Houses of Usher

Ah, the blessed 'fail' picture.  That pretty much does the opposite of making my day.

gonads and strife.

I may be wrong about this, but, I thought there was a post on here or on another message board that said Rich Rod dictated the change to the 3-3-5 "stack" last Monday and that Schafer was surprised with the call. For the life of me, I can't remember where I read it.

either of the SS options are better than the other. if he did just 'try something new,' that just means he MAY not be confident in his own scheme/abilities. in other words, if he has not the confidence of his convictions, then what exactly does he have?

 i mean, did the D really do so terribly in the last few games so as to justify a new package mid stream? if you don't believe in what you are doing, then WTF are you doing it for in the 1st place?

are putting out the shizzle on the 3-3-5 stuff, according to them Shafer is sailing in choppy waters, FWIW!!

At least we get kittens (well a cat in this case) back on the blog!!

if the DBs are going to line up 7-10 yards off the LOS on a 3rd-and-7. This is the most mystifying thing to me. This happened plenty under Herrmann and English, so I guess it's a deeply ingrained Michigan tradition.

Looks like RR's hiring of Shafer was about as well thought out as McCain's selection of Palin. 

WTF was warren plaing safety for?

I don't think Shafer is really in charge anymore.  This had to be a Rich Rod call to switch up defense; why would Shafer install a D that he has never used before? Regardless, the experiment was a disaster. 

The defensive staff assembled isn't a good fit.  Shafer runs the OKIE, Rich Rod's defense guys came from the 3-3-5 stack background, and Hopson ran a 4-2-5 defense at Southern Mississippi.  Simply cobbling together different coaches to run a D doesn't work; we'll need more time for all the D coaches to buy into one system.  

I still believe Shafer will be done after the season; if people thought
this past offseason was long and annoying, then they haven't seen
anything yet as this upcoming offseason will be a never-ending
nightmare.

believe we burned Feagin's redshirt on special teams either. That truly perplexes me. Removing a DL so that another DB can miss a tackle downfield makes no sense. Especially if we are unable to get pressure on the QB> We didn't even sniff Dennis Dixon, I mean Siller. I don't want to hear that it was because they spread us out, or he took a quick drop and released - Neither of those are true. Our pass rush got handled, and as usual, we could not defend the pass in the air, or tackle in space. Absolutely any QB can complete some of the throws we were giving them. You have to go man, and make him put some passes on the money.

Pass interference on Warren in the endzone when we had 3 guys surrounding their WR is inexplicable. We are the only defensive backfield in the country that not only does not intercept that ball, but committs a 15 yard penalty. They are playing with zero confidence, and as the game went on it looked as if we didnt care. We thought we were "soft" earlier, my god this was bad. Ezeh refuses to shed blocks and fill the hole on counters, and iso plays that that leaves it to our safeties to make plays. Mouton continues to impress, kinda. Cissoko will be a good one, he was being picked on a lot, but I am not sure he is cut out to play a zone and give a 15 yard cushion on every play. Not sure if that is scheme or confidence.

Apparently Brandstatter said during the broadcast that Rod ordered that the D move to a 3-3-5.  Bummer if this is true.

Its asanine to play 3 down linemen as a base set when Michigan has 3 of the best DTs in the conference, and bad LBs and Safeties.

Go Blue Michigan Wolverine, that oddly named site of mysterious ultra-knowledgable people WHO KNOW things! (but desperately need an editor!), reports that RR mandated the 3-3-5 stack shift and that Shafer's been a dead man walking for 2 weeks.

Ugh. I'm with Brian and greatly hope this is not true. With the exception of this last game the defense may not have been good but there was hardly anything to fire a dude for after you picked him extra special-like. There could always be 'Miles slept with Carr's wife' chemistry problems but whatever. I occassional bitch about Shafer but really don't want him fired. Stability is huge. RR already second guessing Shafer and firing him would concern me greatly.

Shafer tinkering is fine. It's not like what they've been doing has been working so super great. Beating your head agaisnt a brick wall to demonstrate belief in your system is not necessarily a virtue.

I say this with of course the full benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but it's looking truly stupid now that we hired all the defensive position coaches before we hired the coordinator.

 RR's got guys who are loyal to him, not to Shafer.  If RR is truly going to be hands-off with the defense, he needs to give his DC the ability to get his own people.  Regardless of scheme, you all have to be on the same page or disaster will ensue, as we've seen this year. 

The thing I find disturbing, outside of a potential power struggle between RR and Shafer, is the lack of progress from many of the players.  Mouton and Martin are the only ones that seem to be better now than they were in Sept.  I don't really care who the coordinator is as long as they teach our players how to tackle.

the D wasn't a complete catastrophy, so how can going to a totally new set be 'tinkering?' to me, this smells like change for change's sake and abandoning midstream the thing you think works best.

but, this is all moot, b/c it sounds like SS had no choice.

available?

is worse than I ever imagined possible. As Brian alluded in his post, Rodriguez overuling his DC to put in a new game plan mid-season could spell disaster not only for this year but speaks poorly about his judgement for the long term.

Does anyone think we would have won if we stayed with a 4-3?

I kind of do.

Getting smoked by a mobile qb has been a Michigan tradition for as long as I can remember.

No one should be shocked by this.

This preformance will probably vault Siller to stardom just like the 2004 game did for Troy Smith.

it seems like he wanted the 3-3-5 against Purdue and wanted to try something new. I guess they were concerned with having 4 DL's chase Purdue's guys around all game and wanted to rotate them.

http://videos.mlive.com/annarbornews/2008/11/video_ive_been_here_10_mont...

Threets accuracy was spotty, but when was it not? The guy just doesn't throw the ball well.

"Did Michigan really burn Justin Feagin's redshirt on some kick coverage? WTF?"

My thoughts exactly.