Michigan Football, the 2020 Abbreviated COVID Season

[froot loops]

Unless they change the rules, it is going to be the way things work for the big teams. I think the idea of getting a young quarterback, starting him early and projecting him for the next three years will be looked on as old fashioned. Its either going to be a highly recruited qb who lost the starting job to another highly qb(Fields, Burrow) or a good established starter that can be a graduate transfer(Wilson, Rudock).

The transfer portal is tailor made for quarterbacks, one of the great inefficiencies of quarterback play is there is a vast untapped reserve of quarterbacks who can be good at the next level but don't get reps at the college level because the head coach chooses someone else.

[Hannibal]

The transfer shit has gotten out of control and the NCAA needs to put a clamp on it. If you transfer, then sit out a fucking year unless you've got a degree.

[froot loops]

I think its fine.

[lineygoblue]

The transfer shit has gotten out of control and the NCAA needs to put a clamp on it. If you transfer, then sit out a fucking year unless you've got a degree.

I respectfully disagree.

I'd like to see the rules amended to where any scholarship athlete can transfer one (1) time in a four year period with no penalty for playing time. I also believe that once an athlete signs a LOI that they should be obligated to attend school for at least two (2) years. Give them the option of going pro after HS. No more one-and-done.

If a top HS basketball player wants to go hoop it up with James Harden and LeBron, then help yourself, and good luck. Don't waste a school's time acting like a student while taking a scholarship that may be used better by a real student athlete who could use the money and education. That should apply in all the sports, NBA, NFL, MLB, etc..

I don't think that the rules should change for 5th year seniors. If they have their degree, and want to play a 5th year at another school, wish them luck and let the move on without penalty.

[froot loops]

The colleges would rather have the one and done player than not have them at all. They take them going in, if they thought another player could "be used better by a real student athlete who could use the money and education" they would get that player already.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There were some rumors floating around a week or two ago that Patterson was seeking a fifth year of eligibility. I didn't post it here because it was a lone Twitter source with no confirmation from any other sources. Patterson is playing in the Senior Bowl. Players get paid to do that ..... it's sort-of a camp as NFL scouts are there. If he takes the pay, which reports assume he will, he can't return to play CFB under current NCAA rules(whatever on those - they will start changing soon).

His scouting reports coming from NFL scouts - the couple of them that made it to the web - were never awesome. He did have some upside but I'd be very surprised if he got drafted. Free Agency? Probably and he could get picked up that way. Hope he does well where ever he goes. A likable kid who probably played injured early in the season and we didn't really have a glimpse of how good he could actually be until IU.

Here's what the QB room looks like for now:

1. Dylan McCaffrey
2. Joe Milton
3. Cade McNamara
? Dan Villari - I don't know anything about him, he's a 3* and has an FCS level offer sheet except Michigan offered. He has yet so sign an NLI.

After looking solid for a while the QB room doesn't have the necessary depth behind McCaffrey and we have yet to see what he actually brings to the table. Observers are thinking that a QB on that list will hit the transfer portal if he ends up behind the named starter when he's selected. The loss of JD Johnson to medical retirement hurt. I would tend to believe that Gattis and Harbaugh are shopping a QB via the portal or grad transfer route. I've not seen anything suggesting that but they need to be. The late offer for Stroud, something that never was going to materialize, looks a bit like a panic move.

[hack]

I think, especially since normal recruiting isn't going all that well, that Harbaugh and team should be taking a pretty hard look now that it's doable to basically poach players from other schools.

[WingsFan]

There were some rumors floating around a week or two ago that Patterson was seeking a fifth year of eligibility.

I didn't post it either but it was not a rumor, he said he was going to talk it over with his family.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Yep, late afternoon boredom set in and I turned to mgoboard that's engaged in talking recruiting. Another classic line:

Unfortunately, I feel like college football is looking more and more like the top soccer leagues, in which only a few teams have a realistic shot at winning. The vast majority of the best players are increasingly filling the rosters of a few teams. OSU is Man City or Barecelona and Michigan is stuck in the Tottenham/Valencia tier where they can be competitive but never win anything of consequence.

I think it's a problem and have said so here. Is it a problem? .... and if it is, what should collectively be done about it by, I suppose, the NCAA Board of Governors. My sense though, is they don't give a shit this is happening. CFB is making gads of money to spread around conferences that individual institutions within them, once they cash in their share, then build shit that can be called "athletic facilities."That looks good. As well, college presidents are members of, along with some CEOs, the most over-paid employed cohort on the planet and they like things just the way they are. Don't rock the fucking boat.

To me, there USED to be a rivalry with osu. At this point, there is no rivalry and given that osu is easily in the same grouping with Alabama, Clemson, UGA and LSU in terms of top teams that because they are reeling in all the Top 100 HS talent, well most of it, have the highest probability of consistently competing in the CFP, and Michigan is not, a rivalry where both teams actually split wins and losses over a certain period isn't going to happen.

Pro sports leagues in the US did something about that when teams with the financial means to do so, bought the players and coaches they needed to win while everyone else just lost all the time and had no chance of making the World Series or the Stanley Cup finals or the Super Bowl.

[lineygoblue]

Here's what the QB room looks like for now:

1. Dylan McCaffrey
2. Joe Milton
3. Cade McNamara
? Dan Villari - I don't know anything about him, he's a 3* and has an FCS level offer sheet except Michigan offered. He has yet so sign an NLI.

JJ McCarthy from LaGrange Park IL is a verbal for 2021. Rivals has him rated 4 star, .. not that it means anything.

[froot loops]

5 years ago Liverpool was said to never have a chance to be in the top tier of the major soccer teams again. In many ways it was a past power using their history as a crutch. Much like Michigan. They didn't have sovereign wealth owning them and that was an impediment. They made the best hire in Klopp and they are now champions of Europe. If Harbaugh was that sort of coach, things would be better.

[hack]

Not analogous.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Why not? I think it works. Harbaugh is good. He's right for M but he's failed to elevate M football along with the rising teams mostly because, either by intention or by incompetence, he's not getting enough elite talent.

If he was able to do that, in his first 5y he wouldn't be 0 - 5 v. osu who, comparatively, is reeling in elite talent.......

.......and to be clear, given the talent he does recruit, if he was a great coach, he'd win with what he has recruited. Klopp turned an average team into a contender with what he had in the clubhouse. Then he built on it.

[hack]

Because it's a professional league and not noninally or meaningfully amateur in any way. Seems like a basic starting point.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Well, I've been touting that the similarities between the US pro sports leagues and CFB should allow CFB to address the kind of problems the pro-leagues in the US had with concentration of coaches and skill players in teams that could afford them at the expense of competitiveness across those leagues. The pros fixed that problem. CFB should follow suit. That may not work for everyone. The comparison of Klopp's success in the pro soccer league with Harbaugh's failure to achieve it in amateur CFB does have similarities, at least to me and Froot.