JeepinBen

I’ve been a very vocal opponent of all the Uniformz that we’ve seen the football team break out over the years, and since we’ve seen some hockey successes (and failures) and there’s now talk about basketball “special” unis, and well… I don’t have a lawn, but I do have a suggestion.

Many have noted that we’ve got history and tradition that very few schools can match. With the demand for more revenue from the AD (for new… everythings) some of us have accepted “alternate” jerseys as inevitable. I think that we can have alternate jerseys and they CAN be successful and they CAN look good. Remember, it’s not about being new, fresh, etc. it’s about selling more jerseys. Best way to do that without looking like clowns? History.

FOOTBALL:

Home Blues are untouchable. The UTL jerseys sold well, and looked good on the players, but frankly the ones for sale to the public look awful. Sleeves are too long/too many stripes. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

HOWEVA, I’d be fine with Adidas tweaking the road jersey just about annually, it's changed a bunch over the years. I didn’t mind the look of last year’s Sugar Bowl jersey, but I didn’t like that it was our 6^thlook in the same year.

ALSO, we should have some historical, REAL, throwback alternates that can be in the rotation for road/bowl games. DB wants to sell other jerseys? Offer these bad boys and wear them:

Bam. Problem solved. There are white alternates for our next 3 years. They even look like Michigan Jerseys! If Brandon thinks he can sell jerseys because we wore them when we were team “coconut shrimp”, he better believe that we can sell the jerseys we wore when we won the ’97 MNC.

BASKETBALL:

This came up in the BBall Uniformz thread http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/basketball-uniformsz-watch-sunday-against-io..., but  we’ve worn some good ones in the past. The Fab 5 shorts. The ’89 large block M Michigan blues, etc. Bam, we’ve got 5 basketball jerseys to sell.

 - why aren't these in the rotation and for sale?

Hockey:

We’ve tried enough combos here that we should know what works. Try a new one occasionally (the Big Chill ones that didn’t have giant Arbys logos looked OK) but remember what you’ve got to draw from. I for one have ALWAYS wanted a “tournament” jersey with the script Michigan.

If the AD wants to sell jerseys, why aren’t they selling those!?!?!

Block Ms in every color worked, we’ve got the Rangers style Maize, plus the Red Era arc Michigan.

We’ve got good options to choose from in all 3 major sports that we've worn in the past. Change up a jersey a sport (bball change the blues one year, hockey try a new Maize, etc.) to see if we hit a new combo that works, but enough of the special edition one-offs that look like nothing we've ever worn. Let’s use some of these good looking old jerseys as alternates. I'd bet the AD will sell a few too.

Yes, that sucked. Guess what?

It's time to get over it and move on. Our 8-4 football team lost to teams with a combined 45-3 record. All of our losses were away from home. We are/were a good, not great, football team, just like most of us thought coming into the year. We still get to watch this team play on New Years Day (Ohio State already made bowl shirts for their game: http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/shane-morris-puts-game-perspective). There's a good chance that we'll play in the Capital One Bowl, which brings up some great memories:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSTp0frDDWo&playnext=1&list=PLD038920368D35B6D&feature=results_video (no embed available, it's Jamar Adams vs. TebowTime)

What's all this layin' around shit!?!?

All is not lost. We've got a top 3 Basketball team to cheer for at Crisler (http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/m-basketball-3-usa-today). We've got a very talented hockey team that hopefully figures itself out soon. In football, we've got an extremely talented recruiting class coming in, playmakers all over, a few all B1G players, and we'll see some Michigan players drafted in the NFL.

Yes, losing to those dirty cheaters from Columbus hurts, and it should. Next year we've got them in our house and let's right the ship. We'll return a bunch of starters, plug in talented youngsters all over, and play again. Remember, Hoke still hasn't lost in the Big House. He's got a chance to have 20 wins in his first 2 years as coach. That's not too shabby. We're recruiting like gangbusters and set up to be a national contender for years to come. Until then, enjoy this team. Enjoy the Bowl. Enjoy hockey at Yost. And get ready to have a top Basketball team. As a 25 year old, I'm not really sure how to handle Michigan being good at basketball. I'm looking forward to it though.

With all the "Denard sucks, lolz" and "Denard can't play QB" and "That wasn't one of his best games" coming out of the internet, I thought we could take a look at where Denard is for some pretty awesome milestones, NCAA wide, and Michigan wide:

He's already got these records under his belt:

College records

—NCAA (all divisions)

• Only 1500-yard passing/1500-yard rushing season

—Division I FBS

• Rushing yards by a QB (season)
• Division I FBS 200-yard passing/200-yard rushing regular season games (career and season)

—Big Ten Conference

• Rushing yards by a QB (single game and career)
• Total offense (single-season)
• Big Ten Offensive Player of the Week awards (career)
• Silver Football Award Winner

—Michigan

• Total offense (single-game)
• Rushing yards on the road (single game)
• Passing yards (single half)
• 200-yard rushing games (career)

—Other

• Notre Dame Stadium longest run from scrimmage

In addition to being Michigan's all time total yardage leader, beating ND, MSU, OSU, and winning a BCS Bowl in 2.5 years as a starter, let's see how he's doing elsewhere:

Single Game Michigan Records:

Total Offense: Denard has the top 8 and 9 of the top 10 games from a total offense perspective. John Navarre's 368 yards against Iowa in 2003 is the only game record that isn't his.

Passing Yards: He sits at #9, #10, and 20.

Passing TDs: Tied for the record (with many others) with 4TD passes in a single game. (ND 2011)

Rushing Yards: Numbers 5 and 7 belong to #16, with the 2010 ND and Purdue games.

Career Michigan Records:

Passing Yards: With 6195 Yards so far, he trails only Henne, Navarre, and Grbac, with Elvis in his sights less than 300 yards away.

Passing TDs: He's #4 again behind the same 3. The 22TDs he needs to pass Grbac here might be harder to do before he graduates.

Rushing Yards: At 4129 Denard trails only Hart, Thomas, Morris, and Wheatley. He needs 912 yards to pass Hart, but as of right now Hart has an extra 439 carries to his record.

Rushing TDs: Again trailing only Wheatley and the A Train he's now tied with Mike Hart with 41. If he can get 15 more he'll pass Thomas and be the highest in the official record books. *

*Willie Heston's 71 TDs from 1901-1904 aren't included in the official database because the pre-1949 stats are incomplete.

Career NCAA Records:

The big one, QB Rushing Yards. Pat White's 4480 is in reach 351 yards away.  Denard has 5 more B1G games, and he'll need to average 70.2 per game to have this record by the time the clock hits zeros in Columbus.

Criticize his decision making, throwing off his back foot, etc. but to say he hasn't been awesome to watch the past few years and that he hasn't had a remarkable career... I'd respectfully disagree.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NCAA_football_records

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denard_Robinson#Michigan.27s_all-time_total_offense_leaders

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_Michigan_Wolverines_football_statistical_leaders

Every year lots of new people find this corner of the internet, and some struggle to find all the awesome information stored here. First, take a second and scroll up and look under the winged helmet - there are a lot of very useful links. I'm putting some of them here because lots of people have no idea that they exist, and we've seen tons of threads (Where can I watch!?!?) created because... well because people don't know that a sticky thread exists for that.

Brian: http://mgoblog.com/content/about-mgoblog

FAQ:http://mgoblog.com/content/mgofaq

Not sure who Tacopants is? Slow on the other inside jokes? want to know why Brian has a MS in Computer engineering? There's your answer.

• "Tacopants"? Tacopants is Jason Avant's eleven-foot tall imaginary friend. Chad Henne spent much of 2005 hitting him between the numbers, which are unfortunately eight feet off the ground and made of dreams. Blessed with infinite eligibility and the ability to sneak on and off the field without alerting the referees -- made of dreams, remember -- Tacopants has taken a lesser role in the offense as Henne matures but still pops up at inopportune times. The term has its genesis in this post.

Ethics: http://mgoblog.com/content/offical-ethics-mgoblog

Contact: mgoblog@gmail.com

That's stuff about the guy who runs/owns/is MGoBlog.  Think he's betrayed his ethics? Have a tip/correction? Email is a way better way to do it than a dickish thread.

Want to advertise: Talk to Seth.

MGoBoard:

FAQ http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/mgoboard-faq

Can't start a thread? Not sure if "Denard" is a bad thread title? What's on topic? This isn't Nam, there are rules.

Coming to AA: http://mgoblog.com/content/guide-ann-arbor-eating-drinking

Guide to eating and drinking. Zingerman's is good, but overpriced. Maize and Blue is better. /shots fired

Stuck in a car on a Saturday? http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/listening-gameanywhere

And Finally:

WHERE CAN I WATCH THE GAME:http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/um-friendly-bar-locations-across-us-and-elsewhere

Stop making threads about it.

Hope this has been a helpful and informative little diary. Now go enjoy wife day and the rest of the bye week.

Not a lot of personal input into this diary, but with Brian's front Picture Pages asking who the option read was there has been some confusion of which play is what. It's impossible to know what the play call is on any given down, and Bama did blow up just about everything, but I thought I'd post some diagrams showing what various teams do. Please chime in as well with different names for plays, as different coaches call the same play by different names.

All kinds of information (these pictures) can be found here: http://smartfootball.com/tag/option

Play 1: Zone Read (Read Option)

The offensive line zone blocks and leaves one defensive end (circled) unblocked. The QB then looks to see what this end does. The end picks one player and the QB's job is to make sure the other player has the ball.

There are variations on this (bubble screens etc) that are very nuanced and again, Chris Brown goes over them here http://smartfootball.com/run-game/the-zone-read-gun-triple-option-and-the-quadruple-option

Play 2: DT Read Option (Midline Option)

Very similar play, but here a DT is left unblocked. Lots of teams do this against stud DTs (Oregon optioned off Glenn Dorsey some)

Play 3 - Inverted Veer

The big differences here are that you now have a pulling guard and you leave someone unblocked playside. http://smartfootball.com/run-game/what-is-the-inverted-veer-dash-read

Michigan used this play to dismantle OSU last year as Brian pointed out here: http://mgoblog.com/content/picture-pages-inverted-veer-ftw

Typically your pulling guard and playside tackle would both serve as lead blockers on the 2nd level, but as noted elsewhere Borges and Hoke don't like leaving linemen unblocked. What worked against OSU was the LBs getting caught in the wash and Denard being awesome. I can't find an exact diagram of how we draw it up, but they still option off a DL, then get blocks elsewhere.

So how did Bama blow this up completely? Do we need to worry about teams doing this in the future? By being way more talented and maybe. What Bama did was "absorb" blockers and control them. Hopkins can't block #1, who forces a give. Omameh and Schofield are stuck double teaming DTs and can't get to the next level. Barnum is beat to the hole. If this was a true read play (I dont' know, and as mentioned, the coached don't like unblocked DLs) Hopkins should be on the 2nd level as well.

Do we need to worry about other teams doing this? Maybe, but I don't know who else will have the talent to. If a DL tries to pick off the lead blocker AND force a give, AND 2 DL force double teams so that our OL can't get to the 2nd level AND their LBs beat our pulling guard to the hole... then yes, we're in trouble. I don't think the talent disparity will be as big in future games. If it is, our option game will get blown up.

No, not this one 

This one

Much has been made of the fact that we once again have a 3-Deep of fullbacks – including 2 on scholarship. They’ve been discussed often as ‘fullbackian fullbacks who fullback in fullbackian ways’ or something similar, but I think that Borges has more plans for these guys than just being a “classic” Michigan fullback. To break it down simply, there are 2 schools of fullbacks: The 6’ 240lb linebacker-meeters like this guy

- great fullback name or greatest fullback name?

and the West-Coast Fullback.

Now the 1^st type of fullback has one job and one job only – lead blocker. Out of the I he hits the hole before the running back and takes out the first defender he sees.

This type of fullback often drove many including the fearless leader Brian and myself to anger when we would line up in an I, the fullback would shuffle-shuffle-shuffle one direction and totally tell the defense where the run was going.

(14 seconds in. It worked, but it was Purdue)

I don’t believe that’s what we’ll be getting with Borges. I believe that Borges will be asking a lot more of his fullbacks, he actually already has. In the same vein, Hopkins is a converted RB who has handled the ball a lot and Houma is a triple-option FB who rushed for a ton of yards in high school. Also I think the best corollary to what we’ll see from our fullbacks in the future (Hopkins and Houma) is how Jacob Hester has been used, both at LSU and on the Chargers.

We’ve seen that Borges treats the fullback as a receiver (5:58 of the clip below. Thanks to SC Wolverine for finding it)

We saw often that Borges isn’t afraid to line up in a heavy I, split out the tailback, and hand it to the fullback on a dive. Sometimes with great, sometimes with terrible – THEN GREAT – results.

(See 4:59. Hell, just watch it all again in all its glory)

Doing this like 5 times in goal line situations of course lead to easy rollout Denard TDs on a fake dive as well.

Jacob Hester is listed (now, as a 5year pro) at 5'11”  235#. The new weights from B1G media days list Hopkins at 235# and Houma at 221#. Looking at some clips of Hester Highlights from the Chargers we see a couple of designed fullback pass plays:

Let’s hope we get a lot of those TDs from Hopkins and Houma going forward.