Searching for a silver lining
First and foremost, a little birdie told me that Taylor Lewan will be ready for Air Force.
Also, nodoby has mentioned how valuable this film will be. Reportedly Saban picked Narduzzi's brain pretty extensively in terms of how they planned to shut down Michigan's offense.
Is there a better way to prepare for MSU? Take Alabama, drop the IQ and recruiting profile of everyone involved by 30%, and insert Nick Sheridan(sorry Nick) at quarterback, and you've got MSU. If Michigan(or any non-Mtn West/MAC team) finds the endzone twice againt MSU, they're going to win that game. This whipping will pay dividends down the road.
And you've got to figure this takes the "bullseye" off of Michigan's back a bit. People might underestimate Denard's potency...they certainly are in the media. Denard is a proven commodity, regardless of how the team performed against a superior opponent. Michigan might have been the first team to catch a butt-whooping from Alabama, but they certainly wont be the last.
September 3rd, 2012 at 11:34 AM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 12:20 PM ^
September 3rd, 2012 at 5:58 PM ^
The thing that is great about sports is that we all get to second guess things that players, coaches and administrators do and give our opinions. Nobody should be fired, but everyone can get better at what they do. Here are my 7 wishes for the program after observing game 1.
1. Quit trying to ram a square peg into a round hole. History does teach us a few things. Rodriguez was skewered for trying to play drop back quarterbacks in a spread system. Why are we trying to play a spread quarterback in a pro-style offense? If it is that important to use your system, do what Rodriguez did and recruit your quarterback, then play him. Shane Morris will require seasoning even if he fits the offense. Where is the 4- or 5-star freshman drop-back QB we should have recruited a year or two ago? Surely it isn’t Russell Bellomy, who we stole from Purdue. If Denard is indeed your playmaker, then call plays that give him the greatest chance of success. Roll him out. Give him the green light to run. Use option football schemes.
2. Put the players you have in the positions they are likely to be successful. If I’m MSU or OSU or Notre Dame, I’m taking my big corner and pushing Roundtree down on every play. He’s a SLOT receiver. Play him there. If you need a big wideout, use someone else like one of the guys we recruited this year or in the past. Jackson is too skinny to be that wideout. Gardiner, although big and athletic, does not have a receiver’s ball skills yet.
3. Get some more team speed on defense. Yes, size is important. But when our big, strong linemen get dominated like they did Saturday, we need to back it up with some fast guys that scrape to the hole quickly. There were several plays where Despond Morgan took on the iso back, but the trailing scrape LB allowed Alabama to turn a 3 or 4-yard gain into a 10 or more yard gain because they were simply beat to the hole.
4. Recruit a 5-star, big corner or one that can become one. Maybe we have that in our next class, maybe we don’t. Or, better yet, 2 or 3 of them. Recruit them until they commit and then recruit them until they sign and then continue to recruit them to stay. The loss of one player should not be as glaring (Countess) as it was in this game. The players we use on special teams should be 5-star quality backups, not our starters. That’s why there are 85 scholarships. While the Cass Tech corners of the world may be highly rated, 4-star players, 5’8” corners do not constitute “shut down” corners in this era of college football when big receivers are 6’2” and up.
5. Schedule an important big game at home in the future, not at a non-neutral, neutral site. Yes, we all got excited about the prospects of playing Alabama and showing the SEC what muscle the Big10 11 12 Ten has on the horizon. The grape Kool-Aid tasted good before Saturday. But why schedule a premium game in the heart of the south with a “young team”. But surely we can exonerate our athletic director marketing genius because, after all, he doesn’t coach the team. He only schedules away games against the #1 (sorry, USC, get a defense) team in the country to open the season.
6. Quit breaking out extravagant new road uniforms for big games. Traditional uniforms, including ours, exude class and the new uniforms reek of marketing where none is needed. We all know Oregon became a destination because of their uniforms and the marketing power of Nike. Michigan is a destination because of the history, tradition, and academics, not the Adidas-inspired shoulder stripes. Not only are they are a distraction from the game at hand, but we are merely 2-2 in big games when we use the “uniform of the day”. The win against Virginia Tech was a poor showing and a lucky win.
7. Pull out your lucky maize and blue rabbit’s foot now, because we are going to need it. Admit it, maybe the stars just aligned last year. A new coach, lots of enthusiasm from former players, a villain to blame, a talented quarterback, few key injuries, and a break through at running back. Yet we barely beat a OSU team still reeling from an NCAA investigation with a lame-duck coach, and lucked out in our bowl game against a team that was blown out in their last regular season game. Our big win last year, while exciting, happened in the last second with some extraordinary offensive efforts. Our defense wasn’t up to the task then and it won’t be again this year against elite teams. Maybe on the road against Notre Dame or Nebraska, maybe not even at home against Iowa. Prepare for a war with Sparty.