mike martin

I started a bit of offseason content during the long offseason so I might as well finish it. I'll post the 3-, 4-, and 5-star teams next to each other at the end and link a poll if you want to compare.

What is this? I'm making a team of Michigan four-stars since 1990. Offense is here. For the writeups I gave up on focusing on the recruiting rankings because compared to 3-stars (there's always a reason) and 5-stars (there's always a story), 4-star recruitments are boring. Instead I'll try to tell you something about the guy you didn't know.

More All-Michigan [Blank] Teams: 5-Stars, 3-Stars, Pro Offense/Pro Defense, 1879-Before Bo, Extracurriculars, Position-Switchers, Highlights, Numbers Offense/Numbers Defense, In-State, Names, Small Guys, Big Guys, Freshmen

Rules: Lower bound: must be a four-star to at least one major ranker of his era, and average over 4.0 stars on the Seth scale. Upper bound: cannot a 5-star to anybody or average higher than a 4.50 on the Seth scale. Since 1990 because data go back that far. College performance considered only.

Defensive Tackle

Left: photo via Maize and Blue Nation. Right: Bryan Fuller

Mo Hurst (2013) burst into the consciousness of recruiters with a play he made while on offense, as the nation delighted in the fullback shrugging off eleven overmatched Northeastern schoolchildren for a 70-yard touchdown run.

The rest of the tape was the dude teleporting into the backfield. His coach used "yay" as an adjective.

The recruiting comp for Hurst was Mike Martin (2008), whom Brian described as "pulsing" and "a single twitching muscle." A wrestler and "crab person" for his perfect pad level, the Detroit Catholic Central committed to Lloyd Carr in June and stuck when the staff switched. In the interim he blew up, with his film showing a slab of muscle running down ballcarriers like a linebacker. Because Michigan had just experienced The Horror while this was happening, every recruiter checked in with Martin to ask if he's sure he wanted to "be on a sinking ship."

All of that negative recruiting might have helped Michigan keep Martin in the fold when Notre Dame made their serious run at him in November; according to Mike he was swayable right up until his Notre Dame recruiter started his visit by badmouthing Michigan. If everyone else started their pitch with why he shouldn't choose Michigan, that probably meant they knew Michigan had the most to offer. I have his contact so I might reach out about bringing back this shirt:

[After THE JUMP: Even I can't make Dan Rumishek interesting, but I can certainly make you appreciate uninteresting]

A series covering Michigan's 2010s. Previously: QBs, RBs, and WRs, 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.

DEFENSIVE TACKLE: Maurice Hurst Jr. (2017)

The spread age means defensive material gets moved away from the box, simplifying the game by taking away most of the defense's opportunity to surprise. You can't bring pressure from everywhere if your OLBs and safeties have to split out with slot receivers. RPOs, quick passing games, receiver running backs, cross-motion, run-threat QBs, and read-based rushing offenses nerf the effectiveness of even the elite edge rushers until passing downs take those options away. But the one thing spread offenses have no answer for is a penetrating defensive tackle who won't get doubled and won't get out of his damn lane.

Into this math stepped Mo Hurst, and oh was that first step unholy quick.

The spread has no answer for that.

Hurst was the son of an NFL father who'd left only his name, from a fancy Massachusetts private school his mom had to Mom Out to pay for, and a first step looking to be attached to a football player.

Why Mike Martin? Two words: snap explosion.

Martin was a bit higher rated—consensus four star outside the top 100, IIRC—and an ever-growing slab of pulsating muscle from day one. Hurst isn't going to be quite as ripped, but he is a kid who can get off the ball in a flash, bury himself in the chest of the opponent, and then rip through the dude before he knows what's going on.

We were hype, with distant future caveats. The burst came in 2015, first as a passing down sub for Ryan Glasgow, then a cycler with the aforementioned and Willie Henry. Hurst made his mark on the season with quick flashes into the backfield, but got exposed for his youth when Glasgow was out and Kevin Wilson's fast-paced Indiana stretched him to death.

By 2016 the MGoBlog love for the wrecking ball responsible for Michigan's second line (Gary/Hurst/Mone/Winovich) matching the starters (Wormley/Godin/Glasgow/Taco) in production was expressed in UFR (+84.5/-20) then surpassed by Pro Football Focus—then at the fulness of their scouting, and it was on. We called him the defensive MVP (over Peppers). They put him on the All-American team. We wrote a profile in and put him rubbing his belly on the cover of HTTV, they put him on the top of the top players returning for 2017. We created a maurice hurst is so good he is kind of boring tag. They put him in Heisman territory:

Congratulations to the 2017 PFF All-American 1st Team Defense pic.twitter.com/77eGJzxz1p

— PFF Draft (@PFF_College) December 6, 2017

This site wasn't far off—Hurst's senior season tape is the best by a DT or any other position in the history of the exercise. His +152/-27.5 is the standing record for UFR. The 3-3-5 they routinely deployed, because there wasn't a second line of Mo Hursts anymore, nerfed his statistical impact. This site was saying this after Game 2:

He is Mo Hurst. The end.

How far you want to go with the superlatives after that is up to you. The best player of the 2010s? There's an argument. The best DT in Michigan history? Depends how much film you want to watch. But if you want to know what's different about Michigan's last two defensive efforts against Ohio State and the two that gave wobby offenses a chance to win in 2016 and 2017, he is Mo Hurst. The end.

--Seth

[After THE JUMP: MGoBlog and the mid-teens were good for one thing]

Sponsor note! If you're coming into town with a big group for, say, the Notre Dame game, your options are limited. You can drive a while, you can pay out the nose, or you can rent a whole dang house for about what it would cost for four to six hotel rooms at Gameday Housing. Hotel rooms don't come with yards to tailgate in and aren't within walking distance of the stadium, and they're all booked anyway.

Roy Manning is with it. Vine is the greatest.

Connolly on M. SBN's resident numbers-massager Bill Connolly has dropped ten items about Michigan's upcoming season. A Connolly post is always worth your time; he's very good at explaining what his numbers mean and is happy to deviate from them if he feels they're not capturing something. Michigan's not looking too good right now because of recent program history and that ugly recruiting gap that's coming home to roost right about now, but Connolly's like "eh":

That the Wolverines held steady at 20th overall last year is a positive sign, and I do think that there is some addition-by-subtraction going on in substituting a little explosiveness for a lot of efficiency on offense. They are still a few ifs away from a truly elite season, but I like their chances of getting to 10 wins overall, much more than the numbers do, anyway.

An interesting bit on the receivers:

Roy Roundtree and the receiver Devin Gardner combined for a rather awful 49 percent catch rate. Roundtree was all-or-nothing for his entire career, and Gardner was far too raw to make a significantly positive impact, and while the big-play ability could be missed (the two combined to average 18.0 yards per catch last year), the explosiveness-for-efficiency tradeoff could be welcome. Big plays are still a grave necessity, but Michigan still has Jeremy Gallon (16.9 yards per catch, 62 percent catch rate) and Drew Dileo (16.6, 67 percent) for that. To be sure, there will be bombs. They're built into the system. But Roundtree's and Gardner's catch rates were just too low; that Michigan ranked 21st in overall Success Rate+ despite the low completion rates is an incredibly encouraging sign of what may be to come.

Throw it to Dileo. Whole thing recommended.

(Not our) Kickstarter update. Pahokee and Michigan alums Martavious Odoms and Vincent Smith are featured in the Palm Beach Post:

Odoms met with Roger Horne, the director of food security initiatives at nonprofit Urban GreenWorks, and studied GreenWorks’ five urban gardens in Miami. Urban GreenWorks sells some of its urban-garden products to local vendors, something H.O.P.E. would like to do, too.

They’re hoping to build the garden just off 4th Street in Pahokee, between Barfield Highway and Lake Avenue.

“We want it to be in a place where people can see it,” Smith said.

(The article is a little old but I hadn't seen it yet.)

(Not our) walk-on down. Michigan State loses wide receiver AJ Troup for the season. While Troup didn't play last year, he was getting some hype as a potentially useful piece in State's Burbridge-and-the-handsless receiving corps after a 46-yard touchdown in the spring game.

Nope not getting excited. Nope. Okay a little. Jerry Meyer on WI PF Kevon Looney:

"Some pretty reliable local word in Milwaukee is Duke or Michigan for Kevon Looney,"247sports.com's Jerry Meyer tweeted last week. "Just what I'm hearing."

If Glenn Robinson blows up like he says he will that'll help quite a bit, as the guy wants to be in the NBA and likely will be sooner rather than later.

In other basketball recruiting news that I'll probably repeat in a week or two when there's enough stuff in the slow-moving barge to assemble into a post, California wing Kameron Chatman says he will "probably" return to Ann Arbor for an official visit.

Six more years. John Beilein says he wants to be around for a while longer:

"My plan was to at least coach six more years," he said. "So that the 2015 class, that's the class we're recruiting now -- along with the 2014s -- I wanted to coach all those guys.

"That was sort of the plan we put in mind. Obviously you had to dot some 'I's' and cross some 'T's' and there was no rush, but I was really pleased we were able to work it out."

He'll be 66 when his new contract extension expires, FWIW, and will evaluate his status then. If Alexander and/or Jordan are still around then I'd expect an internal transition.

Saban talks actual football on ESPN. Nick Saban breaks down a few plays from the title game blowout for ESPN, and Smart Football translates. Instructive for Michigan fans since Michigan is moving to an Alabama-style offense.

This in particular reminded me of something Michigan got caught in:

S: “We picked up on the fact that they weren’t real sound in coverage here. Their inside linebacker has to flow over and take the tight-end but he actually has a run/pass conflict when we fake the ball at him.” — Translation: Notre Dame has eight defenders lined up with their hand in the ground on the goal line, with only three players at the second level, including Manti Te’o, the “inside linebacker” Saban refers to. At its simplest, the purpose of the play was to pull Te’o up with a run fake and then throw behind him. Saban makes clear that it was the coverage scheme that was an issue as much with Te’o's play here — it’s just a tough assignment — and he says that when they face play-action teams they try not to put their linebackers in positions like this. He then gets a little more specific about specifically how they attacked Te’o.

Michigan put itself in the same situation against Air Force by using Jordan Kovacs as a single high safety who both had to cover one of AF's wing backs out of the backfield and clean up the pitch man on the option.

very ag-re-essive

As soon as Kovacs started getting aggressive enough to beat the wingback to the outside and clean up before the play picked up ten yards, Air Force burned him over the top and would have had a 62-yard touchdown except the receiver fell down after about 30. Option football is mean, and Michigan probably shouldn't sign up to play an option team right after Alabama again, not that they'll play Alabama on purpose any time in the near future.

Paging Tom Rinaldi. Kid who named his tumor "Michigan" 1) needs a snappier name and 2) will be going to the Michigan-OSU game thanks to Brady Hoke, who hopes to make him miserable at it. Uncomfortable thought about that South Park episode in which Stan coaches a youth hockey team happening… now. Okay, now it's over.

Tweaking Ohio. Dropping the "State" from "Ohio State" makes a move to Florida:

Then, after Muschamp referred to Ohio State as “Ohio,” Muschamp deadpanned: “I’ve always been a Brady Hoke fan.”

If "Ohio" becomes, like, a nationwide thing people use to tweak The Ohio State University I think we need a parade for Hoke.

The worst scouting report ever. I don't know who Aaron Schatz is talking about here, but it's not Mike Martin:

Martin, a third-round pick in the 2012 draft, led all Titans defensive tackles last year with 8.5 hurries. That's surprising considering he's more of a classic nose tackle rather than a penetrating three-technique. Scouts considered Martin a blue-collar grinder whose best strength was his solid base. But in his first year in Tennessee, he was faster than advertised and showed a variety of pass-rush moves. Martin was considered a possible first-round pick until he really struggled during his senior year at Michigan. That was partly due to a scheme change, although oddly, the new scheme he struggled in was actually more similar to what he's playing now in Tennessee. He should be in line for a jump in playing time despite the signing of Sammie Lee Hill.

All of those bolded things are the opposite of true. The third bolded thing may be accurate if you only look at stats… for a nose tackle, which… who does that? And wait a minute right here.

Wait a minute.

This is a NOSE TACKLE who finished fourth on his team in tackles with 64. That is an incredible stat. He did this on a defense that had no high draft picks and completed an insane one-year turnaround. Nothing about this makes sense.

no tackles for this

This is the worst paragraph ever written. Not this one. That one. In the block quote. That one that asserts Mike Martin is a blue-collar guy whose main strength is holding up offensive linemen and that he was not an all-crushing force of nature as a senior who was hurt in the NFL draft by the fact that Michigan played him out of position out of necessity. "Really struggled." Okay guy.

Etc.: NCAA is trying to prevent for-profit schools from joining it, which makes my irony meters tingle all over. Wetzel on Buckeye arrest blitz. Bob Stoops encourages Oklahoma fans to tweet recruits. DO NOT TWEET RECRUITS. Shouldn't it be "Division Zero"?