Friday, June 15, 2018

Michigan Friday: Jimmy Is Clearly Sending A Message

Summer is the time of year where teams can either come together or break apart.   Coaches are not allowed to coach and freshman are arriving on campus.   Team leaders need to organize unofficial practices and all players need to continue to hit the weight room. 


With this dead time for the coaches, they have to do anything they can do to send messages to the players to get better or get passed by.  Jimmy seems to be doing it with all the walk-on talk.


Jimmy this week speaking on the roster:  "We posted it for the squad, so they know who was in the 110 as of June 1 and who is not in the 110.  There already are scholarship players who aren't in the 110 and there are walk-ons, preferred walk-ons and tryout guys who are in the 110."


At Stanford, he posted results of guys working out, showing up to watch tape, and doing drills on their own.  Jimmy gives everything a scoreboard, which he feels is the difference between winning football and 8-5. 


He is now clearly doing the same thing for these next couple of months with talking about walk-on's non-stop.   We have heard about Tru Wilson as the 3rd string RB who is going to play a lot.   Jeff George's son just walked-on as QB for two years (with no clear path to playing) and WR Jake McCurry has been getting a ton of buzz from the coaches.  Jimmy has also mentioned senior TE Joey Files from Cranbrook as being a guy that the coaches love because during Spring Practice he played 3 days with a broken collarbone before finding out it was broken.  I'm sure these are solid players but my guess is, he is trying to reach a few players at these positions.  


Insiders are saying that Jimmy personally took Jeff George Jr. around campus on his visit last weekend.   Of course, he probably knows his dad well, but Jimmy is really pushing this competition thing  hard at all positions.   Brian at Mgoblog feels that Jeff is coming in to learn how to be a football coach for two years, I think Jimmy wants as many QB's he can get his hands on to continue to push his top guys.  Bo was sort of like this, I think he would of had 200 players on the team if he could have.


It was clear that Jimmy wanted to focus on the walk-on program when he arrived in Ann Arbor and bringing in guys that could contribute to the program and winning football.   That means providing depth in practice, being able to have good players on the scout team, playing on special teams, etc.  We might be starting to see the results of that project pay off.


Happy Fathers Day to all the Big House Blog Dad's! 



6 comments:

Cormac said...

I agree and disagree about Bo. Yes, he may have had 200 players on the team. But I disagree that he would have enough QBs to field a starting QB for half of the NFC. There's competition and there's uber-competition (or Jimmy's competition). I just question why you would take a former two-star QB that wasn't good enough to keep a job at a second (or third) tier Big Ten school even if you might owe his dad a favor or two. This move by Jimmy is, IMHO, a real head-scratcher.

EzmoB said...

As I said before, Jeff at best will be on the scout team and will never see the field on game days. As Bob said in the article the kid is coming in to learn to be a coach. Let him learn from Jimmy. He is a walk on, not costing us a scholarship. Play on Jeff play on.

Cormac said...

EzmoB, I hope what you said will be true. But nothing in this world is just that simple. I am more worried about a former starting QB and son of a more famous (QB) father who Jimmy personally toured around campus coming into the equation. I still would have said thanks for your interest, but no thanks. Sometime Jimmy may have to learn that you have to go with what you got, not what you want to have.

szanreno said...

If I'm a highly recruited quarterback being courted by Michigan I would look at all the quarterback on the roster and say see ya. Can see bring in somebody that doesn't have a chance of starting.

EzmoB said...

In my opinion I doubt it will deter any recruit from coming to Michigan based on how many qb's are on the roster. Now if we had all potential starters on the roster that would be different, but we don't. The other day I looked at other big programs rosters and the all range from having 5-7 qb's on the roster. Few are on scholarship and few walk on's. Personally if walk on happens to be better than a highly sought after recruit so than be it. Presently from what I've been reading we have few walk on's that will be seeing the field on Saturday and that's awesome.

Bob said...

Great comments guys!