first 3 quarters
of the defensive break down is up, those of you that believe the crap about shafer not knowing what he's doing, or about bad schemes, or about us not playing man to man, and only rushing three, might be a bit upset about the first half... im sure the second half will be different, but only becasue michigan in the first half, stuffed what msu was trying to do. feel free to comment on the break down... Those of you that have listend to what i have been saying about what our main problems have been on defense, and what Shafer has to do to make up for them, will see what im talking about. Note without film, or brians UFR clips they might not be that good for ya, but oh well. I'm only doing it for you guys, so bite me if you dont like it.
since i have to have 200 words ill say this. The problem's are easy to see, but not easy to eliminate. I cant tell you how many times over the course of a season i have watched bad plays by bad players. You show it to them, you rep. it in practice, you think you get it, then BAM there it is again. If you have someone else that can play, then its an easy fix, if not, it takes months and months to teach technique that becomes second nature, and muscle memory.
Thanks for the insight, gsimms.
Go Blue!! Viva La Revolucion!!
www.wolverineliberationarmy.com
Gsimmons.....please don't take my comments personally. I have kids the same age as yours and I'm amazed that you have time to post anything at all - let alone something to the level of detail that you did here. It is flat out amazing.
I was just saying that if you want to hold off on posting a few days to make it even more powerful, those were things I think you could do. Please don't think I was telling you what you did was bad.
Hell, I wouldn't recommend that ANYONE take time away from their family to watch, review, study, or pay attention to the 2008 Michigan Football Team. Go Red Wings!
AC-1997
gold
Thanks Gsimmons for putting in the detailed review of the defense. I expected many of the formations and terminology to be over my head and at times it was.
I don't want this to come off as harsh criticism since I have no interest in biting you, but I thought I'd try to offer some constructive feedback. Take it or leave it, that's all.
When you use so many specific terms for formations and play calls it is naturally going to be a complicated piece. But I think some of your analysis is lost due to some simple things:
-- Could you try to reference player jersey numbers more consistently? I think readers of your page will know the players by number and having that really makes things more clear. But too often you just refer to them by position, which is less clear.
-- Be careful with your abbreviations. Within the same sentence you used the same abbreviation to refer to two things: DT = Defensive Tackle or Double Team. That's just an example. They aren't really a problem, but keeping them to a minimum makes it a much easier summary to digest.
-- I know we're spoiled by Brian's UFR, but punctuation and capitalization would make this a really cool summary. It is pretty hard to read as written. Maybe you could keep the freeform style if you put it into more of a bulleted list.
Again, it was a GREAT summary that I think we all needed to read to learn what is and isn't working on the defense. And I understand and respect the amount of effort you put into it. I just wanted to offer some ideas to make this a really cool piece that everyone will anxiously await like they do with the UFR. Thanks for the insight!
AC-1997
Yes those things are bad. Just some perspective, after getting back from class, and football practice, and the 30 mile drive home. 14 hours after i left that morning, My 5 year old who worships the ground i walk on and my 1 year old, who's first words are dada home, were getting ready for bed... i tuck them in, convince my 5 year old that i will come up and sleep on the bottom bunk before he falls asleep, and go down stairs to eat my warmed over sloopy joe and tater tots. Wife says how was your day, i hardly hear here, becasue im reading comments on mgoblog about5 things i simply know are not true. Frustrated i say to her, i thnk im going to have to do a defensive breakdown, she sighs "im going to bed then" i look to the clock see that i have 2 hours to get it done before i get less then 6 hours of sleep . (my threshold for a 15 hour work day) so you get what you get... sorry again that it wasnt better.
www.gsimmons85.blogspot.com
Thanks Gsimmons for the effort. Can't be easy to do that and do the thing needed for your team.
productivesweatpants.blogspot.com
@prodsweats
Great analysis - gives me some hope for the future, although I understand about 5% of the breakdown.
I have no issues with trying to explain some things for ya, shoot me an email with your questions, and ill try to answer them all....
www.gsimmons85.blogspot.com
I'm pretty sure you meant to type 'nads' but my gsimms decoder ring kept turning that into 'and.'
Otherwise, it was very interesting. However, I would still like to take you up on your offer to 'bite' you. I don't live in North Carolina. How can this be accomplished?
Give it to Wheatley!
The "my country, right or wrong" attitude on this board is unbelievable. Soft zones with three man fronts are called by the DC. How could MSU burn us time and time again on third and long with a white guy and there be no adjustment?
Gsimms, obviously you are a coach...you like to bring that up at every possible chance. But our coaches, believe it or not, can be culpable for poor play calling and for poor techniques demonstrated by players on the field. It's called practice, and there's obviously something not getting through from the coaches to the players at present.
helloheisman,
Criticize the defense, but at least criticize them for somethying THEY ARE ACTUALLY DOING. You want to criticize them for "soft zones with three man fronts".
If you read gsimm's post, you'll see that the D lined up in a 3 man front TWICE for the entire first half, blitzed around 10 times, and ran more man-to-man than they ran zone.
So drop the whole "3-man fronts are killing us!", because we rarely ran them. Drop the "soft zones are killing us!" Because we ran more man-to-man. Drop the "Shafer doesn't blitz!" because he blitzed 10 times in a half.
In other words, if you want to criticize him, you should criticize him for something he is actually fucking doing - not something that you see 20 other commenter who clearly didn't watch film complain about.
did you read the breakdown?
www.gsimmons85.blogspot.com
Thanks for the analysis gsimms.
what im hearing is just plain wrong, and im trying to show people that. If they want to listen fine, if they dont whatever....
Michigan played mostly man in this game and 90% 4-3... they gave up some inside slants and some flair routes.. second half same thing. There is mostly man, some zone blitzes, lots of presure, and michigan is inches away form making big plays, the defense is getting better. The defensive coaches are putting the kids in places to succedd. some times when you bring a lot of presure, you get burned in man to man, sometimes when you bring presure you give up seams against zones.. you will see those things happening in the second half. But for the most part msu had to earn everything they got, and the defense played well, but not perfect. and got worn down a bit... simple as that..
www.gsimmons85.blogspot.com
Thanks for the analysis, Gsimmons. The game moves so fast that's just about impossible for me to break down a play and analyze what happened. All we fans see is the end result and thus unfairly place blame on the wrong players, who may have done their job but others didn't do their job and caused a breakdown in the defense.