Things You Already Know But I Will Give You My Opinion On Anyway....
After watching some videos posted by fellow MGoBlog-er MGoVideo, I am still undecided about who I want to start the season. After watching the videos....
Tate looked indecisive and slow, well for him at least. He made a couple outstanding throws. But then again, he made some decisions that looked like last years Tate. That leads me to believe he is erratic just as last year. This is NOT what Michigan needs this year. This year, for many, is a turn around year for Rich Rodriguez. This is the year for him to prove what has been doing might be working. He does not need an erratic QB.
Denard looked night and day from last year. He almost looked like a pocket passer, until he tucked it and blew by everybody on the field. He made great throws almost the entire game, other than a few throws where he led the receiver too far or threw a little high on the run. I am a little bit worried from his lack of experience though. We all remember last year. Every time he came in the game we silently crossed our fingers and hoped he would run the ball. Everyone knew what they were doing when they put him in. We the fans knew it, the other defense knew it, heck even my own girlfriend said “Oh he's coming in that means they are going to run it right?”, when Rodriguez put Denard in. After watching the spring game clips though, he looks like a viable QB who can both pass and run. As you can tell I am very high on Robinson. I would like to see him start a few games. Maybe even start the season. While UConn is not at all an “easy opponent”, they are not as hard as the Big Ten teams he will be facing. I would like to see Denard start the season, against the easier teams so he will get experience before the harder teams come in. I would also like to see less turnovers this year so who ever turns the ball over less would be great too.
Devin Gardner looked as everyone predicted he would. He has a lot of talent and a lot of potential. He is very raw and young looking though from the video. He had some good passes dont get me wrong but he did look very young and inexperienced, not to mention slow, as opposed to the video clips I saw of him on You Tube.
Any way you look at it we will have little problems at QB this year, Tate and Denard look very good for the Michigan Offense.
I would be surprised if both of those guys didn't play a lot. I don't expect either of them will be able to surpass the other to the point where its obvious who is better. And you should edit your post for grammar and punctuation or you are going to get hammered, fyi.
Im not very good on grammar and punctuation, so I really don't know where I messed up. Thanks for the heads up though, I will keep looking.
EDIT: I caught all the I's i did not capitalize
Oppinion - Not a spelling mistake, but a subtle nod to Naughty By Nature. Am I right, Bolton?
BTW, aside from that mistake, the grammar and spelling are not that bad. This is coming from an English teacher who now, on summer vacation, has time to think about these things.
There's nothing better than psyching out an opposing defense all game.
While a platoon could do that, it can also negatively affect your offense's rhythm (think the 1999 Illinois game) and can be divisive from a chemistry standpoint. There's a reason why most coaches hate QB platoons.
The spring game is just a little something to get us through to the fall. There are more practices/drills/film sessions that we never see. Frankly, we don't know that much about the QB competition. Maybe they were trying new things with Tate in the spring game and he was out of his comfort zone. Maybe Denard just had a day where everything went right. To look at just the spring game and try to take any concrete conclusions is in my opinion a futile effort.
Very true. I have always been a fan of Denard though. I still want to see him start. At least until he makes too many mistakes to ignore.
I'm not saying Denard won't/can't/shouldn't start. Maybe that performance was a perfect sample of what he's been doing in all practices. There's just a lot of "maybe" for me to declare who I would like to see start.
on other Michigan football sites (most notably GoBlueWoverine), Denard was every bit as effective in the spring practices that we did not get to see and he was NOT going against the second string defense which seems to be the primary argument most bring up in downplaying his performance in the spring game.
Denard will be the full time starter no later than the PSU game. Book it.
ALL spring Denard performed well. That was the scuttle. Remember going in the talk was of splitting him out to get him on the field. Then "hey, he looks better at QB". To starting. That was real change. His teammates love him and that's a big deal
Tate looked exactly the same. Which to me is still very good given a year of experience, but RichRod wanted much more
Both play, and both better. QB position improved
Let's let him prove himself in game situations before he is handed the starting role.
when he's behind the second-string O-line against the first-string defense. Like pouring water through a sieve.
I understand that completely. But I would still like to see Denard start. I have wanted to see him start since last year before he started throwing so badly. I'm for some reason really big on him.
If and only if he's consistently better than Forcier. Nothing less.
Gardner looks slow in the same sense that Terrell Pryor looks slow. Both are what my dad calls "lopers" who take big strides and thus look like they're going nowhere when in reality they're blowing by everyone.
I did not take that into account. Thank you for bringing that to my attention. +1
That the spring game was manufactured, at least in some part, to make Denard look good. The matchups of offenses vs. defenses, the playcalling, and certainly his level of involvement was clearly all geared toward sending out a message that the kid has improved, he is NOT a one trick pony, we WILL have options, we can trust the kid with the dreads, and that if you are a certain starting QB (with a #5 on his chest and a habit of dropping TMI on your Facebook account) you ARE going to have to step it up if you want to keep your job.
Now, last thing I want to do is downplay any of the hard work and progress Denard has made over the past 7 months. It's clear that he's worked hard, he's doing everything being asked of him, and he truly does need to get on the field. He's electric, and whether or not he takes the first snap of the year or not, we'll probably see plenty of him, and he deserves it. I wasn't saying that the spring game was fixed, or that the DBs were coached to make him look good or anything like that...
All I'm saying is that one of the priorities of the spring game was to instill faith and hope in #16, and give us something to talk about for, say, the summer. And it's worked.
But, as Blue Chip said above, we've only seen a small portion of the QB battle, and steps were taken to ensure what part of it we'd see. We'll get a far better look at all three players in August. Man, July is such a looooooong month.
is a good word for this. Not because it's entirely accurate, but because it makes your point.
The spring game was pretty vanilla and they didn't showcase anything more special than an end-around (Jeremy Gallon FTW).
My ray of hope wasn't the 97-yard bomb to Roundtree...it was actually the slick pass to Terrence Robinson that went down to the 1-yard line. The Roundtree play showed that Denard could hit a receiver perfectly in stride. The T-Rob pass showed that he could do it twice. And that's what brought me hope.
That said, here's hoping for split QB time.
It's not quite the right word for what I was trying to convey. How about Controlled? Handicapped? Engineered? Marketed?
But that's because it's my major.
Although that seems to have a bit of a negative connotation.
On all points.
So wait, is your misspelling of 'opinion' a pun on your part or an actual misspelling?
I don't know who will start against UCONN but I really feel that it's only a matter of time before Denard takes the reigns. The kid is too much of an athletic freak to keep on the bench. Maybe at some point this year, maybe game 1 in the 2011 season...but I really feel it's going to happen.
I want to see Forcier start the first game because he is more experienced and should have more poise at the beginning of the game, but I also want to see Denard get pretty much equal time. I know that it runs contrary to football "wisdom," but I would love to see a two-headed QB at Michigan this year. I think their styles are different enough that opposing DC's would feel like they were preparing for two different teams in one week.
Most QB platoons fail because the QB's are too much alike and there isn't a "change of pace" when one QB comes out. In Michigan's case, it would be like having a pitcher who throws 95 and a "junkballer" pitching in the same baseball game. The comparison isn't literal here, but their styles are different enough that it could be a major PITA for opposing defenses.
Also, we do have to remember that both QB's are sophomores and still fairly small, and splitting time might keep them both healthy throughout the season. I know many here are, as I am, anxious to see what DG can do, and I know DG plans on playing this year. I would, however, much rather see him redshirt. If he does redshirt, it means that the offense is doing so well without him that RR can afford to redshirt him.
QB Platoons fail because timing can't be developed between the "starting QB" (Both) and the receivers. It takes quite a while to acomplish that with one QB. There's no way Devin Gardner is doing anything of consequence this year, he's got a lot of practicing to do first. I agree on the redshirt.
I know there have been a million of these threads and I usually don't jump in, but...
I still think this will be Tate's job 80-85% of the time. We saw what he did against WMU, ND, and IU when he was healthy. We also saw Denard as essentially non-functional and a walking turnover. The spring game was encouraging and I would love to see Denard as the second coming of Pat White, but that is a HUGE step at this point and I guess I just have more faith in what I've seen in live action.
I think it's a mistake to label Gardner as "slow." I'm sure he won't blow by every college player like he did in high school just because of the competition level. However, I think he's a glider, much like Vince Young and Pryor; he may not look like he's running fast, all while breaking contain and outrunning a linebacker or two for the corner of the end zone.