Recent Comments

I don't have any complaints about the charting of Gardner. I don't think there's any argument that he had a good enough day passing, but not an exceptional one. However, for his first ever start after playing WR all year, I am mentally "rounding up" a bit.

Really though, Gardner's willingness to scramble is what made him more effective IMO in the passing game than Denard. Denard just doesn't scramble, he just doesn't. His worst throws tend to come on plays when he absolutely should be scrambling, whereas Gardner is perfectly happy to tuck and just run somewhere. That's the best way to minimize risk in the passing game really. So to me, that makes Gardner more effective as a passer and makes me optimistic for next year as I think he's a much more natural Borges fit than Denard - Borges will probably be more comfortable next year calling plays with Gardner since passing with Gardner is a bit less risky since he's so willing to just run. I don't think it's dumb for this game to make us optimistic at the thought of a whole spring camp with nothing but Gardner getting reps in an offense Borges is better at managing. 

However, there's no doubt that Denard really does an amazing job at masking our terrible, terrible running game. Gardner can't do that - he isn't the natural runner that Denard is. We're just a totally different team with each QB. Saying Gardner should be our starter over healthy Denard is still stupid. 

I'll be much more bummed if we miss out on him than Green or anyone else. It's been way too long since we've had a true elite WR. 

If Saban can produce some concrete data that shows injuries increase as tempo increases, then I'd be ok with considering something like this. I strongly suspect that will not be possible though, so definitely no, it should not be regulated. 

I will say, despite how frustrating Borges is with the Denard offense, I am at least encouraged about what things will look like in a few years with Shane Morris slinging the ball downfield to big receivers sprung open by Borges Sorcery. I do believe he'll be a good coordinator once the right personnel is in place, but this stopgap time with such a unique player at QB is so frustrating. 

I'm stepping into dangerous territory bringing this up, but did anyone else watch the Oregon/Arizona game and get an enormous sense of deja vu? NOT trying to bring up old debates, and yes I know it's his first year and all that, but I just thought Arizona's performance looked really familiar. In the first half especially they moved the ball at will against Oregon and just couldn't score. I think they were something like 0/6 in the red zone, including weird turnovers, special teams gaffes, failed 4th down conversions, crappy fumble recovery luck, etc. I remember watching the first two drives and being envious of the offense design and thinking how familiar it all looked, and then I saw the repeated collapses and continued lack of points and remembered how familiar that felt too. 

Please, please, please some NFL team hire Chip Kelly. I'm dying to see him take a crappy team and try to go all-in and see what happens. 

Heiko keeps transcribing the bubble screen banter and insisting it's happening, and we keep seeing videos uploaded without that question present. I keep envisioning the press conference ending and Borges running back to the video guy and slipping him a $20 to make sure the bubble screen stuff gets cut out of the video just to troll us all. I KNOW THIS IS WHAT'S HAPPENING. 

Not sure what happened. I fixed some of them and tried to fix the rest and now I can't edit it. Oops. 

So relieved to hear Lewan is fine. Could use some good news. 

This actually reads so much like Brian's writing that I assumed the disclaimer at the top meant Brian wrote it but Ace posted it for him. From seeing these comments though it sounds like I'm wrong. Or maybe I'm just whooshing really hard right now. 

It sounds like this is against protocol, but it's been brought up here, so I'll ask. Can I get a brief explanation of who he-who-shall-not-be-named is and what he's done to gain so much infamy? Yes I plugged his name into the search bar and all I got was a bunch of threads where people were scolded for talking about him. Much appreciated. 

I don't think I really understand the stance of most people here on this kind of thing. I didn't understand the outrage over the Michael Floyd thing, and I don't understand the "he MUST miss several weeks" thing for this. Why is it a necessity that he must miss games for this? You have to consider the following things when determining a punishment:

1) Is this a first offense?

2) How did he respond when confronted, punished, etc? 

3) What were the circumstances surrounding the incident? 

4) How strong of a punishment is necessary to sufficiently communicate that this can never happen again?

If you get the answer to #1-3 and you feel the answer to #4 is something less severe than missing a game, then that's fine with me. Hoke seems like a very smart guy who handles his players well, so I'd trust his judgment. He's a nice blend between no-nonsense but also very human. If he thinks game suspension, great, if not, that's fine with me too because I trust hiim to do the due diligence on the above things. Shrug. 

Someone will give Denard a shot at QB. I think people forget that Denard's numbers in college are actually much more impressive than Vick's ever were at Virginia Tech. Granted, Denard is in an offense that suits him more than VT's suited Vick, but it's not ludicrous for a team to seriously draft him as a QB. Drafting him in the first round to be a QB is probably silly, but given his sheer athleticism I wouldn't be shocked at all to see him go in the 2nd. 

Even if he doesn't work out at QB, anyone with his level of disgusting athleticism will get him a shot as a WR/CB/return specialist. It's the same reason why teams like to draft stud OTs in the first round - even if they "bust" you just move them inside and they're fine. It's low-risk. Denard becomes low risk to some extent in the 2nd round and definitely in the 3rd because if he busts out at QB, you can always have him return punts and try to teach him WR/CB. He'll probably be the fastest guy on your team the moment you draft him, and that's always worth something in the NFL. 

When did anyone talk about 2008? Article never mentions it. It really just talks about the Denard-era offense.

The Datsyuk thing was apparently an old chip of some sort they wanted to clear up before the playoffs. Not major, but also not something they want limiting him or getting worse in the playoffs. 

If you assume 2 non-renewed 5th years, expecting only 3 guys to leave the program in a year is pretty optimistic. I'm not sure how many we're averaging every year, but it's certainly higher than 3. 

He's going overboard and I'm not a huge fan of talking smack like that before you've ever played a down... However, I'd rather a guy be "too enthusiastic" about beating Ohio and all that than not enough. It's a good problem to have, and I'm confident the coaching staff will guide him towards spending that energy on the field instead of yapping too much. He's already my favorite out of this class that's for sure. 

Another factor - this was the first Sugar Bowl in decades that didn't have a top-10 ranked team. This certainly has an affect as well, especially since VT isn't traditionally a big draw for any part of the country. 

Is that Tennessee sucks so badly that a MAC school is probably a bigger recruitment competitor than UM or MSU is anyways. 

Just beause an offense is a spread doesn't mean RB's automatically don't get lots of yards. RichRod had several 1,000 rushing seasons from RBs at WVU. Not all spreads are created equal. The RichRod spread is vastly different from the Meyer spread, which is vastly different from the Okst spread, which is vastly different from the Oregon spread, etc etc. 

Point is, Meyer has never had a 1,000 yard rusher because he uses the RB differently from how Michigan has used the RB. And besides, Dunn may not seriously see the field until we have Gardner/Morris as our QB, at which point he'd be used in an offense that is closer to pro-style anyways. 

It's actually been said this is one of the reasons Meyer wanted out of the SEC - it was so dirty and he hated it. And yeah Florida refused to oversign.

I thought Kovacs comment about the hurry-up offense was interesting - that he felt reducing how frequently they run hurry-up has helped the defense. Not sure you can really make much of it, but it's interesting nonetheless. 

Edit: crosspost with the guy above me

That's awful luck for him, I hope he recovers quickly. I am certainly glad it was just a hand though, it certainly could have been much worse for him. Still, it's always too bad to see a student-athlete unable to play because of a freak accident like that. 

Maybe the title could be it? Perhaps it was an accident, but that's an awful title considering it's VETERANS day. Maybe it's just me. 

Any idea what was up with Borges saying “I’m not saying one thing about any bubble screens.”? Thought that was an odd reaction. Was it a roll-of-the-eyes kind of thing where he thought it was a dumb question or did it seem more like an intentionally cryptic answer so as to not give away future things? Or what?

Just trying to get some insight - as the biggest oddity to me of the offense is Borges seeming unwillingness to check to bubble screen when it's wide open. 

Was the snap timing question asked by Heiko?

Surprised to not see much mention of the offense Dana Holgorsen put together at Oklahoma State (he's working on implementing it at WVU now). It's similar to the Mike Leach style Airraid, although it's got its unique aspects. It's awfully hard to stop. 

This just went from "probably going to buy that" to "pre-ordering it tonight" after reading this and some of the previews that have popped up lately.

Which means there's a strong chance he's cursed and he comes back from his current injury only to get another injury and instantly be medical hardshipped by Nick Saban Memorial Hospital. 

Guessing you meant 4 tds and not 4 yds. ;)

I think it's awesome. 

Talking about divisions specifically makes sense. My initial reaction was just one of confusion since Oregon has been better than USC for quite a few years running now... But yeah - those divisions are pretty clearly imbalanced. 

I forgot how many mediocre teams were in the Pac12. 

Hawthorne really impressed me in the ND game... I mean, he wasn't perfect, but he showed some play-making ability, which is something that you can't say for any of the other WILL guys. 

Email sent. 

Do they have a digital version of the magazine that works for that? I ask because I am away from home pretty frequently, so a digital version is much more attractive to me than the print version. 

When someone refers to 10 personnel, that means 1 rb and 0 te's. So 12 personnel means 1 rb and 2 te's. So that's what Hoke's comment on "4 WR and 10 personnel" was referring to.

But I'm pretty amazed that this whole thing could be written and not a mention of their unique approach at the spread offense. They play a very innovative style of football, and I'd argue that has just as much (if not more) to do with their success than the jerseys they wear. Oregon is never at the top of the recruiting rankings, but dang do they ever know how to use talent.