Monday, December 3, 2012
Recruiting Update: December 3, 2012
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| David Dawson (#55) |
Massillon (OH) Washington cornerback Gareon Conley decommitted from Michigan. He visited Ohio State last weekend, but the coaches plan to continue to recruit him. He will take an official visit to Columbus later this week, and then he plans to take an official to Ann Arbor on December 14. I never removed Conley from the board, but he's now a "free agent" again, so to speak.
Detroit (MI) Cass Tech offensive guard David Dawson was re-offered by Michigan. Dawson was committed to Michigan for about eight months, but a planned visit to Florida forfeited his spot in the recruiting class. After exploring his options and apparently regretting his decision to explore those options, the coaches have re-offered him and said they will continue to recruit him. But there's a chance that one of two new Michigan offerees, Cameron Hunt or Kenny Lacy, could commit before Dawson. Dawson plans to take an official visit to Michigan on December 14.
Corona (CA) Centennial offensive tackle Cameron Hunt earned a Michigan offer. Hunt is currently committed to Cal but is looking around. I wrote up a scouting report on him last week. He appears to be a potential replacement for Dawson.
Phoenix (AZ) Mountain Pointe offensive tackle Kenny Lacy was offered by Michigan. Lacy is currently committed to UCLA but is looking around. I also wrote up a scouting report on him last week, and he too appears to be a potential replacement for Dawson.
Elizabeth City (NC) Northeastern linebacker Jamieon Moss was offered by Michigan. Moss is a 6'2", 210 lb. prospect who is committed to Virginia Tech but also holds offers from Maryland, North Carolina, and North Carolina State. Moss has mentioned he's potentially interested in looking around, and he visited NC State this fall, so there's potential for another team to flip him.
ADDED TO THE BOARD: 2014
Oradell (NJ) Bergen Catholic defensive end Garrett Dickerson earned a Michigan offer. If the school sounds familiar, it's the alma mater of former Michigan target Tanner McEvoy a quarterback who is now starting at Arizona Western after transferring from South Carolina. Dickerson's brother plays at Northwestern. As a sophomore in 2011, Garrett had 50 tackles and 4 sacks.
Southfield (MI) Southfield defensive end Lawrence Marshall was offered by Michigan. He's a 6'3", 225 lb. end with offers from Indiana, Michigan State, and Pitt, among others. He looks like a weakside end who won't wow you with his speed rush, but could be a solid run defender with a decent occasional rush.
Crete (IL) Crete-Monee linebacker Nyles Morgan earned an offer from Michigan. Morgan is a 6'2", 220 lb. prospect with offers from Illinois, Michigan State, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Oklahoma, UCLA, and Wisconsin, among others. Crete-Monee is becoming a familiar name for followers of Michigan recruiting, since it's also the school of one-time 2012 commit Anthony Standifer and highly touted 2013 target LaQuon Treadwell.
OFF THE BOARD
Forth Worth (TX) All Saints Episcopal offensive guard Demetrius Knox committed to Texas. Texas was always considered the front-runner for Knox's services, and he's likely to be a high 4-star prospect when all is said and done.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Coach Hoover: Slant Route - How to Get Leverage on the Defender
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| Elaine Alden |
What I've Been Reading
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction by Alan Jacobs. Jacobs is a complete and utter nerd, so naturally, I enjoyed his writing. The book largely discusses why we're interested in reading when there are so many other things to do - check e-mail, text our friends, get on Twitter or Facebook, etc. He didn't reveal anything particularly groundbreaking, but he suggested that there was a time when we all enjoyed being read to as a child, when we could escape to another reality. He also suggested lots of different ways to think about reading, including the idea that there are three ways of reading: reading for entertainment, reading for information, and reading for knowledge. Jacobs likes to savor a good book, write notes in the margins, underline particular passages, etc., and those are things I never did except in college. But it would be interesting to revisit that method of reading. Also, I learned a new word: catholic. I never knew that it could be a lower case word for "a wide variety of things, especially a person's tastes."
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. Don't ask why I read this, but Before I Fall is a book geared toward teenage girls. I'm not giving anything away, but the basic gist of the story is that the narrator - a popular girl in high school - dies in a car accident early in the story. Much like Groundhog Day, she keeps reliving her final day on Earth, changing little (or big) things here or there in the hopes that she can be released from her purgatory. It's a quick read, and it's actually pretty well written for being young adult fiction, but I don't imagine many of you will pursue it.
Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk. This is the story of Hazie Coogan, the personal assistant to a famous actress named Katherine Kenton. Katherine likes to think she's the boss, but it's really Hazie who's pulling all the strings. Palahniuk's writing style is a little bit annoying; he keeps name dropping famous actors and actresses, which is cute at first but then grows tiresome. There are elements of Palahniuk's Survivor and Invisible Monsters in here, but this book isn't nearly as strong as those two.
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. Believe it or not, I never read this when I was in high school or college. It's one of those books that you feel like you should have read by now, and if not, you're an idiot. Now I have read it; I am still an idiot. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the book and read it over the course of about two days. I had heard hints about how it ends, so it wasn't a surprise; but I can imagine that it would be even more powerful if I hadn't been expecting it. The biggest surprise of the book was that it didn't bore me to death like The Grapes of Wrath did.
Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace. I haven't read a ton of Wallace's stuff, but he's sort of hit-or-miss with me. Some things I enjoy, and some bore me. This is a collection of essays about various things like John McCain's election campaign, the lobster industry, conservative talk radio, the porn industry's AVN Awards, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. My personal favorite was the long discussion of the morality behind the preparation of lobsters. The thing I like most about Wallace's is his ability to dig deep into the motivations of authors and people, parsing sentences and words and human actions. However, don't pick up this book if you're looking for a quick read, because all the footnotes and interjections will slow you down.
Feel free to leave reading suggestions in the comments below. I'm always looking for things to add my already endless reading list.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Grantland: How Stanford Beat Oregon
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| Priscilla Morgan |
Poll Results: How will Maryland and Rutgers affect the Big Ten?
Last week I asked the question of how the addition of Maryland and Rutgers would affect the Big Ten overall.
Negatively: 58%
Positively: 28%
Not at all: 18%
I don't think most Big Ten fans are happy about Maryland and Rutgers entering the equation, but I do imagine that it will be good for those two schools themselves. I can see why they jumped on the idea. New Jersey produces a ton of football talent, and now those kids can stay right at home and play while their families watch from the stands. Playing in the Big East didn't have the same ring to it, which is why so many of those kids would go far away to play ball. Michigan, for exampled, pulled in several kids from New Jersey over the past few years - Anthony Lalota, Marcus Witherspoon, J.B. Fitzgerald, Brandon Smith, etc. And while things didn't work out that well in Ann Arbor for, well, any of them, both Lalota and Witherspoon went back home to play for the Scarlet Knights when they couldn't hack it at Michigan. Smith didn't quite make it back to New Jersey - he just transferred to Temple. Fitzgerald was a career backup at Michigan. If given the chance, I wonder which of those four would still have chosen Michigan if their home-state Rutgers team played in the Big Ten already.
Maryland also has fairly fertile recruiting grounds in the forms of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Kids from those areas go all over the place to play, but mostly the Big East and the ACC up until now. Maryland, though, got a couple national recruits (Stefon Diggs, Wes Brown) to stay home in the 2012 recruiting class, and perhaps they might stay home a little more often in the future. There's less incentive for kids from the eastern seaboard to go to places like Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. So while this move might benefit the programs at Maryland and Rutgers, it might thin out the talent in the rest of the conference. I still don't think a bunch of elite kids will be committing to the Terrapins, because they simply don't have the history and track record to be extremely enticing. But those second-level kids, the low 4-star and high 3-star type of kids might prefer a chance to start at Maryland rather than ride the bench and play special teams in Columbus or Ann Arbor.
Of course, this is a very narrow look at the effect of conference expansion on recruiting, but overall, I do not see this as a positive trend for the Big Ten or college football in general. At some point the NCAA has to put a limit on conference size . . . or perhaps the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, and Pac-12 will become the new Division I, while the other members of the current FBS will become a de facto Division I-AA.
Negatively: 58%
Positively: 28%
Not at all: 18%
I don't think most Big Ten fans are happy about Maryland and Rutgers entering the equation, but I do imagine that it will be good for those two schools themselves. I can see why they jumped on the idea. New Jersey produces a ton of football talent, and now those kids can stay right at home and play while their families watch from the stands. Playing in the Big East didn't have the same ring to it, which is why so many of those kids would go far away to play ball. Michigan, for exampled, pulled in several kids from New Jersey over the past few years - Anthony Lalota, Marcus Witherspoon, J.B. Fitzgerald, Brandon Smith, etc. And while things didn't work out that well in Ann Arbor for, well, any of them, both Lalota and Witherspoon went back home to play for the Scarlet Knights when they couldn't hack it at Michigan. Smith didn't quite make it back to New Jersey - he just transferred to Temple. Fitzgerald was a career backup at Michigan. If given the chance, I wonder which of those four would still have chosen Michigan if their home-state Rutgers team played in the Big Ten already.
Maryland also has fairly fertile recruiting grounds in the forms of Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Kids from those areas go all over the place to play, but mostly the Big East and the ACC up until now. Maryland, though, got a couple national recruits (Stefon Diggs, Wes Brown) to stay home in the 2012 recruiting class, and perhaps they might stay home a little more often in the future. There's less incentive for kids from the eastern seaboard to go to places like Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. So while this move might benefit the programs at Maryland and Rutgers, it might thin out the talent in the rest of the conference. I still don't think a bunch of elite kids will be committing to the Terrapins, because they simply don't have the history and track record to be extremely enticing. But those second-level kids, the low 4-star and high 3-star type of kids might prefer a chance to start at Maryland rather than ride the bench and play special teams in Columbus or Ann Arbor.
Of course, this is a very narrow look at the effect of conference expansion on recruiting, but overall, I do not see this as a positive trend for the Big Ten or college football in general. At some point the NCAA has to put a limit on conference size . . . or perhaps the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, and Pac-12 will become the new Division I, while the other members of the current FBS will become a de facto Division I-AA.
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