The 20th Ranked 2010 Class... Tire Fire Edition
Looking through the roster and seeing a lack of seniors it is quite amazing to go back and look at how bad the "20th ranked" 2010 class turned out to be for the school, and why this team is so young. Yes there is always attrition and if 60-70% of your recruits make it to senior day you should be happy but this was an epic tire fire.
Here is a list of guys who essentially are on the side of milk cartons (15 names): Cullen Christian, Marvin Robinson, Ken Wilkins, Carvin Johnson, Conelius Jones (edit), Antonio Kinard, Ricardo Miller, Christian Pace, Jerald Robinson, Davion Rogers, Terrence Talbot, Terry Talbot, Austin White, DJ Williamson, Ray Vinopal.
Add the infamous Demar Dorsey to that list although I am not sure he is now considered an official recruit.
Only real contributors - Devin, JMFR, Richard Ash, Courtney Avery, Jibreel Black, Dileo, Hagerup (err), Jeremy Jackson, and sorta kinda Furman. Stephen Hopkins did pitch in a for a while. I count 5 front line contributors .... if you are generous and include Ash, then 6 out of 27 players. EDIT: Jordan Paskorz also back line contributor. I don't have much to contribute to that in any form of analysis other than to say something about a bare cupboard and point to this as a reason so many young guys have had to play the past 2 years. [original post incorrectly had Gallon in 2010, was a 2009 recruit]
September 17th, 2013 at 12:36 PM ^
AWESOME, MAN!!!
September 17th, 2013 at 11:28 AM ^
to other teams that have coaching changes and scheme changes (e.g. Gerg to Greg, Spread to Manball)?
That would be interesting to know.
September 17th, 2013 at 11:32 AM ^
College teams are 125 players on average, 85 of which are scholarship, of which 66 typically make up the depth chart, of which 22 are starters.
Divide these numbers by 4 classes, you get an expected average for each class of:
31 players, 21 scholarship players, 16.5 on depth chart and 5-6 starters.
You mentioned 10 real contributors, of which 7 are current starters:
Devin, Gallon, JMFR, Avery, Black, Dileo, Jackson
So while the 2010 class may have been light at the bottom, it is fine at the top, with 7 starters. Yes, yes, you should expect to have more seniors starting than freshmen, but the point is, this class isn’t that much of a tire fire given the top talent it brought in, and that it fields 7 out of 22 starters.
September 17th, 2013 at 11:49 AM ^
I was doing a similar math in my head and I disagree. I dont consider Jackson a starter - I guess you could put him out there if you are extremely generous but I think Gallon, Dileo are your 2 starters and the 3rd guy I would list as Joe Reynolds now and Darboh would have been if not for injury. You always have to start 22 guys so calling someone a starter by default is not really the way I'd analyze it.... Also you need your 22 starters AND reasonably in college another 18 or so serious contributors to fill out the backups and special teams (kickers / snappers / return team). And the starters should be relatively top heavy in class if everything is on schedule in the program i.e. your seniors and juniors should be a good proportion of your starters. But even allowing for the "class doesn't matter" you need to generate 10-11 people out of every class to fill in that 40-44 or so roster spots you need that gets major playing time (starters or a key backup ala Avery) when facing a top end opponents. I'd say this class has 5. (Jackson I find to be a default option at WR IMO)
September 17th, 2013 at 11:50 AM ^
Which should be considered at least a half class. So divide those numbers by 4.5 or 5 and 7 starters looks even more impressive.
But really 2010 is so long ago in today's college football era. So much has changed for this team. Coaches, schemes, our QB ties his shoes, etc. To be worried about that "tire fire" from 2010 still would be silly. If our classes (all pretty well ranked mind you) under Rich Rod would have worked out, he might still be our coach. Instead we have Brady Hoke. And I am okay with that.
2008 #10 - http://sports.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/teamrank/2008/all/all
2009 #8 - http://sports.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/teamrank/2009/all/all
September 17th, 2013 at 12:11 PM ^
I really disagree with your reasoning.
First, as you concede, rosters (especially at top programs like Michigan, fergodsake) should be more heavily skewed towards seniors and juniors, and should feature very few freshmen. Your calculations completely ignore this. I would expect that a 66 man depth chart would have at least 20-22 seniors, with 12-14 of those being starters. The fact that we have 6 starters and only 8 (at most) in the depth chart at all is a massive failure. That is what is killing us. We have talent, but it is all SOOOO young. If we had senior versions of Thomas, Taylor, Countess, Pipkins, Kalis and a few other linemen, we would be scary good. Instead, our roster is made up primarily of underclassmen, which is killing us.
Second, saying that the 2010 class is "fine at the top" is a huge stretch. I will give you Devin and JMFR. (Gallon is great, but as mentioned up thread, he was class of 2009). The other four that you mentioned - Avery, Black, Dileo, Jackson - no disrespect intended, but these are not "top talent" as you say. Avery has developed into a solid player, but if we are being honest, he would not have been a started on pre-RR teams, nor would he likely start on post 2014 teams, given the talent that we are bringing in. Again, no disrespect intended - he would certainly play on those teams, but he would not be a starter. Ditto for Black.
As for Dileo, I am reluctant to say anything negative, because he has been such a huge success for us, but a 5'8" non-fast receiver is a great contributor, not a "top talent." Again, it is a testament to both him and the coaching that he has been so good for us, but you can't point to Dileo as one of the top 5 players in the class to say that the class was a success. And Jackson has been just a guy. Has RR recruited better receivers, do you really think that he would be starting for us?
September 17th, 2013 at 12:23 PM ^
I agree with much of what you wrote except the 12-14 senior starters; that strikes me as ambitious esp with a lot of RS sophomores and junior types contributing mightily. 12-14 players who are starters or key backups out of a class? Yes agree. If you can average 11-12 a class that is 44-48 contributors to a team and then you throw in 4-5 freshmen who are college ready (rather than the 10-13 we seem to be forced to play), and you are at upper 40s/low 50s "contributors" overall. The rest of what you wrote I agree with and I kind of get a kick out of these people who say "this is the past, why does it matter??". No this is the current... 2008's class is the past. 2010's class is impacting this team immensely; it is why a lot of very young guys who probably are not ready for prime time (i.e. they can be servicable but impactful - no) are out there in lieu of their peers who should be out there with 2-3 years more seniority. Last point on the WR's - one night I was looking through the classes Rich Rod brought in and one class had 5 WRs. That was pretty shocking. It might have been this 2010 class, not sure off my memory - but when you look at our current WR situation and realize one of those classes had 5 WRs in lieu of say interior offensive lineman, it is a double whammy since we lack depth both at the place we recruited a ton of volume AND where we did not recruit much volume.
September 17th, 2013 at 12:16 PM ^
What about 5th years? To say 4 classes is not exactly accurate
September 17th, 2013 at 2:50 PM ^
September 18th, 2013 at 8:43 AM ^
Even the best lineman RR recruited were worse than Glasgow, Miller, & Kalis.
September 17th, 2013 at 11:33 AM ^
Looking at that list reminds me of two things: none of those guys jump off the page as stud recruits, and (I'm too lazy to look it up anyway) I don't see a lot of defensive linemen on that list. Not sure how much not having that tire fire would help us today, since according to the general feeling in the past four days, our problem is that we don't have any senior all-american DL types to collapse pockets.
Mostly, we should just look at this thread as a reminder that we should have patience and perhaps temper our expectations a bit.
September 17th, 2013 at 2:54 PM ^
According to Rivals, we had five recruits that were listed then in 2010 as either DE or DT:
- Jibreel Black
- Jordan Paskorz (now a TE, of course)
- Ken Wilkins (gone)
- Richard Ash
- Terry Talbott (gone)
September 17th, 2013 at 2:57 PM ^
According to Rivals, Cullen Christian was the highest rated recruit.
Jibreel Black is the most productive DL from the 2010 class. The other (Ash, Wilkins, Talbott and Paskorz) have done nothing or no longer on the team.
September 17th, 2013 at 11:35 AM ^
September 17th, 2013 at 11:36 AM ^
September 17th, 2013 at 12:54 PM ^
September 17th, 2013 at 1:50 PM ^
September 17th, 2013 at 11:47 AM ^
It's not totally, 100% up-to-date, but I keep tabs on all these guys. The 2010 class was truly a treasure.
http://www.touchthebanner.blogspot.com/p/ex-wolverine-encyclopedia.html
September 17th, 2013 at 12:14 PM ^
September 17th, 2013 at 12:23 PM ^
I appreciate the continued effort, alum96, but there isn't anything we can do about it. We can only wait for Saturday night.
September 17th, 2013 at 12:35 PM ^
Good points -- fire RichRod!
September 17th, 2013 at 12:43 PM ^
There is something I find disturbingly enjoyable about watching a bad thread get picked apart while the OP tries vainly to defend it. It's like somebody cutting a rancid, Taco Bell double bean burrito wet fart and trying to convince the room that it offers the scent of sweet perfume.
September 17th, 2013 at 1:14 PM ^
September 17th, 2013 at 1:06 PM ^
The only way to make the bad posts stop is to not comment in them.
September 17th, 2013 at 1:19 PM ^
I come to this blog every day to learn more and more about topics that occurred years ago and have not been discussed. Hopefully tomorrow I can find out if the Allies defeated those damn Krauts.
September 17th, 2013 at 1:29 PM ^
In a perverse way, I love these META "is it worthy?" threads. There's something fascinating about observing cranky bloggers debate whether or not a topic has adequately been exhausted on the board previously.
FTR, there almost always is a prior thread on some topic. But, from my perspective, it is ok for such topics to be rehashed yet again. CAVEAT: unless the same thread was posted earlier in the day.
We have certainly talked about the fallout from the 2010 recruiting class previously. However, there is one relevant nugget that it was impossible to fully comment on UNTIL NOW. With Michigan's bad performance against Akron, and our disastrous running game (tied to the OL performance,) we have confirmation. Yes, the lack of upper-classroom has had a bad affect on Michigan's play, and needs to modify expectations for 2013. If we were starting 10 - 15 Seniors & another 10 - 15 Juniors, Michigan would be in a vastly different place.
I vaguely remember Brian observing years ago that our youth would affect Michigan's celing in 2013, especially with the fallout from atrocious RR OL recruiting. IIRC, Brian predicted that we wouldn't really see Hoke & Michigan return to prominence until 2014. Last week's (almost) debacle, and this thread's observation, are reaffirming Brian's prior prediction.
September 17th, 2013 at 2:33 PM ^
You know what I like discussing more than "is it worthy" in threads? Grammar and, more importantly, fonts. Your choice of boldface font is disturbing. It is offensive to the eye and I think there is unwritten MGoEtiquite regarding the use of italics and boldface font that you have violated here. Anyone agree/disagree? Did you ask Mrs.K before going bold? I'll take her style over yours everyday and twice on Sunday. ;-)
Seriously, though, the "don't like it, don't read/comment" response obviously applies to this thread but there are some that deserve bashing. In my book, any thread that even hints at how Rodriguez sucks should get bashed. I suffered through the 1+ years of this sh-t on the Board and it near ruined MGoBlog for me. Lets not wake the dead, okay people?
September 17th, 2013 at 3:52 PM ^
The purpose of stars (in theory) is to say how quickly someone could compete at the D1 level. So a 5 star should be able to take a spot as a freshman. This could be lower class guys are just the best for the job.
For a comparison, I pulled Alabama's starters. SR includes 5th years and the JR and SR numbers include the JuCo transfers at that year of eligibility.
Offense (3-SR, 4-JR, 4-SO, 0-FR)
Defense (4-SR, 7-JR, 0-SO, 0-FR)
Special Teams (3-SR, 2-JR, 0-SO, 1-FR) The freshman is the new long snapper.
Naturally there is playing time for underclassmen but even though they pull 4-5 stars they still have upperclassmen starting instead.
I think any time a team has a large number of young guys start it does beg the question why.