Borges Gripes

was calling to the MSU defensive linemen.

I think we're going to see a big boost in terms of overall QB play maybe not next year, but the year after and following. Borges will have the type of QB he was brought in to coach. I love Denard, and the man makes plays, but in terms of this offense, he is a square peg in a round hole.



Borges is doing what he can until Morris comes into the picture. Ideally, though, I don't want Morris touching the field next year. Unless he is our best option, hand him a clipboard and a headset, get him acclimated to the offense, and he can take the reins as a RS freshman in 2014.

90 yards last week and doesn't see the field today? I apologize if someone has already mentioned it, but how does he not at least get a few snaps where he can go north/south instead of running all these zone reads that Fitz can't break (yeah, he had a 38 yard run, but had 9 for 14 yards otherwise)

genius savant against a good, funadmentaly strong defense that stays home and tackles well.

Its called football.

Dana Holgerson is a genius right up to the point he started playing good defenses.

My biggest Borges gripe is calling a qb designed run up the gut after MSU has stuffed it all day after getting six on first down. There Was a drive in the fourth quarter we made it to their side of the field and we got 6 yards on first down for second and four and wound up in third7 because of a draw call. Fitz had some room and u know MSU is looking for Denard to run. Give to Fitz or ...gasp...try a bubble screen. The outside was there for the taking on multiple occasions, but we kept trying to pound the middle.

That's our record with this coaching staff.  How soon we forget and quick we are to criticize.  All that were expecting 20+ points against State's defense haven't paid attention.  Admit it, Sparty has a defense that is very good against Denard and has been all three games that he started.

We should be reveling in that fact that this is the last really good Defense that we will face.  All of you will be singing the praises of Gorgeous Boregeous as Denard becomes the all-time leading rushing QB.  However, it will largely be due to the same plays being called against poorer defenses.

Enjoy the win.  Nebraska's next. 

I do miss the play where Denard starts to run to one side, and the defense moves in thinking it's a run, then he stops and tosses the ball to a (usually) wide open WR.

RR ran it frequently, they ran it a few times last year, but I don't think I've seen it this year.

I can't really think of an OC who would not be happy to inherit DR, but I am certain there are many who would have rather inherited him at another position. There is no doubt he's the  most exciting offensive Michigan football player I've ever seen. What he is going to accomplish in three years is mind boggling, but he does present some problems, strictly from an OC's position. We know he has the arm strength to complete any pass, but we don't know when he'll step into a pass or revert to old habits and stand with feet at equi disant as shoulders and attempt an arm throw, like he did with Gallon completely open in the end zone tonight.

Just because he inherited the most exciting offensive player we've ever had, does not automatically equate to inheriting the greatest qb we've ever had. While it's true that no other UM player could have pulled out as many last second victories as Denard has, it's also true he has to be, perhaps, the most difficult to build a game plan around simply because you don't know what you will get.

He was poision the past two weeks vs. Purdue and IL, where he was only asked to throw 15 times and he let his feet do the walking. This makes it easy for an OC. But tonight, where he had a decent first half throwing, he definitely let it affect his second half release, and we had far too many completions by virtue of our receivers bending over, sometimes waiting to catch the ball. Borges had no choice but to accept this guy as our qb and take, good or bad, whatever came. However, just because of who Denard is, that can change in one series. Who the hell were you going to replace him with? Why would you want to replace him? Neither question requires an answer because we all are already aware.

But he is not an RGIII, who can repeatedly hit his man in stride on the long ball. If he was, he would have won the Heisman last season and been the front runner again this year, simply because of the the extra threat his legs pose. He has also never been complemented by that "can't miss" back who he could simply hand it off to, thereby making his job easier.

With Denard, you get what you get. It could be a well devised game plan vs. ND, but "wait a minute," I didn't know he was going to go Darius  on us and toss up six picks.  But when planning for the Purdue game, I thought we might need twenty passes from him, but the kid went nuts and ran for over 200, and followed it up the next week in a 150 yd homecoming performance where he didn't see the fourth quarter.

It is so easy to set back and, in retrospect, and in the course of a game, that is immediate, say what we should have done, but by saying "it was so obvious" does not guarantee that it would have worked either, because my guess is Borges thought his play calling had a realistically high percentage of possible success. That is why you call them.

We could easily end up as a two loss conference champ, or we might snub our toe another time or two. All any OC can do is devise a game plan that he thinks Denard, at his best, will be able to pull off and give us a good chance of winning. And even tonight, when he seemed to struggle to really get a grip on the game, when the chips were down, he managed to get us in the field position we needed for a last second victory, and possibly realizing that he had something going with Dileo, had him in there for that last pass. Who know? All I'm saying is Al, going forward, will be game planning around a far more orthodox, yes, hugely less exciting player, but possibly one that will make his job much easier.

As I watch Denard as an ex coach, I am amazed at how this kid plays football. He is extraordinary, but having him in a position where every play you call involves him to a degree, I know without a doubt that each play that is called is predicated on this kid having already proven he can do whatever it is he asked to do on that play. Now whether he does it or not is up in the air.   But rememember, especially tonight, he was going against a damn good offense and this is a young man that w/o a RS year, was thrown into the fire and is going to end up with a damn fine two year run.

Let's start second guessing Al next year. This year is still Denard's.

Can't believe we don't have a designed roll out with a run / pass option for denard for use inside the 5 yard line. Seems unstoppable

Not defending too much because the predictability factor was there all game but on points 2. & 3.: Funchess had a TD pass fall from his hands. I would've loved to see more of him but Kiawikowski (sp) also got involved from a TE standpoint. And the throwback screen worked the first time, but the pass (again) was too high hurting the fluidity of the play and giving the defense time to adjust. On the second screen it was perfectly defended. Borges ran multiple similar playsets back to back to back with different calls - 3 wide, 2 back set on first: read option, same set on second: play action, same set on third: pass. Denard essentially made the read on the defense and called the play as per what he was given. Execution in the red zone was the biggest problem (that and the special teams blunder). This staff wanted this game much more than they led on.

Zone reads were too much. Need more Toussant plays. Backside screen makes me sweat a bit because Denard doesnt look before he throws to the screen man and if one person on that defense is around the area it can be an easy pick 6. Anymore, the plays that make him very dangerous is when its a pass play and he hangs in the pocket for a good 5 seconds or so to get the dbs back far enough off the LOS and then tuck and run. So many times I saw him hang in the pocket for a long time which was good but never took off when sees only 2 guys in the box with open lanes to run. Triple receivers on one side is always good safe pass because there is always one db playing deep off the rceiver to cover the backside pass. When that safety moves up to help cover the trips is the backside TE slant works awesome. You have to throw a little to take some preasure off of denard's running game.

Oh and 3rd and 15's and beyond are almost impossible to convert. The whole game we were faced with 3rd and a mile. Forget about the punt throws. Denard has the worst quarterback mechanics I have ever seen in my life. He Still has his feet and shoulders square with the LOS when he throws. He still throws off his back foot. A lot of his over the middle throws are batted down because he throws side arm. He is very inaccurate because of his mechanics. We need to stop throwing hail marys and only throw deep to a wide open receiver.

Borg(es) response to the OP:

"You will be assimilated.  Resistance is futile."

I could not believe the number of times I looked on the sideline and found #19 standing there. What the hell?

Remember a week or two ago when Borges said after games he goes through every play, and the ones that do not work out well he determines whether A) he made a bad play call, B) the offense failed to execute (e.g. someone missed a block, receiver ran wrong route, etc.), or C) the defense just made an exceptionally outstanding play?  

Now we can fault the OC for A) and sometimes for B) if the lack of execution is because the coaches haven't prepared the players properly, but most of the offensive difficulties were caused by failure to execute or exceptional defensive play.

It should be pointed out that, although we only managed 163 yards on the ground, this was good enough to exceed the average yield of rushing yards for the Spartan defense by about 45%, as it was 91 yards at the start of the game (it is now 100 yards, incidentally). From a numbers standpoint, what we did on the ground was effective overall against a defense that was designed to take this away for the most part. Actually, MSU runs a defense that is designed to take away some of the plays we are best at  on offense, so if the approach looked different, that would likely be why, I would say. 

It seems like the playcalling went conservative to mitigate mistakes, and it worked - Denard threw one interception literally as time expired in the 1st half, so it meant nothing towards the outcome ultimately. Denard still averaged 4.2 yards per carry, and 4.2 yards, as we can well note in games like this, can make all the difference in the world.

In the air, there actually were several great calls, I thought, considering the defense we were facing. Many of them sadly fell victim to slightly off-target throws or drops, but when you're only getting narrow windows in coverage designed to prevent big plays, we did still make a couple when we needed them (Drew Dileo, in particular). If we could throw darts and hit receivers deep all day in tight coverage, that would be awesome, but we don't necessarily have the personnel to do it right now - that being said, we still had four receivers with one 10+ yard receptions, which is significant enough against a good pass defense (for two of them, it was their only catch on the day, of course). 

We were able to exploit the Narduzzi defense just enough to win, and we made timely plays against it when we needed them. We did it with personnel still not exactly in the OC's wheelhouse too, which actually gives me a lot of hope that when we are fully staffed in this offense, if you will, we should be just fine. 

Jesus

Fresh off a loss in a rivalry game where we watched Denard basically lose the game by throwing turnovers, we win a game by running a much more conservative game plan, in which Denard throws notma single meaningful pick (end of half interception, whatever). And people complain.

Where was the counter-punch? We completed 50% of our passes - maybe they're rolling around the turf as incomplete balls. Like the one to Funchess that Denard should have thrown higher. Or e pass to Gallon in the end zone where Denard threw the ball 4 feet behind him. Or he miscommunication between Denard and Roundtree. Or the ball Gardner dropped.

None of this is to blame the players - they're going to have execution errors, and they did. Whatever.

Furthermore - where was Funchess? In a game with a 50-50 run/pass split are you shocked that we didn't play our worst run-blocker more than half the snaps? There are other things that position is asked to do other than catch balls, and Kwiatowski does those things better than Funchess.

Ziff, youmare one concern-trolling motherfucker.

This is a fine topic to discuss.  Denard struggled, but Borgess also called some weird plays.  For better or for worse, the running game isn't getting going without Denard running quite a bit.  Yet as the game progressed, it became clear that Borgess wanted to throw the ball to find the weaknesses in the Spartan defense, and basically abandoned the run with Denard.  Sure it worked somewhat, but it was an offense predicated on a sometimes-erratic QB making tough throws.  It was questionable, and comes on the heels of other games wherein the offense didn't same able to respond to changes made by the defense.

Beyond that, though, the team won, and that's huge.  It is a rivalry game, so expect to see new formations and wrinkles that can make even competent units look bad.  But for those acting "stop your bitching, this is a dumb topic", I ask you to look back at your posting history here and then start throwing your dumb rocks. 

Does anyone else keep waiting for trick plays or gadget plays that never happen? Or even a new formation or alignment or annnnything. I figured we were saving a few for STAEE, but nope.