Unverified Voracity Roughs Up Diamonds Comment Count

Brian

goodbye farewell

O'Neill o'ut. Dann O'Neill's departure, broken here, has been officially announced:

O'Neill, a Grand Haven product and the younger brother of current Bronco tight end James O'Neill, said Saturday that he's been granted his release to WMU and will join the football program this August.

There are quotes about O'Neill thinking he fits better at Western and all that. From what'd I'd heard (repeatedly and well in advance of O'Neill's transfer) it wasn't so much an issue of fit but one of technique and talent.

Eyeing talent. John Beilein swooped in on Evan Smotrycz ten seconds before he blew up, and there have been some scouting reports on Tim Hardaway Jr in a similar vein. The Chicago Sun-Times reports back from a local AAU tourney:

Speaking of the Mac Irvin Fire, the Hoops Report continues to be impressed with Tim Hardaway, Jr. The Class of 2010 2-guard out of Miami will be a perfect fit at Michigan. If Hardaway were in the state of Illinois he would certainly be one of the top five prospects in the senior class and probably check in at No. 3 overall behind Richmond and Leonard.

That's quite a statement. Illinois has nine kids in the Rivals 150, and if they happened to agree with the Sun-Times guys' assessment they'd have to slot Hardaway somewhere between #61, where Leonard sits, and #86, where the next Illinois player—PG Crandall Head—is ranked.

Speaking of Smotrycz, the Free Press has discovered that this Evan Metrics fellow can ball. A couple of quotes from a Scout analyst for you:

"He's done the unexpected, and he's really turned it up a notch," Daniels said. "At some big-time events, he proved himself against top competition. His performance at the NBPA camp was tremendous, and he showed parts of his game I didn't know he had."

Smotrycz's ability to handle the ball in the open floor and his passing ability was especially surprising.

"People are starting to catch on with him," said Daniels, who reiterated that Smotrycz is still solid with the Wolverines. "I'm sure some college coaches are sorry they missed out on him."

More of the same: skilled 6-9 forward who can handle, pass, and shoot.

Inflate, calculate. 1) Patrick Omameh is in engineering. 2) He is now much huger:

"I feel I play a whole lot stronger than when I came in, and I've put on about 30 pounds," Omameh said. "I weighed about 250-251 coming in, and the heaviest I've been since I've been here is 287. I still move as well as I ever did. ... I feel I'm ready to (compete for a starting job). Competition is always good."

Zounds. It says a lot about both Omameh and the shocking lack of depth on last year's offensive line that Omameh was on the travel team at whatever his weight was mid-season last year, which was not 287, or probably anywhere particularly close.

Boise? We will know about Boise State as the 2010 opener soon:

Boise State is close to finalizing a deal to fill the final slot in its 2010 nonconference schedule, and all signs point toward it not being UC Davis. With the Broncos already full up with nonconference games in weeks two through four, the thinking is that Boise State will be scheduling its big-time opponent for opening week, September 4, 2010.

The announcement should be sometime this week. Though Michigan, as discussed earlier, would make sense as an opponent I haven't heard anything specific in this instance. There have been general rumblings that Michigan is looking to upgrade the nonconference schedule a little bit with respectable-not-enormous opponents to go with ND and the usual rotation of MAC opponents and whatnot.

Assessed. Michigan has come in for evaluation by the good Doctor, and the upshot is pretty much what everyone's upshot is: eh, 7-5 and an uninspiring bowl game against an ACC also-also-ran. There's not a whole lot to disagree with, but I do think this is an excessively pessimistic take on the offensive line:

The '08 offensive line was an unmitigated, all-hands-on-deck disaster that sent the offense spiraling into one of the deepest, darkest holes in the universe -- last in the conference in passing, pass efficiency, scoring and total offense, and truly among the worst overall units in the country. So this is one area where returning seven different players who started multiple games last year -- four of whom began the season as backups, including one who entered fall camp as a defensive tackle -- is equal parts blessing and burden.

It may be some comfort that this isn't a young group: Six of the seven returnees, all but redshirt sophomore center Dave Molk, are in their fourth or fifth years, and should be further whittled into the nimble zone blockers Rodriguez's scheme requires, as opposed to the steamrolling grinders they were recruited to be.

This has been asserted before: there was a major difference between the all-and-by-all-we-mean-desperately-few-hands-on-deck disaster that the offensive line certainly was early in the season and rather non-disastrous performance of the offensive line the second half of the season. The tackles' pass protection and guards' second-level blocking remained issues, but those issues should both be mitigated by Steve Schilling's move inside. And to those seven returners Michigan adds five able bodies (the four redshirt freshmen and injury-stricken Mark Huyge), amongst them the two tackles who allowed Michigan to move Schilling inside and salve the most consistently irritating rash of a position.

I use the same heuristic DocSat does here—large numbers of returning starters are not necessarily good when they are upperclassmen who have proven extremely poor—in season previews, but usually reserve it for the Indianas for the world. I don't think it applies here. Michigan doesn't just return a bunch of sucky players, it adds significant depth and enters its second year in a new system on and off the field. Past results are not necessarily indicative of future performance.

Comments

los barcos

July 13th, 2009 at 11:35 AM ^

i know basketball recruiting does not equal football recruting etc etc etc .... call me paranoid but im going to try to stay even-keeled about Smotrycz until he signs his LOI.

Brian

July 13th, 2009 at 4:27 PM ^

Tom Izzo and Bob Huggins? People also say he's just not a post player right now and has a long way to go before he's strong enough to body up guys on the block. So it's not that other coaches wouldn't want him, but they wouldn't want him as much as Michigan and couldn't use him as quickly. It's the difference between being Darius Reynaud and Trindon Holliday.

UNCWolverine

July 13th, 2009 at 11:50 AM ^

O'Neill came in a 4-star and the 10th ranked OT in the country. How he'll end up MAYBE playing at WMU is beyond me.

Good on the bball recruiting. I also agree that hopefully these kids' status don't elevate to a point that they start taking calls from the upper echelon programs. Hopefully they'll remember who really wanted them all along.

Boise would be a great get.

I also think our OLine will be a pleasant surprise this fall.

El Jeffe

July 13th, 2009 at 12:51 PM ^

I noticed in the DocSat column that Matt says Tate "doesn't have a big arm." This seems to be a point of contention, since on this here blog here and here (and probably other places I'm too lazy to look up) it says otherwise.

Yo, QB evaluators. Tate: strong arm or not strong arm? I think we all agree that accuracy and other measurable intangibles are clearly strengths.

El Jeffe

July 13th, 2009 at 2:13 PM ^

what's the conclusion? Armstrong or Armnotstrong?

P.S. Either (1) the sarcasm detectors of Arrogance, Shock, and Chitown are off (not likely), or (2) the WLA's collective capacity to accept a shoutout is off (slightly more likely), or (3) my sarcasm detector is off at their brilliant pretense of their sarcasm detectors' being off (still more likely). Now I need two rulings.

Muttley

July 13th, 2009 at 2:29 PM ^

I don't have any stats to back it up, but I gotta think this returning O-line is a lot more effective blocking for North & South Minor than for two-hand touch East & West McGuffie.

Plus Sheridan (I applaud his effort) and Threet didn't exactly stretch opposing defenses.

jmblue

July 13th, 2009 at 4:57 PM ^

Pretty fair assessment from the Doctor. He brings up one thing I hadn't known: Texas is gaining ground in the all-time win percentage race. That could be a problem.

Ernis

July 13th, 2009 at 5:15 PM ^

Doc has some solid points but appears to neglect an important one. Last year, except for Schilling all O linemen were first-time starters. That is no longer the case... rather, quite the opposite.

Considering this along with their late-season improvement (as Brian dutifully emphasizes) there is reason to believe that experience was the primary missing ingredient. The unit should be at least par this season, methinks, if not better

insh'allah

goody

July 13th, 2009 at 5:16 PM ^

He was still a project with a lot of work ahead of him.

"Metrics" is blowing up and Beilein (or team scouts) deserves a ton of credit for getting him while he was just another recruit. Heres to Beilein (and RR) for uncovering talent that fits them instead of what the recruiting sites say you should recruit.

mgovictors23

July 14th, 2009 at 9:05 PM ^

I think the offensive line will be much improved this year. They really did get better as the year went on so I'm looking forward to see what they can do this year.

Great news to hear about basketball recruiting. I know alot of people had concerns about Belein's ability to recruit but so far he has been very impressive.