Counterfactual History: the 2008 Paul Johnson Wolverines
Before anyone gets the wrong impression, I pleased as punch with the Rodriguez hire. Love the guy, the system, the recruiting, even the accent. Here come's the but. But, he was my second choice during The Search, to Paul Johnson, then of Navy, now of Georgia Tech.
How do you think Johnson's triple option flexbone would have looked with Michigan's personnel last year? The idea of Minor, Brown, McGuffie and Shaw in twos threes and fours, with nary a Sheridan or Threet among them is a vision that taunted me occasionally last fall.
I'm no expert on blocking schemes, so I have no idea if there would have been any less early season ineptitude, but if they had improved as they did in the real 2008, how deadly could this offense have been by November?
Threet , Sheridan or even Mallett for what ifs sake running a triple option ? YIKES
That offense just like ours now needs a QB who is a threat to keep the ball and run
Just to clarify I imagined an offense with Minor or Brown playing "QB".
UM still would have been short one option QB. Johnson was fortunate to have some QBs with running ability during his first year at GT.
They wouldn't really have needed a legit QB, just a guy who could put the ball in the air with enough authority to keep defenses the littlest bit honest.
Carlito, Feagin, maybe a healthy T-Rob may have been serviceable.
Jeremey Gallon. That's who!
Yeah but Feagin and T-rob would not have been with the team last year.
because they were both on the team last year. Unless you are speculating they wouldn't have been on the team because RR recruited them and Johnson didn't. In which case, it's just a hypothetical so who the hell else would be talked about?
Paul Johnson's teams are fun to watch, but I think their ceiling is more limited than RR's. I just don't see a triple-option team, that completes just a handful of passes a game, being able to run the table. I'd love to be proven wrong, though.
Wouldn't it be tough to recruit for that kind of offense? Especially WR's?
To clarify further, I'm not trying to argue for Johnson vs Rodriguez, just to imagine 2008 in Johnson's system.
I'm a fan of what Johnson has done over at GT and I think his offense is very interesting. I'd strongly encourage you to head over to SmartFootball and read some of Chris' stuff on this (here's a YouTube video on there of Johnson explaining some of his offense: http://smartfootball.blogspot.com/2008/12/paul-johnson-describes-his-fl… from there you can find some other good SF links).
I admit that I didn't get to watch a lot of GT football last year, something that I plan on changing this year. I agree with previous posters that his offense still requires a QB that can throw and run. You can run an offense with a RB as the QB (as you imagine using Minor or Brown). But you're going to run into problems.
It's true that Johnson's system masks a QB's throwing deficiency some, but no offense can completely overcome it. If your QB truly cannot throw the ball more than 10 yards, then the safeties can come up and only cover those 10 yards which means that they're so close to the LOS that it's easy for them to get to the ball if the QB is running it or pitches it to someone else.
A lot of Johnson's offense is predicated on misdirection and getting it so that the defense isn't sure if the QB will take it himself or give it to a running back (and then the question is which RB gets it). Even if that question still exists, if you have 8 or 9 guys on defense that only care about that and don't respect that pass at all, then even if they're uncertain of what you're going to do, they know what you're not going to do and thus can wait for you to keep it or pitch it and attach as necessary. In Johnson's offense commonly, the QB will keep it until the defense bites on him and then pitch it to a RB. But, without a deep threat, there can be so many guys by the ball that even if the QB successfully pitches it to the RB then there's still someone to pull him down.
And if definitely wouldn't have worked too well for us in the first few games since our OL was... less than stellar we'll say.
The triple option also requires having at least 2 RBs that are fairly fast but far more importantly guys that can make you miss or keep going for several yards after first contact. How many of those types of RBs did we have last year? Scruff McGruff ran too upright and commonly went down on contact too fast for him to work there. The same could be said of C. Brown. Minor could work in that role but he'd still be less than ideal. Grady might be able to work but I'm not sure that he'd have the speed, if he worked it would simply be because he's hard to bring down. But, I really don't think he's fast enough for it to work since he might not go down quickly but he wouldn't gain a lot of positive yards either.
Koger or Webb might've actually worked best for this since they are somewhat fast and tough to get down. But then you're taking at least one of your only two good TEs off the line. And since our OL wasn't good, taking off a TE hurts a fair bit. And then you can bet that most defenses would just favor defending the side with a TE on it.
I can see that I'm rambling at this point so I'll just say that I don't think Johnson's offense would've done us any better last year than RichRod's. But I could be completely wrong there. Thoughts?
And if definitely wouldn't have worked too well for us in the first few games since our OL was... less than stellar we'll say.
I'm not sure what the OL situation was at GT, but it definitely was a factor for us, particularly at the onset of the season. I think you have it exactly right. I don't think Paul Johnson would have worked out any better for us, especially in the long run.
Would have been strange to see Paul Johnson at Michigan, though in my opinion it might have been more successful last year. I remember watching the GT-Miami game last year, and I was completely blown away with how dominant a team could be just running the ball, with little-to-no passing to augment the offense. Just imagining how a Michigan Triple Option would be setup would have been interesting. But there are caveats to this:
Though having Brown or Feagin as a triple option quarterback may have worked, Brown's tendency for injury may have limited his playing time. Also, the lack of confidence in Feagin's arm by RR's coaching staff even for one pass makes me doubt his legitimacy as a quarterback in any offense, even a run heavy one like Paul Johnson's. Josh Nesbitt is leagues better as a passer then either of these guys.
With those two relegated to QB, that would leave Minor, McGuffie, Shaw, and Cox at the A or B-back positions. The dearth of running backs, talented ones at that, would have been a huge advantage. If there was one plus last year, our RB position (Minor, and McGuffie in particular) would have been it. They would have thrived in Johnson's offense, much like Jonathan Dwyer and Roddy Jones did last year at GT.
Wide recievers, while (obviously) utilized much less in the triple option, are still vital parts of the offense. Ie. they block downfield and provide the occasional deep pass to keep secondaries from creeping up to stuff the run. Though they did a decent job blocking (bubble screens with Odoms), most of their talents would have been missed. Yes, many of them were young—but all of them were really talented and produced yards when they could, despite the dismal quarterback play we had.
And finally, here's the real problem that Paul Johnson would have faced installing his offense here last year: our Offensive line. GT at least had some semblance of continuity and senior leadership in their LT Andrew Gardner. With a somewhat veteran O-line they were able to succeed; without fleet-footed, experienced linemen, we would have been crushed by defenses. The triple-option requires that the lineman be disciplined and smart about their blocks—with the youth we had, that would have been difficult to provide. Even though the group got much better as the year progressed, the O-Line would have still been our downfall, regardless of the coach.
Somebody didn't pass high school English.
Forgot my definitions I guess. Thanks for the correction.
Should have been "the number of runningbacks we have" rather than "the dearth of running backs." Would have updated the first post, but I'm guessing that you can't edit posts after a certain time period. I'm new here, so there's still some stuff I've yet to learn.
You can't edit a post after someone replies to it.
Can you imagine our fumbling problem last year if you added in all those option plays? throwing the ball around even more? Not to mention you need an even faster QB for that kind of attack. If they know the QB can't run they would just double up on the RB.
Dwyer is a monster out of the backfield, and nesbitt is a great fit at qb. They also return more starters than any other ACC team, and should be in contention for a bcs bid, especially catching vatech, nc, and uga at home. I think 10-2 or 11-1 is definetly within reach.
They are definitely a force to be reckoned with next year. I see them being a top 10 team at some point during the season.
Paul Johnson can add more passing wrinkles to his offense as time goes by and he's able to recruit better QBs than he was able to at Navy. If you throw a Vince Young type in that offense I think carnage would ensue.
Wouldn't Paul Johnson (or someone similar- they'd never get Johnson now) be the perfect Indiana hire? What do you have to lose if you install something completely crazy? It's not like recruits will think less of you, or the results on the field could get any worse. So why not find the most bizarre FCS or D-2 offensive system out there and adapt it?
As for Michigan, I think the risk of failure of adopting something like the spread option Johnson runs would be too great. It's one thing to say Michigan had stagnated under Carr with 10-2 or 9-3 type seasons, but imagine the consternation you hear about Rodriguez and quadruple it if you had a couple of 6-6 seasons with that system.
The focal point I have and for brevity's sake - Johnson had players that fit his system - Rodriguez did not.