Borges Conference Video Up

Submitted by Gameboy on

If you can watch this without yelling and screaming at the screen the entire time, you are a better man than I.

http://www.mgoblue.com/allaccess/?media=411577

What is amazing is that he talks about how you need to go away from the power game when it is not working. THEN WHY THE HECK DID YOU KEEP RUNNING IT IN OT!!!????

 

exmtroj

October 15th, 2013 at 10:54 PM ^

Hoke loves Michigan too much, and it's becoming increasingly apparent that if he insists on hitching his wagon to Borges, he is going to lose his dream job.



I think a major moment will be the OSU game. If the Big House is bathed in scarlet again and Michigan loses, I imagine Brandon would be livid and start dropping some serious hints that there need to be a couple changes.

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 9:17 AM ^

OSU went undefeated last year, had the game at home, and we played them close. A lot of people think we blew that game. It's not inconceivable to think that we'll be competitive, although I understand the pessimism.

However, keep in mind that last year's team had lost 2 games already at this point in the season and barely survived against a bad Air Force team at home.

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 10:29 PM ^

Well, people's main complaint was that they went away from running the ball with Denard at RB as he was the only effective rusher we had. Reports were however that Denard was injured in the 2nd half, which is why we went away from him.

These are the types of things fans are sometimes completely unaware of. They put it all on the coaches, but on occasion, shit happens. One of your best players gets injured and you try to work around it, but the other teams are not just empty suits. They have intelligent coaches as well, and are able to take advantage of another team's misfortune.

All things being equal, one team losing a key component of their team necessarily puts them at a disadvantage. There isn't always a way to scheme your way out of a hole. We like to pretend that there is, but that's not reality.

CompleteLunacy

October 16th, 2013 at 11:23 AM ^

Honestly, some folks around here are getting delusional with how bad they think it is. Look, Saturday wasn't pretty, and neither were Akron/Uconn. But they're 5-1, and are one made field goal or one less circus catch away from 6-0. They didn't get blown out by PSU, unlike in 2010. 

ANd let's not forget that they still beat ND, handily. You may not think that's a quality win, but I still do. ND beat Arizona State, and MSU. Don't forget ASU beat Wisconsin (obviously thanks to the refs...but still, they won). They're not a bad team.

And also, college football is just weird sometimes. Oklahoma easily beat ND and then gets stomped by a flailing Texas. 

And as a disclaimer for the above, I'm not saying that the offense isn't a major concern. Because it is. Especially the play calling combined with the futility of running the ball because of the offensive line. But, some folks around here are getting out of hand with the "this team sucks, throw away the season, fire Borges" talk.

It's just one loss. There's still too much season left to know where this team will end up But it's still just one.

(edit: meant in reply to goblue20111)

B1G_Fan

October 16th, 2013 at 12:32 AM ^

 Did you watch akron, Uconn and especially the Penn state game? We could easily be 2-3 right now and probably should be 2-3. The defensive coaches worked miracles, the offensive coaches didn't do anything special and the offense has gotten worse year to year and week to week.

 If Hoke loves Michigan as much as he says he does then he won't let Borges's play acting as an offensive coordinator continue

UMFan95

October 16th, 2013 at 7:53 AM ^

lol, when you are basicly throwing the football to the opposing player as much as you are to you teammates, consider it working magic.  I was little impressed with the defense, at least you can see little improvement.  They are hitting opposing qbs now, that is a step in the right direction.

umchicago

October 16th, 2013 at 4:05 AM ^

Borges is the QB coach and OC.  denard regressed under his watch.  garnder has not improved at all.  the play calling is pathetic.  this all points to one thing: get rid of BORGES.

Indiana Blue

October 16th, 2013 at 8:42 AM ^

how can anyone do a thorough review of Borges and NOT conclude that he has failed as both QB coach and offensive coordinator?  

NONE of our QB's have improved in their decision making (AND IT AIN'T FOOTWORK - MORON) and the play calling in the PSU game is proof positive that Borges in indeed a MORON.

It's Hoke's job to be the CEO of this football program ...  and while it tough to fire an employee (and several of us have had to this in our job), this needs to be done because in 3 years Borges has failed to get results in HIS area of responsibility.  Football has changed over the last 10 years and Borges has not.  Sadly - the truth is that this team will never win a B1G championship with Borges as OC.

 

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 8:48 AM ^

So what about 2011? Was that a massive failure of a season?

What about last year, when he took a guy who had been playing WR the whole off-season and first half of the year and turned him into an extremely competent QB overnight?

Do we just pretend like those things never happened?

I can see where you're coming from as a lot of the criticisms with regard to play calling and line play have been valid, but let's not go overboard here.

You're being hyperbolic, and a negative nancy with some of the rhetoric.

Giff4484

October 16th, 2013 at 8:56 AM ^

We were a judgment call from the Booth review of that TD pass by Va Tech of a loss there. We didnt play well on O that day at all. Our D won that game and some clutch kicking by Gibbons and way too much credit is given to Borges for that win by some of our fans capping a pretty good season by our D.

I have yet to see Al Borges put back to back good gameplans in for us... Sad

Indiana Blue

October 16th, 2013 at 1:24 PM ^

2011 - the year Hoke would go for it on 4th down from the Michigan side of the field, or call for a fake FG.  Everything was new and shiny ... with no experience there was no precedent, no predictability.

Well the shine is gone and EVERYONE knows about the PREDICTABILITY.  

PSU used 4 defensive tackles as their D-line and then put 4 LB's against us AND Borges calls run after run after run, even though PSU was never going to be able to defend the pass.  LastHoke - you have plenty to say ... but the facts are the facts, and Borges just doesn't understand it. 

ClearEyesFullHart

October 16th, 2013 at 9:14 AM ^

Seriously, your wall must be littered with awards. Borges is better at his job than maybe 80% of his peers. He just isn't perfect like you. Take a step back and look at this. Is it fair to judge an offensive coordinator who has to work with that offensive line? With a quarterback who seems to be targeting the other team? This is year 3. And Borges has been part of 24 wins. It's time to build. I've seen starting over. It's for the birds.

xxxxNateDaGreat

October 16th, 2013 at 9:51 AM ^

Denard regressed because he will never be a non spread option run first QB. You can blame Borges for square peg/round hole, but Denard was never meant to be a Pro QB anymore than Borges was meant to be a Spread option coordinator.

Devin has yet to play the equivalant of a full season (only 11 games). Yeah, he studied in the offseason, but nothing, NOTHING, beats game experience, which is what his problem is. Most of Devin's mistakes are mental. He is regressing in his mechanics becuase he is panicking and letting the mistakes compound. This will be fixed as he gets more and more starts under his belt.

Borges has by no objective means been a success in his 2+ years here (quite the opposite), but simply removing him and Funk will not magically fix all of the mistakes.

CompleteLunacy

October 16th, 2013 at 11:20 AM ^

But it seemed to me like DG turned a corner from his previous mental funk in the 2nd half against Penn State. Obviously only time will tell if I'm right. I sure hopes so, because we need him to make plays, and he needs to show Al that he can be trusted again. We can't run MANBALL against the rest of the schedule and expect wins. We need DG to be the DG that torched ND.

And more than anything else, we need to stop turning the damn ball over.

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 2:09 AM ^

It's also incredibly stupid and just completely ignorant of, well, basically everything.

If we're comparing this year so far to basically this same point in 2011 (if you'll allow me a bit of leeway to make my point).

We are 5-1 coming off a bad loss to PSU where we basically gave the game away and showed 0 semblance of a running game (outside of our QB).

In 2011 we were 6-1 coming off of a bad loss to MSU where we showed 0 semblance of a running game (outside of our QB).

In fact, that team and this team look remarkably similar.

A QB who was equal parts dynamo and disaster. Who turned the ball over way too much, and  essentially carried our offense. He was also bailed out by the exceptional play of a few big play wide receivers.

A running game that basically didn't exist until 8 games into the season, but had shown 0 signs of life up to that point (we've obviously yet to see if the 2013 squad can do the same).

A defense that was very good, despite lacking depth in a few key areas.

Granted, that team definitely overachieved thanks to a favorable schedule, that saw their only 2 losses come on the road.

One to a solid Michigan State team, and the other against an Iowa team they should have beaten, where they gave the game away thanks to turnovers and an inability to consistently move the ball (sound familiar).

It sucks that we lost, but it's far from the end of the world, "We're finshing 7-5," doomsday scenario that a lot of people are attempting to paint.

uminks

October 16th, 2013 at 2:45 AM ^

 I'm a bit surprise the OL has played so poorly. I know youth is a big factor but even our two seniors are not having stellar years. Worried that coaching may be a factor but we shall see by 2015. PSU DL is in the middle to bottom of all teams. NE, MSU and OSU DL will ravage us. The rest of the schedule we may be able to block somewhat. I predicted 8-4, so even going 7-5 will be close to the mark most expected this year. Too many fans are unrealistic thinking this was a 10 plus win team!

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 6:26 AM ^

People were saying the exact same things in 2011.

People were also starting to shit all over Beilein last year before they made their NCAA tourney run, talking about him being incapable of maximizing the team's talent and saying that he was getting out coached.

Now, he's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Wait until the team loses a few games this year, people will be right back to saying the same dumb shit about him.

Remember when he couldn't recruit and was totally incapable of bringing in top tier talent to Ann Arbor?

Just, ugh...

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 9:32 AM ^

I would argue that it wasn't true, and it was always blown out of proportion by the naysayers, especially with regard to recruiting. His 2nd year was one of the biggest turnarounds in school history and we made the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade. People were still complaining and a lot of people were actually calling for his head after his 3rd season, ad claiming he couldn't recruit at all even though at that point he had nabbed a number of high level prospects and unearthed quite a few gems in the rough.

There were people claiming he couldn't take the program "to the next level" as late as the start of the NCAA tournament last year.

It was however true that all of the negative nancies and chicken littles claiming the sky was falling ended up being completely and totally wrong.

It also showed that given time and a deal of patience that the right coach can succeed.

Hoke has had a great deal more success through 2 1/2 seasons than Beilein had through 3.

xxxxNateDaGreat

October 16th, 2013 at 10:21 AM ^

I will never understand how someone can live like that. Blowing every little thing out of proportion. a few wins and we are title contenders, a few losses and we might as well fire everyone cause they can't do anything right.

Building something takes time. Everyone wants there to be a quick three-years-or-less window for championships, but the fact is that that doesn't happen unless you already have a strong foundation for success and Rich Rod left anything but a strong foundation behind. I can't remember what the diary was called, but someone did a thing about third year coach success rate for championship coaches and almost every name on there followed a coach who had a solid, if not outright spectacular, foundation, to the point where the new guy just had to keep recruiting for a year or two and maybe tweak something in the Offensive or Defensive schemes (usually not both) and boom, championship(s)

Saban is probably the only exception to that rule, and even then, Mike Shula had a 10 win season the year before he was fired, in addition to a winning record.

Blue Mike

October 16th, 2013 at 10:09 AM ^

How exactly is this year so similar to 2011, other than at one point we lost our first game on the road?  In 2011, the team got better as the season went along.  2011's version of Akron/UCONN was Eastern Michigan and SDSU, and we won by a combined scored of 59-10.

But the real difference between this year and 2011 was that our first loss was at MSU, our toughest road game of the year.  In fact, we lost our two toughest road games of the year.  Add in that Northwestern and OSU weren't as strong then as they are now, 

Just because in 2011 we were 6-1 and finished that season 10-2 doesn't mean that everything will be fine this year.  How do we feel about Hoke and Borges now if in 2011 Purdue and Illinois were replaced with PSU and Wisconsin and we ended up 8-4?  

TheLastHarbaugh

October 16th, 2013 at 10:18 AM ^

The point is that we don't know, so there's no reason to get our panties in a bunch about it. If you want to call the season dead and over with, that's fine. I'd appreciate you then not spreading that sort of negativity to the rest of us who will enjoy seeing how the rest of this season plays out.

The similarities between this season and 2011 are in fact numerous, and a lot of the criticisms are exactly the same. I also compared this loss more to the Iowa loss from that year. Look, I'm not saying that the outcomes will be the same, but my how quickly we forget.

Asquaredroot

October 16th, 2013 at 2:24 AM ^

Your idea of common sense hurts my brain. I can't begin to fathom how you think 2011 is the only reason we're disappointed now.

Have you watched any Michigan football this year?  5-1 doesn't begin to speak to how bad our offensive scheme and execution is.

 

DixieWreck

October 16th, 2013 at 7:15 AM ^

Denard did, multiple times, and then they sat him for almost the entire second half of the OSU game that we should have won. *This response is for the comment above about how Borgess/Hoke worked miracles their first year.  Not sure why my response bounced way down here.