Practice Recap from GBMW

Submitted by MichiganStudent on

 

This is one of the greatest posts I have ever read. Its from GBMW. Although Eroc and Maizeman can be very difficult to read at times, I thought this post was excellent. I had to copy/paste it for this board incase people have not read it. 

I realize that this is EXTREMELY long, but I thought most people would enjoy it. 

 

Courtesy of GBMW and poster GFord1973.

[ed: dude, you can't C&P whole articles]

 

 

 

MGoAero

April 11th, 2011 at 11:11 PM ^

It's worth noting that this is but one practice report entry.  They have many more (although not as long and in-depth as this one).  I'd be shocked if everyone that isn't an enthusiastic mgoblog member doesn't find a lot of interesting or noteworthy information that could spur discussion on their forum.  No, I have no affiliation with that blog whatsoever...

yoopergoblue

April 11th, 2011 at 10:43 PM ^

I agree that was a great analysis of the weekend's practices.  It was pretty long but it was very nice of him to take the time to provide such a thorough breakdown of what he saw.  

no joke its hoke

April 11th, 2011 at 10:46 PM ^

I just cant stand to read that blog. Everything over there has to have some little comment about the old staff. The past is the past,you dont have to make sly comments about RR to make your point.

03 Blue 07

April 12th, 2011 at 12:01 AM ^

Completely agree. I would've liked the post a lot more without his proliferation of editorial opinion. Half the post was all about the author and his notions last year vs. this, etc. Also, needs MOAR PAD LEVEL. Finally, it's a bummer Brian doesn't have this kind of access; I realize he's not a coach, though. Hopefully Magnus got to go and will have a writeup; the author of this piece is...not good. I'd rather have a more trustworthy/less egotistical (when it comes to his own infallibility vis-a-vis football knowledge) messenger for this message.

MGoAero

April 12th, 2011 at 9:42 AM ^

Absolutely.  Since when did mgoblog become the bastion of opinionless journalism!?  Last I heard many of us were wondering when Brian was going to get out from his Hoke funk, but these guys compare the two staffs and ANGAR.  Come on, at least these guys have actually MET the staff and seen them in action in practice.

bluebyyou

April 12th, 2011 at 11:29 AM ^

I completely agree.

I wasn't a RichRod hater but if you couldn't see something wrong with the program over the last few years, you had to be wearing blinders.  When you see virtually no improvement in 2/3 of the game over the course of the season, it tells you something about coaching.

What I found most interesting is the QB comparison and frankly, I think it seems to be on the mark.  I am hoping that Denard has tremendous growth between now and September.  Having said that, I showed up at least an hour early for each of the seven games last year and spent most of the time focusing upon the QB's (lke, whoe doesn't).  Devin, for the bulk of the season, always threw the best ball of the three, particularly the long ball.  The other point about the QB's was that RichRod might have been giving us a line, but it seemed until mid-week before the opener against CT, he hadn't picked a QB.  Since at that time Tate was in the dog house,  the competition was Denard and Devin.  Denard's runnning and early season success as a passer made the choice a good one, but there were certainly questions.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that Denard will make huge progress.

michfan4borw

April 12th, 2011 at 11:39 AM ^

when the writer provides as much info/details about option H as about option R.  This piece does not do that.

It seems like a report about the state of the team through the spring-practice looking glass, but it ultimately results in the writer's opportunity taken to veil his jabs at the former coach under the guise of a practice report. 

The comparison were not helpful b/c the bias against the former makes any comparison with the latter tenuous at best.

BlueDragon

April 11th, 2011 at 10:49 PM ^

Today, Will Campbell was the best defensive player on the field, with 2-3 plays where he just beat his man and blew up a ball carrier in the backfield, and numerous others where he generated a push and forced a QB out of his comfort zone. He was also running with both the 1's and 2's - the staff clearly wants him to get as many reps as possible.

The next play I see Craig Roh make will the first such occurrence I witness this spring.

The Big Will and Underachieving/Mismanaged Roh saga continues.

energyblue1

April 11th, 2011 at 10:51 PM ^

They don't blow smoke selling a product or get into the games to keep readers, they just report what they see and know.  I have known them for yrs and they do a very good job. 

 

the football breakdown is great for even a novice to read, yeah some may want a much heavier analysis but that would only bore to tears the casual fan as only the most ardent football fans want the total statistical breakdown with player actions responsibilities and everything else.

 

Grammer, if you want it written by an english major buy a magazine, if you want it free by those who attend and love michigan football enough to share it, go to their website. 

MichiganStudent

April 11th, 2011 at 11:05 PM ^

I agree, I wasn't trying to knock them. I was just trying to point out the fact that some people on here have knocked them in the past and wanted to preemptively address that. 

I always enjoyed reading their material because they seem to be at almost every practice. 

 

michfan4borw

April 12th, 2011 at 7:39 AM ^

The way it reads, I thought Michigan hired William Wallace ("fire from eyeballs and lightening from his ass") and not Brady Hoke. 

I imagine all the smoke blown came from burning RR's donated Michigan apparel. 

this "write-up" had information b/c of the access to the team the "writer" had, but the actual written words left much to desire.

(The unprovoked shots at RR were really classy too.             /s)

This "writer's" credibility is not strong enough on this piece. 

GO BLUE.  Good luck COACH Hoke.

MGoAero

April 12th, 2011 at 9:59 AM ^

You're the only one calling him a "writer".  Pretty much everyone else understands that he's a high school football coach reporting on what he saw over a few days of practice and speeches.  I'm interested to hear why you're applying such high journalistic standards to a practice report from a HS coach.  Not sure what he should have to do to earn credibility in your eyes.  Have you read his prior posts, or followed the blog?  Far as I know, he and his GBMW buddies are the only people who actually have ANY first-hand inside knowledge of practice, under Hoke or RR.  If you deem that worthless, then your loss I guess.  Stick around here for more David Foster Wallace-esque emo essays then, I guess.  Those get us pretty far.   /Rant

michfan4borw

April 12th, 2011 at 11:17 AM ^

s/he writes words and publishes them.  The inference is even more appropriate when s/he publishes the words for profit or as a profession. 

I'm not applying "high journalistic standards."  I'm expecting merely competent writing. 

A writer maintains credibility when s/he reports w/o bias.  The intent of the writer seems to be to report on team progress in spring practice and not to provide an opinion piece on the last coaching staff.

I conceded that the writer likely has access to the team others do not.  I'm not sure why you're so seemingly defensive though.  I told it like it is.  Good info w/ unnecessary jabs suggesting strong bias.  Blowing smoke if you will.

We can support Michigan w/o disparaging (especially when lacking actual supporting info) the former coach.   

MGoAero

April 12th, 2011 at 11:33 AM ^

We're not going to agree on this topic which is fine, but I would just say that it's free information that is not available to you or I anywhere else, and that they did not have to post it.  Take it or leave it, but no need to disparage the poster.  They're allowed to have their own opinions (God knows everyone else does).  I feel fortunate to get to read about what's happening in practice.  At the end of the day, it's entertainment after all.  I'll take it, warts and all, and not complain.

energyblue1

April 12th, 2011 at 6:32 PM ^

BTW, ready any monday morning column and tell me it is not without bias....or heck read the dfreep and tell me there isn't bias and had not been bias the previous 3yrs and they they are the paid professionals.  Heck complaining about bias here is actually pretty funny because as much as I read those guys had some bias against Rich answer me how much bias Brian and a great many here had against Brady Hoke being hired and carried that bias even to a degree now.  I am sure the crickets will be loud on that cause everyone has their biased opinions. 

 

BTW,  I have talked with these guys indepth about football and what you get on the blog is a scaled back version.  You want the deep down x's and o's, coach over there can break it down with the best out there, problem is he gets another 100 responses to explain what he just said so typically he dumbs down the talk to what most everyone is familiar with. 

 

These guys liked Rich if you knew them, but what they say is plain as day obvious.  When reports came out and I heard it from more then them that Rich would stop defensive coaches from correcting on field mistakes in practice and tell them to let them get the reps in, it clearly made sense what these guys were reporting, ie practice was about drills, reps and getting them done in the allowed time for that drill/station.....idea was get them doing the same thing over and over not about correcting bad fundamentals....they hoped repetition fixed it.......   It also proved the point the practice was for the offense because Rich's offense depends on rythem so no defensive adjustment was going to ruin that adjustment.  It also told you the reports of defensive improvement the previous yrs were accurate, just against Rich's offense since that is what they practiced against. 

 

If you want great spelling, punctuation and sentence structure coupled with great story telling then go to barnes and nobel or the writer's blogs.........

OMG Shirtless

April 12th, 2011 at 7:21 PM ^

You and the people at GBMW are butt buddies. You pop up everytime someone makes fun of those slackjawed neck beards.  

BTW, to say they don't blow smoke is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.  They blow smoke right up the asses of all of the other people Beaver banned from Scout.

BTW, Brian gets called out his hatred of Hoke in nearly every single thing he writes. 

BlueDragon

April 11th, 2011 at 10:55 PM ^

...aside from a handful of "wow" moments – both running AND passing – Denard was pretty bad today, mostly as a result of a mind-boggling FIVE turnovers in 11-on-11 play – he was picked three times and fumbled two snaps from under center.

Denard today presented the appearance of a quarterback going through the growing pains of learning a new system, and also feeling some competition. One troubling moment came when the first team was giving way to the second team, and Devin held his hand out to give Denard a little low-five, and Denard just turned his shoulder and walked right by him. By the end of practice today, everything about Denard's body language said he was in the ballpark of wit's end.

BlueDragon

April 11th, 2011 at 11:15 PM ^

For the record, in a discussion of how QB's and WR's communicate pre-snap, I picked up this tidbit: Cullen Christian's interception of Denard Robinson yesterday was actually the WR's fault – he gave Denard the wrong hand signal on the coverage he was reading, Denard threw a back shoulder fade, but the receiver never looked back and it was an easy matter for any corner to step in and pick it. So let's take one of those three picks off Denard's stat sheet from Thursday! :)

BigBlue02

April 12th, 2011 at 11:18 AM ^

For fucks sake...if RichRod didn't do anything and he was so horrible, how did he get a guy compared to Threet in the article into the heisman race. I expect you to never talk about how good Denard or Gardner are as RichRod didn't do anything of note when he was here

MrVociferous

April 12th, 2011 at 2:34 PM ^

...its not his job to get people in the Heisman race. Plain and simple, a coach's job is to win games and at best, Rich Rod was completely average at that task.  Considering he was 15-22 during his time here, you wouldn't be far off if you said he did a bad job at it.  Trying to argue otherwise is just pointless.

And I have no idea what the hell you are trying to with that last sentence.  I've read it 3 times and it still makes no sense.  For fuck's sake.

BigBlue02

April 12th, 2011 at 4:31 PM ^

I love when people trot out RichRod's record as the end all of any discussion on whether he did anything positive here, completely ignoring our current coach's losing record as a head coach.

My point, which was stated lower in the thread by another poster, is that it amazes me to hear everyone say RichRod didn't adapt and and that Gardner will pass Robinson because he isn't a great QB all the while completely ignoring that Robinson broke ncaa records last year as a first year starter so I doubt he is a poor QB.

The poster I was replying to said that RichRod deserves to be basically shit on because he didn't accomplish anything at Michigan. He not only brought us denard but the best offense we've seen at Michigan in decades. If you see that as nothing....great. I just don't see a reason to throw unprovoked jabs at a man who put his heart into Michigan football for 3 years

BlueDragon

April 11th, 2011 at 11:00 PM ^

Hoke lets his assistants coach. Last year, the main voice you would hear was Rich's. Not so anymore. Hoke pokes his nose in, but he does a lot more listening than talking while everyone is doing their work. He recognizes that this time is (countably) valuable… and him yapping is a waste of everyone's time. He has much more of an "executive presence" than Rich did.

Mattison is very hands-on with the defensive line. There is just so much more defensive coaching going on now. Last year it was clear that the defense's job was to prepare the offense, and stopping the other team would be nothing more than a bonus. The entire approach to defense is different now.

BlueDragon

April 11th, 2011 at 11:06 PM ^

Yesterday I had wondered if Fitzgerald Toussaint had regained his track speed. I got my answer on that today: NO. He popped through a hole on a 3rd & 4 play and broke for the open field… and got run down easily from behind by Thomas Gordon.

The pecking order is starting to show itself at RB and slot receiver.

RB: Cox, Hopkins (gaining), Toussaint (falling), Shaw, Smith, T. Jones (injured)

SL: Roundtree, Dileo (gaining), T. Robinson, Grady, Gallon – and we have seen Stokes, Stonum and Odoms all line up there at times.