Mailbag: Krikor Arman, Alumni Stuff, Ryan As WLB, Also Krikor Arman

Who is the man, Brady Hoke? Krikor Arman, says Brady Hoke

The other side

So last week I bombed Braylon Edwards and various other people who have publicly or privately undermined the program since Carr's departure. I owe the internet in general a POV from the other side. I met a Bo walk-on at the Michigan Beerfest a couple years ago and he's been a consistent email correspondent; he provides this perspective from the recent billions-return alumni thing:

We had the team meeting last night which started out in the field house with Coach Hoke speaking for a few minutes while introducing his staff.  Afterwards we went over to the stadium and had dinner in the club level, which is beautiful.  There were probably 200 guys there, including Coaches Hanlon, Burton, Thornbladh, Moeller, and Carr.  It was a nice gathering and great to see the old fellas.

Regardless of what some outsiders think or what people want to hypothesize about RR, the fact of the matter is it WAS a different environment and it DID alienate ex-players/coaches, to a degree.  Michigan football is different.  It's a family.  It's steeped in traditions that are older than the vast majority of people on the board.  RR did not take care of the program.  He did not endear himself to the guys who won 42 championships in the 132 years of Michigan Football.  One thing I heard over and over last night from ex-players was "thank God we're done with that bullshit" ("the lack of defense" and "the guy just didn't get it"). It may seem petty, but this isn't like taking over an old, family owned business and revamping the computers and offices.  This is Michigan. I can't put it into words, but as much as I supported RR, he did not, in fact, get it. 

I talked with Bruce Madej for a while as well as Paul Schmidt.  I was surprised to learn that RR did not force freshman/sophomores to live in the dorm.  The only players who HAD to live in the dorm were the early enrollees, and they only had to stay there until after spring semester. Think about that. An 18 year old kid is going right from living at his folks place and attending high school to instantly living on his own, with rent and phone bills, gas bills, grocery shopping, etc. ALL THE WHILE trying to maintain his athletics AND play for a demanding coach. There's no way an 18 year should be put in that situation. It's overwhelming.  Schmitty told me that was the first thing he told Hoke when he arrived.  Hoke immediately switched the policy back to freshman and sophomores MUST live in the dorm.

It may seem like a pathetically insignificant aspect of the RR regime, but I think it's yet another example of how many different ways he failed as the head coach at Michigan.

I am NOT here to say Hoke is the answer because he's getting the young kids back in the dorm.  BUT, he has brought back some things that made this the winningest program in college football.  AND, he's galvanizing the fabric of Michigan football that had rusted a little bit over the last 3 years. 

So… there's that. My position here is endlessly conflicted. I wish the "This is Michigan" stuff wasn't so inflexible that it caused what happened over the last three years and etc etc etc but everyone knows that. This guy, like Craig Ross, just wants to see Michigan win. That's what we all want. We just have different opinions on the best way to go about doing that.

Jake Ryan and WLB

Brian -

I know that you weren't as high on Jake Ryan after a more thorough review of the spring game than some people, but he did do okay and he got some good reviews from bowl practices.  My question is this - why isn't he a contender at WLB instead of SLB?  It seems like he's a bigger, stronger, guy that can tackle well but might not be athletic enough in coverage.  Isn't that the type of guy you want at the WLB while the athletic converted safety types play the SLB (Gordon, Hawthorn, Jones, etc.)? 

Adam
AC1997
Chicago, IL

I wasn't necessarily down on Ryan. Like everyone else I was impressed by his playmaking, but he was going up against a redshirt freshman walk-on when he blitzed off the strongside. That's a major factor in a 1-v-1/2-v-2 scrimmage.

As for the question, Ryan is a big dude at 6'3" and nearly 230 pounds as a redshirt freshman. The usual S&C path will see him brushing up against 240 next year. That's a good size to be the guy facing down a tight end on the LOS most downs. It's not so good to be the designated super fast pursuit guy. Also, the knock on Ryan from high school was his agility. His recruiting profile is littered with references to his ability to "attack vertically," worries about his ability to cover guys, and vague mutterings about a move to DE.

While Ryan may have been an OLB candidate in the 3-3-5—where attacking vertically is a large chunk of the job description when you're not being coached by Greg Robinson—he's strictly SAM in a 4-3 under. Fortunately, he looks like an excellent fit there.

If you're looking for WLB reinforcements look to safety, where Marvin Robinson and Josh Furman are OLB-sized guys idling behind starters.

Technical blocking stuff

Brian,

The one thing I noticed from the scrimmage was a lot more "angle blocking" (layman's term, actually the offensive line appeared to be using Wing-T rules) as opposed to zone. The idea is to gain leverage on your opponent by blocking in towards the ball with the tackles/TEs and pull. The biggest thing that makes me say this is first the pulling techniques on the QB sweep looked exactly like a puller in a wing-T system (open deep, run around a down block).  "Angle blocking" is the idea in the flesh.  However, I actually could see this as an advantage for M going forward.  Zone is ubiquitous.  Rule blocking is not.  Could be an advantage.  The blocking did not look that great, yet.

Borges seems to be finding what the personnel does well and focusing on that (hence the grab bag of multiplicity).  Holy hell, we need a good runner, I hope Mike Cox is it.

Tyler Sellhorn

I kind of thought Michigan was good at running zone stuff by last year. The mobility on the interior gave them the ability to get downfield and pick up linebackers on the second level. I worry about their ability to move Big Ten defensive tackles, though. Last year it was up to those DTs to move faster than the OL so they didn't get reached. This year the power schemes will ask playside OL to overpower DL who might be bigger than them. We'll see.

Krikor Arman sets the record straight

Hello,

Thank you for the excellent reference in today's blog, I am honored.  Just wanted to clarify a couple things.  I did not come from the club team.  I went directly to open tryouts and made the team out of the 10 people trying out.  And this "forward #14" scored two goals in his first game, and has four championship rings from Michigan, one a National Championship.

So thank you, because I really appreciate all of my friends reading about how I was "forward #14."

Krikor Arman, M4

No offense was intended to Krikor Arman in this morning's post. Krikor Arman is notable enough to be in Wikipedia, which means he is more important than me, most webcomics and, for a brief time, Old Man Murray. He is also in med school.