Borges' State gameplan - Indiana or new?
The success our offense enjoyed vs. Indiana, compounded by prior struggles, entices Borges to roll out the same game plan vs. Sparty. Scary, given how Sparty keys on our schemes all year. Throwing a predictable game plan at them in two weeks, on the road no less, bodes very poorly.
Borges has two weeks to prepare. Can he throw some surprises at them under the old “I know that you know that I know” gambit, where he knows Sparty will key on stopping the exact same game plan UM rolled out vs. Indiana?
Personally not holding my breath. I anticipate Staee stacking the box and daring Gardner to throw into their extremely talented secondary, where he’ll be under severe pressure all day long, with little time for his receivers to finish their routes.
How to counter this Big Al? The universe sees this coming in two weeks.
SLIGHT MOD EDIT: Changed "Staee" to "State". Come now, folks. - LSA
October 21st, 2013 at 10:50 AM ^
So basically you've given up hope before we've even lined up? You do realize that Borges and staff have tape on MSU and can scout them too, right?
October 21st, 2013 at 11:05 AM ^
I asked the MGoCommunity for their thoughts on how Al will scheme and the likelihood he sticks with the Indiana plan. I clearly haven't given up hope if I am enquiring what others think.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:14 AM ^
I don't usually neg OPs, but I did yours...
congrats!
October 21st, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
Thanks JDon. Initiating a discussion about how Borges will adapt to MSU sure is a dumb topic. Your neg made me realize this. I'll ignore the countless comments in this thread that have actually provided some real good insight on the topic because your neg is everything to me.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:29 AM ^
MSU isn't Indiana.
I think Al Borges is capable of realizing this. Thus, we will game plan for...MSU. Of this I'm fairly certain.
October 21st, 2013 at 1:07 PM ^
I loved your role in the I hate Borges threads. Anyway, what do you think of challenging Dennard with intermediate to deep plays when he is guarding Funchess. He has a problem with pass interference and it would be a good indicator early on in the game as to whether the refs will be holding onto their flags or not. I'll hang up and listen.
October 21st, 2013 at 1:33 PM ^
I like the idea. Personally, I don't think MSU is going to get flagged a lot at home; I do think every I-form run will be a wasted down. I would have Gardner chuck it close to 40 times on slants, screens, etc. and make MSU pay for ceahting up with counters and draws. If we can get to around 21 - 24 points...
October 21st, 2013 at 1:44 PM ^
I love the idea but don't know if we have the personnel to implement the counters and draws. Definitely not the counters seeing as we have serious problems with pulling from our guards. Draws would be tough with the A gaps seemingly blitzed on every play from them. What an awesome chess match this will be for the coaches.
October 21st, 2013 at 3:58 PM ^
The problem I see with throwing 40 times against that State defense is the turnovers that are likely to result from such a gameplan. Garnder was able to throw well against Indiana's soft cover, but the receivers will not be that wide open. There were several plays where Gardner underthew the recevier that would have been interceptions against a D like MSU. I agree that running out of the will not be very effective either, so we might not have many options.Gardner better not run around helter skelter and try to trow it away while being sacked, as they willl eat those up.
October 21st, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^
This is a self serving thread so you can continue to bash your favorite team's OC.
October 21st, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^
False. This thread is only self-serving in wanting the MGoCommunity to help me adjust my Borges expectations going into this, arguably the most pivotal game on the calendar. I mentioned my initial expectation (low) to get it started, but thanks to a number of awesome responses, I'm enlightened. So to that extent sure I guess it was self-serving.
October 22nd, 2013 at 12:47 PM ^
October 21st, 2013 at 2:43 PM ^
Al has game-planned differently for every team we've faced this year. No game-plan has been the same. For example, against Indiana, knowing we'd need a lot of points, we went back to predominantly spread concepts. But against a team like Minnesota (and Akron and UConn), Al's tried to establish some confidence in Power pro. Ultimately, I think the coaches want this team to fundamentally be able to do a bit of everything; so we can unleash hell on Ohio.
Really, I think the long and short of it is Hoke's demand that he be able to call Fitz's number on the goal-line, like he did on Saturday on 4th and 2; and in other key short yardage circumstances. To that end, he's going to use "weak" teams to practice power on, and against "strong" teams (or teams scouting assures will require lots of points to beat), more often than not, we'll play to strengths.
I'm writing PSU off as an anomoly. I think Hoke & Co. wanted the team to prove itself adept at playing a power offense start to finish. Maybe that game was supposed to establish identity and confidence? I honestly don't know what the hell that BS performance was.
But on Saturday, I saw something good; the framework for an identity. I saw deception screens setting up nice chunks of yardage on the ground. I saw throwback screens doing what throwback screens can do in this offense. I saw Devin in the gun, where he is most dangerous. I saw some deceptive short yardage passes come out from under center in what looked like power run formations. I saw pass set up run, and then I saw a decent-good run game emerge.
And as a result, I saw Hoke/Al call Fitz's number on 4th and 2, and I saw Michigan score the TD. If that's the goal, to let power prevail when you need a short-yardage conversion, then I think last week's offense (perhaps with better pacing to not wear out defense) is the identity of this offense. But those deception screens from under center are absolute necessities in keeping that identity.
Recap: the quick pass must set up the run with this team. We have to start fast and assure ourselves short yardage 3rd downs. How Michigan will continue to keep defenses guessing on 3rd and short will be the identity of this team.
October 22nd, 2013 at 10:21 PM ^
really get why people don't see considerable flexibility in Borges. It's an almost willful denial.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:21 AM ^
With the experience that Borges (and all the coaches) have had against Sparty, there is no excuse to not be prepared for this one. This year's game is monumental for the division race. With two weeks to prepare for this game, there should be a lot of things that Sparty folks have not seen on before in other games. Also, for the love of CHRIST, will the coaches and players PLEASE expect to see a trick play or two? Watch for the fake field goal or punt...this is Dantonio and he loves to do that stuff.
October 21st, 2013 at 1:46 PM ^
Shouldn't the fake be guarded against on every special teams possession for State? We haven't shown that we have the players to break anything loose on our return teams so it would just make sense to play the fake everytime. More to lose than there is to gain.
October 21st, 2013 at 10:54 AM ^
Hopefully Al builds off this week. A lot more passing and a lot less zone stretch whatever. I think Gallon and Funchess will find their way open (or in Funchess' case, he is just naturally always open) so a decent gameplan should find guys open downfield. I think the key matchups are
Al Borges v Crippling Addiction to the Zone Stretch
and
Devin Gardner v Terrible Decisions
October 21st, 2013 at 12:19 PM ^
Not Gallon one on one with Dennard and Funchess on Waines? That's what I'll be focused on at least.
October 21st, 2013 at 1:13 PM ^
Game plan: Pass heavy. Why? Because we just had a passgasm in the last game and it looks to be our best means of moving the skin of the pig down the painted lines of the grassy rectangle.
Where should we be throwing the magic bean? I would say over the middle when we do play action since we get so many A gap blitzes from them and there should be openings since that area is being vacated and I'll also say down the sidelines to Chesson and Funchess. Gallon can take deep middle with his cloaked crossing routes and Butt can occupy the area over the short middle being vacated by the blitzing backers. Focusing on this should empty the box to 7 so we can develop a balanced attack with Toussaint and Green.
October 21st, 2013 at 10:55 AM ^
I think anything but sticking with the Indiana gameplan is calling for trouble. What made the Indiana gameplan so good was that Michigan's offense wasn't all that predicatable. We passed on some early downs which helped out the running game later in the game. Let State stack the box and and force Gardner to throw. I believe he is capable of airing it out to our guys and forcing State's defense to back off some.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:07 AM ^
with you, that they need to stick to this sort of gameplan generally speaking, but Indiana's D also helped the gameplan look good.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:08 AM ^
The problem with this is Gardner won't have near the time to throw that he had vs the Hoosiers. He had all year back there. That probably won't work vs Sparty. Al will probably need a counter.
October 21st, 2013 at 10:58 AM ^
October 21st, 2013 at 10:59 AM ^
only calling 2 good games all year does not make me sleep soundly...He will most likely resort to calling runs up the middle....I hope he opens up the pass game out of shotgun and let Devin pick apart Sparty's secondary (much like the Indiana game)...but history is telling me that he will do the exact opposite, hope im dead wrong about that
October 21st, 2013 at 1:15 PM ^
Serious question requiring a serious answer. Do you really lose sleep or not have good sleep because a man is calling plays that haven't been working to an area close to perfection for the majority of the games this season?
October 21st, 2013 at 2:36 PM ^
Your question is about as serious as his use of that particular figure of speech is. I have seen this pointed out before "why are you losing sleep over blank?" It is a well known, oft used figure of speech, just take it as such. We all know he means he has little confidence in what follows that statement.
October 21st, 2013 at 2:40 PM ^
Blue in Yarmouth for (what I assumed) was a pretty fair figure of speech to use in this context...but apparently some posters on this board take everything literally, or are completely lacking in good examples of sarcasm....either way, I have very little confidence in Borges, to clarify your question
October 21st, 2013 at 3:08 PM ^
I think it's a crappy analogy. Borges's play calling isn't something that brings worry into my life so the question at its base was does that occur for you? He answered below. Things are not always what they seem.
October 21st, 2013 at 3:57 PM ^
Will you ever be able to live with the idea that people care about sports? We don't need you to jump in and berate someone every time they communicate how much they care about the sport. Look down on him however much you want, but here you are every day posting away.
October 21st, 2013 at 4:10 PM ^
Habits are hard to break. Like I said to the guy going apeshit during the ND game, "it's just a fucking game." Some people take it too seriously and, in my eyes, should be called out for it. Why should they be called out for it? Mainly because I want to see what their response will be. They aren't directly affecting me like the crazy man who was hitting the guy sitting in front of him with his baseball cap and generally making the game less enjoyable because of his outbursts, but I am always curious to hear the opposing rationale. I don't feel that way so me asking or inticing a response through rude methods (sorry!) is my way of trying to get that person to explain it to me so I can better understand. I will try to do better in the future as to not attack the person to get this desired outcome. Thanks for saying all of that in a pretty innocuous way.
October 23rd, 2013 at 10:10 AM ^
Up until about 5 years ago I was as crazy about UM football as a person could be and I wouldn't literally lose sleep over thinking about a particular game, but it definitely impacted my life in a very real way.
After a loss I would find myself in a funk for days, so much so that my wife would simply avoid even talking to me for a couple of days after a UM loss. I don't think anything had the ability to negatively impact my life the way a UM loss did.
Five years ago all that chaged. I don't know if it was the fact that losing became the norm or that I had quadruplets (or more likely a bit of both), but I started to realize there were more important things in life than whether my favorite sports team won a game.
I remember it taking a while to sink in though. Immediately after the games I would have that same feeling until I kind of shook myself and remembered that, in the grand scheme of things, my life was pretty damn good even if my favorite team lost.
The point of my post is some people have a real connection with sports (and lots of those people are UM fans). Given the past I described I can easily relate to those type of fans, even though now it doesn't have the same devestating effect when UM loses.
People are all different and wanting to try to get inside someone elses head to try to figure out what makes them feel the way they do is an admirable trait, but the way you go about it is more often times going to start a fight, not get the results you say you want.
If you are serious about your intention of wanting to know why people think the way they do, my advice would be to ask in a less sarcastic and judgemental way and you'll probably have more success.
October 21st, 2013 at 4:04 PM ^
CMU, Notre Dame, Minnesota, and Indiana did you have problems with?
October 23rd, 2013 at 10:25 AM ^
Minny and CMU were filled with terrible play-calling, however it didn't matter because both teams were so bad/our defense played so good that the outcome would have been the same regardless: a blow-out win
October 21st, 2013 at 11:03 AM ^
As nervous as I am about this game I think it comes down to whether our defense can stop the sparty offense. If we can shut them out offensively (purdue almost did) it gives us some leeway on offense as I expect a trick special teams play and probably a defensive touchdown against us. If either team scores 20 points they will win this game. Dantonio loves to play the field position game and Hoke will oblige him much like Ferentz did in the Iowa-MSU game earlier in the year.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:21 AM ^
I think it has more to do with not turning the ball over. MSU has 5 defensive TDs this year and while they have improved, they are still pretty bad at moving the ball. They only scored 1 offensive TD against Purdue...at home.
October 21st, 2013 at 12:07 PM ^
At this point I expect around 2 catastrophic turnovers every game. Garnder averages 1.5 INTs per start and has fumbled it away probably 0.5 times per start. It is blatant homerism to think that we won't turn the ball over against MSU. The question is can the defense totally shutdown msu's weaker offense.
October 21st, 2013 at 12:15 PM ^
but I think stopping MSU's offense won't be a problem. They can run the ball reaosnably well but we defend the run well against pro sets (see: anytime Minnesota tried to run with their RB) and their QBs are all bad. They'll pull out some trickeration no doubt but I think scoring 15 pts is enough to beat their offense
Howeva...Devin Gardner will probably give MSU a short field once or twice...or thrice. If we avoid that, I think 15 pts wins the game.
October 21st, 2013 at 2:56 PM ^
Even with the bend but don't break style of defense Mattison has seemed to employ this year, I'm not expecting to see to many long drives by the MSU offense. My big concern is the offense or special teams setting up MSU's offense with a short field.
October 21st, 2013 at 3:21 PM ^
The offense will set MSU up with a short field certainly one time possibly more. How our defense responds in these situations will be the difference. I'd love to see us take MSU out of field goal range with a big 3rd down sack. Or hold them to a field goal from first and goal.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:05 AM ^
I hope Dileo is able to play, because we'll need to hit some stuff over the middle. I expect State to bring pressure to try and cause Gardner to make mistakes, and to play tight on Gallon so we can't make quick throws to the perimeter.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:19 AM ^
Super tight coverage with intense pressure on Gardner will be the State gameplan, and rightfully so since that recipe causes turnovers for all QB's, and apparently, ours especially. We will not have the time for Gardner to wait on all those double moves to develop downfield. The constant use of check down receivers can get pretty boring, but I think we will have to resort to dinking and dunking our way down the field and hope that we can get a few red zone TD's from Gardner's ability to improvise. What we cannot do is play in third and long situations all day where we are forced to throw the ball further downfield under pressure. I think the IU philosophy is the one we need, but it obviously needs to be adjusted for the fact that we're not running for 170 yds on the ground or having the time to throw bombs to wide open receivers all day.
October 21st, 2013 at 12:27 PM ^
I want to see us throw the ball a lot early, and hopefully open up the run game a bit. MSU plays the tightest coverage I've seen, and that's why Denard interferes so often (gets called maybe once a game).
We will need plenty of short routes so Devin doesn't have to hold the ball, but I'd like to see us throw the ball up to Funch a lot in this one. Even if covered, he has a chance to come down with it. After what just happened, Gallon will draw saftey help a lot, which could free Funch or Chesson even more.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:05 AM ^
A different Michigan team seems to exist outside of Ann Arbor that plays our road games for us. It's expected to a degree, but the past few years the difference has been unsettling. BoilerSpartyQuest on Saturday backed me off the cliff a bit.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:05 AM ^
Michigan's gonna trot out the triple option.
October 21st, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
In a sea of great responses that have provided significant enlightenment about the challenges Borges faces and the options he might turn to heading into this key game, sure enough there's you to add clutter with your standard gibberish.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:06 AM ^
If the DBs for State get away with their pass interference on every play style defense, it won't matter what Borges does. If it gets called like it did vs. ND, then I think we will be fine, and win by 10-11 points.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:09 AM ^
Can we really just cut it with the "Staee" business? We're not the RCMB.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:20 AM ^
I'm actually okay with STAEE. There are a few terms for Sparty that are rightfully frowned upon, but this one in particular was an own goal on their part. Maybe it's not a good idea to use it in things like thread titles, where information should be clear and concise, but if you're going to highlight a facepalm-worthy MSU moment, it's my pejorative of choice.
October 21st, 2013 at 11:45 AM ^
But it's so subtle. It's not like other pejoratives. It's an arrogant dig, at best.
But...overmoderation and suppression of speech is where we're at now. Unfortunate, but I've accepted it.
October 21st, 2013 at 1:28 PM ^
When a State fan spray paints a car with Staee because they are too inebriated to spell it correctly isn't that worthy of ridicule for at least 5 years if not forever? It's classic in the same way that all of those comeback games against them were. They were all set up for victory with the lead and should win just like the man all by his lonesome with that fresh can of paint that can be used in the most artistic of ways. Then adversity strikes, the Michigan team begins to make plays and the Spartans lose control over what they had previously had control over much like the effects of the grain alchol eventually clouding the prefrontal cortex in a way that it is rendered impotent and unable to help make rational and correct decisions. Then it strikes, you know when because your body expels the proof of its existance for all to hear. Sparty No! You see this in the game and the proof of this with the artist is left with his finished masterpiece of Staee. It is proof that Sparty No is not just subject to on the field now, it has crossed into the world we all occupy.