Do you really want Borges replaced?

I'm willing to live with him if in the offseason he goes on one of the vision quests that coaches sometimes go on in which they learn new things.  If you look at what Coach Beilein did at WVU and compare it to what he does now, many things are similar, but he's changed too.  That's no more and no less than what I want from Borges...That said, I'm not optimistic - for whatever reason.  Does Stanford have an up-and-coming offensive coach Michigan could poach?  Does Alabama?  Does Georgia?  I don't know. 

I absolutely would not fire him during the season.  Who would replace him?

EDIT:  Just read his presser.  Ugh.

He is coaching at Va Tech right now.  He has the B1G and SE connections.  I still live in my fantasy world in which he unplugged DeBord's headset and was calling all of the plays in the bowl win over Florida.  So, in that fantasy world, he can do no wrong.

But at this point I don't care how he coaches the rest of the way anymore. He's called fantastic games in the past, with brilliant gameplans and playcalls that play off each other beautifully. He's also called absolute stinkers just as often.

At this point, I really believe that Borges comes up with a fresh gameplan every week and simply has no real idea of whether or not it will work until he puts it on the field. This wouldn't be too terrible if it weren't occurring in conjunction with his utter inability to admit when his gameplan is flawed and move on to something else.

I think this past game is the best possible example of this. He came in with a gameplan of how to get the power running game working. Having never really used this gameplan before, the only indication he had of whether or not it would be effective was his own intuition. After it became incredibly obvious to everyone involved that the gameplan was flawed and the power running game was dead in the water, Borges seems to say "Nah, I'm still pretty sure this is going to work."

As for replacements Cam Cameron was not surprisingly my first thought as well, but you're right he's probably not going anywhere. But honestly I don't really care that much who they look to put in there. Changing coordinators is a lot easier than changing head coaches, especially since Borges isn't really involved in recruiting. They just need to dump him and find a new guy to try out. Maybe an up-and-coming NFL position coach, maybe a lower-level college coordinator, really just someone else.

Borges is clearly not the answer at this point, so the longer we spend with him at the helm, the longer we have to wait until we find a guy that is. Maybe we have to run through a couple OCs before we get there, that's fine. As long as we are trying to get there, and not just settling for good enough.

Do nothing until the end of the season.  Then make adjustments, quietly.  No drama.

But you can forget about it.  Hoke is not going to fire Borges, they are on the same page.  Not entirely sure about Funk.

What's frustrating is that Borges knows how to call an effective offense and can do it when he wants to/is allowed to.  We've seen it in the Outback bowl, 2011 OSU and Nebraska, even the first half of CMU this year.

But for some reason, he/Hoke decide that those spurts of effective offense are not "who we are", and the handcuffs come back on.  Then we get 2011 Iowa, 2012 OSU, 2013 PSU.

The good news is that if history is a guide, we have one or two more games this season where the effective offense will be allowed out until the coaches feel too dirty to continue it.

Lets see what happens after the MSU and OSU games.  His position should be reevaluated after that.  He should get the opportunity to fix the problem just like the MSU staff did.  He had a great gameplan against Notre Dame and the offense looked like it was coming back around in the 2nd half of the UConn game and I think Hoke forced his hand on the power run game strategy. 

Right now? Certainly not. End of season? Most likely not.

I don't think he's a great OC. I don't think Michigan is going to get a much better one though, honestly. I still think he's playing with a hand tied behind his back with the OL issues to a real extent. He gets at least one more year.

If Brandon and Hoke are willing to pay the Top 2 salaries for coordinators in college football, here is the name:

Greg Roman, SF 49ers OC

At Stanford, he ran a combo MANBALL / Spread Pass scheme, and turned Toby Gerhart and Andrew Luck into Heisman contenders.

At 49ers, he adopted his scheme and turned Colin Kaepernick into Randall Cunningham minus the turnovers.

However, he doesn't call plays, and he may be willing to take a lateral move to get out of Harbaugh's large shadow.

If we are going to run the Stanford offense, we should hire the architect.  Borges has no feel for it.

Personally, I think he's a bad OC and I want him gone. I'm not sure it's best for the program at this point though. I brought this up yesterday in another thread, but there are some pretty serious consequences to coaching changes. Less so with coordinators than head coaches obviously, but there are always going to be costs in terms of recruiting and time to install new systems.

We're not going to be world beaters this year with or without him. Give him the rest of the year to see if he can get it. He's shown flashes in the past and with more dependable play from the OL, I think some of his shortcomings as a play caller will be mitigated. He'll probably cost us a game here and there going forward, but I'm not sure you can find an OC where that's not true from time to time. It's not like we'll ever be running spread under Hoke, RR isn't walking through that door guys. Whoever we get to replace Al will still be a manball guy, maybe a little more adept at using counters than he is, but if you think we will stop pounding it in I-formation, you're living a pipe dream.

is how Borges does not adapt his system to fit the players, but tries to fit the players to the system.  That does not work in the college game.  Maybe by 2015, we'll have everything in place for Al, but his unwillingness to change is inexcusable.  Now, does that mean he should be fired?  I'm not so sure.  It's not a guarantee that adding a new play caller would fix the stubborness problem, it could throw everything into an even worse spiral and put us even further behind.  I would say now, do not fire Borges, but maybe start with Funk?  It's a stick situation b/c of odd layout of this team with youth and inexperience nearly everywhere on the Offensive side of the ball.

Go get Eric Kiesau. Maybe he's taken some cues from Sark about transitioning from huddle to no huddle while still running traditional offense. 

is indeed hands off with the offense and coordinator beside his basic philosophy of Manball, then absolutely.  There are many more creative and flexible ways to run a pro style offense than the idiocy we saw last week.  You can be run heavy and physical without running same power I playe 30 times a game.