Brady Hoke: Whole staff will return next year

That outside of a few of the trick plays, the scheme and game plan was generally the same for OSU as it was for every game post-MSU. I think the OL executed better and that resulted in the ability to open up the playbook more. You can get to that stuff when you get the first 1st down, when you can get to 2nd and medium, and when you do run a trick play that doesn't work, you know you can get to 3rd and manageable on 2nd down.

Maybe there were som slight changes, but I do not believe it was much. I think the lack of execution (players and coaches, just to make that clear for as is needed) and in large part a snowball effect due to inconsistency and limitations doomed the offense much of the time the offense played poorly.

But that's my opinion and has been. Again, I understand why people beleive differently and don't want to debate it, but that's the POV I've taken from the start and I think explains why this offense was wildly inconsistent this year more than any other time in Borges's career. In my opinion, that's a much more logical way of thinking that actually believing he forgets how to call plays, he is too stubborn, he saved everything for one game, or he saved everything to save his job. But what people view as logical can often be different (I'm not saying other people aren't using their own logic, I'm saying people often have a different view of what is logical based on other views, opinions, and bias, myself included). 

I believe Borges did try to do things to take advantage of what those defense's weaknesses. The problem was things such as: MSU's weakness - deep passes; Nebraska - Between OT running; Northwestern - Short/Intermediate Outs; etc. But Michigan either couldn't execute to take advantage of those things and struggled to execute outside of those things, making the offense quite limited in what they could do.

That's what I was trying to convey. That it was more "let's try to take advantage of their weakness and pray that's enough because we can't do much out of that due to poor OL play"

A guy that has been coaching for nearly 30 years and has been an OC for about as long, suddenly forgot game-to-game how to call plays or create game plans; or that 18-23 year olds trying to execute something that is going to be hard no matter what is asked of them - many of the kids being significantly inexperienced compared to their counterparts - may perform inconsistently?

As for gameplans:

Northwestern - throw short/intermediate throws to the flat which take advantage of the void in cover 3 that doesn't rely on Gardner making underneath reads

Nebraska - Run on one of the worst run defenses in the country, utilize jet sweep to beat them to the edge, run mesh concepts and double moves to beat cover 1.

Akron - Michigan averaged 6.9 yards per play and had 4 turnovers. Akron averages 5.5 yards per play on defense, the average Michigan put up on them would put them at 117 in the nation. Think the game plan in general was not too shabby.

Borges shifted his game plan week-to-week to try to take advantage of defensive weaknesses (MSU he stacked formations and forced safeties to cover WRs 1 on 1, as another example; Iowa came out mostly in man coverage as opposed to their typical 2-high look, Borges adjusted the game plan and called plays designed to beat man coverage rather than 2-high coverage, though I'm sure you noticed).

So why do you think Borges was successful some games and not others? Was it because he is capable but decided not to some games? Was it because he forgot how to game plan and call plays some games and then remembered other times? Or was it because execution was inconsistent, and maybe when execution got consistent, a snowball effect occured? FWIW, as someone who has played and coached, it's much easier to be consistent at things like game planning and coaching than it is executing as a player. Add on that young players at a position that is often vital to any success on offense, yeah, I think that's fairly reasonable.

When you have a bad OL, the rest snowballs. When Michigan's OL played at a mediocre level, you saw it snowball the other direction. The run game opens up, alright. Now the PA opens up. Great, now the short passing game opens up. Awesome, now that a base is established the counters and constraints open up. This is working out well. So, yes, the offense did execute much better against OSU. And some execution here and there resulted in nearly 20 more plays being called then you saw in other games, and allowed Borges to go deeper into the playbook, and allowed Michigan to be successful at doing other things.

Certainly, the offense wasn't perfect and you'd like to see it have better results. But the fact that you can't see the adjustments Borges tried to make, both to take advantage of Michigan's strengths and to take advantage of opponents weaknesses, and to attempt to cover up some of Michigan's weaknesses, I'm sorry. There are things to complain about, sure, but Borges didn't go out there, forget what football was, and then suddenly remember for a few games during the season.

I'm not going any further into the debate. You can disagree with my POV, that's fine and I can respect that. But I'm not sure how my option is "absurd beyond reason". But alright.