leveon bell

Number one breakout. ESPN's Travis Haney compiled a list of 50 breakout players for the upcoming season based on "a lot of input from coaches" and your new favorite quarterback is #1:

“I recruited him,” said one of the Big Ten coaches who played against Gardner late last year. “I know how good he can be. I would say I have been looking forward to him getting his chance, because he’s a really good kid, but they’re on the schedule again this year.”

Frank Clark also features at #35.

Swag. We are totally losing Michael Ferns to Mississippi State, you guys.

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Following up on earlier assertion. I mentioned in passing in a previous post that I felt Bill Connolly was way underrating LeVeon Bell and way overrating Michigan State's offensive line in his Spartan preview for the year, and as I was looking up various things about Derrick Green I came across a stunning stat on Bell:

Le'Veon Bell gained 921 yards after contact in 2012, most among players from AQ schools. Bell gained more than 50 percent of his yards after contact and averaged 2.4 yards after contact per rush.

Bell got 2.3 yards before contact and 2.4 after. That is a man doing work to clean up for a terrible offensive line. And quarterback: Bell's 382 carries led the nation by 26.

Countdowns to kickoff. Taylor Lewan:


Countdown to Kickoff 2013: Day 28 - Taylor Lewan by mgovideo

Lewan is a thousand times more boring than he used to be. Leadership!

Also Quinton Washington and Jeremy Gallon. True story: bought a chair at Art Van this summer, marveled at the size of the guy they had hauling stuff around, realized that I knew who this was: Quinton Washington. Woo minimum wage, for one more year.

Also, the first day of practice:


Michigan Football First Practice Fall 2013 by mgovideo

Derrick Green's first carry went for 50 yards and birthed a unicorn.

Wide receivers block, then they receive. In-depth ESPN article on the blocking aspects of playing out wide comes highly recommended for interesting quotes and such. Minnesota safety Brock Vereen is either worried about his knees or an expert at backhanded compliments:

“They act as if they are more excited to block than they are to catch a pass,” Minnesota safety Brock Vereen said. “Sadly, I’m not even exaggerating.”

Michigan's dumped cut blocking for a lot of reasons, but the primary one is the fact that defensive backs just get up too darn fast these days:

“They are like those Weeble Wobbles that you had growing up,” Hecklinski said. “You can throw a great cut and he’s right back up making a play and golly, that’s a great cut."

"Golly," says the man eating everyone's lunch on the recruiting trail. #TheMichiganDifference.

The article gestures at one of the main reasons Michigan's wide receivers were so pumped up to block: with Denard Robinson on your team, any play could be a 20 yard run you fail to turn into 80, and then your ass is roasted. Hopefully they maintain the same urgency as Michigan moves to a system more likely to get you five (after contact, and by "contact" I mean "safety murder") than 50.

Hoke advocates earlier official visits. Makes sense, will never happen for the same reason a baseball season that makes sense will never happen:

“Having an official visit date in June would help football,” Hoke stated. “I know some of our friends in the Pac 12 and the SEC probably don’t want the young man and his family coming up to Michigan during the first two weeks in June, because they’re hoping it’s 10 below zero when those official visits take place.”

A rather large win. Wolverine Historian puts up the '95 Minnesota game:

Mack Brown offer letter. I just find this interesting. It's an official offer letter from Mack Brown to a guy named Lorenzo:

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[bigger version here]

Items:

  • The first bullet is basically Michigan's much-discussed and much-misunderstood "policy" about commits taking visits: you are committed if you are not taking visits, and if you visit elsewhere Michigan will not consider you committed. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll pull your scholarship offer, but your spot is no longer reserved and they may recruit someone else or just reconfigure their class. Why recruiting sites, opposing fans, and Michigan fans keep going on and on about it is a mystery to me.
  • Texas is explicitly offering four year scholarships, and seems to state that a fifth year is also guaranteed… but I think the fine print there means the firm handshake is still an option if the Head Coach wants it to be.
  • The pointlessness of the rule where players cannot get written offers before August 1st of their senior year is brought home in the first paragraph: Texas is "pleased to reconfirm our commitment to the football athletic scholarship you committed to earlier this year." The lack of written offers has led to the rise of the incredibly annoying "uncommittable offer" and prevents players from getting the exact stipulations of their scholarship offer in writing until long after many of them have committed. And it obviously does nothing to slow down the pace of recruiting.

The only way to slow down the pace of recruiting, by the way, is to let kids sign whenever they want. Eighth grader offers will come to a screeching halt, for real.

SBNation has a roundup of offer letters from around the country, featuring Comic Sans from Virginia Tech, "formally" spectacularly misspelled as "formerly" by Virginia, and Illinois claiming that those who attend there will play "championship football." That latter might be true if in fact the Big Ten has been relegated to the second level of English soccer. Which it probably has after last year. We done got relegated you guys.

Quite a rise. Four Michigan players make the final roster at the USA World Juniors evaluation camp: JT Compher, Tyler Motte, Boo Nieves… and Andrew Copp. I think 14 of the 18 forwards on the roster will be on the WJC team, so Copp's gone from JJ Swistak But Big to a guy with a very good chance of making the WJC team in 12 months. Wow.

Amen. Hoke on ND:

"I do not like the fact it's going away," Hoke said.

Asked who is a fault for all this, Hoke responded simply: "We would like to continue the series."

Realignment has replaced the ND game and games against Nebraska, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Northwestern with Rutgers and Maryland.

Etc.: Harmon Of Michigan's theme song is a "Hollywood-style rendition of the Victors," and MVictors has it. Michigan Hockey Net posts the famous 2002 Denver-Michigan West Regional Final at Yost. Michigan players on the O'Bannon case.



Pictured: Will Gholston; Not pictured: Will Gholston making a play

I'm apparently a blogger of the self-hating variety, as yesterday I re-watched last weekend's Michigan State-Iowa opposite-of-a-barnburner and even sat through both overtimes. The things I do for you people (and a paycheck, I guess).

You probably know the story from this one; MSU couldn't hold on to two different ten-point leads or muster much of anything on offense, improbably losing to a Hawkeye team that averaged 3.7 yards per play after Andrew Maxwell tossed an interception in the second overtime. While this contest was fun for rivalry purposes, it was absolutely terrible for the game of football.

Let's move on to the breakdown while I still have the will to live.

OFFENSE

Spread, Pro-Style, or Hybrid? Largely pro-style. State operates from under center on almost all standard downs, only going to the shotgun when they need to put the ball in the air.

Basketball on Grass or MANBALL? MSU runs a largely zone-heavy rushing attack, though they'll mix in a heavy dose of POWER and a few isos.

Hurry it up or grind it out? State managed a 42.8% adj. pace last year when they featured an actual passing offense. My guess is that figure will be even lower after this year, becausezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz*criesinsleep*zzzzzzzzzzz.

Quarterback Dilithium Level (Scale: 1 [Navarre] to 10 [Denard]): Andrew Maxwell does not attempt to scramble or really move outside of the pocket. There's a reason for this. Here's a possibly-generous 3.

Dangerman: I was going to save this for the play breakdown, but whateva I do what I want:

That's LeVeon Bell, obviously, who's rushed for 916 yards and eight touchdowns on 200(!) carries this season. No other player on the Spartans has more than 16 carries. I think they call those "bellhorses" or "workcows" but it's early in the morning so I may be wrong here.

Anyway, the above is a prime example of why Bell is so dangerous. He's very adept at seeing the hole in a zone run and cutting to the backside, as he does above, and his combination of power and athleticism often allows him to make State's rather ineffective blocking irrelevant. Watch the center and right guard on that play; they pull off an effective double of the nose guard, but RG #62—Chris McDonald, reputedly their best lineman—fails to get off the block and chip anyone at the second level—you can see him make a desperation dive for MLB James Morris (#44) far after he has any chance to make a block.

But LeVeon Bell is very, very good, and simply adjusts by juking two linebackers out of their shoes and carrying two defensive backs into the end zone. He will make something out of nothing, and that something will be the majority of the MSU offense.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the breakdown, including the reincarnation of John L. and more evidence that William Gholston is the most overrated player in the Big Ten, and possibly the country.]

Bullets:

  • Elliott Mealer mentioned that the scout team does something "extra" for motivation. Hoke, unsurprisingly, does not reveal what that is. 
  • UPDATE: It is THIS. [h/t indyeagle]
  • Drake Johnson is playing running back for the scout team. So is Norfleet.
  • This was the shortest presser ever, so there is no jump.

Brady Hoke

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Opening remarks:

“Good practice yesterday I think on both sides of the ball. I liked how we competed with each other. Thought that, you know, when you put in the plan and sometimes Tuesday’s a little more thinking, I thought we reacted well and I thought we had a good tempo and were playing fast.”

You’ve practiced well in previous weeks, but is the focus more intense during a rivalry week?

“Well I think it’s been a continuation, but I also would agree that when you play in a rivalry game, there’s always a little more intensity to it.”

Did you do anything different in practice?

“Not really. I mean, uh … no.”

On the scout team?

“They … know their role, so they practice hard.”

How has the scout team been this year?

“I think, you know, it probably would have been a little better if we didn’t have some of those guys dinged up, like Wormley or Chris Bryant. Whether they’d be up or down, just your ability with depth and those things. But I think they’ve worked hard. We give an award out every week to guys on each side of the ball, and who in the kicking game does a great job, giving looks, so. I think they’re doing a good job. I think they’re motivated. Our young coaches, our GA’s do a good job of prepping them each week with watching film and mechanics and all that stuff.”

Do you have them wearing green during the week?

“Uh, you know, sometimes you do.”

With the way Le’Veon Bell is size-wise, do you have a particular guy on the scout team mimic him?

“No. You know, Drake Johnson gets most of the heavy lifting. Fleet gets down there to run some, but we don’t have anybody that size that you would use for that.”

Would you say Taylor Lewan has lived up to the expectations for him this season?

“I think he’s played pretty solid.”

The secondary is ranked third in the nation in pass defense. Is that because they’re playing that well or have they just not been tested enough?

“Well, I don’t know if we’ve been tested, you know. We haven’t had balls thrown down the field vertically in the pass game. I think this will -- since early in the year …”

You mentioned how --

“… really Alabama, to be honest with you. So I think that’s all part of it, where we’re playing a lot of spread teams that want to use the bubbles and want to use those things. I think that’s a fair assessment. I think we haven’t been tested yet.”

Are you interested in seeing how they stack up against a downfield passing team?

“Oh sure. Sure. I mean, I don’t know. I like the bubble screens and stuff like that.”

Does it speak at least a little bit to how your safeties have been playing?

“That’s a big deal. It’s made all the time. We want to be inside and in front. It’s a big part of whether you’re playing two-deep or playing single high, you have to do a good job of if you’re the guy, you have to keep your depth and be the last one to the party. I think those two guys have been a catalyst, and I think J.T. has improved every week.”

Are any of the ACL injury guys close to practicing?

“No.”

Are they in rehab?

“Rehab. They’re doing fine. Some of them are at different levels.”

Do you think any of those guys will be able to practice by the end of the year?

“Probably not.”

Assessment of Michigan State’s defensive line without Jerel Worthy?

“Well I think they’ve filled it in pretty well. I think they’re very aggressive. I think Ted Gill, their D-line coach, who was one of my coaches at Ball State in college, has done a nice job of developing that group. That style defense is such that it’s an aggressive defense.”

You mentioned you have some guys wearing green…

“At times there is green out there … We have grass. Field turf.”