The callousness of people who write off a highly rated recruit after a redshirt freshman season in which he played in 1 game (IIRC) and then got injured…after being a basketball player for most of his life…is a level of copium from Sparty that I wish I was surprised about
I haven’t heard a whisper about this guy being a problem or anything other than an awesome prospect. He’s reportedly pretty active in the community, and IIRC redshirted last year after injury, so it wasn’t a skill issue.
If he’s healthy and his grades are in good shape, we should get him on campus ASAP.
[btw, rumor is that MSU insiders were surprised he entered the portal]
Everyone is a question mark tbh, but with Williams it’s more of a question re: his resilience.
Chicago is basically a lock to YOLO him onto the field as a rookie. He’s gonna have more than a few “welcome to the League rook” moments. Can he shake them off and improve his game? QBs can be broken.
I guess it depends on whether you view Penix v Texas or Penix v Michigan as more indicative of who he is.
He had the game of his life vs Texas…who might have played the dumbest best defense or the best dumb defense ever.
I’m rooting for the guy, but watching him fall apart into his constituent molecules towards the end of the Championship game, behind a Joe Moore OL and throwing to surefire NFL receivers, it didn’t inspire confidence.
And don’t forget, Washington got a net of 3 total rushing yards from the QB position this past season. 3!
Didn’t their big NIL collective cancel all contracts out of the blue? Or was this a different NIL deal?
If this guy bilked MSU out of as much upfront money as possible only to enter the portal immediately thereafter, we might have to find him a spot on our team on general principle!
It’s one of my go-to comments about MSU, but I have infinite sympathy for their grad students. MSU undergrad and MSU post-grad are two different universes.
New OC Tim Lester must have had a heart-to-heart with Deacon “City on a” Hill after the spring game.
Hill reportedly did…mediocre, continuing his run of mediocre passing from last year. He has occasional flashes of accuracy, but IMHO last season was his death knell. Quarterbacks can be broken.
The other non-Cade QB (Marco Lainez III) is more of an RPO guy who can run. Which means that if Hill refuses to pass downfield, then Lainez has an advantage.
Cade is still in a knee brace. He’s throwing in 7-on-7 drills, but can’t even drop back yet. If he’s even close to healthy by fall, he’ll be starting. His passing ability is miles ahead of the other options.
The biggest issue is that Iowa WRs still haven’t discovered that they have hands. It’s gonna be another year where Luke Lachey is reads 1, 2, and 3.
I feel bad for Deacon Hill. He was sacrificed on the altar of Brian “for some reason my dad made me a QB coach” Ferentz…and now he probably won’t have many FBS suitors.
Translation: “Even if we find no evidence of wrongdoing, if you don’t self-incriminate to our satisfaction we’ll still punish you.”
This is police-level “we got you on [crime], if you just admit it then we’ll tell the judge that you cooperated.” Surprise! Your confession is the only evidence they have.
And I’ll be deep in the cold cold ground before drinking Maneschewitz ever again. If I want something that sweet, I’ll chug some grape juice and take a shot afterwards.
You can mark me down for “I desperately need the defenses to dominate this game.”
I also need to see what Brian and Seth call “college crappe”: any long-developing plays which require 11 people to win their matchups probably isn’t a good sign. Be cheap. Misdirect. Let fast guys be fast. And, for the love of all that’s holy, throw to the RBs!
Counterpoint: he has more reps than anyone else in the draft at calling out NFL style (most run) plays with motion, route trees, protection schemes, etc., from a huddle.
That’s worth a LOT. Completely agree that he’s nowhere near his ceiling as a passer. But as the head of a pro-level offense? More experience than anyone.
Remember that sports journalists’ top priority is NOT to make accurate predictions nor assessments: their top priority is to drive clicks. They’ll hype or drag anyone in pursuit of their precious clicks.
This isn’t limited to JJ McCarthy: every so often you come across an article which says that Caleb Williams - the first pickest of first picks that ever got picked first - doesn’t deserve to go first overall.
There was a HUGE first-mover advantage to this, and though I won’t be the least bit surprised when Michigan is the LAST school to implement this, I AM shocked that Georgia and Alabama and Texas didn’t get there first
the tattered remains of Wilton Speight held together by duct tape…and then he got injured AGAIN
PTSD Brandon Peters…who then got injured AGAIN
John “literally the worst pass play you’ll ever see” O’Korn
so there are 3 QBs who could neither pass nor run effectively. Know how many passing TDs we got that year? 9!!!! (With 10 INTs)
Know how many rushing TDs we got from QBs in 2017? Zero.
QBs rushing yards? Negative 131!
The 2017 Harbaughffense was levels of suckitude that you don’t often see. 2014’s Hoke/Nuss ‘offense’ was better than 2017. We would have been better off running the triple option. Like, a LOT better.
How Pep Hamilton kept his job while Tim Drevno only had to be gently ushered out the door, I’ll never know. It’s an indication of how beloved Harbaugh was that neither 2017 (offense) nor 2020 (defense) got him fired.
I’m going to set aside the National Championship and the obvious Ohio State game rankings (2021, 2022, 2023 in that order).
So I have a dark horse candidate: 2015 Florida
Utter domination capping off a pretty confidence inspiring season. Made a team full of NFL talent quit. Jehu Chesson burning NFL corners. Harbaugh kept the foot on the gas the whole game (maybe for the last time in his Michigan career???)
Second choice: 2019 Notre Dame
Wiping the floor with the Irish will never be a bad thing
The thing that pisses me off is that now there’s no way this whole shitshow won’t happen again.
Every single step of the way, the people who set up this smear campaign got exactly what they wanted. And now, if they had a second bullet in the chamber, they’ll fire it this season. It’s already going to be national news during the transfer window to poison recruiting, and don’t forget that “troll Michigan” is a tried and true business model for slow news days.
Let’s say the first 3 selections are Williams, Daniels, and Maye.
That’s 3 QBs who are going to be YOLO’d onto the field immediately, and if they’re very very lucky, will not get the David Carr treatment behind iffy offensive lines. The teams at the top of the draft are usually very much in flux, with coaches and/or GMs feeling their seats getting warm.
If you were McCarthy, would you even WANT to be a Top 5 pick? Maybe if someone trades up for him.
Did you have a 3 martini lunch? That’s the only way I can figure you typing up this post, thinking “yep, this is what the world needs”, and pressing Submit
God that’s a funny memory. Almost as funny as watching his Heisman campaign go up in flames as he picked turf out of his helmet and cried on the sidelines.
I’m not usually a vindictive man, but I remember watching Brady Quinn’s pained expression, as he slid further and further down the first round, with something approaching glee.
Ok, so I’m vindictive af. Started hating Quinn in 2006 and haven’t found any reason to stop.
I used to see this all the time. People often define themselves by their careers, and when they retire they sorta lose a part of themselves.
Imagine if your sense of self was “the best QB in history”; you retire…now what? Tom Brady famously went above and beyond to be able to play football for as long as he did. Now he’s got a whoooooole lotta time for thinking.
Some people just can’t be alone with their own thoughts. Especially if those thoughts involve the glory days of your playing career, and doubly so if you still have that chip on your shoulder and see the dogshit QB play that some teams have gotten recently.
It’s a whole lot easier to accept that your time has passed when you see the kids outperforming anything you’re capable of; a lot less easy when the kids are out there embarrassing themselves.
Retirement is complicated. You can’t just turn off a switch that’s defined who you are for a couple decades. That’s why I always tell people that you need to retire TO something, not FROM something.
Not an expert on hockey, but whenever something doesn’t make a ton of sense, the reason is usually “history”. It shouldn’t be a surprise that massive organizations are usually just a pile of bandaids behind the scenes.
Whenever an organization expands or acquires a new entity, the top priority is almost always “hold the existing business harmless”; expansion teams get worse deals, or new conferences, or there are grandfathering rules applied. These things are usually meant to be temporary, but there’s no money in backend streamlining like there is in expansion/acquisition/re-negotiation, so the “hold existing business harmless” rules just keep stacking up.
Sorry, I’m feeling a little frustrated with my own company this morning.
Shoutout to Alex G and “Miracles”, great song. I’m also a huge fan of Wolf Alice’s cover of “Bobby”
As for defining “success” on offense, I DO like the idea of an Orji legs-based offense as long as it does 3 big things:
1) keep running the offense even with the backups. My biggest gripe with the Harbaughffense has long been “if you don’t practice scoring a lot when you CAN, you won’t be able to score a lot when you MUST.” We won’t always have the best defense in the nation.
2) what Brian and Seth call “college crappe.” Scheme some cheap touchdowns. Chuck it up to the guys who win matchups. Not every pass play needs to be a long-developing NFL route tree that relies on every single person perfectly executing their assignments. Not every run play needs to be set up perfectly with 6+ perfectly executed blocks.
3) steal plays from other offenses, Ernie Adams style
Reminder that an experienced defense is EXPECTED to kick the offense’s ass at this point in the process. I’d be super duper concerned if we heard that the offense was handling the defense.
My fingers are crossed for Donovan Edwards. His problem isn’t ability: we saw time and time again that he’s one cut away from the endzone basically every snap
His problem IS recognizing what’s going on in front of him; we saw him biff blitz pickup after blitz pickup, and tbh even one of his touchdown runs in the Championship was because he missed the hole, which drew the Wash LB to help tackle, then Edwards was able to bounce and just outrun everyone.
If he can process the game the way that Corum could process the game, he’s in for a special season.
If we have both a RB1 and QB1 who don’t quite have a grasp on the offense…we’re in for a bad time.
“We don’t have the funding for a new hire” is *timeless* corporate speak for “I don’t believe you when you say we need this”
I’ve heard that many many times in my career, and I’ve stopped counting the money my companies have lost (or the headaches caused by regulatory complaints) by not listening to me.
It’s always interesting to me how many arguments against equality or justice boil down to “but think of the money we could continue to make by NOT having equal rights!”
You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve been in closed-door meetings and heard some variant of “you CANNOT force us to treat our workforce as employees!”
Recent Comments
The callousness of people who write off a highly rated recruit after a redshirt freshman season in which he played in 1 game (IIRC) and then got injured…after being a basketball player for most of his life…is a level of copium from Sparty that I wish I was surprised about
Former basketball player who got injured last year. Project Beef is still in its early stages
I haven’t heard a whisper about this guy being a problem or anything other than an awesome prospect. He’s reportedly pretty active in the community, and IIRC redshirted last year after injury, so it wasn’t a skill issue.
If he’s healthy and his grades are in good shape, we should get him on campus ASAP.
[btw, rumor is that MSU insiders were surprised he entered the portal]
Everyone is a question mark tbh, but with Williams it’s more of a question re: his resilience.
Chicago is basically a lock to YOLO him onto the field as a rookie. He’s gonna have more than a few “welcome to the League rook” moments. Can he shake them off and improve his game? QBs can be broken.
I guess it depends on whether you view Penix v Texas or Penix v Michigan as more indicative of who he is.
He had the game of his life vs Texas…who might have played the dumbest best defense or the best dumb defense ever.
I’m rooting for the guy, but watching him fall apart into his constituent molecules towards the end of the Championship game, behind a Joe Moore OL and throwing to surefire NFL receivers, it didn’t inspire confidence.
And don’t forget, Washington got a net of 3 total rushing yards from the QB position this past season. 3!
Who runs a Fuck It & Chuck It offense in the NFL?
I’m nominally a Pats fan, but let’s add an…ummm…*iffy* owner to the list of negatives.
Bostick played in 5 games but had no stats last season. Redshirted in 2022 due to injury. Praises god and tweets every time he receives an offer.
Not a loss for the Hawkeyes.
Didn’t their big NIL collective cancel all contracts out of the blue? Or was this a different NIL deal?
If this guy bilked MSU out of as much upfront money as possible only to enter the portal immediately thereafter, we might have to find him a spot on our team on general principle!
It’s always a rough day in East Lansing
It’s one of my go-to comments about MSU, but I have infinite sympathy for their grad students. MSU undergrad and MSU post-grad are two different universes.
But can he play- wait a sec!
New OC Tim Lester must have had a heart-to-heart with Deacon “City on a” Hill after the spring game.
Hill reportedly did…mediocre, continuing his run of mediocre passing from last year. He has occasional flashes of accuracy, but IMHO last season was his death knell. Quarterbacks can be broken.
The other non-Cade QB (Marco Lainez III) is more of an RPO guy who can run. Which means that if Hill refuses to pass downfield, then Lainez has an advantage.
Cade is still in a knee brace. He’s throwing in 7-on-7 drills, but can’t even drop back yet. If he’s even close to healthy by fall, he’ll be starting. His passing ability is miles ahead of the other options.
The biggest issue is that Iowa WRs still haven’t discovered that they have hands. It’s gonna be another year where Luke Lachey is reads 1, 2, and 3.
I feel bad for Deacon Hill. He was sacrificed on the altar of Brian “for some reason my dad made me a QB coach” Ferentz…and now he probably won’t have many FBS suitors.
Translation: “Even if we find no evidence of wrongdoing, if you don’t self-incriminate to our satisfaction we’ll still punish you.”
This is police-level “we got you on [crime], if you just admit it then we’ll tell the judge that you cooperated.” Surprise! Your confession is the only evidence they have.
Making a brisket tonight!
And I’ll be deep in the cold cold ground before drinking Maneschewitz ever again. If I want something that sweet, I’ll chug some grape juice and take a shot afterwards.
Fun fact! Canola Oil gets its name from the phrase “Canada Oil, Low Acid”
Sounds a lot better than RAPESEED oil
Savion Hiter for this year’s “you 30 bro” award. Also for the “be VERY careful typing his name” award
Payton Cook is Michael Penix Jr trying to sneak back into college
Mack Sutter is 13
You can mark me down for “I desperately need the defenses to dominate this game.”
I also need to see what Brian and Seth call “college crappe”: any long-developing plays which require 11 people to win their matchups probably isn’t a good sign. Be cheap. Misdirect. Let fast guys be fast. And, for the love of all that’s holy, throw to the RBs!
I feel so bad for Ms. Clark.
Besides this bullshit, I saw she had to block Antonio Brown on Twitter after he made comments about her pubic hair.
This is Olsen-Twins-Turn-18-Countdown-Timer-level creepy coming out of the woodwork. JFC let the woman play basketball.
Counterpoint: he has more reps than anyone else in the draft at calling out NFL style (most run) plays with motion, route trees, protection schemes, etc., from a huddle.
That’s worth a LOT. Completely agree that he’s nowhere near his ceiling as a passer. But as the head of a pro-level offense? More experience than anyone.
Michigan-Alabama was PhD-level football.
Remember that sports journalists’ top priority is NOT to make accurate predictions nor assessments: their top priority is to drive clicks. They’ll hype or drag anyone in pursuit of their precious clicks.
This isn’t limited to JJ McCarthy: every so often you come across an article which says that Caleb Williams - the first pickest of first picks that ever got picked first - doesn’t deserve to go first overall.
Partially. Admissions ruled that only 66% of their coaching experience could transfer to Michigan
There was a HUGE first-mover advantage to this, and though I won’t be the least bit surprised when Michigan is the LAST school to implement this, I AM shocked that Georgia and Alabama and Texas didn’t get there first
Fair shout to him, that’s a solid apology.
Not even close to 2017.
In 2017, our trio of QBs was:
so there are 3 QBs who could neither pass nor run effectively. Know how many passing TDs we got that year? 9!!!! (With 10 INTs)
Know how many rushing TDs we got from QBs in 2017? Zero.
QBs rushing yards? Negative 131!
The 2017 Harbaughffense was levels of suckitude that you don’t often see. 2014’s Hoke/Nuss ‘offense’ was better than 2017. We would have been better off running the triple option. Like, a LOT better.
How Pep Hamilton kept his job while Tim Drevno only had to be gently ushered out the door, I’ll never know. It’s an indication of how beloved Harbaugh was that neither 2017 (offense) nor 2020 (defense) got him fired.
+1 Aladdin references!
I’m going to set aside the National Championship and the obvious Ohio State game rankings (2021, 2022, 2023 in that order).
So I have a dark horse candidate: 2015 Florida
Utter domination capping off a pretty confidence inspiring season. Made a team full of NFL talent quit. Jehu Chesson burning NFL corners. Harbaugh kept the foot on the gas the whole game (maybe for the last time in his Michigan career???)
Second choice: 2019 Notre Dame
Wiping the floor with the Irish will never be a bad thing
The thing that pisses me off is that now there’s no way this whole shitshow won’t happen again.
Every single step of the way, the people who set up this smear campaign got exactly what they wanted. And now, if they had a second bullet in the chamber, they’ll fire it this season. It’s already going to be national news during the transfer window to poison recruiting, and don’t forget that “troll Michigan” is a tried and true business model for slow news days.
Let’s say the first 3 selections are Williams, Daniels, and Maye.
That’s 3 QBs who are going to be YOLO’d onto the field immediately, and if they’re very very lucky, will not get the David Carr treatment behind iffy offensive lines. The teams at the top of the draft are usually very much in flux, with coaches and/or GMs feeling their seats getting warm.
If you were McCarthy, would you even WANT to be a Top 5 pick? Maybe if someone trades up for him.
Did you have a 3 martini lunch? That’s the only way I can figure you typing up this post, thinking “yep, this is what the world needs”, and pressing Submit
God that’s a funny memory. Almost as funny as watching his Heisman campaign go up in flames as he picked turf out of his helmet and cried on the sidelines.
Hang on, I gotta rewatch those game highlights.
I’m not usually a vindictive man, but I remember watching Brady Quinn’s pained expression, as he slid further and further down the first round, with something approaching glee.
Ok, so I’m vindictive af. Started hating Quinn in 2006 and haven’t found any reason to stop.
I used to see this all the time. People often define themselves by their careers, and when they retire they sorta lose a part of themselves.
Imagine if your sense of self was “the best QB in history”; you retire…now what? Tom Brady famously went above and beyond to be able to play football for as long as he did. Now he’s got a whoooooole lotta time for thinking.
Some people just can’t be alone with their own thoughts. Especially if those thoughts involve the glory days of your playing career, and doubly so if you still have that chip on your shoulder and see the dogshit QB play that some teams have gotten recently.
It’s a whole lot easier to accept that your time has passed when you see the kids outperforming anything you’re capable of; a lot less easy when the kids are out there embarrassing themselves.
Retirement is complicated. You can’t just turn off a switch that’s defined who you are for a couple decades. That’s why I always tell people that you need to retire TO something, not FROM something.
This is a great Diary series!
Not a Jew
I guess I’m a product of my times, but seeing RB #2 at pick #77 is still wild to me.
Pulp >>>>>>> no pulp
Your question spurred me to Google exactly what’s going on with Sparty these days re: Tuck.
So. Tuck wants his full $80M
Ms. Tracy is suing MSU for $75M
Jonathan Smith has a $53M contract (over 7 years)
Assistant coaches collectively make $11M/year
And I would bet every penny of the above that Engler and his cronies embezzled millions of dollars that we don’t even know about yet.
That’s debatable
I live for fun-and-mostly-useless info!
Considering who our RB coach is, I’d be amazed if there WASN’T at least a phone call on the topic.
Not an expert on hockey, but whenever something doesn’t make a ton of sense, the reason is usually “history”. It shouldn’t be a surprise that massive organizations are usually just a pile of bandaids behind the scenes.
Whenever an organization expands or acquires a new entity, the top priority is almost always “hold the existing business harmless”; expansion teams get worse deals, or new conferences, or there are grandfathering rules applied. These things are usually meant to be temporary, but there’s no money in backend streamlining like there is in expansion/acquisition/re-negotiation, so the “hold existing business harmless” rules just keep stacking up.
Sorry, I’m feeling a little frustrated with my own company this morning.
Shoutout to Alex G and “Miracles”, great song. I’m also a huge fan of Wolf Alice’s cover of “Bobby”
As for defining “success” on offense, I DO like the idea of an Orji legs-based offense as long as it does 3 big things:
1) keep running the offense even with the backups. My biggest gripe with the Harbaughffense has long been “if you don’t practice scoring a lot when you CAN, you won’t be able to score a lot when you MUST.” We won’t always have the best defense in the nation.
2) what Brian and Seth call “college crappe.” Scheme some cheap touchdowns. Chuck it up to the guys who win matchups. Not every pass play needs to be a long-developing NFL route tree that relies on every single person perfectly executing their assignments. Not every run play needs to be set up perfectly with 6+ perfectly executed blocks.
3) steal plays from other offenses, Ernie Adams style
Reminder that an experienced defense is EXPECTED to kick the offense’s ass at this point in the process. I’d be super duper concerned if we heard that the offense was handling the defense.
My fingers are crossed for Donovan Edwards. His problem isn’t ability: we saw time and time again that he’s one cut away from the endzone basically every snap
His problem IS recognizing what’s going on in front of him; we saw him biff blitz pickup after blitz pickup, and tbh even one of his touchdown runs in the Championship was because he missed the hole, which drew the Wash LB to help tackle, then Edwards was able to bounce and just outrun everyone.
If he can process the game the way that Corum could process the game, he’s in for a special season.
If we have both a RB1 and QB1 who don’t quite have a grasp on the offense…we’re in for a bad time.
“We don’t have the funding for a new hire” is *timeless* corporate speak for “I don’t believe you when you say we need this”
I’ve heard that many many times in my career, and I’ve stopped counting the money my companies have lost (or the headaches caused by regulatory complaints) by not listening to me.
I really need Mason to stick on the roster and do something noteworthy this season. The world needs a Ben Mason press conference.
Olivia Olson and Syla Swords sound like Adam Sandler movie main characters/love interests
man loved himself some alliterative names
I have spent many moons searching for a good polo. Any suggestions?
”+1 Blink182” is not an award often given out. Congrats sir
Same way there’s about 3 “Game of the Century” games every season
oh, and as a fan of Princess Bride, that pic irks me to no end. It gets the quote wrong!
”You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
https://youtu.be/dTRKCXC0JFg?si=m97ZdiV-XKnVlXcl
edit: thx!
It’s always interesting to me how many arguments against equality or justice boil down to “but think of the money we could continue to make by NOT having equal rights!”
You wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve been in closed-door meetings and heard some variant of “you CANNOT force us to treat our workforce as employees!”
Marvin Harrison Jr. is a no-brainer.
The Harbaugh Answer is probably Brock Bowers.
I actually wonder if the Chargers would trade back in the first round and grab Malik Nabers, or even further back and grab Rome Odunze