Do you really want Borges replaced?

For me, ask again at the end of the season. And anyone who thinks any of these coaches are actually going to say anything useful or relevant in these press conferences is an idiot.

I do want Al to adapt. Realize that your offense has to fit your personell and that he has to make some concessions and perhaps do some things he doesn't want to do. Or, replace Gardner and start grooming Morris now. I don't think Gardner ever makes the transition to West Coast QB and will always tend to be turnover prone.

I'm not sure "Fire Al" is warranted yet.

I think Hoke should soak in Al's full 2013 season body of work and decide at year's end.

With that said, Al Borges damn well get his creative juices flowing from his golden years at Portland St./Boise St./Auburn, otherwise Michigan is going to get outscored by Indiana on Saturday.

I do think that Michigan is kicking serious ass in recruiting now.  It took Harbaugh 4 years to get Stanford manballin' at 12-1.  I think in 1 more year Michigan football should be pretty badass.

I am going to be a dissenter to the popular view and say that we should keep Borges, at least for another season. 

My reasoning:  It is impossible to evaluate the effectiveness of an offense, and thereby the offensive coordinator, when the offensive line is in complete shambles.  We are now at a point where it is being acknowledged by even the coaches that the OL is playing like shit.  Hence the change during the bye week, and hence Borges alluding to possible additional changes this week.  A casual football fan can just watch defendard in the backfield in almost every play and see that the OL ineffectiveness is destroying our offense.  The players currently on the line, other than the tackles, are just not getting it done.  Whether that is due to bad coaching (Funk), or simply a function of the entire middle of the line being both young and inexperienced, is an unknown, but there is no denying that the OL has been horrendous. 

The impact of the horrendous OL is that  we can't run for shit this year.  So what are the solutions?

One option is to become a primarily pass offense.  That is a bad idea, as Devin has shown a propensity to be a Denard-level pick machine.  Is that all on Devin?  Likely not, as much of this can be attributable to the terrible OL play (see Eli Manning 2007 through 2012 vs. Eli Manning 2013).  Whatever the reason, with terrible OL and blocking TE play, the air raid is probably not a great option, and could result in disaster all too often.

Another option is to run Devin 25 times per game.  We tried that with Denard and we all saw the impact that it had.  Denard, a tough SOB, either missed or came out many games, most notable the entire second half of his senior year.  I know that some people on this board believe that we should "leave it all on the field" and just give runnning Devin a go, but I don't think that this is advisable.  Also, our "run Denard every play" offense under RR and even under Hoke / Borges wasn't all that effective against better teams, so why do we think that it would be any better with Devin?

Sure, Borges should be making certain adjustments, such as the occasional bubble screen, but his options are largely limited by the OL that he is working with.  We knew coming into this year that the OL would be a problem, but I don't think that many people predicted how much of an impact the OL would have on our entire offense.

- install something this week for the rest of this year, where Devin can read defenses and make changes at the line when the box is stacked.

- change and continues to run the ball 80% of the time on first down, from under center, into stacked boxes

- include more "spread" formations to get Norfleet into the game more and also run from this formation more cuz we are not Manbalz yet this year.

- call more reverses, jet sweeps, flee-flickers, screens and quick passes to WR when they are 1x1 with a CB 12 yards off the LOS, all to keep defenses honest.

- actually run something close to a "West Coast Offense" that he is supposed to be such an expert on.

-include the "pass" option on all of Devin read/option plays.  That will reduce the amount of times he needs to carry the ball....

Then yes, he is an idiot and deserves to get fired at the end of this year. 

Who is more likely to be pushing a power running game: Michigan Man Hoke or West Coast Borges?

It seems as though when we need to score (i.e., we are behind), we score, and we score quickly. It's only when there's no sense of urgency that we seem to go into a shell. Seems like a high-level game strategy.

I'd like to evaluate how many of those 24 runs were designed and how many were pass play scrambles.

Most (all) losses of the Hoke era were a direct result of Borges having his head planted firmly up his ass.

If the offense performs well in big games, then keep him around for a year. If he calls stinker games (last week, last year OSU, etc) and we lose to MSU, NW, Nebraska, and OSU because of his calls, then send him packing.

If we are to hire a new OC, I would prefer one without Michigan ties. Somebody like Gene Chizik could be very interesting

In short; Yes

Your just mad from Saturday

No, I'm not.  He refuses to adapt to personnel and/or make in game changes and we've seen this behavior for the past 3 seasons.  There is something to be said about sticking to your game plan/staying true to who you are, but flat out refusing to change a gollram' thing about it is asine. 

Even if he pulls a win out against OSU I still say he should be gone.  When us simpletons can call the play before the snap then I can only imagine what types of things actual Coaches pick up on. 

There is no reason him and DG should not be 100% on the same page since he is his position coach.  I can chalk up some of DG's problems to his lack of game experience at QB but seriously the regression of DG and Denard has been amazing.      

Yes I want titles and our offense couldn't beat a high school team right now.

If not, then abso-fuckin-lutely I do.

Fire him. Everything else is just delaying the inevitable. He certainly doesn't do anything innovative, he doesn't adapt, and he's already cost us 3-5 games with his inane play calling. This can't happen soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

Yes, not just based of off Saturday night either. Wasn't thrilled about the hire in the first place. Michigan needs someone who is creative and can adjust to a defense, not some stubborn uncle fester who doesn't admit to scripting plays and won't go away from the late 90s west coast best coast offense that clearly is not working.

I'd fire him because he remains unable to adapt to the changes in college football.  I'm happy he looks at the NFL for inspiration, but the differences in the game between those two entities is significant, and trying to shoehorn one's ethos into another seems foolish.  He's had three years to not screw it up, and so far he's not shown me anything to suggest he's better than an average OC.  There are many of those around, and honestly quite a few who are better.  I'm fine if Hoke wants to be loyal, but I don't owe Borges anything and, based on his playcalling the past couple of years, I don't foresee that goodwill forming anytime soon.

Yes I do

Didn't even read anything except the title, because there's no need to.

If we do replace Borges, the replacement will likely be a positional coach from the NFL.  The best college coordinators are on mid-major/lower division teams running the spread (Brady will not want this), and it would be tough to get a lot of the bigger names to make lateral moves.  A guy with NFL experience running a pro-style, manball offense is probably what Brady wants.  However, there are some innovative guys that fit the bill. 

Hue Jackson- Currently the RB coach for the Bengals.  The only offensive coach in recent history to have success with the Oakland Raiders.  He turned around a dormant attack in Oakland, unleashing Darren McFadden and turning them into an elite rushing attack.  In his only season as head coach, Oakland went 8-8, missing the playoffs by a hair (doing that in Oakland is like winning the Super Bowl anywhere else). 
 

Jackson runs a sophisticated version of a manball attack mixing zone and gap concept.  Traps, counters, power...the dude is a good manball offensive coordinator.  Prior to coaching the Raiders, Jackson was qb coach for the Ravens (tutoring Joe Flacco in his first two seasons in the NFL), WR coach for the Cincinnati Bengals from 2004-2006 (it was under his tutelage that a couple of guys named Chad Johnson and TJ Houshmandzadeh became household names), and offensive coordinator and running backs coach for the Redskins (Stephen Davis rushed for over 1400 yards in his running attack).  Jackson also has college experience, as he was OC at USC for four years (recruited and developed Carson Palmer), and offensive coordinator at Cal in 1996 (during which they rode an explosive offense to the Aloha Bowl).  Since Jackson is not currently an OC, this would be a promotion for him.  Negatives: He hasn't always been described kindly by colleagues; despite being lauded as a very good coach, he has rubbed people the wrong way, coming off as a "me" coach rather than a "players" coach and stepping on other people's toes to get ahead.  How much of that is overblown is a mystery, but the dude knows how to coach and would fit in with Hoke.

John McNulty- Currently QB coach for the Tampa Bay Buccanneers.  His results with Josh Freeman have not been great, but McNulty is on short lists as one of the best young minds in the NFL.  He was QB coach and OC for Schiano at Rutgers, and also coached receivers in the NFL for Jacksonville and Dallas.  There is a Michigan connection here, as he began his coaching career under Gary Moeller from 1991-1994. 

Borges at this stage, for most of the reasons already put on the thread by other posters. It seems like the arrogance in the presser is what really put many over the edge as far as the OC goes. I was also put-off by that, and Borges seemed very defensive and he was inappropriately arrogant. However, I also recall Borges being quite humble, soft spoken, and kind, with no flashes of arrogance. He is under tremendous pressure to perform, without having all of his tools fully developed. I too am frustrated with some playcalling in some games, and the rushing performance, or lack thereof, is particularly troubling. However, I do not believe that firing him now is the answer; I am willing to forgive his recent arrogance (which is even easier to do considering the flaming by certain posters) with hope that it is an anomaly (I believe it is); and I would continue to point out that we are a hair away from undefeated. However, with the meat of the schedule coming, I also demand that Borges boil these criticisms down to their meaning, respectfully consider them, and reconstruct his approach to game calling, as well as to plan to behave better in the next presser when he's fielding blunt questions. He does have a sense of humor, but I'm guessing he was overly defensive because he knows he called a crappy game. The posters who pointed out other such games are right, but so are the ones who recognize his good game plans and creative in other games. I knew the OL would be weak, but not this weak. I knew Gardner might struggle, but it is the coaches' responsibility to correct his thinking, and if he doesn't, to insert the next one on the depth chart.

He is great, but our O line is inexperienced and Devin turns the ball over. 

Translation: Borges is great IF he has supreme athletes and juniors/seniors at every position.

Hell, I would be a kick ass OC if I had supreme talent and upper classmen to work with.

 

 

I miss being able to run the football. Stretch plays with 8 men in the box for -3 yards is sickening. Even more sickening is trying to run that play over and over again thinking somehow it has to work this time.

Yes. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt after a couple badly called games in the last two years (Iowa 2011, Notre Dame 2012, OSU 2012) but it's pretty obvious he's gonna have a huge roll in causing us to lose games we shouldn't and I don't see that changing. 

Stan Parrish as a possible candidate for OC? He's at Eastern now and has worked at Michigan before, and I'm pretty sure there will be a staff shakeup in Ypsi again.  Only question is if he will want to remain un-retired.  He un-retired to take the Eastern position.

The better gist of the post was the second half of your post...if he's fired who would you realistically want to get the job? Saying "anyone would be better" is just stupid (that got us GERG, remember?) and things like "Hire Chip Kelly to run the offense...he'll quit the Eagles to become the OC here" and the like isn't very realistic.  Who should be a target that might come because it's not a step down or parallel positon?  There are a couple of decent suggestions in here, but there might be a lot more if the thread wasn't primarily "yes I want to fire Borges." Fine, and duh.  Who do you want to get to replace him?  Any time you fire someone you better have someone in mind that you can actually get. Because it CAN get worse. 

Yes

This question is WAY premature. however ugly the games may have been, if I'm willing to fire someone based on the first 6 games of this season where they are 5-1, no matter how the rest of the season turns out, I'm going to have a hell of a time convincing a competent replacement to work for me. 

Talk to me at the end of the 2014 season.

I am not defending any of the current results, I am not apologizing for current results. I simply believe that the coaching staff deserves another year to fix things.