Bag of Bell (Vol. 8): State of the Michigan Football Program follow-up: Diving into in-state recruiting, U-M's performance in road games and the atmosphere at the Big House
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We’re back to the “normal” format for this newsletter, where I’ll be taking a mailbag approach and answering whatever questions you may have. I really do appreciate everyone who read last week’s State of the Michigan Football Program piece, though. It was a fun little change-up and it ended up being the most-read newsletter I’ve had so far by more than 10,000 reads. So thank you for taking the time to read it and providing me feedback.
With that in mind, most of the questions I’m taking this week will center around last week’s piece and allow me to answer the follow-up questions some of y’all had and to help fill in some holes. If you’re subscribed to this newsletter more for lighthearted, non-football type questions, I apologize. I promise to make this a little more eclectic again starting next week. But digging deep into Michigan football last week was a pretty cathartic experience for me, so I’d like to wrap that up with a bow this week and tackle the most popular follow-up questions.
As always, you can submit questions for future installments by replying to me on Twitter, DMing me on Twitter, writing a comment at the bottom of this newsletter or by shooting me an e-mail at bagofbell@gmail.com.
OK, let’s get crackin’.
Question from the comment section of last week’s mailbag from Rick / Twitter question from AKM:
Really well done Scott! I appreciate the perspective you bring. While I agree with many of your points on the program, aside from needing to beat Ohio State, our road record against top tier schools (Penn State, Notre Dame, Wisconsin) leaves a lot to be desired. Do you have a take on why we struggle so much there?
I’ve crunched the numbers and have come to the following revolutionary conclusion: Winning on the road is difficult.
Here’s a full inventory of every road loss for Michigan under Jim Harbaugh.
That’s nine losses in five years. If you read on, you’ll see there’s nothing too abnormal about that total. Ohio State is the only Big Ten school averaging less than one road loss per year. Michigan is one of two other teams averaging less than two per season. The 11 other in-conference schools are averaging more than two losses on the road per season.
Here’s what stands out to me from the above chart:
The majority of Michigan’s road losses have been by a touchdown or less. I feel like the narrative is that Michigan has been outclassed a ton on the road under Harbaugh, and the numbers just don’t agree with that. I count three drubbings: The Saquon Barkley game in 2017, Ohio State putting up a 62-spot in 2018 and Wisconsin’s physically dominant showing last year. Those were all brutal. But they also only make up about 10% of the road games played by Michigan under Harbaugh.
49-6! That's the combined record of the nine teams that Michigan has lost to heading into those respective games. And if you call the 2016 night game against Iowa at Kinnick an outlier, the combined record of the other 8 teams is 44-2! That’s absurd. Those two losses were both by Ohio State teams that entered editions of The Game with 10-1 records.
Seven of Michigan’s nine road losses have come against ranked teams. And they’re the seven most recent losses. Of those seven losses, three have been to top-5 teams and five have been to top-10 teams.
The combined year-end record of every team Michigan has lost to on the road: 99-21. Eight of those nine teams finished ranked. Seven of the nine finished in the top half of the top 25.
JT was short.
How do Michigan’s numbers compare to other programs? Well, there are five Big Ten schools that have winning road records since Harbaugh was hired at Michigan. Like every other measurement of success over that span, it’s basically Ohio State and then everybody else. The Buckeyes have more total road wins, more road wins over ranked teams and the fewest amount of losses out of all Big Ten teams, with all but one of those categories having very little competition.
The top tier of the “everyone else” club consists of Michigan, Wisconsin and Penn State. And then you have Michigan State, which is the only real outlier in terms of trends that other programs are showing. The Spartans have more wins over ranked teams on the road than any school not named Ohio State. But they also have twice as many losses on the road to unranked teams than any other notable Big Ten school. To put it in layman’s terms: MSU has been boom or bust on the road.
If Michigan State has been unreliable, unpredictable and exciting, Michigan has been the complete opposite. Very solid and very predictable. But also quite boring and not coming away with many surprises (pleasant or unpleasant).
Can I interest you in another chart?
Here’s what stands out to me from the above chart:
There is nobody in the Big Ten that’s less likely to pick up a “bad” road loss than Michigan. Not “nobody in the Big Ten not named Ohio State.” Nobody. Michigan lost its first-ever game of the Jim Harbaugh regime on the road to unranked Utah (a Utah team that ended up winning a share of the Pac-12 South and got as high as No. 3 in the country) and a one-point loss at Kinnick in Year 2. That’s it. No such “bad losses” in road games in the 1,200+ days that have followed. In a sport where the calling card is unpredictability, it’s an impressive (albeit a not-so-sexy) calling card to be able to win the games you need to win.
On the other side of the coin, you can’t help but be disappointed to see where Michigan stacks up when you measure everyone up by the “ranked wins” category. Michigan only has one top-25 road win during this five-year span (2018, @ No. 24 Michigan State). Other notable road wins include Penn State (2015) and Michigan State again in 2016, but neither of those teams were ranked. It is worth noting that 2016 Michigan State win, though, because one of Wisconsin’s two “ranked wins” is a win over that same 2016 Spartan team. The Badgers just happened to get the benefit of running into MSU while the Spartans were still ranked. A weird little quirk like that shows that no quantitative methodology is going to be perfect. For what it’s worth, Wisconsin’s other ranked win was this past season at Minnesota. Penn State collected its lone top-25 road win this past season, too, when it won at Kinnick Stadium vs. No. 17 Iowa.
Wisconsin may have the second best “resume” according to that chart, but like a lot of the stats in my State of the Michigan Football Program piece, you need to take these comparative stats between Big Ten East programs and Big Ten West programs with a massive grain of salt. During the five-year data set we’re looking at, Wisconsin only had to play four road games against the Big Ten East’s “Big Three” — Michigan (2), Ohio State and Penn State. The Badgers were 0-4 during that period, with its four losses coming by 31, 25, 12 and 7 points.
You can say a lot of things about Michigan State’s football program (Lord knows I have). But you can never call the Spartans dull. Five wins over ranked foes in a five-year span is impressive no matter what caliber of program you have. And Michigan State’s hit list checks all the boxes when it comes to local powers: Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Notre Dame.
I should also noted that I didn’t include neutral-field games (regular season or postseason) in this, because I wanted everyone to have a similar sample. Some of those wins (like Michigan’s season-opening win over Florida or Wisconsin’s season-opening win over LSU) are really impressive, but I don’t think they should be weighted anywhere near the same as a road win in a hostile environment. And don’t get me started again on how much unnecessary attention bowl games already receive.
Overall, I’d say Michigan has been the second-best road team in the Big Ten since Jim Harbaugh was hired. Wisconsin has a better record, but that’s a product of playing four road games against the Big Ten’s three other best teams compared to Michigan having to play double that. And I think both are a slight step ahead of Penn State when it comes to playing away from home.
But whether you think Michigan is 2a to Wisconsin’s 2b, think they’re tied for 2nd or think Wisconsin has a slight edge, the same takeaway still remains for me: Michigan does a great job avoiding bad road losses, but one of the biggest indictments of the program so far under Harbaugh has been its inability to beat good teams on the road. And until that changes, it’s going to be a very real thing holding the program back from making the leap from a very good one to a great one.
Question from the comment section of last week’s mailbag from Jim:
You didn’t mention the issue with retention; too many players have transferred out...there’s got to be more to the story there.
Transferring in college football is far from a Michigan-specific phenomenon. I did some digging via the 247Sports Transfer Portal database (a very cool tool, by the way), and it looks like there have been 275 record transfers from Big Ten programs last season and this offseason combined. Here’s a chart that breaks down those numbers by school:
A total of 275 transfers comes out to about 20 transfers per Big Ten school. That would put Maryland, Nebraska, Michigan, Penn State and Rutgers at above-average totals, Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota and Purdue right around average, and Iowa, Ohio State, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Northwestern considerably below the average.
One caveat to note: Michigan’s total of 30 players includes players like QB Michael Sessa, RB Jordan Castleberry, RB Julian Garrett, WR Kyle Grady, DE Ryan Veingrad, and P George Caratan. Obviously I know those six players were all walk-ons/non-scholarship players that probably shouldn’t “count” when you’re dealing with attrition. But I included them because I don’t have that same knowledge/expertise when it comes to the other 13 Big Ten teams. And while anecdotally it seemed like most of the players listed for other schools were scholarship players (they show stars next to basically everyone, and outside of a few elite programs, you’re not going to be able to get 3-star athletes to walk on to your school in most cases), there could be similar cases and I don’t want Michigan to not count some players because of nuance and not give other teams that same benefit. Please also keep in mind that we’re at the mercy of each school’s respective 247Sports staff when it comes to these numbers. One would imagine Michigan’s site is better staffed to comprehensively update its transfer portal than other schools may be. There are some Caratans, Veingrads and Garretts on other teams that might not be accounted for in the database.
With all that said, I don’t think Michigan is any sort of a troubling outlier. On the high side of Big Ten programs? Absolutely. But I also don’t think that should be a major surprise if you’re looking beyond the numbers.
It’s very well established that you have to earn a redshirt year under this regime, and it’s something the coaching staff doesn’t hide from. By my count, this fall’s Michigan team is only going to have three non-specialist, non-walk-on redshirt seniors on its roster: Chris Evans, Nick Eubanks and Carlo Kemp. And one of those (Evans) is a special case. This staff feels no obligation to keep someone around for a fifth season, and I’m totally fine with that as long as its happening on the up-and-up. That strategy, coupled with the ease of transferring these days, specifically as a grad transfer, means you’re going to see a lot of guys leaving Ann Arbor before the end of their collegiate eligibilities. If you're J'Marick Woods or Devin Gil or Stephen Spanellis or Mustapha Muhammad or Tarik Black and you’re not feeling great about where you stand on the depth chart and you want to end your career at a place where you think you can be more of a focal point, it makes complete sense to do so. And if you’re Michigan and they express an interest in doing so, that scholarship spot is probably better served opening up now so you can get younger players with upside in the system and beginning to develop rather than reserve a scholarship for an upperclassman depth spot. Grad transfers are the closest things to win-win situations you can find when it comes to attrition. It’s when a good chunk of your attrition is coming prior to those players’ graduations where you could end up having some trouble. Given that Michigan's APR the first four years under Jim Harbaugh has been 989, 993, 990 and 982, this staff isn’t having a tough time graduating kids. Go ahead and compare and contrast that with the Rich Rod years if you want to see two sides of the attrition coin.
All that aside, how the hell does Ohio State only have 13 transfers in two seasons? I expected the Iowas, Wisconsins and Northwesterns of the world to be at the bottom of this list. But Ohio State? How do they keep being an outlier on the positive end of the spectrum? The pendulum has to swing back in the other direction at some point, right? Right?
… right?
Question from the comment section of last week’s mailbag from Zack Schwartz / Twitter question from Cameron Taylor:
Good piece - and I’ve very staunchly opposed a lot of your twitter takes. I want your thoughts on the Big House atmosphere. I’m going into my senior year at Mich and grew up going to games and honestly it just seems like a pretty average fan experience for the size of the stadium.
Like with the question I started this week’s newsletter with, I’m combining these two because they’re so similar (though maybe I should have listed Cameron’s question first because it wasn’t a back-handed compliment).
This question presents a bit of a problem for me. I’m a big proponent of using facts/data to back up what I believe. But when I dig into this question, the facts and my heart tell me two different things.
If I look at home records of all the Tier 1a, Tier 1b and Tier 2 teams that I listed in last week’s newsletter — Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, Auburn, Florida, Michigan, Notre Dame, Penn State — Michigan is right smack dab in the middle in terms of the most important measure of them all when it comes to home games: win-loss record.
But if someone asked me which home atmosphere is the least intimidating — especially if they used the phrasing that Zack did in his comment: for the size of the stadium — Michigan is probably my first choice.
Now I haven’t been to games at all of these stadiums, so about half of these I’d be going by reputation only, but most reputations are earned for a reason. Out of all the stadiums I’ve actually been to — Ohio State, Penn State, Michigan, LSU and Notre Dame — Michigan is dead last, with only Notre Dame being somewhat close. I think Michigan and Notre Dame’s situations are pretty similar. They’re both storied programs with an older, more affluent crowd than most of the southern schools listed above. Both stadiums have finally caught up with the times over the past 10-15 years and added suites, and that asthetic has actually helped keep some noise in and make it a better atmosphere for both. But it’s still a night and day difference if you’re comparing a big-game atmosphere at Michigan to something at Penn State, LSU or Ohio State — especially when you consider Michigan has 10,000 more fans at its disposal for a given week.
And let’s be clear on this: It’s straight-up embarrassing to see how much red gets into Michigan Stadium every two years for the Michigan-Ohio State game. I don’t know how that became the norm, but that sure as hell isn’t the case at other top-tier football programs.
E-mail question from Jason Moorhead:
You mention Zordich not being a top-notch recruiter. Outside of results, what makes a bad/good recruiter? Is a good recruiter just built from the same DNA as old school Art Van Furniture (RIP) salespeople, that just hound you until you say 'yes'? Just curious how this works, and what resonates with 4/5-stars.
If there was an easy answer to that question, high-profile recruiters wouldn’t be demanding seven-figure contracts because everyone would have a roadmap to follow. The fact of the matter is, there’s no “secret sauce” and there’s no easy way to solve recruiting.
My Zordich section in last week’s State of the Michigan Football Program post wasn’t meant to be a slight at his recruiting ability. Rather, I used it as a way to show how development can be a more important trait than the ability to recruit.
If I had to build a perfect recruiter in a lab, I’d say these are the three most important “itys” I’d be looking for:
Relatability: This extends to other forms of sales/business, but if you don’t have the ability to relate to your subject, you’re going to have a very tough time reaching your end goal. If you’re going to inner city schools with a bunch of old white dudes and trying to secure pledges from high schoolers, you might have trouble. If your staff is full of guys who haven’t played football themselves, or haven’t been a part of the game at the next level, how are you going to candidly answer questions they may have about what’s to come? Or sell them on a vision of what’s next?
Versatility: You can’t be the Seth Rogen in Knocked Up of the college football world.
Dude, I think he's doing the dice thing too much.
That's really all he's got.
Some recruits might go for “the dice thing.” But others are going to be looking for something considerably different. You need to be flexible in your pitches and how you connect with recruits, because everyone is wired differently. It’s no coincidence that there’s an entire menu of things you can pitch a recruit on when you’re playing NCAA Football 2014 (RIP). Different things appeal to different people.
Creativity: You need someone who is going to push the boundaries and try new things. Again, there’s not a blueprint of success to follow here. What worked five years ago is probably outdated now. Are you hosting Madden tournaments with recruits? Are you sending mail to a player’s girlfriend or best friend or a respected mentor to show you care about their support system? Are you texting them about the Saints game on a Sunday afternoon because you know they’re a big Drew Brees fan? Push the envelope. Be creative. Make yourself stand out.
Beyond those personality traits, there are other things that are crucial, too. The most important of which is connections. You need recruiters with connections to high schools so it’s easier to connect with athletes. Pipelines are a thing for a reason. Many high-profile high school coaches act as the gatekeeper for the recruitments of their star players. If you’ve successfully recruited/developed someone from that school in the past, it’s going to be easier to come back and bring in the next generation of people to your programs. These connections work when it comes to 7-on-7 football programs and training institutions, too. We’ve seen from this staff that connections to the NFL can be a great selling point, too. Michigan’s staff is full of people with NFL experience and that experience (plus Michigan’s recent draft track record), can be a great selling point. And I’d be disengenious if I had a section about connections here and didn’t mention connections to boosters and bagmen. If you think all programs are playing by the same rules, I’m legitimately jealous that you’re able to live life in such a gleefully ignorant state. Please teach me.
And then there’s this unspoken part of recruiting. Getting these kids onto campus and into your program is only half the battle. I wish there was a way to track this, and that success on this level was tied to your overall reputation as a recruiter. If you had to blow smoke up their ass and promise them the world to get them on campus, you might have a tough time keeping that guy happy (and future players from his school/part of the country) if you can’t deliver on what you promised. Which I think is a really big reason a lot of these big-name recruiters don’t stay in a place too long, because their track records end up catching up to them.
Simply put: No, this should not be a major concern for fans. Michigan is doing a better job recruiting its state than the current narrative suggests. And an overemphasis on local prospects could be counterproductive. But since we’re dealing with #narratives here, I’ve learned the best way to tackle these things are with these things called “facts,” so let’s dig a little deeper, shall we?
Twenty-nine of the 50 recruits over the last five classes that were part of their respective classes’ in-state top 10 per the 247Sports Composite rankings ended up signing with either Michigan or Michigan State. That's just shy of 60%. I guess to some that may not sound like a lot. But it is.
Check out this map of the geographic location of all FBS programs.
Where’s the densest area on the map? Right in that Midwest cluster that’s connected to Michigan. There is a lot of competition for high school athletes from the state of Michigan. Keeping more than half of the “good” ones in state over the last five years is pretty impressive, especially when you consider that Mark Dantonio lost more conference games than he won since this year’s incoming freshman class was nervously awaiting their high school orientations four years ago.
Of the 21 top-10 propects that went elsewhere in the last five classes (and technically only 20 went out of state, because one player signed with Western Michigan), there's no go-to destination where these people are going instead, which is also promising. No other school has signed more than 3 top-10 guys. Only five schools have signed more than one player: Kentucky/Penn State/Purdue (3), Notre Dame/Ohio State (2). Some guys just decide to go elsewhere. Some guys are more “Purdue” types than “Michigan types” and didn’t receive an offer. There’s no major outside force that’s setting up shop in Michigan and taking over the state.
For what it’s worth, I kept this little exercise within the parameters of the top 10 each year because I don't think there's much value in charting where players outside the top 10 go, at least when it comes to “losing” players to the outside. There are cases where some players outside the top 10 have been coveted by both Michigan and Michigan State, but that’s more the exception than the rule. Over the last five classes, Michigan has only signed five kids that were outside the state’s top 10 rankings (about half of which have been specialists/non-traditional players -- like Quinn Nordin at kicker and Ben VanSumeren at fullback). Michigan State has signed 15, but that number will likely grow quite a bit this cycle. The Spartans currently have four commitments from in-state players this cycle: the Nos. 16-, 21-, 30- and 33-ranked players in the state. For reference, Toledo currently has three: 22, 35, and 40. But this is beginning to go off track. I’ll go more in depth on that in a future newsletter if someone decides to ask about the budding rivalry between Jason Candle and Mel Tucker.
Back to the topic at hand: If we made this even less inclusive and kept it to just “elite” players or cut the pool in half, it would look even more impressive for Jim Harbaugh and his staff. Michigan has reeled in over half of the state's No. 1 overall prospects over the past five years. In fact, the Wolverines have signed more than half of the top 5 players over the past five classes (13 out of 25).
One last little comparison: Here’s how Michigan’s in-state percentage share compares with other Big Ten schools — noting that it’s not necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison since some states have more/fewer in-state Power 5 schools to compete with, some states are much more ripe with high school talent than others, etc.
It’s no coincidence that the school whose profile/situation is most like Michigan’s (Penn State) is the closest to Michigan when it comes to the total percentage of in-state, top-10 recruits signed over the past five years. The state of Pennsylvania is pretty similar to Michigan in that there is one major Power 5 school that typically gets the pick of the in-state talent that wants to stay home, but there remains some competition from lower-tier P5 schools (Pitt = MSU, Temple = directional Michigan schools) for those fringe top-10 guys, too. The four schools above Michigan and Penn State in the chart above are all the only Big Ten schools in their respective home states. So those four being at the top should be a surprise to nobody.
Long story short: Michigan is recruiting its state fine. There are some valid areas of concern when it comes to this current staff’s recruiting strategy and execution. In-state recruiting would not crack the top 3 on that concern list.
Twitter question from Ryan Zerkel:
Ok, fine. I have room for one non-football question.
What is my favorite Star Wars movie? It depends on how you look at it. You could say it’s a nine-way tie for first. You could also say it’s also a nine-way tie for last. I have never seen a Star Wars movie. Some of us have kids and are too busy going through our 15th rewatch of the entire Saw series to be able to sit down and watch niche movie series like Star Wars. It must be nice to be free of responsibility.
That’s all for this week. Thanks as always for your questions, feedback and readership.