Dear Diary Lights the Tires and Kicks the Fires
Devin, I'm sorry about Funchess. Everybody liked him. I'm sorry.
Red or Blue. A week after a program-shattering loss turns fandom into an election year, with wins taking the place of electoral votes. This year's ballot has close races in quarterback, head coach, and AD, as well as referendums on blocking style, tempo, and punt formations.
On Saturday night those races appeared decided when everybody departed with eight minutes left of a two-score game against an opponent Michigan was outgaining. They'd seen the jewel of Rich Rodriguez's recruiting wasting an NCAA gift of a senior year in a new offense that still treated him like Tom Brady, so shell-shocked by years of abuse that any peripheral motion triggered desperation.
Then Shane, and the interception came, followed by the rain, and you could count the Hoke supporters by picking out the few hundred dots of blue or yellow between the blob of red. Everybody else looked at the scoreboard, looked at the radar, and recalled Michigan huddling—huddling!!!!—and calculated the obvious move. The 98,000 empty seats were a consensus: Hoke probably has to go, and Dave Brandon absolutely has to go first. The moment was stark, but it couldn't last, because stupid hope and the will to support your team is stronger than your brain's ability to store information it doesn't want.
The fanbase needs to have this conversation, and the diaries did just that. ST3 posted a curtailed Inside the Boxscore wherein his kid's quotes provided the subheads:
"Another huddle? Really?"
* Seriously, my son actually said that. I don't think he reads MGoBlog, and I hadn't said anything about tempo or huddling. So if a 9-year old can watch Utah succeeding with pace, watch Michigan plodding along, and gets exasperated at the huddling, why can't Brady figure this out?
Jhackney got home and thought about spiritual cleansings and what kind of coach doesn't wear a headset:
Dave Brandon is a whiz at marketing and salesmanship and Hoke is a whiz at clapping his hands while keeping his ears the same color tan of his face and running a clean program. There needs to be a coach that is involved in at least one side of the ball. Saban would mutilate your skull with his championship rings if you tried taking his head set away.
Every coach has inherent flaws—Nick Saban is an offensive dinosaur and doesn't care about his players beyond what they can do for him. It's whether the good things overcome those flaws. Hoke makes his program worse by willfully ignoring fundamental developments like the spread offense, tempo, the shield punt, and game theory. He and Mattison make it better by running it clean, recruiting excellent players and people, and building a strong defense. Like with political candidates, everybody's flawed; it's whether their angels or demons will come out ahead.
Best and Worst saw the fruit of Hoke's demonic seeds:
No, what killed my optimism about this team and this staff, about this program as it is currently stumbling through another shitty year, is how absolutely true-to-form it is to the dreams of the men in charge.
[…lights out on the Titanic.gif]
Ron Utah made the obvious comparison: we are experiencing a reverse Rich Rod. I'll add Bill Martin reversed to Dave Brandon and liken it to the classic two-party problem. Martin and Rodriguez alienated the crucial top of the fan pyramid with their Whiggish football ways, an inability to commit to a defensive faith resulting in total bedlam. Brandon went the other way; his Tory pandering alienated the students (SaddestTailgateEver on another little hoarded thing) and entitled alumni (dnak438 on his noodle exchange with Brandon) while Hoke's offense and special teams have repeatedly been derailed by dogma trumping sense.
Given most of the week to calm down, jmdblue wrote that he'd rather give Brady one more term to work things out while the upstarts drown themselves in their own corruptions. Unless someone can convince Colin Powell to run.
Etc. Alum96 reviewed the 2012 recruiting class to see if there was a development issue. If you don't compare against other schools though it means nothing, since most recruits don't play to their star rankings. Average size of each B1G team's offensive line starters. GIF about punting. Regular stats make M look good (see: outgained ND and Utah).
Best of the Board
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| Is it "bloviator" with an 'o' or "bloviater" an 'e'? |
The bloviators and stenographers who call themselves "journalists" have polluted the word to the degree that Brian Cook refers to himself as "…not a journalist; that's the point." I still believe in the classical meaning—credible person who provides information to the public—because there are still dudes like Daniel Okrent and John U. Bacon who define it. Here's Bacon getting a quote about how people at Michigan feel about their AD:
When you paid a few thousand bucks for your four tickets, and the guy sitting next to you got in for a couple of Cokes, do the department's leaders really think you will pony up for the same sky-high prices next year?
As longtime fan Peggy Collins Totin told me, "I feel betrayed for being loyal."
For comparison, here's the 20th item on a list that Gregg Henson is passing off as a petition signed by 450 former players sent to UM regents:
"2)Reminds me of Adolph Hitler"
So yeah, if this actually was a petition it's totally Godwin'd. Item 11 is about the corporations, and 13 is "Al Borges issues." Then he makes weird accusations about not hiring Miles or Harbaugh. Bacon mentioned on WTKA that there is a letter that players are signing—that doesn't mean it's Henson's letter.
Takeaways: From Bacon I gather that a million tiny papercuts are representative of a bloody fan sentiment against Dave Brandon's athletic directorship that is shared by former lettermen, who are also fans and have fan brains like the rest of us and therefore are probably reacting the same way we have been. So: the fans hate Dave Brandon. This isn't really news, and hasn't been news for awhile, and in that long while there's yet to be any evidence Brandon is on his way out.
DAMN YOU BOCCHER?
On our walk from [where we re-parked after] the 2013 Spring Game to our first event with him, I asked Marlin about the 2003 punting fiasco. He threw back his head and was like (paraphrasing) "oh God THAT punt formation. Don't even get me started on that! Everybody on that team HATES that rugby punt!"
Iawolve asked if the Boccher Punt Adventure might be influencing Brady, who wasn't with the 2003 team but certainly knew all the guys. Plausible, but if so it's an incorrect association because in that Iowa game they broke the shield to have those guys go headhunting. Maybe it's where that stubbornness comes from but I feel if that was in Hoke would have mentioned it one of the hundred times he was asked, because his knowledge of Michigan history is one of the things that we like about him.
HANG IN THERE KID
Lloyd's grandson has a tumor. Players visit.
OSU BAND CELEBRATES COOPER ERA
Ohio State band gets bored with beating current Michigans, tries to go back in time to beat 1990s Michigans, does not do so, settles for having Brutus beat old dudes in yellow sweaters. At one point they do the Time Warp with the stadium announcer performing the quotes. Unfortunately (presumably) nobody was in drag, so we still do that better.
Your Moment of Zen:
September 26th, 2014 at 2:04 PM ^
that it's an email from a former captain. Not sure why people are struggling with this.
September 26th, 2014 at 7:59 PM ^
But he says it's an e-mail sent to the Board of Regents.
Who sends an e-mail to the Board comparing the AD to Hitler? What do you think the reaction would be if someone did? What kind of journalist would quote such an e-mail as if it had merit?
September 26th, 2014 at 9:35 PM ^
Henson's no great writer, but I'm pretty sure that's HIS add-on. He's inferring that the list is so long and damning that the email's author might as well have added that Brandon was Hitler.
September 26th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
The e-mail is set off from the rest of the piece by being in bold font; this is part of it. The sentence following the Hitler comment, also part of the bolded text, is the "Just a start boys, you and I have lots more" that is quite obviously part of the e-mail, not part of Henson's text.
If you think he inserted a Hitler reference into the middle of an e-mail he's quoting, formatting it as if it's part of the original, you're harsher on him than I am. That would go beyond incompetent to malicious.
But I don't see any reason to think he did.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:04 PM ^
for the British history references.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:13 PM ^
FYI - my post wasnt really about development per se of lack thereof. It was a reranking of the 2012 class by how they are doing today versus when they came out of HS i.e. Pipkins and Kalis were the top 2 recruits in 2012, but now if we reranked it, Henry and Funchess would be the top 2.
I did look at the class as a whole in terms of who are stars, who are potential difference makers, who are starters for a mid level Big 10 team (what we are right now) and what impact each guy seems to be headed to for 2015.
Since I write too many words the goal of the piece probably got lost. It was more simply to re-rank the 2012 class today and then at the macro level to see if it had the makings to live up to the 7th ranked class in the country.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:23 PM ^
"Hoke makes his program worse by willfully ignoring fundamental developments like the spread offense, tempo, the shield punt, and game theory."
Hoke utilized a motified offense that fit closer to the spread than "manball" while Denard was here. Despite that, just because he believes in a different offense doesn't mean he ignores development, in this case the insinuation that the spread is inherently better than non-spread and non-spread has seen no development.
Likewise, he's utilized tempo in the past, particularly at SDSU. Michigan has lightly dabbled in it in his tenure at Michigan without success. Maybe when Nussmeier says "we'd like to implement tempo, but we're working on other things like execution first" he means it, instead of say, ignoring it. So perhaps they aren't ignoring it, just focusing in other areas (and yes, I understand even their no huddle was awful, becasue they haven't worked on tempo and no-huddle communication much; but I've said a thousand times it takes time to implement despite people not liking that answer).
Hoke doesn't like the shield punt, fine.
Game theory has not been an issue for Hoke in his tenure until his team was bad. He's consistently gone for it when the odds were in his favor. The anger outrage of Michigan not "playing to win" at PSU turns out to be the correct move if you look at the statistics. But sometimes he goes against statistics, possibly because humans aren't statistics, but instead have a ton of other variables that lead to deviation and such things that a simple statistic doesn't tell us about. And while this site hates TEs, and again believes we should be some sort of air raid team, the results have shown that when this team has gone closer to the prefered, "developed" offense, the performances have been no better (KSU, ND).
I just feel like there are actual things to complain about, mostly that the team does not look good from a fundamental technique standpoint in many instances, where we don't have to go to some level of hyperbole to make a case against a coach. But we do, we act like we've only been "manball" and 22 personnel since Hoke's arrival, and we pull out the "caveman" and "dinasaur" memes while denigrating such things as "execution" and calling them BS memes by the staff, all this despite what we've actually seen on the field.
Basically what is happening here is the opposite of the people that said "the spread can't work in the B1G", just we feel better about this because we said the spread could work and now it is having success elsewhere while we're not.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:49 PM ^
The facts that people do not want to accept include that this is still a young team, particularly on offense and even more so on those parts of the offense where youth is usually not a good thing. Our OL is a true freshman LT, with 2 redshirt juniors and 2 redshirt sophomores at the other positions. Our 3 primary backups are a redshirt freshman, a true sophomore and a redshirt sophomore.
Even with all this youth, this year the OL is looking better than last year.
This year, the RBs look like they improved significantly since last year.
This year, the biggest problem has been our fifth year senior QB, and that seems to be a hangover from him being pulverized last year and learning (or perhaps not learning) another new system. Regardless, I do not believe it is fair to blame Hoke for his problems, and it is certainly not fair to blame Nussmeier for his problems.
The defense has improved dramatically and is also quite young.
To jump ship now seems unwise to me, as it is likely to push the program back quite a bit just when it is likely to start showing the kind of improvement we all want to see. The Torch and Pitchfork crowd successfully ran RR out of town just as it looked as if things might be looking up, and now they want to do it again.
Patience.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:51 PM ^
It's not about what offense or personnel or tempo is BEST -- it's about what's best for Michigan given their personnel. Hoke inherited Denard Robinson and a bunch of fleet-footed zone blockers and brought in Al Borges to run them. He has Dennis Norfleet and a new OC telling him to use him, and they keep putting in A.J. Williams instead despite ample evidence the guy just can't cut it. He has Devin Gardner and doesn't plan any quarterback runs.
Also Gardner is a streaky player--you want to get a guy like that some easy things early on so he can get revved up, yet 1st quarter offense still seems to be focused on establishing inside zone from a 2TE Ace set, with Gardner tasked with converting the 3rd downs.
There are always tradeoffs and no team can be built that makes those tradeoffs easy, but under Hoke Michigan has consistently appeared ready to trade the farm for imagined principles that don't match the team's makeup or abilities.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:46 PM ^
Your counter doesn't explain away the claim that this staff willfully ignores the spread, tempo, game theory, etc. It moves the goal posts. You're now making a different argument, not that they are unwilling to realize developments, but they simply don't utilize their personnel because they are stubborn in their desire to do things their way. Different argument I also don't necessarily agree with, but alright.
We don't know our best personnel This site constantly overrates our receivers. We overrated Dileo, we overrate Norfleet. I like both of those guys, I want them to have success, but maybe they simply aren't the solution any more than the TEs. They are guys with nice roles, just like Williams should have a nice role (once Butt comes back). Has Williams been consistently good? Absolutely not. But when have the receivers successfully gotten separation on the outside this year? When has Gardner displayed the ability to get the ball to receivers in rhythm and on time this year. And yeah, "Our best TE is Chesson and Norfleet", that's because we catch them in nickel with our personnel on occasion because it breaks tendency, that wouldn't be the case if it was tendency, when Chesson has to block DEs like Williams has to. Deploy the other guys more and then the weaknesses and missed assignments come out.
I don't know what your arguing as far as bringing in Borges. Hoke didn't want to run a spread, he wanted to implement a different offense. That argument is consistent with "Rich Rod had a bunch of guys designed to run a pro-style offense and brought in Calvin Magee". He didn't want to run a spread like Rich Rod didn't want to run a pro-style, he wasn't going to have a spread OC for a few years and then switch to an OC that ran his preferred offense sometime later. Instead, he brought in his OC and they tried to adapt to utilize Denard, to the point that they were mostly a shotgun, 3-WR team like his predecessor.
And Nussmeier's offense has been extremely simple to the point of giving Gardner easy reads and concepts to be successful without forcing him to shoulder the load of the offense. Those are attempts to get him into the game without putting too much on his plate. The long developing routes, the routes to the outside, those are easy reads designed for Gardner to get into a rhythm. There is nothing we've seen with this offense that indicates a preferable offense would be to air it out more. Mix it up on first down more? Yeah, maybe, I'd like that, throw more first down passes. But what if we get incompletions instead of 2-3 yard gains, this offense struggles picking up 3rd and 4-5, let alone 3rd and 7+. Let's not start with drive killing sacks on first down.
And yeah, we run a lot of 12 personnel, maybe because that's the preference. But 12 personnel isn't out-dated. It's also not even close to being used exclusively. One thing I haven't seen in the first four games is a team that is better running, let alone passing, from 11 personnel as it is 12 personnel. Do we go 4-wide? With our ability to protect the passer on the edge, that's risky. The common phrase is "it makes it easier to identify blitzers", it doesn't, however, put out blockers in a position where they ever have help or can mitigate poor technique, plain and simple.
We all screamed bloody murder about Borges and his play calling, then sang to the heavens about Nuss. Now that Nuss isn't performing, our choice is to blame Hoke for probably dictating the offense. But maybe two different OCs have seen the same sort of things about what is preferable, maybe two guys that have previously been successful is a more realistic conclusion that they aren't ignorant of their team than to assume it's just stubbornness. Scheme doesn't override poor technique, poor technique and execution is driving this teams failures. That's on the coaching staff, I'm not absolving them. Whether we go back to being in 2nd and long because we unleash the dragon, or we get some hit or miss plays with the spread, or we try to be consistent like Nuss is doing, what is obvious is that it's not working. That's because the execution isn't working.
September 26th, 2014 at 4:45 PM ^
Man, you're arguing to argue again. "Execution" means "that guy can't do that thing" and then it goes to the coaches who asked him to do that thing and other things they could ask him to do.
Please tell me I don't have to explain again the difference between the offensive roster Rodriguez inherited and the one Hoke did, or the difference between hiring the guy who invented the spread offense versus a primarily defensive guy who doesn't wear a headset. Let's pretend I don't and move right to: REGARDLESS OF WHY HOKE WANTED A DIFFERENT OFFENSE IT WAS ABSOLUTELY THE WRONG OFFENSE FOR THOSE PLAYERS.
You can find things players did wrong on every play; I've never seen all 11 guys execute perfectly because there's another football team actively trying to prevent it. Receivers aren't going to get separation every play. The coaches have to answer for putting their players in positions that they're not likely to execute in. If a coach is more comfortable with something that his players are less effective at, that is a negative about the coach; it's not necessarily a killer, just something he has to overcome elsewhere or mitigate by getting good help and letting those guys operate.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
"REGARDLESS OF WHY HOKE WANTED A DIFFERENT OFFENSE IT WAS ABSOLUTELY THE WRONG OFFENSE FOR THOSE PLAYERS."
Does this mean no new coach at any program anywhere should try to change the scheme to what they prefer, know better, or would like run? Should all new coaches everywhere immediately change what they want to do to fit the players that were there, even when they're taking over for coaches that got fired generally implying the previous system didn't work that great? Or does that only apply for Michigan?
Would you trash Charlie Strong for trying to clean up the Texas program instead of adjusting his core coaching values to fit the frequent drug using, academic-issue-riddled roster that was there; so you'd hate what he's doing now because it affects current Wins and Losses over trying to build for what he thinks is a better foundation? Because your line of arguing and one frequented on here seems to think those are bad things.
Someone will probably say those aren't related at all, but to me they are. It's just that one case is a coach shiftign a scheme to fit the direction he wants to go, and the other is shifting the roster while doing the same thing.
And fwiw, ""Execution" means "that guy can't do that thing" and then it goes to the coaches who asked him to do that thing and other things they could ask him to do." <- I've seen Space Coyote say this exact same thing a ton of times on here. It's often glossed over by readers, but he definitely has said repeatedly that execution ultimately falls on the coaches to fix.
September 26th, 2014 at 6:25 PM ^
September 26th, 2014 at 5:43 PM ^
This place repeatedly insinuates that anything but a spread is "dinosaur-football" and that Hoke hasn't developed his mind at all from the '90s, and therefore is stupid. You insinuated as much and then moved the goal posts to something else, never to actually rebuttal your first claim that I argued.
Now you're serious arguing that Hoke should have just hired a spread guy because, hey, they have Denard and a few other guys that fit that system. The reason Rich Rod immediately went to fullout spread was because of the talent on the roster. The reason Hoke and co transitioned away over a three year span from spread was because the talent on the roster. Regardless of the talent that was on the roster, are you really saying that Hoke should have hired a spread offense guy because the talent on the roster at the time was more spread oriented? He should have let the previously unsuccessful coach of the program dictate the offense he choses to run? He should have let players he was going to have for a couple more years dictate where he takes the program and what he believes in as a philosophy? And your support is "he doesn't wear a headset so why not?" C'mon.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:48 PM ^
in the Utah game both empty backfield formations were used to basically let Gardner run the ball for 5-8 yards. All spring they installed an offense that requires the QB to follow his reads, and Devin is still struggling at that for some reason. As a game progresses and your players fail to execute, you available tactics start getting reduced. As an example, I thought Al Borges calling the slant pass on fourth down was a perfect call. The slant pass had already gotten an explosive play TD against MSU. He knew MSU would be sending all the LB's and Safeties into the middle of the OL, not only would the slant be open, but no one was back there to tackle.
Unfortunately the TE or WR who needed to block a blitzing corner back for less than a second failed to do that and Denard was tackled. Result, all fans state, "what a horrible play call!!!!"
I think the staff of this blog have a hard time understanding the core of what Space Coyote is saying about teams and execution. I suspect (but can't directly know) that is comes from very few people on this blog ever having spent time in a team sport. The intangibles about team unity, leadership, etc. are meaningful things, just hard to quantify and directly connect to success. But we should understand from the UFRs that any failed execution of a task can ruin a play. If 11 people are all learning something new from a new OC, the change of 1 in 11 failing is higher than it is for 11 people averaging 20 starts with 3-4 years in the same system. That's why the statement of "youth" while simplistic is so very relevant.
I certainly feel the emotions of a fan. I watched the DVR's Utah game on Sunday night, not knowing the final score, and went to bed feeling bad about everything despite just spending the weekend on my sailboat, one of my most favorite things. My sadness is not for myself, as I don't need the win/loss record of Michigan football to be a validation for who I am as a person. My sadness is for the players, especially Devin, who have spent most of the school hours in weight rooms and film rooms instead of just hanging out on campus or playing video games, or creating blogs about their opinions of the universe and their spot in it.
But I'm not really in a position to change this. All I can do is watch and hope. I think the progress is there. I also know from my experience in team sports, my experience in teams in the Navy, and my experience in teams in my profession, that if this progress gets to a certain point, the consistency will appear to suddenly kick in, and we'll all be wondering why they didn't just do that from the beginning of the year. Unless of course we realize that they always were, and it just had to reach the right, let's say tipping point, for the results to show.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:58 PM ^
to have Hoke tell him whether to send Williams or Norfleet out on the field just seems ludicrous on its face. Nussmeier's next job depends a lot on his performance here. His responsibilities were undoubtably discussed beforehand. No way he agreed to be micromanaged by a defensive coach.
September 26th, 2014 at 4:15 PM ^
I don't think it's a philosophical debate between manball and spread. To me, it's about using a scheme that has the greatest potential with the personnel you have. DG is a spread QB, but he's in a pro-style offense and shockingly he's not doing well. I think the offensive woes can be largely attributed to the fact that skill set of our QB doesn't match the style of play the rest of our personnel.
September 26th, 2014 at 4:25 PM ^
I'm guessing it's not Hoke, they ran DG a lot last year. Nuss has also lead spread offenses that utilized QB runs as a core play. So my guess is that there is some other reason that DG is not being used in that manner this year. When he has run this year, it often times has not been pretty. Does he struggle with reads? Is he partially injured? Is he just shell-shocked from last year? I don't know. He looked great in 2012 when he had adequate protection, was used a little bit on designed runs, and utilized his legs well on scrambles. That looked like an NFL QB had he kept to some sort of nominal upward trajectory and improved his ability to make reads.
Or core tenet of the spread offense is ability to make good reads in space. It puts more emphasis on the QB position to make the correct decisions, albeit somewhat simplified decisions in the pass game. Maybe if he had the right staff he would have improved in that regard. Maybe if he wasn't beaten to dust last year he would have improved in that regard. It's hard to say. I tend to believe the OL in 2013 was going to let guys through regardless. But right now, the areas where he's struggling are not mitigated by a spread scheme. I'm not sure that would have ever been a strength of his regardless
September 26th, 2014 at 5:17 PM ^
however, this staff also tried to turn denard into a pro-style QB. most of the losses, imo, under denard with this staff were do to trying to force denard into that style. msu, osu (mostly gardner), iowa and at nd.
he bailed us out against NW and almost did so against iowa when they went "spread" in the 2H of those games. he also arm punted to a nd victory. he did have good passing games against indiana and osu at home. so i will give credit for that.
the obvious problem with this team is the o-line. a good o-line can make mediocre RBs and QBs look good. and this staff took a zone blocking o-line and turned them into a man-blocking unit only to go back to zone again a few years later. that lack of consistency of scheme is costing this team, imo, more than youth.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:49 PM ^
I agree with this, and it backfired on them. I believe they tried to implement things to work in ways they were more comfortable with too early and it probably cost them some games (not necessarily all those games, but very likely some to most). That was a mistake in judging the readiness and ability of their players to perform those jobs, no doubt.
I don't blame them for slowly implementing the stuff, and if you're going to spend time implementing things you should use it (you don't have time to implement stuff you won't use). You also need at least a core set of stuff to implement for it to be successful. But I still think they over did it in the quickness in which they tried to pull it off. Implement enough for a drive or two against Iowa, something like that.
I think consistency in scheme hurt them, particularly moving to some zone schemes to power schemes and then back. But they always continued to run zone schemes under Borges. Not to the amount they are now, but it was always a part of his offense. But whether it was zone or man schemes, the lack of development at either during the duration in which they ran those schemes bothered/bothers me.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:59 PM ^
Does anyone really care what Hoke did at previous stops? It is insane to believe that the kids at SDSU and Ball St could learn his preferred system there, and incorporate tempo, but magically when he gets to Michigan the kids can't learn his preferred system and tempo.
You seem to be once again arguing that the coaches are right, because they are the coaches. You did this last year when Borges was the OC. News flash: Both you and the coaches can be wrong. In this instance, it is pretty clear that there is a systemic issue with the way Michigan is coaching offense. The OCs have changed, but the players are still having the same general issues. That means it most likely has to be an issue with the HC and the assistants he hired.
September 26th, 2014 at 8:12 PM ^
Here here! Time and time again Hoke has demonstrated a tenuous graps on the Nash Equilibrium.
Forget the Harbaughs, John von Neumann for H.C.
September 27th, 2014 at 7:41 AM ^
"Hoke doesn't like the shield punt, fine." I agree with most of what you said, but no, actually. It's not fine. It's costing us yards and points and I haven't read every comment and every discussion about the shield punt, but from what I've seen it seems unequivocally true that the shield punt is the way to go.
I disagree with a lot of what Seth says, and I don't agree with everything Brian says either, but to be fair, I think Brian has only used dinosaur football to refer to game theory bits and things like NFL-style punting. He doesn't like the continual use of Williams at TE, but he never said that's a dinosaur philosophy; he just thinks other options are better given that Williams can't block, regardless of whether or not that's true.
September 27th, 2014 at 10:10 AM ^
By "fine", I took that to mean it was a fair crticism, nothing more.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:48 PM ^
I just feel like there are actual things to complain about, mostly that the team does not look good from a fundamental technique standpoint in many instances
That may be the most damning criticism of all.
What might explain that? Serious question.
September 26th, 2014 at 2:56 PM ^
Youth, program culture (establishing a winning culture where losing doesn't make you numb, let alone acceptable, is difficult, and that drives attention to detail), competition, poor coaching, poor attitude by players, not translating practice to game, new system, too many things on their plate, etc.
So there are lots of things that could explain it, hard to say what it is even if you're at practice, let alone when you aren't at practice. But it's something that needs to be corrected if this team wants to win.
For instance, Michigan punted against Utah from the 50 yard line and Hagerup booted it into the EZ for a touchback. That's poor execution. Why did it happen? The LG released early from his block and allowed the DT to pressure on a safe return, forcing Hagerup to rush his kick. Maybe that's a reaction the the PR TD from before then, but that's poor attention to detail and effort by a LG on a punt return team, and it has nothing to do with formation or scheme.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:14 PM ^
A bunch of programs with decidedly inferior talent are able to overcome several, if not all, of the problems you listed. Why is that? Why do programs that don't recruit nearly as well have so much more success in less time? How did Jim Harbaugh, for example, take a nearly winless Stanford outfit that couldn't recruit shit and have them 12-1 three years later? It's even the little things that piss me off. Why do we suck at special teams, of all things? Our punt and kick coverage has been downright terrible for several years. We're on a downward slide with the same head coach and mostly the same staff despite recruiting well.
My issue, Space Coyote, is that sometimes you talk about problems as if every program in the same situation also suffers from those problems. That's very obviously not the case. So what exactly is going on?
September 26th, 2014 at 3:21 PM ^
Let's look at the problems I listed:
- Youth
- Program culture
- Competition
- Poor Coaching
- Poor attitude by players
- Not translating practice to games
- New system
- Too many things on their plate
Where in God's name is the football team that overcomes most, if not all of those things? There isn't one. I mean, a lot of these issues stem from the coaching staff, like I said in the list above. That's an issue that is pretty damn difficult to overcome. Perhaps there are a lot of issues, it's hard to pin point where they are, if they aren't in fact all those issues. But I sure as hell know that there aren't teams winning with all the issues listed above, and I sure as hell am not absolving the coaching staff when I create a list that reads "Poor coaching" among other things that could be labelled as coaching problems.
Maybe read what I say instead of automatically jumping to some predetermined conclusion about what I said.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:25 PM ^
I should have clarified. I don't mean there are winning programs that actually suffer from all those problems. I really meant "either overcome or resolve" those problems.
I sure as hell am not absolving the coaching staff
See, I'm not sensing that. I've never sensed that from your posts. Ever. The coaches have always seemed like the last element upon which you place blame. "Poor coaching" has consistently seemed like an afterthought. Maybe it's just an artifact of your desire to address all points, which is fine, but my feeling is that you're loathe to criticize coaches. Maybe I'm alone in this regard.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:33 PM ^
But I have always stated that execution issues are coaching issues. It also falls on the players to some degree, but if the coaching staff isn't bringing in guys that can't execute the assignments they are teaching, whether it's because of bad teaching or bad player identification or poor recruiting, ultimately it has always gone back to the coaches. At the end of the day, I don't see these guys coaching day in and day out, just like everyone else here. What I see is the end product, and that end product is littered with execution issues, which falls on the coaches. That I see a lot of execution issues is perceived to be me absolving the coaches, it's not.
I have just always believed that scheme isn't the overriding issue, or even close to it. We blame scheme because blaming scheme is easy, we see it on the field and it doesn't work, should have called something else we've seen work. But I don't buy that scheme is even close to the major issue, because without technique and execution, no scheme works. In my mind, if that's what causes this staff to be let go, that's more damning than some thought that they don't understand X's and O's, which in my mind is a fairly ignorant claim.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:39 PM ^
Even if I don't fully agree. Blaming scheme because you think the scheme sucks is typically inaccurate. But I think the criticism is that scheme is blamed because the same players on the field would be put in better positions to succeed under a different scheme. This of course might also be inaccurate, but it's a bit more sane.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:44 PM ^
I'm glad, despite our initial abrasiveness towards each other (both of us), we were able to come to a mutual conclusion. Nice work.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:55 PM ^
Guys we've all seen well coached teams. We had them here for a long time. They pass the eye test. Even well coaches teams make mistakes. You live with it.
Aside from defense this is not a well coached team. It's not "youth" for 3 years in a row. Special teams has not been a strength under BH and once DR left the offense has been anywhere from average to bad but consistently lives in a world it relies on a hero QB. Hero QB did not show up this year and the offense sucks when facing anyone good.
I give Mattison a pass - he had 2 good defenses to start and his 2011 reclamation project was a near miracle. 2013 the run defense was actually pretty good until it imploded onto itself late and then faced one of the best run offenses in the country in OSU (great RB+great OL). The pass defense sucked in 2013 after being fine in 2011 (Kovacs!) and decent enough in 2012. The 2014 defense has some holes but is reasonable.
There is nothing reasonable about the offense and the special teams. That goes to coaching. It starts at the top. All other analysis is moot. If Whittingham had been coaching UM for 4 years and Hoke was at Utah I'm willing to eat a lemon that game would have looked different. Same if Brian Kelly had been coaching UM for 4 years and Hoke Notre Dame. (yes we beat ND last year bt again it was HERO BALL QB playing 1 of his 3 huge games of 2013) Without Denard at the helm there has been no coherent offense in 3 of the 4 years.
Hoke is a non Big 5 conference HC and/or at best a Big 5 conference defensive coordinator masquerading as one of the country's best programs HC. He is not up to task. Full stop.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:26 PM ^
this one really boggles my mind. there should be so much talent to utilize now on special teams; especially on the defensive side. we have the most depth on D since this staff arrived, yet we are still horrible.
now, our return teams are in shambles too. we have up guys running into deep guys causing fumbles. peppers and norfleet are constantly getting in each other's way on punts, completely eliminating a blocker that could be used on the first guy downfield.
it's a horrible joke really.
September 26th, 2014 at 7:12 PM ^
You are correct, without the coaches teaching proper technique no scheme works. That is about as simply stated as it gets.
September 26th, 2014 at 3:00 PM ^
If Hoke can't right the ship he'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong. (*my Top Gun reference)
September 26th, 2014 at 3:34 PM ^
September 26th, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
Gardner: My options? Sir.
Hoke: Simple. First you've acquired enough [playing time] to show up tomorrow and [start] with your [teammates], or you can quit. There'd be no disgrace. [Last years' O-line] was hell, it would've shook me up.
Gardner: So you think I should quit?
Hoke: I didn't say that. The simple fact is you feel responsible for [all those interceptions] and you have a confidence problem. Now I'm not gonna sit here and blow sunshine up your ass, [son]. A good [quarterback] is compelled to evaluate what's happened, so he can apply what he's learned. Up there, we gotta push it. That's our job. It's your option, [Devin]. All yours.
September 26th, 2014 at 4:30 PM ^
Has Tom Skerritt EVER been in a bad movie?
September 26th, 2014 at 5:29 PM ^
or was it poison ivy 2?
September 26th, 2014 at 3:54 PM ^
I had never heard of Godwin's Law before this article. It might be the most brilliant thing I have ever heard.
Mind. Blown.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:30 PM ^
from "cocktail".
"bury the dead. they stink up the joint."
September 26th, 2014 at 4:24 PM ^
about fans who ponied up for season tickets being upset about others being able to get in for a Coke...this is something that has plagued the Cleveland Browns for a number of years now. The Browns ask for season ticket deposits in the spring, before the draft. (and maybe even free agency). The loyalists who pony up the bread have often lamented the fact that the extreme cost covers 2 preseason "games", and then by the third or fourth home game they are surrounded in the stands by folks who have taken advantage of Stub Hub to get tickets at a significant discount.
I think this is the most damning thing about Brandon...he's supposed to be this business wizard and yet he can't even learn from the blueprint NFL fans have demonstrated time and again. You can't abuse your foundation in the pursuit of every last dime. Brandon has done enough to turn gameday into NFL-lite, I would have hoped he could have at least learned some lessons from NFL teams.
Oh, and wasn't Dominos in a death spiral before Brandon left and only began a resurgence once he was replaced? How did that fact get lost on so many people (full disclosure: including me. I knew Dominos was in a race to the bottom in the pizza wars with Brandon at the helm but I kept squashing that thought in my head because I was happy to have someone in charge who "got it". In one way or another we are all partially to blame. oh well, nothing left to do but root like hell and hope for the best (tm- every Browns fan ever)
September 26th, 2014 at 4:50 PM ^
Dominos was coming out of the death spiral when he left. The core product was so bad they finished (tied for) last in a respectable test, and to his credit Brandon helped react to that by trashing the recipe and rebuilding their pizzas from the ground up, with a marketing campaign that was very post-postmodern: our pizza sucks; we're fixing that. That campaign launched in December 2009; Brandon took the Michigan job a month later.
Also Dominos made a very forward-thinking move in the commodities markets that really drove profitability from 2010-2014. They have a fantastic CFO, and that CFO was there when Brandon was.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:12 PM ^
is some phenomenal knowledge. Thanks for sharing. I dunno, I'm certainly no Rockefeller, but I see it another way. Brandon was also at the helm while the product devolved to the point that it was rated so poorly. Credit him for realizing the need for a change I guess, but giving him credit for starting the comeback from the doldrums that he helped lead the company into seems like my Parents giving me ice cream for putting out the fire on the living room carpet that I started in the first place. But the fact that I dont know when the downturn started, nor do I know the specific dates of Brandon's tenure tells me that I should listen to those who know more than I do about the situation, since they would have already made this same point if there were anything to it.
tldr; I stand corrected
September 26th, 2014 at 5:37 PM ^
i wouldn't blame brandon for the product "devolvement". i worked at dominos in college (the old ann street store). the formula probably didn't change for 30 years. but early on taste likely didn't matter a heckuva lot, since they were one of the few places that delivered.
as time passed more and more places delivered, so "taste" became more important. you can now get any pizza delivered via grubhub and the like.
it still doesn't taste the best, but on a cost/taste ratio, it still does well. like micky Ds does.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:39 PM ^
Then Shane, and the interception came, followed by the rain,
Actually it was raining from the 3rd quarter on and really started pouring right about when he came in. I suspect he did not have a good grip on the ball when he threw the pick.
This column makes it sound like we all bailed on the team and then, coincidentally, it rained. It was more like we were getting absolutely drenched in the stands, and knew that a lightning delay was coming (lightning flashed several times before they finally suspended play), and it looked like there was little hope in the game. It wasn't just one of these things.
September 26th, 2014 at 5:40 PM ^
i left the game once it was suspended. i was near battle creek once it started up again.
September 26th, 2014 at 6:14 PM ^
Spread punt ... sure. Fundamentals like 11 men on the field, no more no less, sure.
Spread v. non-spread? We would all have loved to see RR's offense with Mattison's defense, but cumong man - that was never happening. It might not even have happened in any parallel universe.
We can debate whether the new hotness is always an improvement over the old ways, but saying "Hoke ignores the spread" is just wrong. He used elements at previous stops, mostly notably using spread-to-run sets when he had Hillman in his backfield at SDSU. Whether he's made the best usage out of his current personnel is a fair criticism, but can we at least keep our screeds rooted in reality?
As for game theory ... have we really forgotten the whole column that Brian wrote about how at long last, we had a coach that, when faced with fourth-and-short just out of field goal range, would make the right choice? That guy hasn't gone anywhere. This point really just comes off as wrong-headed, or twisted past sense to fit the narrative.
Finally, as for tempo ... yeah, I'd like to see that too, but if they tried to go faster than a snail right now they'd fail even more than they already are. If they can't block and run and pass with a huddle to make sure everyone's on the same page, how do you expect them to do better trying to do it twice as fast? Nuss damn near came out and said it in his presser this week.
Maybe Hoke does dictate tempo to Nuss, but painting him as a rah-rah, no-headset figurehead on everything except the things we don't like, is something a non-journalist would do.
Maybe he'll be fired, and maybe he'll deserve it, but can we at least stick to the things that he's actually doing wrong, like not winning games and getting his team ready to play?
September 26th, 2014 at 7:28 PM ^
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