2 minute offense
Aside from a couple of wild Denard overthrows, the offensive philosophy employed by M on that last drive should be used as the base offense. Denard's strength as a passer is to give him multiple options, contrary to a really accurate drop back passers who can pin-point a pass to a designated receiver running a predictable route. In addition, take away the time crunch and that type of old-school moderate length pass happy "Charlie Ward spread" gives Denard substantially more lanes to run through with the secondary more focussed on covering multiple receivers spreading the field out. M had some success from the i today with one or two wideouts, but IMO, M should try to spread teams out early and often. The wide receivers are not apt to make the the big play deep off playaction, thus, the threat of the run does not intimidate defenses because there is really no deep threat there. And don't tell me that the success was due to a "prevent" by Iowa, they run the same defense all game.
The offense is searching for an identity. After watching that fourth quarter, I say run the "two minute" from the jump.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:30 PM ^
see:
every loss and comeback win in the lloyd car era
November 5th, 2011 at 5:32 PM ^
You mean the concept that the high tempo spread offense is based on?
November 5th, 2011 at 5:32 PM ^
if i had to guess this was an effort to see if all the pieces were in place to go with the offense Hoke et. al would like to run or if they need to use the crutch (elements of last year's offense). injuries and poor throws didn't help but at times MANBALL did seem to work. in the end, though, i wouldn't be surprised if there's not as much of an aggressive push to force the offense into their scheme moving forward as this loss pushes them to move forward with their best effort. i don't think this was the round peg square hole of 2008 but i think it was a bit of a rush by the coaching staff to do things their way and hope for the best.
on the upside, kovacs came back WAY earlier than i had heard out of practices which was obviously good.
November 5th, 2011 at 7:21 PM ^
is fighting this philosophical battle everyday. During the bye, they clearly re-emphasized the power run game and while they might be slightly better at it as a result, it is still sub-optimal with this roster.
The coaching staff was put in a situation where their comfort zone was a bad match for that of the roster. The fact that the gameplan has leaned to the conservative shows they would like to be able to win a game a certain way and will only revert to alternative plans of attack if need be.
I think the staff feels the multiple formations makes us harder to defend, but really defenses just get a break from Denard.
This loss is on the players and the refs as well, but the offensive staff (we dont know if its more Hoke or Borges influencing the philosophy) is just stubborn.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:33 PM ^
If not the 2 minute offense, at least something to keep the defense from getting a chance to setup. IIRC we ran the no huddle very effectively last year. It's one thing to put Denard under center and try to make him a pro style QB while saying you still encourage him to run when the opportunity presents itself. It's another thing entirely to ignore the fact that tempo is at least a modest part of what made the offense successful last year.
And enough with all the trickeration and putting in Devin Gardner. Just enough already.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:33 PM ^
Interesting idea. Now how do we convince our opponents to run prevent defense for 60 minutes?
November 5th, 2011 at 5:39 PM ^
for being wrong.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:46 PM ^
Yes Iowa was playing prevent defense in a two score game with 10 minutes left. Borges just finally got his head out of his ass. Hopefully he realizes that it actually works and uses it as his base offense from now on like the OP suggested.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:13 PM ^
Thankfully, our coaches arent that insecure. probably why we had the #15 FEI and #8ypp offense going into this week. because they dont listen to internet lombardis, and trust their decisions
im also thankful that they dont feel the need to give you the 95% of the information that goes into their decisions that you are ignorant of. that would be detrimental to the team, and futile
November 5th, 2011 at 6:18 PM ^
I guess the offense that was #15 FEI and #8 ypp was the one we should have ran today, then.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:34 PM ^
Right, because Borges (who got us those stats all year) forgot how to coach this week. Makes sense.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:53 PM ^
apparently he did forget how to coach this week because our offense sucked some major donkey dick today.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:56 PM ^
your highly implausible theory is noted. i remain unswayed that a coordinator that has coached for decades, and provided us with the #15 offense in fei somehow forgot how to coach this week
November 5th, 2011 at 7:02 PM ^
we saw today looked nothing like we had seen all year. Unless you can find another game where Borges called 70-80% i-formation plays for most of the game, and showed a limited number of formations. For most of the year the ratio of Shotgun/Spread concepts versus prostyle concepts has been reversed, in comparison to what we saw today. I don't how it can be stated any simpler, this team is not built to run the i-formation as their primary formation, but yet Borges tried to make them something that they aren't through the first 3 quarters today.
And it's not like Borges called a particular good game against State either, when he didn't do anything to counter their blitzes.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:22 PM ^
Michigan State is the only team other than Iowa that we have played that has a pulse. I am going to guess those offensive numbers are going to go down quite a bit by the end of the game.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:24 PM ^
ypp will drop, but not by THAT much. fei, in theory, adjusts for the strength of opponents, and will also drop, but not by THAT much
November 5th, 2011 at 6:28 PM ^
of an opponent is Iowa at 6-3 with losses to ISU and Minnesota and defense that has been shredded by nearly everyone they have played...except us?
November 5th, 2011 at 6:33 PM ^
Right. Thats why FEI will go down. It wont go down THAT much because that is just one data point out of 9 so far
November 5th, 2011 at 6:25 PM ^
run the same type of offense today as they did to achieve those numbers in earlier games, not the watered down predictable i-formation offense we saw for most of today.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:22 PM ^
seeing as how our qb is not a prototype pinpoint pocket passer. It would be nice to see him work on getting Denard into some kind of an offensive rhythm instead of trying to exclusively outscheme defenses. Denards rushing has gone waaay down lately as well. Too far down. That is not so good. It is good to see him making adjustments when things aren't working.
November 5th, 2011 at 11:19 PM ^
but you pick the pace of the offense up so the defense can't get set or substitute. This can happen anytime during the game and we are pretty good at it....at least we were last year. I guess we are content to score 16 points against an average defense.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:37 PM ^
was not in a prevent defense. Please become familiar with what a prevent defense really is before stating that a team was playing it.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:02 PM ^
meh, thats a semantic argument. can you point out some blitzes that they ran before the smith drop?
November 5th, 2011 at 6:16 PM ^
you point to some blitzes they were running at all, the entire day? A prevent defense employs like 6 defensive backs. Often a defensive lineman drops back into coverage in a prevent. Pull up M v. Colorado 93 on the last drive. That was a prevent. Iowa had the same personnel on the field that they had the rest of the game.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:22 PM ^
Yes, I can. They ran corner blitzes often, especially on third downs. I remember some zone blitzes to get pressure in the middle during most of the game. They brought the house on all 4 downs at the end when they stoped us. But again, semantics. Iowa pretty much never changes their personnel/scheme. But sometimes they blitz out of it, and sometimes they run a sagging soft zone, like they did when we moved the ball at the end.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:26 PM ^
Iowa would be the first team in the history of college football to drop into a prevent defense up 2 scores with an entire quarter left to play
November 5th, 2011 at 6:32 PM ^
A) You may want to reread the OP/title of the thread
B)Lloyd Carr says "hi!" /bitchy um fan circa 2000
November 5th, 2011 at 9:12 PM ^
I don't care what the OP/title of the thread is, that doesn't change the fact that Iowa was never in a prevent defense
November 5th, 2011 at 6:21 PM ^
idea what Iowa likes to do on defense? They aren't a team that blitzes, in fact they are a team that seldom blitzes and rushes four for the most part and keeps both safeties deep. That has been the style of defense they have played for several years now.
Argueing that Iowa was playing prevent because they didn't blitz makes no sense, since Iowa rarely blitzes even in non two minute situations.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:26 PM ^
Its not like its impossible to blitz out of a cover 2. But thats just one example. if you dont think they were playing soft zone, playing off receivers, and keeping everything in front of them on that drive, i dont know what to say
November 5th, 2011 at 6:31 PM ^
see those corner blitzes your refering to. It looked like typical Iowa to me. And they also moved the ball relatively easily to cut the game to 8 points, so it wasn't like the final drive was the only drive they had after spreading Iowa out and stopped trying to a power i-formation team(which they aren't).
November 5th, 2011 at 6:40 PM ^
Again, blitzes are just one example. But I'm not sure how you watched all the plays and missed the corner blitz that Speilman specifically pointed out, for instance (which was picked up by Smith)
November 5th, 2011 at 5:38 PM ^
What's this eye u speak of
November 5th, 2011 at 5:39 PM ^
My bad. The beer is flowing at an unsustainable pace right now.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:59 PM ^
For all of us my good man. For all of us.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:42 PM ^
Look, Denard is our best runner. Granted we don't want to run him so much he gets hurt. But, he is best running (and throwing for that matter) from the spread option or scrambling on a pass play. If we set him up under center it takes away our best weapon, Denard running. And, Denard is not good enough of a passer nor our recievers good enough, nor our line big enough to be effective with him under center. That only works against inferior teams. That will never work against the Nebraskas, OSUs, MSUs, Wisconsins, PSUs etc of the B1G. Sheesh
November 5th, 2011 at 5:44 PM ^
Don't forget that Iowa's 2 minute defense played a big role in that. Iowa was purposely sitting back and keeping everything in front of them which is why moving down the field at the end looked so easy.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:50 PM ^
Fucking exactly! Goddammit. So sick of hearing about how easy it is to move the ball in our old offense and how shitty the new one is. It's not that black and white. They were giving us some room, trying not to give up a big play.
November 5th, 2011 at 5:55 PM ^
M was running in the last eight minutes of that game had almost nothing in common with the offense they ran the last 3 years. There are multiple base looks out of a "spread" package. That was not RR's offense, it was close to a polar opposite.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:04 PM ^
when they cut it to 8 as well. The fact of the matter, is that Iowa is a team that plays like that for the entire game. They generally only rush 4, keep both safeties back and try and keep plays in front of them. There are one of the more conservative defenses in the country, conceding intermediate and short plays to prevent the big play.
Michigan should have been spreading them out before the fourth quarter, as there was a clear difference when they went to the Shotgun and spread the field. Trying to run a power I--formation through the first three quarters was not getting anywhere, and this team is not built for that. It made no sense whatsoever, and wasn't what we had seen for most of the season.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:11 PM ^
that the invincible spread offense from last year generated, oh yeah, LESS points throughout the first three quarters of last year's Iowa game at home than this year's offense did on the road.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:20 PM ^
yes, idiot. With the 108th defense in the country complementing them and incompetent special teams as well. This makes a difference. If you give Michigan the field goal they missed, they had more points.
Fact is, Michigan running RRs offense + Mattison's defense wins against MSU and Iowa this year. It's sad that they could not be found in the same year.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:30 PM ^
ah, the ad hominem, perfect for when youre too lazy to look up number of drives and average field position
i think you are confusing fact with opinion
November 5th, 2011 at 6:31 PM ^
Please don't even get started on this.
I actually went over this exact game last year documenting our terrible field position, number of drives, etc. in the comments of someone's diary.
I'm not going to do it again.
In short, you are wrong.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:36 PM ^
then it should be easy for you to find, and make an actual point. instead you chose an ad hominem attack. you can beg me all you want, its not going to stop me from pointing that out
November 5th, 2011 at 6:45 PM ^
Here is an actual point:
It doesn't matter, but something tells me that Denard and co. in the offense they ran last year, coupled with this year's defense, would have won their two close losses. Why, you ask? Because having a second year in the same system with a maturing quarterback seems like it would be progressive, whereas learning a new one breeds the potential for regression.
And, the reason for the idiot, was because the post I responded to was the usual drivel that takes nothing into account but the usual "durr, spread can't work, big ten = nfl+" attitude".
I negged you because you added nothing to the conversation.
Hope everything is cleared up.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:50 PM ^
So you are confusing fact with opinion. Thanks for clearing that up.
Your justification for attacking him personally rings hollow. If his argument is so weak, and you choose to respond to it, the absolute worst way you can do so is with an ad hominem attack. It is neither productive nor polite.
I never asked, nor do I care, what anyone votes on anything.
November 5th, 2011 at 6:56 PM ^
I just don't necessarily consider the phrase "fact is" anything but a turn of phrase.
And please, stop using ad hominem because you think it makes you look smart. Three posts in a row is quite enough. I get it.
The "attack" - as your dramatic 15 year old girl brain deemed it - was followed by reasons in the original post, based upon last year's special teams and defense.
You clearly do care, as you made a point to mention it.
Case closed.
November 5th, 2011 at 7:03 PM ^
more personal attacks, awesome. wanna know how i know i'm winning this argument?
can you point out where i made a point to mention it? i suspect that you confused the word "beg" with "neg", which does not surprise me at all, its consistent with everything else you have said here
feel free to continue trying to redefine the word "fact" though
November 5th, 2011 at 7:17 PM ^
I understand what you are saying. Iowa was not exactly bringing the heat big time in the last few minutes, and I understand the Hoke is trying to bridge the gap between what was and what is to be. But the fact of the matter is that Denard has proven entirely more effective this year in what can be described as playground football, muttiple receivers, multiple routes. It severely limits the defenses ability to blitz because there is one or two dump off routes immediately available due to the blitz. And if they bltiz from the wrong place, TOUCHDOWN SHOELACE. At the beginning of the year, OK, install the offense of the future and pay your dues. But we are in the hunt for a substantial bowl game right now. It is time to conform the offense to what has worked so far this season.