Could Bill Martin Have Been Partially Right?

Submitted by Webber's Pimp on

Before anybody rips my throat out I want to elaborate a bit more on the question I've just posed. 

To start let me say that I have been and still am a Brady Hoke supporter. Still, what happened last night was completely unacceptable. In a game of this magnitude to have your team come out this flat after all we've been through over the past 12 months raises serious questions about the direction of the program. We really laid an egg and I'm sure many of you have had your foundations shaken to the core. With that being said I want to discuss the head coach, the offensive philosophy  and what it is that we need to turn the program around...

1. Bill Martin may have been on to something when he hired Rich Rodriguez. Rrod, imho, did a horrible job recruiting along the offensive and defensive  lines. But there's no arguing with the fact that we could move the ball at will and put up tons of points. I'm not saying Rodriguez was the right man for the job, but in today's age of college football you have to be able to put up points. And against quality defenses Michigan has struggled mightily to put up points. And please don't tell me Ohio had a quality defense last year...

2. By all accounts  Hoke is a believer in "man-ball" football philosophy. In a nut shell we want line-up in front of you and blow you off the ball. We're a team that likes to run first in order to establish the pass. If you want to call that a "Pro-style" offense then so be it. But we should all keep in mind that offenses in the NFL are constantly evolving and many these days have incorporated spread concepts. The NFL is a passing league and the numbers support this. Thus the 2 yards and a cloud of dust mentality in my view is no longer valid. 

3.  To win with a pro-style offense in the college ranks these days , a program has to have elite talent. Alabama and USC both come to mind here. Now keep in mind that both of those programs are running their systems with our nation's elite high school talent. Hoke has recruited well while at Michigan but he has not out-recruited USC or Alabama. This is particularly true on the defensive side of the ball. Alabama and USC are winning games with dominant defenses. USC won a game yesterday in which they suited up 60 schollarship athletes. How did they do it? By suiting up elite (best of the best) talent. The same is true of Alabama. Dominant defenses make up for any short comings both of those programs may have putting up points with their prostyle offenses. 

4. Doug Nussmeier obviously did very well at Alabama. But again, I have to question if he can replicate the same success at Michigan when he has to run his offensive sets with less dominant offensive linemen and less overall talent at the skill positions. Or for that matter without an elite defense bailing out the offensive unit. It's an open question and only time will tell. But if last night was any indication, we're in for a very long season.

Bill Martin took allot of flack from the press and on this board for his selection of Rich Rodriguez. But last night's result has left me wondering whether or not Martin had it partially right. Given that Michigan cannot out recruit the southern school elites or the west coast powerhouses in order to run its pro-style offense, I'm wondering if we do have to change with the times and implement an offensive philosophy that utilizes spread concepts as a fundamental premise (w/ strong O-Lines of course!). That's what Notre Dame is doing these days and it seems to be working perfectly fine for them. They've went as far as to change the natural turf on their field in order to run their track meet system of football. And it's gotten them to the point where they've even managed to play for a national championship as recently as 2012-13.

Yeoman

September 7th, 2014 at 11:04 PM ^

Here's his record against top-50 teams (using Massey EOS) by season:

  • 2008: 1-6
  • 2009: 1-4
  • 2010: 2-5
  • 2012: 2-5
  • 2013: 2-5
  • 2014: 0-0

That's a little better at Arizona, I guess, but well within random chance, especially if you disregard the '08 debacle.

He has done significantly better against bad teams there, though. There haven't been any bed-crappings like the '09 Illinois game.

Somebody's going to say something about it being Arizona, so I'm going to pull an earlier three-year period for comparison's sake, the three years he was here. (I"ve never looked at this and have no idea what I'm going to find.)

  • 2008: 2-3
  • 2009: 4-4
  • 2010: 3-6

Hmm. Even if you add in 2011, when the team basically walked out on the coach (0-5 including four straight losses to top 10 teams), it's 9-18 before RR vs. 4-10 under him.

Maybe the reason he seems to be doing well there is that the AD has significantly lightened their schedules?

 

Yeoman

September 8th, 2014 at 4:15 PM ^

The PAC-12 is a better place if you want a bowl win, that's for sure. B1G teams usually have to play up in class; RR's first bowl win was 49-48 over the #91 team in the country; last year they moved up and played #61. Michigan's last four bowls have been against #21, #6, #32 and #18; I don't think they've ever played a bowl game as weak as Arizona's been invited to the last two years. Their fans travel too well and they're too good a TV draw for that to ever happen.

I don't really see that there's anything to explain here. He's almost got Arizona playing at their recent historical norm, adjusting for schedule. I guess that's better than what happened here but it's not so great that Michigan needs to look there for its answers.