it seemed to really bring the guys together personally - they all seem very close friends. And I like to think that helps when times get bad like they did in the middle of the season
It was his first year as DC but had been on the staff since 2003 - his California connections got us leon hall, donovan warren, and of course Johnny Sears
And why do you think we had all of those beastly players? Because Ron English is a hell of a recruiter and while his scheme had its flaws the issues were fixable and I believe he would do a solid job back as DC
maybe DB is in Dallas/Phoenix on the Dominos plane doing the interviews and its MSC who's going to speak with Carr/Ross in an attempt to sell them on les and his baggage or doing further research on that baggage to determine if she wants to nix the whole thing
right since all that winning with carr was just annoying... /s
Im not blind to the fact that the game had passed carr by but merely updating and modernizing his values to the 2011 game (which I am confident Hoke could do) is a recipe for success in the big ten and on a national level
no one knows the importance of recruiting better than brandon and to bring RR back after the damage done to his recruiting prowess in the last few weeks would be a poor choice
he's gotta have harbaugh locked up and is merely trying to avoid a debacle like last time and a last minute mega offer from stanford, the 49ers, etc.
sure 3-10 points were left on the board but thats been a recurring issue throughout the RR era. I think a lot of times on this board, turnovers are underestimated as a display of problems with the offense rather than mere instances of bad luck
Like everyone else here reading the blog I can't speak to what was or wasnt said or done behind closed doors with these two, emilien or any of the other recent transfers.
That being said, they aren't here and we're hurting because of it
losing your top 2 corners to season-ending injuries is never going to be anything but incredibly devastating
but in theory, JT could be the one now coming in to replace warren or turner had they stayed here and gone down in week 9 - leaving us in a much better position than we will be now
Is it that outrageous to ditch the gameday revenue for once and have a good old-fashioned bye week as opposed to a quasi bye week with nothing to gain but padded stats and potential injuries.
And clearly, playing a good FCS team is a horrible horrible idea
since he left his spot as DC for the Panthers and now is a D-line coach for the Packers he could theoretically be more available - just another NFL guy with Michigan ties...
the play-calling in general to that point, I just had a problem with the straight option call that was made since I can remember maybe only 2 times we had run that so far this year. Tate and the accompanying back (maybe shaw?) were clearly not on the same page with the pitch causing the turnover which really hurt in a time when we had complete control of the game.
the anti-RR sentiment should not be based on the lack of personnel which while troubling is only partly his fault. The major problem are the continuing coaching mistakes and scheme issues addressed above by NJWolverine.
Today alone there was 1) running the option which we have run less than 5 times all year deep in our zone with a 14 point lead, 2) being completely unprepared for the surprise onside kick, 3) taking a horrible delay of game before the punt in the 4th quarter (bailed out by Z), 4) repeated instances of poor punt return technique (bogus penalty saved Hemingway muff) and 5) going for the 4th and 10 in the 4th quarter - which I believe to be the least egregious considering olesnavage's struggles throughout the day.
Add these up with a multitude of coaching mistakes throughout the RR era and this where the fire-RR sentiment comes from - Im finding it hard to fight it at the moment.
but as with other major programs, if the groundswell of alumni and former player frustrations puts so much heat on the athletic department to make a change (including donating the $$ for a buyout and a new hire) then anything is possible. I doubt it is anywhere near that point yet but if next year goes poorly and includes further embarrassing losses as the past 2 weeks (a distinct possibility considering the schedule) it could get there.
Realistically, the end of next year is the earliest possible anything would change because of the money and time invested into RR. The AD knows that after hiring a coach like RR, the next staff will struggle with personnel based on type of players RR recruits and knowing that I doubt the AD will initiate a new regime any time earlier than they absolutely need to.
is coming from the fact that while yes, it does take 3-4 years to build a program, we had an incredibly successful program (albeit one that needed a heavy injection of modernizing) and we've seen regression based on an entirely new system being brought in.
We had the pieces in place to continue our tradition of pro-style offense and a defense full of highly rated recruits and in my opinion merely needed a coach who could maintain the program as LLoyd did but unlike Lloyd, was not too stubborn to adapt the game plan against non big-ten opponents.
I don't mean to re-hash the past but am merely trying to convey where a lot of the frustration with RR is coming from
I recently moved down south and was back in ann arbor this weekend for the first time in a few months. Someone relayed the story to me and I didnt catch it on here a few weeks ago
The rationale behind this C grade is based on a perceived stubbornness I sense from RR and the staff as a whole. Obviously the personnel on offense last year was not in any way fitting to his system but he continued to run his offense without any adaptations. While I surely don't expect him to come up with a brand new scheme overnight, last year's results and streaks lost speak for themselves.
This year I feel like since the weather has gone south we have once again encountered the stubbornness - tate and denard are clearly struggling in the conditions but the offensive scheme has not seemed to become fitting to their struggles. While the injuries, drops, and lack of continuity on the o-line have hurt I feel like the offense we saw the first 4 games has completely regressed in the poor weather conditions that are the essence of big ten football.
Most importantly to my grade, however, is the defensive performance. Noted in an earlier post was the noticeable lack of improvement for many players from last years team and I could not agree more. With an extremely difficult schedule next year, the loss of Brandon Graham and an offensively-focused, average recruiting class I feel there is reason for concern.
Finally, there have been many basic coaching mistakes made by this staff. The fake punt and poor challenge against MSU, unnecessary timeout near halftime against Iowa which almost cost us 3 points, and the botched drive at the end of the 2nd quarter this past weekend come to mind.
I dont disagree with your comparison of us to other teams...but the overwhelming sentiment on this board that this team "can only get better" without any facts to support it is just wrong. The bottom line is the defensive personnel is far below average this year and losing Graham next year.
Offensively, there is clear evidence to show (from this year and at WVU) that RR's offense struggles in the rain and cold. In the poor weather games where a team needs a shutdown defense to bail them out - I find it hard to believe (analyzing recruiting, scheme, etc.) that are heading towards that here.
With ND, OSU and PSU on the road next year I believe there is legitimate reason to be questioning the state the of the program now and in the immediate future.
that the next AD needs to be business savvy as Martin was, we also need someone who has more common sense when it comes to general knowledge of college athletics. Sure we need to pay for the stadium, coaches, etc. but college football players also need bye weeks. I wont rehash the App State debacle but beating them does you no good and losing has obviously been difficult for the program to overcome in some instances. Furthermore, while no one knows the extent of his mess-up in the Miles situation that clearly demonstrated he was relatively unaware how to properly "steal" a coach who wants to be at your school (something that has unfortunately been executed many times in the past few years by others).
That being said, Beilein was an incredible hire and his business sense will surely be missed.
but simply gaining experience does not make a team better. The deficiencies in defensive speed and talent (linebackers and especially in the secondary) on this year's team are not going to simply disappear; let alone the loss of Graham (and potentially Warren) whose talent alone has carried the defense so far this year. I know it's something RR prides himself on but I simply do not feel comfortable with walk-ons playing significant roles on a big 10 defense.
Offensively, experience can be a great thing, especially for the quarterbacks who will undoubtedly improve as they gain a better understanding of RR's offense. Losing Minor will be a much bigger hit than people realize - his power and short yardage prowess has been taken for granted the last 2 years.
I hate to be negative but simply saying we are automatically going to be better because some of our skill players and young defenders are going to be upper-classmen and will gain experience is not enough to translate to wins on the field.
If you wish to merely neg feel free but I would love to hear what everybody thinks about these issues?
At least twice the first man in simply got pushed aside by the returner (James Rogers?). The kickoff return game was below average as well - along with the Mathews muff it was a subpar night overall from the special teams
but is having him at CB worth having mike williams at safety? Depends how bad you think the Cissoko/Floyd combo is? Anyone with some knowledge of defensive scheming able to shed some light on how you would decide this issue?
but the real culprit is the linebacker play (+ Mike Williams); the direct result of the two Moeaki TDs. Ezeh had one solid tackle on the backup RB on the goalline but aside from that I cant remember much else that was done correctly. God am I scared about our defense without Graham
Tate's subpar play and the turnovers obviously had a huge impact as well
I acknowledge the difficulties involved in recruiting after a season like we had last year and am not accusing RR of not trying. What I am saying, however, is that based on his years at WVU (with PacMan Jones being the only defensive player to get drafted in the first round) and looking at this year's almost full class (Robinson only defensive 4 star/rivals 250) I cant help but feel somewhat nervous about the defensive future under RR.
with the apparent lack of focus on defensive recruiting? Mathews is the only WR leaving after this year and yet we've picked up 6 more receivers in this class? I understand that RR and his staff pride themselves on turning 2 and 3 star defensive talent into competent college defenders but if the reason we brought him in was to become a national championship contender (everyones major complaint with Lloyd) the defense needs to get significantly better and if this class (and RR's history at West Virginia) is any indication they don't seem to consider that a priority.
No matter how good your offense is there are days when it will slow down for one reason or another and a team needs their defense to pull out the win. I have little confidence that we will have a defense like that under the RR regime. Can anyone name a national champion from the last 10 years that did not have a single pro prospect on their defense? -- and that's us after Graham and Warren leave. Thoughts??
The problem for me is that just as you said, Z ran the punt option to perfection 3 times last year and those tapes simply don't disappear when the season ends. Dantonio had it completely sniffed out. Furthermore, while Rodriguez claimed it was Zoltan's option, RR needs to make it clear that under no circumstances was this an appropriate time to run the fake - especially knowing Z's tendency to do so.
Even the most ardent Lloyd Carr supporters such as myself acknowledged that in 2007 his time had come - his conservative style was simply going to end in BCS loss after BCS loss. That being said, it angers me to see some fans take the stability he provided for granted and act like we are entitled to Rose bowl bids and Big Ten championships simply because we're Michigan. It was easy to bash Carr after we lost in bowl games or to Ohio State in his last few years but as last year showed - 33 consecutive bowl appearances does not entitle you to the next one. This is not an attempt to excuse how badly we performed in big games near the end of Carr's tenure (aside from OSU 2003 and Florida 2008) but merely as a reminder to the Michigan fans who think the block M constitutes an automatic bid to playing on new years day that it surely does not.
I agree with the original poster that to panic and bash RichRod at this point would be a significant overreaction - the guy has proven he can win many many regular season games and will surely continue to do so in Ann Arbor. However, I do not feel as positive about the future as many people on this board seem to. My main problem with the Rodriguez program is a lack of focus on defensive recruiting. The current deficiencies on defense are for the most part Carr's doing - his best 2 safety recruits in his last years, Mouton and Brown, were not fit to play the position and many of the linebacker recruits have simply not panned out. However, Lloyd also recruited the only 3 legitimate pro prospects on our current defense in warren, graham and will campbell (although RR retained him).
As I look at our recruiting class from last year and this upcoming year it is quite disconcerting. I appreciate and acknowledge RichRod's ability to develop 3-star talent into above average college players but I worry that the deficiencies in defensive talent we've seen so far on this year's team are not going to be quickly remedied. This is nothing new for Rodriguez, as Pacman Jones is the only WVU defensive player I could come up with off the top of my head that was chosen on the first day of the NFL draft.
Offensively, the guy can clearly scheme with the best of them and I expect our offense to be near the top of the big-10 throughout Rodriguez's tenure. At the same time, however, the Rodriguez's spread seems to struggle in the rain and is very dependent on a quarterback that takes an incredible number of hits per game. If Tate were to go down this year (god forbid) we're immediately no better than last year. I distinctly remember Pat White on the sidelines as WVU lost out on a chance to play in the national championship during the Pitt game in 2007.
Overall, I believe that the Rodriguez era will be full of fantastic wins like Notre Dame and crushing losses like today but I just can't see a team with a powerful yet erratic offense and a weak defense ever going 12-0 or 11-1. Curious to know what everyone thinks??
Easy for me and others to be arm-chair quarterbacks at home and criticize the play-calling but I think the directly opposing complaints come more from a disagreement on the best way to win football games rather than outrageous and unsupported observations. In this case I respectfully disagree with the contention that we should have tried to run even more than we did considering how poorly the o-line was playing. Most posters today have agreed considering the ineptitude of the MSU secondary as demonstrated on our two 4th quarter TD drives
After brown makes 9 yards on first and second you run a sweep with Tate? I get the concept of the extra blocker if Tate takes it but I'd rather have a fresh Minor than a tired Tate on 3rd and 1. All of this compounded of course by the fake punt - even if this is completely Zoltan's call we used it to perfection twice last year and those videos don't simply disappear after the season ends - Dantonio had it completely sniffed out.
Recent Comments
in terms of moderate speed yet andre miller has got 3-4 inches on him and some bulk - not that trey couldnt get there
Did he actually quote Any Given Sunday or is that just your signature?
My thoughts exactly - who doesn't Barnett know? Love this guy already
it seemed to really bring the guys together personally - they all seem very close friends. And I like to think that helps when times get bad like they did in the middle of the season
It was his first year as DC but had been on the staff since 2003 - his California connections got us leon hall, donovan warren, and of course Johnny Sears
And why do you think we had all of those beastly players? Because Ron English is a hell of a recruiter and while his scheme had its flaws the issues were fixable and I believe he would do a solid job back as DC
Miles does have to be back in Dallas to speak at the AFCA event?
maybe DB is in Dallas/Phoenix on the Dominos plane doing the interviews and its MSC who's going to speak with Carr/Ross in an attempt to sell them on les and his baggage or doing further research on that baggage to determine if she wants to nix the whole thing
Is the Gruden, Tirico, Jaworski team doing the NC monday night? It would explain the plane in 'zona
right since all that winning with carr was just annoying... /s
Im not blind to the fact that the game had passed carr by but merely updating and modernizing his values to the 2011 game (which I am confident Hoke could do) is a recipe for success in the big ten and on a national level
Charley Casserly on the CBS pregame echoed the same sentiment about JH coming here but said the panthers would probably pursue him as well
the 1.5 million dollars saved by waiting until 1-1-11
No small chunk of change for a public university in one of the most economically troubled states in the country
no one knows the importance of recruiting better than brandon and to bring RR back after the damage done to his recruiting prowess in the last few weeks would be a poor choice
he's gotta have harbaugh locked up and is merely trying to avoid a debacle like last time and a last minute mega offer from stanford, the 49ers, etc.
Thats Dan Hawkins
by recruiting, maintaining and leading a stellar defense year-in year-out in a conference as good as any
sure 3-10 points were left on the board but thats been a recurring issue throughout the RR era. I think a lot of times on this board, turnovers are underestimated as a display of problems with the offense rather than mere instances of bad luck
Like everyone else here reading the blog I can't speak to what was or wasnt said or done behind closed doors with these two, emilien or any of the other recent transfers.
That being said, they aren't here and we're hurting because of it
losing your top 2 corners to season-ending injuries is never going to be anything but incredibly devastating
but in theory, JT could be the one now coming in to replace warren or turner had they stayed here and gone down in week 9 - leaving us in a much better position than we will be now
I understand the sarcasm about blaming RR for this but isn't this exactly why you keep and maintain depth in the secondary?
The attrition becomes especially painful in situations like this
Definitely feel for JT though
278
37-28 UM
Caught the end of Braylonfest in a car on a mini-TV while missing at least half of a wedding ceremony
thank goodness we won - i felt bad
Dont forget about any Lions or Rams...Backus, James Hall
not sure if any others on either practice squad
The scariest part is MSU potentially having double digit wins if we dont take em out now and start the infamous standard sparty second half spiral
Denard
Michigan wins 35-31
Denard 225 passing, 135 rushing
Chappel has 4 TDs - 2 to #1 Terrance Turner
Is it that outrageous to ditch the gameday revenue for once and have a good old-fashioned bye week as opposed to a quasi bye week with nothing to gain but padded stats and potential injuries.
And clearly, playing a good FCS team is a horrible horrible idea
Couldn't agree more - same thing with Turner who with a few weeks of legitimately working out probably would have started after Troy went down.
There's gotta be something else going on
6-7 (bowl loss)