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Date Title Body
hilarious

I lol'd

well put

great analysis. I Kept hoping Denard would make a big jump a la himself from 2009-2010 or RG III over the course of his career. But in the end, he was who he was. A great athlete and runner but a limited passer with a tendency to make bad decisions and turn the ball over. You live by Denard, you die by Denard. And this year, we lost more of those toss-ups. 

schwarz

Was the problem that he threw the flag? Somebody please explain this to me

roster mismanagement

Gardner played great today, but it's too bad we lost the chance to control our destiny in the Legends division because he wasn't available at QB last week. When it comes down to it, the coaches took a huge gamble when they decided to have DG practice exclusively at WR all year. Denard takes ~20 carries/game and is bound to get hurt for a spell during the season. Backup QB becomes a really important position in that kind of offense. The gamble didn't pay off and we might have lost our shot at a Big Ten title because of it. Gotta put that on Hoke, ultimately. I'm not saying we should get rid of the guy or anything, but this was an incidence of roster mismanagement. They corrected their mistake, though, and I'm looking forward to watching DG at QB in the future.

Denard will not put up last season's numbers

Denard will not put up last season's numbers. Period. Last year we ran an up-tempo, no huddle offense. Add to that a Defense that was liable to give up big plays and the number of possessions per game for the Offense went up considerably. He simply will not approach those statistics again. 

So long as we are winning games and Denard is healthy, I am totally ok with this. The great thing about Denard is, he is ok with it too.

the naked boot

is setup by the off-tackle run. You need to establish that running game before that play really works. I hope we can adopt that downhill running mentality. We certainly have nowhere to go but up from the Spring game. Sept. 3rd. CANT WAIT

Ithaca Spirit Group Represent!

We have been known to have some fun at Uncle Joe's, come down sometime

Free streaming

Any idea if it is possible to stream this online somewhere?

So if Hoke gets blown out in a bowl game in yr. 3

do we fire him?

Brady got choked up

when talking about the thousands of kids he's touched

 

hehe

you mean like winning B1G Championships and Rose Bowls?

Don't sound so bad after 15-22

Dont forget

Glenn Steele and Rob Renes. Two guys in a similar mold

...

http://mgoblog.com/mgoboard/m-soocer-maryland-ncaa-tournament-elite-eight-sat-1pm

Final Four

Success is nice

Demens

is a beast

if you DO chalk it up to inexperience

is there really anything you can do except give these guys more time with their coach? 19 starters +2 specialists returning. If RR can retain his roster, then the execution should get better with time.

He really doesn't have to bring his problems up, though

I don't think it's about being self-centered, there was just no reason for him to continue making self-deprecating remarks. The stuff about how the money is nice and his pool is nice and miss Rita likes nice things, that just didn't need to be said.

So long as the Big House

doesnt end up looking like the LA Coliseum, I will be happy

 

Stan Edwards' pimp hand

I appreciate your work, Brian, but IME, It was a little out of line to bring up an unsubstantiated rumor on the radio. 

Question for the informed

Who was responsible for calling the plays and putting together the offense that put up 41 points on the Gators in the 08 Capital One bowl? After only putting 3 points on the board against OSU, our offense looked wide open in that game and Henne had the game of his life. THAT offense could have kept mallet and manningham (maybe) around and could have helped us avoid the last three years. Maybe.

the brand

When I went abroad the two US college brand merchandise I would see the most were Carolina Tarheels and Michigan Wolverines. This is just one example, but I saw this guy, a Malaysian tourist, on the Red Sea on my way to Jordan

 

Malaysian tourist on the Red Sea

Watching WVU D up Pitt right now

The men behind their D-Line are stemming and moving, attacking from different positions on every single play. The are ballhawks, too. 3 turnovers with 5 minutes left in the first half. This seems to me to be how you eliminate the "bubbles." At all times, there should be at least 4 men rushing the QB. GERG seemed, in the beginning of the season at least, to be content to drop everyone into a 3-deep zone behind the line. When you have an inexperienced secondary and allow your D-Line to get double teamed, bad results are sure to happen.

 

I really think the best-case scenario for the D is to get Casteel on board. RR knows him, the staff knows him, and he knows 3-3-5, meaning we wouldn't have to switch schemes drastically again.

I see it every time we lose

and it is ridiculous. When things like Wisconsin and Penn State happen, people go straight for the pitchforks. We aren't used to losing, I guess. Perhaps ND wouldn't be better off with Weiss, but their pattern of coaching roulette should be exactly what we try to avoid

what do the numbers look like without the Indiana game?

12 drives and 12 TDs, right? That has to skew things.

Yes, exactly

if we have an Irish fan saying that other Irish fans were using a similar rationale for running Weiss out of ND, why would this be something we want to emulate? Do we want to be ND, where the entitled, whiny fan base cuts the legs out from under every coach who comes into town and sends them packing after 4 years, resulting in decades of mediocrity?

this is the key issue

We are scoring when the game is already out of hand. If we can get out to a fast start we might be able to force offensive mistakes from teams trying to play catch-up. The truth is the Iowa, Wisconsin, and Penn State were much bigger beatings than the final score would indicate

poor kid

he got rocked

Tom Harmon, no question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eICuBpAaqto

Brother Jimmy's has been mentioned

and Professor Thoms' is also a good Michigan bar on Saturdays in NYC

were we watching the same game?

I can see the boxing analogy because these powerful offenses were certainly trading punches all game long, but I thought both teams looked very good and about as evenly matched as possible. Good news for us because we could clearly play with Iowa last weekend and Wisky would not have gotten past them without the fake punt

The computer

doesn't take into account margin of victory and Auburn just beat the #6 team in the country who was undefeated. The computer also probably hasn't gotten a chance to watch this Oregon track meet offense...it is hard to imagine anybody stopping that for 60 minutes.

what is it exactly

that you don't like about this? Just his overall scatter-brained demeanor? Because that is pretty ridiculous and he definitely doesn't come off as a professional. But did you see that game? Clearly he is a little defensive because Volunteer nation thought he just stole a game from them. He is trying to explain why his team looked so bad towards the end of the clock, and how UT going back and forth with them on personnel packages caused the penalty. I don't buy it, though because this has happened to LSU before

I know he's just talking trash

but I love how he bashes on the buckeye who calls in. 

fair enough

sorry. Seems a lot of people are quick to neg-bang based on an opinion that might even have a slight undertone of something that is not 100% support. Make no mistake, I want this program to win, but I was also a sucker for the whole mystique of "3-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust" thing. I am getting used to the new system, though, and it is a lot of fun to watch. The OP I made was based on looking at the interplay of this new offensive evolution with defensive responses to it, which I thought was kind of happening writ-small in last year's SEC championship. Michigan made a big step by choosing to join the party and not be a dinosaur and I hope that we bet on the right horse is all. There are no disagreements going on here, just lots of reading comprehension fails.

fanboys

I said "regime" not system, and I was talking more about the fact that Moeller and Carr were members of Bo's staff and had good defenses when they were associated with the program. I am not comparing RR's offensive philosophy with any other Michigan coach, I am comparing his attention to the defense vs. other coaches we have had.

The spread option is a new system at Michigan installed by Rich Rodriguez who has been focused on developing his offensive philosophy as a coach for most of his career (and you can only focus on so much). I have no idea whether it was a conscious decision to go with that system, but the choice did happen to come after the same season we opened with two big losses to spread option teams. 

p.s.

and how can you say "Other teams success does not = success for Michigan" when we just abandoned a 40-year regime in favor for a modern approach to football that had proven to be successful against us so many times? How else are you supposed to measure the evolution of schematics in football, besides referencing other teams?

it's not about what's popular...

It's about what is proven to win championships and build strong programs. Bottom line: Rich Rodriguez does not have a defense-first philosophy. I understand that we are all-in behind this formula, I just hope it is the right one.

A shifting front

changes the position of the guy that Robinson has to read on the zone option. So far, it seems like D-Rob has been able to keep up, no one has really stopped our Offense yet.

The Sagarin poll takes SOS into account, right?

Bc if so, wouldn't UMass automatically get a bump in SOS for playing us? I noticed one of the FCS teams ranked above UMass is JMU who played Va Tech.

GERG doesnt blitz

But thanks for the informative post. 

Smash-mouth football

So many programs have been built (or re-built) with a modern spread offense, it is nice to see Harbaugh (and Pelini) getting things done with a stout defense and a power running game. I am hoping for our sake we did not witness a symbolic changing of the Tide in the BCS championship last year when Bama beat UF's spread option.

umm...wut?

UMass had four major drives of 9+ plays resulting in scores that ate up the clock, 3 of which took place in the first half. A 15-play 70-yard drive in the third was mind-numbingly pathetic, but the other two scoring drives in the fourth quarter came on a short field after the Cam Gordon fumble post-INT (d'oh!) and the blocked punt (d'oh!). You can't put that on the D. 

IMO the D looks pretty coached up considering the depth issues. Kovacs is playing out of his mind.

28 straight points

It seems like Michigan came out slow, and then woke up briefly, only to get complacent after getting a cushion and letting them back into it. And then that familiar feeling of incompetence...block punt!!1!!1! Cam Gordon!!!1!!1!! At least the Offense was always able to respond. I mean, that swing at the end of the first half was ridiculous.

What did you think of...

...the content of the HP article, putting aside his fake prediction from 5 years ago? He uses HS 100m dash times in 2009 to argue that Robinson has elite athletic ability, and says he is basically the first "elite" athlete to play QB in a modern spread option. 

Has there ever been...

a QB, at Michigan or elsewhere, who has shown such VAST improvement as a passer between year 1 and year 2? Last year, Denard was more like Antonio Bass or Justin Feagin, where, if he went in, the defense could stack the box and sell out against the run. As a passer, he had 31 attempts and 4 INTS!!1. Now, he is an efficient passer, and even a serviceable QB in a crunch (see last weekend). His awareness and poise is the most important improvement, as our complicated offense requires him to make multiple split second reads on most run and pass plays. This has got to be credited, at least in part, on Rodriguez and Smith.