Dennis Norfleet To Safety Bothers Me
Yesterday Jordan Kovacs casually tossed off something about helping out Dennis Norfleet—or dennisnorfleet, whichever—and other young safeties with minutiae, and then there's a clip of a 5'6" guy wearing 26 tackling someone else:
I hate this for lots of reasons.
REASON #1
The chance Dennis Norfleet becomes a good safety seems minimal. There's being small, and there's being Norfleet small. Bob Sanders is the go-to-comparison here and yes okay there has been one Norfleet-sized safety in the last ten years of college football who has been really good. I can think of plenty of mini-me running backs who have been somewhere between okay and great. Garrett Wolfe, Brian Calhoun, and Jacquizz Rodgers pop immediately to mind, a guy like Vincent Smith has provided Michigan value.
REASON #2
There would seem to be no need to make this move unless safety depth next year is just terrifying. With Gordon/Wilson the presumed starters, the very idea they'd need to move a kid like Norfleet to D says bad things about replacing Kovacs, or that neither Furman or Robinson is viable even as a backup.
Nickel corner? There's even less of a need there. Avery returns, Delonte Holowell is locked into nickel-or-nothing, and Terry Richardson is also a nickel sort. That they'd even try this seems to indicate a need in the secondary that can only be explained by attrition or inability to play.
REASON #3
We're really going to make this move before even trying the guy as a change of pace/third down back? He's clearly not needed to play S for the bowl game, but he may be needed to run the ball since Rawls isn't really getting it done and Norfleet—a guy who Hoke was pushing to get on the field on offense early this year—is just going to go by the wayside to not play safety? WTF?
I mean, if we're trying to win a bowl game here Norfleet has a much better chance of helping that cause on offense than the sideline watching Kovacs and Gordon play safety.
REASON #4
Hoke mentioned something about burning Drake Johnson's redshirt, which he probably won't actually do, but he has put it on the table:
He offered the proposal when asked about his running backs, who will take the field Jan. 1 against South Carolina in the Outback Bowl without starter Fitz Toussaint. Sophomore Thomas Rawls, redshirt freshman Justice Hayes and senior Vincent Smith are expected to be in the rotation.
That indicates Hoke would like to see true freshman Drake Johnson get some time against the Gamecocks. Johnson, who starred at nearby Ann Arbor Pioneer High School, is redshirting this year.
"Maybe," Hoke said. "We like what Drake's done to this point."
So instead of trying out the guy that Michigan thought was good enough to play on kickoffs they're thinking about burning a redshirt for a guy who only got an EMU offer before Fred Jackson swooped in.
REASON #5
This could mean Norfleet isn't good at running the ball to the point where it's not even worth trying him over Rawls. I find that hard to believe after watching his high school tape, but it is a hit on any expectations you may have for the kid as a runner. The nonsensical-seeming position switch is the first step on the road to obscurity.
REASON #6
But more likely it means he's not good at running through unblocked guys and that he might never get a shot running behind an offensive line that could get him some cracks.
CONCLUSION
Hopefully this is dismissed as a crazy bet Fred Jackson lost by Saturday.
December 11th, 2012 at 3:06 PM ^
Can't believe I'm coming to the defense of Magnus, a guy that I often disagree with, but he is no less of an expert than Brian Cook, of whose altar you worship at. And Brian talks down plenty of things Michigan, including players (Jonas Mouton, anyone?)
December 11th, 2012 at 3:30 PM ^
Oh boy. I started a Dudeness-Magnus war. Okay, time to end it. We be friends, people!
December 11th, 2012 at 4:44 PM ^
These wars are typically one-sided these days. You'll notice that my comments are limited to football and the discussion at hand.
December 11th, 2012 at 4:59 PM ^
But also, His Dudeness is the worst arguer ever. He makes no points, but instead cusses and makes personal attacks. If I didn't know he went to college I would think he was 15 years old.
Literally half of his posts are him ripping on other posters or calling Al Borges fat. He makes the rest of us look bad; I wish he were born a Spartan fan.
December 11th, 2012 at 7:52 PM ^
actually seen him win an argument doing nothing but cussing and personal attacks. It was darkly impressive in its own way.
December 11th, 2012 at 11:51 PM ^
I don't know if this makes sense, but of all the people in the world who I have no idea what they look like (because I've never met them, seen them on television, etc.), His Dudeness is probably the one I dislike the most. The fat jokes (so witty), personal attacks, and general idiocy are bad. His "haha, told you so; who cares about the victims?" stuff after the Colorado theater shooting was probably the worst thing I've ever seen on this site.
December 11th, 2012 at 5:01 PM ^
I appreciate it.
December 11th, 2012 at 3:36 PM ^
Never end a sentence in a preposition.
December 11th, 2012 at 3:53 PM ^
Added to the perfectly matching qualifications, the fact that the example he's using with Gardner at QB when Brian thought Gardner was simply awful at QB whenever he had been seen in public (not without reason) makes it all the more delicious.
December 11th, 2012 at 3:23 PM ^
Regardless of your hatred toward me, I never said that Hoke is beyond reproach. All I said, really, is that you're taking a giant leap when you say that Bellomy's insertion into the Nebraska game cost us the Big Ten championship. Despite being blown out in the Big Ten championship game, Nebraska was a pretty decent team and Michigan's running backs ran 19 times for 32 yards in that game. Denard had 10 carries for 46 yards and was 6/11 for 55 yards through the air prior to getting injured. It was a close game regardless, but our starting QB couldn't do many good things, so it's no guarantee that our backup (Gardner, in this hypothetical) could have done anything, either.
Maybe Michigan was just destined to lose that game.
December 11th, 2012 at 5:26 PM ^
devin gardner would have easily done better than what bellomy showed. I dont buy this crap that he was not prepared bc he was a wr in the offense and knew the play calls and he was a qb last year in the exact same offense. i would have taken my chances on having gardner in there with a small package of 10 plays that he is comfortable with than have bellomy in there throwing ducks not even 5 yards in front of him. it was obvious he wasnt ready for that situation and atmosphere. gardner had played in all types at that point at wr and qb. im not guaranteeing it but dont you wish we at least could have had a chance. our defense was shutting down their offense until they got worn out in the 4th from lack of offensive ball control
December 11th, 2012 at 5:41 PM ^
e.e. cummings is that you?
December 11th, 2012 at 5:43 PM ^
Yes, I wish Gardner would have had a chance. And as I've said before in this thread, a) the starter wasn't doing much and b) there's no guarantee that Gardner would have won the game.
That move didn't necessarily guarantee the outcome. At best, it would have been a 50/50 proposition. I would perhaps suggest it was closer to 40/60 or 30/70, considering that Gardner had recently hurt his shoulder and was playing WR for much of the time.
December 11th, 2012 at 7:02 PM ^
Gardner didn't exactly set the world on fire the first few possessions against Minnesota, and that was after a week of practice and preparation.
December 12th, 2012 at 1:05 PM ^
Lets not forget your weeks-long tantrum after Rodriguez was fired and Hoke was hired. It's not like you only got pissy about Hoke after people started giving him the benefit of the doubt for 11 wins.
December 11th, 2012 at 2:36 PM ^
doesn't invalidate the point entirely.
It might have cost Michigan it's shot at a conference title. We don't know for sure - but it might have.
December 11th, 2012 at 4:56 PM ^
Everyone wants to blame Borges moving DG away from QB as the reason we didn't win the Big Ten, not the fact that our senior starter QB had a near-season ending injury during the game.
It was said when Gardner moved that if Denard went down, we'd be in trouble regardless, so we might as well put all our eggs in that basket and make our decisions as if he was healthy. I agreed with this reasoning. But then, in our biggest game of the season, Denard left the game with an injury, and would never throw another ball again at Michigan.
Maybe, just maybe, that's why we lost that game? Keep in mind, we were losing when Denard got hurt, and we still might have lost even with him in the game? And even if DG had stayed at QB all season, who knows if he would have been able to come in to that environment and lead us to victory.
Do I think that game cost us the championship? Of course. Do I think it's on the coaches any more than on the star player who had a freak injury? Nope I don't.
December 11th, 2012 at 9:29 PM ^
But it wasn't an enormous shock either. The backup job is very important, not "we're screwed either way" as Brian argued. I did not agree with this reasoning because it's potentially the difference between 8-4 and 6-6 or worse. It doesn't necessarily affect OSU (though we were competitive and with Bellomy that's hard to envision), but it does effect mid-level Big 10 teams. I don't think any serious person is going to argue Gardner didn't make a difference between winning and losing the Northwestern game, for one.
When you have a 5-star 3-year QB who more or less fits the offense you're already running, or a 3-star 2nd year QB who doesn't especially the choice for backup QB isn't as complicated as people want to make it out to be.
I'm certainly not saying we would have won without Gardner for sure, but I am saying our chances are MUCH better with him than with Bellomy. That's the risk the coaches took - it backfired badly. They thought Gardner could move the needle on how good the WRs are, but he didn't. They thought the chances were low that Denard would get hurt in a high leverage situation, but he did.
The Gardner move didn't cost Michigan a conference championship - it cost Michigan a good shot at it.
If Denard's injury doesn't happen, the sitation is avoided, but it's a coaches job to plan strategies for injuries. Developing depth is part of coaching. Michigan's staff failed to address that need this season. Blame fate, Rodriguez, angry God's, or whatever you want, the coaches didn't address a problem that arised. The problem is the problem, sure, but if your roof is your house is leaning and you don't do anything to fix it - then it falls over, you can't just blame gravity...
December 11th, 2012 at 1:36 PM ^
Well, yeah, but showing Norfleet getting practice at safety in a single bowl practice might not mean anything. He probably wasn't going to see the field at RB for whatever reason (probably because he's too small and our OL can't block anyone). If he's practicing at safety, so what? Will he actually play there? I really doubt it.
EDIT: And it's even possible that the kid wearing 26 in the video that appears for like a half second is not actually Norfleet.
December 11th, 2012 at 10:33 PM ^
...waiting to see what happens, and running around with your fucking hair on fire.
sweet christ, but i hate our fans sometimes.
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