Did Lloyd Really Leave the Cupboard Bare?

Not sure if this bait or legit but I'll play. Different skill sets are maximized in different schemes and philosophies. Mallet is a very good pocket passer. His limited mobility and poor attitude didn't make him the best fit for the spread option and Michigan. Do the names Mike Shaw, Mike Cox, or Vincent Smith mean anything to you? You acknowledge that you realize that we have so many talent issues on defense that we have walk ons with meaningful playing time -- but that's not "bare" enough for you? Lloyd's recruiting slacked off the last two years, Leave him alone, and let's move forward.

This issue is dead. Lloyd didn't leave the cupboard bare and RR doesn't have much talent to work with. Rare firestorm of events came together at 1time to screw Michigan Rich is digging himself out quite well, end of story. 1 last recap for you. Possible returning players that coulda helped bridge the transition. QB-Mallett..probably leaving regardless..homesick. WR-Manningham-pros WR-Arrington-pros WR-Bass Injury OL-Boren-dick OL Mitchell-lazy OL-Zirbel-Injury S-Chambers-left CB-Boo Boo-hasn't lived up to hype yet. + others Team looks a lot better the last couple years if these guys pan out Have you noticed Craig Roh strating on the DL as a true frosh??

whose posts sound very similar to this. I'm not saying this person is a troll, or that troll. But. Apparent support but the questionable topics spun in a negative light is the MO of that troll. The troll had, I thought, been contained to MLive. Possibly not. My $.02 is that, absolutely, after the graduations, early draft entries, and bailing on the team after the change of culture, the cupboard was very bare. Little to no personnel with significant playing time and the ones who were left were the lower ranked recruits to start with. Compound this with the fact that S&T/conditioning was quite poor under Lloyd at the end caused RR to be working out of a huge hole. And you're going to throw RR under the bus for having ONE decent but not outstanding recruiting class? After a 9-3 season? Begeezus. Grow up.

Offensively, I could see the potential. Mallet has performed well at Arkansas and Minor/Brown are both being used in the current system. The O-Line is okay and I actually like the depth. WR is pretty solidified. The additions for the spread were the QB and the slot, but other than that, there is decent talent on offense and they would have been functional under a traditional offense. Defensively, however, there are far too many holes. The safety position is a disaster. The D-Line lacks depth. There have been several busts as well. There were too many "tweeners" who should have been a position below where they were (S instead of CB, LB instead of S). The lack of athletes on defense is the reason why even now (when they practice against the spread everyday), the defense still can't stop spreads, or anything for that matter other than smashmouth offenses.

I would think an equal spread of talent out amongst all classes. By that bar this is a much skewed team for whatever reason. Defining "Normal" is worthy of a diary (the data is out there). I would be interested to see if senior talent corresponds to Wins directly. I think we would see there are still elites who stable talent year in and out (LSU - Florida), and top talent that goes NFL early throwing off any direct correlation (USC). Hopefully Mich will get there (Hawthorne is a really interesting case - he has undersized physical presence - but freakish talent like Graham (who is incredibly quick for his size.)) If we can get this sort of talent and allow them to RS and build while Jrs and Srs lead - without expecting too much from true and RS underclassmen then we can historically compare this team to others. I think we were spoiled when Bo came in and was so successful. That was a different time and coach but his legacy is unreal expectations that have haunted every Mich coach since.

No one to replace Brown or Minor? Go back and look at their freshman performances. Then take a look at Mike Shaw's and Vincent Smith's. No one to replace Graham? Go back and look at Graham as a freshman - he played DT because he was too fat and he didn't put up many numbers. Now look at Craig Roh (2 or 3 sacks), who's starting as a freshman, unlike Graham. No big, hard driving back? Have you watched the EMU and DSU games this year where Mike Cox runs through at least one tackle every time he touches the ball? No similar talent showing up? Forcier was getting Heisman talk earlier in the year. Some people think Denard Robinson is better than Forcier (although I obviously disagree). Justin Turner was almost a 5-star talent who would probably be playing right now if he had qualified right off the bat. The offensive line is full of upperclassmen, so you can't judge how good those freshman and redshirt freshmen are. In other words...not only are you wrong, but you're being impatient.

I don't know that it's fair to say that the cupboard was left bare, but I think that for the a lot of the big recruits of the Carr era are not playing now (due to injury, transfer, etc), and a lot of the guys stepping into those rolls may not have gotten time if those guys had not left. Add to that the coaching philosophy change and you have the situation we are in. I think as many said above, it's way to early to evaluate the recruits from the 2008/9 classes for their abilities/future playing on Saturdays. That's my opinion anyway. That said, there's a lot of guys in those classes who are contributing and are playing exceptionally well (especially WRs). I think that this season has gone better than most expected and it's because the coaches are getting more of what they want out of the players this year as opposed to last year. Add to that the fact that the defense is making tackles and you're seeing a ton of improvement from both Carr recruits and RR recruits. Moreover, guys who are young now will really benefit from getting early playing time in the future. Lastly, you haven't seen some of the younger guys in key positions (say RB) because the older guys are better at this point. Shaw is going to be a really great back at Michigan, maybe as good as any to come before him. Who knows about the other guys, but they're fast, versatile and elusive, so I think that we'll see great things from them. On D, I share your wishes that we get top guys at every position, but it's not like RR isn't going after top guys, he just isn't always getting them yet. It's not like he can throw an offer out and they'll always commit. He's competing against some really great options for players and quite frankly, for now it's much more attractive to go to Florida or USC than Michigan because they're the hot schools. It's cyclical though and we will be the hot school in a couple of years for recruits. Top recruits will come to Michigan in larger numbers when that happens, and we will dominate on both sides of the ball. FWIW, I think that it's pretty clear that just dominating on offense will probably win us the big ten in many years, as long as the defense is just adequate.

Our issues last year were due to a perfect storm of problems. One was that Carr's last couple of classes didn't live up to their hype, but there were others, including: 1) the introduction of a totally new coaching staff (aside from Jackson); 2) the introduction of a totally new offensive system; 3) the typical offseason attrition that comes with a coaching change; 4) the failure of some upperclassmen to buy into the new system; and 5) an usually high injury toll. That last one, in particular, gets overlooked by a lot of people. If we could have simply had Threet and Minor make it through the season (or Brown in Minor's place), I think we could have made it to a bowl.