DG: "Before Nuss, I never had to identify a MIKE."
August 21st, 2014 at 9:46 AM ^
His offense at UCLA was pretty good, although his biggest successes were during some down years for the Pac-10. But I can't give him too much credit for putting up 30 ppg at Auburn. 30 ppg is OK, but it isn't even that great for a power team, and he had two top-5 draft picks at RB, a first-round pick at QB, two offensive linemen who were future NFL Pro Bowlers, and two receivers who went on to lengthy NFL careers. With that kind of talent, anyone could have coached them to 30 ppg.
August 20th, 2014 at 6:00 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 6:05 PM ^
Kyle Kalis next year: "Before [new O Line coach] I never had to identify a Mike. Now I know where the pressure is coming from."
August 20th, 2014 at 7:27 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^
My avatar > yours
August 20th, 2014 at 6:06 PM ^
Unreal.
August 20th, 2014 at 6:06 PM ^
Considering Devin started at Michigan under Rodriguez that would mean that two offensive coaching staffs failed him in this particular area of development. How likely is that?
August 20th, 2014 at 6:09 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 6:34 PM ^
I'm 99% sure the QBs - no matter who it was - didn't have to worry about finding the Mike under RR, because RR and/or Magee would signal in an audible (or not) before every play.
August 20th, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
I'd like to hear someone like Space Coyote chime in, but I just can't buy that it didn't matter in an RR offense. Sure, you can audible, but once the play starts you need to make reads, and RR's not doing that for him. However, perhaps there is something to being a freshman and 3rd-stringer, but if it was something taught, it seems he would have known about it.
EDIT: After scrolling down, looks like it was probably just called out by the line or RB.
August 20th, 2014 at 6:07 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 6:09 PM ^
Borges was too busy drawing up funky new formations, he did not have time to be bothered with the basics.....
August 20th, 2014 at 6:10 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 6:17 PM ^
shouldn't the QB at least be able to identify the MIKE even if the line is handling their own calls? The statement "now I know where the pressure is coming from" is the bigger part to me - it means Borges didn't even teach him to make maybe the most fundamental read to know where the defense is attacking.. because the line was making it?
August 20th, 2014 at 7:01 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 9:08 PM ^
what I'm questioning is the tail end of Devin's quote where it sounds like he didn't even know how to identify the MIKE almost. He directly said he now knows how to tell where the pressure is coming from; even if all the blockers know what is going on and the center calls MIKE out, wouldn't you want your quarterback to still be able to identify where the likely pressure is going to come from?
August 21st, 2014 at 12:38 AM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 7:31 PM ^
This can be advantageous to the QB, because he can spend his time looking into the Defensive Backfield and try to get the coverage or look at other keys that will allow him to audible into something else (not that DG was allowed to... I never understood that) or look out wide for edge blitzes and the like.
There are many other reasons for the QB not calling the MIKE out, but I can't name them all. But just because Borges didn't have DG do it, doesn't mean he didn't know what he was doing. Borges forgets more football in a day than most of us learn in a lifetime, us coaches included. You have to be a football savant to coordinate at the level he has, and he has been successful, although inconsistent, to boot.
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August 20th, 2014 at 8:08 PM ^
beyond a stretch.
On both the social and purported football knowledge level.
August 20th, 2014 at 8:11 PM ^
Not a Borges supporter, just respect him as a high level coach who has had success. Don't forget he probably should have been at least sharing a national championship in the 2003-2004 season and has produced quite a few high draft picks and helped orchestrate M to a Sugar Bowl win. That deserves some admiration/respect, although he clearly has lost a step or two since then. I do feel he deserved to be canned, but he's a good coach.
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August 20th, 2014 at 8:25 PM ^
He does have my respect.
A genius, however, he isn't. There are very few working at the college level. I could name one.
I think, honestly, I'm disputing your word choice rather than his overall skill relative to the coaching community.
No, I don't think coaches are dumb or anything stupid like that. In fact, like you, I'm impressed.
Oh and I agree with everything else you said. Apologies, I'm being a pedant.
August 20th, 2014 at 8:31 PM ^
from equating savant with genius. They are not synonyms.
August 20th, 2014 at 8:35 PM ^
awkward takes longer to write out. Socially awkward is probably also inaccurate, but it's also what I intended to mean originally.
August 20th, 2014 at 9:17 PM ^
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August 20th, 2014 at 9:25 PM ^
Honestly, my bad.
10 days.
Go blue!
August 20th, 2014 at 10:16 PM ^
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August 20th, 2014 at 9:23 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 10:12 PM ^
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August 20th, 2014 at 9:30 PM ^
" helped orchestrate M to a Sugar Bowl win."
Are you referring to all 184 total yards?
August 20th, 2014 at 10:15 PM ^
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August 20th, 2014 at 11:03 PM ^
Are you serious? This has been discussed ad nauseam on this Board and even Borges' most ardent defenders wouldn't suggest anything like that.
August 21st, 2014 at 11:13 AM ^
those were the remnants of the Rich Rod era. And if anyone was a savant i.e., socially awkward genius, it was Rich Rod and his "you lift me up" finale.
August 21st, 2014 at 12:47 AM ^
Just because someone makes it to an OC or DC position at a BCS school doesn't mean they are some sort of genius. Yeah, there are a FEW geniuses out there. But a lot of guys are just coaches who come up through the ranks and eventually are given the opportunity. Some deserve it, some don't. Some run with it, some don't. Assuming every OC or DC at the BCS level (or even the NFL) is amazing is ridiuculous Some of them are actually flat out terrible and probably never deserved the opportunity in the first place.
This isn't any different than any other job. You probably have 15-20% of the people that excel, 15-20% that are awful, and then the other 60-70% that are somewhere in the middle.
August 21st, 2014 at 9:39 AM ^
That would be the case if every football coach was at a BCS and NFL level. They aren't. Your analogy is likely correct for all football coaches at all levels combined. But these are the ones that rose to the top already, because they proved they were inthe top 15-20% (I'd argue much higher than that).
While you can argue he isn't in the top 15-20% at the BCS level (an argument that would have merit), if he was in the 15-20% of people that were terrible at there job, people that were dependent on keeping their job based on his performance wouldn't keep hiring him. As much as you want to believe that seven different head coaches were willing to give over the keys to their offense with their job on the line to a guy that was incompetent, I think it's reasonable to say that isn't the case.
August 21st, 2014 at 12:15 PM ^
You literally have to be in the 99.9th percentile in coaching to reach those heights.
Literally? Hopw many total football coaches do you think there are in the USA?
...not enough to make your statement literally true.
August 20th, 2014 at 6:19 PM ^
Thanks, sounds viable. I just shorted my favorite pitchfork stock in the after hours session. It had momentarily spiked 42%.
August 20th, 2014 at 7:04 PM ^
To take some responsibility off the QB and allow him to look at other things (this is a give and take, there are benefits to the QB calling out the MIKE), Borges had calling out the MIKE delegated.
So alas, all I'll have to add is: if you rewatch the games you'll see the OC point to the MIKE. You'll also note that, because of some of the pass pro schemes they ran, that someone else also tended to call out the MIKE. And the example is an MGoBlog favorite:
August 20th, 2014 at 7:15 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 10:14 PM ^
August 20th, 2014 at 10:34 PM ^
I think it's the former, not the latter. Devin did in fact check runs pretty regularly and successfully based on defensive alignment. It was one of the few things Borges seemed comfortable with him doing (a pretty necessary task really). It's hard to believe that Borges would have him do that without very clear coaching on how and when to make the adjustments, including ID'ing the MIKE among I'm sure many other things.
August 20th, 2014 at 10:52 PM ^
August 21st, 2014 at 8:09 AM ^
I'm am going from the OP and he did say what he posted may not be exactly the qoute, but if it's close I think your reading comprehension needs work. What he said was (in the OP) He was never taught how to IDENTIFY the MIKE. He didn't say he never had to call out the MIKE. He also followed that up with "Now he knows where the pressure is coming from" which makes it implicit that he didn't know that previously. For those reasons I think you and the other post justifying this statement are offbase considerably.
You were a Borges supporter before and you're sticking up for him now. I understand some people just don't like to trash other people and that's a good trait to have, I'm not belittling you for it. It doesn't make you a bad person, however, to admit someone just wasn't good at their job. You can put the torch down now (the one you're carrying for Borges, not the one for burning down the place if our o-line is still terrible this year), he's gone.
August 21st, 2014 at 9:33 AM ^
Because he's now being relied upon to make protection reads and calls. His responsibility within that offense was to make other reads pre-snap, mostly coverage reads, but he also made run checks based on numbers (speed option was a run check based on numbers, numbers outside the EMOL and numbers from "zero" to the playside).
But he did identify MIKE in coverage, he knew which keys he was supposed to read on given plays.
Now, calling out protections and identifying MIKE has its benefits, one of the biggest is having a better understanding of where pressure is most likely to come from. With Nuss implementing many hot routes into his offense, it is important that he understands where pressure can't be picked up. But go read Borges's book on QB play, and it talks about doing the same exact thing. He didn't put it on DG last year because he didn't want to lump more on his plate, and he was also simplifying the blocking schemes for the OL.
It's really not an apologist thing. It's just how he ran his offense at this stage at Michigan. Nussmeier believes in handling it another way. That has it's benefits. The biggest benefit is, if DG improves this season and the OL keeps him upright and he gets a shot in the NFL as a QB, he now has the knowledge base of two different systems that tasked him with different things for him to fall back on.
August 21st, 2014 at 11:17 AM ^
Sorry, had to downvote you for that comment alone. If he had simplified the blocking schemes, we never would have seen the tackle over nonsense from last year.
August 21st, 2014 at 12:03 PM ^
Were used to simplify the blocking schemes. He didn't simplify the running schemes much (he actually did a little over the course of the season, probably too late at that point), no, but he greatly simplified the pass protection blocking schemes.
August 21st, 2014 at 3:20 PM ^
From the press conference after the Northwestern game:
http://mgoblog.com/content/tuesday-presser-transcript-11-19-13-al-borges
We ran 42 different formations that game. Little variations with offset backs and such. We still have that variation, but we reined our schemes in, particualry in the run game. And in pass protection, too, for that matter. We had to at this point, with the young inside players and such. We had to."
They simplified schemes for Northwestern, the 10th game of the season. So he had to sit through the Penn State 27 for 27 performance and the negative rushing yards against MSU and Nebraska before he "reined our schemes in." But he still ran 42 different formations! How is that simplifying the scheme? The scheme might be the same, but you are starting from a different point and so something is subtly different that you have to account for, that you don't have time to rep in practice. Hey, I get it, I defended Borges for a long time too, but let's not twist facts to suit our narratives.
August 21st, 2014 at 3:43 PM ^
I said he started simplifying his run blocking schemes throughout the season (albeit, probably too late) and simplied his pass protections much earlier. Which he did. Watch the tape. All those slide protections against MSU. That was because he was resorting to those calls to simplify things. I'm not twisting any facts. Borges was nominally a 6-man protection guy, most of the time with hots coming from his TEs. Last year, Michigan was almost all 7-man protections because it's a simpler scheme. I'm not twisting anything. That's what it was. This isn't a defense of Borges, this is just explaining what he did.
People go crazy over the 42 formations thing because they think they are 42 completely different formations. But if he ran Pro-I, but offset his FB strong, weak, and no offset, that's three different formations. Solo, and pistol solo are different formations. Shotgun with the RB strong and weak are different formations. TE on the LOS, TE off the LOS are different formations. WR split outside the numbers, on the hash, and squeezed, are different formations. For a game in which Michigan probably ran 80+ offensive plays, 42 isn't really that crazy for a college team, in fact, I bet we run about the same number of different formations this year.
[First 20 plays of the Fall Scrimmage on the youtube video in my link, Nussmeier ran at least 16 different formations; I won't chart them all, but that gives you an idea of how many formations are often thrown out there]
August 21st, 2014 at 3:49 PM ^
and Borges is unemployed now, so someone agrees with me...
August 21st, 2014 at 4:02 PM ^
You're disagreeing with facts. You're disagreeing with what he said. He said "I simplified the pass protections and some of the run schemes." You said he didn't and that it came straight from the horse's mouth. How does that work?
He did simplify the scheme. He said in a press conference that he simplied the blocking schemes, which is what I said. Evidence shows that he simplified the blocking scheme, particularly the pass protections schemes, as early as MSU, if not earlier (that's when I, and many others first noticed Fitz getting matched up with DEs because of slide protections).
He got fired because the offense failed, but if you asked Hoke, or Brandon, or people that watched the game knowing what they were looking at, they'd see that he simplified the blocking schemes, particularly in pass pro, which is what we are talking about. You can make an argument he did it too late. You can make an argument he started with too many. You can make an argument he didn't do it enough. But it's absolutely a fact that he did simplify his pass protection schemes (and it is my opinion, based on knowing what I know, that he started from a fairly limited pass pro scheme amount), and throughout the season he eventually simplified the run blocking schemes.