UM Football Recruiting - by WM Wolverine

[*JD*]

Wizard still posts at the Goat Pen.

[Da Geezer]

I too miss Talent. Some of you "senior members" should make a concerted effort to get him back to posting here.

[SeanB]

Yep. The rats tend to jump off the ship before it goes down.

Although, I too, agree. talent has his place around here. His takes are usually good ones.

[Mike]

I'm actually a bit surprised he vanished when the going got tough for his bucks. Thought he was better than that.

[lineygoblue]

Relatively speaking, there is virtually no pressure on the Buckeyes in this year's game.

This statement is a very feeble attempt to minimize the fallout from the impending loss. There will be a ton of pressure on the Schmucknuts, especially if the players like their coach, and want to keep him.

Some of you "senior members" should make a concerted effort to get him back to posting here.

Geezer, I would also be interested in seeing some of Talent's opinions on recruiting, and also his take on the affairs of state at OLieO. But, with all due respect, I'm not going to go and beg the guy to come back. He knows where we are. We posted the link for 2 months before the old site closed. He has chosen to stay away. I have a feeling that if the Schmucks manage to eek out a win in AA this fall, that he will find his way back to stick it in our eye.

There are a lot of people I'd like to see come back, but several have simply chosen not to post anymore. Even as a senior member, there's nothing I can do about that.

[madootra]

ITA

[Jamie H]

I only feel bad if people happened to be away for a long time and didn't find out about the new site. Sometimes when things change people decide to stay away. Case in point--the Tiger forum. I used to post over there because it was convenient with everyone being on WorldCrossing. But with them being somewhere else now, meh, I really don't care that much. I'm sure they don't miss me one bit.

[hodgkal]

I sent an e-mail to Talent a month ago and got no reply. I guess it's time to move on. As Lines said, he'll be back if the Schmucks win in Ann Arbor next Fall. We have to remember that we'll be playing with RR's players and the marginal personnel on D.

I don't expect big things out of our team to start the next season but we'll see if Hoke can accomplish improvements as the season progresses. That will tell a lot. We all need to hang on until new player personnel can be incorporated in the next 2-3 years. It is going to be a slow tough process to get back where we need to be.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Big ???? for me with all the position groups on defense .... Does Will Campbell make the move and live up to expectations? The importance of his play will determine if Martin can be a disruptive player that OCs will have to game plan for. Jabreel Black? All the LBs are question marks when it comes to game day. Will the Ss continue to give up the huge plays they did for three years under Rodriguez? Will Woolfolk return to form? Who plays opposite him and how well ..... JT Floyd has never really impressed.

There's no question that my skeptical view of a big year for Holk and company is affected by the enthusiasm I had when Rodriguez was hired in 2008. Stunning disappointment there. I'm very guarded because of that experience alone and when you look at the reality with regard to talent level and a changing system .... AGAIN .... skepticism should be the appropriate view for 2011.

[Optimus Prime]

Good news following the post-Rich-Rodriguez disaster.

http://www.detnews.com/article/20110629/SPORTS0201/106290394/1131/Michigan%E2%80%99s-2012-recruiting-class-ranked-No.-2-in-nation

[WM Wolverine]

I don't see the teams ceiling being too high, too many question marks and too many areas where M isn't talented enough...

Schedule with no Wisky & PSU sets M up for a very good B10 season... Denard is a special talent at QB, he'll make up for the teams lack of talent at RB by being a threat himself. His threat of running also makes it easier on him as a passer as we saw last season; the issue is 3rd and long when everyone knows Denard needs to throw... M has talent at WR this season (maybe Stonum, Roundtree, Hemingway & Odoms); the issue is 3 of those 4 are gone after this season leaving a significant void at WR in '12. At least one of Je'Ron Stokes, Jeremy Jackson, Jeremy Gallon or Jerald Robinson need to really blossom in '12; preferably more than one and M needs a strong recruiting class here in '12...

Offensive line is talented and deep, although it lacks the size Hoke wants to play his 'power' running game. My real worry about the offensive line is the '10 and '11 recruiting classes didn't net much more than Christian Pace (potential career ending injury?) & Chris Bryant; that puts a lot of pressure on the '09 and '12 recruiting classes. M probably will need to over recruit OL again in '13 because of not taking enough in '10/'11 and to have enough to make a 2-deep when the '09 class graduates ('13)...

Secondary looks a lot more promising than it did last season. It gains a ton of experience with everyone back and a year older but it returns its best player back from injury, Troy Woolfolk. I was impressed with the potential of Courtney Avery last season, he's a potential all B10 talent and I'l be surprised if he's not a starter though he'll still be very inexperienced (2nd year player, true sophomore). JT Floyd is imo out of place at corner and should be at best a nickel back or safety... Jordan Kovacs is 'solid' at free safety, he's a big asset against the run with a unique ability to evade blockers (for M's defense at least) and a really good tackler. It'll be tough for Marvin Robinson to beat him out as the starter as you need to really make up for Kovacs ability to stuff the run... At the other safety spot is likely Carvin Johnson, I thought he looked pretty strong (for a true freshman) till his injury early in the season. Another 2nd year/true sophomore on a defensive backfield that played way too many true freshman last season... Re-reading this it sounds overly optimistic, it shouldn't be anywhere near the sieve it was last season and would be helped by a defensive line that can get pressure on the QB and by LB's that can help in coverage; who knows if those things will happen but I forsee improvement from both relative to last season when they had little help from the other position groups...

I'm more concerned about the linebackers... Kenny Demens really solidified the middle after he stepped in for Obi Ezeh. He should lead M in tackles... OLB positions (SAM and WILL) are unsettled with Cameron Gordon imo better suited for WILL but likely will play SAM as nobody else on the team is capable or ready to play there. The other options at OLB are a bunch of unproven guys that have seen the field very little; Mike Jones, Jake Ryan, Brandon Herron, Marrell Evans & JB Fitzgerald... Finding a 3rd starting LB will go a long ways to solidify M's defense in '11...

I'm not as optimistic as some on the defensive line but it should be a relative strength; it'll have two senior starters and two 3rd year, junior starters. Seniors Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen are very solid... 3rd year Juniors William Campbell and Craig Roh will both face competition for playing time and could lose their spots to younger players... Without sounding too harsh, Craig Roh has been pretty disappointing thus far, not getting much pressure on the QB (his supposed strength) and getting blown up by offensive tackles against the run. He's bulked up to nearly 270 lb's which was much needed. Jibreel Black played a good bit in '10 and pushed Craig Roh for playing time and stood up much better against the run; Black should get a lot of PT regardless of Roh's performance... Find it hard to get too excited about William Campbell, my expectations are low. He doesn't need to be dominant or even good for the defensive line to be good, he just needs to occupy space/blockers to make the job of those around him easier. Not much depth behind Campbell/Martin at DT, Quinton Washington, Richard Ash and not a whole lot else...

Special teams should be much improved in '11. Kicking game can't be any worse and M returns a solid punter in sophomore Will Hagerup... I expect most walk-ons and a true freshman to outperform the performance M received at place kicking last season.

[Hannibal]

I think that the ceiling is fairly high.

I did some research to try and find some analogies to what we could expect out of our defense this year. Interestingly, the last time that Greg Mattison took over a Michigan defense, it improved by over 100 yards per game. That was 1995, and we weren't expected to have a great defense that year (after losing Ty Law and Steve Morrison). We also improved between 2000 and 2001 by about 100 yards per game. The biggest improvement that I can find is the 2006 Wisconsin defense, which improved by 190 yards per game over the 2005 squad. Florida had a somewhat similar jump from 2007 to 2008. Michigan looks set up for a huge improvement as favorably as those teams. If the team doesn't improve by at least 70-80 yards per game this year, I'll be pretty disappointed. A middle of the pack defense that gives up less than 350 ypg is very reasonable.

On offense, it's hard to think of a squad (besides maybe our 2006 team) that has returned such an overwhelming proportion of its impact players. IMHO our offensive line is almost criminally underrated. The only team in the regular season that beat them at the line of scrimmage was Purdue for some reason, and even in that game, we had a few successful drives running. Excellent performances against teams like Iowa and Illinois went almost entirely unnoticed. Michigan's O-line got the better of just about everyone else, including OSU. System changes are not guaranteed death like everyone thinks. The RichRod disaster was a big time outlier. It's basically up to Borges.

And even with our problems last year, we went 7-5 in the regular season with a schedule that is tougher than what we'll have this year. We replace Wisky at home with Nebraska at home (at least a slight downgrade). We replace Penn State on the road with Northwestern on the road (downgrade). And we get OSU and ND at home. Not a single unwinnable game to me except MSU. We're the clear underdog against Nebraska and OSU, but both of them lost some talent off of last year's teams and have big QB issues, which introduces a lot of variability. Iowa IMHO is poised for a big dropoff. They lost a lot of impact players, including a very good fifth year senior QB.

I'm going to be pretty disappointed if we are worse than 9-4 and if we lose more than one blowout.

[lineygoblue]

Schedule with no Wisky & PSU sets M up for a very good B10 season...

I'm not so sure about that. Road games in the second half at Northwestern (a dark horse) MSU (many CFB pooh-bah's favorite to win the B10), Iowa (always tough to win there) and Illinois (they hate us as much as anyone in the B10) and that sets up a tough road to hoe for a team with basically no defense last year.

Then, home games in the second half against Purdue, (winnable) Nebraska and OLieO, make this a pretty tough schedule after all. Maybe not tough when thinking in terms of "nationally tough" but tough for our rebuilding Wolverines.

[Mackenzie]

As many have mentioned, recruiting for M has benefitted from the "perfect storm." Next year's recruiting class is already very strong. 2013 is starting out good also. I think the trick for Hoke, other than winning, will be to see if he can maintain this recruiting edge once the "storm" has passed. Problems at Ohio, the potential for early playing time, need at virtually all positions, etc. may be as much responsible for our recent recruiting success as any Hoke/Mattison karma. So once the blush is off the rose, can the Hoke recruiting juggernaut continue to bring in elite talent and top 5 or top 10 recruiting classes. Time will tell but that is what great programs typically seem to do. Fortunately, the storm may not end for a few years as M's need are great and Ohio's problems seem large. Of course, just winning never hurts.

[hodgkal]

I have nowhere near the technical expertise of the gurus here but several things worry me. If DR goes down can DG do the job? And who can back him up? Where is the dominant RB on this team to take the pressure off DR? And what about Will Campbell? He looked pathetic in the spring game, and I focused on him. He appears to lack intensity and it sounds like the effectiveness of the D-line depends a lot on him freeing up Mike Martin. Hope big Will will step up. And of course the whole team will be using an entirely different offensive scheme so there will be a learning curve.

Why don't we see more RB talent in the recruiting pipeline? I think 9-4 is awfully optimistic. I have a better feeling for the 2012 team even though there will be a lot of new faces. At least Hoke will have established himself by then.