What Went Wrong: Michigan State (from Maize n Brew)

I do think the flare screen was a pass that should have been used on Saturday. It doesn't really do much as far as misdirection, but it actually manages to get a RB in space against a LB most of the time within MSU's scheme.

I thought Michigan pulled out the pop pass to good effect. Pop pass does need the run action though to at least freeze the LBs, otherwise they'll just squeeze the route.

I think if Michigan had Dileo, you would have seen some option routes as well. This makes it easier to run the hitch, in, or out (basically just find the void in the defense), but Michigan doesn't have another player on the roster like him. IMO, he would have received quite a few of those pop passes that Funchess was having thrown his way if he was healthy, which is what Borges did last year.

You can also run quick outs. The key is you have to run the outside CB off first, and you have to threaten the safety vertically, which is a bit different than a bubble screen which doesn't have enough time to develop to run the outside CB off or threaten the safety vertically. Again, if Michigan had Dileo, you probably would have seen more of this.

Oh right, I didn't. You're twisting what I said.

Rich Rod's system of getting Roundtree open was great. People often neglect the fact that by the end of Rich Rod's final season, teams were taking it away by running cover 4 and keeping the safeties high. This forced those routes to change to out routes. This is similar to what happened against MSU. Anyway, what I said is that Roundtree was never a great all around WR. Sure, he could give yards that were given to him. So could other players. So could Gallon. I would have loved the QB pop pass. But it didn't happen in Borges's system, I'm sorry. And outside of that isolated play, Roundtree didn't really offer much. But as a complete WR, as a WR that learned to run routes, he did improve under Hoke and Borges and this staff. So you can bitch and mone about stats however you want, my initial point still stands.

I never said Funchess was better because of a lack of production. I said that bodies were needed at a position that is fundamental to Borges's system. You can want it to be another system all you want, but it isn't, this team needed TEs and didn't have any. It certainly didn't have any that could run routes. There was less need on the outside for Funchess than there was at TE, which is why he played at all as a true FR. As for upside, he's not going to get great separation at the next level. He'll be a big body but not huge. His upside is maximized by his talents and abilities as a Vernon Davis type TE. At WR, his immediate effect is likely more optimal at WR (which, hey, he's playing a lot of WR right now), but is ultimate position and potential is optimized where they were playing him: TE. But you'll twist it as if I said "a crappier offense is a better offense", because that's how you're acting.

What are the illogical options that I've described that make a team successful? Because no team runs a hot route that you want against a blitz package that has less pass rushers than blockers? Talk about isolated vaccuum all you want, what I'm saying is the opposite of that. You're the one taking a picture of a single play, looking at it after the snap, and saying "hey that guy looks open, he should stop and they should throw it there". Despite the fact that you don't know where the safety is. Despite the fact that MSU often undercuts that route with their LBs in a cover 4. Despite the fact that no team runs hot routes when they have more blockers than pass rushers because there should be time for the play that was called to develop because you have one more blocker than they have pass rushers. See, what I'm doing is looking at the play as a whole, as in how football works from an offensive and defensive standpoint before you know every detail about the play that happened in the past. If that's considered a vaccuum to you, so be it, I honestly have no idea what to tell you.

Obviously I'm not going to change your mind, so you can keep on thinking what you want to think and look at football in your limited scope. While I understood it before, I've realized to a much greater degree, that some people won't listen no matter what information is presented to them, and they'll keeping spewing nonsense to fit their agenda, possibly or probably because they want to be miserable people that complain about things. I'd feel sorry for you, sorry that you hate what's happening so much right now, but I think that what you want. Woe is you for having to suffer through such offensive incompetence from this staff, it's as if they, or people that have actually learned a thing or two about football, have no idea about anything.

Alright, I'm done with you from here on out.

That every D1 OC and DC knows a ton more about football than I do. And I agree, that doesn't necessarily make them successful. All I've tried to say is that there are different ways of doing things and that it's not always as simple as people are making it out to be. There are also different ways of being successful as far as systems. I feel like this system is being attacked, which is fine to a degree, it does have its flaws, but it's being attacked mindlessly and for a large part, for the wrong reasons.

For whatever it's worth, I did try to have a reasonable conversation with PurpleStuff and thought we were, but he did start attacking me, while not directly, between the lines of his posts. He kept challanging me by saying stuff that is flat out untrue. I would defend other systems the same same, it's not about the system itself, it's about making a point that people are not prepared to defend so they just make stuff up without regards to how things actually work. It's just as bad as the people that said the spread couldn't work in the B1G.