Cullen to transfer?
UMGoBlog just tweeted that there are rumors of a possible Cullen Christian transfer. This is the first, and hopefully last time I hear this rumor.
http://twitter.com/#!/UMGoBlog
Maybe Angry Michigan Secondary Hating God wasn't just a RichRod thing...
F.
Good can the guy be if he wasn't able to crack the lineup last year?
I swear this has been what people have thought the past 3 years. Do you know how often true freshmen CBs start and are actually good?
FIrst of all, CB is one of the easier positions to contribute at as a young player. Woodson, Marlin, Leon Hall and DWarren all started or contributed as true freshmen and were good to very good.
But really, no one was expecting freshman Cullen Christian to start and be good. But the fact is, no CB on the team was playing well at all, and other true freshmen were getting the nod before CC. So I don't think the expectation was for CC to come in and be as good as Marlin Jackson as a freshman, but the fact that he wasn't even as good as Terrence Talbott as a freshman left a bit to be desired from a top-100 All American.
rather than the exception.....
April 20th, 2011 at 10:15 PM ^
April 20th, 2011 at 10:26 PM ^
Cullen Christian had an exceptional profile as a recruit.
April 20th, 2011 at 10:44 PM ^
That's pretty much where the bar is set with a top-100 Army All-American recruit.
Unfortunately, that is sort of par for the course around here. I think the same thing everytime people bitch about Brandon Inge at thirdbase for the Tigers. They don't seem to understand that it is OK if every guy on your team doesn't hit .300 with 35 home runs every year. If you are lucky, you have a few stars and the rest of your team is solid. If you get 3-5 freshman making solid contributions you are doing pretty well with your recruiting. Not every recruit is Woodson even if they are a 4 star kid.
You are so right. Unfortunately all the recruiting info available coupled with the desire for instant results means people expect freshmen to come in and be stars right away.
Gone are the days when a guy wasn't expected to contribute until he has had a couple years to grow and gain experience.
People label guys as busts practically by the end of their first spring practice anymore if they don't see the results they want.
April 21st, 2011 at 10:21 AM ^
He is a career .237 hitter that is average to slightly above at 3rd. For the amount that he is being paid there could be a better replacement.
April 21st, 2011 at 10:35 AM ^
He actually is hitting over .250 since he was permanently moved to 3B. Not that it's amazing or anything, but it's not like there's a plethora of Adrian Beltres and Evan Longorias out there just waiting to be snatched up. Middle infield, corner outfield, and middle relief are much bigger areas of need.
April 21st, 2011 at 12:29 PM ^
No offense, but I'll take the opinions of MLB players that Brandon Inge is one of the top 3 or 4 fielders in all of baseball over yours that he's an average 3rd baseman:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1156451/inde…
And in all fairness, he's batted .250 since moving to third base (not that .250 is great, but it's certainly better than .237)
April 21st, 2011 at 12:34 PM ^
You could be excused for expecting to have a guy like that on the roster. Obviously, you could not have a freshman starting every year, but the caliber of player was there.
Actually, it's not that rare. Lots of guys have done it at Michigan in the past 20 years or so. And Cullen didn't even need to be good. All he had to do was be bad, which is better than incredibly-pathetic-apocalyptically-awful, to get on the field.
April 20th, 2011 at 10:03 PM ^
YOu obviously educate yourself on meatspin.com
April 20th, 2011 at 11:29 PM ^
Not that I want him to, but I think we would be fine if he transferred. We have a lot of scholarship bodies at CB (Woolfolk, Anderson, Floyd, Avery, Talbott, Brown, Countess, Hollowell, Raymond Taylor).
Don't think Anderson is on scholarship - he's a walk on. I guess maybe he could be projected to get one of the unused scholarships on a one year basis next year, but right now we only have 1 open (our recruiting class brought us up to 85 counting Kovacs as a scholarship player, then Vinopal transfered opening 1 scholarship up. Mike Williams didn't come back, but that scholly was presumably taken by Evans). I would guess the 1 extra would go to someone like McColgan, Heininger or Leach before Anderson.
who eventually decided to stay. Let's hope CC does the same
sweet. start drinking before the wings game.
I was expecting more to transfer w/ Vinopal, happy none didn't.
There will be more, but I wasn't necessarily expecting it on D with the Mattison hire unless the player was a tweener who now didn't have a position. The players will finish out the semester and then leave so they can keep their class ranking academically.
With so many players not having RSed they will have the opportunity to use that RS year to transfer without losing any eligibility. I was right by the tunnel during the spring game and there were some players that looked pretty unhappy coming off the field after the game. You can't blame a kid for wanting to play and if their position has basically been eliminated you can't blame them for leaving. On the positive side it will open some more scholarships for this class.
April 21st, 2011 at 11:15 AM ^
But, if we keep saying that it opens up more scholarships for incoming players then we will never get out of our current problem of having a heavily underclass team. Besides, how many more highly-touted players can we lose? Cullen Christian hasn't had the benefit of having quality coaching for an extended period of time. Fifteen practices is nothing. Who knows, the lightbulb may come on for him this summer and he may become an All-Conference player by his Junior year.
Bottom line: We need quality players to stay and grow. Let the players that we don't need or the ones that can't tow the line fall by the wayside. I think we need to start recruiting kids who want to compete for playing time but aren't such prima donnas that if they don't play right away they want to quit.
April 21st, 2011 at 12:39 PM ^
if he follows him to Pitt. At some point the light bulb has to go on for the kid, even if you feel allegiance to your old coach. If you think about the resumes of the guys coaching the defense now vs the previous staff, it simply does not compare and I would not be able to understand why he would make the move. I would love to see Cullen try to learn skills from a good staff.
I'm not surprised since he was clearly beat out by Avery and seemingly Brown this spring. Might be a bust anyway but I refuse to give a final grade to a true soph in spring. Hopefully it's not true but if it is I won't shed a tear. It'll be great to be deep enough that we won't recruit with the sales pitch of early playing time cuz when that doesn't workout they almost always leave. If true, we have another scholarship available for this recruiting class. We'll get some more transfers by the fall, we should all be numb to this by now anyway.
"Hopefully it's not true but if it is I won't shed a tear. It'll be great to be deep enough..."
This is blatant taunting of the anrgy michigan secondary-hating god.
true freshmen.
As a true soph he is likely currently in the 2 deep and got some experience last year. Supposedly Woolfolk and Floyd will return to CB this year, but who knows if Woolfolk will be 100%. Besides that I think Avery has established himself and that is about it. Very disappointing if true; he had a shot to play this year.
Not to mention if CB didn't work out for him he certainly has the size for safety; another position we aren't exactly loaded at. Hope ya stay, CC!
Floyd is more of a question than Woolfolk at this point.
And Hollowell. It's not a stretch to say that one of those guys passes Cullen on the depth chart, and then Cullen would always have people his age or younger ahead of him. Not to mention that even if he moved, our safeties are Carvin, Marvin, Furman and T Gordon, all guys his eligibility or younger.
First of all, he doesn't really have the size for safety. He has the height, but he's only 187, so he'd be smaller than most other safeties by a good margin. Plus, I've never heard that Cullen likes to hit, or can tackle well, something you can get away with a lot more at corner than safety. If he can't make it as a corner, I doub't he'll make it as a safety.
I have to say, this isn't terribly surprising. He saw very little playing time last year when we played a lot of young DBs. And now that Woolfolk is back and the younger guys are passing him, maybe he's just not as good as we thought.
Unfortunate, yes. Surprising, not really.
Carvin Johnson is only 195. It wouldn't be hard for Christian to get there if needed.
I don't think Christian is a safety because I've said all along that he's a poor tackler, but I don't think size would be a big issue for him. He needs gumption more than anything else.
I agree that the size wouldn't be a major hurdle, but Carvin is 195 and knows how to hit with every pound of it, Cullen is not a guy who can make up for his size well. And he'd still be the smallest safety on the roster, which is not exactly "he has the size to move to safety" as much as "he could bulk up to safety size."
But I also agree that size aside, CC is not a safety.
I don't think he's fast enough to play corner. I was watching him during warmups for the spring game and he looked extremely slow when doing back pedal drills. Whether this was related to effort or speed i can't say, but in either case it is not a good sign.
This would mean we got absolutely nothing out of our last three Army All American DBs, BooBoo, JT, and CC. So much for recruiting rankings (I kid).
Rumors suggested that Christian had a back issue, which is why he didn't play much (or at all?) in the spring game. From what I've heard, he was being held out of contact. That might explain some slowness in his backpedal, although I agree he's not a burner even at full strength.
I think he played more earlier in the year and just seemed like he needed more time. I remember seeing him in the practice videos, but don't remember him playing last sat
derp
If he could survive last year he should be able to withstand anything. I'd hate to see this kid go just because his best days are ahead of him.
100% Agree. He's been through the fire. I hope he stays and gives himself a chance to develop. Besides the APR can't handle any more transfers. As far as more schollies to hand out this year, if APR gets messed up we lose scholarships. I hope he sticks it out and makes his way onto the field.
Sad to hear. I had high hopes for him, but this means we have 1 more scholarship to hand out in 2012
of looking at it considering he has 3 years of eligibility
maybe this could be a blessing in hiding. This could as the previous poster mentioned leave room for A second DB like T-rich or another O-linemen for depth
they would make room for anyways.
this isnt the SEC, we either have room or we don't, we don't "make" room
April 20th, 2011 at 10:00 PM ^
I don't think he meant it like that. He meant that we'll just take one of those guys instead of recruiting a WR or something.
April 20th, 2011 at 11:20 PM ^
You are on the money