Michigan Museday Has a Senior QB

Since we can't count half a season from an injured Henne 

10 games played out of 13, 8 of those games were starts.

If you're going to compare Henne with eras where they hardly passed (seriously, Grbac under 200 attempts in 1992 shows how murderous the Wheatley - Powers - Johnson - Davis backfield was), you might as well keep him in the stat pile since he threw 2/3 of the passes that year.

I like to see the coaches calling quick routes and screens in the beginning of the game.  This not only spreads the Defense to the zone read and runs, but allows for Denard to get a feel for the pocket and comfort in reading the defense.  I expect to see around the same amount of attempts with a much higher completion rate and less INTs. 

Just list the last 50 Big Ten champions and the class of their starting QB.  I bet it is dominated by Sr/5th year Sr.

"Todd Collins played almost as much as senior Grbac, who took away half of Michael Taylor's seminal season, who nabbed the bulk of Demetrius Brown's last year."

Sorry to be nitpicky, but that doesn't really seem like the correct use of the word "seminal," which usually means something more like original, capable of development or literally of semen.  Hardly seems like an apt description of a senior season.

I was in fifth grade at the time so I think, but am not going to take the time to check, that Steve Smith had his shoulder dislocated by Lawrence Taylor in the Bluebonnet Bowl his Jr. year and his senior year he was not the same.  Losing AC didn't help either.

"Johnny Wangler looks to have suffered mostly due to losing Anthony Carter his senior season."

Can you remind me what happened here?  I don't remember this.  Carter was a sophomore when Wangler was a senior, so he was certainly around -- unless he was injured.  I was an undergrad (the same year as Carter) and don't remember this. 

What I remember is how Carter suffered in his last 2 seasons when he didn't have Wangler to pass to him.  Steve Smith was a good athlete and a fast runner, but a passer he was not.

I have always thought that experienced quarterbacks make a significant difference. The corollary is that Freshman QB play usually pulls a team down.

There is one factor, however, which makes this year very different from all other senior years in the last 42 years. Namely, the change in OC & gameplan from RR to Hoke/Borges was huge. From Bo through 2007 and the end of Carr's reign, there was not significant change in the offensive game plan. (ok, there was change, but not like the change from Carr to RR, and from RR to Hoke.) You allude to this briefly, noting 

Also working for [Denard] is running the same offense that he did last year.

Borges hammered on this again and again and again last year. Because of what Borges said, and because of this being largely the same offense as last year (except that now Borges can significantly expand the playbook,) and because Denard will have had a full year and a half to learn, and because of Borges' previous track record, I anticipate a much larger improvement from Denard than is typical.

Denard can't do it all. He is, after all, part of a TEAM. However, there are two factors which I believe will go a long way to insuring a very successful season, both for the team, and for Denard:

1. A healthy OL.
2. For Darboh, Chesson, or Gardner or a combination of all three to make a very strong contribution to the WR Corps.

If Denard has protection, and has one or two more capable receivers, 2012 will be a season to remember, a season that will blow the socks off the Big 10 and will lead to a finish in the top 5 for the team and in the top 5 for Denard in the Heisman.

If we had a huge sample size I wouldn't be picky, but we don't.  I know, I know, it's all in good fun, so just consider this a disclaimer of sorts.

Personnel changes, coaching changes, injury, schedule, evolution of the game and Tacopants having a bad season can all contribute to seasonal variations.  I would expect a trend of improvement if we had, say, 300 or so senior QBs to study, but 14 going back to 1970?

Now, I get the point of the first part of the post is that Michigan has had relatively few senior QBs, but you can't have it both ways.  If we're lean on data, we're lean on analysis.  As for Michigan having good seasons with senior QBs, the sample size is small AND missing context.  We had a few bad years but Michigan IS a traditional powerhouse.  I mean, Wolverines call 8-4 a mediocre season; WSU would be ecstatic to do so well.

Can I get a WTF for Harbaugh's 86 season?   10 Td's and 11 interceptions?   I guess Bo wanted to keep his head on straight and not let him pile up stats against the scrubs.   "Just give it to Morris Jim and STFU"

Demetrius Brown, the lefty slinger!!   One of the most depressing football Saturdays of my youth was watching D. Brown suffer through the following stat line in a 11-17 loss to Michigan St:

Att Comp  Int  Comp%  Yds  TD   Lng

26    12       7    46.1      158    1     21

Yes, folks.   7 picks!!   I'm surprised Bo let him drop back to pass at all after the first few.    How did we only lose by 6?  A stout defense, I'm sure.   He did bounce back against Iowa the next week with a solid performance.

I was so excited about Michael Taylor's 1989 senior season and was devastated when he got injured against ND in game 1 (incidentally my first UM game as a skinny freshman).   Elvis performed admirably as a RS frosh, but that team was going to be something special with Taylor at the helm for the full season.

In 1970 with senior Don Moorhead we went 9-1, losing only to OSU in Columbus, and finished #9 and #7 in the AP and UPI polls.

In 1974 with senior Dennis Franklin we went 10-1, losing only to OSU in Columbus, and finished ranked #3 and #5 in the AP and UPI.

Due to the criminally idiotic Rose Bowl-only rule that the criminally idiotic Big Ten had at the time, neither team played in a post-season bowl game.

Nothing against Michael Taylor, but if you asked me who had the highest efficiency rating on the "senior season" chart above, his name wouldn't have crossed my mind.  (I probably would have guessed Collins.) 

Due to injury, Taylor's is a smaller sampling, but still. 

That's not entirely true.

In spite of the great success Wangler had throwing the ball to Carter in 1979, Bo anointed true soph Rich Hewlett the starter to begin the season in 1980. Hewlett was an option QB in the mold of Rick Leach and B.J. Dickey before him, which meant an emphasis on his running the ball. Unfortunately, Hewlett was neither a dynamic runner nor an effective passer, and UM's opening game against lowly Northwestern was a lackluster 17-10 game at home, which was especially alarming considering that NW went on to go 0-11 that season.

Nonetheless, Hewlett started the game against Notre Dame the next week down in South Bend, and again failed to move the option-oriented Michigan offense, and Michigan found itself down 14-0 at the half. In a gutsy coaching move that Bo doesn't get enough credit for, he replaced Hewlett with Wangler to start the second half. Because Wangler had his knee torn up in the Gator Bowl the previous December, running the option was out of the question, so essentially UM scrapped its entire option attack in favor of a simplified pro-set offense with a conventional drop-back QB. Wangler threw 3 TDs in a valiant effort to bring UM from behind, and only a bogus PI call by the refs in the waning seconds and Oliver's miracle field goal prevented the Wolverines from garnering a victory. However, the game made clear that it was time for Michigan to ditch the option in favor of Wangler's throwing ability, especially to Carter. That team ended up giving Bo his first bowl game victory against Washington in the Rose Bowl.

I had a single tear drop run down my face when I read the last sentence. It would be awesome to see this team not only go to Rose Bowl, but win it.

I tackled some of the questions posed in this post in a diary I wrote back in the day when I wrote diaries. Several other diaries I wrote that summer applied the ideas to a reasonable degree of success. Anyway, check it out if interested.

http://mgoblog.com/diaries/qb-metamorphosis

I loved it.

I am sure pretty much everyone on this site watched the BTN filmroom interview with Borges.  In that interview it became quite obvious to me that Denard will make a HUGE leap forward in his QB skills this season.  Why?  Several reasons.

First, and most significantly, Denard is going to be in the same system this year, and Borges is 100% clear on how to run this offense with these players.  I don't think this can be overstated.  Last season was bascially a giant experiment with two major goals -- keep Denard healthy, and learn how best to use Denard.  Borges accomplished both of these, as evidenced by the Nebraska and OSU games.

Secondly, and going back into the filmroom interview, Denard will (I have no doubt) learn the one thing that will absolutely DESTROY opposing defenses.  It is something that Denard didn't do all that effectively last season.  Borges calls it, "getting into the fight."  He went on to explain that a guy like Denard instinctually wants to break containment and use his speed.  As we've seen in losses to MSU, this is EXACTLY what opposing DC's want him to do.  When they blitz, he bolts, right into the waiting trap.  But, as Borges said, if he learns to stay in his profile, move up into the pocket, he will be able to make the decision to throw or run effectively.  It's being drilled into Denard's head, he's watching film over and over, learning how to do it right.  He will get it, and he will take the leap we're all hoping that he does.

"Brady shared much of his last season with Henson."
 

This is a common misbelief.  Although Henson got some playing time in the second quarter of early season games, that experiment was over after the MSU game.  Tom threw 341 passes that year, to I think something like 90 for Henson.