Gregg Henson practice report
Screw it, I'm posting this. Gregg Henson had a few "insider tips" from how practice has been progressing so far. I don't want to quote the whole thing and swipe clicks that I feel he deserves, so I'm going to link to it here:
http://bighousenation.com/inside-michigans-spring-practice/
Well, there. The stuff is pretty good.
Control P
Does spicyweiner and Rescue_Dawn have the same guy in their profile pic?
Not the same dude.
You would know... zing!
copy pasta
Honestly, the QB report is not the least bit surprising. Next year could be interesting under center...
We still have a 2015 season and you're talking about 2016...
Who else was Hoke supposed to play? Morris? That was more an issue of recruiting than playing upperclassmen.
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I think he was talking about all positions not just QB, which I agree with.
I don't know, the criticism of Hoke is all over the place these days. I'm trying to remember which guys fans thought deserved more playing time. Drake Johnson comes to mind, and he lost time early in the season to younger guys. The same goes for Dennis Norfleet and would have gone for Desmond Morgan.
I'm not sure the "didn't give young guys a shot" criticism is fair. And it definitely wasn't responsible for Hoke's downfall. You could make a case for poor handling of the QBs or shitty assistant coaches or lack of attitude/edge, but it definitely wasn't the upperclassmen first thing.
Its used as a lazy, generic criticism..notice how it never has names/players associated with the criticism so then you cant refute it.
You bring up a very good point.
If hoke played too many upperclassmen, where does the argument about way too many burned redshirts come from?
We would all love to have redshirt years from thomas, morris, etc.
And who was passed over for a vet? Cole? Peppers? Canteen? Butt? Mone? Ross (i believe played as a true frosh)?
The worst burned redshirt i can think of besides thomas was stribling, who had everything but the ability to make the play as a freshman..
There are enough criticisms of hoke to go around a few times, but i dont think that favoring upperclassmen is one of them.
One more burned redshirt that I hate is Royce Jenkins Stone. I can't believe he's already a senior...
I'm guessing he was too. Using the QB position as an example doesn't help his argument, though.
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I have no idea how good he looked in practice last year, but maybe he would've fared better. He couldn't have done worse.
Either way, the options were limited considering Bellomy showed no progress in all his years here. At least some guys we could say regressed because we saw something good in their play at one time or another.
I read this earlier and immediately thought it looked familiar. Like, just posted on this board a few days ago familiar...anyone else?
old news.
Bingo. Looked like a straight up copy and past job from the insider post this weekend. EVERYTHING he just "reported" was here three days ago.
I don't remember the third bullet about JH being unhappy about conditioning and am waaay too lazy to go back and check. Was that part of the inside scoop?
You're right, and actually the word on here was that the coaches were happy with the conditioning. Seems that may have just been them saying the right things to the media.
Have we reached the point where, when there's a conflict between Henson's "insiders" and other "insiders", we automatically assume Henson's version is correct?
What? You mean to tell me that Gregg Henson's "insiders" might simply be copying-and-pasting information from other sites?!?
I kid (a bit), but yeah, nothing here is new. You could find-replace with Hoke and Harbaugh and the QBs and publish the same thing from last year.
He gets some slack from me. He was right about Harbaugh, he was early with it, and he stood behind it when everybody balsted him for it. He's not a total hack.
Exactly right M-Doggy. Guy had the JH story nailed from the beginning and stood behind his information throughout the process. Him being a punch line around here is a littile over the top imo.
I always take spring stuff with a grain of salt, but I like the part about practice tempo and who's impressing. Need playmakers at those spots. Disconcerting to hear about Morris, though.
I kind of thought with the coaching change the light would come on with Morris and perhaps it is still to come. Seems like not that long ago folks were counting down the days until he took over.
Morris was a guy that needed a strong QB coach coming out of HS to break some of his habits and refine his technique. Add in the fact he's now on this third OC since he's been here and it may be too late for him. Would be easy for an underclassmen to pass him on the depth chart.
Yeah, but nobody on here was saying that at the time.
I watched him a ton the summer before he enrolled and it very highly evident he needed a lot of work before he was going to be a college QB. That's why he dropped in a lot of rankings too. No one wanted to listen to it though because they had 5-stars in their eyes.
As I recall he dropped because he missed most of his senior season with mono...
The NFTC camps and The Opening were all before he had mono, and he had all of the same accuaracy and touch issues at those camps. I was at all of them and saw it first hand. He started to drop then. Getting mono didn't help, but he was recovered from that by the time he played and practiced at the Under Armour game, and had all of the same issues. Maybe he improves his senior year if he doesn't get mono, but from what we've seen so far, I kind of doubt it.
to ignore it. A story or two before he got here, not alarming. A couple people saying same things his freshmen year, a bit of a concern. Friend drives cab in A2. I mention Morris and first thing he says, "kids a drunk. i pick him up all the time wasted". Ok, this isn't coincidence. This is a problem!
I don't expect to ever see Sugar Shane starting at Michigan. Unfortunate.
This is much more interesting than reading about people with alcohol problems in another thread on the board.
Dave Brandon?
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or drop an ice cube in it?
You're the worst.
performing well so far. Not sure if that's due to the QB change, coaching change, just time, or a combination of all three.
That was four bullet points of pretty much nothing.
Not for me.
Nice to see that three of the four names making good initial impressions are WRs.
He was on WDFN today, here's the podcast.
Basically everything we've been hearing. Morris just seems broken by incompetent coaching, and who the heck knows what else.
Every year I hear about how practices are "X" and how that is different than "Y" last year. I think the hating on Hoke, especially now that he isn't here to defend himself, is becoming a bit excessive. I would not be surprised if practices were slower and less intense than other programs', but I remember hearing the same thing about RR and how Hoke's practices were much more "physical". So I'll take any discussions on that topic with a grain of salt.
I have yet to hear of a coach who comes into spring ball content with his team's conditioning.
Co-signed. I'm sure things are run better today but if you believe everything you hear now Hoke's practices were all juice box, orange slices and participation trophy tough.
Yup... here is an article about Hoke's focus on toughness from 2011
No that was Lloyd's regime at the end, and you forgot GrrAnimals...
Then people said RR was too mean and vulgar, and that plus his tempo drove players away...
Hoke re-introduced physicality, but the pace was too slow and the players lost the conditioning "edge"...
And now, like Goldilocks in the forest, we've found "just right"...
And happiness shall reign, but I'm afraid not for Shane.
The QB recruit with a big arm but accuracy problems has a very high disappointment rate. It's like recruiting an uncoordinated seven footer for a basketball team. He might become Frank Kaminsky, but the chances of him being a career back-up are much greater.
Morris had a touch problem too. I remember at camps, The Opening, and Under Armour practices coaches were constantly getting on him for rifling the ball at a guy that was 5yds away when a pass with touch was needed. He never seemed to get that fixed.
To me this is the obvious problem. The kid throws the ball as hard as he can all the time. He'd be a hell of a shortstop
Accuracy is pretty important at SS too... find another comp. Water balloon fights?
Accuracy still matters in water balloon fights... hand grenades might be the better comp here