Dinardo thinks B10 is Big 3, Little 8, "confused" about M
Dinardo believes that Iowa, OSU and Wisconsin are the class of the league this year, with a significant gap after that.. He is "confused" about us because the doesn't know if we'll be able to stop the run. And he adds himself to the chorus of those predicting Denard will start. Dinardo has many detractors, and his rationale for our possible run-stopping troubles is weak IME, (I think we're correct to be much more concerned about stopping the pass) but he was pretty accurate last year, predicting a 6-6 season for us. Whatever.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100513/SPORTS0202/5130453/1004/sports/…-...
I think that we'll be very good as run stoppers. The question is play action and passing in general. I worry that we'll be so focused on trying to stop the run and not giving up the home run play that the safeties (since they'll be inexperienced) might bite on play action a bit.
because they won't have to. Michigan will be up by 2-3 touchdowns by the end of the 1st quarter every game , and at that point opponents will abandon the run and go all pass.
Let this be it.
For everyone that has been denigrating the Syracuse football program during the expansion talks, remember that it's our defensive coordinator that ran that proud program into the ground.
Syracuse before Greg Robinson since 1987:
1994, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2004 Big East Champions, 2 losing seasons out of 18, record of 107-59-1, 4 BCS (2 Fiesta, 1 Orange, 1 Sugar) bowls. Undefeated and played for a national championship in 1987.
Syracuse under Greg Robinson:
4 of 4 losing seasons, record of 7-37, worst record of any coach in Syracuse football history, worst single-season in 110 years of Syracuse football.
Okay, I understand the point you are trying to make. HOWEVA, some coordinators have tired to be head coaches and have not done so well. Some people are not cut out for the head coaching job. This does not necessarily mean that this person is a bad coach overall. They may just be better suited to a coordinator position. Although last year wasn't great on D I am willing to give GERG another year (or two) before deciding whether or not he can get the job done.
I was optimistic when Greggers was hired since the SU fanbase was not tolerant of mediocrity. Pasqualoni ended with a 6-6 season with a bowl loss, and we traded that for the disaster that was Robinson.
One of the major problems was that he took control of the defense himself. You can look at the scores from 2005-08 and see how the defense went to absolute shit. Those 4 years rank as some of the worst in the history of Syracuse football, with 2007 and 2008 seasons, when the team was full of his players, allowing almost twice as many points as the Syracuse average for a season.
When we look in retrsopect, the signs were there - the fact that the Kansas City Chiefs defense continued to decline after he was hired leading to his dismissal by his close friend Dick Vermeil and the decline of Texas' defense under Greggers.
After firing him, the SU defense improved by ~5 points/game under a new head coach (who had no previous head-coaching experience and in fact, came in as an offensive coordinator).
Under Greggers last season, Michigan posted its second-highest points allowed in the last 24 seasons.
but I think we need to judge by year two. This 3-3-5 thing will either be an unmitigated disaster, and the entire staff will be on the chopping blocks, or it just may work.
An also interesting defense oriented article over on rivals shows how both Hermann and English dropped way of in year two. So if GERG's D actually improves YTY (especially with the departures of Graham, Brown and Warren), then we'll know he's OK.
For the record, I don't think PSU, MSU or Purdue will be unbeatable. And we have chips on our shoulders for at least the last two. So DiNardo can say what he wants, and so can you - it is what it is - we'll see after the season is over.
As a Michigan alum and fan, I'm very much rooting for him to succeed, but what he did to my other school still pisses me off to no end.
But hey, Marrone posted as many wins last season as Greggers ever did, the defense was better as noted, the offense put up better numbers than any of Greggers' seasons, and we pasted Rutgers 31-13 so things are moving in the right direction. We'll be back very soon.
Thanks for the info. I can understand why you are upset. Hopefully the D will be solid this year and continue to improve.
are not the same job. If you really think about it, maybe that's why he's called the Defensive Coordinator, and not the Head Coach. That's just a guess, though.
Look at his record as a defensive coordinator then. He was D coordinator at Syracuse for the 2007 and 2008 seasons which were among the worst in 110 years there.
Pasqualoni had some very good teams, but Syracuse did not play for the NC in 1987.
The national championship game that was played on Jan 1, 1987 for the 1986 season was between Penn State and #1 Miami, with PSU winning.
The NC game for the 1987 season, played on Jan. 1, 1988, pitted #2 Miami against #1 Oklahoma, with Miami winning.
Unfortunately, I share your concerns about Robinson as DC, though. I've never been sold on the wisdom of his hire.
Two words, "Tie Dye".
Remember, this was the time of mythical national championships, and as Georgia Tech secured a share in 1990 (when everyone knew that they weren't the best team in the nation), Syracuse did have a very realistic chance of taking home a MNC share. That's our take through our orange-colored glasses and we're sticking to it.
Go win a super bowl, then come back and talk.
our secondary is going to be the difference between a successful/acceptable season or one filled with pitchforks, torches, and howling...
...that he's confused about Michigan's prospects because Michigan doesn't see a conventional running attack in practice and therefore he can't evaluate whether the defense can stop a conventional running attack until the season starts and he sees it in action.
No surprise he's confused about where Michigan stacks up this year -- pretty much everyone is in the same boat. 90% of the media will predict that Michigan will end up in the Big 10 pack or pack minus -- finishing somewhere between 5 and 9. ~10% will predict we finish at the bottom of the barrel at 10 or 11. <1% will predict we will finish 3 - 4 and 0% will predict we will finish 1 - 2. It's just the way it is and we shouldn't fret about it.
Hey, hey, hey...there's no room for a voice of reason on a sportsblog in the offseason. watch it buddy. anywho, i completely agree with your statement. Not only are the predictions no surprise, I think they're quite accurate. Michigan doesn't look to breakthrough to the top tier of the league yet, but if they can patch together some semblance of a respectable season with 7 wins then they will have done what is so desperately needed and taken a step in the right direction. Fewer than 7 wins and I also see pitchforks and angry mobs outside of Schembechler Hall.
The BTN analysis is terrible. Dinardo and Griffith are useless. With only 11 teams to focus on they should be able to give us an in depth analysis, but they don't.
The Big 3 is pretty obvious.
He thought Denard should have started last year even though he only knew 3 plays.
Dinardo=Fail
Stick to MGoblog, Smart football or Doc Sat for your previews
Well, on its 5-game losing streak to close the season, Michigan never held a foe below 4.2 yards per carry, allowed more than 225 yards on the ground 3 times, more than 165 yards four times.
Last 5 games: 230 rush yards allowed per game, 5.0 per carry. Royster, Clay, Illinois, OSU all ran the ball down our freaking throats all day. We couldnt really stop anything on the ground and thats where it all begins.
How is Dinardo wrong to be worried about this?
I'm personally more concerned about our LBs filling those running holes and sticking people asap, than I am the rebuilt secondary. And, I have a sneaky suspicion that while we are all excited about the man, the myth Cam Gordon, the real emerging saving grace on this D may be Kenny Demens, stuffing the rub at LB
we'll see. cant wait. Go Blue
his rationale for it was weak. It's not about not facing it in practice, it's about talent and depth. It's right to be worried about our entire defense.
...is that those gaudy run stats were put up by spread offenses. Even O-state did their run damage on the zone read. The teams that tried to line up heavy and run the ball on us (MSU, Iowa, and Wisconsin) couldn't do it. (Wisconsin did, but it was largely after the game was decided, and I thought we gave up toward the end of the 3rd Q on.)
I agree with all those who have said that our issues will be stopping the pass, specifically vertical seams and underneath routes. Hell, it should be easy to see: great DL with 2/3 (or 3/4 in the 40 package) starters returning, 5th year seniors at ILB, rookie OLB, rookie/walk-on safeties, solid at corner. Just given that lineup, where does everyone expect our weaknesses would be?
the facts burn my eyes, even through my maize colored shades! what gives? these things are cheap...
I think(hope) that these numbers improve just by having an actual rotation this year, and playing more than 12-13 guys on a regular basis. To me although the defense was rarely all that crisp, it kept us in the game for much of the first half. The debacles most always started later in the game. He is hoping that more of a rotation fixes some of that.
Now, to refute a little of the beginning of your post:
Illinois had the best game of their season against us on the ground, no excuse for that. But after our 4th and goal fail, we played flat. That was a bad game for us all around. And OSU was just the best team in the conference. Their RB's had good days against us, but their leading rusher, TP, wasn't able to create on the ground or through the air against us. They just had too many weapons for us to stop. But that was the case for the rest of the conference as well.
But as for Clay and Royster: Those are 2 backs that ran over the entire Big Ten. Clay averaged 5.3 ypc on the season and 5.8 against us. So he did just a little worse than average against one of the best backs in the conference. As for Royster, he averaged 5.7 ypc on the season and 5.0 ypc against us. That 5.0 is lower than any big ten team other than Iowa and OSU (the two best defenses in the big ten). So against the best RB's in the conference, we were essentially average.
Our problems in those games was that we couldn't score any points. Wisconsin was the only one of those opponents we were able to score 14+ points against, and we didn't exactly run it up against the Badgers.
I'm not saying that our Run D will be world beaters this fall, but I don't think it was that bad last fall, and our DL (including Roh) will be bigger, deeper and more experienced than last fall. It will be top half in the conference.
Good breakdown at the circumstances. We still didnt stop anybody from the running the ball. 92nd in the nation in rushing yards allowed, compared to 67th in passing. Obviously, both numbers suck.
The thing is teams down the stretch just ran, ran, ran, ran, and ran on us. Over 45 attempts per game on average. Three teams over 50 attempts. Overall in those 5 games, our foes ran the ball twice as often as they passed. Keep away from the offense. Maybe we score more with more chances. I dont care if our O ever does ball control in this system, but our D needs to get the ball back more often. While we are right to focus on the breakdowns against the pass that happened a year ago, we shouldnt forget how often that never had a chance to happen because teams were just rolling downhill on us slowly, but surely. We gave up more big plays against the run than I have ever seen.
I guess I dont see why a goofy BTN analyst is being mocked for wondering if we can stop the run. We didnt last year. And, many folks are old school and believe becoming stout against the run first takes care of a lot of other defensive woes. I tend to agree with that.
I do like our chances to improve. All up and down the D, we'll have more options and play more guys. Coaches said they wished they did that last year.
Yeah, our defense wasn't good all around last year, so to pick out one unit as being bad kind of gets the "no duh" treatment. But I think the biggest problem with our run D was that we were always losing and therefore our opponents always ran the ball. Sure, if we were stout against it, we wouldn't have allowed so many yards, but had our offense been able to score more points, our opponents wouldn't have had the luxury of running so much.
2 ways to change that? Score more points and get better at stopping the run. Easier said than done, I guess. But I think we expect improvement on both sides of the ball this fall, so this might happen.
Obviously I'm hoping for that.
And, I also meant to say I agree with your o.p. on the offense just not scoring/doing its job in some of those above games.
when i go back and watch our games from last year and get way more frustrated at the red zone failures, shoddy play on key third downs, overall stub-our-toeness or whatever. Maybe I just know the D sucked and am so conditioned to it, but I keep focusing on what the other side of the ball could have done to mitigate it. That, I do think gets better this season just with a whole additional year in the system.
Michigan should score more this year, perhaps quite a bit more. That should help a young defense along the way
We have 10 lbs on the line.
We have plenty of size, speed, and experience on the line. A straight down the throat rushing attack shouldn't be substantially more effective versus us than anyone else, so long as everyone is playing well.
wasn't size so much as quality depth. Good, balanced teams would pound the ball and wear us down. It's not like we couldn't stuff them because we did get many favorable 3rd down situations against those good teams. But, just when it seemed like we were on the verge of a big 3rd down stop, they passed for a huge (sometimes miracle) first down to move the chains. And those were the times when we all said: "fuck".
DiNardo predicted Denard would be starting by mid-season last year. Fail.
Plus, he's Gerry DiNardo. So, double fail.
...when he said "RR is a running coach, not a passing coach" in the "Denard will start" article. There's a reason that he isn't coaching anymore, just like there is a reason that he never got to coach an elite program.
...coach an elite program? LSU 1995 - 1999 certainly qualifies as an elite program. He was 32-24-1 overall and 18-20-1 in conference with the Tigers. Lack of success =/= lack of experience.
He's still infuriatingly shallow. But then, there aren't a lot of college football analysts who aren't shallow.
Football: Gruden
Basketball: Knight
And there's no one in the same galaxy, either.
Kudos on the Knight recognition. He's just about the only college guy I can even stand listening to.
...with those. Can you name a decent college football TV analyst? I can't.
Chris Spielman.
...with Spielman. All these guys so far have been booth color commentary analysts. Are there any good college football studio analysts?
The NFL Network , the MLB Network and TNT's Inside the NBA seem to have figured out how to do the in studio thing the right way. Perhaps when it comes to college football in studio suckitude, it's just the way ESPN/ABC Sports goes about their business and the BTN with some tweaks could better emulate the NFL Network.
Uh, when Dinardo took over at LSU, they hadn't been to a bowl game in several years. They weren't an elite program at that time.
2007 LSU =/= 1995 LSU
...historically elite program. The fact that they were down doesn't change that.
Gerry DiNardo is your classic talking head. Personally, I think his blathering is comical and full of entertainment. I may think he's an idiot, but I'll be damned if that guy isn't unintentionally hilarious.
DiNardo thinks that OSU, Iowa, and Wisconsin will be the 3 best teams in the Big 10 this season? Wow, insightful. He was chirping about Denard starting on the post-spring game wrap-up show a few weeks ago. I suppose he has a 50% chance of being correct {smirk}.
Is anyone else not convinced by Iowa? They were so lucky last year almost every week. They lose some of their best players to the NFL and Stanzi is a Pansy. (Didn't their RB get hurt too?) Their defense will again be good and Clayborn is a monster but I see their luck running out and them being more middle of the pack.
shines through brightly when I think about Iowa's fortune last year. I remember them being down to Indiana, giving up what could have been the clinching TD, having the officials overturn it, and then going on to win.
I think their season was blessed with many fortuitous moments, and I would be surprised to see such a steady stream of fortune for a second consecutive year.
Iowa is 20-6 the last 2 years. There is more than luck going on. Besides, good teams usually make fourth quarter plays to win. You cant qualify that as the sole provence of luck.
My statement from a week or so ago remains: I am willing to take any anti Iowa action. Just name it.
i think it's fair to have doubts about any team that can only put up 17 points against Northern Iowa.
A little more than luck? Yes - but they were still lucky as hell.
Yep. They lucked their way into an 11-2 record and a beatdown of Georgia Tech in the Orange Bowl.
and a 3 point win over arkansas state.
the fact is that Iowa could lose to anyone on their schedule. they continue to be Diet Lloyd.
Until Iowa actually starts losing to anyone on their schedule, I would say that Loyd is Diet Kirk.
Iowa was a damn good team last year, I don't know why people refuse to see it