OT: For First Time in 80 Years, No MSU Player Drafted

Submitted by BursleyHall82 on May 1st, 2021 at 7:57 PM

Oh, Sparty. First you lose a basketball commit that was never going to play for your school anyway, and then you go through an entire NFL draft without seeing one of your players drafted for the first time in 80 years. It's been a bad week on the banks of the the Red Cedar.

LINK.

In related news, Michigan and Southern Cal remain tied for the longest NFL Draft string, at 83 years.

core42

May 1st, 2021 at 8:04 PM ^

From Chris Vannini :

Longest active NFL Draft streaks, coming out of the 2021 draft:

Michigan / USC (1939)

Florida (1952)

Miami (Fla.) (1975)

Notre Dame* / Iowa (1978)

Wisconsin (1979)

*Notre Dame would be 1938 if you include the 1977 Supplemental Draft

Michigan State’s streak dating back to 1941 ended this year.

 

****EDIT:  Having lived through those RichRod years, this surprises me 

Bo Harbaugh

May 1st, 2021 at 9:10 PM ^

60 years. 

Bo never won a national title despite having numerous opportunities and elite teams.  

1/2 a national title since the WWII era. Compared to other "traditional powerhouses", I'd say we're the champs of doing less with more for quite some time.

DennisFranklinDaMan

May 1st, 2021 at 9:24 PM ^

That's harsh. at one point Bo lost four games in five years, including only two in conference. If you want to take the position that it's win-or-nothing, fair enough, but to describe him as being part of a 60-year tradition of "doing less with more," reflects ... a remarkably high standard. At least ... I'd be pretty satisfied with four losses in five years. I don't ask for more than that.

DennisFranklinDaMan

May 1st, 2021 at 9:39 PM ^

Actually, I'll go a bit further than that. I'd say, traditionally, we do exactly what we should be doing with the talent we get. Even under Harbaugh, I'd imagine (without checking) that our record and results are, on balance, better than everybody else in the Big Ten East ... except Ohio State. Which is exactly where our recruiting says we should be. 

I'm frustrated too -- last year broke me, and I'm in the "time for Harbaugh to go" camp. But ... the suggestion that other teams are doing more with less than we are, is incorrect. We're in the same division as Ohio State. Our dumb luck.

DennisFranklinDaMan

May 1st, 2021 at 11:23 PM ^

Fair enough. As I said, I hadn't checked. I had assumed we had a better record since Harbaugh's arrival than both MSU and Penn State. In fact, it looks like, not counting last year, we have exactly the same record as Penn State since Harbaugh's arrival. (On the other hand, we actually finished 4.5 games ahead of them in his first year -- you take that season away, and we're 4.5 games behind).

In any event, yes, I've lost all confidence in Harbaugh as well. Still, hoping to be remarkably surprised this year! C'mon, Jim ... shock me!

DennisFranklinDaMan

May 1st, 2021 at 11:16 PM ^

Our non-conference schedules weren't that bad.

  • 1970: Washington (ranked), Arizona, and Texas A&M.
  • 1971: Virginia, UCLA, and Navy
  • 1972: At No. 6 UCLA,  #18 Tulane(!), and Navy
  • 1973: Stanford, Navy, Oregon.
  • 1974: Colorado, Navy, and Stanford

I agree, it's hardly Alabama, Notre Dame, and USC, but ... it ain't the little sisters of the poor either.

Yeah, the Big Ten was pretty weak back then (though I think all of college football was pretty stratified at that point), but ... we didn't suck. 

Perkis-Size Me

May 1st, 2021 at 8:27 PM ^

Yeah go ahead and talk shit about a program that came into our house with a decimated roster we shit on all offseason, and then proceeded to out-coach and out-smart Harbaugh and Co. from the first snap on. 

SecretAgentMayne

May 1st, 2021 at 8:41 PM ^

What’s even more infuriating is that MSU/ Mel Tucker didn’t even do anything overly-brilliant— he literally just had noodle-arm Rocky Lombardi throw it over and over again to some nobody receiver whose name I can’t even remember, and Michigan had seemingly no answer and made no adjustments. Just a completely embarrassing overall failure.

uncle leo

May 1st, 2021 at 8:55 PM ^

But wouldn't you say that is brilliant? Isn't that what a good coaching staff should do? Recognize what is happening and make the necessary adjustments and hammer it over and over again until the other side adjusts back?

I don't think Mel Tucker is some genius; however, their coaching staff ran circles around Harbaugh that day.

Hail to the Vi…

May 1st, 2021 at 9:12 PM ^

I don't know I would say that it's brilliant. It's logical I suppose - if it keeps working, continue to do it until it doesn't work anymore.

The fact Michigan could not figure out how to keep Rocky Lombardi and some random freshman receiver from looking like Brady to Moss is truly inexplicable. It almost seems like a defense with the talent level of Michigan's would have to literally stop trying to allow that to happen.

PopeLando

May 2nd, 2021 at 12:58 PM ^

Harbaugh's other MSU loss a couple years ago - when there was clearly bad weather inbound and the coaches didn't bother to try to score until after neither team could throw - was the absolute nadir of game planning from Harbaugh's staff.

I swear to the Almighty Spaghetti Monstrosity that we play MSU like the games are 20 quarters long and any deficit can be made up in the last 30 seconds. 

bronxblue

May 1st, 2021 at 8:32 PM ^

Somehow this team also beat NW, Big 10 West champion and a team that gave OSU a ton of trouble in the championship game.  A weird year all around.  Still probably the worst loss in Harbaugh's tenure at UM.

I would like to add that of the 7 UM players drafted this year, 3 sat out 2020 completely.  And both Paye and Mayfield missed significant chunks of the season due to injury.  It was a year where a lot of UM's top-level talent wasn't on the field nearly as much as you'd have liked.

DennisFranklinDaMan

May 1st, 2021 at 11:31 PM ^

Man, that really was a joke. I'm not the kind of fan who says this, normally, but it sure felt like *I* could have taken over on the sidelines and won that game. I don't know what happened to Harbaugh and Don Brown, but it felt like a shared aneurysm. Watching it was ... among the most bewildering and frustrating experiences this long-time fan has ever had watching a Michigan game. 

If college football worked the way every other job in the world works, Harbaugh would have been called into the AD's office and read the riot act after that game. Not necessarily fired, but ... Warde Manuel should have called him in and demanded a full explanation of what the f**k happened.

I think that's what killed me. There was no sense that the athletic department or the football team ever acknowledged the seriousness of what that game revealed. It was treated like an aberration. But those of us watching it knew it was no aberration. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a fluke last-second play. It was a failure, through and through. It was ... revelatory.

And it was ignored.