Gregg Doyel at it again
"Dantonio has taken Michigan to the woodshed in state recruiting, capitalizing on the Wolverines' coaching change and 3-9 slump in 2008, but also squeezing the best players out of the state while second-year U of M coach Rich Rodriguez casts more of a recruiting eye toward familiar grounds like Florida and Ohio."
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/story/11994511
yesterday and thought he was piling on just a bit. we just have to beat them this year and all of the talk will go away.
to get paid what Doyel gets paid and not worry about needing to know what you are talking about. That's a pretty good gig.
This guy deserves a good fisking from Brian.
I already called him a junior-high Christopher Hitchens, what more do you want?
LOL, that'll do.
Don't see this as a huge swipe. He also says MSU "is definitely Michigan's little brother." The in-state recruiting comment seems right out of the MSU PR dept. , true, but the article is mostly about what most reasonable people would agree on: Dantonio has given the Spartans something of an identity.
The problem isn't that he's taking a swipe at Michigan. It's that he's uncritically passing along an idea - that MSU's been dominating instate recruiting - that's demonstrably untrue.
They beat us on guys who were never going anywhere else - Bullough and Gholston. Boisture is no longer our type of QB. Nick Hill wasn't offered. I wouldn't have minded landing Mylan Hicks. How is that kicking our ass in recruiting? Unfortunately, the only way this will ever stop is to beat them on the field because people don't want the facts to get in the way of their perceptions.
I don't think a good argument is "They were never going anywhere else." While it may be somewhat true that they grew up MSU fans or had strong MSU influences in their lives, that's very hard to quantify.
It's easier to quantify the fact that both teams have offered a handful of players, and based on that, it's impossible to say that Michigan is getting "taken behind the woodshed" in in-state recruiting.
We did manage to pull Austin White away, who I initially believed was an MSU lock. Gholston showed some interest, but Southeatern has become a feeder school for Sparty. Boisture didn't fit the offense, and, according to Rivals, didn't have an offer. I maintain that Bullough was a lock. My point being MSU got some good ones in-state, but there were circumstances that got them to E. Lansing. It's not all Dantonio.
Does that mean that Rodriguez doesn't get credit for pulling in any Cass Tech kids?
Also, I might be wrong, but I don't know that Michigan ever offered Bullough.
You are correct.
No, he benefits from the Wilcher connection, which substantiates my point. Sometimes you just fall into a good situation. Dantonio benefitted from some factors that fell in his favor this year, yet the media is making it sound like there's been a huge turnaround in recruiting because recruits simply favor Dantonio over Rodriguez. This could all turn around next year depending on a number of factors unrelated to the head coaches.
Why did Michigan not offer Bullough? Did he commit too early? Did they feel they had no shot at him? I can't imagine they didn't fell he was good enough, especially with need at his position?
Committed early, and the writing was on the wall. Austin White was very much the exception to the rule regarding legacy recruits. Recruiting Bullough would've been a waste of time on Michigan's part.
Which is why I said he was never going anywhere else.
If you look at the MSU list of kids it seems that Michigan really only lost Gholston and Hicks head-to-head, while gaining Austin White. But the perception persists that State owns Michigan.
Bullough isn't even relevant to the discussion if we didn't offer him.
You are correct. He wasn't offered by Michigan, and so shouldn't count as someone Michigan lost. But I believe that the media (local and national) include him as one of the highly rated in-state players that Michigan failed to get. I don't believe Michigan has fared all that badly on the players that they went head-to-head with against State. MSU has definitely done better than in the past, but some of the people who continue to trumpet State's recruiting dominance refuse to acknowledge some of the factors that have helped. If, absent those factors, a majority of the top in-state players in the state choose Michigan State OVER Michigan in the future, I will concede that they "own" the state.
I don't care what the national and local media think. I have a job completely unrelated to Michigan football and I live in a different state, and I could still write circles around most of them about Michigan football.
I'm talking about facts. The facts are that Bullough wasn't offered by Michigan and, therefore, doesn't count as a victory for MSU in head-to-head recruiting. So people who are halfway intelligent and informed - which are the only ones I care about - know better than to include him.
...then we can't have it both ways. If Rodriguez doesn't get credit for Cass Tech guys because of the Wilcher connection, then let's remove Teric Jones, Thomas Gordon, and William Campbell from in-state successes last year.
MSU owned Michigan in recruiting in 2009. They got Caper, Baker, and Sims, while Michigan only got Cameron Gordon.
Michigan wanted exactly one of those three you mentioned. Caper was not pursued by the new staff, and they wanted Sims as a DE, and gave up on him in the summer. They wanted Baker, and they wanted Norman. MSU wanted Thomas Gordon, Cameron Gordon, and Will Campbell. The whole "12th best player in the state" firestorm was a result of MSU people having their feelings hurt because even as Michigan went 3-9 and Campbell decommitted, he still didn't give MSU the time of day.
They wanted Sims but gave up on him = they wanted him and didn't get him.
They wanted Baker.
The Cass Tech kids don't count (according to Garvie Craw's logic), since that's a UM feeder school, and I didn't count Norman because he's from Renaissance, which is an MSU feeder school.
So MSU got two kids, and Michigan got one.
Um, no, Sims doesn't count. They wanted him at a position he didn't like. If they had wanted him at TE, he would've been a Wolverine. MSU didn't beat Michigan for him, UM withdrew from the race.
And OLSM isn't exactly friendly toward Michigan nowadays, either. They're much closer to Renaissance and Southeastern territory than neutral.
I think you're getting too caught up in the details...
The discussion is about who wins in-state recruiting. If you get into details like "MSU wanted him as a TE, UM wanted him as a DE" then that's not very far from "MSU has an easier S&C program" and "His best friend goes to MSU" and then...voile...we have the reason for him choosing MSU! (I just made those reasons up, by the way.)
It's like if your team beats my team in softball and then I say, "Well, you didn't really win, because our best player twisted his ankle and that umpire made a bad call against us. So it doesn't count in the standings." Uhhh...no, that's not how it works.
I'll give you Caper; the new staff didn't want him.
But the new staff pursued Baker and Sims. Both chose MSU. We lost the battle. There's no need to rationalize it away. It happened.
Except that's a Spartan argument. The playing field wasn't equal. If Michigan had wanted Sims as a tight end and he decided to pick Michigan State over Michigan when he committed, fine. But that's not how it happened. Michigan wanted him as a defensive end, and when they saw he wouldn't bite on that, they abandoned him in favor of other prospects (Roh, LaLota). Sims didn't even have a committable offer by the time he committed. He picked Michigan State over Miami and Ohio State. They didn't beat Michigan for a tight end. They got a commitment from a player Michigan wanted as a DE and stopped recruiting 5+ months earlier. Saying MSU beat Michigan for Sims is like claiming victory over a team that left to play a different team in a different game.
Except that's a Wolverine argument.
We could go back and forth on this all day. It's really very simple. Did he get offered by Michigan and MSU? Yes. Did he choose Michigan or MSU? MSU. Oh, shit. We lost.
You've honed in on the reason that he didn't choose UM. Congratulations. It's not like claiming victory over a team that left to play another game - it's like claiming victory over a team you mercied in the fifth inning.
Well if you're going to look at it in black and white terms (which is horribly, horribly flawed when discussing recruiting), then you need to throw out the Cass Tech/Renaissance/Southeastern arguments, too.
I assume if Dior Mathis commits to MSU, you'll count that as an MSU recruiting victory over Michigan, as well?
I WANTED to throw out the Cass Tech/Renaissance/Southeastern arguments. I was only arguing that way because Garvie Craw (I think) refused to view the Cass Tech kids as victories for Michigan. I was playing devil's advocate, in a way.
sorry bad joke.
If you want to read a lot more about what Ortmann said at the Media Day, Maize'n'Brew has a nice article up.
Linky
Thanks for the article. Very good read, especially about the O-Line.
Always good to know if my career as a gangster should end that I can become a crappy sportswriter. Even as a puff character piece, this isn't compelling at all.