Good Unverified Voracity For People Who Like Bad Unverified Voracity
[Patrick Barron]
All position switches are good news and bad news. Drake Harris is now a cornerback:
Excited to start my next journey on the defensive side of the ball! Wide receiver ➡️ Cornerback
— Drake Harris (@drizzygetbusy12) May 15, 2017
I'm dubious that this will work out, but Sam Webb asserts that Harris was not flat out told to move—he was in fact told that if he stays at WR he would be a contributor. The uncertainty at corner is greater and a guy with Harris's frame has a super high upside if it works out. Yes, Richard Sherman was inevitably brought up.
Moving your most experienced WR to CB after spring practice says something about the guys who are still there: DPJ and Tarik Black must have shown plenty for Michigan to move forward with those two guys and Kekoa Crawford as their main outside threats. It obviously says less than great things about cornerback, but I wouldn't get too despondent. Flipping guys around just to check is a Harbaugh trademark; sometimes it's paid off handsomely.
It is not a great sign for Harris's playing time since it directly states that he got passed by the two early-enrolled freshmen as soon as they showed up. Richard Sherman, yeah, but for every Sherman there are 20 shots in the dark that fail to salvage careers. There's a 10% chance he's a starting corner, a 20% chance he's on the two deep, and the rest of it is fading into Bolivia.
A combine weekend is good and bad. It's bad for the NBA prospects of Michigan's two potential early entrants, and that's good for Michigan. DJ Wilson had an injury that prevented him not only from playing 5 on 5 but also testing, which he would have been real good at. Wagner had a Wagner-versus-Oregon weekend, not a Wagner-versus-Louisville weekend. Both landed on Chad Ford's Go Back To School team. Both have also more or less directly stated that they are not going to stay in unless they're in the first round. Wagner:
“If I have that feeling that a team believes in me that much to draft me in the first round, I’d have to seriously consider that.
“As long as I don’t have that feeling, I won’t risk losing two years of eligibility at the University of Michigan.”
"If it's anything second round, then I don't really think that I'll be staying in the draft, I'll probably come back to school," Wilson said. "That's the good spot that I'm in -- I don't have a bad choice either way."
Wagner seems to be solidly in the second round and we can expect him back. Wilson is in a tricky spot; various mock drafts have him at the tail end of the first, including SBN and DX. I don't think he's going to have clarity either way unless a team gives him a guarantee.
In other combine news, any Michigan fan could have told you this:
Standing vertical leap (no steps) high scores: Donovan Mitchell (36.5 inches), Derrick Walton Jr. (36), Frank Jackson (35.5), Devin Robinson (35.5) and Derrick White (35.5)
Secretly 6'8" Derrick Walton and his rebounding chops.
WHY. WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS
This @Chris_Wormley43 tattoo looks like it hurt... https://t.co/3U9jBy51a7 pic.twitter.com/BIhBog7hb9
— Baltimore Ravens (@Ravens) May 11, 2017
This week in amateurism. Jim Delany gets a 20 million dollar bonus; the Big Ten is blindsided by complaints about Friday night games. Jim Delany is still getting a 20 million dollar bonus; this year's basketball schedule is so borked because of someone's bright idea to play the conference championship a week early so it can be at Madison Square Garden that Michigan might only play 30 games. And this is on the table:
“Do you end up playing a nonconference game during that week that’s after the conference [tournament] finishes up in New York?” Phillips pondered. “That’s a possibility. But who do you get who’s available? Do you play another conference game, and it’s a ‘nonconference’ game, but you play another conference opponent during that week? And I think you’ve got to be creative … how long a layoff is too long, where it really starts to have an adverse effect when you go into the postseason, whether it’s the NCAA or the NIT?”
If it maximizes revenue like a duck, pays only lip service to everything else like a duck, and compensates executives like a duck, can we finally pay the players?
Can't even scrape right. I wouldn't pay much attention to that NCAA report about the number of staffers across college football:
The Irish have a combined 45 on-field coaches, strength coaches, graduate assistants and support staff, according to the survey distributed to the NCAA Council last month. Notre Dame is followed closely in the top five by Texas (44), Georgia (42), Auburn (41) and Michigan (40).
However, the NCAA told CBS Sports the methodology to measure the staff sizes of 127 FBS schools in 2016 came from mere website research.
That research is also wrong. The report was for internal use and was obtained by CBS, thus putting a not ready for prime-time document on display. The numbers in it are not worth your time.
More worthy, perhaps, is this thought process:
The number of those added support staff is not capped. In fact, some argue that the NCAA should limit staff size even as they try to determine whether such a restriction can be legally instituted.
"You got it," said Phillips, also Northwestern's athletic director. "Maybe you can't limit [it], but the idea is that's how we've structured ourselves in the past. That's why we don't have seven assistant basketball coaches."
The money has to go somewhere. Now a lot of it is going to low level staffers. If it can't go to low level staffers it will go to midlevel staffers. Or it will buy Jim Delany yet another Ford Fiesta. You know he's just got a hangar full of 'em.
Etc.: Notre Dame is done paying Charlie Weis. xoxo miss you, Big Guy. M-OSU on Fox appears all but official. Hockey commit Antonio Stranges gets an "A+" rating from SBN College Hockey. Money has to go somewhere.
Justin Meram is doing work in MLS this year. I wonder if he regrets closing the door on the USMNT by playing for Iraq. I certainly regret it. Haven't had a winger in a minute.
I loved the radio show.
Please bring this back.
Me too!
There's more to that Walton vertical than you mentioned - he was one of the only prospects to actually have a lower "max vertical" than "standing vertical". This also aligns with what we've seen from him during his career. If he's standing still he can out-leap bigs for a rebound. If he's driving to the hoop he doesn't get as much elevation as needed for a high 2pt%. Details over at UMHoops.
That... is incomprehensible. How does that happen?
I'm not sure how he jumped 36" from standing but only 32.5" with a running start. He would have been better off just repeating his standing vertical jump in the "max" session to avoid the negative marks it put on his athleticism. Very bizarre.
was like this in high school and college too. He could sky off both feet and dunk, but could not dunk jumping off just one foot. It was weird.
It's rare, but some people naturally jump higher off of two feet than one. A running jump off of two feet is meaningless, because you basically stop "running" when both your feet hit the floor at the same time.
I assume that he is a two-footed jumper, which explains the disparity. It is unusual that the difference would be so large - normally two-footed jumpers have nearly the same height running vs standing, or a slight standing advantage.
The only schematic advantage Charlie Weis ever had was in the terms of his contract. Good lord did the ND brass get bent on that one!
Bobby Bonilla sends a thumbs up Charlie's way.
I'd rather get a tattoo on my big worm than my pet snake.
seems less Richard Sherman and more James Rogers. Just hard to see this working out. But agree it does seem auspicious re: frosh receivers.
"DPJ and Tarik Black must have shown plenty for Michigan to move forward with those two guys"
DPJ and Black have played more meaningful football for UM in one spring game than Harris has in three years.
It's effing awful that Harris' entire career at Michigan has been injury-plagued. For every ten highly rated recruits there's one guy who never gets a chance to develop into the player they were projected to be, through no fault of their own, just bad luck.
Having said that, when Harris has been healthy and has seen the field, he probably didn't make the most out of the limited chances that came his way. No spectacular catches and a few drops; and arguably, that's just not going to displace other equally highly skilled receivers who are physically more durable and able to block downfield.
I enjoy the Modest Mouse reference, fwiw.
It seems he has been unable to pack on enough muscle to gain position and block but if that is the case I can't see him playing corner or safety and having to tackle.
It's really simple: other guys have more talent. DPJ and Black look like upperclassmen already and are only 18 years old. Kekoa Crawford and McDoom both played more last year than Harris as well. I suspect Nico Collins and Oliver Martin would also push for more playing time than Harris from day 1. I don't expect Moe Ways to stick around much longer either.
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