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"being great on offense and not turning the ball over" actually require skill, which this team obviously has. Rebounding, on the other hand, doesn't really require skill. It is basically something that any given team can do. Identify your man, put a body on him, and box him out. You don't have to be an athletic freak to do this, even though we have some athletic freaks on the team. You don't even have to be taller than the player you are defending. If you box your opponent out, even if he is taller than you, it will be difficult for him to get a rebound over you without fouling.

I don't expect this team to be "great" at rebounding, but I do think that it is reasonable to expect them to hold their own on the glass, which they have not been able to do against decent to good Big Ten teams. Because this is not really a matter of skill, there isn't much of an excuse for it. It would be unreasonable for me to expect an unskilled team to all of a sudden become skilled, but this is a totally different issue. This team has so much potential. It's simply frustrating to watch them lose games that they would win easily if only they could rebound--a thing that doesn't take much skill to do.

It is easy to fixate on the things that take place at the very end of a game, but we simply would have never been in that situation had we rebounded better throughout the entire ballgame. Look at it this way: Had we kept up with Indiana on the boards, we probably would have won this game by 10-15 points. Those free throws at the end should have been meaningless potential points tagged on to a double digit victory. It's not poor free-throw shooting that's going to potentially kill us in the tournament, it's our inability to rebound the basketball with consistency. In my opinion, it's the primary thing that is preventing this team from being elite.

I'll take one of those.

That is not necessarily true though. If you get negged, your comment basically gets wiped out from the thread and people have to go out of their way to see it. Hence, getting negged renders you incapable of actually contributing to the community in a meaningful way. Plus, this board is extremely peer pressure-oriented, to the extent that getting negged invariably influences the opinions of others. When someone gets negged once, they are usually negged a 2nd and 3rd time by default. So, on this particular site, it does matter.

Anyways, I'm not trying to get into an argument. So I will let it go.

I believe the "M Block" has a list like this, as well as Steve from 247. Also, if you go to the 2014 recruiting thread at 247, a bunch of people have posted the kind of lists that you are looking for.

Finally, had I, or anyone who is not a regular poster here, created this thread, I would have been negged -100.

I couldn't imagine this game being a positive for Drake Harris. If I were coach Hoke, I would be extremely embarrassed right now. I am extremely embarrassed right now!

If true, what a horrible way for Floyd to end his career at Michigan.

I don't really get it. WR is the one area that we have not recruited well. I don't mean any disrespect to the receivers that have been recruited in the last few classes, but we have not been able to reel in any bue chip players at this position. We are loaded everywhere else, but dynamic wideouts are lacking. More often than not, if you want to be an elite team, you need to be able to strecth the field vertically. This is Michigan. Why can't we garner interest from 4 and 5 star receivers? Honest question.

I am sorry, but this post is fucking moronic! The loss last night had absolutely nothing to do with Borges. The people on this board who have perpetuated this nonsensical idea are insane. We were first and ten inside the fifteen when Denard got injured. I have no reason to believe that we were not going to score a touchdown had he been in the game to finish that drive. Nebraska then turned the ball over in their own zone with about a minute left before halftime. Again, had Denard been healthy, I am quite confident we would have been able to put some more points on the board in that situation. Thus, with a healthy Denard, we go into the half up 13-7.

We were moving the ball pretty consistently in the first half. If anything, we were controlling time of possession and were in a possition to steadily wear down their defense in the second half. Outside of one possession, our defensive was playing extremely well and, with Denard in the game, we were winning the battle up front on both sides of the ball. Also, contrary to popular opinion on this board, our gameplan was NOT hyper-conservative in the first half; I thought we were doing a pretty good job mixing things up. It is not Borges' fault that our receivers dropped 500 passes in this game! That first bomb to Roundtree should have been caught, and the second bomb to Roundtree should have been caught as well.

If Denard did not get hurt, I honestly believe that this would have been a 10-17 point victory for us. We would have worn down their defense and our defense would have stayed fresh. We also would not have had the turnovers in the second half. WE DID NOT LOSE THIS GAME BECAUSE OF BORGES, WE LOST IT BECAUSE DENARD GOT INJURED AND OUR RECEIVERS DON'T HAVE HANDS.

You can bitch all you want about Hoke and Borges not playing Gardner instead of Bellomy in the second half. Fine. But when was the last time you attended practice? For all we know, Bellomy might be the better quarterback right now. Bellomy might be throwing the ball really well in practice. Also, maybe our receivers really suck, and we need all the help that we can get at that position. Even though Gardner isn't very good at receiver, maybe the coaches felt that it would be too detrimental to the receiving core to move Gardner to quarterback.

*sorry for typos and misspellings . I don't have spell-check.*

"I doubt that they even really game-planned for WKU"

Do you seriously believe this? There are only 12-13 games in their season. You really think that they didn't bother to game-plan for WKU? Does Saban take you as a coach who would come into a game unprepared? I doubt it. Yes, I am sure these stats are not as alarming as they may imply. However, I think they might give us at least some glimpse into the fact that our defensive line is shaky at best.

Absolutely! I am not suggesting that we are going to end up losing the rest of our games this year. I still think we have a shot at winning the Big Ten, which, as you alluded to, sucks this year. Both of our lines are what concerns me, but every Big Ten team seems to have major concerns somewhere. Yeah, the future is extremely bright. We just need to keep the recruiting momentum going.

Also, we also sacked McCarron a few times, and Alabama also played their backups against us. So how are these stats relevant?

Can someone please help me interpret this quote:

"Return game? Norfleet?

'This is a guy that has a specific skill when you look at a return guy. He’s a good hand-eye coordination guy. He’s not afraid, which you have to -- can’t be afraid when you’re doing that job. It’s like playing corner. If you get beat, you better learn from it but forget about it. I think it’s the same thing as the return guy.”'

Does this mean that Norfleet is indeed going to be the main return guy this year? Or, is Hoke simply making some general comments concerning the characteristics of a good return man? Honestly, I would like to see Justice Hayes as the main kick/punt return guy this year. True freshmen scare me at that position. Does anyone remember De' Anthony Thomas' (I think this is how he spells his name) first game with Oregon last season? I think he fumbled two-three times in their opener against LSU.

Here is some practice information from the much maligned GoBlueMichiganWolverine staff. You do not have to pay for this info, simply register for free online:

"Michigan Football Tidbits: Some more interesting Tidbits coming from Fall Camp

The Fort? Really people keep saying they are hard pressed to get information from Michigan practices? Guess they aren't as connected as they thought! We haven't noticed any difference from this year to last year or for that matter the last five years or so, but oh well.

We have been told that the players were instructed to not talk with the media at all besides the media press conferences. 

Several things that wasn't pointed out in chat the other night or lightly touched on. Rawls has been doing quite well, but people are still worried when "the lights come on" how he will react. Personally we think he will be fine, but the bigger worry is who will help handle the load besides giving more carries to Denard if Fitz isn't back for the Alabama game or afterwards.

Still no indication either way on Clark or Fitz, but have to figure with them missing a entire week of practice if the coaches are not only sending a message to those players, but others as well on what might happen if you mess up. 

A few tidbits on practices: 

The offensive line is really coming together and getting as one with each other. 

Counting on Roundtree to be back the week of the Bama game if not sooner, but will he be ready to play or coaches trust he is healthy enough along with being prepared for a Bama defense.

Lewan has really stepped up his game this season and seems to be taking the scoldings he took this spring how they were meant to be and that was putting the joke-ster side away for after practice and being more serious when the helmet goes on the practice field.

Schofield has been doing quite well at the right tackle position as well as Omameh at right guard. 

We are expecting big things for these two big tackles at Michigan.

Big question is still left guard and probably will be for awhile or possible even into the season barring injuries. Nobody has taken control of that position at this time and we believe this will continue to be a battle into the season. If injuries happen look for Mealer to be "Schofield-like" last year and be moving around to all positions of the line. He is likely going to be either the left guard or the first linemen into the game if needed.

Kalis is a very good and could see the field some time in the year if needed.

Pipkins is very good and will be a very good player and we believe he will see playing time before Kalis.

Practices have really picked up this year and we are told they are very physical practices which is kind of scary with depth issues on both lines as we have seen already that Wormley is out for the year which in all reality is probably a good thing for him to get the extra year of weight training and being just a football player at Michigan. Does hurt with that injury though since he won't gain as much as most red-shirts do that are healthy.

More later." (GBMWolverine Staff)

I don't really understand the Mike Hart comparisions--totally different running styles in my opinion. Fitz reminds me a lot of Chris Perry, which is fine by me. In the twenty-four years that I have been watching Michigan football, Perry was probably my favorite tailback to watch. Hopefully Fitz can stay healthy over the next couple years and steadily develop into one of the better backs in the country.

Our inability to pick up the blitz in obvious passing situations absolutely killed us on third and fourth downs. That was by far the worst our offensive line has played all year.

According to ESPN, there are 155 receivers with better films. Hopefully Rivals is right on this one.

I Could not agree more. The only difference between the first and second half yesterday was execution. In the first half, Denard overthrew open receivers and wideouts dropped catchable balls. In the second half, Denard's deep throws were right on the money and there were not as many drops from the wideouts. Nerves definitely play a huge part in this. Denard is a young player who has openly talked about his anxiety early on in games during post-game interviews. As he gets older, this will change. 

Are you like seven years old?

I am most concerned with the injuries in this game. I think that we can win without Lewan, but there is absolutely no way we win this game without Mike Martin. Huyge and Dorrestein are both solid and experienced players who can make up for the absence of Lewan. However, Adam Patterson will not be able to make up for Mike Martin in this game. If Martin plays, I think we have a chance at an upset (albeit a small chance).

On a related note, I cannot wait for the day when we finally have some depth on both sides of the ball; a day when an injury to a key player won't cost us the chance at winning a ball game. Look at Wisconsin, there starting tailback was out last week and they still put up 338 yards on the ground. I know it was against Indiana, but still.   

Those numbers are highly tainted by the fact that he had two true freshman quarterbacks throwing him the ball in his first two years (one of which was Nick Sheridan). 

No one is faster than Denard!!!!

I really hope that you are right. I just think that Michigan's secondary is going to make a lot of receivers look good this year.

Doesn't the second half of my response answer why? In short, I think that Chappell's day yesterday says much more about our defensive woes than it does about the skill level of Chappell. I think that we will play against better quarterbacks in upcoming games who have much better skill players on the outside, specifically much faster skill players. Indiana did not even test us vertically that much, I expect that to change in the coming games as well.

I think you could make a case that Michigan St. has a better passing offense than Indiana, let alone Iowa or Ohio State. I honestly did not even think Chappell was that great yesterday--and yet he still through for almost 500 yards against us. Chappell missed a bunch of throws that were wide open and consistently forced his receivers to make difficult catches on routine throws.    

No.

Latest injury? Did I miss something?

I personally would feel a lot better about our secondary if Cullen Christian is able to beat out Rogers for a starting corner position. I would imagine that if Rogers were any good, people would have been talking about him as a possible contributer before the Woolfolk injury. On the other hand, Christian was a highly rated corner coming out of highschool, and historically, we have had some success with true freshman at that position. Plus, he represents our future at corner, and it would be encouraging to see him have some success this year.     

Are we looking at the same picture? Is it the double chin or the North Face fleece that gives you this idea? Regardless, it is nice to receive a commitment from an offensive lineman.

That link I posted above is now broadcasting the Tiger's game again for those who care....

Try this; it is a bit rough though

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/rsitv1

It is just a very strong statement, and it is also kind of random. Again, if it is true, than that would be great--but we will see.

I am pretty sure that the only reason Evans is being talked about is because Mouton is injured right now.

Rue McClanahan

Do not worry, I do not think that anyone is going to criticize you for it.

That would be ironic.....

For what it is worth, Maybe some material that you can use when arguing with your SEC buddies back at school: Michigan is 12-4 against historical members of the SEC and 20-5-1 against current members of the conference. Additionally, they are also 7-3 against the SEC all time in bowl games and have dominated these matchups in recent years-the only problem is we suck right now.

Brandon Smith was a high four star safety from our last recruiting class that should see significant playing time at safety. If I can remember correctly, he received very high praise from the coaches over the spring and summer.

Also, we should have a very good unit at wide receiver next season--look for Tony Clemons to move back to the outside with Mathews, Stonum and Hemmingway (all of these guys were big time recruits and they will all have experience now too). While Odoms, Robinson and Feagin share time in the slot. Roy Roundtree will probably contribute as well (I just do not know if RichRod will put him in the slot or on the outside). All in all, we probably will not have to lean on guys like Savoy and Babb next season, which will be nice.

Apparently Threet got injured in the first half. This explains why he was replaced by Sheridan in the second half, which negates your argument to some degree.

It is obvious to me that we need to mix in more pass plays on first down. I understand that Threet is not a very accurate quarterback at the moment, but that does not mean that we should run the ball everytime on a predictable run down (1st down) behind a horrible run blocking offensive line. When we do this, we put ourselves in 2nd and 9 and even 2nd and 12 or 14 territory on a consitent basis.

I am not suggesting that we have to throw the ball deep on first down. I simply think that it would be beneficial for us to mix in some quick slants and short passing routes on first down that will get us five or so yards consistently. We also have the kind of athletes (like Odoms and Shaw) who can make something big happen out of a short route. I dont think that this would be asking too much out of Threet (I think he can throw a five yard pass). Think about Ohio State's scheme against us two years ago--they spread our defense out and ran short passing routes. If we did this, it would nullify our weaknesses on the offensive line and give Threet opportunities to make throws that he can make on a consistent basis.

Two years from now we will be able to get away with running on first down consistently. In fact, in two years we can probably run the ball on every down and be just fine--overall our offense is going to be amazing. However, this year we just do not have the talent on the offensive line to run on a predictable run down and consistently gain yards, it is just not going to happen (maybe against Toledo).         

Just look at Notre Dame's recruiting classes over the last few years despite them being awful. A down year does not usually translate into a bad recruiting class when you have a tradition of winning like Michigan does.