Reasons to be optimistic in 2014
With only a handful of bowl games left to finish off the 2013 college football season and so many fans feeling disappointed and panicking about the future of Michigan football. I figured I'd share some of the reasons why I'm optimistic about the 2014 season and beyond.
1. We'll have real competition at the QB position. For the first time since ... God knows when, We'll have alegit competiton at the QB spot. It's Devin spot to loose but we'll have 4 scoloarship QB's gunning for the starting job. 3 of the 4 have college game experience!
2. The Offensive line will play better as a whole. I heard all the doom and gloom about how can they possibly improve with losing two NFL caliber tackles. They are right in a way the tackles position will be downgraded next year. The major point is with so much pressure coming up the middle, we could have had Tony Boselli and Jonathon Ogden as tackles and not done much better. Point is there will be competition on the line as well. These guys want to win championships, they are hungry, young and talented. They'll push eachother this off season because nobody is guarenteed a starting job.
3. The running backs as a whole will improve. Green and Smith both played better later in the season even with the offensive line problem and when they played more pass protection looked ALOT better ( sorry fitz but you cant block very well). Denard was an extremely talented college football player but the guy we missed most after Denard had to be Vincent (bang-bang) Smith. Running touissant as an every down back when he couldn't block to save his life got Devin killed most of the time. De'veon smith seemed like a better over all back as far as blocking/ running goes. I'm also not forgetting Drake Johnson was the number 2 back before he got injured.
4. Key players and possible key players coming off major injuries. Jake Ryan came back mid season after tearing his ACL in the fall. It's hard to imagine he was 100% jake Ryan. Countess had a major injury last year, Wormley too. this Year Pipkins went down, Darboh, Drake Harris, Chris Bryant, Chris Fox and Gardner was beat up all year, I wouldn't believe you if you told me Touissant was 100% all year after that fracture. Hopefully these guys are all healthy enough to play their best football next year.
5. Funchess and Butt are the real deal! Funchess had the dropsies a bit this year but, he was a sophmore and honestly didn't get targeted enough as a freshman. When you drop a 1-2nd down pass yea that sucks but when you drop a 3rd down pass that kills a drive. If Funchess can correct the drops he is a great receiver... Tight end. Jake Butt had an awesome freshman year and physically he and Ian Bunting are very similar. If bunting comes in and plays like Butt as a freshman and Jake improves from his freshman year they are going to be 3 guys who are crazy hard to cover. I'm not even going to mention all th other WR's, someone coming back has got to be good atleast. I mean Darboh was the 2nd coming of Jerry Rice before he messed up his foot... right
6. The defense is what it is. This is the same staff that turned around one of our worst defenses ever and made them servicable. They get a pass from me, so i'm expecting the defense to play a lot better as a whole. We played 3 freshman in the secondary. 2 where true freshman. Part of the season we played a true freshman Linebacker, and our D line had mutiple true freshman and red shirt freshman getting alot of play time. I'm not worried about next year.
Now I admit i'm one of those guys who looks at the schedule and says 10-2,11-1 every year. I've been a fan for a long time and thats usually how it went with one head scratcher (why the hell did we lose that game) a year. So 9-10 wins season are what I am used to. I look at our 2014 Schedule and I see 2 really good teams , 2 good teams and 6 teams we should roll. Ohio state and MSU are really good teams and should be really good next year. They are our best chances for a loss. Everybody else tho, come on you have got to like our chances against. We play well at Notre Dame who loses their 2 best defensive players and even when play like crap they can barely beat us. We had 13 turn overs in our last 2 losses to Notre Dame. Utah plays terrible away from home and everbody else is a home game or mediocre. We usually beat mediocre teams on the road. I'll call us 10-2 and 3rd place in our division. If we finish any worse atleast you guys will see some staff changes, so there is another reason to be optimistic!
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:29 PM ^
Liver has all sorts of things that are just awful for you. All this time parents spent making fun of kids for not eating liver, kids knew something was wrong with it. Call it childrens intuition or something.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:16 AM ^
So when you combine good coaching with experience, you tend to beat your counterpart that is inexperienced.
I think people tend to underestimate the effect of youth. RS FR and FR literally have not played a snap of football outside of high school. We had RS FR and FR at almost half the spots on offense this year, sometimes more (RB, WR2, RG, LG, C, TE, FB). Watch the guys in the UA All American game tonight. Those kids will literally be the best players about to enter college and yet they will look noticeably less polished and undeveloped compared to even middling MAC teams (and would probably lose to one too). It takes time to make that next step. The young guys on the team will get better, and probably in big chunks.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:37 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:01 AM ^
Maybe. I do concede the fact that guys didn't seem to make much improvement mid-season is a little worrying. I guess my point is as bad as we looked this year, it's not time to hit the panic button yet.
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:56 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:28 PM ^
You say that like Hoke is the first guy to be around .500 before landing a big time job. The fact is Ball State and SD State are lucky to be 0.500 and quality coaching is required to get them there. Ball State didn't have a winning season since 1996 prior to Hoke, and SD State since 1998. \
The other way to look at it, probably the more contextually fair way, is Hoke took terrible programs and turned them around, going 12-0 at Ball State and 9-4 at SD State, both banner years for each team.
That's no guarantee he'll succeed at the highest levels of BCS football of course, but neither is a .500 overall record at MAC and Mountain West schools an indictment of poor coaching.
January 2nd, 2014 at 2:58 PM ^
Anyway, all good points and this is why I like the blog. 2 people watching the same team seeing things different and hashing it out.
Go Blue
January 2nd, 2014 at 7:50 PM ^
There are definitely some question marks about the staff. When you don't win, that happens. That said, I think a lot of the "trend" has to do with the RR disasterous 2010 recruiting year, with 2009 and 2011 both not great either. The issues with depth and youth at certain positions can be attributed directly to those classes, especially OL. It lines up too well to be coincidental. You would hope to see the 2012 and 2013 guys step up to fill the void and some guys not doing so may be coaching, but IMO it's still too early to tell. 2014 will be a huge swing year in telling this staff's ability to run a competitive game.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:57 AM ^
And I admitted that the B1G is down. And I'm not saying it's a reason for Michigan to be mediocre, because it shouldn't really matter. But people are acting like Michigan played a MAC schedule, but when you stack up the B1G to other BCS conferences you'll see there isn't a whole lot of difference. A Pac 12 schedule isn't significantly harder than a B1G schedule. A litte? Certainly. But the amount is extremely small.
And yeah, the B1G has struggled in bowl games, where they consistently put 2 teams in the BCS, play probably the hardest bowl schedule, and tend to play in their opponents conference home. I'm not saying the B1G is great or the best, I'm just saying that people have to chill with this "crappy B1G" thing and act like by default Michigan should go 6-2 because they're Michigan and the rest of the teams are MAC level. The other teams have talent and coaches too, and they aren't God awful.
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:07 PM ^
According to Scout's listing of the 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012 recruiting classes:
OSU had a total of 56 four-and five-star recruits.
UM had a total of 36 four-and five-star recruits.
Stanford had a total of 33 four-and five-star recruits.
MSU had a total of 16 four-and five-star recruits.
And over the last four seasons MSU has gone 11-2, 11-3, 7-6, and now 13-1.
That's getting a lot of bang for your recruiting buck.
January 2nd, 2014 at 4:06 PM ^
but the X-factor is coaching ....
Go Blue!
January 2nd, 2014 at 3:23 PM ^
was just 4-4 in the MAC though. if they had NIU-type success, i could agree. but akron was mediocre for even a MAC school.
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:11 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:16 AM ^
A lot of folks on this site overthink things. I get it. It's kind of our thing.
Taking a step back and boiling it down, here is my perspective; good coaches win football games -> we don't win many football games.
We have the talent to be a 10 win football team perennially and in my opinion we should be.
The leadership is just not getting it done.
I can't get a very optimistic view of future-tripping type things until the pudding is proven or whatever.
I like good and proven pudding.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:20 AM ^
Do "good coaches" win a lot of football games without upperclassmen on the roster? Seems like the "good coaches" getting so much love here have lots of juniors and seniors on their rosters. Imagine MSU's defense without 6 of their starters...and then a handful of nothing behind them. Freshmen can be great in basketball, but when 2/3 of the team is so young, we most certainly don't have the talent to win 10 every year. Putting it all on the coaches willfully ignores the roster.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^
I'm sorry. I was under the assumption it was the coaches responsibility to put together the roster.
We should fire the roster-putter-together guy.
Yea, that's the ticket.
#10MoreYears
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:47 PM ^
So the coach in charge is supposed to travel back in time to recruit players to Michigan before he is hired here? This coaching staff can be attacked for a number of things, especially Al Borges' playcalling, but to place blame on Hoke for the state of experienced players on the roster is absurd and ignores all level of rational thinking.
January 2nd, 2014 at 3:41 PM ^
This comment goes out to all the people in the world.
Didn't we learn our lesson from blaiming the guy who is long gone about the horrible shit stain of a team we currently have? Is that a thing we are going to continue to do?
For all of your "rational thinking" and wise guy jargon bullshit maybe you could learn a thing or two about doing the exact same thing and expecting something different to happen.
If you don't have o-linement then fucking go after a JUCO OL who is game ready. If you think you have a fucking hole in the defensive secondary then go out and look for kids who could transfer. Fuck the excuses for once in your god damn life and execute as a coach? Right? Who is to blame for the team that is on e the field being horrible every Saturday for the last two years? It's not the guy in Arizona winning Bowl Games that's for fucking sure. And it certainly isn't the old jowly getting honored into the Rose Bowl HoF. It's fucking Hoke. Our current fucking coach. I'm sick of the excuses. Get kids, coach them and win fucking football games. You get paid more than enough to be held accountable for the lack of wins.
If you can't get JUCOs because of some academic bullshit then try to change the culture. Miami is a damn good academic school and they seem to be able to get JUCO transfers all damn day. You make the big bucks, Hoke, you figure it the fuck out.
/BREAKINGPOINT'D
January 2nd, 2014 at 4:02 PM ^
You wrote all that like you weren't the one writing all those posts the past few years.
January 2nd, 2014 at 4:34 PM ^
Ok and I learned my lesson. Now it's 100% percent on the fat man in charge.
Not the "hick" before him or the "old man" before him.
This fanbase is the fucking worst.
January 2nd, 2014 at 4:10 PM ^
I'd agree with you (since I am also at the breaking point), but JUCOS are not the answer.
January 2nd, 2014 at 4:52 PM ^
And it doesnt have to be, but there has got to be SOMETHING that can be done other than blaming anyone but the head coach. I mean my god. The fucking UCF fighting dicknoses just won 11 games in a season. Jesus H. Somebody just fucking do some football good, please!
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:51 PM ^
One would think that a RR fan, user of the "bare cupboard" excuse/explanation, would know that the "roster-putter-together guy" (at least with regard to the lack of upperclassmen) got fired. That guy didn't recruit lineman and lost a massive amount of his own commits. He now coaches at Arizona. The new coach had a bad year but seems to be on course to rebuild the numbers on the team.
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:29 AM ^
Optimism is dead
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:31 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:38 AM ^
Well, we've got 9 months to work on reverses and double reverses.
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:48 AM ^
good chance we don't even make a bowl game.
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:53 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:15 AM ^
Not totally sure, but my guess is they expected KSU to take away the running game (or what semblance of a running game there is with this team) and force Morris to beat them through the air. So, rather than put the dump truck in at RB, they wanted guys who could catch the ball out of the backfield and make plays in space.
January 2nd, 2014 at 9:58 AM ^
My family celebrated Christmas on the 28th this year so I didn't get to really watch the game closely live. We got home yesterday and upon watching the bowl game again on the DVR, I feel much better about the offense (and probably worse about the defense). The offensive line made a noticeable step forward. In fact the few blown assignments I noticed were unfortunately mostly on the few traditional running plays we ran, so the rushing stats didn't really reflect an improvement. I actually think if we stuck with running the ball a little bit in the second half after the screens and sweeps had outlived their effectiveness we would have had some success. The pass protection was night and day better and for the most part Morris had a pretty clean pocket to work from. All in all, it wasn't really a bad performance. The thing that kept the stats and score looking crappy was the way K State ate up the clock and only left Michigan with 7 or so actual possessions. There were very few opportunities to score and unfortunately we still weren't clean enough to keep enough of those drives going. Depending on how motivated I feel this weekend, I might do a UFR type thing on the offense.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:26 AM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:07 AM ^
I understand your amazement because it surprised me as well. When you played it in slow mo and focused just on the line, they looked pretty good relative to earlier. For one, we didn't really try gaining on the ground without reverses and end arounds, which I felt was a mistake. The couple of times we did try, unfortunately we did have some busts so the consistency isn't there yet. There were positive running plays though that actually looked the way you draw them up.There was a 2nd and short situation that sticks out in particular were we gained the first down and everything was blocked perfectly in terms of combination blocks and getting out to the linebackers. The other aspect that shouldn't be surprising is pass pro was pretty good, not just relative to before, but legitimately good. They kept Morris pretty clean all game.
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:55 AM ^
In all due respect to Reshp 1 (who i like) and other "Pro-Borges" guys on the board I do think that no matter WHAT transpires during the game they will see the positives above all else. And that's not a bad thing - I used to be that way myself years ago too. So when he sees a game with 26 yards rushing and thinks the OL did a pretty good job (cause it wasnt as horrible as we've seen this year in other games) it's fairly understandable from a glass is always full perspective.
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:35 PM ^
If you go back and read what I said after the CMU game, I saw lots and lots of issues with this team. Same with the ND game. While I do think what you're saying is more often right than not, it isn't always the issue.
I think a big reason for the pessimism around here is the perception of people had for this team going into the season, and then what they thought they saw during CMU and ND.
I will also add that "Pro-Borges" is an understandable misnomer. It's not that I'm pro-Borges, I'm pro-Michigan. I just think Borges can be the right fit here. I understand saying pro-borges/anti-Borges, because it's more succinct, but there is a difference.
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:42 PM ^
Agree on the "pro-Michigan" stance - I had actually written something very similar originally to the effect that the Pro-Borges group sees the uniform first and not necessarily the performance of the players within it which colors their perception. And as I said - that's ok with me - unbridled optomism is not a bad thing (unless you're betting).
My personal pessismism is fueled by the the fact that I have zero faith in Hoke, Borges & Funk to turn the situation around. I think the youth angle has been overstated (by them) in terms of the failings of the team this year and I believe that next year will be as bad or worse record-wise as this one. That makes me sad.
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:58 PM ^
But I also think it's kind of just a talking point. What else are they going to talk about to the media. I don't see the advantage of saying "we screwed up", I don't see throwing the players under the bus individually as an approach. I think the youth thing is really just a cover all to make it so you aren't blaming the players or the coaches, it's a talking point to color outside perception is the least-negative way possible.
Wow, like all things in pressers these days, whatever is said gets extrapolated and twisted and over emphasized to fit whatever argument (including mine) is trying to make. That seems to be the nature of the beast, but I think, in general, people just take way too much out of press conferences.
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:14 PM ^
Actually in some ways I'm doing just the opposite of taking things out of context. I am taking Brady at face value with zero thought to any underlying meaning or potential dupicity. And I do so because his behavior is entirely consistent with his words. Hoke has done absolutely nothing to indicate that the words he uses at press conferences are not his actual feelings - as a matter of fact his actions IMO absolutely reinforce the man says what he means and means what he says.
I believe that they believe that they provide excellent coaching and game plans to the players. I believe that they believe that our shortcomings this year are attributable to the players youth and inability to translate their excellent coaching to the field. And I believe that they believe that they need to change nothing - not their staff, not their core offensive philosphy nor their methods because I believe that they belive there is absolutely nothing wrong with any of them.
And if nothing changes and youth is NOT the over-riding problem behind all bad things then we're in big trouble next year.
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:03 PM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:11 PM ^
Just to be clear - there isnt a single solitary soul on this board that hopes what you wrote is true more than me. Nobody.
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:23 PM ^
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:16 PM ^
I don't know why you have to always frame things in a pro vs anti Borges way. This is the third, totally unrelated comment of mine that you've replied to and tried to make a Borges issue out of.
I try to call them like I see them. Do I have biases? certainly, but at the same time guys getting push at the line of scrimmage and then moving to the second level and actually blocking someone isn't subjective. Guys not putting Morris in the turf every second play isn't subjective. I made my comment because that sort of stuff gets lost in the feeling of doom watching live when K State was marching it down our throats. I could have brought up the struggles of other parts of the team since after all we didn't put up a lot of points, but this is an optimism thread. There are literally 20 threads the last week to piss and moan about how terrible the team and coaches are, why do you feel the need to come into this one and accuse people of blind optimism?
January 2nd, 2014 at 1:54 PM ^
I was actually trying to be supportive of you in response to the poster who was shocked and amazed at your optimism in the face of the results. I was trying to explain why you were optimistic and that it wasnt a crazy as it seemed when you frame it against being supportive and hopeful of all things Michigan in spite of poor resutls.
Sorry if it didn't come off that way.
January 2nd, 2014 at 2:46 PM ^
Ok, sorry, I definitely took that wrong. My response was probably overly harsh anyway. Going back to work after 2 weeks off's making me cranky apparently.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:02 AM ^
Nothing feeds pessimism like long-winded, interdependent (the OL will play better and the running backs will perform better), tenuously-supported (we will have no 'key' injuries next year; the OL will improve after losing Lewan and Scholfield), and cliched (nobody is guranteed a jerb! we will have competitionness! they want to win championships dude!) predictions about why we should be optomistic.
January 2nd, 2014 at 10:23 AM ^
i can't tell which of your spelling mistakes were intentional, at least, once you wrote "optomistic". you see, i'm not "pessomist", more of a cop half foll kind of guy.
:)
(I did laugh at "jerb" though)
January 2nd, 2014 at 11:20 AM ^
The "optomistic" misspelling was unintended. See, since passing the 4th grade I no longer have any spelling competitiion. So I am not that good at it.
But doesnt "optomistic" make more sense than "optimistic"? I mean, it's all about how you see things, amirite?
January 2nd, 2014 at 12:20 PM ^
It is how others see things as well what is right in and of itself.
Spelling matters and I doubt your fifth grade teacher let you get away with this... or will this fall.
Sort of kidding here but I honestly don't consider content as much when spelling is off.