go16blue

January 17th, 2012 at 8:19 AM ^

I'm perfectly fine with people linking to their sites. You (and recently Aquaman) do great work. So long as you arent on staff, and keep putting out good stuff, I have no problem with giving you guys a few page views.

dennisblundon

January 17th, 2012 at 8:24 AM ^

If that kid is that big already, I feel a lot better about our depth at the SDE. Bigger,faster, and stronger seems to be what is headed our way on the D and O line. Manball is coming to a Big House near you.

JayZ1817

January 17th, 2012 at 8:35 AM ^

I might be a bit delusional right now because I just got done my morning exercise, but does that say he is 6'8 right now? Rivals has him at 6'6. I knew he was a big boy, but not that big. If that is the case, and he really is 6'8, I'll more than gladly accept it.

Magnus

January 17th, 2012 at 8:39 AM ^

I didn't do the interview, so I might not be the person to ask...

But Godin is good friends with Danny O'Brien, who is committed to Tennessee.  My guess is that a conversation about Tennessee happened to arise through the conversation, and discussion about Dooley happened to be part of it.

Again, you'd have to get clarification from TTB Andrew (who reads but doesn't post on MGoBlog but will likely respond to comments on the Godin post).

Magnus

January 17th, 2012 at 8:52 AM ^

Van Bergen was this year's 5-tech.  He's the strongside end with C-gap resonsibility (between the TE and OT).  He's almost like you would expect a 3-4 end to be - a combo between defensive tackle and defensive end.  He'll rarely drop into coverage, unlike the weakside end.

6'8" is a little tall for an interior defensive lineman, but I think he'll be fine.  We've had some pretty tall defensive linemen before (Pat Massey, for example), and even though that's probably not the ideal height, they can still be effective.

Magnus

January 17th, 2012 at 9:04 AM ^

Yes, that's probably what it means.  But I wouldn't worry too much.  Teams often tried to take advantage of that (especially early in the season), and most of the alignment issues didn't hurt us after WMU.  Virginia Tech tried to hurt us with it, but the guys read the motion and adjusted so quickly that it didn't affect us that much.

Also, keep in mind that when teams go in motion to get our guys to move, that also makes it difficult for the offensive line to figure out who they're blocking.  If Van Bergen comes sprinting over to the other side in place of Frank Clark, for example, those are two very different players with potentially different gap responsibilities.

Flipping sides isn't a big deal unless the guys on defense are young and inexperienced, which was a problem for us early, since it was the first year in that system.  That's probably one reason that Carvin Johnson struggled to see playing time early...until his off-the-field issues, anyway.

MGoShoe

January 17th, 2012 at 8:52 AM ^

...Godin interview. Again, the other Michigan blogs are really filling a void in coverage with these 2012 recruit interviews. This is still the place to discuss them because of the superior user interface and large community, so posting about one's own site seems ok to me (it's what I did with my son's VT position group reviews at maize pages.com).

M-Wolverine

January 17th, 2012 at 11:23 AM ^

There's not a lot going on.   And people still come here to find and/or discuss, so it's still getting page hits.  If anything, it's doing the work and making Brian the money for little return.  And probably gets  more hits than a hockey post. So I can't see why anyone would object.

HAIL 2 VICTORS

January 17th, 2012 at 11:07 AM ^

Touch The  Banner is part of my regular Michigan Blog roundup that I check once a day (unless Magnus found yet another woman with an incredible personality and I might check back again later) none the less if you have a quality contribution on your site I see no reason not to post a direct link here as it by no means will reduce traffic to MGoBlog.  Quite the contrary as it just further solidifies that this is the blogshphere hub where all great Michigan information congregates. 

Post one post all!

 

Magnus

January 17th, 2012 at 11:23 AM ^

FWIW, TTB Andrew noted over on the post that the 6'8" thing was a typo.  So Godin is actually 6'6" and we can put our Pat Massey fears to bed.

StephenRKass

January 17th, 2012 at 11:26 AM ^

Magnus, over at TTB, you've given ratings to all recruits committed to Michigan. Almost all, that is. You haven't rated the WR commitments, or AJ Williams. Are you going to get around to this? (There's a note about Williams being incomplete, so I assume the data set isn't sufficient for you to give him a ranking.)

Also, since we're so close to signing day, how do you rank Garnett, Reeves, Wright, Grant, & Diamond? At least a couple of these seem the most likely guys still remaining on the board to commit to Michigan.

Magnus

January 17th, 2012 at 11:57 AM ^

1. No offense, but I only rate players who commit to Michigan.  I don't want to start rating a bunch of players who aren't committed, because that could turn into a big commitment.  If I do that, I might as well quit my job and start my own Rivals/Scout-like site.  I like Garnett more than Reeves and Reeves more than Grant.

2. I'm pretty meh on Gant.  Houma is a fullback, so I just don't know how great he can be.  And I'm in the middle on Clark.  He could be anywhere from all-conference to a career special teamer.

kehnonymous

January 17th, 2012 at 12:06 PM ^

What is your sense on how we stand with Reeves?  Did he enjoy his visit here?  He tweeted something about Greg Mattison dancing to Rihanna - I guess that's a good thing provided Mattison wasn't groping his boobs)  Or is he an OSU lean?  (People at 11w think Reeves is going to join them)