UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[Hannibal]

I'm okay with "trust Harbaugh" as long as we all have high standards. No extra praise for a 9-4 or 10-3 season because it is "overachieving" with crappy talent.

[Da Geezer]

Right. let the man do his job. And 8-4 this year with an absolute dearth of talent (NTT) would be fine. Look at the projected all-B10 teams (first through fourth) and just compare to MN or Maryland. This idea that the cupboard is well stocked is nonsense.

[Da Geezer]

Hanny, you beat me to the post. needless to say, I disagree with you

[hack]

10-3 is ok this year, sort of. But starting out 0-4 vs MSU and OSU isn't. If he loses to both at home this year there has to be a road victory next year. He has to pull off those kinds of wins. He has before.

[Hannibal]

Right. let the man do his job. And 8-4 this year with an absolute dearth of talent (NTT) would be fine. Look at the projected all-B10 teams (first through fourth) and just compare to MN or Maryland. This idea that the cupboard is well stocked is nonsense.

I'm talking more about 2017 (or maybe 2018 ) and beyond, when Harbaugh's RichRod caliber recruits will form a majority of the team.

Here is a question. When will the cupboard be stocked with talent? It certainly won't be next year after three straight shitty recruiting classes. Nor for at least two years after that since the recruiting sins of 2014-2016 are going to haunt us for a long time. Do we have to wait at least until the class of 2017 is all upperclassmen? 2019 at the earliest? 2020? Do we have to wait until Harbaugh gets his own recruits to expect winning? Do we have to wait until he wins with his own recruits to expect great recruiting? Is Harbaugh on the John Beilein six year plan?

If Harbaugh loses his first five games to OSU because they have outrecruited us, is that acceptable? What are the expectations?

[hack]

I don't know what's reasonable apart from that they should be pretty big.

[Mike]

I'll go into every game believing we CAN win, not necessarily that we WILL win. I hope to reach the latter mindset in year 2 or 3. I have almost forgotten what either feels like.

Record-wise, I anticipate 9-3 this year with a coin flip in the bowl. It can not be overstated how truly awful and worthless Hoke was. All things being equal, JH is worth 3-4 wins a year over that dumb peice of shit.

And yes, we need to start beating Sparty and OSU sooner rather than later.

[iam416]

I prefer that JH just starts beating Sparty sooner and saves UFM for later.

[Mike]

I suspect that's what will happen.

[WM Wolverine]

Talent should get his preference barring an upset, M shouldn't be favored vs Ohio for some time.

[hack]

That has to happen. He can't start out 0-3. 0-2 is barely tolerable.

[iam416]

Talent should get his preference barring an upset, M shouldn't be favored vs Ohio for some time

IIRC, M should return a lot for 2016 and, given the "guru" label JH has with QBs, have a settled QB situation. OSU will lose, perhaps, as much as any team has ever lost to the NFL draft. So, they're pressing reset in 2016 and what they'll look like in that season and beyond is speculative. I think the 2016 game will be very tough for OSU even in Columbus and who knows beyond that.

[Hannibal]

Harbaugh needs to win the Big Ten in 2016. It's the best shot that he's going to have for a long time.

[WM Wolverine]

After '16, M loses a pretty strong current Junior class. M's current Jr. class would've been pretty good in '14 as sophomores if not for having absolutely no talent to complement them in the Jr and Sr classes...

Froot's bring up Conklin was a great point, lots of kids don't get the exposure or go to camps to get noticed like they need to. Are these the kids that end up at Western Michigan, Toledo, etc but go on to get drafted and have strong NFL careers?

The identifying talent aspect of recruiting doesn't give all recruits the same opportunities and you have good talent falling through the cracks and ending up at MAC, Sun Belt, C-USA schools that would've been good B10 caliber football players.

[iam416]

The MAC has 13 teams. They had 4 players taken in this year's draft. Four. The whole of FCS had 17. The SEC - the undisputed recruiting kingpins -- had 54. So, again, in macro terms recruiting rankings are pretty much dead balls on. Sure, a small percentage of players slip through the cracks. But, IMO, using those players as an example of why you're 2* will be fantabulous is akin to thinking you'll win the lottery because your neighbor did.