Beating The Shotgun Horse Comment Count

Brian

MGoBlog: where no sleeping dog is left to lie, and no dead horse is to remain unbeaten.  -Blue in South Bend

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In re: shotgun + Denard + site obsession with Denard in shotgunFootball Study Hall put up a post with interception rates that highlights one of the many problems Michigan had turning yards into points last year: Denard's interception rate. Amongst a sample of 100 D-I quarterbacks* he finishes 84th. The only BCS quarterbacks to do worse were Garrett Gilbert, Stephen Garcia, Jeremiah Masoli, Steven Threet, BJ Daniels, and Jacory Harris. This is not good company. Harris and Garcia are 1-2 on this list

THE ZESTY INTERCEPTION WATCH.

1. Jacory Harris. The nation's leader in zesty interceptions won't let being benched stop him. If it gets too bad with new boss Al Golden, he'll just go throw 'em in the street if he has to, because swag like Jacory's never sleeps, and when it does it lands wherever it wants.

2. Stephen Garcia. With confidence. With verve. With GARCIA.

…and the omission of BJ Daniels, who either throws an 87 yard touchdown or three interceptions every play, must have been an oversight thanks to South Florida's ability to fade into the background.

Denard's interceptions weren't zesty. They were like—and I say this in all seriousness—watching the cutest puppy in the world fly headlong into another puppy's head, killing both. The defense was like watching the puppy blood run into the gutter. This is the most precise analogy ever made. Also the field goal kicking was like watching the deceased puppies reanimate just so they could poop all over everything. The Rich Rodriguez era: defined.

SO, ANYWAY

Right. So forwards into the endless and admittedly pretty pointless discussion about the best thing to do for the team the next couple years when they have a 5'11" dreadlocked bolt of lightning at quarterback. My position is blindingly clear: Shotgun Today, Shotgun Tomorrow, Shotgun Forever. For the next two years, at least.

Objections raised from the comments largely revolve around the idea that last year's turnover and redzone performances were flukes that should be expected to magically repair themselves. An example:

I think its a pretty big reach to say there's any "evidence" to suggest that the offense will revert to the mean.  College Football  red zone offenses are not random occurrences within a normal population.  Oregon and Auburn weren't so good in the red zone because they got randomly lucky.  Michigan wasn't terrible because we weren't randomly unlucky.

The offense was terrible in the red zone because:

1) Nobody could make a FG longer than 25 yards (this isn't something that will revert until someone can kick the ball)

2) Our offense simply didn't work as well in the red zone (I don't know why---playcalling, B1G defenses, nerves, but it isn't something that happened because of random chance)

There is no guaranteed regression to the mean in nonrandom circumstances, like football.  Michigan was terrible in the red zone because being terrible in the red zone WAS the mean for Michigan in 2010.

You hope #1 will be solved by the addition of Matt Wile. We are all gunshy about this but highly rated kickers—which Wile was by the end of the year—usually do well. That actually turns out to be irrelevant, about which see this long footnote**. The redzone issues come down to two things: turnovers, about which see above, and giving the ball back on downs.

Michigan did the latter four times last year, all of them late in already-decided games (one against Wisconsin and OSU, two against Mississippi State). They missed one field goal. They failed to score eleven more times because they straight-up turned the ball over.

As far as #2, the whole reason people do these study things and use stats is to have something to argue against people who use the word "simply" as their conversational gambit. Oh, it's simple to you, is it? Well, fine then. I guess you and your galaxy-spanning intellect win. It is possible that NFL football is so different than college football that studies do not cross over, but it is extremely unlikely, and that FO study showed really good redzone teams one year are almost precisely average the next.

In Michigan's case they should expect more than randomness to work in their favor. The common thread of Rich Rodriguez's tenure at Michigan was young or terrible quarterbacks. Three years of Threet/Sheridan, Forcier/Denard, Denard/Forcier should see you give away turnovers like they're candy. There are no upperclassmen on that list except the walk-on; there's only a few confused snaps from a hopelessly raw Denard preventing that list from having any sophomore starters.

The spread 'n' shred in general and Rodriguez in particular haven't shown they are turnover-prone. On the contrary, being able to run 70% of the time and have a good offense should cut down on turnovers since passes are inherently more risky.

From Maize 'n' Brew:

And that is what this comes down to. Common sense. Your eyes. If your eyes are telling you that you're watching a turd of a football game, well... you are. If your reaction to the Wisconsin Michigan game was that Michigan just got completely curb stomped by Wisconsin in the first half, mounted a minor comeback when Wisconsin took a third quarter nap, and then still got blown out by 20 points at home, well... that's what you saw. Perhaps the stats tell a different story. Maybe. But while the stats say that Michigan ran up an astounding 442 yards against Wisconsin they don't relate what actually happened at the game.

I try to back up my opinions with statistical evidence because the use of tools is the thing that separates bloggers and chimpanzees from other primates like newspaper columnists and sports talk radio hosts not on WTKA.

If you want to go on your gut, I can do that too: Michigan has a 5'11"-ish quarterback who ran for 1700 yards last year and an offensive line that's now 100% recruited to zone block all day. They don't really have a promising running back. I feel, like, not good, man, about Michigan in the I-form.

Or I could say that "common sense" suggests that Wisconsin was not trying to let Michigan score in the third quarter and that the overall results should be taken in appropriate context, but then we're back to feelings, man.

What Is The Core?

I just don't see how the spread offense is responsible for turnovers except insofar as it puts an erratic Denard Robinson on the field instead of a finely-polished artillery piece, and who wants to fix Michigan's issues by replacing Denard Robinson?

/crickets

/Munn Ice Arena

/people stapling each other's hands to their sides just in case they have a hand-raising seizure

Not having Denard drop back from center does not make his throwing mechanics worse. If anything it allows him to ignore a complicated facet of football—NFL coaches are constantly bitching that college quarterbacks no longer know how to execute a five-step drop—and focus on throwing it to the guy who's really open because you're not running the ball.

Meanwhile, the run game was kind of good last year despite having the worst set of tailbacks at Michigan since at least that year BJ Askew got half the carries. This is directly attributable to putting Robinson in a position to run, something an I-form doesn't.

There are quarterback draws and waggle plays, yes. Opponents will be all over them because those are constraint plays—not your base. Smart Football on how you build an offense:

The idea is that you have certain plays that always work on the whiteboard against the defense you hope to see — the pass play that always works against Cover 3, the run play that works against the 4-3 under without the linebackers cheating inside. Yes, it is what works on paper. But we don’t live in a perfect world: the “constraint” plays are designed to make sure you live in one that is as close as possible to the world you want, the world on the whiteboard.

Constraint plays thus work on defenders who cheat. For example, the safety might get tired of watching you break big runs up the middle, so he begins to cheat up. Now you call play-action and make him pay for his impatience. The outside linebackers cheat in for the same reason; to stop the run. Now you throw the bubble screen, run the bootleg passes to the flat, and make them pay for their impatience. Now the defensive ends begin rushing hard upfield; you trap, draw, and screen them to make them pay for getting out of position. If that defensive end played honest your tackle could block him; if he flies upfield he cannot. Constraint plays make them get back to basics. Once they get back to playing honest football, you go back to the whiteboard and beat them with your bread and butter.

The argument here is about the core of the offense: in the I-form that's Denard dropping back to pass or handing off to someone else. In the shotgun it's the zone running game. As the core of the offense you can't remove Denard from the game. You cheat and then there's a guy wide open. While Denard's legs are a terrifying constraint, Michigan has to force the opponent to cheat to use them.

I'll believe these tailbacks and this offensive line and this almost total lack of fullback and tight end can do that running power up the middle when I see it. If they can't you've just taken the most dangerous weapon in college football*** out of the game. You shouldn't do that. It's common sense.

------------------------------------------------------------------

*[I'm not sure why there were 100 quarterbacks instead of approximately 120 + a few injury replacements, so keep that in mind.]

**[Long aside on Michigan's historically awful field goal kicking goes here. Nonnair posted a diary asserting that the lack of field goal kicking was not a factor in red zone efficiency because Michigan actually scored more points than they could have if they kicked it:

The other seven fourth-down attempts I am dividing into two groups: (1) FG is the likeliest option and only a riverboat gambling coach or a team without a FG kicker would go for it, and (2) FG is only a possible option, either because it'd be very long, or because there was only 1 yard to gain for a first down so going for it is a viable option.

Bottom line?  If we had tried FGs on all seven of those drives last year, even if we had Adam Vinatieri circa 2002 and he went 7-for-7, the most UM could have scored was 21 points.

As it was? UM got 27 points out of those drives. Six more points.

This is only one half of the equation, though, because Michigan did attempt a bunch of field goals and they went like this:

awful-kickin

All that red in the Michigan zone is value earned by the offense that was lost by the kicker on obvious kicking opportunities. So on the field goals Michigan tried last year, we threw away 16 points, versus the six this study shows M getting back by being forced to do a statistically correct thing that teams don't usually do because their fans don't trust statistics.

Misopogon threw this behind a jump on Sunday.

Nonnair turns out to be right: the field goal kicking did not have much of an impact on the red zone efficiency because Michigan's misses are all clustered just outside. However, the statistically correct behavior Michigan engaged in also had no effect. Six of the seven attempts were outside the red zone and the one that was inside it, a fourth and one from the Penn State 13, was converted and led to a field goal anyway.

So we're down to just the massive turnovers. I hope this section has highlighted how goofy red zone efficiency is.]

***[Other than Charles Robinson.]

Comments

El Jeffe

July 7th, 2011 at 3:40 PM ^

No, that would make him fictitious. He just said we should look at the scoreboard.

What Brian is mad about, I think, is the implication that because M sucked against good opponenents last year, that the offense wasn't any good. Indeed, it is laughable that you could observe the following

  • Michigan gained 100 more yards and 7 more points than Wisconsin's season average on defense
  • Wisconsin ran the ball EXACTLY ONCE (I think) in the entire second half against our defense and gained 558 total yards

and conclude that the problem was Michigan's offense.

Mitch Cumstein

July 7th, 2011 at 3:43 PM ^

The problem was with the defense, and I don't think anyone would argue that.  But I think we need to be careful that our defensive struggles last year don't mask problems with our offense.  Just b/c our defense was the major cause to us losing, doesn't mean the offense was perfect.

redhousewolverine

July 7th, 2011 at 5:04 PM ^

No one said the offense was perfect. Brian said the offense was good. Good can be improved upon. Brian seems to believe if we stay in a more shotgun-oriented offense then we will have a more likely chance for the offense to find success. We had a good offense last year, but the problem was that it couldn't carry the weight of our defense. We scored 32.8 points a game, but gave us 35.2 points a game not a recipe for success. Just because Wisco was running the bowl right down our throats doesn't change the fact that our offense exceeded the average amount of points Wisco gave up by a touchdown.

jmblue

July 7th, 2011 at 5:32 PM ^

But it also doesn't change the fact that our offense scored zero points in the first half, when the game was effectively decided.  I'm guessing that UW did not give up an average of 0 points in the first halves of its games.  Our offense, at best, put two good quarters together when it needed four.

Mitch Cumstein

July 7th, 2011 at 5:38 PM ^

My post was a reply to a specific post.  I'm not accusing Brian of saying the offense was perfect.  One question I do have though, is why is everyone so fixated on the Wisco game?  In what world does one game prove that an offense was good or bad? Yet everyone on both sides of the coin seem to use Wisco as proof of their argument. I mean, thats great we exceeded the average by 7 points in that game, but I'm not sure there is really much to conclude from that about our offense as a whole on the season.

chitownblue2

July 7th, 2011 at 4:09 PM ^

well, as others contend above, I think that the eye-test shouldn't be completely thrown out. While I'd disagree with anyone who tried to argue that our offense wasn't good, I also think things like FEI do lack the context of actually watching the game.

The fact that we WERE shutout until we were down 28 IS relevent. The fact that Iowa held us scoreless for 25 minutes as they built a 3 score lead IS relevent. The fact that we were held to 3 points as PSU built a 3 score lead over more than a half of football is relevent. The fact that our scoring in all games came during times where the opposition had, at least on offense, visibly let up on the gas pedal suggests that maybe they did on defense as well. I understand that the offense can't control that we let up 10 consecutive TD drives and a FG drive to all teams is not under the offense's control, but the fact that in both cases, not one of those 11 scores was answered is certainly under their control.

That's why context matters - we scored a bunch, but it seemed to come on the first drive of the game, and then not again until we were down 20+, often at least 30 minutes of game time later.

In addition to those examples, against OSU we were held scoreless for 38 minutes at they but up 27 consecutive points - 6 scoring drives without an answer.  Mississippi State, we were held scoreless for 45 minutes as they scored 42 unanswered points. Michigan State we were scoreless for 24 minutes, as we allowed 27 consecutive points.

That's 6 games where we went scoreless for, at least, close to a half of football as the game exploded in our face. I don't care what stat you use - that's not "excellent offense".

Here's the breakdown:

 

Vs MSU: MICH down 14-10. Held scoreless for 25 minutes as MSU scores 24 points.

Vs. Iowa: up 7-0. Held scoreless for 26 minutes as they score 28 straight.

Vs. PSU: down 14-10. Held scoreless for 31 minutes as they score 17 straight

Vs. Wisco: tied 0-0. Held scoress for 35 minutes as they score 28 straight.

Vs OSU: down 10-7. held scoreless for 38 minutes as they score 27 straight.

Vs. MSU: up 14-10. held scoreless for 45 minutes as they score 42 straight.

What this says to me: We scored early, the defense adjusted, and stoned us. Sometimes we scored after they fell asleep from being up by 4 scores.

JBE

July 7th, 2011 at 4:14 PM ^

"What this says to me: We scored early, the defense adjusted, and stoned us."

It does seem that after the adjustment(s) came from the opposing defense the Michigan offense was a fucked pile for a solid amount of time thereafter. 

colin

July 7th, 2011 at 4:39 PM ^

I just read a sweet post about Paul Johnson's approach to offense that theorized that his offense is most likely at any point in the game to be flailing to be flailing early because it's then that he isn't exactly sure what the defense is doing.  Oregon's offense operated similarly as did, I think, Auburn. I think this is just a feature of a read-run offense.   Quote:

 

Paul Johnson wants to run the triple, whatever you do to take that away, he's going to make you get back to being honest with every other play in his playbook. That's the beauty of his spread option offense. It's not a myriad of plays with no rhyme or reason, there is clear focus and goal in mind...run the triple option. If the defense takes that away, then they are vulnerable elsewhere, attack their weakness. The "if-then" sheet will help the triple option OC, find his answer quickly when his team is having problems. It allows the OC to have an immediate answer that is built into the offense. This is why you see early in games, defenses seem to have an advantage against Johnson, but after a series or 2, or at the very least after halftime, he's found his answer, and begins to make defenses pay.

 

I think the writer (a HS/junior HS coach) underestimates how often it can take in college football to find the right mix of plays.  Variance is probably a bigger factor in college than in high school just because the talent gap is typically smaller.  I think that's what we saw, basically.  The problem was that Michigan's advantage as a ratio of scheme to talent was much more scheme-dependent than, say, Ohio State or Wisconsin.  So while OSU runs every play with across-the-board superior talent taking its toll, Michigan didn't have that luxury.  Denard and the scheme were our primary advantages and that kind of advantage is subject to higher variance.

...I do also have some crazy theories about the MissSt game and I don't lump it in with the others.  That was a legit ass whooping largely because our schematic advantage was not intact.  But I don't expect most to follow me on that one.

http://footballislifeblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/paul-johnsons-if-then-me…

colin

July 7th, 2011 at 5:31 PM ^

granted.  but i don't think Brian or whomever would make the argument that our offense was in the same league as those outfits.  and i'll bet you GaTech experienced a 25 minute lapse.  i do also think the defense was a serious contributor to offensive mistakes.  Denard's tendency to launch passes downfield into opponent arms was probably at least somewhat motivated by the Oh Shit We Have To Score Every Possession factor.

chitownblue2

July 7th, 2011 at 5:42 PM ^

I realize that Michigan isn't Auburn or Oregon offensively. However, FEI, looking sheerly at the number, does. Which leads to my entire point - FEI needs to be used with "our eyeballs". We can look at that above trend and see, that in our 6 losses, we had a markedly more difficult time scoring before we were down by 21 points. Obviously, the defense deserves blame for 1/2 that equation, and I wouldn't argue otherwise.

My point: Elite offenses probably don't routinely (in nearly half their games) go half the game without scoring.

colin

July 7th, 2011 at 6:50 PM ^

It's only one season so I'm not sure how much there is to learn from the scoring distribution.  I certainly don't think the eye test should be thrown out.  Honestly, it very well could have been that much bad luck at work.  How much of that actually was meaningful is tough to know given our situation.  We haven't even started running split-half tests on things like FEI or YPA or whatever in college.  Here's what some of the passing results look like in the pros:

http://outsidethehashes.com/?p=134

I think it's somewhat telling that after 800 attempts, you still regress halfway to the mean.  The talent gap is lower in the NFL which means more variance and more regression than expected in college, but I doubt it changes THAT much from pro to college.   Hopefully, someone with the computer power and the technical skill will run that study with FEI or Mathlete's version of FEI or yards per play, etc.  That was one of the consistent criticisms I provided of his posts fwiw.  No regression element.  I'm sure that got annoying/old, but it's true.  Having the data is good, but knowing how much they self-correlate is fairly critical too.

gbdub

July 7th, 2011 at 7:50 PM ^

"Shutout for 25 minutes" is a terribly biased stat to use - it means a lot if we got the ball six times over that period, not so much if we only got it three times (and one of those times we would have at least gotten a field goal if our kickers weren't terrible).

Due to our defensive woes and opponents consistently stringing together long drives against them, we were usually a lot closer to the second case.

jmblue

July 7th, 2011 at 5:30 PM ^

Interesting stuff.  Maybe in-game adjustments are just not RR/Magee's strong suit.  The long offensive dry spells have plagued his teams over the years.  Recall that in 2008 we had several games where we actually did reasonably well offensively in the first half, then got completely shut down in the second.  That happened again in some 2009 games (PSU, Illinois, Wisconsin).  Even in RR's most famous victory - the Sugar Bowl against Georgia - his WVU team scored 28 points on its first four possessions, then barely held on to win 38-35. 

colin

July 7th, 2011 at 5:37 PM ^

...also possible, but seemingly unlikely.  guys who come up successfully as read offense coordinators probably aren't going to struggle with something integral to read offense success.  Brian explained that '08 was a function of an offense not fully installed.

still doesn't explain the MiSt. game fwiw.  that game was a result of a lack of new wrinkles to combat the fire zone defense that Diaz had shown the entire season, imo.

jmblue

July 7th, 2011 at 6:08 PM ^

Could it be that their earlier success was due in part to the read option being an entirely new wrinkle and defenses not being prepared to face it all?  I've read that OSU spent some time at South Florida to learn from their defensive gameplan, which did quite well in '07. 

I'd add as well that it seemed (particularly in 2009 and 2010) like we didn't make a lot of offensive progress over the course of a season, either.  In both of those latter two seasons, we started out with a bang but our output gradually declined.  Maybe that, too, points to a staff not being very effective at adapting on the fly when its opponents learning from film/early drives and adjusted.

colin

July 7th, 2011 at 6:54 PM ^

Right but every single one of RR's offenses was young.  So you can't necessarily separate out their capacity to learn what he might like to install from his actual adjustments.  I think Brian would pretty strenuously disagree.

Still good post though.

MosherJordan

July 7th, 2011 at 2:57 PM ^

In the NFL, the athelitic ability/skill of teams is a lot more uniform across teams and across positions, so it is more likely that regression to the mean will follow. The salary cap basically assures it.

In college, there is a much higher level of atheletic disparity. The old saying that you coach the 80% of your players not to make a mistake so that the other 20% can win the game. Auburn will be less efficient in the red zone because Cam Newton is gone. If he returned, they'd be an outlier next year.

That said, the statistic you need to produce is the one that shows the turnover margin of second year starting quarterbacks improvement over their first year as starter.

MCalibur

July 7th, 2011 at 2:58 PM ^

It seems that this is a pretty happy medium. Colin Kaepernick and Vai Taua did a lot of damage out of that and it seems to me that it would give Hoke a leg up on the transition to pro-style (if that is indeed what he seeks to do) without doing it in one fell swoop.

Don't know if Borges would be comfortable with it or not, just seems like as viable an alternative as any right now.

Mr Mackey

July 7th, 2011 at 2:59 PM ^

Comparing Munn Ice Arena to silence and crickets made my day. Also, the puppy analogy was terrific.

And I guess there was some argument in there about shotgun or something..?

BornInAA

July 7th, 2011 at 2:59 PM ^

put a shotgun to my head...

I think almost any offense can be effective if:

1) QB can read defenses and audible

2) players have talent

3) players execute

I think Denard had 2) and 3) but struggled with 1).

The struggle with 1) caused many of the turnovers.

An older Denard with the experience to read defenses would probably won a few more games last year.

I am personally much more worried about manball on the defense rather than the offense.

Kilgore Trout

July 7th, 2011 at 2:59 PM ^

Like a few have said above, I don't think anyone is really arguing that UM should go to an I-form, smashmouth offense this year.  In my opinion, that would be as nonsensical as lining Steven Threet up in a read option spread. 

I think UM's offense last year was good, but not #2 in the country and I think that is where people are taking such issue with Brian's stance.  We had a first year starter who made a lot of spectacular plays, but has been turnover prone (as first year starters are bound to be).  To say that UM's offense would likely have been better this year under Rodriguez than it was last year is a pretty reasonable thing to think.  Practically everyone was coming back and you had the potential of Dee Hart as your starting RB (I know about the ACL).  My opinion on last year's offense is that its downfalls (when present) were a first year starter QB who turned it over in tough spots and the lack of ability to make the RB a real threat in any sense.  It's too bad we never got to see Minor and Denard peaking together.  That would have been interesting.

I am liking the direction of Hoke / Borges / Mattison so far, but I see two important issues coming up that will say a lot about them and where the program is going...

1.  How do they run the offense this year?  If they hybrid it to Denard and the experienced WRs I will be happy.  If they insist on something that doesn't best fit the talent, that's a big red flag to me.

2.  How does this scholarship crunch work out?  If they run people off, I will lose a lot of respect for them.

Belisarius

July 7th, 2011 at 4:12 PM ^

Don't forget about the physical toll RR's offense was taking on Denard. I just don't think that was replicable. At a minimum, we require Gardner to be as good, or probably better than Tate was as a backup last year. Likely, it would have been worse. RR was setting Denard up for a candle that burns twice as fast burns twice as bright scenario. 

HollywoodHokeHogan

July 7th, 2011 at 3:04 PM ^

you are engaged, Brian.  But this the last sentence of this bit of evidence is disingenious: "Three years of Threet/Sheridan, Forcier/Denard, Denard/Forcier should see you give away turnovers like they're candy. There are no upperclassmen on that list except the walk-on; there's only a few confused snaps from a hopelessly raw Denard preventing that list from having any sophomore starters."  There could have been a true sophmore starter on that list had RR started Forcier.  He did not do so he could more fully implement his offense.  I think he was correct in doing so, but you ought not to suggest he had no choice.  He could have started the same QB for two years and chose not to.   One might agrue that Tate was pretty zesty turn-over prone even in his second year, but I don't see how that helps Brian's point (which was that lack of experience was causing the large number of TO). 

 

Of course, even sophmore QBs are terribly young, so your conclusion can still be defended, but you're overplaying your hand here.

markusr2007

July 7th, 2011 at 3:16 PM ^

Except for maybe Brady "Manball" Hoke, I don't recall many people looking at SDSU football games last year and saying to themselves: "yep, that's an I-formation power football team, right there!"

This is because that "MANBALL!" SDSU Aztecs football team passed a ton, even among some pass-happy MWC teams with far better quarterbacks:  Lindley had 420 attempts, Boise St. Kellen Moore had just 383 attempts, TCU's Andy Dalton just 315 attempts (while running a lot of zone read spread option junk).

The good thing for Michigan is that Borges pretty much does whatever the hell he wants with the O, which includes some finesse stuff in the passing game that's tough to stop. Michigan's opponents are going to go hoarse yelling "SCREEEEEN!" every 3rd or 5th play anyway. I believe the free-hand given to Borges to line them up and call plays will be a very good thing.   I'm sure Denard will be given plenty of opportunities to run out of the shotgun too.

But the OL and the tailbacks are going to become more important like in the "olden days".

Michigan doesn't have any proven "premier tailbacks", but most BigTen teams  would kill for the talent Michigan supposedly has on deck there, even if the Wolverines have cornered the market on hospital gurneys since 2006:

Michael Shaw (4-star, promising back and pass catcher, but injury prone),

Michael Cox (4-star)

Fitz "I'm on a gurney" Toussaint (high 3-star, probably the most promising and explosive tailback)

Vincent Smith (high 3-star, but coming off knee injury, excellent pass-catcher)

Stephan Hopkins (high 3-star, Michigan's 21st century version of Russell Davis)

Incoming freshmen Justice Hayes (4-star, who is supposed to be really good)

I am very sad to see the spread n' shred go forever at UM. I thought Rodriguez would have Buckeyes and Spartans faking injuries, etc.  And I'd prefer Robinson have his mitts on the ball every play (which he will) but I'm gradually warming up to the idea that Michigan is probably fielding a more experienced team offensively this fall that could surprise some people, even Phil Steele.

TESOE

July 7th, 2011 at 8:48 PM ^

yet...nor has it played a down of CFB.  I think waggle left - waggle right might be the eventual O if things don't go well.  The bet is that Hopkins or Cox or whoever will carry the rock and somebody can run a post, fly or flag route keeping the D honest (and DR can hit them.) 

Anxiety - yes I have it...but I have confidence as well in the talent that we have.  This Moar Shotgun talk is needed - because...god forbid...we crash and burn in one or more of our first four games not doing what Borges wants.  If we do...Borges is going to change things.  No amount of wishing or statistical pedagogy is going to make Borges = RR in terms of putting DR in a position to run up 1700+ yards.  RR has a special offensive mind that is made for QBs like DR. 

There is no honor amongst thieves...I mean offensive coordinators.  Borges will steal what he can from last years playbook...but we won't be a spread team this year irregardless (to steal a (sic) term from RR)...there is no question.

Any 1/2 season this year, however,  is going to be better than the last half of last year if our talent matures as freshman and sophomores are prone to mature.  Not to mention our Sr. class.

I do think we will fare better against MSU and Ohio this year though if only because the D will put us in a more competitive position offensively.  Field position and red zone opportunities will be more meaningful under Borges than under RR.  Not scoring when we touch the ball will hurt less...at least one can hope.

Greg McMurtry

July 7th, 2011 at 3:29 PM ^

is still relevant because in the particular instance that your team is down 2 or 3 points, making it is more important than scoring a TD in another game where you have a 13 point lead with one minute remaining. Sure the stats for these two instances would look as though the TD was worth 4 more points than the FG, but if the FG won you the game and the TD just padded your big lead, the FG was more important.

dahblue

July 7th, 2011 at 3:47 PM ^

So, the guy who was wrong about each and every prediction he made about the new staff (thus far) is making a prediction about how the new staff will run the offense...and then arguing about that prediction? It's like that doomsday preacher talking about his updated "doomsday" date.

J.Swift

July 7th, 2011 at 3:48 PM ^

You have again set out to prove by irrefutable statistical evidence that the Michigan spread offense that cratered last year when it mattered most will prove to be much superior to the Michigan offense that has yet to be unveiled.  You're beginning to sound like a Medieval theologian defending the true doctrine of the trinity.   Perhaps you could elucidate the distinction between homoousion and homoiousion.  The application of this disctinction to the MIchigan offense should be obvious to all:  there is only one true way.

Good luck.

Baldbill

July 7th, 2011 at 4:11 PM ^

Customer in resturant: I would have the horse steak please.

Waiter: How would you like that sir?

Customer: Beaten til tender.

Waiter: Excellent choice sir.

 

 

micheal honcho

July 7th, 2011 at 4:51 PM ^

 If I could script the offensive transition in the coming year here's how it would look.

vs. WMU - Very little zone read, Denard has less than 10 called runs. Lots of I formation, WC style passes.

vs. Notre Dame - Give em the Denard under the lights in double helpings, then once they react, bombs away. We may lose this one because we're not ready to extend the field with the passing game yet, but lets lose it because we were trying to win it big.

vs. EMU - See WMU, we need to develop a running back  for the critical games to come and Denards needs to establish his timing on the short/intermediate passes.

vs. SDSU- Mix it up, give em Denard early to establish a lead then start working those backs you'll be needing as well as the Denard to TE, Denard bubble screen type stuff that will further build his confidence & timing.

vs.Minnesota-See EMU, this is a game that we should be able to protect Denard(i:e save him) for late season rivals. By now I hope we've at least established a #1 & #2 guy out of the backfield and Denard has at least 3-5 short to intermediate pass plays the he can complete with ease.

vs.Northwestern-First away game, lets Denard them early with lots of shotgun, zone read and ISO. Then once a we have a lead, back it down and work those backs(you'll need them later, did I mention that?)

vs. MSU - We go into their house and they are expected to be all that. By this point in the season I hope we've established a dependable inside/outside running game with a feature back and a comfort level with a solid handfull of passes. Lets beat their asses Michigan style. Ram the bitch down their throats till they cheat up 8 then bomb the shit out of them. Denard emerges as viable drop back passer by this point because he's healthy, we've used the weaker teams on the schedule to build on our weaknesses rather than exentuate our strenghs, and those backs?? Now we see why we were developin them and beating EMU by only 10 points rather than run up 60.

At this point in the season the staff should at least know what they've got to work with going forward. They use the off week to evaluate the play calling and build the plan for each of the remaining games.

BTW, This plan is all based on Mattison delivering a credible defense that can keep the weaker opponents of the scoreboard to give the offense time to develop and learn. RRod never had that(maybe 2008 somewhat) and had to pull out all the stops and almost kill the golden goose(Denard) just to squeak by the likes of Umass & Indiana.

People continue to assert that we dont have a running back, I say we really dont know if we do or not. Coach Rod's system never allowed us to find out. You really develop your running game when you have a comfortable lead. The Mike Harts & A-trains do not earn thier stripes in a 67-59 3OT shootout. Those players become the stars by running 25 times against Indiana in a 27-14 Debordian snoozefest. I really think we need a couple of those early on this season to really set up the 2nd half.

funkywolve

July 7th, 2011 at 5:10 PM ^

but I coulda sworn that Brian was one of the people who said that even though Threet/Sheridan weren't great fits for the RR offense that it is/was best for RR to implement his offense 100% so the other players became comfortable and the learning curve was quicker.  Now 3 yrs later with a new coach, it seems Brian has done a 180 - it's better for the new coaching staff to adapt their offense to the players they have.

jmblue

July 7th, 2011 at 5:40 PM ^

And when Lloyd Carr's teams didn't do much for three quarters and then scored a ton in the fourth during desperation time, Brian didn't take that as evidence that Lloyd's base offense was awesome.  I love the blog and all, but Brian's got a blind spot for RR and doesn't hold him to the same standard he holds other Michigan coaches to.

gbdub

July 7th, 2011 at 7:55 PM ^

Wha? Of course Brian never said that about Lloyd. Lloyd's teams were the opposite - they'd score a bunch in the first half, then go into coast mode. The defense would all too frequently have a game deciding stop to make in the 4th quarter. If they didn't, Michigan would lose to Minnesota.

chitownblue2

July 7th, 2011 at 8:02 PM ^

So of course conservative coaches like Ferentz and Paterno and Bielma and Saban never did that to us, right? Only Lloyd coasted and gave up unearned garbidge points, it definitely has never happened the other way to us...

gbdub

July 8th, 2011 at 1:08 PM ^

It wasn't necessarily our defense giving up easy points though - we had the starters in and certainly weren't playing "prevent" type D. It was more Lloyd/DeBord refusing to take any risk at all on offense to build the lead.

That's basically Tresselball (and Lloydball, and Ferentzball, and Paternoball, apparently not as much Bielemaball based on Indiana...). I think teams with a big lead in the 3rd do let off the gas, but it's on offense, not on defense. You don't see real "prevent D" until the latter half of the 4th quarter up by at least 2 scores. The Wisconsin offense in 2010 definitely went into "burn clock, don't screw up" mode in the second half, but it's a lot harder to point to anything on D indicating a significant difference in the way they played.

Remember that we only had ~3.5 drives in the first half - not scoring over that period sucks, but it's not a huge streak of incompetence (especially since they did have some success moving the ball). Likewise getting 4 TDs in the second half is a lot of production, but it's not a wildly unlikely streak.