BHGP's Michigan Preview
Black Heart Gold Pants previews Michigan here. Here's a sample.
What's the one thing you should know about Michigan? Besides the fact that God made them jerkoffs? Nothing, really. That about covers it.
What should we expect when Michigan has the ball? Rich Rodriguez was brought to Michigan with a mandate to update Michigan's offense and bring it into the 21st century. Or at least catch them up to those newfangled spread offenses at Indiana, Purdue, and just Northwestern. Still, regardless of the wisdom (or lack thereof) involved in changing a century of offensive tradition, what's done is done and the days of statuesque drop-back quarterbacks rifling passes to enormous, glue-handed receivers or handing off to huge, ground-churning running backs are done; bring on the speedy midgets.
Enjoy the rest of the read.
This one goes with the meme a little more:
Then the season truly bottomed out when Ron Zook and Juice Williams beat Illinois for thesecond straight year.
BHGP FAIL.
Wow, a lot of trash talking from a team that won by the skin of their asses against an FCS school. Articles like these will make it that much sweeter when we beat the pulp out of them this season.
I take great comfort knowing that we've beat them 4 out of every 5 times we played them. Fuck that website, let's see what they have to say after we beat them.
Michigan is the last fanbase that should be criticizing anything regarding FCS schools. Especially when that other team .... won.
Pretty sure there was a healthy dose of tongue in cheek there, my man. I like the good-natured needling, at least in the off season. BHGP is generally off-brand MGoBlog, but they seem like all right guys.
Nothing against BHGP, I think its fine, but I'm disappointed that Brian is such an uncommon blend of snark and objectivity.
Iowa is quite possible the most overrated team in the country after ND right now. They beat Northern Iowa, Arkansas State, us, and MSU by a combined 8 whole points.
In their smiling Irish eyes... they are #1.
I still think they are savoring their return to glory...
has them in the BCS championship game.
Phil Steele has ND ranked #16 in his 2010 Preview magazine's Pre-Season Top 40.
And what do you put the Penn State and Georgia Tech ass-kickings down to?
I think they deserve every plaudit they receive. I think Michigan can beat them this year, but Iowa deserves to be the favorite at this point.
You're right. But that GaTech game made me wonder... If Michigan played in the ACC...
.........they still would have lost to Iowa last year.
On a serious note, would you have wanted to watch 2009 versions of Obi Ezeh and Mike Williams try and stop Georgia Tech's offense? That would have been difficult on the eyes.
It seems that when things were most straightforward, Ezeh was at his best. Making reads and adjusting appropriately didn't happen as smoothly and efficiently as one might've hoped.
Against GT's option offense, you have the benefit of assignment football. No reading necessary - Obi, you tackle the first man through every time, whether or not he has the ball. If the quarterback keeps it, you shouldn't make the tackle until after you've already tackled the first man through. The option is most successful against teams that try to decide who has/will get the ball on each play.
What about the quality of our LB play over the past 3 years suggests that we would handle GT's option?
I'm not saying that we would shut them down. I merely believe that the type of offense against which we've struggled most mightily is the type that calls on our LBs to make instantaneous decisions that change their responsibilities, pre and post snap. For example, in a spread look, an LB might have a given coverage responsibility until motion changes his responsibility. On top of that, the new formation might call for a different zone to be covered, and that could easily change as well based on whether a given back stays in or goes out.
I've seen teams have success against the option by giving competent athletes (which we have) extremely basic, redundant responsibilities. An LB always has the dive back. Always. This is the easiest responsiibility to give up on, since he's often the least dangerous option in the attack, and invariably the dive fullback will get a 15 or 20 yard carry in a game because the LB got tired of tackling somebody who didn't have the ball, and wanted to help corral the dangerous guys.
I think recently we've been relatively stronger when the LBs know exactly what to do, and when that responsibility is less likely to change immediately pre and post snap based on what the offense does.
Iowa is good, they're just not a top 10 team in my eyes. They had such a good Dline that GT couldn't do much with their triple option. Nesbitt was also 2-9 for 12 yards. With 12 passing yards, you know you played poorly. GT's D played poorly. Stanzi played well and their RB dominated.
So - the fact that their defense kicked the snot out of GT, and their Offense rolled over them...makes it a fluke?
They had a great season. Every team gets lucky, and some more than others - i.e. the hacksack interception that probably saved them against Indiana- , but against Penn St. and GT, they won great games. They had a great effort against Ohio St. that fell short; I believe they have plenty of players back from that team so underrate at your own risk.
Homecoming, bitches. Homecoming.
The old man cheerleader who spins those hook swords is going to line up as the bandit for that game only.
I do not have fond memories of playing Iowa at homecoming. Hopefully, that will change this year.
Yes, I remember it well. I wish I didn't.
This is coming from Iowa, a team that in possibly Michigan's worst year in memory (I rate 2009 below 2008 due to higher expectations) barely squeaked out a night win at home. Why do these guys keep insisting on setting themselves up for a bigger fall than they could get away with if they kept their mouths shut?
Purdue, with their idiot Danny Hope is even worse.
It will be a sweet homecoming win to beat ole black heart and gold pants.
Still, regardless of the wisdom (or lack thereof) involved in changing a century of offensive tradition, what's done is done and the days of statuesque drop-back quarterbacks rifling passes to.....
If anything I would say RR's offense is much closer to the 'traditional' Michigan offense than anything we've seen over the past 20 years. The "statuesque" QB's really didn't exist until 1989 when then-freshman Elvis Grbac entered the ND game after an injury to Michael Taylor. Prior to that, our QB's were dual-threat, and always good at carrying the ball....Gee, sounds familiar..
Great point, and one that is often overlooked. Scheme doesn't matter in the end; winning does. As long as we win, we could run "The Annexation of Puerto Rico" every play and I'd be fine.
Said idiots at BHGP have never watched any of the YouTube videos from WolverineHistorian. (But who could blame them? The Good Guys seem to have a way of winning in those.)
Jim Harbaugh wasn't exactly the fastest QB ever, but he ran the option pretty effectively. And Bo would routinely mix in the wishbone, too.
That's not to say that Bo would have called his offensive scheme a "spread", (and neither would anyone else). But, its pretty clear that Harbaugh, Taylor, Brown, et al, needed to be very mobile. And it worked, man. It worked.
They're better than Ambien. Thanks for the help with my sleep apnea, Michigan football!
I was just watching the 1979 OSU game :( and was shocked to see Michigan running the option for almost the entire 1st half. And speaking of speedy midgets, Anthony Carter was 5'11'' and Desmond Howard was 5'10''.
So I agree that RR is actually a return to Michigan's century-old tradition rather than a break from it. The question is, is that a good thing? The jury's still out for me.
When they get rung up for about four losses this year, someone remember to re-post this so we can all have a good laugh. Also, these guys are ripe to be Coach Rod's annual "Thrilling come-from-behind, last-second win over the first ranked opponent to enter the Big House." Wiscy in '08, ND in '09, Iowa in '10?
Note: Utah wasn't yet ranked when they squeezed by us in '08, and I'm assuming UConn won't be a pre-season Top 25 and Sparty will double-tap themselves against a cupcake before we play them, as usual.
I agree that Iowa was the luckiest good team in 2009. They could easily have lost to Iowa State, PSU and us.
I also think that if you look beyond a couple of typos and the snide remarks, the evaluation was a very accurate depiction of Michigan's season and rather realistic about our offense for this coming year.
And anyone who thinks the Big House is quiet, hasn't been to the improved version - ND last year was pretty damned loud by any standard.
I guess 40-11-4 doesn't necessitate a hate tee shirt, nevermind.
and you start acting crazy.
I've just decided that after we beat them this year, I'm going to troll the shit out of BHGP.
Of course, that would involve extracting your head from your own lower intestine long enough to type in the URL.
beat dem sumnabiches so WE can talk some trash!
Go Blue!
UUUUUUMMMMMMMMBBBBBBBRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGEEEEEEE
This thread of comments is hilarious - at least 4 people have posted "Hater's Gonna Hate!" posts, while everyone else rails about how over-rated Iowa is. Hilarious.
...critique. But what's your take on the BHGP Michigan preview?
I think that they're way too married to the idea that the Big Ten needs to be old-school Cro-Mag, bash your face in football. They obviously think RR is a sleeze (not evident in this piece as much as others), and that colors how they address him. I also think they have a conveniently rosey picture of the UM/Iowa game.
That said, do I have a hard time getting terribly upset about anyone who thinks we won't be that good? We're 8-16 in 2 years. It's perfectly reasonable.
What I DON'T see is why the quality of Iowa's performance makes their opinion of ours any different.