ESPN's Luginbill Predicts Top 5 Impact Freshmen, includes Derrick Green
We all hope / expect Green to make some impact his freshmen year, and ESPN's Luginbill agrees:
Simply put, Green is better than what Michigan has in the backfield right now and is a perfect fit for an offense that desperately wants to get back to power football and a heavy downhill run game. In addition to fitting that profile, we expect a minimal learning curve for him in the passing game and pass protection. Michigan will be better at quarterback with Devin Gardner, and Green might become Gardner's new best friend if he can take pressure off the passing game.
Link? LINK
*edit: Corrected the spelling of Luginbill's name. Man, my vision is getting to be awful. h/t Ron Utah
Derrick Green is in fact the #1 impact freshman, as predicted by Luginbill (there is no "i" at the end of his name...Luginbill is not Italian)
like padding those mgopoints!
this is a thing now?
"Oh, golly gee willikers, I hit 'Save' three extra times. How silly I feel..."
*rolls eyes
But I still think Fitz will get the bulk of the carries. Expecting Green to be the exception who is able to pick up blitz reads and the passing game quickly is expecting a lot.
Running back is a common early impact position. That, and Michigan has shown they don't really care about telegraphing run/pass with situational substitutions or having a dedicated pass blocking 3rd down back.
We're running right. Try to stop us.
Agree with your first point, not so sure about the second. If we didn't care about telegraphing, why were there so many (consistently unsuccessful) V Smith runs up the middle on third downs? He's a great third down blocker or potential target for a pass play, but he should have been the last guy to carry up the middle on a big third down.
There are a lot of unknowns with Fitz, though. Obviously, his health and his trust in his leg is a concern - who knows how he will feel when he's facing a live defense for the first time since November. Also, while he's a talented back, last year it didn't seem like he was a great fit for Borges's preferred offense.
I could see Green starting and getting the bulk of the carries this year, while Fitz takes over a slightly expanded Vincent Smith role as the guy who knows how to block, do the little things, and catch screens.
Of course there will be competition as there always is...nobody is guranteed any spot. But, was it Fitz' fault for a lack of rushing yards or a lack of quality run blocking by the offensive line, namely the interior line last year? I personally feel the lack of yards was more on the line than on Fitz. Sure, exceptional players can still get yards, like Denard, but he also has the advantage of a run/throw option. When Fitz was running the owness is more on the line to create holes. I think Fitz is healthy and is our #1 back with Green our #2 and probably getting a decent amont of carries, but still the #2. The question marks are still more on the interior line than the backs IMO. If there are holes our backs are good enough to get yards, if not...probably not, although Gardner will make plays in the passing game to keep the defense off balance more so than last year and we will be running more power sets versus zone run blocking.
After seeing how effective Denard was from the I formation in the bowl game I got the feeling that we made too many excuses for Fitz based on his performance the previous year.
It's hard to compare anyone to Denard. After watching college football closely for about 15 years there are only a handful of guys that can do the sorts of things that Denard can with the ball in his hands. Denard has something special to not only accelerate and outrun people, but stop and change direction incredibly fast. So, I don't think it's fair to compare a guy to Denard. I've never seen another player from Michigan in the past 15 years that can hold a candle to what Denard can do with the ball in his hands. So, is Fitz as good as Denard, no, but who is?
It wasn't so much that Denard was going Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson on South Carolina and more that he was hitting the hole. Someone else mentioned earlier about Fitz being tenative, and that's a great description of his running style last year. I think the only unfair part of my comparison is that this was with the offensive line after bowl prep and rest.
I hear what you're saying with Fitz. His knock is that he doesn't get north/south quick enough and tends to wait in the hole. Denard did a good job of hitting the hole fast in the game versus South Carolina. But, part of what makes Denard so good is also his eyes, his decision making, his confidence that he can hit a hole quickly, stop quickly, change directions quickly, accelerate by people when he decides to. So, although you might not have seen "Tecmo Bowl" plays from him I believe it's still his special abilities as a runner that created these runs. And, few runners have these abilities that Denard has. Just because Fitz can't do what Denard does doesn't mean many other people can either.
I know our QBs had an extra blocker, but he should have been able to show at least something. It was a cold, cold year in terms of RB production. Barry Sanders was still Barry Sanders. Fitz is no Barry Sanders, but if there is no production, it's not solely due to the OL.
onus.
I knew what word he was going for but my mental dictionary wasn't firing and I just couldn't get the right word to come up.
Owness is a pretty cool made up word though, and if it had a definition, it would be pretty close in meaning to onus.
that caused his lower production. IMO he was just running tentatively a lot of the time. Too much stopping and starting, basically not decisive. So, although I am hoping Fitz returns to his form of two seasons ago, his bad injury makes me less optimistic this will happen - especially early in the season. That will give great opportunities to both Green and Smith. Of course, there's no guarantee either of those guys will be ready to take on the #1 back position. We'll have to see.
You talkin bout our beloved mgoblog member MrSmith? He retired brother!
the owness is on the line, huh?
The run blocking last year was problematic, which explains a lot of Fitz's struggles. No one ran well except Denard who was, well, Denard. I expect the OL will be improved this year, and Fitz will be improved. No doubt there will be an open competition, I just think a true freshman coming in and taking command happens infrequently, and in this offense which will be more pass oriented than the last few years it will take someone with extraordinary talents beyond the ability to run the ball to do it. Maybe Green is that guy, but we haven't seen him run a single play yet, much less run a route, catch a pass or pick up a blitz.
Which was, to be clear, a pretty good part of the problem last year.
But another part that people may not want to admit was Denard. He didn't necessarily strike fear into opposing safeties, who often came down hard on run plays. Being out of the gun so often, and Denard's best play easily being the inverted veer, it was fairly easy for safeties to fly up through the seams and make plays on the RBs.
And, though I hate beating the Borges drum, he wasn't necessarily comfortable keeping defenses honest on RB plays in the shotgun. Denard could only do so many things with his arm, so keeping defenders honest was going to be difficult, but he never ran counters with the RBs, he ran few draws with the RBs (why would you when you had Denard), etc.
So it wasn't just a one-thing problem, it was multi-dimensional. Hopefully, with Devin at QB and a little more of a pass threat, a more downhill approach, and a coach more comfortable mixing up plays out of the I (or potentially the pistol), you should see improved RB play regardless.
How do we see Green's body changing from Freshman to Junior/Senior year? He's already 6'0, 220lbs and jacked at that. Is that going to be a consistent weight throughout his time here?
Basically is he already THAT college-ready, physically speaking? Or will there be a physical adjustment for him as well?
His weight will probably remain within 10-15 lbs, and it could go a little up or a little down, depending on where it starts effecting his speed and quickness and power; but his body will change. None of these players, regardless of the training they have received in high school, have gone through anything like what they will with a college S&C program.
So again, height and weight may not change much, but he should become more explosive and get stronger just due to being in a college system.
Green's challenge will be keeping his weight down versus getting it up. Unlike the smaller guys like Norfleet or Hayes, Green is more similar in build to Rawls. Both are big strong guys, but will be looking to keep their weight down to stay quick versus getting their weight up to get strong. Rawls also was dropping some weight this offseason from last year to get quicker. Green is already big and strong. He also was a guy that was much heavier as a kid and dropped weight as he got older. So, I don't expect a ton of weight change over his career or it may even drop slightly as he focuses on quickness. He already has size and strength.
Fitz will get some carries. Green will get some carries.
If there is a third back that is getting carries? Time to worry.
Rawls = consensus 3 star
Grady = consensus 5 star
Easily comparable, not.
I wouldn't be sad if Deveon Smith earned some carries.
If he earns it, I would agree with you.
However, since it looks like we won't be taking a RB in this 2014 class, I would prefer him to redshirt and be the de facto freshman for the 2014 squad. Then we get Damien Harris. Then I haz a happy.
I don't know who it is, it may be someone who isn't even really on the board yet, but Michigan isn't going to go a year without taking a RB. RBs do too many things (always valuable on special teams), are too flexible of athletes (can play multiple positions, from RB to FB to LB, to U-back, to safety), and get banged up or don't pan out too regularly not to take a RB.
I know the class size is small and there are few obvious choices at the RB position, but I think it is very, very unlikely that Michigan doesn't take at least one in the 2014 recruiting cycle.
Sam did article on him not to long ago stating he's a versatile football player,cable of playing different positions (ie wr,rb,lber). At 6'2 215,he'd be a def pickup for the class of 2014
At the time he was expressing taking a serious look at Michigan. Hopefully,both parties are still talking to each other.
Dennis Norfleet has shown that he should get a few carries a game too. He shouldn't be special teams only and he did get a handful of carries last year.
50/50?
Hits: G. Watson, Woodley, Henne, B. Graham, S. Schilling, Mallett, D. Warren
Misses: BWC, Burgess, Grady
Jury still out: Kalis, Pipkins
5 stars have worked out for us at a remarkably high rate. Time to stop letting BWC and Grady draw you down.
ALSO:
- BWC is product of poor personal effort / poor coaching by Rich Rod. You can argue that if you want - it's a pretty powerful statement, but it's true. Rich Rod should have NEVER burned that kid's red shirt and should have kept him on one side of the freaking ball.
- Burgess had his moments.
- You could argue that G. Watson was a slight disappointment - but he still turned out and was drafted in a respectable round for the NFL.
- You could argue that Mallet doesn't belong here - but you would be wrong, because he transferred, starred for another "big time" SEC school, and was drafted with a high pick.
- You could argue that D. Warren never panned out like he should - and you would be right. Left a year too early. Probably more of a victim of Rich Rod than anything else - but was our best DB for a couple of years.
But he was pretty easily a 4* level player at Michigan. I guess by calling it "miss" instead of "bust" you cover for that, but Michigan still got a good player out of him. I would say Burgess and Warren are in the same camp, both really good players, all-conference level, but I guess not super-stars.
BWC even became at least a near 4* type player last year, once he starting reaching his potential, and even got drafted based on that potential. The only true bust there was Grady.