Seth

Previously: Hoke hosts Michigan Men's Football Experience.

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Admit it: you've had that dream where you're a member of the Michigan football team. You're hardly alone. No matter your actual talent and experience in football—or in my case the almost total lack thereof—if you're on this site you've probably already committed an embarrassingly large portion of your subconscious to inventing scenarios where you'd get to touch the banner, to sing The Victors in the locker room with a rose in your teeth, to knock your winged helmet against a silver one with bird poop stickers all over it.

Then you think about the various permanent complaints your body might have after four or five years of that. So maybe just for like two days. Two days spent living the life of a Michigan Wolverine. Too bad they don't sell tha…

Oh.

Oh they do.

The above is video from last year's Michigan Men's Football Experience, which is happening again this June 6-7.

Yes, You Join the Football Team!

For 48 hours you are a Michigan football player. You check into the team hotel, and arrive at team meetings 15 minutes early (or else you're late). You get assigned a jersey number and meet your coaches, Brady Hoke and Lloyd Carr, and their staff, and have dinner in the Stadium Club with a squad's worth of Michigan legends. On Day 2 you wake up at 6 a.m. and hit the field with your position coaches to learn fundamentals, possibly joining the ranks of the men on this planet who can claim they've been drilled by Greg Mattison on pad level.

You also review film, enjoy a pre-game meal, and finally get to suit up in the locker room, stand in the tunnel, and touch the banner while being played out by the greatest fight song this side of the galaxy.*

If that's not close enough to THE REAL THING™ for you, once you're registered send me an email and we'll put together an MGoBlog-style recruiting profile.

What's the Catch?

It costs money.

I have that. What's the cause?

Prostate cancer research. More specifically the Men of Michigan Prostate Cancer Research Fund. The university is at the vanguard of global research on prostate cancer, which is the most common form of cancer for men. The fund pays for research in gene fusion, hereditary risk, genetic screening techniques, and new drug therapies. There's more about the fund here. The short of it is there are few more active fronts in the battle of humans versus cancer than the research going on at Michigan, and that's what the fund supports.

Who came up with this?

The Michigan Men's Football Experience began in 2006, the brainchild of a prostate cancer survivor to honor the doctor who saved his life. The survivor was David Brandon (yes THAT David Brandon), then the CEO of Domino's. The doc was James Montie, then-chair of the U-M Department of Urology. Brandon approached Carr about the concept, and the two of them worked out the details. When he arrived in 2011, Brady Hoke was asked about continuing the tradition, to which he replied "Absolutely!"

Guru Reliability: High. Already long past eligibility, so unlikely to supplant Devin Gardner this year.

Variance: Low. Realistically your chances of playing in the NFL are going to be just about the same they were before you got here.

Ceiling: Low-plus. Role player of some variety, possibly important

General Excitement Level: Through the roof.

Projection:  A spot isn't cheap, and they tend to move fast. Also a lot of little donations are just as important to the fund as a few biggies. If you are unable to attend, you can still donate here. If you have any questions, email Doreen at footballexperience@umich.edu.

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* This is just opinion; there's a little ditty sung by a high school near Palomar I that is eerily similar to Bob Dylan's Like a Rolling Stone.

If you haven't played our free fantasy game yet on DraftStreet yet, this is the Saturday to try it. There's Michigan-Indiana. Florida-Ole Miss. Duke-FSU. Syracuse-Pitt. Kansas against a Big XII something or other. NC State vs. Miami. Lafayette vs. Ameri…say whaaaaa?

Okay so we're not adding the American and Lafayette rosters to this thing because there are already ALL THE ROSTERS (from the BCS teams) to make your teams. But seriously UNC-Virginia Tech. Arizona State at Washington. Otto Porter versus Saint John's.

And you will want every Otto, because there's $300 smackaroos we're giving out among the winners. Also if enough people sign up we get smackaroos. Also it costs you zero smackaroos. Also fun is had. And learning done.

How it Works

It's fantasy except instead of drafting one team at the beginning of the season they've broken it up into quick-hitting night leagues. Enrollment in our pool is free for MGoReaders, and there's $300 in the pool paid out among the Top 12 finishers as soon as the contest ends.

The contest will be salary-cap style drafting where everyone tries to assemble the best team out of the available players. You will have a $100,000 budget to build a team of 3 forwards, 3 guards, and 2 utility players. Each CBB player has been assigned a price based on their expected fantasy performance. You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts this Saturday at 11:00am EST, at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.

Note: you can't be eligible for prize money, even though entry is free, if you're from Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Vermont, or Puerto Rico.

Boo!

You're not allowed to make a team of all Wolverines.

Wherefore art thou Horford?

Smart Picks

Stauskas is only $9,336. UNC goes up against Virginia Tech's awful defense and Dexter Strickland ($9,498) has been getting high usage of late, with P.J. Hairston doubtful with a concussion. SirDominic Pointer, a Detroit boy, has been on a tear for St. Johns's but remains cheap--that's probably because they face Georgetown's D. Lafayette's chili is way thicker and meatier. Sorry America, I'm a Lafayette man.

CLICK HERE to register for this week's league.

We did it for football and it was a success, plus people got free money and stuff. Now MGoBlog partner-in-fantasy Draftstreet is going to let us try this for hoops.

Remind me what this is:

It's fantasy except instead of drafting one team at the beginning of the season they've broken it up into quick-hitting night leagues. Enrollment in our pool is free for MGoReaders, and this time there's $300 (up from $200) in the pool paid out among the Top 12 finishers as soon as each freeroll ends. Since there were way more interesting games on Saturday we chose to go with that day, although Michigan-Ohio State (and MSU, and like nobody else of any relevance whatsoever) plays Sunday.

This free contest will be salary-cap style drafting where everyone tries to assemble the best team out of the available players. You will have a $100,000 budget to build a team of 3 forwards, 3 guards, and 2 utility players. Each CBB player has been assigned a price based on their expected fantasy performance. You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts this Saturday at 11:00am EST at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.

Note: you can't be eligible for prize money, even though entry is free, if you're from Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Vermont, or Puerto Rico.

About last time:

Leaderboard? Leaderboard.

Unbwolverine rode Seth Doege and…Akeem Shavers? to victory, proving why did I waste so much gold on Venric Mark when Purdue was facing Indiana's rush defense. Also guys named Seth are can't-miss. Also this was a long time ago and you don't really care.

Smart bets:

Number 1 don't listen to anything I have to say about baskertball. Number 2, I think the trick to hoops is look for bad defenses: South Carolina (plays Auburn) is 289th to KenPom. Texas Tech's D is nearly as accommodating and they face Kansas!

CLICK HERE to register for this week's league.

Late last year, and then again last February Draftstreet.com let us host a freeroll for those interested in testing out their daily/weekly fantasy games. Last week we brought it back.

Remind me what this is:

It's fantasy except instead of drafting one team at the beginning of the season you build a new one each week. Enrollment in our pool is free for MGoReaders, and there's $200 in the pool paid out among the Top 12 finishers as soon as each freeroll ends.

Note: you can't be eligible for prize money, even though entry is free, if you're from Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, Montana, Vermont, or Puerto Rico.

You get a salary cap of $100,000 to pick two QBs, three RBs, two WRs, a TE, and two FLEX positions. You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts on Saturday 11/24 at 12:00pm ET at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.

About last week:

Congrats to kenchenzo, aka kenfizzle in these pages, who rode Landry Jones, Collin Klein and Tavon Austin to run up the score like an Al Borges team in the one game a year he releases the Fritzcracken. Other winners were people with Tajh Boyd or who discovered Army's rush defense, or were rewarded for Gardner/Roundtree homer picks: unbwolverine, tpsimm, mattpergo, WindyCityWolverine, kdefoor, fhcstar8, gbizz34, jacobak, imsande17, jchood, and hurt36.

Gardner was by far the Big Ten player of the week, accounting for 51.26 points. Best WR was Allen Robinson (47.7), best RB turned out to be the Lions' Zach Zwinak (28.1).

Q&A:

I asked Larry from DraftStreet a few questions about how they create their valuations.

How do you evaluate guys who are injured, for example Denard, or Rex Burkhead.

The salaries are usually under the assumption that the guy will be playing. Once in a while we might factor in how many reps they are getting and we might give that player a slightly discounted salary if it looks like they are getting less reps. This is usually not the case though.

What drives the values for a player? Is it based on stats, or recent success, or upcoming opponent, or all of these?

What we do is take the fantasy production historically, but recent performances are rated more heavily. Then we factor in the opposing defense, which is a big deal. For example your Devin Gardner had a huge performance last week and is mostly expected to be the starter, however Ohio State's defense is expected to be a much greater challenge than Iowa's so he remains a value pick. Conversely, Iowa's implosion last week down-rated their defense and drove Taylor Martinez's price up. Once we are done with this we have a manual process where we look through player news and injury reports and factor those things in accordingly.

CLICK HERE to register for this week's league.

Late last year, and then again last February Draftstreet.com let us host a freeroll for those interested in testing out their daily/weekly fantasy games. Lots of folks participated, knowledge was tested, fun was had, personal respect was destroyed, time was wasted, and then people won currency.

It's fantasy except instead of drafting one team at the beginning of the season you build a new one each week. Enrollment in our pool is free for MGoReaders, and there's $200 in the pool paid out among the Top 12 finishers as soon as each freeroll ends.

Way it works is you get a salary cap of $100,000 and use it to build a team of two QBs, three RBs, two WRs, a TE, and two FLEX positions. Each college football player has a price based on their expected fantasy performance [insert Ohio State joke]. So you can have your very own Matt McGloin for $13,597, but Whoa Johnny Manziel will cost you $21,040. It took me like five minutes to build my team:

(That I went with Devin in no way constitutes information—I know what you know)

The goal is to see how much people like it the next few weeks since it's a cool way to keep track of player value, and to do a basketball one starting in January. We'll have some of their guys on here from time to time and charts and stuff to show how and explain why Michigan's players are moving around the list. Fun AND educational guys!

You can adjust your roster up until the contest starts on Saturday 11/17 at 12:00pm ET at which time your rosters will lock and the Live Scoreboard will be available.

CLICK HERE to register for the league.

The following are images I created while putting together this week's Museday. I figured they might be useful here for future discussions of alignment and such. I can build more and add as we need.

Spread 5-Wide

The offense has gone 5-wide with an empty backfield. Rather than tip their hand  and delve into the 5th spot on the receiver depth chart, offenses will have a running back as one of the slot backs, and maybe a tight end too, so 005 personnel is pretty rare outside of Hail Mary situations. Some teams with a running QB will do this to give the QB and his line a 6-on-5 in the box. Defense counters with a dime back. In an obvious passing situation the 5-tech could easily be lifted for another linebacker to patrol the middle.

Diamond

The diamond formation (there are variants, some of which are unbalanced) is all about creating space away from the box for a talented receiver to get a free release and/or lots of blockers on a screen. MSU used it a bunch last year to utilize Keyshawn Martin's skills. If you're going against defensive backs who can't tackle or avoid blocks very well, it can be devastating, however it's really just a wrinkle, not an offense.

Wildcat

This is another package rather than a full offense. Note that the QB is split out as a slot receiver. Also note the personnel: 2 backs, 1 tight end. This is part of the Wilcat's success—it creates a spread look but until they line up this way the defense is matching personnel to a two-receiver set.

Spread

I've shown just one response to an under-center spread formation that Michigan used last year. Note that the SLB is mismatched against a slot receiver here. The more the offense spreads the field, the more linebackers end up playing in space. Often a 104 will be matched with a  dime formation for this reason.

Twins

"Twins" or "Trips" refers to receivers lining up on the same side of the formation, or maybe motioning there. How the defense reacts can tip whether they're in a man or zone coverage. Michigan in 2010 liked to do this in order to clear out the boundary corner and run Denard left with the halfback as lead blocker, putting pressure on the filling free safety and backside pursuit to close it down before Denard was free. When it worked we usually exclaimed something to the effect of "Martell Webb: secret weapon." Note how the linebackers have essentially swapped jobs because of the shift. Rather than come across with the receiver, the boundary corner will often come in where the WLB is set up here, and the SAM is left to deal with the slot receiver.

The Shotgun, the Nickel, and the Okie

The most common offense Michigan has faced over the last four years, and is likely to see the most often again this year. Note the three WR draws a nickelback in to guard the space in the slot. However there's no rule saying the defense has to defend its 3rd and longs with a passive nickel. Here's the Okie:

Okie Okie Okie Okie Okie! This is a designer alignment that threatens rushers from all over the line in order to confuse blocking assignments, but is otherwise your standard NFL-style 3-4 zone blitz.

The Future

Michigan will continue to use many sets but this one is particularly good for running with power while still having a killer passing game thanks to the abilities of the tight ends to reach many different routes and the relative isolation of talented receivers against CBs. It's an even formation that can attack either side equally, so the defense can't pick any one side to overload. Some variants on the 122:

Putting the TEs on the line gives the WRs a better release and gets them closer to their blocks. The downside is the U-back can't move before the snap anymore, so motion has to come from the WRs or the HB.

Same look as the first except the QB is in the shotgun. This makes the quarterback more of a rushing threat and the halfback less of one, a decent trade-off if Devin Gardner's legs are part of your quarterback. In 2014 I expect this will be our base offense as we transition to the power game, though it will take some development from the tight ends to get there.

Things You Do With Fullbacks:

This is a good formation to run with even though you don't have tight ends because the defense has matched the receivers with a nickelback. The FB can motion and should have lots of room in the flat to receive. A favorite of West Coast enthusiasts everywhere when the offense thinks it can win up-front but doesn't want pesky OLBs getting all over things.

In the shotgun the fullback is a "Superback" and hardly different from the RB. This is another run formation without tight ends like above except, again, you are trading the RB's downhill head start for the ability to use your QB's legs or get a pass off quickly. Expect to see this formation on 3rd down this year as Michigan loves Vincent Smith's blocking ability and the tight ends are iffy.

Offsetting the fullback gives him a head start on blocking in that direction or leaking out into a receiving route. Putting him inline in a true I-formation makes him a quicker strike on the FB dive and better ISO blocker on a run down the middle.

Split-backs is a compromise between some of the shotgun's strengths and weaknesses and the I-form's. It's a great inside or outside running set that provides the passer a comfortable protection shell, is why this was used so much by Michigan in the Brady & Navarre periods, and why it's still found in the NFL.

Going "Big"

Big sets are for running with lead blockers. You can go big from a shotgun or whatever. Note that the defense will usually respond to this near sellout set with a bigger front and a stacked box (here another LB has come in for a safety while the original SAM has his hand down to give the defense a 5-man front). I meant for the field corner to come in tighter here, since he's now the edge defender. Michigan's Okie package sometimes riffed off of 4-4 personnel even though it's supposed to be a 3-man front technically, as the WDE and SLB acted as OLBs and the strong safety attacked from the edge.

Same thing, different defensive response. The safety has been lifted for an extra 3-tech. In this the nose tackle has two-gap responsibility but we've seen Michigan go with 5-3 personnel then put the SAM's hand down on the edge for a Bear look.

Goal Line

Close to the endzone the offense can no longer spread the field vertically, which hurts all offenses but the effect is felt greater on the passing game and its best formations, while running in a crowded area is still running in a crowded area. Teams will go BIG or forget about receivers altogether:

I'll update this cheatsheet as the year goes on and we see different things if people find it useful. Comments and suggestions welcome.