Unverified Voracity Dominates Combines Comment Count

Brian

Release the constructions. Stage N of the everlasting Crisler revamp has begun. Behold pictures of construction.

Crisler-Construction-3-597x410[1]

The renovations will be completed just in time for no one to be able to afford tickets.

Combine crushage. Mike Martin may not have put up as many reps as he wanted in the bench press but he still finished second amongst DTs. In everything else he was exceptional:

Bench press: 36 repetitions, where he tied for second
40-yard dash: 4.88 seconds
Vertical jump: 33.5 inches, where he tied for 13th
Broad jump: 113 inches
3-cone drill: 7.19 seconds, where he tied for 15th
20-yard shuttle: 4.25 seconds, tied for sixth

That is at 306 pounds. He's a riser amongst DTs.

Meanwhile, Junior Hemingway put up two 4.5 40s and killed the agility drills:

In the other events, Hemingway really stood out:

  • Three-cone: 6.59 seconds, first out of 26 receivers
  • 20-yard shuttle: 3.98 seconds, tied for first out of 26 receivers
  • 60-yard shuttle: 11.16 seconds, 2nd out of 13 receivers

"There aren't many receivers who did more for themselves than that guy," an AFC scout said of Hemingway. "He wasn't even on our radar going into this thing. He is now.

Therein is the inexplicable YAC knack. I wonder why it seemed like he could never get separation if he's putting up those numbers. A 225 pound guy who can change directions that fast should be open all the time.

For his part, David Molk put up 41 reps in the bench, second only to Memphis freak of nature Dontari Poe. He is furious about this, because David Molk is furious about everything.

Ahem. Barwis?

The bust. Rivals puts out a list of recruiting class busts highlighted by Kiffin's single year at Tennessee and three consecutive Florida State classes in the dying days of the Bowden era. Michigan's '05 class checks in 7th. Michigan finished sixth in the class rankings that year and got very little from that class.

BUSTS – TALENT DIVISION

  • Kevin Grady (#22 overall)
  • Jason Forcier
  • Brandon Logan
  • LaTerryal Savoy
  • Mister Simpson
  • Andre Criswell (not that anyone expected a ton from him)

BUSTS – CHARACTER EVALUATION DIVISION

  • Marques Slocum (#37)
  • James McKinney (#98)
  • Eugene Germany
  • Chris Richards
  • Johnny Sears
  • Justin Schifano (not a bad guy but didn't want to play football)
  • Carson Butler

INJURIES

  • Antonio Bass (#49)
  • Cory Zirbel (#83)
  • Chris McLaurin

ACTUALLY USEFUL PLAYERS

  • Mario Manningham (#45)
  • Terrance Taylor (#96)
  • Brandon Harrison
  • David Moosman
  • Zoltan Mesko
  • Tim McAvoy (sort of)
  • Mark Ortmann

That's brutal. You've got a couple of okay linemen, Manningham, Taylor, and Harrison. The next year's class was decent (Brandon Graham, Steve Schilling, Jonas Mouton, Steve Brown, Brandon Minor) but didn't produce anything past the four stars save Perry Dorrestein; 2007 had Mallett and Warren as five star headliners and was then mostly junk, which set Rodriguez up for failure from the start. Rodriguez then helped matters along, of course.

This is all so clear in retrospect. One of the things I'll be looking for in the first couple Hoke classes is how many guys we see burn out for character/grade issues. It certainly seems like that number is going to be a lot lower than we saw at the tail end of the Carr regime. So far Hoke's only got Chris Barnett, the surprise tight end with red flags galore who burned out halfway through fall camp and took Kellen Jones with him. (Jones ended up at Oklahoma. QED.) That's an understandable misstep in the midst of a chaotic final month before signing day with a new roster. Since then he hasn't approached a guy with a whisper of an issue.

Popcorn time. Sports statistics fabulist David Berri is still plugging his ridiculous notion that draft status is not at all predictive of NFL QB performance. This was one of the claims that caused me to write a long screed about how useless Berri is a couple years ago in which I collected Berri debunkings in the four major sports to point out that his claims are almost always either easily proven false or simpleminded simplifications of incredibly complex questions.

This remains the case if he's still pumping his inane NFL QB study. This time Phil Birnbaum has noticed:

They argue -- as does Gladwell -- that we should just assume the guys who played less, or didn't play at all, are just as good as the guys who did play. We should just disregard the opinions of the coaches, who decided they weren't good enough.

That's silly, isn't it? I mean, it's not logically impossible, but it defies common sense. At least you should need some evidence for it, instead of just blithely accepting it as a given.

And, in any case, there's an obvious, reasonable alternative model that doesn't force you to second-guess the professionals quite as much. That is: maybe early draft choices aren't taken because they're expected to be *better* superstars, but because they're expected to be *more likely* to be superstars.

He promises future posts examining the subject. I promise they'll leave Berri's study shattered at the bottom of a ravine.

Erp? TTB interviews Ben Braden and comes back with this:

Early playing time: Right now, the plan is that I will not be redshirting. I think I'll be a second stringer, and then just go from there. But right now that's the plan between me and the coaches. . . . [I'll be playing] right tackle.

I'm not exactly stressed that Michigan might miss out on a redshirt senior year from Braden what with the 2013 OL class, but if I had to bet I'd say Braden ends up redshirting anyway.

There's a difference between Jack Miller redshirting—the world will end before you see the field this year—and Braden's spot on the depth chart. It's not too hard to envision a situation in which he's forced onto the field. Even assuming Kalis is what he's reputed to be Braden's certainly in the running to be the second guy off the bench in the event of injuries at tackle. I bet we'd see Elliott Mealer in before Braden in the event a tackle goes down with a minor injury a la Lewan last year, as they'll want to preserve that redshirt if possible.

Etc.: Oregon in trouble yo. Bacon on Ford and Willis Ward. If you haven't read Baumgardner's extensive profile of Douglass and Novak you should.

Comments

kehnonymous

February 28th, 2012 at 6:14 PM ^

Did anyone else get a good guffaw out of this sick burn from the aforementioned Rivals article about top recruiting class flops?

Re: Ohio State's 2009 class:

Farrell's take: "The five-star teammates from Gateway were the key to this class and things haven't gone as expected. Bell got in the doghouse and Brown just never developed into the potential two-way star we saw in high school. Many of these guys had the talent to contribute and play, but for different reasons they just ended up in trouble. Not surprising seeing how Jim Tressel viewed discipline in his tenure however."  <---- emphasis mine, for maximum lawls.

Raoul

February 28th, 2012 at 7:44 PM ^

This is highly unlikely. WNIT home games are typically awarded based on which team is likely to draw the higher attendance. The women's team has trouble attracting crowds to Crisler--how much of a draw would a game played at EMU be?

What I'm nearly certain would happen is the same thing that happened last year (when Crisler was also unavailable during the WNIT because of construction): Michigan would have to play any and all WNIT games on the road.

Bando Calrissian

February 28th, 2012 at 11:59 PM ^

I don't know how many of you got those packets from Athletics about the new Crisler "experience," but man, they're really trying hard to reward loyalty.  (rolleyes)  What a document it is.

Let's look at it this way.  There are folks in the lower bowl who have had their seats quietly improved on a pretty consistent basis for the past 15-20 years because they stuck with this program, and no one else was buying tickets.  There are people, like our family, who have been season ticket holders since the early 80s, if not earlier.  We supported this program through thick and thin, watching some deliriously great basketball bookending some seriously awful basketball.  

Now, the PSD's come.  Pay up, or take a hike to the nosebleeds.  Never mind that Athletics put us there.  Heck, we started on the end line near the top of the blues, and now we're at midcourt near the bottom.  Never asked for it, it just happened, year by year.  This new PSD, to put it politely, is not an "experience" we can affford.  Back up top we go, if we renew.

This is a model that is moving farther and farther away from the rank-and-file, and more towards the folks who can pay more, who expect an "experience."  Luxury seating, amenities, privacy, etc.  It's not about the game, it's about what you get -with- the game.

It's gonna be a riot when this comes to Yost and the folks who have been sitting together for 20+ years find themselves shuffled around to parts unknown.  Watch, it's coming.