thumbs up [Bryan Fuller]
Class size: fishy?
Brian,
Since the 2016 Michigan recruiting class has already grown beyond the 14 scholarships that are known to be available, do you have a take or any insight as to how far Coach Harbaugh is willing to go with regards to oversigning? Is it simply a matter of players not being offered a 5th year or could we actually see Michigan take a step toward opening the Harbaugh wing of St. Saban's Memorial Hospital?
I have a hard time believing that we could get that draconian with recruiting, but is there a danger that we step too close to the line that coaches like Urban Meyer and Nick Saban crossed a long time ago?
-anon
A quick glance at the Depth Chart By Class shows a large number of redshirt juniors who are not currently contributors. At this point many aren't expected to be. Those guys can graduate and either take a fifth year elsewhere or head to the real world without anything about their departure being shady. There are between four and six candidates for the firm handshake on the roster.
Also, I've heard that there were a couple guys who were likely to take medical redshirts of the legit variety. I'm surprised we haven't heard any announcements about that yet—maybe there's enough room for the players in question to see if they can get back to where they need to be this year.
Add those two things together and you have 20 or so spots right now. It's reasonable to expect playing time and other attrition to get Michigan to the 25 they seem to be planning on—most teams in year one of a new coach see attrition like that.
I don't expect this to be a long term trend. Harbaugh's classes at Stanford ended up with 19, 17, 22, and 22 kids. That is a mere 80 in four years. (The transition class between Harbaugh and Shaw was 19, FWIW.) Harbaugh is clearly alarmed at the state of the roster and is trying to get in guys who he thinks are a good fit as quickly as reasonably possible.
It is possible it'll seem shady in February. Right now it looks like a reasonable approach.
Cat fight fix, more attrition stuff.
Ace's Stanford recruiting diagnosis reminded me of JH's public cat fight with Mike Hart and Jamie Morris. I did some digging yesterday on whether those fences were mended and found general statements from Morris about Jim being the right guy for the job before his hire in Dec/Jan, but nothing direct. This scuffle was a huge deal at the time and many wrote off Harbaugh for good. Do you know if this was all swept under the rug or if we've kissed an made up?
I'm not sure if Mike Hart buried the hatchet with Harbaugh. I didn't hear anything about it during the search, and it is possible that he was omitted from the "everyone call Jim Harbaugh" list, whether by accident or on purpose.
I have heard that Harbaugh and Carr had a conversation about a lot of things that did directly address those comments to the satisfaction of both men. Thus Carr's public advocacy of hiring Harbaugh even before that was accomplished. From my impressions of both men I'm guessing they're never going to be best buds; Carr was clearly practical enough to identify the best option for Michigan's coaching search.
Also in regards to Ace's post, it seems like this year will serve as a decent case study for how JH will handle 'crootin. We are taking guys at an astonishing pace this summer, and a class that is estimated to be near the 28 man limit is already filling up. Like most, I found that a bit unsettling and hope the additional public attention at UM curbs this activity (especially if Jimmy's going to cast stones at OSU 'crootin).
Jake
As I mentioned above, Harbaugh history in terms of attrition is very conservative. Some of the decommits Ace detailed aren't how I'd want Michigan's coach to go about things, but at least those guys were able to get the picture relatively early and find places.
[After THE JUMP: "his guys," speed, Harbaugh counterfactuals.]
His guys
I have read many places that Harbaugh needs to get “his guys” into the program before Michigan can be elite again. What is the difference between the players Harbaugh is recruiting and those Hoke recruited, if any? To me, every time a player commits, he is the spitting image of a guy already on the team. If so, do we already have a team full of “Harbaugh” guys who just needs to be integrated into his system before we can be elite again?
Thanks,
Steve
Yes and no. Michigan did start stockpiling Harbaugh-esque players under Hoke. Michigan has a large number of blocky/catchy guys that they wouldn't have if this was a transition from Rodriguez. In Hoke's second year, Michigan played both AJ Williams and Devin Funchess as true freshmen. That won't happen at any point during Harbaugh's tenure.
Michigan also has a couple of backs that seem a lot like the guys Harbaugh rode heavily at Stanford. De'Veon Smith veritably screams Stanford Mooseback. On defense, Michigan is using a Greg Mattison acolyte to run a defense that's going to be a slightly more spread-oriented 4-3 under.
That's the yes. The "no" part is less about players who aren't on the roster and more about the rather significant personality differences between Hoke and Harbaugh. Some of the guys on the team are probably not happy about the change and will take opportunities to go elsewhere. I have to imagine there were some guys who were not pleased in hour four of Michigan's marathon spring practices. Others… probably were also not pleased but are willing to go through with it in order to be better at football. I can't imagine that the amount of effort asked of Michigan's players hasn't just gone up. Finding people happy to participate in it is a problem for any coach—and double for Harbaugh.
Do we have speed?
Does Michigan have good speed at the skill positions? Following the Evans and Enis commits Baumgardner from MLive and others commented on Michigan’s lack of existing team speed. This is odd to me because so many of the skill position players on the roster came in with supposedly plus speed as recruits.
Peppers, Lewis, Hill, Thomas, Lyons, Canteen, Cole, Chesson, Johnson and Butt were all praised for being fast. Speed is one of the easiest things for recruiting analysts to rate. Are these guys not in-fact fast, have they gotten slower, or is it that that they weren’t put in a position to appear fast by the previous regime but are actually fast? I’m hoping for the latter…
Thanks,
Steve
"New coach wants to bring in more speed" is a trope as hoary as "new defensive coordinator vows more aggressiveness." In this case it's accurate. (Caveat: usually "skill position" refers to the five guys on offense who can catch passes and maybe the QB; the emailer appears to be including the secondary. The secondary does seem pretty fast as a unit.)
Of the players mentioned who play on offense, one is a true freshman and another is a tight end. Butt is a fast guy for a tight end, yes. He does not bring the kind of deep threat that catches a safety's attention, at least not yet. The leftovers are Jehu Chesson, Drake Johnson, and Freddy Canteen.
Maybe those guys are fast, but when you are down to three skill position players who were supposed to be fast even in high school, that has not been a focus in your recruiting. Especially since only Canteen was even a 3/4 star tweener sort. Pure blinding speed is the easiest thing for a recruiting service to rank; if your three star is reputed to be super fast he's probably got some other issues with their game. That was certainly the case with Drake Johnson in high school (it's been tough to get a read on him in college since his ACLs keep tearing) and we've seen some of the inconsistency in Chesson's game.
In contrast to those three guys you've got Darboh, Ways, Jones, Dukes, all the blocky/catchy types, Smith, Green, etc. (Ty Isaac is a wildcard.) Michigan did not emphasize speed under Hoke, and it shows.
Harbaugh + these guys == ? [Eric Upchurch]
Counterfactuals from heaven/hell
Hi,
Curious how you think Denard and Gardner would have fared under Harbaugh? Assuming the rosters and recruiting classes were the same as what Hoke brought in. Guessing we would have run Denard (probably at RB) more than 2x in the first half vs. Bama. Gardner wins the Heisman and Jameis Winston is referred to as Gardner 2.0...
Thanks,
Bryan
That's an interesting question. Harbaugh has always had an appreciation for a quarterback that can run, but his guys have always been passers first and foremost. His NFL QBs were actually both spread guys; under Harbaugh they were occasional runners at most. Ditto Andrew Luck.
Devin Gardner fits neatly enough into that paradigm to project what he might have been, except it's impossible to know how he would have developed in an environment that was slightly different than it was under Hoke. He'd probably be really really good, especially because his legs would be deployed as part of an offense and he wouldn't have been having sack flashbacks on every drop back.
What Jim Harbaugh would have done with Denard Robinson coming off his 1700-yard sophomore year is an absolutely fascinating counterfactual. I have no idea. I don't think he would have moved him to RB; Harbaugh has always adjusted to his talent and he had a dual-threat QB at San Diego. I don't like to think about it, for the same reason I don't like to think about the possibility of a fully healthy Mitch McGary in that Elite Eight game against Kentucky.