Good Preview of Michigan OL unit at mlive
No you are stopping because you don't have anything else nor do you have a legitimate defense for what Hoke did.
Interesting that you decided to invoke Rosenberg. If a UM grad like Rosenberg did not hesitate to drag Michigan's name through mud in order the futher his career and get hired at SI, don't think for a second that a guy like Baumgardner would hesitate to do the same considering that he was rejected from UM and would be given hero-like status by his fellow sparty alumni for "uncovering" some BS Michigan scandal. That's what Baumgardner was ATTEMPTING to do with his Gibbons articles, by trying to make it seem like Hoke was somehow complicit or involved in some sort of a shady cover up because he refused to call Gibbons a rapist (never mind that the prosecutor determined there was not enough evidence to charge, much less convict, him) or discuss the dismissal with the press, even though he was barred from doing by University policy. This guy is a snake and that won't be the last time he's tries to pull a Rosenberg. I guarantee it. Watch him like a hawk.
I don't know if you're a current student or were a student when Gibbons was here but it was indeed a scandal. I remember hearing rumblings around campus about how the team was covering this uop for the kicker. And these rumblings were coming from football players themselves. If this would have happened at any other program our fans would have been in uproar about it, but it essentially got swept under the rug, which is what the problem was in the first place.
Shubert, we're talking about a real live human being, a 98 pound U of M athlete who got raped by a 230 pound football player. If you're enough of a piece of shit to use sports fandom and Michigan homerism to minimize or dismiss such criminal barbarity because the accused is a Michigan athlete, that's one terrible thing, but what makes you take the word of one Michigan athlete over another one when every bit of evidence and logic made her side overwhelmingly more believable?
Regardless of your view of this, born of stupidity and irrationality, you need to stop lying about why he wasn't charged, it was because the girl wasn't following through on pressing for prosecution.
Given that she was threatened by Lewan that she would be raped again by him if she continued pressing for prosecution you should probably let that figure into why charges weren't brought. It was two football players who told the cops about Lewan's threat to the victim, but again you have some twisted reason for doubting those Michigan players but not Gibbons. Have you even read the police report?
What rape victims face up and down the process of considering whether to proceed or not is the sickening attitude of people like you, which is largely why so few rapes are prosecuted and so few rapists convicted. False rape accusations are extremely rare and it takes a hell of a masochist to do it since the process of pressing a case is traumatic on many levels & the system is in many ways harshly antagonistic toward the accusers.
Poor Nick is skewered by MSU fans on Twitter who claim he's in the bag for UM. And they sound every bit as paranoid and deranged as you do. Grow the eff up, kid.
Please, explain what Nick stands to gain by "taking down" the Michigan program. You know, for those of us not living in tin foil covered houses.
IIRC, he also had some pretty passionate video takes on Brandon and Hoke when we were in the abyss last year after concussion-gate. Just based on his body language and passion, he did NOT strike me as a guy who was simply trying to bash Michigan or take them down for the sake of it. Not saying he has zero MSU bias, but I do think he does a good job of masking it. Looking at those videos, one could easily mistake him for just a frustrated Michigan fan, or at least a guy who is closely watching the games and is capable of forumulating pretty well informed opinions on the program generally. He wasn't masking some Sparty grin savoring our downfall, nor twirling his evil-doer moustache.
He deserves a fair shake.
IMO Drevno and Baxter will be the 2 guys who make the most impact out of the position coaches/coordinators. Looking forward to improvement with the starters - a bit worried about depth though as the spring game showed quite a few guys not ready for prime time despite being in year 2-3 in the program.
You may be right, but it just seems like with both o-line play and special teams play, particularly punt coverage, kick-off coverage, and blitz pick-ups, that players just do dumb things. I have to believe they were coached and instructed not to do those things and are just not that good at it. We hear it all the time that the light may go on, but that sounds a lot like wishful thinking and I'm a little more practical. I hope I am wrong, but I am cautious about how much better we get in one year. I have faith in the coaches and think they can get this thing cranking in 3-4 years, but next year I remain sceptical that we can turn our weaknesses into anything more that slightly less of a weakness.
I think that's a bit oversimplified. I wasn't really talking recruiting either, but I do think there is some truth there, but not a lot in special teams as most of our top recruits either seem like they don't play special teams or are freshman/soph types. But, OK lets look at that a little further.
I'm assuming we're talking 2012-2014 recruiting to help define the problem. We have had some bright spots. Funchess, Butt, Lewis, and Cole have all played up to or above their recruiting profiles. Some of the LBs who were good recruits have been burried on the depth chart so far like Gedeon and McCray, so it's hard to blame them. I'm curious how the new staff will evaluate them and wonder if they'll steal time from some established guys like Morgan and Bolden. I'm a litlte disapointed we've had a few guys transfer that seemed like quality players like Ferns and Bosch, both of whom I was excited about. Hurst seems to have shown at least some signs that he may be better than his recruiting ranking. What little we've seen of Peppers is promising. Wilson and Mags seem like their trajectory was as expected. Drake Johnson has been better than his recruiting ranking, he just hasn't been able to stay healthy. Henry also has achieved above his recruiting profile IMO. Wormley was injured. Same with Harris, plus he's in his second year. Mone has shown potential and Marshall is getting buzz as a young guy. Charlton is a guy I've been waiting to see and this is his first year as a projected starter. I guess I'm a little disapointed he hasn't played more, but this year will tell us a lot more, no reason he couldn't turn into an all-conference type. So, there is more to the story than they are just dumb football players. And, I'm not sure how many 4-star recruits are play punt and kickoff return other than RJS and Thomas, both of who baffle me. Gedeon and McCray do, but we've already talked about them. Sometimes Bolden or Ross does. Chesson does and is a great special teamer IMO, but he was a 3-star.
There are quite a high number of 4-star guys that just haven't panned out yet. Richardson, RJS, Pipkins, Kalis, Ojemudia, Green, Dawson, and Thomas were all guys expected to have done something by now. Richardson is tiny, but he was ranked highly as a recruit. I always though RJS, Pipkins, and Thomas were really talented. I guess injuries got to Pipkins and he's not really a guy that was applicable in this argument anways since he doesn't play special teams or o-line, but not sure why RJS and Thomas haven't figured it out. Dawson is sitll young for his position, but didn't far well against an even younger player (Hurst) in the spring game. He's supposed to be one of the top guards in the country for his class. I still don't know what Kalis' problem is. I guess I get the impression that Kalis and RJS may not be the best football minds, so maybe you're right with my argument there. Not sure what Ojemudia's deal is, maybe just out of position or haven't found the right role for him. Other guys like Hill, Clark, and Gant should be good special teamers, but seem to struggle. Braden at this point with his size, strength, age, and experience should be better off. So, I guess I'm really talking about a handful of guys here...Kalis, Braden, Dawson, RJS, Richardson, Thomas, Hill, Clark, and Gant. These seem like key guys on o-line and special teams that are struggling. Some were high recruits, others not. I'm not sure how much they will change in one year with new coaches.
Big picture, I wasn't really talking specifically about recruiting. Overall with the recruiting there seems to be a lot of factors going into a good number guys that haven't panned out...transfers, injuries, depth chart, poor development, just not as good as we thought, poor football IQ, etc. But, it seems like a much higher than average miss-rate on recruiting stars.
I totally agree with you that there are "quite a high number of 4-star guys that haven't panned out yet," and it bugs the hell out of me and was my major reason for wanting Hoke gone.
For me the question last season during the Great Brady Hoke Coaching Inquisition was why? It seemed like for the people who supported Hoke (and there were many, many people on here in that camp until about November), the argument boiled down to: By some stroke of unbelievable chance occurrence, all our 4-star guys just didn't turn out to be good at football. The alternative argument was that something, apart from individual player capacity, had infested our program, affecting all players, on average.
Yeah, it's a tough thing to figure out, right? It's probably a whole bunch of things and not a simple problem, which is partly why I don't think there's a huge change this year. I think and hope for some positive improvement, just not enough to take a 5-7 team and turn them into a 10-2 team. I think that attitude and perspective play a big part in team sports and that had a big impact on Hoke's first year success. There's a chance we can see some of that team chemistry type stuff pay off again this year if the guys buy into Harbaugh. And, the reality is there are really only two teams that look on paper to be significantly better on UMs schedule. But, I still have to believe we will see some of the same struggles when we play the better teams on the schedule. We may look awesome against Indiana and UNLV, I know Green look great against Miami and App St last year, but we'll see how they hold up against Utah, BYU, MSU, PSU, and OSU.
Granted, the recruiting was never as good as we all made it out to be (so many of our top recruits were OL, the hardest position to project). But given how poorly run the team was in ways that were apparent on Saturdays, there probably were further shortcomings behind the scenes that we weren't cognizant of. My guess (just a guess) is that the entire operation was run far less efficiently than top modern college programs, which resulted from our staff's insularity and lack of comparable experience (Nussmeier excluded).
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Not expecting overnight results, but they could be a pretty decent unit, dare I say good, by season's end.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
That's what they said about QB play and our man Nuss and QB play/ offense in general.
1) nuss didn't exactly have as much raw talent to work with as drevno does.
2) it's pretty damn difficult to fix deep-seated issues in just a year, but nuss tried his best.
Devin was broken after 2013.
Gardner's 2013 season is one of the best passing season's a QB has ever had at UM. Gardner's 2013 passing stats are all over the single season records and most of them are near the top.
Now, if you said Gardner was broken by the end of the 2014 season, I'd agree 100%.
It just baffles me how UM ran out RB after RB year after year that was fantastic, same with WR, QB, and o-line through the 90s and 00s. Things made sense. I never worried about who graduated or went to the NFL because I knew there was another good guy behind them. Now, nothing makes sense. I continually find myself analyzing when will (name any position) finally be good again. We sign one of the top backs in the country and he hasn't lived up to his billing (Green). We sign one of the top pocket passers (Morris) and he hasn't either. We sign 7 premier o-lineman in '12 & '13 and none of them have yet to prove much. I give the 2013 guys a free pass because they are still young, but still. We keep wondering when we will finally get this thing figured out, but at this point I have no idea.
The line improved last year, but it was still bad. Will it improve enough to actually be good, because it's not like we have a great RB that can break plays and overcome poor line play, or a QB/WR that can make things happen despite this weakness? I just don't know anymore. How can you expect a player to play in a way he's never played? I hear people say offense line play is about age, experience, time working together, etc. So, having a year under their belt all of these guys having played together before should help in addition to 4 of the 5 projected lineman being in their 4th or 5th year. That gives you hope, but that's all it is at this point. It's still hard to all of a sudden assume Kalis can do something he hasn't shown he could do before. Same with Braden. Maybe coaching was the problem and Drevno can get them sorted out, but I have my doubts.
These are the same questions Alabama fans were asking before Saban, OU fans were asking before Stoops, Texas fans were asking before Brown and are asking again. Programs just have to go through periods in the wilderness like Michigan is going through now, what makes this one especially painful is Groucho Mark's ascendance in East Lansing coupled with tOSU's lucking into Meyer right when it looked like they were about to go through a similar period. Coaching makes a big difference especially when an institution has to catch up to the times. Michigan has now done that and while this year will be growing pains as the team catches up to what's expected of it, I just cannot believe that the ENTIRE offensive roster was a recruiting miss. There are some good players in there, they just have to be found and given the right environment to succeed. We may not be looking at the talent base we thought we'd have by now, but I don't think it's a smoking crater either.
Yeah, that whole OSU thing remains a thorn in our side. When do they have to go through a dark period?...NEVER! They turn out 10-win seasons like it's nobody's business regardless of coach or circumstance. Their biggest problems were being undefeated and getting upsed by UM in the 90's, then going through tat-gate and Tress resigning and having one average year only to go undefeated and not be able to play in the post season the next. I think if the world removed the fact that our biggest rival has been heads and shoulders better than us for the the last 15 years it would be easier to stomach. But, they show no signs of slowing down.
Even against OSU's dline that handled bama and Oregon they had a very good game. I believe drake was on his way to a 150 plus game rushing with 2 TDs before his injury.
Yes the oline started last year a mess, but after the MSU game they came together and performed very well, but no one was paying attention because everyone was looking for a new coach by then.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
the RB corps was helping much either early on. Seemed like many times there were holes to be had (maybe not gaping but big enough) only to have a RB go somewhere else and see minimal gain. I guess my point is that YPC average may have been better with a little more help from the RBs.
Hopefully another year of development and possibly Higdon or Isaac as alternative options showing better instincts and vision makes a difference as well.
I will give credit to Hoke for playing OSU fairly tight, despite only one win in 4 tries and that one win coming against an interim head coach. But, the team was always up for that game and played well. If they played that hard and executed that well the whole year they'd probably be a 9 win team. But, they never did. I will also say that IMO a lot falls on Gardner. I have spent some time the past few days watching last years games and there were a heck of a lot of open WRs that Gardner just missed or threw INTs on. That's a lot of missed opportunities and turnovers that if went the other way may have had a big impact on the outcome of games. It's still hard to see beating ND, MSU, and OSU, but they probably could have beaten Utah, Rutgers, Maryland, and Minnesota.
With all that said, we still don't have a proven QB, WR, or RB yet, so it's hard to say with much confidence those things won't happen again. If Ruddock starts I doubt we see as many turnovers, but we probably don't convert as many first downs that Gardner picked up using his legs either. IDK
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Thank you! The saying ignorance is bliss is really true. Before there was internet recruiting sites and all I knew about recruiting was what they told me during the in-game broadcast of games, life was a lot more simple. You didn't know who the incoming freshman were and it didn't matter. Michigan just beat everybody except west coast road games, Notre Dame sometimes, and then OSU was always a battle, but you could count on 9 wins. Now that I know I continue to ask...well, they are highly rated recruits, when will they be good? Now I'm just sick of asking questions and wondering. Can I have my medication now?
We went from Pro-Style to Spread then back to Pro-Style. That was 7 years of experimenting and changing players, coaches, administration, etc. We finally have new leadership and we are staying true to the Pro-Style philosophy. We have what we need now in terms of resources, leadership and stability. It's only a short time until we're on top again. I actually think this year we might underperform a bit because we have a tougher out-of-conference schedule, but I think we will have a really nice season in 2016 and 2017 with guys who have been learning under Harbaugh's staff for a few years.
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
Someone in the OL starting 5 will fall to injury or poor performance and Kugler is likely to be the next man up no matter which of the starting 5 are replaced.
Although I suppose if it's an OT, we might not want to move two guys (Glasgow to OG to make room for Kugler at C, and then an OG to OT). Still, at least as to the three interior positions, Kugler steps in if someone exits and could be the de facto replacement for an OT.
optimistic about the Oline this year and choose to believe that QB will be at least OK with either Rudock or someone else beating out Rudock. However, RB and WR worry me the most. We just don't have any proven gamebreakers to help out the OL and QB.
I didn't think he was that productive, only had 40 carries all season, largely in garbage time. His best game was against Cal...which USC beat 62-28 and Ty had 87 yards. I'm not saying he's not a good player, just not really proven.
despite having a more or less average OL.