Newsflash!: Michigan's Defense Still Otherworldly Horrendous

[Spence]

Does Oregon and Auburn ring a bell?

Gus Malzahn's "system" is every bit the equivalent of a team like Oregon or Michigan. They spread you out and try to get their athletes in space. You can win with different styles I think. I don't think three yards and a cloud of dust is somehow inherently more productive than Oregon's spread option.

I'm not talking about three yards and a cloud of dust. I'm talking about a real pro style offense. The same offense Michigan has ran for years and years. I'm not talking Woody Hayes football, where I tell you I'm running off tackle left and you can't stop me. I'm talking about the same football Pete Carroll ran at SC, Florida State and Miami ran in the eighties and nineties. It isn't the "spread" necessarily. It is the read option. It is football dumbed down to it's lowest common denominator - watch the defensive end and react. I was never much for option football when it was popular in the late 60's and 70's and at least those option offenses had some thought go into them. CFB teams now are doing what mid majors used to do to complete when they didn't have the athletes to match up with the big boys. Boise State today looks more like a football team I reconize then does Ohio State.

The 85 scholarship rule and the reduced practice time rules are the cause of this mess. They need to let schools sign ten more players and they need to start playing something that resembles football again. I don't think what happened in the Mich-Illinois game was entertaining football. I thought is was a pathetic display of defense. This isn't something you can build a lasting program doing. That is why RR jumped off the ship at WVU. They needed to evolve their program and he didn't know how to do it and couldn't go forward without Pat White.

[Eric]

Well I don't see how Michigan's offense can in any way be presented as a failure. This team is pretty prolific right now and if Rich Rod stays and Denard bulks up a bit, I think they could be in for a record-setting season. This offense has gotten points against everybody they have faced outside of Michigan State and they will continue to move the football against Wisconsin and Ohio State (whether or not they hang onto the ball in those games is another discussion ). The defense is the issue. They just lack tenacity and I think a lot of the blame has to go to Rich Rodriguez for hiring a clueless guy like Greg Robinson who he must have become buddy-buddy with in the Big East.

The downside of installing a system like this is the pressure it puts on the defense. It's why you rarely see a team light up the scoreboard and hold the other team to under 20 points. The offense moves at such a fast pace that the defense stays on the field for extra possessions and wears out quickly. So basically it's really difficult to have your cake and eat it too. Grinding the ball out with a power running game isn't necessarily going to do you better because you're not going to have as many possessions to score 50 points with like you would with Gus Malzahn. But then you wouldn't have the defensive stats of a team like Wisconsin who plays ball control and pro-style. So you can win your games 27-20 or 54-47.

Well, in the examples above I'm talking about "system" teams where they don't have the overall talent to simply outclass their opponents like a Boise State or a USC from the mid-2000's. Those teams often can finish in the first-tier nationally in defense and offense because they're just that much better than the opposition. With teams that install "systems" to help level the field like Auburn, Hawaii, or formerly Texas Tech, these are the results you're probably going to get.

[Spence]

I don't believe Michigan's offense is bad, nor do I believe they are great - but that isn't my rub with RR. Rodriguez has convinced himself that he must recruit players that most top tier programs wouldn't touch because he can some make them great. If that were true the guys in the NFL would be getting smaller. If he were truely the genius that most, thought he was, he would be evolving his offense into something like Pete Carroll ran at SC instead of something North Texas might run. The team Rich Rodriguez is building has a shelf life. Then he must rebuild. You don't get to rebuild every four or five years at Michigan. Rodiguez can build a football team, he can't build a program - he won't build a program. I say that even if he beats Ohio State in the next couple of times we play.