Diaz over Mattison?
I think Mattison will have a larger impact at Michigan that Diaz at Florida if only because Michigans D has been so awful that last few years. It is hard to rate the two simply on who is better, they are both good but I think given our situation, we stand to improve more and get back into contention. At least that is our hope.
FYI - I think OP has it wrong too
I was just typing in too fast for my brain, you are correct he is at Texas. I still think we have more upside. When I see your avatar I almost expect to see a "Dude" at the end of every sentence.
Diaz has better upside based almost exclusively on age/enegry level/long term recruiting potential.
So they are equal hires in my book with Diaz a bit riskier in the short term, but better hire if you are looking at a 5+ year window.
... I think is a little naive in this day and age. The next young, hot coordinator rarely stays a coordinator that long before going for the head coach position elsewhere.
That being said, it's a silly argument either way. Performance on the field is what will define success, and in time we will have enough information to make the argument one way or the other.
It seems like Michigan's profile and stature with MSM is lower nationally at this point. That might be why.
Michigan's profile with the media is lower. What does that even mean? Have people forgotten that the school exists?
Diaz is a great hire, and something FL needed to keep rolling, however to your point, we got the best man for the job. Would I prefer he was 10 yrs younger? Absolutely, but his love for Michigan, his desire to recruit, and his track record of high performing defenses is just what the Doctor ordered.
Texas
http://collegefootball.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1195321
Mattison is a thousand times more meaningful to us, sure. But to an objective national reporter type? Maybe not. Plus Diaz is a hot name with very recent success in the NCAA. With Mattison being in the NFL the last few seasons, it's understandable that he wasn't picked by Dienhart.
I'm pretty sure Diaz is at TX, but He is the hot DC right now, so it makes sense he is ranked high. While Mattison hasn't had a college track record recently, I think Diaz is still a little risky. He only has 2 years DC experience; one at Mid Tenn and one at Miss St. Both D's he did very good things to, bit not much sample size. Not to mention that like 6 years ago he was editing highlights for ESPN. I think TX likes him a lot because he's young, hungery, and they want a coach in waiting.
at Texas, I think the OP was just getting Diaz confused with Muschamp.
Deinhart just had his top assistant coaches article which was garbage and now this. If you like that sort of stuff go ahead and read it, but it's nothing to spend time actually intellectually trying to reason out, because you'll get nowhere.
I loved his Ted Roof as the top D coordinator in the SEC. Auburns defense was marginal last year in his 1st year I think and if it's his 2nd they didn't do much the year before either. Either way to put him over guys that have produced stifiling defenses over a longer period of time(Chavis-Tenn/LSU) and K. Smart(Alabama) is pretty much an idiotic argument.
I think Diaz was an excellent hire for Tejas and Mattison was a pretty good hire for Michigan, but he doesn't have the age/energy/whatever that Diaz has.
I think it's reasonable to assume that Mattison won't have a career that's as long as Diaz's, and that Diaz could be the replacement for Mack Brown. Mattison won't be our head coach.
I agree that Diaz was and excellent hire for Texas, as they are looking more in the long term, and Diaz could have a shot at being the next head coach. But I would contend that Mattison was an excellent hire for Michigan as well. You're right that he won't be the next HC, but that's not why we got him. We got him because we needed to make some noise with an assistant hire, and he had ties to the program. He is a proven DC in college and NFL, and by all accounts a great recruiter. He is excatly what we need right now. I think he was hired to get us back on track and start getting big prospects, and in 5 years or so, we can go after the next hot assistant to get a HC in waiting.
That's true, but for long-term success, I think Diaz will be more impactful over the next fifteen, twenty years. Mattison is the right guy to get us back on track, but will he directly impact the program for a long time?
No, I don't think Mattison will be that big of an impact for a long time, but unfortunatly we are at a point where the short term wins out over the long term. Texas is in a slightly different situation in that they had one hiccup last season in a track record of 10+ wins seasons over the past decade and one season removed from a NC game apperence. They are still UT in the state of TX, so recruiting still won't be an issue for them. UM finds itself in unfamiliar waters of having to re-establish its brand. In this regard, the more short term benefit of Mattison's experience I think wins out for us. And hell, it's really gonna be up to Mack Brown if Diaz has a long term impact. If he doesn't retire in 5 years, I wouldn't be surprised if Diaz gets an opportunity to take his talents elsewhere (assuming he does well).
On that alone I think you have to go with Dienhart's ranking.
Hey, you'd get in that car, too.
Cant spell hostess without H O
To quote someone way smarter than me, if you're going to post pictures of women on the board, do us all a favor and go back to MLive.
Seconded.
I checked the FAQ, which I guess you didn't, since it indicated nothing against a post like mine. The image is related to my post, it is not NSFW, and it's the offseason. Cute little MLive bash - I've never been there, much less posted. Did I miss anything you contributed here?
Of course, pictures of female athletes donning the Maize and Blue are the notable exception to this rule (congrats, softball, on a 17-0 start!):
http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/mich/sports/w-softbl/auto_action/62…
EDIT: 1st time embed fail!
I dunno...that picture is pretty benign in terms of females posted on message boards. As long as it doesn't become an epidemic, I don't see the problem for a group of presumably heterosexual men to admire an occasional picture.
Has caused this blog to be even more over the shark. None of them are witty anymore, none of them add anything to a thread, and pretty much all of them have been posted 80 million times.
If you're talking about stupid cat & "I see what you did there" pics, I completely agree. But this board is actually pretty good about keeping female pics to a minimum. That's why this one didn't bother me.
The "I see what you did there" cat one was funny the first time, but I definitely agree that the pics have gotten excessive, unnecessary, and grating. I'm kind of glad to learn that that I'm not the only one who has recognized their wide use as a mark of the blog's decline.
Your user name is extremely fitting.
Sometimes, you guys really stretch for things to be offended by.
It's happening everywhere. Everyone thinks they need to give their 2 cents.
but in terms of the "better hire"? I think you could argue that Texas had way more to replace and therefor was under more pressure to get a top tier guy, of which they essentially got the consensus #1 guy available of current college DC's. Mattison is a great hire, especially in light of his history of success in recruiting but Michigan really had nowhere to go but up in DC's. So while he is a great hire, so would pretty much anyone else after the Gerg era. Now, in terms of out kicking the coverage, I think Michigan did better than anyone expected with the Mattison hire but that isn't the question. Texas has the talent to be great this year on defense and they had to get a home run, they got it. UM had to get someone better than Gerg and did as well or better than anyone expected but it doesn't make it better than the Diaz hire.
He hasn't been a college defensive coordinator since 2001 ("co-coordinator" labels given out by his friends aside). At his last job in that capacity, he spent five very mediocre years at Notre Dame, then got demoted to defensive line coach and couldn't find a better job anywhere else. The overwhelming optimism about the guy exists only within the confines of the Michigan fanbase (and folks who are longtime buddies with Mattison).
It continues to boggle my mind that people are worried Borges (a guy with a long track record of recent success at multiple stops) will lock Denard in the basement of Schembechler Hall and refuse to allow him to play on Saturdays but think that Greg Mattison is our unquestioned savior of the defense.
I wouldn't dismiss the co-coordinator position at Flordia so quickly. I mean he did win an NC there. They weren't quite as good before Mattison came along (although they did keep up the level after he left). I believe Maize N' Brew and this blog did a post of Mattison's defense, and his track record as been pretty solid.
But I agree with you about Borges. I see no problem with him. He has worked in this buisness enough, and with many different personel types, and has shown he can succesfully make different systems work. I don't think our offense will be that big of an issue. Maybe not the huge yardage eater that it was last year, but hopefully will put up points. What I worry most about on offense is the switch away from a zone blocking scheme. We've been zone blocking since '06, and I personally am a big fan of it. I think it gives skilled runners more freedom.
Strong was the DC before and after Mattison got there. As you pointed out, there was zero drop-off after Mattison's departure (they went 26-2 the next two seasons and gave up more than 21 points just three times). Then Strong got a head coaching gig where he had some decent success last year.
To me, Mattison was a guy on a great staff (Meyer, Mullen, Strong, etc.), not the guy running the defense on his own. When he did get to run a college defense at a namebrand program for five years, the results are just okay (looking at the statistical numbers you mentioned) and there were a number of embarassing black marks throughout his tenure (crushed by Oregon State in the Fiesta Bowl, completely baffled by Joe Tiller's new spread passing attack, steamrolled by MSU and Stanford repeatedly, lost to MSU because of a dumb all-out-blitz call on 4th and long to give up a 60+ yard TD to a young Jeff Smoker, difficulties against the academies, etc.). Afterward, nobody was willing to hire him to run their defense and he stuck around at ND as recruiting coordinator where he oversaw the atrocious 2004 class there (16 signees, two 4-star recruits and six 2-star recruits), which to me is a stronger indication of his recruiting prowess than any Urban Meyer hyperbole.
Yet for some reason the consensus around here seems to be that this is the greatest coordinator hire in the history of intercollegiate athletics. To me the excitement doesn't jive with the whole resume. Since he's going to benefit from the irrational praise that comes when a naturally improving roster situation is coupled with a coaching change (SEE: English, Ron), I just worry that if it is a bad hire there is no chance of it being fixed any time soon. On the flip side, even "just okay" results should be more than enough to win a bunch of games over four years of Robinson/Gardner on the other side of the ball.
very ornery since Hoke has taken over...