After one year, Devontae Dobbs is done with Sparty
December 18th, 2020 at 9:33 AM ^
With the Belleville to Sparty pipeline fizzling, hope we can bring in an assistant that will repair the relationship as there is some strong talent there year after year.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:43 AM ^
And yet they don’t win any championships!
December 18th, 2020 at 9:45 AM ^
This right here. Two schools in this state that have an enormous amount of talent yet get out coached every playoff year, WB and Belleville!
December 18th, 2020 at 10:42 AM ^
Michigan doesn’t have an enormous amount of high-end talent. This is well established. A typical year brings 3-4 blue chip recruits. And not all blue chips pan out anywhere.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:57 AM ^
Michigan doesn’t have an enormous amount of high-end talent. This is well established. A typical year brings 3-4 blue chip recruits.
You must have a really high standards for what you consider blue chip recruits. Most would consider 4 and 5-star guys blue chip. In fact when they did an assessment of "blue chip" QBs they considered anyone with a Rivals ranking over an 85 which would include quite a few 3-stars. It seems like you're only giving that moniker to like top 100 kids. If that's your standard than no one outside of OSU, Bama, UGA, & now Clemson (not pre-2019) consistently bring in more than 4 of those per year. My response would be...so what?
December 18th, 2020 at 11:05 AM ^
Oh interesting. You mean the teams that make the playoffs every year. Imagine that.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:11 AM ^
Oh interesting. You mean the teams that make the playoffs every year.
Please see ND, MSU, Oklahoma, Washington, and Clemson pre 2019 as teams that make the playoffs that don't recruit like that. Sure, being Bama & OSU helps. If that's your standard, good luck. That's never happening. UM will never put together a 4-year run of being in the top 3 of recruiting classes like OSU & Bama have. It's never historically happened at UM and probably never will.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:29 AM ^
Completely agree. Lots of people on this board think we should be winning like OSU, Bama, and Clemson (which has to be listed in the same category. Their run dates back longer than 2019) Not going to happen. That is actually what I was saying. You only have a handful of teams that can recruit at that level. And we all can speculate how that is possible that they keep doing it. But you can't include the others on the list just cuz they made it once. Yes, ND is about to make their second one (counting BCS). The first time around they belonged about as much as MSU did when they got throttled by Bama. None of the others save for MSU are in a division with OSU.
December 18th, 2020 at 12:59 PM ^
Oklahoma has been there 4 times and Oregon has also been in there as well. It's really OSU & Bama when it comes to recruiting, Clemson & UGA are just outside of them. Then, it LSU, ND, Oklahoma, and randoms like Washington or MSU. Out of the 6 years of the playoffs and the 24 teams that have made it, UM has out-recruited almost half of them. Only Bama, OSU, FSU in 2014, UGA, and Clemson last year to date have out recruited them. UM has a better overall team talent than a good chunk of playoff teams.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
And yet these players have done nothing in college as of yet.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:34 AM ^
Maybe he was over-rated?
December 20th, 2020 at 9:55 AM ^
Isn't this the kid that made disparaging remarks about us and everyone else who recruited him?
December 18th, 2020 at 10:08 AM ^
Nor are they any good in college
December 18th, 2020 at 9:48 AM ^
Funny thing is by far the least heralded Belleville to MSU kid that class - Jalen Hunt - has looked by far the most promising.
Long story short, recruiting is... confusing
December 18th, 2020 at 10:11 AM ^
It’s actually not if you do your due diligence on kids and continue to recruit at a high level every year not one great class then next class is just ok. That’s how you overcome some misteps
December 18th, 2020 at 10:38 AM ^
you should be a recruiting coordinator.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:58 AM ^
You think Matt Dudek is identifying the talent?? Come on man he sets up logistics and baby sits recruits on visits. You guys really don’t know how this all works do you.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:20 AM ^
It’s actually not if you do your due diligence on kids and continue to recruit at a high level every year not one great class then next class is just ok. That’s how you overcome some misteps
I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm just not sure there is evidence to suggest this. Of course there are always guys that out-play their rankings like Chris Olave, Jon Runyan, etc. And, there are always misses like Aubry Solomon, Drake Harris, & Shane Morris. But, what programs/coaches have a system of "doing due dilligence" that is more effective at predicting college playing success than the recruiting rankings? Do we even know what they are doing or are you just suggesting that schools that play above their recruiting rankings like Wiscy are doing something different with recruiting? That sounds like a guess. Maybe it's just better coaching than a recruiting strategy. I don't see any non-recruiting elite program consistently getting into the CFP. And, if they do it's because they have an elite QB. The teams that are consistently getting into the CFP are Bama, OSU, & Clemson. All have either elite recruiting and/or elite QBs.
December 18th, 2020 at 12:03 PM ^
No what I’m suggesting is you leave no stone unturned when you are recruiting a kid you talk to everyone in that school. I knew those Belleville kids were issues because I have a buddy who teaches there. I also know Seldon is a great hard working kid with tremendous speed.
My point above is Michigan puts together a great class than a meh class the following year. You can’t do that in recruiting. If you want to makes your misses not be factors you out recruit them. Imagine taking a top QB after Mcaffery that isn’t Joe Milton. Dylan leaves but you got another stud there. Look at WR recruiting got two great ones last year in Henning and Wilson then a great haul this year. Now get two more next year that are top kids.
It’s the old Rickey Powers love hate relationship with Michigan he talked about
December 18th, 2020 at 12:39 PM ^
My point above is Michigan puts together a great class than a meh class the following year.
I haven't noticed that. The only down class was 2018. JH's classes have been 8, 5, 22, 8, 14, & 12. The average per player ranking has also been quite consistently around .90 with again the 2018 class as the outlier as .88. The only problem I have is the downward trend and the fact that our best class in 2017 #5 overall and .91 per player average had the most attrition. We missed on too many guys in that class, or they had bad luck with injuries, or we didn't develop them enough. They would have been seniors this year. Obviously some went to the NFL, but not having guys like Solomon, Singleton, Anthony, Black, McCaffrey, & Hudson and Thomas, Collins opting our really hurt the team. Lets say McCaffrey, Hudson, & Solomon panned out and stayed and Thomas & Collins opted in that would be a drastically different team with top recruits at positions of need. You'd be looking at a 5-star DT in the middle, a 4-star QB, a high 4-star CB, and a our top WR returning and all providing senior experience. This also gets several guys who struggled off the field (Milton, Gray, Kemp, freshman OT) and puts in a highly recruited senior. I've been saying for a while that recruiting is not our problem. Maybe it's the problem with beating OSU, but that doesn't account for the other 13 games on our schedule.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
My take on recruiting is that it's probabilistic in nature. I think of each recruit as being a roll of a weighted die. The ratings are a measure of how weighted that die is, not a guarantee of what number that die will land on. Let's do a math experiment with really rough numbers. If we assume each rating category has the following probability of being an above-average player:
2-star: 5%
3-star: 25%
4-star: 60%
5-star: 85%
Then consider three classes:
2, 2, 3, 3, 4 (MSU)
3, 3, 4, 4, 5 (UM)
3, 4, 4, 5, 5 (OSU)
Then we would expect that those three classes would end up with 1.2, 2.6, and 3.2 above average players, respectively.
However, given these classes, MSU still has a 25% chance of having as many or more above average players as UM (and 13% against OSU). Similarly, UM has a 47% chance of having as many or more above average players as OSU.
Now, the larger the classes become, the wider the discrepancies become. But the point is that no individual player is guaranteed to play at any level in college based on any sort of rating. Recruiting rankings are only broadly predictive in the aggregate, not the individual level.
December 18th, 2020 at 12:02 PM ^
Although this is not calculus, username still checks out
December 18th, 2020 at 6:24 PM ^
Michigan has totally dominated in-state recruiting. According to 247, Michigan landed 18 (I gave us Benny) of the top 31 (I considered the highest rated 5-7 recruits in each year. The numbers varied a bit because of strength of a class but in most years it was top 7). MSU landed 5, 3 if you don’t include the two recent Belleville transfers. The notion that Michigan doesn’t recruit Michigan well or that the Belleville pipeline is producing lots of quality players for MSU is nonsense.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:40 AM ^
Can he play DT?
December 18th, 2020 at 9:56 AM ^
Probably but he's better off on offense. Doubt Michigan kicks the tire on this after what a nightmare the recruitment was the first time around
December 18th, 2020 at 11:23 AM ^
Yeah, I hope the guy puts it together but currently red flags all over the place. They'll likely be wise to stay away.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:40 AM ^
Ugh. I can’t edit the initial headline. Can a mod? Apparently he was there two years.
Played 4 games as a freshman and got his redshirt.
Didn’t play at all this year.
Essentially, with the Covid waiver, he will be a 3rd year player with freshman eligibility at the start of next season.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:19 AM ^
He will end up somewhere like Mississippi State. From one MSU to another.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:44 AM ^
I wonder if we make a run at the Belleville guys (him and Barnett). We could use help at OL and CB.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:59 AM ^
Barnett, I would kick the tires, as it seemed like there was mutual interest. Dobbs would be a firm "no" for me. He didn't seem interested in UM at all and was also pretty vocal about it.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:28 AM ^
Not only that, Dobbs was way overrated in high school. I go watch 2-3 Belleville games a year and he was fine, but not impressive.
For example, I watched a playoff game; it was close. You would figure "Now is the time to run behind our 5-star tackle to get key yards." Nope. He didn't dominate, blow holes open, and looked low energy.
In contrast, Damon Payne looked like a man out there. I'm not sure how he'll do at Alabama, as that's the highest level of intra-team competition there is, but I'm not surprised they recruited him.
Barnett would be worth our time if he wants to be a CB, as he is a real athlete; if he wants to stay on the offensive side of the ball, we're good.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:57 AM ^
This was more in line with what I had read during his recruitment as well. Kind of reminiscent of a Malik McDowell type; has all the physical attributes, but no motor and doesn't care to be coached to put it all together.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:44 AM ^
I think everyone who touted Dobbs as an instant 4-year starter and emblematic of UM's in-state recruiting failures owes us an apology. Maybe UM's recruiting instincts were correct on this one?
December 18th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
Dude, he had a ranking.
It's like math.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:18 AM ^
His point was on the evaluation. Sometimes, the choice not to go after someone as he’s as possible is deliberate.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:44 AM ^
I was just kidding.
It was obvious Dobbs was never a "fit" to go to UofM no matter the area code he grew up in or how good a player he was.
Of course after watching his one on one's at the camps you also realized somebody added wrong for him to be a 5*.
Good Luck to him, hope he finds the right fit.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:45 AM ^
Malik McDowell attitude but none of the skill. This is a hard pass.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:02 AM ^
Yeah, maybe Tucker is actually holding guys accountable for their actions(unlike the previous regime) and some players don't like it.
December 18th, 2020 at 9:46 AM ^
Our problem was a too honest statement by Harbaugh that the school's recruits are typically overrated.
I would appreciate a further look into this assessment by some of the mgoblog super researchers.
My assumption on that is that they are not driven hard workers. There are a lot of those high 4 - 5 stars that just don't ever make it.
I wish I had some of the physical gifts that some of these athletes have when I was in high school. I worked my ass off in the weight room.
December 18th, 2020 at 10:45 AM ^
You realize this sounds kinda racist, don’t you?
December 18th, 2020 at 11:02 AM ^
If you read that as racist, then your life must be no fun to live
December 18th, 2020 at 11:06 AM ^
I read the post 5 times and cannot figure out how you jumped to that conclusion. Athletes are overrated. That's all I took away.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:09 AM ^
If you read that as racist, maybe it’s your lenses?
December 18th, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
You realize that you're the only one who sounds racist, right?
December 18th, 2020 at 11:30 AM ^
Odd as it seems, it is your response and assumption, that is actually racist.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:40 AM ^
I mean, the post had the Gritty McGritterson vibe, but it's definitely not of the racist vibe you seem to be getting from it.
December 18th, 2020 at 12:01 PM ^
Racist against what race?
December 18th, 2020 at 1:05 PM ^
You must love jamele hill and her cohost for asking jake Paul if he though he was a racist for knocking out Nate Robinson! Ugh that chick!
December 18th, 2020 at 7:01 PM ^
Tucker must be racist for processing a kid who didn’t work hard...wait..never mind.
December 18th, 2020 at 11:59 AM ^
Not questioning you specifically but I have always wondered if people work their ass of because they don’t have that natural athletic talent and if they would still work as hard if they did have the talent.
I saw it my own kids with sports and school. In the end, the harder worker out performed the more talented kid. I love them all though! By the way, I realized early I was not naturally gifted on the field or in the classroom so I had to work my ass off. If I was able to rely on my natural ability, I probably wouldn’t have worked as hard.