Mone and Kemp are the issues there. Graham, Benny, and Grant are *light years* better than those dudes. This set of DTs can hold up in ways the 2018 team could not.
I share some of your concerns, but I don't think it's as easy as saying that "approach X didn't work before therefore it won't work now" since both OSU and M are different (in terms of personnel, offense, etc.) in 2024 than they were in 2018.
Your argument is more than reasonable, but, then I wonder when it would be appropriate to move on from Juwan. Irrespective of program "culture" issues, there is no denying that on-court results have been 1) inconsistent 2) declining for the three years since Franz left.
That's not culture; that's the scoreboard. We are not operating at a massive talent deficit relative to peers, and this isn't a one-season thing. So, when do you say enough is enough? What metrics do you use to drive that decision?
Though I appreciate your appropriate grammar policing, remember that something can effect a particular affective state. As in: Michigan’s victory effected a change in my affect.
Both effect and affect are both verbs and nouns.
English is fantastic.
Hopkins undergrad is near Charles Village, far, far away from Patterson Park. Hopkins med school is over on the east side of town (nearer the park).
Baltimore is not a safe city, but Charles Village is pretty nice, and the area around Hopkins (especially to the north) is very nice indeed. And, the area near the Peabody school is also nice. I lived there for a summer while doing research at Hopkins.
I wouldn't want my 18-year-old daughter to hang out alone at 2 am every night, but if I had an 18-year-old daughter, I might not want her to hang out alone at 2 am in any town on any night.
His last two years he went 8-4, and his teams played poorly in the losses. He was on the hot seat when he secured his own firing in that restaurant in Southfield.
There is no evidence--none--that Moeller would have done "big things." He was a lousy HC at Illinois, and by his fourth year at Michigan (with "his" players) we saw the quality of performance at UM go way downhill.
There's been an odd thing happening in recent years with Moeller...a growing belief that he was a great coach, that he was the great Michigan coach who was dumped too soon, that he was a brilliant mind.
Well, I was there for Moeller's coaching career, and I didn't see it. If you want to talk about individual performances that were especially pathetic, I can certainly refer you to the 1990 Iowa game, the 1993 Illinois or Wisconsin games, and the 1994 Wisconsin and Ohio State games. The record probably speaks for itself, though: Moeller's WPCT is worse than Carr's. He just wasn't that good.
Having attended Michigan (and UNC-Chapel Hill) and now working at Harvard, let me insist: I love Michigan, and I am proud of my degree, but it's not close.
Also: Most of the ivies now offer financial aid packages that are really amazing. At Harvard, for example, if your family's income is less than $150K/year, you pay 10% of your income to attend. That will be less than Michigan even for an in-state student.
Carr behaved badly from 2007-2009, but he certainly wasn't alone. Do we have to excommunicate everyone who was against RR during that time? And, by doing so, don't you become what you profess to loathe? That is, you (not meaning you specifically, but those who hold this view) become the "Michigan Man Police."
I used to have tons of admiration for Carr because I thought he was an awfully good coach who used his platform as head coach to advocate for rules that were in the best interests of players. But I was at Michigan when Carr dumped his first wife for Laurie Carr, was on the sidelines when Carr yelled all sorts of "non-family values" things at various players. The man was never a saint, and he's not now.
But the good he did for Michigan and for the guys who played for him far outweighs the bad; he never cheated while he was here. By those measures, I don't think there's any utility in cutting him loose. Carr has to live with the bad choices he made--isn't that enough?
As for Brandon, I'm with you: He's the Jerry Jones of college athletics. He's always the story.
What LC would have been at WVU doesn't matter. What Brady Hoke would have been at Minnesota doesn't matter. And what RR was at WVU definitely doesn't matter.
was ever the wife of an ex-assistant coach. But I do know that Lloyd was cheating on his first wife with Laurie Carr, to whom he is still married.
Lloyd is no angel. I think he stands for the right things in terms of college football, and I liked him as a head coach, but his professional integrity didn't extend to the bedroom.
With reference to this question (regarding turnover margin regressing to the mean), I would argue that the NFL is a league in which regression to the mean is the intended outcome of most league policies. The way schedules are made, the way the draft is structured: all of this is intended to encourage parity. Is it unreasonable, then, to think that regression to the mean in many statistical categories is what makes the NFL the NFL?
College football is different of course; there are no built-in tools that effect regression to the mean for statistical categories. Ohio State probably always has a positive turnover margin (and Purdue doesn't) because they are Purdue and Ohio State. This is not a chicken/egg thing either; Ohio State has dudes who make more turnovers.
So, while I wouldn't discount the fact that experienced QBs tend to turn it over less, I also wouldn't assume that an NFL study on turnover margin is directly applicable to CFB.
and the reason they baffle me is not because JB is beyond criticism but because they isolate a couple of decisions and argue that changing those decisions would have a net positive effect on outcomes.
This ignores the fact that the season is not merely a collection of games. It is a collection of practices, film sessions, meetings, and games; ergo, JB is not making decisions with the same information you have at your disposal. He's making decisions with far MORE information than you have, and his track record tells us that he gets MOST of them right. The sort of coach who makes decisions based solely on short-term outcomes would yield us different long-term outcomes.
To wit: Anthony Wright was playing well in the first half on Saturday, but there's a reason he averages 3 minutes per game. He's proved (all year) that he isn't as good as the other people on the team. When Wright gets a few minutes and makes a few shots, that's great for our team, but it doesn't mean that JB should alter the rotation (once foul trouble is no longer a concern) in order to get Anthony Wright on the floor. He wasn't hot, he just made 4 shots! Should JB really make coaching decisions based on whoever is hot during each game? Can't you see the downside to that approach?
Or, another point: Sims and Gibson don't play together all year, so why would you start playing them together more often in a really important game? Sims/Gibson is not part of the rotation, it's not a good fit offensively, etc. etc. You can't completely change what you do as a team without causing other (perhaps undesirable) changes in other parts of the game. You're assuming that all of these changes would only improve our performance (or improve the score differential), but that's not the way changes work. Change impacts all facets of a game, and major personnel shifts of the sort you are advocating probably don't lead to victory in most situations. Douglass and Novak were our best shooters all year: they're the guys you want out there shooting when we need a comeback. It's true they didn't make them Saturday, but they were the guys most capable of making those shots.
It's fair to criticize JB, and I suppose some of your strategies might have worked (or might not have worked), but very few successful coaches initiate major alterations of the lineup in the second round of the NCAA tourney. What great coaches do is play the lineup that got them to the second round of the tourney.
Is that they just paid $4M to get RR out of his old contract and they'd really like to see some return on that investment. Like you, I could care less about the jug story, but the boosters (and not well-informed message board fans like you, and, I like to think, me) drive decision-making.
Until we on the intertubes make like Obama and devlop a monstrous war chest of out of small donations and effectively vote as a bloc with that money (a sort of counter Victors club...is that even possible?), other voices will have the ears of the UM administration.
Big money boosters might wear funny pants to games and to prefer the high floor/low ceiling teams of the Schembechler school, but they also write the checks and call the shots.
Runs a 4.5 40, was a 3* recruit who grew up running the spread, had offers from the Big 12 and SEC, and has stiil exceeded expectations. Nick Sheridan cannot be Chase Daniel. He wasn't as good as Daniel before and he won't be nearly as good now. But that's not the issue.
I think John Navarre 2001 is a good model for what we can expect from our QBs this year. Of course, Navarre was in a system that catered to his strengths and had a lot of people around him who knew what they were doing and were good at it. On the flipside, this year's offense is more dynamic and features a host of playmakers who will help us out. If Sheridan can limit turnovers and be relatively accurate with his short and intermediate passes, we should avoid disaster and win 7-8 games. I think that's more than enough to convince me that RR will be a big success once he gets his people in at QB.
In 2006, he was 17/20 with misses from 22, 40, 42. He was 3-5 from 40+ and 8-8 from 30-39.
2005: 19/26 overall, 30-39: 6-7, 40-49: 3-6.
2004: 19/24 overall, 30-39: 11-14, 40-49: 4-6.
2003: 9/12 overall 30-39: 2-2, 40-49: 3-6.
Career: 64/82 (78% that's the best ever at Michigan for a full-time kicker); 30-39: 27/31. 40-49: 13/23. Was he Mike Nugent? No way. But he was very consistent and much better than 50% from outside 35 yards.
I would never say those guys don't count, and as someone who was raised on Michigan football, I have what I think is proper reverence for Michigan's football history. At the same time, those records were compiled in the dark ages of college football before things like current conference affiliations, regular post-season bowl links, TV, national recruiting, etc. etc. They are important in making Michigan what it is, but they aren't important in determining expectations for Rodriguez.
If RR can win between 75-80% of his games (for reference purposes, the 5 best major conference teams since 2000 are between 78-85%) and consistently win games against rivals and high-quality opponents (let's say, at least 55% of those), then he will be a *great* coach.
Let's look at our bowl wins since Bo (i'll use the seaon years): Florida (9-4), Florida (8-5), Auburn (8-5), Alabama (9-3), Arkansas (9-3) Washington St. (10-2), Colorado St. (10-2), NCSU (7-5), Washington (9-3), Mississippi (9-3), USC (9-2), Alabama (7-5), Nebraska (9-3), UCLA (7-4), Washington (9-3). So, that means we beat 3 teams with fewer than 2 losses at the time we played and one of those was Colorado St. Average WPCT before bowl game: 77%
Bo won five bowl games and beat one good team (USC) and two decent teams (Washington and Nebraska). Mo beat one decent team (Washington) and LC beat 2 or 3 (Washington St., Alabama, Florida last year). Really, though, most of our bowl wins have come against lesser competition. We're not alone on this, but when play top competition (especially in bowls), we don't usually come out on top. This is one of the big things I'd like to see us change under RR.
Unfortunately, I spent plenty of new year's days in the late 1970s and early 1980s the same way I spent them in 2004, 2005, and 2007. We were indeed a Big 10 powerhouse in the early 1970s, but not really a national force.
It will be cool to see RR try to take us to new heights (actually, it will only be cool to see us reach those heights, but it will be fun to watch the new Michigan no matter what).
Since Bo took over, how many times has UM finished with 2 or fewer losses and a bowl win?
Answer: 5: 1999, 1997, 1993 (3 ties), 1988 (2 losses+1 tie), 1985. That's 40 years of football and 5 "successful" seasons.
I hope, as you do, that we go 10-2 on average, but the facts are the facts. We've never been a 10-2 team (or 9-2, or 10-1 or whatever...since 1977 we average 9-3 independent of the coach), we've never won bowl games (losing record under Bo), we've never beat the best teams with regularity (losing record vs. .750 teams under Bo, Mo, and LC) and we've never consistently
competed for national titles (another quiz--how many undefeated/untied Septembers did we have in the 20 years before Carr arrived? 5 (the same number we had in the 13 years after he arrived).
So, when you say we are a sleeping giant, just know that we've been sleeping for a very long time. I would go so far as to say that Michigan's status as a "giant" is entirely the result of consistent 9-3 seasons as opposed to occasional spectacular performance (on this, see Miami: NC, probation, NC, destruction).
Do I hope Rich makes us consistently spectacular? Absolutely. But a USC-style run wouldn't be a return to the glory of the Bo years, it would be uncharted territory for Michigan
football.
And many commentators use the term in a clumsy fashion, but any skill is definitely tangible. If a guy gets thrown 100 balls and catches 95, you'd say he had a certain tangible skill...it's empirically verifible. That doesn't mean he's going to catch every ball, but it does mean he has the skill (my son, by way of contrast does not). Another tangible skill is speed: either you can run a 4.4 or you cannot, and there is nothing intangible about that.
Usually, when commentators talk about intangibles, they focus on the fuzzy things like camaraderie, teamwork, etc. These things are often imagined to have an impact on games and seasons, but we don't really know because we cannot measure them (like dropped passes, for instance) and so we call them intangibles (though even that is iffy since certain guys' poor behavior can be observed and verified even though its overall effect on a team's performance is difficult to gague). I tend to think that "intangibles" (as described by commentators) are overrated (I'd rather have Mario Manningham's bad attitude than my good attitude, bad hands, and slow footspeed), but tangible skill is almost never overrated.
Yes, I hope that player development will be a hallmark of the new coaching staff, but I wouldn't be so quick to assert, "Under Carr, ratings were hugely important, because players didn't
develop as well as they did at other schools. With the Barwis Effect in
effect, and a coaching staff that apparently believes in coaching, we
may have some recruits turn from water into wine."
Of course, the oft-cited examples of Mike Hart and Braylon Edwards (both 3* players) are important to remember, since those players developed under Carr. But I did a little checking (on Rivals) and found that the recruiting classes from 2002-2004 (NFL eligible guys) feature 5 3* players and 12 4-5* players who are in the pros right now. That's pretty good by itself: 17 NFL players over 3 classes, but more impressive is the fact that about 25% of our 3* recruits over that period are now drawing an NFL paycheck. Since something like 2% of 3* recruits make the NFL, the fact that 25% of ours have made the NFL is awfully impressive (and, yes, I realize this is a small sample).
The best teams recruit the best HS talent year in and year out, but Michigan has had a better hit rate (and I'm talking starters playing meaningful minutes/all conference players/NFL picks) with 3* players than just about any major CFB team over the last decade. I'm not crediting any one thing in particular (coaching, S&C, whole pizzas), but the facts are the facts. We developed 3* players under Carr. I hope we do just as well with RR. Chances are, some of these 3* guys will be All Big 10 and some will disappear into Pat Sharrow/Anton Campbell land.
Recent Comments
True. But the 10,000 kids from Boston at UMass do.
Mone and Kemp are the issues there. Graham, Benny, and Grant are *light years* better than those dudes. This set of DTs can hold up in ways the 2018 team could not.
I share some of your concerns, but I don't think it's as easy as saying that "approach X didn't work before therefore it won't work now" since both OSU and M are different (in terms of personnel, offense, etc.) in 2024 than they were in 2018.
Your argument is more than reasonable, but, then I wonder when it would be appropriate to move on from Juwan. Irrespective of program "culture" issues, there is no denying that on-court results have been 1) inconsistent 2) declining for the three years since Franz left.
That's not culture; that's the scoreboard. We are not operating at a massive talent deficit relative to peers, and this isn't a one-season thing. So, when do you say enough is enough? What metrics do you use to drive that decision?
Sounds like Wilson is hurt and so Baldwin is starting.
This is outstanding. Pad level is the capper.
You made my morning and made me want to re-read “Big Two-Hearted River.”
Both parts.
Hopkins undergrad is near Charles Village, far, far away from Patterson Park. Hopkins med school is over on the east side of town (nearer the park).
Baltimore is not a safe city, but Charles Village is pretty nice, and the area around Hopkins (especially to the north) is very nice indeed. And, the area near the Peabody school is also nice. I lived there for a summer while doing research at Hopkins.
I wouldn't want my 18-year-old daughter to hang out alone at 2 am every night, but if I had an 18-year-old daughter, I might not want her to hang out alone at 2 am in any town on any night.
His last two years he went 8-4, and his teams played poorly in the losses. He was on the hot seat when he secured his own firing in that restaurant in Southfield.
There is no evidence--none--that Moeller would have done "big things." He was a lousy HC at Illinois, and by his fourth year at Michigan (with "his" players) we saw the quality of performance at UM go way downhill.
There's been an odd thing happening in recent years with Moeller...a growing belief that he was a great coach, that he was the great Michigan coach who was dumped too soon, that he was a brilliant mind.
Well, I was there for Moeller's coaching career, and I didn't see it. If you want to talk about individual performances that were especially pathetic, I can certainly refer you to the 1990 Iowa game, the 1993 Illinois or Wisconsin games, and the 1994 Wisconsin and Ohio State games. The record probably speaks for itself, though: Moeller's WPCT is worse than Carr's. He just wasn't that good.
Don't know why we cannot accept that and move on.
Having attended Michigan (and UNC-Chapel Hill) and now working at Harvard, let me insist: I love Michigan, and I am proud of my degree, but it's not close.
Also: Most of the ivies now offer financial aid packages that are really amazing. At Harvard, for example, if your family's income is less than $150K/year, you pay 10% of your income to attend. That will be less than Michigan even for an in-state student.
was what allowed Gus Malzahn to beat Alabama.
Dudes matter. We don't have enough dynamic playmakers to beat Alabama straight up, and not every game can be won by scheming.
I don't think Borges covered himself in glory on Saturday, but he needed Denard to play a great game and for 'Bama to make mistakes. Neither happened.
Carr behaved badly from 2007-2009, but he certainly wasn't alone. Do we have to excommunicate everyone who was against RR during that time? And, by doing so, don't you become what you profess to loathe? That is, you (not meaning you specifically, but those who hold this view) become the "Michigan Man Police."
I used to have tons of admiration for Carr because I thought he was an awfully good coach who used his platform as head coach to advocate for rules that were in the best interests of players. But I was at Michigan when Carr dumped his first wife for Laurie Carr, was on the sidelines when Carr yelled all sorts of "non-family values" things at various players. The man was never a saint, and he's not now.
But the good he did for Michigan and for the guys who played for him far outweighs the bad; he never cheated while he was here. By those measures, I don't think there's any utility in cutting him loose. Carr has to live with the bad choices he made--isn't that enough?
As for Brandon, I'm with you: He's the Jerry Jones of college athletics. He's always the story.
What LC would have been at WVU doesn't matter. What Brady Hoke would have been at Minnesota doesn't matter. And what RR was at WVU definitely doesn't matter.
That seems like an important thing to get.
was ever the wife of an ex-assistant coach. But I do know that Lloyd was cheating on his first wife with Laurie Carr, to whom he is still married.
Lloyd is no angel. I think he stands for the right things in terms of college football, and I liked him as a head coach, but his professional integrity didn't extend to the bedroom.
Threet/Sheridan is not the same as Denard. You can't treat them the same because they are not the same.
For that reason, I don't see any inconsistency in Brian's position here.
With reference to this question (regarding turnover margin regressing to the mean), I would argue that the NFL is a league in which regression to the mean is the intended outcome of most league policies. The way schedules are made, the way the draft is structured: all of this is intended to encourage parity. Is it unreasonable, then, to think that regression to the mean in many statistical categories is what makes the NFL the NFL?
College football is different of course; there are no built-in tools that effect regression to the mean for statistical categories. Ohio State probably always has a positive turnover margin (and Purdue doesn't) because they are Purdue and Ohio State. This is not a chicken/egg thing either; Ohio State has dudes who make more turnovers.
So, while I wouldn't discount the fact that experienced QBs tend to turn it over less, I also wouldn't assume that an NFL study on turnover margin is directly applicable to CFB.
Is that they just paid $4M to get RR out of his old contract and they'd really like to see some return on that investment. Like you, I could care less about the jug story, but the boosters (and not well-informed message board fans like you, and, I like to think, me) drive decision-making.
Until we on the intertubes make like Obama and devlop a monstrous war chest of out of small donations and effectively vote as a bloc with that money (a sort of counter Victors club...is that even possible?), other voices will have the ears of the UM administration.
Big money boosters might wear funny pants to games and to prefer the high floor/low ceiling teams of the Schembechler school, but they also write the checks and call the shots.
Runs a 4.5 40, was a 3* recruit who grew up running the spread, had offers from the Big 12 and SEC, and has stiil exceeded expectations. Nick Sheridan cannot be Chase Daniel. He wasn't as good as Daniel before and he won't be nearly as good now. But that's not the issue.
I think John Navarre 2001 is a good model for what we can expect from our QBs this year. Of course, Navarre was in a system that catered to his strengths and had a lot of people around him who knew what they were doing and were good at it. On the flipside, this year's offense is more dynamic and features a host of playmakers who will help us out. If Sheridan can limit turnovers and be relatively accurate with his short and intermediate passes, we should avoid disaster and win 7-8 games. I think that's more than enough to convince me that RR will be a big success once he gets his people in at QB.
Actually he was quite good.
In 2006, he was 17/20 with misses from 22, 40, 42. He was 3-5 from 40+ and 8-8 from 30-39.
2005: 19/26 overall, 30-39: 6-7, 40-49: 3-6.
2004: 19/24 overall, 30-39: 11-14, 40-49: 4-6.
2003: 9/12 overall 30-39: 2-2, 40-49: 3-6.
Career: 64/82 (78% that's the best ever at Michigan for a full-time kicker); 30-39: 27/31. 40-49: 13/23. Was he Mike Nugent? No way. But he was very consistent and much better than 50% from outside 35 yards.
I would never say those guys don't count, and as someone who was raised on Michigan football, I have what I think is proper reverence for Michigan's football history. At the same time, those records were compiled in the dark ages of college football before things like current conference affiliations, regular post-season bowl links, TV, national recruiting, etc. etc. They are important in making Michigan what it is, but they aren't important in determining expectations for Rodriguez.
If RR can win between 75-80% of his games (for reference purposes, the 5 best major conference teams since 2000 are between 78-85%) and consistently win games against rivals and high-quality opponents (let's say, at least 55% of those), then he will be a *great* coach.
Let's look at our bowl wins since Bo (i'll use the seaon years): Florida (9-4), Florida (8-5), Auburn (8-5), Alabama (9-3), Arkansas (9-3) Washington St. (10-2), Colorado St. (10-2), NCSU (7-5), Washington (9-3), Mississippi (9-3), USC (9-2), Alabama (7-5), Nebraska (9-3), UCLA (7-4), Washington (9-3). So, that means we beat 3 teams with fewer than 2 losses at the time we played and one of those was Colorado St. Average WPCT before bowl game: 77%
Let's check the losses: USC (10-2), Nebraska (8-4), Texas (11-1), USC (12-1), Tennessee (11-2), Alabama (10-3), Texas A&M (9-3), Washington (11-0), USC (9-2-1), ASU (10-1-1), BYU (13-0), Auburn (11-1), UCLA (10-1-1), UNC (8-3-1), USC (12-1), Washington (8-4), USC (11-1), Oklahoma (11-1), Stanford (9-3), USC (10-0-1). Average WPCT before bowl game: 83%
Bo won five bowl games and beat one good team (USC) and two decent teams (Washington and Nebraska). Mo beat one decent team (Washington) and LC beat 2 or 3 (Washington St., Alabama, Florida last year). Really, though, most of our bowl wins have come against lesser competition. We're not alone on this, but when play top competition (especially in bowls), we don't usually come out on top. This is one of the big things I'd like to see us change under RR.
Unfortunately, I spent plenty of new year's days in the late 1970s and early 1980s the same way I spent them in 2004, 2005, and 2007. We were indeed a Big 10 powerhouse in the early 1970s, but not really a national force.
It will be cool to see RR try to take us to new heights (actually, it will only be cool to see us reach those heights, but it will be fun to watch the new Michigan no matter what).
Go Blue.
Since Bo took over, how many times has UM finished with 2 or fewer losses and a bowl win?
Answer: 5: 1999, 1997, 1993 (3 ties), 1988 (2 losses+1 tie), 1985. That's 40 years of football and 5 "successful" seasons.
I hope, as you do, that we go 10-2 on average, but the facts are the facts. We've never been a 10-2 team (or 9-2, or 10-1 or whatever...since 1977 we average 9-3 independent of the coach), we've never won bowl games (losing record under Bo), we've never beat the best teams with regularity (losing record vs. .750 teams under Bo, Mo, and LC) and we've never consistently competed for national titles (another quiz--how many undefeated/untied Septembers did we have in the 20 years before Carr arrived? 5 (the same number we had in the 13 years after he arrived).
So, when you say we are a sleeping giant, just know that we've been sleeping for a very long time. I would go so far as to say that Michigan's status as a "giant" is entirely the result of consistent 9-3 seasons as opposed to occasional spectacular performance (on this, see Miami: NC, probation, NC, destruction).
Do I hope Rich makes us consistently spectacular? Absolutely. But a USC-style run wouldn't be a return to the glory of the Bo years, it would be uncharted territory for Michigan football.
And many commentators use the term in a clumsy fashion, but any skill is definitely tangible. If a guy gets thrown 100 balls and catches 95, you'd say he had a certain tangible skill...it's empirically verifible. That doesn't mean he's going to catch every ball, but it does mean he has the skill (my son, by way of contrast does not). Another tangible skill is speed: either you can run a 4.4 or you cannot, and there is nothing intangible about that.
Usually, when commentators talk about intangibles, they focus on the fuzzy things like camaraderie, teamwork, etc. These things are often imagined to have an impact on games and seasons, but we don't really know because we cannot measure them (like dropped passes, for instance) and so we call them intangibles (though even that is iffy since certain guys' poor behavior can be observed and verified even though its overall effect on a team's performance is difficult to gague). I tend to think that "intangibles" (as described by commentators) are overrated (I'd rather have Mario Manningham's bad attitude than my good attitude, bad hands, and slow footspeed), but tangible skill is almost never overrated.
Yes, I hope that player development will be a hallmark of the new coaching staff, but I wouldn't be so quick to assert, "Under Carr, ratings were hugely important, because players didn't develop as well as they did at other schools. With the Barwis Effect in effect, and a coaching staff that apparently believes in coaching, we may have some recruits turn from water into wine."
Of course, the oft-cited examples of Mike Hart and Braylon Edwards (both 3* players) are important to remember, since those players developed under Carr. But I did a little checking (on Rivals) and found that the recruiting classes from 2002-2004 (NFL eligible guys) feature 5 3* players and 12 4-5* players who are in the pros right now. That's pretty good by itself: 17 NFL players over 3 classes, but more impressive is the fact that about 25% of our 3* recruits over that period are now drawing an NFL paycheck. Since something like 2% of 3* recruits make the NFL, the fact that 25% of ours have made the NFL is awfully impressive (and, yes, I realize this is a small sample).The best teams recruit the best HS talent year in and year out, but Michigan has had a better hit rate (and I'm talking starters playing meaningful minutes/all conference players/NFL picks) with 3* players than just about any major CFB team over the last decade. I'm not crediting any one thing in particular (coaching, S&C, whole pizzas), but the facts are the facts. We developed 3* players under Carr. I hope we do just as well with RR. Chances are, some of these 3* guys will be All Big 10 and some will disappear into Pat Sharrow/Anton Campbell land.