This Week's Obsession: The Worst Part Is…
Basically the coaches have put guys who couldn't possibly succeed in a position to fail even harder. [Fuller]
Hey, UFRs are coming out today and tomorrow, but we can get most of the sad clown out now. Sad clowns: Brian, Bryan, Brett, Brandon, Brace, and Brseth. What I asked:
The worst part of it is…
Coach Brown: Man, what a loaded question. I think the worst part of it is, that we don’t know what the worst part of it is. Right now Michigan is 6-2 with a loss to Penn State that I don’t think they should have. The Michigan State loss was painful, but expected. That being said, there seems to be a list of issues that are present each week, with a few new ones popping up occasionally too.
Early on Devin was the interception king, while last week he played like he was so scared to turn the ball over that it might as well have been glued to his hand.
The offensive line has been different so many times I don’t even know who is playing what position anymore. Even the All-American left tackle has been moved around. The youth is inexperienced but talented, but so far has been pretty lack luster. Derrick Green is averaging around 3 ypc. Dymonte Thomas was thought to be all-world but he can’t get on the field. Channing Stribling has been there, but not quite. Kyle Bosch unfortunately has had to play. Shane Morris trips over yard lines. Jake Butt is being asked to do a TON. Jourdan Lewis shows signs of being the next Raymon Taylor. Brian, is he good or aren’t we sure yet?
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| Does the inverted veer have a counter in this offense? Does the coaches know what a counter is? [Upchurch] |
Granted a lot of stuff sucked against Michigan State and those memories are at the forefront right now, but a lot of these things have shown up in every game this season. Inconsistent line play and positioning, ball security issues with Devin, no running game whatsoever, game-plans that seem to be constructed as the coaches walk onto the field.
I’m not even going to try and address the coaching issues that seem to be unidentifiable, but are definitely present. Is it Hoke’s leadership? Is it Borges’s predictability and lack of creativity? Is it Funk not knowing what to do with young linemen? Is it Mallory purposely teaching DB’s not to look back for the ball? Is it Mattison being too NFL-like that he won’t blitz when a blitz seems to be an obvious choice?
I know these guys have been football brains for many, many more years that I have been and on a level I can’t even comprehend, but at some point shouldn’t those brains be able to get things get fixed? I’d love to be a fly on the wall in the war room to see and hear what the coaches talk about. They have to know these concerns right? And if so, where are the adjustments or the explanations for why things are happening the way that they are.
Michigan is 6-2 and could potentially go 9-3, while 8-4 is probably more likely, with 6-6 being….dammit, a very real possibility. There is a laundry list of issues with some being more glaring than others. Some things are controllable and some things are not. This team can’t get older and more experienced overnight.
I don’t have fool-proof answers and I don’t know exactly why these issues seem to be unaddressed, but one thing is clear, Team 134 isn’t that good. Facts are facts. What happens this year and next will be telling for the future of the entire staff and the direction of Michigan football.
[Jump. Or small hop if your ribs are still healing. Try not to step on the dead dove.]
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Seth: Definitely McGary's back injury, which terrifies me because those don't always go away. The rest of the team will be fine. Walton is looking exactly how we want him to look—a pass-first, relatively safe-with-the-ball proto-Burke. GRIII is still hella effective as a role player, though I'd like to have seen him do some of those ball-floor things. Stauskas and Levert have definitely progressed, Caris especially. And Irvin is pretty wow. I'm a bit surprised that Horford's been getting more play than Morgan, but not at all surprised that he's averaging 4 fouls to Morgan's 1. It could just be that they know what they have in Morgan and want to see what the 2014-15 center will look like.
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BiSB: I defer to the Mathlete, but by my calculations there are actually 74 Worst Parts Of It. For my money, the worst of the Worst Parts was that, like Brian noted, we kind of expected this.
In the past two months, the "Hoke's teams aren't good on the road" meme went from interesting, somewhat annoying factoid to a potentially crippling flaw in the Hoke regime. Up until this year, you could make excuses for most of the road flops; Trash Tornado, Notre Dame's Defense is Really Good, Goodnight Sweet Prince, etc. There are really no satisfactory mitigating explanations for UConn, Penn State, and MSU. If this was just a matter of players not executing on the road, it wouldn't be as large of a concern. Those kinds of problems tend to smooth out with experience; after all Michigan remains a young team (drink). Instead, we got to once again experience the dream in which Michigan was taking an exam for which it hadn't studied. This feels like a systemic problem somewhere in the coaching staff, and those don't tend to smooth out.
The other primary candidate for "worst of the worst parts" is the continuing failure to counterpunch. This was Ohio State '12 all over again; Michigan finds some success, the defense reacts, and Michigan stagnates. It's as if the offense plays a game of chess until it finds itself in an advantageous position, and then refuses to make any more moves because their previous strategy was working. The lack of counters, constraints, or even the slightest unpredictability is becoming maddening.
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| Is boss. [Bill Rapai] |
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Seth: Hard to find something to be mad at. Shooting percentage, I guess? They've now taken 240 shots and have 14 goals to show for it, but I guess this is just what they are now. Copp and Moffatt shots are the only ones around the 1-in-5 region you like to see—I can't imagine Moffatt's will stay there but neither do I think PDG is going to remain at 11%.
I'm not yet so sold on a lot of the young defensemen as Brian seems to be, but if you asked me three months ago if I'd take solid, non-scoring play from all the freshmen blueliners plus Mac Bennett playing Hobey hockey I'd leap out of my chair and hug you then jump up and down saying "Yes yes yes yes!" #justfriends. Their solid play plus the exact opposite of the backchecking from last year is winning Nagelvoort stars, and winning 1-goal games.
A brutal non-conference schedule that easily could have put Michigan into the Big Ten season under .500 stands at an astounding 6-1-1, with Nebraska-Omaha, Niagara, Ferris State, and the GLI left. The loss to UMass-Lowell won't even hurt them much in the pairwise given wins over BC, BU, and New Hampshire.
So not really complaining here that the forwards are a crew of fourth-line-plus guys who generate zero scoring chances but a ton of everything else. After last year I will ride that like a boss. Copp is boss!
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Brian: Oh man. There are many candidates. In no particular order:
I'm really sick of arguing about how much of the current problems are the previous coach's doing. Because this generally means that 1) it's quite a lot and 2) there is no quick fix. At least this time there's not a lot of pushback on the idea Rich Rodriguez really boned the program with his late recruiting.
Anticipating what will happen at the end of the year. It's going to be another game where Michigan fans bail en masse and those who don't end up within hailing distance of OSU fans yukking it up. Also Michigan is going to get their faces punched in like they're Purdue and struggle to get over 200 yards of offense. I thought we retired Lloyd Carr, you guys.
Again with the Notre Dame tease. Michigan beats Notre Dame, feels awesome about itself, displays worrying flaws for the next few games, and then pipers are paid, chickens flit home to roost, and Michigan ends up a crappy, crappy team. I thought we fired Rodriguez, you guys. The emotional state of the fanbase from post-ND ("Bring on OSU x2! Gardner for Heisman!") to now ("Fire everything twice") is a stomach-churning rollercoaster ride.
Not anticipating anything else. Is anyone actually looking forward to seeing this team play? This feels like watching the hockey team for most of last year: something you do out of momentum and loyalty without getting one single thing in return (unless you're playing Indiana). After the ND game this team has been torture to watch, mostly passive on D and discombobulated on O. There are jolly crappy teams (again, Indiana) and dour ones; Michigan is emphatically the latter.
Having the competence needle move in the wrong direction. The way Michigan has gone about trying to fix their offensive issues has just made them worse. They've made transparently nonsensical decisions that have blown up in their face, killing anything resembling chemistry on the OL, setting practice time on fire, and are once again stuck in a hodge-podge offense thanks to the fact that they cannot do what they want to do even a little tiny bit and have to resort to being a crappy spread team if they want to move the ball. Learning: we do not have it. I worried before the season that Michigan was on its way to being on the wrong side of history with respect to Ohio State; now I'm also worried that MSU has a sustainably better coaching situation than Michigan. /attacks wrist with highlighter
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Seth: It's losing a game to a rival and then watching my brain turn to basketball and hockey because everything about the football team was just exposed and there's no reason to think they'll improve because each game since the beginning of the year looks like a step backwards. I'm surrounded by Spartans, and right now I feel like the biggest one.
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Mathlete: Everyone knows this team had a major roster hole due to the coaching transition. This was supposed to be the last year it would be a major impact. The defense is what I expect from that. Doing most of it what it can with what it has. The defense isn't perfect but considering the roster I think most of our satisfied with their output relative to the pieces they are working with.
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| Sparty's execution, on the other hand, looked pretty on-target. [AP via Ledger-Enquirer] |
The worst part is the offense. Unlike the defense, the offense is maddening collection of frustrations. The OL is young. Whether they should be better or not is a matter of debate. They certainly could be better, but at the same time there is a significant amount of youth that is a very real factor. My expectation is as a football coach you have a philosophy, you assess your personnel and you adapt accordingly. You don't want a coach without a philosophy but you don't want one who will continue with it in the face of all reason.
Our offensive (mostly line) personnel issues aren't getting better this year. That isn't Coach Borges' fault. The worst part is continued pursuit of game plans that fail to acknowledge the limitations in front of him. Technically, yes, all of the problems have been execution issues. The same would be true if you trotted out an all-blogger offensive line. Our execution would be poor (but our executions would be swift). When you put players in a consistent position to fail, it becomes an issue of coaching execution rather than player execution.
The worst part is that at this point in time the offensive coaching executions seem a fundamental part of our nature and we are stuck in that worse spot as a fan, part of you hoping for failure to drive the change in coaching staff because you see no other practical solution to the problem.
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Ace: BiSB and Brian have covered pretty much all of it, so I'll add just a couple morsels to this already-depressing roundtable.
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| We're so sorry, man. [Upchurch] |
Hearing the same explanation for the same issues, and having the explanation not actually explain anything. I understand that this coaching staff isn't going to give much to the media by design, and that's not entirely a bad thing. When the same issues keep cropping up, however, and it seems like they're largely scheme-related, "well, we didn't execute" becomes a tired mantra. This isn't just about answering questions from reporters. It's about trying to relay to the fans why the program they're devoted to watching (and often throwing gobs of money at) is performing below the expectations that these very coaches set—this team isn't sniffing a Big Ten title. The coaches don't have to throw specific players or coaches under the bus; there's still a large chasm between doing that and saying "we didn't execute," which is both blatantly obvious and becoming a way to dodge accountability (and, from the way it comes off most of the time, pinning more responsibility on the players than the men coaching them).
Legitimately feeling awful for multiple players. I don't normally feel bad for scholarship athletes, even when their team is doing poorly. They have very bright futures, enjoy being the most popular people on campus, get plenty of top-notch academic support, and live out a dream that most of us are physically incapable of living (stupid genes).
After the MSU game, though, all I could really think about was how bad I felt for Devin Gardner, and how much his entire body must hurt, and how demoralizing it must be to trot out there series after series knowing that the reward for his bravery is going to be another helmet to the ribs—oh, and then some idiotic internet tough guys are going to question his ability to play quarterback afterward. And don't even get me started on Fitz Toussaint, who's got a daughter to support and such a rough background that he described an incident in which his father stabbed his mother's boyfriend at one of his high school scrimmages as "embarrassing." Two years ago, he seemed destined for the NFL draft; now it seems like he'll be lucky to get a cursory look as an undrafted free agent, and much of that turn was entirely out of his control.
Can the next TWO be about basketball, please?
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Seth: If the home game win streak ends, definitely.
November 6th, 2013 at 3:55 PM ^
We're good and I dont feel attacked at all. As a matter of fact I think you cleverly turned the tables on my analogy and not in a bad way.
And your point on home games is also well taken although it doesnt change the malaise I am experiencing any.
November 6th, 2013 at 4:17 PM ^
But as soon as I think of not renewing my tickets, I suddenly feel guilty of even thinking that. Maybe I still cling to the hope that these problems will work out (however that will happen). I see firsthand how somebody can struggle with an idea, a concept, a move, a play and then suddenly the light clicks on and he gets it.
I must remind myself that these are still teenagers/young men doing something at a high level that I could never achieve and they are being led by a staff much more versed in their craft than I will ever be.
Although I like certain individuals on the team, I do not cheer for Michigan because of them. I (and I'd dare say we) cheer for Michigan because it is our school and the collective experiences that team represents. In my messed up rationale, giving up my tickets seems akin to turning my back on the school and I cannot do that just yet. Call me a lemming if you want.
I still enjoy game day when they are at home but watching them on TV has become an unhappy experience in our household.
I want to see improvement from this team and some indication that they are moving forward collectively. Even though my heart want results now – my head willing to be patient wait a little longer to see the expected results come to fruition. What’s eating at me is that there are no indicators showing me that we are moving in that direction. That is what worries me the most. A few individual outliers may exist on both sides of the ball but that does not make a trend.
I had posted at another place that the MSU game would not be a turning point but in my mind – this season would be. I still believe that. There are another 5 games to go in this season. I will wait until the bowl game is over and look at the entire season’s body of work before I decide whether to ask for change sooner than later.
I suggest we all collectively stash the pitchforks and torches until January and then we can pull them out then. There is still football left to play.
November 6th, 2013 at 5:45 PM ^
I liked your point about sometimes things just finally click.
I teach college students, and there are a lot of teaching techniques I can use to help students learn. But I can't make them learn. The teaching is up to me. The learning is up to them.
And sometimes it just takes time. Some concepts just take a while to sink in.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:40 PM ^
My dad is at this point [edit: this is in response to Mgrowold's post]. He never even reached this stage during the Rodriguez years. At least we could talk about the games. Now we talk about the Tigers or the Red Wings on game days. I think I understand. Mediocre football beats bad football, but is not Michigan football, nor the standards of success for this program; being better than Rodriguez, while necessary, is not sufficient.
I can respect where you guys are coming from, but there is a difference between mediocrity and inconsistency. If this were a senior led team, I would be more concerned. Generally speaking, Michigan is short experience on offense, and lacks stars on defense. This can only improve.
November 6th, 2013 at 4:07 PM ^
And I think Brandon knows that because if you were serious you wouldn't have written a letter telling him "probably."
If you're going to do it, do it. Don't make idle threats that he'll ignore.
November 6th, 2013 at 4:15 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 4:19 PM ^
Dear Dave:
I graduated from Michigan in 1981, live in Cleveland, Ohio and since about 1987 have either held or helped pay for four season tickets to Michigan football. From about 1990-1992 I actually shared tickets with Marty Bodner when he was the District Attorney down here in Barberton and between 1992-1994 I recruited for Michigan under Bob Chemiel here in Northern Ohio. I have made virtually all home games for the past 25 years or so, usually attend one road game and have gone to six bowl games (including the last two). The reason for my email though is simple, I wanted to express to you just how discouraged I am as an alumni fan right now over the state of the team and for the first time in my life (even including the dark years from 2008-2010) I am seriously considering ending my financial support of the team next year.
It appears to me that our current staff, especially on offense, is stubbornly employing a style of football our current roster is ill-prepared to execute. It also seems to me that our players, unlike those at MSU for example, are regressing in their development throughout the year instead of getting better. I am deeply concerned that instead of taking steps to address the issues made painfully apparent this past Saturday in East Lansing our staff is preparing to “double down” on a broken and antiquated offensive philosophy and the anticipated results will be painful to watch. I hope I am wrong but if we finish this season as I fear (with losses to Iowa, Northwestern and being crushed by OSU) it will be difficult to justify my ticket renewal, especially in light of our less than stellar home slate next year.
I appreciate you taking the time to read this letter. I’m not quite sure what I expect you to do with it other than perhaps adding me to the list of unhappy alumni with the direction of our football team. And maybe reminding Coach Hoke that getting pummeled by MSU and OSU (yes I know – hasn’t happened yet and maybe won’t) is not acceptable and if changes have to be made with his staff next year to correct that problem then so be it.
Respectfully Yours,
November 6th, 2013 at 5:38 PM ^
Your letter is good, but I wouldn't complain about the offensive philosophy, as I think whether they play spread of "man ball" isn't the real issue, as they'd have problems regardless.
The issues....It is the inability of the staff to appropriately motivate, teach, and prepare the players so that they can effectively execute a game plan on Saturdays. The offensive game planning is horribly inadequate and in-game adjustments (or lack of them) on offense are baffling. Third, the offensive line is horrendous and there isabsolutely no justifiable reason for it to be that bad - they have gotten worse as the season's gone on. Fourth, Freddy J needs to go - none of the running backs can learn how to block? None???? That's the teacher's fault, not the students.
November 6th, 2013 at 8:44 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 9:26 PM ^
another option would be to keep the tix but sell the entire package. take a year off. you may lose a couple hundred bucks in the exchange but consider it an insurance policy. you will still maintain your tix status in case you change your mind in the future. just a thought.
November 6th, 2013 at 10:29 PM ^
I thought about doing exactly that. But the problem I'm having is that my relationship with Michigan football is starting to feel a lot my relationship with my first wife. Things there started to go downhill years before we divorced and there were predictably a lot of fights, tears and anger during the downhill journey.
But you know when i knew it was over....really over with her? The morning I woke up and realized I just didnt give a shit anymore about her. I wasnt mad at her anymore...I wasnt sad...I wasnt anything. I was just sort of dead to her existence - complete & total apathy. That's when I knew there was not going back no matter what happened.
I cant tell you how close I am to that feeling right now regarding football. I'm going this weekend but I'd be kidding myself to say I'm as fired up for the game as I've been in the past. And if we happen to lose I cant see myself feeling terribly surprised, upset, angry or candidly anything right now. I'm numb and apathy is starting to set in.
November 6th, 2013 at 11:54 PM ^
I think my post has finally come full circle with this comment. mGrowOld, I'm clearly a couple of decades behind you, but we're on the same page emotionally when it comes to this team. Frankly, I can trace my mental state of being back to the moment Bellomy took the field in Lincoln; we are lost.
I won't ever be able to not watch Michigan, but I'm glad I've reached a spot where I can digest our football games without having outcomes affect me one way or another. The most upsetting thing about all of this is that I am not upset.
November 7th, 2013 at 8:52 AM ^
...tailgate to give you a quick kick to the nuts (especially if Michigan wins). That should cure your apathy.
November 6th, 2013 at 9:38 PM ^
It is called apathy my friend. Every season is almost identical save for the Threet/Sheridan season and a slightly better version of the same in 2011 where it appears Molk nearly singlehandidly created a run game that uses you know...running backs.
You have a QB who has to play superman / heroman - you have almost no running game - every running back you play looks identical, 2-3 star talent, you have lines pushed off the ball for various excuses (2012: hey they are just bad seniors! 2013: hey they are just too young RS freshman...oh and 2 seniors who have regressed) - you have rivals that dont just beat you, but dominate you...and rival fan bases who when not mocking you are saying who are these guys and how have they fallen so far? - you have your team looking competitive against the other Midwest dinosaur called Notre Dame early in the year, only to tease you - and then you go to the regular season where the Wisconsins, MSUs, OSUs physically make you look like a HS team. Your teams stagnate all season - they look the same in game 10 as they do in game 2. While your rivals sometimes look laughable in games 1-3 (see MSU see OSU defense) and then become world beaters via experience and coaching. Your MGoBlogger friends tell you "this year's 4 star talent might not be developing but just wait until net year's gets here!!" Then in the offseason you wave your cute 14th ranked or 7th ranked or 17th ranked recroooting class and say "just wait until 2 years from now - there will be MANBALL!!!!" And then its 2 years later and they blame Rich Rod again.
It is groundhog day.
November 6th, 2013 at 1:50 PM ^
I subjected myself to enough masochistic moments watching the replay on BIG channel to see MSU's TD right at the end of the second quarter, and our DB (Countess?) not once glance downfield in the direction where the ball would be coming from. Not sure he would have been able to bat the ball away, but the fact that he wasn't even looking downfield just guaranteed that he couldn't break it up in any event. What the hell?
November 6th, 2013 at 1:57 PM ^
That's pretty standard technique for DBs who are behind the receiver. Some coaches teach guys only to look back if they are in really good position.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:13 PM ^
I suppose I could understand that technique in the middle of the field where looking back for the ball simply takes you out of being able to tackle the guy after he catches the ball, but in the end zone it doesn't make much sense to me. Doesn't matter if you tackle him. Knocking the ball away is your only hope.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:17 PM ^
It is often your best chance at a PBU.
http://mgoblog.com/content/picture-pages-how-press-michael-floyd-and-li…
November 6th, 2013 at 2:20 PM ^
Those plays happen so fast, though, that what we're talking about is a lot like teaching hitters in baseball to do something. Hitters can be tought, but it takes a longer time to learn to do something instinctively, so to speak, and at break-neck speed than it does to learn to do something that allows for time to deliberate. I'm inclined to be very patient with the defensive backs for that reason.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:23 PM ^
The back to the QB thing was most often in man coverage. In man coverage, once you flip your hips, you have positions: in-phase (in-sync, in-step, in-line, even) and trail. In-phase means that you have your hip on the front side of their hip and your shoulder on the front side of their shoulder, and you're using your body to gradually deflect them in the direction you want to push them. Trail means pretty much anything else.
When you are in-phase, you can feel where the WR is and feel where he's breaking. You are in contact with him with your body and he can't get around you without going through you, so you don't need to watch him. Otherwise, turning and looking for the ball is only slowing you down or putting you out of position as the receiver continues on his route. So when you are in a trail technique, your focus remains on the receiver and you try to go up and through the face, between the arms, and and rip down, only turning looking when you essentially catch back up, or in other terms, get in-phase again.
I'll be discussing DB play more in an article this week (I'm writing it tonight) that will get into some other things. But that generally answers your question.
November 6th, 2013 at 4:18 PM ^
But remember: Mallory is a Michigan Man, and that's ALL that matters (tongue firmly in cheek).
November 6th, 2013 at 1:56 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 2:02 PM ^
If the coaches started blaming people in public, at least the fanbase would achieve some sort of gratification. We want blood! We want blame! We have inchoate urges and impulses that must be gratified!
(Yeah. Sarcasm.)
November 6th, 2013 at 2:05 PM ^
There is nothing to be gained from criticizing your fellow coaches or tipping off your thinking about tactics and gameplans. As much as I'd love to know more than I do, I don't want the coaches saying any more than they do. I'd rather see them do their best to win than do their best to satisfy my curiosity.
November 6th, 2013 at 3:19 PM ^
And execution is very important to this crew. They are from the Bo Schembechler school of coaching.
In Bo's Lasting Legacy, he said that execution is the key, and this philosophy matches up with Hoke's focus on developing these college students as both athletes and men. Don't try to be gimmicky. Teach them how to do it the right way; that will bring succes (I think that the philosophy is similar to John Wooden's philosophy).
In a lot of ways, it reminds me of investment strategies. Some people look for the quick buck, finding a stock that is taking off. Think Facebook. That strategy works well in the short term, but for the majority of investors it doesn't work over time.
However, investing in quality companies, not the shiny new "fast-risers," is a better long-term strategy. Think Warren Buffet and Berkshire Hathaway. It's not pretty or glossy, and year to year, might not always look like a huge winner. But over time, it is the better payoff.
I think that these coaches are trying to build a long-lasting football culture. That's why they are focused on the defense first, and having an offense that minimizes mistakes (much like what I think Alabama, LSU, and Oklahoma are doing). And it's why they don't seem too interested in the glossy new-fangled offensive strategies.
By the way, here is an exerpt that I think explains this philosophy from the book:
Now I have to admit – since I'm being as honest as I can be here – there was a time when I doubted if fundamentals were still enough to produce top-notch football teams. I even wondered if the game had passed me by.
This crisis of confidence occurred after our infamous 1984 season, when we finished 6-6. In the off-season I went to one of these national coaching conferences with a few hundred other coaches, and they had some hotshot young high school coach from California explain his new whiz-bang system of defense.
He had zones two deep, three deep, man-to-man, and combinations of the two. That really caught my eye. I'm thinking, Maybe you've got to do all those things to win these days. Maybe our approach at Michigan is just too simple too succeed in the modern eara. Boy, that was an awful feeling.
But after this guys finishes his slide show, someone in the audience raises his hand asks, "If your defensive schemes are so great, then why did your team give up 400 yards a game last season?"
Well I wanted to hear this! The hotshot replied – and I will never forgot this – "We were just a poor tackling team."
Well, hell! That tells you all you need to know! Throw out 50 percent of that fancy stuff and spend fifeeen more minutes every day practicing the most basic thing in football: TACKLING, that's all…I walked out of that auditorium and I knew what were going to do: Get back to basics! Get back to Michigan football! And I was determined we were going to do it better than anyone else…
After another coach asked the same whippersnapper why one of his plays failed in a big game, he said, "That play would've worked if the dam guard had pulled." Then don't run that play unless the guard is so indoctrinated that he will pull every time- and do it in his sleep. That's called coaching.
I walked out of that auditorium, and I knew what we were going to do: Get back to the basics! Get back to Michigan football! And I was determined that we were going to do it better than anyone else.
Blocking and tackling!"
November 6th, 2013 at 3:28 PM ^
I mean, that's great, except that right now, Michigan is really bad at blocking. Really bad about running plays that they clearly don't understand fully awake, let alone in their sleep.
"That play would've worked if the dam guard had pulled." That's been pretty much the standard defense of Borges - it's all on the players for being young and messing up.
But if you want to go by the Bo standard, this staff has failed at coaching. Because they don't look like a team that's been drilled to death in the fundamentals that just needs some time before they can grasp the advanced stuff. They look like a team that's trying a bunch of gimmicks and shuffles because they continually fail at the basics.
November 6th, 2013 at 3:48 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 3:52 PM ^
That's a fair criticism. These players are failing at execution, and that falls on both the playersand the coaches. These coaches need to do more with execution; I agree.
I was just inserting it into the conversation to try to explain why the coaches talk a lot about execution. Execution is where things are going wrong (not necessarily the play calls in their minds), and they are definitely noticing when proper execution isn't happening.
My assumption is that they are not at all happy with the execution result, and are trying to drill that stuff into the ground in practice because that is a huge part of their philosophy. But in the end, I have no idea.
The proof is in the pudding, and right now that pudding is god awful. But I'm hoping that it just needs a little time to set. /fingers crossed
November 6th, 2013 at 4:37 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 5:53 PM ^
Agreed.
I wonder if social media makes it harder for coaches to be more patient and stick to their plan. On this site we see all sorts of suggestions that it is stupid to keep doing plays that don't work for your personnel. But maybe it doesn't work because they haven't done enough repetition.
The speed with which teams are obsessively analyzed these days is so different from what I remember when I grew up watching this team in the 70s. Mostly, we knew the score and had a few insights from a few journalists. You didn't have "Picture Pages" and UFR's breaking down every misstep (and I really mean missed step).
In a way, Bo had it easy because we simply judged him based upon Wins and Loses, and his Personality/Philosophy. There was a lot more trust as a result?
November 6th, 2013 at 11:50 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 4:10 PM ^
Would have hated Bo. Conservative behind the times offense. Stubborn to changes. Never telling anyone anything or apologizing. They have liked more wins, but would have just heightened he complaints about not winning Rose Bowls against PAC-10 offenses, and never winnng the big one.
November 6th, 2013 at 6:01 PM ^
I think you might be right.
Having grown up with Bo as the coach, I also remember a lot of frustration, even in those days, with him because of those bowl losses, and also playing down to the level of the opponent. Sure, there were the annual Northwestern beatings (usually the only slaughter during the year - my how things have changed), but there were complaints about not being aggressive enough with a lead, etc.
November 6th, 2013 at 9:49 PM ^
the fact that he went to the rose bowl only 3 out of his last 4 years would have gotten the blogosphere up in arms. 13 big ten titles in his 21 yrs is unacceptable. 15 top 10 finishes. if only we could go back to that mediocrity.
November 7th, 2013 at 12:42 PM ^
But expectations change with the level of success. LOTS of people bitched about those things back when Bo was coach. Only after he's gone is he nearly untouchable. It's not different that the reactions the ex-Oregon player heard in the stands that was posted here not too long ago as the Ducks are kicking ass and taking names. It was silly then, and silly now.
But from 1979 through 1984 Bo went 8-4, 10-2, 9-3, 8-4, 9-3, 6-6. Somehow with two Rose Bowls in there (went in an 8-4 year) and a Sugar. That sounds a lot like the records people have complained about since, with the usual complaints of "10-2 was a fluke" and "the game has passed him by..."
Fans are never satisfied. I'm guessing it wouldn't be too hard to find Alabama fans complaining.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:01 PM ^
The team should be getting better and for whatever reason they aren't. Is this coaching? Is it the players? At some point improvement needs to be seen.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:01 PM ^
Dour, I like that. But hasn't Michigan always been dour? I'm trying to remember the last plucky and jolly Michigan team. This year's microcosm is Devin, IMO. As I've said before, I don't know where all of Devin's on-screen elan and joie de vivre goes during the game, and it bugs me. Even when he's lighting up Indiana, he's limping and trudging around, isolating himself on the sideline, and generally not giving off positive vibes. Understandable given the beating he took against State but even then I'd love to see some fire and excitement from Michigan's on-field leader. Even some Tom Brady-esque O-Line/WR ripping would be fine. Makes me wonder about the captaincy voting, why the fourth-year program member and starting QB didn't make it.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:01 PM ^
In fairness, it's easy to tell a guy to do that and much harder to be the player who is supposed to do it while keeping up with a very large and fast man who is trying to outrun you. You don't want to look back for the ball at the risk of having your guy leave you completely in the dust.
Some guys also just don't have good ball-tracking skills. They were receivers, but Odoms and Stonum were a good example of this. Odoms - I remember reading about him - was apparently capable of tracking balls at a young age. He just had it in him. Stonum - a much more gifted player in other ways - did not.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:16 PM ^
But in another thread, there was a Twitter response inbedded from someone comparing the pre-game warm-ups of Michigan and MSU, stating Michigan was doing high school-level stuff, while MSU was doing much more complex things. I wonder, are our players so immature that they are not ready to learn higher-level technique or is that our coaches aren't teaching it to them?
November 6th, 2013 at 2:26 PM ^
Someone posted the complaint in another thread yesterday I believe. Here was my response:
"He makes reference to one doing "shoulder turn" moves to help the blitz and the other working on disengaging techniques. I've coached DL at a HS level, I've always teached both of these things as fundamental DL techniques (I tought the shoulder turn this to HS FR my first year coaching, it isn't advanced). There is nothing advanced about turning someone's shoulder to allow the blitz in behind them. I also know Hoke teaches it, because I've heard him talk about it and I've seen them utilize it. Hoke isn't not doing basic DL fundamentals here. FWIW, Hoke does a different shoulder turn drill that is intended for disengaging reasons, where you turn the OL's shoulders so that you can scrape to the ball. It's just a different set of fundamentals they are working on in warm-ups.
They are also talking about warm-ups. I've never done the "shoulder turn" drill in warm-ups, essentially because I don't think it's really necessary (I have worked on it a lot in practice though). Guys are more often going to encounter times when they need to disengage, so you go over those types of things. Warm-ups aren't really a teaching moment, they are going back over your fundamentals so that it is instilled in your mind come game time. You're only emphasizing certain techniques for the game to get the players feeling what they need to do. It's why Hoke does leverage reps and disengage moves, because that's the fundamentals he feels like going over. I bet if this guy watched all of MSU's warm-ups he would have seen something similar.
As far as skill level on both sides of the ball as far as technique, a major thing for Michigan is youth on both sides. Certainly that's not everything. But look as far back as last year for MSU. MSU had the most physically gifted DL that either Michigan or MSU have had since Woodley came and left: Gholston. That guy still doesn't know how to get off a block, still can't do a basic pass rush move, and is just a physical speciman that stands up too high and gets put on skates when someone down blocks him. Why is that? Is it because MSU's coaches suck? I highly doubt it, because I think MSU's coaching staff is pretty good (FWIW, they did get a new DL coach this year). But it just goes to show that you can't take individual pieces, years, players, etc and come to this kind of conclusion. Michigan coaches could have made this exact same claim last year as MSU looked very mediocre on the DL and even worse on the OL than Michigan.
While in general I do believe that some Michigan/MSU recruits were in shock about how that game turned out (mostly because a team giving up that many sacks is shocking), none of the things that that person wrote have any significant value to anything. Maybe they do if they don't actually listen to the people that are recruiting them, but if they do listen, they'll actually understand.
Anyone that looks at warm-ups and uses that as even a part of their barometer is way off base. To some extent you can look at practice, but that's mostly about how practice is run, because people are going to be covering different things each day, but at least then you get a feel for what's being taught. But warm-ups? Making a judgment call based on warm-ups is just an awful, awful decision."
November 6th, 2013 at 2:32 PM ^
Regarding that individual's observations:
November 6th, 2013 at 2:38 PM ^
That's a close approximation to how I feel about that person's particular observations that they wrote on scout, yes.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:39 PM ^
Thanks for the insight, SC.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:22 PM ^
My primary question is this: If you could see the offensive line problems lingering on the horizon 1 or 2 years ago, why no JUCO recruits to bolster in the interim? If you couldn't see it, why are you coaching?
My secondary question is this: If you keep blaming execution, when does it become the fault of the coaches that the kids aren't executing? Because that sounds like passing the buck and basically blaming the players to me. A proper coach-speak way to handle it would be to say, "we didn't get the kids ready to play the way we expect them to", or some other such vagueness that at least takes responsibility. The buck stops at the top.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:24 PM ^
November 6th, 2013 at 2:25 PM ^
Not anticipating anything else. Is anyone actually looking forward to seeing this team play? This feels like watching the hockey team for most of last year: something you do out of momentum and loyalty without getting one single thing in return (unless you're playing Indiana). After the ND game this team has been torture to watch, mostly passive on D and discombobulated on O. There are jolly crappy teams (again, Indiana) and dour ones; Michigan is emphatically the latter.
Yes, this is definitely the worst part. Apart from the Minnesota game, this is spot on. The Akron and UCONN games had the darkly surreal 2008 edge to them. The Penn State game had a painful beginning, and OT was an unwatchable farce. The Indiana game was a sickening roller coaster ride, made even sicker by its resemblance to the 2010 Illinois game (which was an affront to Bo style football). I was not looking forward to the Sparty game, and did not enjoy watching it.
Thinking back to those mediocre teams from the 1990s, it was not like this. If Michigan were going to lose, it would be hard-fought, and a damn memorable loss. But watching the team was almost always enjoyable, even when the ending was tragic. The losses were Classic, Shakespearean even.
I have not lost hope in this team, or in this Coach, but game days have stopped being an enjoyable experience.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:40 PM ^
I'm really sick of arguing about how much of the current problems are the previous coach's doing. Because this generally means that 1) it's quite a lot and 2) there is no quick fix. At least this time there's not a lot of pushback on the idea Rich Rodriguez really boned the program with his late recruiting.1. I have noticed that those who put the onus of this season at Rodriguez' feet (in year 3 of Hoke) give no credit to him for the Hoke's first, Sugar Bowl season. That season was composed almost entirely of RR's players. Yet the further in time the team gets from Rodriguez, and the more that the team is composed of Hoke's recruits, the more these people blame the failings of the team on Rodriguez' recruiting. 2. With regards to Rodriquez's last recruiting class, that was greatly affected by his retention being in doubt from November through the bowl game. If Brandon made his decision prior to the bowl game (and Three and Out says as much), then he and his process certain share the blame there.
November 6th, 2013 at 2:52 PM ^
Year 3 is exactly the year when that hole in 2010 would have the biggest effect. The two previous classes where RR recruited decently graduate. I don't remember anyone denying the offensive success of Hoke's first season was RR's doing, we basically ran his plays with his players. If anything, the hand wringing from the spread guys that we weren't doing it as well as RR could have started almost immediately. Defensively, all credit for the turn around went to Mattison because... well, he deserved it a lot more than RR or GERG did.
November 6th, 2013 at 3:08 PM ^
I think 2 is valid though, and I'd say it extends to the 2010 class as well. In any case, there were so many holes everywhere on the team that it's tough to fault RR for not prioritizing OL recruiting that wouldn't become an issue for three more years. And I doubt coaches go into recruiting years with the mindset of, "whelp, I'm probably losin' my job next year, better make sure I assume next years class will be awful so I have the roster appropriately stocked for my successor".
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