My bid for serious, non-emotional defense discussion.

We weren't aggressive against Indiana and Umass and they executed well. We were hoping that long play drives would yield more turnovers, but it didn't.

We played aggressive yesterday and got burned.

Perhaps playing aggressive against Indiana would have yielded more turnovers and bad decisions by Chappel. Thus resulting in a more comfortable win.

Perhaps playing conservative yesterday would have forced Sparty to run more plays and increasing the odds of turnovers (fumbles or interceptions).

Who really knows???.

Incidentally, for those concerned that changing coordinators next offseason will mean too much change in a short time, consider this: the 1997 D was on its third DC in four years.  Carr was the DC under Moeller, Greg Mattison was the DC in 1995-96 and then Jim Herrmann was a rookie DC in '97.  (We also a rookie OC that year in DeBord.)

The 2006 D also had a new DC (Ron English).  Coordinator change happens all the time in college football.  I don't think it's a huge deal.  As long as the guy is hired before spring practice, the team should have enough time to get acclimated by the fall. 

If you look at both big runs for TDs and a few other run plays, they had brought Kovacs up from the backfield and had him blitzing off the end of the line...  That leaves Cam as the only guy back there...  Both Mouton and Obi flow with the line and the counter cuts right through to Gordon who is standing still and never reacts until it is way too late...  and he is slow...

We need Kovacs to stay in the backfield to save our bacon...  and I agree with other posters that we would be a better defense if we played straight up with 4 linemen...  We would get pressure, and I am fine taking some chances as long as we have pressure...  We are not good at zone defense.

The above points to GERG and the defensive playcalling, and I hope can be corrected without an axe...

These two would certainly change the complexion of our defense...  Hoping Wolfolk will come back next year...

In the offseason I developed a reputation as one of the most jaded posters on here and a big part of that was my pessimism  regarding the defense. Very few people thought this defense would stay the same or get worse, but I remember looking at our back 8 and seeing: JT Floyd (baby seal last year), Kovacs (god bless him), a recently converted freshman wideout starting at free safety, another freshman at bandit and a recently converted walkon fullback competing for playing time with a 4 year starter and thinking "we'll be lucky if we're significantly better this year." And that was BEFORE Woolfolk went down.

As sad as it is to say, I think our expectations for the defense going into this year were too high. It's hard to say how much blame the coaching staff deserves for the state of things when you take the longview, but as far as getting the most out of what we have this year, I don't think the coaches have underperformed.

Is our defense really that young and lacking in talent?  Of the 11 starters, 6 are upperclassmen, including all 3 linemen and 2 out of 3 linebackers.  Except for Kovacs, all 11 starters were rated 3* or higher by Rivals - five were 4*.   The only true freshman to start any games for us on defense is Carvin Johnson, and he has missed the majority of the season with injury.

A lot of our recruits have not panned out, but to have the 112th ranked defense with a bunch of 3* and 4* guys is unnerving.  We're now halfway through the season and the D is getting progressively worse.  The coaches derserve scrutiny.  We have more talent that at least half of the 120 teams in I-A.  

Sorry.

linebackers that fill gaps and have better insticts. it seems like everytime i see playaction i get nervous. we see our linebackers getting sucked in. Whether we have the talent or not i think we need to really give other linebackers opportunities I.E. kenny demens for example. obi ezeh got sucked in and was handled by a puling guard on both big running plays yesterday. He is a 5 year player here. You would think he would understand gap control by now. I almost gurantee we wont see him start after this game.

Can marginally talented, very inexperienced football players be taught to play sound fundamental football, to be sound at tackling and disciplined at their assignments?

tackling and fundamentals can be taught but the youth of the defense as well as inexperience is where we have so many breakdowns. i think trully at times the defense looks good and capable. other times like yesterday they looked out of sorts. this is youth. the emphasis on this defense from here needs to be gap control with the linebackers and defensive line. we looked like at times yesterday they were pushing us around on roller blades. the secondary we need to bite the bullet and press more. we did it yesterday and we looked like a real defense. but honestly 2010 will be feat or famine and the offense has to execute when the defense is able to make a stop. that was the diference between us winning yesterday and losing.

Trust me, I'm purely in the "patience" camp and I've read all the decimated defense posts etc. But these are some questions that are bugging me.

1) Has the defense consistently improved from 2008-'09-'10? Unfortunately, I think the answer is no. We've shown some good things at times, but I wouldn't call it consistent improvement. I also can't say we've had teams that improve a lot during the season. Given the youth of our team, you'd expect more improvement year-to-year than the average team, but I don't think we've seen that. Now, a lot of this may involve good personnel leaving and the lack of solid underclassmen left by Carr. Which brings me to question 2:

2) Are the players we do have playing to the maximum potential allowed by their talent/level of experience? This is pretty subjective, but honestly I would have to say no. Consider our linebackers - the current personnel are multi-year starting seniors who are making the same mistakes they were two years ago. Maybe they just lack talent, but if that's the case, shouldn't a talented, well coached underclassman be at least challenging them for snaps? And if a talented, well coached underclassman does not exist, how can that be blamed on anyone other than the current staff?

As for the DBs, they are absolutely raw and young. But again, can we really say that they are playing as well as they could? Yes, they are freshman / sophomores / position switched players. But Denard is a true sophomore as well - he's obviously an extreme example, but look at the level of growth a talented, smart, and apparently well-coached player can have over a single offseason. Has anyone on defense shown anything close to that level of growth? Why not?

3) If the right personnel aren't there, are the coaches doing what's necessary to get the right personnel? I guess this is the question that requires the most patience. All of the freshman and sophomores on defense were recruited by RRs staff. Do we feel confident that any of them will be All Big Ten players in 1-2 years? Because if we aren't, it's going to take 3-4 years before we are even competitive in the Big Ten title picture, and by then we'll be Denard/Gardner-less and probably rebuilding on offense. Do we have any superstar recruits in our current defensive back / linebacker class? If not, how are we going to improve? You can say "if we win, they will come", but OSU is bringing in superstars every year - we will never win if we can't out-recruit and out-coach them. If we truly can't steal the top names until we win consistently (which I don't buy - we did on offense), then we need to develop our lesser talent more effectively than the competition. Are we doing that now?

4) Why have we had such a high attrition rate of potential contributors on defense? Look, transfers happen, and it's always the coaches' responsibility (though not always their fault, if that makes sense). But we've lost a lot of potential contributors on defense through transfers and recruiting misses. The same level of attrition hasn't happened on offense - why is that?

5) The all encompassing multi-million dollar question for RR and Dave Brandon: is the current staff doing the best they can under the circumstances, and, if not, is there someone out there who can do better? Clearly there is room for improvement in coaching - no coach is perfect. Do the current coaches have the ability to take us back to being a Big Ten competitor on a consistent basis? Have they instilled the right attitude among the team and the staff? I certainly think the coaching can improve. I'd like to think that RR is capable of that improvement or of finiding the right people to create that improvement. But I can't say for sure at this point, and it's frustrating as hell to watch when "patience" means "wait three years".

is severely deficient of talented experience.  No denying that fact.  The coaches have been trying to mask that deficiency by pulling more guys further away from the LOS into coverage.  Couple that with a LB that can't read a run play, we are exposed for yardage on the ground.  The coaches are making the most of a very difficult situation, IME.  We'll need the offense to bail the team out in every game this year.  Unfortunately that didn't happen yesterday.

It really hurts that we didn't get any corners out of the 09 class. Presumably RichRod had been on campus and saw how bad our secondary was. I don't really blame him for Turner not panning out but it was a huge mistake for our only other corner recruit to be someone who was an an academic risk. Especially since they had to have some inkling that 1)Floyd wasn't ready for primetime and 2) Warren might go pro early. They did have Cissko in the fold and no one thought he would implode so spectacularly but there wasn't anyone behind the three guys mentioned (as Woolfolk was at safety at the time).

Apologies for the long response, but having followed Syracuse football during what has been called The Greg Robinson Error (10-37; 3-25 in Big East from 2005 through 2008), I’m concerned that Michigan’s defense under Robinson’s tutelage may continue to suffer.

Although it would add to Michigan’s Defensive Coordinator Carousel, it might not be so terrible for Michigan to announce now that Robinson would be replaced after this season, and that the team would move on with a new Defensive Coordinator who has had a reasonably good record during the past ten years.

Robinson was hailed as a defensive "guru" when Syracuse hired him. But Robinson’s Syracuse defenses were noted for confusion, poor tackling and frequent failure to adjust well to opponents’ offensive schemes. In the two seasons while Robinson’s Michigan’s defenses have been among the worst in Michigan history, Scott Shafer has turned Syracuse’s defense into a very good unit (currently ranked 15th among FBS teams), using several players recruited and coached by Robinson.

Heisman Pose’s comments in this thread chart Robinson’s lousy recent performances as a Defensive Coordinator or Co-Coordinator in college (which he was during his one year at Texas in 2004 and for part of his time at Syracuse). Robinson’s NFL ’s defenses from 2000-2003 weren’t ranked any better. (2000 Denver Broncos - 24th; 2001 Kansas City Chiefs - 23rd; 2002 Kansas City Chiefs - 32nd; 2003 Kansas City Chiefs - 29th) The two Super Bowl rings Robinson received for coaching the Broncos defense during John Elway’s Super Bowl championship seasons in 1997 and 1998 haven’t been working much magic since then.

Would firing Robinson now be disruptive? Perhaps. He can’t be blamed for Troy Woolfolk’s season-ending injury, or Donovan Warren’s ill-fated decision to leave early, or the lingering effects of Vladimir Emilien’s high school injury that limited Vlad’s performance before he left the team, or the inability of Adrian Witty and Demar Dorsey to qualify for admission to Michigan. Maybe nothing Robinson tried could have helped Boubacar Cissoko find a better path to travel. But you have to wonder why so few players seem to improve with Robinson’s coaching.

Would firing Robinson now stun the Michigan defense into an incredibly good performance against Iowa next Saturday? Probably not; but when Robinson’s firing was announced at Syracuse, the team went into South Bend and upset Notre Dame in their next game.

There’s also a bye week between the Iowa and Penn State games, and the time off would provide an opportunity for more defensive adjustments to be made, even if they’re made by an interim DC/consultant. Assuming that NCAA sanctions aren’t worse than anticipated, there’s a good possibility that Michigan will be playing in a bowl game this year, and the extra 15 practices that come with the bowl appearance also would give a new Defensive Coordinator a chance to evaluate the current talent and schemes and make any other adjustments before the bowl game, in addition to evaluating the rest of the current staff and helping to make any late recruiting decisions.

Marginally talented, inexperienced players can be taught to play sound, fundamental football. That being said lets not be quick to blame coaching for why they aren't taking that coaching and preparation to game time. They are being taught to play sound, fundamental football but that does not mean that they can translate those fundamentals to the games. We have all heard how well some of these players produce in practice but there is a difference between practice and playing under the extreme pressure of the game. The lack of experience and flat out lack of football intelligence on the defense is the main reason why these players can't translate the coaching to the games.

To be a productive player you have to be able to think clearly on the field. There has to be an ability or talent to react quickly to plays. I don't think many people think of talent in this sense most of the time when we talk about talent. Most people think of speed and strength. One of the more important aspects of being a great football player or great player in any sport is the ability to read and react quickly under even the most intense pressure. To add even more to this, the truly greatest players are able to think one step ahead of the game and it has nothing to do with their physical talent. It's what players talk about at the NFL level when they talk about the game being too fast. Some players are able to slow the game down in their minds and play with intensity yet calmness in the eye of the storm. This is why a player like Kovacs is so productive. He is limited by physical talent but the game in his mind is much slower than for most of the players on this defense. Most wouldn't consider Kovacs talented but a defense full of players like him would do much better than our current team because they would rarely be missing assignments and forgetting to wrap up on tackles.

Rich Rod and his staff could go over fundamentals for years and some of these players can't mentally transition to the college game. What this tells me is simply Michigan is stuck between a rock and a hard place on the defensive side of the ball. What I mean is do you play Ezeh who is physically ready for the college game at his position but continues to make huge mental errors in the game situations or do you go in a different direction with someone who probably is less physically prepared for the position and maybe makes a few less mental mistakes. Personally I like the idea of having someone in his postion who makes less errors mentally but I can't really blame Rich Rod for continuing to play him because of the lack of options at this point.