Appropriately timed Shaun Nua appreciation thread.
Okay, we can do this now. I would imagine 2/3 of us thought he was a weak link on the staff. Don Brown leaves and the dude immediately gets awesome performances out of his DTs and starts securing commitments from some big fellas.
Highest-graded D-Lines in Week 6
— PFF College (@PFF_College) October 11, 2021
1. Michigan - 90.0
2. Georgia - 88.2
2. Oklahoma - 88.2
4. Alabama - 87.3 pic.twitter.com/EHOm6y2EzR
October 11th, 2021 at 12:50 PM ^
Dammit you need to do this the morning of the MSU game and get negged.
We have standards around here.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:05 PM ^
Fire BAKICH and NUA!
October 11th, 2021 at 5:50 PM ^
WHAT?? You're gonna fire BAKICH and NUA but keep MEL and JUWAN?
October 11th, 2021 at 12:51 PM ^
Of all the things related to the football team, the DL play is the biggest surprise IMO.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:24 PM ^
100% agree. With all the preamble conditions acknowledged, that the DL is mentioned in the same breath as UGA's (with its awesome NT, Jordan Davis), is quite the unexpected bright spot.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
Particularly the tackles. Knew the DE's would be good, but the entire rotation inside has looked really good.
October 11th, 2021 at 12:52 PM ^
This is a thread we can all get behind. But any Oklahoma defensive group in the top three, other than points allowed?
October 12th, 2021 at 3:55 AM ^
Oklahoma's DLine is legit good. There are two guys who could go in rounds 1-2 this year.
The problem OU has been having is that their linebackers miss a lot of tackles and the DBs have some injury problems, which is a problem when you weren't deep to begin with.
October 11th, 2021 at 12:55 PM ^
When your boss (Don Brown) sets you up to fail, you tend to look bad at your job. Glad he stuck it out, and we're starting to see results on the D-Line at the right time.
October 11th, 2021 at 2:10 PM ^
Might be on a limb here (or not)... Don Brown is easily the worst assistant coach hire in Harbaugh's career as a coach. He's the defensive coordinator version of RichRod. All system and no game day coaching.
October 11th, 2021 at 2:17 PM ^
I mean, he deserved to get canned when he did, but "easily the worst assistant coach" is a bad take. He came in and immediately improved the already decent D into a dominant unit from the day he started until the 2018 OSU game.
The recruiting problems are a serious hangover, but c'mon man.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:35 PM ^
I don’t know. The superlative is not correct (Bob Shoop? Dan Enos?); but if you called it the biggest mistake, I might agree. I think the way Don Brown defenses were able to eviscerate less talented teams, you couldn’t look at the overall body of work and realize the ceiling is lower than it could be and move on.
Even worse, I would go out on a limb and say that Harbaugh leaned into the identity of a defensive team and I think the offense suffered for it.
October 11th, 2021 at 2:21 PM ^
You could probably add 1-2 losses per year if it weren't for Don Brown's defense. Those squads bailed out our inept offense multiple times a year.
With that being said, he deserved to get canned.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
This is a good take. I think Brown's defenses guaranteed a floor of wins given the talent advantage over much of the schedule. He let his athletes go after it. Unfortunately, they also ensured a ceiling when going against the teams with a talent/speed advantage. Fast teams always destroyed us by turning crossing routes into huge plays.
October 11th, 2021 at 4:09 PM ^
What? Brown had a top 10 defensive unit every year he was here until 2020. He absolutely deserved to be fired based on recruiting misses, performance against OSU, and a few other big games. But he is nowhere NEAR the worst coaching hire under Harbaugh.
That distinction belongs to Bob Shoop. Honorable mentions go to Dan Enos and Mo Linquist, who were hired and never coached a down.
October 11th, 2021 at 5:18 PM ^
Sounds like someone who doesn't like mustaches
October 12th, 2021 at 11:43 AM ^
Nailed it
October 11th, 2021 at 2:44 PM ^
He was a great hire at the time. When it came to stopping run-based spreads, he was the best in the business. He stuffed OSU in 2016 and 2017. When the game evolved, he didn't.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:13 PM ^
He also had a problem with Hurst and Glasgow graduating without the talent to backfill them.
October 11th, 2021 at 4:21 PM ^
Agree with this take as well. If you look at how the college game has evolved from the power spread of the 2010's towards the RPO offenses you see today, you can kind of see schematically how Don Brown's defensive philosophy lost it's potency.
His defense holds up pretty well when an opposing quarterback is making a two-dimensional read. When offenses become sophisticated enough to introduce a third passing option at the mesh point, that's where press man defense starts to break down. Brown hasn't really developed a response to this, or at least he didn't at Michigan. And then it became pretty easy to out-scheme what Michigan was doing on defense. In a sense it seemed like hiring Ryan Day was Urban's response to Don Brown's defense, because for the first two years, Michigan defended what Ohio State wanted to do on offense pretty well. Then the wheels exploded off spectacularly starting in 2018, once Day's offense became fully weaponized.
Now his antipathy towards recruiting, and his build-a-bear approach towards defensive tackles (a huge gamble at best) pretty much sealed his fate against the rest of the B1G, but given the dynamics of the league and college football in general in 2016, he was a good hire. It just seems like the game continued to evolve and Don Brown did not evolve with it.
October 11th, 2021 at 5:10 PM ^
He never developed the curve to backup that fastball once people adapted.
October 11th, 2021 at 8:14 PM ^
Good grief. So Brown's sample set is what happened in a handful of games against far superior talent, and the stupidity of the abortion that was the 2020 season. And Nua's sample set is six games against teams of dubious quality?
Is Brady Hoke's sample set his first six games?
I wish I could down vote this more than once. So. Ignorant.
October 11th, 2021 at 12:58 PM ^
Shaun Nua says, "Faʻafetai foʻi."
October 11th, 2021 at 1:27 PM ^
Translated: "OVERCOME THAT ASS"
October 11th, 2021 at 1:00 PM ^
The interior DL was no doubt a position of concern to start the season. Give credit to the players and the coaches. The extra year of experience is a huge boost.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:06 PM ^
Hinton and Mazi Smith have been fantastic.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:47 PM ^
The DTs have been much better than we anticipated. However, I am going to guess that PFF grade also includes Hutchinson as part of the DL, and we all expected him to be great.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:14 PM ^
I will 100% eat crow on this one. The defensive line has greatly exceeded expectations. The whole defensive staff deserves kudos, but more than any other, Nua has exceeded my expectations. So many players: Hinton, Smith, Mike Morris, Kris Jenkins and others all stepping up.
October 11th, 2021 at 2:20 PM ^
Same here. I was so pissed because I thought our CBs were going to be exposed over and over, while the D-Line was in for another Brandon Graham situation where Hutchinson had to be a world-wrecker for us to win 6 games. Instead, we got the world-wrecker with a motley collection of really-good players. Also: our CBs have held up ok-ishly.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:17 PM ^
Protect Shaun Nua at all costs!
October 11th, 2021 at 1:41 PM ^
If only he knew a line of guys who were good at defending things.
October 11th, 2021 at 2:26 PM ^
Football is weird. The DEFENSIVE line attacks, and the OFFENSIVE LINE protects! What a crazy Sport!
October 11th, 2021 at 3:39 PM ^
I know you’re being facetious, but you’re blowing my mind right now… bro.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:23 PM ^
Judging coaches performance is always tricky. People get credit and blame they don’t deserve all the time.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:41 PM ^
Yours is appropriate but mine was spectacular.
Stay Stout and Slow their roll big fellas.
October 11th, 2021 at 1:51 PM ^
I fully bought into the narrative that the DL will be bad this year, but very happy to be wrong in this case
October 11th, 2021 at 1:53 PM ^
What a hell of a surprise. Keep recruiting that beef and see if he doesnt keep it up another notch! Well done!
October 11th, 2021 at 2:54 PM ^
I felt like 90% of my posts here over the summer was defending Nua and Jaybaugh.
Nua has the DL looking really good thus far and Jaybaugh's TE and special teams are also humming. I think you can also give him some of the abundance of praise Mike Hart is getting for the runningback's continuing to excel.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:21 PM ^
Anybody who doubts Jaybaugh needs to look at the recruits he’s credited for reeling in on his 247 page
October 11th, 2021 at 3:53 PM ^
Or how about they units he coached.
2015-16: Jake Butt (1st Team AA, 2 x 1st B1G, Mackey)
2017-18 Karan Hidgon (3rd team B1G, 1st team B1G, 1000 yard rusher)
Chris Evans (drafted)
2019 Hassan Haskins and Zach Charbonette (HM, 3rd team B1G)
2020: Run game was one of the sole decent spots on a horrible team. If your arguement against Jay hinges on this year you should feel better.
2021: All looking way better, Special teams is legit.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:16 PM ^
The DL has been much better, but I've also been impressed with rolling all the substitutions through the line and they still play well. Having some of the younger/less experienced guys in for big downs has work and hasn't been a catastrophe. They all got better as a group and the rotation has paid off with fresher guys in the 4th quarter. Would never have predicted this is how it would work.
October 11th, 2021 at 3:20 PM ^
I very much had my doubts about the guy but no longer. Thanks, Coach Nua
October 11th, 2021 at 4:33 PM ^
And the thing is that it’s only gonna continue to get better. Defense as a whole is not what I’m worried about going forward. I’d like to secure some more secondary help to go along with the defensive line. The offense is what needs to continue to evolve. It’s apparent the line is ready to move good defenses but we’ve got to continue use a multi dimensional offense. I think if this year progresses as it’s looking currently then we may land a couple of big fish to help further the cause, at least on defense.
October 11th, 2021 at 5:56 PM ^
The team has good coaches. We all love them until we lose a game. Then the daggers come out.
October 11th, 2021 at 7:45 PM ^
Yeah, this is legitimately impressive. I realize they're factoring in Aidan Hutchinson, but still.