Hokepoints Not Out of the Attrition Woods Yet

what I was thinking. The numbers seem high. Have nothing to compare it too though.

I was also surprised that Moeller lost almost half of the recruits. Hopefully just a downside to a short tenure.

Without going player by player, I think we'll be a pretty experienced team by 2014.  We should have upperclassmen at the vast majority of positions, and a few of the offensive linemen will probably be redshirt sophomores with experience from 2013.

just because of the recruiting upgrades to the O and D lines and linebackers, and the use of tight ends.  That's about 60% of the team where not nearly enough of RRs recruits (with notable exceptions) are/were good enough to compete with Hoke's younger guys.  So one suspects that in 2014 we'll have an O-line dominated by redshirt sophs and a defensive front seven stacked with true sophs and juniors.  Nothing at all wrong with this and the kids who transfer will not do so because of a "lack of patience" as much as a desire to compete legitimately for PT.

I think you will see some more attrition in about 2 years from the current 2012-2013 o-line classes, particularly if we take 6 this year. Once the hierarchy of who is the best is sorted out, lets say Fox (chosen solely because his name was easiest to spell) finds himself as the clear backup between 2-3 players at the same position with only one year class separation. If he still feels that he is an NFL prospect he may decide he is better served getting PT elsewhere. Fortunately we will have an established, quality line at that point and such attrition will help even out the "hit" that will occur if all stayed and graduated over a 2 year span.



This would be closer to the Carr-era type of attrition and as noted is a pitfall of bringing in boatloads of high level recruits. This is also why you do not see this level of attrition at schools like MSU. (Couldn't resist)

In other words, not only are they bringing in high-quality football players, the staff also appears to be focused on character.

I'm confused by this statement because it seems to imply that the previous staff wasn't focused on character and you'll excuse me, the past couple of seasons we've seen some players pass through the program who will be legendary not only for their talent, but for the quality of their character (Denard, Kovacs, Molk, VanBergen, Martin, etc.)

I think one of the new requirements for players is going to be character. I think Home and co. would rather have a four star hard worker and good team mate than a 5 star diva. recruiting seems to reflect this. I have started to think that if Hoke backs off a guy he has got a good reason. Team chemistry can count more than star rank.

Yeah, Wilson is more of a FS than Gordon.

I don't think "a lot" of walk-ons will be on the two-deep.  The only one that seems like a truly viable candidate is Burzynski.  I haven't been impressed by Glasgow in what I've seen of him at guard, but maybe he's better at center.  The other walk-on guys aren't people you want in the game at crucial points.  A freshman or redshirt freshman would probably still be better off.

Ojemudia will never be an SDE. A move to SLB after the Jake Ryan era would be the only way he moved positions

Just me. I went by some of my own judgments and also where the coaches have put players on the two-deep. The only one I'm not sure of is SDE but that's going to be an all-out war between Black, Wormley and Heitzman, and Wormley was winning that same battle before his injury.

On the O-line, whatever, the center is going to be Buryzinski or Miller or bust so pegging a freshman on the two-deep is just as accurate as saying a walk-on or this other freshman is going to play there. Same at OT. Accuracy is not needed; the point is any way you put them that the OL two-deep will have more than a few faces that seldom need razors.

With Wilson I agree he's more a FS than an SS but there's a couple things going on here. One is Mattison prefers to have his safeties be interchangeable, and went away from that to emphasize Kovacs this year. Unless M-Rob blossoms into a Kovacs this offseason, going forward there really won't be that much distinction between the two. The other thing here is the Jamar Adams-Brandent Englemon principle. Gordon is a similar player to Englemon, while I sometimes accidentally call Jarrod Wilson "Jamar" because they're both tall sticks who wear 22. However Adams ended up playing "strong" and Englemon was "free" because Englemon was the headier player and Adams the better athlete, and Michigan had great linebackers to handle the tackling, so it was better for Michigan to either put Adams in pass pro, having him line up against the slot, or be a blitz threat. So this is my guess for what the coaches plan next year: move Jamarrod Wilsonadams into Kovac's old spot and then change the role of that position from run game safety valve to something that punishes teams who dare try to pass against us.

Other than that I think your concept of our defensive line is way too small given a schedule full of teams with bad QBs, worse receivers, and punishing or scary run games. When Black lined up at 3-tech this year he often just got put on skates because he's not big enough. Even with a year more to grow I think his ceiling is poor man's Brandon Graham, not rich man's Norman Heuer. Roh was too good at that spot to move last year but with him gone it seems to me that Black is purpose-built for it. As for the DT positions most of the time we're going to want guys who can suck up doubles and stay at nose if the offense flips its formation more than pass-rush specialists. A line of Ojemudia-Black-Washington-Clark is more of a passing down novelty than a solid base formation. Plus the strength of this defense is athletic, decisive outside linebackers, so it seems to make more sense to cause a perpetual stalemate at the line and let the LBs clean up than a strategy of gambling on the DL to get penetration most of the time. More 1997 than 2006 is what I'm saying.

Braden is a tackle.  Bars is a guard.

Yeah we will definitely young. We will also be more talented. All the attrition that we have had is related to this as we are losing people who don't fit our program for some reason or another. Not that there is anything wrong with who is leaving and they are not being pushed out, but they are being replaced by much more talented players. I think what some people forget is that we are in the middle of a massive rebuilding job from the 07-10 years/recruiting cycles. Now that is not all RR but he is certainly the biggest factor. Many thought that we were set up to come out of that lull with a talented team but the reality is that these have been the least talented michigan teams in a long, long time. This has been masked by 11-2 last year and a defense that is playing with much more physicality and technique, but the fact remains that we are in the middle of a rebuild and will be much, much better in 1-2 years.

The spate of OL injuries in the 2000s wasn't really related to Gittleson. It was more like the stuff that people get that makes them not able to do sports. Zuttah's thing was made public but I used to chat with Simelis when he was working as a bouncer at the Heidelberg and his thing wasn't really an on-field injury either. I think there was another OL who had some sort of bone thing. It was just bad luck.

Is good, but flawed. On the depth chart, you will always see a high number of freshmen as the previous years redshirts mix with a full class. Some of the incoming class will inevitably be on the 2017 team, however. That'll bump you into the 20s. Then a normal attrition of maybe 3 or 4 of the kids should bump you even lower on the list of 2016 seniors. But yeah, it always starts high like that.