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2009 TSUN News (football only discussion)

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The cupboard was bare enough to have a rough rebuilding year, 7-5, 8-4 or so. There was far too much talent at UM, even with Sheridan/Threet, to lose to all four of MSU, Toledo, Purdue & Northwestern. MSU is the only slightly excusable one, though that was also a severe talent mismatch.

MSU & UM's talent in 08 were inversely proportional. Sparty had about as many good players (4? 5?) as UM had bad players (Threet, Harrison, Trent, etc)... the opposite is true as well.
 
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jwinslow;1547212; said:
This line is drastically overused and rarely in an accurate manner.

Against PSU, OSU & ND? Yes.
Against MSU? Not even close. Brian Hoyer was one of their best players, and he was not very good. I'd argue he was their worst starting QB this decade, including 09.
Against Toledo, Purdue, Northwestern? The answer 'no' wins in a landslide.
Defensive depth was a major issue, yet RR loaded up on slots who cannot contribute on defense. When you recruit 6' 200 lb athletes, they can help you on special teams coverage, corner, RB, WR, safety, etc. When you recruit 5'6" 150 lb jitterbugs, they can only return kicks and work out of the slot.
That's a neat way of disregarding the tremendous class Carr gave RR that year.

RR added 11 players to Carr's class, and 8 of those were on offense. One of the defenders transferred, the other is an average talent (Floyd), and the third is still a tweener at this point (Smith).

Carr gave RR this on defense:

***** DE Brandon Graham, all-big 10 defender, potentially overall.
***** DT Mike Martin, tremendous talent & rare early impact DT.
***** DT Will Campbell, elite talent but a project
***** LB Jonas Mouton, 5-star safety moved down
**** LB JB Fitzgerald
**** LB Marcus WItherspoon
***** CB Donovan Warren
***** CB Boubacar Cissoko
***** CB Justin Turner (that recruitment was over before RR was hired. the only suspense was when they didn't call him for months on end after taking the UM job).
**** S Stevie Brown


MSU has one player worth mentioning on defense. The rest are talents which pale in comparison to anyone besides Stevie Brown.

Carr gave RR this on offense:

***** Ryan Mallett, first round pick type potential at QB.
***** Kevin Grady, did not live up to hype at RB but has been a key contributor at FB. Would star at the MSUs, NWs & Purdues of the world.
**** Brandon Minor, as good as anyone in the league when healthy
**** Carlos Brown, great speed back
**** Sam McGuffie, RR style back, thrust into feature back role far too early, should have been redshirted instead.
**** Darryl Stonum, stolen from heavy hitters like FLA. UM's most talented WR
**** Toney Clemons, 6'3" prototypical UM wr. Completely wasted at slot WR.
**** Kevin Koger
**** Martell Webb - these two are big time weapons in the passing game.
***** Justin Boren, best guard in the big ten.
***** Steve Schilling, multi-year starter
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Witherspoon never qualified
Campbell and Martin were rrod recruits, both decommitted at one time. You could also include Boo Boo as this as well.
Turner was a RRod recruit, carr barely even recruited him
Clemons and grady are both average at best
Boren is far from the best guard in the big ten
 
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Witherspoon never qualified
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Witherspoon was at Michigan getting ready for the season. That situation was not handled well. I'm not blaming RR, but he was not merely a non-qualifier.
Campbell and Martin were rrod recruits, both decommitted at one time. You could also include Boo Boo as this as well.
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Hogwash. Carr secured Will's verbal before his junior football season. He played very transparent games and chose UM again a few days after removing them from his list :roll2: Boo Boo tried to play games too and that wasn't any more believable than his bigger counterpart.

As for MM, he said he was committed the whole time, albeit one of the 100% committed but taking visits types :lol: Of course, RR had to brew up a special batch of snake oil to dissuade his fears of playing in a 3-man front at Michigan. Looks like those fears were well founded.
Turner was a RRod recruit, carr barely even recruited him
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Baloney. Turner had his heart set on UM before RR was even hired. However, RRod took the UM job in December and didn't call him until later that spring. The minute he got around to calling a diehard wolverine like Turner, his recruitment was over once again.
Clemons and grady are both average at best
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And yet they're still more talented than what MSU, Purdue, Toledo & Northwestern have to work with. Of course, 6'3" stiff WRs usually look pretty average when they're asked to be a jitterbug slots because there aren't enough on roster.
Boren is far from the best guard in the big ten
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Yes, he's so far from being the best guard that Phil Steele put him on his 1st team, as did Rittenburg, CFN, etc.
 
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How many players are out for Indiana? Holy Moly...

I know JWins thinks Indiana sucks really bad but I don't agree.

Kirlew and Middleton are the best DE's Michigan will have faced by a wide margin. Ray Fisher is doing great for Indiana on defense and in the return game. Indiana has a few very talented but young WR's. Chappel is looking alot more competent than he did week one.

Theres one thing Indiana has going for them...chemistry. They have gotten better every week. If they improve as much this week as they did last week this game could get very interesting. I think Indianas weakness is their linebackers/running game.

IMO Forcier is gonna have Middleton and Kirlew hitting him. We are gonna find out how tough this kid is...the clean jersey days are over.

Indiana might not win but I am willing to bet they cover the spread. Michigan Losing your best OL does not help. Michigan had 4 walk-ons play last week...two GETTING significant PT.

I know we have talked about their depth and now its starting to rear its head. Tate got dinged against EMU...he goes out and they are screwed. Robinson is probably worse throwing the ball than Sheridan...thats saying alot...negatively.
 
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Jwins, I agree that 3-9 was not entirely caused by the lack of talent. It was just a perfect storm -- having to play Sheridan during some of those losses, etc. Now it's coming out that there were some pretty major chemistry issues with the seniors from last year not "buying in". (So it might be good that there aren't so many upperclassmen left, actually). There was also, apparently, some not-so-hidden tension among the defensive staff. The players must have picked up on that. Combine all that with learning a new scheme, and bad luck, etc -- and you get 5-7/4-8. I'm still not sure what happened to push us down to 3-9. I've blocked out last season.

My post was an explanation for why why we had to play two walkons extensively against EMU (Leach and Kovacs -- and, again, the reports suggest both played quite well), and two more walkons less extensively (Floyd Simmons and Will Heininger). And it was also an explanation for our poor LB play -- we literally have no other recruited bodies who are non-RS Freshmen. The DB play has been less bad, but we are in even worse position there -- again, every single sophomore-and-above needs to play all game. That's scary. My point in saying that Carr left the cupboard bare wasn't to explain 3-9, but to explain Jordan Kovacs.

You're also right that RichRod should have added more defensive players. I give him a pass on that first class. The second one, we had two decommits on the D-line (have I mentioned I don't like Hopson, our LB coach who has had two decommits and zero commits on the recruiting trail?). We got three good players on the D-line, though: Roh, Campbell, LaLota.

In that class, we also brought in three (undersized) LBs, which is as many in one class as are in the sophomore-senior classes combined. We should have brought in even more -- the early rumor was that WR Cam Gordon was brought in to be a LB. But that's less likely now.

He also brought in five DBs that class (after Teric Jones moved there -- Witty is still coming in, but in January). So RichRod didn't completely disregard the defensive side of the ball, but I would have still liked him to recruit more numbers there. I've said as much (pg. 216).
 
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brutus2002;1547429; said:
How many players are out for Indiana? Holy Moly...

I know JWins thinks Indiana sucks really bad but I don't agree.

Kirlew and Middleton are the best DE's Michigan will have faced by a wide margin. Ray Fisher is doing great for Indiana on defense and in the return game. Indiana has a few very talented but young WR's. Chappel is looking alot more competent than he did week one.

Theres one thing Indiana has going for them...chemistry. They have gotten better every week. If they improve as much this week as they did last week this game could get very interesting. I think Indianas weakness is their linebackers/running game.

IMO Forcier is gonna have Middleton and Kirlew hitting him. We are gonna find out how tough this kid is...the clean jersey days are over.

Indiana might not win but I am willing to bet they cover the spread. Michigan Losing your best OL does not help. Michigan had 4 walk-ons play last week...two GETTING significant PT.

I know we have talked about their depth and now its starting to rear its head. Tate got dinged against EMU...he goes out and they are screwed. Robinson is probably worse throwing the ball than Sheridan...thats saying alot...negatively.
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jwinslow is a pretty knowledgeable guy, and I have to agree with him, Indiana sucks.

Molk is a very good OL, but I don't think he's our best. Steve Schilling is our best OL. He's moved to LG, a position he should've been playing from Day 1 under Andy Moeller. The kid just isn't a tackle. He's an awesome guard though, with late 1st/2nd round potential (guards rarely ever go in the 1st so if by some chance he does it'll be late 1st).

I don't think Michigan will come out flat two weeks in a row either. Rodriguez can coach and he will have his team ready to play Indiana.

I really want to see more of Mike Shaw and Mike Cox against IU. Shaw is a true soph., Cox is a RS Fr., both of them look like they are going to be players.

Denard Robinson is not worse at throwing the ball than Sheridan. At worst he's equal. His accuracy isn't great right now, but he's got a much stronger arm than Sheridan. Denard has an even stronger arm than Tate IMO. As far as Nicky Sheridan goes, well he cannot really throw it and he cannot run whatsoever, so basically he's useless. At least Robinson can run and make things happen with his legs.
 
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