"The possibilities as I see them:

• The accuracy issues are a short-term fluke. Denard's only had a game's worth of opportunities to throw so far. People have bad games.
• Last year Denard was restricted to a set of easy, short routes that he could hit and is now being asked to do other things. IE: last year was a mirage because he just threw hitches.
• Denard is worse now for whatever reason. IE: he is legitimately regressing."

Denard is no different than last year.  Go back and watch the games.  He has NEVER been consistent past 15 yards.  But that is not what makes him great.  What makes him great is he is not phased by missing badly.  You see him smiling away when he makes a horrible throw that leads to an INT.  I really believe that is what makes him so dangerous (yes, this is a double-edged sword) - he is a very confident individual whose play is not altered by his own mistakes.  He can throw two picks in a row and bounce right back as if he hadn't made a mistake.   Saying Denard's throwing is worse  then last year is selective memory taking over.  Denard acheived a 63% completion percentage throwing short passes last year, not throwing to deep routes.  If you recall, there were a number of deep route passes that Denard missed touchdowns on last year (badly).  The guys were wide open.  It was not because of system or formation or any other excuse people are looking for - its just he's not an accurate passer.  Big deal - he doesn't need to be...

Gary Gray sounds like their Stevie Brown. Put him at safety, fellas.

In other news, I just realized Stevie Brown is an anagram for Bet Over Wins.

I guess we will know once we see the better B1G teams if the Denard we saw Saturday, and against some of the better teams last year, is what we can expect moving forward. Even if he never becomes consistent throwing the long ball and is prone to INT's, he is still be best athelete on the field on any given Saturday,  My concern is that against better competition, he has never been terribly accurate and tends to make mistakes. When he is on the field, though, you have one of the best RB's in the country, although one that is prone to being hurt.  Can he really be the guy who averaged 70 percent accuracy in August?  I'd be happy with 60 against good teams.  It'sdefinitely a work in progress.

"Misopogon already calculated this but it's something I was going to do anyway: runs from under center averaged 2.3 yards. Runs from the shotgun averaged 7.5. Small sample sizes apply; they are less small this time around."

Misopogon included the Denard 7 yard miracle scramble - designed runs from under center gained more like 1.2 yards per play.  4 or 5 carries, 5 or 6 yards depending on what you do with Hopkins goal line oh noes.

That's pretty much the definition of small sample size.

Mike Cox.  The time has come for him to get some PT.  Perfect few weeks for that to happen coming up. 

Those throws aren't back shoulder fades. That's a particular throw that's more on a line, thrown to a receiver who seems to be running a vertical route, who then turns out to the ball at his back shoulder. Green Bay throws this a lot to Jennings. It is, far more than what we saw here, a timing route. These were underthrown fades, the intentionality of which can be argued (I think they were underthrown on purpose but im not positive).

On the play where we lost six yards on a QB sack and you handed out a bunch of minuses, it looks like Denard just flat out got the play wrong.  Everyone pass blocks, but Denard takes off to the left at the snap, destroying everyone's blocking angles. 

That Borges would keep the play we've run over the past few years where Denard fakes the run, allows the safties to bite and then he hits the guy in the slot in perfect stride. So far, haven't seen it. Hope that we're keeping that play for down the line. There were times Saturday where that would have worked like a charm.

One thing I haven't seem talked about much was ND's last kickoff that set up the winning drive. They kicked straight out of the endzone, and the clock never moved. Would a shorter, or squibbed, kick have run enough time off the clock that the 0:08 endzone miracle wouldn't have been called? Assuming everything else went the same way, we end up with 1st and 10 at the 16 with just a couple seconds left. Kick and send it into overtime?

Or would Hoke have gone for the win at home anyway?

Also, I think some of Denard's effectiveness comes from making the secondary make a fast decision. That was what make QB Oh Noes so effective, it looks like a run, but it's then thrown right to where the defender was. Same thing with the QB Dive Fake to Fake Bubble Slant. Get them thinking, then burn them when they guess wrong. The play-action to long, downfield stuff works to get the LBs to bite, but the corners and safeties should still be in position to cover.

but he's not GERG "out of his element".

Sure, he wants to run split back pro set and I-formation all game long because that's his dogma (and the dogma of his boss), but I think Al knows the truth in this situation with Denard, and is prepared to set aside his idealogical preferences in order to ensure Michigan's offense performs and does it's duty:

1. Keeping possesion and not turning the ball over.

2. Getting 1st downs and eating clock

3. Scoring touchdowns, not FGs

4. Keeping opposing offenses on the sidelines

5. Resting a shaky Michigan defense that's on a collision course for 75th ranking in total defense for 2011 (that's probably being kind).

I just think we need to hang on tight because SDSU, Mich State, Northwestern, Illinois and Nebraska have prety decent offenses. 

Michigan's running back performance is a big problem though for this offense. They need to be featured more in the running game and screen passes.  The QB is not supposed to lead the team in rushing in this offense.   Ever.

 

 

I used to read these things, Brian's comments generally, many of the posts, regularly: daily, sometimes more than once daily.  But for the last month, my goodness, the pessimism and hand-wringing has gotten insufferable.  I seem to hear two consistent sobs: first, Denard can't take a snap, because he's incapable of being a pocket passer.  All he's apparently capable of doing is throwing short, quick, horizontal passes.  Don't ask him to drop back.  Don't expect him to make check downs.  Just put him in the shotgun, because he's not capable of developing his skills, not capable of being molded into a better QB.  What he is is a RB in the QB slot.  Second, the offensive line cannot drive block.  It's unfair to expect them to!  No.  All these guys can do is zone block: do not expect Big10 linemen to drive block, one on one.  How mean and unfair of Borges to expect his quarterback to make reads and his linemen to man-up and block DTs.  Give me RRs offense!  More shotgun; let Denard make 3 out of 5 runs; forget running between the tackles!

Good grief, not only is that lame story redundant, but a little insulting to the players.  Why not just do this: put Gardner at QB and make Denard a RB.  If so many of you think he's incapable of becoming a skilled passer, and if you think he's our best legimitimate run threat, just make the current RBs blockers, let Gardner QB, and let Denard become our sole RB.

3 quarters of Man ball vs.1 quarter of Pinball

" If Denard had looked for the FB this would have been a big +RPS, but he didn't."

RPS is supposed to judge whether our coaches put the players in a position to make a play vs. the Defense, but since Denard makes the wrong choice on the pick Borges does'nt get credit for. Also, I'm not sure if you counted it or not, but the slow wheel to Gallon to set up the Roundtree TD should be a RPS+ no?

Borges will migrate more towards the shotgun spread during the B1G.  The key to this season will be how much improvement will we see in the defense.

Three things:

1. The greatness of Brian's UFR and analysis convinced me that our most dangerous packages involve Denard in the shot gun.

2. I still think it is very difficult to account for what options Denard has within the offense and whether he is making the right decisions. Switch 26 made a great point about wanting to see him tuck it and run on obvious pass plays more. There is so much space and right now defenses aren't respecting the possibility. We can't outright conclude Denard is being wasted by the coaching right now.  

3. Borges will do what it takes to win. Despite point 1, after last year I am not at all convinced that what's best for the team to win in the conference against good teams is Denard taking off on zone reads again and again.  

It does seem that Borgess is asking Denard to run less.  (It seemed to me that alot of the read option plays that Denard "mis-read" where designed handoffs.)  To me, this makes sense because we have a backup with basically no experience.  I realize that there are stats showing that running QBs don't get hurt more frequently than pocket passers.  But I am not talking about all QBs on average.  I am talking about our No. 16.  He missed parts of what, 5 games?, last year.  The down side of Tate leaving is that we don't have an experienced backup.  Devin is basically an unknown.  Borgess is trying to find a middle ground of using Denard without running him to death.  The answer is for one of our 700 tailbacks to emerge as a stud. 

With that said, I do agree that the balance needs to be adjusted, especially on the passing plays where he has green in front of him.  You know, the ones that make you yell "RUN!!!" even though you know that he can't hear you.  In such cases, a sideline should be the escape route. 

The "take two steps and throw it to OMG wide-open slot reciever" play needs to come back.  I am surprised that this seems to have been left out of the playbook.  (Is this what Brian  means by the "QB Oh Noes" play? )

By the way, the almost touchdown play at the end of the third was just short of a disaster because Denard almost handed the ball to a tackler when he tred to strech the ball into the endzone.  The ball was in the ND player's chest when they hit the ground.  If he twists his body and gets the ball it would have been ruled a fumble.  I really hope that Denard is told to please never, ever do that again.

 

Only that Hopkins isn't the guy.

Shaw is still an unknown, and still could be the guy, as I've been saying. This is shown in the UFRs, as he really hasn't been given much of a chance on any of his runs against Western or ND (outside of the one that he took to the house) due to blocking.

so let's see, we scored all of our points and got most of our yards with Denard under center, but somehow the problem with the offense is that we need to run more shotgun?

I understand the concern about trying to duplicate the deep ball success of that game with a QB who has never been consistently accurate with long passes, but it seems to me you are too quickly dismissing the success we had passing the ball with Denard under center.  I am by no means a football expert, but it seems to me that in the same way the spread opens up running lanes for Denard, the I formation could open up space for the wide receivers.  On one of the TDs (Gallon's I believe), you mentioned that ND's reaction to the I formation resulted in one on one coverage on the outside (shouldn't that have been a RPS+1 by the way?)  I have fond memories of watching Desmond destroy one on one coverage game after game because defenses lined up to stop our I formation and Ace double TE sets.  Now you may be right that if we can't run the ball with our RBs out of the I, defenders will cheat to the outside, but that's true no matter what formation we use.

Bottom line, IMO, is that Denard can be successful in both formations, provided we don't ask him to throw the ball 50 times a game.  We're in a very similar position to last year offensively.  Last year the doubters wondered if Denard could hold up the whole year.  They were right.  This year doubters are wondering if the offense can be successful throwing "jump ball" passes.  Let's hope the doubters are wrong, or Borges is smart enough to realize we need to give Denard some short or intermediate routes to work with.

 

 

I think Hoke has changed the tide on the rivalry. Hell people in Ohio are starting to believe him. Never in a million years I would have thought that. Selling Michigan jerseys is a good start.