My bid for serious, non-emotional defense discussion.
One thing M fans of every stripe agree on is that talent and experience on defense is lacking. Very lacking. Another is that our expectations for our defense this year were low going in. Where opinions begin to diverge however, is what that should mean for our defensive performance. Many are in the "OMGFIREGERGUNACCEPTABLE" camp, many more are in the camp of "this is what we have to expect with so many young players, so much misfortune with departures/transfers/injuries in the secondary, and the lack of talent available at LB. Things will improve next year."
I would like this post to start a non-emotional discussion of our current defense. To do that perhaps impossible task, I would like to confine the discussion to having both camps answer a question. A question based upon what I think we all agree is a truth, which is that much of our defensive breakdowns (defined here as those things that cause our defense to, instead of being mediocre, be really awful) are due to fundamental failures. Poor angles, missed tackles, missed assignments. Poor tackling has been identified by RR as a prime culprit all year. Assignment and gap responsibility failure was identified by Ryan Van Bergen yesterday as the cause of the big plays State had. I think we can agree that these things are defensive fundamentals.
Here is my question, the answer to which I think will determine what camp, if you are undecided on this, you fall into:
Can marginally talented, very inexperienced football players be taught to play sound fundamental football, to be sound at tackling and disciplined at their assignments?
If your answer is "yes,"--then why haven't we done this? If your answer is "yes but there is more to it than that"--what more to it is there? If the answer is "no/only to a degree" - so talent is the only answer?
Where do we go from here?
October 10th, 2010 at 6:33 PM ^
...wasn't the talk of the town after the Spring Game that he was going to take this big leap forward?
October 10th, 2010 at 6:40 PM ^
response to the question I posed in the OP, so thanks. Very few people actually addressed it and then drew conclusions from it as I had hoped, they mostly just gave their opinion about the defense's problems, which I am interested in, but I was more interested in seeing whether people thought our coaches should have made more impact on our defensive player's performance than they have had so far.
October 10th, 2010 at 6:31 PM ^
It's tempting, very tempting, to blame lack of talent or inexperience, however, let's look at a few things:
Since RR has gotten here the following, highly ranked D-recruits (as per Rivals.com review), have come to the team (I'll leave Demar Dorsey aside, since that was a case of someone in Admissions deciding to screw the team in order to screw Rich Rod, as DD did everything asked of him to be eligible).:
2008 Class (yeah, this was pretty much Lloyd's but still)
Kenny Demens LB
JB Fitzgerald LB
Mike Martin DT
Taylor Hill LB
Brandon Smith DE
2009 Class
William Campbell DT
Anthony LaLota DE
Craig Roh
Justin Turner
2010 Class
Richard Ash DE/DT
Cullen Christian CB
Marvin Robinson LB
Jibreel Black DE
Now, a number of these didn't pan out and a number transferred (and I think one besides Dorsey may not have qualified) but some of this can be attributed to the coaches, who either overlooked issues, or made some bad decisions.
This is underlined by the fact that GERG has pretty consistently failed as a College Coach (he's had a respectable run as an NFL DC, which has a lesser variety of offensive schemes to adjust to) with bad runs in Texas and Syracus to his name and you do have an issue.
So either the recruiting services have been just that wrong about Michigan's defensive recruits, or they're doing a bad job of developing the players they get (possibly compounded by the fact that I don't think the 3-3-5 can work in the Big 10, at least it hasn't so far).
October 11th, 2010 at 1:38 AM ^
"I'll leave Demar Dorsey aside, since that was a case of someone in Admissions deciding to screw the team in order to screw Rich Rod, as DD did everything asked of him to be eligible"
That is not true, unless you think someone in Louisville is also trying to screw their football team too. Demar should not have been offered. This does not weaken your conclusion.
October 10th, 2010 at 6:34 PM ^
I keep seeing people calling for G Rob's head, that is fine. You are entitled to your opinion. So lets say he's fired, now what? Who is the next DC that is going to transform the Michigan defense? What proven DC looks at the Michigan defensive roster and says "Wow, sign me up for some of that"?
October 10th, 2010 at 6:52 PM ^
....properly (and in the case of C Roh, not used properly).
I mean, you have the following highly regarded recruits coming in in the last 2 years:
Richard Ash
Jibreel Black
Cullen Christian
Marvin Robinson
William Campbell
Craig Roh
Add in holdovers Mike Martin and Ryan Van Bergen, and 2011 verbal committments Brennan Beyer, Delonte Holliwell, and maybe Chris Rock as well (and a surprising walk-on in Jordan Kovacs).
If you are a D coach who likes to develop talent, I'd think you'd be interested.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:15 PM ^
You think a proven DC would want to come to a team starting mostly true freshman/sophomore players? With the knowledge that if the defense isn't good in a years time the fans and alumni will call for his head?
Name some please. I'd like to know who these proven DC's are.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:19 PM ^
...Roh, Campbell, FLoyd (who hasn't been great, but he's been far from the biggest problem this year) and Kovacs will all be Juniors, Martin, Woolfork, and I believe Van Bergen will be Seniors (though keeping Martin for his Senior year might be a challenge), The Sophmores would be Jibreel Black (who's done well from what I can recall), Cullen Christian, and Cam Gordon (though Gordon would be a RS Sophmore, so he'd be in the program for his third year). The incoming freshmen are obviously still in flux.
That isn't so bad. Unfortunately, the area you might have me is that I don't know that many proven College DC's (which is a different thing than being a Pro DC) so I admit that I can't answer your question on that point.
October 11th, 2010 at 5:37 AM ^
to the 2008 defensive roster and it is pretty clear just how much talent this roster lacks. The 2008 roster had NFL talent level players on D. This roster and next year has a bunch of unproven guys. Martin is the only one right now that will come close to the NFL.
Can a case be made that they haven't been developed? Sure, but a lot of these guys are true freshman. They aren't going to develop in 6 games.
It is going to be difficult to get a good DC to come to Michigan with this many unproven guys, unless they are just looking for a payday...
October 10th, 2010 at 7:15 PM ^
What proven DC looks at the Michigan defensive roster and says "Wow, sign me up for some of that"?
Come on. Being a coordinator here is a plum gig. This name still holds major recruiting sway. And I think you're looking at it backwards; given how poorly we've performed the past three years, the bar is pretty low. If we improve to average - 60th in the country - in total D, that would be an improvement of 42 spots from where we are now. That'd look good on a résumé. Not to mention that we have a very good offense, which takes some pressure off the D.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:24 PM ^
I for one, dont want a proven DC to come here. At least not one who is proven at the D1 level. I want a relatively young guy who is hungry, who need to prove himself at this level. Give me hunger over satiation, let him find his fulfillment here.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:28 PM ^
...too many times teams in all sports go the way you suggest and it almost always blows up in their faces (the ones that don't, are ones in which a team has no choice but to do this and hope and gets lucky).
The Tigers tried for years with "up and comers" and died each time, it was only when they went with the knowledge and experience of Leyland that they did well.
Or Alabama Football (to keep it in the same vein) which failed under "hungry young guy" Mike Shula only to prosper under Nick Saban (who's as experienced as they come, even if he has no character).
October 10th, 2010 at 10:59 PM ^
UM in 1969. oh wait...
actually, i agree with you. no reason why we can't get a good, experienced DC with a track record. and i don't mean high hurdles.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:33 PM ^
Our defensive struggles are a perfect storm of inexperience, poor talent, attrition, bad recruiting by two regimes and bad luck.
The only additional I'll make to the many excellent posts here is a simple test. We only need to ask ourselves how many players on defense have the ability to play in the NFL. I think that's the test you need to use for defense, since defense is reactive and you need the best athletes. Any defense with good athletes will be successful. So how many do we have? Right now, the answer is ONE (Mike Martin). You couple that with inexperience and not so great talent and it's not hard to see the results. In short, we have an inexperienced defense with Sun Belt talent.
It's bad enough that we have to play underclassmen, but what's worse is that none of them except Roh have any unique skills that make them viable in the NFL. At least with an experienced but untalented group, you'll have players with solid fundamentals who might get beat by better offensive players. We don't even have that except on the D-Line with Banks and Van Bergen. Ezeh has been a complete disaster. Mouton has not improved. At least with a talented but inexperienced group, you'll have occasional big plays made based on athletic skill alone. But we don't have that with any of the underclassmen. We haven't seen any great atheltic plays from anyone in the secondary. All we've seen are poor angles, hesitation, poor tackling and players flailing around with no clue about what they should do.
I think we've seen enough of the current defense. It's time to look to the future. Fact is, every single style of offense has beaten our defense. There really is nothing to lose because there won't be improvement. Ezeh needs to be benched forever. C. Gordon has to be benched. Black should play more.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:42 PM ^
...in a world of disguised coverages, and special assignments I don't know that you can say that about our younger secondary players, there's a reason you don't want to start freshmen at corner (this is like a rule in college football), so I wouldn't entirely close the door on our young corners (particularly Cullen Christian, who was desired by a number of big time programs for a reason).
October 10th, 2010 at 7:48 PM ^
Actually, corner is probably the one defensive position where you can get away the most with starting freshmen. Law, Woodson, Jackson, Hall and Warren were all starters at CB their frosh year. That said, I agree that no one should be judged negatively on his freshman-year performance.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:57 PM ^
...though I should point out that Woodson is probably U of M's greatest Corner and Law is not far behind.
I will say that the College Football Intelligista was nearly feinting prior to this season at the thought that UM would have to have Christian starting as a freshman.
October 10th, 2010 at 11:27 PM ^
the other DB's though? Walk on Safety, WR changed to Safety and a Senior that would never play if not for attrition?
Freshman playing are a problem if they are surrounded by experienced players to cover their mistakes. Michigan just doesn't have this. Which is why I don't think it matters who the DC is, it is going to be bad.
For the record I could careless if G Rob gets fired or not. I just have a hard time blaming him given the current players. I don't see any DC that is going to come in and be any better.
October 11th, 2010 at 9:16 AM ^
October 10th, 2010 at 7:35 PM ^
posts on this board as I am very concerned about the status of our defense going forward. I am confident that Dave Brandon will do the right thing regarding the defensive coaching staff at the end of the season when he does his review of the total staff. This is no different than your yearly review at your place of employment. I believe Dave Brandon, with his business and football playing knowledge, is the right man to put changes in place if that needs to be done. I'm sure that what is currently happening with the defense sticks in his craw as much as it does in ours.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:40 PM ^
I am not sure if that is how it works, if DB hires and fires RR's staff, however nice it is to know we have a smart, strong manager and leader in our AD. Nonetheless, if we do need to rely on DB rather than RR to clean up the mess, we have a serious leadership problem.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:44 PM ^
...I'm not sure if Rich Rod doesn't fire some of the defensive staff. I mean, we saw it with Shafer that if something isn't working out Rich will pull the trigger.
October 10th, 2010 at 7:53 PM ^
I'm smiling. We all knew how potentially bad this defense could be. M.S.U was a hiccough. a very unpleasant one. but nothing more than that. The very near future is very bright for us Michigan fans. I saw several reactions yesterday but for the 1st time in years I had this internal smile. These are 18-20 year old kids who are just reaching the halfway point of their true freshmen seasons in many cases. Granted they(entire d) looked terrible at times. Bad, Bad game. All the fundamentals seemed to be forgottten. For what ever reson we had a bad, bad, game. We never had a chance of getting out of this with less than 3 losses and nothings changed. "7-5 is more like it ", or, " They'll be lucky to make a bowl" I'm sure is the current Michigan state of mind.
I for one have faith that what we have here is a football team that juuuuust happened to have a bad day.
Yes we lost and we lost to msu....BUT ! The loss wasn't as ugly as it may have been percieved by many fans and every "pundit" on the tube. I, like many a rational fan, had settled on 4 as the give or take #. I'll take 5-1 all day. From what I've seen, and I've seen alot, this team may very well go under the 4. I once believed Iowa was a probable loss; now, probably not so much. These kids have a perfect blend of swagger and humility that creates an offense that is as pretty as it gets when it works...Which is does most of the time, just not so much Saturday. The defense never works and we're gonna be in shootouts all year. Saturday the defense had stops early. Sans the miscues we're way up at half and are able to at least maintain that cushion and get the W. . I haven't looked at the game a second time yet but i remembering thinking how deflated the defense must have been in the 1st qtr. They finaly get a couple stops and for virtually the 1st time all season the O sputters. Momentum is everything. Young kids, bad day , nooooo biggie.
We know the wrath that will be MEEEECHIGAN. Let them grow up. Support all of them. I know it's hard (at least for me) not to deride certains "players", but the garden is not completely weeded out. When we hit that turf next year it will be with Rich Rods TEAM and not a hybrid of two systems that couldn't be more radically opposite. Next year everything that was old will be new again, across the board. The garden, though still young, is due to flourish in the next 2 years. Gonna be some paaaaaaaainful losses on the way. So be it. Just get better every week. They will, we will, and just think how beautifully this babies gonna hummmmm in 2012.
I think the "experts" and 10,000 pointers will disagree but I believe the Hawkeyes are walking into a snake pit this weekend. That said, win or lose, we will play better.and I'll stick with my 3 as a give or take #.
This is the 40th team I've followed and we are witnessing something very special. Complete fruition with all players on tuition,2012, but its the between now and then thats gonna be fun.. Even this year has quite a few Michigan Moments yet to be realized. Yeah we'll cringe with our defense at times but "The Team" is special and I look forward to what they have in store for us in the weeks ahead.
GO BLUE !
October 10th, 2010 at 10:20 PM ^
I'm not sure there is one answer for this thread. Almost everyone makes a valid point about our D, whether it be lack of talent, injuries, too many freshmen starting, attrition, etc. My take...I like and am pulling for Greg Robinson and all, BUT i find myself wishing for a guy LIKE Mike Singletary to take over the reins on D. Someone who has that bad*ss reputation and their eyes popping out of their head...ready to put a helmet on and go out there and do it themselves. I'm not sure stud defensive recruits are gonna be excited about playing for this defensive regime. I think RRod has done his job on offense. He had a tough transition getting his style of players in and converting the I-formation over to the spread. I'm afraid his next biggest recruit may be his next defensive coordinator. Lets face it, our D is terrible. It's no better than last year, and potentially, might not be any better next year. I hate to start over with another defensive mind and a new scheme, but we need a defensive coach to light a fire and inspire. I'm not sure Grob is our guy for that.
October 10th, 2010 at 10:31 PM ^
I really, really wish GERG was proving me wrong this year.
October 12th, 2010 at 10:36 AM ^
"Can marginally talented, very inexperienced football players be taught to play sound fundamental football, to be sound at tackling and disciplined at their assignments?"
Absolutley, none of those things are talent dependent. They're all about being mentally disciplined and mentally tough.
---
I'm for getting a new defesnive coordinator, regardless of what happens (what can realistically happen) the rest of the season. Not because Robinson went to the 3-3-5, and not because I want to run the x-x or x-x-x defense, but because with Rich Rodriguez as our head coach we need a different style of defensive coordinator. We need somebody who will bring toughness into this defense, because it is clearly not there. We need a coach who will get into their face and get the results they need, or that will bench them. I'd rather have Ron English back, because I really believe he could get through to the kids.