cincibuck;1034003; said:
Is this a private fight, or can anyone jump in?
Just some thoughts: IF he doesn't get Terrell, what does Dick Wad do? Mallet can move better than most people think he can and he has a cannon. But make a spread QB out of him? I don't think so.
There is more than one variation of the spread. Will Rodriguez run the spread
option with Mallett? Obviously not. He can however run a spread offense that goes 4-wide on most downs and try to throw the ball 40-50 times a game like he did before when he was at Glenville State.
Mallett played in a spread offense in high school where he ran plays almost exclusively out of the shotgun with 4 and 5 receiver sets.
If he does get Terrell and he does install the spread first year does Mallet walk? I think so. Kid has too much talent to ride the pine.
If Pryor did come, who is to say that he would beat Mallett out? Mallett will have gone through 2 spring practices, bowl practices, and will have had live game action and starts in the 2007 season. Those are pretty big advantages over a green true frosh.
I tend think Pryor needs to redshirt wherever he decides to go. He's extremely talented, but he's also very raw as a passer.
If Schilling can't keep DEs out of the back field, (Gholston damn near joined the Michigan huddle) how's he going to be any help in a spread? UM may need a whole new recruiting concept for their o line.
Actually, Schilling is probably best suited for a spread option offense, but not as a RT. His best position fit would be as a RG. Schilling is a much better run blocker than he is pass blocker, and he's a bit on the smaller side than Michigan is used to for OT's as he's 6'4" and in the mid 290's. In high school his team ran a triple option offense and they ran the ball basically ever play. He had little or no prior experience pass blocking before this season.
Schilling was only a freshman so you've got to cut him a little bit of a break. Secondly he was playing next to Alex Mitchell. It was already bad enough the kid was a freshman, but to play him next to the biggest waste of space to ever start in a Michigan uniform just made his job that much harder.
Schilling has also missed a lot of practice time due to injury and he's never been through a spring practice. He's had a shoulder injury, an illness that caused him to lose 20 pounds, and a knee injury that has set him back in his development.
It would be very unwise to write him off as a freshman. He's still one with a lot of potential, and I think he could flourish as a RG in Rich's system.
No one has said a thing about Ron English. How long will he stay in Michigan when he didn't even get a second look?
English is most likely gone. There is an old theory that says when a new head coach is coming in and he has to clean house, it's not a good idea to keep around a guy that wanted your job.
English was a great recruiter and motivator, but I'm not convinced he was a great or even good defensive co-ordinator. I think that English will actually be one of those guys that is a better head coach than co-ordinator. I say that because I think the man is an excellent recruiter, excellent motivator, and he's shown that he's pretty solid in evaluating the talents of other coaches. English had the biggest hand in the defensive hires of Steve Szabo, Vance Bedford, and Steve Strippling. Szabo worked wonders for the Michigan linebacker corps over the past two seasons and Vance Bedford made a huge turnaround in the defensive backfield in one season.
I for one think too much has been made out of the Oregon blowout. 1. Dennis Dixon can make anyone look silly. 2. I suspect the team was hyped up by the App State debacle and hyped up teams can fall apart quickly if things don't break their way. They got down by two scores early, they lost their QB, they couldn't run Hart the way they wanted to because of the score and then they just quit... First time I ever saw a Michigan team quit... and all of this took place before half time, where they might have been able to make some adjustments.
I DO think it proved that if you have a Dennis Dixon/Vince Young kind of QB you can make fools out of most teams. Likewise, if you can't recruit in depth for both sides of the ball, like WVU, Louisville, Oregon, Texas Tech then you better find a way to put a ton of points on the board. Dick Wad had to put a ton of points on the board to play against the big boys on his schedule. BUT if you loose your Dennis Dixon/Vince Young guy you're fucked because now you have to go back to the 'old' offense. Not an easy transition and you don't have the big hosses up front anymore (remember my comment about the kind of linemen you might recruit?) to make a drop back system work.
And just to keep the OSU side of things in mind, does this mean that Henton gets more snaps in practice? As the 04/05 seasons showed, it takes a while to put the spread into your play book and you get very fuzzy results when you try and run a system based on two very different QB styles.
I pretty much agree with you on all points there.
