"Greg Robinson wants 'the best tackling team in America'"
Pretty good article on annarbor.com today about Robinson and the defense. Mostly fluff but interesting nonetheless.
Considering that Stevie Brown said that... I'm not sure whether or not to cry in anguish (Stevie... NO!!!) or jump for joy (he'll finally tackle?!).
If stevie can actually tackle this year and not fuck up every third down, I will be a happy man. Time and time again last year he would fuck up big plays when we had them at 3 down and he would miss his tackle..resulting in either a first down, or in many cases, a touchdown.
means less than 10 times, then you're probably right. But I think you're being extremely tough on a guy who gets blamed for many things that are caused in part on the mistakes of others.
Matter of fact, I think I might do some UFR diving to see how many times he really did screw up. Brown's problem is that his screwups directly lead to big problems. But I highly doubt he screwed up more than, say, Moosman, Ortmann, Stonum or McAvoy last year.
It would be so great if he could pull that off. Though I want to know more about the "shin angle" thing.
Supposed to read "shine angle" and it refers to mousse. You don't get hair like that without hard work and some geometry.
I'm pretty sure every DC wants to coach the best-tackling team in America. Just epinion.
But do they also want a more aggressive defense? Not many DCs say that.
I also heard that Robinson is big on attacking the ball (which is better than attacking the first-down flags or the goalposts, I suppose?).
but after the last couple of years, I've begun to wonder.
GERG and I and every other coach in America are on the same page then I guess.
I prefer best tackling team in 38 states and half of Canada, it sounds better.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:24 PM ^
I see your 38 states and raise you a "north of the Mason-Dixon Line"
August 8th, 2009 at 11:11 PM ^
well thank god, cuz if he didn't want the best tackling team in america then there would be a problem.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:30 PM ^
I love this shot at how horrible our team tackling has become in the past few years. If he can get our secondary to actually tackle someone. Not just drag someone down, but stick and drive through a ball carrier. Gerg would be one of the hires of the decade IMO.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:47 PM ^
I agree. Poor tackling is a pet peeve. I get frustrated when I see a defender in position to make the play only to give what looks like a half hearted effort. ie: arm tackle
Fundamental play: Tackling, Blocking, Ball protection. These are the things Bo stressed. I would like to see Michigan return to that attitude. If you can take care of the fundamentals and you have talent at the skill positions, you will enjoy success.
August 8th, 2009 at 11:46 PM ^
Syracuse guys have hilarious takes on their blogs about Greg's flair for the cliché. My favorite is where he talks about "flashes," because where there are "flashes" there is always also "want-to."
"Maybe this will snowball into something that will really catch fire."
ps Just so I don't come off as a mean hater: Greg seems like a good dude who was overmatched as a head coach; I felt desperately sorry for him when he was there and his teams just never got it together.
pps It seems like Greg legitimately has our defensive players fired up. Though all the fluff from last season read pretty much the same with respect to Shafer, this season you've got the guys on D producing much clearer, unprompted statements lauding Greg's ability as a teacher and motivator.
August 9th, 2009 at 12:20 AM ^
Hit what you see! See what you Hit!
What we want is a defense that flies around and hits people, right?
I guess this is a good thing, as long as we don't hurt anyone. Student-athletes come first.
I seem to remember tackling issues coming up in a discussion last season and I remembered this gem, written by an MgoBlogger who attended coach Schafer's portion of the coach's clinic.
DStamper22
Joined: 2008-10-01
Points: 0
Offline
Schafer
"As far as players not tackling, I completely agree with you. It has become embarrassing to watch. But as far as it not being Schafer's fault that these kids can't tackle, I beg to differ. This spring when I attended the Michigan coach's clinic there was one moment that perturbed me. During the "chalk talk" period I got to speak with Schafer in the presence of about 20 other coaches. His fundamental approach to tackling is that Rather than throttling down to get into a football position and make a tackle he would prefer his players to lay out and go for tackles without quote unquote breaking down. He then proceeded to explain to me personally that his defensive pursuit should be there so he would be happier with a missed tackle 4 yards behind the line that turned the ball carrier back into pursuit than a made tackle at the line of scrimmage. He went on to state his philosophy is based on a giving up a few big plays in hopes of making more big plays. Immediately I knew that this concept wouldn't translate well into what we as fans expect. Michigan defense has always been to this point about smash mouth defense that takes pride in eliminating big plays and stimeying offenses. I agree that if this season does have a scape goat I think it should be Schafer. This is not Stanford... our fans aren't going to be satisfied with defensive mediocrity in hopes of outscoring the other offense."
That can be found here: http://mgoblog.com/content/shafer
It sounds like Schafer was actually teaching an unconventional tackling style which was more prone create misses. Something tells me the GERG is more old-school, and it sounds like it is back to fundamentals in this case.
August 9th, 2009 at 12:10 PM ^
a tackling fundamental that is taught to every 10 year old football player in America, has not been much in evidence in Ann Arbor (and to be fair, in many places) for the last few years. I remember Bo criticizing our tackling in 2005 after a game, and Lloyd's immediate response was to disagree until a couple of days later. Vince Young was otherwordly against us of course, but take a look back at the game and you'll see by conservative count, about 1 million missed tackles. This has been an issue for awhile, I hope to hell it changes with GERG.
August 9th, 2009 at 12:46 PM ^
I agree, as bad as we were at tackling we should not count the Vince Young game against them. That was crazy. If I had not watched him do the same thing to USC the following year I would have assumed our defense was terrible.
We've been a shaky tackling team for some time - under Herrmann, English and Shafer. We're not the only program for which this is an issue, though. I think scholarship reductions have caused coaches to become wary of running too many practices in full pads to avoid injury. Perhaps the increased number of walk-ons is an effort to counteract that?