Jimmystats: The Tackles Window
The problem with Michigan's defense against Ohio State the last two years was pretty simple: they didn't have the dynamic defensive tackles they had in 2016 and 2017 and had to weaken other parts of the defense to compensate for it. In 2018 they couldn't generate pressure versus single-man blocking with Kemp and Mone, giving Dwayne Haskins time to sit in the pocket and OSU's receivers and backs time to shake defenders who weren't designed to last that long against elite speed. In 2019 they couldn't hold up physically with Kemp and true freshman Chris Hinton, and got pasted with Inside Zone and Duo until the linebackers stopped acting responsibly. It also forced Michigan to leave Josh Uche, one of their best players, on the bench for standard downs because they needed their DEs to play interior gaps. As we've said before, that was a "we need DTs" problem not a "why aren't you playing him?" problem.
Take those two games out of the equation and everyone feels just fine about the Harbaugh era. But that's not how we measure things here. I think most people see that if everything else can hold where it's at, getting the DTs back to 2016-'17 level gives this Michigan a shot to beat what's quickly becoming the strongest program since Point-a-Minute. Then we see Michigan not even a factor for any elite DTs in two straight classes (2020 and 2021) and the despair creeps in.
Can Michigan build a competitive defensive tackles depth chart with what they have now? Sure. They also could have had one in 2019—they just got really unlucky on a relatively standard roll. Can they have one in the future? It's harder to say.
Recruiting Elites: A Question of Can, not Will
Will Carr almost cost Eddie George his Heisman. [Jed Jacobsohn via Burnt Orange Nation]
Just as some of you were giving up the diaries section for dead, AC1997 wrote a treatise on elite (top-105) defensive tackle recruiting at Michigan and the various playoff competitors.
Wait a minute….I can math. You said 18 for 6 schools, which means an average of 3 per school over a three year period. That’s not as much as I thought. What gives?
Good catch. We know that just about every power-five team rotates three DTs regularly and that the success rate of even the top DT recruits is not perfect, so it is a position you would expect to over-recruit to ensure there is depth and insurance on your roster. I would have expected that over a three-year period these elite schools would be stocking up on this talent, even if there were only 39 prospects to go around. In reality, only one school (Alabama, duh) over-recruited from this list with a whopping SIX signees.
All of the other elite schools had just two or three:
- Clemson = 3
- Ohio State = 3
- Washington = 3
- Georgia = 2
- LSU = 2
- Oklahoma = 2
- Michigan = 2
The short version is Michigan and Ohio State have the same disadvantage: recruits tend to stay closer to home and the Midwest doesn't produce that many 300-pound monsters. Ohio State overcomes that by being the #1 destination for the kind of recruit who doesn't care about region because he just wants to make the playoffs. Michigan isn't recruiting better than any program in football history and so can't keep up with OSU in that regard. If you want more details I recommend you read the diary.
Growing Dudes: How to Find a Renes
Recruiting services don't tend to send scouts to your nightmares. [Patrick Barron]
In the comments AC asked me what Michigan's hit rate is on grow-your-own DTs. The answer is it depends a lot on the profile of the recruit.
- Dudes (since 1996): Mo Hurst, Ryan Glasgow, Willie Henry, Rob Renes
- Guys: Eric Wilson, Grant Bowman, Ben Huff, Shawn Lazarus, Matt Godin
- Playable but missing a key component: Carlo Kemp, Jibreel Black, Michael Dwumfour, Gannon Dudlar, Jess Speight, Alex Ofili, Kerwin Waldroup, Larry Harrison
- Whiffs: Phil Paea, Richard Ash, Jason Kates, Ray Edmonds, Brion Smith, Donovan Jeter, Deron Irving-Bey, Brady Pallante, Renaldo Sagesse, Terry Talbott, Vince Helmuth, Marques Walton, Paul Sarantos, Dave Spytek
If you bring in a pair of lightning feet attached to an excellent brain and just need to add 40 pounds to get to 300, your chances are pretty good. If you need to add 70 pounds, or he lacks the athleticism, or he needs to drop 40 pounds of one type of weight and put on another, or he doesn't have that one in a million brain that can process how a team wants to block him from minute details while in a trench battle, your chances are not great. Once you're moving guys over who were never expected to grow past defensive end you're hitting a ceiling.
If you look at the Dudes they came from all over the 3-star spectrum. Hurst came out a 4.01 on my 5-star scale, Renes a 3.83 (what we generally call a "3.5-star"), Henry a 3.48 (really low) and Glasgow was a walk-on. But they also fit a certain body type. Hurst was 6'2/282 as a true freshman, Renes 6'1/275, Henry 6'2/270, and Glasgow 6'4/294. The Guys showed up smaller: Wilson was 6'4/255, Bowman 6'3/258, Lazarus 6'3/245, Godin 6'6/277, and Huff a 6'4/234 linebacker.
The whiffs group has a lot of guys we would call reaches. Of those who came in with some sense among the fanbase that they were better than a shot in the dark, Ash, Kates, and Sagesse were tear-down/rebuilds, Brion Smith (medical), Ray Edmonds (dismissed) and Irving-Bey (transferred/dismissed) failed to materialize for non-scouting reasons. Dave Spytek was 6'7".
[After THE JUMP: a trip through Michigan DT memory lane to see how classes translated into lines]
The Window Theory
My theory is all DTs suck as freshmen, the elites are usable as sophs, and a reasonable timeline for a project 3-star you plan to break down, build up, or Barwisize is not before he's a redshirt sophomore. That means what determines if you'll have a good interior DL in 2020 is any elites you recruited from 2016-'19 who are still around, plus any projects from 2016-'18 who panned out, plus whatever you can scrounge from transfers, walk-ons, and position switchers.
Let's study those windows for recent DT groups and see how similar recruiting crops panned out. My cut-off for "elite" was a 4.25-star in my database, because I didn't want Mike Martin and Alan Branch to fall into the "project" range, but understand there is a gray area here. I included DEs who were recruited with bulking up to DT in mind, but didn't feel the need to include the RVB DE/DT types who were recruited for and played at strongside end or something like it.
2004
Gabe Watson was somehow underrated as a legit All-Big Ten DT. Pat Massey was an issue. [via MGoBlue.com c. 2005]
Ingredients:
1 elite (Gabe Watson) from 2000-'03
3 projects (Dave Spytek, Alex Ofili, Larry Harrison) from 2000-'02
Depth Chart: Watson was everything you could ask for but Michigan played 6'8" Pat Massey next to him in a 3-4 defense because of a lack of DTs. Massey was a top-20 player to Tom Lemming but there's a reason guys his size aren't on the DL. Ofili was an okay backup but had no pass rush. Harrison might have been but was booted off the team. Spytek was 6'7" and should have been moved to tight end like his brother John (the current director of player personnel for the Tampa Bay Bucs who just signed Tom Brady). Alan Branch got on the field the second half of the season as a sometime replacement, and was effectively raw--for those too young to have seen it, think Willie Henry when he first got on the field.
Lesson: Fortunately 2004 would be the last time Michigan underrecruited the position or expected a guy tall enough to play wing for the basketball team to be a DT. Right?
2007
The ideal, basically [via]
Ingredients:
6 elites (Marques Slocum, Will Johnson, James McKinney, Alan Branch, Terrance Taylor, Adam Patterson)
2 projects (Marques Walton, Andre Criswell)
Depth Chart: Will Johnson and Terrance Taylor ably held down the fort after Alan Branch left early for the NFL (they played beside him a lot too), with some help from Brandon Graham moonlighting at DT and three-man fronts because depth was an issue. But that 3/6 hit rate on elite DT recruits is troubling for down the road. It was more annoying that big-time recruits like Slocum, McKinney, and Patterson also didn't work out for various reasons. Their two projects were major reaches and didn't pan out.
Lesson: Yes, recruiting six top-100 DTs in a four-year span will net you two or three really good ones. –Alabama. But be careful which "elites" you're going after—Slocum and McKinney came with red flags (Patterson had a sophomore knee injury that sapped his ability). I would much rather see Michigan go after a guy like Hurst (a Massachusetts late-riser with an Ohio State offer) than Slocum.
2010
A Quebecois project, Sagesse might have developed into more of a player with better coaches. [via clf.ca]
Ingredients:
3 elites (Adam Patterson, Mike Martin, Will Campbell)
4 projects (Jason Kates, Steve Watson, Vince Helmuth, Renaldo Sagesse)
Depth Chart: Campbell wasn't even playable as a sophomore, Mike Martin came on until MSU purposely blew out his knee, and Adam Patterson after his sophomore knee injury wasn't playable. The projects were all reaches and none really panned out; Michigan played Sagesse and Greg Banks with Ryan Van Bergen, backed up by Patterson. It was a disaster.
Lesson: Don't let Greg Robinson, Rich Rodriguez, or Dantonio's angels near your defense, ever.
2013
Has your BWC frustration subsided yet? [Eric Upchurch]
Ingredients:
2 elites (Will Campbell and Ondre Pipkins)
3 projects (Ash, Talbott, Wilkins)
Depth Chart: Best DT was DE-sized DE convert Jibreel Black. Campbell was a Guy in 2012 but playing early meant he wasn't around for 2013. They moved Quinton Washington from OG and took Willie Henry out of the oven well before he was baked. They probably gave up on Ash too soon—he ended up an undrafted free agent in the NFL.
Lesson: Freaking out about Brady Hoke not recruiting enough DTs in 2012 was correct. Also: coaching transitions can really screw with your futures so try to avoid those.
2016
I would like to rub bellies again. [Bryan Fuller]
Ingredients:
2 elites (Pipkins, Mone)
4 projects (Godin, Henry, Hurst, Pallante)
Depth Chart: 2 DUDES (Glasgow, Hurst), and a guy (Godin) even after Henry left for the NFL. It's hard to overstate what an incredible job the staff did, weathering injuries to Pipkins and Mone to hit on every project recruit except the real reach (Pallante), plus getting a star out of a walk-on.
Lesson: Sure if you can turn every 3-star into Matt Godin, Willie Henry, or Mo Hurst, you'll be unstoppable, especially if the Glasgow family is still in production.
2019
Moving Hudson to OT was a gamble the staff probably wishes they had back. [Patrick Barron]
Ingredients:
1 elite (Solomon)
5 projects (Hudson, Dwumfour, Irving-Bey, Jeter, Paea)
Depth Chart: Best DT was DE-sized DE convert Carlo Kemp. Solomon was a Guy in 2018 but transferred. They probably wish they didn't move James Hudson to offense. Dwumfour did not develop. Jeter was awful, Irving-Bey was a total whiff, and Paea was a reach with a fair ceiling at guard and a low one as a nose tackle. Michigan had to use their DEs as quasi-DTs to make up for the lack of DTs. At the end of the year they had Hinton out there but freshman DTs always suck. When Kemp went out they rolled with walk-on Jess Speight, who's a recent OL convert, not a Glasgow.
I think you would expect one of those five projects to hit. Michigan extremely unlucky that their rare elite sucked AND they rolled 0/5 on their other recruits. Since the same guy (Mattison) was developing them as the 2016 crop it's hard to put that on coaching.
Lesson: Luck can work against you, so don't burn your other opportunities. Not much they could have done about Solomon, but the staff should have been able to make something of Dwumfour and foreseen Hudson's need at DT, especially when his family members were openly hostile to the move.
2022
Freshman DTs always suck; Hinton's play in 2019 suggests he's a likely hit. [Bryan Fuller]
Ingredients:
2 elites (Hinton, Smith)
5 projects (Welschof, Lewis, Morris, Newburg, Jenkins) plus any other elites they can recruit for 2021.
Depth Chart: Who knows. They could be the best DL in the country with Hinton, Smith, and Jenkins, or none of the guys above could be on the team anymore. They only have a marginally better shot at a great DL than the 2019 team or the 2016 team. We have no idea what Nua is as a recruiter, talent evaluator, or developer.
Lesson: Michigan is simply not in a position to recruit like Ohio State, but they can end up with a good or even elite line if they continue recruiting as they did through 2019. What that would look like is a guy like Jenkins emerging from the grow-a-tackle pool, and Shawn Nua using his background to tap into a vein that's been sending so many good players to schools like Utah.
One thing I want to mention about the large-framed SDE types Don Brown is recruiting right now, with hopes that some grow into interior D-linemen. Sounds crazy, I know.
Replace "SDE" with "TE", "interior D-linemen" with "offensive tackle", "Don Brown" with "Greg Frey" and it suddenly turns into a time-tested method.
P.S. One major difference between 2016 Greg Mattison and 2019 Greg Mattison is that one of them didn't have one foot already out the door. I note that once Tua arrived, Dwumfour's run defense visibly and almost immediately improved. I think Greg checked out, at least mentally.
Eh, guys do get better with experience, especially ones with a clear thing to work on that'll get them more time. Yes, Dwumfour improved. It was only marginal and if was probably going to happen (since you know, guys improve) no matter who was coaching him.
I don't think Mattison was checked out so much as he had nothing to work with (and then he literally checked out which was the result of a meh DL situation, probably not the cause of it).
Great summary Seth and thanks for the shout-out on my piece. I especially liked how you broke down the timeline and highlighted how the staff kept hitting the jackpot with Henry, Glasgow, and Hurst all at the same time. We haven't been as lucky since and part of that is having fewer elites or planet-sized guys....but part of it is the other end of the luck curve with projects. The fact that they turned Kemp, once a "who-dat" at a different position into a viable B10 DT who would be great in a rotation with more guys is impressive. Why none of the others worked out is beyond me.
Another stroke of bad luck in this recent time frame is that recently-drafted Jordan Elliot was in the fold at one point. While there were red-flags in his profile...Michigan is going to have to take some risks here to compete with the best. Had he been on the team suddenly the depth chart looks more normal - same as all of the other what-ifs (Hudson, Dwumfor, Soloman).
Also, I have zero memory of Gannon Dudlar....I think you put a fake name on that list just to see if we were paying attention.
Eliot was in a lot of folds before he got drafted!
Ganon? Huuuge dude, hit like a truck, and if you tried to block him you just bounced off him. No surprise you don't remember him though; he was usually invisible and I don't know if he ever saw the field.
He was also weak against silver arrows. That did him in.
The attrition of that 2016 or 2017 class (whichever had Soloman) is what has been holding Michigan back from beating OSU. A couple more classes like that and keeping those kids for 3-4 years is the missing recipe imo.
You missed Josh Williams as a dude (1995-1999) - he was a key part of 1997 National Championship team and drafted by the Colts in 2000 in the 4th round.
He came in as a high 4 star out of Texas as a DE/DT tweener.
I decided not to take this back to the '90s this time.
Got it. I always like to plug Josh when I can - he is one of the most underrated players over the last 25 years.
His play in the 4th quarter of the 1997 OSU game - they had driven to our 40 yard line for the game winning TD and he ripped into the backfield for a 9 yard loss on 1st down - saved our season. The OSU running game was rolling and Michigan couldn't stop them in the 4th quarter. He forced them to abandon the run on that set of downs and we know what happened from there.
Seth is so amazing at spinning some of this shit. My frustrations just went from the Defensive Coordinator to the Recruiting Coordinator to the frickin' Midwest region for not outputting more big boys to then realizing we should just use bagmen. Bravo Mr. Fisher.
I was basically that Alonzo Mourning gif this entire post.
We can't turn the money cannon on recruits fast enough.
Many including me were vocal about Pallante's offer.... what were they hoping? That he'd grow 4 inches and getting bigger frame ?
If Ash made the NFL then hard to call a miss...thats on the coaches, not the recruit.
Newburg seems to be another undersized DT.
2019 was especially bad and wonder if this was Brown wanting a different type of recruit with different attributes because hard to believe Mattison would whiff so badly on five guys.
I wonder if the recent DT situation is a bit of a knee-jerk reaction to recent events (sort of like the weird class with all of the tall-lanky corners or Beilein's frustration toward the end with basketball recruiting/development). Think about it:
- Michigan signs a couple of studs in Soloman & Elliot, both took off before the coaches had a chance to do anything with them.
- We get a potential gem in Hudson and play the position flip-flop game with him. Yes, he was annoyed about OL but then Cincy put him on the OL so I just don't think he and the coaches ever saw eye-to-eye.
- The coaches thought they had something with Dwumfor but he couldn't stay on the field due to minor injuries.
- From my piece we know that only FIVE top DTs in three seasons went to school more than two states away from their high school and there were hardly any guys in the midwest during that time.
I think the coaches decided to try a moneyball approach of finding athletic 3-stars that they didn't have to fight off the elite programs for and turn them into a swiss-army knife of a defense.
I remain cautiously optimistic that Kemp-Hinton-Smith-(insert project here) will give us a chance this year and we just need a couple of players in the next class to get us out of this funk. It took us a while to fix the OL....now let's fix the DL.
regarding all the tall lanky cbs...it was as if Harbaugh liked a certain one in the pros and then dictated they require model attributes..and they all get the same body type..... i had high hopes for st.juste who is thriving at minnesota...
IIRC Jess Speight got run at the end of the season and was ok. May be something there...?
Also, still hoping Welschof hits and excited for Ojabo
Fun and informative read, thanks.
Not-fun and informative read,
Fixed it.
I thought Helmuth was brought in as a FB? Or maybe I’m misremembering this
He was. Helmuth was a late-add when Carr whiffed on a bunch of guys he thought would be in the class. He ate his way to playing DT however, and Helmuth was more of an ATH you take to please his head coach than "this guy is going to play fullback for us."
Thanks for the info. I just remember having class with him and thinking about how much it would hurt to meet him in the hole, head full of steam
Hudson is listed as an OT for Cincinnati, so it seems Fickell agreed with their assessment.
Nice job Seth (and AC1997 too). The part that really caught my eye was the guys who ended up being 'dudes' already had the body for a DT when they were freshmen.
Appreciate this write up Seth, enjoyed this one.
Michigan seems to have hit the ceiling on recruiting. Bringing in the odd 5* (Gary, Peppers, Hinton, Dax). Classes ranked 8-10th on signing day with 8-10 wins per year. The odds of A B1G title or playoff berth are only slightly better than winning the lottery. I keep buying those Powerball tickets though
8-10 is good enough if you hit on your QB (see Clemson and OU) and/or line recruits (see Clemson) but Michigan hasn't hit on a QB in the Harbaugh era and they've only hit on one side of the lines at a time (DL in 16-17, OL in 18-19). You can't beat OSU and win conference titles by only hitting at a 1 in 3 rate at those position groups, even though Michigan has been very good pretty much everywhere else.
EDIT: Yes, Michigan had elite DEs in 2018 but they were banged up such that the line wasn't very good against OSU. The unit was responsible for a near historically good defense up to that point.
You need to recalculate the odds of hitting the lottery.
You think I dont know those odds?
Nice write up Seth, and appreciate the Branch photo again - a favorite. One of DT recruiting misses that always bothered me was Johnathan Hankins out of Detroit Southeastern. A big UM fan, he was a 3-star recruit, not a top 10 recruit in the State, but grew up a Michigan fan. RichRod was not a fan of him and offered late; Hankins eventually signed with the Bucks. They developed him, and he is starting his 8th or 9th NFL season this year
That one bothered us too. Rich Rod thought he was too hefty and this site was like "What the F are you doing?!?!"
a few notes... I'm pretty sure Brandon Graham played DT as a freshmen mostly because he showed up massively out of shape and the coaches were trying to send him a message. Also Spytek was a DE, not a DT, and I don't think they ever moved him inside, or onto the field at all for that matter, and Steve Watson was a TE recruit, again didn't see the field, and Criswell was recruited as a fullback. Just a few guys who probably don't belong on your list.
Lack of pass rush was not the reason we got demolished against osu in 2018. If you think I am wrong re-watch and you will see their pass offense all consisted of quick timed passing routes. No defense will generate a pass rush against drags and other 3 step drop routes unless the QB doesn't get rid of the ball on time. We lost because we thought our 4.5-4.6 speed DBs could match up against their 4.3 speed receivers in press man. Fast Ambry Thomas sat the bench while slow Brandon Watson repeatedly got burnt to a crisp and we were not an experienced zone team. This was a terrible defensive game plan.
Believing we were forced to keep Uche on the bench as much as we did because of a lack of good DTs is straight up crazy talk. If you have a NFL 2nd round (maybe 1st rounder if we played him more) pass rusher on your team and can't play a defensive scheme to keep him on the field then your defensive coaches failed hard. The reason why Uche finally started getting more playing time was because Hudson took himself out specifically to get Uche in.
“And then, he was like, ‘You know what?’ He come out of his package and let me go in. So just (took) himself out and was like, ‘Josh — go in!’ And from there, I just started making plays, and from there, I just started rolling. So that’s my boy there, man.”
It is an interesting debate whether to call your DT recruits that don't pan out as "unlucky" or recruiting/coaching/development failures. It has been rumored since Harbaugh has been here that many players are unhappy with how he handles injured players. This rumor has been thrown around with Solomon and Dwumfour leaving even though they were both set for tons of playing time. Seniors Kemp, Solomon, and Dwumfour backed up by Hinton and Smith would have been a really solid interior. Recruiting few true DTs and depending on SDEs to outgrow their position to transition to DT is an risky strategy. A success with this strategy is Kemp, but he is not a stout run defender through no fault of his own.
2019 lesson could be: don’t neglect OT recruiting to the point where you are scrambling and moving DTs over to offense
Also a bit confused about why there’s only every 3 year snap shots. Should be a rolling window for each year. Maybe that would have made the post to long idk.
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