META (sort of): An appeal for more objective analysis

You could just read the front page and ignore the board...

...to loss to Rutgers...still in stiches over that one.

Nobody can hide from the current distaste of the Michigan football team. These points will be covered throughout the week.

yes I am glad in our improvement of losing to Rutgers from losing to Minnesota.

The best thing for people looking to talk football to do is to create a thread talking about football.

If we end up with a situation where an OL dissection thread turns into a "best way to protest DB" discussion then we'll deal with it as mods, but I think the redundant threads about new coaches or firing everyone are already getting taken down.

Objective analysis in anything other than a scientific or statistical sense in a canard. No person's opinions or onsights are free of their own biases, blind-spoots, "agendas," and pre-conceptions. So...no. We cannot have more objective analysis this side of Bill Connolly's advanced stats.

Sorted by Predicted Margin of Defeat

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/ncaaf/sagarin/

Michigan is a weak, slow fooball team playing a dinosaur style of football with coaches that are highly overrated.

There's only so long you can spend analyzing the corn kernels before you just say, "welp, it appears you shit yourself."

Guys, we are seeing development!!! Just a couple more years and the coaches will get this team to where they need to be!!! Moral victories!!! Yea!!!

Here's your "objective analysis:"  There is a dumpster fire happening in the Big House.  I wish somebody would put it out.

Is that objective enough?

Start another thread about the wonderful O-Line play?

Our O-line is progressing? Did you see jack miller "play football" last night? Woof.

is not a good team despite their record. They haven't beaten anyone considered worthy or good. In many respects they are like Michigan. They can be the weak but not the strong or relatively strong. Their coach was on the hotseat at the beginning of the season.

That said, fear not; Brandon will retain Hoke for another year citing improvement on many facets of the game regardless whether they won or not.

I think this may have been better handled in an e-mail to Brian.  If you sent him a reasonable e-mail, and I think your post was reasonably stated, I bet he would give you a reasonable response.  He may not agree with you, but I hope he would consider your view.

You also have to allow for the fact that the writers are fans too.  They are gonna need to vent like the rest of us.  That really is want the first 24 hours are for.

If you have football stuff to talk about, just start that thread.  If you see good things, just say so.  You will get negged for going against the grain, but who cares?  The points don't really matter.  People will also disagree with you, with varying degrees of Internet-Tough-Guy doucheyness.  So get ready to ignore some commenters and engage with others. You can't put up a thread and say this is only for those who agree with me.

Incidentialy, I think that I agree with at least some of the football points that you make.  My impression was that the backs did do a better job of picking up blitzers.  I will have to wait for the UFR to be sure, but my impression was that Green and Smith had improved in that area.  If that is true, its a good thing.

We did have success pulling OL (Kalis crushed some dude on one play!).  That too was a good thing.

However, these improvements are such baby steps compared to where we need to be.  Finally, it is hard to look at positives and talk about them given the current state of things.  It feels like rearranging deck chairs on the Tiatanic.

[Edit - Just saw you did start another post.]

I was having breakfast with the family this morning when enlightenment hit me regarding why this team is so bad and why our record is so awful.  So I decided to share my measured insights with y'all, writ large in pancakes......

what you're trying to do here ifis.  A lot of people clearly aren't in the mood for it.  Therefore you're likely to get less comments than the more negative threads. 

In the spirit of trying to reply specifically to the focus of your thread:  I too was encouraged by several things about the Rutgers game. I won't talk Xs and Os cause I can't,  but in answer to your OP, I was looking for this:

--Devin Gardner.  He was there and he was all THAT.  2 touchdowns! and speaking of..

--Touchdowns.  Finally!  on the road!  In the endzone!  I was beginning to think this was a touchdownless season.  Team needed to get over this hump in the worst way.  4th quarter touchdown, even better. 

--Team unity - if you'll allow me the same opportunity to project my meaningless emotions on the players just as everyone else does:  It seemed the toxic atmosphere in Ann Arbor may have re-invigorated the team spirit.  They were playing football, like there was nothing else they wanted to be doing that evening.  It killed me that the refs took away the possible win at the end but damn it, the team's excitement was contagious.

--Staying in the game despite setbacks.  Finally, finally started to see this.  A missed PI call in was it Utah?  and they got so easily demoralized.   Last night - bad calls, the team stayed in the game.  Rutgers scores points, they stayed in the game.  Until the very end they STAYED IN THE GAME!! 

Hoping they can continue to build on the momentum even without the win they deserved.

Subjective analysis is, in my opinion, what makes Mgoblog great. Objective analysis is widely available at Mgoblue.com or ESPN, but if you're looking for a source with a positive spin on Michigan right now - well, good luck. 

The only thing remotely negative I'll say about this place is that I miss the UFRs when they're not put up. I'm sure it takes many hours to do them, though, so c'est la vie. They are my favorite part of the board, though, so thanks for when you do them, Brian.

pad level by OLmen is still terrible and much of what you saw last night was the result of simply overpowering much lighter and weaker defenders, i.e. Big Will in high school.  This is not good.

I finally saw Derrick Green break an ankle tackle but again probably the result of the lighter players getting a little tired by time the 4th qtr rolled along. Wide receivers, while seeming to gain a bit of separation finally were still standing still when Devin was struggling to find an open man instead of working back toward him.

I again saw no adjustments to our porous secondary at half-time not unlike ND, adjustments that should be make with a time out and in the flow of the game but continued the entire season. (Einstien's definition of insanity insert here.)

I thought the seal was clapping in much better rhythm on the sidelines. And what really pisses me off the most is that Dave Brandon had to know Brady had incompetent assistants based on how much film he supposedly watches and simply learning from people named Hanlon and Schembechler, even though he was a member of the meat squad throughout his days here as a student.

His next promotion should be free tickets to any junior high coach that is able to teach proper blocking fundamentals and separation by the wide receivers. That would be on the Offensive side of the ball. I'd give my middle nut for a coach that could teach proper pass coverage. He could fill the entire stadium with position coaches that are better than ours, therefore never having to worry about the big house being empty.

And although that might sound bitter, it is my analysis as this date. Thank you.

There is a tipping point at which nobody really needs (or cares about) quantitative analyses to help us understand what we are seeing on the field. At this point its a tired exercise. The incompetence is so systemic that the amount of progress by the OL is just seems beside the point. That's the reason the concussion was such an issue - it was a confirmatory sign of systemic incompetence. 

I appreciate you trying to do what MGoBlog always does, analyze data. There has indeed some improvement in the run game and with the O-Line. It was even nice to see Devin take off on scrambles rather than wait to get splattered.

But my thinking is what does it matter? We've seen and proven this coaching staff has difficulty in transferring what they are teaching the players unto the field of play. Perhaps the 4th quarter of Saturday's game is their turning point. Perhaps now they will begin to play with fire and passion, something that has been missing at least the last 3 years, I think we saw some in Brady's first year. The point is I believe we can all agree that Brady and most of his staff will be gone at the end of the season, whatever progression is made will not translate to next season. Coaching, techniques, schemes, etc will all likely be different. Can the players build on their experience this year? I hope so but I'm concerned about if they're being coached up at all.

Like others have said, we really don't need a lot of analytical data. The eye test says the product is less than it should be. I don't know what happened the last 2 years to cause the wheels to fall off the wagon but the damage at this point is likely irreversible. Only winning out and defeating both MSU and OSU would give Brady and staff any remote possibility of being retained for 2015.

I've been a Michigan fan now for almost 30 years. It has become like family to me. I have favorite pro teams but none of them bring out the same emotions in me as Michigan. I've always been proud of the University's teams (other than a brief period with MBB) but the last 7 years have pushed me to the brink and I can't take anymore. That's what these guys like Brandon don't understand. They see fan and alumni anger in recent events as a separate entity and totally removed from past events. That's not how it is with lifelong fans and alumni. Players come and give their sweat and tears for 4-5 years and leave, perhaps they remain fans of their school, we are the one constant and without us there's no reason to field any athletic teams. Sorry if my rant is partially off topic, there's really no one place to put these thoughts.

As has been the case now for 4 years, we continously see players not even performing basic techniques correctly, or not enough players on the field, or poor clock management, the list goes on and on. What is the one constant? Who affects these things the most. Coaching.

It was the analysis that set it apart. Between the UFRs and the comments by knowlegeable coaches and others, I've learned far more about football than I ever could have imagined. 

I can go to any sports blog that follows college football and read people whining about the coaches or the losses. I can go anywhere and read vituperative attacks on other commentors, the coaches, the AD or pretty much anything. I can go anywhere and listen to people vent about the season being lost and how the program is gone forever. 

What I can't do is go elsewhere and get the combination of the staff's analysis with the support of the high quality commentors who contribute here. Space Coyote and Magnus have excellent sites and provide solid analysis, but they don't get the give and take that occurs here. That give and take about the various views on key plays is what makes Mgoblog special. 

Hey I get it. Sometimes it's hard to wade through painful videos. Sometimes it really sucks to revisit an ugly game. Sometimes it's really hard if you've given up on the entire season and can only see despair. The problem is that the content that effort produces is what sets this blog apart from any other. That is this blog's singualr added value.

Brian is free to spend his blogging time any way he chooses, as are his staff. However, he might consider what was special about his content that got Mgoblog here and whether or not it's worth the pain to continue to provide it.