chase winovich

The locations. Five Fifth Factor Plots, Michigan's shot locations against the Badgers:

Now delete five of those midrange shots (one of them was the long Zeb Jackson make) because they came from the Kenpom Kids. Hot damn. UW entered this game forcing midrange shots at a top-20 rate and allowing just 52% at the rim. Michigan hit 70% at the rim and got to the rim 23 times.

As I've said before, the really exciting thing about this team is the sustainability of the things they're good at. They get to the rim against everyone and convert there; they force a ton of horrible shots. They are currently 8th at forcing long twos and eighth at defending them. Wisconsin: 6/12 at the rim, 5/25(!) on farther twos.

That's how you can have the best 2PT in the country and a top five FTA/FGA rate.

[After THE JUMP: charts of less auspicious character]

A series covering Michigan's 2010s. Previously: QBs, RBs, and WRs, TEs, FBs, and OL, best blocks, the aughts.

Methodology: The staff decided these together and split the writeups. Considering individual years but a player can only be nominated once.

DEFENSIVE TACKLE: Maurice Hurst Jr. (2017)

The spread age means defensive material gets moved away from the box, simplifying the game by taking away most of the defense's opportunity to surprise. You can't bring pressure from everywhere if your OLBs and safeties have to split out with slot receivers. RPOs, quick passing games, receiver running backs, cross-motion, run-threat QBs, and read-based rushing offenses nerf the effectiveness of even the elite edge rushers until passing downs take those options away. But the one thing spread offenses have no answer for is a penetrating defensive tackle who won't get doubled and won't get out of his damn lane.

Into this math stepped Mo Hurst, and oh was that first step unholy quick.

The spread has no answer for that.

Hurst was the son of an NFL father who'd left only his name, from a fancy Massachusetts private school his mom had to Mom Out to pay for, and a first step looking to be attached to a football player.

Why Mike Martin? Two words: snap explosion.

Martin was a bit higher rated—consensus four star outside the top 100, IIRC—and an ever-growing slab of pulsating muscle from day one. Hurst isn't going to be quite as ripped, but he is a kid who can get off the ball in a flash, bury himself in the chest of the opponent, and then rip through the dude before he knows what's going on.

We were hype, with distant future caveats. The burst came in 2015, first as a passing down sub for Ryan Glasgow, then a cycler with the aforementioned and Willie Henry. Hurst made his mark on the season with quick flashes into the backfield, but got exposed for his youth when Glasgow was out and Kevin Wilson's fast-paced Indiana stretched him to death.

By 2016 the MGoBlog love for the wrecking ball responsible for Michigan's second line (Gary/Hurst/Mone/Winovich) matching the starters (Wormley/Godin/Glasgow/Taco) in production was expressed in UFR (+84.5/-20) then surpassed by Pro Football Focus—then at the fulness of their scouting, and it was on. We called him the defensive MVP (over Peppers). They put him on the All-American team. We wrote a profile in and put him rubbing his belly on the cover of HTTV, they put him on the top of the top players returning for 2017. We created a maurice hurst is so good he is kind of boring tag. They put him in Heisman territory:

Congratulations to the 2017 PFF All-American 1st Team Defense pic.twitter.com/77eGJzxz1p

— PFF Draft (@PFF_College) December 6, 2017

This site wasn't far off—Hurst's senior season tape is the best by a DT or any other position in the history of the exercise. His +152/-27.5 is the standing record for UFR. The 3-3-5 they routinely deployed, because there wasn't a second line of Mo Hursts anymore, nerfed his statistical impact. This site was saying this after Game 2:

He is Mo Hurst. The end.

How far you want to go with the superlatives after that is up to you. The best player of the 2010s? There's an argument. The best DT in Michigan history? Depends how much film you want to watch. But if you want to know what's different about Michigan's last two defensive efforts against Ohio State and the two that gave wobby offenses a chance to win in 2016 and 2017, he is Mo Hurst. The end.

--Seth

[After THE JUMP: MGoBlog and the mid-teens were good for one thing]

The draft happened. Michigan results:

• Devin Bush went 10th overall to Pittsburgh, after Detroit took a tight end. Later, the Lions would take another tight end. Keep on Detroiting, Detroit, the Bush family thanks you.
• Rashan Gary went 12th overall to Green Bay, which immediately called him an outside linebacker. This was overshadowed by the general Giants-ing going on. For the record, drafting Rashan Gary as a specialist pass rusher is a Bad Idea.
• Chase Winovich went in the third round to the Patriots, because of course he did. He said he was "awaiting further instruction" before talking to the media, demonstrating that he was already advanced in the ways of Belichick-fu. The Patriots then threatened to cut his hair, because of course they did. 
• David Long went a couple picks later to the Rams. That seems like the Michigan steal of the draft to me. Long was hurt because no one dared throw at him. Criticisms of his game are about his height and how that hurts him on 50/50 balls, which I get but he put up a sub-4 shuttle at the combine and should be an elite nickel.
• Zach Gentry overcame the ugly combine numbers to get drafted in the fifth round, also by the Steelers. That second TE the Lions took was Isaac Nauta, former five star everyone was desperate to get after. He went in the seventh. Recruiting is important—this year's five-star first round hit rate was off the charts—but it is funny how things work out sometimes. Behind The Steel curtain's scouting round-up on him has one of the sentences I feel deep in my core: "Warning, some of the tracks that accompany these videos contains profanity and most of the music is fairly bad."

Karan Higdon didn't get drafted, which says something about running backs in the modern NFL. If you aren't a major piece of the passing game it's a tough world out there.

[After: they Giants'd so hard they're now the Jets]