2010 TSUN News offseason (football)

[WolverineTX]

This sounds like the same old "cupboard was bare" cop-out.

Oh, no -- that wasn't my intent. I was describing U-M courting riskier prospects than the norm in effort to fill the gaps (Artis Chambers and a few others come to mind), not trying to suggest that Carr left us with a dearth of talent. It's not as mind-boggling as RR's crew targeting athletes with rap sheets, but somewhere along the line we started seeing rather uncharacteristic lapses in judgment. Those trace back to the previous staff, IMO. I just wish I could have been a fly on the wall for some of their conversations.

 

[WolverineMike]

Wrong. Michgan's defense was pretty steady under Carr. Here are Michigan's defensive statistics since 2001, the year Jim Tressel took over:

DEFENSE TOTAL . RUSH . PASS . SCORING
2009 .... 82 .... 91 ... 67 .... 77
2008 .... 67 .... 50 ... 87 .... 84
2007 .... 24 .... 58 .... 8 .... 23
2006 .... 10 ..... 1 ... 89 .... 15
2005 .... 36 .... 41 ... 42 .... 24
2004 .... 33 .... 39 ... 43 .... 42
2003 .... 11 .... 22 ... 15 .... 11
2002 .... 42 .... 31 ... 69 .... 26
2001 .... 12 ..... 8 ... 49 ..... 9

If Michigan's defense "has been in steady decline for longer than the last 2 years", then why was its TOTAL and SCORING defenses better in 2007 than it was for half the previous six seasons? In 28 categories under Carr (total, rushing, passing, and scoring for seven seasons) only three were worse than 49th (2007 rushing, 2006 passing, and 2002 passing). In the eight categories under DickRod, there hasn't been one better than 50th, with seven of the eight being 67th or worse.

So don't even insinuate that DickRod inherited an already festering problem on defense. The clown just doesn't believe in defense...

osu dropped 40 on us in 06, Rose Bowl vs USC, vs App St, vs Oregon. Decline. Your stats show that in the last decade, they had great defenses 2 years. USC and osu exposed them for what defense they really had in 06.

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

osu dropped 40 on us in 06, Rose Bowl vs USC, vs App St, vs Oregon. Decline. Your stats show that in the last decade, they had great defenses 2 years. USC and osu exposed them for what defense they really had in 06.

While I agree that facing legit quarterbacks did expose Morgan Trent and friends, TSUN's rushing defense in '06 was without a doubt one of the 5 best rushing defenses of the decade.

 

[CalvinistBuck]

osu dropped 40 on us in 06, Rose Bowl vs USC, vs App St, vs Oregon. Decline. Your stats show that in the last decade, they had great defenses 2 years. USC and osu exposed them for what defense they really had in 06.

Sorry, dude. Milli posted data that is difficult to manipulate in order to support your claim. Elite teams and solid game plans can often give defenses fits; but, the overall numbers beg to differ. Exceptions do not make the rule. Similarly, you guys and some team from Fla. put up quite a few points on our '06 defense and few would say that our defense was sub par overall.

Was UM susceptible to the spread/read-option under LC? Sure. So were (are?) a lot of other B10 defenses. But the indisputable fact remains: LC's defenses were consistently good and RR's have been consistently bad. And, to make matters worse, there is no evidence to see this trend reversing in 2010.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

osu dropped 40 on us in 06, Rose Bowl vs USC, vs App St, vs Oregon. Decline.

Relatively isolated instances do no equate to a "decline". We had Michigan and Florida drop 39 and 41 on us at the end of 2006, and LSU 38 on us in 2007, but that didn't mean our defense was in decline. USC hung 35 on us in 2008 but we stuffed them at The Shoe in 2009. Ask Oregon what they think of our defense. There will always be outliers.

Your stats show that in the last decade, they had great defenses 2 years. USC and osu exposed them for what defense they really had in 06.

The stats show that while Michigan had a couple exceptional defense, they were never anywhere near as bad as DickRod's and were pretty consistent year-to-year, and his 2007 defense being as good as, or better than, half the previous ones clearly shows the defense was not "in decline".

Get out of denial. DickRod never has, doesn't, and never will give a shit about defense.

 

[WolverineMike]

i'm not denying RR defenses are bad. and you're right, elite teams exposed Lloyds defenses after they looked good and racked up great data. But this isn't baseball, stats and data only take you so far.

 

[DaddyBigBucks]

i'm not denying RR defenses are bad. and you're right, elite teams exposed Lloyds defenses after they looked good and racked up great data. But this isn't baseball, stats and data only take you so far.

I agree that stats can only take you so far; but they are far from worthless.

Apart from sarcasm, about the only thing I bring to this board is the ability to endure enormous amounts of tedium to analyze stats objectively. I have spreadsheets that compare every team's statistics to what their opponents give up (or gain) on average. This provides numbers that not only normalize for schedule strength, but also can be used to spot trends. It is simply objective reality that TSUN's '06 rushing defense was one of the 5 best in the past decade, and based on the aforementioned numbers, I would put it in the top 3. It is also demonstrable that RRod's defenses are not in the same [strike]zip code[/strike] galaxy when compared using this type of analysis.

 

[Jaxbuck]

Trying to pawn off RR's lack of defense on inherited problems from Carr while ignoring RR's track record of defensive suck while at WVU strikes me as a bit disingenuous.

Carr's defenses had an Achilles heel in their lack of athleticism among the back 7. Rodriguez, as most scheme coaches are wont to do, has never emphasized defense at all.

 

[jwinslow]

Carr did not have great defenses. He usually had good ones, and 07 was pretty suspect, though some of that was chemistry and locker room stuff. Carr had an average defense in 07 and a decent one in 06 (which was misrepresented a bit by their box scores, you saw the weakness in that defense against Ball State).

He left enough on defense to have at least another 07 performance, some ugly outings but not giving up 30 points all of the time.

 

[jwinslow]

Carr did not have great defenses. He usually had good ones, and 07 was pretty suspect, though some of that was chemistry and locker room stuff. Carr had an average defense in 07 and a decent one in 06 (which was misrepresented a bit by their box scores, you saw the weakness in that defense against Ball State).

He left enough on defense to have at least another 07 performance, some ugly outings but not giving up 30 points all of the time.

 

[WolverineMike]

again, i've never said the defense right now is Lloyds fault. What I said is it had been in decline. Which we all saw with our own eyes vs osu, USC, App St, and Oregon. Bring in a coach (RR) that has never done much with defense, and it's a perfect storm of epic proportions. Which is what we've seen the last two seasons.

One question is, what would have been different in 2008 with Lloyd at the helm in regards to the defense? Players would have all been pretty similar IMO. Maybe we win 5 games instead of 3.

But it's all hindsight. I feel like Mark McGuire, "i'm not here to talk about the past.".......LMAO

 

[heisman]

again, i've never said the defense right now is Lloyds fault. What I said is it had been in decline. Which we all saw with our own eyes vs osu, USC, App St, and Oregon. Bring in a coach (RR) that has never done much with defense, and it's a perfect storm of epic proportions. Which is what we've seen the last two seasons.

One question is, what would have been different in 2008 with Lloyd at the helm in regards to the defense? Players would have all been pretty similar IMO. Maybe we win 5 games instead of 3.

But it's all hindsight. I feel like Mark McGuire, "i'm not here to talk about the past.".......LMAO

So, if the tsun defense was in decline, what grade would you give RR on addressing their shortcomings?

 

[martinss01]

One question is, what would have been different in 2008 with Lloyd at the helm in regards to the defense? Players would have all been pretty similar IMO. Maybe we win 5 games instead of 3.

while it is complete conjecture. i would argue that player defections would have been a bit different as well as a completely different philosophy in regards to recruiting. if that team were directed to their strengths rather than their weaknesses, that was easily a 7 win year imo.

 

[MililaniBuckeye]

again, i've never said the defense right now is Lloyds fault. What I said is it had been in decline. Which we all saw with our own eyes vs osu, USC, App St, and Oregon.

Three of those four games were against a Heisman winner and two top-notch mobile QBs. The App State game was a aberration...it was a season opener against a I-AA team and Michigan clearly came in flat. Hell, we put up 28 on you in 2003 and 26 on you in 2001, years in which you had defenses that were fringe-top10 in both total and scoring defense--and offense sucked both years--so cherry picking isolated games doesn't reveal the true nature of the defense's overall performance.

Again, your defense was not in decline when DickRod took over. You can do the Rainman routine until you're maize and blue in the face, but it doesn't change reality.

 

[jwinslow]

One question is, what would have been different in 2008 with Lloyd at the helm in regards to the defense? Players would have all been pretty similar IMO. Maybe we win 5 games instead of 3.

But it's all hindsight. I feel like Mark McGuire, "i'm not here to talk about the past.".......LMAO

You beat Toledo and Purdue. The latter was RR undercutting shafer, holding a secret meeting with his WVU holdovers and implementing the foolish 3-3-5 , against which a former backup RB looked like Vince Young .

I think he wins 1 more game by featuring a true RB in minor instead of a slot WR named mcguffie who needed to redshirt or at most return on special teams.

He also keeps boren and Arrington. I think he goes 6-6 without mallett, 8-4 with him.