The QB Revolving Door That Was
I keep hearing a lot of things said about our dearly departed QBs of the last couple years, and some of the assumptions don't make sense to me. This is the way I hear the story told, without dates but in chronological order:
1. Threet chooses Georgia Tech and Mallett chooses Michigan
2. Threet chooses to transfer to Michigan
3. Mallett doesn't like Michigan and decides to transfer to Arkansas
4. Threet chooses to transfer away from Michigan
Tell me if this doesn't make more sense. Bear with me as this is intricate:
1. Mallett grew up a Razorback fan but he wouldn't start over Mustain (or he assumed as much), so he goes to the next-best statue-QB school available: Lloyd Carr's Michigan Wolverines
2. Threet grew up a Michigan fan, but knowing that Mallett would be there, he shied away
3. Mallett doesn't like Michigan and Michigan doesn't like Mallett. Even the football seems to hate Mallett, as it finds ways to slip out of his hands time and time again.
4. Mitch Mustain transfers to USC. Mallet transferring to Arkansas becomes a question of when, not if. Carr knows this.
5. Carr looks furiously for the best available option. He knows Threet would transfer if he knew that Mallett was leaving, so he tells him that. Threet can't tell anyone that he knows Mallett is transferring, though.
6. Michigan has a bad season, Carr is gone, Rodriguez is hired.
7. Threet sees he's not in our long term plans anymore. His transfer is a question of when, not if. The wide open starting job of last season kept him at bay for a year.
8. Rodriguez knows the situation and looks furiously for two QB recruits. He is telling them that Threet is as good as gone. (How do you get two comparably talented QBs to be part of the same class, with last year's starter returning? Perhaps the reason we kept losing commits was because they kept being assured Threet was transferring, but it wasn't happening.)
9. Threet transfers; hello starting freshman QB! (edit: Notice that we had no more QB decommits as soon as the transfer was made public.)
The big difference in timeline 2 is that everyone's actions are reactions to something external rather than unprovoked. What do you think? Is there evidence that Threet really opted to transfer to a volatile coaching situation, knowing he would sit behind a 5-star QB for four years? That makes no sense to me, especially since he transferred again this offseason because he doesn't want to be a benchwarmer.
.....I would have been highly surprised for us to have either Forcier or Robinson "de-commit" given that the smoke about Threet's transfer really began to show up after national signing day:
http://www.maizenbrew.com/2009/2/13/758599/steven-threet-transferring
Also, Tate had already been in school for a month. Other than that, your conspiracy theory has legs, I guess.
Got my sequence a little mixed up. RichRod could have still told recruits Threet was transferring or being demoted, but nothing material happened until after signing day, yes.
he got tate to commit after the first game of the season before threet was even the starter. this makes no sense
But what of the recruits that did decommit. Forcier just seems like a die hard Wolverine and nothing would shake his commitment (god bless him).
Anyway, that is my weakest point, and I just threw that out there. The ones that I feel stronger about are that a) it was all Mitch Mustain's fault and b) Threet transferred only *after* he knew that Mallet was transferring, even though that wasn't public information. This is a guy who obviously wants to start and he leaves a pretty good situation at Georgia Tech so that he can sit out a year and then be behind Mallet on the depth chart? I don't get it. I remember reading that he transferred before GT changed their offense, so if nothing changed at GT at the time of his transfer, something must have changed at Michigan.
His situation at GT wasn't promising. Chan Gailey preferred Taylor Bennett and the Offensive coordinator (who recruited Threet) left Gatech. He would have been #2 on the depth, but with Nesbitt creeping up behind him.
Why not add this to your conspiracy theory list:
Steven Threet knew Gailey would be canned, and that Paul Johnson would become head coach and, ultimately, would give Nesbitt the starting job.
Georgia Tech's flexbone under Paul Johnson might be the only offense in the country that depends more on the QB as a running threat than RichRod's. Threet wouldn't have stood a chance at PT there.
To be fair, not many people would. Josh Nesbitt did quite well there. That might be ne of the offenses that has more reads than RR's too, frankly GT is lucky that they had Nesbitt and Dwyer there, they could have went 3-9 without them (although they did have a good DC, huh, I wonder what that would be like...)
GT has had stud running backs for like 10 years: Pj Daniels, Tashard Choice, Joe Burns etc...and we've had dual threat QB's more years than not over the last 10 as well. The only thing Gailey was good at was recruiting. As far as coaching in a game...he was terrible. PJ is just a good coach finally getting the most out of these players. I will say that im glad my two favorite teams run exciting and innovative offenses
That's all it took for him to commit. When your a senior in HS and better than Michigan's QB (Sheridan and Threet) it doesn't need to make sense.
To any QB with the qualities that RR was looking for, it didn't take a rocket scientist to realize that Michigan didn't have one on the roster last year.
It doesn't shoot down your theory or anything, but I don't think Ryan Mallet would be worried about starting over Tom Brady much less Mustain. That kid had ego to burn.
that's exactly what happened
Not necessarily why
I think you're missing a couple of things, though there is some validity to this:
--- I believe the coaching staff changed at Georgia Tech after Threet got there, didn't it? Or if that's not correct, I think he found that he didn't like the staff when he got there.
--- I don't know what role it played, but whether Mallet transfered or not Michigan was looking at a really thin depth chart at QB. They had the Coner and a LOI from unheralded Weinke (now at Iowa). This is because the elder Forcier transferred.
--- Because he had to red-shirt, Threet would have ended up a year behind Mallett. He also may have thought that Mallett was an NFL early entry candidate - leaving Threet with two years of eligibility after Mallett left early. (That's a wild speculation, but that's what this post is about, right?)
--- I don't really believe that Rodriguez needed to tell recruits that Threet was transfering in order to get them to sign up. It was pretty obvious that Threet didn't have a lock on the starting job, regardless of his eligibility. Additionally, there was NO ONE in the depth chart behind him. It is pretty easy to recruit a QB when you essentially have a one-man depth chart and that one man is neither a stud or a good fit for your offense.
If you pull at this thread further you'll find (I think) that Mustain really wanted to go to USC but they signed someone first. So he jumped at Arkansas next. When that was done, Mallett was left to go to Michigan. I also thought there was something in there about Notre Dame too, though I can't remember how they factored in.
that I still don't have any interest* in this theory. It's intricate, thought out, detailed and not McFarlinesque. But I couldn't care less even if every assumption in it was true.
*not knocking the OP, just saying
I'm pretty sure Threet transferred here long before Mallett decided to leave. Mustain didn't leave Arkansas until December 2007, IIRC. Threet had committed to transferring here well before that.
who shot JFK..
And that was only after J.R. was the man who shot Liberty Valence.
Late April/Early May 2007 - Mustain to USC
July 2007: Threet transfers to Michigan. Coach, I'm going to go back to Michigan, and I'm going to beat Mallett out for that starting job,' " Jacobs said Threet told him.
December 2007: Rodriguez Hired. Mallett decides to transfer. Threet is the beneficiary of the transfer and UM pays the price in 2008
So here is a question for you Mr. Conspirarcy, why would Mallett wait so long to transfer to Arkansas if that is where he really wanted to go? If he had transferred in the summer like Threet did, then he would have only had to sit out the 2007 season and could have been qb at Arkanss in 2008.
I think your trying to polish a turd. UM has gone through QBs as you said but no matter how you speculate as to why, it isn't reassuring and doesn't really look good either.
Griff, that's a lousy straw man construction if I've ever seen one. No one is attempting to polish a turd here. He's merely speculating about the circumstances.
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