QB Job "Wide Open"
Not much new information in the article, more of a summary of things we already know.
I really like that Drevno plans to organize the offense around the strengths of the QB, instead of putting a square peg into a round hole like we've been doing since 2008.
http://www.mlive.com/wolverines/index.ssf/2015/03/michigan_qb_job_wide_open_offe.html
I'm looking forward to the days of a "QB controversy". That's a good problem to have. This? Not so much.
The nature of a QB controversy is important. Brady vs Henson is a "high class problem." "Sheridan vs Threat" is merely a problem. Here's to to hoping we have something closer to the former.
Gets it's perfectly. Couldn't agree more, well said because there's definitely a difference.
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You sir, WON the internet today with the 'z' on the end!
nope
- http://content.usatoday.com/communities/campusrivalry/post/2011/01/michigan-denard-robinson-return-brady-hoke-/1#.VPcVNOH4Fdc
- Hoke has run various offenses in his eight years as a head coach at Ball State and San Diego State. He realizes much of Michigan's roster was recruited to fit former coach Rich Rodriguez's spread offense, so he'll adapt as much as possible.
I'm very interested to see what happens in the spring game assuming they have a real game. I know it's not the end all be all for who will start at qb but I feel like we will get some pretty good indications of where things stand.
The 2009 and 2010 offenses were as emphatically "square peg, square hole" as you can get.
those teams couldn't play any defense.
Yeah, that wasn't your original point.
I should have been more clear. Since 2008, with exceptions for 2009 and 2010.
Even in 2011, Hoke and Borges did much more to adapt to the talent on the roster than people remember. They tried to lay a foundation for future years' manball, but the 2011 offense looked much more like RR's 2010 Michigan offense than Hoke and Borges's 2010 SDSU offense.
Those years were more like fitting a square peg into a solid brick wall.
I believe you are now required to add "sexybits" as your middle moniker.
Go Blue!
"Mad Hatter:"
If you are still obsessively and gratuitously shitting on Rich Rod, I think it reflects more on you than him. Let it go, dude...
one comment counts as "gratuitously shitting" on anyone.
And my point in the OP of this thread was less about QB play specifically and more about the team in general.
Look at the record since 2008. Highly rated recruiting classes and generally shitty on field results.
That's hilarious coming from you Tater, says the man who jumps at every opportunity to talk about MSU and one David Brandon. Even when the opportunity doesn't present itself you manage to talk about them.
Not to start a flame war or anything, but Rodriguez's offenses were obviously round peg, round hole.
Nazi.
I've even heard it described as a "square peg, larger round hole so the peg fits through anyway."
i do believe i'm getting a case of the vapors!
I'd say the Denard offense was round peg, round hole, while the Tate offense was like 17-gon into a hole defined by its circumscribed circle. It fits, almost completely even, but there were still some gaps which could only be filled in by IT'S ALL ABOUT DENARD.
Finally, as I mentioned below, 2008 was toothpick into round hole.
The more relevant question is how do you run any attack with a freshman Threet, walk-on Sheridan, and a combined 3 starts on the offensive line. If you're suggesting that we would have been any more successful running a pro style offense (which RR's staff didn't have experience doing anyway), then you are mistaken.
But hey, there's never a bad time to beat a dead horse seven years after the fact!
I disagree with the notion that a) RR couldn't have done better with the personnel he had, and b) it's ok to just give up on a season.
Would it have been a great season if he had somehow kept Mallet, utilized the talent on defense, played a system the offense was built for (to the extent that it was built), and coached with more skill and a greater focus on the present over the future? Probably not. But it probably would have been better than it was.
IMO the idea that RR could not have done better in 2008 is just not true.
Then what? Is he ever supposed to install his own system, the one he was hired to run? If Mallett stays, then it's three years running a system completely foreign to his staff. If he doesn't then maybe it's four years of Threet. A year with ten new starters on offense is an opportunity to teach and install a completely new system. It was always going to involve some setbacks to make such a radical change. Picking a year when the offense was going to struggle regardless seems like as good a time as you're going to get.
If you want to blame someone, maybe you should consider Bill Martin. RR did what he was expected to do on offense when he was hired. If Michigan wanted a coach that would run a system best suited to the existing personnel, they could have hired one. Here was Martin's quote after the hire was announced.
"I am thrilled to have Rich Rodriguez as Michigan's new coach," athletic director Bill Martin wrote in an e-mail to The Associated Press on Sunday. "Rich brings an exciting brand of football to Michigan Stadium. We welcome the entire Rodriguez family to Ann Arbor."
At the time, most fans were clamoring for a change in offensive philosophy. Who could forget Carr's last game, when the offensive game plan showed some creativity?
told me that RR wasn't a great coach but a good coach and a bit of a one-tricl pony (granted, it's a very good trick.
I believe that RR had run an air-raid type of spread at Clemson and that may have been a better fit for that 2008 team (pluse, Joe Tiller proved that air raid can suceed in the Big 10)
You are absolutely correct. Although I've been told many times by people on this board that it was unreasonable to expect RR to adjust his offense. He is a read option coach, that's all he knows, that's all he needs to know, and it would be impossible for him to learn anything else. Also, he can only be successful with one specific DC. No one else.
There was no excuse for a 3-9 season with the talent on that team. 8-4, 7-5, hell, even 6-6, but not 3-9. The cupboards we not that damn bare.
I fully believe that first season sealed his fate. No matter what he would have accomplished, short of a Big 10 title in year 3, he was always going to be the guy that snapped the bowl streak and gave Michigan its first losing season since the 60's.
with a different offense is just crazy. 4, maybe. He only won 5 games the next season with Tate and 7 with Denard in 2010.
Sheridan played only because freshman Threet was wildly inaccurate. Sheridan was a walkon because he didn't have a D-1 arm and was no threat to throw downfield. But those guys and 4 new starters on the o-line are winning 7+?
Hoke's first season was so completely different. Rather than 1 returning starter on offense, he had 10. He had a lot more and better options than RR. I'm not defending RR's overall job performance, but this particular criticism always annoys me.
Take away Long, Hart, Henne, Manningham, Arrington, Boren and Kraus and you're expecting a similar result. 2008 was easily the worst OL Michigan ever had until possibly 2013. Threet wasn't going to have time to sit in the pocket. He started the season at QB. He didn't get benched because he wasn't mobile. They always knew that. He got benched because his passing was terrible. You mention Brandon Minor, but you ignored Carlos Brown and Sam McGuffie, who were well suited to the spread. The OL were relatively small, also possibly better suited for a spread.
That team was going to be terrible on offense. You're right that it could well have been a little better if RR had run a different offense. But no more than that. We saw how ineffective the 2013 team was with that OL. You'd be sacrificing something at the time you're going to install your new offense. Wait until you have the players for it, but then you're teaching all of your existing players a new system. Expect some growing pains.
It's funny that so many people here decry Hoke's burning of redshirts. Isn't that exactly the same choice? Either use a player who might make your team a little better this season, or save him so a future team will be better. When you lose, you've made the wrong choice, whichever it was.
I have no idea why you think that team was so talented. Because they have Michigan on their jerseys? They were seriously lacking at QB and OL, with practically zero experience aside from Schilling. That's extremely hard to overcome.
Do you remember that Utah team went undefeated, beating Alabama. We lost to them by 2 points. Was that really worse than getting thrashed by Oregon the previous season?
They scored 42 points against Purdue and lost. Gave up 45 to Illinois. A different offense doesn't win those games very often I don't see why we should have expected a win against a 9-4 Northwestern. Toledo's only TD came on a 101 yd. interception return off of Threet. That was a definite low point, but if you're counting fluke losses as victories for Carr, maybe you should count that one too. They also won a game against Wisconsin they had no business winning on paper.
"You plan your offense around the players you currently have."
That's what RR did. Unfortunately, with Hart, Henne, Long, Manningham, Arington et al., leaving, he didn't have a lot of good, experienced players returning. Sophomore OL Schilling was great, but it was too much to expect him to carry the team.
Mallett transferred despite RR's efforts to keep him on campus. (As Mallett has acknowledged). RR didn't use him because he wasn't available. RR has shown he can run a passing spread. Shaun King still speaks highly of RR.
RR's first season was no peg, no hole... it was the worst football ever.
Since then, the coaches have done a decent job of fitting the scheme to the talent
RR's first season is best described as toothpick in normal sized round hole. Didn't matter if he tried to put it in a square or round hole, it was still just a toothpick.