Wolverine247 Board

So you think Toledo had more talent than Michigan in 2008?

Rich Rod was a terrible coach at Michigan.

" Here are the members of the secondary in the recruiting classes that comprise this year's team:

2005: None. (Harrison, Sears, Richards all gone.)
2006: None. (Mouton, Brown moved to LB.)
2007: Warren, Woolfolk, Williams, Rogers. (Chambers gone.)
2008: JT Floyd (Smith moved to LB, Cissoko is gone.)

***Excluding true freshmen, Michigan has five scholarship players for four starting spots, none of whom are seniors and one of whom is a positional vagabond who was a huge reach even at WR. Attrition has something to do with it, but poor recruiting—the 2006 class didn't have a single corner, and the 2007 class had two reaches and one Notre Dame defection—had much more. With Woolfolk's move Michigan has one scholarship safety on the roster outside of true freshmen.**** Not to go all ND-fan-talking-about-Ty here, but lord I don't know if anyone could dig themselves out from that."

...so what was being said about the glorious 2005 - 2008 recruiting classes?

More facts:

"So...What Happened?

A horrible confluence of events:

1. Michigan had generally small recruiting classes
2. Those defensive recruiting classes were about on par with Penn State anyway, and well below those of Ohio State
3. Michigan had exceptionally high attrition from its 2005 to 2008 classes. <---------------------------------------
4. Attrition disproportionately attacked our higher-rated players.
5. Attrition disproportionately attacked our older players
6. Of Michigan's 3-star recruits, a disproportionately few ended up as contributors"

More facts.

"On Lloyd, and his staff:

Someone should have recognized the weak depth at safety back when Marlin Jackson had to move there for a season. Lloyd let the positition go unaddressed in recruiting for years, which killed us in 2005 (burning Brandon Harrison's redshirt in the process).

And then he came back with Jonas Mouton and Stevie Brown, two outside linebackers, meaning in the recruiting year immediatly after "Safety Armageddon" we got ZERO defensive backs.

Ron English had (still has) a strange belief that Johnny Sears was a great future cornerback, even after The Horror."

More facts? More facts.

"Michigan has had higher attrition from 2005 to 2009 than Alabama.

Let's rephrase: Michigan has had higher attrition than a team that has been TRYING TO SHED PLAYERS."

Quoted verbatim from right here:

http://mgoblog.com/diaries/decimated-defense-part-ii-statisticating

So if one wishes to speak authoritatively on what talent Michigan had post Lloyd Carr, might want do a little research first. And the Toledo example is silly. They had a walk-on QB and a pocket passing QB (neither of who could throw very accurately 15 yards down field, bless them both) running zone read, plus a running back (Minor) who was pouting because McGuffie earned the job by practicing hard, learning the plays, and not fumbling.

For starters. But...more solid examples to support your arguments, please.

You said the talent was deficient. No way Michigan's talent was that bad on defense that it should of put out a defense ranked in the 100's. If it was that bad then how did Hoke and Mattison turn it into a top 20 defense? Fact is there was enough talent on defense to at least put out a mediocre defense in the 50's nationally.

The talent WAS deficient. Either you chose not to read the EXTENSIVE RESEARCH done on the talent deficiencies on the defensive side of the ball listed here: http://mgoblog.com/diaries/decimated-defense and here: http://mgoblog.com/diaries/decimated-defense-part-ii-statisticating

(HINT HINT: IT'S ENTITLED "DECIMATED DEFENSE FOR A REASON)

...or you cannot read it.

Won't bother assuming which it is.

Once again, for your edification:

Defensive Recruits No Longer With the Team: 2005-2009

Name Class Pos StarsRR What happened?
Eugene Germany 2005 DE **** 6.0 Left team
James McKinney 2005 DT **** 5.9 Left team
Terrance Taylor 2005 DT **** 5.9 Graduated
Brandon Harrison 2005 CB **** 5.8 Graduated
Johnny Sears 2005 CB *** 5.6 Left team
Brandon Logan 2005 LB *** 5.6 Graduated
Chris Richards 2005 ATH *** 5.5 Left team
Carson Butler 2005 DE *** 5.5 Moved to TE, left for NFL
Chris McLaurin 2005 DE *** 5.5 Left team (health)
Jason Kates 2006 DT **** 5.8 Left team
Cobrani Mixon 2006 LB **** 5.8 Left team
Quintin Patilla 2006 LB *** 5.7 Left team
Quintin Woods 2006 DE *** 5.6 Left team
Austin Panter 2007 LB **** 5.8 Graduated
Artis Chambers 2007 S *** 5.6 Left team
Marell Evans 2007 LB ** 5.2 Left team
Boubacar Cissoko 2008 CB **** 6.0 Left team
Marcus Witherspoon 2008 LB **** 5.8 Did not qualify
Taylor Hill 2008 LB **** 5.8 Left team
Adrian Witty 2009 CB ** 5.3 Did not qualify (may return)

FACTS. You don't have to like them; but they exist. That's what I'm using to support my posit. What are you using to support yours?

And your query is, again, silly. The talent that RR INHERITED was deficient. "The cupboard was bare" when he INHERITED the team. So precisely why are you asking me about talent he recruited that was inherited by Hoke?

You do realize there's a difference between "the talent on defense was deficient" when he came on board and the talent that Hoke inherited right? You do realize those are...two separate arguments?

First off there is no reason to personally attack me by saying i cannot read because i disagree with your opinion. Second, mgoblog is just that a blog. Using diaries from mgoblog to support your opinion is junk.

I am using the fact that our D was ranked 24th in total D and 23rd in scoring D in 2007. 2008 under RR it dropped to 67th in total D and 84th in total D. Then proceeded to get worse every single year. Then Hoke takes over and in one year with him and Mattison we have a top 20 D again. Something doesn't add up here. I would say it's the guys who coached from 2008-2010 that was the problem. Not the talent.

For all those who were saying they just wanted a change on D, do many of them realize that no matter who was the D-Cordinator, RichRod forced the 3-3-5 defense on them? That is what he ran at WVU and what he wanted run. The 3-3-5 is excellent against finesse offenses because it gets more athletes on the field. However, against the Big 10 brand of football, it is awful. 5 O-Linemen, 1 TE, 1 FB, that's 7 blockers against 6 up front on defense. There is a reason why our safeties were tackling machines in this defense. I do feel his offense AND defense will work well in the PAC 10 though. He was a terrible fit here though...like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole.

Well I was banned from GBW for writing a long post demanding he was fired in December 2010, so I think the answer is yes.

But it's more complex, I wasn't a RR hater or one of the "old guard" type guys who hated the spread and all that. I had been a Carr critic (since prolly around 2002 actually) and a big RR proponent through the 2009 season. I started to get doubts about RR during the course of the 2010 season and by the time we blew the Penn State game I basically figured that things had gotten too bad for this regime to continue even if it wasn't all RR's fault. Wisconsin strengthened that view and the OSU loss was no surprise. At that point I was convinced he had to go. The Mississippi State loss didn't really change things for me, just confirmed it.

Arizona is about to beat USC for what it is worth.

One thing I will always give RichRod credit for, he will not win at all cost. If a kid has a concussion, he sits.
Also, Arizona better keep getting 1st downs or score a TD, their defense won't stop USC.

Yeah I think Arizona is a good place for him. The pressure to win isn't that big, if you get blown out vs Oregon people go "oh well that's normal". Those guys don't mind basketball-type scores and there's no entrenched culture in place either.

I think RR is a really good coach, I think we just turned out to be a really bad fit and he really could have used Casteel here as well.

For only having 3 wins, yea defense wasn't the problem, the offense was.