M FB 2014: Now featuring talent and depth, part 2.

Submitted by Mich1993 on

Now that I had the table of talent and depth for 2014, I was curious how this compared to the 2013 team and a projected 2015 team.  Here’s the table of 2013, 2014 and 2015.  For 2015, I assume no attrition which is optimistic but for Brady Hoke’s tenure at Michigan not far off (mentally subtract 2-3 if you like). 

 

 

2013 Total 4*+, JR>

2014 Total 4*+, JR>

2015 Total 4*+, JR>

CB

1

3

3

Safety

0

1

3

LB

0

3

4

DT

1

1

3

DE

2

2

3

 

 

 

 

QB

1

1

1

RB

1

1

4

T

2

0

1

G

0

0

3

C

0

0

0

WR

1

2

3

TE

0

0

1

Total

9

14

30

 

At the top level, this matches my perception that the overall team should be better in 2014 and much better in 2015.  In 2014, we’ll have 50% more 4*+ JRs and SRs then in 2013.  By 2015, we’ll have double the 4*+ JRs and SRs from 2014 for a total of around 30. 

The good news for 2014 from this table is CB and LB play should be better and maybe safety.  That sounds to me like an improved defense.  The bad news is the OL loses two 4* SRs and has no 4*+ JRs/SRs to replace them with.  There are three 4* players in their third year at Michigan (Magnuson, Kalis and Bars).  This gets a lot better in 2015 with four 4*+ JRs on the OL.

 

Individual Players

Now, let’s look at indivual players as a check on the usefulness of the criteria.  Here’s the list of 2013 and 2014 players who met or will meet the criteria.

2013

2014

Jibreel Black

Raymon Taylor

Q Washington

Brennen Beyer

Taylor Lewan

Devin Gardner

Michael Schofield

Blake Countess

Jeremy Gallon

Terry Richardson

Fitz Touissant

Jarrod Wilson

Raymon Taylor

Joe Bolden

Devin Gardner

James Ross

Brennen Beyer

Jenkins-Stone

 

Ondre Pipkins

 

Mario Ojemudia

 

Justice Hayes

 

Devin Funchess

 

Dennis Norfleet

 

 

For 2013, of the 6 who graduated, 3 were NFL draft picks and all 9 of the players were starters and significant contributors.  Going into 2014, 9 of the 14 have already been starters and two more (Bolden and Ojemudia) have played significant snaps and have 2 years left to make a larger impact.  Of the remaining 3, Jenkins-Stone and Justice Hayes may both make a contribution this year.  This leaves only Terry Richardson as an unlikely starter/significant contributor, and he might be in line for playing time if we didn’t have such a logjam of talented CBs.

 

It would be nice if there were more stars on this list, but 11 of these players still have their two best years ahead of them so that could change.  Come 2015, there will be close to 30 players of this caliber on the roster.  If the recruiting and attrition stays the same as the last few years, we should have 30 or more players of this caliber every single year going forward.

 

Looks to me like a step forward in 2014 and the sky’s the limit from 2015 on out.

 

Comments

aiglick

July 18th, 2014 at 9:58 AM ^

Thanks for this. It's not overly complex and makes assumptions but presents the data clearly. Looking at this we would be justified in expecting improvement this year and then a very good year next year. If improvement isn't made in the next two years then it is probably the coaching staff.

Again thanks for expanding on the original work.

MGoStrength

July 18th, 2014 at 2:57 PM ^

I've always thought that 2014 would have a really good defense and that the offense should have really good skill players, but the o-line is still a year away.  But, 2015 looks poised to finally be UM's "breakout year" where they get back to pummelling the bottom of the league and beating our rivals.  I almost wish they played OSU/MSU on the road in 2015 just to stick it to them....that and they could use the help of getting them at home this year :)

M-Dog

July 21st, 2014 at 9:21 AM ^

I wish we were not breaking in a new QB in 2015.  It nullifies some of the progress that is made by then.

Hopefully we can lead some games by enough points to get Shane some meaningful game-situation reps.

 

josie34

July 23rd, 2014 at 6:21 PM ^

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I dumped the Dope

August 1st, 2014 at 1:10 PM ^

What I hope for, in the future, is that we can take the next step in this process and level out the classes.  More specifically, with a huge recruiting class that we had, fills up the slots with an overabundance of freshmen...they travel thru the program until there is an overabundance of seniors...very cool for one season as the planets are theoretically aligned (OSU's nearly all-senior OL of last year comes to mind) for a good run.  But come the next season the vicious circle can begin once again.

Hopefully there are plans in place to slowly level this out so there isn't a 4 year cycle of bust and boom to the point where we are "simply reloading" every year and there's a near-even distribution of Fr-So-Jr-Sr in the program with almost every Fr being a RS.  Ultimately that's where we have to go to maintain our historical status in CFB.