UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[WM Wolverine]

Too much young on offense, pretty much everywhere. Defense will need to win a couple games by themselves when the offenses inexperience shows up.

[Ghengis Jon]

It's about winning, advancing your own stock and that is clearly not what M football is about these days.

The maize and blue colored glasses are off this old boy.

According to Brand-On!, success at Michigan is measured by ticket sales. Period. Do I need to dig up the press conference clip?


And keep the glasses in your breast pocket. I'm hoping (praying) your double reverse voo-doo hex works.

[hack]

Too much young on offense, pretty much everywhere. Defense will need to win a couple games by themselves when the offenses inexperience shows up.

One thing's for sure -- no matter what, and in every situation under the sun, we'll always have youth as an excuse. Michigan is just too young. Always was; always will be.

[Mike]

It's like every year we're playing with 19-21 year-olds. When will this madness end!?

[SeattleLionsFan]

Can't expect players to perform until they have six years in the program.

[Pasadena Blue]

Too much young on offense, pretty much everywhere. Defense will need to win a couple games by themselves when the offenses inexperience shows up.

I just don't buy this crap. Auburn had plenty of youth, but did just fine.

Honestly I can't completely figure out why our players aren't developing. By all accounts, all of the outside observers who have come to our practices have indicated that our staff is doing a great job teaching the fundamentals, etc to our players. Somehow that is not translating to performance of the field. If we are lucky and our coaching change translates to better results on the field, I'd be really curious to see what our players indicate is the key difference between Nussmeier and Borges in terms of their preparation.

[WM Wolverine]

Yup, all of RR's recruits are getting leapfrogged by more talented but younger players. M's offense is going to be incredibly young. Good news about all they lose in '15 is Gardner and in '16 Funchess.

[Rocky Bleier]

Everyone scoffing at the youth argument need only look at the depth chart for next season. Be sure to pull everyone back a year to see what it looked like this past season. Consider, too that Lewan and Gallon were the only seniors who will be missed.

http://mgoblog.com/content/michigan-depth-chart-class-0

Other schools do win with young players. But kids like T.J Yeldon and Julius Jones are physically more mature than other kids their age. That's why they have 5 stars next to their names.

[WM Wolverine]

That sophomore class ('16) looks really good, the upperclass talent still looks less than desirable, lacking in All B10, NFL draftees.

[UMStan White]

Jesus WM it must be a bitch to have to claim every friggin year that the talent just isn't there but its just a year away! Meanwhile teams such as Auburn and MSU seem to win with underclassman. I hate to beat a dead horse but TOMORROW TOMORROW TOMORROW ITS JUST A DAY AWAY!!!!

[lineygoblue]

Schembechler didn't win any NC's, but he had a knack for recruiting tough guys who played great football. I don't know if recruiting rankings were available back then, but I don't think he was 20 for 20 in top ten recruiting classes during his tenure. He and his coaches knew how to identify the people they needed to make the team work.

Hoke is gaining commitments from "names", but is he really getting the best people to fit the team? Dumbtonio seems to be doing that at State.

[Jeff Buchanan]

(Schembechler)...... and his coaches knew how to identify the people they needed to make the team work.

I think there is a lot to this. I also think since 2006, M players haven't bought in. Maybe in 2010/11 after Rodriguez left, maybe a few times when M managed a win, but that's it.

Since then, the team has struggled and there are identifiable points where that has been evident. It may have started as early as the Neb loss in 2012.

These are kids. We talk about some of the dumb-ass stuff we have seen from this coaching staff. They do too. We read the excellent post game analysis on the web. They do too. You think the coaching staff had the players ears? No way ..... that team loss looked exactly like the team that quit on Rodriguez v. Mississippi St. in 2009.

My biggest bitch about RR was how poorly it appeared he handled his staff. How poorly it appeared he dealt with conflict among his coaches. That was, more than anything, his undoing.

The same thing may be going on now with Hoke. When leadership falters, those being led start second guessing. You can talk all you want about family and sticking together but when you keep losing, guys stop paying attention. I think that is happening now and it may be hard to reverse.

When I listen to the radio interviews of the top coaches having success, they are constantly talking about convincing the players to "buy in." I think Hokeorges lost team 134 after MSU and its been downhill since. The osu loss had to hurt; those guys played they're hearts out but there were doubts all along and the loss probably cemented them ..... hence, KSU.

[hack]

On paper, yeah -- you lose buy-in when it's not working. Doesn't explain OSU this year, does it? Seems to explain KSU though, according to whatever player it was that suggested precisely that.

[Rocky Bleier]

If the team was lost after MSU it's a good thing that Borges was fired. The hiring of Nussmeier has to have the offensive players excited about next season. Gardner should benefit the most. The O-line should be better because they'll have another offseason of Strength and Conditioning, and their blocking schemes won't be changed every other game or series. The running backs really need to step it up. D. Green can't come in at 240 again. The WRs are going to be awfully inexperienced.

[Jeff Buchanan]

On paper, yeah -- you lose buy-in when it's not working. Doesn't explain OSU this year, does it? Seems to explain KSU though, according to whatever player it was that suggested precisely that.

osu .... I think coaches, probably mostly Hoke, did a pretty good job here psyching the players up. There was a lot of energy for that game.

But buy-in is a term I would reserve for a group of the led buying in to what the leaders are telling them to do and then doing it consistently. That sort of buy in was distinctly lacking on this team. The offense in particular lacked any kind of identity and that point has been beaten to death.

The defense had an identity but they got bitten no many times by the poor offense, I suspect they dialed it back some getting discouraged by early season turnovers and later by an inability to move the ball and keep the D off the field.

KSU certainly demonstrated how demoralized the team was by the end. Sad really. Buy-in has to be sustained by the kind of coaching that produces wins irrespective of the talent on the field. I can name a dozen teams with less talent than M put on the field that won games more consistently than M did in 2013. Dantonio/MSU is a prime example. Great job obtaining buy-in by that coaching staff. I think that is what is missing at M and why it was and is missing is not something I think we can put our finger on. We'll know it when we see it, if it happens in 2014. I'm not particularly confident it will.