The Speed Option and Other Forms in the Borges Offense.
I don't like the speed option for a couple reasons
1. Drob isn't the best at decision making. He certainly can improve this year, but RR basically took the read option off the table b/c drob couldn't get it down
2. We really need to reduce turnovers this year and the option is not the way to do that
3. We don't have the dynamic WRs to make the WR a viable option. Grady is slippery but not fast, and roundtree and gallon have the case of the drops
I'm sure Borges wil make sure drob gets his carries, but the options not the way to go
RR stopped using the zone read because no one respected our running backs.
why Denard had to carry the ball more to get the running game going. The problem is none of the RBs are a threat to take it to the house.
WVU offense is so dangerous because they had two true HR threat at QB and RB that even if they know that it's a running play, they can't do much because they have to take account for both of them which reduces the number of defenders that they have to face when they have the ball in their hands. They really don't need much passing game but it's a bonus if Pat White can throw. Pat White can't throw so that's why RR called running plays 70% of the time.
If Michigan have a Steve Slaton type at RB with Denard last year, the offense would have been more dangerous and would have put the ball away from Denard more frequently. Currently, Michigan may have depth at RB but I would say none of them would really make a true HR threat.
were Big East caliber...
Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting? Are you saying Denard and a Steve Slaton wouldn't be effective against our opponents? 28 points or more we scored vs. 10 teams in 2010 with the youngest offense in the Big Ten. I don't care where you stand with the RR...but last year's offensive system/coaching with a Junior Denard Robinson carrying 15 times instead of 20 and a Steve Slaton caliber back would melt every Big Ten DCs head next year. OSU wouldn't even stop us in the Big House. FWIW not a RR debate just a talent and system debate.
WVU beat UGA and Oklahoma. Two teams who has more talent on defense than any team in the Big East that WVU had to face. They beat them both. UGA is in SEC and Oklahoma is in Big 12. UGA defense were solid and Oklahoma is among the best in the country and WVU destroyed both defenses.
I think you mean SEC caliber. The spread seems to be working pretty well there, and winning National Championships, too.
that DRob strengths will be played to, but he also said that he wants him to drop back and run through his progressions. The most interesting thing he said about DRob was "him taking off is better than any checkdown," so pass or not he'll be selling the pass to keep the defense honest and running if he can't find an open man. I like him running from the pocket because he can exploit seams in a front 7 in pass coverage better than he could running outside from the shotgun IMO. Last year the front 7 had one job, get to the qb. Pass or run, it didn't matter because he wasn't handing off.
If there is one thing we learned last year it is that Denard is reluctant to take off on passing plays. I remember numerous times last year screaming for him take off and get the easy first down and he would throw an incomplete pass. Even in HS he didn't put up big rushing totals despite a low completion percentage.
1) I agree more with ALLINFORMICHIGAN in this case. Denard wasn't spectacular at the zone read, but how good he was at reading became irrelevant when teams started committing to Denard and let our running backs do whatever (usually nothing) most of the time.
2) The option only leads to turnovers if you don't do it right. Any play leads to a turnover if you don't execute properly.
3) Receivers don't have to torch everyone in a race to be a viable option. Manningham, for example, never relied on straight-line speed. Neither did Jason Avant, and he led the Big Ten in receiving for most of one year, maybe more. Roundtree, Grady, and Odoms (how do you forget this guy?) get open plenty, especially when teams have to keep an extra guy in the box to contain Denard, and Hemingway wins jump balls and does moog dances and shit.
Running the option properly isn't as easy as you might think, especially the triple option. I bet we see more naked bootlegs with a run option. Probably somthing with a 1 or 2 pass read and a run option. If the cover corner drops into cover Shoelace will run. If he crashes in, he'll throw to the open man.
I think this is a lot more likely. He'll probably be coached to run if his first couple of options aren't open. I don't think Michigan ran the zone read much last year and I don't think they'll run it much this year either.
Running the option well is really difficult, so I don't see the staff trying to develop it much. Expect the designed runs to look pretty similar to the designed runs from last year.
...is a nice complement to the zone read option, especially to the weak side of a trips formation, b/c a) it gives you an option to the boundary and b) it makes the DEs both to and away from the zone blocking direction possible option keys. The latter (b) would make it harder for defenses to employ a scrape exchange strategy.
The speed option, and other late-developing option plays, always look to me like a great way to get your QB injured. It seems like the play usually progresses with the QB and RB/WR running side by side, chased by a big LB. The QB waits as long as possible and then laterals right before he gets blown up by that guy. At least in the read option, if the QB hands off it is usually early enough that he won't get hit too hard, if at all.
...he will fade to the pitch (i.e., follow the pitch, not just flip the ball out there and continue running on his original course) and not get blown up.
I think Borges should run the Touchdown Play more.
But I'd rather see Matheson run the Pick-6 play even more.
A bad pitch can easily turn into a defensive score as well, which I don't want to see.
I am going to kind of echo what some of the other boardies have pointed out, so bear with me. For a zone read to work, the D has to fear the RB involved, other it is really nothing more than a potential QB keeper. Last year, when we did use a zone read, nobody really thought that the RB would get the ball, and if they did, they didn't care, thus taking the utility out of that one.
Speed option results would be kind of similar. Given the lack of RB production that we had, I doubt that would have done much more than increase the likelihood of putting the ball on the ground without really increasing the likelihood of a good offensive gain.
Triple option, kind of like the first two, but more so. We weren't getting any use out of our RBs, so I don't know that involving a FB would make matters better. If anything, if would be that much more clear that DR was eventually going to run the ball.
For all we were getting our of our RBs, I don't see the point of a zone read or a speed option, in that I'd just as soon scrap the RB and put another WR out. That might at least have come to something.
Hopefully though, things will change now. I think a lot more of our big RBs than RR seemed to. I think that Borges will get our RBs going, and we will free ourselves up a little. There won't be an entire defense just waiting on DR, and we will be able to start working some of those types of plays that the OP referred to. It just wasn't going to happen in the offense that we ran before. This year should be much different though. Welcome the RBs back to Ann Arbor, it's been a while . . .
Don't forget, last year our O Line was conditioned for speed and to get to the next level. (Still remember Omameh's two for one block on Dilithium's long TD run at ND.) Unfortunately, our guys lacked the mass to consistently open holes for our RB's at the point of attack.
This year we should be bigger up front with a tougher mentality and a stronger commitment to the run. It will be interesting to see how effective Aaron Wellman's training and Hoke's emphasis on toughness will be for our guys in the trenches.
I also wonder if DRob's decision making will get better this year. The game should slow down for him some and he may actually have a little more time because our big guys are bigger and better.
or at least I hope we do. As most posters stated above, the triple option is basically an offense in itself. It really has to be fine-tuned and the OC almost has to make it his primary attack mode, not unlike Holtz and, of course, Dr. Osbourne. In both cases, however, it mitigated the role of the receivers as viable threats and I don't think Borges wants to do that with DR.
I'd prefer to see DR outside on sprint out options, leaving the pitch option out of the formula completely due to the time needed to perfect it, coupled with a big question mark on whether we have a speed back that could keep the defense honest enough to make it a viable offense.
If, on the other hand, you utilize DRob on sprint out options with his choices being passing or running, I think this would be a tremendous complement to the power running attack you know they'll try to establish, most likely with Hopkins, I'm guessing, based on what we saw last season. Someone else might surprise and the OL is only going to be better, just as DRob is due to experience.
I think a valid point was made by OP who stated how good Denard is in a shotgun look because of his point guard ability to see, react and run faster than most other fb players on the field. I think a marriage of these two schemes would maximize his tremendous abilities, and also of primary importance is to implement sideline drills that force him to go out of bounds once it's established that he will be hit if he opts to stay inbounds in an effort to gain more yds.