Michigan's "High-Powered" Offense

Carr's fault.  Get ready for about 20 of those posts here.

In all honesty though, I think if the defense was better we'd have more offensive players on that list.  W/L's have a lot to do with post-season recognition. 

We aren't seeing the fruits yet.  We see the potential.  This offense has some glaring weaknesses (fumbles, drops, no clear-cut #1 back), but these are situations that should be remedied as time goes on.  What I see in this offense is limitless potential as these kids grow in strength and smarts.  Those other teams ahead of us are at their ceiling, and good for them.

When Denard isn't a first team player, it loses a lot of credibility IMHO.

Well we all know the MSM couldn't be wrong.

This offense is about the whole, not the sum of its parts.  For example, we're not likely to have a star, play-making receiver on this offense because we don't throw as many bombs deep that are jump balls.  Our offense is based on players fitting into specific roles in the system, so while we may not reap many individual awards, the product will be solid.

So the guys who talk about offensive yardage to say "the offense is awesome" are nuts, but the guys who cite polls about individual players to say "the offense sucks" have got it figured out?  Interesting.

Post-season awards have always taken winning into account. Denard had great individual statistics. His record, particularly in conference play, was not that good.

This is not to deny his achievement, which would be significant in any league, and in any year. But he had a losing record in the conference. Part of that is attributable to Michigan’s poor defense, but Michigan also had long stretches of offensive ineptitude, especially against the better opponents.

I can fully understand voters who take that into consideration.

This type of piece is a good thing to point at to say that RR has done a good enough job with the talent at hand.  If you blame the "talent at hand" portion on RR, well that is a different story.  This is the same (converse relationship type of same) idea behind Tressel never winnging B10 COTY, "the teams are too talented not to win".  Well, by that logic and in light of this poll, UM shouldn't be winning at the clip of OSU, UW or even Northwestern and Purdue.  Offensively, UM is basically exactly where they actually stand in the B10 this year and in the all encompassing ranking, they have drastically outperformed their player's rankings. 

It's a team game, and individual awards shouldn't matter. That being said, there are plenty of reasons why we are not on the awards list:

This offense is about scheme, not players. Obviously, you need talent, especially at QB and OL, but most of the reason it's successful is because it puts people in space with a chance to make plays. On some of the throws Denard made, the receiver was wide open, because the design of the play took advantage of the defense. Smith and Shaw are not great backs, and they can't power through a line for 3 yards every play, yet we average over 4 YPC because they get open space through Denard's run threat and good OL blocking.

Another reason we are not well-represented is "we should be" is that there are biases all over the media and coaches. QBs are judged on their ability to throw and hand off, not get first downs, so Dan Persa and Tolzien are ahead of Denard and Pryor. WRs are judged on circus catches they make that highlight reels, not little things like getting open or blocking. People have confirmation bias toward the players that they picked in the preseason, so they looked at guys like Kerrigan and Clayborn more closely during the season, and automatically put them ahead of players who may or may not have outplayed them during the season. The fact that Mouton made second team is pretty good evidence of this. Raw statistics, not adjusted for pace or situation are given way too much weight.

Finally, the coaches and media don't have time to watch 44 total games over the course of the Big Ten season. They probably watch 1 or 2 games a weekend, plus the highlights of the others. They don't have nearly enough information to make objective judgements of all the players on all the teams. They are mostly just making these pointless lists up as they go along.

I could care less what the coaches in the B10 think about this offense.  If you look up and down these lists in any conference, you'll see guys on there because of their name, the school they play for, etc. that don't make any sense.  I have seen this offense go from one of the worst in the nation to one of the best in 3 years, and that is enough for me. 

#6th ranked offense in the country using mediocre offensive talent -- must be great coaching by RR.

yeah, but the numbers of total offense disagree with you fine sir... Michigan avgs 500.9 yards of total offense per game, that's first in the big ten and second in the nation(?)

...doesn't matter about the talent, if we have the will to execute and move the ball

So these stats mean that we have 4 offensive players getting mentioned and 7 on the defense?? Doesn't this alone tell us that you have no point whatsoever?

All Big Ten Awards tend to go to upperclassmen, which is why there's LOLs like Persa coming in over TP and Denard.

6 - Iowa

4 - Michigan

30 - Iowa

12 - Purdue

11 - Michigan

And yet Iowa finished the season 7 and 5, Just like Michigan.  Purdue was 4-8 yet somehow had 1 more better player than Michigan?

Your vorpal sword swipe at the keep Rich Rod camp instead provides ample evidence of the decimated defense/cupboard was bare meme -- if Michigan can do as well as it did with only 11 'good' players, how will it do when it continues to recruit good to very good classes? (and there's a consensus that Michigan is at least in the top four of the Big 11+2 for recruiting for next year).

I'm at this point highly ambivalent about whether to keep or can the coach, but this is a ridiculous argument.

This just pissed me off.

Michigan's performance in the last two games essentially killed their chance of getting post-season rewards.  What do you expect?  Media voters are big on team performance.  Michigan will be near the top of that list next year.

I agree with the voters.  We have a very talented QB and a scheme that takes good advantage of his skills (though it does leave him with a lot of bumps and bruises) - but I don't think we're stacked up and down with NFL talent by any means.