Rittenberg blames GERG, then links here
I read how Adam Rittenberg blamed GERG for our defensive woes.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/6351/big-ten-thumbs-up-thumbs-…
I then proceeded to email him and tell him that articles like this is what makes me despise sportswriters. They never played, coached, or even studied the game of football. Just because they cover a team, its league, and/or its sport doesn't give them credibility to form opinions. I then asked him to check out Misopogon's excellent work regarding the talent level of the defense so that he might actually be informed before offering opinions.
He didn't respond directly to me, but I think today's link is evidence that he either read my email or (more likely) visits mgoblog regularly.
http://espn.go.com/blog/bigten/post/_/id/6392/big-ten-lunch-links-133
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:45 PM ^
I also emailed the link to him, as well as Wojo this morning, who as Rittenberg notes, wrote this:
http://www.detnews.com/article/20091103/OPINION03/911030335/1004/SPORTS…
about RR and our defense.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:46 PM ^
has alot of territory to cover, but appears to be doing a reasonable job. Your email and his subsequent posting shows his responsiveness and openmindedness, IMO.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:55 PM ^
it's pretty hard to follow all 11 teams closely enough to be as knowledgeable as many mgobloggers about personnel and talent for our team. If one were not closely following our talent issues, they might be of the same mind, even if you watched every game thoroughly.
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:59 PM ^
...and therefore tone the opinions way down or eliminate them altogether.
November 3rd, 2009 at 3:36 PM ^
He said "there have been multiple major breakdowns every game, and it falls on his (GERG's) lap." Well, there have been. And although talent as we know is a huge issue, I don't think it's wrong at all to say something falls on the d-coordinator, who, especially under RR (given his self-admitted paying more attention to offense coaching style) has the major defensive responsibility. Or do you believe that GERG does not share any responsibility for the state of our defense?
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:52 PM ^
That's pretty frickin' sweet. Kudos to you to reaching out to him, to Rittenberg for listening, and of course Misopogon for the excellent work.
November 3rd, 2009 at 4:30 PM ^
too much damn time on this board, and find it necessary to ponder the proper pronunciation of 'Misopogon' - can I get a TPS report on that please?
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:08 PM ^
Should put a link to Part II at the top and bottom of Part I
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:11 PM ^
Great to see Misopogon's work getting recognized!
Now if only more sportswriters followed MGoBlog.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:16 PM ^
"They never played, coached, or even studied the game of football. Just because they cover a team, its league, and/or its sport doesn't give them credibility to form opinions."
This is why Joe Morgan has a job. This is not a good thing.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:54 PM ^
When I was going through training to become a high school referee, one piece of conventional wisdom that came up a lot was "former players tend to become bad referees".
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:26 PM ^
..is a decent writer, and does try to stay objective, but he is as subject to groupmind douchery as any other writer. Blaming the lack of depth and experience on the roster doesn't generate revenue, so I would imagine that most of his sources in the MSM are going more for splash in their articles. That, of course, means finding a scapegoat and writing about it.
I am guessing that he reads the major MSM outlets and one or two blogs for each team, and makes his decisions accordingly. This probably creates an MSM influence on his "blogger" thinking, whether he wants it to be there or not. Even though he is a blogger, he is part of the MSM machine, so I really don't think we can expect a lot of insight or individual thought from him on a regular basis.
But he is a fun read most of the time, and I guess that's all you can really ask from what amounts to a professional entertainer.
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:35 PM ^
I was at the game and I know there were big-time personnel issues that have been covered many times. But, Illinois found one BIG schematic issue and exploited it. As Brian has covered in UFR, UM lines up field-boundary, with Graham and Warren on the short (boundary) side unless it's an obvious passing down. But they also leave almost nobody else over there, regularly lining up Martin in the A gap and tilting the LB's toward the wide (field) side as well.
Illinois ran the option in a couple different flavors, but except for maybe once or twice (when they got stuffed), they ran it to the short side. Rather than fearing Graham, they didn't bother blocking him, instead allowing Juice to option him. Now, this didn't lead to a ton of huge plays, but it got 6-10 yards almost every time as Warren had to beat a WR block and then try to stop a RB in space, while Graham took the QB. The rest of the pursuit was chasing from behind, leaving great angles for blocks. Those big plays up the middle came after Michigan started being a little too tired of getting gashed to the short side.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:45 PM ^
...to knock the fuck out of Juice and make them not want to run that play anymore.
November 3rd, 2009 at 5:05 PM ^
I agree except that IL clearly doesn't care about whether or not Juice survives the season, they've already tried 2 alternatives, 1 of which is now a WR.
On several occasions, Beast tried to play both. This is often cited as a reason that you can't run option in the NFL, the DE's are fast enough to do both. Well, except for 1 or 2 occasions, this future 1st round pick was not. As you point out, the real reason this stuff isn't run in the NFL is that those beasts will knock your QB into next week.
November 3rd, 2009 at 2:05 PM ^
Steve and wolverine 1987.