More Important Performance: Nussmeier or Mattison?

While the excitement over the firing of Al Borges and subsequent hiring of Doug Nussmeier to the offensive staff has risen the spirits of the fanbase, there's only one way to maintain this level of exuberance: Winning. Often. It takes outstanding performances on both sides of the ball in order to do this, though. While Borges failed to do his part in several games, there were other games where the opposite side of the ball made his job a lot harder than it had to be. i.e.) Akron (YES! I said it! No reason we should need to score more than 17 pts to beat Akron), Penn St, Indiana, Ohio St, Kansas St. As an offensive coordinator your job is tougher when you're forced to win shootouts. The reason teams like Alabama and this year's FSU have been so dominant is because their defenses don't force their offense to have to score 40 points to win, at least not very often. Everyone knows how 'Bama's defense has performed in their recent run. This year's FSU was 3rd in Total defense, 1st in Scoring defense giving up only 12.1 ppg (MSU gave up 13.2 ppg).

Upon arriving at Michigan in 2011, Mattison started out red hot with the 8th defense in the country giving up 17.2 ppg, 317.6 yds/g. We saw decline in 2012, dropping to a still respectable 17th defense in the country giving up 18.8 ppg, 311.2 yds/g. Which leads us to 2013, Michigan finished 41st in total defense giving up 26.8 ppg (66th in the country). Ouch. After the Indiana game, I know many weren't concerned given the dynamic's of the Hoosiers' offense. By season's end we saw the UM defense get gashed time and time again. While most of the year's blame has fallen solely on the gorgeous one, Greg Mattison's defense did not hold up it's end of the bargain, either. I, for one, will be going into the 2014 season with my eyes on that side of the ball instead of just giving a free pass because of his name. We expected Borges to make in game adjustments to stop the bleeding, the same should be required of GMat. Not to take any blame away from Borges, but do you know what makes an inexperienced OL's job easier besides a new OC? A dominant defense.

With that said, which coordinator do you think will be under more pressure to perform? My answer is clear. Let's discuss and #GOBLUE