Some Actual M Football News/Rumors - QB Leader?
I was catching up on my M podcasts this morning and heard Chris Balas excepted from the Huge Show talking all things M-football.
He said that they are hearing that McCaffrey and McNamara are in a heated battle for the backup position because Joe Milton is slowly locking down the QB1 spot. I had not seen or heard this elsewhere and it is a change for Rivals as I got the feeling they were more "team McCaffrey" as recently as Spring.
Has anyone else got some decent football info or gossip to share?
Other notable stuff from that podcast that seemed new-ish...
Balas would not be surprised if True Frosh / Early Enrollee Zinter worked his way into the starting lineup by the end of whatever "season" we end up having this Winter/Spring based on practice buzz.
McNamara has really come on strong to give M a viable 3-deep at QB.
Mayfield has apparently hired an agent so that would complicate a possible return if the B1G actually restarted a fall/winter schedule.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:18 PM ^
Can't edit the OP -- meant to say the Podcast was "Excerpted" from the Huge show -- if that actually is a word....(I are a Engineer.)
September 4th, 2020 at 6:15 PM ^
It's DM 1a JM 1b.
EA going to play a bunch at TE.
The LB core is strength of defense
RB is playing outside, and looks like a #1
ZC looks faster and bigger
Cheers
September 4th, 2020 at 6:26 PM ^
Is "RB" Ronnie Bell? And what exactly does he looks like #1 mean? He is playing like he deserves the number 1 or he is the #1 option, because we all knew he was gonna start.
September 4th, 2020 at 6:40 PM ^
Thanks for this. I was about to come post, but I don’t have any real credibility. Suffice to say I talked to a friend of a friend kind of deal and if Michigan plays in October, Dylan will 100% be the starting QB. Joe has done a ton of extra work and is improving day in and day out.
I think Harbaugh appreciates the work that Joe is putting in, and that he stuck around campus during the off-season, but Dylan is definitely the starter as of now. Joe has come a long way, but Dylan has been way out in front for a while. Joe still has stuff to work on to be at Dylan’s level, but if Dylan goes down Joe will step in and the offense will continue rolling.
This is what I’ve heard. I didn’t want to post, and then decided I would. Then when I came back to write what I heard I saw your post about Dylan being 1A. That definitely sounds exactly like what I just heard.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:21 PM ^
I'm confused, how is this related to the official purpose of the Mgoboard, that being, shitting on anyone and everyone that disagrees with me about anything no matter how trivial?
September 4th, 2020 at 12:24 PM ^
Hey fuck you asshole!
/s
September 4th, 2020 at 3:05 PM ^
September 4th, 2020 at 12:33 PM ^
Agreed, but @Rob F is taking this mod stuff seriously.
Seriously enough that President Jeanine Áñez filed a complaint with the US State Department about the influx of illegal aliens from Michigan.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
Not since the MGoMod who sent Butch & Sundance to Bolivia has there been so much anxiety in the Andes
September 4th, 2020 at 12:24 PM ^
If true, that is amazing news. Milton could be a destroyer of worlds. We need HERO play at QB to win against OSU.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:45 PM ^
The extent that Milton had to improve or for McCaffrey to regress for Milton to win the job is substantial, so I'm curious how this turns out
September 4th, 2020 at 1:22 PM ^
Outside of one throw to Bell two years ago. I haven't seen anything special out of McCaffrey throwing the ball. Sure he runs fast, until he gets broken.
September 4th, 2020 at 1:36 PM ^
A similar thing could be said about Milton. He has a cannon for an arm but his only impressive throw where he uses his arm well was the TD pass against Rutgers. Besides that, he was pretty bad and threw 2 INTs in 11 pass attempts. McCaffrey was much better in his ability to make the right decision and make an accurate throw in addition to his speed and ability to make the right read. His arm talent isn't as good at Milton's but McCaffrey was better in basically every other way.
Maybe that has changed though
September 4th, 2020 at 2:39 PM ^
Exactly. It's so hard to evaluate the ability to read the field, anticipate where the play is going and do this while being chased by a couple angry 280 pound humans without a large sample size of real game play. A dumb schmuck like me can never do it and even experts whiff on it. You have to see it in a game to really know. THAT said, my homer glasses are all rosie when I hear about Joe Milton's work ethic and leadership skills. We're due to have a guy who ends up starting on Sundays.
September 4th, 2020 at 3:29 PM ^
Don't underestimate what "a cannon for an arm" can do to cover up other sins. What I would have given for a cannon arm like Chad Henne to have been throwing to our WR corp from last season instead of what we had. I'd take 5 additional INT's for the big plays that become possible when your slinger can actually sling.
I'm in the pro Milton camp. I want that NFL arm power above all. CFB is no longer going to be about throwing to wide open receivers. Its going to mimic the NFL in that you have to be able to put the ball in tight spots and throw receivers open. Shea would hitch, hesitate, hitch and ultimately get sacked because he knew he couldn't fire that ball with enough velocity to beat the DB in most situations. Credit to Shea for not just tossing it up and risking a TO but big arms can make plays that average arms just can't. To me is like comparing a 4.4 guy to a 4.7 guy. Take the speed and work on the technique.
September 4th, 2020 at 4:33 PM ^
I don't think that is entirely true. His first season he missed most of his deep shots by over throwing his target. His second season he shorted them. He did only have a slightly above average arm but still plenty of zip to get the job done. A lot of time I feel as though he couldn't get in a true rhythm and take over a game as a passer.
September 4th, 2020 at 5:53 PM ^
The Tacopants thing was real.
I would still stab an acquaintance to time travel Henne into the 2015 class.
September 4th, 2020 at 5:58 PM ^
Remember, with Gattis there are some other important QB skills and abilities besides arm strength and reading the DB pass coverage.
September 4th, 2020 at 3:35 PM ^
but on the plus side his INTs were also very nice, tight, spirals
September 4th, 2020 at 3:28 PM ^
Concerns about DMac being less durable than the average QB are overblown. He existed the Wisc. game last season due to a blatant cheap shot.
September 4th, 2020 at 1:41 PM ^
Hyped QB battles
“I love the smell of College Football in the preseason”
September 4th, 2020 at 2:59 PM ^
Milton could be a destroyer of worlds.
I guess the hype train starts here. It could also mean that McCaffery is just the same guy we've seen before and not progressing.
September 4th, 2020 at 4:00 PM ^
That hype train has already been koo-koo-kachooing down the tracks for a minute
September 4th, 2020 at 3:03 PM ^
FWIW, I care across this article the other day that echoes the OP a bit.
Sound like substantial improvements from Milton
September 4th, 2020 at 3:30 PM ^
I pretty much don’t buy anything Balas says so take this info with a grain of salt
September 4th, 2020 at 12:25 PM ^
Naming a starter without live football practice with hitting taking place?
September 4th, 2020 at 12:37 PM ^
Don't want to argue with "Mr. Superguide" - I assume this is sarcasm as there was no mention of anybody being "named" in my post just what Balas was hearing.
What he is hearing is that Milton has been doing well and is working his ass off to win the job i.e. getting into the FB building every day before the coaches etc. and all the work he did with Devin Gardner during the quarantine. I felt it was particularly worth noting because all the Rivals people have been previously saying good things about Milton "but we expect McCaffrey to win the starting job"
September 4th, 2020 at 1:22 PM ^
Did he consult with Jake Ruddock as well as Devin Gardener?
September 4th, 2020 at 12:27 PM ^
I was going to start a separate thread for this, but since this is here and you asked about football info, I will just leave it here. I saw this free article on 247 earlier today. In an interview, Michigan OT Ryan Hayes mentions who has been running with the first team lately during practice. There has been plenty of speculation on the blog as to who will be the starters on the line the next time Michigan plays (whenever that is), so I thought this was worth sharing.
“Well, I couldn't say for sure it would be the starting five. But right now we've been running with me (at left tackle), Chuck (Filiaga) and Trevor (Keegan) rotating and [sic] left guard, (Andrew Vastardis) at center, and then (Andrew Stueber) at right guard and (Karsen Barnhart) at right tackle for now. But everything fluctuates every day, so I couldn't really tell you for sure starting lineup," Hayes said during a zoom media roundtable today.
As Mr. Hayes said, everything is in flux so this doesn't prove who will win the starting battles, but it is a small clue and I thought it was interesting.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:41 PM ^
I believe Zach Carpenter was sitting out of practice due to injury at the time of the quote. I would expect him to factor in at Center.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:44 PM ^
Thx - Interesting to see how things play out - particularly some of the names like Keegan in the guard spots instead of tackle. (Stueber also but he was already looking at OG before Mayfield left.)
I personally like having a veteran like Vastardis at OC but I know the MGoStaff was strongly "team Carpenter" heading into the season. --EDIT Center situation may be explained by the post above^^
September 4th, 2020 at 12:46 PM ^
Now this is scuttlebutt worth hearing. Some talking head claiming without citing a source what he has “heard” isn’t worth a hell of a lot. Easy to make something plausible up. Easy for his source to have done so, or to have assumed something.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:28 PM ^
A few weeks back, one of the "insider" UM instagram accounts mentioned that Milton was leading the pack. It will be interesting to see how the year (whenever it takes place) unfolds, as you would assume one of the 3 will end up transferring.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:31 PM ^
McCaffrey throws an accurate ball and is very athletic, that would be nice to see in an M QB, Milton seems a bit erratic in his throws, maybe he has improved, I just want to see really good QB play is all, crossing my fingers.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:37 PM ^
Sam has spoken on this multiple times that Milton has worked with Devin Gardner and Pep Hamilton in the off season and has improved leaps and bounds on his accuracy and decision making. He has said he believed Milton was the leader and that not to sleep on McNamara. Remember, Gattis said that McNamara was a top target on Bama's recruiting board when he was there. I'm not surprised at all.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:47 PM ^
From the videos I saw of Milton in the spring with Gardner, it was clear he was much, much improved.
I wouldn't count McCaffrey out yet though. The way I had seen it worded was that Milton is playing the best right now, but they haven't done any specific game prep yet. And McCaffrey may have the edge there as the more experienced option.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:57 PM ^
They both seemed to fire fastballs directly into the chest of defenders who they had no idea were there. It wouldn't be hard to be more accurate than Patterson, but Patterson had an idea where a LB would be on a crossing route and so forth.
My take is that they are both probably behind where Shea was in terms of reading a defense, but both are more dangerous with their feet. The difference being that McCaffrey has been destroyed several times when running, whereas Milton has young Cam Newton type size. Maybe the offense can be most effective by using the QB who you can call running plays for, and not feel like he'll get obliterated.
September 4th, 2020 at 1:08 PM ^
Good news is that we have two viable options. Last spring many on here were saying that Milton should transfer and even some (Mineral King accounts) were suggesting that he had been told by Harbaugh to transfer. If Milton does win the job I wonder if McCaffrey gets more and more reps at WR like Gardner did the one year and/or become a David Sills type threat.
September 4th, 2020 at 4:44 PM ^
I was just thinking that in almost any other season we'd be looking at ways to get McCaffrey on the field. But I honestly can't remember a time when we've had such quality depth at WR and RB.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:31 PM ^
Balas has been reading Football Bits it appears :)
September 4th, 2020 at 12:52 PM ^
Don't mean to steal any thunder Seth!! :-P
-- I spent WAY too much time on this site and I do not recall seeing any specific citation of what I posted, but I am getting older......
September 4th, 2020 at 12:59 PM ^
No thunder stolen more of a joke at my and Balas's (and the rest of us covering this stuff)'s expense because we're all one big wind tunnel right now. My last football bits linked stuff from him on this subject.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:32 PM ^
This is based on zero evidence, but I expect McCaffrey and Milton to share QB starting duties.
September 4th, 2020 at 1:01 PM ^
I think McCaffrey has a very high probability of getting hurt if he's the starter. Even if they limit his run plays, he'll scramble on his own -- and he just has a tendency to get rocked when he runs. Maybe they can drill it into his head that he needs to get out of bounds and slide as much as possible, but history shows that he'll put himself in harms way, and he's not good at minimizing the hits (like how it was hard to ever square up Denard).
September 4th, 2020 at 12:42 PM ^
I'm really excited to see if the Milton hype is legit and how much he's improved because after watching the video of every snap that each QB took at Michigan, I didn't think this QB battle would be even remotely close and thought McCaffrey would absolutely run away with the job
September 4th, 2020 at 12:43 PM ^
My guess is he’s just running with the ones. And maybe he’s been doing it for a few days or something. That doesn’t mean he’s leading for starting QB. It could just be “get him reps with the ones” for practice purposes to see what he’s got against the 1s defense. It could be attempting to humble McCaffrey if he screwed up. It could be anything, INCLUDING that he really is the #1 at the moment.
September 4th, 2020 at 12:57 PM ^
I thought it was worth noting because (it felt to me that) the Rivals gang has been assuming McCaffrey will be QB1 all Spring and Summer until now.
That said, I tend to be more of a Sam Webb guy and as far as I have seen he is still hedging his bets on the QB battle.l
September 4th, 2020 at 1:03 PM ^
Didn't Milton stay for the summer, while McCaffrey trained somewhere privately or something? Maybe I'm making that up ...