QB rotation today
Anyone else confused by the QB substituting today? I can understand why RR would want to bench Denard for a bit (or even the remainder of the game) after he had his second "I'm comfortable in jeans; I'm comfortable in Wranglers" moment. But I don't understand why (for a while) we were literally swapping QBs on every series. While I think announcers overstate the importance of QB rhythm, M seemed intent on making sure the QBs had all the rhythm of white guys trying to Dougie. It was like a flash-back to early 2008.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:03 AM ^
what do you mean by "the QB was flipping QBs to get try for some momentum"?
November 14th, 2010 at 12:06 AM ^
I had the same question. I understand typos but this was a head scratcher
November 14th, 2010 at 12:15 AM ^
Typo...edit function is gone...Substitute "coach" for the first "QB" Smith was the part of our offense that was working best, but RR instead gave additional carries to Hopkins today. Seems like any other week (when Smith struggled) would have been better to hand the load to Hopkins.
November 13th, 2010 at 11:24 PM ^
Because you touch yourself at night
November 14th, 2010 at 12:09 AM ^
I was thinking the same thing...let him sit for a series to see if that wakes him up. Why is that a bad strategy?
The RB situation doesn't really make much sense to me either. Smith had a nice game today.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:13 AM ^
This post is confusing. But it's late.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:46 AM ^
was very smart. The kid was struggling badly and RR wanted to shake things up. It worked so stop complaining.
November 13th, 2010 at 11:25 PM ^
Sooner or later your patience for D & less TO will run out. Could care less about accumulating points on this site. I've been a fan for over 30 years, & this is the worse I've ever seen this team ever perform. It's amazing how many peoples standards have lowered. I supported RR the first 2 years, & I'd rather nip this in the bud instead of blindly follow a guy who has never had his offense succeed in a major conference (acc & big east don't count), a guy who is constantly deflecting blame, & refuses to be accountable for this teams perfomance. How much longer will u guys make excuses? How many more times will Gerg cowardly dodge a postgame presser? Wisc & OSU will kill UM, we'll finish 7-6 after a bowl game. Next year we'll have more underclassmen on D underperforming. If this was an employee in any other profession, he'd been fired before the company incurred too many losses, how many more hits to the UM brand will it take? OSU's AD had grossly outperformed UM over the last decade, havent any of you noticed? 20 years of producing stud QB prospects, all pro corners, & solid defenses for this? Progress doesnt always require drastic change!
November 13th, 2010 at 11:34 PM ^
I don't see how having a top 10 offense while playing in the big ten isn't succeeding in a major conference...... this is one of the best offenses that michigan has ever had. yes the defense sucks and who knows if it'll ever be great under rich rodriguez, he's never really proven that, but if they could get the defense together this team would be wicked. i don't think it's as far off as you think.
November 13th, 2010 at 11:34 PM ^
Wow, so the ACC isn't a real conference anymore? And this applies retroactively? You better tell that to the '99 FSU team, because they'll want to give their national championship back.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:07 AM ^
So you supported 3-9 and 5-7 seasons, but not the 7-3 season? Makes a lot of sense...
When has RR had a chance to coach in a "REAL" conference until now? What was wrong with the defensive play today?
How is he not accountable? He is the head coach right?
How many stud QBs has OSU put out lately?
Beer....use it.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:37 AM ^
His final 3 years at WV were pretty good. Adjusting for opponents, they were certainly in the top 10 range in 2005 and 2007. Much better than Michigan's was in pretty much every year this decade, sans 2006. If you're going to say RR doesn't care about defense, then you might as well say LC didn't care too much about defense either. And you wonder why we're in this situation...
November 13th, 2010 at 11:27 PM ^
Sooner or later your patience for D & less TO will run out. Could care less about accumulating points on this site. I've been a fan for over 30 years, & this is the worse I've ever seen this team ever perform. It's amazing how many peoples standards have lowered. I supported RR the first 2 years, & I'd rather nip this in the bud instead of blindly follow a guy who has never had his offense succeed in a major conference (acc & big east don't count), a guy who is constantly deflecting blame, & refuses to be accountable for this teams perfomance. How much longer will u guys make excuses? How many more times will Gerg cowardly dodge a postgame presser? Wisc & OSU will kill UM, we'll finish 7-6 after a bowl game. Next year we'll have more underclassmen on D underperforming. If this was an employee in any other profession, he'd been fired before the company incurred too many losses, how many more hits to the UM brand will it take? OSU's AD had grossly outperformed UM over the last decade, havent any of you noticed? 20 years of producing stud QB prospects, all pro corners, & solid defenses for this? Progress doesnt always require drastic change!
November 14th, 2010 at 1:14 AM ^
Rather than neg you, I ask you to try and provide a coherent analysis to support your position instead of just running off at the typewriter or keyboard, so to speak.
I've been reading people like you who scream unacceptable and fire them all and they are incompetent and whatever. Yeah, I've been a fan and follower and student of Michigan football for over 40 years (since 1969 when I was 11 and living in Mississippi way back when before I moved back to Michigan and went to school there on an academic scholarship).
Yes, demand better performance, fire everyone who does not perform, and thank God you already know from your superior insight how the next two games will turn out so we can all not watch and join you with pitchforks and tar and feathers.
You sir, have obviously never had to take over a messy situation, never had to fix a broken company, never had to put your sorry rear end on the line and lead a group of men into the wilderness and find success and build something from the ground up and rescue a program or a company or a group of men from a potential abyss. Your comments demonstrate this without you having to say another word.
November 14th, 2010 at 1:22 AM ^
Man...It seems like Lloyd Carr's Michigan was one of the worst in the history of Michigan football. I didn't realize until now that it was a "messy situation", "a broken company", required rebuilding "from the ground up" and "rescue from a potential abyss". Wow. I just thought Lloyd needed to open up the playbook more.
November 14th, 2010 at 3:52 AM ^
that we weren't good in the LC years. Just that his long-term planning in 2006-07 either didn't turn out as he expected, or might not have even been satisfactory in the first place.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:31 PM ^
The quotes are all from burtcomma above indirectly saying that those terms all apply to the Michigan program taken over by RR.
November 14th, 2010 at 9:49 AM ^
I love Lloyd as a person and I loved his interviews. I also thought he needed to open up the playbook. I was one of the people that was unhappy with Carr as coach. I think some of his teams underperformed. Michigan sent so many guys to the NFL, you would think that we would have more MNC's or at least more wins over OSU and in the bowls.
The football program wasn't broken, but not running at full efficiency. When you have a change, there needs to be some time to tune and to get back to full efficiency. I think we are getting there, but we had some setbacks. You are going to encounter that when you have to rebuild how things were. You can say, why rebuild, because sometimes, you have to tear everything down to find out where the problem really lies. It's easy to say in hindsight, oh that's not where the problem is. As I know in my career, you have to take a step back to move 2 steps forward sometimes.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:31 PM ^
I was really just mocking the allusion by burtcomma that our program was in the worst possible state when RR took over. I was perpetually annoyed by Lloyd's conservative play calling (especially given the wealth of talent you noted) but don't think our program needed to be torn down. Anyway, at least then we were talking about beating OSU rather than Purdue.
November 14th, 2010 at 12:46 PM ^
OK. I understand your frustrations, and without turning this to a Lloyd bash, we can both agree that there were something wrong. The program was not maximizing it's potential. Whether that was from the playcalling to recruiting to whatever, there was a problem, and sometimes you have to tear it down to find it.
November 14th, 2010 at 1:00 PM ^
We definitely weren't playing to potential. I just worry that we've now lowered that potential greatly (and still aren't reaching it). I certainly don't aim to bash Lloyd; it's the opposite - I defend him against those who would call his program "a broken company" or "potential abyss".
November 14th, 2010 at 1:17 PM ^
I know you defend Lloyd. I have seen it on these boards. And trust me, it's not like I have low standards, but I understand that Coach Rod is working from a different base. And sometimes when you start over, your expectations have to be lowered to allow that base to strengthen again. Hey, I thought we would win 10 games this year, but I know it make take 3 or 4 years to really enjoy the fruits of our success. I know he may not succeed but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater just yet.
November 13th, 2010 at 11:38 PM ^
I think the rotation at QB today was of the "nothing's working, throw shit at the wall" school of thought. Which, frankly, I didn't have any better ideas.
I think he really, really wanted to start abusing their corners with our WRs today and it just wan't happening with Tate. Eventually we were lucky to have Denard start to run the ball a little and finally get a winning drive in.
I agree with the posters who said the conditions probably had a lot to do with it.
November 14th, 2010 at 1:21 AM ^
Easy to understand, keep making mistakes, keep turning the ball over, keep tossing interceptions or fumbling, and we will give the guy behind you a chance to prove that he is better. It is called competition, both in practice and during the game. I have absolutely no problem with pulling a player, any player, who makes a couple of mental erros and letting him sit on the sidelines and absorb and learn the lesson that you MUST take care of the football.
What I find interesting is that the people who complain about RR and demand better performance and scream unacceptable turn around and whine and second guess him when he does what they ask by holding players accountable for their performance during a game....
November 14th, 2010 at 1:27 AM ^
An honest question...Do you really think that RR was pulling QBs who made mental mistakes? Or was he just rotating blindly? There were plenty of mistakes for which one could have been pulled, but there were also just drives that went nowhere that weren't the fault of either QB. It's not like RR has a history with us of pulling players for making mistakes (see, for example, Jeremy Gallon).
November 14th, 2010 at 4:14 AM ^