The excuse of Age

I mean, the very IDEA that people improve at tasks or sports or skills as they do them for a longer period of time is ABSURD!!!!!  It's just an excuse to say that you had 10 starters on a unit, and a bunch of them graduated and many of them were good enough to make the NFL, and that putting in people who have played way less football might make the team perform worse. What on earth are people thinking when they assert that, in general, experience is an important (though not the only) factor in success???????? Crazy people! All they want to do is make EXCUSE!!

Further, the notion that it might be more complicated than simple OLD GOOD YOUNG BAD or YOUNG GOOD OLD BAD is just THROWING UP A SMOKE SCREEN because you are TOTALLY unwilling to have a STRONG TAKE!  Those that suggest that some people are talented enough to suceed at an earlier point in their careers, while others need more development, and that a team's success depends on the aggregate of those players abilities and experience levels, plus a reasonable dose of the quality of opponents and even a little luck are just making EXCUSE. Bad people. Stop that!

        Rob

The first question you should ask yourself, "How do I quantify whatever variable I am talking about?" Of course, this assumes that you are serious about your question. 

A lot of people talk about youth, age, experience. But no one (me included) has quantified what do they mean. A young inexperienced OL/QB/WR/TE is expected to look/behave/execute such and such play in the beginning of the season. By the end, they should be doing this, that and that other thing. If you don't quantify what this, that and that other thing is, then all your questions and comments and hand wringing are not going to get you any answer. 

May be looking at the UFR grades of these "young" ones will give you some answer. May be analyzing Alabama/UGa/OSU/MSU players under the same way will tell you something. Even if the answer is contrary to your expectation, that is something useful. 

Give it a shot. Waste some of your time. You might teach us all something. 

I think the bigger problem was that the 2014-2015 recruiting classes just were not very good. (20th and 27th)

You need balance. 2016 and 2017 are top ten classes that give me hope.

The Age of Excuses is more like it.

One nice thing about the SC game 

is that we don't have to hear the BS of "If peters had started the whole season, we would have beaten MSU, PSU, and everyone else in the world!" 

talent trumps experience

I’m in my late 30’s and have had 3 major jobs since college.

Regarding long term growth, I have gradually become more competent and confident in many aspects of my professional life.

Regarding short term (1-3 years, similar to college), I have made significant strides in each job I’ve taken. There is always a strong learning curve the first year. Should be some progress second year and competency achieved 3rd year. Keep in mind, most of us can judge our performance from an entire year, working 5-6 days/week, whereas college players are judged on 12 games each year. Much more scrutiny on them than most of us. I’ve had some significant breaks in my 3 jobs all involving significant turnarounds from struggling non profits.

It seems to me that it would be interesting research from the OP, but it’s essential to go into any hypothesis with a desire to understand, not to prove your point. If you have a biased agenda, you can make data say whatever you want it to say. It sounds that the OP has a desire to learn, so I say go for it. There are definitely exceptions like Fromm and Tuiavola (sp?). Very talented players tend to look great when surrounded by very talented teams. I have struggled in my jobs when I lack solid, talented support and I’ve succeeded beyond my expected capacity when I’ve been surrounded by talented support staff.

This last point may mean that it could be helpful to add the variable of recruiting stars overall on offense/defense of the teams you compare Michigan to as it is rather apparent to most of us that Alabama and Georgia have had top 7 recruiting classes for multiple years whereas Michigan just re-entered that realm.

With a lot of the same annoying arguments that were made in 2013.

Experience matters. Years in the system (so yes, red shirt years) matter, because you know the system better, you play faster in the system, the techniques are downloaded to muscle memory, the rules, the tendencies, the things the opponent is trying to do to you, you've seen a million times before. Years actually playing matters, the time you've spent at game speed, defending people that aren't the guys you see every day, learning to win and also learning how to lose. The more experience an individual has, the better he is likely to be. The more experience your team has, the better it is likely to be. The older you are as a college player, the better you are likely to be due to experience, and strength, and knowledge.

Talent also matters. If you are more physically developed coming in, it helps you overcome some of your lack of experience. If you are more technically developed, it helps you overcome some of your physical weaknesses. If you are both more physcially and technically developed, then you are more college ready. So recruiting matters, and helps mitigate the concerns of youth.

So yes, a single freshman starting with a bunch of experienced players is better than a freshman playing next to a bunch of freshman. Better yet, a freshman playing next to a bunch of guys with experience winning, in a program that the culture has been built in, helps that youth as well. 

And then there is the individual factor. "But Fromm", yeah, some guys are more developed and some guys learn faster and some guys are helped by the experience and talent around them. "But Michigan State..." also had a ton of weaknesses, especially on offense. Their offense was every bit as limited as Michigan's this year, despite a better QB. Until the bowl game, MSU scored more than 30 points once in regulation to a power 5 team (Rutgers). And MSU has a great coaching staff, and they had a nice bounce back year, but when you go on to act like they were the pinicle of things, that they were significantly better than Michigan because they beat them by 4 points, your argument is muted. It's in the grey. They are similar teams, but one had a nice bowl win and the other had an awful bowl game. Not much else really seperates them.

Look, not everything about Michigan is a-ok. No need for sunshine and rainbows. But this self-loating attitude is equally as annoying as the folks that thought Dantonio and Meyer were just going to go away because of Harbaugh. And a lot of these are the same people. "But Speight regressed!" He played in 4 games, and the offense was clearly trying to expand on what it had previously done, there is a significant chance if he doesn't get hurt his performance improves. But the planned for the season in a certain way and obviously it backfired, and they spent the rest of the year trying to catch up. Sometimes that's the straw you pull, but need to do better. "But JOK!" Yeah, Harbaugh can't take anyone and magically make them great. He never did. He didn't make every Stanford QB great. He managed to get the best out of his guys and typically find at least one guy that was good enough. He didn't this year, it happens. Some of that may be coaching, certainly. Some of that may be the kids. Some of it may be on the kids due to effort, some of it may not be effort related, it may just not be clicking.

I get it, everyone here wants a nice, easy narrative. Give me the problem that's cut and dry that can be fixed by something simple. "Take more deep shots". We called lots of plays with deep options, we couldn't get it to them. Why couldn't we get it to them? We had a limited OL that struggled in pass pro? Why did it stuggle in pass pro? A combination of talent, youth, coaching, execution, both from their position group, and from other position groups, including QB and WR. What impact do those limitations have? They impact the playbook and what you're comfortable calling. Viscious circle, ain't it?

Coaching matters, players matter, execution matters, experience matters, age matters, maturity matters, game planning matters, season planning mattes, match ups matter, consistency matters, the opponents and all these same things matter, luck matters, lots of things matter. Sure, call them excuses, they are also facts. They are the same facts that exist when good things happen too. The best limit the problems and overcome them where they can. Sometimes you can't overcome everything, especially if you start down the wrong path. Sometimes the bad things snowball and one of the best coaches in the B1G goes 3-9. And sometimes the snowball gets rolling for you and you bounce back to 9-3. That folks want to substitute reality, throw a bunch of hissy fits when times are bad, and infinitly puff out their chests when times are good, is probably the most annoying part of fandom. And Michigan fans are some of the worst about it.

Of course it doesn’t matter. Teams win all the time with youth. Well unless you are UM then of course it matters and next year becomes the norm. Along with the refs too. They matter just as much as youth.

Given that this currently has one upvote to 48 downvotes . . . shouldn't it probably have been deleted?