Greg Robinson good with good talent
I was reading some of the responses on ESPN's article/blog about the GROB hire and it seems like everywhere he was a DC with good talent he performed well and where he had lesser talent he underperformed. With the way recruiting is shaping up, this could turn into a really good hire if that trend continues. Thoughts?
And no, not everyone does well with good talent (Shafer)
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:16 AM ^
A lot of positive spin from MSM which I am a little surprised given the UM/Rodriguez pile on fest. He may be a disaster but 2 positive news tidbits.
Best Friends with Pete Carroll-same positive attitude.
Lo Wood liked those Rings...
Maybe he'll be a stud for us helping the D and recruiting...we'll see.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:22 AM ^
Well 1 of 2 things will happen with this hire either he'll do poorly like some think, or he'll bring new life to a Defense that is in need of some repair. I think this COULD be a good hire but all we can do now is speculate and hope. talent alone will help out but will see.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 AM ^
GR has shown not to be able to coach up kids...that's disappointing but then again that's par for the course when it comes to Michigan.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 AM ^
a good coach with good talent and a bad coach with bad talent? any coach will tell you that they only have a certain degree of influence on how well their team does. if there is no talent it doesn't matter. dumb post. thanks for posting the obvious.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:34 AM ^
What about Shitty Talent????
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 AM ^
There are not many coaches out there who put out bad defense with elite talent.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:36 AM ^
because KC Chiefs people will tell you that he pulled a Rod Marinelli and got rid of the players that were there to bring in "his guys" that fit "his system" and thats when it all went to shit.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:48 AM ^
Perhaps this is a slight semantic point, but I feel the need to bring it up.
"with good talent he performed well and where he had lesser talent he underperformed"
Let us make this perfectly clear: You are basing GRob's performance on the performance of his athletes. This is an inference, and not necessarily an accurate one. We may KNOW that when GRob had less talented athletes that those athletes did not perform well, but that does not mean GRob was not performing well. Maybe GRob was doing the best damn job with those guys anyone could, given the circumstances, but they underperformed anyway. We don't know.
If you are going to pin athletes' underperformance on the coach in a valid manner, we need to look at what other coaches did with the same group of athletes. Any data on that?
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:57 AM ^
Specifically, you can't pin good athelete's overperformance exclusively on their coach.
January 22nd, 2009 at 10:55 AM ^
Since when did Shafer have talent. He had a good D-line, mediocre to poor LB's and a secondary that needed to walk around with fire extinguishers attached to their asses. If anything, based on Shafer's past coaching he was able to put out good defenses with less talent at CME, NIU, and Stanford.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:09 AM ^
Also, he can apparently dominate Notre Dame with little talent at Syracuse.
eeeeeeee Robinson!
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:17 AM ^
So he's Ron English, but white and with 2 super bowl rings.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:23 AM ^
I don't understand why people EXPECT negativity about Robinson.
He was good at Denver and Texas. He was mediocre at Kansas City. (I don't count Syracuse, because he was head coach, not DC.)
I think the Negative Nancies would have had a problem with any hire Rodriguez made. Hopson only coached in C-USA! The 3-3-5 won't work at Michigan! Dean Hood only coached at Eastern Kentucky! Robinson sucked as a head coach!
Blah blah blah.
Blah blah.
Blah.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:28 AM ^
I just think he's proven that he can win when he has superior talent. He's also (sort of) shown that he's not particularly adept at finding that superior talent (most of the KC players he coached were "brought in" by him, his Syracuse recruiting was poor, and one year at Texas probably reveals nothing. As Brian just mentioned, posting the 28th best defense in the nation at a school with more talent than all but one opponent is sort of just par for the course. Robinson strikes me as a guy who can win with superior talent. Hi, Greg, meet 95% of the coaches in America.
I can offer people that excited me more - Johnson, Vanderlinden, Bumpas. That doesn't mean I'm right, obviously.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:34 AM ^
Yes, but that completely ignores the fact that he won two Super Bowls and had above average defenses most of his years in Denver. I don't necessarily think of you as a Negative Nancy, though. And while his year in Texas probably doesn't tell us much, it has to be indicative of SOMEthing.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:41 AM ^
I think it's indicative of the fact that he's not incompetent (a question one could ask looking at his Syracuse tenure). And really, that's sort of how I feel about the hire - I'm confident that he's not inept.
Again, the Denver defenses were good, but he also had some good players - John Mobley, Bill Romanowski, Steve Atwater, Trevor Pryce, Keith Traylor, and a still-effective Neil Smith. Again, we're treading into the "show me a good defense with bad players" zone here, which is impossible.
I guess I'm most prone to believe this: if we recruit well, and improve player development (like, how to tackle, less missed reads), Robinson is more than capable of turning talented, fundamentally sound players into a good defense.
January 22nd, 2009 at 11:56 AM ^
Doesn't Robinson at least deserve some credit for the way Pryce, Mobley, etc. played? I mean, it's hard to say whether all those guys you mentioned would have been good without him. Atwater was good before and after. Neil Smith was good in KC. But I don't think you can definitively say Trevor Pryce and John Mobley were great players; yet they were stars in Denver. And Bill Romanowski wasn't Bill Romanowski when he wasn't with the Broncos.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 PM ^
Again, this is where my point with Ernis above applies: Can you give a DC 100% of the fault for having a crappy defense? Can't his players suck? Can you give a DC 100% of the credit for a great defense? Can't he just have awesome players?
It's almost impossible to seperate good coaching from good talent definitively. So lets just say that in Denver he was good, and in KC he was bad.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:10 PM ^
I agree Chitown, if GR comes in and creates an emphasis on fundamentals, we are going to see a nice improvement in the defense. Think back to '08 season. How many missed tackles do you think the defense had? Tons, upon tons. Limit those, and any defense will be good.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:18 PM ^
the fact that that was 10 years ago and at a different level, where he had access to guys that might have been there 4 years and were contractually obligated to be there for 4 more. Its not unreasonable to think he just might not be cut out for college football.
sounds like we agree on this next part:
and IMO Texas doesn't give any real indication of what he can do as a DC at the college level. He was only there for one year, as a co-DC and the defense performed roughly as well as it did the year before and after he was there.
I think he should do well here, but looking at his college resume (regardless of title) I can't say I am sure that he will.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:22 PM ^
I'm pretty sure Robinson doesn't have Alzheimer's. He didn't forget how to coach.
Kansas City is a lousy organization. I don't see how his time there can be deemed very relevant when they're one of the worst organizations in the league and nobody's been able to be successful there. They haven't had any top-notch defensive players in a very long time other than Donnie Edwards.
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:30 PM ^
how to coach. Some coaches adapt to changes in the game better than others. Sort of like how Joe Tiller's innovative style slowly got worse and easier to defend throughout the last decade.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:05 PM ^
If Robinson can somehow help increase our turnover differential (by god I have no idea how, but I hope), and can teach solid fundamentals, I can see this defense improving.
Does he roam around the sidelines? I prefer that to the ol' booth coaching. Mcgee is just a fatass I can see why he sits up there.
January 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 PM ^
Do people think that taking appropriate angles to the ball carrier can be tought? Or is that something that a player either has an innate ability to do or he doesn't? GSimmons, are you out there? It seems to me, at the risk of stating the obvious, like a huge amount of U of M's defensive breakdowns in the recent past stem from guys not correctly sizing up where a ball carrier will be by the time they get to him (that and missed tackles, of course).
January 22nd, 2009 at 1:10 PM ^
It can be taught, but obviously it's an instinctual thing, too. It's like when you see little kids playing football and the runner gets past everyone and ALL the defenders are following him in a single line. Because they have no idea about pursuit angles. They just think they're supposed to chase the guy with the ball.
I do a pursuit drill with my defense once or twice a week. Our pursuit angles definitely improve from week 1 to week 10.