It's not a fair comparison. Last year their starting quarterback was out or concussed for all,  but one drive. The backups were completely useless.

The front page post this thread was referring to.  The pissing about the win didn't come from someone bitching about RR.

I wish people would stop attributing some kind of blind emotionalism to Brian's fretting. I think he's been pretty clear that his worries are based in his concerns about the logic of the offense. For a number of reasons that I'll expound on later, I think he's being too hasty, but he's not mooning over the loss of Rodriguez, if anything, he's mooning over the loss of logical clarity about how the offense will be run.

Brian clearly buys into the Smart Football theory of base offense and constraint plays, with base being the offense that works if the defense is playing honest and constraint plays being the offense designed to punish them for cheating, forcing them back into playing honest defense. RichRod's offense represents the epitome of this philosophical approach to offense, both because it builds constraint into the base play, in the form of the zone read, and allows a bunch of variations from the same set (e.g., the H-back wham block on a DE who's going to rapidly upfield, the QB oh-noes). In my eyes, Brian never loved RichRod the person so much as RichRod the logician, mainly because he presented the defense with a series of difficult choices. 

Brian's concern about Hoke and Borges has been based out of the same philosophical understandings of offense, mainly arising from a fear that the base offense ("that power play") poorly matches M's offensive personnel, both in the form of Denard's athletic gifts, the line 's (partic. Molk's) zone blocking ability, etc. The fear goes that without a decent base play, the defense will not be  forced to cheat, creating an offense that is, in his words, not sustainable. The constraint plays (waggle, play action) won't work, the philosophy suggests, if it doesn't have to cheat to defend the base plays. Note that the sustainability of offense in this  philosophy comes from forcing the defense to adjust back and forth from playing honest to cheating, and taking advantage of that uncertainty.

Now, I don't think Brian's wrong to be concerned based on this philosophy of offense, but Smart Football's theory of offense does have some shortcomings, particularly when applied to Michigan.

1. It downplays what we might call "matchup football." Another theory of offense would be that offenses should work to identify a defense's weakest link and then ruthlessly exploit it until the whole defense has to change. This is the philosophy of 'picking on' people, and I think we saw how effective it can be, bot h in the form of JT Floyd and Gary Gray. Borges seems to follow this theory, spending the early game looking for matchups and then using the latter parts of the game to exploit them.

2. The option routes that Borges runs are a great example of the base/constraint dynamic in the midst of the play, exactly what Brian liked about RichRod's offense. Denard's passes may have looked like jump balls, and when he misread the coverage (3d interception) they functionally were, but they were actually route adjustments to CB's playing inside. Watch the replay of Roundtree's TD from the end zone. Gray's playing inside technique, Roundtree runs at him, fakes a slant cut, pinning Gray inside, then runs a fade. This forces Gray to turn his back and basically guarantees the play result will be either a catch, interference, or a poorly thrown ball/drop. RichRod did not build this kind of option routing into his passing game, leaving it pretty primitive and ineffective when passing became necessary.

I think Brian's concerns about the running game are well founded, but I also think Borges is in the process of figuring out what will work. He's had 1 1/2 games to really see what's effective. The non-conference portion of the schedule was always going to be a feeling out period in which the broader offense took shape. By the Big Ten season, a clearer playcalling philosophy should be in place. Let's judge him on that and the big test is the MSU game.

But criticize Brian on the merits of his argument (as this excellent diary does) not by psychologizing him. That's easy, lazy, and doesn't accomplish much.

Amen to that.  I am not sure, though, that the problem has been consistency or hypocrisy, but a lack of research based learning.  When we did get numbers, they were presented to bolster a philosophy (MOAR SHOTGUN PLZ) and thus suspect.  When RR came to town we spent the summer learning the basics of the read option run based spread.  Then I think Brian fell in love with RR the offensive tactician and the sick numbers his offence could put up and its total contrast to Lloyd Ball.  Brian was never objective about his disdain for Lloydball or his new found love for a new, intelligent, funky and dare we say "cool" offense. 

Then RR got himself fired. 

Then the "cool" pick went the NFL, the "crazy"  pick chose to stay in the south, and we ended up with the guy singing the Proclaimers song.  He was pining for what was.  We were no longer cool.  It looked like Lloydball was back.  (MANBALL=Lloydball=Boball)

But instead of dispassioned analysis of what to expect with an Al Borges offense or a Greg Mattison defense, we got the spring/summer of emo.  There were no teaching pieces showing us the basics of the west coast offense and how it works and what Borges has done in the past to modify it, we got Free Press like analysis that said, Hoke/Borges will have to adapt to the players they have.  It just sounded sad and pathetic to see Brian become the people he criticized for saying the same things three years ago.

He is slowly emerging from his shell, but we are still not getting pieces resembling the level of analysis that we got during the RR era where great pains were taken to show frame by frame what a genius RR was, how much smarter he was than everyone.  We are still not getting the same level of teaching or analysis, but it is starting to return.  I guess this is what love does to people...

I understand your position but it is impossible to separate the mind from the heart, regardless of the profession.  Reporters all have bias and I respectfully submit that a blog created by a fan is as close to "passionate" reporting as it gets.  Your point is well taken but misplaced.  Like Brian, I got the feeling that the Dilithium is fading and it feels sad to me, anyway.  Maybe it is better for this to happen and maybe Denard is much happier in this offense than the last.  If the latter is true, then my sadness goes away immediately.  But a perfect example of the fading can be seen in Denard's frustration when Hoke decided to down the ball at the end of the first half.  I'd never seen him express his frustration like that before and it made me sad.  But that feeling/emotion only matters for us fans - the game on the field and the decision-making in the coaches' offices cannot take as much stock in fan emotion as we do.  Nevertheless, fans feel and you cannot divorce the two.  Doing so would be tragic.

Unless you're playing Western. In the rain.

Has anyone thought that maybe Borges needed this game more than anyone else. He saw with his own eyes how he can bottle up Denard with his play calling and how, when he lets Denard lose, the offense changes dramatically for the better. I have a feeling that Borges now has a good idea how to keep our team in games this year if MANBALL isn't working quite as well in the beginning. We can only hope he has learned this and that the defense never looses the game for us too early. I think this game is an eye opener for the coaches as well as us.

I agree!  It's so much more interesting when we blindly agree with what our fearless leader has to say and forego annoying "debates" and "discussion".  Ugh.  Disagreement is so last year.