2017 rome trip

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35

Unverified Voracity Sticks Around
Brian •

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Harbaugh goes to Washington. I would have enjoyed the look on his face if a senator asked him to stick to sports:

"Many of you are probably wondering why a football coach is speaking at an event like this. I may be a football coach, but I am an American first and foremost -- and all Americans should care about equal access to justice," Harbaugh said. "To me, it's not just about Michigan -- go blue -- it's about 'go red, white and blue.'

"The issue is about fairness, fundamental fairness. As I see it, if you have money, you have access to justice. If you don't have money, you have less access to justice. That's not the way it should work."

Harbaugh, who says he's always been a fan of lawyers -- from several of his personal friends to the famous "Judge Judy" -- said he became involved with LSC after attending a forum that showed him how many Americans are "left out" of the justice system due to their inability to afford proper legal representation.

Jim Harbaugh has to be the only guy on the planet who can say "I've always been a fan of lawyers" with seeming sincerity.

Bakich stays. Erik Bakich led Michigan to the NCAA tournament for the second time in three years and got 11 Wolverines drafted this offseason, a program record. This got him an interview at South Carolina and a job offer from Stanford. He turned the latter down:

I'm not a baseball guy but the impression I get is that this is somewhere between a surprise and a shock. Zach Shaw has a post at 24/7 with some details:

1) This can be considered a huge win for Michigan: As blunt as it sounds, I liken Michigan baseball to a BYU or Minnesota football. It has some history to it, but generally a fringe top-25 finish and semi-regular postseason play is probably the highest realistic expectation thanks to geography, scholarships and other factors. Anything above that should be seen as truly special.

In baseball, out-of-state recruiting is extremely tough at Michigan; thanks to the low scholarship limit (12.5 scholarships for a 33-man roster, per the NCAA) teams often use a half-scholarship option. But if a player from, for example, Georgia is offered a half-scholarship to Michigan (cost of attending would be about $23,000), it would much cheaper for him to walk-on at Georgia (about $12,000). ….

Factor in the fact that few elite players come from the state of Michigan, and the Wolverines are at a huge disadvantage. Somehow, Bakich bucked that trend, pulling in top-25 classes every year (depending on the site, of course, but even being in the ballpark is unprecedented territory) and consequently a top-25 team this past year. The team went from 22 wins pre-Bakich to 29, 32, 39, 36, 42 in his first five seasons.

Simply put, if you luck into a coach like that — let alone one that isn't even 40 years old — keeping him away from more established programs with more baseball success (and money) is an exception, not a rule.

The general reaction to the Kendall Rogers tweet asserting that Bakich turned down Stanford is "WTF?!" Suffice it to say that this is a weird one. But a good one. (Also Big Ten baseball should leave the NCAA and play through the summer with full rides for all, but I say that every time baseball comes up.)

Bombs away. Oh look, Don Brown:

The other teams on that list are desperately undermanned outfits blitzing out of desperation. Michigan is the only team that is actually good at D.

Prelude to an 18-team conference. The Big Ten is thinking about extending the conference schedule to 20 games. That barely dents the huge imbalanced schedule issues going to 14 imposed: you'd still play half the league once annually instead of twice. That might create enough room to protect rivalries like Indiana-Purdue and Michigan State-Common Human Decency, and therefore slightly juice TV revenues. There might be other reasons to do it but none that the front office gives a good goddang about.

The real solution is to add one game, not two, and play it Scottish Premiere League style:

Alternative: 19 game conference schedule.

PHASE 1: round robin.
PHASE 2: line is drawn between 7th and 8th teams in the league. Mini-leagues subsequently play round-robin. Rutgers is relegated to the Big East every year.

PROS: Absolutely fair. Winner is undisputed. Makes Big Ten title a huge important deal. Final six games for teams that make upper half would be knock-down drag out brutal free-for-all for league title. Would give top teams impregnable schedule strength. You could televise the schedule draw with Ronaldo and Messi in suits.

CONS: May cost league NCAA bids if the best team in the bottom half can't get any marquee wins in the last six games or the worst team in the top half just gets blitzed. Bottom half is just kind of sadly playing out the string. Uncertainty about final three home games may impact ticket sales negatively. Extremely distant possibility that the 8th best team 13 games in can climb all the way to the top.

In conclusion, anything that amps up the value of the regular season is good. Play For Stuff.

Or you could fix 2/9ths of the problem.

Rome costs. To the university, zero. To the anonymous donor, 800k. Manuel did a good job pre-empting complaints that this was a waste of money:

“It will be about $5,000 to $6,000 a person, so it was a great investment. It was just terrific. We pay them through an educational experience like Michigan does all the time. I don’t think about it in terms of paying our athletes but if people want to say we should give something to our students of value, I can’t think of a better way to invest in them for their lifetime and their experience.”

Manuel said the donor still does not want to be identified. Donors often make large contributions to athletics, and the donor can specify where the money should go or it’s used at the discretion of the department.

“We utilized the money he gave us,” Manuel said. “It was an unrestricted donation.”

Big time athletic programs spend a lot of money on diamond waterfalls and the like; this was much more educational and directly beneficial to players. Michigan shouldn't apologize for offering them whatever they can. They're not.

The loophole. You can't hire a football coach associated with a prospect, at least not if you want to recruit that high school for four years. (Two prior to the hire, two after.) But you can hire a dude's dad. I'm not trying to imply MSU did anything shady here because the dude in question is clearly qualified, but they signed Cody White this year; the year before they hired his dad as a staffer. Sheldon, the elder White, is coming off two decades for the Lions and is thus 100% qualified to join a trainwreck. It did jump out at me when MSU shook up its staff.

So. Actual football coaches cannot get entry level jobs because it might taint recruiting. But stuff like Ole Miss hiring Shea Patterson's brother or Tennessee hiring Trey Smith's sister(!) is still fine and dandy per NCAA rules. I'm not surprised, but I feel like I should be.

Etc.: Jordan Morgan back in the area after a 3-year Euroleague stint. This quiz is absurd but it only wants you to get five right. I got 9.5, because this is my job. I am angry at myself for knowing where Pop Evil hails from.

Harbaugh still not a fan of playing on Friday. VICE on amateurism. Spoiler: still a scam. Ian Boyd ranks college DCs; Don Brown comes in second to Brent Venables.

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41

Unverified Voracity Finds Young Delano
Brian •

This is good publicity. This is a very Michigan Difference sort of thing.

Two amazing things. One: every member of Cass Tech's 2013 secondary is currently in the NFL. Two: ESPN found a picture of Delano Hill in which he looks younger than 45.

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The two guys not pictured, DaQuan Pace and DeJuan Rogers, both went to MAC schools and signed as UDFAs so this is likely to be short-lived. Nonetheless that is extraordinary. Jermain Crowell, the DBs coach at Cass Tech at the time:

He planned to take all four of his NFL-bound protégés out to dinner to congratulate them Tuesday night.

"This might be the last check that I pick up," he said. "This might have to be the last one."

Yessir.

Bits and pieces of the schedule. Michigan's added some guarantee games in 2018 and 2019. They'll play WMU in 2018 and MTSU and Army in 2019. The Broncos are likely to be far enough removed from the PJ Fleck era to be a major threat, but they're likely to be on another level from a low-level MAC opponent.

It's even tougher to project to 2019. FWIW, MTSU has been about .500 the last four years. They were competitive with Vandy (a 17-13 loss) and Illinois (a 27-25 loss) last year; this year they were hammered by Vandy but beat (a very very bad) Mizzou. Army has been the service academy it's safe to schedule for about 20 years now but they got off the mat for an 8-5 2016 with third year coach Jeff Monken.

Hooray for not worrying about this anymore. This site used to have annual posts dedicated to the Academic Progress Rate, because a late Carr falloff and disastrous transition to Rich Rodriguez had Michigan hovering near the Mendoza line. That 880 fell off a couple of years ago, and from there it's been about consolidating a spot at the top. Mission accomplished:

Oddly, I don't see Notre Dame on that list. Someone check ND Nation for fainting spells.

Excellent job all around here, and if you're scoring at home Michigan just had the most NFL draft picks, the third-highest APR in college football, and took a trip to Rome. Croots should be knocking the doors down. For real:

Michigan's coaching staff was just returning from an Italian dinner -- their final meal as a team in Rome -- in a 17th century Baroque mansion with marble door frames and elaborate chandeliers when their phones started to buzz again. A few thousand miles away, on the other side of the Atlantic, the New York Jets had just selected Jeremy Clark with the 197th pick of the NFL draft. He was the 11th Wolverine to have his name called in Philadelphia, a new school record.

In one particular way it's tough being a McCaffrey. Zing:

Hurst will go high. PFF has always been about Maurice Hurst and it looks like that is approaching consensus in the draft analyst community. Todd McShay:

Hurst has started just four games at Michigan, but I love what I've seen on tape so far. He was frequently Michigan's best defensive lineman during the games I studied. And remember: That group just had three D-linemen selected in the 2017 draft.

He's projected to go 16th next year. Don't expect much else: Michigan has just eight seniors. Mason Cole is likely to be drafted and Mike McCray could play himself into the middle rounds. Khalid Hill might be a draftable fullback. Unless there are some very surprising breakouts from juniors that would be it.

Good luck with that. Per Athlon, both in-state teams have to replace a ton this offseason:

East Division

Team Offense Defense
Indiana 5 9
Maryland 6 6
Michigan 5 1
Michigan State 2 3
Ohio State 8 7
Penn State 10 7
Rutgers 4 7

We all know about Michigan's massive turnover; Michigan State actually has fewer returning starters. And they went 3-9. Have fun, guys!

Usually this dude trolls Penn State fans. David Jones puts together a list of Big Ten schools by football revenue and this is either a brilliant way to get me to link very boring content or the worst take of all time:

Though Dave Brandon was unseated as athletic director in Oct. 2014, the revenue monster he built breathes without him. Michigan always was a conference heavyweight but it has recently become the unrivaled giant of money-making B1G football programs, the first in the league to approach the $100 million mark in gross revenue. The 2015-16 figure is a whopping 10-percent increase over 2014-15's $88.3M. Michigan's $60.6 net after expenses is easily the conference's largest.

/head explodes

Jones must have missed the collapse of Michigan's season ticket waiting list and ~75,000 fans at the dismal Maryland game. The part of Michigan's revenue surge that isn't TV money lifting all boats is directly attributable to one Jim Harbaugh, not the athletic director he didn't want to work for.

Etc.: Wagner, Wilson decisions will be at the deadline. That's May 24th. Quinn profiles David DeJulius. Michigan is looking for new lax coaches. Kyle Rowland on the scary, scary hours for Grant Newsome after his ACL tear. Rookie wage scale in the NFL is devastating for running backs. Excellent post on evaluating OL.

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75

Rome Wrap: Defense
Brian •

Obligatory Harbaugh item left out of yesterday's post

Obligatory Waffle House Nation take

I would have titled this article "Spurrier points out obvious thing," but I'm no good at headlines.

Defensive items

Status quo on the line, in which the starters are set in stone, Carlo Kemp is the only certain two-deep guy behind him, Mike Dwumfour is hurt, and nobody else draws serious mention. Baumgardner:

Michigan's going to have to get some really strong performances from its freshman defensive line class later this summer. Aubrey Solomon, Luiji Vilain, James Hudson, etc.

Because, right now, it still doesn't look like there's much consistency behind the top five of Rashan Gary, Maurice Hurst, Bryan Mone, Chase Winovich and Carlo Kemp.

Webb is hearing some of the same things we are about Dwumfour, at least:

Dwumfour has a great shot. They're calling him "a bigger Mo Hurst." The other payers rave about him too. But he was injured this spring and wasn't in on all the contact drills, so I'm not ready to call my shot there.

"Bigger Mo Hurst" is very much in the "Mike Hart, but fast!" vein of Fred Jackson hyperbole; I will take plain ol' Mo Hurst every day and twice on Saturday, thank you very much. Dwumfour was one of our key players going into spring, so for him to miss out on all the publicly available time is a major disappointment. At least the things we're hearing are still very good.

So. The two deep is going to feature a freshman nose tackle 99% likely to be named Aubrey Solomon and a freshman weakside end 99% likely to be named Luiji Vilain. If Michigan has to rely on them as much as they relied on Rashan Gary last year that's fine. Solomon is a five-star ready to chip in, and Vilain ended the year not far off from that status. Any injury to the starting line immediately puts Michigan in crisis mode.

This gap is the consequence of the collapse in Brady Hoke's recruiting after it became clear he was not Vince Lombardi and is the difference between Michigan right now and an elite program. It'll take another year or two before Michigan is stacked front-to-back with Harbaugh recruiting classes.

No changes or even much commentary on the linebackers. There's a top three; Webb asserted that he felt a final member of the two-deep would be arriving in fall with the rest of the freshman class. This is obviously not great news for the linebackers already on campus. They have sufficient numbers there that the backup situation will probably be fine; again this is a spot which will require another year or two before they have guys lined up three deep.

The slightly ominous noise you heard recently was Don Brown talking about the cornerbacks:

Michigan's defensive coordinator doesn't operate in coach-speak, the truth always seems to seep out -- whether he wants it to or not.

And when it came to the question of whether or not he's happy with where cornerback Lavert Hill is heading into Michigan's 15th and final practice of spring ball, he couldn't help but get real.

"No," Brown said Friday after Michigan's practice in Rome, a slight chuckle coming through in his voice.

Lavert Hill missed too much of the spring with minor injuries and the lack of talk about David Long is creeping towards worrying. (Long was one of a few players who did not make the Rome trip, FWIW.) Keith Washington following up that spring game with a major move in fall practice would be most welcome.

Meanwhile reports have Jordan Glasgow as Khaleke Hudson's backup at VIPER(!!!), which is sensible but a wee bit disappointing to your author after his strong performance in the spring game as a safety. He's second string at either position but at safety he is a potential dimeback* like Kinnel was a year ago. As the backup viper that's unlikely. Glasgow continued to impress observers in Rome, FWIW:

That is a diving INT on a crossing route, which you don't see every day. Webb noted that they're "thrilled" with Glasgow's emergence as the viper and that between those two guys they're set there. Furbush and Uche come in for mentions as well, which emphasizes the depth at that spot.

At safety the starters are locked in, and then like DL there are major question marks behind them. Michigan did get to see both freshman S as early enrollees, and the injury that held J'Marick Woods out of the spring game did not prevent him from practicing in Rome:

Safety is almost the last place I want to see a freshman heavily involved—QB is #1—so even if Woods and Jaylen Kelly-Powell are promising I'm hoping their deployment is restricted to blowouts. Webb says Michigan will be monitoring grad transfers for a potential backup S—again, if Glasgow can play S it really feels like he should play S.

At least it seems like the starters should be high quality. Tyree Kinnel put in good work in 100+ snaps a year ago and Don Brown is super enthused about Josh Metellus, a "savant".

*[MGoBlog convention is that Michigan is a 4-2-5 base defense so this is equivalent to a nickelback in a 4-3. IE, the dimeback comes in on passing downs.]

Solitary special teams note

The Quinn Nordin bomb was no fluke:

He booted a few in practice today that looked like they'd have been good from 60.

I have to think he's Michigan's kicker next season. That basically looks like a 99 percent certainty.

Distance is about 20% of a kicker's value so let's not get ahead ourselves. #CollegeKickers is always a possibility. But we can say that Nordin has A+ upside.

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90

Rome Wrap: Feelingsball, Offense
Brian •
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87

Unverified Voracity Is Rando Slander Turtleneck Doof
Brian •
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