Did you ever wonder what might have been? Example: Sam McGuffie
Have you ever wondered what might have been for a guy like Sam McGuffie? If he had not been used as "Mister All World Everything?" Right out of the gate . . . just think if he had stuck around and been given time to develop. Just thought I would ask. Seemed like a nice guy and wish him the best!
I only wonder about players who play for Michigan.
he is the guy I'd rather have than McGuffie. I know he had attitude issues an all - but he had one heck of an arm.
Can you imagine if we had this staff on 08 with mallet. We can only dream.
I do think Shane Morris is the man for the job. And then Chance Stewart
The offense would still have been poor but the defense, with what we had coming back, would have been pretty good.
I recall reading some stuff when McGuffie left that intimated he was quite home sick and the injuries were just icing on the cake on top of that. I had high hopes for him (as I'm sure most poeple did) quite a shock to see him fall off the face of the earth, even at Rice. He went from solidly productive in a platoon system here, to pretty good at Rice (1200+ total yards) to nothing this past year. sucks for him.
My number one "what might have been".
National Championship in 2006 if he hadn't gotten injured?
Bass had the same feel to him as Woodson they way he could cut without losing momentum.
It wasn't just the question marks at his utilization, the uncertainty of the RR era, or the concussions... There were problems going on within his family and I don't think his heart ever really came to Ann Arbor, so to speak. Sometimes, when people chase their dreams , life can get in the way.
But I'm sure there's one guy that's certainly not playing "What If" on the subject, and his name is Sam McGuffie.
What if you PITCHED THE GODDAMN BALL TO BREASTON HE'S STEVE BREASTON GODDAMNIT AND YOU'RE TYLER ECKER AND AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGG.
I was just discussing this the other day. Sooo many nightmares!
Oh my god, I had blocked that out of my memory! Now I'm going to be pissed off at work thinking about how Breaston would've scored had Ecker just looked to his left a little bit...
at almost any family gathering, one of my in-laws will bring up me screaming something very similar at the tv screen at that exact moment. I guess I made an impression on them
8-0 & #1 Michigan loses 16 -14 at Pudue after Jimmy Smith drops a touchdown pass and Bobby Wood misses a 37 yard field goal at the end of the game. Classic Bob Ufer heartbreak calls.
The Sun Belt Refs would have thrown their flags and negated the play.
They should have thrown their flags and negated the play! At least we would've had a second chance.
And... now I have to relive that Alamo nightmare.
So he doesn't really have any stats of note. He is able to run around CUSA competition pretty well, as he can actually show off his speed. However, when he played against Texas, he tried to pull an NFL Blitz move and run backwards across the field. Normally with Mcguff's speed this techniques is moderately successful against the Tulanes and Memphis's of college football, but mean Big XII Texas was just like "ummmm no" and tackled him for a loss of about 12. I don't think he would have been very successful at UM, but he probably would have seen the field. I guess the point of my post is McGuff has CUSA SPEED! which would make him look average in 6 AQ's.
His numbers at Rice have been mediocre.
couldn't block and sometimes backed into the line.
It is amazing what youtube can do for a recruit.
Always wondered about that one!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOmGMGUDPbk
This hurt Troy Smith and the whole Blue Nation!
Running backs don't need time to develop. They're either good or they're not. I thought he was going to be a good player, but he was just okay. I actually think he would have been better off as a slot receiver in Rodriguez's offense.
If he had stayed and how he was used! I hated seeing him get hammered! Some of the things we, as far as changes in guys is concerned, were reflections on the coaching that they were getting. Guys being 'coached up.' Given the right circumstances -- it would have been nice to see what might have been!
"Reflection on the coaching." Ahh, bullshit. More than anything, he was a victim of circumstance. Minor and Brown were made of glass, we had the worst o-line in history, freshmen all over the place, and we needed to hand the ball to somebody. It was either going to be McGuffie or Shaw during the first half of that season. There was no right answer offensively at the time.
I still remember being at the first game against Utah when we didn't know who was going to start at running back. Then they were showing the starters announce their names on the big screen and when he announced his name the stadium erupted. Everyone felt like this kid was going to win the heisman because he was starting as a freshman for Michigan in Rich Rods first year. I'll admit I overhyped him as well but I hope he enjoyed being closer to his family. I don't think if he stayed though he would've made the team a whole lot better unless he was to play safety....which now that I think of it doesn't sound half bad.
... to talk about exactly what they saw in Sam McGuffie apart from the legendary mixtape. Recruiting Houston Cy-Fair seemed to be a bit outside of our routine comfort zone, which is interesting. (Not that we haven't gotten some very significant Taxas kids.)
McGuffie's commitment day in July of 2007; the lineup of hats is interesting:
The coaches went after a few kids from that area. I don't think it was necessarily out of Michigan's routine comfort zone any more than offering Kellen Jones or JB Shugarts or Tony Drake or Corey Nelson and so forth. McGuffie had offers from all over the place, so I don't think it was strange.
I was just trying to make the point that for years, Lloyd Carr had wilfully destroyed relations with local coaches and had ignored his recruiting base in Michigan and Ohio to pursue speedy, lightweight kids for his curious offense in, uh, (where? Houston? okay...) Houston.
The guy clearly was in high demand. Seemed like a huge get at the time.
Maybe they saw the same things coaches from Notre Dame, Cal, USC, Florida, Tx A&M, etc did.
I'll never understand the McGuffie hatred. Yes he was part of the '08 offense but people act like it was all his fault.
And I think his lack of stats from Rice have to do with injuries (he hardly played this year. ) and the fact he's playing at ... Rice.
Why all the straw-man arguments? I don't think anyone here hates McGuffie, and I've never seen anyone here blame him for the offense's terrible season in 2008. I don't think he's as good as advertised, but that doesn't mean I hate him. I'd love for him to do well.
Anyway, why would playing at Rice depress his statistics? Rice doesn't face great competition.
I didn't follow Rice's season, but according to the link below, McGuffie played in each of the first six games of the season but never carried the ball more than 10 times. It appears that he was not their featured back even when healthy.
http://espn.go.com/college-football/player/_/id/381774/sam-mcguffie
My two what might've been moments:
1. What if the Yankees never threw all that money at Drew Henson. I was so excited for that season. There were early talks of Drew being a Heisman candidate and all things were looking up. Then, he took the money and ran. I was crushed.
2. The Spartan Bob game, and actually my what if doesn't have to do with Bob. What if the referee who spotted the ball the play before it was spiked did his job and instead of changing pace to sprint as fast as he could to place the ball on the hash, did so at his normal speed? That's what pissed me off most about the game. If the mf'er had just kept his regular pace as he's supposed to, Spartan Bob wouldn't have been a factor...
I was 13 when the Spartan Bob game was played, but strangely my strongest memory of that game wasn't the last second spike but the pass interference penalty on Jeremy LeSueur during the same drive. I think I must have repressed the spike memory...
Or that the pass was caught by a guy who should have been ejected for kicking someone.
Goes back a ways, but I always wondered how much better those '91 and '92 teams could have been had he stayed.
Healthy Tony Boles means Bo would have retired by winning the Rose Bowl.
I lived in South Quad with Vaughn two years and knew him quite well...... he had great straight line speed but other than that, he was a product of our fine offensive line. Don't believe that he was an elite talent, because he wasn't. He was a track runner who could fly.
Speaking of badass RB's who couldn't stay healthy, I would like to have seen Allen Jefferson play with knees that functioned.
Jon Vaughn probably made the right move. We were absolutely loaded at tailback in 1991 and '92 even without him. We won outright Big Ten titles both years, so we didn't really miss him much.