Dear Diary Loves You And Just Wants to See You Get Over Anastos
I have heard your cries; it's time to catch up on the quasi-offseason's user-generated content.
FOOTBALL SECTION
What the… heck is that pic above? Markp (the p is for photoshop) decided to mock up the Big House with a couple of upper decks, and colored in the endzones themselves. I present without comment. For the record, Brian turned me around on the luxury boxes exactly ten years ago this week.
Every snap by QB. DGDestroys broke up every snap of the spring game by quarterback, because just being a good dude wasn’t enough to justify his existence on the planet and he just had to make himself ludicrously useful. I plan to Hennechart this. DGDestroys is your Diary Dude of the Week.
More Don Brown D: Space Coyote took issue with the assertion that Michigan's D was doing some Spartan D-like things, and went about discussing what Brown's Cover 2 concepts look like, i.e. why it's not really a base "Quarters". This is the upshot:
But at the end of the day, [Brown] is a "multiple" coach, which Michigan has almost always been dating back a long time. This, in and of itself, makes it very different than what MSU and OSU are doing.
The BC playbook that James Light made available that we're all pouring through does have a package called "Spartan" that does some of what MSU does (at right).
But that is page 144 of the playbook, i.e. just a thing they have to bring out against certain opponents or as a changeup, not the base thing. Brown's cover 2 is a kind of read, but it's not that kind of read.
This is all getting away from the more important distinction, which is that Michigan will line up their DL so the "Anchor" (strongside end) is outside the tackle. This widening the front to squeeze the LBs inside is an MSU characteristic too, though unrelated to the coverage system. One of the things it does is keeps the SAM clean so you can play a much lighter and quicker player there (e.g. Peppers). The tradeoff is your middle linebacker had better be good at thumpin' and getting off blocks.
Space Coyote is not your dude of the week, but he’s a Guy.
Worth discussion. Sharik followed up a diary about head injuries with various positive ideas for making football safer. Going to Rugby-style tackling rules and possession arrows for fumbles make paper sense, but it seems tougher to implement than making football men wear girdles, i.e. never going to happen. But making the equipment softer for the guy on the receiving end, especially helmets and shoulder pads, seems…plausible?
Changeup routes. Docwhoblocked went to Michigan’s recent coaching clinic and was moved to write up what he heard from, so far, three of the sessions he attended. Frank Beamer talked mostly about special teams. Art Briles was in there too but a lot of it was for coaches' ears and thus not that useful to you as a fan. But I found this bit interesting for the irony:
His offensive strategy: Tell the receivers to run as fast as they can and then tell the quarterback to throw it as far as he can.
Ironic because Smart Football last year wrote about how Briles's offense stretches the field diagonally by having receivers *not* run as fast as they can. The defense still has to cover the lollygaggers, which creates more space for whoever's streaking downfield, and sometimes get lulled to sleep by a trotting receiver who then turns on the jets. I bet Harbaugh starts using some lollygagging in his offense soon.
Doc also wrote up the Harbaugh, Harbaugh, and Harbaugh session.
[Hit the jump for a record hockey diaries]
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BASKETBALL SECTION
Here’s a non-surprising thing about success in the NCAA tournament: recruiting and retention matters. Champswest’s diary ranked the crootin of schools since 2003 against their tourney success. Yes, of course they’re correlated. Of interest, teams that flashed into the Final Four didn’t get as big of a bump as you’d think. Royalty won. I would like to see a better Apple to Apple comparison though. Average class rank doesn’t say much when you’re recruiting like one to five dudes per year, and tourney success should be compiled into a single number.
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HOCKEY SECTION
Mel Mel Mel What if Not Mel? It's Mel. Mel Mel Mel Hire Mel. Well yeah. Also since Red is staying this is now moot. Until next year. Or 2034.
Pulling Mel Pearson out of the upper peninsula of the Upper Peninsula isn't exactly like prying Harbaugh from the NFL, but say it doesn't happen, and Red retires, then what? There are, technically, other human beings capable of coaching hockey, and Canadian went over a few of them in a three-part series. Among the ideas that sound crazy are stealing Penn State's Guy. But really: Mel.
Fraternal intervention. Hey dude. Duderino. Man. Tiger. I know we're not always the best of friends but we're stuck living with each other, and what one of us does reflects on the other.
Yeah, like Ellerbe. I apologized for that.
Well bruh, you see, we've all been a bit worried.
No, not about your pet Graham. He's cute in a "constantly eats his own poop" way. We mean your Anastos habit. This has to stop bruh.
David Doublespaced. What would it be like to meet Craig Ross in, like, 1923, when he was already a polymath of Michigan athletics, but had only been at it for about a decade and a half? That's David "NastyIsland" Nasternak.
David's kind of the silent man of our staff, doing the grunt work to make sure things run smoothly and roundly on time, appearing in your eyes only in those weekly roundtable articles, always first to respond, always double-spacing after periods like a 60-year-old man.
That last characteristic is probably why he's not on the front-page too, because his hockey coverage during the last few weeks of this season was certainly more worthwhile to you than, say, Dear Diary. Re-live Games 34-38 with him here and here and here and here and here.
Patrick Pictorial. Another guy I see every day on our slack chat but you don't get often enough is our newest photographer Patrick Barron. Pat made the trip to Cincy for us and came back with a pictorial tale that's worth a clickthrough even if you just scroll down the photos.
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Things have changed since 2006.This month in MGoBlog '06 History, "buying itself an iPod" was Brian's metaphor for the defense going modern.
Things haven't changed that much since 2006. People still fall for this. And for this.
Etc. Spring game observations thread. Michigan's bubble resume vs the competition. How seeds fare in the tourney. Skip the OP and read AC1997's rundown of pre-2000 M hoops recruits. History of the spring game. Spring game program. We'll get to it after the Spring Game like always. OSU to spend $42 million on a thing they could get for $12.28. Font change? Explain your handle/avatar. Favorite podcasts thread for people interested in having Audible advertised to you a lot. Ain’t going in dere.
YOUR MOMENT OF ZEN:
Bob with Don on Bo via Dr. Sap.
Oh I love those blue endzones!
"You want blue endzones? Make it to the Rose Bowl!"
- Bo Schembechler, 2016. Maybe.
Love 'em!
Lol. That is probably something he would have said. Miss that guy.
the Upperdeck and the Blue endzones...
Agreed! looks awesome and obviously has acoustic benefits as well.
players does a multiple D and a multiple O mean we can haz championships? Or merely that we are more sophisticated? Or grooming guys better for the NFL? Or is putting your loblollies and slubgullions on the lines and teaching them to do one or two things really well like inferior neighboring schools do, all things being highly unequal, still more advisable? Discuss in both theory and practice.
MGlobules said words. Lots of words....I think.
They don't think it be like it is, but it do.
Except the rare invention that totally changes the game, like the shotgun formation, or zone read, or timing routes, or cover 2 defense, a lot of innovation in college football is finding a way to make old things simpler to understand. But coaches are never satisfied (and can't get complacent) so the simple trick turns into a base of a complicated set of instructions and plays, until that too gets simplified, and so on so forth.
If Michigan has a natural niche it's probably that we can collect a more cerebral kind of player than an average school. You still don't want players sitting around doing regression analysis in the middle of a play. But if (not saying they are) M targets more cerebral guys in general, they can maybe get away with being more NFL-like in their ultimate designs.
Last year I think we were too much the opposite extreme. The defense got really simple, which worked great when we had far better natural athletes than the competition (every game except Ohio State pretty much), and blew up in our faces when we didn't (Ohio State). And this year with new starters at the most cerebral positions--free safety and the middle linebacker spots--not to mention an athlete who has to learn like 8 positions in Jabrill Peppers, maybe getting complicated will blow up in our faces.
I bet you then that we're vastly overestimating how multiple Michigan is going to be right now because we got a new DC and are basing everything off of the stuff he did at BC. BC had different problems than Michigan--they were constantly forced to use athletes who were good at one thing and bad at two things their positions demanded. But BC (and before that UMass) is a pretty good school in a pretty intellectual footprint, so Brown got used to having a lot of subbing and throwing lots of different looks and lots of different guys out there. His DUDES and GUYS could run all the things, but a lot of players on the roster had one or two things they were tasked to do in their package, and were kept off the field otherwise. That's complicated for the DC but not for the players necessarily.
Michigan, other than on the DL, will probably want to keep its starting 11 on the field most drives. So that will mean staying in the base defense ("City", ie Cover 1) most of the time, just like last year.
From what rumblings I've heard, though, Harbaugh has a system of feedback and coaches checking each other. If the players are getting overwhelmed I can't imagine the position coaches standing by and just apathetically dodging exploding head debris.* They'll probably start with some base sets and add wrinkles as the season progresses, both to avoid breakdowns and to keep OCs on their toes.
My bigger concern is that Brown has never really coached this much talent before. Everyone's jumping to the conclusion that Brown's BC scheme + better talent = OMGWTFHAHAHA, but sometimes mitigation becomes your life. That's not to say the defense will be anything less than very good, but people are already drawing comparisons to 1997 (really?) and I'm all "now hold on a second". I don't doubt Brown knows defense like I know how my cat sounds when he's hungry, but between the linebackers and a new DC (and scheme) we're putting together a fair number of shiny new parts. It's exciting to think of the upside, but I'm not going to write "2016 G.O.A.T" in stone just yet.
*Do not name your band Exploding Head Debris. It's not the 1990s anymore.
for taking my question seriously. Appreciate the thoughtful response.
But wanted to add that there isn't really a "better" option.
On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being extremely simple and 10 being extremely multiple, let's look at a few schools over the past.
2013 MSU D - 2 (2 basic coverage schemes, though some multiplicity with blitz scheme and adjustments within their coverage).
2015 Alabama - 9 (they have a base they prefer, but they Bama will run just about any coverage there is)
2015 BC - 9 (very multiple in coverage and front)
2011 Michigan - 5 (Mattison was multiple between games, not very multiple in game).
2014 OSU - 3 (taken a note from MSU, they went heavy Cover 4 base, but threw in a few more coverages as change ups)
2003 OSU - 7 (Dantonio, interestingly enough, leaned more towards the multiple side of things when he was a DC)
The same holds true on offense.
The point is, that either system can work. But if you go simple, you better be able to run simple and execute simple at such a high degree that it doesn't matter who you face. If you run multiple, you better be able to run those multiple things at a high enough level as to not breakdown regularly and have busts in the defense. It's all about your ability to coach and prepare to one of these levels.
The same holds true on offense. Rich Rod had very simple blocking schemes and a very simple passing playbook. He relied on execution and tempo to defeat opponents. But when it wasn't executed well, it was awful. We'll skip Borges and go to a better example of the opposite side of the spectrum. Late 2000s Boise State, coached by OC Bryan Harsin, who had a very multiple offensive scheme that used quite a few blocking schemes, personnel groups, etc. Then he moved onto Texas and his offense was a disaster, likely because of the position coaches surrounding him, the offense couldn't do anything well, so just sucked.
thanks much.
they should be offered a bit cheaper, and could capture a lot of the fringe ticket-buyers, IMO. Also, the HarbEffect should see the wait-lists build again, so there's that as well.
brings back the old bowl "horizon". So I like it.
My "user-generated content" wasn't appropriate for this blog.
/ Still better than Drew Sharp
Lollygagging is nothing new. It's worked well for me for years!
From Blazing Saddles: "C’mon boys! The way you’s lollygagging around here with them picks and ’em shovels, you’d think it was a hundred and twenty degrees. Can’t be more ‘n a hundred and fourteen!" :-)
Lollygagging is nothing new. It's worked well for me for years!
love the stadium picture. Love the Ufer video.
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April 11th, 2016 at 10:35 AM ^
The Big House looks great in that picture. I think the blue end zones should be done immediately, but only add additional seating when the biggest stadium record is at risk.
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