Quote from Bo's book

Submitted by Blue_Bull_Run on
Here's a section of his book that goes through my head a lot. It's relevant for obvious reasons. Maybe it's still valid in today's game - maybe things have changed...
Now I have to admit - since I'm being as honest as I can be here - there was a time when I doubted if fundamentals were still enough to produce top-notch football teams. I even wondered if the game had passed me by. This crisis of confidence occured after our infamous 1984 season, when we finished 6-6. In the off-season I went to one of these national coaching conferences with a few hundred other coahces, and they had some hotshot young high school coach from California explain his new whiz-bang system of defense. He had zones two deep, three deep, man-to-man, and combination of the two. That really caught my eye. I'm thinking, Maybe you've got to do all those things to win these days. Maybe our approach at Michigan is just too simple to succeed in the modern era. Boy, that was an awful feeling. But after this guy finished his slide show, someone in the audience raises his hand and asks, "If your defensive schemes are so great, then why did you team give up 400 yards a game last season?" Well, I wanted to hear this! The hotshot replied- and I will never forget this- "We were just a poor tackling team." Well, hell! That tells you all you need to know! You throw out 50 percent of that fancy stuff, and spend fifteen more minutes every day practicing the most basic thing in football: TACKLING. That's all! After another coach asked the same whippersnapper why one of his plays failed in a big game, he said, "That play would've worked if the dam guard had pulled." Then don't run that play unless the guard is so indoctrinated that he will pull every time- and do it in his sleep. That's called coaching. I walked out of that auditorium, and I knew what we were going to do: Get back to the basics! Get back to Michigan football! And I was determined that we were going to do it better than anyone else. Blocking and tackling!
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SwordDancer710

December 4th, 2009 at 8:34 PM ^

No one's denying that fundamentals and execution are essential. But think about what would happen if we had fundamentals, execution and a crazy awesome defensive scheme.

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AMazinBlue

December 4th, 2009 at 8:38 PM ^

parts of that book. In very few words, Bo explained his whole philosphy and his passion for the game. It also reminds me of one of the video clips from the History of Michigan Football, I believe, where Michigan had a 1st down at the three yard line and ran an off-tackle play and didn't score. Bo sent in another player with the instructions to run the exact same play, but this time block correctly. Of course the result was a touchdown. He had so much confidence in his players, that if they just executed what they learned in practice they couldn't be stopped. Sounds like another Michigan coach.

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steve sharik

December 4th, 2009 at 8:45 PM ^

...why we never won national titles and didn't beat great football teams on a yearly basis after that year: we'd eventually run into teams that had "hotshot" defenses and still tackled well. I still cringe knowing all the pattern reading aspects of coverage that I learned from guys like Saban and Stoops and then watch our ILBs spot drop while throw after throw was easily completed against us. This is what allows Miami to come back from a 30-14 deficit with 7 minutes left in a game (1988) and also allows Florida State to come into Michigan Stadium and put up 51 points while not punting (1991).

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AMazinBlue

December 4th, 2009 at 8:53 PM ^

That was the frustrating part of watching Michigan throughout Bo's greatest years, if we played a team that performed the fundamentals as well as Michigan, yet had an explosive offense, we were outmanned. That's why I think RR and GERG have the potential to be the kind of team Bo's team struggled with.

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NOLA Wolverine

December 4th, 2009 at 9:14 PM ^

Teams with great fundamentals will be good at football. Schemes come into play when you can't just beat your opponent into submission (Equal teams for short), as Steve's post gives examples of, or in Bo's short comings in bowl games. If you can tackle and block, you're in pretty good shape as a team.

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WolverineEagle

December 4th, 2009 at 9:28 PM ^

by outscheming and outexecuting them. Fundamentals alone don't earn you a win nowdays. You have to have effective schemes. Bo's method worked because he had vastly superior talent to 90 percent of his opponents. Such is not the case now. You'll see NFL guys on teams like CMU now. Look at Dan Lefevour. In Bo's time he would be a third stringer at UM, not starting and flourishing at CMU.

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NOLA Wolverine

December 4th, 2009 at 9:36 PM ^

If the inferior team out executes the other team, they really aren't the inferior team are they? It's all about who's the best team on the field that day. Show me a game where a bad team doesn't execute, but wins because they have a lot of fancy lines in their playbook. Terrible teams don't win games for a reason, they don't execute and aren't successful (I'm not doubting that you know that), teams that win games have to out execute their opponent generally (Omit: Deleware State). The point of Bo having vastly superior talent than 90% of the teams he played is exactly my point, because when he got up against equals, schemes started to matter. You're right, you have to have an effective scheme (Which does not have to be complicated, Nick Saban's defense isn't rocket science) to be succesful against good teams.

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WolverineEagle

December 4th, 2009 at 9:45 PM ^

Inferiority in this instance, refers to talent. ASU clearly had inferior talent to UM(I would also argue that Oregon did too if you compared both rosters) Yet, they won by outexecuting and outpreparing UM. That defeat stands as a testament to the fact that in order to win you must prepare every game like you are facing Ohio State if you want to win. There are no off days.

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NOLA Wolverine

December 5th, 2009 at 10:58 AM ^

Well, I'll just state my opinion on "up-sets" and we'll leave it at that, because that's just a philosophy thing. You can't prove that ASU had "inferior" talent, what I can prove is that ASU was better than UM that day. The only relevant talent is the talent that translates to the field, which translates to wins and losses. Same with Oregon the week after. If you fail to prepare, then you aren't very good. But yes, other than Delaware State, there aren't many days off.

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heckdchi

December 4th, 2009 at 10:53 PM ^

That excerpt reminds me of one of the great thrills of my childhood. I attended the Michigan Football Camp before my senior year of high school, would have been the summer of '97, and none other than Bo Schembechler spoke to us. The theme of his speech to us was of the importance of blocking and tackling and how if his teams did those two things well they would be successful. As a Michigan fan all of my life this was an amazing experience. Not just that I got to hear Bo speak, but to hear and feel his passion for the game and those fundamentals. Its threads like this and the great memories they stir up that help me get through the long offseason. GO BLUE!!

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OldBlueVa

December 5th, 2009 at 9:13 AM ^

Chuck Noll used to say the same thing, essentially. I recall an interview from the late 1970s when he was asked about his coaching philosophy. He responded by saying that it's rare to fool the other team. The way you win is by blocking well, tackling well, being fundamentally sound all over the field. Different era, and his teams had great talent then, but it worked.

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