recruiting takes no vacations

All is well. All is right. [Bryan Fuller]

Probably should have mentioned it earlier, but this is the time of year when we traditionally take off a week to recharge, celebrate, and reset for the basketball season.

The snowy silence may be interrupted—I did a pod recently with Graham Coffey of DawgSports that will probably go on the feed sometime soon, Alex may choose to get one of his FFFFs out early, or if there’s some big news (a commit or Orange Bowl/COVID thing), we may pop back into the machine briefly.

Until or unless, however, please enjoy a bit of quiet on the internet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Have a wonderful holiday, and thank you for be the kind of audience that so richly deserves this kind of season.

This is the only correct recruiting strategy. [gif by Ace Anbender]

While I write this Michigan’s playing their first two softball games of the season, so excuse me if I get distracted. Freshman Alex Sobczak seems to have won the starting catcher position; so weird not to see Lauren Sweet back there. So far Betsa walked two and struck out three, and Sierra Lawrence reached on an error and Romero’s up.

Lol they walked Romero on 4 pitches. Scaredy-cocks!

Anyway, about all that reader-generated content:

Crootin. For some reason I guess recruiting was on diarists’ minds last week, so we got a lot of articles looking at it from different sides. Alum96 broke up top recruits by the major states that produce them. Among conclusions, Michigan’s home advantage is a lot like that of Clemson, IE we have an okay state but have to share it with another school with recent success. Ohio State, LSU and USC/UCLA have the most local talent with the least competition. Alum also had a primer on interested players for 2017, which has a lot more interesting players in Michigan, and still little interest in Michigan in Ohio.

Speaking of 2017 Alum96’s daily “Swim Lanes” were highly useful contributions during the stretch run (LSA Superstar jumped in to usurp his format once as well). Let’s see that thread go up for next class, man.

[Betsa’s shaky today. Hit a batter with bases loaded, then worked back from a 3-0 count for an inning-ending strikeout.]

Is it being addressed? NOLA Blue suggested an interesting method for analyzing recruiting: line up each position and call them wins or losses, though I couldn’t quite understand how his “eyeball” rating system worked. Anyway it gave me the idea to visualize the classes and STAR ratings I’ve been going on about by position.

image

Guys are listed by the final position they played (though now I’m wishing I moved Uche to SAM). I probably ought to have broken them out further for positions where you play more than a guy. The red balls are 4.5 or higher, the yellow ones are 3.8 to 4.4 stars, the green ones are that 3.5 to 3.7 range and the blues are the lower 3-stars and 2-stars and such. Ball size is scaled by the actual STAR rating squared.

Champswest also did a crootin comparison diary using total number of 4-stars and above (according to 247’s composite) acquired. The most interesting thing therein was the dichotomy between the Big Ten East (189 4- and 5-stars over the last 4 classes) and Big Ten West (39 total). Remove Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State, and the Big Ten East STILL has three more 4+ stars than the West. Good job, good effort Big Ten West.

Suggestion: Let’s make the B1G West a relegation division. Following last year’s performance Rutgers can move down to the West and Iowa jumps up to the East.

[Hit the jump for Beilein in context. Meanwhile Michigan’s already up 11-2 in the 4th, South Carolina just walked the bases loaded, and guess who’s coming up to bat? Hint: she’s the NCAA record-holder for career grand slams.]

CaQ5uquVIAQy-3M

via @Babcocks_Hair

HomeSure-Logo-NMLS-14_thumb_thumb_th[2]OKAY SO HERE'S WHAT WE'RE GOING TO DO. You're gonna load this page and it's just gonna sit there. You will not hit refresh. Our two twitter collections will update automatically, putting the news in your eyeballs. Twitter collection #1 is news-only, who has gone where. Twitter collection #2 is the ongoing exultation/panic/depression thread. To participate just @ me.

We are caching the front page, which means you will appeared logged out. You will be logged in on interior pages. Going to interior pages may result in 503s and the like; staying on the front page will get you the latest and greatest news without such risk.

OKAY SO HERE'S OUR SPONSOR. Yep, Homesure Lending. It's like all those Rocket commercials except 1) Matt was not a major contributor to the subprime crisis, so he's got that going for him, 2) Matt never wrote a letter to LeBron James in comic sans*, 3) Matt goes out to various companies to get you the best possible rate. My lender has the word "wholesale" in its name, and this makes me feel great. Also the rate.

Matt's got a ticket offer going for a Michigan football or basketball game. If you're buying a home or refinancing, he's the right guy to call.

*[Probably. I have not checked with him to make sure this is true.]

OKAY SO THIS IS THE SCHEDULE.

  • 8:10 AM: TN WR Nate Johnson. Michigan.
  • 9 AM: MI CB Lavert Hill. Michigan.
  • 10 AM: MI OL Alaric Jackson. M, Iowa, Nebraska.
  • 11 AM: MI K Quinn Nordin. Michigan.
  • 11:30 AM: AZ DE Connor Murphy. Michigan, USC, Oregon, ASU.
  • 1 PM: NJ DE Rashan Gary. Michigan.
  • 1 PM: FL WR Pie Young. Michigan, Louisville, USC.
  • 3PM: CA TE Devin Asiasi. Michigan.
  • 3PM: CA DT Boss Tagaloa. Michigan, USC, UCLA, UW.
  • 4PM: CA QB Vic Viramontes. Michigan, Utah, Cal.

OKAY SO THIS IS THE NEWS-ONLY TWITTER COLLECTION

OKAY SO THIS IS THE EXULTATION/PANIC/DEPRESSION THREAD

Answering questions whilst chained to my laptop all day. If I don't get to yours it's almost certainly because it's already been answered several times already, or I'm answering it right now. Greg Little is not flipping. I deeply regret ever bringing his name up in speculation.  There is no silent commit whose name isn't on the schedule above. Don't tweet at croots.