MGoQuestions for Heiko

redundant threads, how would members like yourself be able to unload all of their pent up sarcastic assholery?

I support this. A question needs to be asked about why Borges called the same failing plays over and over after halftime when he was doing other things successfully in the first half.

I lol'd.

I like this question. In the 4 losses, wasn't that same dive play called about 40 times for a total of ZERO yards, with maybe one short yardage conversion out of 25?

I think a lot of the problem has come from this team trying to mix a Denard-centric scheme with a Borges-centric scheme.  Oregon and Stanford do things very differently and both are successful, but I don't think you can take a little from column A and a little from column B and have sustained success.

While I think there are some oddities in the way we've gone about things even with Devin (Why do we throw so many bombs deep downfield?), next year's line is going to run the power play a zillion times in practice and they are probably never going to run the inverted veer. 

With the benefit of hindsight, we needed to either go all spread-option (as it stands Denard has never really gotten good at his reads and there is little variety to that portion of our offense) or more traditional (sort of what we've seen with Devin) but with Denard being told to scramble on a regular basis.  As it stands the things we do well we don't do enough of to keep defenses honest and there are a ton of things in the playbook that we aren't good at. 

If things suck next year, then getting pissed at Borges makes sense.  At this point it is just a sad missed opportunity. 

Questions like these are the only way you'll get Borges to reveal anything interesting. 

I'd also suggest starting a question with a stated premise such as -- "Coach, given the inability of interior of our offensive line to get push, what was your plan to overcome OSU's strong interior defensive line play?"  Michigan's interior offensive line play does have difficulty getting push ... those are Hoke's own words, if memory serves. 

Borges would then have a choice -- refute the premise, which would be an interesting thing for him to try to do; or accept the premise and thus have to explain why he was trying up-the-middle runs so much.

I'm not an expert, but I don't think this is necessarily a correct interpretation of how Chris Brown says the "Theory of Constraints" should be appied to football. (http://smartfootball.com/offense/why-every-team-should-apply-the-constra...)

In general, Brown's real premise is that teams should not focus on adaptive plays that trick a defense but rather build a base package that suits the strength of the offense, has succes, and forces the defense to overplay something. Now, Ohio certainly looked to overplay the run, but it wasn't because we were particularly good at it (We have good players making big plays but not consistent offensive output).

The way I see it is that Al doesn't really have a very well-developed base package of plays that can consistently get us yardage. Therefore, the defense never really overplays anything we do.. We can pretend running (obv. I-form is neither suited for us nor successful and goes against the basic premise of what a "base package" should do) is succesful for us, but in reality, teams aren't overplaying our run, they are just commiting more defenders to it, because our passing game is shit.

If anything, I fault Borges for not really developing any semblance of a base package or series that really suits our players' strengths or has succes in recurrent situations. What did we run all year that managed to gain yards consistently in key situations? If we don't have a successful base, then constraint plays never work, because the defense doesn't fear anything, and thus, it never sets itself to overplay one thing over another.

I'd ask Al something like, "now that the B1G season is over, what do you think worked best for us as a series of plays or base package on third and short this year versus conference opponents?"

He's not likely to answer that however.

I realize I'm not Borges and can't give a real answer, but those plays are something I've been looking at for a while...

That has to be something Borges saw in film study. If you pull two lineman, have no defenders shoot the gap off of the lineman's hip (D lineman lined up opposite them or a LB responsible for the bubble previously occupied by the offensive lineman), and then don't see any extra defenders play side someone on the D is not doing their job. Ohio State came out in the second half and had linebackers flow a LOT faster to pulling lineman, so I would say it was their fault for the easy TD drive to end the half. 

There's only 38 signatures haha

And he gets a 50,000 a year raise for the next two years.....Jeep a drinking friends

Just that easy huh?

Our offense has playmakers for sure. For me, the issue is consistency in specific situations.

What do we go to on a regular basis that can get us the yards we need on 2nd and 8, 3rd and 6? An offense should know what they can do on 3rd and 3 to get the yards. Something they can call that has worked, should work, and usually will work unless the defense makes a play. We call things that only works if the defense misplays us.

Our offensive production is akin to playing cricket when you're drunk. If you throw with enough conviction, sooner or later you're going to hit a bullseye and win some games. You just hope everyone ignored the 7 and 2 you hit with your other two darts.

Borges has talked to the media before. Are you going to sit in a room and touch yourself if someone asks an intelligent question? Do you really think Hoke thought the short-yardage offense was good?

Shouldn't he be? Shouldn't Denard be the whole running game? He is/was our best running back? It bothers me that the one year RichRod runs Denard into the ground, he barely misses playing time. But, the two years we try to "keep Denard fresh," he gets seriously hurt, and our offense is severely affected by it. Irony.

I would have liked us to run the diamond/inverted wishbone QB sweep a few more times to try and get the edge or find a crease there.