football

It's always amusing to watch the board mood change so quickly - 24 hours ago there was euphoria as 3 commits had dropped within 24 hours... now with some bad news on mostly long shots ennui has returned.  It's all good.  Part of the recruiting game.

The 3 hour recruitment of Colin Samuel had me thinking about how 2011 fell chronologically so I took the time to google term "Hello [Player name] MGoblog" 20 times to see how our 2011 class played out. I didn't follow recruiting that closely back then so those in the know can better clarify which players Hoke "closed"  on that had a lot of legwork done by the RR regime but here is how it played out in terms of timing.

This may give you comfort or make you more worried if you try to parallel to a MUCH smaller class under Harbaugh under similar time constraints.  Plz keep in mind this staff in theory will be much better at actual development before you choose how distressed to be about a recruiting miss.

Key info:

• 20 total commits
• Starz per 247 composite = fourteen 3 starz, six 4 starz
• Six of the 20 commits happened Jan 25, 2011 or later.
• OSU-UM game Nov 26 (Hayes committed just before)
• RR fired Jan 6, 2011
• Hoke hired Jan 12, 2011

3 tiers:

• RR (8)
• RR under fire (2)  (post OSU/pre bowl)
• Hoke (10)

Key contributors (8 of 20):

• RR (3)  - Beyer, Miller, Hayes
• RR under fire (2) - Morgan, Countess
• Hoke (3) - Taylor, Wile, Clark

Some material production (3 of 20):

• RR (1) - Hollowell
• RR under fire (0)
• Hoke (2) - Heitzman, Rawls

Not much help either due to injury or other reasons (9 of 20):

• RR (4) - Brown, Rock, Jones, Posada
• RR under fire (0)
• Hoke (5) - Carter, Poole, Bellomy, Bryant*, Barnett

*if not for injury Bryant would probably have been a key contributor

I'm a lifelong UCLA fan(but a Michigan MBA grad, so Michigan takes priority) and have also been driving long distances for work lately.  As a result, I have been listening to the UCLA Scout and Rivals sites weekly podcast to help pass the time.  Today's Rivals podcast had a lot of interesting information on some mutual targets that I thought I would relay here(podcast is free so I'm not revealing any paywalled stuff link: https://ucla.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1723625 ):

Chris Clark - Apparently had great visit to UCLA and loved the area, parents came down and liked it as well.  Reporters felt that most of the pressure to go to Michigan was coming from Clark's parents and the OV went along way to removing that roadblock for UCLA.  We'll see what happens, but I'm thinking UCLA is probably going to win out here.

Ty Wheatley Jr. - Wants to play Tight End first and UCLA recruiting him as a Defensive End only.  USC is coming on strong telling him he can play Tight End and he is being recruited by USC's Tight End coach(Marques Tuiasosopo) who was on the Raiders the same time Ty Wheatley Sr. was, so there's a long-standing relationship there.  All of this makes a lot of sense and I think USC wins this race(which is just awful).

Roquan Smith - The analysts seemed to think that if he was going to commit to Georgia, he would have done it already.  They think he's looking for a reason to go elsewhere.  While UCLA is getting him to visit this weekend, there is that relationship with Durkin to consider and I think really helps Michigan out.

In Summary, I think of the three mutual targets I think Michigan's best shot is with Roquan Smith.  Also, it would be nice for Michigan to start winning again, so other analysts would take the Michigan threat more seriously.  It's also really funny to hear Californians talk about the cold as if it's some strange terrible threat they can't imagine exposing themselves to.  Frankly, it makes them sound like wimps and I sometimes wonder if the weather argument made in recruiting comes across like that.

According to Lorenz. 

Info in this 247 thread:

http://michigan.247sports.com/Board/59424/Contents/Michigan-To-Host-Samu...

This has been an extremely disappointing day in the Michigan recruiting world. 

I know that there has been plenty of talk on this, but I thought this experiment deserved its own thread.

A HeadSmart Lab study using brand new official NFL Footballs...

All footballs are inflated to 12.5 PSI at 75 degrees...like they would be in a locker room...the balls are then put in a 50 degree room and made wet (there was heavy rain in the AFC Title game and about 45 degrees by halftime of the game).

Facts:
#1 Colder air will condense the air and decrease PSI in a ball
#2 Wet leather will expand and therefore decrease the PSI in a leather football.

Experiment Results:
The footballs lost PSI of up to 1.95 PSI --- perfectly in line with what the Patriot balls were. Keep in mind, only 1 Patriot ball was down 2 PSI. The rest lost less than that.

Edit: I failed to embed and have kids to put to bed so here is the link to a video.

Didn't see this here off hand... if so, Mods go ahead and delete... 

Looks a little intense ;)

http://michigan.247sports.com/Bolt/Michigan-To-Host-Samuel-This-Weekend-35084701

Samuel is a 4 star CB from Long Beach Poly.