mailbag

[Patrick Barron]

Late last week I put out a post on the message board asking for questions for a mailbag, as I haven't done one since the summer and now seems like a good time to fit one in. To no one's surprise, nearly all of the questions were football related. I picked the best 14 questions and if yours wasn't chosen, better luck next time. I did my best to pick as many good ones as possible, but there is never enough space for them all. Two quick notes on question topics: 1.) there were a lot of questions that are Rose Bowl gameplan-ish and I decided I will answer them in FFFF rather than here and 2.) several Donovan Edwards questions that I chose not to answer because you can read Seth's piece from last week

 

Assuming Coach stays and JJ leaves, what does the offense look like next year? (-Ray) 

I answered a version of this question in the summer that was focused on 2024 generally but now is a good time to check back in on the picture. The question assumes JJ is leaving, so the answer that has to be provided first is "who is playing QB?". I'm not sure any of us would feel great with the in-house QB options playing, but if JJ decides to leave in January it puts Michigan in a tougher spot in the portal, since many transfer QBs will have decided by then. If Michigan were able to land Dante Moore in the portal now, perhaps he could be an option, and obviously true freshman Jadyn Davis is an option, though I do not like the idea of a true freshman QB ever starting if his name is not Trevor Lawrence. I think Davis or Orji starting should be the fallback, with the idea that Michigan would dip into the portal in January or maybe after spring to look for options. 

Having either a transfer picked up later in the cycle or a Davis/Orji QB situation certainly limits the offense's ceiling compared to this year and it's the result of QB recruiting problems in the 2022/2023 classes. That said, the offense will be set up decently well to help whoever the QB is. I like the RB position no matter what Donovan Edwards plans to do, since Kalel Mullings has flashed and so has Ben Hall, not to mention that Cole Cabana could be operational and you're adding in a blue chip RB recruit in Jordan Marshall at a position where true freshmen can have big impacts.

The WR room is a bit in flux but if Michigan can land Donaven McCulley, that's a legit option in addition to Tyler Morris, who should have a larger role, and the current true freshmen (F. Moore/S. Morgan). Of course, having Colston Loveland around helps a lot too. It's unclear what the OL composition will look like, since a lot of it hinges on NFL decisions from Barnhart/Trente/Myles Hinton/Nugent, but if even half come back, adding that next to Greg Crippen and Gio El-Hadi gives Michigan's OL a solid starting point. In other words, the RBs should be good, receiving options should be between adequate and good, and the same can be said for the OL. Life will be made easier on the QB, but there will still be a pretty sizable stepback overall if you don't have JJ as the singal-caller. Thankfully, the 2024 defense should be nasty. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More questions]

Two men mentioned in this mailbag [Bryan Fuller]

It's mailbag time again everyone! I solicited questions on the MGoBoard and on twitter last week and selected my favorite questions, trying to cover as many different topics as possible while also picking the most interesting ones. It was evident that the mind of the Michigan fanbase is still fully on football, as about 80% of the questions I received dealt with that subject. The mailbag is heavy on them as a result, but I made sure to pick one basketball and hockey question to include. I also noticed that it is apparently not Silly Season yet, as I got far few satirical questions than in June- don't worry, I still picked a couple anyway. 

 

How much stronger can we expect the BIG West to be in 2023, versus its abysmal 2022? Will the conference experience a positive bump as a result of coaching changes and the portal, and how significant will it be? (-Bohannon)

I also got a version of this question from @MGoBronxBlue on Twitter, so it seems like there is some interest in hearing about the B1G West and its new coaches. Let me start by saying I was a fan of the changes in the B1G West. Ryan Walters is a top young football coach and when you're a program like Purdue, what do you have to lose taking a swing on him? I also am a fan of them keeping the Air Raid going on offense. I liked Matt Rhule to Nebraska, though his lack of a single ranked win at Baylor is making me hold off from coronating Rhule yet. And Luke Fickell to Wisconsin is fascinating mostly for what it implicates for the program, a departure from three decades of the Barry Alvarez lineage, especially by moving to a pass-heavy offense. Fickell didn't do well his first time in the B1G but it was one season where the NCAA sabotaged him. It's hard to criticize what he did at Cincy, so I like that hire. 

However, if we step out and take the bird's eye view, I'm not sure how much the needle has been changed on the B1G West in 2023, which is also functionally the last year it will exist before expansion blows things up. All three of those new coaches are going to be in Year Zero situations, which are easier to navigate in modern CFB with the transfer portal, but still not easy. Purdue is losing its veteran QB, star WR, and star TE, Wisconsin is doing a wholesale change in personnel on offense and bringing in a new defensive coordinator, and Nebraska will be turning over a huge amount of the roster, like every offseason. Then you consider Northwestern is digging out of a Chicxulub Crater sized hole and to me the true contenders for the division are Iowa, Minnesota, and Illinois. I haven't yet gone through the West's offseason changes (coming next week) to see exactly the movement that's been going on there, but at least with Iowa, we have first-hand experience about some of those changes.  

I expect all three of those teams to field good defenses, even with Illinois losing Walters, and it just comes down to which teams have a pulse on offense. So... same ole B1G West? The Twitter question here asked about whether the new coaches can meaningfully raise the ceiling of the programs, and I don't really think so. The reality of the B1G West is these programs are pretty disadvantaged in terms of fundamentals. Only Illinois has a claim to really being on fertile recruiting ground, and yet the Chicago area doesn't produce the amount of players that they do in basketball. Nebraska was a juggernaut in an era where they had much easier access to players form Oklahoma and Texas playing in the Big 8/XII. If forced to recruit the plains, they're in trouble. I just don't think any of these teams can ever be true CFP contenders and in some ways, I think we ought to talk more about the fundamentals as reasons for the B1G West's lack of competitiveness with the East as opposed to coaching incompetence. They've had some bad and funny coaches but also are you ever competing for a national title at IOWA even with a better offense? Very good chance the answer is "no" because elite talent isn't coming to Iowa City. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: More questions]

Have the Buckeyes.... STOPPED TRYING???? [Patrick Barron]

With little going on in Michigan athletics, I felt that now was a decent time to do a mailbag to see what our fine readers are curious about. I solicited questions Monday on the MGoBoard and on Twitter, and picked the ones I felt were most interesting to answer. I tried to select questions that were most frequently asked, and that covered the bases, giving different sports representation rather than just focusing on football. I also threw in a few silly questions and one on pro sports. 

[NOTE: I did not answer any NIL questions, despite there being many, because they would best be answered in a post dedicated to that topic. I am hoping that either I or Seth can get to that at some point soon]

 

Which non-conference game or series would you like to see for football, basketball, and hockey this upcoming season if you could schedule any opponent, and why? (-UMinCincy)

We'll start with a fun one, my favorite among the serious questions that I was asked. Here are my answers for each sport: 

- Football: non-conference games come with a pretty high risk when you play in a premier conference that regularly places teams in the playoff (like say, the B1G), so I'd want to schedule a game with some amount of upside, but one that limits the risk of losing and thus sinking your resume. In looking for a matchup that would be fun, likely to win, but still give you something to gain, I picked a home game against Miami. The 'Canes should be a solid team this year (hovering around 20th in early preseason polls), but don't represent the same threat that a Notre Dame would, especially if it's at the Big House and early in the year. This fulfills the goal of finding a team that would add to the resume but would not represent a titanic challenge. And in terms of the fun, there would be storylines galore given the messiness of the Gattis exit back in February, not to mention a new coach at The U in Mario Cristobal and two historic programs going at it. Sign me up. 

Basketball: I'm all in favor of scheduling a slate of tough non-conference opponents in college hoops to bolster your tournament resume, so I looked for an opponent that would be tough and add intrigue. I rambled through different ideas and the best I could come up with was Gonzaga. They're a perennially great opponent, are always looking to schedule a tough non-conference, and Michigan and the Zags have surprisingly little history. They have met (1) time in history, and that was at the 2019 Battle 4 Atlantis. I'm always in favor of branching out and trying to play more marquee teams beyond the typical Duke/Carolina types, and getting a little more familiarity with Gonzaga could be good for the program, plus it would provide the chance for a resume-boosting win. 

Hockey: The B1G is a good conference, but not typically a great one, so scheduling a big dog has a lot of upside. Putting teams like Minnesota State on the schedule last year is what helped get the #1 overall seed, after all. With that in mind, I'd like to see a re-match with Denver. Both teams are coming off a bit of turnover following their Frozen Four appearances, but there should still be plenty of talent on both sides. We learned during the run up to the Frozen Four that there is surprisingly little history between these two legendary programs, but thanks to what happened in Boston, now there is a little bit of it. Why not make some more and try to build a rivalry of sorts, while having a chance to get a quality win in the process? 

 

Alex, if Jim Harbaugh could turn himself into any animal in the animal kingdom what animal would he choose and why? (-Darker Blue)

I thought about this one for all of a couple minutes and came to what I felt was an easy answer: a cow. We know Jim Harbaugh loves beef football, and all the meaty boys who get it done, the Zak Zinters and Ben Masons. We know that he doesn't like white meat (chicken), so we have to assume he likes beef. We also know he absolutely loves milk. What animal produces milk and beef? A cow. Easy answer. It channels his tastes and football ethos, building a team that doesn't budge and can trample you, with the collective weight on the lines of many cows. 

 

[Bryan Fuller]

Specifically, we have so much talent at the WR position, can we realistically expect to keep them intact through the summer? (-othernel) 

This question was about the "play now" mindset of recruits and how to avoid attrition, and I was interested in the second half here. The Wolverines have a ton of hungry mouths at the WR position, even with Mike Sainristil's move to defense. The list includes Ronnie Bell, Roman Wilson, Cornelius Johnson, AJ Henning, Andrel Anthony, Christian Dixon, and then the three freshmen, with Darrius Clemons likely ready for playing time.

Just speaking honestly, it's hard for me to see this whole group making it through the season intact. The advent of the portal has made it very hard to keep positional groups together, but the WR position I don't even think is too affected by the portal. This would be a tough group to keep together even if we were under old portal rules and that's a good thing. You'd always rather have too many good players than not enough. With Michigan looking to take in 2-3 receivers in the 2023 class, there is going to be some attrition. The question is just who and when. 

I wouldn't expect a ton of attrition in the summer, to be honest. It's an inconvenient time to bail because it's too late to join a team in time for the season. I suppose if someone realizes at the end of fall camp that there's no chance they will play (Dixon?) that they may say it makes no difference and leave then. But I would expect that most of this group goes into the season and then at the end of it there will be a good bit of attrition either from NFL declarations, running out of eligibility, or transfers. But the fact Michigan got through the spring (which is the optimal time to bail) with this group makes it seem to me that they will be together for at least the bulk of the 2022 season before splintering after.  

 

Well this one is pretty topical now that there are reports that Bakich is leaving for Clemson. On the softball end of things, I discussed this in my post-season column. Bonnie Tholl will be the in-house, odds on favorite, but my top candidate is Duke's Marissa Young. Young is a former player under Hutch who has coached in southeast Michigan at EMU/Concordia and has built Duke from the ground up into a quality program. She's also only 40 years old and would be the perfect coach to lead Michigan for decades. 

As for baseball, with Bakich likely out of the picture, I'll throw out a couple names but more will be in a coaching search piece. Chris Fetter is the first that comes to mind and apparently it's on Michigan's mind. It's hard to imagine he moves back from the MLB to the NCAA, but if there was one job that could make that happen, getting to be the head coach at his alma mater might be it. Fetter was a phenomenal NCAA pitching coach and has been stellar in the MLB as well, evidenced by the Tigers having one of the MLB's best bullpens despite it consisting of a bunch of relievers no one has ever heard of (who the hell is Will Vest? I don't even think his own family members have heard of Will Vest). Fetter is also only 36. 

In terms of more realistic options, Central Michigan's Jordan Bischel seems like an obvious name of interest. He was a highly successful coach at Northwood University in Midland, before coming to CMU in 2019. Since arriving in Mount Pleasant, Bischel has been named MAC Coach of the Year twice, and has taken the Chips to three straight NCAA Baseball Tournaments, with two MAC regular season titles and two MAC Tournament titles on the way. He's 41 years old, a native of the Midwest and familiar recruiting in this state and region, and would be a stellar hire.

This is where I'll leave the answer but will have more on it in the future. 

[AFTER THE JUMP: Harbaugh... to the LAKERS??]

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