jeff tambellini

none more iowa [Patrick Barron]

The most Iowa thing ever. The Athletic has an article in which old coaches are interviewed abut their recruiting stories. It starts off by asking about the biggest recruiting wins these guys ever had, and it's a litany of names you know: Orlando Pace, Jadeveon Clowney, Ray Lewis, Champ Bailey. And then you get to former ISU head coach Dan McCarney, who was an assistant at Iowa:

the one that had as much to do with us turning the program around at Iowa was Reggie Roby. … It came down to Iowa vs. Wisconsin at midnight the night before signing day. …I felt at the time he might have as much to do with us turning that program around as anybody we could sign. In 1981, we had one of the best defenses in the country, and offense, that was OK. And we had Reggie Roby flipping the field like nobody had seen in decades. In my career, the two best punters I’d ever seen were Ray Guy and Reggie Roby.

A punter. Big Ten! Note that I'm not explicitly not making fun of this after RON COLUZZI IS A GOLDEN GOD cost Michigan a game in Iowa City. I post out of respect and fear.

In general, McCarney seems like a guy you'd like to be regaled by. On the "arms race" in CFB:

McCarney: (Laughs) I would have liked to have been in an arms race. The early days at Iowa, Wisconsin, Iowa State, I’d have loved to have been in an arms race.

On whether rules are being broken more now or more back in the day:

Now, guys go past the visit rule or the old bump rule, that thing was ridiculous. The bumps used to last half an hour to 45 minutes. Oh OK, I just bumped into you. Why were you in the room with the door shut for 45 minutes? That’s a long damn bump.

Put this man on TV with a gin spritzer.

[After THE JUMP: wacky football play]

The Question: How does Kyle Connor compare vs. the Michigan forwards you've seen?

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Bill Rapai/MGoBlog

The Responses:

David: So, my first year of season tickets at Yost was my junior year in college, 05-06. I vaguely watched Michigan hockey in the previous years before, but I made a concerted effort to follow the team, game-by-game, during that 05-06 campaign. I went to a couple of games (and watched a few more on tv) during my first couple years and I remember them losing to BC in '04 and the Colorado College Collapse in '05, but my serious Michigan Hockey fandom began the following season. I just looked up a ton of stats from that 04-05 team and they scored A TON. Eight skaters had double digit goals and thirteen (!!) had 20+ points. Unfortunately, I'll have to let our resident old dudes talk about Tambellini, Hilbert, and Cammalleri.

From what I've seen, I think Connor has to be the best. Not only does his pedigree match up (torched the USHL), but his exquisite skill (see the GTG on Saturday) and sheer volume of production -69 points in only 36 games- exceed anyone else in the last decade (Hensick took 41 games to get 69 points).

My quick Top 5:

5. Carl Hagelin. Our favorite Swede never quite got to 20 goals and only once to 50 points. Hagelin was a terrific skater, a terror on the PK, and maybe the fastest I've seen at Yost. Just never hit Elite in terms of production. He's carving out a nice NHL career, though.

[After the JUMP: Comrie, Cam, Ort, Hagelin, Larkin, Porter, Hensick, Tambo…?]

Les-Miles[1]

you, go away

Brian.

Given the general distaste we Michigan fans have had with the way in which SEC coaches like Les Miles and others oversign and then cut in order to make scholarship numbers work, how can we not be similarly enraged when it looks like we are now engaging in a similar practice? Is the answer HARBAUGH?

XOXO

Michigan is not yet at the point where they have to tell a freshman who's been on campus for weeks to GTFO. Should they reach that point, or one anywhere near it, then I'll be grousing as well.

They aren't near it. To date they have lost some commits before Signing Day. If those are Michigan's choice that is a recruiting misdemeanor compared to the felony of getting a guy's LOI and putting yourself in a position where someone's gotta go, deserved or not. And in some cases they are not Michigan's choice—reports after Vic Viramontes decommitted were that Michigan was blindsided and disappointed. (The MGoSlack chat was certainly mournful.)

I do think Michigan put themselves in a bad spot by offering a few guys before it was clear whether they had the academics and/or talent to play at Michigan. In the former case, those guys should know the score without anyone having to walk their way through it—if you're not taking officials you have to know you're a long way away.

In the latter case, once that disappointing senior film comes in you can either try to make it work even if you don't believe the player is Michigan-caliber anymore or you can consciously uncouple. I can see how moving on before Signing Day instead of two years into a career nowhere near the field could be better for everyone. Michigan told Matt Falcon they didn't think he could play but had a medical scholarship. That sucked for Falcon but better to find out before you've spent eligibility. The error has been made either way.

Meanwhile, Michigan has limited control of the narrative that gets put out there because they cannot say anything about ongoing recruitments. Reports that Michigan isn't contacting certain players much are probably frustrating to the staff because the reason for that is that they've already told people the deal, as they did with Falcon, but "Michigan commit" looks good on a resume when you're looking for another spot to land. Recruiting sites waited months for Dele Harding to say something about his recruitment and finally just took him off commit lists. That doesn't mean Harding didn't know his status. If you read between the lines you know who isn't likely to be in the class. If you know, they know.

Meanwhile I know that they have told certain players not to commit whereupon those players commit anyway; Michigan shrugs its shoulders at crootin' and keeps going. Carr used to go out of his way to make things clear when such things happened to him (LB [something] Justice and some OL out of Tennessee who I can't remember spring to mind); Harbaugh seems to (accurately) regard the whole edifice as a farce and plays his part with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind.

We'll see what happens on and after Signing Day. I don't think we'll see any more untoward than playing time transfers and guys not being offered fifth years.

[After the JUMP: where to put guys, where to spend scholarships, and the best hockey forwards of the past 15 years.]