Unbridled Pessimism
As an MGoUser, I'm a pretty optimistic guy, so I'd like you all to lambaste these few things that have me worried for the next year and get me to the point of unbridled optimism:
1) RB's: Smith looked great, Shaw not so much. What happens when we have Smith injured next year, or god-forbid Smith and Shaw?
2) Kicking: Was OK this year, but if a walk-on kicker started over a 3-star, shouldn't we be worried?
3) The "Close game" argument: Last year we said "man, we lost so many games so close" and this year we're saying the same thing.
4) Not getting bowl practices.
5) Low recruiting class.
Actually, these don't look too bad, but can you guys please refute these for me?
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:28 AM ^
5) Recruiting is not even near done.
We have some good D prospects looking hard at us.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 AM ^
As far as RB's go, Cox is only going to get bigger and stronger. We'll see a lot of him. Also another year experience for the QB's will improve our entire offense in general.
As for kicking, a lot can happen over the summer and as Brian has pointed out kicking rankings are all largely in the "fake forty" territory anyway.
Close games? Once again experienced QB's and overall team experience and maturity will go a long way to solving that. The recruiting class can still move up quite a bit.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:10 AM ^
[bigger/stronger Cox joke here]
Will we ever officially declare Cox jokes old?
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:46 AM ^
"You can only be young once. But you can always be immature." --Dave Barry
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:21 AM ^
contrary to many guys here, including some whose opinions I respect, I am worried. We have not really shown any consistency in the running game other than when Minor was in the game this year. I'm not saying Smith isn't good, clearly he's shown potential. But we really couldn't run successfully yesterday with him in the game, and Shaw showed nothing. And I'm not sure how people have confidence in Cox, there's no way you can say he's either good, bad, or average based upon his limited appearances. The ray of hope for me is that the O=line should be better, which makes the running game better, obviously.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 AM ^
You hit it w/ the oline comment. Minor was the only RB that could consistently get the tough yards, but next year w/ a better oline, as well as more experienced QBs, there will be bigger running lanes. My fear w/ Shaw is that he may be injury prone like Minor/Brown. Regardless, w/ him, Smith, Toussaint, and the incoming freshmen I think we will be just fine.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:59 AM ^
See 2007: Brandon Minor/Carlos Brown backing up Mike Hart. We were thinking the same thing then. That doesn't mean that any of our backups will be that good this time around, but those two guys struggled and then turned out to be quite serviceable.
Just something to keep in mind.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 PM ^
I thought Smith actually showed great toughness yesterday. He didn't go down on first contact, got about 5 ypc, and showed good vision. My hope is that with another year of conditioning he can come out and give us a little of what Mike Hart did (though obviously with far fewer carries given the system) and be a tough, smart runner.
We also have Shaw, who was hurt a lot this year, and if you think back to when he was healthy last year as a freshman and earlier this year, he's shown some very promising flashes, both in terms of raw speed and shiftiness.
Look out for Toussaint, too; the kid was absolutely dominating in H.S. in Ohio (I think he had over 2,000 yds as a senior), against good competition; that obviously doesn't mean everything, but there's good reason to think he can help the team, too.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:20 PM ^
We couldnt run the ball yesterday because Ohio State has a very good run defense. They came into the game as the 3rd best rush defense in the FBS. I would say that explains most of our rushing woes.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:32 AM ^
1) Between Smith, Shaw, Cox, Toussaint, White, Drake, Hopkins, You have to think that at least one if not 2 or 3 of them are competent. I also like what I saw from Shaw/Smith this year.
2) Kicking is hard to figure out. Michigan since the 00s' have always just been O.K. Gibbons should be a adequate replacement and it will be huge that we picked up Hagerup to take over for The Space Emperor.
3) Its part of having a young team. Usually the team with more upperclass leaders will pull teams through in close games.
4) O.K. this sucks, not gonna try to spin it.
5) Is it a down class? Sure. But we went 3-9 last year. I think you can look through the class and see guys that have alot of potential. We are also filling in much needed quality depth.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 AM ^
Even the best kickers miss, ours just seem to have the biggest impact (or at least that is all we remember b/c it is the team we follow).
Overall, Ole kicked ok, it was the two short misses and the extra point that really hauted us...
But as one may say, rely on a kicker...and at some point you get kicked in the ass...
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 AM ^
1) you could have typed this question at the end of last year - what happens if brown and minor are hurt? guys stepped up. since it is an offensive "system" you rely more on scheme than on individual talent.
2) walk on kickers are not that unusual and are not necessarily bad. (i don't have any date to support this) i think that they are just "asked" to come walk on so that the scholarships can go to the big timers, knowing that some of those guys will not make it. i would guess olesnavage did not pay his own anything this year. RR seems to coddle the youngsters when he has an alternative (safeties, LBs, RBs most of the year).
3) in the close games, michigan had a lot of dumb mistakes. you have to hope that an older more experienced and more stable team will not commit costly turnovers or miss short kicks or get caught unaware for onside kick, etc.
4) is there a limit on college football practice time?
5) don't know what "low" means, low numbers? i expect that while the coaches are not bowl practicing they will be selling snake oil nationwide.
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 AM ^
zolton mesko had a walkon start over him his freshman year too. wonder how that worked out?
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:46 AM ^
1) At running back, I agree Smith looked much better than Shaw, but don't forget about Fitzgerald Touissant. That guy was a beast in high school and missed this season because he was injured. He'll be a RS Frosh next year and should be in the mix.
2) The kicking didn't worry me so much until late in the year. Olesnavage was pretty darn good up until the final couple of weeks. I think that missed PAT in the Purdue game hurt his psyche because he was pretty brutal after that, but he was very consistent up until then, so not surprising that he played over a true freshman. I think we'll be okay here.
3) This is the killer one (along with the "we can't have 2 years in a row of negative turnover margin, can we?"). We just have to think that with experience, especially at the QB position, that this will improve.
4) We have to assume our guys are putting in time on their own - without the coaches - in an effort to get better. It's nice to have the coaches there for structure and teaching, but hopefully we'll get some good upper-class leadership and have the guys working out on their own.
5) As far as recruiting, hell, we've had top 15 classes for the last however many years, but that didn't translate into top 15 finishes on the field recently. Recruiting is a crapshoot - just have faith in the coaches ability to scout, rather than the recruiting gurus.
We don't lose a ton off of this team (usually when you say that about a last place team, people ask, is that a good thing or a bad thing), which is good because we're so young. I think the experience factor will be huge next year - especially under center (or in the shotgun)! When we look back on it, we could've and probably should've won the Illinois and Purdue games (even though the Illini game ended as a rout, we were 1 yard away from ripping their heart out of that game, and probably having them make a QB switch and the Purdue game, we seemed to fall asleep in the 2nd half). We win those, and we'd have been 7-5 and people would definitely have seen the progress. Hell, without the 5 turnovers, we beat Iowa. I think this team can and will turn it around next year. With a couple of breaks - ones we didn't get this year - next year's team could easily win 9 games, maybe more. Go Blue!
November 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 AM ^
with the exception of #4, the things you pointed out overall have a small effect on team success.
1) we have an offensive line with 3 starters returning and depth and experience behind them, with schilling and molk being the best two on this years OL. the OL is more important for the running game than the RB.
2) experience returning at the QB position. usually, the strides a qb makes from his freshman to his sophomore year are the greatest in his college career. expect tate to greatly improve his decision making, and his familiarity with the offense.
3) defensive experience will play a key role in our return to significance in the B10. look back on our mistakes this year. most of them weren't due to a lack of talent, they were due to a lack of familiarity with the scheme. many less mental mistakes in 2010.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:08 AM ^
I find it ironic that somebody with Woodson as his avatar says this. Brian's UFRs have recounted in painful, repetitive detail the mind-boggling number of big plays we've given up on defense that directly involve guys like Ezeh, Leach, Kovachs, and Williams, just to select a few. Ezeh is an upperclassman who has been a disappointment, to put it mildly, Leach and Kovachs are guys who weren't even offered scholarships by other B10 schools, and Brian and others here would laugh at the idea that Williams' troubles are purely attributable to inexperience. That's not to say that returning players won't benefit from the experience they've gotten so far, but let's be clear-eyed about the level of talent on defense we've had this year, primarily in the LBs and DBs.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 AM ^
I am a lifelong UM fan born in Ann Arbor but I attended University of Cincinnati. The trevails of UC B-ball are well documented and the UM situation parallels amazingly.
1)UC was left with a bare cubbard and it took 3 full years to recover.
2)The depth of the situation compares as there were no Bob Huggin's recruits left just 2 years after his departure. Academic and behavior issues dominated.
3)UC will have a full compliment of scholarships for the 1st time in 8 years (Huggins last 3 years were with reduced scholarship teams due to academic and behavior issues). You can't compete at the BCS level in either sport without had not put a full scholarship team on the floor.
Patience is wearing thing but UC will put a NCAA tourney capable team on the floor for the 1st time in 5 years.
As much pain as is causes, UM needs more time due to the depth of the issues that existed 2 years ago. I don't hate LC but he left this team in a mess. RR takes the blame for the defensive coaching issues that have decimated the team confidence, i.e. no lead is too large with this defense. Great programs with support will come back and UM will be back soon.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 PM ^
"As much pain as is causes, UM needs more time due to the depth of the issues that existed 2 years ago. I don't hate LC but he left this team in a mess. RR takes the blame for the defensive coaching issues that have decimated the team confidence, i.e. no lead is too large with this defense. Great programs with support will come back and UM will be back soon. "
If it wasn't seen earlier, it became very clear this year (thanks to the defensive analysis diary and other works) that Michigan has been in a subtle but perceptible decline for most of this decade. In my mind, it started philosophically in the 1999 Illinois game, with Michigan blowing a 20-point lead to the Illini. Fast forward to 2000 defensive atrocities, etc etc and other inabilities to protect large leads.
I don't subscribe to a conventional "Lloyd Carr left the cupboard bare" mindset. Rather, I think Lloyd espoused a philosophy that was competitively unsustainable for 21st-century major college football. Antiquated strength and conditioning, schematic shortcomings, spotty leadership from players, reliance on past traditions for their own sake, weak player development, losing to inferior teams, major recruiting holes, hit and miss special teams, poor gameplanning and predictable playcalling.
I do have to say, though, when it came to getting a team to believe they can win, no one at a top program was better than Carr.
So yes, I love Lloyd Carr but he left the team in a mess, not through specific malfeasance or poor decisions but a fundamentally-flawed way of approaching the program, a modus operandi that was simply inappropriate for the time and place.
Also - I do not think this can be overstated - the loss of Bo really took the wind out of everybody's sails, and the Michigan ethos has not been the same since that black Friday.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten conference has decayed from the inside. "Playing up" in bowl games and several national humiliations (pick any Rose Bowl, or Ohio State BCS championship games) has wilted the national prestige. Top programs all seemed to play to some version of Tresselball, doing the minimum possible work and taking minimum possible risk to win a ballgame. This creates a vicious cycle - teams are not prepared for the risk-seeking style of other conferences but as they lose national cred they have less to play for on the national stage and are less inclined to adjust to face the music. This analysis is sketchy I know but the Big Ten just has no week-in-week-out relevance to the national picture.
November 22nd, 2009 at 11:13 AM ^
According to Scout, Michigan currently sits at #19 nationally, which is ahead of Ohio State. The only Big Ten school in the top 10 is PSU, which is truly kicking ass, unfortunately. These rankings are heavily influenced by total numbers of commits right now, and most of the schools ahead of us simply have larger numbers of verbals at this point. This is particularly the case with a number of schools ahead of us who have lower per-recruit rankings than we do.
Obviously RR has to close hard and well, but if we end up with even half of the highly-ranked guys still out there that we're going after, we'll end up OK. This assumes there's no serious attrition with the verbals we've gotten so far, of course, and that's the thing I'm concerned with.
November 22nd, 2009 at 12:44 PM ^
Im telling you guys that this kid will be a star. Looking at his highlights, it seems as if he has the talent to pass both Shaw and Smith on the depth chart