about the many plays when things don't go quite right and the quarterback has to do something other than make a perfect step-up-and-throw. Gardner still has a tendency to float balls in these situations as he reverts to his wonky high school motion.

Kyle Meinke has a roundup of all the Whitfield-related stuff you may need. He seems to think Gardner is good at football:

I understand the excitement of #Michigan fans for 2013! Devin Gardner is electric. Rolled thru the Chaos training! twitter.com/georgewhitfiel…

— George Whitfield Jr. (@georgewhitfield) May 2, 2013

Hopefully he'll need less of that than an average quarterback what with Lewan and Schofield keeping him clean.

Gold in them thar hills. Continuing a theme:

Sai Tummala has decided to decline the scholarship offer from Husker Coach Tim Miles and will instead go back home and play for the Arizona State Sun Devils.

Yeah, you vaguely remember Tummala as a guy who walked on at Michigan a couple years ago. He departed for a JUCO, blew up, and was a late signing who apparently had offers from a half-dozen schools including Pitt(!) and BYU(!). John Beilein can pick 'em, man.

In other news, Nebraska's taking a look at a Finnish power forward this weekend. This is now the other half.

I no longer prospect as much though, because the gold nuggets are coming to me. Baumgardner caught up with WI SF/PF Kevon Looney's coach:

"He's definitely interested in Michigan," Looney's AAU coach, Shelby Parrish, told MLive.com. "He likes Michigan's style of play, he likes coach Beilein -- he's very interested in him."

Looney is going to cut down to five and take officials from there. Scout has also been buzzing about potential Elite Camp visits by Devin Booker and Kameron Chatman. All of those guys are in the top 40; Looney is top ten.

UMHoops talked with 2015 C Stephen Zimmerman:

Zimmerman has also been in constant contact with Michigan — he said he’s been speaking with Michigan’s coaching staff about “once or twice a week for the past three weeks.”

“I’ve been talking to them a lot more recently,” Zimmerman said. “They seem like a great coaching staff and everything. It’s a great school.”

Maybe it's the product. Bacon has a different take on the languishing interest from students in showing up for football on time:

Getting mad at your paying customers for not liking your product as much as you think they should, then punishing them for it, is probably not something they teach at Michigan’s Ross School of Business. …

But if the athletic director didn’t ask the students what they thought about the new policy, or why they arrive late or not at all, I have a few hunches.  Because tickets are so expensive now, and games take so long, the current students didn’t go when they were kids – which is when you get hooked on watching the band flying out of the tunnel and the players touching the banner.  No matter how tired or hungover we were in college, we wouldn’t think of missing those moments.

Of course, our habit formed because we knew the game was going to start at 1:05, every Saturday, for years.  Now it could be noon, or 3:30, or 8 – and sometimes they don’t tell you when until a couple weeks before the game.

Why?  TV, of course.  Which is to say, money.

Back then, we also knew Michigan would be playing a solid opponent – every game.  In Bo Schembechler’s 21 seasons, they played 77 games against non-Big Ten teams.  How many were not from major conferences?  Exactly ten.…

When the students can show up for Michigan State, though…

I'm not sure exactly what the problem is, but Bacon is right that the product has lost some of its luster. An annoyingly loud ad is an an annoying loud ad even if it's for renting Michigan Stadium or field hockey; prices are higher; times are random.

It's over. It does not matter that MSU might have a slightly easier schedule than Michigan in the crossover games unless they can beat M and OSU in any given year, but here's a hilarious statement from Mark Hollis:

“You’re gonna have MSU playing frequently in Chicago (against Northwestern),” Spartans athletic director Mark Hollis said this week on “The Drive with Jack” radio show on WVFN 730-AM in Lansing. “Minneapolis is another market that’s important to us. We put all those out there and Jim listened to us."

I wonder why that might be.

Yes please. If Zak Irvin ends up an upgrade over Tim Hardaway it'll be with defense and rebounding—they have similar offensive games. Irvin seems more inclined than Hardaway to be an impact player on the other end of the floor:

He'll fight for minutes with Stauskas, Robinson and sophomore Caris LeVert -- and he'll do it from day one. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"That's a good thing," he said. "Going against each other every day in practice is going to make us that much better. Defense is definitely going to be the difference-maker, though.

"Those of us who can play defense will be on the floor, especially at the end of games."

Coaches love to hear that.

"I'll play where they put me," he added.

He says his best spot is shooting guard, but he'll probably be a SF/PF at M. Not that there's much distinction in the offense.

Of course. Via WTKA's Ira Weintraub, Sirius is allowing you a chance to head out on the road with… POP EVILLLLL. And what better place to take in the second greatest-evil ever allowed into Michigan Stadium than the home of the first?

One winner and a guest will fly to Grand Rapids for a Pop Evil concert at the Orbit Room on May 17th where they will meet the band, then join them on the tour bus that night, heading to Rock on the Range in Columbus, Ohio for Rock on the Range on May 18th and 19th where they will have the chance to get on stage and intro the band! The prize also includes two nights’ stay in Columbus, OH and airfare home.

If you enter and win this, I will give you every MGoPoint that will fit in a 64-bit integer if you intro them as the worst thing to ever happen to Michigan football. This will get a great cheer from the crowd, and may not even be interpreted as an insult by the band.

Huh. Ace points out that in Football Study Hall's F+ rankings of the last few years of the Big Ten, Michigan's 2010 and 2011 offenses are in a dead heat near the top of the rankings:

Let the debates about whether Al Borges and Denard Robinson were a good fit rage in perpetuity. The 2011 crew made their hay with a ruthless devastation of OSU and the UTL fluketasm; they were maddeningly erratic, what with the trash tornado game and Iowa under center debacle. The previous year was fairly consistent until the grim end to the season, but never put the spurs to anyone of consequence.

Other notables: it will not surprise you to see the 2008 offense and 2010 defense on the awful lists; Michigan is in fact the only non-Minnesota/Indiana/Northwestern program to feature. Meanwhile, the two year-turnaround from the second-worst offense in the sample to the 4th-best is kind of amazing. Michigan has been the second-best offense in the league the past four years, but (surprise!) lags on defense.

Etc.: Denard is going to ditch Jags minicamp to come back and graduate. Stephen Ross called Jordan Kovacs personally when the Dolphins signed him. The SEC is chattering about nine conference games now. Also they're going to start picking which teams go to which bowls instead of vice versa. Glockner on the ridiculousness of the Lance Thomas thing from every direction. Michigan is going to be huge at WR/TE. Emmert still under fire.

Tim Hardaway's hat lives!

Erm, okay. ESPN's Paul Biancardi was tasked with finding sleepers outside of ESPN's top 25 players who would outperform the rankings, and struck upon Derrick Walton:

1. Derrick Walton, PG, Michigan
Final ESPN 100 rank: No. 30
… Walton, who will replace Burke and take the mantle as Michigan's point guard, has some similar traits to Burke as he is small, tough and competitive. Although we have Walton ranked No. 30, which is relatively high, he still has to fight for everything he earns -- which is what makes him special. Walton will lead the Wolverines and will have a wealth of talent around him with a mixture of scorers, size and a strong incoming freshman class coming in with him. Look for him to push the pace with a high-speed dribble and find teammates off penetration with his peripheral vision. Walton is battle tested and has played on the travel team circuit against some of the nation's best point guards and had his way. Don't be surprised to see him get more assists than points in any given game, yet he can also make big shots when his team needs them most. He is a clutch performer with the perfect mindset for his position. The opportunity is there for Walton; look for him to capitalize on it.

Then Reggie Rankin was tasked with doing so with recruiting classes outside the top ten and picked three of the next four, one of which happens to be M:

2. Michigan (No. 12 class)
The Wolverines have added three ESPN 100 prospects who are not only talented and will excel in John Beilein's system, but also who address some of the team's needs after losing Trey Burke and Tim Hardaway Jr. to the NBA. Derrick Walton is an excellent point guard who pushes the pace and can deliver the rock at high speeds or execute when the defense is set. Zak Irvin is a quick fix on the wing because of his size, athleticism and ability to flat-out get buckets with his aggressive approach on the offensive end of the floor. Power forward Mark Donnal is skilled and can finish in the paint or stretch the defense with his range to about 18 feet. This class will excel in Beilein's system because all three have the IQ and skills to make high-level plays. Expect this Michigan class to be an NCAA tournament mainstay as long as it is together.

These are not bold forays onto the limb, but they do say nice things about Michigan, and from two different people. I might have gone with Donnal as more of a sleeper than the #30 player in the class, since Donnal's headed for a perfect fit for Beilein's offense and could blow up into a huge matchup issue down the road.

BTW, ESPN moved Zak Irvin up to #22, their last five-star spot, and Walton rose 10-20 spots as well, IIRC. I told Seth this and he was bored, because this is always what Beilein recruits do.

Now do it with your arms behind your back. Devin Gardner hits Jeremy Gallon with his eyes closed:

No, Jeremy Gallon did not change his hair and severely reduce his resemblance to Snoop from the Wire. No he did not. Shush.

In other news, this bodes well for throws made when Gardner is sneezing next fall. You'll have to think up something other than a field made of cat hair, Mr. Dantonio, if you're going to boringly cackle your way to victory this fall.

He may be biased, but the numbers are going his way. Netflix's CEO talks up the future of TV and includes some numbers:

The number of consumers turning to Netflix and other online entertainment providers has taken even Wall Street by surprise. Netflix has 30 million U.S. subscribers, a bit more than HBO and about 9 million more than the nation’s biggest cable company, Comcast. Hastings audaciously projected Netflix’s audience to grow to as many as 90 million as it expands globally. Its revenue, which exceeded $1 billion for the first three months of 2013, was a record. Minutes after the figures were announced Monday, Netflix stock soared more than 23 percent.

Eventually this will turn into various streaming buckets of content you can take or leave as you please, thus undermining the Big Ten's desire to expand into areas that have a lot of people who don't really care to watch Rutgers and Maryland play.

You might have to turn in your card. Brandon on the ticket hike:

"We raised the ticket prices, but we wanted to make sure the ticket price increase was not at all perceived to be an opportunity for us to make more money off of the students," Brandon said. "The incremental revenue that comes from the student ticket price increase, we're going to contribute (that) to the rec sports program up on campus -- which has nothing to do with Michigan athletics, but it's a way that we can take those revenues and support something that will benefit all the students."

So… instead of letting the students who play rec sports pay for rec sports, everyone who wants a football ticket pays for rec sports? That doesn't seem particularly Repub—[POLITICAL CONTENT REDACTED].

He does make an assertion that maybe if the tickets are more expensive students will be more inclined to use them that seems plausible. As previously mentioned, I don't think that'll move the needle with many out-of-state students with money to burn. Meanwhile, any student will be able to buy tickets no matter how disinclined he or she is to use them:

Michigan has no plans to cut the size of its student section inside Michigan Stadium -- which is roughly 22,000 seats.

"Every student who wants to buy a ticket will have the opportunity to buy a ticket," Brandon said. "That hasn't changed, and that's the way it's always been."

That's the way it's always been? Dave Brandon used this as an argument in favor of something? I am going to go lie down and panic at the possibility I have fallen into the mirror universe.

On the other hand, the angle of the sun will be right. Thumbs up to this:

OSU's Gene Smith says he has also spoken to Michigan's David Brandon and there is a consensus that "The Game" should be played at noon.

That's the way it's always been? I guess?

Sometimes the burden of proof should be on you. Remember that Duke player who put down 30k in cash and got a 70k loan for some jewelry in 2009? This is how the investigation went:

NCAA: Jeweler guy. Do you want to talk to us?

Jeweler: No.

NCAA: What about you, Lance Thomas?

Thomas: No.

NCAA: Okay we're done here.

As a result, no violations, but much eyerolling. Just dump the amateurism business so no one has to care about Lance Thomas buying some jewelry. Not only is it immoral; it's also unenforceable. This is not a winner.

Speaking of, Patrick Hruby won't stop bombing the NCAA, and it's beautiful.

Between 1985 and 2010, they report, the average salary of head football coaches at 44 Division I schools increased by 750 percent, from $273,300 to $2,054,700. During the same period, the average salary of university presidents rose by 90 percent, while the average salary of full professors rose just 30 percent.

Which group is more essential to the collegiate educational mission?

The OBC is on board with paying guys. Go OBC.

Etc.: Talking with Derrick Walton. Penn State @ 5PM is good news for people making the trip. Brady Hoke : Charlie Weis : Lincoln : Kennedy. False. True.

Welcome to College Football Blood Bowl. Warhammer 40k is generally too dorky even for me, but if you're vaguely familiar with their science fiction orc-dwarf-elf-demon football spinoff "Blood Bowl"* something is probably nagging you about those CoFoPoff** logos. This is why:

Spikes coming out of a ball.

BONUS: is it bad that I wasn't sure which logo Seth was talking about when he said one of them looked like, er, the other end zone, if you know what I mean?

CONSPIRACY THEORY BONUS: all of their images are coming from ESPN's CDN.

*[Yeah, seriously. 40K is what happens when you put all science fiction and fantasy races/tropes into a blender. As I said: too dorky even for me.]

**[I can't call something "College Football Playoff" you guys.]

Surveyin'. Michael Rothstein annually polls the outgoing seniors about things both important and not so much*. Getting unvarnished opinions on breakout players and the like is always interesting. Your predicted breakout player is Gardner, with Gallon trailing some ways back. It sounds like they're doing everything possible to extend that insane 1300-yard pace($) Gallon was on with Gardner as his QB:

"I got two. Devin and Jeremy Gallon, by far. The way they came in during the offseason, they do things people probably wouldn't expect. The way Devin is throwing the ball now. I told Gallon, if you look at the stats, he [Gallon] had 100 [receiving yards] against Alabama, a hundred-something against South Carolina. Nobody in the Big Ten can stop you two next year."

"Jeremy Gallon and Devin Gardner. They are both hard workers. When we were sleeping during the summer on Saturdays, they were up, throwing the ball. They are a great combination together and both competitive and both smart players."

Meanwhile, Willie Henry is the surprise pick as your best redshirted freshmen, albeit more narrowly. Braden, Chesson, and Jeremy Clark follow. Henry also got a breakout player vote.

On Henry
"This is going just off observation, but Willie Henry. He's a guy I went up against every day in practice, didn't get to play this year but a really, really talented kid. I'd venture to say as talented as some of the guys I played against this year. There is huge potential there and I feel he can have a great career at Michigan."

He's called "strong an ox" and "an animal." Motor is brought up as an issue. Henry certainly looked the part at the spring game, albeit mostly on the sidelines.

Part II is also interesting($). Anon on Funk:

"He's extremely thorough and he watches a play and throughout that play, he can see what all five offensive linemen did. It's crazy and I don't know how he can do it but just watching a play live, he understands and has the vision to see what happened the entire play. I don't know if he would be the best coach to manage all the bureaucratic stuff that comes with being a head coach, but he knows football as well as anybody."

*[The annual bitching about the liberals in Ann Arbor is hilarious. You can probably figure out which offensive linemen are the ones carrying that grudge.]

Bad pun. No, this isn't about Moe Ways, it's about Adreian Payne, who is still on the fence about his NBA decision two days before the deadline. I think he should go if only because I'm sick of always thinking I've misspelled his name and being correct about that 75% of the time. Also, without Payne MSU's frontcourt next year looks like this: Alex Guana, Kenny Kaminski, Matt Costello. His departure would be kind of a big deal.

Survey says…

The word from every source close to Payne is that it's "50-50" he returns to Michigan State.

MSU is amongst the favorites with him and in a second-tier pack without. I don't know, I look at a 6'10" guy who can jump as high as GRIII and has just found three point range and I'm taking him in the 20s. I mean, if Robinson was going to be #15 or whatever with an efficient 13% usage rate, Payne's at 20%, shoots 84/58/38 and boards extensively. Oh and he's four inches taller. GTFO! It's for your own good!

Mark Donnal talking. With UMHoops. Projected role:

What do the coaches have you working on this summer?

“I’ve been working on pick-and-pop. That’s one of the things they said me and Derrick would probably be doing — a lot of pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop sets like that. I’ve just been working on my mid-range jumpshot, my post moves, my hook shots both right and left. Those are the main things I’ve been working on.”

Donnal has some nice post skills and can shoot out to three point range. Athleticism is the main concern with him. Most people, including me, have been projecting a redshirt just because Michigan is pretty stocked at the 4 and 5 this season. Donnal is the sort of guy who probably won't be high on NBA radars no matter how good he is in college, so the idea of a fifth year there is appealing. But as we saw this year, if you've got a guy who can give you minutes as you go deep into the tournament you've got to play him.

Hello/goodbye Rutledge? Mike Spath reported that Jared Rutledge would take a year in the USHL for extra seasoning; Rutledge told the Daily he was sticking around; Spath said that was not the case. Yost Built has more details on an odd situation.

One guy who's not coming in for sure: Bryson Cianfrone. Spath reports($) he'll reclassify to 2014. Smart move for a guy who has talent but struggled with the level of competition in the USHL this year. Michigan has plenty of depth at forward this year, too.

Making friends. Winning hearts and minds. I actually agree with Mark Emmert when he says opposition to the recruiting deregulation he slammed through is the following:

“[The] counting of phone calls and text messages and emails … is frankly crazy,” Emmert told a group of bowl executives. “Literally, you have to hire someone to count your cell phone calls and to look at your phone records.”

… At least 75 Division I members had to weigh in by March 20 to force an override vote of the legislation. Emmert blamed football coaches for the pushback saying, “it's insane.”

It's just that maybe a guy invariably described as "embattled" should maybe seem a little less unhinged, is all. More hinges. Less waving around.

Etc.: Zak smack attack get back you don't want that. Pitt football players busted with 20 bags of heroin! That'll wrap up the Fulmer Cup in April. Dave Brandon says the idea he would run for Senate is "silly." SILLY LIKE A FOX.

Spring Game gifs? Oh, sure, I guess. This is the last post I'll have here until the 29th, as the next couple days are devoted to HTTV stuff and then I'm taking a little time off to recharge.

I'm continuing to tweak how I do gifs on here to hopefully make them more accessible for everyone—most of them are now dumbed down to 48 colors, which has greatly decreased file sizes. If you had trouble with them before, perhaps you'll give these posts another shot. Anyway, Dennis Norfleet:

This one was specifically requested by Brian, or at least that's how I interpreted the tween-at-a-Bieber-concert scream emanating from the stands when it happened. (Full run gif'd here, but I really wanted to slow-mo that juke.)

[Hit THE JUMP for fun with the names of a certain Pickerington-based duo.]

Opening remarks:

“What are you shaking your head about? Don’t start this like that. I want positive karma out of you. Hi. How you guys doin’? Heiko, what’s happenin?”

MGo: Not much.

“Always good to see you.”

MGo: It’s good to see you, too.

“You didn’t mean that.”

MGo: I’m really sad that you didn’t run any pistol formations.

“We don’t have any pistol formations. How could we run it? But if you’d like us to put them in we’ll be happy to do so just to make you happy.”

MGo: That would be great.

“Because my life revolves around your happiness if you haven’t figured that out by now.”

MGoHeartAsplode.

“... Okay.”

The first play from scrimmage was a 30-yard pass down the sideline to Amara Darboh. Was that to show people that they don’t need to worry about the wide receivers?

“Heh. No. That wasn’t what I was thinking. No, we were just thinking -- it’s always a good idea every so often in coming out on offense to try and take a ball deep. Our defense isn’t necessarily like this, but a lot of defenses will get a little reckless, you know? They’ll try and create a safety or whatever. A deep ball sometimes is a pretty good deal so we just decided at least once we were going to try and do that. That’s the reason for it.”