BTN at Michigan practice tweets are trickling out
There's interest in these every year. One of the things I lament about the new site is that it no longer posts full tweets, so we'll have to do with blockquotes:
Seems to be some interest in this fella pic.twitter.com/gm1D7Q1dFV
— Dave Revsine (@BTNDaveRevsine) August 13, 2018
Impressive young O Lineman -Jalen Mayfield pic.twitter.com/sij5U5c483
— Dave Revsine (@BTNDaveRevsine) August 13, 2018
Figures to give O Lineman some trouble this year. DL has a really good practice today. Such a physically impressive group pic.twitter.com/ToimtwNgDk
— Dave Revsine (@BTNDaveRevsine) August 13, 2018
Would be surprised if run game doesn’t improve this year. Good backs, and, more importantly, what looks to be a significantly better OLine pic.twitter.com/cXuIDsyNDV
— Dave Revsine (@BTNDaveRevsine) August 13, 2018
August 13th, 2018 at 9:19 PM ^
Yeah. Considering the almost complete lack of a passing attack in most games last year, the run blocking last year wasn't bad.
August 13th, 2018 at 9:16 PM ^
I saw Dinardo tweeted something about stairs and a ramp.
Dynamite drop in, Monte. That's why they pay you the big bucks.
August 13th, 2018 at 9:22 PM ^
The BIG crew says it’s about the Oline like it usually is. I don’t disagree, and criticism on the O line in general is accurate. However in he past it was more uniformly pass protection AND run blocking/ run plays for a loss.
The run game part of the Oline was actually decent last year. They point to the big games and not being able to run. Am i wrong for thinking that was more a function of teams knowing we couldn’t throw? It’s amazig to me our rushing stats were as good as they were given how one dimensional we were....
thoughts?
August 13th, 2018 at 9:58 PM ^
So if I were to take my best guess at cutting through the noise, I'm thinking:
1) Runyan and Mayfield are the tackles.
2) RG is up for contention. Possibly, even probably, the only spot up for contention now. Coaches want something better than last year's Onwenu. Could be this year's Onwenu is better, but that seems far from a given.
I'm pretty happy about this. It seems to be already better than last year's line, where we had no idea who would play RT until a few days before the Florida game, and Onwenu was considered solid. We seem to have upgraded so that now a presumably improved version of last year's "solid" may not be starting. This is the type of improvement we needed.
August 13th, 2018 at 11:27 PM ^
Runyan is looking more and more like the LT; that's where he was playing today, according to the BTN guys. RT seems to be wide open. I don't think there's any way Mayfield is the clear starter at this point. He might be genuinely in the mix, but the older guys will have every chance to step up.
I'm a bit bearish about Runyan at LT. Nothing against him--he may well be fine--but the talk after spring was that Runyan was locked into RT and they were hoping someone (ideally Hudson or JBB) would step up and take the LT spot, and it sounds like that hasn't happened. Maybe it's Runyan really levelling up, but it seems more likely that the other tackle options just aren't emerging.
Which might be why Mayfield has gotten a whisper or two.
It's not worth much. Remember Bredeson pushing Newsome at LT? Yeah. We'll know when the team plays.
August 14th, 2018 at 12:21 AM ^
True enough. We will see. I thought it was interesting that Mayfield was one of the few guys that Revsine posted video of. That was some elite company he put Mayfield in simply by association, but of course who knows if that means anything.
August 13th, 2018 at 10:03 PM ^
Glen mason is a dick bag...that is all
August 14th, 2018 at 6:36 AM ^
I just learned that he was a LB at Osu in 1969. That explains it all.
August 13th, 2018 at 10:21 PM ^
This btn show is so useless
August 13th, 2018 at 10:50 PM ^
In 2016 Dinardo was talking about MSU having more talent than Michigan and us ‘closing The gap’...we sent umpteen guys to the draft and MSU went 3-9
yea he’s pretty much guessing....
August 13th, 2018 at 10:26 PM ^
It's just practice.
August 13th, 2018 at 10:57 PM ^
There seems to be a quiet confidence with the coaching staff. Coach Pep, Coach Brown, and Coach Harbaugh all know that this is a talented team with the potential for tremendous success. But, as Coach Brown said, let's see them play a game. And, I think that once they play a game, their quiet confidence will be rewarded.
August 13th, 2018 at 10:58 PM ^
The btn bus guys just essentially said the oline was getting whipped by the d line the second they started running stunts or blitzes. And then nicely said there’s been progress and the makings of a better line because they have to say something nice. That’s not ideal.
August 13th, 2018 at 11:32 PM ^
It was Dinardo, and he said things were "breaking down a bit," a refreshing bit of honesty. The OL isn't quite there yet.
It's fair to be a bit discouraged by hearing that, but let's not exaggerate--most OLs will struggle when Michigan's D does that.
The nature of the BTN bus tour precludes drawing much conclusion from the analysts view of the practice. It's a lot of fluff with some facetime with athletes and coaches and some decent vanilla practice clips. Like the NFL preseason, you always expect more than it will actually offer.
The only practice clip that suggested anything was the drill the QBs were running taking shotgun snaps and passing instantly. A point of data pointing to an increased level of spread concepts, perhaps. Perhaps not.
August 13th, 2018 at 11:58 PM ^
Yeah but they’ll also never say anything truly negative. Breaking down a bit is a nice way to say getting whipped and missing reads.
They only have 2 weeks left until they have to go on the road against a probable top 10 defense. If they aren’t quite there yet they probably aren’t going to be in time for the Nd game.
August 13th, 2018 at 11:03 PM ^
Does anybody know what those small black boxes on the back of some of the helmets? Patterson and Evans both had them
August 13th, 2018 at 11:19 PM ^
GPS transponder I think. They were talking about analytics to see how much players were moving in practice to make sure they weren't over or under working players.
August 14th, 2018 at 7:06 AM ^
Thanks. I suspected that, but have never seen those before - only the standard compression type shirt (tank top?) with GPS chip that has become standard these days.
Only other thing I was thinking about was that it "might" be some sort of VR or video tech (if there happened to be a very small camera attached to the camera).
August 13th, 2018 at 11:23 PM ^
Who's the big guy in the non-contact jersey in the background during the early part of Harbaugh's interview? Onwenu?
August 14th, 2018 at 10:28 AM ^
Looked like Big Mike, but it was hard to tell for sure. That could explain Spans getting a lot of talk.
August 14th, 2018 at 9:29 AM ^
I hope the O-line updates are true....THIS TIME.
August 14th, 2018 at 10:24 AM ^
The Pep comments on the OL were interesting. He basically said the current LT depth chart was Runyan, JBB and Stueber. That then leaves JBB likely to just slide into RT as the next best guy or maybe Hudson passing him in camp? They are not putting Hudson at LT, he is just not experienced enough.
Typically, an OL coach has 7-9 guys he can count on. Sounds like that is shaking out to be:
- Center - Ruiz #1 / Spans #2
- Guard - Bredesen #1 / Onwenu #2 / Spans #3 / Filiaga #4
- Tackle - Runyan #1 / JBB #2 / Hudson #3 / Stueber #4
The top 9 lineman in rank order based on the totality of comments:
- Bredesen
- Ruiz
- Runyan
- Onwenu
- JBB
- Spans
- Hudson
- Filiaga
- Stueber
I still believe Mayfield will redshirt, but he will get in the full four games now allowed. He could be an OT starter next year.