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Also, Charles Woodson.  He…

Also, Charles Woodson.  He had the huge return against OSU which people remember, but otherwise, the stats were pretty meh.  He averaged 8.6 per return in 97 and 5.4 in 96, and that was back when punts got returned.  For the sake of comparison, the #20 punt returner nationally in 1997 averaged 13.4 per return.  Charles, however, never muffed a punt (that I recall).  He had extremely sure hands.

Does not compute

 

Fear…

Does not compute

 

Fear/Paranoia Level: 3 (Baseline 5; –1 for Wet And Flat Last Year, –1 for Year Zero, –1 for The Worst Tackle In College Football, +1 for Aaaargh A 3-3-5, +1 for Rhule Can Coach, –1 for Jeff Sims Or Guy Who Was Jeff Sims's Backup, –1 for Corum Back)

On3 is the only site that…

On3 is the only site that has a rating for him.  To them, he's a (high) 3*, the #30 LB in the class, and the #14 player in North Carolina.

 

https://www.on3.com/db/jaden-smith-157318/

His offer list was not a 5*,…

His offer list was not a 5*, top 10 offer list.  Shorter was ranked 8th in the composite.  His offer list, as well as that of Nicholas Petit-Frere, who was 7th, and Zamir White, who was 9th, are below.

Petit-Frere

Ohio State, Alabama, Florida, Michigan, Notre Dame, Auburn, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Oregon, Penn State, Texas, USC, Arkansas, Duke, FIU, FSU, Louisville, Miami, NC State, Nebraska, UNC, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas State, UCLA, Virginia

Shorter

Penn State, Michigan, Wisconsin, BC, Indiana, Miami, UNC, Old Dominion, Ole Miss, Pittsburgh, Rutgers, Syracuse, Temple, Tennessee, VT, WVU

White

Georgia, Alabama, Auburn, Clemson, Florida, LSU, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Penn State, Wisconsin, Duke, East Carolina, FSU, Miami, MSU NC State, Nebraska, UNC, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, VT, Wake Forest

 

Recruiting services liked him a whole lot more than college coaches did.  Early returns appear to indicate the coaches knew better.  He's young and could still pan out, but I think folks interested in him as a formerly elite recruit are misguided.

Thanks for doing this.  I…

Thanks for doing this.  I found it interesting and decided to take a look at doing the same analysis but using Kenpom Adjusted Efficiency Margin rather than overall seed.  I was surprised that the results were similar.

Simply aggregating AdjEM for each region yields (higher is better):

South: 266.45

West 258.26

Midwest 250.5

East 250.39

For the play-ins I only selected the team with the higher Adjusted EM so each region was based on 16 teams.

 

That didn't match my expectation, and I thought maybe regions I thought should be higher (like the East) were being weighed down by dregs in the bottom half, so I tried looking at just the top 8 teams in each region.  That did produce some change:

West: 187.54

South: 186.12

East 186.11

Midwest: 182.25

 

Having done that, it was natural to also slice it down to top 4, 2, and 1 teams to get:

South: 112.37 / 62.64 / 35.66

West: 111.54 / 62.23 / 32.79

East: 108.79 / 63.35 / 31.99

Midwest: 102.35 / 56.59 / 29.17

 

I based top x on Kenpom rating rather than seed, so, for example, despite being the 3 seed in the East, LSU was not included in that region's top 4 (because Kenpom says they're the #5 team in the region).

 

No matter how you slice it, the Midwest is weak.  I laughed at MSU's draw, but the numbers say it's only the top 2 in the East that are really daunting (and I think Kenpom undervalues Duke with a fully weaponized Zion back).  Michigan's draw in the West seems favorable to me (and others), but I think that's because I don't believe Gonzaga is as good as Kenpom says, and Michigan seems like they should be able to beat the rest of the region because Michigan is really good and would seem likely to beat seeds 3 through 16 in any region.  And the South, well, it's just strong.

I feel there are people

I feel there are people missing.  For example, Will Campbell isn't listed among "Others" at DT.  Is there a reason for that I'm not understanding?

Swenson does not start for Oklahoma. He has

Swenson does not start for Oklahoma. He has rarely seen the field.

Per 247 he has interest in

Per 247 he has interest in Stanford, but Stanford has not extended him an offer.  He does report an offer from Wisconsin.

I looked into this when my

I looked into this when my kid was being recruited.  My recollection is that essentially any aid received by an athlete in D1 or D2 makes that athlete count as a scholarship athlete.  I think there were potential exceptions if the athlete in question had very high GPA and test scores.  I do not recall hearing of those exceptions being exercise at U of M or elsewhere, so there may be even further limitations.

Not only was Mike Hart a 3*,

Not only was Mike Hart a 3*, he was ranked the #264 overall player and the #6 All Purpose Back in the country.  In 2004, stars were harder to come by.  Those numbers today would be a 4* (in the 247 composite, the #334 player is the last 4* in the class of 2018).  

I'm not necessarily

I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you but feel compelled to point out the linked article didn't use the word concussion once.  Often overlooked is the evidence that repeated sub-concussive hits may be a big part of the problem, so just focusing on eliminating concussions isn't necessarily solving the problem.

 

As for tackle football versus youth soccer, I forget the name of the governing body, but all US youth soccer leagues I'm aware of followed the mandate that children under a certain age playing soccer not be allowed to head the ball.  My son is 10, and at his age group it's a penalty if they head the ball.

Well, sticking with NCAA

Well, sticking with NCAA football and the QB position, Steve Spurrier was a two-time consensus All American and a Heisman winner while playing for Florida, and I'd say he was a pretty damned good ballcoach.

 

As for Harbaugh himself, I guess everybody has their own list of the greats, but he finished third in the Heisman voting in 1986, and no Michigan QB has finished higher (Rick Leach also finished third in 1978).  He led the nation in passing efficiency in 1985 and finished second in 1986.  He was an All-American and the Big Ten MVP.  He led the 1985 team to a #2 finish in the polls -- that's the highest any Bo Schembechler team ever finished.  In my book, Harbaugh is most certainly among the "greats" in Michigan football history.

Aren't chaps, by definition,

Aren't chaps, by definition, assless?  Otherwise, aren't they just pants?

I checked, and GA SDE Chris

I checked, and GA SDE Chris Hinton is the son of former NFL All Pro Chris Hinton, whom I recall as both a really talented player and a really bright guy (went to Northwestern).  That makes me want Hinton even more than your typical five-star.  I expect he'll be a tough get.  According to this article -- http://www.colts.com/news/article-1/Catching-up-With-Chris-Hinton/815bb… -- his Dad's favorite stadium was the Big House, so maybe that counts for something?  Yeah, probably not.

I agree with your general

I agree with your general sentiment, but I think it's the fact that the Mallory connection goes well beyond "Will has scholarship offer, Dad went to Michigan" or even "Will has scholarship, Dad played at Michigan" that made me think it was highly likely Will would wind up at Michigan.  Beyond his Dad playing at Michigan, both of Dad's brothers also played at Michigan, and one of them also coached at Michigan.  Plus, Dad played at Michigan with Jim Harbaugh.  That's an awful lot of family affinity for Michigan football plus a connection to our head coach that seems exceedingly rare for a recruit.

I'm a reader since the

I'm a reader since the HaloScan days, a "real" member for over 8 years, almost never post, and -- as best I can recall -- have never upvoted a post before, but I logged in just to upvote this.  Made me literally LOL and spit out my Dt. Mtn Dew.

Were you reminded of him in

Were you reminded of him in the Darko thread?  The one in which one poster squarely blamed Robinson for being primarily (entirely?) responsible for the Pistons picking Darko?  

That's what reminded me of him recently.  FWIW, I agree with the people arguing that Darko seemed a good pick at the time, and either way, I don't believe the Pistons relied largely on Will Robinson's opinion at the time.

Not that it matters, but I

Not that it matters, but I think he's wrong.  The 1985 team he QBed was 10-1-1, losing by 2 on a last second field goal on the road at the #1 team in the country and, obviously, also tied a game.  That seems closer to being perfect than last season.  I suppose you could argue the margin of defeat in two one point losses is the same as a single two point loss, and an OT loss would have been a tie under the old rules, so maybe the two seasons were equally close to perfect.

tf

I can't remember where, but I

I can't remember where, but I read earlier today that during the regular season the spread was padded by 10 points, and during the playoffs (not including the Super Bowl), the spread was padded by 6 points.  That makes beating the "spread" substantially easier.

 

Also, one week he failed to submit his picks on time and had to buy a "power up" that randomly made picks for him, and the (alleged) random picks were all correct, which is certainly possible but makes the whole thing seem a little sketchy.

 

tf

 

EDIT: Since everybody is still acting as if this is completely impossible, I went back and checked ATS + 10 performance for both Detroit and Dallas.  If you simply took both of those teams throughout the regular season, with a spread padded with 10 additional points, you'd have gone 31-1.  Of course, taking both teams is impossible (or at least unreasonable), as Detroit and Dallas played each other; that is the one game that Detroi lost ATS + 10.

 

Given how close the spread tends to be, and given an additional 10 points on top of it, and given the opportunity to pick the optimal 4 games every week, I do not find it impossible to believe somebody went undefeated throughout the regular season.

 

The pad dropping to 6 points for the playoffs obviously makes the whole thing more difficult, but while I think there's room for skepticism, I'm assuming the people saying this simply can't be possible are ignoring the padding on the spread.

Over the holidays, I actually

Over the holidays, I actually became interested in figuring out how often composite 5*s pan out.  I chose to look at the classes of 2010-2013, starting with 2010 since that's the first year all four current recruiting sites (Rivals, Scout, ESPN, and 247) were extant and ending with 2013 since kids in that class have had a full four years in college.

The 247 composite 5* RBs from those classes are:

2012 Johnathan Gray RB 0.9973 Texas
2010 Michael Dyer RB 0.996 Auburn
2011 Isaiah Crowell RB 0.9958 Georgia
2011 Brandon Williams RB 0.9921 Oklahoma
2011 Malcolm Brown RB 0.9916 Texas
2013 Thomas Tyner RB 0.9899 Oregon
2013 Kelvin Taylor RB 0.9896 Florida
2013 Keith Ford RB 0.9873 Oklahoma
2012 TJ Yeldon RB 0.9867 Alabama
2013 Derrick Green RB 0.9867 Michigan
2011 Savon Huggins RB 0.9866 Rutgers
2012 Russell Shell RB 0.9845 Pitt
2010 Lache Seastrunk RB 0.9835 Oregon

Six of those guys (Savon Huggins, Russell Shell, Lache Seastrunk, Keith Ford, Brandon Williams, and Derrick Green) transferred and finished their careers at a school other than the one at which they started.  Two --Michael Dyer and Isaiah Crowell -- had their careers shortened by arrests.  None of them were ever an All American.  TJ Yeldon, Michael Dyer, and Lache Seastrunk each made first team All-Conference once.  Malcolm Brown once made second team All Conference.  Isaiah Crowell made All Conference at Alabama State after getting booted from the Georgia team after his arrest.

 

I suppose everyone has their own expectations for 5* players.  Personally, I was surprised by how few of those guys met my own personal expectations for 5* RBs.

I was recounting the woes of

I was recounting the woes of our OL recruiting with my friends just the other day, which is why I can tell you off the top of my head Bosch started three games as a freshman at Michigan and has started every game the last two years for West Virginia.  

Hyundai has a large tech center in Washtenaw

Hyundai has a large tech center in Washtenaw County. I know several people who work there. From that perspective, I'd say Hyundai is very local for U of M.

Toyota also has a large research facility in Washtenaw. If any of the Big Three have similar facilities in the area, I'm not aware of them.

yes, the right word is luminaries. I use

yes, the right word is luminaries. I use illuminati in its place for humor, sorta my personal voracity or bolivia. but I guess if you don't know me you just assume I used the wrong word and there's no humor. what can I say? the blog runs on inside jokes, and that's as far inside as it gets.

Except, as has already been

Except, as has already been said, it doesn't work that way.  If you get any kind of institutional aid and play football, it counts against the 85 scholarships for football.  That prevents a situation where a school awards 85 football scholarships then brings in 30 more kids on "academic (wink-wink)" scholarships.  It's the same rule that applies if a kid plays football and another sport -- the scholarship counts against football; Michigan couldn't save a football scholarship by counting Drake Johnson's scholarship against the track team.

I think I stand corrected.

I think I stand corrected.  I'd swear I recall hearing and reading that sleep apnea was implicated in Kirby's demise.  It makes sense -- as big as he got, I can't imagine he didn't have sleep apnea.  However, when I looked for the links, I found nothing credible, just some forum posts (like mine).  As such, I'll say off the top of my head the one person I can recall whose death was linked to sleep apnea was Reggie White (I did find substantial documentation for that).

As I understand it, sleep

As I understand it, sleep apnea doesn't cause death, it causes/contributes to conditions (like stroke or cardiac arrest) that cause death.  As such, I don't think you'll ever hear of somebody whose cause of death was sleep apnea.  If you want examples of people whose deaths were strongly linked to problems caused or exacerbated by sleep apnea, off the top of my head I'll give you Kirby Puckett and Reggie White.

Do you mean academic scholarships?

Harvard doesn't offer athletic scholarships.

The coaches didn't actually show up and do the

The coaches didn't actually show up and do the decorating. They paid a service to do it.

They climbed and sat on the

They climbed and sat on the wall in front of our students?  I saw them do that on the opposite end of the field where their fans were sitting, but not in our student section.  I'll admit I couldn't stomach watching them and just sat down and stared at the ground, so if it happened, I wouldn't have seen it.  Frankly, though, I have a hard time imagining they would have climbed within reach of our students.  That's a recipe for a riot.  

My initial impression was the

My initial impression was the same -- that the State players were going to our student section to taunt.  However, a friend who was sitting in that end zone told me they actually went over there to check on what's-his-name -- the guy who scored the touchdown and then had his hip broken in the celebration.  Obviously, he and his broken hip were still on the ground in the end zone.  My friend said he didn't see any Spartans interacting with our fans until they had the bottle(s?) thrown at them.  As much as I like to bash Sparty, I'm not sure they did anything wrong there.

Except there are limited

Except there are limited admissions for out of district students.  Josh Jackson is paying tuition to attend Saline and "get coached up."  Other kids and their families may be less able and/or willing to do that.

 

Plus, I have a son on the team, and Palka has reportedly made it clear he intends to move on to the college ranks once his son -- currently a senior -- graduates.  Palka is, IMHO, an enormous part of Saline's success, and I expect the program to regress if/when he leaves.  Ace noted Pioneer was outcoached by Saline/Palka; as somebody who has seen every game for the last two seasons, I've never seen a game where I didn't think that was the case, even the two Saline lost.

Bobby Taylor

Bobby Taylor was a 6'3" consensus All American cornerback for Notre Dame in the mid-90s and also made at least one Pro Bowl during a reasonably long-ish NFL career.  So, two tall CBs panned out, which doubles the odds on Clark, right?

Free parking all over

Took my kids to the WBB game against OSU earlier this year, and not only were parking spots available all over the place, they were also all free.

If memory serves

Navarre was an All-State DE that everybody else was recruiting to play DE.  I believe he did play both ways in HS, though, and played QB on the offensive side of the ball rather than TE, which is how he wound up at QB for Michigan.

 

 

Stefan Humphries

Stefan Humphries is the only really successful Wolverine I can recall who attended St. Thomas Aquinas.  I remember looking that up before and being disappointed that we didn't manage to keep pulling talent out of there.  OSU has had a lot of success with STA kids, most recently with Joey Bosa.

 

tf

I live in the same

I live in the same neighborhood as some of the coaches. I have friends who live in the same neighborhood as most of the others. None of us -- including the coaches -- live in mansions.

 

Yes, the head coach and coordinators are paid extremely well. The rest of the staff, while well paid, are not earning "I don't worry about being out of a job" money. That's not to mention guys you've never heard of -- like S&C coordinators who work under Wellman -- who make a whole let less and who are likely out of a job if Wellman goes.

 

Yes, most of the people likely to be impacted will probably catch on somewhere else, and if they don't, it probably means they aren't that good. It's hard on their families either way, though. If they're lucky, they're picking up and moving and leaving all their friends behind to start over again. If they're unlucky, Dad's out of a job and looking for a new line of work.

 

I'm not suggesting you should shed a tear for any of these guys, and I'm not saying I don't think that relieving Hoke of his HC duties isn't the right thing to do. I do think it's wrong to pretend all of these guys are being driven home in their Rolls where they'll relax by their indoor pools as long as they want and light cigars with $100 bills. There definitely is a human element to this.

 

tf

CRISP = Course/Class

CRISP = Course/Class Registration Involving Student Participation IIRC.

You lost me.  Looking at your

You lost me.  Looking at your original chart, it seems there could be a maximum of 23 guys who wound up being All-Big+, and it seems unlikely there would be many more than 13.  Is this list of 30 guys maybe the ones who were either solid or All-Big+?  30 sort of seems a little high even for that crowd.

That is very generous

Honestly, though, even though it's the Orange Bowl and not the BCS Championship game, I think NIU giving any students who will be attending a free ticket is a better deal.

Release the Heiko

Heiko and his badgering/mind control got Borges running bubble screens early in year 2.  I assume you'll be deploying Heiko against Hoke and traditional punt formation immediately, and I further assume Michigan will be  punting from the spread (although Hoke will initially call it something cooler like "X-Ray punting") no later than the start of next year's B1G season.

Sagarin's algorithm says

Sagarin's algorithm says Michigan is the 9th best team in the country.  I think that's pretty favorable.  I'm a MIchigan fan, and even I don't think we're the 9th best team in the country.

The problem is the BCS doesn't want to incent teams to run up the score to improve their rankings, so they removed margin of victory from all BCS computer rankings.  So, Sagarin computes a second rating that takes a key component of his algorithm out, it becomes politically correct, and the results are completely wonky.  

 

BCS uses ELO CHESS.  Michigan

BCS uses ELO CHESS.  Michigan fell from 22 to 23.  Baylor held steady at 7.

In fairness to Sagarin, the

In fairness to Sagarin, the BCS elects to use the politically correct ELO-CHESS version of Sagarin's ratings.  In Sagarin's "pure" ratings, Oklahoma is 3 and OK State is 4, but Wisconsin is 7 and Michigan is 9.  Missouri, TAMU, and UT are next at 10, 11, and 14, but then we get Nebraska at 17 and Sparty at 22.  K State is 23 and Penn State is 25.  Then we get Baylor at 29, but Ohio (33), Illinois (40), Iowa (45), and Northwestern (53) are all ahead of iowa State at 62.  Purdue (66) is ahead of Texas Tech (68).  Minnesota (101) is ahead of Kansas (106).

 


I got the book today

 

I got the book today and had time to read just about the same number of pages.  It's definitely been an interesting read, and it seems I had repressed memories of most of the 2008 season.  I had forgotten many of the details of those 2008 games Bacon described, so I went back and pored over box scores.  I am a bit dismayed by how very inaccurate Bacon's recounting of the facts of the 2008 Purdue game are.  He writes Michigan led 42-35.  They did not.  Purdue led 42-35.  He writes that Purdue scored a TD but missed a 2-point conversion, leaving Michigan with a 42-41 lead.  That, obviously, did not happen.  He writes that Michigan only needed to get a first down to run out the clock, when in fact Michigan scored late to tie the game at 42, kicked to Purdue, surrendered the TD on the horrific hook-and-lateral, and got the ball back with 26 seconds left.  Threet and Mathews actually drove us to the Purdue 47 for a Hail Mary attempt that failed.

I recognize the book is not an epic retelling of the 2008 Michigan-Purdue Clash of the Titans, but I'm not sure I understand how something so inaccurate could have been missed prior to publication.  

Small correction: I believe

Small correction: I believe the odds of Michigan winning the Nebraska game should be -13% rather than +13%.

Unless I'm mistaken, the

Unless I'm mistaken, the unadjusted percentages assume the two teams are equal (i.e., each has a 50% chance to win the game at kickoff).  The spread percentages are modified using the spread as an indicator of how comparable the teams really are.  So, once Fitz lost 4 yards to bring up 3rd and 5 from our own 25, we'd have been slightly more likely to lose than to win if Minnesota had been as good as us.

I can't speak to any

I can't speak to any complexities specific to your situation.  It's also been several years since I had to rely on ESPN Gameplan to watch a Michigan game.  However, if the service works now like it did then, it was just like any other PPV event on cable and was indistinguishable from any normal Michigan broadcast.  The $15 cost included all-day access to all available games, and once or twice I even took advantage of that and watched some other games I wouldn't normally have seen.

So, if you determine Gameplan actually allows you to watch the game, and assuming the service hasn't changed, I believe it's a very good option.  Personally, given the choice between paying $15 for Gameplan and trying to find a consistent and high quality stream, I'd spend the $15 every time.

I'd say not so universally higher rated

Wormley is rated higher by Scout, ESPN,  and 24/7.  Wormley is the #13 DE to Scout while Strobel is #24.  24/7 says Wormley is the #3 SDE and #57 overall, while Strobel is the #14 WDE and #169 overall.  ESPN says Wormley is the #16 DE while Strobel is #56.  Only Rivals prefers Strobel; Strobel is a 5.8 and #231 overall to Rivals, while Wormley is a 5.7 and not in the top 250.  

No disrespect intended, but

No disrespect intended, but honestly, reading about a UM-trained (or in training) physician who doesn't want to treat OSU fans ranks awfully low on my list of things that make me proud to be a Michigan fan.  I'm pretty firmly in the camp of "I want to crush OSU in any and every sporting event, but in the grand scheme of things, UM and OSU fans are vastly more alike than they are different, and extending the 'hatred' beyond the confines of the playing field is ridiculous."  I like to think OSU fans are that ridiculous much more often than M fans.  I should note that my OSU-educated co-worker disagrees.

I understand Coach Jackson

I understand Coach Jackson agrees, saying "He's like me but with more hyperbole."