My bid for serious, non-emotional defense discussion.

Called it a decimated defense. It's is a scorched earth, Sherman march to the sea platoon of the rabble left over when you have such a large departure of talent in the secondary. Obi ezeh was not recruited to play college lb. He was a running back. The defense is pathetic, no doubt about that, but honestly break free from heuristic that Michigan has good defense. They don't. And they won't until the damage of what happened when Lloyd stopped recruiting and other coaches drove away talent by saying Lloyd had parkinsons. Cullen getting burned is an example of a freshman playing in first game against a senior wr and a top end jr qb. Patience is a word that is tossed about regularly here, that's about the only thing I can rationalize to think.

of talent in the secondary.  Time and talented recruits that are properly coached in the fundamentals of shedding blocks, covering zones and making the tackle(wrapping up), not just a hit (Cam Gordon) will be the solution to the problems this secondary has.

Obi Ezeh needs to be benched, period.  He continually misses his assignments, both of the long touchdown runs were his responsibility and she missed the gaps.  He seems to always get sucked up into the corwd of the line and doesn't see the ball.  I understand that 'if the coaches saw someone play better in practice they would certainly play them'.  But can playing Kenny Demens be any worse than Ezeh, seriously?

Ray Vinopal needs more time on the field and I think Kovacs is a better tackler than Cam Gordon, plus I see Gordon getting out run more and more each game. 

Obviously, Rogers going down didn't help and Christian in a true freshman and meade freshman mistakes, but this story is getting old of giving up 500+ yards and 30+ points per game.  If the O does play perfectly, it seems that we don't have much of a chance against a ranked team.

Two nagging feelings that are tough to shake despite real facts to the contrary:

1. The rhythm of who we are beating and who we are losing too is the same as last year more or less. It means basically nothing because it is a new season with new players and new matchups. It is still tough to shake though.

2. Our defense back 7 doesn't look strong, fast, powerful or able to strike any sort of fear in good receivers or running backs when you compare that unit to like Michigan State.  Their back 7 guys looked bigger and more explosive.  Numbers will probably prove me wrong, but in practice that is sure how it looked.

I hate that we don't have the size and power back there that is evident when you boot up highlights on Youtube from pre-07.  I am not blaming anyone, but I hate it.

Beat Iowa.  I know we have the horses to do it.

It seems to me that Roh is not the dominant player I expected him to be at this point, especially given the added weight and comments about improved conditioning and speed. Do you agree and is it talent or coaching at this stage?

First off the talent question just does not do much for me.  Do we have elite talent no but we have better talent than Florida Atlantic which did a better job against Kirk Cousins than we did.  Yes I know Cam Gordon was WR last year and is a first year starter, Kovacs is a walk-on, Floyd does not have great speed, James Rogers same as Cam Gordon but with the exception of Kovacs these are 3 and 4 star recruits with scholarship offers from multiple BCS conference teams.  Jonas had a UCLA offer is a 5th year senior with 3 years of playing experience,  Obi was the starting MLB for a team that beat Tebow and Florida as a red shirt Freshmen did he forget how to play three years later.  This to me is bad coaching and not just Greg Robinson the whole staff Defensive staff (minus Bruce Tall).  A coach can’t make you run faster but he is suppose to teach you assignments and gap responsibilities.  Remember Scott Shafer and how everyone blamed that first year defense on him, well that has been the best D in the last three years and he now has the 15th rank defense at SYRACUSE I know they have had an easier schedule but I don’t believe they have more talent.  I like coach Rod I really think if they even make this defense respectable they will play in a BCS game next year but as a head coach he need to take a more active role even if that mean letting coach Magee do the whole Offense and having coach Rod spend all or most of Practice and the game focused on Defense.  This responsibility should not fall on Tony Gibson who is there worse defensive coach.

I would do one of the following:

1) Let GRob choose his own position coaches and assistants. Need more cohesion on staff

2) Let GRob run his own defense instead of forcing him to run the 3-3-5

3) Find a DC that can run the 3-3-5

4) Hire an entirely new DC and let him pick his own staff so there is cohesion amongst the staff

If none of these happen, our defense will struggle no matter how good our players are

For our defense this year, it comes down to a couple of things: fundamentals and learning/progressing.

For the upperclassmen playing on the D, one would think that some type of learning would take place, game by game, year by year that would prevent the same mistakes from happening.  I don't see this happening. For example, the defense was beat on the exact same running play for both of MSUs long runs. You get beat once, it's OK to me because a mistake was made - good play by MSU.  You get beat twice, it makes you wonder why they couldn't stop it having seen it before.  You simply can't let an opponent score on five straight possessions and expect to win.

Improving fundamentals will also help put players in place to make plays.  The way it stands right now, the defense is very reactive and you can't stop many teams or force many turnovers that way.  When you know where you're supposed to be, you put yourself in position to make plays.  Tackling is also killing us.  For example, on the 3rd down and whatever, Martin should have been tackled and not allowed to run all the way across the field to go for 18 yards. We get a stop there, we have good field position; instead, a few plays later they scored a TD.  Any player regardless of talent should be able to wrap someone up by the legs IMO.

I think they play decent defense in spurts, but when a mistake is made it's usually a big one and we are getting gashed big.

in a coaches 3rd year, isn't he responsible for this lack of secondary depth? I actually think Gerg is a good DC, and am leaning towards the "OMGUNACCEPTABLE" camp, but am still neutral.

Also, is there any level of terribleness that our D can achieve to get people in the other camp to move to the "OMGUNACCEPTABLE" camp? You can almost make an excuse for anything and use numbers to justify any point.

For RR's vantage point, the only patience that matters is David Brandon's.

With each rivalry game loss, with each conference loss, with each home loss, RR's "margin for error" for the 2011 season gets progressively thinner and thinner.  While Brandon has been very supportive publicly of RR, I can't believe that some doubts aren't starting to creep in.

     Marginally talented players can certainly improve with the proper coaching but can they outplay more highly skilled offensive players on the other team?  I think not.  We knew what he had going in and we turned a blind eye to it as long as Denard was putting up Madden type numbers.  We should have known the day would come when the offense came back to earth (and there will probably be more such days). 

 

     I have always subscribed to the belief that if your current approach isn't working, you must change but I don't see this in our defensive philosophy.  Ezeh is not helping this year.  He can't help next year.  What is the point of playing him?  Our only fix will take time (perhaps two years).  Until then we will see most teams light us up for at least four hundred yards a game.  We can moan about the losses of Warren, Woolfolk, and Dorsey but until we have people of that caliber on the field, nothing will change.

     I believe the gambling style of defense they played was actually an improvement.  A drive that takes six minutes is more taxing to our D than one big play and it gets the offense back on the field sooner.  Again, change when your approach is failing.

It's been a long time since Michigan has had a top notch secondary. I'm not exactly sure of the reasons, but it can't all be put on Gerg or Rich Rod.