A Contrarian View of the Defense
After the spectacular play of the defense on Saturday the praise has been overwhelming from everyone including Brian, but I got to thinking of all the fortune blessed upon this defense and put together this post to point out some information that might give you some pause to take Mattison from Deity to simply a great D Coordinator.
1. Tempo- "Enjoy Life" just put together a terrific diary explaining how offensive tempo changes defensive stats. So I thought as a baseline to determine the defenses improvement we should look at per play stats because that would eliminate the offenses effect and turnovers effect on the defensive performance which we have learned the last few years has been massive. So last year we were 98th and this year we are 40th. Fantastic, but not as ridiculous as the 110th to 5th jump I've seen reported.
2. Players-
a. Returning Starters-From last years team to this year we have 6 returning players who we we can all assume would be better to varying degrees. RVB, Martin(plus injury), Roh, Demens, Kovacs, Floyd(half year)
b. Not Returning but Weird Circumstances Upgrade- Heininger missed most of last year with an injury and he has been a push to an upgrade over Banks, Patterson. Woolfolk was supposed to be a huge upgrade over J. Rogers but due to injuries and play he has actually moved over to Saftey where he has filled in as an upgrade over Cam and Vinopal.
c. More Freshmen WTF They are Killing Us!!!.... Wait What They are Good?- That leaves 3 more starters Ryan, Countess and Morgan. While Morgan/Ryan is a downgrade over Mouton these freshmen have actually upgraded their position because they had to beat out actual scholarship players and not air. Each man had to beat out at least 2 scholarship guys that weren't freshmen to earn their playing time.
This isn't exact because of the scheme difference and personal opinion being what it is, but I would say Michigan has a talent upgrade at every position save Mouton's LB spot that has nothing to do with coaching.
3. Schedule- When I was discussing this with my buddy yesterday it seemed like a big factor, but when you look at the numbers they don't seem to tell you a whole bunch. It's one of those situations where you could make your numbers fit your argument either way so I'll just leave it to you guys to discuss. It's pretty clear that in Big Ten play the offenses have been worse from last year..MSU, Ill, Iowa have all taken big steps back, Ind with Chapell was much better than Minn and NW and Pur were better than Penn St last year and Purdue last year. So it's 4-2 in BT play. One other note of how bad the BT is this year. Mich is currently 15th in total defense but 6th in the Big Ten. A lot of Big Ten defenses getting fat off of these offenses.
4. Trash Tornado- Not sure of the exact weather of every game last year, but the wind this year has been ridiculous. 4 games have been effected pretty significantly by the wind. Last year I can recall 2 Trash Tornado like games. Uconn(not bad but wind helped) and the d looked good and Purdue(which was a disaster from all accounts) and the d looked good as well. These tornado games timed well as they were against some of the better offenses if we can actually say that vs Minn and Purdue which were nice weather.
So in conclusion I'm not sure how to quantify the effect Mattison has had on this d from last year to this year, but it's definitely been positive and I would say it was far less than 102 spots from 107th to 5th in scoring defense and a little less than 58 spots in the yards per play of 40th vs 98th. It feels like to me like an upgrade of about 20 spots fro having Mattison. Last year a perfect storm of shit and this year a little friendlier storm with a big upgrade at D Coordinator, but not that big*
* Yes that is what she said. 98 98 lklgfh. se
November 17th, 2011 at 10:09 PM ^
Why did the DC get fired?
November 17th, 2011 at 8:47 PM ^
I don't think you can really say the 2008 defense was lacking in talent or experience, so I'm in agreement with you there
I think they were somewhat opposite of the 2010 offense: They were made to look worse than they were by the incompetence of the 2008 offense.
After that unfortunate problem, if its to be believed, there was a lot of infighting due to the coaching change.
I honestly feel bad for Scott Shafer. He probably would have been just fine as a DC had the offense not been a gaping black hole once the season started.
November 17th, 2011 at 11:47 PM ^
The B1G sucks ass this year too. That might have something to do with the jump.
November 17th, 2011 at 4:57 PM ^
and that 20% would be the bottom 20%
You're kidding, right? You think it's mostly talent and not coaching?
Bo Schembechler won 13 Big Ten Championships in 21 years as head coach. You seriously think that was because he simply had superior talent every year?
Yes, talent plays a factor, but you have to be able to utilize the talent effectively, which isn't easy. Only the great coaches are able to do it. It's a positive feedback mechanism - you overachieve with the talent you have, which, especially in college football, generates more talent. But it has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is an elite coaching staff that knows what it's doing.
November 17th, 2011 at 9:58 PM ^
Them of the board that the defensive coaches the last few years weren't good. And no, you're not likely to be successful at that, no matter how much you question or downgrade the achievements of the new defensive coaches.
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<br>It's ok to let go. They're not coming back.
November 17th, 2011 at 3:04 PM ^
Huh? I said clearly in my post that Mattison is a great defensive coordinator and worth at least a 20pt jump in our ranking.
Yesterdays post was just asking a question if they would use more packages. Not a statement against the coaches or even stating my opinion was right. It was an observation followed by a question.
Last thing we would want anyone to do on this board is take a 2nd look at something.
I believe that players and the experience of those players are more important than coaches to a teams success and I like to point that fact out to fans that for the most part place way too much blame on coaches. If you want to make me into a lunatic for that opinion then we just agree to disagree and your opinion that coaches are more important than players will be the overriding them of the board.
November 17th, 2011 at 2:42 PM ^
Last year Roh had 5.5 tackles for loss and 1/2 a sack. This year he has 8 tackles for loss and 4 sacks.
Last year Campbell got switched to offense. Now he has 9 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 1 sack...and he's been doing much better at not getting taken advantage of.
Last year Demens had 82 tackles, 1.5 tackles for loss, and 0 sacks. This year Demens has 73 tackles, 4 tackles for loss, and 2 sacks.
Last year Black had 7 tackles. This year he has 16 tackles and 1 sack.
I don't see how these things aren't significant improvements.
November 17th, 2011 at 4:24 PM ^
Gabe Watson had one TFL as a sophomore, then had seven as a junior.
Woodley had two sacks as a RS freshmen, then 4 the next year, then 7, then 11 as a senior.
David Harris didn't start until his RS junior year, then as a senior went from 88 tackles to 103, 6 TFL to 16, 1 sack to 4, and 0 INT to 1.
Jonas Mouton made 66 tackles as a junior, then made 117 as a senior (with two sacks and two INT's) and gained 2nd team all conference honors.
Stevie Brown made huge strides as a senior and became an NFL draft pick.
Jimmy Clausen was a disaster as a freshmen and a top NFL pick as a junior.
Matt Barkley has thrown more TD passes and fewer interceptions every year he's played.
Players (except for the strange case of Pierre Woods) almost always get more productive as their career progresses. None of the leaps you mentioned are unusual, even for players coached by Rich Rodriguez. The nice thing is when an entire team can make those incremental leaps together while losing just one key contributor. When that happens you can make enormous strides as a unit, and that is what has happened this year.
November 17th, 2011 at 4:44 PM ^
Of course guys are going to improve as they get more experience, bigger, stronger, faster, etc. That's not the point.
The point is that these players have made significant strides (as you said, all at the same time) with very little regression. Saying that these players have somehow failed to take significant strides forward is just kind of silly.
It's true that Campbell doesn't have 15 sacks, Demens hasn't made 180 tackles, Roh doesn't have 18 sacks, etc. But nobody was suggesting that these guys would turn into superstars overnight. People expected progress and that's all. But Martin didn't really make much progress from 2009 to 2010, Roh seemed to regress, Ezeh regressed, etc. Now everyone's moving forward, and the main common denominator is the coaching.
November 17th, 2011 at 2:49 PM ^
The problem is you didn't give any credit to player development and that has been a huge part of our improvement.
The players were developed byyyyyyy....... ........you guessed it: the coaching staff.
I really don't know how this is even much of a discussion other than you're feeling like a negative Nancy.
November 17th, 2011 at 2:55 PM ^
Um. Under your "Players" section, you seem to be implying that Mattison has better players than GR did last year. Included in that analysis is the fact that we have 3 good freshman this year. As if that is an upgrade and therefore, we should discount the Mattison Effect because we would have gotten better anyways even without Mattison. The fact is, we don't know whether those three freshman would be contributing if they weren't coached up in fall camp.
Did you even read what you wrote?
"I would say Michigan has a talent upgrade at every position save Mouton's LB spot that has nothing to do with coaching. "
November 17th, 2011 at 3:12 PM ^
What that means is that 10 players on the defense are simply better than they would have been last year with no change in coaching. Mouton is better than any of the outside LB's other than that I think that is a safe assumption. A player a year older will be better than last years version of himself barring injury most of the time. Countess is obvious.
As for Floyd and player development. These players may be even better than they would have been due to the new coaching staff. Which is why I think they are responsible for at least a 20pt jump in their defensive ranking.
Again, my point is that 10 players would be better even with the old coaches, but the new coaches made them even better than they would have been by just getting older and or upgrading with great talent(Countess, Morgan, Ryan).
November 17th, 2011 at 3:22 PM ^
why the 2010 defense was worse than the 2009 defense even though the 2010 defense played a bunch of upperclassmen and underclassmen who had experience: Martin, Van Bergen, Ezeh, Mouton, Kovacs, Banks, Patterson, Roh, Sagesse, Floyd - not to mention pretty much the same coaching staff those two years.
November 17th, 2011 at 5:45 PM ^
The 2009 defense (which struggled mightily thanks to a gaping black hole at the safety position) lost the best defensive player in the conference (Graham), an all-conference corner (Warren), and an NFL pick at OLB (Brown). Then the second best DB on the team got injured for the entire season.
Banks, Patterson, Sagesse, and Rogers had rarely if ever played before their senior season. To be experienced at anything (in this case playing football), one must actually experience that activity. Ezeh eventually got benched for a younger guy on the team who was clearly more talented and more productive. Floyd, Kovacs, and Roh were all sophomores.
If you really expected the defense to get better under those circumstances I just hope you aren't a gambler. Last year Martin, RVB, Ezeh, and Mouton were the only upperclassmen with significant prior playing experience. This year that list includes Martin, RVB, Roh, Demens, Kovacs, Floyd, and Woolfolk. If you wanted to include guys who hadn't played much you could add Herron and blue-chip recruits like Campbell and Fitzgerald. If you ventured down into the sophomore class you could add T. Gordon, C. Gordon, Avery, Black, maybe Talbott, and if they hadn't left the program you could have added Christian, Vinopal, and Johnson to that mix as well.
November 17th, 2011 at 10:18 PM ^
you summed up that one perfectly. To use Dagesse and Banks in your argument why the defense should have been better is a big stretch.
November 17th, 2011 at 3:41 PM ^
These are reasonable, thoughtful responses. Regardless of how you feel about his position, nothing he's doing here is inflammatory or provocative. Jeez, grow up, people
November 17th, 2011 at 10:16 PM ^
Considering the post right below it has the subject line "Reading Comprehension"
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<br>Read the rest...there's a lot of dismissals and insults in them.
November 17th, 2011 at 10:20 PM ^
What are the internet rules when someone snarks you while lying about what you said?
Reading Comprehension is over the line?
November 17th, 2011 at 10:48 PM ^
He's the queen of snark, and anything that looks like an attack or a criticism of the current regime gets his full trolling attention.
November 17th, 2011 at 2:35 PM ^
Where did I state that coaching did not account for player development? In most cases college players improve each year. If you look at each individual player, I would say that player development is a little less than we hoped for in total.
People were expecting great strides from Roh, Black, Demens and Campbell and that has not really happened. The one player that has had a massive improvement from last year is JT Floyd.
Mattison has done a terrific job as I state several times in the article, but you can't stop the internet from doing what they do..
Reality is usually shades of grey. Internet is the deepest black and brightest white you can possibly imagine.
