I think the most likely scenario is a trade down. The best player available at that point is likely a WR and Harbaugh has never featured a true WR1. At 5 either one of the top 4 QBs or MHJ is available that teams would covet. I think they trade with Minnesota for their pair of first round picks and they take Bowers at 11 and likely an OT later in the first. If Corum is sitting around in round 3, I'd be shocked if he made it past the Chargers.
A name I'd at least like to kick around to add to staff is Brennan Carrol. He was Jedd Fisch's OC at Arizona the last 2 years and followed him to Washington. I'd assume we could give him a pay bump if it came to that. I don't want Sherrone to have to call plays and the only offensive coach that I think has any experience calling plays is Kirk Campbell. I don't have a problem promoting him to passing game coordinator and giving him a big pay bump, but I'd prefer to have an experienced play caller that isn't also our Head Coach.
An owner who got out of the way and let the football people do thier job, a coach who was given the leeway to be his weird, unique self and let his attitude permeate the culture of the locker room, and a GM that put together the best 3 draft run I've seen in my lifetime (and it isn't even close). This Michigan fanbase should know better than anyone the value in having a locker room that is fully invested in the success of the man next to them. So, in short, they hired a great football mind in Brad Holmes, a good/great football mind in Dan Campbell who was allowed to hire his staff to execute his vision as a team, and they put together a talented group of players with a vested interest in playing as hard as they can for the man next to them. Combine that with competent game day management and QB play and you get a team that's capable of going to the Super Bowl.
When faced with a seemingly unclimbable fountain, it is folly to ask yourself if you're strong enough to climb the mountain, ask simply: can I take the next step? Life has a way of humbling us all and presenting us with seemingly unclimbable mountains. Everyone's mountain looks different; it took me over a year and half to feel like I had the agency and ability to face life again after I met my mountain. In my darkest days, it took everything I could muster just to get out of bed, but I had had loved ones and an awesome therapist that made me do one positive thing every day. Stack enough positive things and the downward spiral you found yourself in becomes an upward spiral. I don't know you from Adam, but know that I love you and that you are indeed strong enough to do one positive thing today. You have the strength to climb your mountain, you just don't know it yet.
I would guess that Anderson has the higher ceiling and that, as a fan, we should root for him to beat out the more veteran player. He absolutley will be given an opportunity to earn a starting spot on the interior.
I'd expect to see more 2 RB sets to displace a bit of our 2 TE sets. I want more of Mullings/Hall on the field with Donovan Edwards Every single time Mullings was asked to lead block, he bulldozed people out of way. If we're still breaking down position groups into "Tight Ends and Friends", I'd like Mullings to be used as a lead blocker enough to get a cameo in that section.
I'd also expect to see more 2 RB sets to displace a bit of our 2 TE sets. I want more of Mullings/Hall on the field with Donovan Edwards Every single time Mullings was asked to lead block, he bulldozed people out of way. If we're still breaking down position groups into "Tight Ends and Friends", I'd like Mullings to be used as a lead blocker enough to get a cameo in that section.
In short, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Michigan's NIL program. They provide tons of opportunities for athletes to sell their name, image, and likeness and to get compensated handomely for it. What differentiates Michigan from other programs is that Michigan isn't guaranteeing a certain amount of money just to come to Michigan (or at least the guaranteed number is MUCH smaller than other schools are willing to give). Michigan sells recruits on the possibility to earn, many other schools say if you come here we'll give you X amount of dollars. The strategy is going to limit their ability to recruit 5 stars, but also doesn't create a rift in the team environment by paying recruits who haven't produced anything meaningful on a college football field.
In my opinion, recruiting at a top 10-15 level, taking a very high volume of high ceiling guys, and leveraging the portal to fill select holes in the transfer portal is a viable strategy long term.
I've seen Cam Wards name thrown around quite a bit. I'm not totally convinced he's an upgrade over McCord. McCord was 8th in the country in QBR...Cam Ward was 50th. If you don't believe in advanced metrics, McCords passer rating was 161.6...Cam Ward's was 145.4. McCord averaged 9.1 yards per attempt, Ward averaged 7.7. Yes, Cam Ward's legs are more of a threat, but he only ran for 144 yards this year (which includes sacks), so he's not a prolific threat on the ground. I just don't see him being nearly the upgrade over McCord that certain parts of the OSU fan base seems to think he would be.
To be a contrarian to the OP's statement that JJ's 9.2 YPA isn't very good; he finished 11th in the country in that statistic. Noteable QBs he finished ahead of were: Kyle McCord, Michael Penix, Quinn Ewers, Sam Hartman, Jordan Travis, and Drake Maye.
I'm rooting for Michigan (obviously), FSU, Washington, and Texas to win out and Bama to beat UGA in the SEC championship game. The 3 undefeated P5 champs are seeds 1-3 and Texas would have to get in over Bama since they beat them in Tuscaloosa. That would mean 0 SEC teams make the CFP. ESPN would lose their collective shit and I'm rooting for it almost as hard as I am for Michigan to win.
I think when the game matters the most, both Moore and McGregor will be on the field together with Harrell limited to packages where we want/need his ability to cover to unlock the entirety of the defense and Stewart to obvious passing downs. Although, that's likely only relevant to games 10,12, 14, and 15.
I think the passing TDs mark is the most likely to fall. I don't expect we'll need JJ to throw in the second half of enough games for the completions or yards marks to be in jeopardy. I think the goal for JJ is to improve his efficiency. He isn't going to put up huge number, but I think he could plausibly threaten some of the numbers that Andrew Luck put up in Stanford's offense. JJ averaged 8.4 ypa last year with a QB rating of 155; Andrew Luck put up 9 ypa with a QB rating of 170. I'm more concerned with his efficiency than his raw numbers, given I don't expect him to be playing many 4th quarters this season.
I believe SeatGeek only charges 10% of ticket sales, whereas StubHub charges 15%. Since I'm going to The Game this year, none of the games I'll be selling will make a meaningful difference, but it's better to pay less in fees than more.
Maryland has never had a winning record in B1G play and they have a bit of a reputation of starting out strong (think their wins over Texas) and fading down the stretch. I think Mike Locksley has that team generally trending upwards, but the last two seasons they've finished 1-3 in November with the 1 win being Rutgers in both instances. I fear September Maryland much more than I fear November Maryland. That's the part of the season where depth (especially in the trenches) becomes important and I feel confident we can win a rock fight against the turtles if we need to. My biggest worry is going to Lincoln. New coach, fans desperate for a big win, possible (likely?) night game. Road night games are what scare me, not November Maryland.
I never watched Bo live as it was a bit before my time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 30 for 30 documentary on him. I remember watching it and then being completely underwhelmed by his statistics in both sports. His highlights are undeniably impressive, but the narrative that he would've been a Hall of Fame player in both sports simply isn't supported by his stats.
-He never ran for 1000 yards in a season (in his defense, he never played in more than 11 games)
-He made only a single Pro Bowl
-His best season in baseball was 3.5 WAR by BR and 3.1 WAR by Fangraphs (2 is considered a starting caliber player and 5 is all star)
-His career average 162 game WAR was 1.9.
-He made only 1 All Star game never finished higher than 10th in MVP voting.
If someone wants to make the case that he is one of the best athletes of all time, they'll receive no argument from me, but the notion that he would've been the first player to make the HOF in multiple sports simply isn't supported by facts.
I think Brian alluded to how Michigan is using NIL to "moneyball" currently, and that's to render scholarship limits meaningless and to fill out their recruiting class with guys who have the ability to develop into stars. If they don't end up hitting, they can either stay and and get their degree or transfer out in hopes of playing time elsewhere. Between that and the transfer portal to cherry pick spots to add players to the roster (Michigan has done a great job of this), Michigan appears to leaning hard into this model. Harbaugh appears reticent to give huge sums of cash to unproven players, which is likely going to limit their ability to recruit the very top players. To put it into practical terms, I think Harbaugh would rather lose the occasion recruitment to an Aaron Chiles if he's able to get both Cole Sullivan and Devon Baxter and bank on one of them being at least as good after 3 years of Herbertization, than to upset the culture of locker room being a meritocracy that he's tried so hard to create.
100% can confirm that these are effective as my dad and I have both used them to eradicate woodchucks. I can also 100% confirm that possum go through holes back feet first; I had to put two of them out of their misery after going through this type of trap. I got tired of doing that, so I had to switch to an air rifle to get rid of the last woodchucks.
I'd venture to guess that this will be the least red Game at the Big House in quite some time for a few reasons:
-I don't have a way of quantifying this in any way, but when I looked at seats available when I renewed my season tickets, there were substantially fewer available seats than I can ever recall when renewing my season tickets. That leads me to believe that more season tickets have been purchased this year, meaning fewer available tickets for ticket packs (less supply).
-I'd also venture to guess demand for ticket packs will be higher this year than in years' past given the team's recent success (less supply).
-I'd also wager a certain percentage of bucknuts won't be eager to repeat the experience of two years ago, so the demand for buckeyes buying ticket packs will be lower than in years past (less demand).
If the number of buckeyes coming up to the Big House is governed by the market, and they're being pinched by both supply side forces and demand side forces, I'd bet on less red in Big House for the Game. A glorious site it will be.
I think this one of those situations where perception matters more than reality. Notre Dame is perceived to be a very good academic school, so adding them doesn't besmirch the academic reputation of the conference. That being said, I think that's a minority concern for the conference behind several things that make the conference money. Virginia, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc. would all be great fits for the conference academically, but don't bring enough eyes to TV screens to make the conference money and aren't invited, but Notre Dame would be welcomed.
Unless they repeated as champs, the punch was always going to be used as an excuse. I'm not saying that it didn't impact the team and locker room dynamics, as it almost assuredly did. What I am saying is that if they won, it wouldn't be a story. With regards to their loss, it could be argued that the punch had less of an impact than several things: the lack of anyone other than Steph Curry to create a shot, the inability of their wings to make a shot, the lack of size/toughness in the frontcourt, etc. Winning cures everything and they didn't win.
Joel Klatt is a Colorado alum and has publicly been loving him some Prime. That alone probably makes it a certainty that they get one Big Noon game this year. For all the hype surrounding that program, given all the turnover, they may only have 65 scholarship players left on the roster (albeit with more talent than the 85 scholarship players they had last year), which means they likely won't be a good team. They probably can't put a 3-6 Colorado in that timeslot later in the year, but early in the year against a team that made the playoffs last year, that makes sense.
Luckily, Davis is HS teammates with a pair of top 500 receivers. There are also multiple other 4 star receivers we're in on. For corner, our top prospects are in Ohio and will be a battle with Ohio State that will drag on for a while.
Michigan has had plenty of success moving high school OTs inside to guard. Keegan and El-Hadi are very recent examples. There's plenty of examples of guys who are ~6'5" turning into very good college guards, so to answer your question: Yes, I do think Michigan would strongly consider taking all 4, if they think some of them have the ability to slide inside, which seems plausible given their recent history of success transitioning high school tackles with similar frames into guards.
Reading this thread, I had completely forgotten how god awful pretty much all of our Adidas uniforms were. I put highlighter yellow in the same part of my brain as Kordell Stewart and Punt Fuckery, where I only acknowledge they were a thing that happened when presented with visual evidence of their existence.
The short answer is we broke up their region bonuses that allowed them to consolidate a huge portion of the board. Combine that with some consistently poor RNG luck (see below) and you you go from having the most territories and weighted stars, to just hoping to hold onto College Station and maybe eke out a third place finish.
There is a clear top 4 teams in the conference. The only way to maintain competitive balance every year is to have each of the top 4 play only 1 of the other 3 every year, and alternate the other 2 every other year. Since The Game isn't going anywhere, the only way to make it fair would be to have PSU/USC be a protected rivalry game. That way each top 4 team would play 2 of the other top 3 teams in the regular season every year. That's the only way to maintain even scheduling, but it doesn't maximize $, so it won't happen.
As Seth says, we don't really play a passing offense capable of exploiting a second outside corner until November. The best passing attack in the first 3/4ths of the schedule is?...Minnesota? We don't know what Matt Rhule's offense will look like in year 1 and MSU's passing offense is chuck it up to tall dudes, which Walker should be able to hold his own immediately.
Woodson set a Michigan record for PBUs and was a First Team All-American in 96. If Will Johnson gets even close to that, I'll be ecstatic. Only 2 Corners have been named to the All American team in their Sophomore season in my lifetime: Charles and Marlin Jackson. If we assume Will Johnson is a mere mortal and is *only* Marlin Jackson good next year, I can live with that.
The previous class is already signed. In the next class, PSU only has 2 commits, neither of whom are D Linemen or list him as a primary recruiter. I did a quick scan of their targets and the only highly rated DL/Edge guy who showed up as "warm" on 247 was Brian Robinson, who we probably already lead for. I don't think this move helps us that much on the recruiting front.
We only border A&M on one of those 7 regions, which we should break up, but they could realistically end up with 6 regions even if we allocated all of our resources to breaking up the Flint Hills region. We would very much benefit from Texas and ISU getting favorable RNG luck to hold onto their last territory in those key regions. We'd also benefit from Bama and Tennessee pushing West, but it would make more strategic sense to defend their current borders and push East instead of West.
Underperforming RNG 3 straight nights, combined with OSU's incredible +2.3 sigma roll two nights ago is the biggest difference between us at the moment. We've missed region bonuses the last few nights because we've lost a territory we've had an 80+% chance of winning. At some point, our luck will turn, we just need to do everything in our power to stop OSU from accumulating region bonuses in the interim.
I don't view that as a problem. GT can pretty much only go West without attacking OSU, which means they'll run into A&M. Having Bama and Tennessee provide cover for them is what allowed the Aggie Death Star to begin to form in the first place. The more threats they have to that part of the map, the better for us.
GT getting a region bonus helps us immensely as it makes them a threat to OSU, and they share a ton of borders with OSU, and none with us. It's possible they take a second region tonight, as well. If I'm GT, I defend all my border territories, as well as the two territories they have in the Mid Atlantic to prevent OSU from getting that region bonus, then putting all my attack strength into ousting Florida from their home state and gaining a second region bonus. At that point, they'd be almost as powerful as OSU and can either start being their Wisconsin or moving West...both of which benefit us. Outside of us, the team we're most rooting for to have an awesome RNG night is GT.
I can't understand Wisconsin's game plan here, unless their only goal was to make sure that we don't win. The could've easily held the entirety of the corn belt and vanquished Iowa State, while Nebraska ventured West (which was a risk move that didn't pay off for them), instead they led a half effort assault on the largest army in the game. They complained about what a few rogues did to their territories; they saw what a focused attacked looks like and will continue to do so. They went from being in a good position to being one of the few teams still alive at the end to being a toss up to survive longer than Iowa State in a single roll.
Defend our region bonuses like crazy (this means Wisconsin, which Wisconsin has a history of allocating a huge portion of their team's power towards at the expense of still having to deal with ISU), all the PA regions, and Connecticut, as well as putting resources towards taking the Canadian shield and breaking up Wisconsin's central Canada territory. We can also continue to pick off small schools in the NW and in Florida. Those should be the priorities, in that order.
The region bonuses could end up being a big deal. I know we're in a truce with Wisconsin (and I'm not advocating that we break it), but once we rid ourselves of Sparty, Wisconsin will have one territory in 2 of our regions that we could otherwise get a bonus for. OSU, I believe, already has a bonus for the Rust Belt, so that's something to watch. If we let OSU gather region bonuses while we don't have any, that could be a real factor down the stretch.
Assuming a kid from Cleveland (where OSU fandom is basically a monoculture) is fair enough, I don't believe you can make the same kind of sweeping generalization about Cincy. In my experience, Cincy feels as much like the northern most city in Kentucky than it does the southern most city in Ohio. You'll find as many Louisville or UK basketball fans in Cincy as you will OSU fans. I'm not saying the kid won't up at OSU; they obviously have a strong history of success to sell recruits, but to assume he's going there simply based on his location is likely a bit premature.
CSU: Blake 13 carries, Don 12 carries
Hawaii: Blake 9 carries, Don 3 carries
UConn: Blake 12 carries, Don 0 carries (injured)
MD: Blake 30 carries, Don 0 carries (injured)
Iowa: Blake 29 carries, Don 5 carries (also had 4 catches)
IU: Blake 25 carries, Don 7 carries
PSU: Blake 28 carries, Don 16 carries
MSU: Blake 33 carries, Don 10 carries (3 catches)
Rut: Blake 20 carries, Don 15 carries
Neb: Blake 28 carries, Don 2 carries (Don hurt in game)
Ill: Blake 18 carries, Don 0 carries (injured)
I think an ideal split (in competitive games) would be giving Blake ~20 carries/game and Don ~15 carries/game. That combined with doubling Don's reception rate from ~2/game to 4/game would have Blake at ~21 touches/game and Don at ~19 touches/game. That's pretty equal. If one of them is hot in a game, they'll get the ball more, or if there's a matchup where Don can pick apart the other team as a receiver (Maryland 2 years ago), then we can (and should) do that. Blake is a better every-down true RB, so he should probably get more carries than the Don, but a near equal split of a combined 40 touches/game for the pair seems right to me.
This is a feature, not a bug, of a Harbaugh offense. If we use 2011 Stanford (Luck's final season there, where they had a top 5 offense) as the baseline, the offenses look very similar.
2011 Stanford averages 32.1 passing attempts/game and 278.7 yards/game. They ran the ball 39.8 times/game for an average of 210.6 yard/game.
2022 Michigan averages 26.5 passing attempts/game for 223.8 yards/game and rushes an average of 43.1 times/game for 246 yards/game.
Replace 3-6 Corum runs with McCarthy passes and they're basically identical. Both Andrew Luck in 2011 and JJ this year are averaging 8.7 yards/attempt. Luck simply had a bit more volume (and admittedly a lot more TDs)
If we look at receivers, Stanfords leading receivers that year were WR Griff Whalen and TE Coby Fleener. Whalen had 749 yards in 13 games for 57.6 yards/game. Fleener had 667 yards in 13 games for 51.3 yards/game.
Michigan is led by Ronnie Bell and Luke Schoonmaker, who are averaging 60.25 and 37.38 yards/game respectively.
What does this mean? In my opinion, Harbaugh is sticking to a formula that he knows will work because he's seen it work. He's having more success running this year then he's ever had, so he isn't deviating from the plan. The only thing I'd point out as a major contrast is the number of TDs Luck had vs. the number of TDs McCarthy has. I'm too lazy to dig into old drive charts to see if this theory is supported, but I'd venture Stanford threw more in the red zone than we do currently. Harbaugh probably had a bit more trust in his third year starter, future number 1 overall draft pick than he does in a true Sophomore who has less than 10 starts under his belt. If you're expect a "fully weaponized" version of this offense to look much different than what we're currently seeing, even with JJ McCarthy at the helm, Harbaugh's history points to that not being the case.
My wife has a bunch of extended family about 30 minutes west of Knoxville and they're all big UT fans. We were down there offroading a year or two ago the weekend before Thanksgiving and that night one of the family members (who I had never met before) had everyone over after the ride. He had an awesome deck with an outdoor bar and TV, where he was adamant the UT game be on. They were playing the usual FCS team the weekend before rivalry week. I told him, "you can call me a Yankee all you want, but where I come from, we play conference game in November." His response was, "I like you, Yankee" and handed me a beer. He'd prefer his team play real games in November as well.
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I think the most likely scenario is a trade down. The best player available at that point is likely a WR and Harbaugh has never featured a true WR1. At 5 either one of the top 4 QBs or MHJ is available that teams would covet. I think they trade with Minnesota for their pair of first round picks and they take Bowers at 11 and likely an OT later in the first. If Corum is sitting around in round 3, I'd be shocked if he made it past the Chargers.
I see a "People's Bracket" on ESPN. Is that what you used previously?
https://fantasy.espn.com/games/tournament-challenge-bracket-2024/peoplesbracket
Morgan is effectively the GM for Bama now. I don't think we could reasonably expect to pry him away at this point.
A word wall of Coach Moore's interview after the PSU game. Done.
A name I'd at least like to kick around to add to staff is Brennan Carrol. He was Jedd Fisch's OC at Arizona the last 2 years and followed him to Washington. I'd assume we could give him a pay bump if it came to that. I don't want Sherrone to have to call plays and the only offensive coach that I think has any experience calling plays is Kirk Campbell. I don't have a problem promoting him to passing game coordinator and giving him a big pay bump, but I'd prefer to have an experienced play caller that isn't also our Head Coach.
An owner who got out of the way and let the football people do thier job, a coach who was given the leeway to be his weird, unique self and let his attitude permeate the culture of the locker room, and a GM that put together the best 3 draft run I've seen in my lifetime (and it isn't even close). This Michigan fanbase should know better than anyone the value in having a locker room that is fully invested in the success of the man next to them. So, in short, they hired a great football mind in Brad Holmes, a good/great football mind in Dan Campbell who was allowed to hire his staff to execute his vision as a team, and they put together a talented group of players with a vested interest in playing as hard as they can for the man next to them. Combine that with competent game day management and QB play and you get a team that's capable of going to the Super Bowl.
When faced with a seemingly unclimbable fountain, it is folly to ask yourself if you're strong enough to climb the mountain, ask simply: can I take the next step? Life has a way of humbling us all and presenting us with seemingly unclimbable mountains. Everyone's mountain looks different; it took me over a year and half to feel like I had the agency and ability to face life again after I met my mountain. In my darkest days, it took everything I could muster just to get out of bed, but I had had loved ones and an awesome therapist that made me do one positive thing every day. Stack enough positive things and the downward spiral you found yourself in becomes an upward spiral. I don't know you from Adam, but know that I love you and that you are indeed strong enough to do one positive thing today. You have the strength to climb your mountain, you just don't know it yet.
I would guess that Anderson has the higher ceiling and that, as a fan, we should root for him to beat out the more veteran player. He absolutley will be given an opportunity to earn a starting spot on the interior.
I'd expect to see more 2 RB sets to displace a bit of our 2 TE sets. I want more of Mullings/Hall on the field with Donovan Edwards Every single time Mullings was asked to lead block, he bulldozed people out of way. If we're still breaking down position groups into "Tight Ends and Friends", I'd like Mullings to be used as a lead blocker enough to get a cameo in that section.
I'd also expect to see more 2 RB sets to displace a bit of our 2 TE sets. I want more of Mullings/Hall on the field with Donovan Edwards Every single time Mullings was asked to lead block, he bulldozed people out of way. If we're still breaking down position groups into "Tight Ends and Friends", I'd like Mullings to be used as a lead blocker enough to get a cameo in that section.
In short, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Michigan's NIL program. They provide tons of opportunities for athletes to sell their name, image, and likeness and to get compensated handomely for it. What differentiates Michigan from other programs is that Michigan isn't guaranteeing a certain amount of money just to come to Michigan (or at least the guaranteed number is MUCH smaller than other schools are willing to give). Michigan sells recruits on the possibility to earn, many other schools say if you come here we'll give you X amount of dollars. The strategy is going to limit their ability to recruit 5 stars, but also doesn't create a rift in the team environment by paying recruits who haven't produced anything meaningful on a college football field.
In my opinion, recruiting at a top 10-15 level, taking a very high volume of high ceiling guys, and leveraging the portal to fill select holes in the transfer portal is a viable strategy long term.
I've seen Cam Wards name thrown around quite a bit. I'm not totally convinced he's an upgrade over McCord. McCord was 8th in the country in QBR...Cam Ward was 50th. If you don't believe in advanced metrics, McCords passer rating was 161.6...Cam Ward's was 145.4. McCord averaged 9.1 yards per attempt, Ward averaged 7.7. Yes, Cam Ward's legs are more of a threat, but he only ran for 144 yards this year (which includes sacks), so he's not a prolific threat on the ground. I just don't see him being nearly the upgrade over McCord that certain parts of the OSU fan base seems to think he would be.
To be a contrarian to the OP's statement that JJ's 9.2 YPA isn't very good; he finished 11th in the country in that statistic. Noteable QBs he finished ahead of were: Kyle McCord, Michael Penix, Quinn Ewers, Sam Hartman, Jordan Travis, and Drake Maye.
I'm rooting for Michigan (obviously), FSU, Washington, and Texas to win out and Bama to beat UGA in the SEC championship game. The 3 undefeated P5 champs are seeds 1-3 and Texas would have to get in over Bama since they beat them in Tuscaloosa. That would mean 0 SEC teams make the CFP. ESPN would lose their collective shit and I'm rooting for it almost as hard as I am for Michigan to win.
Take my upvote and sincere thanks.
If I were technologically savy enough to post a gif of Phillip Seymour Hoffman from Big Lebowski saying, "Well Dude, we just don't know." I would.
I think when the game matters the most, both Moore and McGregor will be on the field together with Harrell limited to packages where we want/need his ability to cover to unlock the entirety of the defense and Stewart to obvious passing downs. Although, that's likely only relevant to games 10,12, 14, and 15.
I think the passing TDs mark is the most likely to fall. I don't expect we'll need JJ to throw in the second half of enough games for the completions or yards marks to be in jeopardy. I think the goal for JJ is to improve his efficiency. He isn't going to put up huge number, but I think he could plausibly threaten some of the numbers that Andrew Luck put up in Stanford's offense. JJ averaged 8.4 ypa last year with a QB rating of 155; Andrew Luck put up 9 ypa with a QB rating of 170. I'm more concerned with his efficiency than his raw numbers, given I don't expect him to be playing many 4th quarters this season.
I believe SeatGeek only charges 10% of ticket sales, whereas StubHub charges 15%. Since I'm going to The Game this year, none of the games I'll be selling will make a meaningful difference, but it's better to pay less in fees than more.
Maryland has never had a winning record in B1G play and they have a bit of a reputation of starting out strong (think their wins over Texas) and fading down the stretch. I think Mike Locksley has that team generally trending upwards, but the last two seasons they've finished 1-3 in November with the 1 win being Rutgers in both instances. I fear September Maryland much more than I fear November Maryland. That's the part of the season where depth (especially in the trenches) becomes important and I feel confident we can win a rock fight against the turtles if we need to. My biggest worry is going to Lincoln. New coach, fans desperate for a big win, possible (likely?) night game. Road night games are what scare me, not November Maryland.
I never watched Bo live as it was a bit before my time, and I thoroughly enjoyed the 30 for 30 documentary on him. I remember watching it and then being completely underwhelmed by his statistics in both sports. His highlights are undeniably impressive, but the narrative that he would've been a Hall of Fame player in both sports simply isn't supported by his stats.
-He never ran for 1000 yards in a season (in his defense, he never played in more than 11 games)
-He made only a single Pro Bowl
-His best season in baseball was 3.5 WAR by BR and 3.1 WAR by Fangraphs (2 is considered a starting caliber player and 5 is all star)
-His career average 162 game WAR was 1.9.
-He made only 1 All Star game never finished higher than 10th in MVP voting.
If someone wants to make the case that he is one of the best athletes of all time, they'll receive no argument from me, but the notion that he would've been the first player to make the HOF in multiple sports simply isn't supported by facts.
I think Brian alluded to how Michigan is using NIL to "moneyball" currently, and that's to render scholarship limits meaningless and to fill out their recruiting class with guys who have the ability to develop into stars. If they don't end up hitting, they can either stay and and get their degree or transfer out in hopes of playing time elsewhere. Between that and the transfer portal to cherry pick spots to add players to the roster (Michigan has done a great job of this), Michigan appears to leaning hard into this model. Harbaugh appears reticent to give huge sums of cash to unproven players, which is likely going to limit their ability to recruit the very top players. To put it into practical terms, I think Harbaugh would rather lose the occasion recruitment to an Aaron Chiles if he's able to get both Cole Sullivan and Devon Baxter and bank on one of them being at least as good after 3 years of Herbertization, than to upset the culture of locker room being a meritocracy that he's tried so hard to create.
100% can confirm that these are effective as my dad and I have both used them to eradicate woodchucks. I can also 100% confirm that possum go through holes back feet first; I had to put two of them out of their misery after going through this type of trap. I got tired of doing that, so I had to switch to an air rifle to get rid of the last woodchucks.
Showcase means the top ranked team would play the highest ranked team they've yet to play in lieu of a traditional "championship" game.
I'd venture to guess that this will be the least red Game at the Big House in quite some time for a few reasons:
-I don't have a way of quantifying this in any way, but when I looked at seats available when I renewed my season tickets, there were substantially fewer available seats than I can ever recall when renewing my season tickets. That leads me to believe that more season tickets have been purchased this year, meaning fewer available tickets for ticket packs (less supply).
-I'd also venture to guess demand for ticket packs will be higher this year than in years' past given the team's recent success (less supply).
-I'd also wager a certain percentage of bucknuts won't be eager to repeat the experience of two years ago, so the demand for buckeyes buying ticket packs will be lower than in years past (less demand).
If the number of buckeyes coming up to the Big House is governed by the market, and they're being pinched by both supply side forces and demand side forces, I'd bet on less red in Big House for the Game. A glorious site it will be.
I think this one of those situations where perception matters more than reality. Notre Dame is perceived to be a very good academic school, so adding them doesn't besmirch the academic reputation of the conference. That being said, I think that's a minority concern for the conference behind several things that make the conference money. Virginia, Duke, Vanderbilt, etc. would all be great fits for the conference academically, but don't bring enough eyes to TV screens to make the conference money and aren't invited, but Notre Dame would be welcomed.
Unless they repeated as champs, the punch was always going to be used as an excuse. I'm not saying that it didn't impact the team and locker room dynamics, as it almost assuredly did. What I am saying is that if they won, it wouldn't be a story. With regards to their loss, it could be argued that the punch had less of an impact than several things: the lack of anyone other than Steph Curry to create a shot, the inability of their wings to make a shot, the lack of size/toughness in the frontcourt, etc. Winning cures everything and they didn't win.
Joel Klatt is a Colorado alum and has publicly been loving him some Prime. That alone probably makes it a certainty that they get one Big Noon game this year. For all the hype surrounding that program, given all the turnover, they may only have 65 scholarship players left on the roster (albeit with more talent than the 85 scholarship players they had last year), which means they likely won't be a good team. They probably can't put a 3-6 Colorado in that timeslot later in the year, but early in the year against a team that made the playoffs last year, that makes sense.
I'm almost positive that it was started by Pat McAfee or someone on his show.
Luckily, Davis is HS teammates with a pair of top 500 receivers. There are also multiple other 4 star receivers we're in on. For corner, our top prospects are in Ohio and will be a battle with Ohio State that will drag on for a while.
Michigan has had plenty of success moving high school OTs inside to guard. Keegan and El-Hadi are very recent examples. There's plenty of examples of guys who are ~6'5" turning into very good college guards, so to answer your question: Yes, I do think Michigan would strongly consider taking all 4, if they think some of them have the ability to slide inside, which seems plausible given their recent history of success transitioning high school tackles with similar frames into guards.
Reading this thread, I had completely forgotten how god awful pretty much all of our Adidas uniforms were. I put highlighter yellow in the same part of my brain as Kordell Stewart and Punt Fuckery, where I only acknowledge they were a thing that happened when presented with visual evidence of their existence.
The short answer is we broke up their region bonuses that allowed them to consolidate a huge portion of the board. Combine that with some consistently poor RNG luck (see below) and you you go from having the most territories and weighted stars, to just hoping to hold onto College Station and maybe eke out a third place finish.
There is a clear top 4 teams in the conference. The only way to maintain competitive balance every year is to have each of the top 4 play only 1 of the other 3 every year, and alternate the other 2 every other year. Since The Game isn't going anywhere, the only way to make it fair would be to have PSU/USC be a protected rivalry game. That way each top 4 team would play 2 of the other top 3 teams in the regular season every year. That's the only way to maintain even scheduling, but it doesn't maximize $, so it won't happen.
Let's channel our Little Giants energy and run an "Annexation of Puerto Rico".
As Seth says, we don't really play a passing offense capable of exploiting a second outside corner until November. The best passing attack in the first 3/4ths of the schedule is?...Minnesota? We don't know what Matt Rhule's offense will look like in year 1 and MSU's passing offense is chuck it up to tall dudes, which Walker should be able to hold his own immediately.
Woodson set a Michigan record for PBUs and was a First Team All-American in 96. If Will Johnson gets even close to that, I'll be ecstatic. Only 2 Corners have been named to the All American team in their Sophomore season in my lifetime: Charles and Marlin Jackson. If we assume Will Johnson is a mere mortal and is *only* Marlin Jackson good next year, I can live with that.
It's been 86 turns since I've gotten an MVP. I know this isn't how RNG works, but it feels like I'm due.
The previous class is already signed. In the next class, PSU only has 2 commits, neither of whom are D Linemen or list him as a primary recruiter. I did a quick scan of their targets and the only highly rated DL/Edge guy who showed up as "warm" on 247 was Brian Robinson, who we probably already lead for. I don't think this move helps us that much on the recruiting front.
We only border A&M on one of those 7 regions, which we should break up, but they could realistically end up with 6 regions even if we allocated all of our resources to breaking up the Flint Hills region. We would very much benefit from Texas and ISU getting favorable RNG luck to hold onto their last territory in those key regions. We'd also benefit from Bama and Tennessee pushing West, but it would make more strategic sense to defend their current borders and push East instead of West.
Underperforming RNG 3 straight nights, combined with OSU's incredible +2.3 sigma roll two nights ago is the biggest difference between us at the moment. We've missed region bonuses the last few nights because we've lost a territory we've had an 80+% chance of winning. At some point, our luck will turn, we just need to do everything in our power to stop OSU from accumulating region bonuses in the interim.
I don't view that as a problem. GT can pretty much only go West without attacking OSU, which means they'll run into A&M. Having Bama and Tennessee provide cover for them is what allowed the Aggie Death Star to begin to form in the first place. The more threats they have to that part of the map, the better for us.
GT getting a region bonus helps us immensely as it makes them a threat to OSU, and they share a ton of borders with OSU, and none with us. It's possible they take a second region tonight, as well. If I'm GT, I defend all my border territories, as well as the two territories they have in the Mid Atlantic to prevent OSU from getting that region bonus, then putting all my attack strength into ousting Florida from their home state and gaining a second region bonus. At that point, they'd be almost as powerful as OSU and can either start being their Wisconsin or moving West...both of which benefit us. Outside of us, the team we're most rooting for to have an awesome RNG night is GT.
I can't understand Wisconsin's game plan here, unless their only goal was to make sure that we don't win. The could've easily held the entirety of the corn belt and vanquished Iowa State, while Nebraska ventured West (which was a risk move that didn't pay off for them), instead they led a half effort assault on the largest army in the game. They complained about what a few rogues did to their territories; they saw what a focused attacked looks like and will continue to do so. They went from being in a good position to being one of the few teams still alive at the end to being a toss up to survive longer than Iowa State in a single roll.
Defend our region bonuses like crazy (this means Wisconsin, which Wisconsin has a history of allocating a huge portion of their team's power towards at the expense of still having to deal with ISU), all the PA regions, and Connecticut, as well as putting resources towards taking the Canadian shield and breaking up Wisconsin's central Canada territory. We can also continue to pick off small schools in the NW and in Florida. Those should be the priorities, in that order.
The region bonuses could end up being a big deal. I know we're in a truce with Wisconsin (and I'm not advocating that we break it), but once we rid ourselves of Sparty, Wisconsin will have one territory in 2 of our regions that we could otherwise get a bonus for. OSU, I believe, already has a bonus for the Rust Belt, so that's something to watch. If we let OSU gather region bonuses while we don't have any, that could be a real factor down the stretch.
Assuming a kid from Cleveland (where OSU fandom is basically a monoculture) is fair enough, I don't believe you can make the same kind of sweeping generalization about Cincy. In my experience, Cincy feels as much like the northern most city in Kentucky than it does the southern most city in Ohio. You'll find as many Louisville or UK basketball fans in Cincy as you will OSU fans. I'm not saying the kid won't up at OSU; they obviously have a strong history of success to sell recruits, but to assume he's going there simply based on his location is likely a bit premature.
CSU:…
Game Logs last year:
CSU: Blake 13 carries, Don 12 carries
Hawaii: Blake 9 carries, Don 3 carries
UConn: Blake 12 carries, Don 0 carries (injured)
MD: Blake 30 carries, Don 0 carries (injured)
Iowa: Blake 29 carries, Don 5 carries (also had 4 catches)
IU: Blake 25 carries, Don 7 carries
PSU: Blake 28 carries, Don 16 carries
MSU: Blake 33 carries, Don 10 carries (3 catches)
Rut: Blake 20 carries, Don 15 carries
Neb: Blake 28 carries, Don 2 carries (Don hurt in game)
Ill: Blake 18 carries, Don 0 carries (injured)
I think an ideal split (in competitive games) would be giving Blake ~20 carries/game and Don ~15 carries/game. That combined with doubling Don's reception rate from ~2/game to 4/game would have Blake at ~21 touches/game and Don at ~19 touches/game. That's pretty equal. If one of them is hot in a game, they'll get the ball more, or if there's a matchup where Don can pick apart the other team as a receiver (Maryland 2 years ago), then we can (and should) do that. Blake is a better every-down true RB, so he should probably get more carries than the Don, but a near equal split of a combined 40 touches/game for the pair seems right to me.
This is a feature, not a bug, of a Harbaugh offense. If we use 2011 Stanford (Luck's final season there, where they had a top 5 offense) as the baseline, the offenses look very similar.
2011 Stanford averages 32.1 passing attempts/game and 278.7 yards/game. They ran the ball 39.8 times/game for an average of 210.6 yard/game.
2022 Michigan averages 26.5 passing attempts/game for 223.8 yards/game and rushes an average of 43.1 times/game for 246 yards/game.
Replace 3-6 Corum runs with McCarthy passes and they're basically identical. Both Andrew Luck in 2011 and JJ this year are averaging 8.7 yards/attempt. Luck simply had a bit more volume (and admittedly a lot more TDs)
If we look at receivers, Stanfords leading receivers that year were WR Griff Whalen and TE Coby Fleener. Whalen had 749 yards in 13 games for 57.6 yards/game. Fleener had 667 yards in 13 games for 51.3 yards/game.
Michigan is led by Ronnie Bell and Luke Schoonmaker, who are averaging 60.25 and 37.38 yards/game respectively.
What does this mean? In my opinion, Harbaugh is sticking to a formula that he knows will work because he's seen it work. He's having more success running this year then he's ever had, so he isn't deviating from the plan. The only thing I'd point out as a major contrast is the number of TDs Luck had vs. the number of TDs McCarthy has. I'm too lazy to dig into old drive charts to see if this theory is supported, but I'd venture Stanford threw more in the red zone than we do currently. Harbaugh probably had a bit more trust in his third year starter, future number 1 overall draft pick than he does in a true Sophomore who has less than 10 starts under his belt. If you're expect a "fully weaponized" version of this offense to look much different than what we're currently seeing, even with JJ McCarthy at the helm, Harbaugh's history points to that not being the case.
My wife has a bunch of extended family about 30 minutes west of Knoxville and they're all big UT fans. We were down there offroading a year or two ago the weekend before Thanksgiving and that night one of the family members (who I had never met before) had everyone over after the ride. He had an awesome deck with an outdoor bar and TV, where he was adamant the UT game be on. They were playing the usual FCS team the weekend before rivalry week. I told him, "you can call me a Yankee all you want, but where I come from, we play conference game in November." His response was, "I like you, Yankee" and handed me a beer. He'd prefer his team play real games in November as well.