Don Brown's Penn State presser is a goldmine of stories and joy
October 31st, 2018 at 3:34 PM ^
All Hail Don Brown. If he ever tries to leave...
October 31st, 2018 at 4:17 PM ^
no great head coaches have mediocre asst. coaches. this is one of the great hires harbaugh could ever have made. now he is starting to surround himself with nothing but solid coaches.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:14 PM ^
Plus Partridge (especially for recruiting) and Mattison...as position coaches!
October 31st, 2018 at 5:16 PM ^
Don Brown wasn't on anyones radar (except, thankfully, Harbaugh's) when DJ Durkin left. He was not the young hotshot flavor of the month. He spent 40 years coaching in mostly small town New England. Didn't ever work for the big time head coaches. But he is the best DC in America hands down. And he was before he came to Ann Arbor.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:29 PM ^
It's insane to me that Harbaugh beat the entire P5 to Don Brown because he decided to Google some defensive stats and no one else did.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:08 PM ^
I hope he does the same for the passing game soon. It's not potent enough. But he did try to get Dan Enos. Look at the affect Enos has had at Alabama.
But maybe Jim McElwain will be elevated this off season, which would be great too.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:27 PM ^
Wow. I never even thought about that.
Tua + Enos....hm. I wonder how much is Enos.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:54 PM ^
But then you're saying Jim Harbaugh's choice of Dan Enos was not good?
October 31st, 2018 at 7:14 PM ^
And Nick Saban stole him away from Jim Harbaugh. You're saying Nick Saban was wrong too?
October 31st, 2018 at 3:43 PM ^
Don Brown is a man's man. Love this dude.
October 31st, 2018 at 4:03 PM ^
choice bits:
"this isn't happy-jack city"
"you better like .... me, up your behind, sometimes"
Ben Mason imitation: "YES COACH!" (all caps doesn't quite capture it)
"I'm just a guy coaching"
"If you don't practice, you can't run it"
Shea yelling at Coach B: "You get me the ball back and I'll fix it!"
"This team is the best practice team I've ever coached"
what a gem this guy is, I hope he continues for many years to come.
October 31st, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^
I assume, from a quick web search, that happy-jack city is the Happy Jack Pancake House in Ocean City, Maryland and not the actual city of Happy Jack, Wyoming.
October 31st, 2018 at 4:40 PM ^
Don is clearly referring to an imagined city run by corrupt constable Happy Jack Mulraney, played by John C Reilly in Gangs of New York.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:35 PM ^
Coach Brown to D: "This is a kill. This is a kill. This is a wound. This is a wound. This is a kill."
October 31st, 2018 at 4:14 PM ^
"This isn't happy-jack city."
Just a GREAT line!
October 31st, 2018 at 4:09 PM ^
The Uche-man has some juice.
October 31st, 2018 at 4:10 PM ^
You can’t come here and play football here and not love football..
October 31st, 2018 at 4:21 PM ^
Penn State is so screwed..
October 31st, 2018 at 4:24 PM ^
Worth. Every. Penny.
In general, I’m of the opinion that scheming is fairly overrated. All these guys “go to the same school” and know what’s what. They can all X and O. Coaching is about having 11 guys be an extension of your will.
There’s a culture being built here that is turning into something pretty special. Next year’s team can build on these guys selling out every practice.
One other thing that impressed me: always going back to fundamentals. That’s where games are won and lost.
October 31st, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^
Bo ran an odd defensive scheme and we can see his record. Bo was also a student of the game and I forget where but he mentioned going to a conference where they talked about the latest fancy defensive scheme and Bo asked a couple questions on fundamentals and results. The speaker didn't have adequate answers and this reassured Bo that fundamentals trumped scheme.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:57 PM ^
This is what I thought after reading the Pennlive article about Harbaughs scheme being old school. Does it really matter what scheme you run if you have guys that execute it perfectly. Maybe scheme does matter a little but its also about the jimmys and jos not the xxxs and oooos
October 31st, 2018 at 10:26 PM ^
The story you're referring to is in Bo's Lasting Lessons, and it was an offensive "guru" and scheme. Eventually Bo asked the coach what the W-L record was and the guy was around .500 so Bo decided the answer wasn't scheme but to re-emphasize fundamentals.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:01 PM ^
Worth every penny? Personally, I think we're getting him at a discount.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:55 PM ^
I strongly, strongly disagree about scheming. Now, granted, guys can scheme themselves to a draw and allow the players to win the game; a matchup between two good coordinators can often have that result.
But scheme matters. Anyone who watched Michigan at Northwestern in 2000 knows that. You get worked by a better scheme and you're in for a loooong game.
Brown doesn't overrate his own value. In the video he discusses, in the context of last year's PSU game where he implicitly suggests that he didn't do this, the importance of putting the players in a position to win.
But he's really good at putting the players in those positions.
October 31st, 2018 at 8:33 PM ^
Bo disagrees with you.
https://www.sportsforthesoul.com/bo-schembechler-emphasize-execution-not-innovation/
Now I have to admit, there was a time when I doubted if fundamentals were still enough to produce top-notch football teams. I even wondered if the game had passed me by.
This crisis of confidence occurred after our infamous 1984 season, when we finished 6-6. In the offseason, I went to one of the national coaching conferences with a few hundred other coaches, and they had some hotshot young high school coach from California explain his new whiz-bang system of defense.
That really caught my eye. I’m thinking, Maybe our approach at Michigan is just too simple to succeed in the modern era. Boy, that was an awful feeling.
But after this guy finishes his slide show, someone in the audience asks, “If your defensive schemes are so great, then why did your team give up 400 yards a game last season?”
The hotshot replied—and I will never forget this—“We were just a poor tackling team.”
Well, hell! That tells you all you need to know! You throw out 50 percent of that fancy stuff, and spend 15 more minutes every day practicing the most basic thing in football: TACKLING. That’s all!
I walked out of that auditorium, and I knew what we were going to do: Get back to basics! Get back to Michigan football! And I was determined that we were going to do it better than anyone else.
November 1st, 2018 at 1:19 AM ^
Huh....almost as if the game has changed in the last 40 years...
October 31st, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^
I love the honesty in his answers. This wasn't anything close to a motivation speech and I would run through a wall for him right now.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:53 PM ^
Right there with ya man.
October 31st, 2018 at 4:46 PM ^
"You'd better like me up your behind."
-Don Brown
October 31st, 2018 at 5:00 PM ^
The way he says some things, you can just tell when he's censoring himself.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:02 PM ^
"Make them feel you."
-Don Brown
October 31st, 2018 at 4:54 PM ^
He was so proud of his study lol
October 31st, 2018 at 4:58 PM ^
Loved his Shae anecdote, I could listen to Don Brown for hours.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:25 PM ^
Don Brown should be required to hold daily press conferences solely for our enjoyment. Please write this into his next contract.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:52 PM ^
The guy could read the phone book and I would still be in for this.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:27 PM ^
If you liked Don Brown, you should read what Joel Klatt had to say about the CFP rankings.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:00 PM ^
Superfluous.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:36 PM ^
Need to recruit more Flanagan/Miami kids. They are the backbone of this defense and will be for a few more years.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
THE Don is the dean of CFP defense.
October 31st, 2018 at 5:56 PM ^
This video should be required, or at least recommended, viewing for any MGoBlog visitor. His honesty is mesmerizing. If you're an opposing player and he knows your number, you might as well line up your ice bath the day after you play Michigan.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:15 PM ^
“Katie Hamler”
-Don Brown
October 31st, 2018 at 6:53 PM ^
I think he said KD.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:15 PM ^
John U. Is making some weird faces in the background during that video
October 31st, 2018 at 7:36 PM ^
Bacon was. I thought I saw Brown reading his notes...
October 31st, 2018 at 6:22 PM ^
Love that guy
October 31st, 2018 at 6:25 PM ^
"This isn't Happy Jack City...you better like football "
October 31st, 2018 at 6:49 PM ^
I like Coach Brown pressers, it's like he's talking to us and it's good info.
As far as TOP, I remember noticing last year that his D didn't really have a chance with all the 3-and-outs by the offense. No defense can hold up when the offense doesn't do it's part. Even when they don't score, just getting a few first downs can make all the difference, and that's what's happening this year.
October 31st, 2018 at 7:38 PM ^
Totally agree. I thought Mattison's defenses under Hoke were top 10 defenses and in some years top 5 but you can't give the opposing offense 80 tries to test the angles and probe weaknesses. Instead, Michigan defense floated between top 15 and top 30.
October 31st, 2018 at 6:49 PM ^
This a guy is an absolute gem. So glad we’ve got him! Go Blue!