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I feel bad for Caleb…

I feel bad for Caleb Williams.

Draft breakdown after draft breakdown has concluded that this guy’s ceiling is in the stratosphere… as long as he gets some solid coaching to clean up his fundamentals. I’ve seen people present his footwork as somewhere between “awful” and “barely workable”. I’ve seen his ability to read a defense as anything from “bad” to “ok I guess”.

Seems like the Bears are just going to YOLO him onto the field, and he’s going to have to learn an entire playbook at the same time as he’s learning the finer points of NFL quarterbacking.

QBs can be broken. Between running for his life and not understanding what defenses are doing and trying to remember to plant his back foot at just the right moment…dude, it took Patrick f’ing Mahomes a year behind Alex Smith to become Patrick f’ing Mahomes.

That was what I wrote in…

That was what I wrote in Iowatch that week: I posited that it was absolutely an intentional INT from Deacon Hill, because they knew that Nebraska’s passing offense with Chubba Purdy was almost sure to give them the ball right back.

Sure enough, Purdy threw the ball straight to an Iowa LB. One run later, they kicked the game winning field goal to win the Corn Rows Trophy (a trophy I just made up but should absolutely be real)

Yes. Entires halves of…

Yes. Entire halves of football were more about ending the game quicker than scoring points. But considering that our best PPD and SP+  year was the year we won the national championship, I’d say that it demonstrates how important it is to, you know, score.

Also, there’s an enduring gripe that I have with Harbaugh: if you don’t practice scoring a lot when you CAN, you won’t be able to score a lot when you MUST. There’s been at least one game every single year where I was screaming at the TV “you don’t have all day to make up this deficit!”

I swear to god, sometimes it seemed like Harbaugh thought games were 8 quarters long, that we ALWAYS had the #1 defense in the nation, and that ANY scoring gap could be made up in the final 30 seconds of the game.

My wife and I are avoiding…

My wife and I are avoiding downtown like the plague. St. Paddy’s day in Chicago is amateur hour at its finest 

Would love to see him back…

Would love to see him back here for one last shot.

USC’s offense was - to my relatively uninformed eyes - a “just win your matchup” offense predicated on full Death From Above concepts. This led to some pretty scoring plays.

There’s two concerns here: 1) if he was capable of being the jump ball guy, you’d think he’d have been playing a lot, and 2) has he practiced complex route concepts? Michigan’s recent offensive schemes don’t require that your receivers be amazing, but you’re asked to do some hard stuff, including blocking some of the best LBs and DEs in the country…

See ‘Serious Answer 1’

See ‘Serious Answer 1’

Warde gonna Warde.

We all know, we were just…

We all know, we were just told not to tell you.

Serious answer 1: Warde has demonstrated that he will make decisions when he has no other option left, when the situation cannot be dragged out any further.

Serious answer 2: Firing someone takes more than 48 hours. And it takes even longer if you’re trying to negotiate a face-saving “please resign” deal. There’s buyouts. Mediation. Calling in favors. Legal reviews. PR. And the all-important aspect of “who’s on our short list for replacement, and how do we keep our players here while we lock someone down?”

If that was a subtle dig at…

If that was a subtle dig at Juwan, I’m all for it lol

My hope is that we change…

My hope is that we change our style. If we try to run the 2022-2023 offense without JJ, Corum, and a dozen upperclassmen NFL-level OL…we’re gonna have a bad time.

Many many other teams seem to be able to scheme an offense around players’ strengths. Nebraska ran the triple option, ffs. This is going to be a good year to gauge how adaptable Sherrone Moore is.

Great analysis. A good QB…

Great analysis. A good QB makes the entire offense better, not just the passing game. 

The most interesting thing to me is HOW each of these QBs arrived at their stats. Very different styles represented. Penix is the pocket passer-iest pocket passer who ever passed from the pocket - if I’m a GM, I’m comping him to Stroud.

JJ was the field general for the most complex running scheme in the country. The Alabama game in particular was PhD-level football, and he had to call all of it. And look at the results: an effective offense. There were zero gimmicks used at Michigan this year, we earned every point.

I do this, and my wife duly…

I do this, and my wife duly rolls her eyes

If it’s any consolation,…

If it’s any consolation, SpaceX employs some of the smartest people in the field, because it’s the only company doing this kind of work.

Musk has almost zero to do with it, certainly none of the technical aspects, and, if internet stories are to be believed, almost none of the managerial aspects either. There are rumors of a team that follows him around un-firing people he fires and un-making decisions he makes.

This is a great achievement for science, and we can be happy about it even though the company is owned by an idiot. Lots of companies are owned by idiots lol.

I don’t need to know Mike…

I don’t need to know Mike Hart’s exact issues, but I’m dying to know the story, if for no other reason than to rule out health problems…

Worried about the guy, hope he’s ok.

While I can’t blame anyone…

While I can’t blame anyone for not wanting to be part of the shitshow that is college football right now…

NICK SABAN saying “paying players is ruining the game” is a level of hypocrisy I’m not willing to stomach.

That’s a good point. The…

That’s a good point. The Alabama game is an example: our offensive game plan was super complex, with motions, switches, audibles, and blocking schemes to counter their amazing defense. JJ had to call all of that in the huddle. 

This is a GREAT point that I…

This is a GREAT point that I didn’t think to include above. Here’s the average number of plays our defense faced by year

2023: 57.7

2022: 62.8

2021: 67.1

2020: 77.7

2019: 64.7

2018: 60

2017: 59.9

2016: 62.2

2015: 62.9

The 2023 Michigan defense saw the fewest snaps per game in the conference (the total snaps faced was greater…because we played 3 extra games!!!!) There’s a lot to be said about keeping your defense fresh

There’s 3 levels of JJ…

There’s 3 levels of JJ criticism:

Level 1, the people who only pay attention to counting stats, and think he tops out as a game manager. These people can be ignored.

Level 2, the people who are concerned that Michigan’s offense didn’t flow through the QB this year. This is a MUCH more legit concern, but if this is the extent of their analysis these people can ALSO be ignored. What JJ did for the Michigan offense this year was extremely high value.

Level 3, the people who are concerned that JJ doesn’t have enough tape to properly evaluate. Ok. This is true…ish. He has 2 entire seasons worth of tape, over 700 pass attempts. I get that’s less than the other top QBs. But. If you can’t analyze him from 700 throws, private workouts, the Combine, and Michigan’s Pro Day…you’re lying.

Remember that the talking heads aren’t paid to give good analysis - not a single NFL team drafts off their opinions (although it seemed like Matt Millen did…), they’re paid to drive engagement. And trolling Michigan is a tried and true business model.

Ohio State’s offense since…

Ohio State’s offense since Ryan Day became HC has been incredible. Especially with Stroud as QB; they could basically pick up 60 yards at any point, meaning that a drive which starts 60 yards or fewer from the end zone is already in scoring position.

My bias is that a great offense gives you more chances to win than a great defense. But you can’t be BAD at either aspect. The way that Michigan won the Championship was relatively unique IMO.

I’m VERY excited to see the Mooreffense. Will it be Moore offense? Or Moore offensive??

I have two degrees from…

I have two degrees from Michigan: one in history, one in economics. 🤣

Most people look at RESULTS…

Most people look at RESULTS and stop thinking: ‘we won the championship, so everything we did is unassailable’.

I don’t think that way. Ever since 2011 - when I fell hook, line, and sinker for the Brady Hoke mirage - I’ve promised myself that I’d examine PROCESS just as much as results.

Since I’m the guy who did…

Since I’m the guy who did Iowatch all season, I’d like to point out that Iowa had an all-time-great defense all season, and the only way we lose that game is by throwing the ball.

It was an insanely frustrating gameplan…that was absolutely the correct gameplan.

The kinds of things that a normal defense considers complex, that’s Iowa’s bread and butter 

Ooof those graphics are…

Ooof those graphics are tough on mobile. Sorry all. 20 years of coaching is tough to represent in a bar chart. I wish we could edit Diaries so I could fix my damned grammar/spelling mistakes...

Oh, and I didn’t get a chance to adequately praise Khalid “Hammering Panda” Hill in this Diary, so I need to remind everyone:

The 10 rushing TDs that Khalid Hill scored in 2016 are worthy of celebration. As far as I can tell (fullback stats are hard to track), only one FB in FBS has exceeded 10 TDs since, at Northern Illinois. And that dude was a Mr. Versatility QB/RB/FB hybrid who went to the NFL. Between 2016 and 2017, Khalid Hill scored 13 rushing touchdowns as a designated fullback (and 3 more receiving touchdowns). He was responsible for 78 points in 2016, which was 16% of our offense. He could have been the entire Rutgering by himself.

If I find out that he’s paid for his own beer in Ann Arbor since graduating, I’m going to be very disappointed. All hail the Hammering Panda!

And it’s looking like Warde…

And it’s looking like Warde gets to keep up his intensive campaign of “do absolutely nothing and hope for the 1970s to come back”

I don’t know what the right answer is for NIL, but there has to be some way of structuring it to pay players what they’re worth up front. We have a whole damn graduate school of Economists, dammit, there HAS to be enough information out there on market dynamics and the microeconomics of NIL.

On the positive side, he DID…

On the positive side, he DID manage to avoid interceptions this year and added rushing to his game.

On the other hand, he spent 6 years in college so he’ll be a 24 year old rookie (tomorrow is his birthday!), who had approximately one season’s of stats to go on, who has admitted that he didn’t bother applying himself until year 4 or 5, and as far as I can tell still has pretty bad mechanics.

I hope that some GM has a ton of faith in his team’s QB coach, because there’s some ground to make up there.

Marshawn Lynch, in low…

Marshawn Lynch, in low pressure, non-football-media situations, comes off as a pretty chill and funny guy. My read on the guy is that he is 0% interested in playing any game other than football, and 0% interested in the give and take that comes with media attention.

Not saying he’s the best person ever, or even a good judge of character, but he seems like he’d be a decent teammate. And that he’d be super resentful of anyone who leans into the diva aspect of stardom.

“+1 Cher” is not a comment I…

“+1 Cher” is not a comment I ever anticipated writing on a sports blog

Brian Ferentz, OC,…

Brian Ferentz, OC, outcoached Bielema, Walters, Schiano, and whoever was REALLY coaching MSU last year ($1 says Dantonio, at least for the Iowa game).

Considering that half the offense spent time injured last year, that ain’t bad. The problem was godawful position coaching, including from Ferentz himself (he has to be one of the worst QB coaches ever, god only knows why Kirk made that choice). 

After Erick All went down, nobody on the roster knew how to catch. There was an INT last season where Hill put it on his WR’s facemask, and it harmlessly bounced off straight to a defender.

There’s almost no way their offense could have been worse, and in fact, by SP+, they’re the 3rd most mismatched team (i.e., offense is good, defense is bad, or vis versa) EVER. In the 120+ years of college football, only 2 other teams have paired such greatness on one side of the ball with such ineptitude on the other side.

The bar hit the floor when…

The bar hit the floor when they hired Engler to verbally abuse the survivors of a sexual assault scandal, and put up with him robbing the place blind.

I’d bet anything that his resignation was primarily intended to avoid an embezzlement investigation.

If you’re a top TOP prospect…

If you’re a top TOP prospect, the Combine can only hurt you; opting out is a good idea. 

Teams will want to interview and evaluate and work you out separately. My understanding is that the Combine isn’t really something that GMs rely upon to make draft decisions.

and, if you’re a top TOP prospect, you’ve been under the microscope for a long time. 

The Florida “documentary”…

The Florida “documentary” was more like “an important piece of the Urban Meyer Image Rehabilitation Project”

Dude is trying to get back into coaching, I’d bet money on it. So he signed onto a puff piece. It was about as much of a documentary as the Netflix Cleopatra thing was.

Towards the end of the…

Towards the end of the season, I debated which Star Wars bounty hunter best represented Michigan State. It was Bossk.

I’m a very consistent person lol

Some leaders don’t act until…

Some leaders don’t act until there’s literally no other choice. They let things drift and drift and drift until they’re forced into the one SINGLE path remaining to them.

That’s only a good strategy if 1) you think you’ll get fired for proactively doing something, or 2) you’re a character in the Foundation novels.

Organizations change in one of two ways: 1) strong leadership, or 2) crisis.

Looks like Warde is waiting for a crisis before he changes anything. That’s just great. Great strategy Warde. 

1. For Your Eyes Only. Carol…

1. For Your Eyes Only. Carol Bouquet was very important to a young PopeLando

2. Gambit from X-Men (specifically the cartoon/comic eras). Dude was an unapologetic agent of chaos.

3. Kerrigan from the Star Craft universe.

4. False. 42.

The way I hear it, exactly 0…

The way I hear it, exactly 0 NFL teams draft by Combine scoring or by ESPN/PFF scouting reports. Every single team has their own evaluations of players.

With that in mind, I think of these kinds of things as either ragebait or puff pieces.

If any NFL team thinks they can train Junior Colsom to consistently run in the right direction, they’ll have a good one on their hands

Whenever Chad Henne’s pro…

Whenever Chad Henne’s pro career is mentioned, I am contractually obligated to remind people of Monday Night Football, Dolphins vs Patriots, September 12 2011.

Brady and Henne combined for over 900 passing yards, Henne RUSHED for 60 yards, and led their teams to 1110 combined total yards, 52 first downs, and 3 different hundred yard receivers.

It was a glorious day for offense in a Michigan Shootout. Henne was already “mid career”, people were already asking when Brady was going to retire. Since that day, something like 7 combined Super Bowl rings between those two QBs.

We need way more of the…

We need way more of the latter, and we need to pay the former a living wage.

Society functions on logistics.

Anyone who played for Josh…

Anyone who played for Josh Gattis should automatically receive extra eligibility.
 

That is my hill, and though I am not willing to die on it, I will get slightly bruised on it.

This used to be my career …

This used to be my career (money management, not pro sports) so I have a little bit of insight into the psychology of this:

People are HORRENDOUS at looking at a pot of money and planning around “I have to make this last the rest of my life.” People are bad enough at “spend less than you *earn*”, very bad at “spend less than you *have*”, and the absolute worst at “spend the right amount so that this doesn’t ever run out.” There’s just too many variables for them.

Likewise, people are equally terrible at looking at a situation and realizing that it won’t last forever. This applies to both the good financial times and the bad financial times, but if you’re pulling $10M/year…even if you tell yourself “this won’t last”, there’s a part of you that thinks 1) “I don’t have to worry about that for a long time”, and 2) “even if something goes wrong, I get another $10M next year so I don’t need to be careful.”

It’s HARD to hold onto money. There’s a million things lined up against you: family, friends, predatory relationships, baby mamas/daddies, aggressive charities, scammers, culture, etc. But the biggest enemy is your own brain. You have to outsmart yourself.

Very excited about him. And…

Very excited about him. And cautiously optimistic about Michigan actually USING a potentially GREAT receiving back. RB receptions are Moneyball, dammit.

But. Um. “Worse than Donovan Edwards’ pass blocking abilities” is not a great thing. Edwards, for all his potential, is the worst pass-blocking RB I can remember (at least from RBs who got consistent play time). I’m convinced that Edwards’ absence from the Alabama game plan was due to his abysmal ability to understand what’s happening in front of him, the super complex game plan, and the recognition that those two things combined would have gotten JJ killed.

I really really hope that Cabana’s pass pro is being criminally underrated. Or else he might not be on the field on 3rd down.

Coaching changes, and…

Coaching changes, and starters returning from injuries, mean that Iowa Football will be much different next season than it was this past season 

Sadface. 

I watched the…

I watched the WolverineDevotee highlights of the Championship on Rumble last night.

It’s wild, upon rewatch, to realize that the winning points were scoring in the first quarter. It’s wild to watch Penix, panicking because he’s hurting and has Michigan DL in his face, miss a wide open Rome Odunze and chuck it directly to Mike Sainristil.

That game was yet another where the final score didn’t reflect how much of an ass-kicking we delivered. The game plans for Ohio State, Alabama, and Washington are Football PhD-level advanced. What a year. What a 3-year run!

Undrafted out of college,…

Undrafted out of college, spent two years getting cut by the Falcons and Patriots.

Prime example of how experience in the secondary helps immensely. Hope he can help our safety-heavy roster become stars

McCarthy was CLEARLY injured…

McCarthy was CLEARLY injured all the way through to the end of the year. But we couldn’t say a word, because if there’s a single lesson from this year’s CFP fiasco, it’s “if your QB is injured, never, under ANY circumstances, admit it.”

It’s not sacrilegious to admit that our passing game was largely put on a shelf, and any attempts to make it seem like McCarthy was somehow completely on his game for the final 6 games of the season…are as disingenuous as the people who try to dismiss him due to the lack of counting stats. I get equally frustrated at both - guess I’m just grumpy.

Somewhere between 3-5

I don…

Somewhere between 3-5

I don’t actually care about the results. I want to watch the PROCESS: are we going to see a dynamic team that isn’t afraid to innovate, open it up, and exploit other teams’ weaknesses…or are we going to see over-reliance on a running game, lots of field goals, try to win with defense?

It’s been 10 years since Harbaugh was in the pros. The game has changed. I need - for the sake of my sanity - to see an NFL Harbaughffense to compare to the Michigan Harbaughffense. The shine has worn off Harbaugh as a “QB guru”, but if you can’t get a good offense out of the Chargers’ roster, you probably can’t get a good offense at all.

The defense WAS the better…

The defense WAS the better unit. And tbh, the biggest success factor in our offense was our defense.

DeBoer is a scary good coach…

DeBoer is a scary good coach. He’s going to do well at Alabama.

But this UFR drives home how much of a bloodbath this game was…both the UFR and my memories of Penix slowly disintegrating into his component molecules as the game went on. 

What a memory to relive!

I think there’s a bit of…

I think there’s a bit of chicken-egg in that argument. Absolutely agree that it was a schematic choice and that a QB who can hit the underneath stuff with 100% accuracy will lead a super-efficient offense. What made JJ so good is that he could hit the medium-distance passes with uncanny precision as well.

But. There were many occasions over the last 2+ years where a deep ball was drawn up and JJ missed it. Harbaugh and co. were able to scheme up open receivers for TDs several times…and JJ missed them. So we stopped trying, because, like you said, wasted down when you could get 8-15 yards instead.

Speight, in 2016 pre-injury, was dropping passes into the shirt pockets of his receivers downfield.

I was in awe of Washington during their two playoff/title game: all their pass plays were SUPER quick-developing (to keep Penix alive lol) and Penix was able to make very quick decisions. Kalen DeBoer is a scary good coach. I guess I’m saying that you don’t need NFL talent at all 5 OL positions to throw a 25 yard pass. Just at Michigan apparently.

tl;dr - I agree with you, but we’re on opposite sides of cause vs effect

Wilton Speight was on a very…

Wilton Speight was on a very upward trajectory until his injury.

He also had 1) the best deep ball we’ve seen at Michigan in the Harbaugh era, by a mile, maybe the best since Chad Henne or Navarre (yes, better than JJ McCarthy), and 2) a magical ability to evade the first pass rusher, despite being of, ummm, *limited* athleticism 

QBs can be broken. God knows we all learned that lesson in 2017. But Speight had a chance to be amazing before he got injured and was never the same player again.

Moody with a Super Bowl…

Moody with a Super Bowl record FG!

Pro tip: do NOT take a shot…

Pro tip: do NOT take a shot whenever they show Swift or talk about her. You won’t live through the first quarter.