August 29th, 2018 at 12:29 PM ^
Beat Notre Dame
August 29th, 2018 at 12:30 PM ^
Sigh...
August 29th, 2018 at 12:31 PM ^
best of luck to AJ.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
We wanted him as a LB not a fullback. Seeing him succeed definitely brings up what if scenarios, but I think even he would have struggled with our O-line.
Hopefully Charbonnet will make up for this miss and by the time he is ready to go our O-line is also ready to smash and open up giant holes for him.
August 29th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
I think that kid is a stud! Our O-Line was about average last year, and that would of been good enough for Dillon. Going into this year he may be one of the top backs in CFB.
August 29th, 2018 at 8:55 PM ^
I don't even think that's true either. My impression was that we wouldn't promise that he would stay at RB. IMO Harbaugh would never make a promise like that since he loves trying players at different positions, seems like. But I might be wrong and they explicitly wanted him to switch before he got here (doubt it).
August 29th, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
too soon
August 29th, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
No he's not.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:34 PM ^
Well if he was, he's not anymore
August 29th, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
"Bleacher Report thinks so"
See, that's your problem.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:38 PM ^
Consider the Source.
Go Blue, Beat nd
August 29th, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
I only spell players' names right who play for michigan.*
*EXCEPTIONS: ruddock, woolfork, bielien etc
August 29th, 2018 at 12:41 PM ^
TL;DR, but It doesn't look like they made a single mention about him commiting and decommitting from UM.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:42 PM ^
Considering how productive O’Maury Samuels has been, it was definitely the right move to let Dillon go to BC
August 29th, 2018 at 12:46 PM ^
It wasn't a hostage situation, he was free to pick any college that offered him a scholarship.
August 29th, 2018 at 10:39 PM ^
Dillon decommitted when we told him that he would be moved to LB. It's all water under the bridge at this point, but I liked his athleticism for a big back. Everyone remembers that O'Maury had outrageous SPARQ scores, but I believe Dillon's were elite as well.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:26 PM ^
Samuels may or may not pan out, but he's an athletic freak and he still seems like a good guy to take a chance on.
The better comparison is probably Kurt Taylor, who's buried and completely unmentioned (so much so that people seem to forget he was in the class when talking about Dillon vs. Samuels)...
August 29th, 2018 at 3:52 PM ^
It’s not like we chose those guys over Dillon. He decommitted because the staff was fawning over Najee Harris and he realized he wasn’t a priority at Michigan. He wanted to go somewhere where he would be the man and also play closer to home. Can’t really blame him, but this was obviously a huge miss by the staff in hindsight.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:47 PM ^
We still have Higdon and Evans, right?
August 29th, 2018 at 12:47 PM ^
When can we downvote posts again?
August 29th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
Maybe once people start posting again.
It's like a ghost town up in here. Fuck happened while I was gone?
August 29th, 2018 at 1:12 PM ^
I can't speak for everyone, but I was busy strangling migrant workers in the shower.
August 29th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
you too huh? been a busy few months .....
August 29th, 2018 at 1:17 PM ^
MGoBlog 3.0 and indifference (at best) to football by Brian are a couple of the reasons that come to mind.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:52 PM ^
Yeah I'm not particularly fond of the redesign. It looks fine, but things are broken that worked before.
And I don't understand emo Brian. After the RR and Hoke years, an 8-5 season breaks him? Doesn't make any sense.
August 29th, 2018 at 3:40 PM ^
I think it's 8-5 plus having kid(s).
August 29th, 2018 at 3:54 PM ^
I’m sure this has been answered somewhere before, but how come my points never change since the site redesign and I can now no longer up vote or down vote?
August 29th, 2018 at 4:12 PM ^
Well, the points are a Cloudflare thing - resolution unknown.
I would love the upvote / downvote feature back on threads. Now I actually have to read them to figure out what needs to go.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:19 PM ^
So how was rehab?
August 29th, 2018 at 1:45 PM ^
Awful. No mini-bar.
Never doing that again.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:52 PM ^
He's very talented and it sucks that Michigan passed, but he also averaged only about 5 ypc on his 300(!) carries. Karan Higdon, a perfectly fine RB last year but not someone who consistently blew your socks off, ran for 6 yards per carry. Dillon's numbers don't look demonstrably different than those of freshman Justin Jackson from NW, and while he set some rushing records I doubt anyone will remember him as one of the best RBs in college.
Dillon is the complete offense for BC, which is good and bad for him but shouldn't lead anyone to believe he's some unstoppable force because he beat the crap out of Louisville, the country's 94th-rated run defense last year.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:53 PM ^
You are underrating Dillon. Mike Hart was a career 5.0 runner here and he is one of the best RB we've ever had. Ty Isaac had a 6.2 ypc last year but he was not as good as Higdon despite a higher ypc. And if you want to talk about how Dillon thrashed Louisville you should mention its very similar to Higdon's best games coming against Indiana, Rutgers, and Minn. Dillon had no fewer than 149 rushing yards in each of his last 5 games against some decent defenses as well. Dillon is the real deal. Better than Jackson but not as good as Fournette.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:57 PM ^
I think your post is really more of an indictment of UM and their inability to modernize their offense and run game. You are correct that Mike Hart was a career 5.0 runner. He is probably one of the 'best' although as a pure ball carrier, career 5.0 with no deep speed does not speak well for your offense.
August 29th, 2018 at 2:49 PM ^
I said Dillon is very good, but I was taking to task the premise of the article that he was as good as Fournette. And I do take issue with the statement that he put up good numbers against "decent" defenses. Here are his rushing totals with S&P defense rankings included (I can't insert a table, so here's a screenshot):
So in his last 5 games he faced, on average, the 65th-best rush defense, and basically did exactly as you expected. Earlier in the year he struggled against better defenses while sharing snaps. He got better and did so against competent P5 defenses, but just eyeballing Jackson's stats he faced 4 top-30 rush defenses, including 2 top-10 units, and generally performed about the same.
August 29th, 2018 at 3:14 PM ^
Man, some of those carries per game numbers are insane in this day and age. 4 games of 30+ carries? He averaged just over 30 carries/game for the last 7 games. Outside of the obvious Justin Jackson reference, who else even gets that many carries on a P5 team?
August 29th, 2018 at 4:25 PM ^
Yeah, it's a very throwback offensive scheme, which makes sense if you don't really have any other major weapons (they had the 95th best passing offense and a QB who barely completed 50% of his passes).
What will shock you is Jonathan Taylor at Wisconsin had 299 carries last year. Yes, he had an extra game and there were a bit more spread out, but he had some crazy games too (30 carries against Purdue, 29 back-to-back against IU and Iowa). If you told me that Taylor will blow out an ACL this year after his 200th carry in week 6 I wouldn't be blown away.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:07 PM ^
Well if Bleacher Report thinks so then it must be true!
Bleacher Report = chatsports
August 29th, 2018 at 1:08 PM ^
Fournette is considerably faster than Dillon, but AJ does remind me a little bit of his cousin, Corey (alright, I don’t know if they’re cousins, but they should be).
August 29th, 2018 at 1:15 PM ^
57yds vs Clemson (3.2 avg)
58 yds vs Notre Dame (3.6 avg)
35yds vs Virginia Tech (3.5 avg)
89yds vs Virginia (3.7 avg)
43 yds vs Wake Forest (2.9 avg)
I'd say he's the next Barry Sanders.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:16 PM ^
Well if Bleacher Report thinks so...
August 29th, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
The hype train on AJ needs to slow down. He's good no question, but BC wasn't playing the greatest competition either.
Louisville (94) and UCONN (108) were awful in run defense (S&P+ rankings). While Syracuse was meh (61) and FlaSt and NC State were good (26 and 44).
Basically he's good, but we need more than just a small sample size. Football just needs to get started so these fluff pieces stop.
(Still, it would be nice if he were on the roster)
August 29th, 2018 at 1:34 PM ^
Fournette averaged like 6.2 per carry for his college career. Dillion's freshman year is much more akin to Mike Hart. So good! But not elite by any means.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:38 PM ^
Maybe this thread sucks giant balls!!!
August 29th, 2018 at 1:49 PM ^
He would have redshirted last year if he came here. I don't know why everyone is so obsessed with him, he's not an OT.
August 29th, 2018 at 1:54 PM ^
Who cares? Best of luck at BC
Beat Notre Dame.
August 29th, 2018 at 2:36 PM ^
Steve Addazio is an OL guy and their line was/is all upperclassmen. Dillon is still a beast and best of luck to him.
August 29th, 2018 at 2:47 PM ^
I thought OT season was over...
Yeah AJ Dillon is really good. You know who else is really good? Chris Evans and Karan Higdon.
August 29th, 2018 at 2:54 PM ^
Is it a hot take to think Higdon is better? Dillon is good but not sure how he's gotten so much hype from the media.
August 29th, 2018 at 3:16 PM ^
So, if Lawrence Academy plays a weak schedule and has little to no coaching, why did AJ pick there to attend private school?
August 29th, 2018 at 3:19 PM ^
Living in Boston see the highlights all the time. He's a freaking beast!! 3 star because he was in NE, but would've been top 100 easy and 4* if playing anywhere else. In the discussion for ACC Player of the Year.