In regard to football recruiting, I thought Rivals prospect rankings came out this week. I may be wrong, but regardless this has to be coming up soon. Also, since I am that bored and that much of a troll right now, what are your predictions for star/rankings of our commits or anyone else of interest?

I know stars/rankings according to these sites are only marginally reliable, but lets just do this for kicks. My predictions are:

Beyer: 4*, 5.8

Rock: 4*, 5.8

Brown: 3*, 5.7

Hollowell: 3*, 5.7

Conway: 3*, 5.6

Allow me to preface my question by noting that this is not a "congrats to me on my first season tickets!" post. I'm genuinely interested in the discussion, and I couldn't find any previous posts that reflect it.

Background: I've been procrastinating for years about getting football season tickets, partly because living out-of-state meant I probably wouldn't be able to attend more than 2-3 games in any given season. To compound matters, I either wasn't told about or completely botched the switch from the old waiting list to the new priority point system.

So in December, I decided it was time to make my initial donation (albeit a paltry one) and activate my priority points. I had an idea what those points should be after the donation (~15), but I was convinced that they would NOT be enough to receive a season ticket offer (much less one that isn't in the endzone). In 2009, 18 points ranked 12,500.

Lo and behold, I received an offer last month to purchase tickets in the blue zone. I was shocked. So my questions are these:

1. What are the experiences of the MGoNation with regard to the priority point list? Has anyone received an offer with less than 15 points? Has anyone needed significantly more than 15 to receive an offer? At what point total have you been invited to upgrade to a new seating tier?

2. IF this is indeed unusual (as I assumed it would be), are there factors that would explain it?

I heard a while back that season ticket renewals run ~97% each year (which I assume doesn't include students, who turn over at a rate of roughly 25%). If season tickets comprise 60% of stadium capacity (good/bad assumption?), that would open ~2,000 seats for new season tickets each year. To compound matters, I'd heard that some changes in the stadium (e.g. to achieve ADA compliance, widen aisles, etc.) would be reducing capacity. On the other hand, perhaps some of the better-off donors are upgrading to indoor seating. And of course, there's the theory that unhappy ticket holders could be voicing their disapproval with the product on the field by not renewing.

But perhaps my initial assumption that all 15,000+ with a priority ranking are waiting for tickets is simply a bad one. Many of those with a high point total probably have tickets already. In which case I would ask:

3. Are there really only 5,000ish people on the waiting list who don't have tickets? That level of demand would seem low to me.

Thoughts?

Happy Memorial Day to everyone, especially the Vets.

Seeing that it will be the first year of club seating, I am assuming it will be avoid of people that desire to stand during the game ... seems common sense to me if you are going to pay that much for a chair back.  However, in the Westside chairback seating area where there will be bleacher seating in front of the chairbacks, you might think there will be standers that could cause the chairback folks to go nutty.

I have never sat in club seating in any other stadium, but I would imaging the culture/etiquette will be established game 1. 

The recent topic regarding whether people had attended all home and away games in a season got me thinking. I don't get back to Michigan all that often anymore but I will be attending the game at Indiana this year. How good/friendly is UM tailgating at opposing venues, and is anyone else going to be at the Indiana game?

Says 5 and 5 with 2 toss-ups (UCONN and MSU).  Blah blah blah.

 

http://cfn.scout.com/2/973653.html

The 2010 Michigan Defense will be quite young and inexperienced. But how do they compare to the rest of the Big Ten? Finding depth charts was more difficult that I imagined and I was not able to find all of them. [The only one I could not find was for Minnesota.  If someone finds a link I"ll add the Gophers in.]

Obviously depth charts change constantly but these are all finalized after the team's respective spring game, so its the best we got. I did a simple breakdown between upperclassman (Jr. - Rs Sr.) and underclassman.

Teams are listed from weakest to strongest based on 2009 Total Defense.

 

Indiana

(courtesy of Scout)

Starters

Upperclassman: 8

Underclassman: 3

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 14

Underclassman: 8

 

Illinois

(courtesy of Rivals)

Starters

Upperclassman: 7

Underclassman: 4

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 12

Underclassman: 10

 

Michigan State

(courtesy of The Only Colors)

Starters

Upperclassman: 5

Underclassman: 6

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 8

Underclassman: 14

 

Northwestern

(courtesy of Northwestern Football Blog)

Starters

Upperclassman: 10

Underclassman: 1

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 15

Underclassman: 7

 

Purdue

(courtesy of Bing)

Starters

Upperclassman: 7

Underclassman: 4

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 8

Underclassman: 14

 

Wisconsin

(courtesy of Rivals)

Starters

Upperclassman: 10

Underclassman: 1

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 12

Underclassman: 10

 

Penn State

(courtesy of The Penn State Examiner)

Starters

Upperclassman: 10

Underclassman: 1

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 12

Underclassman: 10

 

Iowa

(courtesy of National Champs)

Starters

Upperclassman: 10

Underclassman: 1

 

Ohio State

(courtesy of Brutus Report)

Starters

Upperclassman: 9

Underclassman: 2

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 11

Underclassman: 11

 

On first glance these breakdowns make sense.  Penn State, Iowa, and Ohio State usually field excellent defenses year after year.  These programs have (obviously) been able to build up depth allowing them to field experinced players.  Wisconsin and Northwestern also return mostly upperclassman and were ranked higher last year than I intially thought.

Michigan State and Purdue are more evenly split.  Both schools field relatively new coaches compared to these other schools.

 

Big Ten Averages

Starters

Upperclassman: 7.6

Underclassman: 3.4

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 10.2

Underclassman: 11.8

Michigan

Starters

Upperclassman: 6

Underclassman: 5

Two-Deep

Upperclassman: 8

Underclassman: 14

 

Clearly the Wolverines are short on experience in the starting lineup, but they are not far off from the other B10 schools.  However these numbers could tip even younger if Obi Ezeh loses his spot and Will Campbell becomes a starter.

The two-deep is even more skewed toward younger players.  In a word: brutal.

---

Not All B10 Defenses Are Created Equal

After looking at the B10 Total Defense rankings from 2009 there appeared to be 3 fairly seperate categories of defensive quailty.

Craptastic: 404.0 yds/game (Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, MSU, Minnesota)

Decent: 354.1 yds/game (Purdue & Northwestern)

Great: 295.3 yds/game (Wisconsin, PSU, Iowa, OSU)

 

Which category most closely matches one of the above?

Starters	Craptastic	Decent	Great	Michigan
Upperclassman	6.7	8.5	9.8	6
Underclassman	4.3	2.5	1.2	5
Two-Deep	Craptastic	Decent	Great	Michigan
Upperclassman	11.3	11.5	11.7	8
Underclassman	10.7	10.5	10.3	14

I don't think any further analysis is needed here.  Michigan is significantly inexperienced compared to their BIg Ten foes, especiallly when compared to the good and elite teams. The two-deep is just scary to look at and there is no surgarcoating that situation.  Michigan needs health as much (if not more) than any other B10 team this year. 

The silver lining here is Michigan matches up fairly closely to Purdue, ranked 5th in Total Big Ten Defense.  Hopefully our superior talent will also allow Michigan to finish as somewhat of an outliner in 2010.

---

Michigan Defense: 2009 vs 2010

Starters	2009	2010
Upperclassman	6	6
Underclassman	5	5

 

Two-Deep	2009	2010
Upperclassman	8	8
Underclassman	14	14

 

What does this all mean?

Looking at the Michigan Two-Deep I am surprised that we field the same experience-level defense.  This gives me more hope that the 2010 Defense as an overall unit can be better than the one we saw in 2009.

 

GO BLUE!