ESPN Mini Season Preview
For those of you with the "elite" ESPN Insider Access they have a preview of Michigan up. It's not the best analysis but it is analysis and most importantly they agree with me that we have a chance to return to glory this season. For some reason they like our safety situation, but the main reason is Denard, our returning starters on offense and Mattison.
http://insider.espn.go.com/ncf/insider/news/story?page=SummerStock-Michigan
KC Joyner has shown a tendency to be high on the Wolverines. He's the same guy who started the whole "Denard's throwing statistics are on par with Ryan Mallett's" talk.
I also think the reason Joyner might be talking about us closing the gap with OSU is because OSU is about to see doom, especially since their now-Senior "star" QB is missing half of the season. This was supposed to be the year where Pryor could use his years of starting experience and lead OSU to a great year and instead they'll be just a decent OSU team (probably).
I'm glad he's optimistic and sees that we're on the upswing, but we are not yet on par with Ohio State simply from the fact that we can't yet reload like they do. They have backups on D who would start for us. Once that stops, we'll be on par with them again.
The NCAA could decide to suspend the Tat5 for the entire season. They have said they won't, but if it comes out that they made their decision based on lies and both the players and Tressel get caught in those lies, I could see them being made permanently ineligible.
As far as Michigan's "return to glory," playing a weakened TSIO would be great, but it's only one game; there are eleven other games to worry about. I still think they will go 8-4. They have a chance to win nine, which is what they probably would have won without the CC fiasco.
They still have plenty of talent on offense, and the defense will be "up" to mediocre this year. The main question is whether or not Borges can create an offense that can carry the team another year or two until there are enough defensive personnel for all of the tough talk about defense to materialize on the field. We'll see how it goes.
http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/columns/story?columnist=joyner_k…
Here's another ESPN Insider article by KC Joyner where he makes the case that Henne is just as good a QB as Mark Sanchez. I'm not saying I agree or disagree; just that this is the kind of thing Joyner seems to do.
Of course, it could just be that Michigan has a lot of QBs in the NFL so it seems like he's always talking about Michigan QBs. However, Comparing Denard to Ryan Mallett and then Henne to Sanchez leads me to believe this guy has some thing for Michigan football.
Again, not saying he's bad or anything. Only that he seems to have a slight Michigan bias.
It'll be exciting to see how Denard can adapt. He has the potential to make this offense a true juggernaught if/when he develops into a more mature passer. I like what Hoke is envisioning and implementing with this team, I think the offense will be much more efficient in the B1G, especially in the red zone.
Also, a very cool OT article- http://eye-on-football.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22475988/295…
As much crap as people give Braylon, the guy is generous and seems to have a good heart with all he's done over the years. He makes me proud to be a Wolverine for sure.
as the OP pointed out, not a lot of insight in the article. kc joyner tends to use misleading statistics to make his point. i don't think he does it on purpose, just seems like he doesn't necessarily understand where the statistics are coming from and what they mean on anything but a basic level.
still good to read optimistic predictions for U of M though.
Return to Glory... that's an ND'ism, isn't it?
An honest question: Do you think these ESPN guys know half as much about Michigan football, specifically, than most of the regular posters on this board, much less the editors? I mean, if some guy for ESPN says he likes our safety situation this year, what is that based on? A conversation with the coaches? Observations of spring-game film?
I'm genuinely curious, but I suspect that we get better analysis from our Michigan blogs than from national sources.
The national guys definitely aren't as up-to-date on things like roster changes, player health and such as local bloggers are, but they may be better at straight-up football analysis - breaking down film of Michigan and seeing specifically what we're doing right and wrong. (I don't know if this applies to Rittenberg, but I think it does for a guy like Herbstreit.)
I'd guess that a guy like Feldman probably has learned some good stuff from talking to insiders over the years, but I don't think he spends much time actually breaking down film. Brian spends a ton of time each week in the Fall breaking down the games for UFR. I wouldn't expect any national analyst to spend that much time on Michigan, but he probably can't get a solid level of detail on anyone.
I get the impression that guys like him use a lot of stats and a lot of off the record type conversations with insiders.
Don't get me wrong, Herbstreit can probably break down film really well, but I just don't think there's enough time in the day--especially during the season.
Our opinion are heavily biased towards the wolverines , we want and in some cases need them to be great where in espn's case they don't really care. You can't really form an honest opinion on the season till this (2011) fall. I'm trying hard not to form an opinion until the MSU game based on how the last 2 seasons went.
People are down on our safeties based on how they've done in the last few years, but I like our safeties this year. Jordan Kovacs is a known quantity and even if he plays as well as he played last year, he's very good in run support and questionable-to-adequate in pass defense (he had 2 or 3 picks last year). Another year of working on his pass D and athleticism and I think he's a solid Big Ten safety.
Then we have Carvin Johnson who started a few games last year and looked good as a true frosh (and in the spring game), Marvin Robinson who we know is an athlete and should be a very good back-up to Kovacs and the uber-athletic but relatively unknown Josh Furman who has potential through the ceiling. Josh Furman has a size and speed combo that almost no Big Ten safeties have, and if he can learn the position well, could be a mega star.
Can't wait to see Furman's future.
His ceiling is in the neighborhood of Taylor Mays.
Does that count as an illegal benefit?
I wouldn't go THAT far, but both he and Marvin Robinson have the ability to be oversized safeties that can lay linebacker type lumber. Think Ernest Shazor with slightly better coverage skills.