An honest question from the hated los barcos re expectations
i know i come off as the mgoblog negative nancy - which i really dont mean to - i just want to ask this question without being accused of being a "bandwagon" fan who is not "all in". in my quest to devour michigan material, i came across this popular sentiment from the in rod we trust link:
I never even considered projecting more than eight wins for this team prior to the season, so I don’t understand the apocalyptic attitude certain fans are taking.
im curious to hear the opinions of the people who say "i predicted this team to b e 7-5/8-4 at the start of the year and thats what they still may finish" .
theoretically, with rich we hired one of the best coaches in the game...but at what point will the team exceed expectations as opposed to meeting the lowest threshold? in his first year we thought they would be bad...and they were bad. the second year, we thought they were going to be better but still bad, and they were exactly that. now, i know there is still alot of football to be played (we could do really well, for example, and win out...........right?) but its starting to look - for the third year in a row - that rich will only meet our lowest expectations.
ill try to phrase this as delicately as possible to avoid the ubiquitous "fuck you barcos, die in a fire" rants, but is it not reasonable to expect more from one of the "best coaches in college football" after three years?
bare cupboard, freshmen secondary, the DECIMATED DEFENSE BY MISPOGEN, sophomore qb blah blah blah. ive read all the valid reasons for the team's struggles (or excuses, depending what you want to call them) but in the end, cant the "best young coach in the game" turn an average team into a better than average team?
October 11th, 2010 at 3:02 PM ^
Coaches in the NFL are given 3 full years, draft to Super Bowl, to produce results. I think it's only fair to do the same with Rodriguez. His first recruiting class was a Lloyd Carr class that he tried to keep in tact and sprinkled some of his guys into. He didn't get a QB for his system because it's hard to recruit a player if they are taking visits during the coldest month of the year and without a football game. That means that Year 2 was his first full year and this is his second. Next year is the put up or shut up year and I don't think he'll disappoint.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:04 PM ^
count me among your target audience. And I am a RichRod fan--though this doesn't assume that he overcomes all obstacles to succeed here.
Today I am quite down about the team, BUT also feel:
a) that Saturday could have gone differently, esp. when you consider that MSU BARELY beat ND at home.
b) that the O had a down day.
c) that RichRod made some bad calls Saturday and may have been complacent toward the end of the first half.
The last is worth keeping an eye on but coaches make millions of decisions; not all of them bear out.
What worries me most? I don't know if our D is that much better next year. Assuming that Rich survives this year (I now see us getting our 6 wins, maybe a 7th), I think people want a serious challenge in the B10 next year. At season's start I was sure that we could mount one; now I'm not so sure.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:06 PM ^
I actually believe Michigan will do better than this.
I don't know about the "bare cupboard" theory, but I don't blame RR for Cissoko, Turner, Warren, Woolfolk, and Demar not currently playing as part of our secondary. Los Barcos, if we had Warren and Woolfolk starting, we wouldn't be having this discussion. But there's no crying over spilt milk.
I may blame RR slightly for the Scott Shafer fiasco, but only slightly. If Gerg had starting with RR, I think we would be further along than we are right now. I believe that we will have improvement over this year in 2011, and improvement over 2011 in 2012, to a level where we expect to be.
I have heard that football coaches in particular bring in an entire staff. When you aren't just reloading, and using the same schemes and format as the preceding coach, it is going to be a lot harder and take a lot longer to see success. I personally believe that what RR is doing is a radical enough change that it isn't fair to expect great success yet.
I really, really, liked Carr, and have always been in his corner. Having said that, I do believe that he stayed a year or two more than he really wanted to, and that he may not have put the same effort into recruiting from maybe 2005 forward. I don't blame Carr for this, but Martin and Mary Sue Coleman.
I must say, I believe that RR is the right coach for Michigan, and am absolutely delighted with the direction the program has taken. To make a change at this point would be totally disastrous, and I hope for nothing more than for RR & Gerg to have a couple more years to get things working the way they want them to.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:06 PM ^
give him until the defense is old enough to shave. The offense is good to go now with a steady stream of talent coming in. Worst case scenario GERG gets canned but Rich Rod is staying- face it. 3 bad passes, 18 points, 35-34? 8-4 will be a nice springboard to next season, so hold it together until the defense isn't starting the worst secondary I've seen at Michigan in 20+ years.
October 11th, 2010 at 4:19 PM ^
You know the James Carville phrase ("it's the economy stupid")? Well the same applies to college football. It's the recruiting stupid...There's not a coach in the world who would do any better with the personell we've had on defense. It's as simple as that.
I do share some of your concerns because this incoming class (2011) has only 6 defensive recruits signed thus far (Kinard, Brown, Beyer, Rock, Hollowell, & Jones). We're gonna need a heck of allot more than that to fix things around here. RRod is projecting 12 recruits on the defensive side of the ball for 2011 class. That means we only have room for 6 more guys. How do you spread those schollies around? I'd love to sign another 4 linebackers but it seems to me we could use another couple of safeties, another DT, another DE and another couple of CB's...
October 11th, 2010 at 6:40 PM ^
So you're concerned because 6 of our 11 recruits are on defense? I know the fan reaction is "WE NEED MOAR DEFENSE NOW!1!!1" but long term you need to have balance in your recruiting classes to avoid the situation we're in now. Obviously in certain years, certain position groups get more emphasis(OL this year, DB last year), but a 12/10 defense/offense splits sounds about perfect for this class.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:15 PM ^
I said 7-5 before the Woolfolk injury. After that I went with 6-6. The offense is better than I expected, and the D is as bad as I expected. I knew we would be this bad on D, but there is still no excuse. It's not all from a lack of talent. How the hell did Turner not get any PT at all? It wasn't because he didn't have the talent. What about Vlad? Sure he might have been suffering from the aftereffects of an injury, but he never saw the field. Someone is not coaching these guys the right way. We have seen a lot of busts in the last couple years. Cissoko was the #3 CB in the country, and he sucked. Sure, they are young. But they shouldn't be that bad. The main problem: We have HORRIBLE FUNDAMENTALS. Plain and simple. We also have guys like Ezeh making mental mistakes every other play. This is the coaches' fault. All of them, not just Gerg.
We shouldn't be the worst pass D in the country. With the guys we recruit we should be better than Sun Belt teams, even if our D is full of sophomores.
October 11th, 2010 at 5:07 PM ^
Do you really believe Rich Rod and his staff do not constantly teach fundamentals?? Coaching fundamentals is something that coaches do day in and day out. Rich Rod recognizes during every press conference that this team tackles poorly during the games. Do you think he just says well lets skip tackling fundamentals even though I see a glaring weakness in the ability to tackle? NO! It would be something else to blame on the coaches if Rich Rod and staff did not recognize these fundamental errors. They recognize them every week and work on it but there is only so much a coach can do!
Just because certain players do not play fundamentally sound when they are on the field does not mean that the coaching staff is not teaching them properly. Sometimes players lack a different kind of talent that most people just assume every player has. That talent is the ability to process information on a football field when they have nerves and pressure to perform during the game. In practice these guys all use proper fundamentals and play smart football. We have all heard the reports of how sharp some of these players are on the practice field. The coaches can't do anything to help players transition what they have learned to the game when certain players are incapable of doing so.
A lot of our players are what they are at this point. Obi Ezeh unfortunately will never be able to process information during the game at the level of a decent college linebacker. That's just a fact. The coaches can teach some of these guys fundamentals 20 hours a day but some players simply can't play effectively at this level and unfortunately Michigan has a lot of those types of players. Kovacs is plenty fundamentally sound and makes proper reads consistently, does that mean Rich Rod and co are teaching him things that they aren't teaching the others? NO!
Instead of blaming the coaches lets wait and see what Rich Rod can do when he has a few of his own players on the defensive side of the ball. You can't expect true freshman and redshirt freshman to step in there and do well just because some of our other players are incapable of performing effectively at the college level. If you throw freshman out there you risk them having their confidence destroyed even before they have a chance. The freshman would be physically unprepared and still make some of the mental errors that our upper classmen have consistently made.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:14 PM ^
1. I think there are good reasons to lack faith in Rodriguez. But, I don't often see them in your posts. To be fair, I also don't see arguments on the level of "HIM NOT UNDERSTAND OSU RIVALRY!!!"
2. You have "lloyd was better" as your signature. Have you considered that it might look like a red handkerchief to some of the MGoBlog bulls? I'm sure I flinched the first time I saw it. Based on their respective bodies of work, yeah, Lloyd looks pretty good right now, but I don't think you're making anything close to an apples-to-apples comparison. I don't think you have enough data. For starters, look at the QB situation (sub-par, but still not horrible) and overall talent of the '95 team that Lloyd inherited.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:32 PM ^
the comments about lloyd was better are getting vastly overplayed. i put it up at a time a couple years ago when lloyd was the sole scapegoat, though those sentiments have begun to slowly die down. believe it or not, i have zero ill will towards rich and want him to succeed. i do support him, even if i dont choose to circlejerk the rest of the mogblog community.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:47 PM ^
In my opinion, you are coming off as one of those people always predicting gloom and the one time you are right, everyone else has to suffer through the "see, I told you RR sucks" etc
Are you validated now? I think Shock Fx was onto something..
October 11th, 2010 at 3:14 PM ^
Oh the ups and downs of a football season. What if we win the next 3 games? People will again be praising RichRod and all will be well, if not they won't. Either way let's chill out till we see the final product of the whole season. Trust me I have doubts too but you can't let one game against a pretty good team cause you to lose faith in the whole season.
Let's all relax.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:15 PM ^
The important question is; can RR build a program.
6,7,8,9 wins this season is a secondary issue. What will be the condition of the Program in coming years is the primary concern IMHO.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:23 PM ^
Michigan Football is built upon beating our rivals. We hold it next to our heart that we've dominated the OSU and MSU rivalries....
Well Rich Rod is 0-3 against MSU and 0-2 against OSU. He needs to beat OSU this year or next and has to beat MSU next year.
If he doesn't win 2 of those 3 games then I think he has to be done. End of story. You can't lose to OSU 8 years in a row, no matter the coach. Can you?
October 11th, 2010 at 3:31 PM ^
He hasn't lost to OSU eight years in a row. Also I don't think wins against John L teams should be compared to losses against Dantonio teams. Its apples to oranges.
October 11th, 2010 at 4:42 PM ^
But if he doesn't beat OSU this year or next he will have lost to OSU 4 years in a row and will be 1-3 or 0-4 vs. MSU.
As a Michigan football fan that should be the end of story.
October 11th, 2010 at 5:30 PM ^
MSU and OSU wins would be gravy...right now RR has 4 Big Ten wins to his name. A miracle over Wisc in '08, a win over Minny in '08, and two over Indiana. That is one quality Big Ten win in two years and two games.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:30 PM ^
Meh, I hopped on the DENARD HEISMAN 10-2 bandwagon this year for sure, just like I did last year with Tater. Stupid. I predicted 8-4 at the beginning of this year, only to up it after winning against ND and dominating BG. All four of our first games were patsies. We had to squeak out a W against Indiana!
State was a wakeup call. I doubt we win 50% of our next games, especially with potential offense meltdown. Although I am still behind Denard unquestioning. I just need to put this in writing now, so I don't lose it when we actually DO go 8-4, or 7-5.
And in response to expectations, there was no way we'd reasonably assume that teams would score 30+ on us every game until HORROR pt. deux: 2010 Secondary. Even with that, my homer, "good guys prevail", "Michigan will make it happen" attitude made me put all of the horrible defense issues behind me. IMHO the only definite winnable games remaining are Penn State because their offense is so bad that it might even make our defense look okay, and Purdue because they're Purdue. I should be pleased with any additional wins.
But, let's hope Denard keeps breaking records and wins a Heisman Trophy so this year isn't another "meh" on the return to glory.
Now that our team is not undefeated, I need to actually do some work when I come to work.
October 11th, 2010 at 3:37 PM ^
keep going los barcos. I am going to plus all of your posts as a protest against the thought police on this board. god forbid one criticizes Lloyd Carr or you will be called a hypocrite and your fandom will be questioned by people who don't even know you outside this forum.
October 11th, 2010 at 4:04 PM ^
LB, I've been hard on you, in an internet kind of way. And here's why: to me you're more frustrating that the HERP UNACCEPTABLE WE R MICHIGAN DERP-style fan. Take the very last sentence of your post:
ive read all the valid reasons for the team's struggles (or excuses, depending what you want to call them) but in the end, cant the "best young coach in the game" turn an average team into a better than average team?
Okay first of all, are they "valid reasons for the team's struggles," or are they "excuses"? What do you think? That's what it all comes down to, isn't it? If I show you Misopogon's diaries, is that a "valid reason" or an "excuse"? Or if I point out that this team has a grand total of 12 true or redshirt seniors on the whole bloody team (by contrast, MSU has 17, or 43% more, and OSU has 25, or 208% more). Is that a "valid reason" or an "excuse"? I dunno. I think they're valid reasons, but it sounds like you think they're excuses. Which is cool, but then don't pretend like you're not a negative nancy. Have the courage of your convictions--you think Lloyd was better, you think RR was a bad hire. Just say it and be done with it.
Second, you say "cant the 'best young coach in the game' turn an average team into a better than average team?" To which I say, well, certainly on offense, right? I mean, in 2008 UM was 109th in total offense, clearly below the average, right? This year we're 3rd, clearly above. So yes, he can, on offense.
In terms of record, we are currently 5-1, well above the average, and we were 3-9 in 2008, well below. So again, yes, he should be credited with turning a below average team into an above average team, right?
On defense, it remains to be seen. First of all, it isn't really Rodriguez that would be coaching the defense, so I'm not sure it's fair to say that he should "make" them better than average. But certainly the defense is nothing to write home about, and he should be judged on that to some degree.
I guess I just think this post is way premature. If UM finishes 6-6, then I will think a post like this is totally reasonable. If UM finishes 9-3 or something, then I willI think you should go eat a pile of shit. Not that it really matters much what I think, but you did ask for opinions.
October 11th, 2010 at 4:22 PM ^
My third grader bombed her spelling test this past week after doing pretty well on the first few. My wife and I had expectations through the roof, thought she was finally turning the corner, but reality has set in and now we know just how much she sucks at spelling. She ran into some tough words and just got owned by them, cant tell you how disappointed I am. Come on, misspelling "angrier", fucking ridiculous. Her teacher sucks, we always thought she was a little over the hill to be still in teaching, but now we are sure she is incapable. If our daughter doesn't show vast improvement over the remainder of the year I'm calling for her head. I also blame her first grade teacher Ms. Schmidt, I mean that woman really left the cupboard bare when it came to teaching phonetics, if she had done a better job our kid wouldn't be where she is. I am just thouroughly dissatisfied with the level of learning that is going on here and wanted everyone to know.
October 11th, 2010 at 4:26 PM ^
Michigan has the same 5-1 record right now, that I thought they'd have when the season started.
See you in Jacksonville on New Year's Day, holmes.
October 12th, 2010 at 1:12 AM ^
That we haven't overachieved? Since we're right where you thought we'd be, but not any better...
October 11th, 2010 at 4:44 PM ^
If you look at where we were on Jan. 1, 2008, and where we expected we should be by Oct. 11, 2010, well, this is rather disappointing, isn't it?
Let me help re-phrase your question:
- Why if the 2008 team was likely to finish between 3-9 and 5-7, did it fall at 3-9?
- Why if the 2009 team was likely to finish between 8-4 and 5-7, did it fall at 5-7?
- Why if the 2010 team was likely to finish between 10-2 and 6-6, does it look a lot like we're heading toward 6-6?
I don't have an answer, other than to say that there's a lot of weird shit luck that goes into college football, and sometimes it hits in bad places. David Molk made the offense go last year, and he was targeting for injury. Our one defensive back of Big Ten ability was Troy Woolfolk, and he was struck down with a season-long injury before this year ever began. Terrelle Pryor was perfect for RR's offense and would have thrived here, and we put all of our 2008 offensive marbles on him, but he's a sick kid with brain problems and one fancy corvette later he was at Ohio State and we were starting a walk-on quarterback with a noodle arm because the Navarre clone couldn't throw a screen pass.
If you look at the individual games, there are spots where better coaching might have made the difference. If RR had prepared his team to stop Purdue's onside kicks (which they had done in several games before). If we had made the game-tying field goal against Toledo. If we had put the ball in from the 1 yard line against Illinois. If Tate the Great hadn't suddenly gone freshman in OT of the MSU game. If Denard had hit a wide-open Odoms against Iowa. If RR had gone for it on every 4th down this weekend. Who the fuck knows.
I think Lloyd's teams generally were good enough to finish between 12-0 and 8-4, and a lot of them finished 8-4. Some of this was coaching. Some of it was shit plain bad luck.
The reason Nick Saban could go into Alabama and have success so quickly is he was able to recruit like USC from the get-go. He minimized risk by building an escape route for busts, and maximizing the amount of talent he could pack into his program. He lost to Louisiana-Monroe in Tuscaloosa along the way.
Urban Meyer arrived in Florida right about the time Tim Tebow arrived in Florida. Blessed with a bazillion great recruits because Ron Zook really is a great recruiter, adequate coaching was able to build that into a winner pretty damn fast.
Pretty much every other major program out there took two or three years of heavy lumps before coming back. Because Lloyd was running such a classy program, we didn't have the luxuries that other programs have had. The point of the Decimated Defense series was that our recruiting only worked if nothing disturbed the ship. Penn State recruits much the same way, and they're stuck trotting out Paterno like Weekend at Bernie's to avoid the kind of collapse we've experienced. They also sank to 3 wins a few times themselves over the last decade.
We didn't recruit a safety for years and years. We responded to DB Armageddon '05 with Johnny Sears and Chris Richards (and got Brandon Harrison only when ND fired their coach). With Leon Hall leaving, our entire 2006 DB haul was two linebackers (Mouton and Brown). 2007, when losing all three of our safeties, we grabbed Warren, a legacy (Woolfolk), and a bust at Safety (Williams). And when RR came on in late 2008 the only guys we had lined up were Boubacar Cissoko (a bust) and Brandon Smith, another safety likely to be a linebacker. RR got what he could in prying J.T. Floyd from Tennessee, and took a flier on Feagin as QB to turn into a DB, but it was far too late to do anything big.
Rich Rod has contributed his fair share to this devastation as well, but then he was recruiting with 3-9 around his neck. At the time I thought it wasn't enough, and that's when J.T. Turner and Denard Robinson looked to be a future All Big Ten tandem, backed up by Adrian Witty. He took a flier on Vlad Emilien's injury not being permanent (it was) and that was that.
Linebacker is a similar story all down the line. It was seriously thin after Carr left. When mixed with RR's offense-first mentality, it was an absolutely devastating mix.
So you shouldn't be so dismissive of "excuses." Diagnosing what happened is the only way to figure out how to avoid the same mistakes in the future, and the only way to assess where blame should fall.
October 11th, 2010 at 6:38 PM ^
In what ways was linebacker a similar story? When Carr left we had Ezeh, Mouton, Brandon Herron and Marrell Evans. He'd also recruited JB Fitzgerald and Brandon Smith. That's six guys who'd have eligibilty three years down the road. That's not thin at all if you ask me.
October 12th, 2010 at 5:05 PM ^
So we had:
- A nuclear missile converted from safety who makes huge mistakes in coverage mixed in with fantastic plays.
- A fullback converted to linebacker who even as 5th year senior is obviously not a D-I MLB.
- A DE/LB tweener
- A 2-star who transferred to a D-II school where he isn't starting.
- A 4-star guy who can't beat out Ezeh for playing time
I counted Brandon Smith at safety (Spur, actually, which could be put in either category).
That is thin thin thin. We knew this spot was ugly when Lloyd recruited Austin Panter, a junior JUCO guy. Of all of those guys, one (Mouton) you would expect to be playing on a typical Michigan defense, and then he would be the guy we were calling out all the time because the good things he does are not as obvious as the bad things he does.
Sophomore Lawrence Reid could play any of these positions better than these guys. So could Junior/Senior Roy Manning. Redshirt Sophomore David Harris could. These guys were all backups. There's nobody you listed above who's going to be so much as a Sword or Foote. Hell, I think with Ezeh he'd be competing with Brackenses (and we hates Brackesnses).
For three positions, I would expect Lloyd to leave at least five or six guys from 2006 and 2007 (especially since those years would have had the Rose Bowl season to recruit from), plus three or four viable linebackers in the recruiting class. In all fairness, though lacking the 06-07 hauls, Lloyd had Witherspoon and Hill in that class to join Fitz, and while Demens was hauled in by RR, the initial overtures were accomplished by Carr's staff.
When Marrell Evans was beating out Ezeh for playing time in 2007, that should have been a huge red flag.
October 12th, 2010 at 6:15 PM ^
You lost me in your first 3 words. There was nothing predestined about Obi, Mouton and Fitzgerald turning out how they did (or all of the other guys leaving). They've all had more time under Rodriguez now than they did under Carr. So when you lean on the quality of players left behind to make your argument you're mixing your conclusion and premises.
October 12th, 2010 at 6:40 PM ^
Hold on a minute here....which of these guys would you expect to be a good Big Ten linebacker in three years:
- A redshirt sophomore who just converted to LB from fullback and looks really lost out there
- The 2-star redshirt freshman who is a 2-star and plays like one.
- The 4-star recruit
- The 2-star recruit
I'd go with door number three. That's about it. At the time of his departure, Lloyd had reason to suspect he was leaving RR with Fitzgerald and Mouton to fill three spots.
LB is a tough position that usually sees much better play from upperclassmen. If you get two starting years from your future NFL middle linebacker, that's actually pretty good. Lloyd should have had at least three or four more high-level guys between 2006 and 2007 to leave for this team.
October 12th, 2010 at 7:13 PM ^
Obi hadn't just converted from fullback, he'd started the year before as a linebacker. I don't know who your number 4 is. Brandon Herron was a high 3 star to rivals. That's four legitimate prospects (not including the other guys who signed but never played.)
Edit: Let the record show Brandon Herron was also a 4 star to scout and that Marrell Evans was a 3 star to one service.
October 12th, 2010 at 7:19 PM ^
First of all, 4 guys at 3 positions? That means two don't get to rotate out.
Obi was a 3* RB according to Rivals. Would you ever expect him to start at LB on a good defense? That leaves no suitable recruits at MLB, other than Demens, whom is a redshirt sophomore (As he already pointed out, you generally don't see LBs until Junior or Senior years).
So, now you have Herron, Mouton, and Fitzgerald, all OLB. 3 guys to fill 2 spots, which essentially means no rotation for one of your OLBs. Mouton is doing alright. Herron has been injured. Fitzgerald is still young and behind the two of them because he has the least amount of experience/coaching.
All of this doesn't even take into consideration that some recruits just aren't going to be world beaters. I know you don't like to hear it, but sometimes it just takes more than a few years to build a team up. Look at Jim Harbaugh. He had losing records his first two seasons (4-8, 5-7), had a decent year last year (8-5), and is looking at an 11-1 or 10-2 season this year. That looks strangely familiar. RR didn't have a defense when he got to WVU. He had to build that up too. His offense carried them along the way, but eventually they got to the point where they had a top offense and defense.
It is going to take time to fill the voids on defense because there are so many of them.
October 12th, 2010 at 7:33 PM ^
Having 4 good prospects for three spots isn't so bad when they've all had three or more years in the program. And again this is not counting Smith, Witherspoon, Hill, Evans and Demens. Also your Obi argument is kind of shocking for two reasons. 1) considering Obi Ezeh started as a redshirt freshman on a pretty good defense, yes I think it's fair to expect that he might one day be able to do that. 2) you cite Obi's 3 star RB ranking as a reason he particularly shouldn't be expected to be a world beater and then look to Stanford for confirmation. I repeat, you look to Stanford, the same team that's reached the top 15 with upperclassmen who couldn't sniff Obi's ranking.
October 12th, 2010 at 8:49 PM ^
Basically, Obi won the job from a JUCO Austin Panter about halfway through the season as the lesser of two evils. He was on a pretty good defense that covered up his mistakes and also allows ASU to score 34 points, Oregon to score 32 points in the first half, and Wisconsin to run for over 200 yards and put up 37 points (by this one Ezeh was getting most of the play time).
All I was saying was that Obi was a 3* RB. At best you should expect him to be a 3* LB and that's if he actually has the instinct of a LB, which he doesn't.
The Stanford reference was to the fact that the guy that everyone is talking about hiring walked into a nightmare and took 4 years to build it back up. In year 4, the offense is great and the defense is adequate. RR is on the same path right now and its going to be a few more years before our defense is dominant again because we don't have dominant players. Harbaugh will still have to rebuild the defense with even less if RR gets fired (more attrition) and he'll have to build the offense too. How much longer do you think it will take for Harbaugh to build up a program when he has to do both sides again?
The defense is going to take time. The offense should carry them in the mean time. You're not going to get a better deal than that, so you might as well settle for a few 10-2 seasons until we get the personnel to a level that we are used to.
October 11th, 2010 at 7:44 PM ^
if RR was a defensive wizard, instead of an offensive one (think Bo Pelini) then how does that change the defensive outlook? Alternatively, how does it change if he hired a future Rex Ryan as DC and not a guy who didn't get along with the other coaches?
I guess the answer lies in perspective. I mean RR (or his non-Shaffer DC) could have come in and gotten a bunch of 3* DB and LBs in 2008 to come to Michigan just as backup bodies, if nothing else.
October 12th, 2010 at 4:53 PM ^
That is not at all a stupid question! That's a fantastic question.
If RR was a defensive wizard, a la Pelini, I think the second half of that 2008 class would have had a bunch more defensive backs and linebackers from some place where our defensive RR had a pipeline. Maybe it's still Florida. Anyway, instead of Odoms and T.Rob and Shaw and Roundtree on this team, we've got some guys who are their defensive equivalents. And we have a system -- maybe like Pelini's 4/3 "pinch" system -- that fits these guys' skills perfectly, even if a bunch of them are 3-stars. Justin Boren leaves citing a lack of family values and this freaks us out.
Meanwhile, offense comes out in 2008 looking AWFUL AWFUL AWFUL. Mallett has transferred, the line is terrible, and each time Threet gets sacked or throws a screen into an interception we are pulling our eyes out of our sockets. The offensive coordinator is fired, and PARALLEL UNIVERSE DEFENSIVE RICH ROD hires some a DeBordean guy and tells him to run a spread because "that seem pretty cool."
Around this time, thanks to all of the losing, Parallel Universe Defensive RR gets hatcheted by the local paper over practice hours.
By 2009 the offense is still bad but we feel like there's some defensive progress, and there's a lot of sophomores and true freshmen on defense running DEFENSIVE RR's system, and there is great hope for them until one guy goes down with injury and we're losing games the way that Penn State is losing games this year: defense keeps 'em in it, but the O is awful. There's a major board war between guys who want Threet thrown in a pit of lava, and guys who are saying "Navarre in 2001!!!! -- chill out!" and other guys saying "Navarre at least could throw to a receiver!" and other guys are like "He had Braylon and Avant and Breaston!" and it doesn't matter because behind Threet is Weinke and Cone.
In 2010 our defense stones UConn, Notre Dame, UMass (though the offense is so bad in that game that we are lucky to win it 10-3), Bowling Green (shutout!) and Indiana (shutout!) and we enter the MSU game thinking we've got the 1997 team all over again, and we're defending Threet as maybe not that bad, but the offense -- lacking any great running backs and with no good receivers) is scary-bad. It turns out fine against MSU, however, as our defense is best against these old-school things, and Michigan wins 14-10 thanks to a 3rd quarter Pick Six.
My point: the big difference is that defense is more consistent. The Mathlete has inadvertently shown this several times, and so has MCalibur. The best offense in the land can just plain have an off day -- the best defense in the land can usually cover its mistakes better on a bad day.
October 12th, 2010 at 1:22 AM ^
Let me help re-phrase your question: Why if the 2008 team was likely to finish between 3-9 and 5-7, did it fall at 3-9? Why if the 2009 team was likely to finish between 8-4 and 5-7, did it fall at 5-7? Why if the 2010 team was likely to finish between 10-2 and 6-6, does it look a lot like we're heading toward 6-6?They'd have had the shit negged out of them. Because that's basically the question posed. Why does it seem that we're always at the lowest common denominator of expectations? As pointed out in this post, Lloyd had some teams that didn't do as well as expected, as have every coach. But Lloyd, and a lot of other excellent coaches have had games where they overachieved too. If Rich is a great coach, as we all want to believe, and his prior track record seems to have shown, why can't ONCE we expect for him to exceed our expectations, rather than just meet them or fall slightly under him? Because all the reasons (not excuses) aside, maybe we should have been 5-7 and 7-5, and since that didn't happen, maybe hope for 9-3 to make up for it when we may really be a 8-4 team. (Because, on the splits of luck, games like Toledo and Purdue two years in a row aren't really explained by any charts. Not being Ohio State good is pretty clearly defined though). Is Rich just the unluckiest coach alive? I know sometimes it feels like it. But I don't think we really believe that. So there must be some other reason. (And if you really believe that...geeze, do we want someone that unlucky as our coach??). This isn't really directed at Misopogon, rather to the whole thread, but he so perfectly illustrated the question/problem, and everyone just nods knowingly, I sometimes think it's how you give the message around here than what you're actually saying....
October 11th, 2010 at 5:32 PM ^
if anyone wants to know the definition of 'weak sauce,' it's exemplified here. barcos stirs the pot and solicits reactions and then refuses to reply to any of them.
weak.
sauce.
just my opinion that if you're going to raise a question like that, discuss the issue.
October 11th, 2010 at 5:34 PM ^
You need 4 things to be an elite team: talent, depth, experience, and coaching.
Coaching: we've had since 2008 on offense and 2009 on defense.
Talent: we've gotten over the past two years.
Depth: we're just starting to get it on offense, nowhere near it on defense.
Experience: not even close. Very few (if any) 3 and 4-year starters on this team, and none with this offense.
The key here is these things take time, and by that I mean years. We're not going to be elite until we can satisfy all of these, and we're just not there yet. Fortunately, it looks like we're on track to being elite around 2012, and continuing that on forward. The reason we had success under Bo and Lloyd is that Bo inherited a talented, experienced, and deep team from a bad coach. Bo adding good coaching, and a program was revived. Moeller and Carr inherited these experienced, talented, and deep teams, and did well accordingly.
October 11th, 2010 at 5:52 PM ^
yes, the D is horrendous, but the offense is on fire. if denard hadn't thrown 3 picks, we might have been looking at another shoot-out win instead of a kind-of-blowout loss.
i'm just in the camp that doesn't want to fire our coach until it's so obvious we aren't going anywhere because i know that we will just relive 08 and 09 while we switch schemes again
October 11th, 2010 at 6:19 PM ^
Can we see how the rest of the season plays out before freaking out over one bad loss? Before the season started, most people here thought 7-5 would be reasonable given the lack of depth on defense and the injury to Woolfolk. Six games in and I'd say we're still on track to meet or exceed expectations (I'm still on the record for 8-4).
If the fast, dilithium-fueled start significantly changed your expectations, maybe you should check yourself and not the team. This is still a frighteningly young team with a defense trying to mask serious deficiencies in the injury/transfer-riddled secondary.
October 11th, 2010 at 8:03 PM ^
*NEWSFLASH*
The Defense cannot be fixed this season.
Switching to a 4-2-5, 4-8-9, or 6-6-6 will only further complicate things for our inexperienced mash of freshmen, sophomores, and Obi.
October 11th, 2010 at 8:41 PM ^
There's a reason such diaries as The Decimated Defense exist here.
It's because no team with aspirations of anything more than a possible winning season and an invitation to a piddling bowl game would trot out a secondary featuring...
- Sophomore CB benched for being terrible the year before
- Converted 5th Year Senior WR
- 3 True Frosh CBs
- RS Freshman Converted WR
- Walk-on Sophomore
Mike Ditka and Buddy Ryan's bastard son couldn't turn that into a respectable defense.
Did the 3 Denard INTs hurt?
Sure.
But he was bound to have a bad game. It freaking happens.
I still see Penn State, Illinois, and Purdue on the schedule. Most people were saying 7-5 before the season starts.
Can we please calm down?
October 11th, 2010 at 8:41 PM ^
I figured one loss by this time in the season, with us going 9-3 or 8-4. Now it seems like it STILL could go as high as 9-3 with a lot of luck but probably 7-5. But as long as the team keeps trying, keeps improving and keeps showing that awesome spirit and camaraderie that look to be hallmarks of the RR era I will root my ass off for them and hope that RR gets another year or two to prove his mettle.
October 12th, 2010 at 11:17 AM ^
The most telling statements from the aftermath of the game Saturday came from RVB yesterday. He said that they knew those plays were coming that they scored those long TD runs on. They practiced the over, and over, and over again all week. He seemed pretty pissed about the lack of gap control behind him on those plays, considering they knew they were coming, and how much they practiced them all week.
The coaches aren't entirely stupid. For the most part, guys have been in position to make plays all year, but they can't go out and make plays for them. They can coach them how to tackle, how to maintain gap control, how to take proper angles all they want, but the players have to still make the plays out on the field.
However, the staff is a little on the hook for how far they are decimated on D. They need to recruit players that they know will make in ( Witty,Dorsey,Kinnard,Rogers). They need to do better at recruiting players who are a better fit, or who love football more (White,JT,Vlad). These misses on academics alone could have translated to players who actually play CB or S, so they aren't stuck playing coverted WR's at key positions. The players that they do get in school (Demens,JB Fitz) they have to develop them faster, so they aren't banging their head against the wall every Monday in the film room watching Obi on tape.