Bag of Bell (Vol. 7): Should Harbaugh target a transfer QB? Which current Michigan athletes are potential first-round picks? What are my favorite non-Michigan sports venues?
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Our first week with some actual good news to report in a while! Franz Wagner is back. Cesar Ruiz got selected in the first round of the NFL Draft. And, most importantly, I’m skipping Survivor talk on this newsletter for the third time in four weeks. What a time to be alive.
On to the questions:
E-mail question from John Hewett:
I need your opinion on the apparent JT Daniels flirtation. As for me, I am so over the 'QB transfer in to solve a problem' concept. Worked nicely, eventually with Ruddock, not so much with O Korn, and while Shea had more than a few moments, meh. (full disclosure, was a Brandon Peters fan, still am. Saw him play in high school in about as good a performance as was possible against former Clemson, now NW QB Hunter Johnson. BP plagued by horrid Oline, but I digress.)
Dylan McCaffery and Joe Milton have the skills to play, and WANTING to play for Michigan goes a long way for me. Screw the carpetbaggers, although that may be the new college norm. If we want to get good QB's, we need to be able to recruit them from HS (see JJ McCarthy), and turn them into viable Pro prospects. Bailing on every recruit to seek out one/two year transfers seems to be less palatable, and less inspiring, and not a long term winning strategy.
This question (and other variations of it — like this one from Derek Whalen and this one from Travis Britko) was the most frequent inquiry I received across all mediums this week. So it only makes sense to start here and to spend a good chunk of this week’s newsletter on this topic, since it’s clearly a hot button issue.
I tweeted about it last week when it was first announced that JT Daniels would be transferring from USC, and that Michigan could be a logical landing spot for the former five-star recruit, since Jim Harbaugh and the Wolverines were a finalist during his high school recruitment.
If you need the 280-character version of my thoughts on the situation, here it is:
If you want about 5,000 more characters, since the situation is far too nuanced to comprehensively cover in one tweet, read on. These are my four reasons why I’d support kicking the tires on JTD:
Jim Harbaugh likes competition
This is a program run by Jim Harbaugh, after all: a guy who absolutely thrives on competition. He’s the guy who would declare a winner and a loser after each practice in his first spring on practice. But it wasn’t the loser that was “forced” to run sprints as a result of the competition — the winning team got to run, because, according to Harbaugh, only the winners earned the honor of getting to make themselves better. The losers would have to sit and watch.
Do you really think he’d turn down a 0.9919 QB over the fear that it might hurt someone’s feelings? Something tells me that’s not a part of Mr. Iron Sharpens Iron’s playbook.
(Context on how impressive a 0.9919 rating is on the 247Sports Composite ranking index: The best player Michigan signed in Daniels’ class was 0.9498 DE Aidan Hutchinson. The best QBs Michigan have signed since the Lloyd Carr era have been 0.9695 QB Shane Morris and 0.9684 QB Brandon Peters.)
Current Michigan 2021 QB commit JJ McCarthy is very much in Daniels’ rating neighborhood at 0.9899, but he’s still unproven at the college level. Plus, if he were to leave if Daniels theoretically came to Michigan, he’d be doing so with more than six months left in the recruiting calendar for Michigan to recruit a replacement for him. There’s no indication that McCarthy would jump ship if Michigan brought in Daniels, but if Daniels wanted to be in Ann Arbor with this depth chart and McCarthy didn’t, maybe the former would fit the prototype of a player Harbaugh wants in his program more than the latter.
Transfer QBs are dominating the sport
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, college football has been dominated by transfer QBs since the transfer portal became a thing. Three of the four teams in last year’s CFP were quarterbacked by QBs their school got via transfer. The fourth team was led by a 0.9999 QB — the second highest-ranked QB in the history of recruiting rankings.
Here’s a non-comprehensive list of starting QBs last season that were transfers: Joe Burrow (SEC/national champion LSU), Justin Fields (Big Ten champion Ohio State), Jalen Hurts (Big 12 champion Oklahoma), Shane Buechele (SMU), Kelly Bryant (Missouri), Austin Kendall (WVU), Nick Starkel/Ben Hicks (Arkansas), Josh Jackson (Maryland), Riley Neal (Vanderbilt), Brandon Peters (Illinois), Tommy Stevens (Mississippi State).
This doesn’t mean you should be looking to add a transfer QB at any opportunity that presents itself. But if a five-star QB is showing interest, you owe it to the health of your program to listen. This trend isn’t going away soon, and actively avoiding it seems counter-productive.
You can’t have too much depth at QB
Because of the above stated prevalence of transferring in college football these days, it’s incredibly important to stay ahead of the curve. Michigan fans should know this all too well.
Injuries happen. Attrition happens. Michigan had multiple seasons derailed in the past decade because of QB depth issues.
Denard Robinson went down with an injury in 2012. While I obviously think Michigan made a mistake not pivoting to Devin Gardner sooner, the next guy off the bench to step in for Denard against Nebraska was Russell Bellomy, who went 4-of-21 for the season and completed as many passes to the defense as he did to the offense.
Michigan has played in either a New Year's Six bowl (2016 Orange, 2018 Peach) or the Citrus Bowl (2015/2019) in four of the five seasons of the Harbaugh regime. The only season the Wolverines had to settle for a lower-tier bowl was in 2017, when they played in the Outback Bowl after going 8-4 in the regular season. That was a season where Michigan went 4-0 in September, but quickly saw its season spiral out of control when injuries hit the QB room.
If the loser of the McCaffrey/Milton battle decides to transfer (or hell, both of them — it’s been done before: see Texas A&M losing both Kyle Allen and Kyler Murray in the same offseason), you’re going to see a massive gap for a few classes. Cade McNamara is still there and ready to step in, but the only other scholarship QB on the roster would be Dan Villari. I’m sure Villari is a nice guy, but I don’t think anyone in Schembechler Hall would candidly disagree with the statement that Villari was never signed with the intention of growing into a starting QB.
Right now, depth doesn’t look like an issue for Michigan. You have McCaffrey, Milton and McNamara all spaced out as lone QBs in their respective classes (junior, sophomore and freshman), and all three have had the benefit of redshirt seasons. But look no further than Columbus, Ohio to see how quickly a great situation (QB depth gave the Buckeyes a national title in 2015, JT Barrett had a pair of 1st-round picks backing him up with Joe Burrow and Dwayne Haskins) can turn into a scary one (Burrow and Martell transferring left Ohio State one Fields injury away from reaching the Chris Chugunov era).
Clemson was in a similar situation with Kelly Bryant, Hunter Johnson and Chase Brice all peacing out when they realized they didn’t want to carry Trevor Lawrence’s clipboard for the next few seasons.
Michigan isn’t immune to facing a similar situation once the QB competition shakes out. Adding extra bodies and voices to that room is a net positive.
JT Daniels is good at football
For those unfamiliar with the guy, Daniels won the right to follow in Sam Darnold’s footsteps as a true freshman, earning the gig over Jack Sears and Matt Fink. That’s impressive for any true freshman, but especially Daniels, a five-star recruit who was initially supposed to be in the 2019 class before he reclassified to the 2018 class — a somewhat common practice in basketball that’s considerably more rare for football players. That means he only spent three years in high school and was playing high-major FBS football as an 18-year-old, underdeveloped kid his first year in LA, where he threw for 2,500-plus yards.
The following year, he won the competition again under new OC Graham Harrell, this time outlasting Fink, Sears and super freshman Kedon Slovis, who went on to Wally Pipp Daniels after JT went down with a season-ending injury early in the season.
And that’s been the length of Daniels’ tenure at USC. He won the job both seasons, got injured, then had a true freshman step in and earn the job while he was injured. It says more about Slovis — a beast in his own right — than it does about Daniels.
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This is a different conversation than Jim Harbaugh’s ability to development QBs that he inherits/recruits. And while that’s a worthwhile conversation to have, too, if you’re letting the fear of a growing narrative steer your future decision-making, that’s a bigger indictment than any lack of development should be. And just for the record, that’s an overstated narrative. If someone asked you who the biggest bust QB that Jim Harbaugh has recruited has been, what would your answer be? Brandon Peters? His career in Ann Arbor didn’t turn out the way many had predicted/hoped, but that’s not exactly a damning indictment of a lack of QB development over a five-year coaching tenure. Peters wasn’t just jumped by five-star transfer QB Shea Patterson — McCaffrey jumped him in the depth chart, too, so it’s unfair to say a “homegrown” recruit like Peters was forced out by a transfer QB. Patterson didn’t reach the heights most of us expected/hoped, but that has to be a sunk cost for you — it’s unfair to have that sour you on transfer QBs altogether.
And look, all of this is probably moot. Daniels will likely choose a roster that doesn’t already have three four-star QBs on its roster with a five-star waiting to step into the fray in December once he signs. But this is the new norm in college football, and you shouldn’t shy away from building depth and adding competition at any possible turn. Because if you don’t, you’re one injury, one bust, one transfer away from flirting with depth chart danger.
Twitter question from Steven Threet:
I was actually just tweeting about this from my other account the other day (please follow it — it’s the one that helps pay the bills!).
Nothing will match that longevity, flexibility and ease of use that the Crying Jordan meme provides. It has clear GOAT status and that won’t be changing anytime soon.
For example:
See? Fun for the whole family.
E-mail question from Drew Bulbuk:
Who are the top five football players from opposing programs that you would have liked to see play for Michigan?
For the sake of tightening the player pool here a bit, I’ll keep this within the time frame of the Harbaugh era. I’m also attempting to have this span five different positions and five different schools.
QB Joe Burrow (LSU): Burrow had arguably the greatest statistical season by a college football quarterback in the history of the sport last season. He also had a skillset that would translate well to the Josh Gattis offensive system. But most importantly, it would have been awesome to steal a quarterback from Ohio State.
RB Christian McCaffrey (Stanford): As much as I love the Glasgows, it would have been cool to start a McCaffrey pipeline a few years earlier, too. It helps that Christian is the most versatile and dynamic college running back this side of Reggie Bush, too.
WR Hollywood Brown (Oklahoma): You don’t get more Speed in Space than Marquise “Hollywood” Brown, who absolutely abused opposing defenses as part of Lincoln Riley’s space-happy offense.
DT Ed Oliver (Houston): Pairing Ed Oliver with Rashan Gary and Chase Winovich probably would’ve been deemed illegal, but the carnage before that ruling would have been delightful.
DB Jalen Ramsey (Florida State): I imagine Mr. Ramsey would have been able to help stop some crossing routes in The Game.
E-mail question from Bryan Mortenson:
Outside of UM venues, favorite stadiums and/or bucket list events?
These are my five favorite non-Michigan college football stadiums/events I’ve been to:
Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge for an LSU/Alabama night game. This is going to be a tough one to top. I got my first experience of the Alabama/LSU rivalry in 2012 when it was a night game in November with both teams entering as top-5 teams. The tailgating scene is absurd and the in-game decibel level was something I’d never seen matched. I’m as much of a Big Ten homer as you’ll find down here in Texas, but when people say it’s a whole different beast down in SEC country, I’ll have to agree with them when it comes to top-level atmospheres.
Cotton Bowl in Dallas for Texas/Oklahoma. This is an annual trip here in Dallas, and it’s one of my favorite aspects of work I look forward to each fall. The stadium itself is pretty old and unspectacular, but the setting creates for one of the most unique sporting experiences around. A rivalry game surrounded by a State Fair/Midway atmosphere, where the crowd is split directly in half — one side wearing burnt orange and cheering for Texas, the other wearing crimson and cream and rooting for Oklahoma.
Rose Bowl in Pasadena. While it’s been a while since Michigan’s last trip to sunny Pasadena (sigh), it’s still definitely a bucket list event to attend a game here. I had the honor of covering the 2007 Rose Bowl between Michigan and USC — a pair of top-5 BCS teams at the time. The setting is just incredible, specifically with the San Gabriel Mountains in the background.
Beaver Stadium in State College for a night game. It’s not always a “fun” atmosphere from a Michigan fan perspective. But night games/white outs at Penn State are certainly a sight to behold from a neutral observer standpoint. My first Penn State night game experience was in 2006, when Michigan escaped with a road win. At its peak, the crowd noise legitimately shook the press box, which was equal parts awesome and terrifying.
AT&T Stadium in Arlington. I probably take this venue for granted because I’ve covered double-digit college football games here at this point (national title game, multiple Big 12 title games, multiple Michigan games(!), Texas A&M-Arkansas annual battles, etc), but it’s still quite the spectacle if you’ve never been inside JerryWorld before. It’s a billion-dollar stadium, and while the loudness/intimacy may not give off a true college football feel, it can certainly create a “big-game feel.” (It certainly doesn’t hurt that Trey Burke’s Shot happened here, either, even though this is a college football list)
Other venues I’d recommend for one reason or another: Notre Dame (nice, historic feel), Ohio State (great people watching if you’re intrigued by uncultured cretins), Texas (gigantic), Wisconsin (Jump Around), Iowa (severely underrated).
Twitter question from Ryan:
My pro sports allegiances still belong to Detroit teams, though I find myself less and less emotionally invested in any pro sports teams as the years go by. When I moved down here in 2010 I told myself I’d allow myself to “adopt” one of the local teams, to give myself a skin in the game and give me someone to cheer for/water cooler chat with people about, etc. I chose the Texas Rangers, which ended up being a smart call — or so I thought. The first summer here was great: The Rangers won their division, made it through the ALDS and then knocked off the Yankees in the ALCS to make it to the World Series, the first in franchise history. But then the next year, the Rangers found themselves in the ALCS again, and this time it was against the Tigers. Once the Rangers knocked the Tigers out of the playoffs to make it to a second straight World Series, it was no longer fun to pull for the Rangers, since they ruined the World Series hopes of the team my true allegiances belonged to. So ever since then, I don’t really “root” for any local team.
I’m in an odd situation because I’ve been in charge of Mavericks, Stars and FC Dallas coverage since taking my job here in Dallas. So while I don’t “root” for those teams to win, in a vacuum, it’s better for fan interest/me professionally for them to do well. So if the Stars are in the playoffs and it’s Game 7 against the Blues, I’m not going to show up with Victory Green facepaint on, but if you ask me if there’s a result I’d prefer to see over the other, I’m hoping the local team wins in most cases.
From a college standpoint, all of my rooting bandwidth belongs to Michigan. My wife is a Texas Tech grad so I suppose the Red Raiders would be my “second team” if such a thing exists, but I look at that whole situation the same way I do pro sports — I’m cheering for good stories/fan interest, not individual schools.
Twitter question from Steven Schmitz:
There aren’t as many obvious choices as there may have been in past classes (Rashan Gary and Devin Bush were about the safest bets you could find), but Michigan’s roster still has some players that have the potential to be Day 1 or 2 guys. My list:
2021 draft: I think your best bets for the upcoming senior class are Nico Collins and Ambry Thomas. I think Kwity Paye has the potential to have an Uche-like rise, too, even though their strengths are different and Uche’s have been more easily marketable to an upside-hungry NFL Draft. (Possible early entries: Aidan Hutchinson, Jalen Mayfield, Cam McGrone)
2022 draft: Your best bet in this class is Hutchinson, but I think there are some strong candidates for then-juniors that could bolt early, too. (Possible early entries: Dax Hill, Mayfield, McGrone)
The second part of your question is the exact reason why there are so many college football fans that are perpetually disappointed. “Is Michigan going to run the table (play and win 15 straight games!) or will we be let down again?” If those are the choices, you’re going to get a nice, hearty serving of disappointment about 99% of the time. Alabama, the biggest modern-era dynasty in college football, has had exactly one perfect season in the past 25+ years. One. Want to know how many times Ohio State has run the table, including a postseason win, in the past 15 years? Zero times.
Twitter question from JH the goat emoji:
In case you’re not a big recruiting fan, here’s a brief primer on what the above question is referring to: Michigan’s three defensive commits in its 2021 class are DEs TJ Guy and Dominick Giudice and LB Casey Phinney. All three are three stars, and none are particularly close to being near the four-star cutoff. If you disregard Michigan's punter commit, the team has eight total commits so far — five offensive players and three defensive ones. The latter three are the only non-four stars in the class. In fact, the first five are all part of the national top 250. So, not surprisingly, people on the internet are panicking. And while I don’t agree with the need to panic right now, I can see where some of y’all are coming from.
But I’m not here to incite the online spazzing about Michigan recruiting. I’m here to give you context on why it’s going to be OK.
It’s April: Pen doesn’t meet paper for another eight months (minimum). Usual spring visits haven’t happened. Evaluation periods have changed. Camps aren’t happening. It’s a weird year with a different calendar. There will be some abnormalities and different strategies with how people deal with these changes. Chill.
Not all commitments stick: This isn’t my favorite thing about the current staff or about college football in general, but there’s enough data from the past decade to indicate that not all of the players that are currently committed in this class are going to remain a part of the class, and there’s a good chance it won’t be their decision. The staff has done a much better job with the timing of these moves in recent classes (the Erik Swenson stuff was a big PR hit early on). But it’s pretty clear it’s still a part of their (and many other programs’) playbooks.
Last year’s recruiting class consisted of 23 people. Twenty-one of those 23 were in the top 500 of the 247Sports Composite rankings. One other (No. 511) just missed, and the other was a last-minute depth add (Villari) when Michigan missed out on CJ Stroud, wanted a QB in the class after JD Johnson's medical DQ and had the extra scholly to spare on signing day. So with the Villari outlier not included, last year’s final product was all people in the top 511. But do you remember one-time commits Denver Warren (632), Kalil Branham (634), Micah Mazzccua (829) and Tim Baldwin Jr (981)? They were all a part of the class at one point. What about the class before? Amauri Pesek-Hickson (742) and Tyrece Woods (no national rank, No. 44 in state) were also on board. They all committed early in the process. And while there were some special circumstances with a few of them, in all cases, it became pretty clear they weren’t “Michigan material” in one way or another. These guys ended up at schools like Kentucky, Baylor, Indiana, Kansas and Buffalo. I’m not insinuating that this is the plan for any of the three guys that are currently committed, and many people in their spots at this stage of the cycle in previous classes have stuck around (and have seen their ratings rise), but I’d at least caution everyone to the fact that these guys are orally committed to the class, not signed to an LOI.
Stop comparing: The big cause for all of this complaining about Michigan’s recruiting class is the act of comparing. Michigan fans are either comparing the class in general to Ohio State’s (which is going to be historically good), or they’re comparing the Michigan offensive commits to the defensive ones. If your bar for a successful class is for it to have pledges from the Nos. 3, 17, 22, 35, 41, 56, 58, 70, 73, 83 and 92 players in America by April, there’s only one class that’s going to be acceptable for you right now. If you think it’s a realistic expectation for Michigan to have five top247 commits on defense like it does on offense at this stage of the cycle, then you need to readjust your expectations. The fact of the matter is Michigan’s class is perfectly fine right now. It is the second best class in the Big Ten by star average, and only one class ranked higher than Michigan’s in the national rankings (Georgia — 7) has fewer commits than Michigan (8). Patience is a virtue. And before you know it, the Junior Colsons, Quintin Somervilles, Jahzion Harrises and Jamari Buddins of the world will start to fall for Michigan, as will some late risers, and Michigan’s defense will catch up with its offense in the class.
That’s all for this week. Thanks as always to everyone that has subscribed, read and submitted questions to the newsletter. See you all next week.