stephen spanellis phd esquire

bathtub [Patrick Barron]

10/26/2019 – Michigan 45, Notre Dame 14 – 6-2, 3-2 Big Ten

There are two kinds of K-Pop bathtubs. One is full of bubbles and girls who are trying their very best to embody bubbles, to become bubbles, to float away on mountains of kawaii. Often there is fruit. Or… crunchberries? Probably petals. But maybe crunchberries!

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Sometimes there are donuts?

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This is a nice bathtub full of nice people having a nice time and maybe there is the chance someone will have sex, or at least positive feelings about another human being, later. Breakfast has been provided for the aftermath of either.

The other kind of K-pop bathtub is a suicide bathtub. A black, wet suicide bathtub. Water drips suggestively from fingers.

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The bathtub is a dichotomy. It is a font of strong emotions, positive and negative. There is no middle ground. It is shaped like a bowl, and it is wet. Michigan Stadium was both kinds of K-Pop bathtub on Saturday night, depending on who you were rooting for. Today in Mudville there are donuts and Snoop Dogg. Today in South Mudville:

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The brilliant video I culled the above shots from oscillates as wildly as possible between the two states of K-Pop bathtub and is as good of a sports fandom analogy as has yet been produced.

[After THE JUMP: man hotwires floating hamburgers into existence]

[Bryan Fuller]

Previously: Podcast 10.0A. Podcast 10.0B. Podcast 10.0C. The Story. Quarterback. Running Back. Wide Receiver. Tight End And Friends. Offensive Tackle.

Depth Chart

LT Yr. LG Yr. C Yr. RG Yr. RT Yr.
Jon Runyan Jr Jr.* Ben Bredeson Jr. Cesar Ruiz So. Mike Onwenu Jr. James Hudson Fr.*
Jalen Mayfield Fr. Chuck Filiaga Fr.* Stephen Spanellis So.* Stephen Spanellis So.* Juwann Bushell-Beatty Sr.*
Andrew Stueber Fr* Andrew Vastardis So.* Phil Paea Fr.* Joel Honigford Fr.* Nolan Ulizio Jr.*

IN SOVIET RUSSIA, CESAR RENDERS YOU

RATING: 4.

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soon to be iconic [Eric Upchurch]

Into the maelstrom of crippled quarterbacks and generalized flailing steps CESAR RUIZ [recruiting profile], the best center prospect to hit college football in a decade. Last year's preview:

Ruiz dominated his opposition at the Opening ("looked like a total star… dominant … only lost a couple reps the entire weekend") and the UA game (“shined … displayed impressive extension and solid power"), enrolled early, and started generating college-level hype soon thereafter.

This is in part because Ruiz played at IMG, the Florida all-sports academy that sucks in a full team of D-I recruits annually. His transfer there allowed him to play center when most D-I prospects of any variety get thrown out to tackle for obvious reasons, and this was a very good idea:

…he’s made to play center. I don’t remember the kid ever having a bad snap. … He’s got the right mentality and the perfect personality for the position. … He’s a real student of the game and then he has the physical skills to go with it. … He’s been making line calls and he can really step and snap. … Most guys we bring in we try to cross train them as guard-centers but we didn’t really do it much with him because he was just the ultimate center and we knew he’d be there.

Michigan probably would have been better off just rolling with him from the drop but college coaches be college coaches and he started the year on the bench. When Onwenu got hurt before the Minnesota game, he entered the starting lineup. He exited it mid-game after a comically freshman moment that resulted in yet another thunder-sack of a Michigan quarterback—okay maybe college coaches know something—but returned the game after and locked down the spot for the rest of the year. Even in that first Minnesota game it was clear he was going to be a dude:

Ruiz is already a mauler. There was little difference between him and Onwenu. The big obvious bad thing was big, obvious, and bad, but aside from that he ejected people. Excellent sign for Ruiz's presumed ascension to the starting C job next year.

By Maryland he was more or less established:

Ruiz is a player. Like... now. Another excellent day from him, this time without a QB destruction that's his fault. Onwenu's obviously earned the right to his starting job but I don't think center is going to be a problem next year.

Those two starts featured +7 and +8.5 UFR days with one negative run grade of any description. Post-Minnesota:

How was our first extended look at Cesar Ruiz?

... he was whoopin' up on people. His kickout blocks were usually huge. Here he pulls to a DE and that guy reacts like he's a defensive back trying to hold up:

#51 RG pulling

I usually give relevant kickouts a half point because they're often a mutual agreement between offense and defense that the ball will go in a gap. Something that big is a full point because on certain runs that extra room is going to be worth yards. Not so much in this game, because everything was going further inside. But sometimes. Ruiz was consistently moving whoever he impacted.

This was more relevant on the Evans bounce play. He gets surprised as the guy he's pulling to is trying to dive inside him instead of accepting a kickout; his ability to stall and then drive that guy saves Evans a critical yard or two on his bend to the outside and helps give him the corner:

#51 RG pulling

Poor damn safety #8.

That couldn't and didn't last, as Ruiz got a harsh wake-up call against Wisconsin and TJ Edwards in particular. Twice Ruiz pulled to find Edwards his target, and twice Edwards knifed past him for a run stuff:

RG #51

That'll happen when you're a freshman who may have been spending a lot of time at center and not pulling to All-American linebackers.

When not getting a harsh lesson from Edwards or getting Peters thunder-sacked that one time, Ruiz was excellent. Everything about his recruiting profile and first year in the program points to stardom. Immediate stardom.

In addition to his upside as a person who moves other persons, Ruiz promises to help fix Michigan massive organizational issues. Michigan's pass protection was borked all year by not knowing what to do. The ground game was up and down but always prone to plays I threw my hands up at because it seemed like half the line was running one thing and half the line something else. A fuller take on these issues and how they get repaired is in the upcoming offensive overview post. For Ruiz purposes it's sufficient to note that these are words being said about a true sophmore center:

“How it was last year, it’s like, no matter what, if he comes, you gotta block him,” Evans explained. “Now Cesar’s in there and he can adjust it and you can go at it like that."

That says volumes.

[After THE JUMP: redshirts! And probably All Big Ten sorts?]

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this bullet mentions Charles Matthews and Nick Ward [Marc-Gregor Campredon]

Implications of exclusion. Charles Matthews was not invited to the NBA draft combine, and MLive's Kyle Austin has some data on what that means:

In the two NBA drafts since 2016, when college players were first allowed to return to school after declaring, 254 college players have declared early. Of them, the majority (157) didn't receive a combine invite.

Most prospects in that situation opt to return to school -- a total of 130 players have withdrawn from the draft in the last two years. But 47 of those players have opted stayed in the draft despite no combine invitation. None of those 47 players were drafted.

Many of the 47 who stayed in had reasons: they were going to be ineligible or were never going to be NBA players anyway and wanted to get on with overseas careers. (CC: Nick Ward?) A few have worked their way into the league after going undrafted, but it's a rough way to attempt to break in.

Another year of John Beilein Development™ is a better path to the league for Matthews, who clearly has NBA upside if he can just learn to shoot some.

WOULD BE NICE. Standard offseason new position coach articles do come with a little more oomph when the coach in question has the track record of Ed Warinner. Angelique Chengelis got a hell of a quote from Stephen Spanellis:

“It’s really amazing,” lineman Stephen Spanellis said during the team’s trip to Paris this past week. “Coach Warinner’s philosophy, he tells us that he doesn’t to start calculus before everybody can pass Algebra 1. I felt like before we would go straight to rocket science and try to cover everything possible in every meeting. And some guys can’t keep up and it doesn’t have value for a guy to sit in a meeting and they have no idea what’s going on fundamentally with normal plays like inside zone or power.

“So why not slow it down and learn all the basics before you progress? What makes it hard is our defense is so complex, that they break a lot of rules and you have to advance a little bit. But fundamentally, slowing it down a little bit has a lot of value especially for the younger guys who are still learning the offense. For example, James Hudson coming over from defense, it takes a long time to learn the offense in general. Why leave a guy like that at a disadvantage by making it too complicated?”

"No idea what's going on with normal plays" is unfortunately the story of every Michigan line since 2011, and the most depressing thing about last year was that disease following Michigan through a third head coach, and the one who should have been least susceptible to such a thing. But at least the ax fell.

It will not be another off year for Michigan in the NFL draft. The league's official site put out a list of 150 guys to watch for next year's draft, and Michigan players are liberally sprinkled throughout:

  • #3 Rashan Gary: "A big man with linebacker-like movement skills"
  • #10(!) Devin Bush: "the new prototype for linebacker in college and the NFL -- not necessarily big, but fast and aggressive."
  • #25 Shea Patterson: "shows off great escapability on the run and an ability to move the ball through the air."
  • #47 Chase Winovich: "can rush from a two- or three-point stance. He can also be effective bringing pressure from the interior."
  • #65 Karan Higdon: "clearly superior to Ohio State's Mike Weber."
  • #76 Khaleke Hudson
  • #112 Lavert Hill

David Long's continued absence from these lists is baffling.

Per Zach Shaw, Michigan has the fourth-most players on the list, behind Clemson, Alabama, and OSU. A couple of OSU's are a little… uh… speculative. JK Dobbins, who isn't eligible for the upcoming draft, is there. So is Dwayne Haskins, who hasn't started a game yet.

On Mo Hurst in the NFL. Hurst dropped to the fifth round because of his heart issue, and the Raiders picking him prompted a bunch of criticism from everyone's favorite, the Anonymous NFL Insider. A former NFL team doctor reps his bros in response:

I actually think it is not only unfair and inaccurate but also irresponsible for a scout to characterize the drafting as "irresponsible." There is no way for a non-medical person to know.

As an orthopedic surgeon and physician, even I would rely on my primary care doctor and cardiology consultants to weigh in.

I do not see how a personnel person can make this proclamation. This opinion should carry the same weight as a team physician publicly criticizing Baker Mayfield as not worthy of the first pick in the draft.

I also don't know what's going on with Hurst's heart; hopefully everything works out for him.

Apparent hockey exit. The USHL's various drafts are ongoing—I won't bother you with the details—but since one weird hockey thing is that transfers will often return to the USHL for their NCAA mandated sit-out year, you occasionally get roster news. Roster news:

Sanchez had 8 points in 27 games last year after playing in 34 as a freshman; he was stuck on the fourth line and probably had a talk about whether that was ever going to change.

Also in USHL draft news, highly touted 2020 commit Owen Power went 7th overall to Chicago in a different USHL draft—yes there are like seven different ways to get in this league—after being an early second-round pick in the OHL draft. That's a good sign for this edition of Michigan's never-ending blood war with the OHL.

Fellow touted 2020 commit Cole Perfetti went in the third round, also to Chicago. He went fifth overall in the OHL draft and will either be traded to a different OHL team for a bushel of picks in August or September and report or stick with his commitment. Due to yet more details about junior hockey that you don't need to know*, a high OHL draft selection is not necessarily the kiss of death. As Antonio Stranges demonstrated, it's more about location than draft slot.

*[OK, fine: Saginaw has a nearly full roster this year with or without Perfetti and will get a compensatory pick one slot lower than Perfetti's #5 selection next year if he doesn't report and is declared "defective."]

Etc.: AFC Ann Arbor plays an Open Cup match in Ypsi at 6. This year's basketball noncon tourney projects to be pretty lame, especially since M gets GW in the first round. Ok thanks Bobby Kotick but when do we get an updated Mechwarrior? Very detailed take on Comcast dropping BTN out of footprint.