Maybe Casteel wasn't the answer?
"After giving up 111 points in their first two Pac-12 games of 2015, the Arizona Wildcats defense, and in particular, Jeff Casteel's 3-3-5 scheme, has come under a bit of fire."
October 6th, 2015 at 3:06 PM ^
We've got a top-five defense and a team that's generally steamrolling, and we're still talking about Rich Rodriguez and Jeff Casteel?
October 6th, 2015 at 3:07 PM ^
October 6th, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^
You know what's funny (both haha funny & OMG funny) on Mgoblog?
I bet the same 8 people downvoted the first two responses in this thread... half pro-RichRod, half anti-RichRod.
The one group found it simplistic and not taking into acount all the complexities that went into that era not succeeding.
The other group knee-jerk downvotes anything about RichRod.
I love it here!
October 6th, 2015 at 9:38 PM ^
Logged in just to upvote this GIF.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:10 PM ^
Eh, it's a relevant piece of Michigan football history, and we're just now starting to get some answers to questions that continue to be fiercely debated on the blog.
October 8th, 2015 at 9:14 PM ^
No, it's a stupid debate. People are still impressed with Tony Gibson as WVU's DC. There are too many factors involved in different tenures at different places at different times with different supporting casts to say Arizona gave up a lot of points in 2 games, so let's talk about how that says something undeniable about RR at Michigan sans Casteel.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:20 PM ^
Out of curiosity did you also protest Bacon's latest book?
October 6th, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
Big difference about what has happened in last 18-24 months compared to what happened in 2008-2010 that has been exhaustively discussed for the past 6 years now.
October 7th, 2015 at 8:22 AM ^
If some people are still interested enough to want to post it, then there are probably some people who are still interested enough to read it.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:25 PM ^
Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad
October 6th, 2015 at 3:50 PM ^
"Many" would equal the majority of posters here who seemed to jump for joy at the slightest hint of success for Rich and Casteel. It was a big moment of vindication for those folks who could yell, "SEE! I TOLD YOU WE JUST NEEDED TO GIVE RICH MORE TIME!!" You can also throw in all the other crap about Carr, not getting support, the Free Press, etc.
I don't care if we had to wade through some shitty years of Hoke's coaching (especially because it included his excellent recruiting); we're many miles ahead of the swamp of terrible football that can now rot in the desert. Peace be upon thee, Rich. It wasn't us; it was you.
October 6th, 2015 at 7:02 PM ^
Very well said.
October 6th, 2015 at 4:45 PM ^
And that argument was always specious at best.
RR has been a head coach at major schools for 14 years. His record is .621. Going back to 1988 he's 149-100-2. Good, but not great.
If he was a better coach he wouldn't meddle with his DC's. He'd hire the best that he could get, let them do all the defensive recruiting, and run whatever system they wanted to.
October 6th, 2015 at 6:08 PM ^
Are his special teams still horrific as well?
October 7th, 2015 at 1:00 PM ^
Indubitably.
October 6th, 2015 at 8:32 PM ^
...they haven't fumbled a punt return all year, and they lead the country in yards per return.
Of course, through five games they 've only returned one punt. You have to force them before you can return them.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:55 PM ^
Our defense has been great against sub-par offenses and was also good against the better offense that Utah fielded. Before I become too euphoric, however, I'll wait to see how they perform against a really good offense.
Even with their OL injury problems, MSU will provide a helluva test. Cook is a good QB and we have yet to face anyone like him. He's got weapons at his disposal.
October 6th, 2015 at 5:09 PM ^
That the current trajectory of Michigan football makes it easier to talk about RichRod dispassionately?
I mean yeah, there's still people who pop blood vessels over it and come on. Things are great now, don't do that. But hey it's a college football team's blog and people like to talk about wider things in the sport.
October 6th, 2015 at 7:21 PM ^
Wait, so this topic ISNT about Supernatural !?
October 6th, 2015 at 9:06 PM ^
Logged in to agree.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:08 PM ^
of the Pac-12 this year, especialy with Arizona's key LB being hurt / recovering. The Pac-12 is going to be a bloody mess by the end of things.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^
Would you trust sweeping generalizations of Rich Rod's 25-year tenure as a head coach?
October 6th, 2015 at 3:12 PM ^
Casteel's defenses have been bad at Arizona. His magical 3-3-5 isn't so magical.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:17 PM ^
Their defensive FEI last year was ranked 27th, above both UM and MSU, along with FSU, Temple, and Minny, amongst many others.
It's a competent defense hurt by injuries and underperformance in the secondary and LB corp. It happens. The 3-3-5 is a perfectly viable defense when run properly.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:22 PM ^
"It's a competent defense hurt by underperformance."
Lol
October 6th, 2015 at 4:42 PM ^
As a defensive philosophy it is fine; show me something that proves it is inferior. Now, it might not be perfect right now in how it is implemented, but it is perfectly viable. That's my point.
October 6th, 2015 at 5:54 PM ^
I agree with you that there is nothing inherently wrong with the scheme.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:24 PM ^
in 2014 Arizona struggled to beat UT San Antonio and was bombed back to the stone ages by several teams yet this measurement has them 27th? Riight.
No, it is not a viable defense when ran properly. The 3-3-5 spectacularly fails(except playing Oregon) when playing decent teams. USC, UCLA, Boise, Oregon in the Pac 12 title game, and now Stanford(the same team NU held to 6 points). The 3-3-5 is a fine for the MAC and other type leagues, but it doesn't work in Power 5 conferences.
You seriously using injuries as an excuse? Michigan lost of ot it's best DL before the season began and all they are doing is shutting motherfuckers down.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:30 PM ^
So, let's see if I am getting this straight. When a metric agrees with your opinion, it's a great metric. But if it doesn't agree with you, than it is obviously a "questionable measure."
Brilliant...
October 6th, 2015 at 3:35 PM ^
You might want to think through your points a little better next time, champ.
October 6th, 2015 at 4:36 PM ^
October 6th, 2015 at 9:48 PM ^
Sorry, your point was that teams "bombed them back to the stoneage" even though they went 10-4 and held a number of good offenses to acceptable (and sometimes quite a bit below their average) scores. Just because you don't accept FEI as a valid barometer of a defensive performance doesn't make it invalid; it just means that your argument is all feelingsball and scalding hottakes, which is fine but doesn't hold a lot of water to me.
Arizona has played a couple of bad games, but UCLA and Stanford have top-notch talent. Let's see how they shake out at the end of the year.
October 6th, 2015 at 4:16 PM ^
October 6th, 2015 at 7:01 PM ^
October 6th, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
The 3-3-5 is a good defense against the type of spread RR runs. It is designed to stop spread offenses because the 5 hopefully have enough speed to cover the field. It doesn't work against any team that lines up and takes it up the middle (see Whisky not having to pass against it in the second half).
October 6th, 2015 at 4:48 PM ^
If you have learned anything these past couple of weeks, sometimes teams play poorly against inferior competition.
The 2014 Arizona defense gave up 24 points to Oregon, 28 to USC, 17 to UCLA, 10 to Utah. By all means I'll admit they get hammered sometimes, but no more than other teams when they run into elite offenses. But you are being intellectually lazy because you want to prove a point and conflate 2015 with 2014. So...whatever. Probably not going to convince you anyway regardless of the facts.
UM lost a backup DL who people expected to be good; Arizona lost its defending Pac-12 defensive player of the year for stretches of the season and is just getting him back. They might also be a bit down; UM has played 5 games thus far. Let's see how they look against MSU and OSU before we assume they are unstoppable.
October 6th, 2015 at 8:50 PM ^
Arizona is currently 97th in rushing defense, 103rd in pass defense, 110th in total defense, and 106th in scoring defense. Looking for some tempo-adjusted stats I see that they're 113rd in third-down defense and 122nd in red-zone defense. They haven't played a particularly difficult schedule, either--their SOS at Massey is 44th.
Three of their four FBS opponents so far have had their highest point total of the season against UA.
FEI stats aren't out yet, but their defense ranks 97th at Massey (which at least is schedule-adjusted), worse than all P5 teams except Kansas and Texas Tech.
I think it's fair to say they've suffered more hammering than the average team.
October 6th, 2015 at 9:19 PM ^
My point was that last year's defense was quite good, but that this year's defense has struggled mightily (though UCLA and Stanford have put the spikes to a number of teams). The premise of this whole discussion was that the 3-3-5 was an inferior defense that could never work against major-college competition, and I provided evidence that, when deployed properly and with solid talent, it could be pretty good, especially when coupled with a dynamic offense.
October 7th, 2015 at 11:15 AM ^
Arizona isn't just missing one of it's best LB's, though. They are missing all of their starting LBs, one of which was the best defensive player in the country last year. He's been replaced by a walk-on.
And you're hand waving of FEI with no explanation is pretty laughable.
October 7th, 2015 at 11:20 AM ^
No, it is not a viable defense when ran properly.
A whole mess of NFL teams would disagree. The Broncos play more 3-3-5 than any other defensive look.
October 6th, 2015 at 4:01 PM ^
They were FEI 27, S&P+ 48. I'd use them in concert as just using 1 can overstate or understate a team. Basically their defense last year was Michigan level (UM was 35-40). They played a lot better offenses on average than UM faced in 2014.
They played Oregon twice, a very potent ASU offense, Boise State, a potent UCLA offense with a NFL QB, the craziness that is Washington State, Jared Goff of Cal (potential 1st rounder next year), and USC. So you can't just look at points - UM's defense would have had a lot of trouble with those offenses too.
They had a solid top half of the Pac 12 defense last year. This year it's shit.
October 6th, 2015 at 9:19 PM ^
They were 7th in the PAC last year in defensive FEI; they were 7th in S&P+.
There are 12 teams in the conference--that's not top half.
October 6th, 2015 at 6:41 PM ^
Why are you bringing up Temple?
October 6th, 2015 at 3:23 PM ^
This is so mind-blowingly wrong its staggering that you actually vomited it out into the world.
October 6th, 2015 at 3:34 PM ^
Except it really isn't. Last year, Arizona gave up 38 to BSU, 51 to Oregon, 35 to ASU, 37 to WSU, and 45 to Cal. I don't care how advanced your metric is, those are some shit numbers.
Arizona has now given up 300 points in its last 8 games. THREE HUNDRED.
October 6th, 2015 at 4:03 PM ^
At the rate we're going it'll be 3 years before Michigan gives up that many points. Bowl games and playoffs excluded.
October 6th, 2015 at 4:38 PM ^
For comparison, UM's defense has given up 98 in their last 8 games.