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Michigan: The Leaders & The Stubborn

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cjzarecki's picture
January 18, 2015 at 12:43am
33 Comments

The Leaders & The Stubborn

Roughly since the turn of the 21st century, the college football landscape began to change with the evolution of the OFFENSE, and this is my personal opinion. I personally notice that most successful teams evolve in certain ways to be successful from decade to decade, and those who do not... fall behind.

Allow a quick point of inquiry,... Florida didn't fall on its face specifically because of Will Muschamp, or the departure of Urban Meyer (both are great coaches respectively). It attributable to, and specifically regarding the system that changed within the offense Florida's offense. Florida still had many top athletes, but went back to the pro style and never saw the same success. 

As Buckeye fans, we watched Jim Tressel implement a spread scheme into the Buckeye offense from roughly 2004 through 2007. Those were really successful years, and all of those years included a victory over Michigan. I can even point to Alabama and the spread concepts that Saban started to implement with Lane Kiffin this year because he realized that college defenses in general (from his own encounters vs Okla/Auburn) have a hell of a time stopping it, the Alabama offense was highly productive and broke several program records this year, despite their lack of big time defense. 

Concluding the aforementioned, as a Buckeye fan I follow Michigan closely. Although I personally do not feel that Rodriguez was given a fair amount of time, after a season of failure with the spread that so many UofM fanatics loved & praised on week 1 of the Rodriguez hire, they quickly despised it ~300 days later, and were reluctant to evolve with the trend that had been sweeping through the CFB landscape giving rise to teams such as Baylor, TCU, and Oregon. The stubborn Michiganders knew only to turn back to the comfort of thought to an era and style which had produced them a 1997 Rose Bowl Nat'l Championship, Big Ten titles, and dominance through the 90's and early 2000's. We all watched Lloyd Carr get run out of Ann Arbor while running a pro style offense with pocket passing QB's, and Brady Hoke was ushered in with RAH-RAH and enthusiasm devoted to "bring 'MICHIGAN' style football back".. the type of football that would make Bo grin from ear to ear. When instead, Denard Robinson and awkwardly lingering spread scheme was the only reason for Brady Hoke's success in 2011 with a sugar bowl victory & 11-2 season. And in 2012 the style Hoke had promised eager UofM fans: Getting away from the spread and getting back to "THE MICHIGAN WAY" of offense ... Denard couldn't run it, neither could Gardner, and on the first week of the season that was proceeded with a summer fever of articles by Sportscasters & writers on a Michigan National title run... Alabama would give Michigan their worst opening week loss in 133 years of football. This continued annually ... 2013, & 2014 only showed a dull, boring, lethargic Michigan offense, and a Brady Hoke firing was soon on the horizon. The Leaders & the Stubborn now have hired a man who will continue to pound the football the Bo' way with athletes inferior to those Ohio State & Michigan State will field year after year from here on out, it's not a crazy statement, let's look at the facts, look at the last couple of Michigan recruiting classes 2011&2012 were great recruiting years for UofM.. the players aren't developing... Where are they in the draft...? Hiring Harbaugh put a pretty face on a failing system of college football which all Buckeye fans have loved to see the past decade. College ball is not the pro's, for these specific reasons: there's a disparity between the ranges of talent from team to team, and even so .. on the same starting rosters of the same team, and this allows the the spread scheme to feast and thrive as it has the past 15 years in NCAA Div-1A, the spread option doesn't work as well in the NFL because it cannot take advantage of weaknesses because there are so few at the pro level. If Michigan tries to be the 49ers with Harbaugh ... they could end as 4-9 'ers in his first year and they will slide as they have been for the past 7 years and flirt with being Notre Dame 2.0. Ohio State was built on a pro style offensive scheme which was kicked to the road in 2012, let's face it, we loved it, Tressel won a ton of games, but more often than not... it didn't win big games against top opponents i.e. USC, LSU, UFlorida, Texas 2005 & 2008. The Ohio State football program has embraced change as deemed necessary for success, so have the Buckeye faithful, and it the embrace has been met with great success and the jump start of a new dynasty in college football. 

It's not a gimmick, the spread is real, folks. On any given play the defense is at a severe disadvantage when facing elite players on opposing offenses. Systems like Urban Meyer's & the ones ran at Oregon aren't flukes or because of a single coach. Yes Urban is a genius, but Chip Kelley leaves... Oregon = Stat Quo the following year, no drop off since. They're simply taking advantage, and is the reason Oregon is and will be a program that is 100x more successful than Michigan in the foreseeable future. Smart programs evolve to remain or become successful, ala Alabama, Ohio State, Oregon, Baylor. Michigan will be "The Leaders & The Stubborn". 

These are my thoughts & opinions. I'd like to hear others. 

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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