Top 50 players in college football
Michigan with 4 of the top 50. I never realized Bush was rated so highly by Kiper. I tried to embed but am still on the struggle bus with the new board. Let the debate begin
If Bush has a monster season I think #hegone
He’s been on a number of preseason all American & various other watchlists.
Never, ever use Hawk-isms. Rule of life.
Devin Bush is amazing, but you just know that he'll start dropping down draft boards, with the only explanation being variations on the word "short"
August 6th, 2018 at 11:47 AM ^
I dunno. I am pretty sure the Colts would want him bad. They have like 1.5 linebackers that fit their Tampa-Two scheme. He'd be something of a savior for that group.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:58 PM ^
No one runs Tampa 2 scheme anymore. It has been outdated and OC has figured out the defense
August 6th, 2018 at 12:18 PM ^
Oh I absolutely agree, but I was caught off guard when I read that he was Kiper's #1 underclass MLB.
Bush is wayyyyy too short for the NFL. He definitely needs to come back for a 5th year to prove his height.
If he came back next year it’d be his fourth year. And there’s only so much a guy can prove at the college level. People said trey Burke was too short for today’s nba but he had nothing left to prove or improve on in college.
Edit: I’m retarded. My brain must have given up while reading that post. I’m sorry guys
Dude....read his post again...
Bush is gone but luckily we have great talented depth at LB so we good
AJ Dillon. Wasn't he commited to Michigan for a while?
August 6th, 2018 at 10:32 AM ^
Yes, and he committed because he wanted to be a primary RB and Michigan said there was a 10% chance he'd be a LB and were still going after Najee Harris. No one cared because he was a 3 star, until last year when he played well and suddenly the coaches were failures for not working harder to retain him.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:30 AM ^
Thats not correct. Everyone knew he was a big loss but IIRC he had no desire whatsoever to play LB so he went to BC
Saying "everyone knew he was a big loss" isn't really correct either. Most people liked him and wanted him in the class but the official exit post and board post are mostly well-wishing without much extreme opinion on either side.
Brian - "Dillon is an excellent athlete who is a coup for BC; Michigan looks like they'll be fine at RB for the next couple years either way."
Magnus - "Well, we've lost our second-best RB in the class. Samuels would be our first-best"
I don't think the coaches whiffed or anything. We had a lot of backs in the fold and were honest about that possibility he would end up at LB. AJ appears to have made a great decision and has exceeded all reasonable expectations.
I can't help but think "what might have been" when seeing Damien Harris and AJ Dillon on the list as RB's. I think that both were one time Michigan commits. I'm still excited to see what Higdon and Evans can do behind what should be a fairly physical line this year.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:54 AM ^
Yeah Dillon is a baller, would have been amazing to see him take over next to Evans in 2019. Oh well.
He ran over inferior competition. I like him, but slow down. What would Samuels do to lower competition?
Clemson has three starting DL on the list, and was the other team in the running for Rashan Gary.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:04 AM ^
I think Aubrey Solomon will be in discussion to make a post season version of this list.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:59 AM ^
Clemson had 4 defensive lineman on the list. 2 DT's and 2 DE's.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:11 AM ^
Am I the only one who thinks putting Tua Tagovailoa on these lists is, especially as high as he is on this one, a bit of a reach? He’s obviously talented, but to put him as the 11th best college football player seems a bit premature
August 6th, 2018 at 10:18 AM ^
Well there are a lot of question marks on this list. I think they are presuming that Tua will be the starter for Alabama and that is why he is ranked so high. He is a talented player though.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:30 AM ^
I agree that he is talented, but to put him at 11 is high imo
August 6th, 2018 at 11:25 AM ^
Didn't he really only play real snaps in the bowl game? And at that, just for a portion of it? No doubt he is talented, but I feel like getting a larger sample size might be necessary before putting him on this list, at least as high as he is
To me it’s like putting JOK on this list after the Purdue game.
What the L??
Realistically, Fromm should be ahead of both Tagovailoa (based on production) and Patterson (because Patterson is in a new system)
August 6th, 2018 at 10:19 AM ^
Nobody from msu made the cut? Moar Disrespekt
August 6th, 2018 at 10:26 AM ^
Which would make losing to them again that much more disgusting
August 6th, 2018 at 11:06 AM ^
Which will make losing to them again that much more disgusting
FIFY
August 6th, 2018 at 11:31 AM ^
Pray for rain, homeboy.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:56 AM ^
After the 2015 game, I kept saying "fine, the only games they're going to win in the Harbaugh era require an Act of God."
Well crap if they didn't get another one in 2017. How about just a normal game played in normal football weather with no once-in-a-lifetime twists at the end. Something not memorable for much of anything. Too much to ask?
Last year, it wasn't even the rain so much as the swirling, gusty wind on top of it - it was basically 110,000 people getting to experience life inside a washing machine to the tune of an unfortunate loss.
That said, I think someone here just needs to glue themselves to NWS Detroit radar beginning at the end of this month and keep the school abreast of potential monsoons or other bad weather events.
I thought msu was up 14-3 before the rain started
August 6th, 2018 at 12:25 PM ^
I have never commented on a rival’s blog or message board. I don’t understand the desire to do so. But then again, I am not an asshole.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
Unrelated but the link in the OP is clickable for me. Another problem fixed?
August 6th, 2018 at 10:26 AM ^
Although it looks like points aren't updating anymore
August 6th, 2018 at 10:29 AM ^
AJ Dillon on this list still stings a little.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:35 AM ^
Eh, it also shows that the coaches know how to evaluate players. No one was upset when he decommitted because he was a 3 star.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:41 AM ^
There's no way to spin that positively. AJ Dillon would have been a monster for us and in hindsight, the coaches dropped the ball on his recruitment.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:18 AM ^
If that's how you look at it, you will never be happy with this coaching staff. They had very good reason to believe Harris was coming to Michigan (he was silently committed, he was enrolled and had a dorm assignment), and had another RB in the class. They still wanted Dillon but were straight with him that it was a slim possibility LB was in his future and he wouldn't be the only back in the class. He wanted to be that #1 back, so he picked a school that would let him do that.
That's how recruiting works, even if you have a lot to offer, it's not always what the recruit wants. And it's revisionist to say that most fans weren't sorry to see him decommit. He was 407th on the composite and considered inferior to Samuels with Harris a real possibility and lots of RB depth. Now we can say he would have been good, but he wouldn't have had nearly the carries he did at BC either last year or this year with how Higdon and Evans played.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:34 AM ^
I reslly liked him and was upset when he decommitted, but I completely agree with you. If he goes to BC and is a huge bust, everyone sees it as a huge plus for us not wasting a scholarship spot. Also, to be fair, most of his big games were against middling defenses at best, save for maybe one or two performances (Iowa and NC St.).
August 6th, 2018 at 12:55 PM ^
I understand the implications of Najee. The short story is that we bet the farm on him, and lost AJ Dillon as a result. Dillon wasn't rated as highly, so I get your thought. Taylor, Samuels and Mason were also in this class, so it is not surprising that Dillon went somewhere we he had a way better chance to see the field. Good on him, didn't work out for us.
There's also a chance that if he came to Ann Arbor, he'd sit, so I get that too. Understood that it is the nature of recruiting, but no matter how you swing it, losing out on AJ Dillon's production a whiff by this staff. He is excelling elsewhere because his needs weren't being met here.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:21 AM ^
I Don't know. His trajectory could have been different if he was a LB. Glad he is living his dream but we would never know what he could have been.
August 6th, 2018 at 10:58 AM ^
Bush has a great start to last season but he faded from the MSU game on. In fact he only had .5 a sack after getting 5 in the first four games. He certainly didn’t look like a top NFL draft pick for most of last season. I think it is way too soon to talk about him leaving early.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:03 AM ^
Bush started the season getting sacks because of the scheme Don Brown was using crashing the line with Furbush and opening lanes for Bush. As teams adapted, so did Brown. He brought pressure from other areas while using Bush as a threat to rush. Bush still finished with 102 tackles which means he did not fade down the stretch, he just wasn't getting sacks while others on the defense were (see Hudson & Winovich), partly because teams had to worry about what Bush was doing.
August 6th, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
I noticed the scheme change as well, but it had more to do with going to disguised Hudson blitzes instead of the up the middle jailbreak plays that Bush was getting sacks off of.
But sacks aside, Bush went from averaging 10.5 tackles a game in the first 4 games to just over 7 the rest of the year, Drop off of three tackles per game and that includes an 11-tackle game against Rutgers.
What you’re really looking for in an LB is a guy that can shed blocks and still make the play. Or a guy that can read a play and blow it up before it starts. Not saying Bush won’t get there eventually, but there wasn’t enough of that last year, especially in the big games.
Put down the stat sheets & watch him play. It is a thing of beauty. He is violent.
Amen brother! Geez...the things people nitpick about!!! The kid's one helluva football player.
August 6th, 2018 at 11:05 AM ^
He also went from a little known player who hadn't really played much defense (he was on special teams as a freshman) to one of the main players being game planned against. It's disappointing he couldn't adjust to that, but it definitely helped our defense as a whole.