richard ash

It's a useless tradition around here to look at the roster and see who's grown to massive size and who is lean destructive sinew because All Weight Changes Are Positive.

Presenting weight changes that are all positive. I bolded things I find interesting:

Items!

• Where is the addition of beef? I highlighted the starting offensive line above. They gained a total of 11 pounds between them, or one pound more than David Molk did last year, when he was the least inflated OL on the team. If Michigan's running power with these guys it might not go so well.
• Where is the addition of beef: answer. It's in the outside-linebackery parts of the defense. Craig Roh's added 18 additional pounds; now up 31 from his arrival at Michigan he is legitimately DL sized. The projected starters at SLB and WLB both put on around 15 pound.
• The subtraction of beef. Is where you'd expect it: the tubby tubs on the interior of the DL. Will Campbell, Quinton Washington, and Richard Ash are all relatively svelte now.
• Maybe Wilkins is eventually plausible. I was shocked to see Wilkins came in at 270 and is now 280. He got blown up in the Spring Game but in a couple years he could be a reasonable option at three-tech.
• All weight gain is good! Michael Shaw is eight pounds heavier and better able to take the pounding of the Big Ten.
• All weight loss is good! Vincent Smith lost eight pounds and will return to the jackrabbit ways he flashed as a freshman.
• BEEFCAKE. I hope Ricardo Miller loves protein shakes, because he's added 17 pounds and is still ridiculously small at tight end.

Notable freshmen:

• Tony Posada and Chris Bryant. Good lord: both enter at essentially 340. They should form a tag team themed around natural disasters. Neither can be in any shape to play right now and unless Posada sheds a ton of weight he is a guard all the way at 6'4". Also monstrous: walk-on Gary Yerden at 6'5", 333.
• Antonio Poole. With Kellen Jones gone he's got a major opportunity to play right away and at 212 he's not much slimmer than Jones. Big difference between that and the 195 he was reputed to be.
• Greg Brown. While the rest of the freshman defensive backs enter at a willowy 176 or less Brown is packing 192. Good or bad… eh, probably not so good. But he did play well in spring.
• Chris Rock. Enters at 267. Will be a three-tech by WMU.
• Chris Barnett. Enters at 278. Redshirt coming with the knee and all; will be interesting to see if that goes down next year.
• Thomas Rawls. 5'10", 219 is pretty compact. Hayes is listed at the same height and a cornerback-like 176.

Weight gains or losses are the key to domination. We has them. Get out of our ways.

Just like Haloi Ngata. Tom points out that Jake Ryan's twitter photo displays the first fruits of hiring Greg Mattison—redshirt freshman Richard Ash's levitating hair:

So we've got that going for us.

Too awesome to don't click here. Irrelevant, but here's three of my favorite things in one thing:

Further position clarification. Just to highlight something from Tim's post:

Cameron Gordon will play outside linebacker, because they want to get the guys into the best position they can to make plays. "And then what's the most upside." He has great ability to grow, and has that upside at OLB. "As compared to being a safety, I think he can do that too, but we have other guys that can do that."

Specifically, Gordon will be the SAM linebacker, which is a spot fairly similar to the "spur" Michigan used last year in their disaster of a 3-3-5. This answers one of the main questions from the Hello Old 4-3 posts. It seems like your starting front seven next year will be:

DL: Van Bergen-Campbell/other three tech-Martin-Roh
LB: C. Gordon/Demens/Winner of massive WLB free for all

Only the WLB spot and three-tech are up in the air.

SPARKZZZZ. A Daily article on Sparks does seem to confirm the only possible reason Lindsay Sparks would mostly hang out in the press box on a team decidedly lacking in… well… spark:

By the time Michigan headed into the stretch run, the offensively-skilled forward had played in just 10 of his team’s 34 games, mainly due to concerns about his defense. … According to Michigan coach Red Berenson, Sparks took his game to another level in practice in recent weeks. It paid off. He took the ice in both games of the final regular-season series.

Sparks picked up an effort-y assist against Northern and flashed near-Hagelin speed against Western. Surely he's a regular next year with all the departures. Prepare for me to badly overrate him.

SNUBZZZZ. Michigan didn't have a whole lot of individual stars this year but it's a somewhere between disappointing an enraging that Shawn Hunwick didn't get even a single vote for All CCHA. Spath has numbers:

Hunwick went 14-6-1 in 21 CCHA games - the coaches are only supposed to consider conference statistics - ranking second in winning percentage (.690) to Notre Dame's Mike Johnson … Hunwick also ranked second in save percentage (.931) and second in goals against average (1.95). He was the lone netminder in the CCHA to rank in the top two in winning percentage, save percentage and goals against. …

Nagle went 12-12-4 for the Bulldogs, ranking seventh in winning percentage (.500) while his .920 save percentage also ranked seventh among conference netminders and his 2.11 goals against average left him fifth. Greenham …. ranked sixth in save percentage (.921) and seventh in goals against average (2.19).

And Hunwick has the CCHA's most entertaining twitter feed. Watch him talk smack to Steve Kampfer:

@SteveKampfer47 If I was in the NHL and playing in boston, I wouldn't be still flying girls in from Ann Arbor. #boom

.010 in save percentage + twitter should be a slam dunk for All CCHA, especially since the team that, you know, won the league only scored two of 12 players. I guess people are still hung up on the fact that he's just two cells pasted together.

Q: what was the last time Michigan had a goalie as good as Hunwick was this year? If you go by the stats, Billy Sauer's junior year is the recent best by a Michigan goalie. (The online database appears to start midway through the Tuco years.) He put up a .924  before his spectacular Frozen Four meltdown. Hunwick's .920 in 27 games is the next approximately qualifying season—if you want to roll his junior year in to get to 38 games that hardly changes the number—and then it's Montoya, Hogan, Montoya, Turco, and Josh Blackburn's four identical .905s.

If you think Sauer's meltdown poisons his whole year this is Michigan's best goaltending since Al Montoya was a sophomore who gave a crap.

Fab Five preview. Dylan got his hands on a promotional copy of Sunday's Fab Five documentary and provides first thoughts:

The brash exuberance of the Fab Five is not just captured through the clips on the court, which are obviously entertaining. A majority of the interviews do a great job of portraying the same energy. Whether it’s listening to the Fab Five describe their feelings on Duke and Christian Laettner – using words like “Uncle Toms” and “soft bitch” – or one of the many hip hop icons of the time explaining their cultural influence.

This is a no punches pulled documentary even without the presence of Chris Webber:

The range of topics discussed spans just about everything that you would expect to see. There are pictures of Jalen chugging beer out of a 40 and he discusses his drug house incident. There are also other ugly sides, such as shots of all of the racial hate mail from Michigan alumni and the inevitable discussion of the NCAA sanctions.

As I said, prepare to be massively conflicted. Sounds like it will be appointment television: 9PM, Sunday, ESPN.

Back to being an insufferable thing. Now that Jim Harbaugh is just another fish in the sea instead of the Chosen One we can resume thinking of him as kind of an asshat. This won't come as a surprise to anyone who perused the Stanford roster in the aftermath of Harbaugh's comments about Michigan funneling kids into easy classes, but—surprise—Stanford funnels its players into easy classes.

Not news, but this is a quote from the quote gods, one every Cal undergrad will be wearing next year:

"(Stanford) accommodates athletes in the manner that they accommodate students with disabilities."

Etc.: Bruce Ciskie has a good take on the brutal hit Max Pacioretty took from Zdeno Chara a couple days ago. UMHoops previews the BTT.

I'll be embarking on a project similar to last year's recruit profiles in the near future, but that effort will last into the summer—the final profile last year (Tate Forcier) didn't go up until June 25th—and some words about how Michigan did will be far less timely then.

The other side of the ball was examined last week.

Defensive End

The Gentlemen Of Leisure

We'll throw quick end in here, too, and why not? Seemingly half the defensive recruits in the class said they were recruited to play the spot. Michigan has plenty of needs elsewhere so this intrepid reporter is going to put Jordan Paskorz, and only Jordan Paskorz, here. Antonio Kinard and Davion Rogers will be filed as linebackers; Ken Wilkins is already pushing 250 and will be filed as a strongside defensive end.

On Paskorz: he is a generic three star to the world, a guy who gets 5.6 on the Rivals scale—5.7 is a high three star, 5.6 a middling one—and had offers that reflected that. Michigan's main competitors were Pitt and Virginia. He won't have to play much until he's a redshirt sophomore—that's when when Craig Roh backup Brandon Herron graduates—and we're unlikely to see him until then.

The strongside guys have a bit more to recommend them. Jibreel Black (right)and Ken Wilkins are 4/3 star tweeners (e.g., one of Scout or Rivals has them at four, the other at three). Wilkins hails from the same high school that Ohio State recruit Andrew Sweat and Penn State recruit Mike Yancich attended, and his coach believes he's more athletic than either:

"He is an unbelievable physical talent," Dalton said. "And he is only going to get better. I have had some great players here, but nothing like Ken physically. I am not saying he is going to be better than Yancich and Sweat, but he is the most physically talented player I've had."

Black, meanwhile, was a guy Michigan was hot after all year but could never get on campus until late January. By then he'd already committed to Indiana (where his brother had an excellent season) and Cincinnati (which is approximately three minutes from home). He's got the same body type as Brandon Graham, albeit without most of his hype. The insider-type folk say, and Michigan's dogged pursuit implies, that whatever the guru folk thought Michigan wanted Black badly.

Preposterously Early Letter Grade

B+. They got about the right number of bodies to fill out two thin spots on defense and I like the long term potential of both strongside guys. A blue-chip would have been nice.

Impact This Year?

Hopefully little, but given the depth chart at SDE it seems like either Black or Wilkins will have to burn a redshirt as a backup unless Anthony LaLota got a lot bigger during his redshirt year.

Defensive Tackle

The Gentlemen Of Leisure

Michigan missed out on a true nose when Jonathan Hankins picked Ohio State. They did grab two promising three-tech recruits in Terry Talbott and Pahokee's Richard Ash. Both have size issues: Talbott is currently around 240 and is a guy some observers thought would end up at defensive end. According to Rod Smith, Ash is now over 300 pounds; given his recruitment that seems more like a problem to be fixed than a solution to Michigan's nose tackle issue. Teams backed away from Ash when he showed up to Florida's camp overweight.

On the other hand, both have talent. Talbott almost defected to North Carolina late; when Tim went down to catch a Wayne game this fall he was a wrecking ball in the backfield. He's an excellent, disruptive fit for the penetrating defensive tackle spot he's slated for. The teams backing away from Ash after his weight issues, meanwhile, were USC and Florida. Ash has upside for Barwis to extract, and he's got a host of Pahokee folk up here to help him adjust. If he puts in the work, Michigan will have a guy who could play for Florida's defensive line.

Preposterously Early Letter Grade

B-. No nose tackle is a downer. Michigan will have one guy there next year if Mike Martin moves unless Ash can actually handle that weight. Outside of that, though, both recruits seem like they might be underrated.

Impact This Year?

Assuming the RVB move, Michigan will have a veteran two-deep at defensive tackle but Talbott and Ash will be next in line after that. If there's an injury, one or both might be pressed to play. I imagine Michigan will try to redshirt both; they might not be able to.

Linebacker

The Gentlemen Of Leisure

Davion Rogers needs to eat a sandwich 

A late flurry of offers and a little snake oil turned this position group from a gaping sore into… well, a considerably less gaping sore. Late additions Davion Rogers and Jake Ryan are just three star sorts, but given Michigan's situation before they hopped aboard they're welcome. Rogers is a 6'6" birdman of a linebacker/DE prospect who everyone, including me, will compare to Shawn Crable. Michigan pirated him away from WVU once Doc Holliday left. Early in his career he'll probably play the weakside linebacker spot occupied by Jonas Mouton currently; if he puts on enough weight we'll see him at quick.

Ryan popped up late after an Omameh-like senior year where he grew two inches and twenty pounds and outplayed Ohio State commit, teammate, and fellow linebacker Scott McVey en route to a state championship. McVey was playing with a busted shoulder, FWIW, but Ryan is a heady kid who actually played linebacker in high school—a rarity for Michigan of late—and is at least a reasonable prospect to start in a year or two.

A couple players may end up at spinner, the strongside linebacker/safety position last occupied by Stevie Brown, but for right now the only guy in the class this blog places at the spot is uber-athlete Josh Furman, AKA Dhani Jones 2.0. Furman was a ridiculously productive safety and tailback in high school who hit camps and dropped electronically timed 4.3 40s. Scout thinks he's awesome; Rivals again goes "meh." He's clearly got a ton of upside.

Antonio Kinard got a super-early offer and committed to it, but did little during his senior season to assuage concerns he was an iffy bet. He, too, might end up at quick but will be filed a linebacker for the moment.

Preposterously Early Letter Grade

C-. The late pickups salvaged this grade but the emphasis is on "salvage." The only inside linebacker Michigan picked up in the last class was Isaiah Bell and the guys in the class before that are gone (Witherspoon and Hill), seemingly locked into special teams forever (Demens), and JB Fitzgerald. Michigan needed numbers here, and they ended up with numbers, but they also needed a blue chip or two and they did not get one. Furman is a recruit you can get excited about, but that's 1/4.

Impact This Year?

Redshirts for everyone, in all likelihood, except possibly Furman. Even Furman will have to beat out two guys with almost two years of experience in fall camp if he's going to win a job.

Cornerback

The Gentlemen Of Leisure

Michigan will bolster its roster with four cornerbacks this fall. They come in two flavors. Flavor one consists of short three-stars from Ohio. They are Courtney Avery and Terrance Talbott. Avery was a prolific, tiny high school quarterback who only moonlighted on defense. He made first team All-Ohio and chose Michigan over a Stanford decommit not because of grades but because he wanted to stay closer to home. Talbott is the other Talbott's brother and struggled through injuries most of his senior year but has received positive reviews from local observers. There's some reason for optimism on both.

Cullen Christian needs no ball security

Flavor two consists of blue-chips anyone and everyone wanted who held preposterously long press conferences. Cullen Christian is the #3 corner to Scout and in the Rivals 100; he picked Michigan over Ohio State and many others after a long period of favoring Michigan. 6'1" and physical, Christian's YMRMFSPA is a holy lock to be Marlin Jackson. Demar Dorsey you may have heard about. He picked Michigan over Florida State and USC after being a Florida commit for over a year. He's the #12 player overall to ESPN and a four-star to the other sites.

Preposterously Early Letter Grade

A. Four players, two of them blue-chips, at a position of crying need.

Impact This Year?

One of these kids is guaranteed to play unless JT Floyd takes a huge leap forward. A second is likely to find his way into a nickel package. If one of them is really good right away, you could see him start immediately and Troy Woolfolk move to safety. Michigan will probably redshirt one; the other three will have to play.

Safety

The Gentlemen Of Leisure

We'll put Marvin Robinson (OMG HALFSHIRT) here because he's likely to play the box safety* we've been discussing extensively. Robinson is the defense's Ricardo Miller, a hyped-to-the-moon Florida prospect who seemed likely to be a five-star (or thereabouts) only to experience a precipitous drop in ranking. Robinson's drop came after a few camps he participated in. In the aftermath, Rivals gurus trashed his coverage ability and said he was a linebacker and nothing else. He still held on to a fourth star, though, and fielded offers from Ohio State and several other power programs before going with the Michigan program that had led for him seemingly forever.

The class rounds out with two sleeper-type prospects. I'm considerably more bullish on Carvin Johnson, who apparently avoided the combine circuit entirely this summer, was the best player on his team, and prompted an unsolicited email of praise from local coach (not his) when this site's initial take on him was "meh." He also won the MVP award in a state championship game his team lost by a billion points. Late LSU interest was not reciprocated.

Ray Vinopal is the kind of recruit that everyone on the internet hates on, prompting articles in which he declares a desire to prove everyone wrong and press conferences where Rich Rodriguez justifies signing the guy. The internet is not necessarily wrong, though. At the time of his commitment Vinopal was a who-dat with no recruiting profile despite his presence in Ohio power Cardinal Mooney's secondary. He apparently picked up a couple of good offers late (Wisconsin was the biggest) but the heuristics indicate a marginal contributor.

*(MGoBlog is officially adopting "box" and "deep" as its chosen lingo for Michigan safeties in what appears to be a permanent 4-4 front similar to that Virginia Tech runs. The way Michigan aligns apparently does make the deep guy the "strong" safety but since that goes against the popular conception of free and strong, it's confusing.)

Preposterously Early Letter Grade

B-. One blue chip is nice and Carvin Johnson seems like the good kind of sleeper. Would have liked a true deep safety with more than two stars, but one of the cornerbacks could move back once the

Impact This Year?

If Robinson had managed to enroll early, as planned, we'd be anxiously observing him in the hopes he could lock down that box safety spot in spring. Things did not go to plan and we'll be anxiously waiting on his arrival instead. Even so, Robinson's main competition at the position he's slated for consists of a walk-on and a converted wide receiver. I don't think he'll start right away but Michigan isn't going to be able to redshirt him and he may find his way into the lineup by midseason.

Johnson and Vinopal are likely redshirts.

Punter

The Gentlemen Of Leisure

With Zoltan the Inconceivable exiting to a long and lucrative NFL career, Michigan needed a replacement. They took a pass on in-state punter and reputed Michigan fan Mike Sadler, who ended up at State, to chase WI P Will Hagerup, who had offers from all over the country and was the highest-rated punter at Rivals. (He's the #4 K but the specialists in front of him are all placekickers.) After a few visits, Hagerup picked Michigan and its wide open job over Wisconsin, Ohio State, and others.

Preposterously Early Letter Grade

A. Hagerup is either the country's top punter or in the top three to all ranking services.

Impact This Year?

Unless Michigan's offense is so awesome it never punts, Hagerup will be deployed this fall.

All Things Collected And Told

Numbers. That's the most important thing this class brings. Even if there are twice as many sleeper types as you'd like to see in an average Michigan class, getting two guys for every spot on the defense minus a few here and there puts Michigan in a position where the first guy off the bench when a starter gets dinged isn't a walk-on. He'll be a freshman, probably. But you can't recruit juniors.

And it's not all sleeper sorts. Michigan picked up two touted corners with blue chip offers, grabbed a linebacker from Virginia Tech, locked down Marvin Robinson's abs, and grabbed a collection of defensive linemen with considerable upside. It's a below average class, but it's not that far off. And given the context, it's fairly good.

A preposterously early letter grade: B+. For the class as a whole: B.

According to a text he sent to Tom VanHaaren, FL DT Richard Ash has committed to Michigan. Ash is a Pahokee kid, the fourth to sign on with Michigan in three years, and either a three-tech DT (ie: Ryan Van Bergen) or a strongside defensive end.

Early in the recruiting year he had a ton of tres impressive offers—Florida, Miami, USC—but his options dwindled as those schools filled up. He committed to West Virginia just a couple weeks ago, but that was always shaky and Doc Holliday's departure to become Marshall's head coach was the final nail in their coffin.

More informative update on its way.

Defensive tackle lovers, rejoice! Michigan has extended the Pahokee pipeline into the Class of 2010 (Martavious Odoms was the '08 representative, and Vincent Smith and Brandin Hawthorne hailed from the Muck in the 2009 class) by convincing FL DT Richard Ash to switch his commitment from West Virginia to the Wolverines.

Etc.: Maybe Ash ended up not committing to USC because he watched The Day After Tomorrow too much?

“I was worried cause they say they have earthquakes, mudslides and wildfires.”

How do any of those differed from riding out a hurricane in Florida?

“Oh, see that’s something I’m used to, I ain’t ever experienced an earthquake,” said a laughing Ash.

Short Update this week, as the recruiting class is getting wrapped up in short order. All updates can be found on the Michigan Football Recruiting Board. Next week's update will probably be of the "class overview" variety. After that, the focus is very likely to shift to the 2011 class.

One Of The Best Defense... Plays

For those who live under a rock, the heading references the gentlelady from Florida.

MD LB Josh Furman will announce his decision this Saturday at the Maryland Crab Bowl. He went on the local television sets to talk about the bowl itself, as well as his college decision and the extraordinary season he had at Old Mill this year. Furman's decision, between UM and Virginia Tech, is expected to go in favor of the Wolverines. He announces on the 19th.

Although FL DT Richard Ash committed to West Virginia just a couple weeks ago, he visited Michigan the weekend of the 4th, and now Sam Webb has said on WTKA that he has a "strong gut feeling" that Ash will switch that commitment to the Wolverines. For those who don't regularly listen to the Recruiting Roundup (and I know it's become a lot more difficult since the WTKA website has been having technical issues for a couple weeks now), that means Sam has been told that this will happen, and it's not merely a guess.

Michigan will receive a visit from FL CB/S Rashad Knight later this winter ($, info in header). Knight was originally slated to visit for the Ohio State game, but missed his flight.

[editor jump-in]

A commitment from Ash coupled with the presumed silent commitments from Grimes, Murphy, and Furman would bring Michigan to 27 members of the class, leaving one slot open for any of the various players listing Michigan—CA S Sean Parker, CA LB Tony Jefferson, MI DT Jonathan Hankins, TX DT "Big Tex" Beachum, etc—unless there's a decommitment or a kid who is far enough away from qualifying that Michigan pulls a scholarship offer. Of those players, Hankins has seems the most likely but is currently rotating like a pulsar, having declared Florida his leader and then suggesting that commitments to Michigan and then Ohio State were imminent.

Jefferson is supposed to be a package deal with CA WR Kenny Stills and has dropped Florida, leaving both players considering Oklahoma and Michigan, with Oklahoma the favorite. No one really knows what Parker's up to.

[/editor]

Safetytown

For those worried about losing the commitment of LA S Carvin Johnson should an offer come from LSU, mgoblog recruiting guru TomVH provides a little peace of mind:

#Michigan commit Carvin Johnson told me LSU has not offered, and an offer from them would not change his commitment to Michigan.

Though Carvin's Rummel team failed to take home the State Championship this weekend, he was still named the game's MVP.

In other "committed safety championship game" news, Ray Vinopal comes in for some high praise from the coach of Columbus St. Francis DeSales, which dropped the Ohio State Championship to Vinopal's Cardinal Mooney team:

"Playing for Mooney, you know you're going to see kids that are disciplined, smart and technically sound, but you add in this kid's abilities and you really have something special," said Wiggins, who coached U-M's Patrick Omameh.

"You want to talk about a kid that can flat out run, though - Vinopal was probably the fastest kid we played against all season, and we had a very competitive schedule.

This goes right along with everything we've heard about Vinopal: well-coached, mentally ready to play the game. However, it also touts something that isn't usually praised, which is Vinopal's physical ability. Braylon Heard, Cardinal Mooney's feature back, is a West Virginia commit oft-praised for his speed, and DeSales also played a number of other guys with HIGHLY ACCURATE and not at all FAKE 40 times in the 4.4 range on Rivals. Very interesting point there, if it's not just lip service from Wiggins (which it may very well be). So far in this article we are seriously lacking white guy adjectives, though, right?

"He's tough and gritty - just a tremendous player."

Ah, that's more like it.

2011

NC LB Kris Frost, a likely 4-star prospect in the 2011 class, is hearing from Michigan already.

"He's an energy ball," Butler quarterback Christian LeMay said. "He's always ready to play, ready to practice. I can't say enough about him. He's a piece of the heart of this team. He leads our defense."

I've added Frost to the 2011 Michigan Football Recruiting Board. (He's pictured at right, courtesy the Charlotte Observer's David T. Foster).

NY QB Ashton Broyld is getting attention from some schools as a linebacker, but he wants to play QB in college. Michigan is one of the schools that's talking to him (he was a 2009 summer camper), and he might be a good prospect for Michigan, if they can't get a top-top guy (i.e. Frost's teammate Lemay). That would give them a QB in the 2001 class, but leave open the door for an elite 2012 guy. For a little more on Broyld, check out his junior highlight film.

Etc.

Is Michigan back in the game for OH S Latwan Anderson? I'll believe it when he visits. Michigan is showing interest in FL LB Darrin Kitchens. If that interest continues, I'll add him to the board next week. AnnArbor.com fluff on WI P Commit Will Hagerup. More talking about early enrollees. The list is no different than last time we talked about it. Everyone at the Shrine Bowl seems to think SC QB commit Conelius Jones is destined for wideout in college.