Al Borges is a very fine fellow, and called a great game.

Talent and help are coming with this and future recruiting classes.  The loss of Countess early and Fitgerald for the bowl game exposed our lack of talent and depth in the secondary quite clearly.  I predict good things coming in 2013 and 2014 with Gardner developing and with additional talent on offense and defense.

We played well, the coaches coached well. We lost. It happens.

and I am happy to have him as our coach.

We didn't. With that said the coaches are doing a fantastic job with less talent than the elite teams we've faced. I for one am looking forward to seeing how quickly Hoke and co can increase our overall talent. IMO today's loss is more linked to our suspended players and blown assignments than coaching.

Solid game plan today. Gruden made a good point that it's very difficult to game plan with two vastly different styles of QB. Denard was able to get 23 carries while not yet having the ability to protect.

I thought Borges did a really good job today. Just too many misses.

Borges had a pretty good game.  I wish he didn't have Denard/Smith in a pistol to give Clowney time to get there in the 2nd half, but Clowney was all but absent in the 1st....

1) God we need CBs.  Ball-hawking free safeties would be nice as well.  Prayers/candles/incense for Blake's reconstructed ACL.  Wonder if JT would have been in position in one of the 4 deep balls today.

2) If LM3 wants PT...he could start next year.  

3) OL did pretty well, all things considered.  Wish we had a RB besides Denard, again if DG wants playing time...he could start next year.

4) Excited for Q.Washington's senior year and O.Pipkins' sophomore campaign.  Our LB core  will be a terror as well.  

5) Really hoping Devin gets his redshirt year.  We're going to need his ability out-of-the-pocket with an entirely new offensive line.

Thanks Team 133!

1. Run blocking - can't get worse.

2. QB accuracy - the deciding factor in this game.  USC QBs were very accurate especially on long balls. Gardner needs to make the leap this off season.

3. Secondary talent - Countess back will help.

4. Pass rush - Jibreel makes that sack at the end there and just about game over.

5. RB talent - obvi.

6. WR size - how many balls were just off fingertips of our mighty mites today?

All six can't get much worse than this year, so the future looks bright.

Go Blue.

We have plenty of young help in uniform already.  They'll be all over the line next season on both sides of the ball.

Kalis will be starting on the line, Miller will be big enough to take over center duties, Darboh, Jackson, Funch, make up a nice tall recieving group for Gardner.

On the other side we'll have PeeWee making noise along with Super Mario, Countess will be back, Richardson I'm sure will make noise, and we should have decent safety depth even without Kovacs.

over Borges' second-half decision-making in the Ohio loss, and I've ripped him whenever I got the chance this season, but I have to hand it to him.  I thought he had a smart, creative game plan and deserved the win.  

When Devin has a whole spring/summer/fall as the No. 1 guy, with all those reps, he'll be a sight to behold and won't leave those same plays sitting on the field next year (e.g., all those throws to an open Gallon).  Borges put him in a position to make plays, and that's all you can ask the OC to do.  Gardner has so much natural ability, it's just a matter of polishing him up and we're in business.

Got Clowney'd at the end, but the dude is an NFL Pro Bowler playing on the wrong level, so it was bound to happen sooner or later.

Well done, Gorgeous Al.  Look forward to next year.

Borges called a good game today.  It was very refreshing to see lots of new formations, shifts, and plays.  Denard actually did a good job running as a tailback.  The two point conversion call was really the only questionable call I can think of all game.  Anybody who thinks Borges was terrible today came in with a preconcieved notion that he is terrible and is looking for reasons to back that up.  We scored a decent amount of points against a very good defense, even with Gardner missing wide open recievers all day long.  The defense and special teams lost this game.

Agreed. This one is definitely not on Borges. There were a handful of execution errors that kept us from winning the game (that and the freak of nature known as Jadaveon Clowney) and well, that just happens sometimes. I'm proud of the way our players played, especially the seniors.

and newtopos isn't here to lecture us on the all-important first down statistic.

Had some hiccups on Offense but that's to be expected playing South Carolina with Michigan's offense. If only he could bring this type of creativity to every game, because one or two a year isn't going to cut it.

I wasn't a fan of his play call on the last 2 point conversion though.

Let's see a show of hands of those who actually thought Michigan was going to win the game as of 1 pm today. Everybody had us losing this game. Before the season if people said, we would be 8-4 going agaisnt the #10 ranked 11-2 Gamecocks in a bowl game. That Denard could not throw because of his injury. Countess injured, Toussaint injured, Floyd and Hagerup suspended. Nobody would have guessed that SC would need 59:49 to beat us. Not to mention that SC has Clowney the best player in the country. I much rather lose this game that we were not suppose to win, than lose one in a few years that we are suppose to win.

It's good to see the improvement of Borges/Gardner with a month to actually make a gameplan based around DG. I will miss the ability of Denard to just line up in shotgun and pick up first down on short yardage, but other than that I see our offense evolving. The connection between DG and Gallon/Dileo is promising as well. This is the most excited I've been about a QB transition in a LONG time. Off the top of my head, I'd have to say this is the most promising QB transition since Brady to Henson, no?

How could anyone blame this loss on Borges?  The game was clearly lost by the defense (without its top two CBs) and the special teams who gave up the return TD.  The offensive game plan was good and proved very effective.  It scored a bunch of points, held onto the ball most of the day, converted a bunch of 3rd downs, and generally looked quite good when Gardner wasn't misfiring on some open throws.  Considering that Borges accomplished that with no effective running backs other than Denard Robinson and did it against what people were saying was an NFL-caliber defensive line is impressive.

I also thought Borges called a great game.  I kept thinking to myself that we would have beat Ohio with the game plan he brought today.  

Sometimes things just don't go your way.  We were missing some key players on D and playing some very young players (who will be great in the future).  Disappointed, but looking forward with anticipation to next year.

I would have preferred Denard not be lined up as QB at all if he couldn't throw (which it looked like he couldn't) but other than that I have few complaints.

edit: don't know why this is here. it was supposed to be in response to someone who wanted denard to throw the ball more.

deanrd probably needs a fucking nerve transposition before he can throw the damn ball. if he can't fucking grip the ball and had no strength and poor feeling in his hand and forearm, how is he fucking going to be able to throw?

let's fucking cut your arm off at the elbow then ask you to play qb then complain when you can't do it.

do you know what the ulnar nerve is and how long it can take to come back from any nerve injury? a few months to a year or more is expected.

and did you see denard's one lame duck throw? it was awful. it was obvious he wasn't going to be throwing the ball. it went like 5 yards and landed in the dirt like 3 yards short. watch the damn game again.

in other words, aargh.

As a rule I try not to get too upset at kids being kids, but those three could have been the difference between winning and losing today.

I think all three not only let the team down but also are the reason we lost.

jdon

After inexplicably sitting Denard the first couple of series Borges rallied to call a fine game. This game was lost because we lacked enough playmakers on offense or defense to make that one last big play to salt the game away.

It seemed like we lost because we got scorched deep a number of times, allowed a kick return, and didn't tackle the QB on their last drive. Borges did well.

I'll be the first to admit, I've knocked Borges a fair amount of times.  I didn't have much faith before the game, and not much at the beginning of the game either.  But in the end, he called a very fine game.  Reminded me of OSU last year - offense bailing out the defense for once, but this time it didn't quite work. 

Al Borges is a jolly good fellow.

What the heck happened to the font in this thread?