Better Coaching Staff?: UM or OSU
In each of these five major aspects of modern college football coaching, which staff do you think is superior?
Recruiting Talent - recruiting rankings predict future success
Player Development - strength and conditioning, instilling fundamentals, avoiding attrition
Scheme - devising superior offensive and defensive tactics
Game Management - 4th down decisions, play calling, clock management
Public Relations - ability to handle the press, university administration, and alumni
I'm sorry but saying Michigan is a push or better in game management or scheme is just wrong. MSU has a defensive scheme that a lot of teams can't run period or can't run well (whether that is coaching or the players available).
It may be easy to say "play more press" but it reality it is not. Their blitz scheme and press coverage is awesome and frankly awesome to watch (even as someone who hates MSU more than OSU). I have to give MSU coaches props.
MSU's scheme is really solid, but relies on so much going right in that backfield that I'm not sure how consistent it can be. I get player development is a major part of their success, but it will be interesting to see how they handle replacing basically half of their defense this year with decent but unspectacular players recruiting-wise. I know people talk about Calhoun as a 1st rounder and the DBs look to be good, but freaking Alabama struggled last year after losing a bunch of guys on defense, and to think MSU is just going to keep rolling out monster units seems unlikely.
I've always said that MSU's defense should be good next year, but let's see how that team looks with a top-20 defense (think Iowa). It really might be the difference between 3-4 losses and the 1-loss year they just had.
"Are there no other topics to talk about? I know this is the offseason, but jebus people are just reaching to get into arguments apparently."
Is that it can be consistent in terms of where it finishes at the end of every season. That's because it's frankly set up to force QBs to hit some of the harder throws to make, and there simply aren't many, if any, college QBs that will make those throws consistently. And there aren't a ton of OCs that will stick to their guns of dinking and dunking to the quick outs to the far sideline (likely because they don't believe the risk/reward is enough to do it).
But it is certainly possible that they run up against a buzz saw and get destroyed because of their scheme. If an offense is on, there are certainly weaknesses to the scheme. If the run game is humming, it puts their safeties in really bad spots. If a QB is on target, there are receivers that can get open or at worst have single coverage. So you may see some game-to-game inconsistencies because of their scheme, but I think as far as season-to-season, they'll be fairly consistent.
Player Development:this isn't even a contest. Hoke isn't even remotely in the same league as Dantonio with regards to player development.
Scheme: has to go Dantonio for his consistency, whereas as we have had several different scheme's under Hoke and last year was just an absolute mess.
Game Management: push.
Public relations: this has to go the Dantonio as well. We've had a lot of issues with regards to arrests and especially the Gibbons thing that I don't see this doesn't go to Dantonio
If you love Dantonio so much, why don't you marry him?
(Agreed re: player development and game management, but I think you're way off base on the Public Relations front. Dantonio brought us Glenn Winston, the Dorm Vikings, and numerous other whitewashes that make his hear-no-evil, see-no-evil approach seem endemic to the MSU program. On the Michigan side, Hoke and Brandon made a hash out of the Gibbons situation, but apart from that outlier I think Hoke has handled player discipline well and I would not hesitate to send my son to play for him.)
While Dantonio does a great job with player development, it's too early to judge Hoke. Recruiting and development are opposite sides of the same coin, and until Hoke has had the opportunity to have his recruits for 4-5 years it's difficult to judge his ability to develop talent.
I have no idea what this means, but I LMAO'd anyway.
Recruiting Talent - Michigan
Player Development - Michigan
Scheme - Michigan
Public Relations - Michigan
In My Heart - Michigan
In My Head - Michigan
Criminals - osu
Highest Paid Players - osu
Cheaters - osu
Scumbag Coach - osu
Most Redneck Fans - osu (and it's not even close)
Team that is not named after something that is eaten by squirrels after it falls out of a tree: Michigan
Team that does not have a mascot whose head is something that is eaten by squirrels after it falls out of a tree: Michigan
Team that does not put a bunch of stickers of something that is eaten by squirrels after it falls out of a tree stuck all over their helmets: Michigan
BCS game in year 1 and Urban got his butt kicked in one in year 2 so...
Recruiting has been pretty close since Urban arrived in Columbus but I believe the slight edge goes to OSU.
Player development can go both ways. Offensively for OSU, Ed Warriner has proven to be one of the best offensive line coaches in America and it seemingly doesn't matter who he puts in- the unit still performs very well. The WR position, however, has not been a strength at OSU for quite a few years. RBs seem to be developing nicely and I think Elliot will have a very good year this year. Braxton has also gotten better each year.
Michigan, defensively, seems to be developing guys at a better pace than they are offensively. The LB position has been an area of strength and the defensive backfield should be pretty formidable this year. DL is still a concern.
It is tough to judge player development with the new coaching staffs (UM on offense, OSU on defense). For as bad as UM's offensive line was last year, OSU's secondary was right there with them. I think player development is a push.
Scheme goes to OSU only because of consistency. The dumpster fire that was OSU's secondary last year raged out of control a little less often than UM's offensive line. When comparing strengths, OSU's offense was clicking week in and week out as opposed to UM's defense struggling at times.
Game management is tough to judge. I don't believe either coach makes mistakes or does anything spectacularly on a regular basis. Probably a push.
Public relations goes to OSU on a technicality. Ever since the Tressel debacle, OSU has been under a media microscope and ever since Florida and the Hernandez debacle, Urban has been under a microscope. Every issue he has run into so far with players getting in trouble he has dealt with swiftly and harshly. So, I believe because OSU is under so much more scrutiny, even though they seem to have had a little more negative publicity than UM, the edge goes to OSU with how they have handled the media.
I won't bother with the criteria stated above because I'm a bad ass. I'm just going to say this:
I think Meyer is a much better overall coach than Hoke. I think Hoke knows this and that's why Michigan has maybe the best 1-2 punch of coordinators in the country, so really, its kind of a wash when it comes to coaching at the top.
I don't know enough to comment on the rest, other than I seriously doubt OSU would have seen the debacle we saw on the O-Line last year.
I'm surprised so many people got trolled into actually answering this thread's question.
It's pretty obvious that it's a leading set of questions. Michigan was bad last year, OSU wasn't. Meyer has won MNC before, Hoke hasn't. So the only outcome is for fans to look like homers or to look like they've given up on their coach. It's a fairly solid, although fairly obvious, troll-job.
Et tu, SpaceCoyote?
I did not answer the questions, instead coach-speaked (spoke) around it. That's because it's a set of questions that doesn't deserve answers, instead it only deserves a different perspective of looking at things and an explanation about why the comments that are being looked for (either the "homer" comments or the "giving up" comments) are not as clear as they are intended to be.
As long as you aren't an asshole about it, an MSU/OSU troll, or otherwise intentionally bringing up "hypothetical" questions that are leading for a response, then you are welcome to your opinion.
Otherwise you get -160-ish points, potentially banned, and life goes on for everyone else.
This is not to rag on Hoke as I'm sure he's a nice enough guy and human being, but he's just way out of his league
would disagree with your assessment. Why would they or Manning or the other coaches stick around if that was true? Why aren't there more players leaving the program?
But keep trolling and you can come back under another name.
Also, Ohio has a natural recruiting advantage over Michigan. With that in mind, I think Hoke has done (by site ratings anyway) as well as one could possibly expect when it comes to recruiting.
This is one of those questions that when times are good, a fan base is full of homers. And when times are bad, a fan base is full of haters. It's because they see all that is good and all that is bad and only get the basic flavor of what is going on elsewhere.
But many around here complain about Hoke not developing highly rated players. Well, if tha's the case, why does Meyer and Co get a pass for Dunn, Perry, Schutt, Pittman, Reeves, Bogard, Ball, Marcus, etc, etc. It's not because those guys will necessarily be bad players. Some of them have even shown flashes in limited time. But frankly, they are young yet, they aren't all going to be great immediately. But Meyer gets a pass for that while Hoke doesn't.
People complain about Michigan playcalling. But what about Meyer failing to give the ball to Hyde in the 4th quarter of the BTT game, and instead going back to Miller on 4th and short as he had all season and was abundant on tape? What about the mess of a defense they had even with a supurb DL. Why did their safeties never learn to take proper angles? Why did their LBs never learn to cover underneath zones? Why, when they guys in the starting lineup struggled, wasn't their depth to step in behind them? Why did the defense look so confused and why were there two DCs, one that called the front 7 and one that called the back 7?
There are question marks and mistakes for both staffs, that's what happens when human nature is involved. The situations are also vastly different, from what Meyer stepped into, to the natural advantage OSU has, and frankly, to Meyer's success prior to arriving at OSU. Meanwhile, both teams have sent highly decorated players to the NFL at positions that overall were pretty bad (OSU - DB, Michigan - OL). So obviously they can coach those things, but why isn't it sinking in for everyone? IMO, the talent on both teams is still pretty young, a majoy difference was that OSU also had a boat load of talent that was mature the past two years. But, IMO, both programs are still growing into what they will eventually become, neither is a finished product, good or bad.
When you are winning a war, almost everything that happens can be claimed to be right and wise.
Amen. While you and I disagree on many topics I am 100% sympatico on that observation.
but ohio has been beating us in almost every category since Tressel arrive and now with Urban. I think we are catching up and we are going to have to start beating them on the field. If not this season on the road, Michigan will have to win at home in 2015!
I never understood why OH seem to produce so much football talent. They're less than 2M more than Michigan in population! Detroit and metro Detroit should be more of a hot bed for football talent. It is easy for ohio to recruit in their own state. There's no other major football university in OH!
It's just a local culture thing. Football (particularly youth and HS) is a bigger deal there. Basketball is a bigger deal in Michigan.
osu is better ion each category....and they stink. This wasn't exactly a battle of the titans. Wish it was different. But it's not.
I bleed Maize and Blue but we need to realize what UM football has become. A bunch of the Michigan fanbase doesn't want to face the reality that we haven't been relevent in quite a while.
Recruiting Talent - Ohio State
Player Development - Ohio State
Scheme - Ohio State
Game Management - Not even close, Ohio State
Public Relations - Ohio State. This year they will be setting records for OSU football attendance while Michigan will be setting records for lowest attendance at big house.
They're 2-0, and won 24 straight games. How is this even a discussion until we start winning games?
If it's trolling, then every sports bar, man cave, and neighborhood saloon in the world is a hot bed of trolling. The type of questions posed by the OP have been a staple of sports discussions and arguments since organized sports developed in human culture. If nobody cared enough to get into heated arguments about who is better and why, websites like MGoBlog wouldn't exist and media titans like ESPN wouldn't either.
MGoBlog exists largely because of UFR, which is the complete antithesis of traditional sports talk. The kind of discussion generated by this thread is useless because it gives us no new information to answer the question of WHY Michigan's football program is inferior to OSU right now. Hence, troll thread designed to garner emotional response from readers.
If you disagree with me, consider this: if traditional sports talk defined this site, how woud MGoBlog be any different than MLive? More Importantly, how would MGoBlog still exist when ESPN and MLive are more mainstream alternatives?
This sort of discussion is good because it levels our expectations, makes it easier for us to exist on the "outside" of our little world with others and allows to hear other people's differing opinions, even if you completely disagree.
This, in my opinion, is exactly what MGoBlog is about.
I agree that Brian's UFRs and all the other data-heavy analytics are the intellectual core of MGoBlog, but if they were literally the only content available, MGoBlog wouldn't be half as popular a website as it is. This popularity is due in no small measure to the reader-generated board posts covering such cerebellum-busting topics as "What are you drinking tonight?" or "Damien Harris will visit for BBQ" or "The definitive Nik Stauskas compilation" or "Rank order of prospective victory goodness 2014 against MSU, ND, OSU." or "Am I Complicit" or "2014 Women's Football Academy."
This is in addition to all of the recruiting updates regularly posted by MGoBlog staff writers, which normally generate a great deal of commentary. I love following recruiting as much as most Michigan fans, but you can't call it intellectually demanding.
I am not criticizing any of these posts; they're simply representative of much of what's posted here every day, much of which attracts a good deal of attention, whether it be negative or positive.
How in the world are some of you saying Michigan has the advantage in scheme? I just watched a video of Michigan's 2013 OL sliding left and leaving Derrick Green 1 on 1 with Randy Gregory. Sure, Borges is gone, but we have no idea what our offensive scheme will look like in 2014.
We could be the 2012 Alabama offense, the 2005-06 Texas offense, or the 2008 Michigan offense. Truth be told, none of know what sort of scheme Nuss is going to run other than what "he wants to do..." Run it down their throat, play-action, yada yada yada (the same things Borges wanted to do but couldn't.)
Hopefully "the tide of the rivalry starts to turn," but I'm not getting my hopes of until we can beat the Akron's of the world in a dominating fashion again.
Some believe in Nuss. Some saw OSU's defense in action last year. Michigan replaced the person responsible for the offensive scheme from last year, OSU replaced part of the two coordinators responsible for defensive scheme from last year.
Urban has had great success and I love his mentality on offense. If Miller were a better passer (and he's gotten way way better than he was) they would be unstoppable. That said I'm not wowed by their staff. Their defense was lousy last year, especially given the great physical ability of their players. But I believe they replaced some coaches on D.
Mirroring OSU, Hoke just fixed the biggest weakness on his own staff. He replaced an underperforming OC with a very promising one. We'll have to see.
I'd say that in general the staffs are even. OSU's advantage is that they have better talent on their roster. Kinda like most of the Tressel vs. Carr years, when Tressel was able to out-Lloyd us because of his talent advantage.
If we're just equal in the coaching department we're in trouble. I think we need better coaching to beat OSU 50% or more of the time. Cooper's teams had great physical talent but the players were dumb and they were poorly coached. That allowed Michigan to overcome a talent deficit by making much better decisions in the Games.
MSU's staff is better than either
And I certainly think there is an argument for it. But, consider this:
In 2012 MSU was 6-6 in the regular season; their offense finished 97th in the nation, and MSU only changed a single coach. In 2012, would you have said the MSU staff was better than either staff?
In 2009, Dantonio's third year at MSU (6th year as a head coach), he still retained almost his entire staff from Cincinnati, 5 of which are still on MSU's coaching staff. Well, that team finished 6-7 on the season. They were 38th in yards per game (and eventually lost their OC and WR, and replaced them with the guys that were on the 2012 MSU coaching staff) and finished 73rd on defense (having only replaced their DL coach in that time).
So at either of those times, would you have made the same claim?
Speaking of #Trolling we have a Dumb Michigan Fan Meme alert!!!
But #!!!
There's nothing funnier than Michigan fans trying to downplay Dantonio's accomplishments at MSU by saying something along the lines of "Well, in 2012, they were 7-6, would you say he was a good coach/they had a good staff then?"
Yes. Yes I would. Because anyone who even remotely has a clue about MSU football knows that what Dantonio has taken their program to a level they haven't seen in what, 50 years? You'd have to go back to 1965-66 to find anything similar. So having a couple bad seasons mixed in between 11 win seasons doesn't change much when you're talking about MSU.
So its just beyond trolling to present the same tired argument again, even if you hedged your bet at the beginning. If you want to present a new argument as to why Dantonio and co aren't as good as Brady Hoke/Urban Meyer, feel free.
Edit: Just for fun, MSU seasons from 1991 (won a shared Big Ten title with Perles) to 2006 (last year of Smith).
3-8, 5-6, 6-6, 5-6, 6-5-1, 6-6, 7-5, 6-6, 10-2, 5-6, 7-5, 4-8, 8-5, 5-7, 5-6, 4-8.
So, you know, when you have a 7-6 season bookended by 11 win seasons at a school like that, yeah, its really not a big deal.
And if you go back to that 2012 season, and before that, if you want to dig it up, you'll see me talking about how he is a good coach, and that their staff is good (I was highly skeptical of their WR coach, more than anything). So you're absolutely wrong about that and your misinformed insinuation of me. The point was in no way an attempt to downplay their recent Rose Bowl victory, or their accomplishments. Only to point out that these annual "which staff is better" arguments are fairly trite, unsubstantiated, ever-fluctuating, and misinformed.
But largely the same staff at MSU produced mediocre results, both in his third year, and the year directly before most Michigan fans (and most fans in general) started realizing he was a pretty good coach. I thought MSU was going to win 9 games or so in 2012. I thought they were going to win 9+ in 2013. You're barking up the wrong tree with me supposedly downplaying MSU. But it helps fit your narrative, so fine. But it's largely the same staff that produced both very mediocre results at several times (and before they arrived at MSU), and very good results.
But there is a major difference. Dantonio went 7-6, 9-4, 6-7 in his first three years at MSU. But he was allowed to build his program. He was allowed to prove he was a good coach by building his program, something neither Hoke, nor Meyer, have yet to do at their respective stops. Dantonio is a good coach, I've been saying that long before most Michigan fans were willing to admit it. That just goes to show how quickly perseption changes.