Does this performance against Ohio save Borges and Funk?
I know Borges has taken serious heat from all of us this year, but the O looked phenomenal today. I think we all agree that the team that played today beats every other team in the B1G. I thought the Oline was really good considering the competition and the skilled players produced the below numbers:
Devin-32/45-451 yds 4TD
Gallon- 9/175yds 1TD
Butt- 5/60yds 1TD
RBs-24/137yds 1TD I
thought Borges called a great game and we were one phantom Frank Clark unsportsmanlike penalty and one bad throw away from beating Ohio.
My question to the board is, does the potential of seeing more performances like this make you tolerate the idea of seeing Borges and Funk stay around one more year?
November 30th, 2013 at 4:33 PM ^
You do understand the Borges was never going to be fired after this season anyway, right?
November 30th, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 4:36 PM ^
There is a difference between the opinion of the fanbase and the opinion of the head coach. He will be back next year.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^
Funk? Maybe.
Borges? No. Hell no. God no. Please no.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^
I think another performance like this in the bowl game can.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:54 PM ^
We'll see how well the team plays with a month to prepare. The offensive line played well above what we've seen all season, and in general the offense executed well.
November 30th, 2013 at 5:23 PM ^
I haven't really been on the fire Borges bandwagon but I've kind of been leaning towards us needing to make a change after the season but I wanted to see the season play out first before making a final judgement. I was still on the fence about RR right before his last bowl game here, and after that game I was ready for a change. I think that's the same stance I'm taking with Borges. I do think the more our line gets settled in and the other backs get more comfortable in the system then games like this will become more of the norm than what we've seen previously this year.
November 30th, 2013 at 9:12 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 9:49 PM ^
I still wonder if it is Hoke forcing the stagnant Offense and not Borges.
You can't tell me they put in all those plays we saw this week. It's like they had them practiced and ready to go all year long, but hoke would not let them run them because it went against his "philosophy".
November 30th, 2013 at 10:02 PM ^
I thought that during the Minnesota and PSU stretch of games. Something about the Minnesota game was very uncharacteristic of a Borges offense, and because it worked they carried it over to the PSU game and it killed us. We've been digging out of hole ever since.
December 1st, 2013 at 12:06 AM ^
Honestly I wonder if some of the insistence on regularly running the ball and playing towards some of our weaknesses is part of what helped the offensive line develop into what they were today.
December 1st, 2013 at 8:19 AM ^
Um, no. Just no.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:34 PM ^
absolutely NOT...he HAS to go
November 30th, 2013 at 9:46 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 4:35 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 4:35 PM ^
No. If anything it is more of an indictment. Because now the talent appears there and he limited what they were capable of.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^
And this again.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:41 PM ^
This is the offense we all expected at the beginning of the year: Gardner, Gallon, and Funchess, with Dileo making clutch plays and the running game being okay. The issue isn't that the offense can't deliver, it's that it can't deliver consistently.
November 30th, 2013 at 8:23 PM ^
This was the best offensive performance in 100 years against OSU...and that was your expectation all the time? You thought this was the best offense in Michigan history? We were going to get 600 yards against good teams, presumably more against bad teams, maybe break the all-time record for yards in a season by an FBS team?
December 1st, 2013 at 12:48 AM ^
But there was a lot of hype around Devin Gardner, and people were legitimately worried that he would do so well that he would go pro at the end of this year. His 2012 numbers projected over a whole season were lights out. And he was amazing in the Notre Dame game, so we were expecting a high level of production from him and the offense this year even if the OL had some problems.
I mean, this was Brian's recap from the season preview:
So: I believe in Gardner, and Toussaint, and that the overall blocking will be improved not only by the new guys on the line but also the maturation of the new generation of blocky/catchy guys. I think Al Borges will be much better equipped to take advantage of Gardner's skills than Denard's, and I can't really find a spot on the offense that I think will be meaningfully worse than last year
November 30th, 2013 at 6:13 PM ^
Bingo. Where was this the entire 2nd half of the year. I am ok with 1 or 2 bad games by the offense but we had a series of many and some of them were historically bad. Such as last week and the 130 yards or whatever the entire game against a good - not great - Iowa D.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:36 PM ^
My mom was watching today and said "Al why couldnt you do this the whole year ya goon?"
November 30th, 2013 at 5:51 PM ^
didn't say goon.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:36 PM ^
I think this is comparable to DeBord 2007. At this point, Borges has had a revelation and gets it now. The O-line looked solid (keeping it simple worked!), and the offense was clicking.
Of course, we will have to wait until the bowl game to see; Funk and Borges have one more evaluation to go through.
November 30th, 2013 at 5:47 PM ^
YES. I was thinking of that Capital One Bowl as this was happening. Pulling out all the stops and moving up and down the field was great, but the season would have been a lot less painful if they didn't wait until they had nothing to lose to do it.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
performance today actually underscored how bad the rest of the year was. If the offense could perform this well, why did it not do so the rest of the year against worse teams? This to me shows that Borges only shows up when he knows his job is on the line, which is a bad sign.
November 30th, 2013 at 4:39 PM ^
Another loss to Ohio..12 of 14yrs ..I guess this has become acceptable
November 30th, 2013 at 4:59 PM ^
Average Recruting Stars per Rivals
2010 3.19
2011 3.24
2012 3.56
2013 3.64
We're paying for 2010 & 2011 right now. You can't blame Hoke for 2001-2010 and Hoke is hampered by the recruiting at the end of the RichRod era.
November 30th, 2013 at 8:18 PM ^
But the numbers are an even bigger problem than the average quality of the recruits. The official roster at mgoblue.com:
- 16 seniors
- 16 juniors
- 23 sophomores
- 59 freshmen (23 are redshirts)
How does that happen? It's like a neutron bomb went off on the upperclass end of the roster. Or maybe we self-imposed a 15-scholarship penalty on ourselves three years ago.
November 30th, 2013 at 10:16 PM ^
This is what I never understood. It's not like we had our entire Junior and Senior players get drafted. Where did they go? I don't remember a lot of attrition when Hoke came in. Not at least like I remember hearing when RR came in.
December 1st, 2013 at 9:06 AM ^
I went back through the recruting lists to refresh my memory. There wasn't the immediate attrition, but a lot of guys left when they were passed on the depth chart by younger players, sometimes even by walkons, and they realized they'd never see the field here and decided to transfer.
There's always a little of that but it's not usually half of a recruiting class.
So I take back what I said--except for the offensive line, it really was quality and not quantity.
November 30th, 2013 at 5:11 PM ^
many, many here are okay with that
they enjoy not being blown out at home and happy for the moral victory
"if you don't like it go away"
:-(
November 30th, 2013 at 5:11 PM ^
many, many here are okay with that
they enjoy not being blown out at home and happy for the moral victory
"if you don't like it go away"
:-(
November 30th, 2013 at 4:43 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 5:01 PM ^
We had 158 yards total offense against Iowa just one week ago.
We had 603 yards total offense against Ohio State this week.
My, oh my ... they grew and got better in a damn hurry.
November 30th, 2013 at 5:22 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 5:41 PM ^
For some reason when people hear "execution" they lose it, but that was obviously the difference. You can't develop talent in a week, and while I preferred our play-calling this week, it wasn't as different as some people are implying. For whatever reason, our offense executed much better this week than in recent weeks. That's true of Gardner, the O line, the non-OL blocking, and on and on.
To me, what to think about Borges (and Fuck, Jackson, etc.) depends on how you attribute the very uneven offensive execution throughout the season. In general, I think getting guys to execute is a big part of coaches' jobs. I also think that young players play like young players at times, and that's really hard to avoid.
I'm genuinely undecided at this point. With the talent that we have growing up and coming in, I don't have any doubt that our offense will improve markedly if we keep the same coaches. I also think there are better coaches out there than some of the guys we have. I'm interested to see what happens in the bowl game, and I don't think I'll be too upset no matter what happens.
November 30th, 2013 at 5:56 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 9:51 PM ^
We actually hit a point in the game where I did not know what we were going to do next. The play calling helped the "execution".
November 30th, 2013 at 5:57 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 5:59 PM ^
I just noticed that I accidentally spelled Funk "F-u-c-k." I wonder how often he gets that. My fingers are very used to typing "fuck." Not so much with "funk."
November 30th, 2013 at 9:49 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 9:05 PM ^
Check the film on the 2pt. conv. 3 recievers on 5 DBs. That is not putting your kids in position to succeed. If they had converted, it would have been in spite of Borges, not because of him. And that is why he needs to go.
November 30th, 2013 at 9:23 PM ^
You just know so much about football, don't you? Maybe you can be the OC!
November 30th, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
It might....
this was supposed to be the best defense we played all year (it wasn't, in fact it was one of the worst) and yet we played like we needed to to win. Especially with a bowl win, I wouldn;t be surprised if both are back next year. And, if the team plays like they did today, that would be a good thing (ducks)
November 30th, 2013 at 5:07 PM ^
This was at best the second-best defense we've faced all year. MSU is a better unit.
November 30th, 2013 at 5:42 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
November 30th, 2013 at 4:38 PM ^
One game does erase the many poor games. Our offense, our QB, and our o-line regressed much of the year. Borges has to answer to that. We are better off without him. Please bring in a new coordinator!