Dear Diary Won't Have Another Game
There won't be another one after. Not for Gardner. Not for Jake. Not for Hoke, for whom the accumulated effects of progressively worse seasons will mean the end. Not for a Michigan team that has less talent than their star ratings gave them, but far more than their record demonstrates.
As we come to the end—there will be no bowl game barring a miracle—for the Brady Hoke era, the tragedy is all of that wasted talent. That precious snaps with Denard Robinson and Vince Smith and David Molk and Patrick Omameh were wasted on Power because dogma. That Devin Gardner was never given the coaching or the system or the stability or the offensive line to be more than a freshman who runs around a lot. That Jake Ryan, who would have been Lawrence Taylor if he lived 30 years ago, spent his senior season having to learn a very hard thing he wasn't made to do. That Blake Countess is a coverage nickel because the cornerbacks play man all day. That Devin Funchess was a tight end, and then a bubble screen slot bug, until it was too late to care. That Dennis Norfleet was dancing around on the sidelines while A.J. Williams whiffed on blocks of defenders who wouldn't have been in the box otherwise. That senior seasons of Mone, Wile, Dymonte , Hurst, Gedeon, Houma, Delano, RJS, Ojemudia, Pipkins, Drake Johnson, Raymon, Da'Mario, Jarrod, Norfleet, Jourdan, Brandon Watson, Taco, Bolden, and Shane effing Morris were traded for a bare handful of freshman snaps that other guys might have taken.
That four years of Michigan football were wasted on Brady Hoke, and that here, at the end of all things, we're still not even sure those in charge will consider something besides unwavering faith in the gospel of "Michigan" in the next J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach.
The next guy. These are now a week out of date but Eye of the Tiger put together a couple of roundups of the coaching candidates in our crosshairs. Factors are: Potential upside, Potential downside, Transition costs, Overall desirability, and Chances of him coming. Both start with Harbaughs; the first has Jim, Les, Mullen, Graham, and, uh, Belichick? Second has John, Patterson, McElwain, Herman, and…okay so the fifth guy is always some joke.
Alum96 added a defense of Les Miles to answer some guy made of straw who goes around saying LSU has regressed lately. Straw men are stupid. The main arguments against Les are that he's too old, and his coaching style is a better fit for LSU, which is near the extreme of anything-goes for college football, versus Michigan, where the local press turns you in for accidentally practicing an extra 20 minutes.
[Jump for seniors departing, a new basketball stat, and college football parity]
Counting Crows. Ron Utah pointed out the senior numbers:
- 12...or is it? I'm not sure if Brady Hoke was still counting Frank Clark as a senior or not when he mentioned the "12" seniors we'll be honoring this week, but there are only 11 on the roster, and that includes Desmond Morgan. If there were actually 12, it would be the same number of seniors we had on the roster in RR's final season (2010).
- Eight. The number of seniors on the depth chart, including the kicker and punter. Of course, that doesn't count Clark.
- Four. There are four seniors on the defensive depth chart, with Beyer, Ryan, and Taylor as starters and Hollowell as a back-up.
- One. There is only one senior starting on offense (Gardner), and only one other senior on the offensive depth chart (Burzynski).
Gardner will absolutely be missed, and that's just Gardner at his crummiest; if Michigan can find an adequate QB next year that won't be such a big deal, and if Michigan can't it will be ugly no matter who's coaching. Beyer is underrated; Taco can handle DE but Michigan's whiffed on a lot of guys to back him. We'll see some effects next year unless M goes back to an under. Taylor's hit his ceiling, which is "good" plus or minus a few measures, and the CB depth chart is so robust it's questionable whether he would have started next year anyway. Jake Ryan was an awesome player in his role but a returning Desmond Morgan is almost a wash at MLB. I can't think of another year when Michigan graduates less.
Impactfulness. We had a great hoops diary from MaizeAndBlueWahoo, who came up with a new measurement for college basketball players: Impact Score. It's confusing, factoring KenPom's O-Rating, possession%, and minutes. Here's the top impact scores from last year who've returned:
Player | Team | Impact Score |
---|---|---|
Frank Kaminsky | Wisconsin | 20.48 |
Aaron White | Iowa | 15.79 |
Josh Gasser | Wisconsin | 15.37 |
Yogi Ferrell | Indiana | 15.28 |
Austin Hollins | Minnesota | 12.21 |
Sam Dekker | Wisconsin | 12.19 |
Branden Dawson | Michigan State | 11.66 |
Caris LeVert | Michigan | 10.57 |
D.J. Newbill | Penn State | 9.51 |
Etc. Thanksgiving thanks from LSAClassof2000. Inside the Box Score and B&W were covered in the postgame. Turnover margin. F&P stats.
Best of the Board
IT'S NOT PARITY IF IT'S COMPLACENCY
MonkeyMan asked if the college football middle class is conquering the elite, then are the old time powers really powers anymore:
So TCU just beat Texas as predicted- and by a lot. Miss State is a powerhouse (who?), KSU and Baylor have a shot at the playoffs, ASU out west is doing well, etc. etc.
On the other hand, Florida, Miami (FL), Tennessee, Penn State, UM (us), VT, and more great hallowed names are pushover teams. Lots of "old time" perennial powers just look plain average- Nebraska, USC, ND, LSU, etc.
So does a storied name and program really mean that much anymore?
Yes, because "cachet" is really money. The elite programs have way more of it, and that matters, but because the NCAA doesn't let you give it directly to the guys who are creating that value, the wealthy buy things that lure kids: big name coaches, opulent facilities, etc. Because it's indirect it's not as effective, and that leaves room for elite programs that get complacent to fall behind the few among the next levels down who are operating at their peak. Keep in mind that Minnesota's current team would be just mediocre if we had them right now. Michigan's awful-awful season is just barely missing a bowl game; that's a typical year at Minnesota.
There is a difference between now and, say, the 1970s, in that way more schools can get on TV. The books are far more open for a program to jump from above average to consistently good. LSU wasn't in anybody's discussions of power programs until Nick Saban took them there. Wisconsin's sustained success came after half a century of being a doormat.
Being rich means you can throw money at a Doug Nussmeier, because you're not allowed to throw it at the players [Fuller] |
It's been proven time and again (Hinton uses a different metric every year to prove it)that recruiting stars do matter on the aggregate. The thing is there's wide individual variance. A 5-star recruit is 50% to be a college football star; a 4-star recruit is 13%, and it gets to small numbers from there. But there are way more 3-stars, and even more 2-stars or below. Every player has things they are good at and things they aren't good at, and teams that have success find players who are good at the things they want to be good at, and weaknesses in areas they don't have to be emphasized. Good coaches then teach their guys to be better players. If all you know about two kids is one is a 4-star and the other is a 3-star, you want the 4-star. If you know that one is a 4-star only Michigan offered while the other is a 3-star with strong interest from a lot of schools who run a similar scheme, it's a good bet that 3-star will be just as successful. They're all gambles.
The big difference, still, between the Michigans and Michigan States is money. Michigan can summon gargantuan amounts of it, so that despite having a dysfunctional athletic department in the crappy Big Ten, a badly coached .500 team the last several years, the closest thing to zero access to all the little tricks and slides you use to get around the NCAA's "student athlete" structure, and more job scrutiny than most schools, the general public believes it is entirely possible that we'll hire one of the best NFL coaches this offseason. Texas got complacent for the last years, and is Year One of righting itself under Charlie Strong, who had to run 25% of the team off to chance the culture there. Nick Saban at Michigan State is a renegade hoodlum program that can just match Lloyd Carr's Michigan; at Alabama it's a monstrosity.
There are programs like Oregon and Oklahoma State with one alumnus so massively wealthy and into his school that he can basically be a substitute for the kind of alumni base that, say, Alabama enjoys. Even among the elites, they do it different ways. Alabama has probably the most ardent and widest cast fanbase in the country, but it can't even generate Michigan money because few people have much financial success with that Alabama degree. It still comes down to money. USC will figure it out again; Michigan State will last as long as Dantonio's regime, and will never be Alabama.
FROM A TEACHER
I'm posting this in full:
Well, its my last day of teaching before thanksgiving break and thusly, before The Game. A tradition in my american history class is to show the documentary The Rivalry which goes back through the history of this rivalry. I'm watching this, and I'm looking at the young Michigan fans here in my NW ohio classrooms who still, despite the jeers and ridiculue, still wear their maize and blue while I too have my Nike number 7 maize and blue jersey on. I like watching this documentary because it reminds me of the greatness of this game. How even on bad years our boys can still pull one out to play spoiler to the enemy.
This is a downturn for Michigan. But this isn't the first in our storied history. Anything is possible this Saturday. So let's cut the woe is me crap and rally behind our team and our coach one last time.
I hate Ohio State. But more importanly I love michigan
Go blue
LEBERT AND IRVIE
By LongLiveBo when his girlfriend left him alone with Photoshop for a night.
ETC. Thanksgiving poetry.
Your Moment of Zen:
November 28th, 2014 at 11:04 AM ^
Belichick!
November 28th, 2014 at 11:13 AM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 11:48 AM ^
Wonder if we ever make it back to prominence
46-44 since CARR left and one bowl win.
November 28th, 2014 at 2:09 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 11:29 AM ^
"That four years of Michigan football were wasted on Brady Hoke, and that here, at the end of all things, we're still not even sure those in charge will consider something besides unwavering faith in the gospel of "Michigan" in the next J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach."
November 28th, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 11:51 AM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 2:00 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 11:50 AM ^
Thank you for pointing out the redshirt issue! I always wondered why the hell we played so many of these kids on meaningless snaps to forfeit their redshirt year. I also love seeing highlights like those from the '95 game but it also makes me sad that we don't have an abundance of highlights like this against Ohio State over the last 20 years.
November 28th, 2014 at 1:14 PM ^
Drake Johnson did redshirt as a freshman. Joe Bolden played a lot as a freshman. Wile played regularly and as the replacement for the suspended Hagerup. I don't believe Brandon Watson has played this season. A lot of the other examples like Morris, are debateable at best.
November 28th, 2014 at 2:08 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 4:23 PM ^
but the official site had him listed as a RS FRt last season and a RS Soph this one. I doubt they would claim he didn't play if he had. Mightn't she mean they're trying to get a redshirt for last season? We haven't had much success getting 6th years.
Bolden played a lot at MLB. He wasn't exactly interchangeable with Ross. Who else should have been backing up Morgan? The lack of good depth on defense forced a lot of the freshmen to play.
I disagree about Wile. You shouldn't redshirt players that are already better than the competition. He punted 4 games and kicked off all year. Morris could redshirt if you had confidence in Bellomy this year and a walkon last year. That would seem unwise. That's where not taking a QB in 2012 hurts. There was no plausible alternative to Morris, even if he could benefit from a RS.
November 28th, 2014 at 5:06 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 11:59 AM ^
To everyone who wanted Rich Rod fired: you got what you wanted. Thanks for four wasted years.
November 28th, 2014 at 12:02 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 12:07 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^
Stop with this ridiculous "we should have stuck with Rodriguez" junk. Just because we managed somehow to get even worse does not make the shitstorm we became under RR suddenly a flower bed!
November 28th, 2014 at 1:16 PM ^
That's just ludicrous.
There were some fans unhappy with him practically every single year. That's par for the course.
December 1st, 2014 at 9:56 AM ^
Sure he was... the fanbase was calling for his head in the middle 2000s. Carr was unnecessarily rude to the media, wasn't particularly outstanding in big games, lost to App State, and the program ran a tired offense. Carr only escapes criticism here because of a shared national title that he milked for far too long (either that or a good portion of the board is too young to remember).
But hey, at least he didn’t stretch for 20 minutes too long. I guess that’s worth something.
If you want to look at the downfall of Michigan's program over the past decade, it starts with Carr. He refused to change with the times and meddled in the coaching search – much to Michigan’s detriment.
November 29th, 2014 at 12:58 AM ^
RR's AZ team = 10-2, ranked 11 in the nation, and just beat their in-state rival ranked #13 nationally. Didn't we have a post on here a while back that looked at the average tenure of coaches against win/loss? The guy was trending upward. Sure, he was still struggling in some aspects of his game but when he's given only three years, we look at what he did before and what he's done after to measure whether that trend was going to continue, whether it's likely those struggles would have dissipated, and whether getting rid of him was a mistake.
We understand - you hated RR before he got here and hated the fact he was given even three years. His record continues to speak volumes.
November 30th, 2014 at 9:46 PM ^
Dude take a good look at RR at Arizona and ask your self, How is it that a former michigan that went 15-22, Goes to arizona rip off 26-12 in three season and get this, Capture a Division Title and playing for the Pac 12 Title game. Three year change alot huh. RR is laughable at michigan right now. This unacceptable to michigan, It big fucking slap in the face to see him winning at that kind of level with Arizona. Just Three season he back in the coversation of the elites. Brady Hoke is a disaster from the start. He might michigan second worst coach ever.
November 28th, 2014 at 12:00 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 12:09 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 2:16 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 3:08 PM ^
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November 28th, 2014 at 12:05 PM ^
For the past few games in Columbus, I have parked at a very Michigan friendly parking lot I learned about because it was run by a relative of an MGoBlogger. Is that still there at the ARC on Dodridge? IS it still UM friendly?
November 28th, 2014 at 12:14 PM ^
I'm not going to waste my time digging up history. If you have HTTV for 2010-2014, you have it anyways, as should the editorial staff.
But there's some damn revisionist thinking going on here. I'll just point this out: the 2010 signing class was in the mid 20s; it's attrition rate was ~75%. That's 15+ bodies that should have been on the roster but weren't. If they had been there, does anyone seriously believe that as many redshirts would have been "blown?"
November 28th, 2014 at 1:56 PM ^
Those pieces in my opinion really helped the football program. It gave new recruits a chance to electronically get to know the fans they will be playing for. It makes me wonder if this staff has cut their recruits off from doing player interviews. If I was a head coach and I had a blog constantly trying to get me fired I would do the same thing.
November 28th, 2014 at 12:20 PM ^
Are we now at full parity in CFB? No, not yet.
But we are at "Margin of Error" parity.
The elite, big money programs when they are hitting on all cylinders - no key injuries, significant number of upper classmen, quality coaching staffs - are still going to be the top dogs.
What has changed is that there is no longer a margin of error. You can't lose half your key players to the NFL, like LSU, or have a mediocre coaching staff, like Michigan or Florida, or scholarship reductions, like USC, and still expect to compete at the top level.
The days of just throwing your helmet out on the field and having 90% of your opponents cower in fear, are over. This isn't just a Michigan thing, it's also a Texas, USC, Florida, Notre Dame, Nebraska, Miami, Tennessee, Penn State thing.
November 28th, 2014 at 12:45 PM ^
Losing to Utah or TCU would have been considered an embarrassment(especially in a blowout), now it's become normal. Notre Dame losing at home to Lousville is not even an upset anymore.
November 28th, 2014 at 1:04 PM ^
Seth- thanks for addressing my question.
I sometimes wonder about the "front office" effect on college football teams. The NFL has a sort of enforced parity with salary limts, etc. yet certain teams always seem to be the perennial winners- Packers, Patriots, Steelers, etc. they may be down a little but always come back. Other teams like the Browns, Lions never seem to get it together for long.
What seperates these teams is the quality of the general management- the coaches and players come and go but the "front office" maintains standards. On the CFB level I am impressed with Wisconsin in these regards- they seem to have an identity and plug coaches into the system.
I sometimes wonder if the whole Bo, Mo, Lloyd thing was maybe an accident. Bo created great assistants who kept the ball rolling- but eventually someone couldn't fill the gap after Lyoyd left and the ball fell. The whole 40 cycle was running on momentum and fortunate successions- when the ball finally stopped rolling it revealed that the "front office" wasn't really responsible for the 40 years of Bo and friends success (except when Bo was the front office). Our luck ran out,
Maybe we need a great AD to establish a really good management team- then the coaching success will follow.
November 28th, 2014 at 4:52 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 5:37 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 6:41 PM ^
December 2nd, 2014 at 8:58 PM ^
an average line in front of a future-Hall-of-Fame QB and the offense is still OK. Those guys are really hard to find.
Even Big Ben has had trouble behind the sieve of the Steelers O-Line and he's one of the best around at extending plays and shrugging off DL until someone gets open. (When he finally retires, in fact, I predict an interesting Hall of Fame debate that he ultimately loses - the SB rings get him in the conversation, and the lack of gaudy statistics doom him, but accomplishing what he does on teams with serious OL issues masks his true talent.)
The Jets have gotten crappy QB play, though, so improving there is likely the first order of business. But if you're the Bengals, say, or the Ravens? It's actually pretty hard to improve on Flacco and Dalton - they're not great but they're consistently average to above-average. That is hard to replace, let alone improve on. Those teams should be focusing on improving elsewhere ... and that place is almost certainly either line, because that will give them the biggest bang for the buck.
Put another way, you should always maximize talent at QB where possible. However, if you can't, building a strong line is the next best thing.
November 28th, 2014 at 2:38 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 6:22 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 7:23 PM ^
November 29th, 2014 at 5:42 AM ^
First of all, saying Ryan is in the top 2% isn't that much of a stretch. If every team has 100 players on it, you're talking about basically the top two players from each team (which Ryan is and maybe has been for the past few years).
Second, Ryan has surpassed Dhani Jones in tackles (by 12) and tackles for loss (by 11.5). He has bested Ian Gold in tackles (by 56), tackles for loss (by 23.5), and sacks (by 3.5). Statistics aren't everything, but those differences are at least noteworthy, especially considering that Ryan tore his ACL, missed half of the 2013 season, and then learned a new position for 2014.
Third, Glen Steele was a defensive lineman.
November 29th, 2014 at 6:12 AM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 3:11 PM ^
and a great game against that OSU team that year no doubt. After watching this though, you can easily see what Brady's team is not doing well this season and won't do well tomorrow. Just look at that PUSH those O lineman are getting against that OSU D line. Holes big enough to get there own zip code Fergodsakes. I know that line was as close to a NFL caliber line the NCAA will allow with players like Zach Adami and Jon Jansen just to name two off the top of my head, but they were mean and played with attitude another thing we have missed all season this year.
November 28th, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^
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November 28th, 2014 at 4:18 PM ^
Ask the average casual college football and non-Michigan fan who is the head coach in the photo above...who would they choose?
November 28th, 2014 at 4:46 PM ^
November 28th, 2014 at 9:36 PM ^
November 29th, 2014 at 12:22 AM ^
How many pts did we score in RichRods last game v Miss St? Last 3 games for that matter?
Clearly the O did not improve as much as everyone hoped this season, but when RR had 3 years, Hoke's had 4, Borges had 3...How can everyone pile on Nuss for not pooping gold in less than 1 season, where there's pretty reasonable doubt how much of the offense is really under his control?
Track record people, track record. Nuss has had 1 Hell of lot more success in the past 7 years since Carr's last glorious hurrah in the bowl game than the Michigan Wolverines have had!
November 29th, 2014 at 6:41 PM ^
December 1st, 2014 at 12:53 PM ^
you can without much of a stretch see what Brady's group is not doing great this season and won't do well tomorrow. Simply take a gander at that PUSH those O lineman are getting against that OSU D line. Openings sufficiently enormous to get there own postal division Fergodsakes on tour packages.
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