AP All Americans - 3 Wolverines Honored

Lol, agreed.  Probably because their's got more opportunities thanks to nepo-baby Brian F's inept offense. 

Being an All-American is almost always a combination of skill and contributions. A guy who punts 8 times a game has a lot more chance to make contributions than a guy who punts 3 times a game. It's like if you have a RB who averages 6.5 yards per carry but only gets 150 carries, he isn't making AA over a guy who averaged 5.0 yards per carry on 300 carries.

Plus, it's really funny for Iowa to have the first-team AA punter.

So Iowa must be twice as good as Michigan. Did I do that right?

No disrespect to Jenkins but these post season teams are proving the media doesn’t pay attention to the trenches.  

Unfortunately these (like most of the awards) are typically focused on counting stats, so our heavy rotation on the DL hurts our guys chances. Though I will say I agree with the sentiment re Graham, I'm a little surprised that Jenkins was picked and Graham wasn't...

He's gotta be up there.  At no point have I watched him and thought he's the best left tackle in the nation.  And the "he hasn't given up a sack" stat feels as much due to Allar just bailing on throws almost immediately as him actually holding up against good pass rushes.

I foresee he'll be bear-hugging Aidan on Sundays.

He's up there with virtually every OSU OL of recent vintage.

Depends on whether you include the MSU steroid era.

While I agree that it's a weird disconnect, which is more surprising? That he was top 10 in the Heisman voting (3rd highest RB btw, so going just off of that he should have been 2nd Team AA, not 1st Team), or that he was 3rd Team AA? Or both?

I mean the flipside is that if you look just through the lens of this year (i.e. not influenced by the fact that he was clearly the best RB in the country last year), and see a RB with just over 1000 yards at 4.7 YPC, would you have expected him to be AA at all? His 1028 yards is 38th in the country, and his YPC is probably around there too for regular RBs (hard to filter out all the guys that have high YPCs on like one or two attempts). If he didn't lead the country in TDs, I doubt he'd have made it at all. We know he's brilliant, especially with his cuts, but objectively he did take a big step back from last year on just a couple fewer carries per game...

Agree.

The first team RBs were Ollie Gordon III and Cody Schrader.  Although they ended up 7 and 8 in Heisman voting and might explain how Corum was third team.  Similarly, Corum was a Doak Walker finalist in 2022 but not in 2023.  The reality is that Corum is way ahead in TDs, arguably the most important statistic.  24 to Ollie's 20, but Ollie has 1614 rushing yards to Blake's 1028.

The awards largely look at total yards, yards per carry and then TDs.  Blake had to carry against 4 of the toughest rushing defenses (Nebraska was also very good this year at less than 100 ypg) while Ollie rushes in the Big 12 which only has one team that plays defense (Texas).  That Texas  team held Ollie to 34 yards on 13 carries and 0 TDs in the Big 12 Championship.

Finishing should be worth more than running between the goal lines, but that's not how these beauty contests work.

Honestly, Corum for most of the year was an exceptional short-yardage back but merely good as an every-down back.  I think from PSU on he looked fully like his 2022 self, but that was only the last quarter of the season.

I can't believe Mikey in particular didn't make it.  5 INTs, 2 FFs, 4 TFLs and 2 sacks!

We just shut out a team with a first team CB, a third team CB and third team DB.

We're getting ready to play the other first team CB as well as the one first team DB and a second team safety.

I'll take Mikey and Will over all these guys.

Which is 2 more player selections than the AP gave Alabama during its NC run in 2017, but "this isn't a vintage Alabama team."

I don't take awards seriously (for reasons well-discussed here) and I feel Mason Graham was snubbed, but let's imagine a world where they actually get it right.

Fact is, our defense was by committee.  Our DTs were monsters (again, I ain't complaining about Jenkins AND I feel Graham was snubbed) but a lot of our success was because our DEs were very good, our LBs were very good, our CBs were very good, and our safeties were very good.  We just have a lot of very good players, and the whole was greater than the sum of its parts.

I wouldn't trade our defense for any other's.  But for individual awards, "very good" isn't good enough.

All-American means "one of the best in the country at your position", which I don't feel applies to most of our defense beyond a few DTs.  Barrett is a very good linebacker but he's not a Devin Bush Jr. or Nakobe Dean.  Harrell is a fine DE but he's most definitely not an Aidan Hutchinson or Nick Bosa.  Sainristil I feel is on the AA bubble, you can make a case and he's the heart & soul of the defense, but he kind of has this thing where some of his spectacular plays (and resulting counting stats) are offset by getting burned on gambles.  He's not a "don't even bother testing him" lockdown slot corner.

They're mostly not All-Americans.  But when they're all on the field together, your offense is doomed.

This team is beautifully nameless and faceless. 
 

They used to always say that’s how they see their opponents. 
 

a freakin team