U of M thread (in the Lions Forum) :)

[Rocky Bleier]

They moved the ball against lower-midlevel BT teams, but not OSU and PSU. They were manhandled by the big boys. The O-line was average at best. Brandon Minor and Carlos Brown were usually hurt. Steven Threet, Tate Forcier, and Denard Robinson were god-awful turnover machines. The wide receivers had no experience. If Rodriguez is still here in 2011 and the team he recruited sucks, I'll say it's his fault. One thing I did hate to see was the way OSU handle Oregon's offense in the Rose Bowl. I didn't see that coming after Oregon's win over USC.

I'll put it this way. I'm more comfortable with Michigan's offense than I would be in Chicago with Mike Martz and Jay Cutler trying to cohabitate. Now that will be interesting to watch.

[Rocky Bleier]

The good: 36 points v.s Purdue, 28 points v.s. Iowa, 36 points v.s. Indiana, 38 points v.s. Notre Dame. The 20 scored against MSU is a bit misleading.


2009 Michigan Football Boxscores

11/21/2009#9 Ohio State 21, Michigan 1011/14/2009#21 Wisconsin 45, Michigan 2411/7/2009Purdue 38, Michigan 3610/31/2009Illinois 38, Michigan 1310/24/2009#13 Penn State 35, Michigan 1010/17/2009Michigan 63, Delaware State 610/10/2009#12 Iowa 30, Michigan 2810/3/2009Michigan State 26, #22 Michigan 209/26/2009#23 Michigan 36, Indiana 339/19/2009#25 Michigan 45, Eastern Michigan 179/12/2009Michigan 38, #18 Notre Dame 349/5/2009Michigan 31, Western Michigan 7

[Mainevent]

The only team with a semblance of a defense that they scored on was Iowa. And that was only 21 pts (Warren returned and INT for a TD). ND's defense was one of the worst in the country. I don't know where the Indiana and Purdue teams rated overall, but it couldn't have been good.

[Rocky Bleier]

They moved the ball against lower-midlevel BT teams, but not OSU and PSU. They were manhandled by the big boys.

That's what I said...

[Rocky Bleier]

Kellen Jones LB from Texas is newest Wolverine.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/footballrecruiting/football/recruiting/player-Kellen-Jones-104964;_ylt=ApmAT4Es_eL0xomla3PkA3dGPZB4

[froot loops]

The point still remains, when you take out the non-conference opponents Michigan was something like 9th in offensive yardage output.

When you talk about QBs being turnover machines, that comes with the territory when you are running that offense. If you get some kind of wunderkind QB that is immune to turning the ball over, you are in luck. But chances are when you put QBs in the position to run the ball and have intricate handoffs base on reads you are going to give up turnovers. Its a big reason that coaches started going away from read option offenses.

[Mainevent]

Rock, you also said this:

I am more concerned about the state of the defense. I don't know that he'll ever put together a good one, and I believe the Big Ten will always be won with defense.

So, you're supporting an offensive "guru" running an offense prone to turnovers and almost entirely dependent upon the talents of the QB, a coach who you're not confident can build a defense, in a conference that's won with defense.

So yeah, what' s not to like?

[jaadam4]

Its funny to see Neb in Big Ten talk.

[Rocky Bleier]

Rock, you also said this:



So, you're supporting an offensive "guru" running an offense prone to turnovers and almost entirely dependent upon the talents of the QB, a coach who you're not confident can build a defense, in a conference that's won with defense.

So yeah, what' s not to like?

I didn't say the offense was prone to turnovers - Froot did - I said the two smallish, true freshmen QBs from last season were turnover machines. The O-line didn't pass block well either, which didn't help. Threet had no experience either and frequently panicked. The part about the defense...I agree. I'm not quite sold. It's a tough position for David Brandon. I think he wants to give RR the support he needs, but he has to see some results too. My hope is that should Rodriguez be fired there is a better pool of potential candidates than there was when Bill Martin was doing his coaching search.

[froot loops]

That offense is prone to turnovers. It doesn't matter who is coaching it or what players you have, the simple act of having the QB having to run the ball or make the correct reads along with the running back on a read option increases the odds of turnovers. Especially when you expect the QB to also throw the ball a fair amount.

At least with the veer option offense the QB just had to rely on making the read on the defensive end. They would stick glorified running backs as QB anbd those guys did not throw much.

You think the cause of the tunovers of the offense was the QBs. Maybe it was in some ways because they were inexperienced. But I think that is a symptom of the offense. One of the problems with this offense is you can't stick inexperienced QBs in there and not expect a big dropoff. As much as the Michigan faithful want to bellyache about Carr, he had some seasons in which he had to use inexperienced freshman QBs and they came through.

I'm biased, if I was coaching a football team, I would not run this type of offense. I'm also biased because John L Smith's offense is not that much different than what they are running, especially the offense that had Drew Stanton running it. He was a pretty good QB and they leaned on him too much. By the end he was a injury prone turnover machine.

[Rocky Bleier]

I prefer pro style offense too. I don't know much about schemes, but I like power running attacks and vertical passing. I agree it's less prone to turnovers. I'm not saying that it's all the fault of the QBs. I just haven't seen anyone with experience run it behind a solid offensive line yet at Michigan. I don't know if that will ever happen given the that Rodriguez needs to win immediately, and his offense is probably still another year away from being where he wants it. Doesn't Urban Meyer run a "spread" offense? He has more more talent to work with and Florida is usually really good defensively too. Brandon seems to be supporting RR, but he'll be hard pressed to keep him if the win/loss record doesn't improve. Some recruits, like Anthony Zettel, are taking the wait-and-see approach with Michigan. It's RichRod's make or break year.

[jaadam4]

PLEASE BREAK!!!

[froot loops]

Urban Meyer's spread is a bit different and remember his success at Florida has been predicated on an out of world college QB who went gangbusters from day 1 at Florida. Tebow is the ultimate anomaly.

The offense they are running at Michigan is a lot more heavily involved in read option plays. And the QB has a few different reads he has to worry about than the old option attacks which isolated the DE and there was nothing the defense could do but has a very good DE shut it down.

[Rocky Bleier]

Do you think Florida's offense will sputter without Tebow? How is Michigan's offense different from the one Tommie Frazier ran at Nebraska?

jaadam4: Les Miles is not coming to Michigan. Who would be your second choice?

[jaadam4]

Jimmy Harbaugh