The Snowflake Thread: Offensive Line (Specific OL Issues)
"There are several teams across the country who are operating with extremely young O-linemen. And they all seem to be able to run the ball."
Comments like these have been quite common in response to those posters who think there isn't anything the coaches can do given our line. However, I've yet to see anyone actually name one of these supposed teams. So, honestly, which teams have 3 (or more) starters on their O-line that are as young and inexperienced as ours but actually field good offenses? I honestly want to know if these teams actually exist.
MOD EDIT: The original title was "Which teams have competent O-lines that are young and inexperienced?", but as this might become a center point of discussion, this will be repurposed as a separate Snowflake Thread. Hopefully, the OP does not mind - LSA
OP EDIT: I specifically made this thread about other team's young O-lines because just making a thread about OL issues would likely lead to complaints about Borges or the players or whatever has been said a million times already, although those complaints are rife here as well unsurprisingly. However, I don't mind because it doesn't seem like anyone has an answer except UCLA, and theirs doesn't appear to be better than ours.
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:34 PM ^
Which teams with young O-lines have rushed for -47 yards and 27 for 27?
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:34 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:36 PM ^
But you are off by one.
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:55 PM ^
A&M has a freshman right guard and sophomore center, and they threw up 40+ on Bama. And they have been consistently moving the ball against the SEC. Which is head and shoulders above the Little 10. Michigan could not do that this year or next or the next. Not in their dreams. In fact, last year - when youth was not an issue at the line - they could not move the ball against Bama. But somehow not being able to move it this year is a "youth issue".
WARNING: Fandom can and will lead to willful blindness on behalf of emotional attachment. Proceed with caution.
November 2nd, 2013 at 11:47 PM ^
A&M's sophomore center was a backup who saw plenty of playing time last year. So that's one guy on their line who hadn't played vs. 3 for Michigan, including one who's a walk-on and 2 guys who haven't been playing since the beginning of the year. Seems like a pretty big difference to me.
November 3rd, 2013 at 1:08 AM ^
November 3rd, 2013 at 1:50 AM ^
The point isn't just youth. It's youth AND inexperience. I like how you choose a random part of each team's schedule.
Pretty hard to take seriously your repeated claims of dealing with reality if you think that defense we faced is a fraud.
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:36 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:48 PM ^
How do you "scheme around" a terrible OL? If those five guys can't block the people in front of them, you're pretty much screwed.
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:51 PM ^
I don't think you do. Maybe not call zone read on 3rd and 2 in red zone. But real question is, can this performance really be blamed on simply youth when we have a great pair of tackles, a seemingly decent glasgow, a 5 star RS frosh and then bryant, bars, bosch, magnuson, miller? Forget about the rushing game, we were playing 6 OL at times with fitz in pass pro and they were getting to DG. Something is seriously seriously wrong.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:09 PM ^
I think those are fair questions - and I don't know if Funk is the guy to coach the OL.
But from a playcalling standpoint, I think Borges's hands were pretty tied by our incredibly poor run blocking/pass protection.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:48 PM ^
Finally, a post that makes sense.
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:11 PM ^
It's not average, even slightly below average, it is POOR. Does youth account for the lack of quality? Our guys are big, they are used to playing football, and yet they look like rejects from the Ivy league (sorry for the insult Ivy league rejects). You can say no OC would have luck with this line but would our O-line be as bad had those OC's coached them up? Is the best our coaches could do with these guys after 8 games the best any coaches could do with our guys?
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:55 PM ^
"Can this performance really be blamed on simply youth...?"
Glasgow is a sophomore and a walk-on.
Kalis is a RS Frosh. Yes, he's a 5* but still a RS Frosh. Even 'Bama tries not to start RS Frosh.
Bryant is a sophomore.
Bars is a freshman.
Bosch is a freshman.
Magnuson is a freshman.
Miller is a sophomore.
Every lineman you mentioned outside of the tackles, suffers from youth/inexperience.
November 2nd, 2013 at 11:35 PM ^
You're not telling me anything I don't know. My point is there are a lot of potential contributors there and it's not unreasonable to get production out of RS sophs. Bottom line this is a historically bad OL and last year's was poor at best. If you want to chalk that up simply to youth fine but it's not like we're lacking in supposed talent, so I think it goes beyond that.
November 3rd, 2013 at 12:19 AM ^
If it is truely based on youth, why not let your best 5 play and go through the growing pains. The message being sent by the coaching staff is that this is a personnel issue. They keep pulling interior linemen in favor of different linemen with the same result. Heck, I think they had two walkons starting at one point.
My question is to the coaching staff. Is it youth? If so, why keep changing personnel. Is it personnel? How could we have missed so badly on the talent evaluation?
Is it the coaching? The line has gotten worse not better. We have gone from 27 yards on 30 carries down to an alltime low of -49 yards rushing. Something is seriously wrong here!
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:53 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:08 PM ^
Whatever the scheme was for ND, that seemed to work out okay. They have a pretty goof defensive line, last I checked. Remember in September when we thought that the offensive line wasn't great, but would be okay?
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:20 PM ^
I think our gameplan today was actually pretty similar to the ND gameplan - but MSU has a much better pass rush. Gardner usually had time to throw against ND. Today he rarely did.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:09 PM ^
How do you sheme around a terrible OL? By coaching your line comprised of an All America, a 5th year senior and a 5 star so it isn't terrible. Oops guess Borges gets a pass on that too.
FIre Borges.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:13 PM ^
So you are blaming Borges, and not Funk, for the development of the OL, even though the latter coaches them everyday?
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:29 PM ^
I am blaming both of them. I am also blaming the QB coach for Gardner's inconsistency. He is having a lot of the same problems Denard had. Not setting his feet, poor throwing angles, not stepping up in the pocket, etc.
November 3rd, 2013 at 12:36 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:14 PM ^
Ban CLord.
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:59 PM ^
Incompetent coaching. I think Hoke is way over his head. He doesn't know how to coach, I am sorry. This is on david brandon, he needs to man up and get a proper coach who gives this team a fighting chance. We need a coach that can take a weaker team in a hostile environment and win. Hoke cant coach up anyone, even the dline. He has no strategy. I would even say Mark D. is a better coach than HOke the joke
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:10 PM ^
My good friend who's been following UM since 1980 just like me said this exact thing. I'm not ready to give up on Hoke, but I gave up on Borges 3 weeks ago after Penn State. His apologists are just inflicting more pain upon this program by delaying the first obvious cure to its woes. Fire Borges come end of season and Funk too.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:11 PM ^
Worst post I have since on here. Easily. You do realize that no one outside of the lunatic fringe of the Michigan fan base is calling for Hoke's head do you. That should tell you something.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:16 PM ^
....but mgoblog is the lunatic fringe.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:22 PM ^
Sad to say I can't argue with this. :( Like I said elsewhere, I'm not sure bringing voting back would even be a good thing anymore. The lunatics might have the votes to take over.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:42 PM ^
Good point, actually. I'm sure Brian is enjoying all the extra clicks from the unwashed masses that have flooded the site, but he needs to be careful. This place is MLive right now, and it's only going to get worse. Even if it means shutting the site down for a few days, bringing voting back before it gets any worse needs to be the #1 priority.
There's an army of people willing to try to save your website, Brian! Let us!
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:08 PM ^
Fire Hoke. Fire Mattison. Fire Borges. Fire Brandon. Fire Mary Sue. Fire, Fire, Fire. I know I'm right, because all teams with three freshman lineman should be able to play with top ten defenses!
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:17 PM ^
I think what happened much of the time back in the days of the old system is that this site would actually crash outright because of capacity issues, or at least so I remember from conversations I have had with the higher ups.
As for returning voting, one of the flaws of the karma system is that you would have a thread like this and literally watch things get upvoted / downvoted serially based on the mood of the poster doing the voting. It was simply their way of having the last word.
I say this as a mod, but the old system which actually created an impact on point totals - if you cared about that sort of thing - were preferable to me. We only stepped in with the extreme sh*t then.
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:27 PM ^
Good point - those 503 errors (or whatever they were) under the old format were extremely irritating. I guess I'll take some annoying posts here and there over literally not being able to post for long stretches due to server capacity.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:39 PM ^
My friend did you watch the game today. IF you did and you want hoke to continue, you are the worst michigan fan ever. Like those people that wanted richrod to stay. This program is falling more and more into the regional status. we have no will, we have no coach, we have no player improvement. Hoke is not cutting, the sooner you realize this, the faster we can rescue our program from mediocracy
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:58 PM ^
"If you want Hoke to continue, you are the worst Michigan fan ever."
Seriously.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:41 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 10:43 PM ^
Lunatic fringe? Oh right, anyone who disagrees with you is a lunatic. I forgot how reasoning works for some people.
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:46 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 11:17 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:36 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:37 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:39 PM ^
So what's the O-line like? How experienced are their starters?
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:44 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:41 PM ^
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:45 PM ^
Michigan's offensive FEI is 33 and UCLA is 48.
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:48 PM ^
Did UCLA play the mighty defenses at Akron, UCONN, Indiana, etc., etc. to pad stats with?
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:59 PM ^
They played Neveda, Cal, and New Mexico St. Not exactly a murders row of defenses.
November 2nd, 2013 at 8:59 PM ^
So what you're saying is you don't know anything about FEI...
November 2nd, 2013 at 9:13 PM ^
Guess not. But I've been following Michigan since 1980 and my eyes tell me Al Borges is the worst coordinator we have ever had, and I'm tired of the endless excuses everyone conjures up to obscure the obvious. You can toss your FEI data into that pile.