M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Prime2]

Nation's #1 Recruit stops briefly in Columbus today enroute to Michigan tomorrow, probably to take a dump. 320 lb hog must leave a nasty footprint. 3% chance Urbie.

New Jersey contingent Ron Johnson, Ahmir Mitchell, Nas Upshur, Cesar Ruiz visiting Michigan today. Was told Rashan Gary will be there Friday.

[iam416]

OSU won't get Gary. They've more or less passed on Mitchell.

But, there's roughly a 100% chance they'll get Bosa. And, well, end up with the best class in the B10. Easily.

[froot loops]

I have no idea who OSU has on the depth chart. I don't really care. I know if you look at the MSU successes most of the best players they've produced under Dantonio were 0-2 stars with a few low rated 3 stars. Of those, there are 4 to 5 1st round picks. They didn't really coach these kids up because most of them were 3 or 4 year starters. In those cases they were horribly, horribly ranked. A dereliction of duty. I mean how in the world could they miss Trey Waynes and Darqueze Denard, especially Waynes with his top flight speed.

He's recruited a handful of 4 star recruits and those guys were OK. Some of them got drafted based on their physical skill but they were not dominant.

It's not that stars don't matter, but roster management is severely undervalued.

In the larger argument about Michigan, they weren't going to come in and dominate recruiting. For them, if they were expecting to cast their line and haul in a lot of 5 star recruits you're are bound to be disappointed. Nowhere in Harbaugh's resume does it suggest that, but it does suggest that he's the plucky underdog who will succeed.

[iam416]

Denard and Waynes were both 3* kids in the 247 Composite.

As far as MSU goes, you're not going to beat UFM's Ohio State more than once in awhile recruiting 3* kids. Perhaps that's best MSU can hope to do.

The answer to my question is that 8 of 10 OSU All-Americans were 4* or higher.

[froot loops]

Its going to be hard to beat Urban Meyer more than once in awhile no matter what recruits he has, he's a creep as a person but he's a hell of a coach.

I don't think you're going to get much debate on MSU's best hope for now is to beat OSU once in awhile. Maybe there are some crazy true believer on the Red Cedar Message Board . 3 times out of 10 is about the most realistic hope, maybe you get through for the 4th time. That is for now, in the future that may change, they have a good staff in place and a good athletic department. That hasn't been the case for 40 years. And they have NFL credentials now.

As for Waynes and Denard, the 24x7 composite may have said 3 stars but that must have been after a re-ranking after their commitment. At any rate they were not highly thought of.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Its going to be hard to beat Urban Meyer more than once in awhile no matter what recruits he has, he's a creep as a person but he's a hell of a coach.

I don't think you're going to get much debate on MSU's best hope for now is to beat OSU once in awhile.......

A very reasonable position and until M starts landing elite talent like osu does, M fans should be feeling the same way ...... realistically that is.

[froot loops]

At least with Michigan it is a rivalry and you have the chance to score the odd upset. MSU/OSU has never been a rivalry. In fact when they hired John L Smith, he made the very strange gaffe at his hiring, he referred to the rival down the road and he was referring to OSU and not Michigan.

[iam416]

Yeah, but Dantonio hates UFM. So, you have that going for you. And the MSU-OSU game will be pretty damn huge this season. I'm already looking forward to getting up at 5:30am to tailgate for that one! (especially after the 9 games of crap I'll have to endure b/t VT and MSU and M)

[froot loops]

Yeah for the foreseeable future, it will be a game. We've upped the program and now they will be facing each other every year, it seems like these two programs faced each other the least amount of times. That made it less of a rivalry.

I'm not sure the Dantonio hate will amount to much. I think it's a little overblown anyway.

[Prime2]

I'd put my cash on the man paid 7M to fix this mess over the cheap Chardonnay & Planters crowd anyday.

[iam416]

Ohio State opens as a 14 point favorite against Sparty and 16 against HARBAUGH!

[WM Wolverine]

They favored in every game? What's the lowest spread for them?

[iam416]

MSU is lowest line.

[Hannibal]

Ohio State opens as a 14 point favorite against Sparty and 16 against HARBAUGH!

Gut reaction at this second -- I'll take the +16. Even RichRod's shitty '09 team kept it to 11 and that was with 5 turnovers and an OSU defensive TD. You've got to go back to the Bump Elliot era to find another double digit victory for OSU in Ann Arbor and back to 1961 to find a victory by 2 TDs.

[iam416]

It's also 16 against VT, so that's an early comparable for M in the eyes of Vegas.