To consider: GERG a "college" coach?

Submitted by yossarians tree on

Schemes, talent, "young talent", experience. I don't know enough to sort it all out. Even despite the injuries and defections, Rodriguez has three classes of recruits out there and they seem to be totally clueless at times about where they are supposed to be. Fundamentals like tackling, etc have been discussed ad nauseum.

As to how much GERG is responsible, I had the thought today that perhaps GERG is not a good "college" coach, despite his success in the NFL. The difference is that an NFL DC has nothing but extremely disciplined and accomplished professionals at his disposal. He does not have to coach fundamentals. If they don't have that already, they have no shot at the League. Scheme on the other hand is where NFL DC's separate themselves. Maybe GERG is good at scheme, but not able to communicate and teach the basic fundamentals of sound football to young players.

ituralde

November 7th, 2010 at 12:33 AM ^

There's zero excuse for how bad our D has been. 

Our team has heart.  They don't quit. 

With that kind of spirit, they should be performing far better. Coaching should be bringing them up to a higher level than this. 

6tyrone6

November 7th, 2010 at 11:56 AM ^

would that be an excuse? How about 3 freshmand and 4 sophomores starting? We have 3 seniors starting on D the last good defense we had had 7 seniors and 3 junior starters. OSU has 7 seniors and 3 juniors, I think you have to have experience in college we dont really have it in D. We will next year, and we will be great in 2012 and should be consistant after that.

Geaux_Blue

November 7th, 2010 at 12:34 AM ^

is i believe the problem. i think GERG would have been a good DC in 2005-2006 with a bunch of solid juniors and seniors on defense that merely needed to be put in place to make plays. but with young talent not having established instincts through years of play where they connect the dots from being placed into a niche, GERG seems to struggle with adapting or revising. that it took something like 3 quarters of one game (PSU?)  to have Moundros back up into coverage is absurd.

i wish him the best as i believe he will be ushered out with a thank you this year but i think your analysis is relatively spot on

TrueBlue88

November 7th, 2010 at 12:36 AM ^

chance that RR will hire new DC and keep his WVU boys on Defense, or brandon makes him fire the lame defense assistants and bring in a good DC and hand the defense over to such DC!? I am hoping for the later!

Hail

bryemye

November 7th, 2010 at 10:17 AM ^

You realize he was the OC for the good Texas teams too, right?

I don't think GERG is particularly good, but I really do think the bigger problem is the lack of an overarching philosophy between him and the defensive assistants. Also, the fundamentals should really be getting taught at that level while GERG does more Xs and Os and some pump-up talks. Yes he's responsible for the linebackers now but that's because of the debacle that is Jay Hopson and frankly they're better this year than they were last year.

On a side note, Ray Vinopal seems to have pretty good tackling fundamentals or no? WOOOOOOOOOO MIchigan!!!

dahblue

November 7th, 2010 at 12:39 AM ^

I'm not a defensive guru, but it seems like far too much blame is being placed on GERG.  He is running the scheme that RR told him to, with the players that RR recruited and dealing with a number of injuries.  But then everyone says "FIRE GERG" while praising RR.  Gotta be tough to be Mr. Robinson.

jmblue

November 7th, 2010 at 12:51 AM ^

He actually didn't do well in his last couple of NFL stops.  His last decade of work is generally poor.  He's nearing the end of his coaching career and maybe at this point the game's passing him by. 

BlueGoM

November 7th, 2010 at 1:13 AM ^

I know people are tired of hearing it but if you've got a bunch of freshmen and converted WR's in your secondary, you are going to have big problems, period.

Having said that, the defense looks lost half the time.  You'd think they'd try to simplify things so that they can at least run a few packages correctly.  Maybe GERG needs to simplify things so the kids don't get caught out of position.

Looking at the stats we actually forced Illinois to punt 6 times.  Hard to believe.

smotheringD

November 7th, 2010 at 1:30 AM ^

is his ability to stock his roster with top talent.  For example, look at the Detroit Lions.  Consider how pathetic they were under Millen and compare it to the brand of football they're playing this year.  They're not great yet but you can see the progress and it's directly attrubuted to the acquisition and development of players like Stafford,  Johnson, VandenBosch, Suh, Best . . .

The second most important attribute of a coach is the ability to motivate his players to work, and practice and play with great passion.  I agree with the above poster that our team is working and playing very hard.

The learning/development curve for college football players is huge.  For example, look at the improvement in Dilithium, this year compared to last year.  It's night and day.

I coached youth hockey for 14 years and was once asked to take over a team from some novice coaches who blew their draft and were considered by some to be "emotionally unstable".  The team I inherited could only perform so well.  We had double or triple the number of kids who lacked fundamental skills and so it was like playing the whole game on the PK (one man short).  If you've got holes in your roster, you've got holes in your roster.  Like RR said, the D's not going to get fixed anytime soon.  That's his polite way of saying we've got holes.  He went on to say even Lombardi would have a difficult time coaching them.  Because rule number one is stock the roster with top talent, your kind of guys.

The coaching up and skill/strength development processes take time, years.

The naysayers are ignorant and all they look at is wins and losses and points/yards given up.  I've been a Michigan football fan for decades.  I used to get so frustrated at the conservative play calling.  We'd have the best stable of wide receivers in the country and we wouldn't use them until we got down by 2-3 touchdowns in the 4th quarter.

Michigan fans should  take a deep breath and enjoy our offense.  You've waited this long to see good competitive Michigan football again.  We've got the offense right and it will only get better when Dilithium and Tate become Juniors and Seniors.  By that time, we'll get our D squared away with better, more experienced players.

Hang in there.

D.C.Blue

November 7th, 2010 at 1:08 AM ^

I was speaking with one of my patients last week that happened to play at a well known school that took out last years NC today and 8 years in the NFL.  He informed me that his coaches at both levels simply expected him to know how to tackle and he couldn't recall spending time/periods of practice specifically going over proper form tackling.  Now I don't take this to mean that no coaches in college or the pros take time to teach tackling so much as it means the level of coaching leading up to that point has dropped the proverbial ball with fundamentals and spent more time on being stat padders and scheme developers.  I'm sure this makes for easier identification for the type of player that fits into a specific scheme but top notch fundamentals are being seen in fewer and fewer recruits.  Just a thought.

Princetonwolverine

November 7th, 2010 at 8:01 AM ^

Although our lack of talent and experience is obvious and frequently mentioned in these posts I would like to know more about Gerg as a recruiter. It is not only important to get the most out of the talent we have but what is the talent we are getting for the future? If he is good at getting better talent then he should be given more time. If he doesn't help landing better talent then let's find someone who can.

SysMark

November 7th, 2010 at 8:43 AM ^

At this level if anyone is teaching individual technique you would expect it to be the assistants.  If the schemes/strategies have been flawed you can lay that on GERG, or RR if he is dictating it.

Today however I can't be upset about anything.  What a day it was.