After the msu game I switched over and saw the end of the mich game. I fell asleep and thought when I woke up it would be just 1 overtime. Well, as speedcoach said Bo (who I had a chance to meet as a kid and talk to, great man by the way) would just be rollin in his grave! I know a few kids that are being recruited by them, they asked my honest opinion. I told them you would get a good education, and I hope you dont play defense cause my 2 year old niece could run for a 100 yds against that system.
What defensive scheme are they?
They run that God awful 3-3-5. Its there everydown defense. As you can see anybody with feet can run for at least 100 yards on them:p
Torbush ran that trash at Miss State last year. He is despised.
I sometimes wonder though if it is scheme or simply poor coaching and poor players. Miss State has made a pretty dramatic leap in defense after getting a new coordinator.
The scheme is fine on 3 and long or against the empty backfield, you know, something like that. In that scheme your db’s and linebackers gotta be athletic so Im not sure if michigans problem is the d-coordinator or the players. I dont watch them enough to give a full analysis of there pittiful D.
A lot of it is coaching. Their fundamentals are terrible. I see 8 years old who know how to hit and WRAP. Going for the kill shot is ok once in awhile, but not every play. Leads to lots of YAC. Cameron Gordon can you hear me? RR just needs to hire a good D coordinator and stay out of his way. Guys ego wont let him though. If I were Dave Brandon, those would be my conditions as the only way he keeps his job. The 335 is garbage. Sure RR ran it in the Big East, but that is a B-Ball conference. I also don’t remember his D being any good there wither. He took a Lloyd cast of in Ryan Mundy. He goes there and is a star but couldn’t cut it at Michigan. Guy needs to check his ego at the door. He sure thinks he had a great week. Got a pass by NCAA and eeked out win against middle of the road team. He best stick it to Purdue because those are likely his last wins this year.
I told RB 34 I would give him my opinion midway through Big Ten play. I believe I was correct on Michigan, not very good. No malice just honest football analysis. My Texas team sucks this year too. Hook em Horns!
The 3-3-5 can be a base defense, as long as there’s a 4 down adjustment to a true pro set or if the TE’s / 2 backs are killing you with the run. Many coaches teach it with 3-4 principles and a safety in the box, giving it a 3-5-3 look…
I happen to like it and have coached it, but we did it out of necessity (few DL’s, lots of SS types)
Still, it comes down to the players. I find it funny that someone brought up Miss St…Does anyone else remember Joe Lee Dunn running the 3-3-5 at Miss State and actually being competitive for a few years in the SEC?
Devils, I agree on the safety in the box making it a hybrid 3-4m but you need the athletes to run it. Michigan lacks sure tacklers so it looks abysmal. They should run a 4-3 and put Campbell next to Martin to close the middle. Then you can run some blitz packages to take some heat off of the secondary who struggles so much. Big Ten still is a very physical conference. Playing speed D against teams that run straight at you is recipe for disaster.
Campbell was moved to OL about 7-10 days ago and Q. Washington was moved from OL to DL.
I hate the 3-3-5 if for no other reason that it provides less consistent pressure on a passer and you have weakened your ability to defend the run. UM has very little experience in the D backfield yet more depth and exp. on the D-line so I don’t know how it plays to UM’s strength-answer it does not.
I notice most 3-4 base teams, like Saban, have a 4th man on the line 99% of the time. His nickel is a 4-2-5 as well usually.
Re: Joe Lee…I definitely remember him. He was one of the only guys at the time who coached from the sideline. He ran multiple fronts during his most successful days at Miss State (98,99,00). He called it 3-3-5 but he would use 4 down some and double eagle front a lot as well. He had the number one defense during one of those years. Great athletes made him look good too. He had some NFL corners at that time and some NFL linemen so his man and man free coverage on every down could work then. After 2000 when the replacement juco players didn’t pan out on the line and in the secondary his defenses sucked.
His base defense secondary looked like this: 2 corners, one free safety, 2 DOG safeties which were hybrid olb/safety types. The Dog safeties played right on the los 99% of the time and at least one rushed the backfield almost every down.
Pretty cool that defense originated with him pretty much. I think why it was so popular with spread coaches was because when the spread started getting popular in the early 2000’s he probably stopped them as well as anybody.
Just like we said earlier in the post, Michigan has alot of followers but alot of them dont know whats really goin on behind the scenes. Speedcoach and Esti do, they work with athletes from there. Granted Im from msu but I live near alot of alumi from the football team and they told me alot of stuff that Rich rod has done to piss off alumni and faithful followers. We wont mention Barwis cause we all know he’s stupid. The point is as soon as Michigan shows some promise alot of arrogant wannabe wolverines start talking smack sayin they’re the best thing since slice bread. Keep in mind during the begining of the season they played nobody (alot of D-IAA schools or smaller D-1 schools) so of course they’re gonna look good. D-rob was gonna win heisman, they were gonna win the big 10, all that jazz. NOW LOOK AT THEM!
As soon as they started playing REAL BIG 10 TEAMS the truth came out and now the wannabe fans wont even look at me when I have on a msu track shirt or something similiar :(. There’s no hate being said cause there some good athletes on the team ( i may be training 1) its the fans that ruin wanting to like mich or cheer for them. Arrogance is not tolerated at MSU.
Lr400, Pioneer
Not to hijack the thread, but great call (LR) on Joe Lee’s time at Miss State. When I coached, we basically emulated the set up that you described.
Pioneer, the 3-3-5 was the ONLY was we ever got consistent pressure on the passer. I believe that if you have good tendencies on your opponent, it can be great against a spread-type/one back O also. Bottom line, to quote an old Keith Jackson line “You gotta have the horses or you can’t run the race” 
Very true Devils. Bad choice D with the horses that U of M has.
UM in order of talent, depth, and experience probably goes DL first, LB second and DB’s last. So I definitely don’t like seeing them with 3 DL except in certain situations. As a base D then you better be pretty good in the back 7-8. UM is not-hence my dislike for this D as it does not play to their strengths.
Agree Pioneer. I think if they had put Campbell in as a run plugger, Mike Martin could avoid double teams. He is a dangerous player and could wreak havoc. I would do all I could to protect my secondary by getting as much pressure as possible on QB. RR hasn’t been to smart on D. He needs to let D Coordinator do his job. They need to quit recruiting O players and get some bodies on the D. Barwis needs to pull his head out and understand that what he is doing doesn’t work anywhere and especially not the Big Ten. Maybe if he spent less time doing interviews and more time learning how not to over train his kids, he would be better off. They have loads of issues and I honestky have no interest in watching the football team put up and give up Basketball scores. Guy needs to quit talking about how fun it is to watch. I wanted to puke at the complete lack of D on both teams part. That was ugly, but it was a win. Dave Brandon needs to tell him if he wants to keep his job, he needs to hire a D guru and stay out of his way. Period.
Michigan got pushed all over the field yesterday. Wisconsin was able to run the ball more than 24 straight snaps in the second half with little resistance. Compare recruiting classes and the level of recruits that the two schools get year in and year out and it becomes obvious the difference is coaching and development of athletes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6uuVVTLmHA
I can say from first hand experince that Wisco’s S&C is doing the right things in the weight room.
Ben Herbert is a GREAT guy. He’s been down to visit Buddy and myself and he’s truly a super guy.
I could not agree more, I hold a huge amount of personal and professional respect for him and his methods with the fooball team.
Now if you can only get the diehard michigan fans here in the state to realize this.