Dinardo thinks B10 is Big 3, Little 8, "confused" about M
Dinardo believes that Iowa, OSU and Wisconsin are the class of the league this year, with a significant gap after that.. He is "confused" about us because the doesn't know if we'll be able to stop the run. And he adds himself to the chorus of those predicting Denard will start. Dinardo has many detractors, and his rationale for our possible run-stopping troubles is weak IME, (I think we're correct to be much more concerned about stopping the pass) but he was pretty accurate last year, predicting a 6-6 season for us. Whatever.
http://www.detnews.com/article/20100513/SPORTS0202/5130453/1004/sports/…-...
Iowa was a good team last year, but not "damn good," I would argue. They were a very lucky team last year too.
It took 2 blocked FG's to bear Northern Iowa (YTNI) at home. Again at home, they escaped Arkansas State (who?) by a mere FG. They were losing to Indiana by 10 going into the 4th quarter, and if you watched that game you know they were lucky to win. They beat us by 2 points. These are probably their 4 easiest opponents, and they were all at home. If any of those are on the road, they lose.
It took a last second TD to beat MSU, and they lost to NW. THAT'S how Iowa did against the bottom of the Big Ten last year. Yes, they beat Penn State by 10 and Wisconsin by 11, and they won their bowl game, but it was against GT, who is from a poor conference and didn't really beat anyone last year.
Basically, Iowa was by no means a bad team last year, but they were a 10-2 team that wasn't too many plays away from being 5-7, and probably should have been somewhere around 8-4.
We're gonna have to agree to disagree here, but just to be the contrarian, Iowa still won all of those close games (something that MANY great teams struggle with, including MNC winners like LSU in 2007, or Big Ten champ Penn State in 2008). It wasn't until Stanzi went down that Iowa actually lost a game (this following beatdowns of Penn State at night in Happy Valley Wisconsin at Camp Randall), and even then they took Big Ten and Rose Bowl champion Ohio State to overtime in Columbus.
Sure they struggled at times, but they took on an absolutely brutal road conference schedule and went 3-1. I guess it depends on whether or not you want to focus on their highest or lowest points, but I think that the fact that Iowa's lowest moments came in games that they won kind of proves my point for me.
Iowa played to their competition, no doubt about that. They looked great against great competition, but looked mediocre against mediocre competition. Maybe our only point of contention is the definition of "damn good football team" because if you are damn good you should stick it to your inferior opponents.
Yes, at the end of the day, a W is a W. But you have to admit they were the one of the worst 2 loss teams in recent memory, and they were lucky to even be there.
They had a brutal B10 road schedule and finished 3-1. They also had a cake home schedule (Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota and NW) and barely finished 3-1, almost 1-3. They also had one of the easiest OOC schedules in the Big Ten with 2(!) FCS teams (almost losing to both), perennial Big 12 bottom feeder and Arizona at home as their premier OOC game.
Iowa was a good team last year, near the top of the Big 10, but they get a lot more credit than they deserve, IMO.
Regarding luck, yes, Iowa had some good fortune last year. But there are few teams at the top of the polls each year that don't experience good fortune typically. Off the top of my head, LSU's 4th down parade in 2007, OSU's run in 2002, Terrance Cody blocking 2 fgs against the Vols last year for Bama. Point is, it's very rare that a team wins handily every game, so I weigh Iowa's good fortune in '09 against some of their better performances like PSU on the road (dominated even though the score wasn't that bad), the Orange bowl, even playing OSU pretty well in the Shoe without Stanzi.
All their skill guys are back on O. Angerer and Spivey are pretty big shoes to fill on defense, but most everyone else returns from a pretty damn good unit in 2009. Nationally, they ranked 10th in total D, 8th in Scoring D, 4th in pass D, 34th in Run D, and 21st in Red Zone TD D (% opponents scored TDs in red zone).
Their 2010 conference schedule sets up pretty nicely. Toughest games are all at home (Wisco, OSU, PSU, MSU). Road games at Michigan (after a bi-week), NU, Indiana and Minnesota. I would guess 6-2 is pretty reasonable, and they may be better.
For what it's worth, Iowa's top RBs were hurt all last year. Jewel Hampton's back. And Wegger was a true freshmen I beleive and he looked all right.
we have an answer for the TE running down the middle of the field......
NB: Dinardo = TOOL.
As stated above, we gave up 230 yards per game on the ground to the last 5 Big Ten teams we played. Now our defensive scheme has taken a guy out of the box and replaced him with a tiny DB. Now, let me say that I hope we FckShtUp on defense this year and prove everyone wrong. However, when I try to think about it logically, this is what happens when you turn a big run-stuffing defense into a small speedy one. Much like the Colts struggle with teams who slam the ball up the middle, Michigan will be weak in that area.
I'm not saying Roh, Campbell, and Martin aren't good enough to make plays on the ball carrier. I'm saying that a team with 2 tight ends can double team each of our defensive lineman and still have blockers (lead back) for our three linebackers as well. This will leave it all up to our DB's to make tackles for short yardage, and that is a scary proposition. I really have doubts about running a 3-3-5 in a smashmouth conference like the Big Ten. The good news is I have no idea what I'm talking about, and I'm hopefully wrong on all counts. My gut just tells me we will have to score a lot to win games this year - again.
The guy we're taking out of the box is effectively, the 6'1", 210 pound Stevie Brown.
In his place, the "tiny DB" (either the spur or bandit, take your pick) will be.......the 6'1", 205 pound Marvin Robinson, the 6'0", 200 pound Jordan Kovacs, the 6'0", 200 pound Floyd Simmons, the 5'11", 208 pound Thomas Gordon, or the 6'1", 202 pound Vlad Emilien.
So, yeah, not too tiny.
Going from a traditional 4 man front to a 3 man front takes one beefy Defensive lineman out of the game and replaces him with a LB or DB. In our case it's a DB who is in no way, shape, or form better suited to handle 300lb+ offensive lineman coming straight at you. We were undersized and outmatched at the LOS last year and we had the best DE in the entire nation.
09 to 10 defense lbs
DE RVB for Graham +10
DT Martin for RVB +20
NT Campbell for Martin +20
DE for OLB Roh to Roh +20
MLB Ezeh to Ezeh same
OLB Mouton to Mouton same
OLB to Spur Brown to Gordon push
SS to Bandit Kovacs to Kovacs push
CB Warren to Floyd -10
CB Woolfolk to Woolfolk push
FS Williams to Gordon +15
The D will probably not be that great, but it won't be because we are losing beef or we can 't smashmouth it will be because we're young at key spots and not very good at others. Stop buying into this garbage.
Last year 3 of 4 DL were playing one weight class too small. We had a 3-tech tackle at nose tackle, a DE at tackle, and a true freshman who needed to bulk up at DE. Now we have a true nose tackle, Martin and Van Bergen are now in their proper positions and should be improved, and Roh is now big enough to play his position and will likely be the most improved player on the defense.
I think the run defense will be fine. The pass defense probably won't, as the secondary is green and the pass rush will suffer without Graham.
Last year's D's basic alignment was...
Graham, Martin, Van Bergen, Roh
Ezeh, Mouton, Brown
Woolfolk, Warren, Williams, Kovacs
My understanding of this year will be...
Martin, Van Bergen, Campbell
Roh, Ezeh, Mouton
Bandit 1, Bandit 2 (Kovacs and whoever)
Floyd, Woolfolk, Gordan
You have to assume that at least one of the bandits will be "in the box" on a regular basis, and that is essentially the Stevie Brown position with similarly sized guys. So you actually have the same set up, except for Roh is defined as a LB instead of a lineman. It sounds like Roh's responsibilities will be a little more varied, but he's going to be up on the line when the situation calls for it (see OSU, Wisconsin, Iowa) so I don't think it's really all that much different.
You do know that the player types are the same as last year? We're replacing B. Graham with Campbell or Saguesse on the line and we're replacing S. Brown with T.. Gordon or V. Emilien, basically the same size player. I have no idea where you get were replacing a big guy from the box and replacing him with a tiny db. If anything we're adding size this year. Roh and several others have added weight and the line gained 40lbs from the Graham to Will switch.
Saying the Big Ten is a smashmouth conference is just the laziest/tired/wrong cliche out there.
If the coaches don't think the 3-3-5 can stop the "power" rush game they won't run it, because as they have said 100 times, they will be multiple in their sets.
The only game we stuck to 3 man fronts 80% of the time last year was Purdue. That was when they installed the 3-3-5. I hope they run multiple sets, and present a 4 man front most of the time on first down. I would love to see Martin & Campbell playing nose and 3-technique side by side. It just seems like the defense is going to run a base 3 man front this year. Your right, who knows? Ohio State runs the ball up the middle effectively, and even though they have TP - the offense seems old school to me. Hell, Tressel is about as old school as it gets in this day and age. Wisconsin and Michigan State are pretty damn similar. I would say those are three good teams in our league that if we can beat, our season will be a success. Maybe I should have said that the teams we really need to beat in the Big Ten will try to smash us in the face, and we better improve on our horrible run fits, and our push up the middle from last year.
The Purdue debacle was 2 years ago.
Wisc and Iowa are the only very traditional power run teams in the league. MSU has been a terrible run team despite the rep, they've passed much more effectively and OSU is multiple they can run power or spread.
The SEC had Alabama and Tennessee last year as power run teams are they a smashmouth conference?
Does he really think Purdue could be the 4th best team in the conference? What an idiot.
I'm confused about us too....
We will surprise many and silence our detractors this season. Go Blue!!! Stolat !!!
...like the Chesire cat. He knows he has a young squad, but a pretty darned talented group. M will shock a lot of teams this Fall.
Right Rich?
DiNardo may or may not be a knucklehead, but in this instance he's not wrong. If you look at RR's seasons at WVU, plus his OC years at Tulane and Clemson, his offenses have significantly more rushing attempts than passing attempts. For example:
1998 Tulane Pass attempts: 375 Rushing attempts: 518
2000 Clemson Pass attempts: 296 Rushing attempts: 557
2002 WVU Pass attempts: 279 Rushing attempts: 714
2004 WVU Pass attempts: 259 Rushing attempts: 590
2006 WVU Pass attempts: 233 Rushing attempts: 590
2009 UM Pass attempts: 329 Rushing attempts: 494
If Tate remains the starter and/or gets the large majority of snaps, I would expect that our run/pass distribution will more closely resemble the Shaun King years at Tulane; if Denard ends up being the starter, I'd bet that the r/p ratio more resembles the Pat White years under RR.
This is not to say that RR can't implement an offense that has a roughly equal run/pass distribution in terms of attempts, but if he did, it would be a noticeable departure from his history thus far. To me, this is going to be a very interesting thing to watch over the next few years.
RR threw the ball with Pat White at WVU more every single year than he had the previous year, as he became a better passer. I think the evidence points more towards RR wanting to run a balanced attack, rather than a run-heavy spread. I realize the spring game is just a glorified practice, but didn't UM throw the ball equally as much as they ran, with both Denard and Tate?
whenever DiNardo speaks confusion ensues.
i think Michigan will have trouble stopping powering running teams if they stick with the 3-3-5 all game.
.... people seem to think that we can't stop the run because we aren't going to have enough guys to stop the run. since the bandit is a box safety, this defence can go from a 3-3-5 to a 3-4, and that's what we will most likely be doing. and with 2 four star corners coming in, and the JT's, plus cam gordan this defence should be so much better than last year.
It is all about Denard... (ha ha...remember me???)
but anyway, DiNardo is simply covering his behind as a tv prognosticator....
Fact is, we are ahead of Iowa... why???
Because we almost beat Iowa IN Iowa WITH two freshmen qbs, and Iowa lost six or so key players to the NFL, and our team is light years ahead from last season.
Be prepared for the return of the Mad Magicians.... and we are going 10-2 this year. I cannot wait to hear DiNardo backtrack later on.
This guy is just flat out stupid. What a way to go out on a limb and say Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ohio State are the best three teams. Also I'm way more concerned about the pass defense than I am about the run defense at this point. i just hope Kenny Demens gets a starting job, he looked real good against the run in the Spring Game.
Someone needs to tell DiNardo that Denard did not cut his dreads off.