Not a cakewalk but should be a solid W. They return their QB and RB but lose their top two WRs, both their left and right tackle, and a starting DE, CB, and safety.
That used to be the rule - EEs could count against the current or previous class but they changed things so now they have to count toward the current class.
In terms of our current need I think I would rank that group as follows:
Cullen Christian
Tony Jefferson
Rashad Knight
Kenny Stills
Dillon Baxter
Richard Ash
Tony Grimes
Jatashun Beachum
Kenny Shaw
Clarence Murphy
Thoughts?
Spot on, man. The worst possible outcome would be a loss accompanied by a raucous group of Buckeye fans drowning out our crowd. Even if we play terrible we can't let that happen. Also, any people who decide to voice their displeasure with RichRod by booing need a serious punch to the neck.
I've watched every game from start to finish and have seen exactly how bad our defense is man. In his THIRD year the head coach of the University of Michigan football team needs to lead his team to a winning record and beat at least one of our three rivals. Period.
He has to go at least 7-5 next year and be competitive in a Bowl Game.
For me, a lot depends on how we perform against our rivals - I would take 7-6 if one of those 7 is a big fuck you to the Buckeyes. But if we go 0-3 against the Irish, State, and OSU I say happy trails. Also, we have to finish in the top half of the Big Ten. I don't think that's asking too much.
He overlooked the fact that equating NFL draft position to success in college is a spurious conclusion. Troy Smith was drafted at the end of the fifth round and was an absolute monster in college. You can't argue that Graham Harrell didn't have a successful college career and he wasn't drafted at all. Any comparison like this should be based on recruiting rankings because it would take into account the coaches' abilities to develop players.
If you look at the rivals recruiting rankings of our classes since 2004 you'll see that we've averaged the 9th best class in the nation.
Regardless of whether or not you agree that averaging the 9th best classes on paper over a 6 year period justifies being labeled "top tier", you have to agree that we have underachieved based on the talent we've had. For comparison, Iowa has exactly the same # of wins as us since 2002 but they have averaged the 7th best classes in the Big Ten (we're first by the way).
Personally, I think that's an indictment of both Carr and RichRod and their inability to develop talent and avoid attrition.
Probably not very many. But just because Greg Robinson or RichRod or whoever on the current staff didn't recruit a player doesn't mean that they shouldn't sometimes be held responsible for a player leaving the program.
It seems reasonable to me that if the players left under RichRod's tenure than you have to give him the majority of the fault for the departures.
If you read the "Decimated Defense" pt. 2 journal the conclusion is clear - we have had a higher attrition rate on the defensive side of the ball than Alabama, a team that has been purposefully recruiting more players than it can offer scholarships.
Also, if you re-read my post you will see that I'm not claiming that the spread is forcing players away - I'm merely asking whether people think the offensive or defensive systems we are implementing are contributing to our struggles in keeping players around.
The question is who/what is to blame for the high attrition rate we've seen in defensive recruits. Is it RichRod? Greg Robinson for recruiting guys who can't hack it in D1? We recognize that attrition is a problem but no one has suggested what the root cause of the attrition has been or how to fix it.
I know he is dude - and I said that he should be with the way he is playing. I'm not saying that he should be in the game with the way he's been playing - I'm saying if we had better coaching he would be playing better and would deserve to be on the field.
I read them every week, man. My point is that it is the coaches fault that Obi Ezeh has regressed like he has. He should be riding the bench with the way he has been playing but he has been playing bad partially because he has bad position coaching.
Apparently this isn't a very popular opinion but I agree 100%. Yes, we have had very high attrition but that is ON THE COACHES! And the players who have stayed have regressed. You can't tell me that if Obi Ezeh or Jonas Mouton went to Penn St. they wouldn't be absolute terrors right now.
Hopson has to go. The coaching staff is to blame for failing to develop players like Obi and Jonas. I don't buy the "bare cupboard" argument when people try to apply it to the linebackers - if Obi Ezeh went to Penn State or even Wisconsin he would be a much better player than he is today.
Good point. Iowa has really overachieved - since 2002 they have had, on average, the 7th best recruiting classes in the Big Ten but are tied for third (with us) in total victories. Wisconsin has also overachieved (6th best classes, second most number of wins).
Good catch on Easley - it's so hard to keep track of all the players who are opting for Happy Valley instead of the sweet, sweet Deuce. Do you agree that Grimes should be lower than the other CBs Shaw, Fulton, Christian (typo on the LB vs. CB), Mathis, and Knight?
For what it’s worth (admittedly not a whole hell of a lot) here is my ranking of the Top 25 guys who still have UM on their board based on our current needs. Clearly many are very unlikely but they are all still uncommitted as of now:
1. Seantrel Henderson, OL
2. Joshua Shaw, CB
3. Johnavon Fulton, CB
4. Wayne Dorsey, DE
5. Anthony Barr, RB
6. Cullen Christian, LB
7. Tony Jefferson, S
8. Shariff Floyd, DT
9. Marquis Flowers, S
10. Aramide Olaniyan, LB
11. Dietrich Riley, S
12. Josh Furman, LB
13. Gabe King, DE
14. Mike Thornton, DT
15. Dominique Easley, DE
16. Chris Dunkley, WR
17. Dior Mathis, CB
18. Kenny Stills, WR
19. Brandon Gainer, RB
20. Rashad Knight, CB
21. Jatashun Beachum, DT
22. Skyler Schofner, OL
23. Beau Allen, DT
24. Sean Parker, S
25. Tony Grimes, CB
Anyone think guys are way out of order or want to weigh in on most likely commits? Any big omissions?
In my opinion it's warranted because it was a shot at someone who has apparently made it their goal to post as much contradictory/obnoxious/negative stuff as possible. My intent in starting the thread was to see who were the top guys that people think we have a decent chance at signing and then of course someone has to chime in with a snarky comment. Props to you for having his back though.
Clearly I'm trying to create a new rating system based on star color rather than star quantity. That's a much more reasonable explanation than a slip of the keys between "blue chip" and "5 star". Nice point total by the way.
If a bunch more people give their 2 cents we can come up with an mgoblog group consensus. I'm picking up some sort of pattern - perhaps a focus on the defensive side of the ball?
I agree that a win would be better but would a (highly unlikely) stomping of the Buckeyes be a better outcome than a nail-biter in which we eke out a three point victory in spite of getting gashed through the air? I'm sure it varies from recurit to recruit but I'll bet some blue star kids put more of a premium on starting sooner vs. riding the pine on a better team.
Believe it or not, neither Scout nor Rivals ever gave a 5* rating to a player with a "true rating" of 4* (again, only looking at players who made second team all big ten). You're dead on with your second point - Scout was more likely to under-value players even though Scout gave out more 5* ratings.
Because I looked only at first/second team all big ten players the fact that Scout gives out more 5* ratings actually goes further in supporting the conclusion that Rivals is better. Scout misses the top tier talent more frequently than Rivals even though they hand out top tier ratings more often.
Good point - because I am just trying to evaluate the ratings services' predictors of successful college players it would be a bad idea to include any consideration of NFL draft position. If we're talking college, Ryan Leaf is without a doubt a 5 star player.
Good idea on the overrating - could look at how many 5 stars from each site are clearly busts e.g. non-starters.
I'll give the draft position idea some thought. One concern would be undervaluing players who were drafted late/undrafted who then go on to be fantastic players. Similarly, we wouldn't want to give Ryan Leaf a true value of anything more than negative 8 stars.
Good question - in this case the analysis is very limited in that it excludes any players who didn't make first or second team all big ten. So I can't make any conclusion about which site overrates bad players more often but rather which misses really good players less often. Obviously it's not ideal but to extend beyond that we would have to come up with a rating methodology for the "true rating" of players that didn't make the all big ten team. That could be something like multiple year starter = three star "true rating" but there are problems with that as well.
Doesn't any evaluation of which site does a better job have to assign some sort of "correct" values to players in order to come up with accuracy values? I'm just assuming that if a guy makes first team all big ten then his "correct" rating should have been 5 stars and if he made the second team than his "correct" rating should have been 4 stars.
We got lucky here (even though Ortmann hasn't been anything close to spectacular this year). He had better atone for last week by doing a spot-on Jake Long impression against the Boilermakers. Slightly OT, is there a more boring Big Ten team than Purdue? Has anyone ever been able to even muster a mild dislike for them? Jesus, even their uniforms could put you to sleep.
I think it would really be nice to see an analysis around which of the three main rating services do a better job predicting success in college and in the Big Ten in particular. I've got a simple comparison of Rivals vs. Scout that I will post when I hit 20 points and it suggests that Rivals is better at predicting top tier talent but I haven't really seen anything that includes ESPN.
Lansky is spot on - it's the combination of the regression and the prospect of a tough 2010 schedule staring us in the face that's causing all the gnashing of teeth.
It's obviously way too early to set expectations for next year but they should probably be in the 7/8 win range and top 3/4 in the Big Ten. Losses @ Notre Dame, Penn St., and OSU would basically leave us no room for error. With Wisconsin returning at least 18 starters and Iowa sitting pretty as well it's distressing to think about how far we are from where we need to be to seriously compete next year.
Someone made a post in a different thread about Oregon's O-line compared to ours. Their line is made up as follows:
LT - 4 star Sophomore
LG - 3 star Junior
C - 2 star Junior
RG - 4 star RS Freshman
RT - 2 star Junior
They just torched the Trojans behind that line and gave their mediocre QB protection against a shit-ton of future NFL studs. We should take a hard look at their program because they seem to know what the hell they are doing.
That got me thinking – How do we stack up against Oregon in the past few years? Here’s what I found:
1. Since 2004 we have had much better recruiting classes (we averaged the #8 rated class and the Ducks averaged #26).
2. Since 2004 the Big Ten and the PAC-10 have had similar levels of success nationally: 20 Big Ten teams ranked in the final Top 25 compared to 18 PAC-10 teams.
3. Since 2004 the Oregon Ducks have had the worst uniforms in college football but have been a better football team than our Wolverines. Overall record has us at 44-27 (through yesterday) and Oregon at 48-22. We were much better in 2004 and 2006, we had the same record in 2007, and they smoked us in 2005, 2008, and soon to be 2009.
So bottom line: They sport a better record in a comparable conference with substantially less talent on paper. Wait, but we’re in the middle of a coaching/philosophy change – you have to include that as a handicap, right? Well unfortunately Chip Kelly took over as offensive coordinator at Oregon in 2007 and as head coach in 2009.
I think you can draw a number of different conclusions from this. Some extremely negative (our coaching staff doesn’t know what the hell they are doing and we are slowly but surely fading from the national scene), others not so negative (we’re one Dennis Dixon away from torching every team we see). My conclusion falls somewhere in between: our coaches don’t do a very good job of developing players and we have been strugglinh lately with attrition. I don’t think much else explains why such superior talent produces inferior results over a relatively long time period. Thoughts?
You have to root for Iowa! Have you seen Sparty's schedule? If they pull off a win this weekend they could easily coast to a season ending showdown at home vs. the Nittany Lions with a Big Ten title on the line.
If that does occur and they manage to pull it out, do you think we could successfully petition the Big Ten to put an asterisk next to their entry in the record book because they didn't play OSU and had us, Iowa, and Penn St. at home? That's so ridiculous!!! Their toughest road game was at Wisconsin, which they lost!! I'm going to be screaming this from the rooftops on the radio and I fully anticipate Mike Valenti (who really is the biggest douche I've ever laid ears on) to dismiss me as a Michigan homer but there's no way to deny that it's a creampuff schedule.
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