An Easy Rebuttal for the Buckeyes

Where to start? With the angry accusations? With the bizarre and rather inaccurate personal claims? Or with the straight-forward and somewhat mean-spirited attacks on Ohio State, its players, and the state in general?

As a general overview, the purpose of this blog to cover recruiting and games for Michigan and Ohio State. Any blog post should not be regurgitation of what you can find elsewhere, but provide unique insight and with strong analysis, humor and some friendly verbal jousting.

Our Michigan blogger apparently took exception this post, which included some tweaking and smart-ass remarks breaking down his target list. He might have been further irritated by the alleged lack of respect shown to the Brandon Moore commitment just a day later.

First, this blog is only interesting if we explore the differing opinions and perspectives of Michigan and Ohio State fans. I'm pretty sure no one is going to come read this on a regular basis for us to congratulate ourselves on how great the schools and programs are. One of the huge problems with recruiting coverage right now is that it increases the "echo-chamber" effect. Fans receive information slanted toward their predisposed opinions fed to them by sources that have an economic incentive to keep them interested and excited. So if we just fire these claims back and forth, how have we advanced the discussion? If you think Ohio State fans are forming opinions based on biased or incorrect information, no need to indict the source. Actually post a counter argument. Because I can tell you than all recruiting fans think that their rival’s writers spin things in a positive way for their teams.

I think the Moore post is a great example, where I raised a number of intriguing questions - or so I thought. Where does this player rank at his position in the state? How does his game project at the next level? What type of offense does he fit in best? Does he belong on top 100 lists? Why was he offered by great southern schools but none of the other midwestern powers? How will it impact other key recruits this year? Will Michigan be able to use this as a springboard for recruiting in talent rich Ohio, or is it an aberration based on limited scholarships? Can Michigan successfully develop lower rated players like Mealer as well as OSU has? Yes, this post was written from the perspective of an Ohio State fan. But there is plenty of balance, and without discussion on these types of questions, what have we really created?

Second, I think my mock post on the target list was pretty amusing, if I do say myself. Sure, it had a lot of inside recruiting jokes and goofy references. And yeah, some of the comments on Michigan football players were searing indictments. But should I not mention Ohio State's incredible run of success against Michigan? Should UM win this fall, should I assume that you'll just twiddle your thumbs and say "heck of a game" for the next 365 days? I doubt it. This is the same guy who sent me a sympathy card proclaiming victory BEFORE the Ohio State-Michigan game. And the same guy who classily wore the "We Are Not Convinced" shirt afterward. If my posts are "offensive", what do you call that?

Unfortunately, the comments from your response don't follow suit. They come off as just bitter and angry. So they say in Super Troopers...

Mac: But our shenanigans are cheeky and fun!
Thorney: Yeah, and his shenanigans are cruel and tragic.
Foster: Which... makes them not really shenanigans at all.

And I think one other thing bears mentioning. Obviously we don't all make our living reading and writing about college sports, as fun as that would be. But this list has virtually the same introduction we've seen in other posts. I still don't really understand the ranking process, why potential five-star guys are backup plans, and only the truly informed recruitnik knows these players without full names or links. We get out of this what we put in, and to make it a destination for Ohio State and Michigan fans to find great back-and-forth, we need more substance. So with a smart-ass post like this one about hockey, Mealer and pot shots about Notre Dame, I thought you'd jump right into the fray. Otherwise, I'm left extending dropped arguments like facing an Abe Pafford coached LU team.

So I'll try and cover the at least the factually incorrect statements and the more outlandish claims from Bill's response.

QB: Bill claims that Antonio Henton was the 40th ranked player in Georgia (shades of the Charlie Stein/Evander Holyfield ESPN commercial?). If you're going to exaggerate, you might as well make it believable. Rivals had Henton as the #25 player in the state and the #1 quarterback in Georgia in 2006. He was also in the top ten overall for dual-threat QB's. I actually think Scout had him higher. What's interesting is that David Cone, the quarterback not the pitcher, also came from Georgia in the same class. He wasn't even on the state's top 50 list.

I don't honestly know how Boeckman or Schoenhoft will do. The latter was an Elite 11 QB and the former has a lot of experience in the system. Surely this year will bring some growing pains during the transition out of the Troy Smith era. The same thing happened in 2004. But that year we beat favored Michigan and didn't embarrass ourselves in a lower bowl against an inferior opponent (how'd that go with Nebraska again)? If you can win a championship with Krenzel at QB, I'm sure we'll find a way to win 8 or 9 games this season as we rebuild.

RB: Beanie Wells already has an undisputed Big Ten championship to go with his nice long touchdown run and win against Michigan. You don't have one of those, do you Jack? I'd be happy to take any reasonable bet you want to make about Beanie's career versus Grady's. Maybe they both came in as talented prospects, but only one is destined to be a star.

Mo Wells is mediocre right now, no doubt. Comparing him to a back-to-back thousand yard RB like Pittman is a joke. Doesn't seem like the OSU offense has plays designed to utilize his scatback skills. He will get a chance as the change of pace guy early in the season. If he doesn't produce, both Brandon Saine and Boom Herron will have an opportunity to steal carries.

WR: This section borders on incoherence, so I'm tempted to skip it. I'm comfortable with a starting trio of Robiskie, Hartline and Small, and Dukes and Lyons both had strong springs. Maybe these aren't guys aren't Ted Ginn, but when has OSU had problems developing wide receivers? Jenkins, Gamble, Holmes, Ginn and Gonzalez have all been first round picks, and only Ginn was a prized recruit.

As for this year, I respectfully disagree. Posey was the MVP of a NIKE Camp and most assuredly will catapult himself into the top 100 when the new lists come out. Offer lists can be deceiving when kids commit that early; surely you know that. As for Scott, he's also had a good spring and should be a great Buckeye. Mock Glenville if you want, but if they want to keep giving OSU players like Donte Whitner, Robert Rose, Ted Ginn, Troy Smith, Curtis Terry, Bryant Browning, and Ray Small, I'm all for it. I don't know how Stoneburner will work in our scheme. But I know he's been very hard to defend at camps, and show great hands. If he wins as much against Michigan as much as Samardzija did, I'll be fine.

OL: Yep, our line got taken to town by Florida. Too slow? Not as talented? Bad game plan? Sluggish after the layoff? Don't know, don't care. Maybe they were overconfident after waxing Michigan's "defense for the ages" in November. How did Jake Long do against the USC pass rush in the Rose Bowl?

I do need to address (again) the silly claim that OSU has abandon in-state recruiting for a national strategy. Nothing could be further from the truth. As has been widely-discussed, OSU has a very limited number of scholarships this season. Despite that, we already have 6 of 8 commits from Ohio. There are plenty of talented kids that are going to go elsewhere. But as of right now, only Kyle Rudolph feels like a loss. Take a look back at OSU's recruiting classes; we consistently take at least 50% from the talent-rich state. Tressel targets the top players in the state and does everything he can to build a fence around the state. Sometimes we lose kids (Ben Martin) but his track record has been pretty good. Michigan will never be able to do this because they simply don't have access to that type of talent in-state. The question is whether players like Moore and Mealer (not offered by OSU) will have any long-term impact.

Two other quick things: it's a joke to call Shugarts and Brewster as "slightly higher rated" than a marginal kid like Mealer. And when you want to throw stupid-ass stereotypes around, you might want to reconsider your usage of "in bread". They can help you with the spelling in Roanoke.

DT: Uh oh...we pay our kids thousands of dollars? Better alert the NCAA. I'll ask Chris Webber to head up the investigation. It's funny to get a character lecture from the team of Carson Butler, Adrian Arrington, and Eugene Germany. By the way, be careful crossing into Ohio from Michigan if you're driving.

This is the type of excellent discussion I knew we'd get, "I'm not sure if [the recruits are] any good...my initial impression is nope." Tough to defeat that sort of iron-clad logic. Well played, sir.

LB: You're right, the Nagurski winner is definitely a pussy. Again, he somehow managed to win a lot of awards and beat Michigan in his first two tries. I don't think I'd call Freeman a "bust" thus far, but we'll see if he steps it up this season. I'd respectfully disagree with the rest of the garage spouted about our linebacking core. I feel like we're legitimately 8 deep with a lot of flexibility. Even though we could lose 3 of the top 6 guys after this season, I don't ever envision a short-term LB issue like Michigan is experiencing this year.

Laurinaitis-Freeman-Grant
Homan-Spitler-Terry
Johnson-Gibson

Toss in four star recruits Brian Rolle and Jermale Hines and the future looks bright. Check back with me later this week after Andrew Sweat announces...

DB: Taking a look at the last 5 years or so, I think it's hard to argue that Michigan is the one with the great DB's and OSU full of "second team" guys. Your first round pick last year, Leon Hall, was absolutely torched in our game. That's ignoring the gruesome performances by Sears, Trent, Adams and whoever you trotted out there. No doubt that Warren and Cissoko will be good players. There's no sense in breaking down the corners and safeties at this point; that post will come some time next week. Suffice to say OSU feels we have a lot of young, talented players, and we're very excited about incoming guys like Clifford and Scott.

Oh, that kid from Orchard Lake St. Mary's is Aaron Gant.

There's a repeat of the in-state versus national recruits discussion. I think that's an interesting topic, and since I've more than answered Mr. Bill, we'll save further debate for later. I really don't see how any of those posts are "offensive", "driven by anger" or full of "hate speech". Perhaps our UM contributor can further elaborate. I'd love to see him tackle these issues mentioned in my recent posts, so we'll see if he's up to the challenge.

Until then, I'll leave you with this list. Inclusive of this year's partial commits, it includes all of the players from the 2006-2008 classes that had Michigan offers and choose Ohio State.

Mike Adams
Mike Brewster
JB Shugarts
Jake Stoneburner
Devoe Torrence
Eugene Clifford
Boom Herron
Jermale Hines
Brandon Saine
Taurian Washington
Jake Ballard
Aaron Gant
Thaddeus Gibson
Dexter Larimore
Connor Smith
Chris Wells

I'm not sure who would comprise the Michigan list. I can come up with Mike Massey, Justin Boren, Greg Mathews, Junior Hemingway, and Donovan Warren without looking. Though I think Massey was a few years back.