Unverified Voracity Shows Surgeons The Broom
more like #gameofthrowns amirite
In ur pocket, disrupting ur mechanics. Bruce Feldman started tweeting pictures of some guy shoving a broom at Devin Gardner and I was like "er?" Turns out one George Whitfield is a famous quarterback-coaching guy. QB Yoda, if you will. The broom is an effort to break a quarterback's mechanics down:
I talked to some front office guys, scouts and coaches, and two AFC East teams did a study of pocket-passing analytics. Both teams found that 60 percent of the time the quarterback had to make some sort of adjustment or escape before getting a throw off. Only 40 percent of the time did he take the designated drop and make a clean attempt at a throw.
If that happens behind millionaire offensive linemen being coached by millionaire coaches in billionaire leagues, you don’t get any higher than that. Two in five plays.
The first thing we do with elementary-aged kids is start them throwing on the run. I don’t care about his three-step drop. You can really improve his football quality of life if you can teach that little guy how to throw on the run.
He's all about the many plays when things don't go quite right and the quarterback has to do something other than make a perfect step-up-and-throw. Gardner still has a tendency to float balls in these situations as he reverts to his wonky high school motion.
Kyle Meinke has a roundup of all the Whitfield-related stuff you may need. He seems to think Gardner is good at football:
I understand the excitement of #Michigan fans for 2013! Devin Gardner is electric. Rolled thru the Chaos training! twitter.com/georgewhitfiel…
— George Whitfield Jr. (@georgewhitfield) May 2, 2013
Hopefully he'll need less of that than an average quarterback what with Lewan and Schofield keeping him clean.
Gold in them thar hills. Continuing a theme:
Sai Tummala has decided to decline the scholarship offer from Husker Coach Tim Miles and will instead go back home and play for the Arizona State Sun Devils.
Yeah, you vaguely remember Tummala as a guy who walked on at Michigan a couple years ago. He departed for a JUCO, blew up, and was a late signing who apparently had offers from a half-dozen schools including Pitt(!) and BYU(!). John Beilein can pick 'em, man.
In other news, Nebraska's taking a look at a Finnish power forward this weekend. This is now the other half.
I no longer prospect as much though, because the gold nuggets are coming to me. Baumgardner caught up with WI SF/PF Kevon Looney's coach:
"He's definitely interested in Michigan," Looney's AAU coach, Shelby Parrish, told MLive.com. "He likes Michigan's style of play, he likes coach Beilein -- he's very interested in him."
Looney is going to cut down to five and take officials from there. Scout has also been buzzing about potential Elite Camp visits by Devin Booker and Kameron Chatman. All of those guys are in the top 40; Looney is top ten.
UMHoops talked with 2015 C Stephen Zimmerman:
Zimmerman has also been in constant contact with Michigan — he said he’s been speaking with Michigan’s coaching staff about “once or twice a week for the past three weeks.”
“I’ve been talking to them a lot more recently,” Zimmerman said. “They seem like a great coaching staff and everything. It’s a great school.”
Maybe it's the product. Bacon has a different take on the languishing interest from students in showing up for football on time:
Getting mad at your paying customers for not liking your product as much as you think they should, then punishing them for it, is probably not something they teach at Michigan’s Ross School of Business. …
But if the athletic director didn’t ask the students what they thought about the new policy, or why they arrive late or not at all, I have a few hunches. Because tickets are so expensive now, and games take so long, the current students didn’t go when they were kids – which is when you get hooked on watching the band flying out of the tunnel and the players touching the banner. No matter how tired or hungover we were in college, we wouldn’t think of missing those moments.
Of course, our habit formed because we knew the game was going to start at 1:05, every Saturday, for years. Now it could be noon, or 3:30, or 8 – and sometimes they don’t tell you when until a couple weeks before the game.
Why? TV, of course. Which is to say, money.
Back then, we also knew Michigan would be playing a solid opponent – every game. In Bo Schembechler’s 21 seasons, they played 77 games against non-Big Ten teams. How many were not from major conferences? Exactly ten.…
When the students can show up for Michigan State, though…
I'm not sure exactly what the problem is, but Bacon is right that the product has lost some of its luster. An annoyingly loud ad is an an annoying loud ad even if it's for renting Michigan Stadium or field hockey; prices are higher; times are random.
It's over. It does not matter that MSU might have a slightly easier schedule than Michigan in the crossover games unless they can beat M and OSU in any given year, but here's a hilarious statement from Mark Hollis:
“You’re gonna have MSU playing frequently in Chicago (against Northwestern),” Spartans athletic director Mark Hollis said this week on “The Drive with Jack” radio show on WVFN 730-AM in Lansing. “Minneapolis is another market that’s important to us. We put all those out there and Jim listened to us."
I wonder why that might be.
Yes please. If Zak Irvin ends up an upgrade over Tim Hardaway it'll be with defense and rebounding—they have similar offensive games. Irvin seems more inclined than Hardaway to be an impact player on the other end of the floor:
He'll fight for minutes with Stauskas, Robinson and sophomore Caris LeVert -- and he'll do it from day one. But, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
"That's a good thing," he said. "Going against each other every day in practice is going to make us that much better. Defense is definitely going to be the difference-maker, though.
"Those of us who can play defense will be on the floor, especially at the end of games."
Coaches love to hear that.
"I'll play where they put me," he added.
He says his best spot is shooting guard, but he'll probably be a SF/PF at M. Not that there's much distinction in the offense.
Of course. Via WTKA's Ira Weintraub, Sirius is allowing you a chance to head out on the road with… POP EVILLLLL. And what better place to take in the second greatest-evil ever allowed into Michigan Stadium than the home of the first?
One winner and a guest will fly to Grand Rapids for a Pop Evil concert at the Orbit Room on May 17th where they will meet the band, then join them on the tour bus that night, heading to Rock on the Range in Columbus, Ohio for Rock on the Range on May 18th and 19th where they will have the chance to get on stage and intro the band! The prize also includes two nights’ stay in Columbus, OH and airfare home.
If you enter and win this, I will give you every MGoPoint that will fit in a 64-bit integer if you intro them as the worst thing to ever happen to Michigan football. This will get a great cheer from the crowd, and may not even be interpreted as an insult by the band.
Huh. Ace points out that in Football Study Hall's F+ rankings of the last few years of the Big Ten, Michigan's 2010 and 2011 offenses are in a dead heat near the top of the rankings:
![IhkVD3NlpZSqH725ssG4-v07d3X-1QJopEs1lkvM2y9FOoJR7g7fZUchP38mEDXvJ6KoSOUVoWeIfPtEOa6eijOnbv6ipn1J9jsNQ07QQ8k9Fu7ByMkosPNT[1]](https://mgoblog.com/sites/mgoblog.com/files/images/b3b1ef6c1cea_A4F2/IhkVD3NlpZSqH725ssG4-v07d3X-1QJopEs1lkvM2y9FOoJR7g7fZUchP38mEDXvJ6KoSOUVoWeIfPtEOa6eijOnbv6ipn1J.png "IhkVD3NlpZSqH725ssG4-v07d3X-1QJopEs1lkvM2y9FOoJR7g7fZUchP38mEDXvJ6KoSOUVoWeIfPtEOa6eijOnbv6ipn1J9jsNQ07QQ8k9Fu7ByMkosPNT[1]")
Let the debates about whether Al Borges and Denard Robinson were a good fit rage in perpetuity. The 2011 crew made their hay with a ruthless devastation of OSU and the UTL fluketasm; they were maddeningly erratic, what with the trash tornado game and Iowa under center debacle. The previous year was fairly consistent until the grim end to the season, but never put the spurs to anyone of consequence.
Other notables: it will not surprise you to see the 2008 offense and 2010 defense on the awful lists; Michigan is in fact the only non-Minnesota/Indiana/Northwestern program to feature. Meanwhile, the two year-turnaround from the second-worst offense in the sample to the 4th-best is kind of amazing. Michigan has been the second-best offense in the league the past four years, but (surprise!) lags on defense.
Etc.: Denard is going to ditch Jags minicamp to come back and graduate. Stephen Ross called Jordan Kovacs personally when the Dolphins signed him. The SEC is chattering about nine conference games now. Also they're going to start picking which teams go to which bowls instead of vice versa. Glockner on the ridiculousness of the Lance Thomas thing from every direction. Michigan is going to be huge at WR/TE. Emmert still under fire.
From Whitfield
I’m assuming, “Rolled thru the Chaos training!” means that Devin is really good at Hungry Hungry Hippos
a MUST have in the 2015 class. Along with Sedric Barefield and Luke Kinnard,GREAT class.
He may be small but he is one of the quickest player in the country and has that great first step that allows him to blow by defenders with ease.
for Michigan. His game is geared toward SG/SF than SF/PF because of his handles, shooting and ability to guard smaller and quicker players rather than a big, bruising PF. GRIII's game is more of a SF/PF hybrid than SG/SF that Irvin is.
Anyone know how the finances work for these "gurus" and how the NCAA chooses to look at them? I have a lot of questions. I'm sure this guy charges money for his services. This seems like a murky area. Does he not charge top flight guys hoping for a payback in the future? If he charges different rates based on who you are it seems like a violation. Is Michigan footing the bill like the Seals training?
The best part about all of this is he has a top flight coach willing to work with him located 500yds from his dorm room but he's not allowed to see him for 4 months, but he's allowed to go and pay a guy to teach him the same thing. Good work NCAA. Let's force the guys with no money to pay for training they could get for free. In the mean time the guy getting top dollar from the school and who should be working with his guy sits at home getting paid to play Pigeon Drive the Bus with his daughter in the offseason.
I had the same questions. I don't see any way that this shouldn't be in violation of rules unless he is paying for it, at which point, WTF NCAA???
Come on, man. The 2010 offense doesnt count, havent you larned dat by now
Much of Bacon's argument that the students aren't showing because the product has gotten worse doesn't make a lot of sense.
I don't agree that in Bo's day being in the Big Ten qualified a team as a "solid opponent" or that not being from a "major conference" automatically qualifies a team as a boring opponent in the present time. The conference was called the Big 2 and the Little 8 afterall. If we're going by "chance of winning", the Big Ten doormats weren't any better than the MAC now while today's Big Ten doormats have improved. Games are equally , if not more, competitive these days because of the roster limits.
This is to say nothing of the fact that attendence is late in most games, not just the crappy OOC games.
Everyone has their beefs and as opinions are legitimate but ventriloquizing the tardy students with your issues is not necessarily fair or accurate.
(I edited out a paragraph so that I could keep the focus of my ire squarely on John U. Bacon rather than let it spill over onto less egregious parties.)
Great point. Michigan used to beat teams comprising the bottom of the conference by scores like 61-7 and 63-7, and non-conference schools by 56-0 and 46-0. These are all real scores from the 1971 season. The non-conference scores were against Virgina and Navy.
The issue isn't the product on the field, but how much the students care about the team. There are so many other things to get kids attention these days that football will never be as important to the majority of the students (if you're reading this, you're by default a hard core fan and not part of the majority).
Agree. I also don't care for his suggestion that you have to have gone to games as a kid to be able to appreciate our gameday traditions. That sounds like snobbery. Not all of us had the good fortune to grow up in Ann Arbor, as Bacon did.
But I can counter your anecdote with a couple of my own: I only went to a couple of games before I was a student, and I've always loved the pregame festivities. Meanwhile, I had a roommate freshman year who had gone to Pioneer HS and had gone to games his whole life. None of the pagentry mattered to him. For me, it was all new, so it was cool. For him, it was old hat.
I know that Bacon is in the crap on Brandon at any chance crowd, because, you know, but his reasoning is full of holes.
As pointed out, the vast majority of people who go to the games didn't go to them as kids. The amount of "ticket owning alumni close enough to Ann Arbor with kids" is rather a small part of it. And many of us fell in love with the tradition having never gone as a kid.
I'm glad he remembers when all the games started at the same time. I don't think he's THAT much older than me, but I don't really remember it. 3:30 games have been going on a long time. It's hardly an excuse for today's students. (And who wants a night game MORE than the students? Certainly not tradition can't see in the dark blue hairs).
The solid opponent thing is complete bunk. With the scholarship limits being much higher Michigan and Ohio State type programs stockpiled the talent, and teams like Northwestern were MAC teams. Now a lot of those squads are pretty good. And out of conference, yes, we played less small schools...but look at the "big program schools" we played....a lot of Washington State, Maryland, and other bottoms of the conference barrel, back when they were really bad, and would take a one off game. We usually had one really good team, one so-so team that was a good warmup, and one cupcake. Biggest difference? A fourth OOC game. But it's not just those games people aren't showing up to. And that game is going away under a 9 game conference schedule anyway.
Sure, every game on tv matters. But look at what team has been on tv the most of any school. It's been a long time since most of the games haven't been on tv. So it's not a sudden shift for Michigan. It'd be a better excuse on why fans aren't showing up at Purdue. (Other than the obvious reason).
the worst and best rankings use the same order (rather than putting worst at the top and 10th-worst at the bottom).
The second-worst offense is a Gary Nord offense, which comes as no surprise to anyone, period.
BB players - notably Looney and Zimmerman. It sounds like the coaches are doing an outstanding job with those 2 guys so far.
What happens if we go all "Texas A & M" and each of us registers Brian Cook for that Pop Evil contest 1,000,000 times? Putting Brian on stage with Pop Evil in Columbus, Ohio could be the best thing ever. Or, it could actualy trigger the apocolypse. I say its worth it.
Paying athletes is almost an accepted practice by the NCAA.
Just make sure the athlete and booster keep quiet, and we'll leave you alone.
They couldn't even discipline Auburn over Cam Netwon.
is another important MSU market.....
I love that "#winteriscoming" is in that pic.
Is it signed, unsigned, or two's complement?
Gotta love that they're having Devin Gardner fight Hoy Quarlow in the first couple pics.
I think Bacon has a point that kids don't grow up caring about Michigan (or college football) the way they once did even if his argument about opponent quality has obvious holes due to the increased competitiveness of the Big Ten.
When I was growing up in the 70s and 80s virtually every kid (okay "every kid" meaning boys who were into sports) had a college sports team that they cared about -- whether it was Michigan, MSU or even Notre Dame. I feel like now that kids have a lot more multimedia sports entertainment options, and those same kids are more scheduled these days so they may not have as much time on Saturdays to watch or listen to games. I'm always amazed when I hear a friend say that they missed the MSU or OSU game because their kid had a soccer game that afternoon. In my day (I know I sound old) a lot of kids' leagues would avoid those sacred hours and/or some parents and their kids would skip to watch the Michigan game -- for better or worse that's no more.
Great to see Denard will walk! Congratulations!
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