Picture Pages: Various Plays Of No Interest
Every time I post a play analysis these days there are a half-dozen people in the comments who mention that if player X did hard thing Y they are not prepared to do then the play would work. This has gotten to the point where I can explicitly prepare for such criticism and find them ignored, as in the most recent one, and find a diary on this site asserting that if player X did hard thing Y something would have worked.
This is extremely frustrating to me, because these are good-faith attempts to paint broader pictures of what I'm seeing down to down, game after game, year after year, as I try to figure out what Michigan football is doing. Various critics, most prominently Space Coyote, make a few small concessions and then go about explaining why play X was a good call and why it would have worked. They implicitly assert things like "Joe Kerridge in a ton of space should deviate from expecting Nebraska to use their slot LB as a force and ably block that guy when that LB believes the inverted veer is coming, has no need to respect the slot receiver because he is covered, and runs directly into Fitzgerald Toussaint."
I disagree with that. I have watched a lot of people play a lot of football and I think that's hard. I'm trying not to have a stance here; I am evaluating whether I think a thing is easy to do or hard and assigning a number to that feel. Coaches tend to think everything is an execution issue. Players should be able to do arbitrarily hard things. Some arrows on a diagram say this should work. Meanwhile I think there's a 10% chance for Kerridge to abort the plan and do anything with hell-for-leather blitzer and judge accordingly. Various guys dying on Borges Hill disagree.
I don't know what might be sufficient other than 175 yards against Nebraska to convince these guys that a poor offensive game plan can even exist, but here are various things that are normally too dull to post in a Picture Pages in which unblocked guys on blitzes obliterate Michigan runners for no or little gain.
These are representative of a larger slice of the game and a general feel that confirmed the Nebraska players' postgame assertions that they were expecting most of what Michigan threw at them. Tomorrow's Picture Pages will cover every play of the game, because this isn't going to work either.
One
Here is an iso. The slot LB is an eighth guy in the box and crashes down unblocked to tackle.
As this goes for three yards it qualifies as one of Michigan's best plays on the day on the ground. Three yards is not good on first and ten, and there was nothing Michigan could do about it.
Two
Here is a zone play. Nebraska loads up and sends a blitz through a gap that Michigan doesn't pick up as Bosch ends up doubling with Lewan.
However, because of the blitz the only thing Bosch making a very good play to recognize and pick up the charging LB does is send Green to one of the two unblocked guys, either the backside guy ripping down the LOS without thought of checking the QB or a linebacker sitting two yards deep without anyone trying to get him, because Nebraska's blitz has prevented anyone from moving to the second level.
Three
Here is a power play. Nebraska loads up with eight in the box and one deep safety and blitzes.
A Nebraska linebacker ends up shooting the gap behind the Bosch pull and meets Green in the backfield.
Michigan loses two yards and has third and eleven.
Four
Oh for pants' sake.
The offensive line is not in fact overwhelmed here; they are not actually involved because Nebraska's blitz is perfect to destroy the inverted veer.
Items Of Interest
All of this is an execution issue, sure. For a given definition of execution, this is an execution issue. Michigan's hyper-raw OL should be able to block this. They should be able to deal with Nebraska switching gaps and blazing LBs to the point of attack. They should be able to block Nebraska's maniacal run-oriented loaded box. They would do this, if only they could execute.
Except the last one. And the first one. And probably the second and third.
Either you believe that players can be put in positions they can succeed or players are expected to succeed in the positions they are put in. I am in the former camp. The last few Borges defenders are in the latter camp. This entire season Space Coyote has been gamely explaining what should have happened on failed play after failed play without any thought to how difficult what should have happened is.
Players do not exist in a vacuum. Joe Kerridge is trying to block a guy in acres of space and that guy has the jump on him because he knows Funchess is covered, and he knows what Michigan's running. I look at that and I think "Jesus, I do not want to be Joe Kerridge there."
I am admittedly working from a hand-waving feel on this, but it's no worse a feel than whatever Space Coyote has gotten from doing whatever he does with whatever team at a totally different level of competition. I say Michigan puts their players in a spot to work miracles or die, and that this is on both the overall structure of the offense and the predictability of playcalls based on formations and down and distance. Space Coyote makes certain concessions to not seem totally insane and then goes back to hammering the fact that it's all execution.
Kerridge was put in a spot to fail, and did. I'm looking at the play and saying I believe there is a small chance that Kerridge can make a tough play in space; the guys in the comments think that because Kerridge could hypothetically have made a play none of this goes back to the folks in charge.
These plays. The above plays are no-chancers for the offense, because Michigan is running into the teeth of a defense stacked to stop the run and blitzing. In UFR lingo they acquired sizeable rock-paper-scissors minuses. In compensation Michigan got two screens which both got large RPS plus numbers, but the number of downs thrown away in this game running at a Nebraska defense that seemed to be in Michigan's head was alarming. When I add it up, I am guessing things will come out highly negative, and then people will cluck at me about that.
I won't deny that things are more likely to get put in the negative bin there when you have fewer options because you're not good, but in my opinion running plays you suck at into stacked boxes is a bad idea. So is the continued deployment of Toussaint as a pass blocker on plays that take forever to develop. That, too, is an execution issue, but it is nuts to expect him to block guys now, and the offense would be better served if he was used in a pattern or replaced by a fullback or something. Instead… he is not.
But yeah yeah, the expectation is for the position.
November 13th, 2013 at 3:48 PM ^
No need for a play action on a BLITZ. Jesus!
Quick throws baby
November 13th, 2013 at 3:54 PM ^
November 13th, 2013 at 4:12 PM ^
they had to know that play was coming. They shot a guy perfectly into the hole and he ran right for it without any hesitation.
So, Borges used to vary the plays from the formations. I believe I remember that correctly. There was a pass and a run from all of them and he does love to vary his formations. It appears we now have run formations, pass formations, we are going this way formations, etc. I guess he lost the forest for the trees in front of his face. Please, Al, can we run multiple and different plays from the same formation this week to at least try and get Northwestern to guess pass or run?
November 13th, 2013 at 4:12 PM ^
This is a lot of words concerning an argument that boils down to should you expect Kerridge to make a damn block. Brian wants Space Coyote to concede the point that Borges consistently called plays that were doomed by Nebraska calling the perfect thing to stop them, and he should. Space Coyote wants Brian to concede that this is the base offense they've been saying they want to install for three years and are finally installing now and that given how much they run the same blocking formation the players really ought to be good at it now, or at least not awful at it.
Ultimately it's six and half a dozen because both points are already conceded. The real argument then is should Borges see that his players suck at this and do something different (Brian), or should he go out and get a different positional coach who should be able to teach this to these players (Space Coyote)? And the answers are YES OBVIOUSLY and YES OBVIOUSLY.
Ask a football player or a coach and he'll probably say it's Kerridge's fault because football players are wired to put the responsibility on themselves. If you ask a football player about the Michigan-Alabama game last year, they'll say they were upset because Michigan's players didn't execute.
November 13th, 2013 at 4:42 PM ^
BOOM! Lock the thread. No really, this is taking forever to read and keep up with.
November 13th, 2013 at 6:18 PM ^
Were it conceded then this entire thread would not exist.
There are limits to scheme changes if you don't want to change the philosophy of the team, and without regard to philosophy the practice reps you've given the team since spring. At some point you run out of things that can reasonably be tried. Brian says that the team is not at that point, SC laboriously demonstrates why that point has been passed. They both can not be right.
Both agree that ideally or even pragmantically the coaches should have been able to teach the young guys how to block. SC says he thinks that the coaching has not been up to his expectation while acknowledging that he has not seen practices and therefore is a bit reluctant to come to diffinitive conclusions. Brian is willing to make that leap.
SC views this from a coaches perspective and attempts to educate us about how coaches think. Brian, for all his hard earned and respectable knowledge, views this as a fan. Neither is a "better" perspective, but they are NOT in agreement. Nor should any of us expect them to be in agreement.
Fans are willing to call for immolation of coaches, staffs, and programs because they are fans. Coaches may be willing to make those same calls, but they see other sides of the argument that fans never see. You can't explain red to a blind man, and if you've never been in the hot seat you are blind in this regard. Coaches, and in a similar but different way, players have experiences that shape their views differently, and that difference can only be fully understood by those who've shared the experience. I am not saying that experience makes them more correct, only that it creates a divide that the rest of us can never fully cross.
Damn people we are watching two knowledgable people share supported opinions with us. We can learn much from them. Down the road, because in the moment there is far to little data to know, one of these opinions might be proved right, or perhaps both may be proved wrong.
Clearly Brian doesn't like having his opinions challenged. Hell who does? Clearly SC is tired of trying to get us to see that there are other ways to look at what is going on. Can't blame him, who want to stand as an almost lone voice in an echo chamber?
We are all very lucky that these two men and others are willing to spend their time sharing their knowledge. This is especially true of SC because, as far as I know, he isn't getting paid for his contributions.
Brian, in general and specifically with regard to SC's post that you reference, SC goes out of his way to offer an opposing view, without challenging your position. He disagrees, but acknowledges your opinion. Recently he defended another's opposing view saying that if he saw the same thing he would agree, but that he saw somthing different. Give the man his due, it is hard to imagine a more gracious offering of an opinion which opposes yours.
November 13th, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^
In part because (paraphrasing) Borges is asking the Offense to do hard things. What would these non-hard things be. Do they even exist? An example of why I question this: Magnus in his UM-Nebaska recap points out that the final straw for him was when Schofield, a senior, couldn't properly execute a slide protection, which is evidently a high school-level protection.
Why is this relevant to me? Look. I'm not saying that Magnus & Space Coyote are right. They claim to be coaches, but nobody knows who you are on the internet, so maybe they aren't. But Brian isn't a coach, either. And looking at the FAQ for his bio, I don't see where he played organized football. So he appears to be self-taught. So yeah, he can do N years of UFRs and say X didn't work. But maybe there are some holes in what he's taught himself. So maybe his analysis - and conclusions - need to be taken with a grain of salt.
November 13th, 2013 at 8:39 PM ^
Charlie Weis NEVER played football and he has a Super Bowl ring. Bottom line - the offensive results suck. Borges' calls have produced the worse rushing statistic in the 134 year history of Michigan football. RR was fired, because he was clueless about a defensive strategy ... WHICH LED TO MORE LOSSES than wins. RESULTS are what matters.
His results suck = Borges sucks as an offensive coordinator. He used the same freaking strategy against Nebraska as he did for Penn State. He has learned NOTHING. Hoke and Mattison are likely the 2 best recruiters Michigan has ever had ... and Borges is making DeBord look like the "Mad Hatter".
Go Blue!
November 14th, 2013 at 10:37 AM ^
One thing that we've been yammering on and on about is to spread the field. Imagine if instead of Kerride lined up in the backfield playside and tasked with making a difficult (I'm siding with Brian here) block, you had Dileo line up on the numbers on the backside of the play. Nebraska has to put a guy out there, and that guy is now effectively blocked.
What Borges would rather do is put hats on those guys, because if you have great blockers then you are both erasing defenders with them AND punishing them AND making them play worse against the pass. There is value in blocking with your body instead of by alignment.
The primary complaint is that Borges won't recognize that he literally has nobody in the backfield who's a plus blocker, and therefore must resign himself to the pussy method. If you have Aaron Shea back there I'd be ALL ABOUT running this play this way (except for putting Funchess in line--everyone agreed that was just silly). Because chances are Shea will make a block that erases one guy and maybe more than that. Our guys aren't Shea. They're likely to biff those blocks and ruin the play. Biffing those blocks is execution, but there's no execution necessary to just spread the field and keep the defenders out of the POA.
November 13th, 2013 at 4:46 PM ^
At the end of the debate it is as simple as this, Kerridge needs to make that damn block. The play call was perfect. Now the question is, did Michigan practice Kerridge making that block vs a force player, and a blitz player? My guess is no, and that falls on poor coaching. Not a single one of Fred Jackson's position players can block. Is this a coincidence, or just plain old bad coaching by Fred Jackson? I say bad coaching by Fred Jackson. A FB needs to be able to make that block.
Btw poster who went into a long tangent about Stanford's simple run scheme a page back, their power run scheme is pretty much identical to Michigans. Backside guard pulls to playside Mike or Sam, H back or F Back kick out the EMOLS if the play isn't some sort of read power. Gap back to the Will, yada, yada, yada.
November 13th, 2013 at 6:31 PM ^
It was perfect? I don't know a lot about football, but I'm pretty sure I know that it could be improved simply by not removing the threat of Funchess being a receiver.
November 13th, 2013 at 4:58 PM ^
November 13th, 2013 at 6:58 PM ^
November 13th, 2013 at 8:51 PM ^
... I like SC. I think he is not a Borges defender, I think he is a scheme defender. Execution is ultimately on the coaches, and he admits that.we are falling short there.
Do I agree with him? Not always. 29 runs and 29 yards, regardless of execution is bad game planing. But I appreciate the insight he brings in.
November 13th, 2013 at 9:50 PM ^
First, Brian does get some inherent props in being the blog owner and providing the forum. Next, nice work everyone, now shake hands, guys, all of you.
November 14th, 2013 at 8:29 AM ^
Mentioning Space Coyote by name was fine. By explicitly demeaning SC's credentials to bolster his argument, Brian was out of line. But it is his blog, so he can fire at anyone he likes. I will continue to read the material posted here in any event
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