Bag of Bell (Vol. 1): A plan to fix Michigan football, thoughts on recent recruiting criticism and a little bit of poop talk
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Welcome to my first crack at this newsletter thing. I thought I’d have a little more time to plan out how this thing would go, but when I said I’d get the ball rolling once 500+ people signed up and you made that happen in a couple of hours, that moved the timeline up a bit. But it was really cool — and if I wasn’t already a lost cause in eternal self-absorption, it would be quite humbling — to see so many people sign up so quickly. I really hope this becomes a fun little Friday staple in everyone’s day.
If you have any questions, comments, concerns or feedback when it comes to the newsletter or anything else, go ahead and shoot me a note at the new newsletter e-mail address: bagofbell@gmail.com. That goes for newsletter name suggestions, too. I’ve settled on Bag of Bell for the title of my mailbags, but the current newsletter placeholder of “Scott Bell’s Newsletter” seems a little … uninspired. Creative people: help a brother out.
And with that out of the way, let’s get to some questions:
Twitter question from Stacy Wolf:
Here’s a good question to start with, and one of the reasons I wanted to have a platform like this newsletter where I could go a little deeper on some issues without cluttering peoples’ timelines on Twitter with long threads.
If you missed the thread mentioned above, I’m linking it (and a couple other football-related ones) below:
So I was pretty excited when the thread I made in late December of 2018 more or less foreshadowed how Michigan’s offseason would play out in the months that followed. But then Michigan had another good-but-not-great season and I stopped bragging about how great my predictions were, because maybe it wasn’t the best advice after all.
That advice also came immediately after Michigan’s bowl game, so this exercise won’t exactly be an apples-to-apples comparison, since this year’s wish list will be coming after staff changes and after some attrition has already happened. And it’s going to be an abnormal offseason in general with the team’s overseas trip and the vast majority of its spring practice completely killed off. But here’s a quick crack at what I think Michigan’s football program should focus on in a few key areas to set itself up well for the 2020 season and beyond:
Recruiting/staff identity
I don’t necessarily think that Michigan is doing too little when it comes to recruiting. But I do think Michigan is competing with schools that — at least optics-wise — are more willing to go above and beyond than the Wolverines have been as of late.
Jim Harbaugh might have been the butt of jokes when he first arrived for sleeping over at recruits’ houses and climbing trees and jumping into pools with his clothes on and playing football shirtless with kids. But you know what those actions yielded along with the ridicule? Results. I’d rather deal with banter from rival fans about Michigan having a weirdo coach who does anything to win than deal with losses against teams because your depth of talent can’t match theirs. Luckily for Michigan, that’s not the case against many opponents not named Ohio State at this stage — at that’s largely thanks to Michigan’s recruiting success early in Harbaugh’s tenure. But the trajectory of things isn’t going the direction Michigan fans would like, assuming your goal is to recruit like an elite program. And given the fact that Michigan has been the best Big Ten football program not named Ohio State since Jim Harbaugh has arrived (here’s my exploration of that) and a good chunk of Michigan fans are already (unjustly) souring on him because of that, then Michigan’s recruiting needs to catch up to Ohio State’s. It’s not reasonable to go into a game expecting a less talented team to beat a more talented team unless — to steal from Charlie Weis — you have a decided schematic advantage. And if you’ve watched the last few Michigan-Ohio State games, that’s certainly not currently the case.
Where I think this all lands for me (and this isn’t something that can be addressed heading into the 2020 season anymore): Michigan has to make a decision with its hiring. Is it going to emphasize talent or is it going to emphasize scheme? It had two coaching staff openings this offseason and made what appear to be two good hires resume-wise in Brian Jean-Mary and Bob Shoop. But the former was more of a recruiting guy while the latter is more of an Xs and Os guy that’s not going to do much to help boost Michigan’s recruiting. I don’t mind having guys like Shoop on a roster. Michigan already has someone like him in Michael Zordich, a guy credited with securing one commitment in the last 20 months. But if you’re going to go the development route, go all in on it. If you’re going to go the recruiting route, go all in on that and try to out SEC the SEC. I just worry that Michigan is a little bit in no-mans land right now where it will be “pretty good” at recruiting and “pretty good” schematically and continue to churn out “pretty good” seasons. And the more “pretty good” continues to be the norm, the greater the distance grows between Michigan and programs like Ohio State, who would be anything but content with being “pretty good.”
Team culture
Without throwing kids under the bus and without claiming to speak with first-hand knowledge (I wasn’t exactly embedded with the team last fall), I still think it’s fair to say there were some culture issues with the team during the 2019 season. Its quarterback wasn’t voted a captain by his teammates. There were rumblings of some of the team’s wide receivers wanting to shut things down at various points in the season, and there were pretty apparent effort issues by some players in highly visible situations. It’s no knock on Ben Bredeson, but it’s hard for an offensive lineman to be the lone captain on offense and set the tone for the team on a number of different levels.
Michigan also needs to make sure it operates as a meritocracy. Jim Harbaugh says all the right things and has shown it with his actions repeatedly over the years when it comes to saying that no positions are promised and they’re all earned on a weekly basis. But without going into too much detail and calling out college-aged kids, there were a few head-scratching personnel decisions last year that seemed to reward people for things other than on-field performance. I fully understand other factors are in play — people watching on TV aren’t privvy to attitude issues, practice effort, grasp of the playbook, etc — but it hasn’t been a very well-guarded secret that some players felt like they didn’t get a fair crack.
The biggest positional battle heading into the season is at QB, where Dylan McCaffrey and Joe Milton will likely be the top two candidates jockeying for the top spot (though I’d be a hypocrite if I automatically discounted other candidates). It’s not an exact science, but when I asked some Twitter followers last week who they thought would win the QB job and who they were actually rooting for in the competition, it yielded pretty different percentages. McCaffrey was the winner in both, but it was by a 60-40% margin in the “want” department and an 85-15% margin when asked who will win the job. That’s fairly telling, even if just from a perception standpoint.
The intersection of these two things could do wonders in 2020. If Michigan does in fact hold a true QB competition and the player that performs best is given the job, that person can and should be inserted into a key leadership position (and one would imagine leadership ability would be a key component in said competition). With spring practice dead, those fall camp reps will be even more important and under a microscope. If McCaffrey or Milton really take the reins in camp and earn these equally important positions — the position of leadership and the QB position itself — it could really be a great starting point for a team looking to make a strong first impression in 2020.
On-field priorities
On offense, keep letting Josh Gattis steer the ship. I think it took a little bit of time for him to find his footing as a play-caller, but I think anyone who watched Michigan down the stretch has to feel good about the way he was calling games as the season progressed. The vast majority of poor offensive performances were the result of execution, not planning. And this team will benefit greatly from having the same voice leading them on offense for a second straight year — something that will be truly happening for the first time under Harbaugh.
Keeping Nico Collins around for another year was absolutely huge. Michigan lost a lot of size and athleticism this offseason with DPJ and Tarik Black leaving, but Collins will give them a true No. 1 target that can go up and get the ball and complement smaller weapons like Ronnie Bell and Giles Jackson, who have different skillsets that will need to keep defenses honest. Enjoy Collins-type guys while you can, because I think Jackson types will be more of the norm for Gattis’ speed-in-space attacks, and while I think that’s a good direction to keep trending, I do wish it was a little less of an all-or-nothing type thing and that Michigan could bring in taller guys like Collins to keep defenses honest.
On defense, Michigan needs to not only continue trending toward being able to give different looks and playing more than just man-to-man, press coverage, it needs to be able to do it proficiently. Last offseason I talked about the important of working on zone coverage during the weaker part of the schedule and forfeiting some stats and defensive rankings for the sake of improving the team, and that seemed to work fairly well for the most part. But all of that progress and good will was erased when Ohio State curbstomped Michigan once again. It doesn’t invalidate the strategy — Michigan just needs to get better at it.
E-mail question from Pete Smith:
“Speaking as a father, which instance is worse: blown nap, or blowout diaper?”
I actually don’t think this is much of a debate, though the answer is the opposite of what I would have assumed it would be prior to being blessed with the responsibility of having multiple small human beings living in my household and being tasked with their survival on a daily basis.
Give me the blowout diaper.
Hell, give me five blowout diapers before you give me a single blown nap.
Blowout diapers are gross. And there’s nobody with a halfway decent internet search history that actually enjoys dealing with poop. But the joy of a blowout diaper is that it’s taken care of and behind you in a matter of minutes.
Give me a dozen of this little guy’s awful diapers before giving me him a napless afternoon.
A blown nap? Your day is ruined. And more than likely, your next few days are affected, too.
I’m sure many of you reading this are probably rolling your eyes and thinking I’m overreacting. But I’m also sure that about 95% of you that are rolling your eyes are also not parents. Because I’m absolutely not overreacting or overselling this. Honestly, I’m probably underselling it. Let’s examine the collateral damage of a missed nap:
Early impact: When there’s a missed nap, the only window in your day where you were anticipating getting to take a little breather is gone. And once you’re a parent, you soon realize that any semblance of alone time or an opportunity to escape for a minute is heaven. But here’s the part a lot of people don’t understand: Even though breather itself is great in the moment, I’d argue you get even more value from the breather before you actually take it. That’s because when things are going to hell and it’s only 10 a.m., you can at least use that as a carrot dangling: “This is brutal, but I’ve only got to make it 90 more minutes until I get him down for a nap. Then it’s going to be great!” It helps you push through. It’s like running a marathon (or so I imagine — I get tired if I’m driving 26.2 miles. I’m not planning on running one anytime soon). It’s daunting, but once you’re only a handful of miles away, you can power through it. But having a nap go awry is like you powering through the whole marathon and reaching the finish line, only to be told you’re running one again.
Impact in the moment: This is the obvious part. A missed nap not only means they’re awake, it means they’re probably screaming bloody murder. Trying to put a baby to sleep that has no interest in actually going to sleep is a fool’s errand. And having said baby scream in your face in the process is just a cherry on top of that hearty serving of awfulness. There’s really no need to elaborate on this part of the process. It sounds terrible. It is terrible.
Aftermath: Along with the ringing headache after an extended period of your non-sleeping child screaming in your face, there are some other lasting effects of the missed nap. First and foremost, the kid is going to be an asshole for the rest of the day. There has not been a single recorded instance of a child that did not take a nap in a day going the entire day without being a dick. It’s impossible. Try and think of a time that’s happened and you’re going to come up empty. But also, if your kid didn’t sleep during the window of the day they were scheduled to sleep, it almost certainly means they’re not going to sleep at the time in the night they’re supposed to sleep. That may mean they go to bed earlier than expected that night, which sounds like a win. But that win quickly becomes a big fat L when the byproduct of that is them waking up much earlier in the morning than they’re supposed to. And an early wake-up the next day starts a whole new vicious cycle the next day.
The more I write this out, the more I know I’m right. If I was guaranteed a month of stress-free naps, I’d sign up for a lifetime of blowout diapers and I’d volunteer to wear a diaper of my own for free and handle all of the maintainance that entails. Life is just so much better with a well-rested, happy kid.
Twitter question from Tim McGrady:
I think this week’s narrative surrounding Michigan and its inability to recruit Ohio (which, ICYMI, was inspired by this podcast from The Athletic) has some elements of truth to it, but it’s largely misguided and I would hope that Michigan wouldn’t attempt to overcorrect based on a pretty flawed sample.
Don’t get me wrong. Ohio has historically and even recently been a great source of talent for Michigan. You can’t ignore names like Charles Woodson, Desmond Howard, Jake Butt, Mario Manningham, Taco Charlton, Jake Ryan, Elvis Grbac, Prescott Burgess, Chris Wormley and Roy Roundtree — and that’s just capping it at 10 names. You could make that list go 100 deep if you wanted.
But if you’re realistic about Michigan and Ohio State’s place in the current college football landscape, focusing on Ohio as a key recruiting strategy would be awful. You’re basically trying to “fix” the problem of recruiting like a top-10 program by embracing the recruiting strategy of a top-30 program.
With very few exceptions, Michigan is not going to go head-to-head against Ohio State and beat them for a recruit from the state of Ohio. It’s just not happening. The player likely grew up as a big Ohio State fan and there hasn’t been anything happening on the field in the last decade that would change that. So choosing to prioritize Ohio is basically volunteering to take Ohio State’s leftovers. That’s not a winning strategy if your goal is to go from being the No. 2 program in the Big Ten to the No. 1 program in the Big Ten. It’s a fine strategy for the Michigan States, Cincinnatis and Kentuckys of the world, but those programs have different expectations than Michigan. And if Michigan’s expectations ever match up with those three schools’, there are problems a lot bigger than recruiting on our hands.
@GABlueBean had a good chart on Twitter the other day that laid things out pretty well.
I think a recruiting identity needs to play off the strengths of your staff. While I don’t necessarily agree with some of those strengths that Michigan has decided to priotize, it’s all the more dumb to try and compete in Ohio when Ohio State poached your coaches that had the best in-roads in the Buckeye State. That’s stubbornness and a great way to burn resources that could otherwise be spent out in the Northeast where you could really stake your claim as the presence for top kids. There may not be the same abundance of top-tier guys out East as there are in Ohio or Texas or in SEC country, but there’s also less competition and a better chance that most suitors are playing by similar rules. Going into SEC Country and trying to recruit the way Michigan does against SEC programs is like going into a knife fight with a popcicle stick, and having your opponent not only have a knife, but also one of those comically oversized checks that Happy Gilmore insisted on receiving whenever he finished a tournament.
DM question from Chase Agin:
If Michigan could’ve brought back one player back from last years class (Iggy, Poole or Matthews) who would’ve/would be the most helpful?
Even though basketball season is canceled and it’s a pretty fresh wound to be picking at, I’ll close with this one, because it’s a great question. I think you could make a strong case for any of these three choices. While it takes a little bit to get over the fact that Michigan could have had Iggy and Poole on its team this year, helping out with some pretty significant depth and shooting issues, I think I put them in this order:
Iggy
Poole
Matthews
Matthews would be great for this team, and he was a key reason for the team’s defensive success in recent years under Yaklich. But I don’t think inserting him into this lineup would be able to fix Michigan’s defensive shortcomings. Michigan’s two best defenders are Eli Brooks and Franz Wagner, and they would be defending the types of players that Matthews would be taking. The defensive help Michigan really needed this season was in the post, as Jon Teske seemed to regress in a couple areas as the season progressed and Austin Davis got pushed around quite a bit down low late, on top of his endurance issues. Matthews is the most offensively limited of the three, so he got the No. 3 spot on this list.
Poole and Iggy were neck and neck for me. Both provide things on offense that would have been very helpful for Michigan, especially at times this season when Isaiah Livers was out or things were going cold for others. Poole would improve outside shooting, and everyone knows how many times this season Michigan fans were able to say “if Michigan had just made half of those open threes, they would’ve won this easily.” And I know it’s an intangible and not something that you can measure on a box score, but Poole’s energy and swag is absolutely contangeous and something that helped the team.
Iggy can create offense, too, just not in the way that Poole did. His length and ability to slash and get to the hoop is something that was greatly lacking with this year’s team as well. And it was less prone to cold spells and ill-advised shots than the attacking mantra that Poole adopted.
I think the tiebreaker to me would be probably end up being Iggy’s size. Him having a 2-3 inch edge over Poole gives him a little more positional versatility and I think he would ultimately be a better fit in Juwan Howard’s ideal system of positionless basketball.
Did I mention I’m really going to miss basketball season?
Thanks to everyone who sent questions. There are some good ones in the queue that I didn’t get to and might tackle in future installments. But keep sending new questions in — that will be the lifeblood of this mailbag. The more good stuff y’all ask, the easier it will be to continue to churn these out on a weekly basis. Questions can be submitted via Twitter replies, DMs or through e-mail: bagofbell@gmail.com.
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Fantastic content, Scott! Much as I enjoy your troll-tastic tweets, this thoughtful in-depth analysis, without hoity-toityness is a blessing in our suddenly barren sports landscape.