OSU vs UM Speed Philosophy

Johnson is probably faster than you realize. Peppers too.

The slowest and most detrimental thing on our team is the MENTAL speed at which Devin Gardner processes the game of football.

His handoffs are slow. At least 6 times in every game I've watched him play I find myself yelling RUN!! or THROW!! only to watch him do it 1-2 seconds after.

His computer(brain) is running on a 120mhz processer. He's not dumb. His classroom success's at Michigan verify this. BUT..A 120mhz computer will, given enough time, perform the functions. Classroom gives you that time. Football does not.

Can you imagine watching Tom Brady run our our offense for one series? Can you  imagine  the recievers getting hit in stride, when they come open? They would not know what to do with balls arriving 2.5 seconds after the snap and on target.

Of course Devin is not Brady. Nor would it be fair to expect him to be. Problem is in his 5th year he's also not even Conner Cook in his 2nd.

I watched Gardner play in HS. He was playing weak competition and he won(some) with a simple game plan. Throw it up to Cameron Gordon or take off running. He never learned the game for the speed chess match that football is. He learned checkers.

Don't judge our team's speed when they are completely handicapped by Gardners sluggish processer. This team would be plenty fast with a QB who could manage a football game. Conner Cooks and Tom Brady's are forced to do that in 8th grade because they have no choice. They would be riding the bench if they didn't. "QB's" like Denard & Devin are never in that situation from youth football on. They are likely the best athletes on any team they play and get away with alot of weakness's that would bench Hackenburg & Cook early in their football life.

Hoke does not put speed as a recruiting priority.

Maybe I'm biased, but we seem inordinately slow versus recruiting/practice expectaitons/hype versus other teams.  It doesn't appear that we develop speed as promised that it can be taught.

The offensive play calling does not take advantage of what speed it has.

I could actually live with this if we compensated for it by strength/manball.  But, we don't do that either.  In fact, points 2 and 3 equally apply to strength/manball.

It kills me to say this about a fellow FHHS alum, but I think Funch should bulk back up and go back to TE.  His hands are just too dicey and he looks slow out there (I know he's playing hurt).  I mean he had two drops where he got hit IN THE HANDS.  Devin needs a lot of things.  What he doesn't need is drops where he makes A PERFECT THROW. 

It is easy to play fast when you have a couple years of mastering a system and competing with it against almost all variables. We have had 3 systems in 5 years, and 20 systems if you count each time Borges made a drastic change (which was weekly).
- Urban: inherited a spread system and has three years of consistency
- Dantonio, same system for almost a decade. Took a while to get off the ground, but now is humming.
- JerryKill and everywhere he went
- Saban...

It is rare to find a coach come in, make drastic changes, and have instant, sustainable success. Talent needs to be developed In a system over time.