Ultimately, there's a difference between that offense being Plan A and Plan B. I agree that Orji adds a running element and requires teams to be disciplined in their run fits and I want to keep that in the offense... but running that also makes Michigan far more predictable and easier to gameplan for.
That's why I think it should be a subpackage and not the primary offense. If the Orji-ffense is working, you can spam the subpackage and make the defense stop it. But if it's off or Orji is being inaccurate, you can table it for the day and run a more balanced offense at your disposal.
Shouldn't Orji have been more accurate in that case because he knew he wasn't going to get hit today? It's not as if he was missing throws because coverage was too tight or no one was open; he was simply wildly inaccurate on anything downfield.
It sounds like you're assuming that when reps go live, Orji's going to become more accurate... and that's a bold statement.
What more am I looking for? How about a completed pass that goes 10 yards downfield.
Also, Warren was good in mop-up duty in 2022 and then injured last season, so it's possible he simply wasn't right last fall and what we saw prior is the real Davis Warren.
I don't think the running game automatically improves by freezing contain players who are waiting to see if it's a handoff or a keep, if that means both safeties are only 10 yards off the LOS and you're running into 10-man boxes.
Yes, Alex Orji is like Lamar Jackson, the one-dimensional NFL MVP (2x) who completed 67% of his passes for 3500+ yards and 24 TDs to 7 INTs. Lamar had the same completion percentage as Mahomes and was more accurate than Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert. He was #4 in QB Rating; over Herbert, Stafford, Cousins Mahomes, and Goff.
You need to repent for trying to frame Lamar as a run-first QB who can't pass.
I don't think planning the entire offense around Orji's legs is a good idea. Orji may be big, strong and fast, he's not exactly elusive and he's going to take a lot of hits. If he gets banged up or dinged to the point his already limited passing is affected, then no one else in the QB room can step into Orji's role and the entire offense needs to change. Whereas Warren/Tuttle/Davis/transfer QB, the offense remains the same.
Orji had some nice ball placement on a few throws and was generally accurate (13/18) short of the sticks, but it's the downfield accuracy (greater than 10 yards) that I can't hand-wave away concerns. Every pass is on a line, he's erratic with his footwork and the accuracy plummets... and for as much as we talk about the run game, if defenses know Orji struggles to throw downfield and Michigan only gives him simple reads on drags and leaks within 10 yards, that style of offense is not going to keep the safeties from firing downhill and stuffing the run, as Michigan will be incapable of attacking behind them.
I prefer Warren to Orji, and it's not particularly close right now.
Orji's shown nothing other than being a subpackage QB. Keep him in that role this year, let him expand his role with some simple passes and easy reads and grow in confidence... but putting his name in pen as the starting QB is likely a recipe for disaster.
This is good news for Michigan with very light penalties for previously known NCAA infractions (Burgergate).
The only NCAA infractions left to dodge are the Signgate penalties, which Michigan has yet to even be notified of allegations (officially) by the NCAA.
I don't disagree with any of the warts you pointed out: BTJ lacks polish, will drop some easy passes and he's not an elusive runner in the open field. But with his frame/physicality (6'3" 210) and his speed, he doesn't need to be an elusive runner when he can just blow by you. There's a mold of successful NFL receivers like AJ Brown, DK Metcalf, Tee Higgins, Christian Watson, etc who are in that vertical-first mold.
Partner those traits with his effort and work ethic, and I think he has a chance to becoming a more-physical/durable Christian Watson or a more-explosive Tee Higgins
Malik Nabers with the fantastic block up top to seal off the edge. Kyren Lacy pancakes his defender and finishes him into the ground. Brian Thomas Jr runs 80 yards downfield to make the block that turns this to a TD.
Truthfully, I'm not completely comfortable with his injuries... It's more of that if the Lions are sticking at 29, getting truly impactful players at that slot historically is unlikely (see the last ten years of #29 overall picks). I can't imagine a better situation for Mims to learn than under Decker and Penei and the guide of Hank Fraley without being thrown into the fire and his ceiling is through the roof.
I will say that there's a general "win now" sense I get from other Lions fans who want to push all their chips in right now, while I'd prefer to play the long game and try to win over the next 10 years. Mims is a calculated gamble, but as I'm more focused on getting a player who could be here for 15 years and not 3, it's worth the roll of the dice in my mind.
Wiggins:
You may be correct that Wiggins won't be as valuable to the Lions specifically due to the traits they look for, but because we're talking player evaluation and archetype for corners, I put a much higher value on coverage ability and ball skills than physicality or tackling. To me, I can live with a corner missing a tackle and turning a 2-yard run into a 7-yard run if that means he can break up a pass 25-yards down the field (instead of making the tackle after the receiver catches it).
Wiggins is only 172 lbs, so he'll always struggle to get off blocks, but he's not a purely finesse player either.
Here's Wiggins sprinting 60 yards to force a fumble at the goal line:
Have to think teams are going to love the effort from Clemson CB 2 Nate Wiggins on this play. Didn't quit and gave the defense an opportunity. pic.twitter.com/dHFRUFl9Go
I can work with that mentality from a cornerback... He's not a Marcus Peters who wants to play basketball on grass.
And with the division the Lions are in, if the Lions are going to be play Jefferson/Addison, Watson/Reed, and Moore/Allen/Rookie... those aren't super-heavy, physical receivers like Deebo/AJ Brown/DK Metcalf, so they should be able to get away with a lighter CB on the outside.
Renardo Green:
Everything you said I'm in agreement with... I just can't think of a single cornerback who was able to "fix" those issues at the NFL level without ball-location skills. If you never look for the football, NFL refs will hammer you even to the point of getting flagged on plays where it wasn't illegal contact.
If you know of a comparable player who was able to remedy those issues at the next level, then envisioning Green as an NFL cornerback will be much easier for me.
Darius Robinson:
I disagree with your evaluation of his traits and how close he is to being an effective bull rusher (which is fine) at the NFL level, but how about you sell me on the vision for Darius to become an impact player? Who's the comparable player who's had success in the NFL recently?
Everyone throws out the Cam Jordan comparison, but Cam Jordan was highly polished coming out of Cal with hand technique and pass-rushing moves. Outside of Jordan, can you name a big-DE who panned out in the NFL in the last 15 years? I think you'd have to go back to Calais Campbell in 2008 to find a comparable path to success for Robinson, but Campbell had multiple years of production and was also more polished coming out of Miami.
But just in general, I don't value that "traditional DE" role that significantly lacks the pass rush tool on Day 1 or 2. It's a role you can fill via free agency on the cheap (John Cominsky) or on Day 3 with players like Justin Eboigbe or Logan Lee. Eboigbe gives me the same weight and run-defending ability that Robinson does and with far better football instincts 50-100 picks later, but without the height and length that Robinson does which caps his ceiling.
I’m all for being gracious, but Jace never would’ve been on the team in the first place if his dad wasn’t the head coach. Having a non-scholarship-caliber player continue to take up a scholarship isn’t the best use of a limited resource (not like Michigan is going to be competing for a title next season, but generally speaking), and that’s not even getting into team-building dynamics.
I agree with you that I would have no problem with Penei's cousin in Round 1, but I don't think his tape at BYU is as good as we were hoping it would be, so there's a bit of projection in his draft profile that might make some iffy at 29 overall.
I have similar feelings about Graham Barton, who I think will be a dominant interior player but is only a "meh" tackle prospect. If the Lions feel comfortable Barton can eventually take over center for Ragnow, they should sprint his name up (even over Powers-Johnson)... But if he's a guard only, then Round 1 feels a little rich considering the depth of this class.
Brian Thomas Jr was a basketball-first player through most of high school, despite football being his first love. He's super-athletic, a physical, high-effort blocker, and he's just scratching the surface of his potential (hence the one year of production). Slam dunk pick for the Lions if he reaches #29 (he won't).
Amarius Mims, with another season of college football, might be a top 5 pick... He has that kind of natural talent and with Georgia's offensive line history it makes sense why it took him longer to see the field. The wariness with him is less durability for me and far more experience and rawness as a prospect... The Lions seem almost like a perfect fit for him to learn with a Top 5 OL coach in Hank Fraley and Taylor Dekker holding down the left side for another year.
Nate Wiggins, while being light, still plays physical and played 10+ games in his two years as a starter. He's one of the best pure coverage corners in this class and he's a good tackler for his weight... plus NFL receivers keep getting lighter.
Renardo Green has zero ball-location skills (his one INT was when Brian Thomas slipped on the route and Daniels threw it right to him) and he is one of the most-grabby corners I've seen in recent memory... Green feels like he's a walking illegal contact/pass interference penalty and that terrifies me at the next level where that gets cracked down on in a big way.
TJ Tampa has incredibly stiff hips. He's awesome if a pass is thrown in front of him and he can step up and make a tackle or play on the ball, but the minute he has to turn and run with a receiver, he's not great. He's a great fit for teams that run a lot of zone and quarters coverages, and a really bad fit for press-man (which Aaron Glenn runs a ton of).
Darius Robinson is big and strong, yes. But he's so raw and unathletic in terms of hand-use and change-of-direction, I think there's a real chance that he'll be learning the ropes of being an NFL player during the entire duration of his rookie contract. Trayvon Walker was a better athlete and more advanced pass rusher than Robinson and he's still trying to piece it all together 3 years later... I'm letting another team assume that risk with a Top 50-ish pick.
Every Michigan fan who says: "they can run 90% of the time and pass for 120 yards in a game" are
(A) over a certain age where they remember watching the Nebraska teams of the 90s and the Michigan teams of the 70s and 80s and so have this belief this is a reasonable path to a successful season in the year of our Lord 2024
(B) lying to themselves about how much they actually want to watch that offense... Denard Robinson was nearly a 60% passer in his career, yet people grumbled about his ability to pass his entire tenure here. I personally did not enjoy my PSU game experience last year; winning was fun and we could all look back on it and have a good laugh... but we could very, VERY easily be on the PSU side of that game next year and this will be a very unhappy place
1) That was 15 years ago, on a triple-option team.
2) You show me the Georgia Tech schedule that featured Texas, Oregon, Washington, USC, and Ohio State (and perhaps more, depending on conference championship games and playoffs).
3) If the goal is just to have a nice season, we can roll Orji out there and let him complete passes at a 43% clip like Nesbitt did, go 8-4 or 7-5 and then enjoy a trip to the Alamo Bowl. But if the goal is to win the B1G and make the CFP and compete for a national championship (which this defense is capable of), then Orji having a Josh Nesbitt season will absolutely hold Michigan back.
Last year, Iowa set the expectations for their offense at 25 points per game for their offense; they ended the year averaging 15.4 points per game, and that includes all their defense and special teams scoring.
Why do I bring this up? If your mentality going into a season is that the defense will carry you and your offense needs to do just enough to win, you will make it so much harder for yourself because you have exactly one avenue to victory. The good opponents will take away your first option and force you to beat them in other ways.
Michigan needs to head into next year confident in their ability to both run and pass the football; to win both types of games: defensive struggles and offensive shootouts.
I think we all feel confident Michigan can win the 24-15 slogs against PSU and Iowa where it's all defense and field position... but it's the 31-24 games against Ohio State and Maryland where Michigan will need their offense to score on 5 or 6 drives in a game where you only get 9 possessions that I (and others) have real concerns
The logical part of my brain is screaming that if we haven't seen Orji pass yet, then it doesn't exist.
When we saw JJ feature in a mini-package role during his true freshman year, they weren't scared to let him pass the ball (59 pass attempts to 27 rushes). When Denard featured as a true freshman behind Forcier, the coaches let him throw the ball 31 times to 69 rush attempts.
Orji currently has 21 career rush attempts and 1 pass attempt. Sure, he could be a good passer and we just haven't seen it or he could have a Josh Allen-type of development jump and go from a below-average passer to an above-average one. But is that a likely outcome, without any in game-reps or experience? Man, I'm not comfortable making that bet if I'm Sherrone.
As I said in the post below, you can find good dual-threat QBs at the FCS level in the Big Sky who are efficient passers and runners in power-run offenses... and players like Gronowski or Miller are winners with playoff experience, so I'm not worried about them being culture fits.
Not sure there have been any post-Spring QB transfers who have stepped into a situation like Michigan with a diverse run game and a dominant defense either.
With JJ McCarthy going top 10 in the draft with meager stats, Michigan could realistically get almost any non-starter at the Power 5 level or any starter at the Group of 5 level or below.
Kansas has Jalon Daniels and Jason Bean and can only start one. Or how about FCS Walter Payton Award winner Mark Gronowski, who went to high school right down the road from JJ McCarthy and threw for 3000 yds and almost 30 touchdowns (while running for over 600 yds) for the FCS champion jackrabbits? Or an efficient passer in a run-heavy offense like NDSU's Cam Miller?
There are still good options for UM out there if they want to kick the tires on a quarterback
That's my entire point! If Orji's not able to both run and pass in his mini packages and prevent defenses from keying on just the run, then he's never going to be a functional quarterback to run the entire offense as a Plan-A, QB1.
I'd love to be wrong and watch Orji be this Cam Newton tank in a power offense, but there's a difference between hoping that happens and relying on that development.
It sounds fun in theory and then you find yourself in a game down 10-0 in the first quarter and your whole offense is one dimensional...
There's no reason why the Orji-ffense can't be your curveball or plan B and bring in a one year starter who's actually a consistent passer... you get all the benefits of letting Orji run while also not allowing opposing defenses to run scheme for him for the entire week.
The thing that isn't talked about (among fans) with Bowers is that if you're taking him in the top 15 picks, you're not getting the same value according to the salary cap that you would if you took one of the elite WRs instead.
The cost to franchise-tag a WR is about 22M, while tagging a TE is nearly half that cost at 12.5M... which means that – if you have the tenth pick in the draft and will automatically be giving the selected player a 5yr/22M contract – giving that contract to a TE will immediately make him one of the 20 highest paid players at his position, while a receiver under that contract would be outside the top 40 or 50.
Again, that's not an argument to take a worse WR instead of an elite TE, but if both are elite according to your scouts, then the tie goes to the receiver because he's more valuable.
"So... when we lose it's his fault, but if we win, he gets no credit for it."
Uh, I clearly stated that I would give Warde credit if May (and Moore) turn out to be a successful hire. For now, I'm reserving any judgment.
It would be silly to give Warde credit for the Juwan hire, as it ultimately destroyed our basketball program. He also inherited Jim Harbaugh, gets points for not firing him in 2020 and then loses points for never getting a new contract signed when he had 3 years... but Jim was never Warde's choice or hire.
For better or worse, Warde's legacy will be tied to Moore and May. If both hit and are at Michigan for the next 15 years, Warde will be remembered mostly fondly. If both fail and we're right back to hiring a football coach and a basketball coach in five years, another AD will be making those hires.
Just making a hire is a comically low bar for any AD.
If Michigan had pulled-off hiring a basketball coach who people thought was untouchable (Otzelberger, Oats, etc) then that's something to credit Warde with; May, while being in demand by other schools, was also extremely getable.
I'm glad Warde moved with conviction on the hire and I hope May works out (I'm reserved but hopeful), but Manuel will get his kudos from me when it's proven that he made the right hire.
i understand if you want to go peruse 11w and see how the other side is responding, but there are a hundred other osu sources i would go to first before the thought of listening to that dude would cross my mind
The Black Company got really slow during the Books of the South, but I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a book series so clearly start off as the author just having fun and being completely irreverent and “this will not be a series,” only for the author to realize completeley organically “oh, there’s an actual story here.”
Currently about 70% through The Witcher series… as someone who usually reads series before watching shows, I purposefully stayed away from it when the Netflix show launched with high hopes to just go along for the ride. But with Henry Cavill announcing he was leaving the show, my interest waned and – wanting to play the Witcher III video game – decided to give in and finally read the series.
After this I’m going to read Hell is A World Without You by Jason Kirk (already mentioned), then perhaps move onto either Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (thoroughly enjoyed his short novella Elder Race last year) or Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.
As far as recommendations, two of my favorite standalone books last year were Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway, a gritty-and-brash cyberpunk murder mystery and Blitz by Daniel O’Malley that’s set in his The Rook universe (with a fantasy MI6 with super-abilities) but it unrelated to those books and is set in London during World War II.
3-Body was an intriguing slow burn for Book 1, super, super good for Book 2 and the first half of Book 3… and then completely fell on its face trying to stick the landing.
Haven’t been that disappointed with an the ending in some time.
You can both acknowledge the reality of the situation and believe that Michigan should continue to be held to a high standard in the Sherrone era. Michigan will lose The Game again... perhaps it will be next year, but beyond that, if Michigan stops being a Top-10 program and slides back into the 10-25 range, I don't think Michigan fans should be "fine" with that.
I love basking in the national championship glow, but "I have no problems with us taking a step back for the next few years" is taking it a bit too far, even for me.
We don't have to be national title favorites, but I don't want to lose The Game or miss the playoffs for the next three years either.
Being .04 seconds away from a sub-4.5 is a good time for Corum. He could also drop 5 lbs between now and Michigan's pro day and sneak in sub-4.5...
Blake Corum is a RB prospect in the 2024 draft class. He scored an unofficial 5.80 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 734 out of 1745 RB from 1987 to 2024.
He has a RAS score of 5.80 right now (5.00 being the average of all draft-eligible RBs in modern history) and he was always going to be behind the proverbial 8-ball due to his height/weight measurements... if you remove those measurements from the equation and account for just his run splits and vertical jump, his score jumps up to 6.89 which means he's a better athlete that 2 out of every 3 RB prospects.
I'm not a huge Dune fan (A+ worldbuilding, D+ story), but I hope it does well so Hollywood will be more willing to pour money into passion projects by great directors and "serious" sci-fi book adaptations, rather than the same old sequels and franchise reboots we see every summer.
You take Joe Montana off the 49ers and that core still won a Super Bowl with Steve Young; you take Brady off the Patriots or Mahomes off the Chiefs and those franchises crash back down to earth.
Good points and I agree, especially with the "Ravens defense" experience prerequisite is creating a diluted pool of candidates. There's a difference between a Zach Orr or a D'Anton Lynn type of candidate who are doing the Ravens 2.0 stuff Michigan wants to continue running and a Wink/Cullen type of candidate more tied to the Ravens 1.0 defense.
Personally, I'd rather take a chance on a younger coach with more potential and less experience without ties to the Ravens' system than an older coach with more holes in their resume and loose Ravens ties.
While I'm resigned to a Wink or Cullen hire, but I do believe there's a higher likelihood of failure with a Ravens 1.0 hire than Michigan fans are taking into account.
Mike MacDonald was also considered a savant at 33 years old when he was appointed Michigan's DC... not having "prior DC experience" when you're that young is a completely different animal than having little coordinator experience at 60. Minter fell into the same boat and both Macdonald and Minter had experience coaching the second level of the defense.
No one has called Joe Cullen a savant, and that wouldn't be fair to him for him to step into that role at Michigan with those expectations. He's experienced and he sounds like a phenomenal defensive line coach... but he's not a recruiter, his past experience as a coordinator hasn't been all that successful and it's completely fair to note those things objectively (all the while hoping things work out for the best).
Sure, but I'm not entirely sure how much exposure to the secondary/coverage side of things you get as the DL coach. Plus, he was there under the Wink era, so he didn't really soak in the advanced schemes MacDonald was running during his tenure as Ravens' DC... I actually have more hope that he soaked in some of Spags' looks in KC than Wink's coverages in Baltimore.
Cullen got a chance to be DC in Jacksonville and – while the team was a dumpster fire – it doesn't sound like the defense he installed there was all that modern or unique, which doesn't make me feel great.
I think there's a healthy middle ground between thinking this is a "home run hire" and "the sky is falling." I'm skeptical but there were far worse hires to be made.
I have real concerns about a career defensive line coach with very limited coordinator experience being able to teach and install the exotic coverages that were our secret weapon over the past three seasons.
This feels like we're going back to the Greg Mattison era with a talented, older coach who thinks about football primarily from the POV of the line of scrimmage (and with far worse recruiting chops).
Recent Comments
Ultimately, there's a difference between that offense being Plan A and Plan B. I agree that Orji adds a running element and requires teams to be disciplined in their run fits and I want to keep that in the offense... but running that also makes Michigan far more predictable and easier to gameplan for.
That's why I think it should be a subpackage and not the primary offense. If the Orji-ffense is working, you can spam the subpackage and make the defense stop it. But if it's off or Orji is being inaccurate, you can table it for the day and run a more balanced offense at your disposal.
Shouldn't Orji have been more accurate in that case because he knew he wasn't going to get hit today? It's not as if he was missing throws because coverage was too tight or no one was open; he was simply wildly inaccurate on anything downfield.
It sounds like you're assuming that when reps go live, Orji's going to become more accurate... and that's a bold statement.
What more am I looking for? How about a completed pass that goes 10 yards downfield.
Also, Warren was good in mop-up duty in 2022 and then injured last season, so it's possible he simply wasn't right last fall and what we saw prior is the real Davis Warren.
I don't think the running game automatically improves by freezing contain players who are waiting to see if it's a handoff or a keep, if that means both safeties are only 10 yards off the LOS and you're running into 10-man boxes.
Yes, Alex Orji is like Lamar Jackson, the one-dimensional NFL MVP (2x) who completed 67% of his passes for 3500+ yards and 24 TDs to 7 INTs. Lamar had the same completion percentage as Mahomes and was more accurate than Josh Allen, Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert. He was #4 in QB Rating; over Herbert, Stafford, Cousins Mahomes, and Goff.
You need to repent for trying to frame Lamar as a run-first QB who can't pass.
I prefer Warren to Orji, and it's not particularly close right now.
Orji's shown nothing other than being a subpackage QB. Keep him in that role this year, let him expand his role with some simple passes and easy reads and grow in confidence... but putting his name in pen as the starting QB is likely a recipe for disaster.
Downvote for the super disingenuous topic title.
This is good news for Michigan with very light penalties for previously known NCAA infractions (Burgergate).
The only NCAA infractions left to dodge are the Signgate penalties, which Michigan has yet to even be notified of allegations (officially) by the NCAA.
Good discussion!
Thomas Jr:
I don't disagree with any of the warts you pointed out: BTJ lacks polish, will drop some easy passes and he's not an elusive runner in the open field. But with his frame/physicality (6'3" 210) and his speed, he doesn't need to be an elusive runner when he can just blow by you. There's a mold of successful NFL receivers like AJ Brown, DK Metcalf, Tee Higgins, Christian Watson, etc who are in that vertical-first mold.
Partner those traits with his effort and work ethic, and I think he has a chance to becoming a more-physical/durable Christian Watson or a more-explosive Tee Higgins
Mims:
Truthfully, I'm not completely comfortable with his injuries... It's more of that if the Lions are sticking at 29, getting truly impactful players at that slot historically is unlikely (see the last ten years of #29 overall picks). I can't imagine a better situation for Mims to learn than under Decker and Penei and the guide of Hank Fraley without being thrown into the fire and his ceiling is through the roof.
I will say that there's a general "win now" sense I get from other Lions fans who want to push all their chips in right now, while I'd prefer to play the long game and try to win over the next 10 years. Mims is a calculated gamble, but as I'm more focused on getting a player who could be here for 15 years and not 3, it's worth the roll of the dice in my mind.
Wiggins:
You may be correct that Wiggins won't be as valuable to the Lions specifically due to the traits they look for, but because we're talking player evaluation and archetype for corners, I put a much higher value on coverage ability and ball skills than physicality or tackling. To me, I can live with a corner missing a tackle and turning a 2-yard run into a 7-yard run if that means he can break up a pass 25-yards down the field (instead of making the tackle after the receiver catches it).
Wiggins is only 172 lbs, so he'll always struggle to get off blocks, but he's not a purely finesse player either.
Here's him laying out Xavier Leggette:
Here's Wiggins sprinting 60 yards to force a fumble at the goal line:
I can work with that mentality from a cornerback... He's not a Marcus Peters who wants to play basketball on grass.
And with the division the Lions are in, if the Lions are going to be play Jefferson/Addison, Watson/Reed, and Moore/Allen/Rookie... those aren't super-heavy, physical receivers like Deebo/AJ Brown/DK Metcalf, so they should be able to get away with a lighter CB on the outside.
Renardo Green:
Everything you said I'm in agreement with... I just can't think of a single cornerback who was able to "fix" those issues at the NFL level without ball-location skills. If you never look for the football, NFL refs will hammer you even to the point of getting flagged on plays where it wasn't illegal contact.
If you know of a comparable player who was able to remedy those issues at the next level, then envisioning Green as an NFL cornerback will be much easier for me.
Darius Robinson:
I disagree with your evaluation of his traits and how close he is to being an effective bull rusher (which is fine) at the NFL level, but how about you sell me on the vision for Darius to become an impact player? Who's the comparable player who's had success in the NFL recently?
Everyone throws out the Cam Jordan comparison, but Cam Jordan was highly polished coming out of Cal with hand technique and pass-rushing moves. Outside of Jordan, can you name a big-DE who panned out in the NFL in the last 15 years? I think you'd have to go back to Calais Campbell in 2008 to find a comparable path to success for Robinson, but Campbell had multiple years of production and was also more polished coming out of Miami.
But just in general, I don't value that "traditional DE" role that significantly lacks the pass rush tool on Day 1 or 2. It's a role you can fill via free agency on the cheap (John Cominsky) or on Day 3 with players like Justin Eboigbe or Logan Lee. Eboigbe gives me the same weight and run-defending ability that Robinson does and with far better football instincts 50-100 picks later, but without the height and length that Robinson does which caps his ceiling.
I’m all for being gracious, but Jace never would’ve been on the team in the first place if his dad wasn’t the head coach. Having a non-scholarship-caliber player continue to take up a scholarship isn’t the best use of a limited resource (not like Michigan is going to be competing for a title next season, but generally speaking), and that’s not even getting into team-building dynamics.
I agree with you that I would have no problem with Penei's cousin in Round 1, but I don't think his tape at BYU is as good as we were hoping it would be, so there's a bit of projection in his draft profile that might make some iffy at 29 overall.
I have similar feelings about Graham Barton, who I think will be a dominant interior player but is only a "meh" tackle prospect. If the Lions feel comfortable Barton can eventually take over center for Ragnow, they should sprint his name up (even over Powers-Johnson)... But if he's a guard only, then Round 1 feels a little rich considering the depth of this class.
Just some pushback on your evaluations:
If you can't understand a playoff system that requires two simple bullet points, you're telling on yourself
Do you not remember TCU? Its football, sh*t happens.
Every Michigan fan who says: "they can run 90% of the time and pass for 120 yards in a game" are
(A) over a certain age where they remember watching the Nebraska teams of the 90s and the Michigan teams of the 70s and 80s and so have this belief this is a reasonable path to a successful season in the year of our Lord 2024
(B) lying to themselves about how much they actually want to watch that offense... Denard Robinson was nearly a 60% passer in his career, yet people grumbled about his ability to pass his entire tenure here. I personally did not enjoy my PSU game experience last year; winning was fun and we could all look back on it and have a good laugh... but we could very, VERY easily be on the PSU side of that game next year and this will be a very unhappy place
1) That was 15 years ago, on a triple-option team.
2) You show me the Georgia Tech schedule that featured Texas, Oregon, Washington, USC, and Ohio State (and perhaps more, depending on conference championship games and playoffs).
3) If the goal is just to have a nice season, we can roll Orji out there and let him complete passes at a 43% clip like Nesbitt did, go 8-4 or 7-5 and then enjoy a trip to the Alamo Bowl. But if the goal is to win the B1G and make the CFP and compete for a national championship (which this defense is capable of), then Orji having a Josh Nesbitt season will absolutely hold Michigan back.
JT was short
Last year, Iowa set the expectations for their offense at 25 points per game for their offense; they ended the year averaging 15.4 points per game, and that includes all their defense and special teams scoring.
Why do I bring this up? If your mentality going into a season is that the defense will carry you and your offense needs to do just enough to win, you will make it so much harder for yourself because you have exactly one avenue to victory. The good opponents will take away your first option and force you to beat them in other ways.
Michigan needs to head into next year confident in their ability to both run and pass the football; to win both types of games: defensive struggles and offensive shootouts.
I think we all feel confident Michigan can win the 24-15 slogs against PSU and Iowa where it's all defense and field position... but it's the 31-24 games against Ohio State and Maryland where Michigan will need their offense to score on 5 or 6 drives in a game where you only get 9 possessions that I (and others) have real concerns
Call me entitled or spoiled, but I believe the starting QB of the University of Michigan should always be an awfully good football player.
I'm not advocating for Jadyn Davis to start.
The logical part of my brain is screaming that if we haven't seen Orji pass yet, then it doesn't exist.
When we saw JJ feature in a mini-package role during his true freshman year, they weren't scared to let him pass the ball (59 pass attempts to 27 rushes). When Denard featured as a true freshman behind Forcier, the coaches let him throw the ball 31 times to 69 rush attempts.
Orji currently has 21 career rush attempts and 1 pass attempt. Sure, he could be a good passer and we just haven't seen it or he could have a Josh Allen-type of development jump and go from a below-average passer to an above-average one. But is that a likely outcome, without any in game-reps or experience? Man, I'm not comfortable making that bet if I'm Sherrone.
As I said in the post below, you can find good dual-threat QBs at the FCS level in the Big Sky who are efficient passers and runners in power-run offenses... and players like Gronowski or Miller are winners with playoff experience, so I'm not worried about them being culture fits.
Not sure there have been any post-Spring QB transfers who have stepped into a situation like Michigan with a diverse run game and a dominant defense either.
With JJ McCarthy going top 10 in the draft with meager stats, Michigan could realistically get almost any non-starter at the Power 5 level or any starter at the Group of 5 level or below.
Kansas has Jalon Daniels and Jason Bean and can only start one. Or how about FCS Walter Payton Award winner Mark Gronowski, who went to high school right down the road from JJ McCarthy and threw for 3000 yds and almost 30 touchdowns (while running for over 600 yds) for the FCS champion jackrabbits? Or an efficient passer in a run-heavy offense like NDSU's Cam Miller?
There are still good options for UM out there if they want to kick the tires on a quarterback
Does Tuttle give you the warm and fuzzies for winning in Columbus next year?
That's my entire point! If Orji's not able to both run and pass in his mini packages and prevent defenses from keying on just the run, then he's never going to be a functional quarterback to run the entire offense as a Plan-A, QB1.
I'd love to be wrong and watch Orji be this Cam Newton tank in a power offense, but there's a difference between hoping that happens and relying on that development.
It sounds fun in theory and then you find yourself in a game down 10-0 in the first quarter and your whole offense is one dimensional...
There's no reason why the Orji-ffense can't be your curveball or plan B and bring in a one year starter who's actually a consistent passer... you get all the benefits of letting Orji run while also not allowing opposing defenses to run scheme for him for the entire week.
If the offense is running at "Iowa spring game levels" and there's "no talk of the portal" for a QB, that's a huge concern.
The thing that isn't talked about (among fans) with Bowers is that if you're taking him in the top 15 picks, you're not getting the same value according to the salary cap that you would if you took one of the elite WRs instead.
The cost to franchise-tag a WR is about 22M, while tagging a TE is nearly half that cost at 12.5M... which means that – if you have the tenth pick in the draft and will automatically be giving the selected player a 5yr/22M contract – giving that contract to a TE will immediately make him one of the 20 highest paid players at his position, while a receiver under that contract would be outside the top 40 or 50.
Again, that's not an argument to take a worse WR instead of an elite TE, but if both are elite according to your scouts, then the tie goes to the receiver because he's more valuable.
"So... when we lose it's his fault, but if we win, he gets no credit for it."
Uh, I clearly stated that I would give Warde credit if May (and Moore) turn out to be a successful hire. For now, I'm reserving any judgment.
It would be silly to give Warde credit for the Juwan hire, as it ultimately destroyed our basketball program. He also inherited Jim Harbaugh, gets points for not firing him in 2020 and then loses points for never getting a new contract signed when he had 3 years... but Jim was never Warde's choice or hire.
For better or worse, Warde's legacy will be tied to Moore and May. If both hit and are at Michigan for the next 15 years, Warde will be remembered mostly fondly. If both fail and we're right back to hiring a football coach and a basketball coach in five years, another AD will be making those hires.
Just making a hire is a comically low bar for any AD.
If Michigan had pulled-off hiring a basketball coach who people thought was untouchable (Otzelberger, Oats, etc) then that's something to credit Warde with; May, while being in demand by other schools, was also extremely getable.
I'm glad Warde moved with conviction on the hire and I hope May works out (I'm reserved but hopeful), but Manuel will get his kudos from me when it's proven that he made the right hire.
Spartan Stadium being seeded higher than BOTH Kinnick and Camp Randall is an outrage to the highest degree.
i understand if…
yeah, this.
i understand if you want to go peruse 11w and see how the other side is responding, but there are a hundred other osu sources i would go to first before the thought of listening to that dude would cross my mind
The Hyperion Cantos is the shit. Easily my favorite science fiction series of all time…
The “Dark Forest détente” of Three-Body was absolutely thrilling, but I just could not get on board with the ending.
If you like Norse-inspired mythology, you should give The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne a look.
The Black Company got really slow during the Books of the South, but I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a book series so clearly start off as the author just having fun and being completely irreverent and “this will not be a series,” only for the author to realize completeley organically “oh, there’s an actual story here.”
Currently about 70% through The Witcher series… as someone who usually reads series before watching shows, I purposefully stayed away from it when the Netflix show launched with high hopes to just go along for the ride. But with Henry Cavill announcing he was leaving the show, my interest waned and – wanting to play the Witcher III video game – decided to give in and finally read the series.
After this I’m going to read Hell is A World Without You by Jason Kirk (already mentioned), then perhaps move onto either Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky (thoroughly enjoyed his short novella Elder Race last year) or Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower.
As far as recommendations, two of my favorite standalone books last year were Titanium Noir by Nick Harkaway, a gritty-and-brash cyberpunk murder mystery and Blitz by Daniel O’Malley that’s set in his The Rook universe (with a fantasy MI6 with super-abilities) but it unrelated to those books and is set in London during World War II.
Brandon just announced he wrote another secret novel that’s coming out with the leatherbound edition of Words of Radiance… he’s an absolute machine.
This is next on my to-read list… Glad to hear Jason crushed it.
3-Body was an intriguing slow burn for Book 1, super, super good for Book 2 and the first half of Book 3… and then completely fell on its face trying to stick the landing.
Haven’t been that disappointed with an the ending in some time.
You can both acknowledge the reality of the situation and believe that Michigan should continue to be held to a high standard in the Sherrone era. Michigan will lose The Game again... perhaps it will be next year, but beyond that, if Michigan stops being a Top-10 program and slides back into the 10-25 range, I don't think Michigan fans should be "fine" with that.
I love basking in the national championship glow, but "I have no problems with us taking a step back for the next few years" is taking it a bit too far, even for me.
We don't have to be national title favorites, but I don't want to lose The Game or miss the playoffs for the next three years either.
Being .04 seconds away from a sub-4.5 is a good time for Corum. He could also drop 5 lbs between now and Michigan's pro day and sneak in sub-4.5...
He has a RAS score of 5.80 right now (5.00 being the average of all draft-eligible RBs in modern history) and he was always going to be behind the proverbial 8-ball due to his height/weight measurements... if you remove those measurements from the equation and account for just his run splits and vertical jump, his score jumps up to 6.89 which means he's a better athlete that 2 out of every 3 RB prospects.
Not really as he'll primarily play nickel and you're covering smaller, quicker receivers in the slot.
I'm not a huge Dune fan (A+ worldbuilding, D+ story), but I hope it does well so Hollywood will be more willing to pour money into passion projects by great directors and "serious" sci-fi book adaptations, rather than the same old sequels and franchise reboots we see every summer.
Fun topic but a truly terrible idea.
You take Joe Montana off the 49ers and that core still won a Super Bowl with Steve Young; you take Brady off the Patriots or Mahomes off the Chiefs and those franchises crash back down to earth.
Good points and I agree, especially with the "Ravens defense" experience prerequisite is creating a diluted pool of candidates. There's a difference between a Zach Orr or a D'Anton Lynn type of candidate who are doing the Ravens 2.0 stuff Michigan wants to continue running and a Wink/Cullen type of candidate more tied to the Ravens 1.0 defense.
Personally, I'd rather take a chance on a younger coach with more potential and less experience without ties to the Ravens' system than an older coach with more holes in their resume and loose Ravens ties.
While I'm resigned to a Wink or Cullen hire, but I do believe there's a higher likelihood of failure with a Ravens 1.0 hire than Michigan fans are taking into account.
Mike MacDonald was also considered a savant at 33 years old when he was appointed Michigan's DC... not having "prior DC experience" when you're that young is a completely different animal than having little coordinator experience at 60. Minter fell into the same boat and both Macdonald and Minter had experience coaching the second level of the defense.
No one has called Joe Cullen a savant, and that wouldn't be fair to him for him to step into that role at Michigan with those expectations. He's experienced and he sounds like a phenomenal defensive line coach... but he's not a recruiter, his past experience as a coordinator hasn't been all that successful and it's completely fair to note those things objectively (all the while hoping things work out for the best).
Sure, but I'm not entirely sure how much exposure to the secondary/coverage side of things you get as the DL coach. Plus, he was there under the Wink era, so he didn't really soak in the advanced schemes MacDonald was running during his tenure as Ravens' DC... I actually have more hope that he soaked in some of Spags' looks in KC than Wink's coverages in Baltimore.
Cullen got a chance to be DC in Jacksonville and – while the team was a dumpster fire – it doesn't sound like the defense he installed there was all that modern or unique, which doesn't make me feel great.
I think there's a healthy middle ground between thinking this is a "home run hire" and "the sky is falling." I'm skeptical but there were far worse hires to be made.
I have real concerns about a career defensive line coach with very limited coordinator experience being able to teach and install the exotic coverages that were our secret weapon over the past three seasons.
This feels like we're going back to the Greg Mattison era with a talented, older coach who thinks about football primarily from the POV of the line of scrimmage (and with far worse recruiting chops).
puke