Can anyone find this topical quote from "Bo's Lasting Lessons for me?
Putting all feelings about Bo at this point aside, there is a quote from JBU's book I recall but haven't been able to track down (my copy of the book isn't in my possession right now and google searching hasn't turned up the passage). IIRC it's relevant as far as this nonsense about the impact of signal deciphering is concerned. In the chapter, Bo is talking about how he felt he was getting behind the curve scheme-wise after 1984, the infamous 6-6 year. He goes to a coaching clinic where a young whipper-snapper coach is explaining some complicated new defensive scheme, and someone in the audience points out that the coach's actual defensive statistics were terrible. The young whipper-snapper mumbles something about being a poor tackling team, which convinces Bo that he's worrying too much about scheme as opposed to fundamentals.
Bo then recounts an incident in a game from sometime later (I think). Michigan is obliterating MSU and the offense is on the goal line primed for another TD. However, one of MSU's defenders believes he has *gasp* stolen Michigan's offensive signals one way or another. He starts running around yelling to his fellow defenders that a right-side, off-tackle run is coming. Bo expresses skepticism that MSU had actually stolen Michigan's signals, but in this case, the MSU player seems to have at least incidentally made the correct call. Michigan's right tackle looks at the defender and says "That's right, it's an off-tackle play. It's coming right over you. And there's not a thing you can do about it". The Michigan O-line proceeds to flatten MSU's defense (and the defender in question) and the ball carrier walks in for an easy TD.
Anyway, I just wondered if anyone who has the book can confirm whether I am remembering this correctly and perhaps provide the actual quotes. I thought the passage speaks to the broader point, made recently by coaches such as Deion Sanders, that you can know exactly what's coming from the other team and still get beat. Sorry Ryan Day and OSU, signal deciphering isn't why Hassan Haskins ran the ball down your throat on Michigan's crucial final two TD drives of The Game in 2021. Nor is it the reason your safeties were constantly busting in 2022. Or why your offense that struggled in short-yardage situations all year proceeded to struggle in short-yardage against Michigan.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:14 PM ^
Username checks out
October 28th, 2023 at 3:19 PM ^
I'm not reading all that.
Happy for you, tho.
Or sorry that happened.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:30 PM ^
Try Google.com or my wife, she knows everything.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
Something- something- touchdown- team- suckit state- something.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:40 PM ^
Do we really need a new thread every time someone has a mildly unique thought about signs?
Michigan is a good team. Whether or not whatever happened, whoever knew about it, what the net gain was, semantics and thought experiments and anything else is not going to change anything. Michigan will continue to be a good team.
October 28th, 2023 at 6:05 PM ^
New threads are like the 2:00am sports center back in the day. You know what happened everywhere but there might be a highlight you missed so, this new nugget is a highlight someone missed and wanted to add… Thus new detail or thought is another thread
October 28th, 2023 at 8:01 PM ^
Well some of us come here for the repetitive complaining by commenters against posters.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:40 PM ^
Not sure I remember how to thumb through a books pages anymore? Scary.
Jason Tuck told the defensive side of a similar story about Dallas's Larry Allen. Allen made a train whistle sound when the play was coming behind him and right over you the defender. Tuck's coach knowing Tuck couldn't stop it just said to do his best.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:40 PM ^
Chapter 23 - Emphasize Execution, Not Innovation
October 28th, 2023 at 3:44 PM ^
I think the OP, perhaps unintentionally, includes the bad of Bo (stubbornness, unwillingness to accept change) along with the good (here, attention to fundamentals). Those themes would echo in future regimes with certain topics, like the defense of mobile QBs.
If signal stealing didn't matter at all, no one would bother with it.
October 28th, 2023 at 3:52 PM ^
Oh I'm not denying it has any impact at all, although my feelings are similar to Brian's in that the actual advantage of Stalion's gray area activities were probably minimal and completely inconsequential for The Game. And I agree Bo's stubbornness comes out in this passage. I was really just trying to track down the actual quotes and figured someone here might have a copy of Bacon's book. Dr. Google doesn't bring up the actual passage.
October 28th, 2023 at 4:00 PM ^
I would swear that it was Bubba Paris.
October 28th, 2023 at 4:36 PM ^
Yup, you pretty much nailed it:
This crisis of confidence occurred after our infamous 1984 season, when we finished 6-6. In the off-season I went to one of these national coaching conferences with a few hundred other coaches, and they had some hotshot young high school coach from California explain his new whiz-bang system of defense. He had zones two deep, three deep, man-to-man, and combinations of the two. That really caught my eye. I’m thinking, Maybe you’ve got to do all those things to win these days. Maybe our approach at Michigan is just too simple to succeed in the modern era. Boy, that was an awful feeling. But after this guy finishes his slide show, someone in the audience raises his hand and asks, “If your defensive schemes are so great, then why did your team give up 400 yards a game last season?” Well, I wanted to hear this! The hotshot replied—and I will never forget this—“We were just a poor tackling team.” Well, hell! That tells you all you need to know! You throw out 50 percent of that fancy stuff, and spend fifteen more minutes every day practicing the most basic thing in football: TACKLING. That’s all! After another coach asked the same whippersnapper why one of his plays failed in a big game, he said, “That play would’ve worked if the damn guard had pulled.” Then don’t run that play unless the guard is so indoctrinated that he will pull every time—and do it in his sleep. That’s called coaching! I walked out of that auditorium, and I knew what we were going to do: Get back to basics! Get back to Michigan football! And I was determined that we were going to do it better than anyone else. Blocking and tackling! Blocking and tackling! Blocking and tackling! Every business has its blocking and tackling, and if you can’t do those basics well then nothing else matters. Want the whole thing in a nutshell? Just talk to Bubba Paris. It’s midseason, 1981, we’re ranked sixth in the nation, and we’re playing an unranked Michigan State squad. We’re ahead maybe 14–0, and we drive down the field again—bang, bang, bang—until we’re looking at first-and-goal on their three-yard line. We get in the huddle and call our play—but Smiley Creswell, State’s defensive tackle, thinks he’s got our signals figured out, so he starts yelling to his teammates: “Off-tackle right! Off-tackle right!” Now, on this 1981 team we have a front line of Ed Muransky, Kurt Becker, George Lilja and Bubba Paris—every one of them an All-American. This is not a line you want to be messing with. Bubba hears all this commotion coming from the Spartans, but he just saunters up to the line, as only Bubba could do—he was 6-5, 310—and calmly gets down in his stance. Then he looks across the line at Smiley Creswell and says, “That’s right. It’s an off-tackle play. It’s coming right over you. And there’s not a thing you can do about it.” Three seconds later Bubba flattens Creswell. Our tailback just walks through the hole Bubba made, and he’s in the Spartan end zone, untouched, handing the ball to the referee, Michigan-style. Touchdown! We didn’t fool ’em. We just beat ’em! Now that is execution! That is confidence! THAT IS MICHIGAN FOOTBALL.
Schembechler, Bo; Bacon, John. Bo's Lasting Lessons: The Legendary Coach Teaches the Timeless Fundamentals of Leadership . Grand Central Publishing. Kindle Edition.
October 28th, 2023 at 4:53 PM ^
That timeline doesn't work out. At least with the players named. That shitty 6-6 year was my freshman year in 84
Bubba was drafted in 1982 and Creswell in 83.
Edit: Probably 1980 season coming off the 8-4 '79 season.
October 28th, 2023 at 5:31 PM ^
Vince Lombardi's Packers were the same. They didn't run anything fancy. Teams knew the sweep was coming but couldn't stop it. Yes, football has greatly evolved since those days, but what remains in the fact that you may know what's coming, but it's still on you to stop the play. Funny how often the answer to a team's woes is to block or tackle better.
October 28th, 2023 at 10:24 PM ^
You're correct, it was '81. It's a little confusing how it was written, but it says 1981 in the middle leading up to the play. The coaching clinic happened in '84, but his prime example of the lesson learned happened before that, in '81.
October 28th, 2023 at 10:01 PM ^
Thanks!!! this is exactly what I was looking for. I see the incident in the MSU game actually occurred before the coaching clinic, but glad to know I remembered most of the rest correctly. Funny to think how "sign stealing" has been going on forever, yet it's currently being treated as some sort of taboo because of Stalions bending the rules.
October 28th, 2023 at 5:19 PM ^
I’m not saying that the end result of any of the games, The Game in particular, would’ve been different, but knowing the play the other team is running is not a negligible advantage. It’s enormous. There’s a reason why teams huddle, a reason why they run play action, and a reason why defenses disguise coverages pre-snap. It’s so you won’t know what they are doing because if you did, it makes executing a lot harder.
We have no idea how much Stallions knew and to what level his code breaking was implemented, but it’s absurd to say knowing the play doesn’t help that much.
October 28th, 2023 at 5:28 PM ^
Assuming it works--that you really have their signs and they haven't changed them. And you're willing to sell out to stop the play that MAY be coming.
October 28th, 2023 at 10:06 PM ^
The Game 2013. 2 point conversion call. Grrr!
October 28th, 2023 at 5:59 PM ^
Bo had a sign for that, it read 'we're running right, try to stop us'.
October 28th, 2023 at 7:54 PM ^
tldr, so I asked our AI overlords. Here's its response to the OP's post:
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Here is the passage you are referring to from Bo Schembechler's book, Bo Schembechler: A Coach's Code:
"There's been a lot of talk lately about signal stealing and how it can give a team a big advantage. But I've always believed that the fundamentals are still the most important thing. You can know all the other team's signals, but if you can't tackle or block, it's not going to do you much good.
"I remember one time we were playing Michigan State and we were just obliterating them. We had the ball on the goal line and we were about to score another touchdown. But one of the Michigan State defenders came running up to me and said, 'Coach, we've stolen their signals. They're going to run off-tackle to the right.'
"I was skeptical, but I told him to go ahead and tell his teammates. So he ran around yelling, 'Off-tackle to the right! Off-tackle to the right!'
"Sure enough, that's what we ran. Our right tackle looked at the defender and said, 'That's right, it's an off-tackle play. It's coming right over you. And there's not a thing you can do about it.'
"We snapped the ball and our offensive line just flattened the Michigan State defense. The ball carrier walked in for an easy touchdown.
"The defender was right, but he couldn't stop it. It didn't matter that he knew what was coming. We were just better."
I think this passage speaks to the broader point that you are making, which is that signal deciphering is not a guarantee of victory. If you can't execute, it doesn't matter what you know.
I would also add that signal deciphering is becoming increasingly difficult, thanks to the use of spread offenses and no-huddle offenses. It's much harder to steal signals when the other team is constantly changing their formations and plays.
So, while it's certainly helpful to know what the other team is doing, it's not essential to winning. The most important thing is to be able to execute your own game plan and play better than the other team.
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October 29th, 2023 at 11:55 AM ^
I read Bo's Lasting Lessons on a flight from Detroit to Bangkok, thru Tokeo in early 2008. Great memories since a lot of what he talks about was from my time growing up as a UM fan, to later being a student and MMB member (81 season), graduating in Dec 1985 after great comeback season from 6-6 in 84.
As for the 84 season, a lot of factors went into an ugly 6-6 mark but the crater at QB was the killer. I was a junior and remember those times well. JH was replacing a 3-year starter (Steve Smith). When he got injured vs. MSU, we were 3-1 and inside their 40 yard line on a drive. Jamie Morris fumbled after a big hit and JH broke his left arm in the scramble. I remember talking to my dad after the game (he was there, while I was on an internship in Houston that fall). He felt for certain we would have scored on that drive and won that game. MSU's only TD was an early 88 yd PR TD. They were not moving the ball well on our D until after we had to deal with two backup QBs who had never thrown a pass.
The season went downhill from there, with only a win over a probation-Illinois team being a highlight.
George Perles had built MSU into a bowl team in his 2nd year in 1984 (OK, it was the Cherry Bowl, but it counted). He was also recruiting very well (John Miller, Lorenzo White, Phil Parker (current Iowa DC), etc.). As a fan at the time, YES it did feel like Bo was getting behind the times and needed some sprucing up. Which is why he probably went to that conference.
The big difference into a #2 ranked 1985 10-1-1 season was indeed fundamentals (that team could block and tackle well). But Bo did revamp the passing game. When we played BYU in the 1984 Holiday Bowl, Moeller was our DC and was amazed by the route trees that BYU used for their TE and RBs, and not just for WRs. Looking at that film, Bo decided to spruce up the routes and use a much more sophisticated passing game to go along with the running game. We had several big pass plays off of 3rd and short.
October 29th, 2023 at 12:19 PM ^
A lot of these sports books, where some events from 20-30 years earlier are retold, often mesh up conflicting details into an otherwise true story. I was a FR in MMB in October 1981 and was in EL when we played at MSU. I suspect the Bubba Paris story was from the 2nd half of that game. Our D had been shredded by former Lions Coach Monte Clark's son in the 1st half and we trailed at HT. George Lilja was on to the NFL, but Bubba, Muransky, and Becker were still around. We started to grind them down in the 2nd half (ended up with a whopping 445 yards on the ground). Smiley Creswell had forced a fumble to kill an early drive that day.
The play in question wouldn't have been us up 14-0 but rather us down 20-16 and just running right over them on the drive that put us up for good. On Youtube you can see the MMB on the EZ sideline at about the 11 minute mark on the 16 minute recap of the game. I was in the tuba section. I don't remember anything verbal from the D other than it was beautiful seeing that line plus Stanley Edwards just bowl over them for the TD. Then AC took a pitch for an easy 2-pt throwback to Smith. Of course, even back then Sparty played dirty as their player poked AC in the eye after he released the ball. S.O.S!!!!