Darrell Funk discussion
After Saturday's performance, how are you guys feeling about the most-abused position coach of the offseason, Darrell Funk?
I'll go first. My thoughts:
I honestly felt that "if Nuss wants to keep him, that's good enough for me" in January. And yes, disclaimers apply - it's App State - but the running game looked great, Gardner took one sack, and he definitely deserves some credit for getting Cole ready so fast.
We'll know more after ND, but I feel pretty good about Funk being on this staff.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:27 PM ^
This analysis holds true for a lot of ND. Lots of holes being filled there with guys who probably aren't ready.
I'm a little puzzled as to why we are 5.5 point underdogs in this one. But the line has an uncanny knack for being better than my intuition. If we can't beat a team this shorthanded then I don't know how we can expect to beat anyone good.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:41 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:54 PM ^
I think that people might be reading a little too much into the road vs. home record. We have had the misfortune of catching some teams at their best on the road and the good fortune of catching them at their worst at home.
And last year we pretty much sucked in both venues.
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:19 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:51 PM ^
I erased the rest of my TL;DR post since it was supposed to focus on the OL but ND has 2 sophomore LBs and the 3rd is a Kovacs type who I believe was a walk on, and is a senior. They lost 1 of their safeties to injury and their best corner to suspension. So that is 50% of the DBs if the suspension holds.
I am sure they are loaded with 4 stars everywhere (as are we) but as we've seen here young 4 stars are different than older 4 stars except in special cases like the Bosas of the world. It is a defense ripe for exploiting if we can get our 2nd/3rd WR involved and we can put up 100-130 yards non Devin rushing. The wildcard is Golson who like Devin has that mix of abilities to make a team who might be worse on paper win.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
Young DEs, young secondary screams for play action, misdirection, bootlegs.
Not off-tackle plays into the only teeth of the ND defense.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
This brings up a question ... has Nussmeier ever mentioned Funk (or any of his position coaches) in his press conferences?
I can't recall. Hoke and Mattison definitely mention position coaches quite frequently. It could be that Nussmeier is just not one to mention names.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:12 PM ^
It was fine. They pushed around a small, (somewhat) untalented defensive line that had LBs who missed assignments.
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:25 PM ^
...a la Akron 2013.
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:28 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:57 PM ^
It's best not to get carried away with descriptions of their Dline as small. Their two deep at NT are listed at 330 and 325 lbs. Their DEs are listed at 275, 260, 245 and 235. Obviously they are not going to be as talented as B1G Dlinemen, but I'm not sure small is an accurate description.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:33 PM ^
Yeah it looked great, but as the OP said, "it was App. State." We can make a real assessment after the next game.
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:32 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:34 PM ^
We are 1-0 and having a discussion about firing someone? Tough crowd.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:39 PM ^
Option 1: "So far so good"
Option 2: "Ohhhh, crap.."
Right now it's not Option 2, so I feel OK
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:42 PM ^
The only measure of a coach is "do the kids play for him". The kids did not like Borges and stopped responding to his authority. Funk, on the other hand, seems to be well regarded.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:45 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:57 PM ^
I think you're over-thinking Hoke's comments. He's praising the HS coach because it's a good thing to do for relationship / recruiting purposes, and he's indirectly praising Cole for taking the coaching as a HS student. For Hoke to really praise Funk at this point would imply a lot of work needed doing, which would defeat the purpose of the praise to the HS coach and to Cole himself.
September 2nd, 2014 at 5:41 PM ^
spoke about Cole and coaching he did mention his HS coach, but then he quickly added that Cole himself deserved most of the credit. He then addressed how Cole would be in the weight room as soon as the doors were opened in AM, how he sought out extra coaching, how he sought out extra conditioning, and how fantastically smart and driven he is.
September 2nd, 2014 at 2:58 PM ^
During the late 80s. I remember Skrepenak was only 17 when he started and did a great job at RT. Last years line just did not look aggressive. I know they're still young but other teams have had success with young talented OL. I thought they fared better against App St defense then I had thought they would. App St. did have a large NT who was 325lbs and Miller played well against him. ND will be tougher challenge but does not have the same level of talent on the DL they did last year. Borges did a great job hiding our OL weakness in last years game against ND. Hopefully, Nuss will have a great game plan since we may not be able to win the war against ND defense against the LOS against ND DLINE.
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^
To be honest, the running game had its moments of looking like 2013, but we were able to get huge chunks of yards whiched help the average. I just want to see PROGRESS from week to week. Last year we regressed just about every wee at a few positions. We should be better this week, then the next week, then the next week.
By the time late October rolls around, we should be running full steam. The only way we should be defeated is if the opponent is truly better than us......... and we play in the Big Ten, so in other words, we should have more talent than just about every team we play besides Ohio State.
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:30 PM ^
September 3rd, 2014 at 7:27 AM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 3:40 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 4:38 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 5:23 PM ^
Hoke, not Nuss, decides who the assistant coaches will be. My feeling is that Hoke is probably pretty loyal to his subordinates and disinclined to let people go. As MGrowOld said, Funk had some personal issues last year that would have made it tough for Hoke to fire him, I think.
To my mind (and this goes back to last year with Borges) the question is not "is Funk good?", but rather, "is Funk the best we can get for what we are willing to pay?". I don't have the info to answer that question, though we have been willing to cough up some big sums to get good coordinators.
September 2nd, 2014 at 5:50 PM ^
1 - Cole is not going to the bench for Glasgow. They would not burn his red shirt just for the Nappy Appy game. It would take a melt down or injury to send him to the bench.
2 - Miller or Kalis are going to the bench. The way Miller struggled last year I'm going with him. His showing against the 315 pound Nappy Appy NG was nice, but there is a reason the NG is playing at Appy State. The ND nose guard will be faster, stronger and plain old better. Glasgow with his size, strength and experience will be needed.
3 - The last few years we have beaten ND and gotten excited(Me to). I say this ND game if we win means nothing, but a nice win. We won't know what we have on the OL until we play Sparty.
September 3rd, 2014 at 12:11 AM ^
I don't think it'll take any longer than four days to find out what we have on the OL and additionally whether Fred has the RBs blocking better than last season. ND recruits extremely good talent and MSU gets more out of their players based almost primarily on scheme and having perfected a design where they are pretty much ready from their base defense to offset any type of offensive alignment that might be shown. They are different than almost any team in the country in this respect, and if they keep shutting down spread teams - we'll find out Saturday, you had better believe other teams will start attending clinics taught by Dantonion and Narducci.
But ND certainly has the talent to tell us just how much, if any improvement, we've made since last season. We didn't push them around last season and we beat them primarily because Devin was on fire except for the one major miscue in the end zone. If he approaches that level again this season, it will definitely help. People forget how young our RBs are as well. They have to learn where and when to make their cuts. Almost all runs of any length using a zone technique is the result of the back taking the proper cut back angle at the optimum time. There exists almost always a hole but our backs will be required to utilize better patience and vision before we become a real good running team. Right now our backs are growing just like our OL.
September 2nd, 2014 at 5:57 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 8:05 PM ^
September 2nd, 2014 at 9:05 PM ^
One of the things I like about Nussmeier was when he acknowledged that not all the blame for TFLs and sacks can be put on poor Oline play. The QB and RBs are sometimes at least partly to blame.