Bag of Bell (Vol. 10): Michigan's defensive line performance and development has been elite under Jim Harbaugh; Plus ranking states and some new CFB rivalries I want to see
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Let’s go to this week’s big question:
This week’s big question
This question from Brendan4afc:
I don’t know Brendan personally, so I’ll stop short of taking some shots at the effectiveness of his brain. But Michigan’s defensive line has been (and will continue to be, in my opinion), elite under Jim Harbaugh.
In fact, Michigan’s trench play is the biggest reason the program is in as good of shape as it is right now. Last week, I took a look at Michigan’s skill position output and development, and we basically learned that Michigan is at or near the bottom when it comes to the top few tiers of college football programs. So one would expect that ground to be made up in other areas. And the biggest of those other areas is trench play — specifically the defensive line, if we’re looking at the entirety of the Harbaugh regime.
This is not to say there aren’t areas of concern for the current defensive line, though, and I’m sure that’s the inspiration behind this question in the first place. The biggest of those being:
The current depth chart (particularly at DT) is probably the thinnest it has been since Harbaugh arrived.
Greg Mattison coached Michigan’s defensive line for the first four years of the Harbaugh era. That continuity is gone.
Michigan has signed 12 three-star DL recruits since Harbaugh took over in 2015 after signing just two in Brady Hoke’s three classes.
I think all three of those are valid concerns. But the only one that gives me any true pause is the first one, since in-season injuries can be unpredictable and things can go off the rails pretty quickly when injuries happen in waves. The early returns on Shaun Nua are positive and Michigan has an above-average hit rate when it comes to success from three-stars/projects.
For this week’s newsletter, I’m going to take a deep dive into all things defensive line under Harbaugh over the last five seasons. I’ll take s look at Michigan’s defensive line recruiting, the on-field production of players once they reach campus and how Michigan stacks up when it comes to getting DL to the next level. Spoiler alert in all three areas: It’s going to turn out much, much better than last week’s skill position deep dive did.
Michigan’s DL recruiting
Michigan has signed 39 defensive linemen in its last nine classes. I’m choosing that as my cut-off because the 2012 class was Brady Hoke’s first full/solo class.
Here’s a full accounting of those 39 signings and where they fell in the 247Sports Composite rankings:
Here’s what I take away from this:
Michigan is averaging almost 2.5 four-star defensive line recruits per class, which is pretty amazing. It would be above the 2.5 mark if it wasn’t for that 2015 class, which was basically a lost class across the board as Michigan had a coaching transition. All things equal and with redshirts factored in, that’s putting north of 10 four stars on a roster at a given time. That’s great for depth and a nice way to give yourself a little cushion for injuries, attrition and lack of development (all of which have happened at Michigan — and happen everywhere else, too)
Brady Hoke’s classes seemed to have a lower ceiling but a higher floor, at least from a star standpoint. Jim Harbaugh is much more likely/willing to take chances on three-star/project types, but he also has been able to reel in five stars (three for him compared to none for Hoke). Harbaugh has had two three-star DLs in every one of his classes so far. Hoke signed only two three stars during his entire time in charge — one of which was Willie Henry, a guy that was from a school Michigan desperately needed to get its foot in the door at and a guy that ended up being a fourth-round NFL draft pick.
It’s pretty surprising to me that the best team Michigan has fielded in the past decade (2016) had just eight total signees at the DL position from the 2013, 2014 and 2015 classes. Now, part of that is a testament to the size/hit rate of the 2012 class, but it’s still surprising to me that Michigan signed so few defensive linemen in the three classes leading up to that 2016 team.
How does Michigan’s DL recruiting stack up against the rest of the Big Ten during this time? Stop me if you’ve heard this before: But very well, as long as you’re not using Ohio State as your benchmark.
Here’s a table of the five highest-rated DL to sign with Big Ten schools from each of the last nine recruiting classes:
Michigan is a clear No. 2 among Big Ten schools during this window. Quite a bit below Ohio State for the top slot, but comfortably ahead of Penn State for the title of “best of the rest.” The full standings are below:
Ohio State: 18
Michigan: 11
Penn State: 7
Michigan State: 3
Iowa: 2
Maryland: 2
Purdue: 1
Rutgers: 1
(For those keeping track at home, that’s 42 for the Big Ten East and 3 for the Big Ten West. Yay, parity!)
The difference between Ohio State, Michigan and then everyone else is even more apparent when you take those 45 players and sort them by their overall rating. Michigan has the No. 1 overall player in Rashan Gary, Penn State comes in at No. 2 with Micah Parsons, but then it’s a sea of scarlet and gray. Ohio State has Nos. 3-7 and half of the top 20 overall. But the gap between Michigan and Penn State grows, too, when you measure things this way.
When you look at the top 40, Ohio State is obviously still king, but Michigan ends up having just as many top-40 signees as the other 12 Big Ten schools combined. That’s incredibly impressive, and something that’s not being replicated at other positions.
Other takeaways from the above charts:
Michigan had superlatives in seven of the nine classes. The only two classes it didn’t land a top-5 Big Ten DL: 2018 (on the heels of Michigan’s worst season under Harbaugh) and 2015 (the “lost class” I mentioned earlier when Michigan was in the middle of a coaching transition).
2020's top overall DL and top DE
2019's top two DTs
2017's top DT
2016's top overall DL and top DT
2014's top DT
2013's top DT
2012's top DT
Michigan actually signed the Big Ten’s top defensive tackle in six of the nine seasons, with Ohio State (2) and Maryland (1) signing the other three. That’s actually quite surprising to see given the current lack of depth at the position and the concern level among many fans.
On the flip slide, Michigan hasn’t been as impressive with defensive ends. This year’s signing of Braiden McGregor yielded Michigan it’s only No. 1 defensive end during that timeframe, and McGregor was the lowest-ranked of the No. 1 DLs and DEs during this nine-year window.
In past newsletters, we’ve concluded that Michigan is a very good-but-not-great recruiting program. But if Michigan recruited other positions as well as it did defensive line, it would be teetering on the verge of elite.
Michigan’s DL on-field performance in college
So how have these highly touted recruits translated to on-field performance? I decided to put together a scorecard to give my grades/feedback on the 39 Wolverines charted in the recruiting section above.
My overall scorecard:
Classes that panned out: 2012, 2013, 2016. Classes that didn’t: 2014, 2015 and 2017. That 2017 class is particularly noteworthy. On paper, it looked like an epic defensive line haul. It ended up being one of the worst position groups from a hit percentage standpoint of the entire Harbaugh era, and it’s the key reason for depth concerns this year and last year.
Since this whole grading thing is a subjective exercise, I figure I should show my work. So here’s who got each individual mark, with an explanation for some of the fringe decisions, acknowledging it’s not really easy for everyone to fit perfectly into one category.
2012
Exceeded: Chris Wormley, Willie Henry — Both players were starters that eventually got drafted. Wormley was a 2nd-team All-American and multi-year All-Big Ten honoree. Henry had the second-worst rating out of HS of any DL signee this decade and he became an All-Big Ten honoree, too. Two huge hits.
Met: Mario Ojemudia, Matt Godin — Both took a while to develop, but both made contributions as starters during their senior years. Ojemudia was having a great senior season before going down with an Achilles injury.
Bust: Ondre Pipkins, Tom Strobel — Pipkins was the highest-rated Hoke signee and a top-5 Michigan signee this decade. He was a three-year letterman but never came close to meeting expectations. He tore an ACL as a sophomore, Michigan medically disqualified him and he ended up transferring to Texas Tech. Strobel did not and eventually landed at Ohio.
2013
Exceeded: Taco Charlton, Mo Hurst — Two massive hits. I’d argue Hurst had the best career out of any Wolverine — offense or defense — over the last decade. First-team All-American, First-team All-Big Ten, team MVP, etc. Taco was also a First-team All-Big Ten guy, and posted one of the 10 best pass-rushing seasons in program history. He was a first-round NFL Draft pick, and Hurst should have been, too, if not for all that health nonsense that popped up.
Bust: Henry Poggi — Did next to nothing on defense. Moved to FB/TE toward end of career. Had 9 career catches, 4 career tackles, 2 career carries. Disappointing career on the field. But an above-average Twitter game.
2014
Met: Bryan Mone — Mone played in 48 games and started about 40% of them. He was honorable mention All Big Ten by the time he graduated. That seems about right when you’re coming up with a baseline for a comfortable four star that’s outside the top 100.
Bust: Lawrence Marshall, Brady Pallante — Marshall appeared in 29 games, but only had one start and didn't make the impact a four star would be expected to make. Pallante has the same career statline that I do.
2015
Bust: Here’s that lost class of 2015 I’ve mentioned a couple times. Johnson ended up booted from the team. Jones ended up at West Virginia.
2016
Exceeded: Josh Uche — Two-time All-Big Ten honoree and Michigan’s DPOY in 2019. Not bad for Michigan’s 34th-best defensive lineman signee out of high school during this nine-year stretch.
Met: Rashan Gary, Carlo Kemp, Michael Dwumfour — Gary was a first-round draft pick and a multi-time All Big-Ten honoree. It’s pretty damn hard to exceed expectations when you’re the No. 1 recruit out of high school, but you also can’t call him a bust. Kemp and Dwumfour both have had career trajectories in line with their rankings out of high school, even though the latter is now at Rutgers.
Bust: Ron Johnson — Johnson almost made it 40% of this class to end up at Rutgers when he announced his transfer to the Scarlet Knights after three years of being a scout teamer at Michigan. But he ended up landing at Towson instead for reasons I refuse to allow myself to care about.
2017
Exceeded: Kwity Paye — The fact that the lowest-ranked of these eight players is the only one to get an above-average grade in this class is both a testament to Paye (two-time All-Big Ten honoree) and an indictment of the rest of this class.
TBD: Luiji Vilain, Donovan Jeter — Jury is still out on these two. Vilain’s career has been marred by injury. It’s difficult to imagine he reaches the expectations a top-60 player brings in, but there’s a long line of guys who did next to nothing for 2-3 years and came out of their shells as upperclassmen. Same goes for Jeter, who hasn’t done much during his short time in Ann Arbor but should get the opportunity to do so with a relatively thin depth chart.
Bust: Aubrey Solomon, James Hudson, Deron Irving-Bey, Corey Malone-Hatcher, Phillip Paea — Woof. Solomon is now at Tennessee, Hudson is now at Cincinnati, Irving-Bey is now at Central Michigan, Malone-Hatcher was medically disqualified before ever playing a snap and I don’t even know of Paea is on offense or defense anymore. Busts happen, but for it to happen at this high of a frequency within the same class is brutal and makes for depth issues in the future.
2018
Exceeded: Aidan Hutchinson — He’s only two years into college, but I feel comfortable putting him in the exceeded category. I mentioned him as a possible early NFL entry a few weeks ago and since then, his name has shown up in some 2021 mocks (with some putting him as a first-rounder). He was the team’s defensive Rookie of the Year as a freshman and an All-Big Ten selection last year.
TBD: Everyone else.
2019/2020
TBD: Everyone here gets a TBD. Too early to tell with anyone. But Hinton and Smith will certainly be called on to make an impact this season. Signing two highly touted DTs in that class was absolutely crucial given Michigan’s depth concerns. Those two won’t get the luxury to take their time developing and physically maturing as long as coaches probably would prefer in a vacuum, but it’s better to throw elite recruits into the fire than to have to hope a three star can surprise people.
Michigan’s defensive line performance as a unit:
Defensive linemen are different from offensive skill positions in that it’s not as easy to measure their success/failure.
The two team stats that seem to best represent the overall effectiveness of a DL unit are opponent rush yards and sacks. The former shows the unit’s ability to stop the run and the latter is a good measure of how well it can rush the passer.
Within those rush yards, I think there’s value in measuring them both by a per-game and a per-snap basis.
Here’s how Michigan’s defensive line units have performed in those two areas under Jim Harbaugh.
In the six years prior, Michigan averaged 4.5 yards per carry in 2009 (87th), 4.6 in 2010 (74th), 4.0 in 2011 (49th), 3.8 in 2012 (31st), 3.8 in 2013 (32nd) and 3.2 (7th) in 2014. That’s an average right at 4 yards per carry. Under Harbaugh, it’s 3.4 yards per carry. A little more than half of a yard may not sound massive, but on a per-carry basis, that’s astronomical.
In the six years prior, Michigan had 22 sacks in 2009 (t-75th), 18 in 2010 (t-103rd), 30 in 2011 (t-30th), 22 in 2012 (t-78th) 25 in 2013 (t-65th) and 29 in 2014 (t-41st). That’s an average of 24.3 sacks per season. Michigan’s average under Harbaugh is 36.2 per season. And increase of 12 sacks per season is … pretty damn incredible, especially when Brady Hoke’s reputation was made as a defensive line guru.
The above chart also gives some good context when it comes to part of the original question:
“It feels like Michigan’s d-line performance dropped off right around when Warriner got the OL situation better.”
Warinner arrived in 2018, so the question is basically asking “has Michigan’s defensive line dropped off in the past two years?”
If that chart shows us anything, it’s not that there’s a downward trend in terms of production, it’s that 2018 was an outlier. That season was Michigan’s worst rush yards/game average by more than 10 yards. It was the only season where opponents rushed for more than 3.5 yards/carry. It was the worst national rank for sacks, and one of just two seasons where Michigan wasn't in the top-15 nationally in terms of sacks.
Anecdotally, there were times when 2019 seemed like a struggle in the trenches. The Wisconsin game being top of mind. But the numbers tell a different story, and that story is that Michigan continues to have one of the most consistently excellent defensive fronts in college football.
Michigan’s DL track record in the draft
There’s really no need to go too in depth with this. The numbers speak for themselves. Michigan is tied for 4th in getting defensive linemen drafted in the last five NFL drafts. It’s tied for 2nd when specifically looking at defensive ends and it’s tied for 6th when looking at defensive tackles.
The only five schools to make the top 10 in all three of those categories: Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Clemson and Florida.
The charts:
Here’s a breakdown of the 14 Big Ten schools during that timeframe:
In actuality, these numbers don’t even tell the whole story of the impressiveness of Michigan’s ability to produce NFL-ready defensive linemen. All of this data is based on the player position listed on sports-reference.com (an amazing resource, by the way). So while Michigan is listed as getting credit for having seven defensive linemen drafted over the past five years, the true number is actually closer to 10. Players like Rashan Gary and Josh Uche, who both played almost exclusively as DT/DE in college, are listed as LBs in the database so they’re not included in these charts.
Overall takeaways
The best way to project the future is to look at trends from the past. And there really aren’t glaring red flags to be concerned about. Michigan recruits well at DL. Those guys come in and reach their potential on the field. And they end up making it to the next level as well as just about any other program in America.
For 2020, Michigan has inside guys — Kemp, Jeter, Hinton, Smith, Speight, Welschof, Morris, Paea(?) — and outside guys — Paye, Hutchinson, Vilain, Upshaw, Ojabo, Newburg, McGregor, that have the pedigree and the coaching to keep Michigan’s DL among the nation’s best. I don’t have a crystal ball to project how that will play out, but I also won’t be losing any sleep worrying about it.
More mail
I don’t have much more room for questions this week, but I’ll hammer out a couple:
E-mail question from Thomas Nash:
Everyone knows that Michigan is the best state. What four states round out your personal top five?
Starting with this caveat: I’ve never been to the Pacific Northwest. I’d like to change that soon. But that’s really the only place in the US that I’d be interested in traveling to that I haven’t made it out to yet.
The four states I’ll add to Michigan to make a top 5:
Colorado: I don’t think there’s a state that checks more boxes for me. Good economy, enjoyable weather, lots of options to do fun stuff outside, great beer scene. It’s also progressive without being overly obnoxious about it. I’ve only been twice, but I was a big fan both times.
Texas: This might be controverial to some and come off as a homer pick to others (and hell, that might be true), but having lived here for almost a decade now — I’m a Texas stan. No state income tax. Surprisingly good cost of living. No winters. Amazing food. Strong economy. It reminds me a lot about going to a big college. There are going to be crowds/activities you’ll want to enjoy, but you there’s everything you need and more if you’re looking in the right places.
Wisconsin: This also might turn some heads. But I’ve never had a bad trip to Wisconsin. Madison is the best Big Ten town. The people are nice. And hell, they love to drink so much that THEY NAMED THEIR BASEBALL TEAM AFTER BEER. What’s not to love (besides the winter)?
Nevada: Las Vegas. The end.
If they have to adjust the current CFB schedule what games would you like to see? For example, I’d like to see MSU vs Cincy Michigan vs Tenn Texas vs TAMU
I like the idea of all three games you listed. A revival of the Texas-Texas A&M series would certainly make my day job more exciting. Michigan State and Cincinnati would be interesting. It would be cool for all of Cincinnati’s players to get to play at Spartan Stadium — a location many of them considered playing at until their Cincinnati offers came in. I’m not sure Cincinnati would agree to the game, though. And some people at that school have a history of turning down offers from Michigan State, so I wouldn’t hold my breath on an invitation from MSU being accepted on Cincinnati’s end. And of course I’d be all for Michigan-Tennessee for a multitude of reasons, none bigger than wanting revenge of Phillip Fulmer for all the crap he pulled in 1997. I’d be sure to have Michigan display Charles Woodson’s Heisman on the sidelines if such a game did happen.
Five other games I’d like to see:
Notre Dame vs. Michigan: I don’t know about you, but I’m still annoyed that Notre Dame scored with a couple minutes left in last year’s game to cut into Michigan’s 45-7 lead, making it 45-14. I’d love for Michigan to get a rematch and get some revenge, and hopefully this year’s score would be a little more indicative of how the game was.
Nebraska vs. UCF: It’s a win-win. Either UCF loses early in the season and we don’t have to hear about them competing for another fake national title or Scott Frost gets embarrassed by a G5 school (Btw, if you like Scott Frost slander, wait until next week’s newsletter — it should be a doozy).
Clemson vs. someone with a pulse: Please. Anyone. For the love of God.
Mississippi State vs. Washington State: Seems like the likelihood of some petty BS in this one would be very, very strong. I’d also be cool with a Mississippi State vs. Texas Tech matchup for the same reason.
Michigan State vs. Arizona State: Who wouldn’t want to see another instant classic in this budding rivalry? It always leaves me satisfied and smiling.
That’s it for this week. Again, this is the final “free” newsletter before I make future mailbags available to premium subscribers only. I’d love to have you on board. If you want to take the plunge, you can sign up (or gift a subscription to someone else) below.