Press conference questions for the coaches.

Submitted by B1G_Fan on

  For coach Borges I'd like to ask.  If you don't beleive we're tipping on hand with certain packages, how do you explain Nebraska consiatantly run blitzing where our RB hole was supposed to be. Or why Penn state would substitute their DE's for tackles on certain plays. Even if you don't see it , what are you going to do to correct it.

 For Coach Hoke, If you love The University of Michigan does it hurt you physically when your offensive coaches let the players down? Do you ever want to punch Borges in the face?

For coach Mattison it's more of a statement. We're sorry and please don't join Urban meyer in Columbus when Hoke is fired.

B1G_Fan

November 10th, 2013 at 6:39 AM ^

 another for borges would be. Over the past two weeks our offense has been severely disrupted by sell out blitzes. In the second half we had 2 screens that picked up good yards. Why did we not go back to them instead of trying to run fitz into blitzing 9 man fronts?

 you're one of the highest paid coordinators in the Big Ten do you feel like you are earning your pay check? Is Michigan getting their moneys worth?

ESNY

November 10th, 2013 at 7:02 AM ^

Why was Wyoming and South Dakota state more successful than Michigan against Nebraska?



Has any run from the I form this year been for positive yards?



As an offensive coordinator, when a team shows a constant inability to successfully run a particular play or type of plays should you keep calling that play?



3 out the last four games our RBs have gained less than 1 yd per rush and a majority of the plays were for negative yards. Have you changed your game plan to run different plays to try to change this? What is the problem and what is the solution?



As an OC you should call plays to take advantage of your strengths and hide your weaknesses. Do you believe the runs and pass plays called does this? If your line can't block or create a pocket how do you expect Gardner to have time to allow a deep pass develop?

alum96

November 10th, 2013 at 7:52 AM ^

South Dakota friggin State is a FCS school.  A 6-4 FCS team.  Yet they ran for 271 yards on Nebraska.  Truly astonshing when you put some of these things in perspective.  Pur-friggin-due ran for 82 yards on 20 carries.  Purdue would probably be lucky to go 6-4 in FCS. 

Magnum P.I.

November 10th, 2013 at 7:09 AM ^

Coordinator Borges:

You ran three screen plays that each went for 15 yards, constituting roughly one quarter of your offensive output on the day. Did you consider running more than three of such plays?

Is this entire season a long con that will conclude with a barrage of screen plays against a hapless Ohio State defense sending multiple blitzes up the middle every play?

Are you familiar with the term 'trolling?'

chatster

November 10th, 2013 at 7:43 AM ^

Have you ever coached while wearing a headset for the entire game to determine whether that might help to improve your team’s execution during the game?  If not, other than your belief that it would take you away from “teaching” during the game, why won’t you try wearing a headset for at least a full quarter?
 
Have you ever coached a game in which you let the captains and some of the other players make personnel and play-calling decisions for an extended period of time, just to determine whether something like that might work better than letting a coach in the booth make all of those calls?  If so, how did that work out?  If not, would you consider trying it with this team?
 
Considering that, by your own definition, this season will be considered a “failure,” with three regular season games and a bowl game left to play, are there are any significant changes that you’re going to make in order to evaluate what needs to happen to make the 2014 season a success?  And if so, what will those changes be?
 
Have you and Dave Brandon discussed the lack of significant progress for the Michigan football program since the 2012 Sugar Bowl win?  (The public wants to know what was said, but probably won't know, unless Mark Halperin and John Heilemann can dig up those details for their book about "Game Change for Michigan Football.")
 
Any consideration being given to having an intervention from a sports psychologist before the team leaves for the Northwestern game?
 
With no chance of winning the Big Ten championship and evidence that Team 134 hasn’t been able to establish an effective running game this season, would now be a good time to experiment with an up-tempo, pass-first offense that might lead to better execution?
 
What have you seen from the revamped offensive line to make you believe that there shouldn’t be any further experiments with the athletes who will be playing on the line and where they will be playing during the rest of the season?
 
Unless Blake Countess is injured, sick or tired, shouldn’t he always be on the field when Michigan is on defense?
 
(To dispel rumors, regardless of their “source.”)  Have any players spoken with you about transferring after this season?  (The public doesn’t don’t need to know their names, but Dave Brandon might want to know.)
 
Because Northwestern will be playing to keep alive its bowl eligibility prospects, and Michigan already is bowl eligible and won’t be playing for anything more than preventing the longest losing streak during your tenure as head coach, is there anything else besides pride that you would plan to use to motivate Team 134 for Northwestern?
 
How does depression affect Kyle Kalis’s painting?
 
Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bed post overnight?
 
Did the Germans really bomb Pearl Harbor?

Red is Blue

November 10th, 2013 at 7:40 AM ^

Hoke:  "When you say we need to execute better, who needs to execute better?  Do the coaches need to execute better in your game plans, play calls and player development or is it just the players not executing what they are taught?"

Swayze Howell Sheen

November 10th, 2013 at 7:43 AM ^

What is your favorite type of tea? I am thinking something classy, like Earl Grey, but who knows.

Did you recently have any Linguine? We all know a good Linguine is hard to beat.

Some say flight is not possible, as we are all "heavier than the air". What do you think?

Have you spent any time talking to Usain Bolt? He is good at running, and thus perhaps could help.

Has anyone on the coaching staff ever entered, and won, a spelling bee? 

-----

I think these questions would actually get more interesting answers than most of the questions that get asked at a press conference. Also, they are hard to answer by saying "we need to execute better, especially on about 8 to 6 plays per game."

 

alum96

November 10th, 2013 at 7:56 AM ^

Agreed.  Those are the type of questions that might avoid coach speak.  Every other question, football related in this thread, would be answered with "we need to execute better" or "we need to coach it better". 

To add to your questions I would ask what David Brandon brings to the Sunday game film sessions to eat - is he more of a chips guy or a candy guy?

Bobby Boucher

November 10th, 2013 at 7:49 AM ^

I would ask: At what point does offensive play calling burden the game plan more than lack of execution on plays poorly executed in the past?  

Follow up questions since it would be dodged by any coach that wants to keep their job: During the weekly preparations, do you as coaches game plan for opposing defenses exploiting your obvious weaknesses?

Ace and Brian, I think those are actually legitimate questions. 

YoOoBoMoLloRoHo

November 10th, 2013 at 8:03 AM ^

to field a productive running game?

Since Team 134 will fail to win a B1G championship, what changes occur in personnel and game-planning to better prepare underclassmen for next year?

Are the last three recruiting classes or player development been a bigger factor with the team's struggles this year?

Mgoscottie

November 10th, 2013 at 8:16 AM ^

Why we went away from green when it appeared to me he was bringing the rushing stats in a positive direction.
Also, I would ask him how he feels about price gouging fans since we have been so embarrassingly terrible this year.

uvadula

November 10th, 2013 at 8:27 AM ^

"I coach a pee wee team. Our O-line consistently gets blown up by teams with older, more experienced kids -- what kind of plays could I call to prevent other teams from tee'ing off on our major weakness?" 

Dr. Emil Shuffhausen

November 10th, 2013 at 8:31 AM ^

When you look at yourself in the Mirror,  do you have the Deer in the Headlights look?  Or are you thinking, " I need some Cheeseburgers Damnit!"

 

How or when does a Head Coach know that he has lost his team? 

 

Once a Team is lost, what is the best way to regain their respect and faith in you?  And here's a little hint, don't try telling them, "We have to get better and the players just need to execute", because that is not the right answer.

 

How would you rate your Head Coaching performance this year on a scale of 1 to 10.  And don't take 5 minutes to bend the question and re-define Head Coach or anything like that, just give me a number right now and be honest.

TheDirtyD

November 10th, 2013 at 8:34 AM ^

Every week you guys (the coaches) take the blame, saying "we need to coach better." Well when is that going to start happening? What are some of the things you as a coach thing you can do better?

JD_UofM_90

November 10th, 2013 at 9:08 AM ^

and ever say to Al, "Wow, that play stinks, lets not run that again?"  

During the game, my wife noticed that the Nebraska players seemed to have issues with their pants not fitting correctly. She said she had not seen so much crack since driving down a sidestreet in Detroit.  So, do you spend all week making sure that our players pants fit correctly?

When you watch game film, do you say to yourself, "Pretty colors......"

Has anyone mentioned to you that you are coaching the Michigan football team, not the rugby team and that scrums in your offensive backfield are not a good winning strategy for American football?

LSAClassOf2000

November 10th, 2013 at 9:12 AM ^

As the OP's questions probably have zero chance of ever being asked (for good reason, in several cases, which leads me to believe they were speaking from emotion), here are some more constructive ones that are also in the same boat.

I would be curious as to whether or not they are aware that - based on present data - the approximate likelihood of a game with negative rushing yards has nearly doubled from a max of 1.69% at the end of last season to a max of 3.28% now, assuming the max is normalized for a hypothetical game in which we get -1 yards rushing. Still unlikely to have such a game, but the jump is troubling. Also, I would like to know how they believe a rushing attack gets less productive but also more variable and what they might do to fix that inconsistency. 

mGrowOld

November 10th, 2013 at 9:31 AM ^

Here are mine:

"Coach - talk a bit about the game.  What did you like what did you think you need to improve on?"

"Tough loss yesterday - how do you get the team to focus on Northwestern next week"

"Jake Ryan"

Oh wait a minute....those questions were actually asked.  My bad!

AMazinBlue

November 10th, 2013 at 9:34 AM ^

Do you know that Michigan cannot run the ball up the middle?

If so, wy do you drop the QB straight back when the defense is coming straight up the middle every time?

Have you ever thought of rolling the QB out to move the pocket away from the middle of the O Line?

Do you actually watch game film?

Have you thought about retirement?  If not, you should.

For Hoke:

Every week you talk about how the gameplan is not succeeding and that is on the coaches and that ends up being on you.  Please explain with specifics what YOU are doing about this mess.

Does it hurt you emotionally that you and your staff have put Michigan in a position to end with negative rush yards two weeks in a row?

Do you ever yell at someone?  There are a couple of people you need to yell at.

Is your seat getting warm?

ESNY

November 10th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^

When I'm driving and I see a traffic jam in front of me directly in my path, I try to find an alternate route to avoid traffic. Can you confirm that you keep driving straight ahead and are astounded you get stuck in traffic?

phil

November 10th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^

"Weeelllll, ummmm, ya know.  I was disappointed with the result but we just need to get back out there on the ummmm practice field and improve our technique.  We were right there in the game the whole way but we just needed to execute better.  We are going to work on our physicalness in practice for ummmmm Northwestern and ummmm ya know just try to improve every day."

 

 

  

AMazinBlue

November 10th, 2013 at 9:51 AM ^

would have been fired weeks ago, you are the CEO of this program, how can you continue to let Funk and Borges fail epically every Saturday and keep their jobs?  Anyone else aside from weathermen would get fired for being wrong 90% of the time.

Maaly

November 10th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^

Hoke:

Can we get a timeframe or window of when this supposed execution will take place?

Are you capable of calling plays for an entire game for either the offense or defense?

When you look at film do you understand it?

Have you ever watched yourself on film and thought how you could execute better?

Do you like 1080p  or 35 mm film?

Do you place toilet paper on the holder with underhand or overhand dispense method?

 

dahblue

November 10th, 2013 at 10:02 AM ^

"Coach Hoke, when players aren't performing (with the exception of Fitz) you sit them on the bench, what does it take to do the same for members of your coaching staff?"