You will be surprised to find out which of these men is Chris Rock, or at least you would if you didn't know already.

Redshirt-freshman-to-be Chris Rock, he of the name that looks almost exactly like former Wisconsin basketball player Kammron Taylor, has left the program.

Rock hadn't played yet (obviously) and didn't make much impact in spring, so the departure shouldn't affect Michigan's projected performance in 2012 unless things get ugly at the three-tech spot. And since there are a couple of large incoming freshmen who may have beaten Rock out, this could be a writing on the wall type of scenario. Rock's star fell precipitously after his commitment to Michigan, something his recruiting profile acknowledged. He was a developmental guy, and if he wasn't developing meaningful wink wink ellipsis goes here…

The previous assumption of 20 open spots given fifth year non-renewals now moves to 21. Michigan was probably going to take two SDE/3tech guys unless they pulled a star secondary recruit out of nowhere, so priorities don't really shift. Expect 1 RB, 1 WR, 2-3 DL, and maybe that secondary guy with Michigan's six-ish remaining spots.

This is the continuation of last week's glance at the defensive line prospects from the perspective of body size against M linemen of yore at the same age. The point was to try to project what a certain body size and shape becomes and use that to relate the huge DL crop of 2012 to players we're maybe more familiar with.

This came about when I figured tried sorting the BMI (metric weight divided by height squared) of past players and found similar guys of memory ended up beside each other. Again, BMI is really for assessing whether normal people who are not 18-year-old athletes are overweight; do not interpret the numbers as any measure of how "in shape" any of these guys are.

Last week I did the nose tackles. Moving up the line is the DT, or the 3-tech. A quick technique refresher:

Mentally shift the "1" in a 4-3 under to shaded over the center. In Mattison's defense the 3-tech is the guy lined up in the "3" spot on the line, shaded on the outside shoulder of a guard. He's the "4-3 Pass Rush Tackle," and this defense is designed to let him be more of an attacker than a "plugger." Pursuant to our discussion, greater heights that create leverage problems at the nose are not so much of a problem at 3-tech, which makes this guy more of a 3-4 DE than your traditional over-the-guard tackle. And lo the heights climb—a good 2 inches more than NT among Michigan's DTs.

I thought about sprinkling in the SDEs since there's considerable overlap. Mentally start 5-techs around Willie Henry (B.Graham is above that). I'm leaving in the current players nominally slated for DT.

Pos.	Name	Class	Ht	Wt-Fr	BMI-Fr	BMI-Ply	% Gain
3T	Quinton Washington	2009	6'3	325	40.6	37.7	-7.6%
3T	Alan Branch	2004	6'6	326	37.7	38.2	1.5%
3T	Renaldo Sagesse	2007	6'4	303	36.9	35.2	-4.8%
3T	Will Johnson	2004	6'4	285	34.7	34.7	0.0%
3T	Kenny Wilkins	2010	6'3	270	33.7	35.0	3.6%
3T	Larry Harrison	2002	6'2	261	33.5	40.2	16.6%
3T	Willie Henry	2012	6'3	265	33.1	33.1	0.0%
3T/5T	Chris Rock	2011	6'5	267	31.7	31.7	0.0%
3T/5T	Keith Heitzman	2011	6'3	251	31.4	31.4	0.0%
3T/5T	Matthew Godin	2012	6'6	270	31.2	31.2	0.0%
3T/5T	Chris Wormley	2012	6'4	255	31.0	31.0	0.0%
3T/5T	Ryan Van Bergen	2007	6'5	260	30.8	34.1	9.7%
3T/5T	Greg Banks	2006	6'4	246	29.9	34.7	13.7%
3T/5T	Juaquin Feazell	1994	6'4	245	29.8	33.5	10.9%
3T	Norman Heuer	1999	6'5	251	29.8	33.4	11.0%
3T	John Wood	1998	6'4	242	29.5	34.3	14.2%
3T	Ben Huff	1993	6'4	234	28.5	33.2	14.3%
3T	Alex Ofili	2001	6'4	230	28.0	35.2	20.4%
3T/5T	Patrick Massey	2001	6'8	235	25.8	31.2	17.3%

You can see there's a lot of overlap, but in general the big dudes end up inside and the leaner guys are out. Latest recruit Willie Henry is right with Kenny Wilkins as kind of tweeners between NT and DT, comparable to Will Johnson, who maintained his weight (though it was much Barwicized), and Larry Harrison, who added a lot of it and played  beside like-massed Watson in a more even front.

So long as Michigan runs a 4-3 under you need to stop looking at a 265-pound freshman "DT" and imagine him lifting his way to 300. The talk of "frame" and "carrying more weight" could matter if you're expecting Henry to be a breather for Pipkins (he might be) but not if he's a 3-tech.

After a drop-off you get to the RS freshmen Rock and Heitzman, and incoming Wormley and Godin. This is the Ryan Van Bergen/Norman Heuer*/Grant Bowman region which slowly drifts down a list of tweener 3- and 5-techs like Biggs, Zenkewicz, Banks, and Feazell, then Normal Heuer.*

Those guys were a little smaller than seems optional at the position, but they're also both quintessential Hoke DTs; if Wormley becomes RVB2 and Godin is Bowman, that would be win. Quinton Washington was a larger freshman than any of these guys, much larger than even Alan Branch or 22-year-old freshman Renaldo Sagesse. Q has dropped his BMI by 7.6% to reach a playing shape still large for 3-Tech but not as big as Branch (who was 6'6) played. A freakmonster like Branch or (pro comparison) Shaun Rogers/Tommy Kelly can do well here by bull-rushing hapless guards on a direct route to emptying a QB's alveoli…

(after the jump, you know what's coming)

Brady Hoke

News bullets and other important items:

• Brennen Beyer should be fine for bowl practice.
• Team will go back to fundamentals and technique during bowl practice and develop younger players.
• Quinton Washington, Keith Heitzman, and Chris Rock are improving on the D-line. Coaches also trying to coach up Richard Ash.
• Bowl practice schedule will depend on which bowl they go to. Team will be active this week.

Press Conference

from file

Opening remarks:

“It’s great to go out and play well enough to win. I think there’s some things we all know we have to do a better job with when you look at the whole football game, but I think our guys responded well. As a team, I’ve said it many times, but they really complement each other offensively and defensively and in the kicking game. It’s great to win a football game. Anytime you can win that great rivalry game, it’s good.”

Borges has been saying all season that the offense is eventually going to come along. Have we been seeing that the last two weeks?

“You know, I think a couple things: number one, [Denard has] grown and matured as a Michigan quarterback throughout the course of the year. I think the decisiveness that he has run the football with when he’s made that decision, that there’s some open area or whatever has really been good the last couple weeks. I think that’s helped his confidence. I thought he ran extremely hard with the ball on Saturday. When we can rush the ball for 277 yards, it helps you obviously when you get into the throw game. And in the passing game, I thought he made three really good throw again. He was 14 of 17, so his accuracy and completion rate was pretty doggone good. I think he just keeps growing.”

What was the mood like the last 36 hours? Have you been hearing from a lot of people?

“Yeah, I mean there’s a lot of text messages that I haven’t even seen yet to be honest with you. It’s nice and it’s great that people want to congratulate you, but we’re not done with this year yet. Our goal was to win the conference championship and we didn’t do that, so we have a lot more to prove.”

What do you think about the Urban Meyer hire?

“You know, he’s not going to play a down and neither am I. To me, I’ve known Urban. He’s a good football coach. He’s a good guy, I’ll welcome him in, but this is still Michigan and Ohio. It’s still going to be that rivalry. Neither one of us is going to play a game.”

(more after the jump)