why WOULDN'T Hoke/Borges want to utlilize Denard's running ability? powerfootball-c

1. Hoke won't put a square peg in a round hole...

2. Michael Vick!

If you think about those two, you should simply relax and smile:)  Denard will be a pocket-passer with the "option" to run.  Thing is, like Vick, when he takes off .. it's for more than 3 or 4 yards, and you have to defend for that as well!  It's going to be fun to watch.

Yes we do know how thye are going to use him....We just need to watch footage from Lloyd Carr to see that....

OR something like that.

Interesting term.  Borges has always run the West Coast offense which was termed the "Gulf Coast" offense when he went to Auburn (Jason Campbell rushed for more yards in the NFL this year then he did under Borges).  It is a dink and dunk offense with short passes used as runs.  Think the 49ers with Montana or Young.  It's always been considered a finesse offense in my book while the Cowboys/Giants of that time played power football.

SDSU ran the 3-3-5 while Hoke was their which I also wouldn't consider to be power football.  Unless Hoke is thinking that just because you don't use a zone blocking scheme you play "power" football, I'm a little confused by his terminology. Apparently, by Hoke's way of thinking Jake Long didn't play power football.  It's a concern of mine because our Oline has never been in anything but a zone blocking scheme.  Even those that LC recruited were for zone blocking.  It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Completely agree.  I couldn't have said it better myself.

The best part is our first 3 to 4 opponents have no idea either...going to be awful hard to prepare for.

Yoda has spoken he has.

Yes and Borges has years of experience doing so?  The are several specific examples where he has used a mobile QB, not!  You are assuming he has some capability he has never demonstrated, knowing how to use a mobile quarterback.  But lets not let facts get in the way of a cool glass of coolaid....

Sorry if this has been asked already.  Are we still planning to turn Justice Hayes into a slot receiver now that Dee Hart is out of the picture or will Justice get carries at TB?

I'm hoping that Hopkins is given a lot of carries. He's not a breakaway back, but he's powerful and could do a lot of damage like a Brandon Jacobs or even John Clay. It should be fun to transition between him and a fast, cutting RB such as Smith or Hayes or whoever steps up.

...at RB the past 3 years than normal?  

I've always found the Barwis fetish a little weird, given our awful performances on the field.  Could it be this strength and conditioning program was more harm than good?  Not saying it was, just putting the question out there...

I am still hoping Fitz can turn into that game breaking back.  He averaged about 112 YPC in high school and had a TD run of about 70 yards on his first UM touch.  He was injured last year.  Here's hoping he comes back healthy. 

As for Denard, the new coaching staff won't utilize his running ability because they are gentlemen and this gives them an unfair advantage.

The question is, without the same running threat and questionable passing accuracy will his passing skills make up for the loss in running yards?   I think we will struggle with this new offense at first (and maybe all year).  

Your running backs must be a threat for play action to work.  We have yet to demonstrate a great running game without Denard as the featured back.  Glad to see your optimism.

... it wasn't just how many, it was when they were thrown.

I maintain if he doesn't throw the first pick in the end zone vs MSU (yeah that MSU) we likely win that game.  We looked unstoppable in that first drive.  If memory serves, another pick was in or near the end zone.

Even a minor improvement in the running game saves Denard's platinum legs, and also gives our D a little more time to catch a breather on the bench.

Add to these two improvements even a slight improvement on defense (a few more stops and punts) and I see at least 8 wins next year without too much trouble.

This is why I liked Brady Hoke from the start: running and stopping the run are right in his wheelhouse.  

About Hopkins and Toussaint, because the Smith/Shaw thing isn't too promising.  Shaw has loads of talent, but can't stay healthy and does too much east-west running.  Smith just isn't that good.  

I think we need a guy who can get the tough yards (Hopkins) and a guy who can break the big one (Toussaint or Shaw).  

I wouldn't mind us recruiting an FB who can block or pass catch, maybe from JUCO, so we could run the big power set from time to time, or use him as a lead blocker for Denard in a wildcat formation.  This would enhance our options in both the running and passing game. 

Obviously I don't want to see this become the full-time personnel set up (we have better personnel for other things, and have the ability to run more dynamic offensive packages), but it could be useful in many ways (clock management, making us less predictable, giving Denard a more conservative set of options when he's having a bad day mentally, etc.).  I've often felt the problem our QBs faced in RR's 3 years was a lack of viable "safe" options.  The only screens we ran were bubble screens, and as Brian pointed out, these were taken away.  Our RBs couldn't consistently get 4 yards.  There were rarely any dumpoff options.  Etc.  All these things help young QBs with raw, unfinished talents prone to sometimes making poor decisions, like Tate and Denard, or questionable QBs like Threet.