Tyree Kinnel DB MVP at Rivals Camp Columbus
A glimmer of happy news for all of you down in the dumps lately. Nice job Tyree. He does look itty bitty next to Sterling, though.
Congrats to Columbus #RivalsCamp DB MVP Tyree Kinnel (@Tkinnel_2) #HEDID pic.twitter.com/Ie954fOwhH
— Rivals Camp Series (@RivalsCamp) April 26, 2014
I was at the Rivals Camp and he came decked out from head to toe in his Michigan gear. I believe Damien Harris was there also. Our DB's are going to be good for awhile and he's one of them. Go Blue
I believe Damien Harris was at Kentucky's spring game today.
Probably so, I was looking but didn't see him but there were alot of Kentucky High School players there. The Kirkland young man LB out of Indianapolis is a beast.
as an "M Commit" on they rivals tweet, but I'm sure this was just a weak tweet.
April 27th, 2014 at 10:01 PM ^
Maybe he's just really devoted to that particular episode of "Sesame Street."
Kinnel is listed at 5-11, while Jenkins is 6-8.
I still remember Brian's "Rows of Teeth" column after the Central Michigan game. Back when the future looked bright and happy...
Thank you! We're gonna need so much Crow around here come fall.
from someone 28 days old.
Jimbo Fisher has gone 10-4, 9-4, 12-2, and 14-0 in his four years there. Every year he's won a bowl game and finished ranked in the top #25. He's won the ACC twice and went to the conference title game another time as well.
How exactly does that resemble a "tire fire" at any point?
Shhhhhh, I don't want to live in reality right now.
April 26th, 2014 at 10:25 PM ^
He was the first QB taken in the draft.
April 27th, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
but when trying to muster optimism makes someone ignore reality it damages credibility somewhat. I mean, you call FSU a tire fire, pass off EJ Manual as some scrub when is was the first qb taken in the draft and ignore FSU's record entirely under the current coach.
I think there are plenty of reasons to be optimistic about this team, but I don't find any of them in your post.
Yeah. Man, those true freshmen and RS freshmen on the OL really had terrible college careers.
April 26th, 2014 at 11:44 PM ^
In Jim Harbaugh's third year at Stanford, David DeCastro and Jonathan Martin were both honorable mention all-conference selections as redshirt freshmen, on a team that ran the ball tremendously well.
People expect the Michigan head coach to recruit and develop players like other elite coaches do. Or at least like the guy he replaced (Was any young guy on this year's line as good as Taylor Lewan was as a RS freshman?). If we aren't as good in year 4 as Dantonio, Harbaugh, and others have been at lesser jobs with less immediate success, then what is the point of continuing down the blame-game road?
Excuses are fine for last year. There aren't any for next year.
April 26th, 2014 at 10:36 PM ^
Jake Long was 2nd team all conference as a RS freshman. David Baas was 1st team all-conference as a RS sophomore (didn't play in year two). I would have more Michigan-centric examples if Lloyd Carr had recruited more really good linemen, but rest assured good players everywhere are good after just a year or two of seasoning.
The guys who are really good are really good in year 2 and 3. If you think some of our guys are going to be that good, great. I didn't see anything to make me believe that last year or in the spring.
I hope I'm proven wrong. But if the offensive line sucks for a third year in a row (and we had plenty of upperclassmen in 2012, don't forget) then I'm not going to buy the "Brady Hoke is building a great team because Kyle Kalis had stars next to his name" line of reasoning.
April 27th, 2014 at 11:35 AM ^
The 2011 team that won a BCS bowl had Lewan (2-time B1G lineman of the year), Molk (Rimington winner), Omameh (1st team all-B1G and on an NFL roster), and Schofield (projected 4th-5th round pick. The '97 team had Jansen, Hutchinson, and Backus (all long time NFL starters). Two of those guys were on the Orange Bowl winning team in 1999. The 1969 team had Dan Dierdorf and Reggie McKenzie.
Great Michigan teams have had multiple great players on the offensive line. If we have some of those guys on the current roster, then great. But if we don't we aren't going to be an elite team/program in the near future.
I don't know if what you're doing is intentional or not, but you refuse to discuss my point which is that Lewan, Backus, Hutchinson, Williams, McKenzie, and Dierdorf are not the norm. They are program legends.
Having multiple legends on one line is amazing, and the teams that have that luxury are elite. You named 4 squadsout of 134 that have played here, which proves my point! It is not normal.
I have no idea if any of our guys will be legends akin to Dierdorf and Hutchinson. I suspect they won't, and the reason is because there are so few Dierdorfs and Hutchinsons in the world. Hutchinson is probably the best lineman I've ever watched, at any level. Do I see that in Kalis? No. But can Kalis become a Matt Lentz? Sure. And that is plenty good enough to win a lot of games, as Lentz has 2 B1G championship rings.
In short, I feel like you are blaming Brady Hoke for not having recruited a Steve Hutchinson in his 3 recruiting classes, which is silly. Michigan, all 134 of its recruiting classes, has only had one Steve Hutchinson, the greatest guard to ever take the field. I agree with you on everything else you've posted, but I don't think we should expect freshmen to play like legends. I don't think that is very controversial or hard to follow.
is that I cannot upvote this more times.
Purple, many here subscribe to the notion that Borges had so many different formations and sets from game to game that it made it extremely difficult for the OL to master anything. Do you think this wasn't really much of a factor in the OL performance?
A pet peeve of mine is seeing people cherry-pick a couple of outlier guys who did something well and then saying, "See, it's been done, so there's no excuse for Michigan not doing this well." Guys like DeCastro and Martin are clear exceptions, not the norm. Last year's AP All-American first team OL had four seniors and a junior. In 2012, it was three seniors and two juniors. In 2011, it was four seniors and a junior. In 2010, it was five seniors. In 2009, it was five seniors. If I did that right, that's 21 seniors, 4 juniors, 0 sophomores, and 0 freshmen over the past five years.
Except in extreme cases, young linemen take time to grow and develop. I'm not at all sold on Funk, but to say that we should "expect" our coaches to do everything as well as that thing has ever been done before is a little ridiculous.
I think the larger point than picking out any player is there is little excuse for UM to have a line that struggles with Akron and UConn. Sorry there just isn't - those are "2 star" caliber talent they bring out. UCLA had 3 freshman on their starting OL last year and there is not fanwide angst about the ability to move the LOS one inch forward 3 years running. This line had 2 NFL tackles and a 5 star at guard, and a decent center once Glasgow moved over so in theory it had one major hole (the other guard). Sparty threw out a 0 star RT in the same class as Kalis (2012) and he gave up 0 sacks last year per his coach. He played on the edge against DEs who have a much better chance to get a sack than a DT who faces Kalis. So was that yet another "exception"? Yes I get that interior getting sandblasted by OSU or MSU. But the inablity to look functional versus teams who frankly suck is very troubling.
No one is asking this OL to be ALL world or ALL Big 10 but be a competent functioning group that doesn't make Purdue look like an upgrade. We can all find exceptions to the rule- but asking for competence is not an exception to a rule.
And yes it is tiring to have these same conversations thread after thread. Either this team passes the eye test next year or it doesn't.
April 26th, 2014 at 10:10 PM ^
I agree with you. In fact, if it were up to me, Funk wouldn't be here in 2014. But you're saying something much more reasonable than (1) youth is no excuse because two Stanford guys were honorable mention Pac-10 all-conference selections a half-decade ago and (2) Hoke should be recruiting and developing offensive linemen as well as Rich Rodriguez did while he was here.
April 26th, 2014 at 10:42 PM ^
You're listing guys who are first team AP All-Americans (in the year they are named as first team AP all-Americans), and I am "cherry-picking outliers"?
Good teams across the country have young offensive linemen who win accolades and play well. Not getting blown back while 40% of the line is doing its job fantastically well isn't too much to ask.
Either way, last year doesn't matter. Do you honestly think next year's line is going to be really good and that Michigan is going to win 10+ games? If so, great. If not, explain to me why you still want a coach at Michigan who is demonstrably worse than guys like Harbaugh, Meyer, Mark Dantonio and every other elite coach in the country.
April 27th, 2014 at 12:51 AM ^
My instincts say "don't engage, this isn't going anywhere" but I'll try anyway.
I have no idea what data would be meaningful to you in showing that experience is valuable for offensive linemen, so I won't try with that again. If your indicators for that kind of thing are sane, you'd see that experienced O-linemen are much better than inexperienced O-linemen, all else equal. And yes, I think that pulling up the Pac-10 all-conference honorable mention list from five years ago is arbitrary. In fact, do you know who the first-team Pac-10 offensive linemen were that year (2009)? Five seniors.
You've made a lot of other points that I find completely wrong over these last few posts. A few of them:
- Taylor Lewan looked like a very talented, horribly coached, undisciplined mess in his RS freshman year. He developed into a first team AP All-American in his RS junior year and clearly was a much better player in his last three years here than his first one. I have no idea where you're getting this idea that Rodriguez was a great recruiter and developer of offensive line talent (though I do think he's a great offensive mind). I wish he had been, because damn it'd be nice to have some upperclassmen on our O-line right about now.
- Sorry, but Mark Dantonio isn't a "demonstrably better" coach than Brady Hoke. It's too early to tell. Hoke had a really shitty 2013, no doubt (and a remarkably good 2011, no doubt). Hoke's pre-Michigan history was at least as impressive than Dantonio's pre-MSU history - I'd say more impressive - and Hoke has a better record in his first three seasons at Michigan than Dantonio did at MSU. If you can look past last season, you'll see that it's not yet clear who is the better coach between them.
- I do agree that Meyer and Harbaugh are better coaches. Then again, Meyer might be the best college football coach on earth and Harbaugh might be the best professional football coach on earth. Those types of coaches aren't exactly easy to get.
At this point, I think you can say that Dantonio is a better coach than Hoke. He develops players of lesser stature coming out of HS, has been to two B1G Championship games-winning one and has won at the Rose Bowl with a first year starting QB and a line that was rebuilt. He is 2-1 against Hoke at Michigan and there is a strong likelyhood that he may go 3-1 vs. Hoke. I am tired of the excuses for this staff, it's time to put up or shut up.
I also love the excuses for Michigan Football on every front. All American linemen are hard to get. Meyer and Harbaugh type coaches are hard to get. We seem to be willing to settle for coaches with Michigan backgrounds and unproven records rather than pursuing the best available. Once those choices start to falter, those who supported the decision can't seem to let go.
I am no longer interested in how they brought back integrity to the program, etc. They are paid quite a bit of money to win games. This is Hoke's 4th season as head coach and if you don't see improvment, the problem is with the coach-whether it's his ability to evaluate talent or develop talent it is still on him.
The one thing that can save Hoke in my mind is the defense and Mattison. If they play an aggressive style like MSU and more man coverage, they have a shot at being a top 10 unit. A great defense can hide a lot of ills and will allow the offense to mature.
I don't think you can sit there and tell me there's a strong likelihood that MSU will beat UM this year. First and foremost, they lost the heart and soul of that defense as well as the guys calling the checks etc. A lot of what they do on defense was based on the fact that they could blitz at will because they could put the best CB in the country on whoever and get 5+ seconds of hip pocket coverage.
Secondly, I think people underestimate the impact of the departure of Bullough, Allen and Lewis. Those dudes started what seemed like every single game from their freshman year on, and regardless of what talent comes in behind them the seniors calling the DL checks etc won't be the same. I seem to recall reading somewhere that Bullough was given leeway by Narduzzi to call his own checks etc.
Finally, they also replace 3 OL starters. Yes their guys are more expereincd but hey. I wil wait for a game first
April 26th, 2014 at 10:51 PM ^
Don't get your hopes up. 2014 failed a drug test and was suspended for an entire year. 2013 has come out of retirement to take its place.
April 27th, 2014 at 11:16 AM ^
I assumed people would recognize it, but perhaps nerves are a bit too frayed.
Darrin Kirkland, who has an M offer and has visited (more than once, I believe), wins LB MVP