When I read Brian's at Mgoblog write up on the OSU game, a memory of ghosts of Michigan teams of the past hit me right in the face. Let me explain what I was feeling watching the second half of the Michigan game. I wonder if you might have felt the same way?
It's hard for family and friends to watch Michigan games with me, I'm a bit intense. I yell, scream, get mad, celebrate good plays and overall pretty loud. It's a wild ride. During the Carr years, I was the same way but I would sit back and predict the plays Michigan would run. I would say it out load and would be right about 80% of the time. So now I'm the loud guy who was predicting plays accurately. As you might imagine, I wasn't the most popular guy in the room.
I would always say, if I can predict the plays - so can the other defense! That was the second half of the OSU game. “They were a little bit predictable in the first half,” said Ohio State
co-defensive coordinator Everett Withers. “You know, they put 16 (Robinson) back
there, he was gonna run it. And they put 12 (Gardner) back there, they were
gonna throw it. And after a while that became something that we keyed on.”
How the hell did we get back here? I will tell you how. The failure of Rich Rod was so bad that we pulled a George Costanza and did the complete opposite. We hired Brady Hoke. Rich Rod was a good offense mind but did not have the experience or leadership skills to be the head coach at Michigan. He also had one of the worst defenses in college football. Now we have Brady Hoke who has leadership skills and a defensive background. He hired the best DC in the country in Greg Mattison and those two together have built back the Michigan defense. The problem comes on the other side of the ball, where Brady has an "outdated philosophy" on offense and trusts Big Al to make the right decisions. Want an example of outdated? This quote after the game tells the story: "You know me, we want to run the football and we want to do a good job stopping
the run," Brady Hoke said. "We didn't do either."
Coach you haven't been able to run the ball all year! Why do you decide to start failing again and again in the second half of the OSU game? We have seen Big AL do this in his two years at Michigan. He thinks he knows how to use Denard, fails by losing a high profile game and then changes the next week. The problem is he wasn't making the offense better he was changing it week to week. During the Iowa game he used Denard as a decoy, in the OSU game he didn't. Why the hell not? Let's put our 5 star QB at WR - Let's win the Nebraska game with a red shirt freshman - Let's use Denard under center - Let's run the ball right at the defenses top players and so on.....................
Big Al is not the head coach of the offense and he needs to go. If he doesn't we are getting closer and closer to Debord and Carr's offense and we will watch OSU and other teams beat us year after year. Hoke doesn't have the offense background to win at this level, he needs a strong OC to run that unit. Go out and find a new guy. Scot Loeffler is now available.
Does anyone wish Rich Rod would have offered Jonathan Hankins a scholarship when he was at Michigan's summer camp and really wanted one? OSU and Oklahoma thought that he was offer worthy, Michigan didn't until after his senior year. That mistake turned into a Devin Gardner fumble on Saturday and now Hankins is a strong NFL prospect.
- Hoke says that Michigan will file the paperwork this week to request a medical redshirt for Devin Gardner from his freshman year. He expects it to be approved. I hope he is right, two more years with DG would be great news! Expect Devin to get most of the QB reps during bowl prep.
- There were reports that Gareon Conley visited Ohio State last week. It seems he was at the game but it wasn't an official or un-official visit. He still says he is committed to Michigan which is good news and let's hope he sticks with Michigan.
- There seems to be some activity around Derrick Green and Michigan. Two Michigan coaches will be in home with him tonight and he tweeted last night that he is going to make a decision soon. The Ty Isaac in home, Auburn being coach-less and Tennessee being coach-less probably is helping DG with his timeline.
- Michigan vs. NC State Tonight ESPN 7:30 Big Ten - ACC Challenge
9 comments:
To me I guess it's pretty easy. Beginning of season, highly ranked Offense + questions on Defense. End of season, highly ranked Defense + questionable Offense. One is a coaching success, the other a failure. Can't be much clearer.
Michigan lost Molk, an outstanding center and replaced him with Ricky Barnum, they added Elliot Mealer to the starting line up along with Michael Schofield. You have Burzynski and Gunderson in your rotation when otherwise they wouldn't be in most Big Ten rotations, in fact Michigan had unproven freshman on their 2-3 deep rotations chart on the Offensive line; that should tell us right there that our offense would be in trouble coming into this year. Think about this offensive line up for a moment, there was nothing about this line up that struck fear in the hearts of any defensive coordinator coming into this year outside of Denard.
Any good and solid defense was going to be able to give this offense a lot of problems because outside of Denard, Taylor and a couple of others the talent was average. Even Rich Rod with Denard struggled against good defenses so you know Big Al was going to struggle.
The difference between Greg Mattison and Big Al is like the difference between a Chef and a Diner cook. The Chef can cook ham and eggs and then come back and prepare a meal fit for a king, but a Diner cook can only cook ham and eggs. And even so, you still have to give the Chef what he needs in order to do it.
I think the answer is "get the right players" to fit our system, give them a stable system to develop in, and watch them bind into a machine...stability is key. We can't keep changing systems and expect the "kids" to run people over....we'll get there. GO BLUE!
We need to keep a pipeline running to florida!!!!!
when you look at Robinson and Gallon and to the think they were ranked #31 and #34 says a lot about the talent in florida.
Mattison was a great recruiter in florida. Maybe mr. stubborn will ask him to go down there and see if he can some commits like he did with Tebow.
I don't know. Mr. Stubborn just wants to stay in the midwest for talent. Sad but true, a 3* player in florida is almost better than a 4* player in the midwest. We are going to need that speed to compete across the country.
Well Mr. stubborn what are you gonna do.
Scot Loeffler? He was terrible at Auburn and to tell you the truth he was not that great at Michigan either. What exactly did he do with Chad Henne?! We went 0-4 against OSU and only won just one bowl game. Plus if you compare the talent we had under Carr to what we have now... its not even close.
Henne, Hart, Long, Breaston, Arrington, Manningham.
Denard, Fitz, Lewan, Roundtree, Gallon, Dileo.
I don't buy the point that Al doesn't "have the players for his system" Neither did Mattison last year or this year...he's still workin with RR and GERG's recruits so that point means nothing to me. This is the difference between a great coach and a medicore one.
Teddy T, Loeffler was just the qb coach during his time @ MICHIGAN and he was very successful with getting those qb's in the NFL. Its not his fault on whether they succeed or fail in the next level. As far as Auburn goes that was only his 2nd year as an OC, but he did pretty decent at Temple.
Like I said when hoke brought AB in that SL was better than AB in that dept, just look at the history on the 2.
Far as talent, we have it, you must play to the individuals strengths and quit trying fit a circle into a square peg hole.
I don't buy into the "they need the right players" logic. Mattison is a great example. Good coaches make the most of what they have. Bad coaches try to fit a square peg into a round hole with, of course, disastrous results. It's great that Hoke wants to run the ball and stop the run, etc. But you have adjust strategies to play to your strengths and minimize your weaknesses -- regardless of what your preferences are. He seems too inflexible, to devoid of reality, in a lot of little ways as well: the headset wearing thing, to be considered a good coach.
Borges is now like buttered popcorn same old same old. Get someone with a ultra playbook that wants to take the offense & a upcoming big athlete qb Gardner to new heights. Run like PSU & the Michael Robinson years Gardner fits that profile and better.
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