OK, so apparently I'm the only guy on MGoBlog who's a fan of Jordan Kovacs.  Or with a sense of humor.

I didn't see a preferred walk-on offer from Toledo, and obviously this guy wasn't good enough for Hillsdale.

Total red flags, yo.

You're obviously a better person than me, because I don't feel bad at all.  I'm gonna confess some immaturity here, but I'm hungry.  If that makes me spoiled, then guilty as charged.  Beating them last year felt more overdue than satisfactory and they're still making excuses.

When they got their first couple of wins against Michigan as it was rebuilding from Carr's sunset years I was like, "Well, it wouldn't be a rivalry if they didn't get a few now and then."  But as they gained confidence the MSU fandom hit a fever pitch of insufferable douchebaggery that triggered several seismographs in Tunisia.

I don't want to just beat these guys in recruiting.  This is a fanbase that is thoroughly due for some badly deserved humiliation.  I want them pounded into submission.  I want four consecutive years of 20-point victories where their offense is kept below 10 points and I think Hoke's crew is up to the task.  It's nothing against the players; I want their coach and fans to take such a series of beatings that they collectively curl into fetal position in a corner.  And yes, I want the boys they recruited to show them why they chose Michigan instead.

Ditto with OSU.  It seems they've learned nothing from Tressel's ouster and have yet to get that smirk wiped off their faces.  They'll be tougher to bring down but I really want to see it happen.

You pancaked your daughter when she was 3?  Should I be calling CPS or something?

His three-cone drill was the fastest.  Which doesn't surprise me, because of the shifty adjustments he makes at speed when he's got a human missile lock on a tailback.

His 40 time was middling. . . among safeties in this year's draft (something like 9th out of 21).  That's decent, but throw ALL NFL safeties into the mix and he's got a lot of people ahead of him.  Bear in mind he can't just beat out his fellow rookies; he's now competing with NFL veterans for a roster spot.  Mediocre speed is not a show-stopper for a strong safety, though.  If all else fails, instead of having him bracket deep routes high, you can instruct the corner to play the wideout soft and bring Kovacs underneath.  SC's answer was to go four-vert, but that's risky against NFL CBs.

I agree 100%, but the article painting him as some sort of Little Engine That Could kind of aggravated me.  Yeah his heart and dedication are off the charts, but that's not what sets him apart in my mind.  Those are admirable traits, but not too hard to find at the highest levels.

It's his intelligent work ethic that makes him special.  He doesn't just work his tail off; he's the NFL's Greg Maddux.  He doesn't just Rocky Montage his way to success.  He lacks physical speed, but makes up for it by mastering the game like some white-beareded martial artist in a Hong Kong action movie.

I try to stress this among kids who have dreams.  It's OK to dream, and you HAVE to work hard to get there, but also LEARN -- don't just throw your body against a brick wall until it breaks, because odds are you will first.  The ones who succeed spend those countless hours finding a way around the wall.  In Kovacs' case, he didn't just SPARTAAAA the ball carrier every time.  He did it, countless times at that, with flawless technique.  Standing high?  I'll fly high and topple you like a tree.  Near the sideline?  I'm gonna throw my shoulder into your chest and knock you out.  Fighting for every inch?  I'm going to fly at you and p=mv your ass.  Making a cut?  I'm sweeping your pivot foot.  Going in low?  I'm going to barrel in, helmet to ball, and if you somehow hang onto the ball and stay upright I'm gonna cling like a pitbull until the cavalry arrives.

There are a number of NFL players who lack Kovacs' consistency.  Even if he doesn't make the rotation, he'll get some rookies thinking twice when he shows them how the game's played.

I kinda thought Jordan Kovacs was already on the case.  He's still working on the story.

"Just show me, you know?" Edwards said. "Just show me that you're interested. Just show me like you've been showing me."

Ugh. . . sounds like something I said to someone in my twenties, and I was very late to mature.  No, Michigan does not exist to put a silver spoon in your mouth; the entire culture to its very roots its that it's bigger than any one person.

It's a bit of a surprise to see this, because I'm used to seeing Michigan recruit athletes who speak as well as I did in my early thirties.  Which says a lot about how spoiled I am as a Michigan fan -- this is pretty much how most high schoolers talk -- but there it is.  As far as recruit maturity goes, this is an outlier.

I think the defense will be fine, but we HAVE to get over last year; it won't be fair to this year's unit.  Gordon-Kovacs was the best safety tandem I'd seen at Michigan in at least a decade.

We were flat-out spoiled at safety last year.  I know secondaries are judged as a unit and we were paper-thin at corner, but it says a lot that opposing offenses picked on J.T. Floyd.  He was hardly bad; QBs just didn't have many other options (not to mention the B1G didn't have many elite receivers).  I don't even recall that many attempts to go deep against our D (until SC's four-verts anyway) because in most cases slinging it was basically a wasted down.

I just hope that the first time the inexperience at safety forgives a long TD, MGoBlog doesn't lose it.  Again, we'll be fine, but offenses will be looking to test our new FS.

I get that, but I'd call it a good reason for being fair & honest. :D

I don't know what people say about me when I'm not around, but if it's critical I'd like to hear it, as long as the criticism isn't politically motivated (preening for a promotion, etc.).  I've never seen anyone improve when surrounded by sycophants.

"Less than ideal" is definitely a way to put it.  I'm not TOO concerned, partially because they're up against a Greg Mattison defense and partially because O-line takes time to develop, but the lack of an elite RB was sort of a given (unless Derrick Green takes the position by storm).  They'll struggle against the tougher defenses but one thing going for this team is that it has more weapons all around.  A lot of it's raw but Darboh, Funchess and Gallon are all legitimate threats -- and don't forget Dileo.  If Borges can get the defense to fear the passing game, the RB only needs to be decent.  If not, well. . . watch Devin Gardner pass for 300-400 yards a game.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Lewan for staying another year.  We're gonna need every ounce of pass protection we can get this season.

Oh, fer cryin' out loud!  What's so terrifying about Heiko's questions that they need to be edited out like it's going to ruin our childhoods if we hear them?  This is Michigan fergodsakes; it's not like a question about linebacker blitzes is going to crash our brains.

But unlike Michigan State and South Carolina, Michigan has some serious academic standards.  Two sports and a Michigan degree:  Pick two, and that's only if you're a badass to begin with.

You can't really measure up Clark by his stats.  He was always an all-or-nothing player.  When he made plays he made them like whoah, but when he didn't, he was a non-factor in the play.  It wasn't like he posted nine TFL by constantly getting in the QB's face until the QB was terrified to take the field.  He more cleaned up broken plays where he got through clean.  This is a very ad hoc and harsh way to put it, but to clarify the point by exaggerating it, you can think of it as 9TFL from Frank Clark means he was relevant for only nine plays last year.  That's not good production from a DE.  Jake Ryan made the offense account for him even when he had no stats to add to his line; you really have to watch the plays to see it.

Wrestlers make good interior linemen (if they're big enough).  You don't have to teach them leverage; they eat leverage for breakfast.

Mike Martin did pretty well as a rookie NT; Tennessee's defense was awful last season but it doesn't sound like anyone down there was blaming him for it.

If football was like engineering, two critical failures in such a short span of time just in practice calls for a thorough review of what they're doing.

Now I know it's Mgoblog's tradition to downrate, well, everything, but note I'm not judging anyone.  Yet.  My point isn't that someone did something wrong; my point is that babying the team isn't the proper response.  (That only guarantees no one's ready for the season.)  The proper response is to find out what's killing everyone's knees.  It MAY be a horrible coincidence, but you never, ever assume.  You only rule out possibilities until what's left is fact.

In any case, I hope someone from the media asks this question.  I'm sure Hoke is just as concerned for his boys as any of us are, but if he stonewalls this issue I'll be really pissed.  As fans we're worried too.

MGoFollowup: When we asked Mattison about whether you had any pass rushers in that group, he said, “Oh yeah.” Who are they?

“Oh yeah.”

Well, I said it wouldn't be close. . . I didn't predict who would win, just that it wouldn't be close.

Making accurate predictions that mean absolutely nothing is more or less my lot in life, and I'm a Michigan alum, so. . . well, not sure what the point is, but it's a good day.

It's also so-so at worst.

I'm just worried about putting Hand around Johnson, Butt and Taco.

I'll take a Soso Taco tandem.  Hell, I'll take a Gallon of 'em!  I might need a new Taylor or two though. . .

It may not be time to panic just yet.  All I saw was, "Jake Ryan is out indefinitely with a torn ACL" or something to that effect.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH

Whew.  OK.  The thing is, that doesn't mean a blown out ACL.  There is such a thing as a partial tear, which you mitigate by yanking the guy off the field so he doesn't blow up his knee entirely.  The recovery is much faster, but it's still called a torn ACL because that's exactly what it is.

One can hope, anyway.

Having an improved O-line will help, but there have been numerous articles here on MGoBlog that predict we're still 2-3 years away from having a good O-line.  We're still a hodgepodge of upperclassmen that lack talent and underclassmen that lack experience.  But even with this, our O-line has at least been good enough to give the RB a chance.  I'm sure an elite O-line can open a path you could drive a car through, but with what we've got, they can usually reduce the threat to a single unblocked defender.  And THAT'S where I'm concerned.  You can't count on every guy being blocked every play; if there's a one-on-one the RB has to at least win that battle, at least if it's a mismatch.  But they don't.  I was seeing the supposedly shifty guys being brought down by 300-pound DEs and the "north-south" runners getting stopped cold by cornerbacks.  Yes I'm talking about the better defenses we faced but, guys?  MGoBlog typically puts the blame on scheme or O-line but I remember some ye olde Michigan RBs that would annihilate that first defender.

What I really miss is seeing Biakabatuka meeting three unblocked OSU defenders, getting low like he's saying, "Bring it," and dragging them for five yards en route to first down. . . after first down. . . after first down.  OSU typically has good defenses but in that game if there wasn't a O-line bust they were almost helpless.  OK, I'm spoiled, but you see the disparity here?  The RB is just as important to a running game as the O-line.  I said all last season that something was wrong with Fitz -- he made defenses account for him two seasons ago, but last season pretty much any defender was confident they could win that one-on-one battle.

Methinks at the NFL level, being a good target is a secondary consideration for a back.  3rd down (pretty much every NFL play, really) is literally all about whatever it takes to move the sticks, so you want to keep the defense guessing.  Being short means a 3rd down back can provide lots of variation in fast-developing plays, whether it's cut-blocking a blitzer, running a tough route (rapid changes in motion like moving as if to pass block then tearing for the sideline) or literally hiding behind the offensive line.  At the college level there isn't a "3rd down back" per se so I really doubt we recruit on height.  I see quite a lot of height variation among Michigan backs.

Lobs may be easier when the target is taller, but what you REALLY look for in a 3rd down back are good hands; they excel at catching passes and not fumbling.  The pass can be perfect and the target ideal, but the back still has to catch it and the big guys often lack upper body control.  Many of them are marginal in other ways and become ball control specialists to stay employed, so that could also have something to do with it.

Bad pun.  No cookie for you.

But seriously, "Mason Cole" is the name of a brawler.  Half expect him to show up as the protagonist in a hyperbolic testosterone-fueled triple-A first-person shooter.

An ESSENTIAL skill to being a great leader is being great at attracting and hiring talent.  Why?  Because while you'll have your share of loyalists, your staff WILL get poached.  (Hoke brought in Mattison, so we should be OK.)

Left my last job to work a crappy job for the sole reason that my new manager is awesome.  In the ten months I've been here he's already had 10% of his team poached.

Internally.

By his superiors.

It's why I can't stand him.  He complains about EVERYTHING.  You know who Urban Meyer is?  He's the guy who walks into a five-star steakhouse, constantly changes the order, terrorizes the wait staff, eats half the meal then complains until the manager comps him.  He complains until he gets his way.  And he knows he can get away with it.  And this is what exasperates me the most:

He knows it's legal.

Anyone waiting for Urban Meyer to get his comeuppance is going to be waiting a long time.  He is very, very good at what he does.  I just hate what that is -- abusing America's "squeaky wheel gets the grease" culture ad infinitum.  In other cultures he'd be ostracized, but in America this epic whiner is worshipped.  He's never going to get caught because it's not against the rules to be annoying, but as a humanist I find his methods socially toxic.  There's a huge cost to enabling people like Urban Meyer; whenever he gets his way it basically rewards his behavior and encourages everyone else to turn into jackasses.

It's a soon-to-be-outlawed color, with white, red and gray along with them.  Word has it our little recruit here is changing his name to Derrick Blue, but that's not important right now.

And don't call me Jack.

"Michigan gets Matt Godin, Willie Henry, Chris Wormley, and Tom Strobel off redshirts."

Can someone give me the skinny on these guys?  If not no biggie; I'm just lazily trying to avoid some Google-fu homework.

Gonna miss Kovacs.  It was like watching an NFL-caliber brain at work in a high schooler's body.  Replacing him with better physical talent (over the long haul) will be fun in its own way, but I'll have fond memories of a top-20 team captained by a walk-on nobody wanted.

Alabama is legit, and the SEC lost to almost no one outside their conference.  But consider who they played (good teams in bold):

S. Carolina:  E. Carolina, UAB, Wofford, Clemson

Florida:  Bowling Green, LA-Lafayette, Jacksonville St., Florida State

Georgia:  Buffalo, Florida Atl, Georgia Southern, Georgia Tech

LSU:  N. Texas, Washington, Idaho, Towson

Miss. St.*:  Jackson St., Troy, S. Alabama, Mid. Tennessee

So. . . yeah.  Real vicious gauntlets there, #7 Georgia and #8 LSU.  WTF??  So all we have to go on to gauge half the Top Ten teams in the country* is how they beat each other up.  That's how Mississippi State wound up being like #11 for a week.  I understand being spooked because the SEC has been the strongest conference for a while now AND Michigan got spanked by Alabama, but as a whole, the SEC this year does not look nearly as scary as they have the past few.  Florida obviously brought their A-game against rival FSU but this is the same school that needed a fourth-quarter comeback to beat LA-Lafayette.  Now granted ND almost laid an egg against Pitt, but we played ND and almost took 'em.  Tomorrow after all the bowls are played my assessment might wind up looking very silly, but to clarify my point, I'm not saying the SEC is bad (please understand this, "overrated" does NOT necessarily mean "bad"). . . I'm just saying we just have relatively little evidence they're good, either.  For the most part, I haven't seen them DO anything -- or at least when they do, they've looked as vulnerable as any other major conference.  Hell, Auburn and Arkansas are typically competitive and neither were even bowl eligible this season.

Incidentally S. Carolina has one of the SEC's most impressive wins this season by beating Clemson, which doesn't look good for Michigan, but I'd rather beat good teams than hide from them.  It's a bowl game FFS; would you be more excited if we played a Sun Belt team?  I'm more worried about Borges than S. Carolina.  Use Denard as a tailback and Michigan has the talent to stay with them.  My biggest fear is that Borges won't.

*Including Miss. State because it's ridiculous how far they got up the rankings by riding "SEC BABY!" coattails playing the above joke of an OOC schedule.  Never forget.

I majored in physics and was in the marching band.  Time-wise it wasn't that bad as there's a huge overlap between physics and math courses, and my GPA was actually higher during fall semesters (apparently this is quite common -- your schedule gets self-managed).

All that said. . . having tried to major in math and physics, I know for a fact he HAD to have passed UM's Advanced Calculus course.  That's theoretical calculus.  I still get nightmares from taking that course; I had to withdraw from it and the math major entirely.  It was a hurdle I just couldn't clear, and I (somehow) passed Quantum Mechanics.  He did that while playing Michigan football??

Holy cripes.  If you ever get to meet Jack Kennedy, be sure to tip your hat.

I didn't see everything, but this season I almost never saw one of our RBs run through a defender.  Even a cornerback one-on-one.  Or make a linebacker or even lineman miss.  I kept thinking Fitz lost a step, and he was still the best we had.  I don't recall him making something from nothing at any point this season; he'd do it at least once a game last year.  In almost every case it only took one shed block or free hitter to get to the RB, and once the RB was hit he went down.  We're NOT talking about ye olde Walter Payton or Barry Sanders.  They transcended the "free hitter" concept because a DB had no chance of stopping Payton one-on-one and a D-lineman had no hope of catching Barry.  You HAD to gang-tackle them and that forced a lot of tough backfield assignments.  Yes yes I understand the game has changed since the late 80s (get off my lawn), but at the college level -- where talent disparity is more of a thing than the NFL -- a talented RB can be expected to not need perfect blocking because they can always make the first guy miss (if he's shifty) or blow him back (if he's strong).

Our RBs, with very few exceptions, did neither.  And with the disappointment of Rawls, I don't see anyone we have or up-and-coming who'll force the defense to commit at least two free hitters to stopping the run.   I know it's a tough job so I'm not saying this to be mean, but our RBs can't do RB-like things you might as well give the ball to our biggest available lineman and see what you get out of a push-a-thon.  At least then it would take more than a single safety to stop a short-yardage dive.

"as Brian noted sarcastically, he’s so happy that UM won’t ever run this terrifying offense again because it IS so hard to prepare for and stop"

It's hard to stop the offense at first.  I understand watching it and going "oh wow" but it's like buying a sports car on a family budget -- it's a thrill until you need efficient, bread-and-butter performance.  That Northwestern runs the no-huddle zone read and has an issue with late-season fourth-quarter implosions isn't a coincidence.  That Michigan suffered the same sort of late-game, late-season fades in the RRod years isn't a coincidence.  It puts a lot of stress on a few pieces (namely the QB), definitely, but that's not the whole story.  People focus on the time of possession, but I think that's a symptom.  The unmentioned problem is giving opponents too much information, too many chances.  By the 8th game of the season the offense could have run as many as 500 plays, give or take a hundred.  Not only is that a crapton of game tape and QB wear, the opposing defenses are given chances to work out their positioning and keys in-game.  You can't introduce enough wrinkles to keep defenses off balance every game for a whole season, and it's not reliable to hope the defense is tired.

The formula for winning with the no-huddle zone read is to be ahead at the start of the 4th quarter and hope your defense doesn't blow it late.  If 2010 wasn't proof enough, we all just saw how well that worked for Northwestern.

Not saying it's a gimmick offense; it certainly gave teams like West Virginia a ton of mileage.  However, I also dismiss any notion that it's an inherently superior offense if we broaden the scope from scoring to winning.  It's great for jumping out to an early halftime lead, which is certainly one way to win, but football's a four-quarter game.  I've seen enough of it to know it's easy to adjust to (so much in-game practice), is prone to causing key injuries and correlated with late-season fades.  It's basically the "day trader" offense -- you can get ahead fast, but it's tough to hold onto gains made if you can't downshift.

n/t

"[Mark is] also extremely dangerous on special teams; while his kickoff return stats are poor (16.4 yards per return), he's averaging 25 yards per punt return with a pair of touchdowns, including this one against Penn State"

I dunno; he didn't look inhumanly fast so much as it looked like a lot of PSU guys took some awful angles on that return.  Especially the kicker; no one's expecting you to tackle with good form, but it's pretty much a given long returns wind up on the sideline so just sit on the path he's taking.  If he goes around you he gets held up and flushed into the coverage.  Instead the last several guys take extremely aggressive pursuit angles and are behind Mark by the time they change direction.  Granted every punt return TD involves a few busts, but in this case I don't quite get the impression that Mark busted it.  I mean, he's fast, but we've faced faster.  This defense practices against Denard, yo.

My more immediate concern isn't the raw speed of this team so much as their overall style will be difficult to emulate with the scout team, which could lead to some defensive breakdowns.  Basically, same problem as Air Force.  It takes serious practice time to get execution up to that high tempo, something the scout team invariably will not be given.  Mattison no doubt will prepare the defense as far as assignments, keys, technique, angles and containment.  However, he also likes his kids to talk to each other and Northwestern will try to take that away from them.

My issue isn't that they don't publicize the specific injury so much as they won't even say whether nor not someone's injured.

I'm not asking Hoke to say something like "Fitz has a torn meniscus in his right knee" just to see linebackers cut blocking him all day.  But it'll take them all of one play to figure out when he's not at 100% (or even if they don't it won't really affect how they get to him) so at least being that vague doesn't change anything.

Last year Fitz was making his own yards.  I believe I said at one point that Fitz was bailing out Borges in a Picture Pages entry.  It seems as if there's an unblocked defender on every play, but a great RB can make the first defender not matter.  It's very difficult for 10 guys to block 11 on every play.

OK, let me clarify something.  I'm NOT blaming Fitz.  I'm saying this puts pressure on Borges that these options and other things he's doing aren't relieving.  I guess I'm saying while it's not Borges' fault he's put in a difficult situation, I don't like the answers he's coming up with.  We don't have a legitimate deep threat so defenses don't need one deep safety, let alone two, allowing them to load up on the running game.  But now it seems even the slot guys aren't respected, so the running game is facing a numbers disadvantage that just can't be accounted for with blocking.  The offense DOES have a guy who can command the defense's attention -- Denard -- but when he went down there was absolutely nothing for the defense to be afraid of.

This loss wasn't on Borges or Fitz, but if I was to summarize what I think the running game issue is, it's that A) Michigan lacks talent on offense and B) Borges isn't optimally using what he has.  If the defense knows that they can play man coverage on the wideouts, even if they fell for it what's faking the fullback as a pitch man gonna do?  And as long as the defense doesn't fear an option we're not utilizing anyway, all the wrinkles and fakes and other stuff Borges is using isn't tying up defenders.  They're free to stick to their assignments, and when they do that against the talent we have, there's nowhere to go.

The principle of zone running is to take pressure off the O-line and rely on the tailback to read the blocking.  But this means you need a guy with excellent decision-making -- when to ride the line, when to wait, when to bounce, when to cut, when to just plow through.  So, you don't just throw a running back out there because he looks good for a few plays.  From what little I've seen, Rawls is marched out there in short-yardage situations to A) utilize his talent, but also B) deliberately simply his decisions.  If it's a long-yardage down, Rawls doesn't know what to do.  Not that Fitz is doing much better these days, but I remember when MGoBlog went AARGGHH because Rawls bounced early.  He could be doing that a lot on practice.  So for now, he's used in situations where Borges can boil his instructions down to "punch it up the gut".

I think that's Borges' way of saying he did what he could.  He can't hit his backup QB in practice.  He can't simulate real-time game pressure.  He can't dictate what Nebraska's going to do, and he can't get Bellomy to grow Denard's legs.  All Bellomy can do is learn the playbook, attend the meetings and get some reps.

Michigan has one playbook because it's not all about the QB.  The receivers, the linemen, they can absorb only so much.  So Bellomy was going to run Denard's plays no matter what.  The problem (aside from the obvious drop in speed) is that his pace is slightly different, and I think that resulted in a number of drops.  QB-receiver timing is really hard to establish.  Some really good guys can just go out there and adjust, but I'm talking Tom Brady good (like how he took over Bledsoe's Patriots way back in '01).  I wouldn't expect Bellomy to make that sort of adjustment on the fly.

The starting QB going down is the worst-case scenario for ANY team.  As for Devin, Michigan's talent depth is so thin that as long as Denard was healthy it was madness to keep him on the bench.  As bad as he is, without him we don't have a deep threat at all, and the running game is pressured already.  I'd LIKE to keep a stable of gazelles on the bench "just in case", but Michigan so obviously does not have that luxury.

They're being diplomatic about it, but my theory is that Gardner just hasn't been progressing as a QB.  At all.  As raw as he is as a receiver, I'm thinking he was a wreck at QB.

We have a very very small sample size for actual gameplay, but the few times Gardner had to make a decision, he picked disaster.

As for why they didn't recruit a QB, I think they've been consistent about their recruiting goals from Day One, including a very measured balance between today's needs and tomorrow's team.  This was a gamble I'll bet they were willing to take, and happened to lose.  There is no viable replacment for Denard Robinson AT ALL, and Hoke's Dream Team is one that wins with minimum 46 players, not one.  Plus, I think they've been very honest with the players about their roles, to the point of losing recruits for their brutal honesty.  What are they gonna tell the kid, "Denard's our QB today and Shane's our QB tomorrow, so your best chance of seeing the field is watching Denard get hurt"?  The only type of QB who'll say yes to that deal is a walk-on who isn't going to be any better than Bellomy is now.

That's my main criticism of the spread option, actually.  Schematically it works great on paper and on the field, but only by making (for a conservative guy like me, anyway) unreasonable risks at inherently thin positions.  The whole point of the inverted veer is to take pressure off Denard, but the flip side is that when Denard does go down the mesh point is just a formality.  High-risk, high-reward means when everything's clicking you're the best offense in the country, but it only takes a key injury or two for the house of cards to collapse.  That's why it's only implemented in bits and chunks in the NFL.

Last time on TWPTIBD, not much to say in the "boom" stat count (forced fumbles, TFL, INT, sack, etc.), but Manti Te'O and Christian Birt had busy games headhunting ball carriers.  How'd they do this week?

Christian Birt, UMass - Had a relatively quiet game.  7 tackles, 2 solo.  Now, UMass, I did say if your safety is very busy your defense is probably bad (see: Michigan 2010), but I didn't mean make him irrelevant before the rest of your defense gets good.  Or maybe BG went out of their way to avoid him; it's not like UMass doesn't give you options.  I dunno, I didn't watch.  Why would I want to.

Manti Te'O, Notre Dame - 10 tackles (1 solo), 1 INT.  Once again, ND's leader on D.  This guy is a beast.  I know linebackers tend to rack up stats but it's no secret you should try to avoid this guy.  Then again, avoiding Manti might be about as easy as a batter avoiding a starting pitcher; the only guys who don't look bad against him are on the bench.

Newest entry is. . . Max Bullough, Michigan State.  Denicos Allen got the most TFL, but I daresay that's a result of the RPS battle.  Max, however, did his thug job and more -- 10 tackles (5 solo, 1 TFL), one INT (the meaningless one), and here's the big one. . . 3PBU.  His damage to the passing game is what probably left Borges thinking he was out of options.  Gonna see what this guy does to other teams going forward.

Borges isn't RichRod.  I get that.  But some guy named Sun Tzu wrote a book a few years ago; Borges should've had a chance to read it by now.

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."

In football terms, this is NOT playing power with spread-option players.  This is about deception, getting your opponent to target your strengths and ignore your weaknesses.  It's about the draw and the play action, and more importantly, getting them to work.  Look like you are going to run, then pass.  Look like you are going to pass, then run.  You won't have your blockers exactly where you want them, but perfect execution is NOT the key to victory.  It is very, very difficult to achieve perfection.  But if you can get the defense to execute worse, you get the same result as perfection -- sometimes better results.  Sometimes MUCH better.  That is why guards pull on a play action.  The guard will probably wind up blocking air, and the running back will have to block an edge rusher.  So why do they do it?  Because if you can get the back seven to step forward and in, just one step, the QB won't have to make a perfect throw to hit an out or fly route.  And we know this QB cannot reliably make perfect throws.

And mind you, that's a philosophy you can implement in a high school team.  The classic pro set is, philosophically, about establishing a strength, playing to it, and then when the defense's hand is forced, burn them for selling out.  A college-level spread team can execute various run-pass or pass-run options based on keys that don't even rely on the defense to guess wrong, but force them to be wrong.

I think I finally figured Borges out.  He's running spread plays, but he's stuck in a pro set philosophy.  I was always talking about how someone can have 30 years experience and not learn anything for 29, and it seems Borges is just that guy.  He thinks if he can just get those plays working perfectly, then the defense won't matter.  The perfection comes first, THEN he'll start to add deception.  But he can't get to perfection first, so he does the exact opposite of deception -- he doesn't pull the guard on a pass, for example, because he needs that guard where he is to take on the pass rusher.  He wants the base play to work so badly he's willing to literally tell the defense what to do.  So instead of one guy always being wrong, or four guys maybe being wrong, all eleven know exactly where the ball's going to go.

"Last year's gameplan was derided as on of the worst in the history of organized activity. This year's game plan was a direct response to that game."

Great, so Borges is playing last year's game.  He's only an entire regular season behind the DCs he's paid to outsmart.  That's reassuring.

"Make up your minds! Do you want us to run more often on early downs or throw more on early downs"

Well if we're breaking plays down to "run" and "throw" we've already lost, because that's 5th-grader football.  He needs to throw them and run them where they ain't, and run various plays out of the same formations & motions designed to keep defenses honest.

The problem is that Borges is about as deceptive as an outdoor barbeque; you can smell it before you see it.  He runs play actions off runs that don't work and counters to plays we don't even run.  He cycles through attacks like a SquareEnix mini-boss regardless of how the defense is aligned, and when they align in MURDERDEATHKILL, he doesn't let Denard audible.  The defense is tipped off to every single thing he does.  And when every single step of every defender is in the direction your play is going from the snap, we could have the Giants' offensive line and it won't matter.  Don't ANYONE give me that BS about how he's got so much "experience".  Heiko has basically cornered him into admitting he's not running certain plays for no other reason than he just doesn't want to.  Well, if there's one thing I've learned in the real world, it's that experience is no cure for stubbornness.

Coming out of an excessively busy week can be like being unfrozen, and the in-season schedule of a Michigan football player is hardcore.  I've seen it plenty of times and been through it myself.  They had "this thing called the Internet" when I was in school, but some weeks it didn't matter.

They might have been vaguely aware of it, and I know Hoke is coy with the media, but this isn't the most implausible thing he's said.

Nice article, but the title is rather misleading.  Quarters is a pass coverage scheme adapted to support the run D; most of the article focused on the front 7's reads.  The safeties' keys were insightful but it was almost a segue.

Reading it, though, I understand Borges' desire to revert to a power-based game.  Defending the spread has forced even B1G teams to utilize smaller, faster players at outside LB to protect the edge.  Personnel-wise, a DC frozen in 1985 and thawed in 2012 would wonder why today's defenses are using dime packages on running downs.  There's a reason why Wisconsin has been running over the B1G these past few years despite not being all that good.  A TE against a glorified FS playing OLB should be a mismatch you can exploit in both the run and the pass.

MGoBlog has stated that Fitz is in a funk and sure he's missed some pretty huge running lanes, but I wonder if the adjustments Borges made to the read option game heavily favored Denard by accident.  The delayed handoff, for one, basically turns the read option into a game of chicken.  It was scouted early on that Denard didn't read the DE so much as the edge, so the DE just got outside the tackle and the free hitter converged on Fitz.  Borges' answer (finally!) was to delay the handoff so Denard could actually read the DE, but the rest of the lines don't exactly take a break.  Fitz has less time to read the blocking (instead of crashing down the DE can basically "cheat" a couple yards while Denard makes up his mind); this could explain why he's been making some inexplicably weird decisions lately.  OTOH, the DE not committing to Denard as early as possible allows the offense to spot the free hitter.  By the time the D knows Denard's gonna keep, the free hitter is accounted for and at least one OL is blocking the second level.  The result?  Fitz has to fight for yards while Denard gets 10ypc even if the defense is keyed on stopping Denard.  Kinda goes against what Borges said he wanted, but I think he saw what he hath wrought and decided, "Eh, I'll take it."  As a bonus, Denard is now running out of bounds once he gets past the sticks.

. . . that's progress, I guess.  Heiko, tsk, tsk. . . you know the coaches don't like to compare players.*

QotD, IMHO:

"What’s the thought behind putting a linebacker over the slot vs. having a nickel corner out there?"

A:  Because the scariest thing for college receivers right now is to see JAKE EFFIN' RYAN lined up against you.  Mattison was being polite.  Seriously, though, it's a legitimately good question.  You typically don't line up a LB over the slot because they're usually at a speed disadvantage.  Jake Ryan is just a freak.

*No, I'm not trying to be mean.  If something’s not good enough, then we’re going to tell them it’s not good enough. If something is good, then we’re going to tell them that way, too.

Football is ever a formation team game and college has way more disparity than the NFL, so defensive stats are a dangerous thing.  Offense is more straightforward in that you always first try to play to your strengths, but defenses will always see themselves picked apart for weak links.  Granted the best players will find ways to get onto the box score anyway, but (for example) Kovacs has been rather quiet when the front seven don't give him a whole lot to do.  This is despite being every bit as good, and most likely far better, than his much busier days back in 2010.  On the flip side, if we had a glaring weakness in the secondary that guy could lead the team in passes defended but only because he's being thrown at 20 times a game.

What's that old joke?  The surest sign your team is bad is that your punter made the Pro Bowl.  (Yes yes I know it's not really true, but you get the idea.)

IANAD, but I've seen that brace used to aid recovery from all kinds of knee injuries.  If I'm right, I wouldn't call it a "precaution" so much as just efficient use of equipment.  If you've got a knee brace that handles ZOMG TORN ACL TORN MCL BROKEN KNEECAP MOMMY HOLD ME injuries and still allows the knee to bend, why not just slap it on a mild strain until the tissue heals?  There's a slight risk of compensation injury but I seriously doubt Hoke would abuse Kovacs' knee.  We need this dude healthy for Ohio.

FWIW, I don't actually know what the problem is.  I'm just sayin', don't panic.

Well, I may be alone in this, but I'm hoping Michigan football DOESN'T end with the regular season.

We don't get to pick our bowl opponent, and I don't want to run the rest of this table just to get pasted 42-21 by a 4th place SEC team because got complacent not worrying about elite receivers.  Not that I think Mattison will EVER let that happen, but really, why are we relieved that the Big Ten is weak?

I don't give a rat's ass about PWNing a weak conference.  I want Michigan to be a giant among giants.  Can't do much about a weak B1G, but let's not let B1G play give us this "big fish in a small pond" mentality here.

On the play just before Purdue's half-ending TD, one of the DTs pushes the other into position just before the snap.  WTF went on there?

I disagree with giving Roh just a +1 on Purdue's first play of the 3rd quarter.  He did something weird that looked kind of like drawing aggro on three blockers without actually letting himself get pushed out of the play.  That wasn't all Mattison's alignment; Roh's unconventional play took three Purdue players AND the outside out of the play.  I'd give him a +3.  QB looks at that part of the field and goes WTF is going on in there??

As for the coverage, kudos, but that also tells me Purdue's receivers just aren't that athletic.  Our secondary plays pretty smart, but it's pretty well known we don't have a shutdown corner that can stay step-for-step with an elite receiver.  On one hand, if no one's open for almost an entire game, that's more on Purdue.  On the other, it's very difficult for college players (at a real school, anyway) to play mistake-free coverage for a whole game.

"Whoever wins the WDE dogfight going into 2013 is going to be pretty dang good."

That's when Mattison says he'll "roll 'em".  He WANTS to have a two-deep where defenders can split playing time at every position.

More importantly, which side will he be on?

The pro set can run multiple plays from the same formation too, you know.  It just requires pieces we don't have.

The problem is Borges knows what he has but offers the opposing defense only one poison anyway.  Purdue did something weird, but most teams know they can just overplay Denard.

I'd be so stalking that if i didn't live in New England now.

If there was one thing I could say to Mattinson, it'd be this:  "You probably couldn't use me, but I'd play for you with two broken legs, coach."

If Rawls could make his own holes, he'd be doing so in practice.  That he's not getting non-garbage time tells me he's not.

To be fair, it may not be his fault.  In my years of watching football, the power running game starts with the line.  "Downhill" backs are a terror against secondaries but they gotta get through the line first and power running isn't known for subtlety.  Rawls can maybe get a push on an inside linebacker in his gap, but since Borges isn't known for running constraint plays or play actions off plays Michigan runs, the LBs are free to aggressively jump at the snap.  So even if Rawls donkeys a LB all he's really done is get himself back to the LoS.  You can't move the chains with just that -- especially against a quality interior defense.  If all the "power" you have is the back, any even half-decent front seven will shut down your game.  Which is precisely the problem, methinks.  Rawls may be a good power back, but we simply do NOT have a power running O-line.

It takes more than a back to create a power running game.  Honestly, I just don't think Michigan has the right pieces, including an OC who won't give it up.

We don't know if his knees will hold up, but at least the limiting factor is a warranty, not eligibility.  They'll take the (conditional limited) 90 days* over whatever they've got now.

*Offer not valid in Iowa

They scheduled a home-and-home, but they couldn't decide which arena should host the black players vs. the white players.

Here's the official statement from Ohio about its fall-out with Apartheid:  "We value our annual rivalry with Apartheid but will have to see what the future holds for any continuation of the series. This cancellation presents new scheduling opportunities for our program and provides a chance to create some new rivalries."

This isn't just pumping sound through an arena or a stage concert; the band is right in the middle of the area so they can hear it too.  In conventional setups performers will key off their own sound track, but here you can't separate what the band needs to hear from what the audience wants to hear.  If they're disciplined they'll follow the conductor (a spread-out band covers enough area that the delay from the other side can cause people to fall behind; visual cues are practically instant), but I can easily see speakers contributing to the problem.

One other issue is latency.  You wouldn't expect it considering how must faster electricity moves than sound, but as jayballs says, this is an issue by itself.  You have to time the sound so it doesn't arrive too early OR too late, and god forbid you start cancelling the very sound you're trying to amp.

Long story short, amping a marching band is an unusual challenge for sound engineers.  I've never done it, but I'd presume the most common failure is just uneven sound.  It's very easy to make this sound good in one area.  In a giant, open arena with the source in the middle?  I wouldn't even trust pros to get it right everywhere.  For starters, the acoustics of the stadium itself aren't ideal, and you can't just put the speakers anywhere.  So even if the timing's perfect, the sound won't propagate the way you want it to.

This year, our weakness is the lines and their weakness is the secondary.  If a trash tornado took away the long passing game, it could get ugly.

As Murphy says, weather ain't neutral.

Meh.

It just needs to spread the field until the DC is literally asking the FS to be in two places at once, then you hit 'em where they ain't.  The thing about Denard is that you have your fastest player start out in the pocket with the defense all focused on edge contain like whoah.  I understand Borges' intent to use Fitz to keep Denard alive, but he has to then effectively use screens to spread the field.  Why?  Because the ball starts right where the defense wants it to stay.  If the receivers pull the secondary away with post/fly routes the defense is in a very, very bad situation.  The linebackers can't cover the gaps AND defend the middle of the field AND contain Denard all at the same time.  So teams will often exploit Michigan's soft middle by blitzing the inside "A" gaps with their linebackers.  This neutralizes Fitz and Denard's legs at the same time at the cost of opening up the middle.  In a conventional defense most sacks come from the weakside DE or OLB, but the key to stopping Denard is to keep him in the pocket until it collapses -- with him still in it.  This also shuts down the running game.  You HAVE to open up the defense by throwing the ball.  Borges prefers to slam his head against a brick wall.

Teams like ND and MSU will coach their linebackers to jump at the snap to rob Denard of time.  They've done this a couple years now.  Blocking "better" doesn't fix it.  The wideouts don't have time to stretch the field vertically, so horizontal is the way to go.  The conventional answer to a blitz is to dump the ball to the RB in the flat, but in a spread that's another race to the sideline with a slightly slower player (at best) against a defense on high alert for that sort of motion.  The bubble screen (among other plays) gets the ball outside where the defense is containing before they can start the footrace to the sideline.  It's always open because the defense has picked its poison and Borges won't use it.

"I’m going to start giving her like a word a day. ‘Condescending.’ ‘Exasperate.’ Stuff like that, you know."

You know where this leads. . . he's going to start having his daughter handle the MGoQuestions about bubble screens.

The question about last year's edge contain wasn't Heiko (assuming there's no mistake).

I do think Heiko deserves credit for pushing the group out of the gossip fluff drama crap.  It's obvious this blog leads by example, and when you ask technical questions to get the coordinators' eyes to light up, eventually everyone else figures out, "Hey, maybe instead of asking about Fitz's suspension for the eleventillionth time I should ask a real question and maybe I'll get more than a two-word answer."

I'm at work so I can't replay the vid, but if we're talking in general. . . it's because they're not athletic enough.

A rule of thumb -- just a rule of thumb, mind you -- is that if you're gonna draw up movement on your O-line, the lines need to be roughly the same length.  This is because it takes time to, you know, put one foot in front of the other in what's known as "running".  So a guy who has to run six yards to get into position is going to do it in twice the time as the guy running only three, and if you don't time your contact precisely the play is dead behind the LoS.

Sorry if that came off as patronizing; I don't do this snarky style as well as Seth.  Point is, a lineman that can pull needs to be exceptionally quick for his size because of the distance he needs to range to reach the point of attack.  Not everyone can do this so I marvel at Borges' audacity to keep talking about execution.  This is an example of a pull:

It's actually a play action, but the O-line movement is the same for the base play (duh).  What should immediately pop out is just how far the left guard has to run just to reach his assigned gap.  IF your back rumbles like a locomotive and IF the goal is to push strongside for 4-5 yards, this is classic MANBALL, and that's fine.  I presume the RT takes on the SAM, which means the pulling guard's assignment is typically a ILB or safety who loses a step reacting to the play and has farther to go to get to the point of attack.  The unblocked weakside pursuit will be trailing the tailback whose job is to take a few steps and fall forward anyway -- tackling him from behind doesn't stop the play from achieving its goal.  The problems are this:  One, the tailback here is Fitz.  He's a speed demon, not a tank.  Even with a guard quick enough to pull properly, this burns rubber as well as a sports car tailgating a Mack truck.  Two, teams will often roll up the safety, blitz with a corner or use a robber to stop the run.  End result?  The defender reaches the gap before the guard does, the ball carrier's speed is neutralized going behind the late guard, and now you have all this speed in the backfield with nowhere to go.  Sports car stuck in traffic.  You don't really need to worry about the play action either; the same defensive alignment gets you a blitzer in the backfield because Fitz can't block and Smith can't run.  You can pretty much tell what Michigan's going to run (or fail to execute) by watching who lines up next to Denard.

I'm gonna say it:  It's a stupid, stupid, STUPID use of personnel.  It's not the guard's fault he's slower than Fitz.  You can't execute or drill or technique or "block better" into making this work with this team.  Even with an All-American left guard, you can't make this play work unless something weird happens (Fitz does something silly, a linebacker slips and falls) but that's not what you'd call a well-executed play.  With a true MANBALL team it's tough to stop, but with this crew it calls upon players -- including the defense -- to traverse distances inversely proportional to their speed.  The slower they are, the farther they have to go and vice versa.  The only way to make it work in order is to do it in slow motion but defenses won't cooperate.

What I REALLY don't get is that even if Borges doesn't see this on tape, Mattison should be destroying this play in practice.  Why are they still using it??

Would you have called a timeout earlier?

“Heheheh. Heh.”

/ Am I too old?

His adjustment last week was bigger than most people think.

The wideouts start out playing close to the sideline, which limits their lateral movement somewhat.  Sure, they can juke outside, but if you don't bite too hard you can pretty much box them out of the play.  They can move inside but that's where you want to be anyway.  What makes the cornerback's job difficult is that they're matched up against the best wideouts with a law book's worth of rules on how not to breathe on them.

A nickelback's job is similar but the challenges are different.  They're usually matched up against the opposition's 3rd or 4th best receiver, generally shorter and often not as fast.  However, the slotback can take screen passes behind the line, move in either direction, cross the wideout's route or also head upfield.  You're trying to maintain perfect positioning against a guy who can move in any direction, at any time.

When you go from playing nickelback to cornerback, and mind you Avery had taken a lot of game snaps as a nickel, you'll probably start out too conservative.  You'll be ready for those underneath movements and then this speed demon four inches taller than you just burns down the field.  You run all out to catch him, and then he jukes, and you break your ankle trying to follow.

No one should be shocked that Avery blew coverage.  He probably got too specialized, but the jobs aren't THAT different.  It's difficult to suddenly adjust to in-game but easy to transition to with practice.  He'll be fine.

I mixed up the blocking, yeah.  Also, if the QB rifles the ball to the receiver right out of the shotgun, yeah, there's nothing the CB can do if he's 6-10 yards back.

Need moar caffeine

Denard's longest run of the game was 9 yards.

They had 2-3 defenders dedicated to containing him all game.  They didn't sack him until the 4th quarter because our pass protection was good; they didn't sack him because containment is how you stop a guy like Denard.

I agree with Borges that the way to beat Alabama is to stretch the field vertically.  They played Cover-1 and trusted their corners.  Against Michigan's better passing teams that would've been shredded like taco meat.  With 8 guys out to stop the run, you don't run.  You HAVE to execute against that sort of pass coverage, but Michigan just wasn't good enough.  A successful defense forces an offense to play away from their weaknesses not with talent, but by forcing them to make decisions.  Alabama can do that without even putting 8 in the box, has been doing it for a couple seasons now.  They keyed on the run, but they didn't need to bring up a safety.  8 in the box is what a weak defense does to stop the run.  This was Alabama.  You don't run at the #1 run defense dedicated to stopping your run just because they're not overplaying the run like Southwest Basketweaving U.  If you refuse to see that, you're being stubborn.

The problems were that Denard's a mediocre throwing QB, Borges' read option has been scouted since forever and he refuses to change it, Vincent Smith has no weapons and Borges called only two bubble screens.  Basically, Borges had little to work with against Alabama's balanced (6 in the box) defensive sets and castrated what little he had.  Denard can't thread a needle like Tom Brady and Smith can't make the first defender miss like Toussaint.  (I'm not questioning the suspension, but you can't pretend Smith is Toussaint.  That's being stubborn.)  Borges' read option is the easiest thing to defend with Smith on the field (take away the edge with the DE they're going to block ANYWAY, force the handoff, unblocked defender greets Smith at the hole), and he threw two bubble screens.  Borges likes to say you take what the defense gives you, but he didn't do that.

He was going to throw against their run defense and run against their pass defense, which looks good on paper but for an OC that's backwards.  It assumes the defense will overplay your strengths, but again, that's a sign of weakness.  Borges was gonna throw if they showed 8 in the box but ANY OC can make that call.  A Northwestern or Minnesota has to pick its poison before the offense even lines up.  An elite defense starts with a balanced set and adjusts to what's working.  The ONLY way to loosen one up is to force the adjustments.  You HAVE to execute anything that isn't completely shut down.  Borges pretty much said so himself, so we agree here.  He failed because he called plays that asked too much of his players (read option) and not enough of those that didn't (bubble screen).  That allowed Alabama to dictate the terms of the running game, leaving Borges with the high-risk-high-return Hail Marys, which got Michigan two TDs but also got them two picks.

AFAIK scheduling this game had nothing to do with the current crew.

Michigan's never been afraid to schedule a tough opponent.  They don't go out of their way to make every game tough, but one challenge a year is pretty typical.

If anything, I think Alabama saw an opportunity to smug up its SEC superiority against a big-name program while it was struggling.  IF this game was decided on like most OOC dates, it was scheduled in the darkest months of RRod's tenure when Alabama was already an established power.  They couldn't know RRod would be fired, but even in the best  circumstances Michigan wouldn't have been expected to be ready.  Alabama wasn't expecting a pushover, but it wanted a winnable game against a famous program.  Not sure what our AD was thinking, but I won't assume it was cynical.

Credit to these coaches, they didn't shy away from the challege.  And I agree with Mattison; with better execution they could've made a game of it.  As it is they're making the most of it.

Hoke/Borges swore to keep Denard healthy and that's what they're doing by blocking the DE.  Being generous I'd call it conservative.  But really, taking a MANBALL approach to a read option is really just thinking like the fastest QB in the country can't beat a DE in a foot race.

Hey, Alabama's DEs are good, and sure if they hit Denard they might take him out of the game in one play.  If.

IF.

Seriously, Borges thinks Denard can't outrun a DE??

Teams have had Borges' read option figured out for months now.  Saban wasn't being brilliant; he saw how half the Big Telewelve has been getting the ball out of Denard's hands all last season.  The only reason it didn't work so well was that Toussaint turned into another guy who can juke the first defender to reach the backfield.  When Toussaint got defenses worried about him, he made the DE's job very hard.  But Toussaint wasn't playing in this game.  I love Smith on passing downs but he is NOT the sort of tailback who scares Alabama in a one-on-one situation in space.  Even with short notice Saban could've adjusted with a 30-second chat with the playside DE.

Here's the "kill Borges' read option" recipe:

1) Make the edge "unclean", forcing Denard to hand off.

2) Take out the lead blocker.

3) Profit.

At that point all the blockers are blocked, the ball's out of Denard's hands and there's nowhere to go.  Denard's now irrelevant so in an 11-on-11 game with the CBs playing man you have a free guy who can fly into the seam.  THAT is why you "option" off a defender.  It's not to mess with the safeties; it's to equalize the numbers in a running down.  Michigan can still break for big yards if Toussaint (when he plays) does silly things with his feet, but even then the defense has done its job -- the back has to dodge an unblocked tackler in a tight space just to reach the line of scrimmage.

Too hard to evaluate the Top 10 what with so many teams scheduling games against Sycamore U.  My opinion of that practice has changed over the years, but it seems teams have REALLY gone out of their way to schedule cupcakes over the last five years.

As for ranking Michigan #25, if that's an overcorrection, I'm fine with that.  My favorite Michigan teams were all underrated.  Michigan tends to play better as an underdog.

They didn't just bowl us over with superior talent.  They knew what to do:

"Their nickel or their safeties, you could action the other way, they weren’t moving. They were waiting. It could have been the backer, depends if they dropped the safety down or the backer out, drop the safety inside -- they weren’t moving. That’s where we have to hit a couple of those throws when we do throw the ball, when we take that out of them."

One tendency of Hoke/Borges is to not play away from the team's weaknesses.  I wouldn't necessarily call it a flaw, as having faith in your players is how you get them to play at the absolute best of their ability.  It's more a long-term approach.  There's something to be said for it in close games.  But against superior talent, it's a luxury you can't afford.  It was obvious that Smith didn't have the power or speed to beat them, and Rawls was even worse.  By keying even the secondary on Denard, they forced the handoff on the read option and chased Smith to the edge.  There's believing in a player and then there's being stubborn.  Smith got the edge exactly once and that's only because Alabama lost track of the sideline.  Not a good payoff for 19 handoffs.

Alabama basically gave Borges & Denard the short pass (including the bubble screen) knowing Borges didn't want it and Denard couldn't make it.  It's the sort of alignment that a good drop-back passer would've absolutely shredded, but that's where it pays to be honest -- Denard is more leg than arm.  Alabama had the offense's weapons all figured out and allocated their assignements perfectly.  The only way to open up that defense is to stretch it vertically and that led to two touchdowns, but it also led to a pick.  High risk, high return.  Thing is, it's a given their defense was gonna be good (I really do wonder why the media kept making a deal of their inexperience).  It was the mistakes, the picks and missed tackles that blew the game open.

I know Borges likes to keep things balanced, but here's where I would've preferred a "what it takes" mentality.  He doesn't follow his own advice.  I also disagree with Brian that their passing numbers mean they didn't run Denard enough.  Denard wasn't going anywhere; his longest run was 9 yards.  Denard didn't run because Alabama had locked down the read option.  If the safeties are keyed on the run (and we knew going in Alabama likes to play Cover-1 FFS) then throw it 40, 50, 60 times -- as many times as necessary.  I do get that their CBs were good but those were the ONLY one-on-one matchups on the field.  It's all the defense was giving us.  HALF of Michigan's yards came on three pass plays.  It might've led to more picks (and a worse final score) but it was the only way Michigan was going to score.

I understand the sentiment; you're basically thinking like a patient fan, right?  Our expectations for this crew may have been too high.  It's unrealistic to expect Hoke and this crew to play with essentially an NFL farm team.  Give 'em another couple of years and we'll see where we're at.

I get that, but Denard and the other seniors don't have those couple of years to wait like we do.  This was their only chance to beat Alabama.  Next year's incoming freshman class doesn't have anything to do with THIS team, and this is where I respect Hoke the most.  He's already recruiting for 2014, but he's putting all his coaching effort into THIS team.  We know full well these guys aren't the most talented in Michigan history (far from it, really), but Hoke is about THIS Michigan team.  He is going to try to win every game with THESE guys.  And damn if he didn't get closer than I thought.  Honestly.  I'm still waiting for someone to call me out and say I'm crazy for thinking Michigan had a chance, but re-watching the same ugly everyone else saw, I can't help but think what could've been.  I remember hearing all week the coaches saying consistency is an issue and the kids are trying hard.  I don't expect Denard to thread needles the way Tom Brady did, but he could've at least avoided not throwing the ball RIGHT AT a defender.  I don't expect the linebackers to bring the ball carrier down at the LoS every play, but seeing them constantly miss arm tackles was frustrating.  Expecting them to play perfectly in Week 1 may have been too much to ask, but it's easier to ask someone to be perfect for an hour than to ask them to simply be more talented.

I didn't expect or ask for a Michigan win; I had a pretty good idea what they were up against.  What I wanted was a memorable game.  The last thing I wanted was sloppy play reducing Michigan to just another stop along the way.  The good news is that "sloppy" can be fixed, so there's no need to wait another couple years to see this team do special things.  Moments like Devin's TD catch or BWC's sack. . . these guys didn't own us, sodamn wouldn't it have been nice to make 'em sweat.

These guys were never in the talk for the national title.  Nor am I really thinking about the Big Telewelve championship, to be honest.  I'm just looking forward to seeing what these kids do, and believe me when I say that'd be the case even if they were title contenders.  I want them to win every game, but it's really about seeing them grow every down.  If I wanted to watch flawless execution and worldly talent I'd watch the NFL.  They're not the most talented team, but they're Michigan.

Hoke's bringing in quality recruits precisely because of his approach.  I don't have much respect for those who envy scum for their shortcuts.

This year's team was thin going in and we all knew it.  Second, it's kind of hard to win a tough game if you throw three picks.  Without the freebies the damage isn't nearly as bad.

If we didn't play the game the right way, the team might be doing better, but then I wouldn't be a Michigan fan.  Not that my opinion counts for anything, but there are plenty of dirty teams to root for if that's what you want.

/ Edit:  Uprating your post.  The hell, guys; you can't see a very obvious venting when it's right in front of you?

Virginia Tech dominated the line last year (granted it's because Molk and RVB were injured) and still lost.  It's a big thing, but it's not everything.

I watched the game on-line afterward expecting to see a slaughter.  It actually wasn't, so much.  We always said from the start that if we don't limit turnovers this won't even be a game.  Denard basically gave Alabama two free touchdowns.  Turning those turnovers into touchdowns is far from automatic, but consider if we take away those two picks and replace them with TDs.  Final score is. . .

Michigan 28, Alabama 27.

Now, for a reality check.  Alabama didn't pull all its starters, but it certainly eased off the gas once they were spotted a 21-point lead.  Second, while Alabama's inexperienced secondary got exposed as vulnerable to the big play, it's still quite unlikely Michigan would've scored two more TDs that day.  Alabama controlled the tempo from the opening kickoff to the last whistle; this was their game to lose and they did nothing in particular to lose it.

All that said, this wasn't a beat-down so much as an implosion.  Not that that's good news -- Denard is still throwing picks, Bellomy has the absolute worst possible rating (-200) and interception rate (100%) a QB can possibly have, and now we have sloppy tackling to go with our list of problems.  It was ugly.  My point is that the media is going on and on about how Michigan got dominated.  I disagree.  Michigan was overmatched, sure, but that was a known factor going in.  The line got pushed around much like they were against Virginia Tech, but the linebackers were usually where they needed to be and overall I was pleasantly surprised by the pass protection.  Granted it was partly because of Alabama's contain strategy, but Denard didn't get sacked until late in the fourth quarter.  They had a chance after all; they just didn't do what they had to do to win.

The silver lining is that you can fix problems on execution, and we have a great staff for doing just that.  Denard may always be a pick machine, but we probably could've stopped half of Alabama's scoring drives with better tackling and you KNOW Mattison isn't going to leave that issue unaddressed.

To heck with this game, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  But as far as the rest of the season goes, I'd have been more worried if Michigan just flat-out looked lost.  I wound up seeing a team that would've fared a lot better if not for mistakes that can and will get corrected over the course of the season.

Denard.  Alabama can play disciplined defense but it's hard to catch talent.  Lesser teams had as many as EIGHT guys within five yards of the LOS to contain Denard and they did, but that allowed Borges to tear up the softened pass coverage (when he wasn't in the damn power I, anyway).  The key to stopping Denard is pressure -- he's hesitant to run and makes mistakes when he throws -- but I'm hoping he's improved with a second offseason working with Borges.  Practice time counts for a LOT between a QB and an OC.  Anyway, I don't care how good Alabama's D-line is; trying to stop Denard with a 3-4 means you'll need a DE to catch him on more than one occasion.  That will NOT happen.  They won't need 7-8 guys in the box either, but Denard should force them out of their base formations and that's when things will get interesting.

Kovacs.  Not surprising I'd mention the co-captains, but when Kovacs is given room he almost never misses a tackle, even at full speed.  Last season Mattison quickly noticed it and used all sorts of packages to get Kovacs to the ball.  He's not the strongest or fastest guy on the field, but what I marvel most about him is he's so consistent.  His positioning is almost always perfect, he takes great angles and pursuit speeds and he always hits the ball carrier with the right move.  Go for the sideline and he'll shove you out.  Try to juke him and he'll barrel into your knees.  Try to power through him and he'll wrap you up perfectly -- you may get a couple extra yards, but that's all he's giving you.  He's enough of a playmaker that teams drew up and executed plays specifically designed to draw him away from the point of attack.  With Kovacs taking away the freebies, Alabama is content to grind out yards but that plays right into Mattison's hands.  Speaking of which. . .

Mattison.  Alabama is what Michigan was in the ye olde days of Yost -- they had the talent to beat anyone and rammed it down your throat.  But they're not cocky; they're fundamentally sound and execute well.  They're not stubborn or overly predictable, either.  They may not throw to the post route often, but they will the first time you fall asleep covering it.  That's naturally why everyone's cautious about Michigan's chances.  But they don't have Mattison, who may well be the best defensive coordinator in the country.  This guy has experience stopping the best offenses in the NFL.  Alabama's O-line can handle just about any standard D-line attack in the book, but if anyone can prepare a scheme they aren't ready for, it's Mattison.

If Denard's dual-threat attack can shake Alabama's D out of its comfort zone and Mattison finds a way to confuse the O-line so they can't rely on athleticism and fundamentals alone, Michigan's got a chance.

Brian's assessing like a risk-averse investor, which is typically a safe way to make predictions.  If you have no info, you're really just guessing.  In my heart I'm doing the same thing to avoid disappointment.

But college football isn't the NFL.  Guys don't start for 5, 7, 10 years.  They graduate and move on.  So every year a number of your players will be untested.  Experience, I think, is somewhat overrated.  Experience helps you recognize stuff you can't taste in practice (as I said in another thread, there is no way Denard can help the defense prepare for a classic pick-'em-apart QB), but good coaches can at least help the kids prepare.  FWIW I know guys in the cubicle world who'll boast of having "over 20 years experience" but they obviously haven't learned anything in the last 19 and a half.

So, a lot of these guys are untested?  Welcome to college football.  It'd be nice to have an entire two-deep of experienced seniors every season but that doesn't happen to ANY team.  Any team we go up against will have the same issues -- or if they DO have an army of seniors, be staring at a mass exodus the next season.

/ "army of seniors" brings up a weird mental image

Michigan's offense was fine in a pragmatic sense -- productive if not perfect -- against ND and Iowa once Borges gave up the power I-form.  MSU was a combination of freak weather and an inability to adjust.  VT was an injury that completely robbed Molk of lateral movement.  So, there were explanations for everything; "lack of talent" was never the limiting factor.  My point is that last year, no defense stopped Michigan by itself.  Either they got lucky or Borges (by his own admission) got stubborn.  So IF Michigan's offense brings its A-game and the defense can hang tough without cracking, they have a chance against Alabama.

But those are the ifs, but we gotta start there or there's nothing ot discuss.  If Borges is dumb enough to try to run right at Alabama's D-line, Denard unleashes the dragon or Michigan's D-line loses its composure, this won't be a contest.

The overall question quality was surprisingly high.  It's not like they kept asking about BWC and Frank Clark over and over.

It's well-known that Mike Martin learned a lot about leverage from wrestling, but the problem with wrestling is that you can use the floor.

Americans often think of sumo as weird, but the fundamentals are very similar to football line play.  You can't give up too much ground (if you step out of the ring you lose), and once you're on the ground you're done.  There is a LOT of emphasis on footwork and hand placement.

The other thing people often don't notice about sumo wrestlers is speed.  People look at the gut and turn their brains off, but even the big guys are deceptively fast.  The biggest wrestlers don't do very well because they lose leverage to the quicker ones.

.  .  . that's just the obnoxious reporters being bitter that Hoke isn't caving into their downright stupid insistence to keep asking about it.  He even said flat-out that he's not comfortable talking about it, but they keep right on asking.  Look, I know it's the media's business to collect info, but it's insulting to think Hoke will finally crack the 1000th time he's asked.

Sorry, I digress.  Channeling my own inner Hoke, I think Toussaint will play -- but won't start.  He'll be forced to sit and stew for a series or two, maybe a quarter or even a half (depending on how well the team does).  The reason for this is that nothing is more agonizing to a player than knowing you can play and sitting on the sideline watching your team struggle.  Not that I think Michigan is cannon fodder for Alabama, but without Fitz they WILL struggle.

But the thing about these sorts of punishments is you can't tip your hand.  He's not keeping the scoop from us or the media; he's keeping it from Fitz.  Fitz isn't a dumb guy; he knows how to wwebsite as on the Internet.  If Hoke tells the media, he's basically told Fitz.  Fitz's punishment is most likely to sit on the sideline and stew, not knowing when he's allowed to play, while Hoke explains that he's watching what could've been if he was just a bit unluckier and got in an accident.  Sort of like "It's a Wonderful Life" where Hoke is Clarence.  For some reason the media is too blitheringly stupid to understand this -- I mean, I don't know what's really going on, but at least I have enough brain cells to know that Hoke is keeping Fitz in the dark.

I really doubt this has anything to do with Alabama or even deception.  Not that my conjecture is better than your conjecture -- well it is, but only because I'm awesome and stuff.

I disagree with the notion that Michigan is poaching recruits -- at least, in any way that affects MSU adversely.  Hoke is primarily going after players that fit his game, and there are millions of kids in the country.  College is more about finding and developing talent; in some cases Hoke's crew discovered talent before the scouts did.

The difference maker isn't that MSU's recruiting will be affected by Michigan, but that Michigan's recruiting has dramatically improved.  MSU could be right where they've been and things still don't look good for them, because -- despite their recent dominance -- MSU still has an insane inferiority complex.  When Michigan does well they don't and it has little to do with in-state poaching.  It's about not setting your own standard.  If I sell Dragonchild (TM) brand chum with the pitch "dogs prefer it over Acme chum" and then some TV show does a blind taste test and my product LOSES, I'm in a lot more trouble than if I just sold my product straight-up.  By making their season all about Beating Michigan, their coach is playing a risky emotional game.  It's a subtle difference, but while Hoke emphasizes beating Ohio, every time he's asked what the team's goal is he's adamantly insisted it's winning the conference.  He wants to beat MSU and Ohio, but he never measures the team based on those results.  On the other hand, MSU went after Denard with a savageness I didn't see in any other game -- not even the conference championship (where that vaunted defense was as leaky as the Titanic) or their bowl game.  In fact, after the Michigan game, their defense allowed 24ppg.  That's a team that doesn't know what it's like to lose to Michigan.  I could be wrong, but by making his team all about this inferiority complex I wonder if he's setting himself up for a disaster come the day Michigan reclaims the Paul Bunyan trophy.

Since the trophy existed, MSU has never beaten Michigan five years in a row.

Of course it's spin.  Few schools will claim to recruit from a position of weakness; they're going to tell every kid they got exactly what they were looking for.  So of course it qualifies as spin, depending who says it.  However, when you say it's a "compromise" it's only in the context that scholarships aren't unlimited -- it's not like Hoke is leaving superior talent on the table, per se.  The distinction here is that Hoke's crew has been reeling in 4-stars like gangbusters.  So when they commit to a 3-star early, frankly, the claim that they "think they're unlikely to get 4/5 stars" doesn't hold water.  The rankings were FP-ed for eff's sake.

This is kind of like, well, we have the budget for a luxury car, but I fell in love with this model and stopped shopping right there.  Unless you're rich you certainly limit your future [car-buying] options, but that doesn't make your early decision ill-advised if you know you made the right decision.  Whether it is the right decision is beside my point, though.  My point is they're taking in guys they want, not necessarily finding the best recruits (though there's strong evidence they're doing that too).  Even a 5-star can flop (*cough*Campbell*cough*).

You're right about one thing, though. . . what matters is the results.  In the end, the rankings aren't going to matter if these teams don't win games.

When Michigan takes a 3-star, it's because they saw something they like.  They're not relying exclusively on ratings, and they're not taking 3-stars because the 4-stars turned them down.  These are both positive developments that indicate the incoming 3-stars aren't necessarily second fiddles.

. . . is to just not tackle with your effin' head.  Honestly, this has been perpetuated by idiot coaches and players.  Not only is it dangerous, it's bad technique.  Any DC that demands, even permits their players to use their head as a weapon should be fired on the spot.  You don't bring down a 200-pound ballcarrier with the lightest extremity of your body.

Some of my favorite defenders are sure tacklers, and AFAIK NONE of them use their heads except to think.  The head isn't heavy compared to a torso, it's an extremity attached by a series of flexible joints.

One example:  Jordan Kovacs is a joy to watch.  He knows how to use his body to bring a guy down.  I majored in physics so seeing him on the field fires vectors in my nerdy brain.  If he has to make a stop at the first-down marker, he'll throw his torso into the guy's chest to absorb all the momentum over a large area.  Against a big dude, he'll barrel into the legs, converting his linear momentum into torque that flips the guy over.  If the ball carrier is near the sideline, he'll deliver a lateral blow that very efficiently knocks the guy out of bounds.  And in the open field, he'll wrap-and-roll with beautiful form.

The problem is that Kovacs' technique isn't desired by modern defenses that expect linebackers and defensive backs to basically stop running backs by themselves, and as close to the LoS as possible (so every yard counts).  Bringing the guy down isn't enough; his forward motion has to be stopped.  To equalize the momentums (and p=mv) they have to make up for any lack of mass with speed, so the punishment they're inflicting on themselves is like repeatedly throwing yourself at a brick wall at full tilt.  Even without direct head impact, the brain is constantly exposed to G-shocks, and the cumulative damage is equivalent to trauma.  This is a major problem and tougher to fix, but when I'm also seeing head hits at the NFL level I can't help but think that no one cares what happens to these people.

But if you're gonna go there, you can't speak for them either.  FWIW, I was in the band so I know pretty well what the road schedule (or lack thereof) is like.

"why would anyone think this year's band would get special treatment?"

Because it was in the contract?  I'm not complaining that I never got to go to a road game outside the Midwest.  But the band can be rather "gung ho" about its duty.  Honestly, Dallas sucks.  But if you're told there were plans to send you somewhere and then you're dropped off those plans like you don't matter, you get insulted.  It doesn't matter if "there" is Detroit or Dallas.  If you hear you were supposed to go, you want to go.  At least, that's the way we saw it when I marched.

"And enough with that contract nonsense, none of you had any idea that was in there."

No we didn't.  I read the whole story all at once, and given the facts at hand I'm pissed they were in the contract and now are getting written off.  I wasn't aware there was some unspoken rule that I had to know some part of the story in advance of others.

Just don't have Dave Brandon effin' lie to me saying he can't afford it.  That's BS.  I may not agree with whatever reasons you're coming up with but at least they make some level of consistent sense.  But these are not the reasons DB is stating.  Don't carry water for this dude when he's making outrageously obvious lies.  He should have the guts to speak for himself.

Michigan's getting a lot of money to play this game and he is nixing pre-existing plans for alleged monetary reasons.  I'm only 5% pissed the team will be taking on Alabama without the band (again, you and I know the band doesn't travel often in the first place) and 95% pissed about the snow job.  Honestly and in all seriousness, he'd do less damage to his rep with me if he just stopped the political BS and just said something like, "Well, I just decided I'm a greedy stingy corporate bastard and don't care about the band so I'm gonna have the team face Alabama without their support to save a measly $400k."  Of course I wouldn't be happy to hear something like that, but at least I'd know what to expect.  You know what I hate about liars?  It's very, very difficult to get anything done around them because nothing they say can be considered information.  It's not ideal, but I can work with an asshole.  Telling me we're getting paid a lot of money but there's no money. . . WTF am I supposed to do with that?

The band, and people who care about the band, are A-OK with the band not being at every road game.

We're pissed because there were real plans to send them, and they got nixed for BS reasons.

You tell the team and fans the band is going with them and then say, "oops, sorry, costs too much" while sitting on an $11 million pile of money, people are gonna be pissed you broke your promise, VERY pissed it's for no good reason and EXTREMELY pissed that you're flat-out lying about it.

Is precisely why I don't like user-moderated forums.

By whom?  You?

Who else should rally the team by playing "The Victors"?  Suggestions?

"At Oregon — like Baylor, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, and so on — unless a play is really a disaster they simply run the next play and make corrections in the film room or after practice or before the next one, just as it is with a game. As Sam Snead once said, “practice is putting brains in your muscles,” and the up-tempo no-huddle makes practice all the more efficient at doing just that."

NO IT DOES NOT.

OK, the idea that no-huddle forces defenses to make less substitutions and adjustments is compelling, but now we're getting into BS territory here.  If someone makes a mistake you don't correct it?  Well then they'll just keep on doing that mistake until the mistake becomes second nature.  Congrats; one of your players developed a bad habit because you were too busy to fix it when you had a chance.

Practice isn't doing something and then pointing out what went wrong in the tape room.  OK, that happens to an extent, but only because the tape room is where you can do more in-depth instead of real-time analysis.  It's when you're looking for more in-depth stuff.  But a lot of practice is picking up on mistakes and correcting them BEFORE the muscle memory sets in.  Letting guys do their things for two hours just to keep practices moving isn't necessarily efficient if the goal is to improve.  Sure, having the whole team stand around isn't efficient either, but I presume that's why they have position coaches.  If, say, a CB blows an assignment, you can pull him aside for the secondary coach to chat with him while the DC continues with the rest of the squad.

I smell some journalistic embellishment here.

 The players were obviously coached to give non-answers to dumb questions.  Reporters like these are scum, absolute scum -- the line of questioning is one I'm all too familiar with.  If it's not chummy crap no one cares about ("What’s Will like off the field?"), they want the young players to say things so they can play up a scandal:

What areas can the team improve on in the next two weeks?

You talk about expectations for the position -- is it different for the corners?

Can you talk about some of the other corners you’re competing with?

What have you seen from Denard from your vantage point this spring? (Bear in mind they're asking a defensive back)

Which receiver gives you the most trouble in practice?

So there isn’t one guy that gets the better of you in practice and maybe ticks you off a little? You wouldn’t even say if there was, would you.

. . . and that's just one interview.  Who the hell is being allowed to ask this shit??  They'll march down the roster for ten hours in the hopes of finding that one set of loose lips, and the more they're denied, the hungrier they get.  I mean something as simple as "yeah, there was one play where JT got burned by Roy" and they'll be all up and headlines about how the camaraderie is cracking and "so-and-so doesn't get along with JT" and JT is about to drop out of Michigan or something.  So the underclassmen are under VERY strict orders to not get cute with the media.  Note the seniors have a little more leeway (guys like RVB were trusted to talk a little more openly towards the end of the season), while Borges and Mattison can basically say whatever they want.

It's not like I have inside knowledge, but that's exactly how I see their responses being coached.  These answers indicate zero trust that the underclassmen can speak their minds to the media, and with good reason -- questions like these deserve zero trust.  If anything, the whole damn thing was a farce and makes me want to stop living on this planet.  Stop interviewing underclassmen forgodsakes; it's obvious what you're after and it's sickening to watch and HOKE IS ON TO YOUR BULLSHIT.

He knows his players are curious about what the media says about them, so despite what they say, some read the news and word gets around.

It's painfully obvious he's using the "assume anything you say will be read by everyone you know" rule.  He could just talk in platitudes, but instead he's using the media in his own way.

If he wants Hopkins to know he's gained weight, this is one way of getting in his head.

It was the best I could do.

Prolly not the most appropriate content for this blog, but if it gets a few laughs it'll be worth the downrate.

. . . but humans have passed down knowledge from generation to generation using words.  Hoke doesn't teach "pad level" to his recruits by pointing here and there and grunting "ugh".

So, while I'd be the last person on Earth to claim I can properly execute getting off a block, I know what leverage is.

"YOU try learning to do a thing that your brain is sure is going to break your spine."

Well, that's a good way to see it, I guess.

I dunno, maybe it's my physics major brain, but whenever I need any sort of leverage my first instinct is to "get low" and I've never played so much as a single down in pads.  Otherwise you're angling some of your strength upwards and even pushing heavy furniture will "stand you up".  Like with lifting heavy boxes, sure, if you try to use your back it's a great way to blow it out, but this is really about using your feet and legs to exert force horizontally.

I dunno, do we have Will push around a car all day or something?

Everyone wants a line that's big AND fast, and if you had to pick between the two, big generally beats fast on the line.  The reason why is the power running game.  If your line loses to their line, then they can just go "hell with it".  O-line forms a wedge and they just pound up the middle for 3-5 yards every down.  A quick line might have an advantage against the passing game but the offense won't even need it.  If you ever give your opponent the power running game, you lose.

So, with a smaller line, things get a little desperate.  Desperate isn't hopeless, though.  Smaller lines have held their own against larger lines -- don't get me wrong, they're always the underdog -- but you can compensate for small size somewhat with good swarming tactics (e.g., aggressive LB play at the gaps), weight shifting and quick stunts.  If you just attack the blockers, you lose.  But for example, two 250-pound guys will have a huge mass advantage over a 300-pound blocker.  If the O-line sees it coming they'll just push the help out of the play (because one of the guys is sure to be angled away from the ball), so the key is to beat 'em with trickery & technique -- zone blitzes, stunts, etc.  Double-teaming is the O-line's speciality, so you have to play well and keep them off-balance, and that's tough to do for 40+ plays.  But it's been done.  Basically attack the weak spots, which will invariably lead to a lot of weakside pursuits -- but as long as the ball carrier's still behind the LOS, well, that's what your speed is for.

[Citation needed]

I was in the band through '99 and they never, ever once amped us.  That was all lung power, baby.  You DON'T want to amp us because when we spread out over the field there's some sound lag from one end of the formation to the other as it is.  (It's shorter than a second, but long enough to be obvious to even untrained ears.)  If you take that into a mic and play that back you've more than DOUBLED the lag at which point the sound will just smear all over the stadium.  We've played inside domes with disastrous results because you'll be still hearing the same notes up to 3 seconds later when we're already on a different part of the piece.  To this day I hate domes.

The MMB faces the boxes when they play.  The Big House is shaped like a shallow bowl, so before the expansion most of the sound was reflected up into the sky; the planes overhead probably heard us better than the people behind us.  I wouldn't trade the Big House for any other but it's actually a gawdawful place for live music.  The band compensates with some very rigidly drilled fundamentals that at least allows one section to get a "full sound" experience.  (Once a year before the season started we'd practice in an emptied Big House and our goal was to make the sound so crisp you get three echoes despite almost nothing to reflect the sound efficiently.)  What the expansion did is create an acoustic barrier (all that glass y'know) that reflects the sound to the rest of the stadium.  I haven't heard the band since that was built, but I'd love to hear the difference.

When the band rehearses at Elbel Field the sound will ricochet off the nearby buildings and can be heard a half a mile away.  You want to amp that??  We're the MMB for god's sake; we don't need no stinkin' amps.

"the elder McCray (right) was a captain at OSU."

"The Oklahoma and Tennessee offers obviously stand out; despite the lack of an Ohio State offer, McCray was generating national attention when he decided to commit."

Watch your words, Ace.  We don't use that kind of language 'round these parts.

Obviously I rooted for Martin and Molk (though I'm surprised by Hemingway), but I've never been a fan of the Combine because it rewards all the wrong skills.  It's one reason why Ryan Leaf got drafted #2 while Tom Brady was drafted in the 6th round.  Tom Brady was able to add strength and speed to his frame, but you can't give a Wazzu QB brains.  I disagree with the fallacy that draft status has NO correlation with NFL performance.  That said, there are exceptions, and I generally find the exceptions are due to too much attention to the wrong details -- including, but not limited to, the Combine.

It certainly helps that dudes who can play do well at the Combine, and I think that's what we see here with Martin.  That said, a lot of "game speed" and "game strength" are really vision, leverage and decision-making.  You could bench press 400 pounds, but if your balance and leverage are bad, you could by applying as little as half that strength on your opponent.  Mike Martin generally doesn't make that mistake, making his Combine numbers lethal.  You can run through some cones quickly, but cones don't move on their own.  If a DL is constantly having to re-set his feet reacting to the play, "speed" really isn't even the right word anymore to describe just how slowly the lineman moves through the field.  This in part could explain why Hemingway couldn't get separation -- he's got quickness but never had a knack for using it without the ball in his hands.  I don't remember details but I get the feeling he was a "by the book" route runner, meaning he didn't try many moves on the guy covering him for fear the delay would disrupt Denard's timing.  When the ball's already in his hands and there's no more timing to worry about, he's like, "Fark it, now I can do my Barry Sanders thing."

The book on Dontari Poe is that he's basically just a big mauler.  Despite being a Combine freak he didn't really dominate on the field.  He did require a double-team but a lack of quickness meant he could be controlled -- or just ridden out of the play.  Martin didn't get as many reps as Poe, but he's a wrestler -- what muscles he does have will be very efficiently applied in oh so painful ways.  On the other hand, he is short for an NFL tackle, so despite being stronger than many O-linemen he may have problems with leverage.  The mistake here is that NFL scouts will say, "Well, you can develop Poe's quickness but you can't make Mike Martin grow any taller."  That's hypothetically true ONLY if you assume every player out of college can be taught, and scouts really underrate work ethic.  I don't know Poe, but my point isn't to pick on Poe so much as focus on how NFL scouts are often overly optimistic in that "he'll be perfect for me once I change him" way.

I know this essay is deliberately concise to prevent information overload, but I figured I'd add the fun part.

The rock-paper-scissors game is why every team is on the lookout for "playmakers", in as many positions as possible.  The "playmaker" is the freak athlete that transcends the conventional expectations of the position.  When dealing within schemes and constraints, both OCs and DCs make broad but generally safe assumptions about expectations at each position.  These assumptions are based on "matches" and "mismatches".  For example, a defensive lineman covering a receiver on a zone blitz is a band-aid because any receiver is expected to be much quicker and faster -- that's a mismatch.  A defensive lineman will eventually wrestle past a single blocker but "not right away", as that's a match.  Assuming the play happens too quickly for that lineman to do anything meaningful, the OC basically writes off the guy and focuses on someone else.  So when a nose tackle shoots past a playside block and forces a pitch on a speed option, the whole play blows up.  Examples of playmakers:

Mike Martin:  A nose tackle who forces the pitch on a speed option.  Makes QBs get in teh car.  You won't like him when he's angry.  Basically, he forces OCs to double-team him, which severely limits their constraints.  For example, consider the "read passing" scheme.  The core concept is to spread the line ("neutralize line play") and let the play develop, but you don't "neutralize" a line with Mike Martin in it.  He's strong enough to tear past his single block "right away" and fast enough to cause havoc in the backfield before the play develops.  Worst case, the OC has to abandon the spread concept entirely and double-team him.  Michigan's D had other weaknesses that were exploited but consider a single player forced some OCs to cover their playbooks with red ink.

Charles Woodson:  Cover-2 is a common defensive scheme, and like all others, it assumes a CB single-covering a wideout is a mismatch.  Manball defense scissors:  "cover 2 man, meaning the cornerbacks are in man on WRs with safety help over the top. This takes the CBs out of run support but any pass deep is into double-coverage."  Woodson basically eliminated the need for the "scissors" because he could single-cover any single deep threat, allowing the defense to "cheat" on his side of the field.

Braylon Edwards:  The opposite of a playmaking CB is a playmaking WR, of course.  If single-coverage is generally a mismatch that favors the offense, double coverage (of course) favors the defense.  Enter the playmaking receiver, who can catch passes opposing DBs can only wave at.  With pass interference being illegal (and jamming a playmaker not very smart) about the only thing the defense can do is hit the receiver after the catch and pray he drops the ball -- not a very attractive choice for a DC.  They also tend to have breakaway ability so you have to double-cover ANYWAY (or every catch is potentially a TD) but this means the defense can play rock-paper-scissors perfectly and still be unable to stop the offense because you can never completely take away the choice to throw to a playmaking receiver.

Open to discussing other favorite playmakers and what they do to "rock-paper-scissors". . .