Positive news re Stanford grad transfer DT Michael Williams

I think academics may interest him if his list also includes Vandy and Rice. 

With that said, Vandy and Rice are both excellent schools. So if he's academics-first, they have a shot. Michigan obviously offers the best combo, though.

SMU isn't a backwater school. If he does well there the NFL will find him.

I’m guessing if he was an nfl talent, Michigan wouldn’t be the only big time school recruiting him.

100% agree

The only similarity between them is that they're both transfers. Danna was a standout player at his previous school with great PFF grades. Williams isn't.

Agreed.

I actually think it is a touch overblown, but obviously having Williams would be a great get for us. Stanford isn't the top 10 team they were before and I don't think it's unreasonable to think Williams will be a rotation guy amongst Kemp, Dwumfour, and hopefully rising Mazi and Hinton. Nothing wrong with that

Well I'm obviously assuming things, but I didn't say he was going to ride pine. I was saying he's likely to be a rotation guy. Stanford was the #58 run defense this year and I couldn't find any draft buzz on Williams. So I'm assuming he's unlikely to come here and be the #1 or #2 guy on the line. Probably a solid contributor as a #3ish guy

Don Brown likes to rotate lots of guys on the DL anyway, plus change looks situationally. Technically Danna and Uche were not "starters" on the DL this year, but they definitenly got plenty of run.

I think the "not a starter" comments just suggests that he might not be a significant upgrade from the players we already have on the roster. But Danna certainly found a role here if he wasn't neccsarily an "upgrade" over either Kwity Paye or Hutchinson.

We ran a lot of 3-3-5 this year due to personnel, but with Uche leaving and I think Don Brown probably wants to move back to a 4-3 which means there may going to be a new "starting" DT position opening up on the line and we are going to need more than just Kemp and Dwumfour and the redshirt freshman. 

It's not a good habit to compare most DTs to Hurst though.  His size was a non-factor because he played with the strength of someone 30 pounds heavier, and had absolutely absurd get-off (the "Hurst burst") that's earning him paychecks in the NFL.  As often as not he was behind the O-line before they could set up their blocks, but if you tried to double him he had the strength to deal with that too.

It seems after enjoying all the havoc Hurst created that Don Brown is now fond of multi-classing all his barbarians into rogue and looking for guys in Hurst's size (~290 lbs), which gives him some positional flexibility (you can do Brown-esque things when your SDE, 3T, and NT are all the same size).  But most DTs aren't Mo Hurst.  At 290 they don't have the strength to hold up against over 600 pounds of meat, and any gains in speed from playing at that size aren't enough to force the O-line to play differently the way Hurst did.  So like any multi-classing, you get the disadvantages of both and the upsides of neither.

Exhibit A: Dwumfour is out for the bowl game.  We need depth while younger players develop 

Michigan needs effective defensive tackle play; it doesn't matter how they get it.  No Hurst wasn't particularly big; neither was Mike Martin.  There's no great benefit in having massive DTs by themselves, and having massive guys who can run like DEs are in very small supply.  UM will recruit them, but it's not like bulking up smaller guys is a bad idea; most HS DTs have to cut similar "bad" weight and get built up to a good weight anyway.

I get both camps: "More beef" vs. "Brown's kind of dudes..." But, given the conference we play in, I feel there's 2-3 games you can bet on us struggling against just because of size/strength at DT.

As mentioned by others, Hurst was an anomaly. As functional as Kemp (and heroic sometimes) was this year for the most part, the lack of development behind him and the general lack of elite talent -whether on the light side or not- troubles me...shouldn't have to scheme so hard to create spills along the front 7 to contain strong running games and guys averaging 320 lb along their OL. 

To wit, blown assignments or not, that Wisco game was decided by the transfer portal at DL...Am I way off? I'd love to be wrong. 

Yeah, but that's not as fun or as cathartic as screaming "wHy dOn't HarbaUgh REcrUit DTs" at your computer and then typing that as an actual comment.

I think Brown is building 3-3-5 as his base.  This has dominated recruiting by adding more hybrid space players with elite speed.  At DL, he wants agile Anchor DE types who are versatile in stunting plus a WDE/SAM pass rushing specialist.  The position we just can't seem to hit on is the true DT who is a run stuffer specialist for 4-3 sets.  A guy like Mone or Glasgow.  Hopefully Mazi Smith becomes that guy.  

Plus one for the use of Goobers.

I don't disagree that the staff is trying as hard as they can to construct the best roster and team. They're accomplished men striving to win as much as we want them to.

But, I also believe - and we know -  they've missed on guys they wanted. The reality is some of the types of talent people are bitching about have left the program or potentially recruited kids signed elsewhere. It's not all just because the scheme is trending one way or another.

The nuancing on this thread about scheme is because of, not in spite of those misses/transfers, n'est-ce pas?