The Horror Pt. II: This Time It's Personal, 8/26

The last football-less weekend is finally upon us. To be quite honest with you, this offseason has been the swiftest one I can remember ever having to slog through, and up until the recent flurry of transfers, was just about perfect. Brady Hoke fattened the media up on the empty-calorie foodstuff known as fluff, the VHT recruits are coming in like they used to, and OSU has a laundry list of questions to answer on and off the field. In any case, I'm looking forward to what the season has in store, but I advise all to savor the quiet calm that will be this next week. Once things get going there's no looking back.

As far as this blog goes, I'm excited to keep things going throughout this season. I started out with a certain vision of what I wanted to write about, and if you've read anything here you'll know what I'm talking about. I love to write and I love Michigan football, two inclinations which converge to form long-winded posts on games against bad Indiana teams. Everybody has their flaws.

I've tried to produce some more day-to-day type content to bridge the gap between my longer posts. I'm still trying to feel things out, and I've been helped out immensely by Brian at MGoBlog, as well as the guys at Maize and Brew and The Wolverine Blog, for linking to my work; without their help in that respect, this blog would not have advanced much farther than my own circle of friends. With that said, my interest is not in the aesthetics of the blog or even the number of views I get, and I would still do this even if my close friends were the only people that read it. I started this thing late one night last summer, and I had no idea what I was doing, what my "niche" would be, how long I would continue to write, and what my "voice" was or would be. I'm still trying to get a feel for all of these things, but it's coming along. I haven't posted as frequently as I would have wanted, but the new season is the perfect opportunity for me to throw some words out there into the great big void that is the Internet and whomever reads it, reads it.

In short, for the handful that have kept up with this blog: thank you, and I'm looking forward to writing about the 2011 season.

Hey, remember that time? ME NEITHER: So, Dave Brandon clearly has not learned from past mistakes. As you all know, Michigan has scheduled the Appalachian State Mountaineers to a rematch, to be played in 2014. Yes, I know. Dr. Saturday expresses the universal dread-filled sigh exhaled by Michigan fans everywhere upon hearing this news:

For most Michigan partisans, Sept. 1, 2007, is a black hole. A void that never existed. A Saturday that the calendar, somehow, just sort of … skipped. All they know is that they went to bed that Friday night excited for the season opener, and came to the following Monday feeling terrible.

A lot of interesting emotions will be floating around Ann Arbor that day. The atmosphere will be part dread, part apprehension, part disingenuous apathy, and part vengeful bloodlust. Playing this game is still stupid, no matter how much anybody wants the "revenge." There is no number of points that Michigan could win this game by that will eliminate any of the embarrassment of that day. I had a similar reaction to Brian when I saw this...I don't think any fanbase ever has panicked more than we have/will about an FCS opponent 3 years down the road. As weird as it is to say, this game, which took place on my third day on campus as a naive freshman, will always be a significant part of my fandom and of my aggregate memories of Michigan football. Not that I want that to be true, of course...it's horrible. No amount of mind bleach will ever erase the painful memories of that day. It was a surreal part of your every Michigan fan's fandom, an absurd memory that just kind of latches on to your memory and never lets go, not unlike the time you had to watch The Miracle of Life in middle school. Some things stay with you forever.

At least Armanti Edwards can't hurt us anymore.

Hello Goodbye Again: Exit TX TE Chris Barnett, adding to the recent string of departures. This is the third incoming recruit to not make it to Sept. 3rd. Attrition is unfortunate, and by all accounts Barnett was a very talented player (i.e., not your generic stone-handed in-line blocker). Having garnered offers from two schools that have recently produced elite tight ends (Oklahoma-Jermaine Gresham, Arkansas-DJ Williams), Barnett was a big get for Michigan. Unfortunately, he ballooned in size throughout the spring and summer, apparently reaching a hefty 280. There's no telling if that was the sole reason behind his transfer (if it is...why?), but in any case, this is unfortunate simply for the fact that there's currently not very much talent waiting in the wings behind senior Kevin Koger. Michigan is probably good at the tight end position for this class, but it will definitely be a priority next year, as will the Barwisization  Wellmanization of Ricardo Miller.

Meanwhile in Columbus: 11W previews the season, but not until they talk about how long the offseason has been for them. Eventually, they get to some prognosticating: 4 out of 8 contributors have the Buckeyes going a Carr-esque 9-3, with two claiming 10-2, one for 8-4, and one for 11-1. Basically, they'll be in Florida playing an SEC team, which would be their most disappointing season since 2004 (which should just about tell you how far apart Michigan and Ohio State are right now). Personally, I think 9-3 is a good bet. A pretty tough slate in October will make or break this team, with the road test in Champaign being particularly interesting. Who those three losses will come to is up for debate, and I'm not quite willing to go on record right this minute if Michigan is one of those three (FWIW, general season predictions post should be coming next Monday).

They also each identify the one thing that would make the season a "failure": four involved some form of Michigan, with three being "losing to Michigan" and one being "losing to Brady Hoke."

CtK Day 8:

Wolverine Historian: Tired of watching last season's Illinois shootout on the BTN every other day? Here's something nice to mix things up a bit:

It's So Fluffy: More offseason fluff, this time in the form of a Q&A with former assistant Jerry Hanlon. A couple bits aren't exactly anything new, per se, but should serve as some needed reassurance for the legions of people worried about the offense:

They will do some zone blocking, but they will also do some swiping and double-teaming. They pull and trap. They pull every man along the line of scrimmage, from the tackles to the center to everybody. It allows you to take more advantage of what the defense is doing to you.

There it is, it's out there. No speculation necessary about what Michigan will or won't do (with more emphasis on the latter, perhaps). Michigan will zone block, despite Hoke's notorious rhetorical aversion to zone blocking and his offseason-long diatribe re: its incompatibility with overall team toughness. Michigan will also do some man blocking. It seems like a distant relic of the past, given that we've been zone blocking since 2006. Everything, include Borges's own words and SDSU's offensive philosophy under Hoke/Borges, point toward a balanced, diverse offense. The offense will probably not be too complex early on (looks like it's 65-70% of the SDSU playbook as of now), but, by the end of the season we should be looking at a fairly dangerous offensive unit. What that translates to in terms of cold, hard production is tough to say, but an improved defense (top 70?) and a competent kicker (PLEASE) would go a long way towards easing the transition and ultimately leading to maybe an extra win this year.

Hanlon also makes note of some potential difficulties with the receivers:

There will be a change with your wide receivers. They'll be more interested in blocking downfield, as well as running patterns. Of course, they're going to have to run much more disciplined patterns, where they read a defense and know what they're supposed to do and make a cut, come back to the ball. The pocket passing game is more geared to that.

This is perhaps the most underplayed issue involving the offense, particularly when most consider the talent and depth that the Wolverines are blessed with at the position. For all of RR's offensive brilliance, his passing schemes were actually fairly simplistic. There's nothing complicated about getting a receiver open after Denard carries the ball for several long gains on a given drive.

Notre Dame figures to have a pretty strong front seven, but Michigan should be able to win its fair share of battles in the secondary if Denard and Roundtree, Hemingway, etc. are on the same page.


More? Dr. Saturday continues with his BlogPoll...OSU comes in at 17. Spencer Hall trolls hard in the paint. Delonte Hollowell et al, I think the word y'all are looking for is "tremendous." If this is what the future looks like then I'll stay right here, thanks. Dick Tressel thinks brother Jim will coach again...good luck with that. The Daily on Michigan's practices leading up to the opener...Borges: "Our practices are not for the faint of heart."

Reasons For Optimism: Musings in May

The Michigan football program after the Appalachian State debacle (and, eventually, the catastrophic Year 1 of the RR era) looked kind of like the Death Star at the end of A New Hope.

Yup.

As of now, it looks a little more like this:

So, that's good. Of course, that one got blown up too, so let's just leave this analogy before we go someplace we don't want to. Either way, we're making progress (!). The speed with which we have reeled in commitments has made me wonder whether or not I unknowingly became a fan of the Texas Longhorns. Obviously that's a little hyperbolic, but things are looking up. Yet, we haven't played a game in the Hoke era. The third of September is a long way away, so let's take some time to do a little thinkin' and extrapolatin': why do we feel, as they call it, "good" about things? Some might call it delusion, a false sense of ease like antidepressants supposedly produce, or lobotomized crazy folks drifting in a cloudy haze of not good and not bad. I posit it that this "good" is actually, you know, good. With the way things have gone of late, on and off the field, the simple lack of bad news (minus the Stonum situation) is cause for celebration. Some of the following might be redundant or obvious, but in order to understand the massive, wholesale psychological shift  within the Michigan community--which includes the fans, the media, the athletic department, former players, current players, future players, etc.-- we must look at the reasons why Hoke has been good for Michigan so far, and why he will probably be good in the future. If the Michigan football community was a robot, it just executed REBOOT.exe, turning in their fancy but flawed operating system for an older, sturdier version. 

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Some points for optimism:

1) Coach Hoke and Co. (especially Mattison) are absolutely dominating the state of Michigan right now. Now, I don't personally read any Spartan message boards, but I can imagine that most Spartan fans are monitoring the current recruiting situation with concern. 

Despite three straight losses to the Spartans, they are who they are: a team that will probably have trouble sustaining any sort of success (i.e., Big Ten title/contention) if Michigan is winning on the recruiting front. So far, Michigan has garnered ten commitments (to MSU's four), all from the states of Michigan and Ohio. "Winning" the instate recruiting battle essentially cuts down MSU's hopes of being a legitimate force in the Big Ten landscape like a Chaz Ramsey chop block. On Michigan's path to competence, MSU presents an important step that we can no longer overlook. However, at the end of the day they are simply the mildy challenging but mostly annoying dude you had to fight in any Zelda game in order to get the key to fight the real boss (ND, OSU, Nebraska?)*. With several guys nearing commitments or supposedly looking like decent-to-good bets for Michigan, including Godin, Thompson, O'Brien, and Richardson, it will only get worse for MSU, and we haven't even played any games yet [ed--Godin has committed as of this morning, the much talked about "silent" commit according to TomVH]. If Hoke can find a way to win 8+ this year, recruiting will get even tougher for Coach Dantonio, and things will probably go back to how they once were. This is the best-case scenario, and although said dominance might not manifest itself on the field right away, it almost certainly will in the near future. 


*OSU is obviously Ganondorf.


2) While it is unfair and a little bit of a double standard, the Michigan community has rolled out the red carpet for Coach Hoke. He can do no wrong, and is ostensibly building a shattered program from the ground up, despite the fact that the cupboard is far from bare.Although there were initial reactions of negativity in some circles (particularly, of course, in the cadre of staunchly pro-RR folks) to the hiring of Brady Hoke, they have seemed to dissipate over time, melting like an ice cube on a griddle. I don't know when or how this happened, but you can see it. When given the supposed options, I myself preferred Hoke over Miles (and took the tried and true "well we didn't want him anyway" course re: Harbaugh), but not at the expense of a 4th year for Coach Rodriguez. While I still wish that RR had been able to finish what he started, I sit here only a few months later mostly at peace with how things have happened. Hoke isn't a flashy guy and he probably never will be, but I think we could use a little vacation from the trials and tribulations of personalities clashing against the establishment over and over again like waves crashing against a stoic, unmoving rockface. 


3) The biggest putative supporter of Brady Hoke is of course Dave Brandon, the man who, after a long and fretful coaching journey into the frustrating belly of the dreaded coaching search, decided Brady was his guy all along. I guess we'll never really know what happened there, and while it certainly put a dent in this past recruiting class, it won't matter in the long run if the correct decision has been made. With that said, a precedent has been set; rather, it has not been set. RR's firing after just three years (and all the arguments against this practice's "fairness," practicality, and efficacy), combined with Hoke being Brandon's guy, makes me believe that Hoke should get at least four years, if not five, to cement himself as the head coach at Michigan for at least part of another recruiting cycle. Barring NCAA violations (uh, please no) or a complete and utter failure to win games, Hoke will be given some leeway that his predecessor didn't have. I only mention this because it is a good thing for Hoke; nothing I say here, now, or at any point in the future, will be explicitly in "defense" of RR. It's in the past. Hoke might have 99 Problems but his boss ain't one. 


4) At the risk of sounding incredibly cocky, especially after going 7-6 and getting detonated by Chris Relf and Manny Diaz's ridiculous blitz-all-the-time-like-Tenuta-except-I-know-what-I'm-doing defense, the 2011 schedule seems very, very manageable. Given the inevitable early struggles of the new offense, it is significant that the Wolverines won't have to enter a hostile environment until halfway through the season in East Lansing. I've been guilty of declaring wins in May before, but we're at worst 5-1 going into EL; we've seen this story two years in a row, so the back end will be the key. Purdue is Purdue and Illinois should be a win, so the difference between "decent given the circumstances" and "decent by normal standards" will be the OSU, Nebraska, Iowa triumvirate. Thankfully, we get the first two at home. Nebraska will be interesting and somewhat of a wild-card. They faded at the end of last year and certainly showed they could be beaten. Then again, I don't want to put too much stock in a bowl performance on the heels of a conference title game loss, you know. As of right now, the conference is looking a little bit underwhelming. 


5) Things are not looking good in Columbus, and that is a fairly huge understatement. The NCAA sharks are circling the OSU program, and while they aren't really doing anything of substance right now (not unlike Patrick Marleau BOOM ROASTED), we all know it's a matter of time. Tressel should/will get fired, and that's a pretty huge power vacuum you've got right there. The next couple of years (i.e., once OSU gets hit with sanctions) will be huge for Michigan with respect to recruiting in Ohio. Ohio State's malfeasance and inevitable punishment is bad for the conference long-term but obviously advantageous for Hoke right now as he tries to get this thing started, and it will be critical that he capitalizes while he can and before OSU can recover. Everybody notes that that rivalry comes and goes in swings (the 90s was Michigan's, the past decade has been OSU's), so a win this season would do wonders symbolically and practically. A win this year would give us all the chance to exhale the breath that we've been waiting to exhale for eight years. And, given the circumstances, a win this year is not all that ridiculous of a notion. The offensive and defensive schemes will have seen 11 games of game action and the greener guys will have some experience, and it'll be at home. It's really amazing how almost everything has come into place for Hoke; if he doesn't succeed then you really can't blame anybody else but him.


6) Perhaps the most important factor in Hoke's favor is one Greg Mattison. Although to a lesser extent, Al Borges is also a respected offensive mind who has had success at a number of places. A coach's ability to attract top-notch assistants to work with him is, in my mind, the greatest mark of a coach's likelihood to succeed. Very few head coaches these days do things completely on their own, so Hoke has scored a huge victory in this department. Mattison's recruiting prowess has already become a known and valued asset, and his football mind is unquestioned; while there were certainly some inequities in the Spring Game, the defense actually looked alright (sometimes even good!), which by recent precedent is about equivalent to being the second coming of the '85 Bears.


The fact is, there are still many more reasons to be excited, and the aforementioned only represent a small sample of said reasons. This is a work in progress, and while we may get there sooner or later than we may think (or, we might not get there at all), things are changing for the better. Almost everything has gone right for Coach Hoke and Michigan so far, and if we can make this a quiet summer that would be just great. I don't know how good we'll be this year, but I know there are reasons to be excited.