laquon treadwell

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This isn't a stage of grief but it is a stage of life: at some point during the long process of disintegrating into a grotesque version of yourself, you stop asking rhetorically when the kids will visit, stop being horrified at the exponential indignities, stop trying to convince everybody you're still just as capable as ever, and just decide to be tickled to death at anything good. You're past caring what ol' so-and-so thinks, and save your opinion that Alabama is something to be ashamed of, not commit to, for the people at your bridge game.* When the doorbell rings you expect it to be Death; if it's the grandkids, we'll order subs and won't that just be grand!

MGoBlog, you've reached the Appreciation stage. Right now on the board you can see a thread for appreciation of Jabrill Peppers, and  appreciation itself, and one for Al Borges, and I even made one for you, dear readers. Where are the rest? Where did they come from? I'll allow you this peek behind the curtain:

Appreciationthreads

Poor Ace. We'll put that one with Treadwell's and Levenberry's. And Armani Reeves and Sam Grant and Josh Garnett and Bri'onte Dunn and Anthony Standifer (the second time) and all of Tim's 2011 opponent previews, and some weirdness Brian puts up every once in awhile. Okay ONE example:

(•_•)
<)   )> ooohh 
  /   \

I don't know. But that's your user content this week: people admitting our program feels every year of 134. Next time we have Ohio State over let's wear our ratty sweatpants and make fun of their latest girlfriend. What is she 25? Really.

* [The Big Ten is analogously a bridge game.]

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The Diary to Read if You Still Care is the one about how experience seems to matter a lot on the interior of the offensive line but not so much on the exterior. Get ready for Michigan and Purdue to be extreme examples of a gentle trend:

ded1r6n8

Having two 5th year senior tackles don't seem to matter at all. Having an average of 1 year in the program among the three interior guys is not good, but it's not death either: the second star to the left over Michigan is UCLA. Gandalf the Maize, you are the Diarist of the Week. Also I like your wizard hat.

Gandalf the Maize's picture

You probably already saw the incredibly detailed one by Space Coyote where he disagrees with Brian over whether Kerridge should be able to make that one block. I have a unifying theory: the part of the brain that has the ability to release the enzymes with which to formulate excuses is often destroyed in the process of playing or coaching football. Ask a coach sometime about the Alabama game last year; he'll probably tell you that was on execution too.

The Other Diary to Read if You Still Care is by a former D3 fullback who went over three complaints we've had about the offensive coaching:

  • Don't know their personnel/strengths
  • Stubbornly sticking to an offense their players can't run.
  • Tipping calls

The anecdotal approach both addresses where our expectations are too high (they can't run simple stuff AND not be predictable) but mostly confirms the general complaints about stubbornness and misusing the personnel.

Etc. I think Brian linked to the weeklies in previous posts, but if you missed it here's parallels between Michigan and the Soviet Space Program. Dragonchild wants to bring helpful signs for the other team that say "WE'RE RUNNING" or "WE'RE PASSING" that our fans can use to prove just how predictable they're being. Has nobody considered what would happen if Borges just starts calling whatever's on the signs?

IN JUG NEWS

I was right about where they'd put the new jug scores:

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There are five lines up here, and room for six under each M—seven if they don't have header rows beneath. So that's maybe 26 years before we have to worry about how to fit more scores on the jug gain. How did we beat them 42-13 this year?

ETC. Victors5 broke down the offense by play and formation from UFRs. Rakefight's trying to boycott the preferred seat donation.

Your Moment of Zen:

Sedate me fast 'cause I don't want to think about this. /beats Alabama

Twitter is vast, and there are tens of tweets I don’t see every week. If you happen across anything you think should be noted in TWIT, feel free to tweet it to @Bry_Mac. And while you’re there, you can follow @Bry_Mac. Or not. But do.

Don’t Worry, No One Will See That Tweet

Sometimes people have a hard time understanding the “social” part of social media. Take, for instance, Oregon DE commit Davin Bellamy. Last weekend, Mr. Bellamy took a visit to Eugene, and had a fine time. Unfortunately for him, he decided to (a) document that fine time, and (b) share that documentation with the world. See if you can identify the problem with this picture he tweeted (hint: it’s NOT the bong on the table):

DavinBellamyBong

Uh oh… backlighting.

Okay, I lied. It's the bong on the table. And while the state of Oregon did legalize weed recently, I’m pretty sure the NCAA didn’t [ED: Wrong hippie state. Somehow Oregon HASN'T legalized weed]. But I’m more concerned about the thought process. Anyone who has ever posted a picture to social media has done the same three-point check: 1) look to see if your fly is down; (2) be sure your hair isn’t doing that thing it does sometimes; (3) check for drug paraphernalia. In Davin’s defense, he was two out of three.

The other briefly shared photo that made the rounds was from none other than LaQuon Treadwell, who totally put those suggestions of Ole Miss funny business to rest by allegedly posting this little number:

 LaQuonMoney

Now obviously we can’t be sure that this is Treadwell. Or that this is Treadwell’s cash. Or that the cash was ill-begotten. There are plenty of reasons a teenager would have a few hundred dollars in cash, and only 93% of those reasons would violate NCAA rules. But yeah, I betchya your compliance office will probably have a word with you.

Hugh Freeze, on the other hand, is having none of your insinuations, no matter how ridiculously well-founded. Not long after the Treadwell pic made the rounds, the Ole Miss head coach took to Twitter to defend his recruits (and his program):

He has since deleted the tweet.* You have to respect the coach for defending his guys, but I bet the poor schlub in the compliance office would prefer if you didn’t direct every troll south of the Mason-Dixon line directly to his inbox. The poor guy gets to the office, fires up the coffee maker, and HOLY HELL why do I have seven thousand emails with the subject “CHEATERZ!!!!!1”?

[*NOTE TO TWITTER USERS: Please stop deleting your questionable tweets. Once they’re there, you can’t get rid of them. You’re just making my column less visibly appealing. ]

I Tried ‘Perspective’ Once. Didn’t Care For It.

David Dawson is one of the jewels of this recruiting class, and by all accounts is a genuinely nice kid who has been through quite a bit in recent years. He also took one of the more circuitous routes to signing day, which Chantel Jennings (@ChantelJennings) documented in a recent article about how recruits are treated on social media. And I’m sure that despite his brief decommitment, Michigan fans everywhere maintained perspective and treated him with the utmost respect, especially on social media.

Fans sent him Twitter and Facebook messages telling him they hoped he broke his leg or that he was a "piece of s---."

Worst of all, some fans took shots at his late father.

"They said a couple things about my dad, like, 'He didn't teach you to keep your word,'" Dawson said.

Or not. On the bright side, the article makes clear that Michigan isn’t alone in treating kids poorly, which, hurray we're not worse than Clemson (insert sarcastic slow clap here). The moral high ground we occupied when Buckeye fans were wishing gout upon Kyle Kalis seems to be tenuous. Obviously we’re talking the least stable segments of every fanbase, but let this serve as your reminder: tweeting recruits is generally not cool, but tweeting ill-wishes to kids is even less cool.

From that same article, though, comes possibly my favorite panic-inducing out-of-context tweet of all time, in which Christian Hackenberg announces his dinner plans.

Canes is some sort of food establishment; Christian Hackenberg declared his intention to eat food. Happy Valley flips out thinking he was decommitting for Miami. I guarantee the words “NCAA conspiracy” were used. Crootin, man. Crootin.

[OBLIGATORY SCOLD: This is your weekly reminder to NOT TWEET OR FACEBOOK MESSAGE OR SEND SMOKE SIGNALS TO RECRUITS. I asked John Infante (@John_Infante, he of the Bylaw Blog and the overwhelming NCAA rule knowledge) to clarify, and he confirms what others have said: it is an NCAA violation. This remains the case until the student actually enrolls. The guys who just signed NLIs are still “prospects” to the NCAA. They are also high schoolers. So, no.]

We Won’t Get Fooled AgaHELLO: RANDOM PERSON

On Monday, MGoBoard users were greeted with an unexpected Hello post for Jahmere Irvin-Sills, a three-star corner out of Maryland.

You may remember Khaliel Rodgers as an OL with whom Michigan had a brief flirtation when there were rumors of a commit wavering last summer. He also attends the same high school as Irvin-Sills, so attention was paid. Film was evaluated. Y U NO ELITE trolls were summoned. And, of course, within a half-hour the commitment was debunked by Sam Webb and others. This was predictable, of course, because Irvin-Sills had never been on a recruiting visit, appeared on anyone’s radar, or, you know, been offered a scholarship.

The wisdom of The Who is great and all, but I’d bet a shiny new quarter that the next time someone tweets something like this, we’ll go all salmon of Capistrano all over again.

Look Away, Dave Brandon. Nothing to See Here

You’ve probably noticed that the “nameplate with no names” thing has caught on pretty big over the last couple of years. Either that, or you found it very odd that Air Force managed to field a team entirely out of guys named Service. Last week Akron tried to take it to the next level by putting the team’s twitter handle (@ZipsMBB) on the jerseys:

AkronTwitterJerseys

Synergy, we think.

Unfortunately, the NCAA decided to be a killjoy and put the kibosh on the idea. If Michigan had tried to do something like this, Ann Arbor Torch and Pitchfork would have a heck of a day. But this is Akron, so from my perspective this would have been fun. They aren’t trying to Create the Future. They’re just trying to grab some attention for a team that averaged 3,400 fans per home game last year.

If you ask me, Akron should have even taken it a step further; they should have put individual players’ twitter handles on the jerseys. And then they should have made Bill Walton call the game. The joy of hearing Walton have to utter phrases like “@I_B_Smooth41 needs to hedge harder on those ball screens” or “great job by @AkronBalla4Lyfe of recognizing the mismatch down low” would almost make up for the pain of having to listen to Bill Walton. 

How to Make Friends and Influence Good ol’ Boys

Reuben Foster has had a fun year. He originally committed to Alabama, then in July, he switched his commitment to Auburn (which is like switching from Michigan to North Korea). He felt so confident in his decision that he got a rather large Auburn tattoo on his forearm, which must have made for some awkward conversation at his switcharoo back to Alabama on Monday. He then took to Twitter to explain everything to everyone:

Auburn had no problem taking him up on his invitation to hate him. Edits are mine; these fans did not care for SFW language.

This is my shocked face  /makes normal face.

Unrelated Tweet of the Week

Joe Theismann had an interesting theory about the Super Bowl power outage.

Today's recruiting roundup covers last weekend's visitors, Laquon Treadwell's top three, and more.

More To Come?



Dan Samuelson

Michigan's big recruiting weekend delivered as expected, with Cass Tech teammates David Dawson and Delano Hill becoming the 23rd and 24th members of the class of 2013. Dawson is very much a known commodity, Hill less so—Josh Helmholdt caught up to the latter to get some clarity on his future position ($):

"Their plans for me are I am going to start off playing corner," Hill said. "If I don't like playing corner, I can always go back to playing safety. I think I can play all positions in the secondary, so it doesn't matter to me."

Hill played safety in high school but has also displayed impressive cover skills on the camp circuit; at 6'1", he'd give Michigan a bigger corner to line up on the outside.

The Wolverines hosted a surprise visitor last weekend in IN OL Dan Samuelson, a Nebraska commit who recently received a Michigan offer, per Allen Trieu ($). While Samuelson played it coy about his interest in Michigan, a Scout article from last week indicates that he took a big step by making this visit ($) [emphasis mine]:

“I truly didn’t go and look for another offer though. [Michigan] came to me. There is very little interest from me to Michigan. I really don’t think that I will take a visit there. Nebraska said that they would view that as a decommitment. I don’t want to do that. I believe that is where that will stay.”

I doubt the situation changed from Nebraska's end in the span of a few days; it seems likely that Samuelson has given up his spot in their class to see Ann Arbor. And now, 247's Todd Worly reported today that Samuelson's situation could be resolved imminently ($):

Looks like the Wolverines have made an impression and Samuelson plans on having everything figured out by Monday evening.

"I'm going to start calling everyone around 5 (p.m. EST), after I talk to Nebraska and figure things out with them," Samuelson said.

With the recent rumblings that Michigan could take a sixth offensive lineman, plus the above chronology, well... stay tuned.

Michigan also made an impression on another visitor committed to a Big Ten school, linebacker recruit and Wisconsin pledge Marcus Ball. Ball told Todd Worly that Michigan is "a great place," though he's waiting to see who the Badgers hire to replace Bret Bielema before making any decisions about his status with the Badgers ($). For what it's worth, Dymonte Thomas—one of many Michigan commits taking his official visit last weekend—tells Sam Webb that he thinks Ball will make the switch ($):

“I just met [Ball] this weekend, but I think he is going to commit to Michigan too,” said Thomas.  “I’m not 100% sure, but I think he really liked us.  We’ll see what happens.”

Man, Bielema is going to flip out about that gentleman's agree-- oh, right.

[Hit THE JUMP for the latest on Laquon Treadwell and more.]