I've seen the fire in Nuss's eyes. I liked what he was able to do, even if he was throttled by the puppet strings of Master Saban. I believe he really developed AJ McCarron from a player who could reliably hand the ball off and not throw an INT on 3rd down, to a player who could hurt the other team many times during a game. Obviously Bama had big murderous dudes on the OL who could bulldoze with the absolute best in CFB, but just because you have some big athletic guys doesn't mean its automatic pot of gold. I believe they developed those guys with repetitions.
I've seen Borges come trotting out on game day with body language like it was a major inconvenience to detour out of his elevator ride to the OC box.
Borges, in his career, has had wild successes followed immediately by weird fails, in terms of seasons.
I have no doubt Borges was a mad scientist when it came to designing plays...but when it came to the bottom line, so many times it was yang when the defense had bet the house on stopping yang. The young and stirred cauldron of OL players obviously did not help. But I have to believe there was some element of formation or lineup that tipped off defenses over and over. Nebraska players outwardly claimed it.
We will probably never know. Johnny U probably won't get a tell-alll interview with Gorgeous Al. Me, I have faith in Nuss until he proves otherwise.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:08 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 11:31 PM ^
I don't think another guy not getting our offensive line to outperform the statistically second worst offensive line in the FBS exonerates Al Borges. And honestly, this is a really depressing thought experiment.
The Kirby Smart to Florida thing doesn't sound too far fetched, actually.
I dunno, would Florida really go after another highly-touted Defensive Coordinator? I would bet they're gonna look for someone with HC experience
Hard to say ... they might go looking for the second coming of Spurrier / Meyer. Or they might think they can tap into the motherlode of Alabama football. The SEC folks love their defenses, and Kirby Smart is a good DC. Get a good OC to balance him and Florida could work its way back.
If the offense doesn't improve a lot then we might just have to come to the conclusion that the offense just isn't very good.
If the O-Line continues to struggle, then maybe that's on the players for just being bad and the coaching stuff foor doing a poor job of evaluating talent, and/or finding the right talent to fit their system, and/or developing talent.
If they do make vast improvements, all hail Nuss.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:14 PM ^
August 3rd, 2014 at 12:25 AM ^
That's possible, but can you imagine the what the outlook would have been for this season with Borges returning? I think the consensus would have been...not too optimistic.
If the offense does not improve enough, we may have a whole lot bigger fish to fry than Borges.
I did a diary after one of the particularly rough games trying to assign blame one each play that didn't work and IIRC it worked out to about 25% Borges fault. As unscientific and nonrigorous as that was, I think that's about right.
That probably won't mean we'll be 25% better without him. Most of the time, plays failed due to a combination of things so even if the OC called better plays, there's no guarantee someone else wouldn't screw it up. One the other hand, I think some improvement in playcalling and a more consistent approach on offense will likely have a cumulative effect that will allow people to get better throughout the season.
Gun to my head, I think we'll still struggle but have less groan inducing plays. It'll be more of a steady grind type of offense that struggles to make first downs by not getting enough yards consistently each play, rather than an offense that put itself behind in down and distance by shooting itself in the foot with negative plays.
August 2nd, 2014 at 11:33 PM ^
I don't know about assigning random percentages, but yeah, Borges definitely got too much blame last year. The play calling overall wasn't as apocalyptic as people were making it out to be. It certainly wasn't good, at times it was absolutely horrible, and no matter how you slice it Borges is to blame for the offensive struggles last year in one way or another. No tears should be shed over his firing.
I think the reality is though, that the offensive players last year just weren't very good.
Our number 1 receiver was Jeremy Gallon. Our number 2 receiver was Jeremy Gallon. Our third option was an occasional Devin Funchess, who was at times spectacular, but then would have a 1 catch for 2 yards performance and just totally disappear. That was essentially the entirety of our receiving corps.
Our running backs were a horribly out of shape Derrick Green, and Fitz, who started for 3 years but basically only looked good for one half of one season,and failed to recapture the magic from that run he had his sophomore year. The injury could have played a part in that, as well as the offensive line play, but outside of a handful of games (largely against the Indianas, Illinoises and Purdues of the schedule) he didn't produce much.
The offensive line, regardless of whether they were put in a position to succeed or fail, was awful. At a certain point, when nobody is blocking anyone and guys who are supposed to be 4 or 5 star maulers are getting blown off the ball, you have to put it on them. The play calling might not have helped, but it certainly didn't seem to matter. The MSU game can't be put solely on the shoulders of Borges. They flat out got beat on every play. That was something that happened with frightening regularity.
Apparently the players who were supposed to be leaders on the team last year did a very poor job of doing that and setting a good example for the younger players, which probably only exacerbated things.
Devin Garder is a hero and a saint, and the only thing bad you can say about him is that at times he tried too hard to make something happen, and shouldered too much of the load.
To be frank, I'm not that optimistic about the offense at all, which I doubt is a particularly novel opinion. None of the running backs have proven anything. The offensive line lost their two best players, and the only person presently on the roster who has shown anything in the receving game is the supremely talented yet inconsistent Devin Funchess. Once again, we're going to be overly reliant on our QB to make every play and perform at a consistently spectacular level in order to win.
August 3rd, 2014 at 10:58 AM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
Yet opposing players in post-game interviews said that they could tell what play was coming simply from the set. What a horrible combination (if it's even possible)!
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:00 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:16 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:22 PM ^
usually has games with huge scores, they tend to even out over the long run. But the question remains, how many points does the team need to score to overcome the points allowed by the defense?
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:35 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:17 PM ^
Truth be told, as ugly as our offense looked at times last season, our defense was at least as big a problem.Whoa. AT LEAST AS BIG A PROBLEM? Wrong. I get the point you are trying to make, but you should just make it rather than nuke the whole world.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:35 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:35 PM ^
if the D does as well as they did in 2011, they give up about 9.5 fewer points per game. Now the 2013 offense scored right about 1.1 points per game less than in 2011. So the point differential is 8 (can't score parts of points). If the Michigan D allows just five fewer points per game, Michigan flips four losses into four more wins. It's a fact, it might not taste good, but it is a fact.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:49 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 11:23 PM ^
to be ignoring that the 2013 Michigan D was horrible. Absolutely horrible*. I certainly hope Greg Mattison takes it serious that the D gave up so many points per game, and I rather hope he compares his unit's efficiency against the best defenses in history, not just the top 40 from last year.
*Go over to Rivals and see what other teams had to say about Michigan's D.
August 3rd, 2014 at 11:00 AM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:25 PM ^
scored over the season was in the top 20% of all seasons for the last 50 or 60 years. Points allowed per game was, save the three RR years, the worst season since 1879.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:07 PM ^
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:10 PM ^
Can you be too hard on a guy who A) would repeatedly run the same play even after the defense had shown him that it wasn't going to happen, B) find a play that worked and immediately burn it to the ground by overusing it, and C) not understand the particular skill sets of the people he has playing for him, thus not utilizing them properly?
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:23 PM ^
Borges was out of his league. Bye Al and don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:33 PM ^
August 3rd, 2014 at 10:19 AM ^
The answer to "were we too hard on Borges" is "Yes" regardless of what happens this season.
That line was very, very bad. It is hard for any OC to make an offense go with very poor blocking.
I keep seeing this strange dichtomy popping up - a college coach, to be any good, has to be a good "on field" coach, a good developed of players, and a good recruiter/judge of talent.
A coach who is good at scheming, but can't evelop players or recruit well is NOT a good college coach.
Borges bears some of the responsibility not only for how games were called, but also the "poor blocking" caused by lack of development and poor recruiting.
August 2nd, 2014 at 10:45 PM ^
The change had to be made, but I don't remember too many of us complaining after the IU game last year when we were 6-1 had just rolled up 750 yards and were on pace to break records.
Borges was a good coach, but for some reason he lost his mind for several games. I also think the MSU game robbed the offense of any confidence they had. Nussmeier has a nice pedigree and I'm anxious to see what he has in store, love his record with QBs.