denard

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WITH SPECIAL GUEST DENARD ROBINSON. FOR THE WHOLE THING! Big thanks to Bryan Fuller for setting that up. Please listen to Part 1 first if you haven't already.

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Previously: 1879, 1901, 1918, 1925, 1932, 1940, 1947, 1950, 1964, 1973, 1976, 1980, 1985 p.1& p.2, 1988, 1991, 1999, 2011 p.1

Special Guests: Craig Roh, author of The Pass Rush Bible and Denard Robinson

[Writeup and player after THE JUMP]

Go on, argue. [Eric Upchurch]

A series covering Michigan's 2010s. Previously: TEs, FBs, and OL, best blocks, the aughts.

Methodology: The staff decided these together and split the writeups. Considering individual years but a player can only be nominated once.

QUARTERBACK

DENARD ROBINSON (2010)

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one shining moment [Bryan Fuller]

A decade after the 2010 season, Denard Robinson is still the NCAA Football cover guy. This is in part because the NCAA would rather have no money than share some of it with its players, but it also speaks to the hold Robinson had on college football's imagination. Robinson's career started with a near-literal bang and blossomed into a minor national obsession; it ended with Robinson playing running back in the Outback Bowl because his elbow didn't work anymore.

With some exceptions* NCAA Football cover guys were coming off either legendary team successes (Tim Tebow), legendary individual seasons (Charles Woodson), or both. Denard is the only guy on the cover who ended his final season injury-riddled in a bowl that is so barely New Year's Day that Northwestern's played in it. And when it was announced everyone went "obviously."

That's because Robinson was a video game quarterback brought to life. If you don't know what you're doing you pick the team with the fastest quarterback. You might mistake the snap button for the pitch button on the first snap. Might put the ball on the ground. And then it might not matter at all.

That was Robinson in 2009. In 2010 he won the starting job from Tate Forcier, nuked UConn, and then had one of the greatest individual games in Michigan history against Notre Dame: 24/40 passing, 244 yards, 1 TD, 0 INTs, and 258 yards rushing at 9.2 yards a pop. I am pretty sure the happiest I've ever been after a football game was sitting in the Notre Dame Stadium stands longer than I'd ever sat in the stands before:

When the band marched out, we thought that was our cue. I grabbed one of the souvenir mugs as we exited. When I got home I crudely carved "28-24" on it with a steak knife. It's in the closet. Our walk back was half-accompanied by the band. We met a goodly chunk of my family walking the other way, exchanged excited greetings, and then went about the business of getting out of town. We got to the Chili's just as the adrenaline wore off and the stomach reasserted itself.

A few minutes before everyone filed out Denard Robinson zinged a skinny post to Roy Roundtree on third down and finished the job himself. In the first half Robinson had snuck through a crease in the line, found Patrick Omameh turning Manti Te'o into a safety-destroying weapon, and ran directly at me until he ran out of yards.

He knelt down to give thanks, and that felt inverted.

He broke the NCAA record for rushing yards by a quarterback with 1702 yards at 6.6 YPC(!!!) and completed 63% of his passes for 8.8 YPA, 18 TDs and 11 interceptions. He didn't tie his shoes and he smiled all the time. He showed up to basketball games with Roy Roundtree like he was any other student.

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standing in the back next to Roy, Kenny Demens, and JB Fitzgerald [Eric Upchurch]

It didn't last—couldn't last. Rich Rodriguez managed to parlay the #2 S&P offense into a mostly deserved firing, Brady Hoke and Al Borges had no idea what to do with him, and Robinson's ulnar nerve started its slow decline. The "what if Rich Rodriguez didn't have the worst defense in Michigan history at the same time he had Denard Robinson" question is the decade's greatest counterfactual.

There are no other real contenders for this spot. The only other Michigan QB to get drafted this decade was Jake Rudock, who went in the sixth round after a one-year grad-transfer cameo. Shea Patterson does not look set to join them. And there's your decade in a nutshell: the best QB season was the first one, and then pro-style ruined everything.

-Brian

*[There was a two year period where EA had a different cover for every platform they made the game for, which led to guys like Utah QB Brian Johnson and WVU fullback Owen Schmitt on the cover. Most ignominiously of all, the 2009 wii version of the game had Sparty on the cover. The mascot. Also one year they put Boise State QB Jared Zabransky on the cover, presumably for the same reason Gameday occasionally visits Colgate or wherever.]

[After THE JUMP: Okay, we're not writing up this much again. Except maybe for the 4th place receiver as payback for not making him 1st string]

Programming Notes

Football season is upon us, and with the end of OT season it seems like about time to put This Week in the Twitterverse on the shelf for a while. We’ve got a few ideas as to its replacement, but I’m open to suggestions as well.

Also, you may notice that the name on the dog-tag has changed. Given the number of Brians/Bryans/Bhrayinz working around these parts nowadays, I figured it might reduce some confusion if I peeked half-way out of the name closet, especially since I haven’t been in South Bend for a couple of years.  Don’t worry, I’m still a football-playing golden retriever writing based on the promise of delicious noms.

Now... ON TO THE TWITTERVERSE

Social Commitments

I’m sure you all saw last week that Jared Wangler announced that he would become the 38th* Wangler to play football at Michigan. But one of the interesting things about it was that he announced it via Vine.

This is a very encouraging development. No frills, no long lingering build-up, no reach-for-this-hat-fake-grab-that-hat-SURPRISE-I’m-wearing-a-Florida-elbow-pad. Derrick Green’s principal talked for like 20 minutes. I think Cullen Christian’s announcement is still ongoing. Wangler took exactly six seconds. Done and done. This was the 12-minute wedding ceremony of football announcements.

In that vein, it’s only logical that more recruits should commit via various social media outlets. And I have a few suggestions, based on the school you’re planning to choose.

  • Alabama - YouTube. In fact, 2014 WR commit Derek Kief already did so. So feel free to post your commitment, but be warned: it may be pulled down by the platform at any time based on the flimsiest of reasons, including the ambiguous "violation of the Terms of Service." You will have no recourse.
  • Nebraska - Instagram Video. It’s like Vine, but it’s 15 seconds long, so you get an extra nine seconds of your life before Bo Pelini starts yelling at you about the size and color of your ears or whatever is pissing him off today.
  • Ohio State - Regular Instagram. Buckeye players are kinda video-averse these days for some reason. Plus you can use cool filters like “black-and-white security footage.”
  • MSU - iTunes. Rap game. Spartan fo life. Fo fo life.
  • Penn State - Vine. But you can only use the first 4 seconds. It’s actually in the NCAA sanctions. Look it up.
  • Notre Dame - Christian Mingle. "I found Touchdown Jesus's match for me..."
  • Maryland - MySpace. Nothing screams "wait... people still do that? What are you thinking? No one will ever see you there" like MySpace.
  • Northwestern - LinkedIn . Networking is a lifelong pursuit, people.
  • Kentucky - Google Plus.   A platform that, while tied into the biggest name in the game, is only a peripheral member of that association which is smirked at by the rest of the empire, still kinda sucks, and you know isn't going to succeed long-term? Sounds like Kentucky to me.
  • Iowa - Manual Typewriter. Kirk Ferentz doesn’t approve of the internet. Or computers. Or the forward pass.
  • Purdue - WebMD. "I've decided to play my four years at Purdue." / "TOP RESULTS: Torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament." / "But my knee doesn't feel... oh, there it is."
  • Ole Miss PayPal. Oh, no reason. No reason at all.

*Estimate. Exact figures are unavailable.

[AFTER THE JUMP: Jay Bilas sees hypocrisy. Twitter is sees the future. Sparty doesn’t see what’s in front of him.]