In defense of Borges
First, Michigan scored 34 points in regulation. I don't think anyone was unhappy with how the 3rd quarter worked; despite the 1st half, we were in a position to win. Then, we put on the brakes, which presumably gave the game away. Let's see how that worked.
with 6:35 left in the game, Michigan led 34-27. Herein lies the following drive:
7 rushes, 1 pass.
What did this "putting on the brakes" do?
It gave us the ball on the PSU 28 yard line, on first down, with NO PSU timeouts left. The time read 3:10.
We ran twice, for 1 total yard; there were less than 2 minutes left and Michigan was within field goal range at the 29.
I just don't understand how this could be construed as a failure. We took off 4 minutes left, and drove to within field goal range; if we made the field goal then the game is effectively over as we're up by two scores with less than 2 minutes left.
The failure:
Michigan then takes a delay of game. (Blame goes equally to Borges, Gardner, and Hoke). The DOG makes it 3rd and 14 from the 32 yard line; there are 80 seconds left and PSU has no timeouts. What would you do here? an incomplete pass gives PSU 30 more seconds, a QB draw is OBVS(!), and a run is also OBVS(!).
Borges chose to run it, and we lost 3 yards, taking us out of field goal range. Yes, this was a problem, but I think it follows sound game theory. A run takes the clock down to 50 seconds, and the punt means PSU has to drive it 80 yards, with a FRESHMAN QB. I mean, everything had to go perfect for us to lose. Playing not to lose isn't really a bad strategy when everything has to go perfect for you to lose. I don't think too many people were moaning about the choice to punt it after the failed run.
OT
Then, people are bitching about the OT. In OT #1 and #3, all we had to do was make a field goal. I don't know what everyone's seeing, but I still think that game strategy dictates that you just take the 3 free points and go home with a win. The fact that Gibbons missed/had blocked 2(!) field goals is not on the play calling.
OT is really what gets me. How does a pass, an end around, etc improve our odds of winning? We've got one of the best FG kickers in Michigan history, and were out around 25 yards. Of course, a TD could win it; DG also has 3 TOs at this point. Why not just take the easy 3 and go home?
October 13th, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^
The delay of game was criminal - I DO NOT blame Borges on that, it was Hoke and Gardner. Hoke is essentially a viewer/spirit coach at that point as he has reliqnueshed all control to Borges so the least he can do at that point is watch the game clock. PSU coach ran on the field at one point in the OT to call a time out and Hoke did not have situational awareness to make a TO call that cost the team a 47 yard FG chance. Gardner I can at least understand, as a kid in an emotional game... Hoke I do not ESPECIALLY since he does not do play calls. I have no idea if Gibbons would make a 47 yard field goal at that moment but at least it is viable as opposed to a 52 long shot. Hoke simply checked out at that moment and there is no excuse as he is not responsible for thinking ahead to defense play calls when PSU gets the ball back or offensive play calls which he has completely outsourced.
As for Borges there was nothing working in the run game with the RBs. I dont care if you play to kick a field goal - you go for PLAYS THAT HAVE WORKED ALL SECOND HALF. Those plays were DEVIN GARDNER RUNNING. Not Fitz running into the back of his center, guard and tackles for losses. If you do NOT trust Devin Gardner to run in OT you have nothing on offense. Nothing. Every opening play of an OT the PSU team ran for 4-5 yards on 1st down before doing their own stupid things, every opening play of an OT UM ran a play that failed 20+ times during the game.
October 14th, 2013 at 10:15 AM ^
It was 3rd down when we got the delay call, so ON 3rd DOWN it would have been a 44 yard FG. Borges must have choked on his applesauce, and Devin thought he heard Borges call for ANOTHER Fitz run to LOSE 3 more yards. So from a 44 yard FG and A TWO SCORE LEAD WITH LESS THAN 2 MINUTES TO PLAY ... we ended up punting WTF.
October 13th, 2013 at 7:54 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:00 PM ^
One huge assumption that you're making (and that many others have made as well) is that Hoke is "a head coach that refuses to participate at all in the offense." We'll probably never know the extent of his involvement, but I think there's a greater than 50% chance that it is Hoke who is insisting that the offense must first establish the run with manball runs up the middle. That seems to be the primary complaint around here about Borges, and I'm betting that those calls are more due to Borges carrying out the philosophy that his boss wants to see.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:57 PM ^
Not sold on Borges, but I will defend him here.
I've heard him make statements that lead me to believe that he would like to open it up much more than Hoke would. Hoke wants to play to his defense. Borges as a good troop spouts the party line: "A fast paced wide open offense puts too much pressure on your defense".
I'm not buying that he fully believes it.
October 13th, 2013 at 10:33 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 7:56 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 7:57 PM ^
but the fact that we haven't had any semblence of a non-Denard/Devin running game over the past 2-1/2 years is Borges' biggest failure. I say 2-1/2 because Fitz did run for 1000 yards in '11, but there were still some key games, i.e. MSU, Iowa, and the Sugar Bowl where we got absolutely nothing on the ground against less than elite opponents.
Is it the O-line's fault? I don't know, but answer this - when will our O-line/running game be elite? Next year, when we lose our two tackles to the NFL and replace Fitz with... Derrick Green and a black hole???
October 13th, 2013 at 8:21 PM ^
almost entirely
October 13th, 2013 at 9:05 PM ^
I think Borges is a much better than given credit for around here, but this is a fair of critique of all coaches in the chain of command-Funk, Borges and Hoke. They are young which really is a problem in the o-line, but would like to see improvement. At this point, I don't.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:02 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:37 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:44 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:10 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:12 PM ^
Just maybe The Staff saw the Pats game.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:16 PM ^
They're probably wondering why the teams didn't run the ball more.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:16 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:19 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:20 PM ^
IF its Borges calling for Fitz 27 times to gain 27 yards ... that just plain stipidity.
However where's the Hoke that in 2011 would go for it on 4th down from his own 40 or go for the fake FG. He has totally lost his aggressive image and now is simply a kitten ... taking a delay of game from the 27, then losing 3 yards an ANOTHER Fitz carry followed by a PUNT from the 35 .... AND JUST 3 POINTS wins the game putting Michigan up 2 scores with less than 2 minutes to play.
And lets all forget that Funchess scored 2 TD's with passes over 40 yards ... not runs, PASSES. They had single man coverage ALL of our last drives ... passing was the right call - but not this coaching staff (whoever was calling the plays) ...
October 13th, 2013 at 8:21 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:23 PM ^
The thing that kills me the most about Borges is that he is so damn predictable. I would like to see Brian or someone do a play type by formation analysis, so we can see his tendancies. A few that jump out to me are:
Tackle Over: We seem to run power a high majority of the time
Pistol Formation: almost always means zone read. (we did run a PA pass out of this in OT successfully)
Shotgun: the only run plays I remember are inverted veer, QB draw and some sort of QB Counter. I cant remember a single time we handed off to the RB out of shotgun.
I wonder if Al knows you can run zone read, power, and stretch all out of shotgun. They dont have to be strictly under center, or pistol plays.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:37 PM ^
how many first halves were wasted by borges when denard was here playing under center? @iowa, @nw, @msu, both ND games, @osu, ala. there are probably more. luckily we came back @nw and beat ND under the lights when he switched to "denard ball". he's just a stubborn SOB. i think it's pretty obvious to all but him (and hoke) that the offense (despite it's o-line problems) could be much more potent working out of spread formations.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:26 PM ^
I mean, if this is the kind of play we're going to get out of our O-Line when we face ragtag D-Lines, can you possibly fathom how bad its going to get against legitimately good D-Lines when we play MSU and OSU? Gardner will be running for his life all day. If nothing else, we need to make a change at O-Line coaching.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:27 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:29 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:52 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:29 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:33 PM ^
| Team Rushing (Per Game Avg.) | Team Receiving (Per Game Avg.) | TOTAL | AVG. YPP | |
| 2011 | 247.85 | 182.85 | 430.69 | 6.50 |
| 2012 | 183.77 | 199.31 | 383.08 | 5.94 |
| 2013 | 173.17 | 222.67 | 395.83 | 5.71 |
| % Change (11 to 12) | -34.87% | 8.26% | -12.43% | -9.38% |
| % Change (12 to 13) | -6.12% | 10.49% | 3.22% | -3.98% |
NOTE: 2013 averages are to date.
What I find interesting here is that the offense, from a total yardage standpoint, is actually slightly more productive so far than last year, but what the tempo-free tidbit here shows is that we've actually been slightly less productive on a per play basis on average.
Part of this is actually that we're running about five more plays per game typically than last year - if we were maintaining the same average yardage with last year's average number of offensive snaps, we're nearly back to 2011 levels of effectiveness. Considering the injury to Denard and the effect it had on rushing last year and his being graduated in the NFL this year, the drop has been fairly small compared to the previous year.
If you want to compare where were at six game into 2012 season to now, you would find that we were at 2011 levels more or less. The slide began with Michigan State, then Nebraska - actually, those two games dragged down our average YPP more than anything last year.
Where is this going? I suppose that, when I see the data, I see the things that I like about Al Borges and the things I wish he would examine further. I wouldn't count myself in the camp of those who want his head - if you're going to say something like that, say it with a viable plan for replacement in mind, not out of emotion. I would merely put myself in the camp that would like to explore alternatives to the playcalling before exploring alternatives at the position, especially since it might mean a temporary further (and statistically more significant) setback.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:44 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:53 PM ^
Actually, I have the third down stuff in front of me - I'd have to dig for first down stats.
Anyway, our overall average conversion percentage on 3rd down in 2011 was 47.02%, and that jumped to 50.29% in 2012. This year so far, it's 47.09%, so we're back near 2011 levels in a typical game at the moment.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:57 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:06 PM ^
I'd have to find the spreadsheet with the down and distance stuff - I think it is on my personal drive at the office. What I do have, and this is another thing I find intriguing, is that from 2011 to now we're averaging 1.5 more third downs per game and have maintained a relatively stable success rate regardless. In rough terms, we're finding ourselves in 2 more third down situations per game on average and still getting one of them typically.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:21 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:28 PM ^
I think one of the major areas for "closer examination", if you will, is playcalling on first and second down. We're running more plays per game on average this year too, but less effectively, as the chart shows. The areas to focus on, in my opinion, are the offensive line and play selection - at least finding a combination where problems in one are mitigated by changes to the other.
October 13th, 2013 at 10:04 PM ^
The announcer's voice still ringing in my ears three hours after the game was over that kept saying "Third and twelve" is all the answer you need.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:47 PM ^
are the 2011 and 2012 #s for the entire year? if so, in 2013 we've played only one decent defense (ND), so these #s are going to decline further as we go thru the big 10.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:34 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:35 PM ^
"Borges chose to run it, and we lost 3 yards, taking us out of field goal range. Yes, this was a problem, "
not just a problem but a huge, huge mistake. We couldn't run the ball all game long (or all year) yet in a crucial time he decides to have the team do what it is worst at - running the ball.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:57 PM ^
But it could have been worse. He could call a pass play and have Gardner get sacked/stripped, throw an interception, or just throw it away and allow PSU to save time.
What I don't understand is why almost everyone here seems to act like it was a given that PSU was going to drive the length of the field to score right after. I like Mattison but that was a horrible meltdown. The D just had to keep PSU out of the endzone for 50 seconds. If our last offensive drive looks bad, it's because the ensuing defensive possession was infinitely worse.
October 13th, 2013 at 9:02 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 10:14 PM ^
Driving 80 yards in about a minute is not unheard of in CFB. We did it ourselves to ND in 23 seconds.
If you can avoid that scenario by gaining about 5 more yards to try a game-sealing field goal, you do it.
You give yourself two chances to win. If you make the field goal, you win. If you make those five yards and still miss the field goal, you are only about 7 yards worse off than a punt into the end zone. They still have to drive most of the length of the field.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:43 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:52 PM ^
I pretty much agree with all this. You can blame Borges for macro-level stuff like Gardner not progressing more or the playcalling in general, but for this game in particular I don't really understand all the singling out of him. Pretty much every aspect of the team - offense, defense, special teams and coaching (not to mention officiating) did something to lose this game.
October 13th, 2013 at 8:54 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 8:56 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:05 PM ^
October 13th, 2013 at 9:48 PM ^
October 14th, 2013 at 12:15 AM ^
The scary thing is this. Borges is not stupid, some might think it, but he is not. He could see those runs weren't working either. So, if he is not stupid, or has not suddenly forgot to call a game... it means only 1 thing... he has lost confidence in DG to deliver. That could prove to be more serious, then anything else going forward.
October 14th, 2013 at 11:23 AM ^