Borges Disease And You
TOO MANY COOKS [Bryan Fuller]
Today's hot topic is a statement from President in waiting Grant Newsome on last year's offense:
The offensive line? Players talked about how much new position coach Ed Warinner made simplifications this spring, mainly because he had no other choice. Grant Newsome told reporters Tuesday that Warinner stripped down the complex language and overall concept because it was overwhelming.
"He said he was even confused by the amount of terminology and different plays we had in the playbook," Newsome said.
The internet's talked a lot about the excessive complexity of Michigan's offense in the aftermath, and I feel like I have to interject. Michigan's OSU gameplan wins the game if it doesn't draw the worst QB performance in living memory. Michigan's ability to tweak and screw with people's heads has been a trademark of Harbaugh's best offenses. It can and should be Michigan's approaching going forward for the same reason RichRod shouldn't have run a pro-style offense in his first year in Ann Arbor.
I'd like to separate out the offensive approach in general from a particular problem on the offensive line that Newsome highlights above. Michigan's 2017 OL, and by extension the team, suffered from a terminal case of…
borges disease
BORGES DISEASE
BORGES DISEEEEEEEEEEASE
Borges disease is when you try to do everything without doing one thing well and everything falls apart in a morass of beautiful-on-paper plays that are executed with the balletic grace of a drunken donkey crashing his ex-wife's wedding.
Borges's special power was containing all bad-idea multitudes within himself. Michigan created their own version of this by importing former Indiana and RichRod OL coach Greg Frey for a single disastrous year. This wasn't Frey's fault; he remains a well-regarded OL coach and jumped to his alma mater FSU before a serious inquest could result. Because Frey's hire was a half-measure on Harbaugh's part, it blew up in his face.
Publicly, Michigan split OL duties between Frey and a still-extant Drevno, handing Frey the tackles and TEs while Drevno coached the interior line. I'm not sure that's the way it actually worked, because Michigan went from a power-based run offense in Harbaugh's first two years to an inside zone team with some power sprinkled in. Then they went to a 50/50 split, and finally they returned zone to an occasional constraint play, because they were immensely bad at running zone.
So not only did Michigan spend a bunch of time trying to get good at IZ and burn a bunch of snaps grabbing two yards a pop, they retarded their growth as the mashing power team their personnel certainly pointed to. Post-MSU UFR, which was in the 50-50 phase:
Michigan ran 11 zone plays versus 14 gap-blocked plays. (FB dives, crack sweeps, and the reverse are excluded from this analysis.) That is a significant shift away from zone. That still remains a part of the playbook, obviously... but a crappy one. Those 11 plays gained just 25 yards. Michigan suuuucks at zone.
There were costs to the returning diversity. Michigan had a couple of plays on which it looked like someone busted an assignment. Onwenu appeared to be running a trap on a play that was not a trap, and either Hill or McKeon busted on this Isaac TFL. Michigan blocks a big cavern in the middle that has an unblocked LB, and then Hill runs outside. Isaac follows him, because follow your fullback:
I gave that to Hill but that could be what he's supposed to do; in that case McKeon needs to be doubling on Cole's guy and leaving the force player for Hill. YMMV. Either way it's a mental mistake that turns a promising play into a TFL.
When Michigan focused on becoming the mashing team they were always supposed to be, the results were good. Despite wasting a bunch of time, their S&P+ breakdown stats paint the picture of a bunch of maulers:
- Power success rate: 7th
- Adjusted line yards: 20th
- Rushing explosiveness: 29th
- Overall rushing S&P+: 14th
A #47 stuff rate, #79 success rate, and #90 opportunity rate look like a lot of missed assignments in that context, missed assignments created by Michigan's failed attempt to adopt Frey's approach on the ground.
That is dysfunction. Michigan masked it fairly well by pushing the abort button halfway through the season and having a couple good running backs and some Large Adult Sons. But since those Large Adult Sons came coupled with serious pass protection issues, there was no Plan B for the other half of the offense.
There the disconnect between Drevno and Frey was easily seen every time Michigan failed to pick up a stunt, which was about every other stunt. Michigan looked like the worst-coached offensive line in the country last year. I started wondering if Patrick Kugler's inability to get on the field until his redshirt senior year was because he couldn't make a line call to save his life. And here's where the Newsome quote comes in. Michigan clearly couldn't execute their pass protection system.
An outsider can't know whether that's because two different guys were teaching it, or it was an unholy combination of two different approaches, or it was just plain bad because Drevno is bad and should feel bad. But it all goes back to Michigan importing an offensive coordinator (Pep Hamilton) and an OL coach without telling the guy who thought he was both to hit the bricks.
he did see it during the season, but by that time it's basically too late. You don't change up what you've gone through camp doing and working on to taking a new approach a few games into the season.
I would guess he spoke with Frey and Dreveno about getting on the same page with the OL, but from what I've heard Drevno felt he did things the right way and probably didn't work well with Frey and it was basically a mess the entire season.
Harbaugh had worked with Drevno a long time and they are good friends. I give Jim credit on how he handled the situation, with a long time friend, and has corrected the problems with the OL coaching. I suspect we will see much improved OL play this season.
I don't understand the downvotes mGrowOld [it was 0 up, 3 down when I wrote this]. For all of Harbaugh's strengths, he failed in how he structured the staff and what he had the staff implement.
I like your CEO of Michigan Football description. He has full control over who he hires and which football strategies they employ with their players. If the structure of his "managers" and their "departments" was flawed, it was determined by JH. If what they tried to execute didn't match up well with the capabilities of the players, or of the coaches responsible for ground-level implementation, that ultimately is a JH misread.
I love having Harbaugh as our coach, and I wouldn't want him to leave either. I'm certainly not calling for his head. But I think, if we dare be objective about our beloved UM football, we have to admit that Jim created some of the mess we were in last year, and he bears responsibliity for that. I'm surprised that, given his experience and high level of success at numerous stops, he didn't see how the staff structure and the concepts employed were not going to be successful. UFR -1 for JH for that.
acknowledged that himself after last season. He talked about the self reflection period and we saw changes in the staff as a result. most people have some emotional blind spots and it's often hard to recognize that unless someone points it out.
The things is, I have always thought of Harbaugh's greatest attribute as being a good-CEO coach (possibly his competiveness instead) looking at his Don Brown hire, successfully bringing in Rudock, etc. And when you look around at the most successful college coaches, that CEO-type is what you generally see in the likes of Urban, Saban, etc.
I think last year's performance, even accounting for all of the bad luck with injuries, is the first time I felt less certain in his management. That said, looking at all the data, it seems like last year should be an outlier, and it's hard to not have outliers with the lack of continuity in coaching these days.
Ok, my view of the JH tenure thus far is there've been 2 pretty unforgiveable losses, a few that couldn't be helped for various reasons (inexperience, injuries), and just 2 (osu '15, psu '17) where the team was just thoroughly outclassed. And of course the epic screwing at osu in '16!
BUT - both those inexcusable Ls were both in '17 (msu, bowl game), so faith begins to waiver slightly. The steps taken this off season begin to restore it a bit...
I count that game as inexcusable, too.
It goes beyond the design of the offense too. He failed to put a dedicated WR coach in charge of our greatest WR haul in the history of the program and as a result, we got nothing out of any of them and we pissed away 1/3 of DPJ's college career. A few of the players have said that the off season workouts lacked intensity -- a huge red flag -- and that might be why the S&C coach was fired. The QB play regressed badly from the year before and sucked major amounts of ass. Combine that with Harbaugh's glum, unenergetic demeanor on the sideline last year and it all paints the picture that he was mentally checked out. Regardless of whether he was, it was hands down the worst coaching job of his career and I think that it rivals anything that we have seen at Michigan. If he was checked out, then he better check the fuck back in, very fast, because we are falling further and further behind OSU recruiting by the day and we are now facing very formidable in-confernece challenges from other teams. If the games play out according to chalk this year, then we will be 1-14 in our last 15 games against OSU.
I think it does illustrate one of Jim's weaknesses that we were aware of before hiring him: his loyalty. It most likely prevented him from moving on from Drevno after a couple of years rather than 4.
JH isn't blindly loyal. He's worked with a lot of coaches at all levels. He's hired and cut-ties with a lot more coaches than most HC that I'm familar with. That's one of the reasons he has such an impressive coaching tree. And it wasn't all that clear that Drevno was the problem until this past season.
And as for not seeing this and making mid-season changes. That's easier said than done. You spend all of camp working on concepts...you are not going to abandon them easily. Plus when you consider the lack of continuity at the QB position and the overall youth of the team it is not surprising that he may have waited too long to make changes.
But to his credit..he clearly saw and acknowledge the problems and made significant changes to address them..which included letting his buddy go.
I think JH should have been able to forsee that disaster beforehand. He should never have tried to implement it, IMO. Disappointed in his failure to do so, especially given all of the experience he's had as a player and coach.
I am anxious for JH to define the basic thrust and personality of HIS offense and then go with it. One knows how Wisconsin, Iowa, MSU, etc., are going to come at you, and so do their players. I would love to see UofM develop that same type of well-defined and understood approach on offense. Don Brown's done it on defense. We need that same type of mentality on offense.
"When his offense is clicking it’s working really well."
Outside of Andrew Luck SO/JR years - Harbaugh has never had a top 25 S&P+ offense.
I'm afraid it appears his offense might need a generational talent to "click".
Upvote, agree with you. Explanations are similar to others above:
1. He did see it, and changed halfway through the season. That's enough time to allow for improvement, understand it's not there, and change
2. His pro experience, where coaches come and go and so do players - it's a lot easier to have disparate parts come together on new things because they're pros.
3. You'd be surprised how much gets installed in Fall camp. Once it's in you mostly go with it.
4. More versatile and experienced players could have lessened the problem.
Concentrating on what we're good at, and an additional year of experience for our best offensive players will do wonders for this offense. The OSU game showed that this staff (especially Harbaugh) is capable of outstanding gameplans when done right.
They had extra time to prepare for a bowl game and let their preferred QB heal up. The result was another laid egg were the offense looked completely lost. This was comparable to the last game when they had extra time to prepare, MSU, an epic saga of failed offensive game planning.
All carping aside, I think you are right about things getting better and the reason why. The early lead over Ohio State did happen, and shows this team's potential on offense, especially if you add in a minimally competent passing game.
It just seems to me that we are being too glib when we think we have discovered the reasons for all the WTF?! moments of offensive coaching ineptitude last season. The rational part of my mind agrees with you. The PTSD afflicted part of my mind notices the holes in your explanation.
Warning, freep link. Expecting the offensive line to perform well in the bowl game minus two starters is wishful thinking. And IIRC, Kugler was pulled early in that game.
https://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverin…
TAMPA, Fla. — Michigan will be without two starting offensive linemen and a handful of other reserves Monday in the Outback Bowl vs. South Carolina. Starting left guard Ben Bredeson and starting right tackle Juwann Bushell-Beatty are both out of uniform in pregame warmups for the Wolverines and won't play in Monday's game.
I see a different outcome in that game if we don't fumble on the 5, but punch it in for 26-3 instead. That's for SURE!
The team's subsequent collapse is pretty disheartening, patricularly with the chance to make the conference undefeated in the bowls.
It's the lowest mark of the JH tenure besides losing at home to a bad msu team.
I'm aware of that. I also think Runyan is a better pass blocker than JBB. How far off talent wise was Owenu vs Bredeson and Spanellis vs Kugler. Definitely a drop off but I believe it to be fairly small. I wasn't trying to imply JBB played all season. His position was a major weakness and it continued to be a major weakness all year long even after JBB was inserted. By the point in the season JBB got his starts we changed our playcalling to greatly limit the amount of pass plays called. I just did some quick math so I might be slightly off but in games JBB started we averaged 28.3 pass plays called per game. In games he did not start we called 37.2.
Other variables apply, but it still appears we called the offense differently when he was in due to his above average run blocking and his atrocious pass blocking.
And Kugler was playing (poorly) hurt until he gave up and benched himself half way through.
I fall back on the fact that Harbaugh has the track record of being a fantastic offensive coach. Just like you though I'm still confused about the bowl game - the gameplan still seems so inexplicable to me.
Harbaugh S&P+ rankings:
2007: Stanford - #83
2008: Stanford - #31
2009: Stanford - #6
2010: Stanford - #3
2015: Michigan - #38
2016: Michigan - #40
2017: Michigan - #85
Harbaugh has really only been a fantastic offensive coach when he had SO/JR Andrew Luck (and David Shaw).
I'm still waiting to see if he uses his offensive weapons in a way that seems logical and natural.
Like not throwing fades to McDoom or running the fly sweep nearly every time McDoom is in, or when he had the most dangerous offensive weapon probably he's ever had (Jabril Peppers) not running the same play every time with him, or not throwing the ball to Chris Evans who is more effective in space rather than running between the tackles. We have a multiple large TE's and pass catching FB's.
He's had and currently has guys here that can make the offensive very dynamic. This season will go a long way in my majority opinion of JH's offensive scheming and capability. I'm not saying run "trick plays" but get the ball to guys in places that just make sense.
was fine. The bowl game loss (at least on the offensive side of the ball) was the QB.
Last year and the OSU game was bad news, good news. It was a terribly frustrating season on offense last year. However, that allowed the offense to be effective against OSU. Some of what made them good in the OSU game was being so bad the entire rest of the season. They went against tendencies repeatedlly, doing what we had all been begging for all along. If for arguments sake they played that style offensively throughout the entire year we probably don't lose to MSU, PSU still beats us, and Wiscy probably does too unless doing that prevents Peters from getting concussed. However, that also means it would be a lot less effective against OSU and they would have beaten us by more. If we played them "straight up", or try to do so this year, it will still be a struggle. The defense would have to keep the score under like 20 pts, which seems unlikely.
This is like a Beilein system mated to a triangle offense with both full playbooks and both Beilein and Kurt Rambis coaching the offense.
Wow, this is a great post, Brian. I think you nailed it with every word. What separated Michigan from something like a run at a Big Ten title, in about a dozen short paragraphs.
IMO, Michigan would not have asked Patrick Kugler to come back as a graduate assistant if he were totally unable to figure out the line calls. So I don't really think that was THE issue, though I'm sure an occasional mistake was made, because everyone makes mistakes.
Those guys will get together and work. OL guys work together, QB/WR work together, etc. There's a lot of player-led stuff over the summer. There are also certain training facilities that some guys will go to together, to work with former offensive linemen, coaches not affiliated with the school, etc.
Along with cleaning up the nutrition aspect, there's a lot of stuff guys can do over the summer. You're probably not going to go from #4 on the depth chart to #1, but you can get more competitive. A good summer for Hudson/Bushell-Beatty might push one past the other.
I think your point carries a lot of weight but don't forget about David Molk. He was first team All-Big Ten in 2010 and came back for the 2011 season.
Ironically, Borges was coordinating an offense in which the head coach (or the AD using the HC as a mouthpiece) insisted on gap blocking. The OL was just really bad at it.
My best theory on Frey is this:
Harbaugh hired him in a good-faith attempt to get more position coaching for the OL because Drevno wasn't able to do it enough splitting time. However, the disastrous way the season unfolded forced Harbaugh to make midstream adjustments, which included bringing Drev down to field level and going back to gap blocking.
I think Harbaugh's effort was well-thought (he saw an issue with OL coaching in 2016 and addressed it) but did not work out. It simply didn't work to have two philosophies without at least some gap blocking. Frey loyally worked through the season, but the FSU rumors mid-season tell us that everyone knew that change was on the way. I don't think Harbaugh could rightly go to an all-zone system, so Frey wasn't the guy to take the team forward after Drevno inevitably got the rusty axe.
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