I feel like that is probably true? Harbaugh was never a coordinator. His main skill set is he’s exceptional at finding and recruiting young, talented coaches and then managing them. I think the issues in 2019 and 2020 was he had gotten away from that and the staff got stale.
Bruce Arians was hired by the Bucs when he was 66. I think Harbaugh was surprised that teams weren't lining up for him and I think that, in part, has to do with how his first 6 years here were at U of M. If he wins a national title at U of M, then I imagine he'll have more teams wanting him and then he'll be heading to the NFL. Either way, he's going to be plenty motivated.
No one has had this many first round picks before, though. What Pearson has assembled is unprecedented and we should just keep getting better over the course of this season.
No one has had this many first round picks before, though. What Pearson has assembled is unprecedented and we should just keep getting better over the course of this season.
He's also a year older than everyone else in his grade. He turns 17 in the fall.
I'm not bashing Inge. There's limited scholarship money in college baseball so you need depth pieces. He might turn into a starter later on in his career at U of M. But, that's where he is as a prospect right now. Plus, Michigan has several really good infielders he'll be competing against for playing time from the 2023 and 2024 classes that are top 350 recruits.
I know. I subscribe to the site and follow college baseball recruiting. That's just a generic ranking they tend to give lighter ranked prospects at that young of an age when they perform at a showcase event. He's not one of their top 19 prospects in the state and Michigan is a weaker baseball state. He's more of a top 25 to top 50 prospect in the state. Scholarship money is sparse in baseball, so he's going to be on the lighter end. So, saying he's more of a walk on type for Michigan is accurate (at least at this stage in his prospect status). Most players only get 1/4 scholarship money. He's got a strong arm and good 10 second split times at the showcase event so he'll probably be a 3B like his dad.
I think Michigan will just sneak in. Beating Nebraska once and Indiana losing the series against Maryland might have clinched it. Now, we are guaranteed to finish no worse than 3rd in the Big Ten and our conference is generally a 3 or 4 team bid league. I think Indiana will be out now, and we'll slide in as one of the last 4 in.
It makes sense. I think he graduated early and it never made sense that a 3rd round pick like Portillo would come here to be a backup for 2 years before starting. So, they must have known Mann only had 1 year left.
One of the players got it and he was kept home. That was rumored earlier in the week. They tested Wednesday and no one else had tested positive. However, it sometimes takes a few days for it to show up in the test. They tested again and it confirmed that it spread to others in the program.
The NCAA really screwed this all up, though. They should have had a two week quarantine for this tournament in a bubble environment before even playing games.
Why didn't the NCAA do a bubble environment for 2 weeks and then play the tournament to ensure stuff like this didn't happen? What a stupid setup by the NCAA.
Very evenly played game. Difference was in net. Mann had a rare bad night where he allowed multiple soft goals.
Either way, we've lost so many 1 goal games this year. Hopefully, our luck turns around in the NCAA's. We also can't afford for Mann to have another night like this again or else our season will be over.
Davis had an O rating of 85 and was terrible defensively. When he replaced Dickinson in the 2nd half, it was an 8 point game. By the time Dickinson returned, the game was already a 20 point deficit and it was over.
This is trending to being one of the weakest teams we've had in awhile. We lost 1 game the entire Big Ten season in 2019, and Illinois is only supposed to be decent.
Just no offense and Hutch doesn't really help matters by giving away so many outs.
But the freshman are bringing it every night. I'm not sure one could expect more from Bordeleau, Johnson, Beniers, Brisson and Power this year and they have been very consistent. The issue has been the lack of consistent contributions from the upperclassmen.
Most of our juniors and seniors haven't really taken the leap that they needed this year. It is a top heavy team that is very reliant on freshman and sophomores.
They haven't really said. I think it is just a selection committee deciding on the top 16 teams. I'd bet the top 4 teams in the Big Ten make it. Or, at least the top 3.
Realistically, we aren't winning the Big Ten this year and we aren't beating OSU. With the vaccines, we'll probably be back to normal life by 2022 and the university will be able to plan on more consistent revenue again by the 2022 season. What are the odds that Harbaugh is actually the HC in 2022 given the above? I think it is pretty low. These hires just seem like a Hail Mary for the 2021 season and, particularly on defense, there is no emphasis being placed on recruiting at all.
I think Jay probably wanted to move to ST full time like his uncle did and thinks that is a better career path for him to move up in the coaching world. At least, that is my hunch. From Michigan's perspective, it could also allow Jay to take on a more general recruiting approach like Moore does and not have him focus so much on just RB's.
I also think Hart will likely be a good recruiter here and this is a way to bring in another good recruiter on a staff that needs it.
OSU probably makes the playoffs again, but you could make an argument it will be their worst team since 2017. Their 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes were not as good as 2021 or what 2022 will be, and Fields isn't being replaced by a 5 star QB. They'll still win the Big Ten, but I think they'll have a slight drop off so I don't see them winning it all next year.
The final 4 will be 4 of Bama, Clemson, OSU, Oklahoma and Georgia. Maybe Georgia gets in next year.
I think the 3rd goal was one Mann could have had. If anything, it showed why he isn't an NHL prospect and will top out as a college goalie. His agility is limited moving side to side and he's also small in net. At some point tonight, he had to make a save like MSU's goalie did a few times.
He was great last year but there has been a step back this year. He's been pulled in multiple games and only has a .907 save percentage in conference games and that isn't good enough. In conference play, he only ranks better than Penn State's starters and one of ND's starters.
I'm not sure what to do about the skaters and the inconsistent offense, which is a much larger issue. But, I'd like to see us go to Portillo for a game to at least give a legit NHL prospect a start. He was an early 3rd round pick and can't even get off the bench.
I think Howard would do a good job of figuring out how to brand his players for NIL and the basketball team could benefit from it. The Fab 5 concept was really ahead of its time.
The Harbaugh of old would have figured it out too, but I'm not sure he has that in him anymore. We'll see.
Mann has to save at least one of those, though. He has had a pretty mediocre year. Just a middle of the pack save percentage. I wouldn't mind giving Portillo a start at some point to switch things up and see what the NHL draft pick can do.
Just a terrible loss and weekend. They had to sweep this series.
Rankings are going to change a lot this year. They'll be able to have summer camps in 2021 and that will help and they'll all play games next fall as well. Outside of the top 100 or so, I don't think they are all that useful at the moment.
NIL should hopefully reduce the advantage that bag men have right now and an expansion to 16 teams like FCS would be perfect. The talent would be more evenly distributed over time as recruits could make money at more places and have opportunities to win championships at more places. Now, the vast majority of top recruits will just go to one of the top 4 teams because that is where all the action is. It is a minor miracle that Worthy turned down Bama for us.
My assumption is they will start with an 8 team playoff and then go from there. That won't be perfect but will at least open it up a little bit. Pac 12 schools will start getting more talent again in that scenario and players would know that even runner ups in conferences with Clemson, Bama and OSU could still make the playoffs. So, it may impact decisions.
Yeah, they need to expand the playoffs ASAP. I can't see how long they can keep the 4 team playoff going. At least college basketball has some parity. This is becoming ridiculous.
Hopefully, it is just to take over for Shoop? That would be ok.
He's around a top 50ish recruiter each of the last 2 seasons and taking him from Penn State would take away their pipeline they developed in Michigan and may help us with the Belleville kids and others in Detroit that we've struggled to bring in recently.
If he's a co-DC/Safeties coach with Mason as the other co-DC and play caller then I think it would be fine.
Figured tonight was going to be like this and this series would be a sweep with four forwards out. Minnesota is the best team in the conference by a decent margin and basically already won the conference barring a collapse. Pearson quitting on the game last night by not pulling the goalie was the most unexpected thing of the series. I don't remember seeing a coach do that before.
Bad start to the season, but hopefully we can get better as the year goes on and sneak into the tournament.
We don’t know what NHL teams actually think about players until the draft. For now, we just have opinion mock drafts from people that cover prospects. Those writers would talk to some scouts from NHL teams but maybe not a representative sample. So, yeah, I think I can share my opinion on Power.
The one bright spot is I wasn't sure going into the season how many of these guys would be one and done, but now I think most will be back. Johnson, for example, could really use another year to get stronger on the puck and would benefit from another year in college. He'd dominate next year.
Bordeleau is the only one that has really jumped out to me on a consistent basis all year like you would expect a high draft pick to do.
I know Power is getting talked about as a possible #1 and to play right away in the NHL, but I really don't see it. Great player but it seems like more of a #10 pick than #1.
Just awful defense all night so far. Mann let in a horrible goal on the 1st goal and the 5th goal looked like he should have stopped it even if it was deflected. Other than that, though, didn't have much chance.
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I feel like that is probably true? Harbaugh was never a coordinator. His main skill set is he’s exceptional at finding and recruiting young, talented coaches and then managing them. I think the issues in 2019 and 2020 was he had gotten away from that and the staff got stale.
Bruce Arians was hired by the Bucs when he was 66. I think Harbaugh was surprised that teams weren't lining up for him and I think that, in part, has to do with how his first 6 years here were at U of M. If he wins a national title at U of M, then I imagine he'll have more teams wanting him and then he'll be heading to the NFL. Either way, he's going to be plenty motivated.
No one has had this many first round picks before, though. What Pearson has assembled is unprecedented and we should just keep getting better over the course of this season.
Beecher isn't even playing yet.
No one has had this many first round picks before, though. What Pearson has assembled is unprecedented and we should just keep getting better over the course of this season.
Beecher isn't even playing yet.
Colson was in on the last drive ahead of Hill-Green. I thought that was interesting.
I think Pasta is going to play on the 3rd line quite a bit. There's 8 drafted forwards and he's the next most skilled guy to slot into the top 9.
Van Whye, Moyle and Grano on the 4th line and Morgan as the extra skater.
We'll see though. It is crazy how much depth there is.
Grant's more of a top 250 recruit based on his offers and how he was recruited. Maybe the rankings will eventually catch up.
That's a lot of 2 TE sets. They must not trust Henning enough in the slot.
They had Wilson at 5 snaps (did he come back in after the horse-collar tackle?)
They had Hutchinson at 67 snaps.
The best comp, so far, is the start in 2016.
Plus, we'll probably be top 3 in SP+ after week 3 this year and I think 2016 was the only year that was true.
It is still going to be difficult for Michigan to bring in transfers. So, high school recruiting is still very important for Michigan.
He's also a year older than everyone else in his grade. He turns 17 in the fall.
I'm not bashing Inge. There's limited scholarship money in college baseball so you need depth pieces. He might turn into a starter later on in his career at U of M. But, that's where he is as a prospect right now. Plus, Michigan has several really good infielders he'll be competing against for playing time from the 2023 and 2024 classes that are top 350 recruits.
I know. I subscribe to the site and follow college baseball recruiting. That's just a generic ranking they tend to give lighter ranked prospects at that young of an age when they perform at a showcase event. He's not one of their top 19 prospects in the state and Michigan is a weaker baseball state. He's more of a top 25 to top 50 prospect in the state. Scholarship money is sparse in baseball, so he's going to be on the lighter end. So, saying he's more of a walk on type for Michigan is accurate (at least at this stage in his prospect status). Most players only get 1/4 scholarship money. He's got a strong arm and good 10 second split times at the showcase event so he'll probably be a 3B like his dad.
He's probably more of a walk-on type but always good to have depth.
I think Bell will be the slot WR and Michigan will start 3 WR's with Baldwin probably being one of the starters.
Tork is in high A and will probably be in Erie at some point this summer.
I think Michigan will just sneak in. Beating Nebraska once and Indiana losing the series against Maryland might have clinched it. Now, we are guaranteed to finish no worse than 3rd in the Big Ten and our conference is generally a 3 or 4 team bid league. I think Indiana will be out now, and we'll slide in as one of the last 4 in.
It makes sense. I think he graduated early and it never made sense that a 3rd round pick like Portillo would come here to be a backup for 2 years before starting. So, they must have known Mann only had 1 year left.
One of the players got it and he was kept home. That was rumored earlier in the week. They tested Wednesday and no one else had tested positive. However, it sometimes takes a few days for it to show up in the test. They tested again and it confirmed that it spread to others in the program.
The NCAA really screwed this all up, though. They should have had a two week quarantine for this tournament in a bubble environment before even playing games.
Why didn't the NCAA do a bubble environment for 2 weeks and then play the tournament to ensure stuff like this didn't happen? What a stupid setup by the NCAA.
Very evenly played game. Difference was in net. Mann had a rare bad night where he allowed multiple soft goals.
Either way, we've lost so many 1 goal games this year. Hopefully, our luck turns around in the NCAA's. We also can't afford for Mann to have another night like this again or else our season will be over.
Where do see the projected starters for tomorrow?
Davis had an O rating of 85 and was terrible defensively. When he replaced Dickinson in the 2nd half, it was an 8 point game. By the time Dickinson returned, the game was already a 20 point deficit and it was over.
…
Lost game 2, 2-1 as well.
This is trending to being one of the weakest teams we've had in awhile. We lost 1 game the entire Big Ten season in 2019, and Illinois is only supposed to be decent.
Just no offense and Hutch doesn't really help matters by giving away so many outs.
Did Brisson get hurt during the game? I don't think he played in OT.
But the freshman are bringing it every night. I'm not sure one could expect more from Bordeleau, Johnson, Beniers, Brisson and Power this year and they have been very consistent. The issue has been the lack of consistent contributions from the upperclassmen.
Most of our juniors and seniors haven't really taken the leap that they needed this year. It is a top heavy team that is very reliant on freshman and sophomores.
They haven't really said. I think it is just a selection committee deciding on the top 16 teams. I'd bet the top 4 teams in the Big Ten make it. Or, at least the top 3.
They aren't picking teams based off Pairwise this season.
Helow…
Linguist is an A+
Helow seems questionable. He barely recruited at Maryland. We'll see if that changes here.
Yeah, the defensive hires are all big risks.
Realistically, we aren't winning the Big Ten this year and we aren't beating OSU. With the vaccines, we'll probably be back to normal life by 2022 and the university will be able to plan on more consistent revenue again by the 2022 season. What are the odds that Harbaugh is actually the HC in 2022 given the above? I think it is pretty low. These hires just seem like a Hail Mary for the 2021 season and, particularly on defense, there is no emphasis being placed on recruiting at all.
It is odd that his 247 page lists him with zero commits across his years at Colorado State and Maryland.
I was hoping we were going to unleash the money cannon this off season, but that is not happening.
I think Jay probably wanted to move to ST full time like his uncle did and thinks that is a better career path for him to move up in the coaching world. At least, that is my hunch. From Michigan's perspective, it could also allow Jay to take on a more general recruiting approach like Moore does and not have him focus so much on just RB's.
I also think Hart will likely be a good recruiter here and this is a way to bring in another good recruiter on a staff that needs it.
That would be amazing. Let's revamp the entire recruiting and scouting department and make substantial investments there.
OSU probably makes the playoffs again, but you could make an argument it will be their worst team since 2017. Their 2019 and 2020 recruiting classes were not as good as 2021 or what 2022 will be, and Fields isn't being replaced by a 5 star QB. They'll still win the Big Ten, but I think they'll have a slight drop off so I don't see them winning it all next year.
The final 4 will be 4 of Bama, Clemson, OSU, Oklahoma and Georgia. Maybe Georgia gets in next year.
That would be very discouraging if Nua is back.
I think the 3rd goal was one Mann could have had. If anything, it showed why he isn't an NHL prospect and will top out as a college goalie. His agility is limited moving side to side and he's also small in net. At some point tonight, he had to make a save like MSU's goalie did a few times.
He was great last year but there has been a step back this year. He's been pulled in multiple games and only has a .907 save percentage in conference games and that isn't good enough. In conference play, he only ranks better than Penn State's starters and one of ND's starters.
I'm not sure what to do about the skaters and the inconsistent offense, which is a much larger issue. But, I'd like to see us go to Portillo for a game to at least give a legit NHL prospect a start. He was an early 3rd round pick and can't even get off the bench.
I think Howard would do a good job of figuring out how to brand his players for NIL and the basketball team could benefit from it. The Fab 5 concept was really ahead of its time.
The Harbaugh of old would have figured it out too, but I'm not sure he has that in him anymore. We'll see.
Offense is way too inconsistent.
Mann has to save at least one of those, though. He has had a pretty mediocre year. Just a middle of the pack save percentage. I wouldn't mind giving Portillo a start at some point to switch things up and see what the NHL draft pick can do.
Just a terrible loss and weekend. They had to sweep this series.
Rankings are going to change a lot this year. They'll be able to have summer camps in 2021 and that will help and they'll all play games next fall as well. Outside of the top 100 or so, I don't think they are all that useful at the moment.
I don't think it really matters. It's fine if he leaves. He'd be replaced by someone similar.
NIL should hopefully reduce the advantage that bag men have right now and an expansion to 16 teams like FCS would be perfect. The talent would be more evenly distributed over time as recruits could make money at more places and have opportunities to win championships at more places. Now, the vast majority of top recruits will just go to one of the top 4 teams because that is where all the action is. It is a minor miracle that Worthy turned down Bama for us.
My assumption is they will start with an 8 team playoff and then go from there. That won't be perfect but will at least open it up a little bit. Pac 12 schools will start getting more talent again in that scenario and players would know that even runner ups in conferences with Clemson, Bama and OSU could still make the playoffs. So, it may impact decisions.
Yeah, they need to expand the playoffs ASAP. I can't see how long they can keep the 4 team playoff going. At least college basketball has some parity. This is becoming ridiculous.
Hopefully, it is just to take over for Shoop? That would be ok.
He's around a top 50ish recruiter each of the last 2 seasons and taking him from Penn State would take away their pipeline they developed in Michigan and may help us with the Belleville kids and others in Detroit that we've struggled to bring in recently.
If he's a co-DC/Safeties coach with Mason as the other co-DC and play caller then I think it would be fine.
Figured tonight was going to be like this and this series would be a sweep with four forwards out. Minnesota is the best team in the conference by a decent margin and basically already won the conference barring a collapse. Pearson quitting on the game last night by not pulling the goalie was the most unexpected thing of the series. I don't remember seeing a coach do that before.
Bad start to the season, but hopefully we can get better as the year goes on and sneak into the tournament.
Not getting the extra attacker on the ice is really bad. No idea what Mel was thinking. Just gave up.
We don’t know what NHL teams actually think about players until the draft. For now, we just have opinion mock drafts from people that cover prospects. Those writers would talk to some scouts from NHL teams but maybe not a representative sample. So, yeah, I think I can share my opinion on Power.
The one bright spot is I wasn't sure going into the season how many of these guys would be one and done, but now I think most will be back. Johnson, for example, could really use another year to get stronger on the puck and would benefit from another year in college. He'd dominate next year.
Bordeleau is the only one that has really jumped out to me on a consistent basis all year like you would expect a high draft pick to do.
I know Power is getting talked about as a possible #1 and to play right away in the NHL, but I really don't see it. Great player but it seems like more of a #10 pick than #1.
Just awful defense all night so far. Mann let in a horrible goal on the 1st goal and the 5th goal looked like he should have stopped it even if it was deflected. Other than that, though, didn't have much chance.
McCarthy starts from game 1 and we go 7-5 or 8-4.