Paul and I both attended the spring game (with Brian of MGoBlog – we must have missed all of you at the tailgate…), and we worked together to put together a general summary of what we saw. My camera has gone MIA temporarily, so the photos will have to wait until later.

Tate Forcier

The defense wasn’t allowed to hit him, and he made his fair share of freshman mistakes, but anyone who watched the spring game has to be somewhat relieved that there will be a significant upgrade at the quarterback position over last year. Tate is by far a better runner than either Nick Sheridan or Steven Threet, and had better throwing mechanics and accuracy than either, as well. He has a much stronger arm than Sheridan, and by the time fall rolls around, it seems he will be able to better grasp the system than Threet did last year, or at least make fewer big mistakes. Forcier threw for three touchdowns, and ran for one more. He also had a few boneheaded moments, giving up a “safety” by fumbling into the endzone (in live scrimmage, it would have been a defensive touchdown), and throwing a pass right to a wide open… Brandon Herron. Another thing I’d like to see him work on is keeping his eyes downfield when he vacates the pocket. On design rollouts, he was fine, but on packet plays, once he started scrambling, he was going to run the ball. Still, for a high school kid, he wasn’t half bad.

Offense

It’s hard to judge the offensive line when it’s #1s vs #2s and vice versa, but an immediately noticeable improvement is that there are enough offensive line to have three separate teams. Hooray depth! The #1 offensive line was (left to right) Ortmann, Schilling, Molk, Mooseman, Huyge.  Schilling to LG was pretty much a done deal (at least for the spring) for the past for week, but the Huyge thing developed really quickly this week.  Considering the buzz around Omameh, it seems to be a good omen that Huyge was able to beat him out.  The OL looked like they were working well together, and they certainly opened holes, but it was against the #2 defense when the #1 didn’t have 2 of their 3 best D-Linemen.

Odoms didn’t play much (being a known quantity and all), but his play that stood out the most was when he let a punt bounce off his chest pads and out of bounds.  Stonum really struggled for most of the day. He was playing with the #2s, some people think because of his recent legal trouble, but I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Hemmingway just beat him out. In his defense, Stonum has all the physical tools and made a really nice, difficult catch in the end zone. He has the ability, maybe it will just take a while for it develop.  The real stars were the sophomore slots who didn’t play last year. Terrance Robinson was consistently getting to the open parts of the zone and making good catches. He also had a couple bubble screens and showed good shake.  Roy Roundtree got some playing time and had a few nice catches.  The quality and quantity of the slot ninjas will, hopefully, really make the offense run a bit smoother.

Plenty of different running backs got their turn. Minor started and looked how one would expect him to look. He ran strong and found the holes well, but nothing spectacular. Carlos Brown really stole the show. He broke a 50 or so yard run which featured a nice move to get by Emilien (not Vlad’s fault at all).  Brown definitely looked like the fastest guy out there. Hopefully he can stay healthy.  Smith had at least one big run, and looked pretty comfortable out there. One thing I’ve noticed about him is that I’ve never seen him really get hit. Granted, I’ve only seen him at practice and the Spring Game, but he seems like the kind of runner who is so shifty that he’ll never really get stood up.  It was nice to see Grady have some success out there. He did his pinball routine for a touchdown and didn’t fumble the ball at all.  I really hope he can get something going this year.

Defense

The good news: the offense looked much better than it did last year. The bad news: the offense looked much better than it did last year. The defense was suspect at best on this day. It could have been a particularly bad day for the Michigan defense (and they were missing several starters with injuries of varying severity – including Mike Martin, Ryan Van Bergen, and Donovan Warren), but even the #2 offense (Coner!) was able to move the ball against the #1 defense. When your #1 defense is giving up 30-yard scrambles to David Cone, they had a bad day. For his part, Cone looked decent for a scout-team quarterback. That is to say, be very afraid if he is ever pressed into serious playing time in a game that matters. For a 6-6 non-mobile guy, you’d think he would have a rocket arm or ridiculous accuracy or something, but this was not the case. The defense has a lot of work to do in the off-season, both in terms of getting healthy and hopefully getting on track with GERG’s schemes. The spring depth is scary, especially considering the #1s couldn’t even stop Michigan’s backups on offense. I can only imagine if the #2s get pressed into playing time during the season.

Format

This was a little more Actual Scrimmage-y than past Michigan Spring Games, but there is still a little ways to go in terms of making it truly interesting for the fans (and the Spring Game is an event that is undoubtedly for the fans, not so much the actual team). There was almost no drilling, and it was all real back-and-forth action between the offense and defense. However, the proprietary scoring system that 1) none of the fans know going in, and 2) most of the fans aren’t going to understand, is no good, and I’d much rather see a real game, played with two teams, 1s-v-1s and 2s-v-2s. The depth this spring didn’t allow for that, but hopefully in the future, that will be an option, and the Spring Game can look more like a, well, game. This, of course, will help out significantly with Atmosphere. As an aside, one thing that I think would be cool to do for next year is basically split the fans in half, and give away t-shirts to everyone, with half getting maize and half getting blue (and all of them saying “Spring Game 2010: I was there” or something equally stupid), and have distinct teams that each side is cheering for, to make it more like a home or away game for players.

Atmosphere

I was very pleasantly surprised with fan turnout. Going in, I got the vibe that nobody really expected the attendance to even approach Rich Rod’s stated goal of 40,000. However, as I rolled up to Michigan Stadium Saturday morning, the Crisler lots were already closed (a huge mistake in judgment by the AD or whoever was in charge of parking, as probably 10% of the parking spaces were still unoccupied), and the line for the locker room tours reached out the tunnel entrance, around the North/East end of Crisler, out the main Stadium Drive entrance, and back past Crisler towards Pioneer, with the end of it nowhere in sight. I skipped said locker room tour (been there, it’s really not worth any wait, much less multiple hours), and didn’t even catch the tail end of the flag football game, which I had been planning to do. The stadium was mostly packed, since the top 40-ish rows on the East side and 25-ish rows on the West side were closed. There was still plenty of open space to stretch out in the upper levels of each end zone, though. Next year, when there isn’t construction to worry about (at least not closing seats), I think Rich Rod’s goal of 92k+ might be attainable – as long as the marketing of the event continues on its current trajectory.

Posted under Football, Spring Coverage

Moved to committed:
TX RB Stephen Hopkins. Commitment Post.

Sam Webb brings the fluff on MI QB Commit Devin Gardner in the Detroit News. Of course, the article wouldn’t be complete without this oft-quoted (in the past week or so) soundbite from Devin:

An Ohio State fan growing up, Gardner said he has had little problem flipping the loyalty switch.

“It’s off,” he said matter-of-factly. “They’re going to get it just like everybody else.”

So, huzzah for that. Speaking of Gardner, Matt Dorsey updates the in-state Top 10 in the Freep. Oddly enough, a Michigan State writer dropped Devin a spot in the rankings after he committed to Michigan. What are the odds?

At least one Rivals writer is pretty confident that TX QB Jeremy Johnson is going to commit to West Virginia after his visit this weekend. He was a “maybe” to visit Michigan this past weekend, but to the best of my knowledge, didn’t show. Stand by for removing him from the board.

Some USA Today fluff on CA RB Brennan Clay, focusing on his relationship with Tate Forcier. The USA Today is much more positive about Michigan’s chances to land Clay than conventional wisdom, for the record.

With the Wolverines in pretty serious need of defensive tackles in this class, but very few elite options out there, it seems as though they should be jumping all over PA DT Sharrif Floyd from Philadelphia. However, at this point, it doesn’t appear that there’s too much mutual interest.

Michigan may be among the favorites for SC RB Marcus Lattimore, but his teammate DT/DE Brandon Willis, does not have Michigan in his top 5.

PA DE Kyle Baublitz is reporting a Michigan offer.

Michigan is joined by 9 other schools in FL DE Lynden Trail‘s list of finalists. The others are Florida, Florida State, Miami, Southern California, Georgia, Alabama, South Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina.

Michigan has been FL S Marvin Robinson‘s leader for quite some time now (even if he hasn’t always articulated his favorites as such), but it appears that he might be almost ready to take the next step in his recruitment. He says he may commit to the Wolverines within a couple weeks or by the end of spring.

Michigan “is recruiting” FL CB Cody Riggs, though the Wolverines haven’t yet offered.

And how about a removal or six while I’m updating?
OH CB Courtney Avery gives a verbal to Stanford.
FL CB Jaylen Watkins committed to Florida.
FL CB Mark Deas committed to Georgia.
FL LB Gideon Ajagbe has committed to Florida.
NC OL Robert Crisp committed to… NC State?
FL RB Antwon Chisholm from Glades Central brandished a knife at a mall security guard, and it is now unlikely he’ll end up at a BCS school, assuming there’s anyone that wants to take him at all.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Now With Information!

After the Spring Game yesterday, running back Stephen Hopkins of Flower Mound, Texas and Marcus High School, committed to Rich Rodriguez and the University of Michigan football program. Hopkins is the team’s 8th commit in the class of 2010, and measures in at 6-0, 220lbs with a 40-yard dash time of 4.6.

Recruiting Notes
Hopkins came to the attention of Michigan fans in early March, when the Michigan coaches seemingly went around offering every talented big back they could get their hands on, including such prospects as Dietrich Riley, Mack Brown, and of course Hopkins. He said all the right things to the Michigan recruiting sites over the course of his recruitment, indicating that the Wolverines were squarely in the thick of his recruitment, if not leading for his services at all times. He made plans to visit for the Michigan Spring Game, and when he reached Ann Arbor, he was blown away by the atmosphere (I reckon it was the MGoFiasco that sent him over the edge), and committed to Coach Rod after the game. It is unclear if the staff is in the market for another big back in the class, though they’d likely take a super like Marcus Lattimore if the opportunity arose.

Player Notes
As mentioned above, Hopkins is a big back, who runs with power between the tackles, but also has goods speed to run past defenders. He is cut from a similar mold as Brandon Minor, and with his high school’s Scarlet-and-Gray uniforms, his video even looks a bit like Beanie Wells. He runs through defenders, and is rarely brought down by the first guy. On top of his physical attributes, he also shows good vision in his highlight video (imagine that!), not hesitating to use a cutback lane if his first read isn’t available. He shows good balance, though not elite. His high school team seems to run primarily from the I-set, so he may need a year of learning to play in the spread. His junior year, he ran 275 times for 1689 yards (6.14 ypc) and 22 touchdowns. He also caught 11 passes for 81s yards (7.36 ypc). The leading receiver on his team is a TE named “Rhett Butler,” which is very humorous.

Video

Posted under Football, Recruiting

This was not unexpected, but I didn’t put in the legwork to have an informative update all ready to go. Therefore, it will come tomorrow.

WOO  SPRING GAME!

Posted under Football, Recruiting

Posted under Spring Coverage

Josh Helmholdt was so kind as to post an initial list of Spring Game visitors in the Free Press from which we can make additions and changes to get a visitors list:

Michigan extended invitations to most, if not all of the prospects they have offered scholarships to in the 2010 class and several are planning to visit. A majority of their in-state targets, including Inkster’s Devin Gardner, Detroit Southeastern’s William Gholston, Detroit Renaissance’s Mylan Hicks and Detroit Cass Tech’s Dior Mathis, plan to be there Saturday.

The second largest contingent of recruiting visitors will be from Ohio. Avon Lake offensive lineman Christian Pace, Cincinnati Wyoming defensive lineman Jibreel Black [now with UM offer – ed.] and Columbus Brookhaven defensive end Derrick Bryant all hold offers from the Wolverines and plan to attend the spring game.

Other expected spring game visitors include Lakewood (Ohio) St. Edward Latwan Anderson [Recently transferred to Ted Ginn Sr’s private school and will play football at Glenville – a bad thing for Michigan’s chances at him. – ed.]and Eagle Lake (Fla.) Lake Region Marvin Robinson, both top 100 safeties, according to Rivals.com. Another expected visitor, Flower Mound (Texas) Marcus running back Stephen Hopkins, said this trip is his most anticipated of the half dozen or more schools he’s already visited.

From Sam Webb’s recruiting roundups on WTKA (4-7-09)(4-8-09)(4-9-09):

Yes: 
FL/MI WR Commit Ricardo Miller
MI WR Commit Jeremy Jackson 
MI QB Robert Bolden
MI RB Austin White (recent LSU offeree)
MI RB Nick Hill
MI DE CJ Olaniyan (also at practice yesterday)  
MI DT Jonathan Hankins
MI LB Ishmael Thomas from Renaissance.

No: 
SC QB Cornelius Jones (rescheduled for summer camp)
OH OL Andrew Donnal
MD LB Josh Furman
OH DE Darryl Baldwin
FL CB Lorenza Wood

Maybe: 
TX QB Jeremy Johnson might show up. However, West Virginia sources are expecting a commit from him when he visits Morgantown next weekend.

Beacon Sports reports that OH LB Jewone Snow (son of former Michigan RB Garland Rivers) will be in attendance. No word on whether he’ll bring 2011 DE Steve Miller, also mentioned in that update, along with him to Ann Arbor. Miller is expected to be one of the top players in Ohio in the class of 2011. Snow plans to make an early decision, but I don’t think it will be for the Wolverines this weekend.

So, be on the lookout for all these guys at the spring game if you happen to have any interest.

Posted under Football, Recruiting

So, with one day remaining until the Spring Game, let’s quickly run down once more everything that’s going on:

8:00: Locker room tours.
9:00: The MGo/VB tailgate starts near the bus stop outside Crisler. Brian’s said that’s the earliest he’s going to show up, but I’ll probably get there a little earlier than 9 if you happen to be around.
9:30: Gates to the stadium open.
10:00: The alumni flag football game begins. Most people I’ve spoken to do not plan on going to this, but I’ll probably at least stop by and check it out.
12:00: Spring Game/final practice/whatever starts. At this time, most tailgating will probably cease, perhaps to be resumed afterward.
3:00: Baseball and softball games.

So, that is established. For more info on the MGo/VB tailgate, check out the official planning thread on MGoBoard. Why, you can even participate, if you’re so inclined! There’s also a much more unofficial Spring Game Discussion thread on the VB Forum.

Also: Paul and I put together a Spring Game Guide, which contains pertinent info for people to pay attention to during said game/practice. We’ll have 250 copies on tabloid-sized paper to distribute at the tailgate, at the game, etc., but if you won’t make it there, and still want to absorb our delicious knowledge, you can download a PDF of it here and print it out on normal-sized paper for yourself.

As far as VB coverage tomorrow: I’m going to set up a CoverItLive chat here, as we’ve done for various games and other events in the past. The catch: Since Paul and I will both be at the spring game, we won’t be able to be present for comment approval. Therefore, I propose the following:

• Paul and I will send in our observations, thoughts, etc., on the chat via our Twitter accounts. This can be the end of it OR
• If someone is interested in moderating the chat, let us know here,  and I can have you be the official gatekeeper for the chat, and others can chime in. Paul and I would still be sending in news and whatnot via Twitter.

So, if you aren’t going to be able to make it to the Spring Game, and will be able to set aside 3 or so hours to sit in front of your computer, let me know, and we can have a bit more interaction go on during the event. Otherwise, tweeted in updates.

Spring game-centric recruiting update coming later this afternoon.

Posted under Football, Spring Coverage

I’ll be the very first to admit that I follow basketball recruiting somewhere between “not at all” and “enough to know people like Trey Zeigler.” For all the scoop on John Beilein’s newest Wolverine, check out UMHoops.

Posted under Football

A series exploring the commitments (and subsequent decommitments) of Michigan’s lost members of the class of 2009. This one has by far the most literary-sounding title.

The Commitment
Pearlie Graves’s recruitment stayed under the radar until he committed to Michigan. He was offered in the summer, but most fans thought that he was to be forgotten about when Dequinta Jones went blue. However, the Wolverine coaches stayed on Graves, and even when he came on an official visit to Ann Arbor, most Michigan fans thought “what a waste for a guy that isnt coming here.” In late November, he pulled the trigger for Michigan, and fans were no longer down on him, as he had become a 4-star to at least one site.

The Decommitment
For much of the recruiting process following Graves’s commitment, most Michigan fans thought that he was more likely to stick with Michigan than fellow DT DeQuinta Jones. He made little mention of taking other visits (though he had apparently gone on some without alerting the recruiting sites or even Michigan’s coaches). Still, he seemed likely to stick until the very end, when Big 12 teams and even a couple from the SEC came calling. Graves said he would make his final decision on Signing Day, and by that time Michigan’s chances looked rather grim. Indeed, when he faxed in National Letter of Intent, it went to Lubbock, Texas rather than Ann Arbor.

The Impact
This one hurt. Though Michigan landed Big Will Campbell in the class of ’09, they needed more than one defensive tackle, and whiffing on two guys (both of whom considered themselves “committed” to Michigan up until the last minute) on Signing Day was a major blow. Michian now finds itself in need of multiple defensive tackles for the second year in a row, and the class of 2010 is not nearly as strong at the position was was last year’s crop.

Posted under Football, Recruiting