H4: The Burned Redshirts in Order of Argh Comment Count

Seth

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I realize Strobel got one. Find a better photo then, pickers of nits.

This has to be talked about. Hoke left a roster that was in relatively good shape considering all the highly rated players who had to stick through some awful program degradation. He signed good classes, and those classes have by and large stuck around and fulfilled their academic duties. But an inordinate amount of them inexplicably didn't redshirt, and because of this there are some holes on the horizon.

I'm sure there are explanations in many of these cases that we are not party to. It's only the sheer volume of head-scratching non-redshirts under Hoke that gives us reason to call all of them into question. Like how I'm sure there are legit medical hardship waivers that occur at Alabama but [graph].

Some guys the coaches were forced to play early, and there's no need to discuss them beyond a mention as such, e.g. Jabrill Peppers. Mason Cole outcompeted a pile of guys to start at left tackle last season. That sort of thing gets a full pass. Beyond that, I've broken each Hoke class into categories of increasing argh:

  • WTF. Wasting redshirts on special teams and dime back when last year's dime back is on the bench.
  • Pick ONE. Needed bodies at this position, but not all the bodies. Battles for 2nd on the depth chart should be resolved in time for the ultimate loser to have a 5th year as consolation.
  • Need the dudes (and other things I don't blame on the coaches). Immediate starters or guys who played because Michigan sorely needed his body and his pulse at that position.

Names that should have redshirted are in red.

Class of 2011

DEs

Did you really need both, 2011? [Upchurch]

Hoke arrived to an offensive machine with two years of eligibility remaining, and a nightmare defense of guys who couldn't displace recent departures like Jonas Mouton, Ray Vinopal, Adam Patterson, Greg Banks, and James Rogers. The immediate need was obvious and Hoke rightfully set about recruiting freshmen who could fill those roles. So I'll give him a pass for some of it.

SugarBowl_Hollowell-thumb-333x221-98980
Hollowell's 2011 contribution was more than scooping up a fumbled kickoff against VT, but it was also more than Ray Taylor's. [Melanie Maxwell|AnnArbor.com]

Wtf: None.

Pick ONE

Raymon Taylor and Delonte Hollowell. The year following the Never Forget defensive backfield, Hoke recruited five likely cornerbacks: Blake Countess, Raymon Taylor, Delonte Hollowell, Tamani Carter (redshirted, transferred before 2012), and Greg Brown (early enrollee, transferred before 2011 season). The roster still had J.T. Floyd, Courtney Avery and Terrence Talbott (left program summer before 2012 season), available. In a pinch, Troy Woolfolk could have converted back when Thomas Gordon won the free safety job. At least one, and probably two true freshmen would have to play.

It immediately became apparent that one would be Countess. So to fill out the two deep they would need to burn Taylor or Hollowell's shirt. Hollowell arrived as the quintessential Cass Tech mite corner. The guy was 164 pounds, but saw some action at dime back vs. Nebraska, and recovered the fumble at the end of the first half. Taylor had two tackles and a personal foul.

Brennen Beyer and Frank Clark. Going into the season Beyer was a SAM and Clark a WDE. The difference between those positions in Michigan's 4-3 under was not very great, particularly because when Beyer was inserted it was for a 5-2 look. The WDE's depth chart was Craig Roh and Jibreel Black; SAM was Jake Ryan and Cam Gordon. The reason I say one would have played anyway is the rush end position has a lot rotation, and Black was already the starter in the nickel formation.

There wasn't much to differentiate the two in aggregate play; Beyer was the more consistent, Clark the more explosive. The coaches chose to have them compete through the year instead of preserving one. Had they done so Beyer was the obvious choice despite Clark's higher ceiling. Beyer was smaller and Michigan had Roh to be a more solid edge defender, but only Clark to be a merchant of chaos (remember the Sugar Bowl interception). On the other hand Frank had a rough history before Glenville, and could have used an adjustment season. Either way he would have been dismissed after last year's incident.

Needed dudes etc.

Blake Countess and Desmond Morgan won starting jobs on the 2011 defensive reclamation project. They also both would lose a season to injury so we have them back yay. Thomas Rawls I'm not broken up about, though he will be a pretty good MAC back this year. RBs usually have most of the "it" they ever will as freshmen, and if they do become long-term starters the toll it takes on their bodies means they're often better off moving through their careers early. A redshirt year can make a guy a better blocker, or put some distance between a good back and his heir, or let a smaller guy fill in. Matt Wile is a special pass even though they wasted his redshirt on kickoff duties (and punting during Hagerup's first suspension). I learned recently that Wile made it clear from the start he intended to graduate in four years and do engineering things.

[Save your anger for after the jump.]

Class of 2012

burnin shirts

Because eff you 2016!

The moment we realized Hoke is a serial redshirt burner was the kickoff against Alabama; so much of the expected to redshirt portion of the Class of 2012 was on the field that karmic irony took the opportunity to strike down Blake Countess. We're looking at the list of 2015 seniors right now and some of them it feels like they should just be entering the prime, not the end, of their careers. In most of these cases we are correct.

Wtf

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I give them a pass for Wilson since they did it after Mike Williams's career was lost to injury. [Upchurch]

Mario Ojemudia was 225 pounds soaking wet, though dude was so slippery the water didn't add much. He got a fair amount of run anyway despite Clark and Beyer being ahead of him. Maybe when minor injuries pocked the depth chart they would have been forced to use him, but that shirt was gone from the kickoff against Alabama, despite Mattison admitting the following spring that it's unfair to play a defensive end at 230.

From there it gets even less explicable. Sione Houma was wasted entirely on special teams, making 1.5 tackles.

Royce Jenkins-Stone was recruited for the SAM and was a raw obvious redshirt, yet there he is at the far left of the photo above, burning it against Alabama. Last year he began to look ready and the fist-shaking resumed in earnest. They'll still be shaking next year when he's gone.

Pick ONE

The linebackers. The starters from 2011 all returned; behind them Michigan still had Cam Gordon and the other guys who played WLB before Morgan locked down the job, but you knew right away that the backup middle linebacker spot would need one of the freshmen. The smart pick was Joe Bolden because he arrived in spring and seized the #2 role, so we figured James Ross would get the luxury of a redshirt. When they got on the field Ross was the one who looked way more instinctual, but he was also too small to take on blocks and it showed. He needed the year, and next year when there are no linebackers I'll again be pretty upset he didn't, despite the utility of his 2012 snaps.

Needed dudes etc.

Because Rich Rod didn't care to recruit tight ends until it was too late, and Hoke whiffed on the position in 2011, Michigan had to play both A.J. Williams and Devin Funchess. Funchess the #19 edition wasn't any kind of blocker, but made five starts and various freshman All America lists, and anyway was off to the NFL after three seasons. Williams wasn't any kind of good, but with Moore injured and an offensive coordinator who preferred heavy sets, there was no way A.J. could be brought along slowly. Terry Richardson went in when Countess went down and they made it up to him with a redshirt in 2013.

One either/or they did right was Chesson/Amara Darboh—that was the year they were playing Gardner at receiver and after Gallon/Roundtree was Dileo and a pile of Rodriguez recruiting whiffs. Darboh didn't play much but after Nebraska Michigan was out Jerald Robinson and Gardner was at quarterback and Jeremy Jackson wasn't going to be more than he was, so it's more impressive they resisted burning Chesson's.

So much of Dennis Norfleet's career was his coaches not understanding how to use him, but one thing they were correct to do was use him as a returner in 2012. I wish they'd gotten a shirt on him in 2013, but you have to admit in all Borges's years of trolling Brian Cook, making Norfleet the backup to an unused Drew Dileo was a master stroke.

Jarrod Wilson is a guy you redshirt if you can but it was obvious they needed to groom somebody for safety of the future since M-Rob and Furman were the extant backups; they did redshirt Jeremy Clark.

Ondre Pipkins deserves a medshirt he won't get because his injury occurred just after the cutoff. As a freshman though he was doing things:

That's Pee Wee in his first collegiate game, blowing up All-of-America Barrett Jones in what would have been a TFL if Jake Ryan had been a bit more aggressive.

Pipkins

Q.E.D.

Class of 2013

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Fuller

Wtf

The anger about some of these is coming out now because these guys are upperclassmen and thus running out of time when it feels like they shouldn't have been expected to contribute until this season anyway.

We'll start with Dymonte Thomas because there was no explanation then or now or any moment in between. Unless he was promised early playing time it makes no sense that they burned him on special teams, since depth at safety was established with the previous class and he was a skinny linebacker in high school who needed to learn the position. Instead of a 5th year from Dymonte we got a blocked punt against Western Michigan /waves tiny flag.

Delano Hill was perhaps an even bigger waste since he rotated with Dymonte on special teams, appearing in just seven games and once as a linebacker in clock kill time. Because both safeties were wasted this way, Michigan will have only its 2015 recruit at a position that requires a lot of experience come 2017 unless Jabrill is sticking around for what would be his redshirt junior season.

Ben Gedeon at least looked ready to play his position if Michigan needed him to, but with Ross and Bolden and Morgan rolling for snaps in 2013 there was no need to waste a season of Gedeon. When all the linebackers graduate after 2015 we'll have one year of Gedeon left.

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Or maybe they could have got a medshirt for him instead of reinserting him on special teams later in the year? It was probably after the cutoff. [Fuller]

Da'Mario Jones I don't know. Does anybody know? He played special teams but didn't even get one snap to practice his blocking at receiver in 2013. Perhaps as soon as he was made a slot receiver the coaches wanted him through as quickly as possible.

Taco Charlton didn't get that many snaps but he also arrived college-ready so this one is more about the depth Michigan had that year in Clark, Ojemudia, and (once Jake Ryan came back) Beyer. On a team with strict redshirting they maybe make him wait rather than appear in eight games and scattered special teams. On a team that burns redshirts on the slightest pretense he plays because he can, and that's what I think happened here.

Pick ONE

Cornerback needed a freshman for nickel duties and played with both Channing Stribling and Jourdan Lewis. I would have liked them to choose one and redshirt the other. Lewis only separated himself dramatically last season, when Stribling was a seldom-used backup. But Chan was 6'2"/160 as a freshman so either of those years it makes sense to redshirt him.

Needed the dudes, etc.

With Toussaint and Hayes the only other scholarship backs on the roster, it was no surprise that Derrick Green and De'veon Smith played early. Green was a 5-star, and Smith was Michigan's most effective back by the end of the year. Jake Butt had to play because the tight end situation was still very much unresolved after Williams and Funchess's freshman year.

Shane Morris is a special situation; Michigan didn't recruit a quarterback the year ahead of him because Hoke preferred to pick a QB of the future and have that guy recruit his class. Morris needed a redshirt badly after a senior season wracked by mono, and he was pretty raw to boot. But Morris was also immediately the No. 2 quarterback, and Russ Bellomy's ACL made Morris the only other scholarship quarterback in a year when Michigan's best pass blocker was Gardner's ribs.

Kyle Bosch was redshirting until the OL disaster, when he was inserted as a see-what-sticks option; with a lot of OL in his class that was fine.

Class of 2014

Needed the dudes, etc:

Jabrill Peppers would have played on any Michigan roster since 2009, when Peppers was 13. Mason Cole started at left tackle over Erik Magnusson, the guy we pegged as a lock in the previews.

Bryan Mone was a legitimate Alan Branch-as-a-freshman level contributor who had to play because Pipkins was still coming back from his ill-timed ACL early last year; Mone even started the Penn State game, FWIW.

Freddy Canteen is on the border. He left spring ahead of the other young receivers and expectations of Manningham 2005 production; alas he proved too small and wasn't used very much. They could have redshirted him but I understand why they didn't.

According to the spring roster they got shirts on Mo Ways and Brandon Watson that weren't listed last year; I thought I saw Watson against Penn State but I couldn't read jerseys that well on the blue unis so maybe it was Jourdan Lewis. So I guess they learned finally.

Comments

HimJarbaugh

March 10th, 2015 at 1:39 PM ^

Was part of Hoke's recruiting pitch early playing time? It seems to fit with the idea that so many of these guys would see the field early even if it was in a limited role.

alum96

March 10th, 2015 at 2:19 PM ^

Perhaps this is partially why Hoke recruited so well - we don't know what promises he made about early playing time.  A few of these guys were high level recruits (top 250) who had no business being on the field but if Hoke made a promise to land them, I am sure he would have followed through on his word when at all possible.   Of course pure conjecture.

NRK

March 10th, 2015 at 2:36 PM ^

Can we spend too much time coming up with a silly nickname for this practice? I prefer pop-culture references:

  • The Bonfire of the Families
  • The Bonfire of the Sanities
  • Red Dead Preemption
  • Burning Plan
  • Smoke Point of Eligibility
  • Brady's Inferno
  • Burning Push
  • The Burning grates

maize-blue

March 10th, 2015 at 2:36 PM ^

Brady Hoke's special teams were less than stellar or just plain bad. I don't belive that he played true freshman there because they were the most athletic or best options.

reshp1

March 10th, 2015 at 2:52 PM ^

Couple things:

1. You need bodies at special teams. Just because a guy doesn't record tackles or other stats there doesn't mean he was needed. LBs seem to be the prime candidates here since they're size/athleticism combo is perfect for coverage and blocking. Same goes for FBs. Some of those get passes in my book.

2. Probably the bigger one is that the 2013 and 14 seasons were so awful we never got much garbage time, even against the cupcakes. Guys that were probably slated to start on ST and work their way into garbage time play, and them possibly into starter/role player types never got the chance to do so. Dymonte was probably a textbook case of this, guy with tremendous upside that the was penciled to play right away, but never got the game experience because every damn game was so tight and ended up having his timeline pushed back a whole year.

I do agree redshirting and long term roster management was not given enough priority by the previous coaches, especially after recruiting started dropping off inevitably and fewer and fewer game ready, can't miss, freshman were signing with Michigan.

Seth

March 11th, 2015 at 1:40 PM ^

We're kind of debating all over this thread now and sorry about that. In this case you're offering to sell us a year we already have.

The burned redshirt doesn't give you insurance against an injury. It's the opposite: a redshirt gives you insurance against the NCAA not giving your guy a medshirt because, for example with Pipkins, your year-long ACL injury happened two snaps too late. 

It's the same philosophy as the bond: cash it in for a sure $1 now, or take a 30% chance it won't be worth anything in 4 years (and a 70% chance it will be worth between $15 and $25). The only difference is there's an added 1.5% chance that if you cash it now you might get zero now and get back the 5th year. 

Another consideration is injuries ahead of him. If you redshirt him and later his freshman year his position group starts getting really injured, you still have the option to yank the redshirt. In bond terms, if your bond appreciates to $10 all of a sudden, and you need $10 right now for emergency surgery, you have asset either way.

Countess is a straw man. He wouldn't have redshirted in his circumstances because he won a STARTING job. Nobody's arguing you redshirt a starter or even a guy who's going to get substantial rotational snaps on the two-deep. What we're talking about is guy who's not on the two-deep and plays special teams and maybe a few garbage time snaps.

The lesson is the same: if you need him, play him. If you don't need him, redshirt.

funkywolve

March 10th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^

Burning redshirts wasn't Hoke's biggest problem, it was player development.  If Dymonte Thomas had been Honorable Mention/2nd team all Big Ten last year and was looking to be one of the better safeties in the Big Ten heading into 2015, I doubt too many people would be moaning about the fact he didn't redshirt. 

Urban Meyer expects his youngsters to play special teams.  One of the reasons Brionte Dunn was in his doghouse was Dunn didn't want to do special teams. 

I don't think too many coaches who recruit at a high level (which we all thought Hoke was doing until the bottom fell out) go into fall camp with a preconceived idea of who is probably going to redshirt.  Would they like to redshirt some guys?  Sure.  But part of recruiting top recruits is early playing time.  You need to have the philosophy that the best players are going to play...no matter whether that's a true freshman or a 5th yr senior.  You can't be going into the homes of the top recruits and telling them they'll be redshirting their freshmen year if they come to Michigan. 

Look at OSU's 2 deep roster heading into the NC Game.  There's a number of true freshman on the 2 deep.  Carroll at USC consistenly played true freshmen as well.

To me the burning of redshirts is more a by product of Hoke and his staff seemingly not knowing who the best players were and over time not developing the players.  If you think Harbaugh is going to bring in stud recruiting classes and redshirt most of them, you're going to be disappointed.  You compete, you win the job, you play.

Harlans Haze

March 10th, 2015 at 3:40 PM ^

This is a fine speculative conversation, but it ignores the fact that the redshirt is a disappearing phenomenon in college football, and that's due to 2 reasons. Number one, in the 2000's there have been 2 sports explosions; fantasy sports and recruiting. It's not the 1980s any more. Redshirts are going out of fashion. Unless you have obvious physical deficiencies (like OL), or actually get hurt, the chances of a big time recruit red-shirting are not very good, among the top tier programs (which, by default Michigan still is). When a high school player starts showing up on recruitng lists as a sophomore, do you think he's going to be willing to show up and sit for a whole year? The obvious exceptions are OL and QB. Even if playing time is not promised, it's almost implied, especially if you continually recruit the higher level players. And then to top it all off, almost all highly ranked recruits have a signing day (or earlier) announcement. Once they get on the TV and tell the whole world where they're going, it's really counterintuitive to think they'd be happy sitting for a whole year? After going through that process for 2-3 years, how many kids would actually believe that they need to take a whole year off to get better? Not nearly as many as 20 years ago. The second reason is the proliferation of college football on TV. If a decent recruit from NJ who is being recruited by Michigan and Rutgers can bypass Michigan and still get as much exposure at Rutgers, chances are he'll choose Rutgers and get early playing time. If he'd gone to Michigan 10-15 years ago, he might have been content to redshirt. You're kidding yourself if you think that Michigan hasn't taken a hit in recruiting over the last 10 years due to the fact that so much more football is shown on TV now. Michigan will always be able to go after top tier recruits (and hopefully start to get more with Harbaugh), but 20-30 years ago, it was an elite program because it was able to stock it cupboards with good recruits who sat for a year and got better, and who were content to wait until year 3 or 4 to play, and get on TV. Now, those players can go to Boise St or Rutgers, and play right away and still get on TV.

OysterMonkey

March 10th, 2015 at 3:41 PM ^

Is there any data that suggests there is a correlation between %redshirted and winning %?

What are the practices of our rivals? How about elite programs? Just looking at M doesn't tell is anything about whether this is more or less standard or not.

Meanwhile OSU has signed 99 guys in four years since Meyer arrived. You have to balance the redshirt year (guaranty of no contribution) against the reduced ability to take more guys. Recruiting ain't physics. Recruiting has an uncertainty principle.

Alumnus93

March 10th, 2015 at 4:56 PM ^

Could this be a necessary evil (early playing time) that Hoke needed to do to land the recruits he got?  He did quite well, and I have a feeling most of the big recruits value early playing time much higher than anyone imagines... So this MAY have been by design....

Mr Miggle

March 10th, 2015 at 5:14 PM ^

I don't see the need to go back and nit pick Hoke's reign. And I don't think this a very good analysis. You're missing too much information. Where is the comparison to what other coaches do in similar situations?

We've disagreed about this subject before. I see you're no longer accusing Hoke of burning redshirts for Ways, Watson and Drake Johnson. You've gotten an explanation for Wile's, but your level of contempt for Hoke's decsions doesn't seem to have changed. 

We're not talking about numbers and names that you can move around in a video game. These are people who have something to say about getting redshirted or not. Coaches don't typically promise recruits starting jobs or even playing time, but they sometimes promise not to redshirt them if they can contribute. That's especially true of highly ranked recruits, of which Hoke had many.

There are so many factors to take into account. How important are special teams? Is it wiser to use key starters on them? How much will playing help a player develop? Will a player improve enough during his freshmen season to meaningfully contribute on O/D?

Is Baxter going to play the best players this year? Or is he going to be told that special teams aren't important enough to burn redshirts?

Seth

March 11th, 2015 at 1:03 AM ^

Because we want to generate realistic expectations for Harbaugh's Michigan, and when we note that Hoke recruited good classes that stuck around that suggests those expectations either need to be really high or something else went wrong (e.g. the talent wasn't evaluated well).

Specifically, Michigan has 27 juniors on the projected 82-man. That is going to be hard to replace when they're out of eligibility in 2016, especially once attrition takes the 3-5 guys it usually does from other classes.

Also we've been mentioning the redshirt thing recently as an example of something Hoke was doing for Hoke reasons. I wanted to have one place where I really laid out the argument and supported it in evaluations made at the time the decisions were.

It also gives us a broader understanding of redshirting and its results.

Mr Miggle

March 11th, 2015 at 8:19 AM ^

This was just a hit piece. It does nothing to shape our expectations under Harbaugh. If you wanted to do that you would simply analyze the roster without nitpicking Hoke's decisions.

Frankly, some of your analysis is terrible. You criticize burning Ross's redshirt. He was a valuable contributor who even started some games. He was an EE and showed a lot during the spring.

Sitting Ross would have been ridiculous. You're giving snaps to a worse player, making your team worse. It may cost you in the w/l column. What does it do to your team morale when you promise players a chance to compete, then don't use them when their teammates can see who's better? You're looking at 2016, but playing Ross made the defense better in 2012 and 2013. Maybe he's even a better player this season due to that experience.

Dymonte Thomas was expected to play a big role at NB during his freshman season. He wasn't expected to just play on special teams, but as Reader71 pointed out, there's no chance he was told he would redshirt when he was recruited. He earned the snaps he got on special teams. He didn't earn many on defense.

A lot of recruits mention that they look at how teams use their freshmen. If you want to recruit at a very high level, you've got to give them a chance to see the field. You may even have to make that promise.

Bottom line is that burning redshirts cost Hoke zero victories at Michigan. It had absolutely nothing to do with why he failed here. I'm sure he made a few mistakes. You're working with the benefit of hindsight and are making them too. As illustrated by your Wile example, you're also lacking some very relevant information.

Frankly, when I read your closing line, I could only think you are working with an excess of animus and hubris.

I thought I saw Watson against Penn State but I couldn't read jerseys that well on the blue unis so maybe it was Jourdan Lewis. So I guess they learned finally.

 

 

 

 

Seth

March 11th, 2015 at 1:59 PM ^

It wasn't a hit piece; if you don't believe me that my intention was informative regarding the state of the roster then I need to earn your trust better.

I can say quite definitively that Hoke's redshirt policy had absolutely ZERO to do with Hoke's diminishing success* over his tenure, because his tenure was four years and the period of effect on a redshirt decision is five years.

So when I say that this is all about setting expectations for 2015-2018, that's not just my opinion or some shade--it's fact. The redshirt decisions of 2011 affect 2015, the redshirt decisions of 2012 affect 2016, etc.

*He won a Sugar Bowl and fixed the defense. You can't say "no" success.

Reader71

March 10th, 2015 at 5:51 PM ^

The team, particularly the defense, was pretty bad before Hoke's arrival. He needed instant contributors. He promised people a chance at early PT because he knew he would have to have freshmen playing. So, few redshirts, particularly on D.

Houma had to play unless you are comfortable with 1 FB on the roster. Why do you think it was OK for TE but not FB?

Mario and Taco couldn't red shirt. First, we needed bodies. Especially when Black started taking most of his snaps inside, we had a big hole on the DE depth chart. Second, we needed pass rushers in particular. Mario wasn't going to be a 3-down DE at 230, and they didn't ask him to be. He came in on passing downs to just try to run around the tackle. It wasn't ideal for Mario or for the program, but it was an effort to get something off the edge on third and pass.

There ARE some head-scratchers, though. Jones is really odd. RJS is too. But if you think Dymonte Thomas was going to pick a school that told him he was going to red shirt, I have some oceanfront property to sell you in Iowa.

Mr. Yost

March 10th, 2015 at 6:52 PM ^

Also such poor use of walk-ons and 5th year seniors if Hoke was burning these redshirts for little to no reason. Doesn't only affect the freshmen.