Al Borges Fired Comment Count

Ace



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Per the Athletic Department, offensive coordinator Al Borges has been fired. Here's the entirety of the press release:

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- University of Michigan head football coach Brady Hoke announced today (Wednesday, Jan. 8) that offensive coordinator Al Borges will not be retained for the 2014 season.

"Decisions like these are never easy," said Hoke. "I have a great amount of respect for Al as a football coach and, more importantly, as a person.  I appreciate everything he has done for Michigan Football for the past three seasons." 

Prior to joining U-M in 2011, Borges was a member of Hoke's staff at San Diego State in 2009 and '10.

The Wolverines will begin spring practice on Feb. 25 and finish with the annual Spring Game on Saturday, April 5, at Michigan Stadium.

The fallout will be covered in exhaustive detail in the coming days. One interesting candidate—coincidentally, from Borges' former school—is rumored to have been contacted by Brady Hoke regarding the now-open position, according to coachingsearch.com:

A source tells me that Brady Hoke has reached out to UCLA offensive coordinator / quarterbacks coach Noel Mazzone and at least one NFL assistant, though Mazzone isn't likely to leave for Ann Arbor. 

Mazzone runs an "uptempo no-huddle spread," according to Chris Brown (Smart Football); even if he's not interested in the job, moving in that direction would certainly please the people who write for this here blog. As for recruiting, it's unlikely the class of 2014 will be affected much, if at all, and there's plenty of time to make up any lost ground in the 2015 class. Again, we'll have much, much more on this in the coming days.

Comments

NoMoPincherBug

January 8th, 2014 at 9:13 PM ^

Mixed emotions; i like Al as a person he seems like a good man. Perhaps he will land a job as HC at a smaller school. That said, a change needed to be made. Brady realizes that his big butt is next to be canned if changes are not made.

Nick Sheridan is available.

Jk

FormerlyBigBlue71

January 8th, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^

Hiring a spread offensive coordinator after you just spent the last 3 years building the roster to run MANBALL would be a terrible idea.  I pray to God they dont do that.  We have absolutely no speed at the offensive skill positions whatsoever.

FormerlyBigBlue71

January 8th, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^

Hiring a spread offensive coordinator after you just spent the last 3 years building the roster to run MANBALL would be a terrible idea.  I pray to God they dont do that.  We have absolutely no speed at the offensive skill positions whatsoever.

Blue in Yarmouth

January 9th, 2014 at 8:05 AM ^

As a guy who kind of thought this was the best way to go, it still sucks that someone had to lose their job to get this program back on track. Al seemed like a very good man and I don't take joy in anyone losing their job, even when they make a ton of money.

Having said that, what I'm more intereste in is which assistants are hitting the road with him, because as the season went on, it became evident to me that was where the real problems were. I finally was able to see the things Space Coyote and others were talking about in terms of Al just not having a lot to work with because he was handcuffed by the o-line issues. He did try to be creative and find ways to move the ball and you could really see that in the OSU and KSU games. 

Where I differed from them was that I still believed ultimately development is still the OC's repsonsibilitiy and if his assistants weren't doing a good enough job he should have found new ones earlier (there was evidence that the o-line coaching and RB coaching was subpar last year). 

Anyway, at the end of the day I just hate to see a good guy lose his job, but believe that UM will be better for this decision (providing they sent the assistants packing as well).

Jonesy

January 9th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^

Will miss Al Borges the person, will not miss Al Borges the antiquated, bubble screen hating, constraint abhorring, 30 second huddling, no audibling offensive coordinator.