January 7th, 2017 at 11:16 PM ^
Right on Thomas Rawls!
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January 8th, 2017 at 12:30 AM ^
Way to go rawls!
January 7th, 2017 at 11:17 PM ^
Hoke!
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January 8th, 2017 at 12:54 AM ^
Yeah! Forever dwelling in the past!
Brian's taught his padewons well.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:17 PM ^
Ha. Those questions in the Harris threads about "when are we going to have an actual every-down, NFL-caliber back?"
Coulda, woulda, shoulda.
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January 7th, 2017 at 11:22 PM ^
Solid. Post of the evening right there buddy.
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January 7th, 2017 at 11:24 PM ^
Meh. Rawls was a mediocre RB in college, which is why he went undrafted. He's become a mediocre NFL RB, but let's not pretend Hoke was keeping a Heisman candidate on the bench.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:26 PM ^
Hmmmmm......
January 7th, 2017 at 11:40 PM ^
He had a great year at Central, he was undrafted because of his off the field incident at Central
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January 7th, 2017 at 11:47 PM ^
We're talking about a league that excused the behavior of Ray Rice and Tyreek Hill. I have a hard time believing Rawls went undrafted because of character issues.
January 8th, 2017 at 12:27 AM ^
didn't play in the NFL again after the incident. NFL didn't re-sign him because he was on a decline.
Tyreek Hill was a 1st round talent that got kicked off the school for DV.
Difference between Tyreek Hill and Thomas Rawls is Tyreek was seen as a 1st round talent and Rawls was seen as a late round pick. Much easier to classify late round prospects as a UDFA if he has character issues.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:45 PM ^
I'm not one to pine for the backup, at all. However, his junior year here, I really felt like we should have been giving him a lot more carries. He did fairly well when he got the ball, and always ran hard. I always felt like he just needed to find his rhythm, but never got enough touches to get there.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:49 PM ^
Those pitiful offensive lines under Hoke would not have opened any holes for Rawls. Let's not pretend the endless number of 1 yard gains would have been any different.
Probably the worst lines in school history. Not only did they not open any holes, they gave our QB no protection. When you have a QB as mobile as Gardner getting sacked 60 something times, something is horribly wrong.
God this is depressing. What happy memory should we revisit next? RichRod's defenses?
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January 8th, 2017 at 12:22 AM ^
is the worst in the NFL
January 8th, 2017 at 2:30 AM ^
Seahawks line is still NFL talent, not college
January 8th, 2017 at 2:55 AM ^
its OK to admit Carroll is better than Hoke at identifying and developing talent. That is all.
January 8th, 2017 at 9:54 AM ^
Is it? Aren't we dealing with relative groups here? An NFL O-line plays an NFL D-Line...therefore, a bad O-line would be suspected of making fewer running lanes in this situation. That seems pretty apples to apples to me
January 8th, 2017 at 12:40 PM ^
Unfortunately, Detroit's defense played like crap last night. Cris Collinsworth even said last night during the broadcast that the Lions' defense does not have many stars. The lack of talent on that side of the ball is apparent.
January 8th, 2017 at 12:22 AM ^
is one of the worst in the league yet Rawls find ways to be productive.
NFL RBs find ways to be productive regardless of the OL. Face it, Michigan hasn't had NFL back since RR or LC.
January 8th, 2017 at 12:23 AM ^
The Seahawks line is the NFL equivalent. They've been cheap with it (something like a $6.2 mil TOTAL salary or 4% of their cap spend) and it includes a guy who didn't play football in between the eighth grade and the NFL at left tackle.
It's been a huge problem for them all year and if Wilson wasn't so mobile their passing game would be an abject disaster.
Rawls may be a later bloomer but a good chunk of his lack of production at Michjgan has to be chalked up to shitty coaching and poor play design. :(
January 8th, 2017 at 9:57 AM ^
To me, he seems faster and more agile. At UM, I always thought he was a Derrick Greene clone...slow to pick up speed and unable to quickly redirect his momentum. Now, he almost seems to run like a smaller back.
January 8th, 2017 at 12:51 AM ^
Or maybe bad d-lines make bad o-lines look good and good backs great.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:18 PM ^
I wish Hoke had developed him and we had his hard running style while he was at Michigan.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:35 PM ^
Not to rain on the parade but who exactly did Hoke develop?
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January 7th, 2017 at 11:47 PM ^
If you count our headaches and our creative uses for profanity.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:50 PM ^
and not much else
January 7th, 2017 at 11:58 PM ^
Defensive linemen. Say what you will about every other position but Hoke brought and developed the shit out of the DL
January 8th, 2017 at 3:44 AM ^
I am wrong but I thought our dline sucked under Hoke. He identified talent and recruited well, and if he had stayed those players might have devolped the same they did under Harbaugh/Mattison, but he was fired before they became good.
January 8th, 2017 at 12:48 PM ^
I think you're wrong. Ryan Van Bergen and Mike Martin were great. Frank Clark was very good. Jibreel Black was a quality player. He made decent players out of some mediocre guys, and he was the guy who initially recruited/developed Ryan Glasgow.
Michigan was #9 in Adjusted Line Yards, #12 in Opportunity Rate, #14 in Stuff Rate, and #5 in Pass Downs Sack Rate in 2014, which was the earliest that Football Outsiders started tracking that stuff. Some of their other categories were mediocre, but sucked? That's a gross mischaracterization.
January 8th, 2017 at 12:10 AM ^
...his net worth, thanks DB.
January 8th, 2017 at 8:56 AM ^
I don't condone violence, but that certainly is a punchable face right there
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January 7th, 2017 at 11:18 PM ^
Clap....clap....clap
January 7th, 2017 at 11:18 PM ^
Is the gift that keeps on giving.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:18 PM ^
Thanks for the update.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:19 PM ^
Who did Rawls play today?
January 7th, 2017 at 11:20 PM ^
I was such a huge fan of Teryl Austin's plan to wear down Rawls by allowing him to get 5.96 yards per carry, let me tell you. *sips more wine*
In all seriousness though, he did have a great game, and again, another game which makes me wonder what Hoke's staff didn't see that was in fact perhaps there (an offensive line would have helped too, of course).
January 8th, 2017 at 12:09 AM ^
started with recruiting RB & O-line in the late Carr era and contined through RR, Hoke, & now Harbaugh owns some of it too.
I've heard it repeated so much on this blog that it's gospel that "RB is the one position that doesn't need a ton of development other than pass blocking & some receiving. It's supossedly the one position a freshman can come in & make a difference at."
Fitz (2011,1041 yrds) is the only 1000 yrd rusher since Mike Hart.
So that is Carr's "other" roster RBs, his O-line and then the combined tenues of RR & Hoke.
I don't expect his O-line to be ready yet, but even Harbaugh's had 2 seasons to get a productive back.
Do we have to resort to sticking pins in a Mike Hart voodoo doll?
January 8th, 2017 at 12:15 AM ^
This past year, Smith/Evans/Higdon/Isaac combined for over 2,200 yards. It was more a matter of us rotating a lot than anything (they averaged 4.7, 7.0, 5.9 and 5.6 YPC).
Prior to that, well, there was one man coaching the backs under Carr, RichRod and Hoke...
January 8th, 2017 at 12:51 AM ^
Exactly this. When was the last time our committee of RBs had over 2k yards?
January 8th, 2017 at 8:46 PM ^
...that game against Delaware State?
January 8th, 2017 at 5:26 AM ^
That statistic is misleading. Take a look at games against the better teams that could play defense, all games we lost and where we really needed a running game. They averaged under 100 yards per game.
January 8th, 2017 at 11:16 AM ^
very true- most of our yards came against bad defenses- we had an illusion
January 8th, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^
but would you claim that Michigan had a dominating rushing offense this year?
it seemed peicemeal, unbalanced, and tended to disappear in games we needed it most.
My point wasn't so much to talk about feature backs vs. commitee but to illustrate the frustration that "Michigan can't recruit a 1000yrd rusher" is more based on coaching/development and O-line rather than 1k RBs being as rare as unicorns.
January 8th, 2017 at 11:50 AM ^
I wouldn't necessarily say it was dominant, but honestly, how often have we had a dominant running game in the last 20 years?
January 8th, 2017 at 8:17 AM ^
The days of having a featured RB are over. RBs won't get more than 15 carries per game. It's too much pounding on the body, there is more depth now, and coaches are recruiting with a "fewer carries is better for your NFL career" message.
January 8th, 2017 at 10:32 AM ^
I wish you would've told Jimbo Fisher about this.
January 7th, 2017 at 11:20 PM ^
What school did he say during the intro?
January 7th, 2017 at 11:27 PM ^
Did anyone see it?
January 7th, 2017 at 11:34 PM ^
Said Central Michigan just so ya know.
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January 7th, 2017 at 11:56 PM ^
Dang....