In Michigan's final drive, when Gardner fumbled instead of running out of bounds or getting down, the few plays before the turnover my only thought was, "would someone please wake up Al Borges and let him know Michigan is behind in this game".
Michigan lost to a high school offense today. Iowa's offense is so predictable Baskin-Robbins has renamed vanilla ice cream - Iowa O. So if Iowa won, what does that make Michigan? Yes, a high school football caliber team right now.
The defense played well in the first half but for some reason, Greg Mattison decided against pressuring the Iowa QB and he dinked and dunked the offense down field for 17 un-answered. Really, Iowa has a power run game and likes throwing the ball to the full back? I never would have guessed.
Yes, the Michigan defense was clearly very tired and the ridiculous cold temperature and wind didn't help either. I would love to put into words Michigan's offense but terms like elementary or asinine don't seem to fit the bill.
I would also love to spend the rest of this post hammering Big Al, but today most of the blame goes on Gardner and Funchess. This offense is one of the worst in the country right now. I have no idea what Devin is doing, he is taking hits for no reason, running for a 3 yard gain that somehow turns into a 4 yard loss. He rarely throws the ball away and is getting beat up like a piñata at a 4th graders birthday party. For the most part, I thought the offense line did a better job today and Devin didn't play well at all. Funchess probably dropped about a 100 yards of offense. He clearly can't play in cold weather. After the 3rd drop I would have maybe looked for someone else.
I'm not sure I have ever seen a Michigan offense continue to regress like this one has this year. This offense every week continues to get worse, not better. That is a huge bat signal that the offensive coaching is awful. Let's call the fake bubble screen hand off again! It worked once, lets call it 10 more times!
This team is not very good and next week is going to be ugly. Right now, I'm about 80/20 on not watching the damn thing at all. What's the point?
Thank goodness for Michigan Basketball, how about that win last night?
Analogy check: Michigan Football is not ranked and played in the middle of Iowa today in single digit weather and lost to a poor Iowa team.
Michigan Basketball is on the beach in Puerto Rico, has two nice wins in a row and is playing in the Championship game on Sunday.
Those are two pretty good examples of where both programs are at right now.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
High School Football At It's Best
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Thank god Ohio sucks.....oh wait we do....I shutter to think how much we will be underdogs by next week...I'm quite confident hoke is safe.....BUT...if OHIO comes to AA and just destroys us...how massive could the changes be???
There has to be a lot of turnover on offense, there has to be. This has been 3 years of terrible offense. If the Sugar Bowl was their shining moment, remember how poorly the offense played during that game? 3 years and out.
Derrick Green was a consensus number 1 rb comming out of high school...I think we got lucky when we recruted him...I always thought he wanted auburn..but I'm sure the sanctions and new coaches scared him off...he had A-TRAIN written all over him...is it too early to write him off??? Could he transfer this summer?? And could David Dawson and a new crop of recrutes and a NEW OL COACH help??? Thanx bob
I was listening to the Wolverine.com podcast, hosted by John Borton the other day (see link below) and I believe I heard Coach Jerry Hanlon make a comment about the issues of the offensive line zone blocking and so forth. His comment about how the line was handling their blocking assignments seemed to be saying (to me) coach Hanlon feels that the issue is with coaching and what they're being taught. It caught my attention because its rare that one coach will call out the performance of another coach. With Hanlon being a former O-line coach I heard the frustration in his voice. I expect freshman and red shirt freshman to make mistakes but I also expect to see improvement with more experience and good coaching.
We know that the O-line has been having its issues but it seems to be a breakdown in various areas that may require the entire coaching staff on the offensive side of the ball (except for RB) to be reevaluated.
I don't believe that just pointing the finger at Funk solves the problem. Devin Gardner hasn't been getting better over the year and his performance is worse than this time last year. We need someone to develop the QBs and that can manage calling the game with counter measures when opposing defenses adjust to what we're doing.
Needless to say, I am very disappointed, FWIW IMHO of course!!!
http://michigan.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1578119
I weigh in on most Saturdays after the frustration continues....but today....well, there's nothing more to say. If Borges is back, then Hoke needs to go. It was well put when it was stated that this is 3 straight years of bad offense. The one other concerning thing to me as I look towards next year is that our defense has had the chance to win us 3 games and couldn't get the needed stops in the 2nd half. That shouldn't be overlooked either. Ok, I guess I am weighing in..LOL A few more observations.:
- Countess is so good. Plays zones great, understands routes, solid in man coverage, and tackles well. I hope that Peppers is ready right away next year to play the opposite corner.
- Gardner is a very bad QB right now. He has no confidence that he can step into throws (why would he?), he holds the ball too long, and he doesn't keep his eyes downfield often times.
- Henry has had 2 good games in a row. I see the young DLinemen starting to develope a bit which is slightly encouraging.
- Ryan's knee looks very healthy and he is getting back to his normal self more and more every week.
I have stayed away from commenting all year long but I can no longer obstain.
1. Borgess has to go
2. Take Gardner with him, most of the negative yardage this year was caused by him, not willing to throw the ball away and be able to fight another time.It's not all the OL those kids are improving, the D is improving every week they can't be expected to be on the field 55 out of 60 minutes a game. It's not Coach Funk.
For some reason Gardner thinks he's Denard Robinson (believe me Devin your not).
The receivers are tired of running routes only to look back to see Gardner running around like a chicken with his head cut off.
3. We need a real QB coach like Scott Loeffler.
4. It was time for the young RB's 2 games ago, when they did play they looked super, making the OL look good in the process, also giving them confidence.
5. After almost 40 years I sold my season tickets yesterday after the game to my Nephew...it's time for the the youth there also....Go Blue!
From; The Huntsville Times
Borges is out as Auburn offensive coordinator
Posted by Phillip Marshall, The Huntsville Times December 11, 2007 12:26 AM
Categories: Football
Two seasons of offensive struggles have cost Al Borges his job as Auburn's offensive coordinator.
Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville told Borges last week of his decision to make a change. Borges has already left the Auburn staff and will not coach against Clemson in the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Dec. 31. There has been no official announcement from Auburn, but that will come soon. It is uncertain when Tuberville will name a replacement or who will coordinate the offense in the bowl game.
In going 8-4 in the regular season, Auburn scored two or fewer touchdowns in six of eight Southeastern Conference games and finished 101st out of 119 Division I-A teams with an average of 298.3 yards per game.
We've been hard on Gardner. He could have had a great year innovating his way out of the lackluster play calling, but he had some turnovers early in the year and there was no quarterback coach to make him stand tall again. He's been over cautious and lacked confidence. The kids are likely 3x better than the stats say but have no leadership. Its criminal that they never got the chance to build the memories that could have belonged to them as a great M offense.
Post a Comment