Unverified Voracity Ditches Divisions
Doing a thing tomorrow. I'm speaking at the UM Club of Livingston County's scholarship fundraiser. Thing is in Brighton, costs 25 bucks if you're not a member and 20 if you are. They promise me a projector with which to dazzle* and amaze** with. It's for a good cause, come on out.
*[you keep saying that word]
**[you also keep saying that word]
[Eric Upchurch]
More satellite stuff. As the camp season moves along and more and more people see Harbaugh in action the tone of media coverage seems to have shifted. Harbaugh shows up, has an enthusiasm unknown to mankind, works his ass off in drills, and people in attendance go "huh." Marc Tracy has a NYT article that goes over the Rutgers camp experience in some detail, and Harbaugh impressed some people in Houston.
Observations: Harbaugh is more active/hands-on at these camps than any head coach I’ve seen. Also, several unique drills/competitions.
— Sam Khan Jr. (@skhanjr) June 14, 2016
Also Ohio. The Vindicator:
His speech was part instructional of what was about to happen on the practice field and part old-fashioned church revival, with football being the religion this day for young men that came as far away as Canada.
Harbaugh then spent the next three hours working a style that displays a boyish love of his job. The drills he led were mainly a mix of running tests in which he crowned a champion at the end of each, loudly announcing the young man’s name into a microphone that fit his hand like a glove.
The more people who go to these things, the more of them find out that Harbaugh seems to mean what he says when he talks about spreading football. That's not to say there isn't another motive, but Harbaugh isn't teaching a bunch of middle-schoolers because he thinks there will be recruiting payoffs.
Harbaugh: 'It's not about recruiting. If it really helped recruiting that much, ppl would've been doing it forever.'
— Nick Baumgardner (@nickbaumgardner) June 9, 2016
Marshall moves. Lawrence Marshall was at SMSB, observing events. Sam Webb flagged him down for an interview and got some actual news: Marshall is 270 and no longer on the weakside.
"I play in the six-technique, so I play in front of the tight end more,” he said. “I love that. I feel like a tight end can't block me. If the tight end is blocking me I'm doing something wrong. That's all I've got to say about that."
Terminology changes over and over again and regimes move in and out; around here that means he's moved from WDE to SDE. That leaves just Chase Winovich and Reuben Jones amongst veteran options at WDE and thus implies that Taco Charlton is going to move back to the weakside and start. (He played SDE in the Ford Field practice and the spring game.) That'll probably mean Chris Wormley, an unparalleled tight end obliterator, will go back to SDE. Your other option there is Rashan Gary. So… Marshall probably has another year to prep before serious playing time as an upperclassman. An approximate three deep on the line:
| SDE | NT | 3T | WDE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chris Wormley | Ryan Glasgow | Maurice Hurst | Taco Charlton |
| Rashan Gary | Bryan Mone | Matt Godin | Chase Winovich |
| Lawrence Marshall | Hurst | Wormley/Gary | Reuben Jones |
That could work out okay.
Marshall also discussed some of the reasons it seems like he's been in the doghouse since his arrival, claiming that his work ethic "has tremendously improved from my freshman and sophomore years." Hitting 270 is solid evidence of that.
Hudson deployment. From Penn Live:
"I think as soon as I get there, I'm going to have an impact on the team," Hudson said. "I'll be at strong safety my first year, and then my second year, they're going to be putting me on offense and giving me some plays and stuff.
When Hudson committed I'd assumed he was ticketed for the nickel spot Peppers was at last year; his "LB" spot this year is probably going to look pretty similar except with more QB decapitation. Now, it seems like there are several options there in 2017 and beyond, and few at safety. Hudson will probably be a true safety for most of his career.
A SEC schedule solution that's pretty great. Jason Kirk and Bill Connelly propose a shift away from divisions in the SEC, which the Big 12 has enabled by agitating for a championship game despite having only ten teams. The upshot is that everyone gets three permanent rivals and then plays the rest of the league every other year. They've tweaked it so the schedules are balanced for the current state of college football, and while there will be some drift things tend to remain the way they are.
A Big Ten version is possible, but the proposal above is aimed at an eight-game conference schedule; the Big Ten has gone to nine. An attempt at three permanent rivals all the same has some goofy matchups:
non-negotiable in italics
| Team | Permanent opponents | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Indiana | Purdue | Illinois | NW |
| Illinois | Northwestern | IU | Nebraska |
| Iowa | Minnesota | Wisconsin | Nebraska |
| Maryland | Rutgers | PSU | MSU |
| Minnesota | Iowa | Wisconsin | Michigan |
| Michigan | MSU | OSU | Minnesota |
| MSU | Michigan | Maryland | Purdue |
| Nebraska | Iowa | Wisconsin | Illinois |
| Northwestern | Illinois | IU | PU |
| OSU | PSU | Michigan | Rutgers |
| PSU | OSU | Rutgers | MD |
| Rutgers | Maryland | PSU | OSU |
| Purdue | Indiana | Northwestern | MSU |
| Wisconsin | Iowa | Minnesota | Nebraska |
Unlike the SEC it's very hard to create these matchups with any semblance of even-ness. Purdue, Illinois, Indiana, and Northwestern are all but impossible to split up, and consistently bad. Minnesota gets it in the eye. Rutgers too.
Even so I like the idea of having relatively balanced schedules for everyone, playing everyone at least every other year, and picking the top two teams with conference record of opponents the tiebreaker. Also, blowing up the schedule again would allow Michigan to undo the most lasting damage of the Dave Brandon era: the MSU/OSU home/road fiasco.
Sign her up. This woman has a legit shot at our linebacker two-deep.
We'll have to deprogram her first obviously.
The sixth year odyssey continues. MSU already failed to get Damon Knox the sixth year they promised was coming, and now it comes out that Ed Davis won't even get a degree until August(!?), despite the fact that he's already been on campus for five years. MSU can't apply for a sixth year until that degree is completed, two weeks before MSU's season opener. As we've mentioned before, Davis's case is hamstrung by the fact that MSU's own website notes he was scout team player of the week twice when he was redshirting and MSU's confidence about all three of these guys appeared to be very much unwarranted.
FWIW, the third dude, OL Brandon Clemons, has in fact sent the paperwork in already.
Okay, Drew. You know what's awesome? I haven't thought about Drew Sharp for more than a glancing second in years. But Detroit's miserable hatemonger gets on the radar today for the most hypocritical thing I've ever seen:
You win today. Now return to sleeping at press conferences.
Etc.: NFL.com names Jabrill Peppers the most versatile player in the country, which yeah. Someone complained about no Bedyoa mention in the Copa post. I have an article for you, sir. LSU bans opposing bands from playing at halftime. Rumors that Baylor is trying to bring Briles back appear to be mostly unfounded. Hockey rules committee proposes adopting 4-on-4 OT. No word on the guy who can't wear skates whose goals count double yet. Harbaugh is an extrovert.
When Nebraska joined the Big Ten and B1G leadership ranked the football teams to form two balanced divisions, the top four programs were Michigan & Nebraska in the Legends Division with Ohio State and Penn State in the Leaders Division. Michigan State was down in the pecking order.
Fast forward to the now fourteen member Big Ten and it's obvious that Delany, et. al., still think Penn State > Michigan State despite the sanctions hitting the PSU program, the fact that MSU is probably the better program right now (and is celebrating its best string of football over the last half century).
The B1G scheduling strategy for the Eastern Division is pretty obvious. First off, make sure that two of Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State and Penn State play either at Rutgers or at Maryland. Once that home/road rotation was settled, then it became a matter of ranking the remaining Eastern Division teams. Outside UM, it evidentally went (1) Ohio State, (2) Penn State, (3) Michigan State, (4) Indiana. The Big Ten's logic was to have (1) and (3) on one home/road schedule rotation and (2) and (4) in a second schedule rotation.
It's also pretty apparent that when the Big Ten opted to have one team apiece based on their relative strengths from the Eastern and Western Divisions play each other over a four-year time period, then that team would be on the same schedule roation as (2) and (4). For Michigan from 2016, that means Michigan State and Indiana are on the same schedule rotation as Wisconsin form the Western Division.
Unless MgoBlog has some sort of inside knowledge about what happened with the schedule, then perhaps the finger is best pointed at Jim Delany and his crew in Chicago IRT the Michigan State/Ohio State "debacle" (which based on the one time he's talked about it, doesn't seem to bother Warde Manual).
If Notre Dame does show up on the schedule in 2018/9 and if the season openers with Arkansas remain in place (with no flip flopping), then be prepared to see that first game be played in South Bend in order to keep Michigan's schedules balanced and to ensure there are at least six home games in 2019. Among what I think most fans would consider the major football games for those two seasons, here's the home/road rotation.
2018 (Home): Arkansas, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Penn State
2018 ( Away): at Notre Dame, at Michigan State, at Ohio State
2019 (Home): Notre Dame, Michigan State, Ohio State
2019 (Away): at Arkansas, at Wisconsin, at Penn State
If this is what shakes out, will MgoBlog be prepared to call this "Warde Manual's Debacle"? What sort of hue and cry will be made if Michigan plays ND, MSU and OSU all on the road or at home for those two seasons?
If Arkansas would take the first home game, you could play ND at home in 18 and on the road. According to fbschedules.com, Arkansas only has two other non conference games scheduled in those two years, Norh Texas in 18, and Colorado State in 19, both at home. It would be easy for them to flip flop the Michigan games.
Didn't the SDE usually play at the 5-technique last year as in a traditional 4-3 Under? Does Lawrence Marshall playing at the 6-technique imply we will be using more Over alignments this year? Is this a significant difference between Brown's defense and Durkin's? Over the long haul, will it require us to recruit a different type of player at SDE? Perhaps quicker 270 pound guys instead of stronger 290 pound guys?
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Ideally if we expand we either get two teams from the ACC and add them to the East sending IU to the West or we get two teams from the Big XII and add them to the West sending Purdue to the East. Either way the goal should be to make either the Indiana/Illinois or Indiana/Ohio border the dividing line between east and west.
The problem with the big ten right now is that it breaks up into 4 unequal groups very well.
A: Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
B: Northwestern, Illinois, Indiana, Purdue
C: Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State
D: Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers.
Of course doing the SEC swap method is a disaster because you get AC and BD years. BC and AD is pretty balanced division split but it is a geographic nightmare.
Adding GA Tech and UVA would be ideal but I don't know if the politics would let it come to be.
I noticed an error in the Depth Chart, so I went ahead and fixed it.
| SDE | NT | 3T | WDE |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary |
| Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary |
| Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary | Rashan Gary |
I'd like their reaction to the dangers of halftime shows by visiting bands. How much death is there in Death Valley, anyways?
Considering nobody has a third team in italics we should go to just 2 protected rivalries.
the "victim of the NCAA" game, pat the kids on the back, call them Spartan Dawgs forever Brah and bitch and win and complain about it all year long. Despite the fact they completely and utterly have screwed this up and mislead these young men all along.
Bill Connelly just did the same exercise for the B10 that he did for the SEC (which inspired Brian's post). Similar overall results, with the same outcome for Michigan's three annual games. Worth a read:
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