TomVH article on Alabama and ND - implications for Michigan
Thought this was a good read - it's about how Alabama and ND have taken very different recruiting paths to their playoff game. The long and short of it is: Alabama does it with overwhelming raw talent, most of whom leave early; ND does it by good talent that they then develop into a roster stacked with veteran players.
I've been thinking for ages that Michigan's path to sustained success would be as "Wisconsin with some extra 4/5 stars." And that's pretty much what TomVH says ND has become. Obviously took them some time, and growing pains, to get there. But given that ND and Michigan share similar academic restrictions (that the Alabamas and OSUs of the world do not), as well as a seeming unwillingness to pay players, is this our most realistic path to sustained success? How exactly do we go about getting there?
(TBH I'm not sure it's plausible with our current staff, given JH's tendency to burn redshirts, forget to recruit key positions in any given year and seeming inability to keep a staff together.)
December 29th, 2020 at 2:16 PM ^
And he is a good guy. My father in law and Cardale have become friends in recent years. My father in law didnt know who he was when they met...Cardale gave him his Bills coat one day and later he asked me if i wanted it because it was too big for him. when I saw it I asked him how he got it and he said a friend of his that played for ohio state a few years ago gave it to him. Funny how an old retired sheriff and a young nfl qb at the time can become friends
December 29th, 2020 at 2:46 PM ^
Well known that OSU players are close with law enforcement. Maybe a bit too close.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:59 PM ^
That's funny. Out of curiosity, how did he get to know him?
December 29th, 2020 at 1:56 PM ^
ken-yon rambo.
i'm being facetious here, obviously. but there are players that we simply don't pursue because we know they can't or won't do the classwork.
do we make some accommodations for football players? of course we do. nobody says we don't.
does the athletic department work with admissions? up front, before we make committable offers? absolutely.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:40 PM ^
the best example of this clearly rampant phenomenon is an osu wide receiver that began his college career in 1997?
December 29th, 2020 at 6:30 PM ^
yes, he's "THE BEST EXAMPLE OF THIS CLEARLY RAMPANT PHENOMENON." that's why the first words i wrote after his name pointed out that i was being facetious.
pull your head out, dumbass.
December 29th, 2020 at 8:31 PM ^
ok so provide a real one
December 29th, 2020 at 2:57 PM ^
See: We didn’t come here to play school. What’s different about one other school down south is also that some kids might qualify but how many classes does it take to be able to read a playbook? Before getting let go from the NFL???
December 29th, 2020 at 1:46 PM ^
Why do we try to recruit the same players as them if they can't get into UM?
December 29th, 2020 at 1:55 PM ^
A majority of them can get into M via the bridge program. The issue is they don't want to. Justin Fields and Joe Burrow never had to step foot on OSU or LSU's campus. That shit won't fly at Michigan and various other schools.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:09 PM ^
couple of things
1. Fields first offer was from Harvard and had other Ivy league offers
2. Joe Burrow graduated and was at LSU to get his Masters degree so it's a bit different in terms of academic profile.
Not defending ohio or lsu but just saying what you said has no context to it that is misleading.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:42 PM ^
lol "i'm not defending osu or lsu but i thought you'd like some actual facts in response to your completely made up comment"
December 29th, 2020 at 5:03 PM ^
None of what you said disproved what he said though. Athletes at Michigan actually have to go to class and pre-covid there was basically no online classes. Compare that to other schools where athletes literally don't ever have to step foot on campus and don't even really need to be the ones taking their classes, we are at a disadvantage
December 29th, 2020 at 7:55 PM ^
How are you so certain UM players go to class? There was a commit by mgokev somewhere in this thread that he was in a class with 3 other football players and in his words "Not only did they attend exactly zero classes after the initial syllabus day, I can confirm that they at best had a 9th grade reading level. I.e. spellings of “inishal” instead of initial.".
Doesn't seem like UM is only recruiting Rhodes Scholars by the sound of that. UM historically has recruited the same players as OSU over the years. Players like Maurice Clarrett and Ted Ginn Jr had both OSU and UM offers. The main difference these days is UM rarely wins a head to head recruiting battle with OSU.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:13 PM ^
Ok, so please cite your accurate description of UM academic standards for football recruits. To date, I'm yet to see any actual evidence that we have a higher standard than anyone else when admitting freshman. I'm aware of only two things: we don't accept many transfers because UM doesn't accept transfer credits from many schools and that sometimes if the AD feels like we are taking too many shady recruits he'll ask that we take less but never an example of how many is too many or what is shady.
I wouldn't have said anything about this but I find it very ironic that you make a predictive post about someone posting something without evidence while pre-emptively declaring them wrong without any evidence.
I honestly don't know if we have higher standards. i hear it all the time but I'm yet to see any evidence. I know Rich Rod was going to take Demar Dorsey if he could have passed the bare minimum NCAA requirements. So it seems we have exceptions to any higher academic standard we are imposing.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:56 PM ^
Nobody is saying we have higher standards for admission. It’s the part about going to class that is different. Was it last year that fields said he didn’t step foot on campus the whole semester? Doing only online classes? North Carolina at one point invented an entire fake curriculum for athletes and admitted to it.
So if you had an offer to Michigan that required you to go to class and another from OSU where you don’t, it filters out many potential recruits.
December 29th, 2020 at 6:14 PM ^
Could also be that they are in the playoff every year and beat us by 50 but keep deluding yourself. The class thing was never an issue when we were rolling through Rose Bowls every year.
December 29th, 2020 at 1:36 PM ^
Just beat Ohio State at the end of the year and we are better off...
December 29th, 2020 at 1:38 PM ^
The academic restrictions thing is wildly overblown. We turn away, what, maybe one player every three years due to their inability to qualify?
December 29th, 2020 at 1:43 PM ^
Most top100 guys won't even consider UofM; if you're on your way to the NFL, why would you want to distract with a real education?
December 29th, 2020 at 3:12 PM ^
They aren't considering Michigan because of a variety of other factors. Academics as a reason for not coming here is pretty low on the list. Historically mediocre (and by history I mean in these kids' lifespans), rarely plays in big games, when you do play in big games you get your ass kicked, head coach is weird...
All of these are solid reasons to rule out Michigan before you even get to the going to school part.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:34 PM ^
The reason top 100 guys don't consider UM is because of the poor track record of development of those guys. Rashan Gary tied for the highest rated recruit in 247 history, and although he was a first round pick, he was not a top 5 pick. Also, he was not the dominant, generational cfb player that was expected of him based on his recruiting ranking. Shae Patterson was undrafted. DPJ was a 6th round pick.
December 29th, 2020 at 5:24 PM ^
Although what you're saying is BS, because UofM has put a lot of guys in the NFL, especially since we aren't really a top10 recruiting team.
You bring up an interesting point?
We sucked at putting people in the NFL during RR/Hoke years so why did Rashan even consider coming here?
We won less than with Harbaugh and had very few draft picks but he still came here?
December 29th, 2020 at 9:21 PM ^
Shea Patterson also lost his job at Ole Miss too
December 29th, 2020 at 1:50 PM ^
This is misguided at best. It's not about guys who apply and get turned down. It's about guys Michigan doesn't even bother recruiting because they either won't get in or won't be able to handle it if they do.
I've had DIII coaches tell me "This kid could play for us, but we're out in the middle of nowhere and I can tell you right now, he's a kid who will be home by the second semester of his freshman year because he won't fit in."
If that's happening at the DIII level - where kids are paying to play and coaches have quotas they need to meet - I can guarantee you it's happening at the FBS level, where the risk is even higher.
December 29th, 2020 at 1:56 PM ^
I'm so glad someone respected around here is saying this. I've been saying it as well. It's not about our admissions standards. It's about kids that may make it in but won't be able to keep up with the academic side of things. Or kids that don't want to go to class. We absolutely have to recruit a different kid than Alabama or even OSU. Look at their course catalog and compare it to ours. We can't take sports or phys ed for credit, but OSU can. That's a microcosm of the difference.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:32 PM ^
This is so far from the truth. If you think there is a material difference between phys ed at OSU and Kinesiology at Michigan then I suspect that you did not go to Michigan. If the school wants you to stay in school, the student will stay in school. Anyone who thinks there is a football player unable to "keep up" at certain majors at Michigan is grossly overstating the difficulty of those majors and grossly understating the school's desire to keep athletes eligible by whatever means necessary.
December 29th, 2020 at 2:48 PM ^
Again, you've missed the point made by myself and others in this thread.
Michigan might take 2 academic exceptions in a year and work really hard to keep those guys afloat, but the other 20 recruits might fly along just fine as high academic kids.
Another school might take 10 academic exceptions in a year, 10 others might be C+ students, and 2 might be high academic kids.
If you don't agree with this, think of all the wild, crazy people that have come out of college football in recent years or who have been public embarrassments...
...and then think about the fact that none of them have come from Michigan. Michigan guys with problems flame out and go somewhere else (Tate Forcier, Csont'e York, Kevin Grady, Darryl Stonum, etc.).
Michigan has no Jameis Winston, Johnny Manziel, etc.
December 29th, 2020 at 4:57 PM ^
Jameis Winston had a Stanford offer and made an official visit. Johnny Manziel also had a Stanford offer (and an offer from Rice).
The reason Michigan has not had a headliner get in trouble has more to do with a lack of headliners. PLENTY of Michigan athletes have had issues in college, I saw plenty of it as most any social person at Michigan did. College kids are college kids - Michigan is not immune to this. I don't have to name names of athletes getting arrested in Ypsi, smashing bottles into people on East U, etc. You have zero backup for any of this drivel, it just makes everyone feel better.
Harbaugh had a front row seat to all of this and basically said the Michigan academic stuff was nonsense (a few years back). He's obviously correct. You're providing anecdotes that mean nothing. I wish we, as a fanbase, would lose some of the pompousness around our academics. Is the University of Michigan a better and more prestigious academic institution than 97% of college football? Certainly. Does that mean that we turn our noses up at certain players? Certainly not.
December 29th, 2020 at 5:11 PM ^
The fact that you're still spouting the "this player had offers from these good schools" means your still failing to understand the point people are making
December 29th, 2020 at 6:06 PM ^
You are implying that these players would not come to Michigan, or concurrently that Michigan would not be interested in them, because of some illusory academic standard. I am instead showing that (i) schools of a higher academic caliber than Michigan had no such concerns, and (ii) the players did the smart thing for them and went to better teams - though Michigan most certainly did recruit them. There is not a scintilla of sourcing that anyone has ever provided on this blog that a player explicitly said he chose a different school because Michigan was harder. There are a lot of examples of players being recruited, and visiting, schools with better academic reputations and turning them down - and the visits would lead one to believe they were very interested in such schools.
Then there was my favorite canard that Michigan does not have "issue" players like Manziel and Winston (when of course we have had such players and will continue to have such players) as some sort of evidence that Michigan would not recruit such players when, in reality, better schools that actively try to avoid such problems did recruit such players.
So if I am missing your point, perhaps you can try making it better.
December 29th, 2020 at 9:40 PM ^
People have tried making the point to you like 10x in this thread and you're either choosing to not understand or it's going right over your head. It's not a matter of academic standards, it's the fact that athletes must physically attend class at Michigan and fake online classes are not available to athletes like at other schools. If you can't understand what people are saying by now, then Idk what to tell you
December 29th, 2020 at 7:03 PM ^
Michigan has just as many "headliners" as Texas A&M and Florida State.
Of course Michigan has guys who are going to make mistakes. They're college kids. But again, this point was clearly made: Denard Robinson, Devin Bush, Rashan Gary, Brandon Graham, etc. were/are all highly visible players, and none of them have made themselves into national laughingstocks for their off-the-field behavior or even on-field antics.
And also, again, players who have run into publicized trouble at Michigan have generally been shown the door. I know of one particular player who had a Johnny Manziel-like problem, and he finished his career elsewhere. Another player had an obvious partying problem, and he didn't last at Michigan.
I'm sorry, but Michigan DOES turn up its nose at certain players. Again, I'm not saying every Michigan player is squeaky clean, but there are standards at Michigan that don't exist everywhere. If you think Michigan and LSU have the same standards for recruits, then . . . you might want to sit this one out.
December 29th, 2020 at 8:55 PM ^
You realize there is zero proof or evidence for anything you've said in this post, correct?
December 29th, 2020 at 9:42 PM ^
You realize that Magnus is probably the most well connected football person on this blog, correct?
December 30th, 2020 at 7:26 AM ^
"Michigan has just as many "headliners" as Texas A&M and Florida State. "
Since Woodsonx Michigan hasn't had any 3 players combined that were as "headliner" as Manziel or Winston.
December 30th, 2020 at 8:44 AM ^
That's totally true if you ignore that Jabrill Peppers finished #5 and Denard Robinson finished #6 in the Heisman voting, Rashan Gary was the #1 overall recruit in 2016, Jake Long was the #1 overall pick, etc.
December 31st, 2020 at 5:33 AM ^
It's totally true even given those things.
No number of 5th or 6th place finishes is as much a headliner as an actual winner.
... and Gary and Jake Long as headliners, much less comparable to Winston and Manziel in college? Hilarious.
December 29th, 2020 at 6:38 PM ^
Knocks on wood three times
December 29th, 2020 at 2:52 PM ^
Mario Manningham was eligible.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:11 PM ^
No, Michigan does not "keep athletes eligible by whatever means necessary". There's tons of support and guidance, but the athletes still need to do the work. There's not 120 credit hours of no-work courses in Kinesiology.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:49 PM ^
Speaking from personal experience, this is not true. I took a class and was on a project team with 3 other football players in which our course grade was a group grade in which we were all scored the same and it was based on our final project. Not only did they attend exactly zero classes after the initial syllabus day, I can confirm that they at best had a 9th grade reading level. I.e. spellings of “inishal” instead of initial.
The professor preemptively assured me my grade won’t be impacted and I would be graded separately outside of the group grade.
They finished their UM degrees with above 3.4 GPAs.
We are not some holier than thou academic standard school for football. This has been my first hand experience. Negbang me.
December 29th, 2020 at 5:14 PM ^
The fact that they even attended one class and step foot on campus is something that athletes at other schools don't have to do
December 29th, 2020 at 7:11 PM ^
If you're willing to share, I would be interested in when this happened. I'm not trying to figure out the players (that would be impossible), just trying to figure out if you're talking about the 1980s or the Jim Harbaugh era or what.
December 29th, 2020 at 8:03 PM ^
Late Carr - Early Rich Rod; I won’t name the players but they all were starters. This is shaping my perspective, but you have made valid points and I concede it’s nuanced and difficult to attribute at scale.
I just tend to be more jaded/dismissive of the academic standard elitism for athletics.
December 30th, 2020 at 9:07 AM ^
That was roughly the time when Jim Harbaugh made negative comments about Michigan's academics, which caused the rift with Mike Hart. Rodriguez somewhat notoriously tried to take too many academic risk players, and Carr took several guys who flopped, too. It's also noteworthy that the only JUCO signee in about the last 25 years was Austin Panter in 2007.
That might be a sign that your experience came at a time where the coaches and admissions were lowering their standards. Rodriguez also tried to push through some obvious academic risks, using considerable efforts to bring in guys like Justin Turner and Demar Dorsey, two 4-star defensive backs who literally never played a down at Michigan.
December 30th, 2020 at 7:28 AM ^
My freshman English class at Michigan had two athletes.
A QB who never played and is now a coach.
A swimmer who set multiple world records and won gold medals.
The QB was smart. The swimmer would have flunked out of my high school.
December 29th, 2020 at 5:08 PM ^
You sound like a boomer who hasn't attended Michigan in 40 years. The kinesiology degree is no joke
December 29th, 2020 at 6:11 PM ^
I'm sure that's right but there are plenty of folks on here today making it seem like one must be able to split the atom to play for Michigan which is absolutely false and helps explain why our fanbase is so insane.
December 29th, 2020 at 3:17 PM ^
I’m sure they tell the recruits not to worry about staying eligible. Rashan got a 9 on the Wonderlic and was a two time Academic All American. If he was not only able to stay eligible, but also reach Academic All American status, then an average student who doesn’t have the same struggles won’t have a problem staying eligible.
The reason osu, Bama, and Clemson recruit better is because they win. It’s not because they pay players and we don’t. It’s not because they are recruiting lazy guys who won’t go to school and we can only recruit “A” students. Clemson didn’t become elite at recruiting until they started winning. - We win more than Rutgers and Purdue and we recruit better than Rutgers and Purdue. It just makes sense, but for some reason everyone keeps looking for a reason why osu and Alabama recruit better than we do, when it’s very simple. They win more than we do. It just makes sense to everyone outside of Michigan.