Jimmystats: The 2018 Class in Context, Part 1: Offense Comment Count

Seth

bhl_bl012620_full_708_536__0_native

It’s tough to see what they’ll become [UM Bentley Library]

So yesterday came and went the way it went. The SEC cheats, Michigan’s a tougher sell right now for reasons, yada yada—those who choose to rend garments or yell at the folks wearing tatters have plenty of threads to do so in. Let’s talk about the guys Michigan got.

As it so happens I keep a database of Michigan recruits that goes back to the 1993 class, and that gives us a chance to put all the new guys in context. Shall we?

QUARTERBACK

Shea Patterson is a transfer but let’s start with him for we can have nice things reasons. Also because he was one of the highest-rated quarterbacks out of high school to ever come here:

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Shea in 2016 was the #1 Dual Threat or #1 QB to everybody, and between third and 15th overall. Quarterbacks ranked in the Top 5 overall tend to have some real talent—nobody doubts Mallett’s arm. A year of starting in the SEC should put Shea in good shape to challenge for the top job this season, provided the NCAA waives the transfer year. Yay for five-star quarterbacks!

Joe Milton comes in as a project, though one with significant upside. That kind of player usually creates a large amount of disagreement among the recruiting sites and it would appear that’s the case with Joe:

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ESPN rated him the highest, which is a bit of a red flag since they tend to fire and forget. Scout had him one of their highest three-stars (before they merged with 247) and Rivals had him a solid 4-star. 247 was down relative to the others. The result is somewhere between Dylan McCaffrey (4.31 average star rating) and Alex Malzone, and closer to the latter. His late fall on 247 dropped him to 16th in the composite score. Some guys you’ve probably heard of who’ve fallen around that range in past years include Maryland’s Kasim Hill (2017), Northwestern’s Clayton Thorson, Wisconsin’s Bart Houston, ND’s Everett Golson, and Messiah deWeaver, Brian Lewerke, and Andrew Maxwell of MSU.

I also tried to find a Harbaugh comp and came up with 2009 Stanford recruit Josh Nunes. Like Milton, Nunes put up big high school stats with a low completion percentage. He wasn’t much of a runner. From my Hall of Harbaugh Quarterbacks piece from a few years ago:

Josh Nunes, the 9th pro-style QB and 139th overall player according to the 247 composite. Nunes was a prolific passer in high school (6,306 yards and 52 TDs in 34 starts) who on Harbaugh’s recommendation added running (3.1 YPA with sacks included) to his reads as a senior. Nunes was heir apparent to Andrew Luck but lost his job to Kevin Hogan while out with a foot injury in 2012, and lost his career to a freak pectoral injury in 2013.

Also the greatest QB of all time was rated around this spot in 1995, but that was 1995.

[Hit THE JUMP for the rest of the offense]

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RUNNING BACK

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[Paul Sherman]

These guys are all in a relatively small grouping:

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Running back heights and weights are complete B.S. by the way so ignore those, lest you confuse Michael Barrett for Thomas Rawls.

I believe a few of the guys on this list you’re not as familiar with were Carr camp commits who got bumped up some for Michigan interest. Most of them of course are Rich Rod’s various swings at a Steve Slaton type. What we’re really looking at is the murky depths of running back recruits who weren’t scouted well: scatbacks who played receiver or something in high school, bowling balls from Iowa and Flint, etc.

Projecting running backs from the pond of generic three-stars is difficult. These guys often have something in their game—lack of size, lack of top-end speed—that shows on tape. Turner you can put around Karan Higdon-level. The other guys are probably going to do as well as the system can use them. The types who turn into NFL draft picks are usually high 4 stars or 5-stars, but of course we don’t want any more of those.

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FULLBACK

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[Marc-Grégor Campredon]

Rankings mean diddly here but here is Ben VanSumeren among the scholarship FBs:

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Back when crootin scouts treated fullbacks as a position that everybody needs, the face-mashing types who could win a regional skills competition would shoot up the rankings. It’s hard to put that into context today.

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No YOU just keep bringing up Anes because his floor mates always tell the poop story when you do so. [UM Bentley]

John Anes was on everybody’s All-American lists and the subject of a Michigan-Ohio State-Penn State battle royale; Ben VanSumeren is a similar prospect but gets rated as an athlete. Can he jump really high? Play tight end? But he’s a linebacker prospect too right? Oh. Okay, to the pile of three-stars you go.

The Hammer Panda got ranked in this zone too but he was about 40 pounds heavier and mostly known as a plus receiver for an H-back tight end. VanSumeren isn’t Ben Mason’s size, but not Ben Mason—probably closer to what Wyatt Shallman was as a recruit, if Shallman desired to play the position he got ranked at. Anes is the closer example—if they did SPARQ scores back then Anes would have done well by accounts.

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WIDE RECEIVER

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The rankings might be less instructive for projecting Bell than the career of his new coach [Eric Upchurch]

With five of the top 20 receivers Michigan’s ever recruited currently on the team, this was a year to take a flier, and Ronnie Bell is ahead of nobody but a JUCO I couldn’t figure out how to rank:

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That’s really no comparison: historically sites didn’t rank far enough down to put Ronnie Bell on the scales. Neither would any of the sites stand particularly strongly behind their ratings here, since Bell chose football after they’d pretty much put the class to bed. The guy in range here is D.J. Williamson, a track star whom Rich Rod convinced to play football who turned out to be just that: a track guy who needed convincing to bother to play football. This is the worst way to get a read on Bell so let’s just move on.

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TIGHT END

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He’s pretty Butt. [Bryan Fuller]

Mustapha Muhammad generated more disagreement on paper than in the final numbers. ESPN had him the #2 inline tight end, while Rivals thought he was barely a four-star, and 247/Scout came in at a Top 150ish player. Basically Jake Butt:

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Historically these high four-star tight ends work out pretty well, though Mackey Award winner is a tough ask. He’s not in the range of Jerame Tuman or Devin Asiasi—the two immediate impact types Michigan’s recruited for the position (Tim Massaquoi and Mark Campbell were rated at other positions). But “between Aaron Shea and Jake Butt” is encouraging. Ignoring Jim Fisher for lack of data, every Top 200 type tight end that Michigan’s recruited has ended up a draft pick or is eventually going to.

Now we have a scroll quite a ways to get to Luke Schoonmaker and the generic three-stars:

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Paskorz slipped in between them this week but Schoonmaker and McKeon are close comps as unscouted athletes whom Harbaugh snatched from Egypt. All the other guys in range were low-rated EDGE prospects so McKeon is really it.

I believe Ryan Hayes will grow into an OT—his speed limits how much of an impact player he can be at tight end—so I have him ranked there.

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OFFENSIVE TACKLE

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What if he’s tight end AND he’s Schofield? /mind blown [Fuller]

No, once again Michigan was not able to reel in an instantly viable left tackle despite an open door at both tackle positions to play early. The good news is eventually guys like Jaylen Mayfield and Ryan Hayes do tend to work out:

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Somehow the “FINE we’ll let you be a four-star” late riser types hits the sweet spot for Michigan offensive tackle prospects. Grant Newsome was a super smart son of an Ivy League professor and one of America’s top secret service agents whom Brady Hoke managed to keep stashed away through all the turmoil of 2014. Michael Schofield is probably the closer comp to Mayfield, despite having two inches on him, as ~200ish OT prospects praised for their lateral mobility and intelligence.

“We turned an athletic 6’8” stick into an NFL left tackle” is a VERY common (Ryan Ramczyk, Jack Conklin, Jason Spriggs, Eric Fisher, and Ryan Clady are a few who became 1st rounders) story, but the problem with that projection is it ignores a ton of similar high schoolers who wound up looking more like a power forward than an agile mountain.

Ryan Hayes is next to Juwann Bushell-Beatty despite most of a human in weight difference between them so let’s try the 247 database for a sample that’s not from an NFL draft history site.

2009: Reid Fragel, Ohio State: Became an okay OT.

2011: Giorgio Newberry, FSU, 2011: Move to DT

2014: Noah Beh, Penn State: Transferred to Delaware. Derek Allen, Rhode Island: Became a starter as a RS Junior, will finish career at R.I. Koda Martin, Texas A&M: Lost starting job 10 games in, will be TAMU’s LT this year.

2015: Cole Chewins, MSU: Lots of starts but still undersized. Brady Aiello, Oregon: Projected to claim LT job this year.

2016: Nathan Smith, USC, Marcus Tatum, Tennessee, and Alex Akingbulu, UCLA are probably too young to tell us anything yet. Smith tore his ACL last year. Tatum made a few starts but was bad. Akingbulu hasn’t played.

Comments

BlueMars24

February 8th, 2018 at 4:19 PM ^

Wow, that brings back memories. I knew him in high school and was very excited to be coming to UM with someone I knew on the football team. It was very sad when he decided to leave after his first year. I know it was hard on him. 

oldhackman

February 9th, 2018 at 2:12 PM ^

I was just looking at my last issue of Michigan Wolverine, perusing their ranking of the top 25 contributors of last year's squad.  23 return. 

No doubt this next year is pivotal for the program, but those predicting eminent doom are forgetting how young we were and how much injuries compounded our problems last year.

TrueBlue2003

February 8th, 2018 at 5:35 PM ^

from that 2010 season were 5th year seniors from the 2006 class.

And let's take a look at how many OL (all of which I think were 3 stars or worse) they took to get some NFL players:

2006: 4 OL out a 16 man class, plus this site you linked doesn't have Chase Beeler listed but he was in that class too.  PLUS, they converted WDE Derek Hall into their starting RT.  Not even counting Hall, they took 5 OL of 17 total after adding Beeler.  Did not take a TE.

2007: 4 OL in a 19 man class.  They took one TE: Coby Fleener.

2008: 3 OL in a 17 man class. They again took zero TEs.

So in the three year span that gave them essentially their entire 2-deep on offense for 2010, a whooping 23 percent of recruits were OL. They only took one TE.

I'm not sure why their classes were so small, but ours were similarly small so I'm guessing 10 years ago classes were smaller for whatever reason (less agressive "processing", grad transferring, whatever) but they still took more OL in that three year span than we've taken in Harbaugh's first three full classes:

2016: 3 of 26

2017: 5 of 30 (!!)

2018: 2 of 19

10 total OL. Just 13 percent of commits! In three years. Meanwhile we've taken 6 TEs and 9 RBs/FBs!!!! 

We don't need 5 stars.  We just need to manage the roster better. Take fliers at higher leverage positions (OL, DL, and QB), especially because linemen take a lot longer to develop their bodies so there's a lot more variability and a lot less information at the time of signing. It's a numbers game at those positions (Stanford allocated almost twice as many of their spots to OL and that's how you hit on 4/3 stars) Don't take so many fliers at low leverage skill positions. 

I don't know how much David Shaw was responsible for recruiting and roster composition at Stanford but given his continued success, I'm beginning to think it was a lot more him.

Space Coyote

February 8th, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^

I agree that Michigan should be taking 3-5 OL a year. I think if the program gets rolling the way it should, that would be the case, but it still isn't there yet. They are still trying to fill gaps left by the previous staff and some very small/weak classes in the transition years. Some players are going to leave from the bigger classes that get lost in the depth chart and then the class sizes are going to start balancing out and then I think that's when you start seeing more balanced classes by position group instead of so much specifically targetting needs.

QB: 1-2

RB: 1-3 (I agree with Hoke when he said RBs typically are flexible)

FB: 0-1

OL: 3-5

TE: 1-2

WR: 2-3

DT: 1-3

DE: 1-3

LB: 1-3

CB: 1-3

S: 1-3

K/P: 0-1

Best available: 1-3

Class Size: 22-25

huntmich

February 9th, 2018 at 7:02 AM ^

It's far more likely that the staff knows what they are doing than you, a random fan with no experience, has picked out a major flaw.

We are in year 4 of a 5 year program turnaround that was necessitated by too much coaching turnover. The entire fanbase needs to shut up and be patient. If we are having this discussion in 3 years, then there is a problem. Otherwise we have to realize there are structural differences between us and Bama/OSU, and a proven great coach is creating a great program as 65% of the fanbase screams and yells that the sky is falling.

Red is Blue

February 9th, 2018 at 9:22 AM ^

With 11 players on both sides of the ball and specialist doesnt this mean, on average, you bring a little less then one of everything in a class of 22 to 25? Seems likely that there are important, difficult to predict or positions that don't tend to lend themselves to position changes that you might want to go over average. For example qb. Qb is important and nobody switches to become a qb, but some do switch from qb to other positions. Besides qb are there other positions that make sense to "over recruit"?

Space Coyote

February 9th, 2018 at 9:47 AM ^

It's important to note there aren't really 11 positions on both sides of the ball. WRs can play multiple WR spots, same with CBs and safeties. You may think they fit one thing better to start, but players are pretty flexible. 

As far as over-recruiting, I actually don't mind the 1 QB per year stance. Most programs use it. You tend to end up with about 4 QBs on the roster (redshirts but then transfers), but I also see the point of bringing in an extra, especially if they can move positions.

I think the numbers above do lead to "over-recruiting" OL as well. The predictability of OL is less than any other position, but you also generally want them all to red shirt. Averaging 4 a year then is 20 OL on the roster, which is higher than needed (typically looking for ~14-16). Some can move to defense, some defense can move to offense, but generally it's not extremely flexible. So that makes sense. I also think you can afford to "over-recruit" RB and Safety for the opposite of what you said. Those positions tend to be flexible and used a lot for special teams. Safeties can become LBs, or slot corners, or WRs, as can RBs. So they help mitigate needs elsewhere. 

evenyoubrutus

February 8th, 2018 at 5:46 PM ^

I'm not going to argue with you that Harbaugh has not brought in enough offensive linemen. I think he's set his sights higher and lost quite a few battles he expected to win, especially in that 2016 class, but those numbers you presented aren't that far off of what he's done here (don't forget James Hudson in the 2017 class looks like he will end up at tackle). The difference of course is the lack of depth from classes before he got here. That is really hurting the tea more than anything now.

TrueBlue2003

February 8th, 2018 at 6:13 PM ^

is a huuuuuge difference. Like I said it's a different era in which class sizes have gone up overall, so you still need to keep the ratios right (because other teams are).

Losing your top targets is no excuse for not taking 3 star fliers (the exact types they took at Stanford), especially when you're taking 3 star fliers at TE and RB.

I didn't count Derek Hall in Stanford's OL recruits him making a position switch from defense so I didn't count Hudson.

Had I counted them it would have been 25 percent to 15 percent.  Still a huge difference.

TrueBlue2003

February 9th, 2018 at 3:26 AM ^

because no matter what, you can't go over 85 schollies.  That's the limit. If you take a low percentage of OL with your 85, you'll have a low raw number.  We can't take 26 or 30 every cycle.

The reason we were allowed to take 26 in 2016 was that we had small classes in 2014 and 2015.  Small classes meant we had low OL numbers (only 2 of 17 in 2014 and 3 of 14 in 2015). So what do we do with our 26 spots in 2016? Waste a bunch on TEs and RBs and only took 3 OL (no OTs) despite badly needing to replenish the position.

That means next season we're going to have only 6 OL with three years or more of experience, and that's if Newsome comes back!  Compare that to Stanford's 12 OL with three years or more of experience they had in 2010 and you see why they were good.  When your hit rate can be less than 50%, you're gonna be in good shape.  When your hit rate has to be near perfect, you're gonna have a bad time.

If you still want to blame the small 2014 and 2015 classes in Harbaugh year 3, fine but knowing what he had, it was inexcusable to not take a couple more OL to stash out of that 26 man class.  Maybe one of them would have developed into a playable guy this year.  Instead we took Kingston Davis who was never going to play here, and too many TEs.

Now let's talk about the future and why this two OL class makes no sense.  What does our OL look like in 2020, year 6 of Harbaugh?  No more Onwenu or Bredeson so the only remaining 5th year is Spanellis if he sticks around.  Hall is gone so at best we have five remaining guys from the 2017 class.  And then two in the 2018 class.  Only 8 OL from 2016-2018 with three or more years of experience.  That's not very forgiving.  Not to mention the only interior guys will be Ruiz, if he stays a fourth year, Spanellis and whichever of Filiaga, Steuber or Honigford they move inside.  That's requiring a near 100% hit rate on the inside.  Leaves no margin for injury, attrition, nothing. 

Your point about two of the 2016 guys already playing exactly demonstrates the next point (and uh, the 2017 guy started half the year over one of the 2016 guys!).  You don't want to have to play first or second year OL unless they're really, uniquely talented.  We played them out of necessity and our line was horrible this year.  We aren't getting the five stars that we would actually want to play early so we need to take volume.

Remember, Drevno was the Stanford OL coach in 2009-2010.  He didn't forget how to develop guys, he is just not being given enough to work with.  He was able to have less than a 50% hit rate at Stanford. He's being asked to have a much higher hit rate now.  All so we can have a different type of FB and TE for every different play we run.

Seth

February 9th, 2018 at 7:40 AM ^

The thing here is the coaches knew this too, and just didn't reel in as many OL as they expected to.

The more commits you already have for a position the harder it is to get more to sign on, and Michigan for most of the 2016 cycle had Ben Bredeson, Michael Onwenu, Devery Hamilton, Terrance Davis, and Erik Swenson. They didn't tell Swenson he was out which signaled to other candidates, like Jean Delance and the other committed guys, that Swenson was part of the class.

They added Spanellis when Davis started to drop off their radar--fine. But they got blindsided by Devery Hamilton's decommit, and that late in the cycle was too late to poach someone else's OT; they tried anyway.

Anyway the failure here wasn't thinking they only needed 5 OL in the class--it was knowing they needed 5 OL in the class and not replacing two decommits at offensive tackle.

TrueBlue2003

February 9th, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^

and I don't mean to beat that dead horse other than to explain why percentages matter.

What is newly disappointing to me is taking only 2 guys, neither of which would be candidates to move inside, in the 2018 class.  That's why I think losing Ekiyor was huge, and not replacing him was a big mistake.

Perhaps the staff sees some potential switches on the roster or in this class (Welschof? Hutchinson? Upshaw?) but it appears we're set up to once again need a high hit rate, have to play young guys, and/or not be able to weather attrition/injuries once again in 2020 and 2021.

Seth

February 9th, 2018 at 11:56 AM ^

Some guys switching over is a definite possibility. I like the idea of moving Hutchinson a lot, but that's down the road since DE is going to need some infusion of talent as soon as Gary's in the NFL. They're good at WDE with Paye and Vilain for now, but unless the 2019 guys are going to be instant-impact dudes I'm sure they want some more bullets for SDE.

Phil Paea is another guy with upside (probably more) as an interior OL.

They're also back-filling with PWO OL really hard, raiding the Ivy League classes (since they can't give out scholarships anyway) to try to find some high-upside shots. A few already seem to be panning out to varying degrees. These are still low-likelihood shots in the dark, but if they take 15 of these guys in three classes they're bound to stumble on like three who can play Big Ten football.

 

TrueBlue2003

February 9th, 2018 at 5:34 PM ^

I believe Jeter already moved inside, but we still have DIB, Hutchinson, Welschof, and Upshaw listed at SDE in a two year span.  I'd hate taking depth from the DL, and one or two almost certainly would have to end up at 3T but also fairly easy to see one move to the other side of the ball.

And I guess it's good that they're going the PWO route, but those are lottery tickets, like you said.  Would be much better flipping a coin with one of those athletic sticks that land in the 3 star range.  Certainly a better use of a scholarship than a third RB or a second FB in two classes.

I wonder if the early signing period had an effect and whether it'll force the staff to change strategies.  They used to be able to pluck those three stars fairly late if/when it appeared they wouldn't get their tops targets but now those guys are all or mostly signed in December.

Might force them to take what they can for early signing period and forget saving spots for the guys that they haven't been able to land late. 

mitchewr

February 9th, 2018 at 11:21 AM ^

My guess is becase college football is 100% a "what have you done lately" sport. Current OT recruits don't care what happened 10 years ago at some other school. They care about what's currently happening at Michigan. 

 

And so far, there HASN'T been any real development of the offensive linemen. In fact it's been quite awful. If you need evidence of this, just go and watch the o-line from the last two years on any given Saturday. 

 

So, my bet is that current OT recruits look at the cluster happening on the field and think "man, no way I want any part of that" and so they go elsewhere. 

 

Jimmy needs to start developing and improving his O-Line if he actually wants to attract good O-Line recruits. It's simple logic.

TrueBlue2003

February 8th, 2018 at 4:29 PM ^

I love the upside of Mayfield and Hayes.  I bet one or both turn into All-conference performers before their careers are over.

Where does Mike Hart rank on the RB list compared to the range you show?  I seem to recall him as a three star for lack of speed and size so I'm guessing below these guys.

IMO, if you can't get a fast, complete 5 star-ish sure thing, it's a crapshoot at the RB position and the biggest thing is their ability to see the hole, hit the hole and hold onto the football (and ball security is probably impossible to determine from HS performances). 

Seth

February 8th, 2018 at 4:58 PM ^

You'll have to click this because it won't be legible in the response window

Around the O'Maury Samuels, Chris Evans region.

Contrary to popular myth, Hart was only just barely a 3-star by the end. He was mostly unknown before Michigan saw him--he was actually on his way to visit Michigan State when Lloyd had him stop by Ann Arbor and show what he could do in person. Everyone in the Syracuse area knew about him though since he was setting New York state records. 

Ironically people remember Walter Cross as a big-time recruit because of Prepstar's #1 RB rating, but averaging out the available recruiting data he was about the same as Mike Hart.

If you want to scroll through all the comps here's the link.

StraightDave

February 8th, 2018 at 4:34 PM ^

Favorite thing about Michigan? I hadn’t been to Ann Arbor before, but when I took my visit I just fell in love with it and knew I wanted to go there. I like to play tight end the most and Michigan uses them a lot. They love their tight ends there and it just seemed like a good fit.

He keeps being listed as an OT but he says he is going to be a TE.   

bronxblue

February 8th, 2018 at 4:41 PM ^

More of this:

Basically Jake Butt

And less this:

The guy in range here is D.J. Williamson, a track star whom Rich Rod convinced to play football who turned out to be just that: a track guy who needed convincing to bother to play football. This is the worst way to get a read on Bell so let’s just move on.

Please

robpollard

February 8th, 2018 at 5:17 PM ^

Ronnie Bell won the Simone Award (I was curious when Harbaugh mentioned it) as the KC Metro area's best football player. It's a big deal down there, and people like Darren Sproles, Chase Coffman, Josh Freeman and (more recently) Mizzou's Drew Lock have won it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_A._Simone_Award

I understand that Bell was originally going to play basketball, but there are plenty of bball players who dedicate themselves just fine to football (e.g., seemingly half the TEs in pro football these days). 

bronxblue

February 8th, 2018 at 6:17 PM ^

I'm 100% fine if Bell turns out to be a star.  I just don't like analysis that insinuates a player might become nothing more than a guy who can't play football all that well because, um, I like to see players succeed.

I have a sense that Bell is better than his recruiting rankings and will be one of those guys who you look up as an upperclassman and wonder how the hell everyone missed on him.