Denard Turning Up The Heat
It was good to get a football fix today; Observations from the game:
Denard is seriously turning up the heat on Tate for the starting QB job. He looked more poised, made better decisions, and threw the ball better than Tate. The 97-yard pass had some good touch on it. Gardner showed some flashes of being a good QB, but he's got a little ways to go yet.
The defense played well at times - they did well against the run, but broke down when Robinson and Gardner started scrambling around. You never really know about the defense until the first couple games when they start playing games against different offensive schemes. There weren't any OMG moments and tackling was decent, so that's a positive.
Unfortunately, I didn't see anything extraordinary from the RBs. Hopkins trucked a couple guys and showed some flashes of Minor Rage. The other backs all had up and down moments.
Can't wait until Fall.
The spring game was very tough to judge from both an offensive and defensive stand point.
The entire play set, both offensive and defensive, was very vanilla. We did not show a whole lot on offense that we did not see last year. Defensively, it didn't look like we really disguised our coverages nor did we send many blitz packages. We seemed to play out of a base set for most of the game.
Based on my personal observations, Denard looked like a better and more competent qb for our offense. That being said, he faced a defense that in no way shape or form resembled the complex defenses he will be seeing this fall. He was not challenged mentally today and that may be why he was able to play very well. It was hard to tell if his grasp of defensive schemes really improved to the level that rich rod can feel comfortable giving him the nod over tate. All in all, good outing by denard and a decent and unsurprising outing from tate.
I'm pretty sure our offense was running an array of sets. I thought I saw some 5-wide, some I-form, some 2-RB sets. Maybe not too vanilla. Also, there was definitely a reverse.
I've been drinking, so maybe I imagined all that...
but nothing new, or really surprising in any way.
No H-Back sets at all, either.
There were H-back sets. I remember at least two plays with an H-back.
I must have been distracted by Denard's rocket-boosters (dreads).
There was also a play where they had two H-backs, one right behind the other.
Yeah, they ran a play in the I-Formation with Hopkins as H-back when they were running the drill where they started from the 3 yard line. It worked well I think he got a 6-7 yard gain if I remember right
You didn't want to just throw this in one of the other Spring Game threads???
one thing I don't mind multiple, repetitive threads on, its the Spring Game.
and enjoy the glorious return of Michigan Football DENARD RULES
TATE SUCKS
FIRE RICH ROD
FREE PIZZA
FRRRRREEEEEEEE PIZZZZZZZZZZZAAAAAA...
Denard the better QB after a year of development.
Shoelace was the man!
Denard looked fantastic today, but there were two things that I think played into him looking better than Tate.
1. Tate ran with the 2s on offense while against the 1s on defense a lot more often than Denard. I specifically remember two bobbled catches on one drive by different players, which is what kills the drive more than QB play. He did have his chances with the 1s and still didn't do as well as Denard, but I think that was due to reason #2.
2. The defense seemed to be blitzing Tate a lot more than Denard. I didn't realize it until the practice was almost over, but they seemed to be rushing 5-6 against Tate and 4 against Denard.
I still think that Denard looked better on the day, but I don't think that it was as hands down as everyone is making it seem.
Denard ran the zone read very well; Tate made the right reads but is limited by his athletic ability.
Denard made better reads against a less talented and more vanilla defense from what Tate was usually working against.
Tate was still more accurate and fit the ball in to tighter spots, but several of them were very ill-advised throws.
We won't know exactly what Denard will look like yet against other defenses, but the defense knew what was coming a lot of time and Denard either put on a good juke or turned on the afterburners. It bothered me that Tate was scrambling around getting himself further and further into the backfield and that he flung the ball out there for grabs on the option pitch, but he did have some good throws out there. All in all, I think we can have some tempered optimism about D-Rob.
including an ability to get the ball off quickly & accurately on the run.
He didn't show a very good awareness of whether a defender would be able to step in front for the interception.
Which made Tate a dangerous scrambler. Dangerous to the opposition if in the confusion and chaos of a broken play, a receiver found himself wide open. Dangerous to Michigan if the receiver did not find himself wide open.
Can one player completly change the dynamic of a team? Of course.
Most recent example was Dennis Dixon of Oregon,not a great team,
proven by the fact that when Dixon tore his ACL they could not win,but with him in,they were i belive the best team in the nation that year.From reports coming out of spring ball,Robinson could be ready to turn the college football world on its ear.Any QB who has made big strides in throwing accuracy and then can pull the ball down and turn into Usain Bolt will make life hell for any team.
The thing with dixon was that he didn't have a backup that was even half-competent. IIRC, it was a partially injured Brady Leaf running a zone-read spread option. Talk about square pegs & round holes...
Point being your estimation of Dixon's value to his team holds a bit less weight given the circumstances.
I think you're right on with these points.
Both, overall, looked solid.
The difference was Denard in addition to looking solid had a couple spectacular plays. These are naturally what stick in people's minds hence the perception that Denard looked waaaay way better than Tate.... This, and the fact that Denard's improvement relative to where he was last year is more than Tate's improvement relative to where he was last year... which, really, we all expected b/c Denard had more room to grow.
Did Denard look better than Tate? Yes. If the season started tomorrow, would he be the starter? Probably. Do we now have 2 good QBs with a year under their belt? Definitely. But is Denard as vastly better than Tate as some people are claiming? Definitely not.
Overall, they both looked good. Denard will be electric, and, if I were a betting man I'm betting he starts against UConn. But Tate is talented as well, and I think we're in for a rotation this year.
And hopefully that also means DG can redshirt.
Wouldn't you blitz less with DR in at QB? I think that is an indicator of how people would game plan against DR vs TF. A blitzer is much more likely to get to TF and take him down. With DR, you don't want your D to get behind him, or its instant death. Maybe another good reason to play DR. I don't think the D coaches were blitzing less to make it easy for DR.
The philosophy is this:
1. Blitz an inexperienced QB
2. Don't blitz an experienced QB
At this point in his career, I would still blitz the hell out of Denard. Regardless of his speed, he's still bound to make mistakes with the ball. If he's still the quarterback in 2011 or 2012, then maybe you start to sit back a little bit, spy him with a safety, etc.
This seems like a useless generalization. For the most part college QB's are inexperienced even when they're experienced, so you should blitz them all.
Isn't it more accurate to say the D wants to pressure the QB? If you can bring pressure with 4 your are a much better D, than if you need to bring 5 or 6. Even veteran NFL QB's are going to be ineffective when not given the time to throw.
All in all, in passing situations, I would be more comfortable defending Denard by keeping him contained in the pocket and forcing him to throw into coverage, as opposed to sending extra pass rushers, giving Denard one on one coverage to throw against, and increasing his potential to break contain.
That doesn't seem like a good gameplan if Denard proves that he can throw into coverage like he did today. Maybe you find out that sending 6 guys rushes him and doesn't give him enough time to make the right reads and he throws some picks.
Right, woulda coulda shoulda, I guess it just boils down to the hard to believe reality we have a home run threat at QB and the threat it entails! Pretty exciting stuff.
April 18th, 2010 at 10:15 AM ^
Well, duh.
Of course you want to pressure the QB. And if you can get pressure with 3 or 4, you obviously don't need to blitz much.
But some college quarterbacks are less experienced than others. Denard is one of them. I'd expect him to struggle more with identifying blitzers and beating those coverages than Forcier or junior or senior quarterbacks.
I don't think that always holds true. If I was facing a QB who was a danger to run and could hurt you on roll-outs and short passes, I would play conservative and try to keep everything in front of me. Basic old school gap control style defense. Just my opinion.
Blitzes are not just to sack the quarterback. If he gets some good pressure, he might make some bad passes or sit in the pocket to long and get the ball knocked out of his hands.
What do you think Denard would have done if he were in the situation that Tate was with Mike Williams jumping the snap and blowing up the option play? Keep it for a loss? Try to pitch it? Try to throw it away?
What does he do when the pocket collapses in on him and he has nowhere to go? Take the sack? Throw a bad pass? Throw it away?
The point is that Tate was tested and Denard was not. We know that Tate makes inexperienced mistakes, but Denard might make the same mistakes or worse. We just don't know yet.
True dat. In hindsigt I wish I would have left the first paragraph out of my post. As a Michigan fan I like the opportunities presented when defenses blitz Denard.
Yeah after hearing the rumors about Denard vastly improving his throwing I was very skeptical, however after seeing him today I was completely blown away. Every ball he threw fell crisply into the hands of his intended target. He looked cool calm and collected while throwing in the pocket. He even kept his cool after rolling out, making the best decision almost every time.
Tate on the other hand made some really poor decisions and looked frantic to say the least.
including some to tightly covered receivers where he placed the ball perfectly.
I thought Denard was the better all around package today. Most of his throws were spot on, he looked more comfortable (albeit not enough) in the pocket and is one hell of a dangerous runner. Tate was Tate, scrambling around and trying to make a play. Tate's most impressive scramble/completion probably should've been whistled dead as a sack because Van Bergen touched Tate and let up but the ref didn't catch it.
Denard looked like the better passer on the run, but that could be because of the poor coverage and tentative defense trying to compensate for his running skills.
All in all, I was doubtful of Denard being the starter against UConn. After today, I won't be surprised at all if 16 is out there for the first drive and ready to tear some bitches up.
But Tate is the best punter currently, that is a fact.
I can't wait until September.
"After Michigan's spring game, Denard Robinson could be the Big Ten's most electric qb since Todd "High Voltage" Boeckman. #lightning!"
-EDSBS
Its all about Denard?
So I should pretty much expect Denard's speed to rip a hole in the space-time continuim?
That he's going to do something flippin cosmic and alert the aliens who are going to bag 'em.