mailbag

On Thursday I posted my impressions of the luxury boxes going up in 2010 and offhandedly mentioned that Michigan is constructing a money factory, or "mint." A reader challenged those assumptions with numbers:

I am quite surprised that you describe the stadium expansion as a "money factory" or anything like it. Remember, the cost of this project (even if it comes in at budget) was set at $235M. [Editor's note: He later corrected this email: the overall cost for the renovations was $226 million.] 

Looking at the Athletic Department numbers, and assuming they sell every seat and find folks to pay for everything they put a price on for naming rights, I don't see this as anything more than a break-even proposition.  They list $56.3M in naming rights ($33.45M of which is apparently spoken for), which gets the amount they need to finance (I am assuming they are financing it, but even if they are not, there is at least an opportunity cost for the money they are using) down to $178.7M (235 minus 56.3).  Taking your $5.7M number for the Suites revenue per year, you can add $1M for Indoor Club Seats (250 @ $4000 per), $6.2M for Outdoor Club Seats (2750 @ an assumed average of $2250), and $1.3M for Chairback Seats (650 @ $2000). The annual total is approximately $14.2M.  At that annual payment, it would take 30 years to pay off $178.7M at a 6.88% interest rate.  At a 5% interest rate, it would take 20 years.

In 20 years, these "luxury" places will need considerable renovation, I would guess.  If they do not sell all of the naming rights or all of the seats, they will have to pay for a longer time to get this paid off.  Even Mr. Martin never said this was to be a money maker.  He claimed it was the only way to pay for needed upgrades to the existing stadium. However, now, the aisle widening (which I do not really understand, because the bottlenecks are the entrances to the sections, and I don't think they can do anything about those) is not happening as part of this original project (which is to be done in 2010), and the seat widening may not happen at all.  I agree that they seem to be doing a first class job of what they are doing, but, other than to provide a few rich guys with fancy digs, I do not see this project as a financial winner.  Please help convince me I am missing something. 

I thought the assumptions above were pessimistic. Not all of the money in the renovations is going to the boxes and holding revenue constant over a period of ten or twenty years is excessively conservative. Also, the assembled media was told specifically that the seat widening was on and given a timeline for that process. But I am not a business guy and I don't have the numbers at my fingertips to dismiss his point out of hand.

So I asked a guy who goes by the handle "rekker" who's close to the project and has been providing solid information on the construction since it was announced. He responded like so:

[insider]

This guy is reasonably coherent, but his analysis contains a couple of big, incorrect assumptions and logical flaws. I’ll start with the analytical problems. I’ll then present what I think of as the proper way to consider this project.

1. Your emailer assigns the entire cost of the project to the luxury boxes and club seats. That’s wrong. The project consists of three distinct elements. Because they are intertwined, it is difficult to assign a precise share of the cost to each piece, but these are approximations.

• Long-neglected maintenance – including replacing all foundational concrete, replacing all benches, replacing all mechanical systems, replacing the press box, which is structurally unsound, etc.

  The approximate cost of this (absolutely necessary) work is $60-75 million. Even if it there were no stadium renovation or premium seating, this work would have to be done over the next few years.

• Improvements that make the game day experience better for everyone. This includes new (double-decker) concourses, wider aisles, wider seats, new and more bathrooms, new concession areas, etc.

  The cost of these “improve everyone’s experience” is about $75-90 million. So for items (a) and (b), we are now up around $150 million.

• The cost of the towers, which contain the club seats, luxury boxes, and the new lounges. [Editor's note: also the new press box.] The incremental cost of these is around $75 million.

2. The cost and financing details are much friendlier than proposed.

• The project cost is $226 million, not $235 million.
• The athletic department is covering $36 million of this cost out of existing reserves. They also plan to raise $40-50 million in naming opportunities ($33mm is in hand). So the net debt needed for the project is actually about $140 million (not $178 as he suggests).
• Because of the financial crisis, the AD was able to get a great rate on the bonds it issued for the project. They came in at just over 4%. Because the interest rate was so low, the AD decided to finance a total of $190 million, but this allowed it to retain about $50 million is cash reserves as a cushion. Net borrowing (since the cash reserve can be used at any time to pay off the debt) is $140 million.
• The carrying cost of $140 million at 4% (assuming a 20 year payoff of the principle) is $10.3 million.

3.The likely donations from the boxes and club seats  are likely to be higher than the minimum required.

• The 82 boxes will provide a minimum of $70,000 per box ($5.7 million), but the AD estimate is that top-up donations given to secure better locations will bring this up to between $7 and $8 million.
• His estimates for the club seats are reasonable, but again too low. He presents the absolute minimums.

  Club seat (and chairback revenues) will total at least $8.5 million. In reality, competition for the better seats it driving donations up. Zone 1 club donations are averaging about $5,000, vs. the minimum requirement of $3,000. This likely won’t play out over all seats, but the AD is confident that the club and chairback seats will produce more than $10 million in incremental revenue.

• So the total incremental revenue will come in at between $14.2 million and $18 million.

How to think about the project

UM has a large need. Maintenance had been neglected for decades, the bathrooms are medieval, and the flow in and around the stadium is horrible.

The AD could undertake a $150 million stadium improvement project with no luxury seating (items 1a and 1b above), and no clear way to pay for it. This would mean about $100 million in borrowing and a roughly $7.3 million annual financing cost. Or the AD could add luxury seating for an additional $75 million cost ($225 total), and ask those 4000 rich people people to cover the cost of the whole project.

Option 1 would require something like a $10 per game surcharge on all 100,000 tickets sold for every game for the next 20 years (7 million per year, 7 games, 100,000 tickets per game).

Option 2 has no surcharge for regular ticket holders. The overall project costs about $10.3 million per year to pay off, but the luxury seating crowd generates somewhere between $14.2 and $18 million per year in incremental revenue.

The AD has been generating annual surpluses of $5 million to $9 million for the past few years. Adding $4 – 8 million to this while covering the entire cost of the stadium expansion seems like a pretty great investment. And remember, this is all being done with no cost to the 100,000 plus people who will sit in the bowl each week.

Before someone objects that not all the seats are sold, I’ll admit they are right. But 70% of both the boxes and club seats are sold. And this is with a year to go. Even if not one more seat is sold, the current reservations would generate $9.9 million, just a few hundred thousand short of the carrying cost for the entire project. I’d bet on the over on this one.

While the project is perhaps not literally a “money factory”, it is about the closest thing we’ve seen in Michigan for many years.

[/insider, back to me]

We all love the Big House but we've probably all got horror stories about missing half a quarter because of congestion or excessive lines or (especially for women) bathroom overcrowding. And then there's always that one guy—you know that guy—who will battle you for every millimeter of space in your seat. And don't get me started on Incredibly Pointy Knee Guy.

When I took the tour, the SID repeatedly pointed out the new walkways, concourses, and points of sale across the stadium. The seat and aisle widening will be complete by 2013. And the entire stadium will be brought into ADA compliance. And the net cost to the bowl is zero, with the AD netting somewhere between $4 and 8 million per year above and beyond paying off the loan. Whatever issues you have will Bill Martin—and I have a few—financial acumen cannot be one of them.

Brian - I had two questions:

1) Come opening day, do you think the fans will boo Sheridan if and when he walks onto the field (assuming the game close)?  Also, do you think RR will take this into account in his decision when allocating playing time among the QBs?

The second question is much easier to answer: no, Rodriguez isn't taking the opinion of random fans just asking for an empty water bottle to zing over their heads into account. If he is we have bigger problems than the potential a walk-on starts this year. As far as whether a hypothetical Nick Sheridan start will cause boos to rain down… I don't know. I wish I could dismiss that out of hand but after last year I can't. I don't think it would happen right away, but if Sheridan starts and they go three-and-out a few times Michigan Stadium will be 100% discontent and 30-40% booing vociferously.

However, I still think that's highly unlikely and made more so by the recent burst of Denard Robinson hype that sees folks tagging posts "not denard" when they aren't about Denard.

2) I'm not sure if this has been talked about in the blog at all but is there any concern that RR doesn't have much of a coaching tree underneath him despite being a HC for a decent amount of time?  Meaning, is he just surrounding himself with friends who will remain loyal rather than talented coaches that aspire to move up the coaching ladder and can get the best out of their players.  I say this because of the "fundamentals" issue you had with the Purdue UFR from last year when our corners were opening their hips towards the sidelines and basically giving up 15 yards at a clip when you mentioned that they were "coached" to do this.

-Jim Dudnick

BBA '01

I don't think Rodriguez has had much of an opportunity to grow a coaching tree. He spent seven years at West Virginia but the bulk of that time WVU was not the sort of power program that has its assistants picked off. Even when it was people were understandably waiting to see whether the spread 'n' shred was just a flash in the pan. There were only a couple years in which members of Rodriguez's staff were seriously considered for jobs. At that point Butch Jones did land the Central Michigan job. And I guess Bill Stewart is technically another branch, if one likely to be short-lived.

The circumstances conspired against Rodriguez: his teams ran an exotic base defense headed by a guy who liked West Virginia so much he stayed there when Rodriguez left. Calvin Magee is an offensive coordinator under a head coach who is widely known as an offensive innovator and playcaller. Also, he's only been an offensive coordinator for four years. If he got hired during his tenure at West Virginia whoever picked him up would be taking a huge chance on a guy without much of a track record.

Usually coaching trees sprout up from coaches in the midst of long tenures at power programs; Rodriguez will probably have one at some point. Just not yet.

Hello Brian,

I am FINALLY getting to travel up (yes I live in the horrible state below Michigan) for a game (the Indiana game to be exact) and I am wondering if you could give me any help on where would be my best bet for parking and/or what to expect in general. I have waited over 20 years to make it to a game at the Big House and instead of being completely stoked now I'm busy concerning myself with parking, the trip, etc. Any help you can offer would be extremely appreciated. I've googled it and found out that all the parking lots near the stadium are permit parking only so I'm just trying to figure out where my best option is.

Tim Garven

I'm not the best person to ask because I just go to the same place I always go, but whenever I go on the road I find the best idea is to just suck it up and give someone some money. You'll find that every lawn within a mile of the stadium will allow you to park on it for a nominal fee, and usually this will provide ample tailgating space for your needs. If you're just a small group and don't mind shelling out $40, the golf course is widely regarded as one of the nicest tailgating spaces in the Big Ten.

Head to the stadium an hour before the game to catch the warmups and band; you can bring in bottled water; you are advised to hit the bathroom beforehand.

As for postgame activities: there's not much close to the stadium. If you've got your car somewhere you can leave it your best bet is to walk to main street and head north, whereupon you will strike the restaurant/bar heart of Ann Arbor. Suggestions: Prickly Pear and Middle Kingdom, which are just north of William. If you go to Prickly Pear be advised that though buffalo meat sounds like a good idea, it's not. If you're staying overnight go to Angelo's in the morning and get something with hollandaise on it.

no, no, maybe

Brian,

1. Does the CCHA rejecting Alabama's bid start to pave the way for Penn State to go varsity?

Probably not. All the reasons Penn State varsity hockey was unlikely the last time this blog addressed the topic still apply minus one: no conference to go to. Now Penn State could slot into UNO's spot in the CCHA and play a bunch a games against Big Ten teams and Notre Dame, which would put their program on decent footing financially. The CCHA, meanwhile, would be much more likely to accept a name school like Penn State.

That's a big hurdle gone and improves the chances of Penn State varsity hockey from 0% to something nonzero. But the rest of the pile of reasons it's not likely to happen—expense, Title IX, likely doormat status at the start—still apply. We can also toss "endowment-crushing economic collapse" on the heap now.

There is one wild scenario in which I could see some movement: the Big Ten Network wants content on Friday and Saturday nights and thinks that the CCHA with Penn State would be enough of a financial draw that they chip in.

[Side note/question: the CCHA's persistent attachment to Fox Sports Net is weird, since FSN craps all over college hockey whenever they've got a Wings game from 1985 to replay. I can only assume there's a contract that doesn't expire quite yet, because the BTN would be a natural fit for the league. Every team not in Alaska is in the footprint, and nothing else ever happens on Friday night.

Also, the glorious high definition of last year's BTN-broadcast Ohio State game left me crippled the next time I tried to squint at a Fox Sports' two-pixels-a-second stuff. Complicating factor: Fox is 49% owner of the BTN.]

2. Back in 2004, what (if any) were the reports out of practice in terms of the quarterback situation? I don't think it even occurred to me before he took the field that Henne might be the starter for the first game. All of the praise heaped on Tate so far made me want to check for a comparison.

-Brian DeHaven

Unfortunately, this blog started up just before the Rose Bowl that season and I can't go back and tell you definitively. What I remember (and this may be wrong; commenters are encouraged to provide their own take in the comments) is that Henne was recognized as an incredibly advanced high school quarterback and there was considerable uncertainty as to whether Gutierrez or Henne would get the job.

However, Henne was a surprise starter. I remember the muttering in the pregame warmups as it became clear that Gutierrez wasn't throwing and Henne was running the first-team offense. It was clear Gutierrez was injured and IIRC the base assumption was that Henne only had the job until such time as the real starter got healthy. This was not a correct assumption.

Hey Brian,

 

Just wondering, how many scholarships we have next year?  I thought I heard we had 20, but then we had a whole slew of kids leave the program.  Don’t we get those scholarships back?  Shouldn’t we be thrilled when these kids leave the program when they can’t play for us anyway?

I just looked on Rivals and it says we have 18 kids committed.  If we still stand at 20, that means we’ve pretty much hitched our wagon to these 3 star kids (who are probably better than that, based on their fit in our schemes) instead of waiting until some of the bigger name kids commit in Feb.

Do we have more than 20 scholarships?

Thanks for the help!

Aarronn

Yes, Aarronn—last name Herrmann FTW?—Michigan gets those scholarships back. Did you miss the constant bitching about this fact re: Alabama? This blog's current count stands at 20 but that's under the following assumptions:

• Moundros and Kelvin Grady on scholarship until they graduate.
• Morales and Sheridan are not.
• All fifth-year players return.
• No one leaves for the draft.
• There's no other attrition.

Some of those are highly likely to be faulty: Bryan Wright and the Coner are not going to get fifth years unless they have incriminating photos of the coaching staff. And there's six months between now and signing day; it's likely a couple players leave the team for reasons of playing time, academics, or injury. (I had a dream last night that three more players left the team, FWIW, but I think they were all Marell Evans again.)

That will push Michigan's class to 23, 25, or even more. Add in a decommit or two and Michigan's still got a ways to go before its class is complete.

You're not wrong about hitching the wagon to three stars, though. This class is going to lag behind the average Michigan class, as discussed earlier. As long as Michigan fills their open scholarship and retains this class, though, it'll be a minor hindrance unless it happens again next year.

Brian,

One thing I have noticed is that you freak out at the possibility of Nick Sheridan starting the season opener or any other game during the rest of his time at Michigan.  My question is, Would it be all that bad if he did win the starting job come September 5th?  Now before you wonder where I have been for the last 18 months, hear me out.  If Sheridan has improved immensely during the spring, summer, and first few days of preseason and he outright beats both Forcier and Robinson, shouldn't that be encouraging?  Now we do have 2 or 3 legitimate QB options.  Wouldn't it be a good thing if Magee and Rodriguez could open up a majority of the playbook to a junior who actually has game experience and has started a D1 game?

 

I was at the spring game and was able to see Forcier and I have been keeping up on what his teammates have been saying about him and I am very excited and I am trusting this year will be much better than last.  However, they are saying good things about Sheridan as well.  I think it would be great if Forcier was slowly worked into more and more snaps during games and by Eastern or Indiana, he's the starter.

 

I guess I just won't be surprised if Sheridan or Forcier starts vs. Western.

Your further thoughts and reasoning behind not wanting Sheridan to ever play again except in mop-up duty.

Thanks,

Adam

I don't mean to slam Sheridan, who's just a guy put in an impossible position trying to make the best of everything. And I don't mean to slam Adam, who seems like a perfectly nice, if insanely optimistic, guy.

That said: were you under a rock last year? Do you remember what happened? I hate Godwin's law right now. I mean, what is your instant reaction to this AnnArbor.com video headline:

Michigan quarterback Nick Sheridan discusses - rather, avoids discussing - what he brings to the table

I know what it is. I know it in my bones. I know it in the bones of my bones. If you try to tell me it's not the cheap, obvious joke I will call you a liar.

I know you specifically disclaimed this sort of response, but… you're not allowed to do that. It is the correct, inevitable response. If Rodriguez chooses to play Sheridan at any point when Forcier is still mobile, that's either a huge failing in judgment or recruiting.

A brief recap of last year: 46% completion rate, 4.5 YPC, 2 TDs, 5 INTs. That's far, far worse than any true freshman starter in recent college football history save Jimmy Clausen, and Sheridan was a redshirt sophomore. He's a walk-on with zero recruiting profile with no indication he's got any upside. Why would he improve "immensely"? Why wouldn't Tate Forcier improve at a similar rate? Why isn't Forcier obviously ahead where Sheridan was last year given their vastly divergent spring games*? What part of the playbook can Sheridan, who's slower and has a weaker arm than Forcier, run that someone else can't?

Even immense improvement would only get Sheridan to the level of your average freshman quarterback. And even if that happens and it's close between Forcier, who should be better than your average freshman just because he's been bred to be a QB, and Sheridan—doubtful—you'd have to be nuts to go with a redshirt junior over a true freshman.  You'd have to be triple nuts to go with a redshirt junior who completed 16 of 49 for under 150 yards in the last two games of the year and was clearly, totally inadequate in the process. You'd have to be sextuple nuts to go with him a year after you picked him over a superior quarterback based on practice performance that turned out to be a mirage.

Sheridan was asked if he felt he was being written off, and responded like so:

“No,” Sheridan said. “Not at all. Nope.”

Well… I'm writing him off.  I am Time Warner. Sheridan is AOL. If he proves me wrong, well, fine. I suggest you join me in the most obscure country ending in –stan we can find.

But he definitely won't. Absolutely. I'm positive about this. Stop suggesting otherwise. Football coaches have to take team morale into account when they craft their public statements and have to keep their hotshot freshmen on their toes to keep them focused. That doesn't mean we have to believe them.

*(By this I mean Forcier's 10/13 + 50 yards rushing + 5 TDs in 2009 versus Nick Sheridan's interception-fest in 2008.)

Hi Brian,

I am in the process of analyzing our numbers for 2009 and 2010 for a diary post, and I was wondering what you think the preferred number of scholarships should be by position.  Going through the allotment of 85 scholarships, I was actually surprised as to how many I had left over.  I felt that all positions had adequate depth, and still had about 10 left over.  In my opinion, I don't believe we need 5 quarterbacks, or 7 wide receivers and 4 slots, but the other positions seemed adequate, and it made more sense to me to give an extra scholarship to these positions than others.

My rough estimate is:

Offense
QB	5
RB	7
FB	1
WR	7
SWR	4
TE	3
OL	15	42
Defense
DE	7
DT	7
LB	12
CB	7
S	8	41
Special Teams
K	1
P	1	2
Total		85

What do you think?

Thanks for your help,

Stephen

That appears to be an ideal scholarship breakdown; if so it seems heavy on the linebackers and light on DL and CB.

If you hold a couple scholarships apart for kickers you have 83 spots for 22 starting slots, or about 3.75 scholarship per starter. A breakdown based solely on that metric, with the numbers rounded to the nearest whole- or half-number that makes sense, gives you the following (chart?) chart*:

Impressions from the chart:

The offense isn't too far off ideal numbers now and won't push far above them next year. The biggest discrepancy between the "ideal" offense numbers and the existing team is about four offensive linemen who happen to be tailbacks. I don't think that's out of whack. Michigan's always carried six to eight running backs. They get injured lots. They get tired and platoon. They don't redshirt much. Meanwhile, with linemen their sheer number gives you more leeway. The proportions and numbers on Michigan's offense this year look about right to me.

You know, except for the fact that two of the quarterbacks are the Coner and Sheridan.

Next year Michigan will add three scholarships to the receiving corps at the expense of an offensive lineman (maybe) and/or a few defenders, but Jerald Robinson or Cameron Gordon or someone else could send up on the other side of the ball, which would bring the numbers in line with a reasonable distribution.

The defense, especially the secondary, is creepin' me out, man. I slanted the numbers a bit towards the offense and the current team still comes up about eight guys short, with the secondary alone accounting for seven of those folk. Great googly-moogly. If Justin Turner hadn't qualified I'd be freakin' out, man.

I'm not too worried about the low numbers at middle linebacker given the way college football is moving; you can see the disproportionate number of tweener guys in the OLB/DE numbers.

Next year the scary numbers should come up. I assume Michigan will take two more corners and at least one more safety; they graduate no one.

Michigan's operating at something like ten scholarships under the limit this year, and the defense has taken the entire hit. But said unit also graduates exactly two players, so even if this defensive class is only ten—less than half a class that will probably hit 22 or 23—the numbers should be a lot closer to even next year. And that's without taking possible position switches, all of which are likely to go from offense to defense, into account.

The upshot: yes, this class is a tad heavy on receivers—shock—but not to the point that it will be a major drag on available defenders going forward. This year's secondary, however, is last year's offensive line in terms of depth and huge scary dropoffs past the starters.

*(Notes on the numbers: in certain spots I moved players to positions other than the ones they occupy on the Depth Chart By Class. This mostly took OLBs to deathbacker, which for purposes of this chart I'm considering a DE. Herron and Evans were filed as DEs; Ryan Van Bergen was filed as a DT. You could probably move Banks or Patterson to DT, too. Also: Nick Sheridan was included in 2009 but not 2010; fullbacks are assumed to be walk-ons with one getting a slot at any one time.)

Brian:
You can see in the pictures of the construction that the glass and brick structures that will be the club seats and suites in 2010 are almost complete (at least the exteriors). Do we think we'll see a huge change in noise level from this season to last?

Thanks, and Go Blue
Jordan, '06

This is a topic that comes up all the time and to which I can only say "I don't really know." Back in '07 some Russian guys ran out an oversized metallic dandelion-looking device at halftime of the Minnesota game and exhorted the stadium to cheer. "Taking measurements," they claimed. Either that's an elaborate coverup of a Russkie plot or it's true.

A few days later the Daily made this remarkable assertion:

When Navvab and his team took measurements during Saturday's halftime, they found that the sound - almost exclusively from the student section - was 100 decibels, or the equivalent of a chainsaw.

With the skyboxes, which will stand about 10 feet higher than the scoreboards and further enclose the stadium, the sound level of the stadium would reach 110 or 111 decibels, about the noise level of a loud rock concert, Navvab said.

Decibels are a logarithmic scale; moving ten decibels up is equivalent to doubling the perceived loudness, a jump too preposterous to believe. On the other hand, I've been high up in upper decks—it's like being in another world; all the noise just goes straight up—and I've long thought Ohio Stadium's relatively vertical construction helped them hold in sound. And Michigan's boxes are both very tall and angled in towards the field.

It'll definitely get better. How much only the Russians can tell you, and we evidently don't believe them anyway. One thing it's not going to do is replace a bunch of crabby down-in-fronters with drunk Cajuns. Michigan fans will remain Michigan fans, and with that comes a certain level of posh. Michigan Stadium doesn't get fired up much. When it does, though, it does a credible job.

The proof will be at next year's Big Ten Media Days; MGoBlog will seek out visitors from any and all close home games and ask if they thought the stadium had gotten noticeably louder.

Some Penn State Fan who works with Anonymous Blog Reader, you have been pwned:

A remote co-worker of mine is a PSU fan. I spent last week in his location, in his cube to be exact since he was on vacation. His entire cube is decorated in PSU memorabilia, quite nice if you're a PSU fan, however I am not

I took the liberty of modifying the August page of his official PSU calendar. My only regret is that I can't be there when he flips that page on August 1st and is greeted by one of the greatest college football pictures ever snapped.

That is all. Carry on with your weekend.

Any news regarding the possible eligibility of Jason Forcier for this upcoming season? Any idea when we might hear from the NCAA and any conjecture as to what the outcome might be? I’m guessing (based on the fact we haven’t heard anything) that this probably won’t happen.

I’d sure breathe easier with an experienced backup to the freshman tandem we are fielding.

Thanks!  Best, Mark

No, not really. The elder Forcier's transferred to Michigan and applied for the semi-repealed Mundy waiver; a decision has to be coming in the next couple weeks since fall drills start in mid-August. I don't know how likely a waiver is, and neither does the athletic department. I asked Bruce Madej about it; the response: "we have not had this before so there is nothing to draw from."

As far as breathing easier… while it'll be nice to have Forcier around for multiple reasons—can't hurt Tate's adjustment to college, for one—I'd be mildly surprised if he ended up above Sheridan on the depth chart. He's had little time to learn the offense and at this point has far less D-I playing time than Sheridan. Even if he does win the third (second?) string spot, if he sees the field it will be time for serious panic.

Brian,

The tight end position and the slot receiver position look as though they will have more competition and more depth this year.  From early reports both Koger and Webb are some of the most athletic players on the team.  Odoms will have his hands full trying to keep his starting slot position with Stokes, Roundtree, Gallon and Robinson behind him.  Do believe this added depth will create changes in which formations are used.  Maybe two TEs with Koger and Webb or could two slots be on the field and that the same time to make bubble screens to either side of the ball?  Thanks.

Rob

You'll definitely see some formations with four wideouts and two slot guys; Rodriguez went to that frequently at West Virginia. As you note, that will prevent defenses from cheating on the bubbles and hopefully add some variety. And it might not end there. Gallon, Robinson, and Teric Jones all spent their high school careers in the backfield, and thus might be better candidates to go from the backfield to the slot or pull up to provide option pitch guys on QB runs. Gallon's got a pretty accurate arm for a 5'8" guy; I have waking dreams about Gallon pulling up to pass a la Antwaan Randle El in that Super Bowl.

As far as dual TE sets… well, I don't know. At West Virginia, Rodriguez would move Owen Schmitt around as an H-back and that was it as far as TEs went. So he's already in unexplored territory here. If I had to guess, though, I bet he tries it. He's an inveterate tinkerer and likes to mix up some I-form and whatnot to catch opponents off guard; if he's got two tight ends there will probably be a game in which we see a change-up dose of twin-TE ace sets. They can run zone stretches from that, too. I also bet that at least one of the hyped tight ends falls a little flat, causing significant separation between option A and option B and that twin TE sets never make it out of the exotics phase.

Those will feature more this year but It's another new formation I expect will emerge in the fall: a 1TE 2RB shotgun set with Carlos Brown and Brandon Minor in the same backfield. Michigan showed this in the spring game with some frequency and it promises to be difficult for opposing teams to defend as long as both seniors remain healthy.

Hey Brian

Though we all know July is a complete and utter dead zone as far as college football is concerned, I thought of a question to occupy our time that hasn't really yet been asked. With everyone under the sun making predictions about how next season will go, no one has really considered or elaborated on what effect, if any, this season could have on the current 2010 class coaches are compiling. You, and several others, have mentioned that a 3 and 9 season caused an understandable dip in recruiting, perhaps prompting coaches to widely pursue more players (some of lower rank) while turning higher rated players off on Michigan, etc. Though rankings aren't everything.

But, if 2009 goes the way of 7 and 5 or even 6 and 6, do you see a potential increase in interest from guys either on the fence about Michigan or turned off by the Wolverine's 2008 season. Basically, can success in 2009 win over 2010 guys currently not on the board? If so, who? Or with this summer almost in the bag, are recruits starting to finalize their decisions and close the door on schools they haven't yet considered?

Thanks
-J

Eh… not much. By the time it'll be clear Michigan has improved and Rodriguez isn't a dead man walking, 99% of Michigan's targets will have already made their decision re: Michigan. For one, there won't be many slots in the class even midway through the fall. Michigan will add maybe 7 or 8 players before February, and by mid-September they'll probably have half of those guys. A competent season could collect one or two guys who might have gone elsewhere, and that effect is pretty marginal.

Where you would see a bounce is in the 2011 class.

Through The Wolverine Blog I saw a link to the Bentley image bank library at UM.  I was checking out team photos from throughout the years (which is awesome) and came across this photo that appears to have the team wearing three different jerseys. 

Any info on what the deal is with this? Is this just what they wore at practice back then? Would love to see some striped throwback jerseys sometime at Yost. These are nice too:

   -Gabo

I have no answers for Gabo here, but I figure someone out there might. What's the deal with Michigan's motley collection of jerseys here? It's the Great Depression, so maybe they didn't sell enough pencils to get a unified kit. The guys on the right appear to have eaten their shirts entirely.