Scout has posted 3 Mallett highlight videos, and no, I'm not going to repost them, because they're not free. However, I have a few quick points about them that I'd like to say about them.

• He is not slow. I would say he's much more of, say, a Roethlisberger than a Navarre. He had a play-action QB draw touchdown form maybe the 10 yardline, and he was trucking it in there. Also, there was a play where the protection broke down, and he at least was able to get away form a couple defenders, which brings me to the next point...
• He actually ran a defender over on that play, and kept on running (though not very far). It certainly demonstrated that he had some pretty strong legs. Also, he plunged forward on a QB sneak touchdown (something we could have used against Notre Dame), and actually pushed the pile behind a pretty weak burst by his o-linemen.
  
• He has good pocket presence, and gets the ball out of there petty quickly. When nothing's open, he'll move around in the pocket a bit and wait for something.
• He is really accurate, which is actually a little surprising, as you hear almost exclusively about his strength, rather than laser-like precision. Like any QB, he made a couple errant throws, but most of them were spot-on. (Keep in mind that this video was only of completions, so maybe the 30% that he didn't complete were piss-poor, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt).
• He plays from the shotgun and under center about equally, which is to say, a lot more shotgun that he'll ever run at Michigan.
  
• He runs some pretty good play action (something his team also does often), and a couple times faked out both the entire defense AND the cameraman. If we move to a more play action oriented offense under DeBord, he should be able to fit right in.
  
• He has a couple pretty good teammates, including #4 Joseph Anderson (who, I was surprised to see, was nowhere in Scout's database).

That's all I really took away from it, but if I think of anything else, I'll be sure to post it. I'm still planning on going to his game against Findlay (OH) and trying to get some film, so I'll keep you updated. The film (assuming I get it) will certainly be MUCH MUCH higher quality than any I've ever seen on Scout.

If the team does these things, I get the feeling that everything else will take care of itself.

1. Crush Vanderbilt in the first game (set the tone for the season, and establish a good home field advantage)
2. Go to South Bend, beat Notre Dame with an emphasis on making Brady Quinn look bad.
3. Beat Michigan State, and help them begin their spiral away from bowl-eligibility.
4. Beat Penn State on the road at night. The fans will be really into this game, so it could be a great test. Plus, it's one of ABC's 12 Saturday Night national games, which is good exposure for the program. We want to leave recruits with a positive image.
5. Win out until Ohio State, including a big home game against Iowa.

After that, there's nothing we can do but hope for a great game against OSU.

They just need to add bleacher seats around the end zones, right near the field. This would alleviate bitching about the possibility of decreasing capacity (adding 300-1000 more seats), make the fans closer to the field (and more intimidating), and just generally make the gameday atmosphere better.

Fuck you, Jim Duderstadt.

Highlights:

1. Paid for through donations and money raised by the enclosed seating
2. Plans to maintain OR increase capacity (expected to eclipse 108,000, a net addition of 500ish seats)
   
3. Not limit plans for future expansion
4. New concourses on the East and West sides, endzones will remain open
5. Construction completed over four years, only during offseasons

I'm excited, are you?

@ Penn State is a night game. Could be BIG trouble.

Here's a link to the MGoBlue article.

What will Mallett do?

This (first) edition poses the question as it applies to Ryan's eligibility in college. Will he enroll early? Will he redshirt his freshman year?

The first factor in this decision will be Chad Henne. Will Chad go pro after his junior year, or stay for his senior season? This question may not be as ridiculous as it sounds to many Michigan fans. Henne is currently predicted as the 6th-best quarterback in the 2007 draft, with two of the prospects ahead of him (#2 Brian Brohm and #5 Kyle Wright) also soon-to-be juniors. If Henne has a great 2006 season, or of something happens that would move him up in the draft order (career and/or life-ending injury to Brady Quinn sounds pretty good), it may be more realistic an idea than it seems.

If Henne leaves early, the decision is a little more clear. As Michigan's definite #1 guy, Mallett would not redshirt, and instead be the likely starter from day 1. The chance of this happening successfully would, of course, increase if Mallett were to enroll early and learn the offense in the spring. If he's maybe not as good as we all think (hope?), he would sit behind the starter his freshman year, in which case he may take a redshirt.

If Henne doesn't leave, the decision becomes a little more complicated. The important thing here is that I am not entirely clear on NCAA rules about whether a player can enroll early, in addition to taking a redshirt in their freshman year, and wind up with 4 remaining years of eligibility. I'm guessing that it's possible, though I'll have to look into this a little more.

If Henne stays, Mallett would either be the first backup right behind him, or redshirt, and have a year to get acclimated to the game at a college level, as well as Michigan's offense. In my opinion, he should not take the redshirt, and instead get a little playing time in some real game action, to speed his development process. This would, of course, be preferred with an early enrollment, so that he'll have a spring under his belt. If something were to happen to Henne, the capable backup would be there.

People may wonder why I think he should back up Henne (playing mostly mop-up duty), instead of redshirting, and maybe burning the shirt if Henne were to go down. For one thing, I think that game experience that he would get in mop-up duty would be beneficial, especially for his confidence since he's moving up a level. Also, if he's really as good as everyone thinks he is, he might leave early for the NFL. We may as well get as much playing time from him while he's here if there is a risk for that.

However, it seems as though he intends to stay for at least four years, based on his "come with me and win 3" slogan. Unless he thinks he can take the starting job away from a senio Henne (doubtful), he would be the starter after that. After 3 seasons (all of which, according to Mallett, will end in NCs), he would be either a senior or redshirt junior. It sounds like he would leave early following his redshirt junior year, given the chance, so we might as well have him leave as a senior.

Thus, it is decided. Mallett should enroll this coming winter, and not redshirt the following year. This would be the best for both the Michigan program and his development as a quarterback.

Soon, I'll be changing the name of this here blog, probably to "Varsity Blue."

"Why are you doing this?" Ask millions of fans.

Because I am the producer of "Varsity Blue" (note the likely coincidence), a television show on WOLV-TV, the University of Michigan's student-run television station, and I would like to make this the official blog of said television show. If you're interested in finding out a little more about WOLV, check out the website at wolv.org.

I'll keep you posted.

When discussing the two biggest (well, two best, since Mallett is an enormous man-being, but Clausen is more normal-sized) QB recruits for the 2007 class, people in the world at large are prone to talking about how the battles between Mallett and Clausen will be historic, etc. For the sake of this post, I'm going to assume that everyone turns out healthy, is as ridicu-good as the experts say they are, and matriculates at the school of his choice.

The most important fallacy I've seen (and, unfortunately, I've seen it fairly often) is the idea that these two will be facing off against each other four times. Since they are in the same class, this would seem to make sense. They are in the recruiting class of 2007, and both will be freshmen during the 2007 football season.

However, Notre Dame's quarterback, Brady Quinn (we won't get into this in too much detail now, but he is certainly the most overhyped payer in America right now) is going to be graduating following this year, and, if everything goes that way that ESPN has planned for it to happen, he will be the number one pick in the draft, despite needing a fair amount of luck to hit the broad side of a barn a good portion of the time. Michigan's quarterback, the occasionally just-as-inaccurate Chad Henne, is only going to be a junior this coming year, and barring an outstanding 2006 season from him (which is possible, but not likely), he will be back in 2007.

So, for Jimmy Clausen's first battle against Michigan, he will presumably be squaring off in Ann Arbor against a senior in Chad Henne (who, if everything goes according to ESPN's master plan, will have yet to beat Notre Dame in his 3 tries). This will leave Mallett on the bench (remember, we're assuming, for the sake of argument, that everyone stays healthy). Therefore, Mallett's first start against JC will actually be in the 2008 season, as either a redshirt freshman or true sophomore. The two will play three times in their careers.

Now, Mallett's status of redshirting, etc. is a little more less than Clausen's (he is already penciled in as the starter for Notre Dame in 2007), but we won't go into that in too much detail right now. I just wanted to clear the air in the blogosphere about the assumed Mallett v. Clausen battles that will be taking place in the future (and maybe sooner than we expect, if both attend the Elite 11 combine).

Jerimy Finch, SS/WLB prospect from Indianapolis Warren Central High school verbally committed today. He is a big hitter, and a likely four-star prospect.

Next year's recruiting class is looking a lot better than this year's already. At this time last year, we had only two recruits (5* Brandon Graham and 5* Justin Boren, though Boren was only considered a 4* at the time). We should be looking to get at least as many 5* prospects as we did last year, and more 4*, rather than the smattering of 2 and 3 that we ended up with.

I must admit, however, that this past year's class would have been killer save for the Jai Eugene decommit. Oh well, if we end up with RoJo and a couple of our other top DB targets, all will be forgotten.

Nothing much going on, really. Martell Webb is Michigan commit #5, Colin Cowherd is a moron, nothing you haven't heard elsewhere.