I've seen a lot of discussion in the past 24 hours about whether Michigan should hire a full-time quarterbacks coach instead of asking offensive coordinator Al Borges to do double duty. I have disagreed with that notion ever since it was mentioned in the first place (all the way back during the 2011 season), and a little bit of research today reinforces my opinion. An offensive coordinator can do just fine as the quarterbacks coach. The coordinating is done in the office, during meetings, at home, etc. The game plan and play installation is done with the other coaches, who are and should be trusted with implementing the plays. If the position coaches can't be trusted to install the offense correctly, then those position coaches need to be replaced. The only team in the AP poll's top ten without a guy who doubles as the OC/QB coach is LSU, where Steve Kragthorpe's only role is as the quarterbacks coach and Greg Studrawa is the coordinator.
Teams with a coach who doubles as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach.
#1 Notre Dame - Chuck Martin
#2 Alabama - Doug Nussmeier
#3 Georgia - Mike Bobo
#4 Ohio State - Tom Herman
#5 Florida - Brent Pease (also coaches wide receivers)
#6 Oregon - Mark Helfrich
#7 Kansas State - Del Miller (co-offensive coordinator)
#8 Stanford - Pep Hamilton
#10 Texas A&M - Kliff Kingsbury
I don't understand why this has even been brought up. Some fans just don't know how to cope with a loss. I, for one, can't wait to see what Borges can do with Gardner and Morris in the next two years.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to wait and see what Borges will do next year. He's already shown he won't bend in his philosophy no matter how many close games we drop. Put me on the Kliff Kingsbury bandwagon. If he had only ever coached at Houston I would've discounted his ability, but in 1 year at A&M he's clearly proved he's the best young Coordinator in football.
ReplyDeleteHe won't bend his philosophy, huh? Interesting...
DeleteI could have sworn that he was running a bunch of pro-style plays early in the year and Denard was throwing a bunch of picks.
So he went to a run-heavy shotgun offense to limit Denard's throws, with a lot of inverted veer plays.
Then when Gardner came in to play QB, Borges ran I-formation with lots of play action passes.
And in the past couple games, he rolled out some diamond formation packages to run the ball and used a two-quarterback system (with varying degrees of success, obviously).
Borges may not be a great offensive coordinator, but to say he "won't bend his philosophy" is misleading and flat-out incorrect.
He does roll out new wrinkles in his offense, and has shown himself capable of installing completely different looks, but he only dabbles in them, and then jumps right back into relying on the power I look, obvious runs, occasional bombs downfield, and Smith up the middle. Against Alabama it seemed like he was just throwing plays away, running Smith right at them for no gain even on successive plays, and seeing how poorly it's worked all season, with most of our backs running for few to negative yards, he keeps dialing it up like it will miraculously work one of these days. He loves to test our qb's deep ball accuracy under pressure, too, no matter how many times ND picks it off in a row. You're right that keeps adjusting, to plays that don't suit the players on the roster.
DeleteI'd say it has been more than wrinkles. Borges has gone majority shotgun w/ QB read over the last two seasons, which is completely unprecedented for him. He got away from that a little with Devin because they were not going to run option with the only guy left on the roster who can complete a pass. You can certainly point to games where you don't agree with how he attacked a defense. But calling him out for not bending his philosophy is unwarranted. It's pretty rare to see an OC established in a style of play veer from it as much as Borges has at UM.
DeleteAnother thing to remember is that Denard was at times a frustrating guy to coach for both RR and Borges. He ran RR's zone read in practice OK, but frequently made the wrong decision in games. So RR just decided to run him on sweeps and Iso's. Similarly, Denard was able to make good passing reads in practices under Borges. But in games, he often spazzed out in the pocket. When you add in the factor that UM's run blocking was so poor this year, this offense had no chance of firing on all cylinders.
Chuck Martin is a defensive guy by nature. He did a good job maintaining Kelly's offense after he left for CMU but that is not his bailiwick. He brought Chuck over to the O side this season because he trusts Chuck more than any other coach.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, Purdue seems like a good fit for Martin.
DeleteYou could probably add Rich Rod to the list if you wanted to drop further in the rankings - he was HC, OC, and QB coach all in one. Magee just helped call plays during games and Smith was primarily a recruiter.
ReplyDeleteAgree that Borges should be fine as a QB coach. It's a natural dual role. He is a sharp X's and O's guy so conveying the decision making stuff to the QB's is a no-brainer. Borges admitted that he needed to bone up on some of the latest QB drills when he arrived at UM, which shows some humility. But you can't be a long term offensive coordinator in big time college football who runs a sophisticated passing scheme and not be intimately familiar with QB development.
"Borges admitted that he needed to bone up on some of the latest QB drills when he arrived at UM, which shows some humility." That's funny because from the limited video I've looked at it doesn't look at all like Borges has learned anything at all from the example of Mike Leach.
DeleteI wouldn't hire Leach but there is no one who runs a better QB/receiver drill then Mike. Even if I ran a flexbone I'd copy some of Leach's practices.
What argument is actually being made here? Most of these teams have below average quarterbacks or quarterbacks that are better running than actually passing.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it really needs to be explained.
DeleteI think people want Loeffler back because they think he was the reason for our success with Henne and the pro-style QB.
ReplyDelete