Half Full or Half Empty? Quarterback

The final entry in my series of best and worst case scenarios for the upcoming season.  I would do one on special teams, but its pretty simple.  Kicking and punting come down to freshman stepping up, and the return game, to paraphrase MGoBlog comes down do "HOLD ON TO THE DAMN BALL.  Let's now look at the biggest x factor for the coming season, the quarterback position.

The two-headed monster.  I still
have nightmares about 2008.

The story of the Michigan offense these last two years is largely a story of quarterback play   or lack thereof (amirite?).  2008 was the worst offensive year any of us have ever seen because the options at quarterback were a walk-on and a pro style passer unfit to run the spread and shred.  This is a reductive view that doesn't take in to account the worst offensive line of the last ten years, and two freshman running backs, but bare with me.  2009 was a year of promise and ultimately failure, on the backs of one quarterback who was tasked with too much pressure to carry an offense (losing your best option at RB and the heart of your offensive line at different points will do that), and another quarterback who had all of three weeks of formal training at the position before the season.  The quarterbacks did the best they could with the injuries and inexperience that surrounded the team last year.  Their best wasn't good enough.

This year is different.  The offense returns almost wholly intact and deeper than before.  The defense returns a lot of its contributors from last year and is finally nearing the point where there is a legitimate two deep at every position.  Questions abound for this team as we enter the season, but none of them seem to matter as much as who takes the first snap this Saturday.  This isn't a real question, since it is clear all three options at quarterback will play.  That doesn't really matter, because if there is one thing the media loves more than Brent Favre's annual retirement fiasco, it is a full fledged quarterback controversy.

So we return to the question that launched the discussion of running backs:  If you have two quarterbacks, do you indeed have none?

Half Full or Half Empty? Running Backs

There is a hurricane rolling in to Virginia Beach tonight, so posts will be coming hard and fast today and most likely not at all tomorrow.  Let's move on to the biggest unknown question in the running game.


The old adage goes, "if you have two quarterbacks, you have none."  What about two running backs?  What about three?  Four?

The running back position in the spread and shred offense seems to be overlooked sometimes.  When people look back on Rodriguez's tenure at West Virginia the first name that gets mentioned is always Pat White.  But the quarterback position will only account for somewhere around 40% of the rushing attempts in a given year.  The Pat Whites of the world may run the show, but it is the guys like Steve Slaton and Noel Divine that carry the bulk of the workload.

From fumble prone to MINOR RAGE!  Can this year's
running back corp take the next step?

The past two years, the running back position in Ann Arbor has been in a state of constant flux.  Sam McGuffie was thrust into playing time early in his true freshman year of '08 (probably costing him his health and driving him back to Texas), but neither he nor Michael Shaw found much success on the ground, paving the way for Brandon Minor to take a bigger role in the offense.  After a solid end to the '08 campaign, Minor and speedster Carlos Brown looked to be the one two punch that UM's breakout offense would need in '09.  However, injuries took a toll and turned the running back position into a game of musical chairs.

Going in to this season the oft injured Minor and the sporadic play maker Brown have both graduated and taken with them the last remnants of Lloyd Carr's stable of running backs.  Stepping in to fill the void are a number of running backs who have different levels of experience.  Shaw, a junior, and Vincent Smith, a freshman, are both back in the fold having a few starts a piece, but both have been inconsistent.  Joining them are three largely unknown newcomers.  Michael Cox the alleged super athlete saw garbage time last year.  Fitzgerald Toussaint is the owner of not only a fantastic name but an equally impressive load of hype generated by highlight tapes and scout team buzz from last year.  Last but not least is Stephen Hopkins, the early-enrolling freshman who has established himself as the battering ram of the bunch.

Can we get reasonable production out of a group of unproven running backs?

Almost Perfect: Big Ten Divisional Alignment

A good rivalry is a beautiful thing.

A few quick thoughts on the now official Big Ten divisions:

- First and foremost, The Game will stay the same.  You could have put UM in a division with anyone and as long as the OSU game came in the final week I would be satisfied.  Too much tradition, too much hate, too much national significance.  The rivalry may have lost some luster with the introduction of a championship game, but it would have been a huge letdown to play OSU sometime in late October.  It benefits the Big Ten to keep this game where it is, even if a rematch happens the next week (unlikely).

- Competitive balance was reached (Expect that to shift in five years.  Then shift again in five more.  College football is no monolith) but Jim Delany and his cronies need to do a better job thinking outside the box.  I don't think I have heard more than three different proposed divisional splits.  I understand the need to split up the three eastern powers for revenue/relevancy reasons, but it seems from day one any time someone mentioned competitive balance it automatically implied putting Penn State and OSU together and shipping Michigan out west.  Why couldn't you have a division of PSU, MSU, Wisc, Nebraska, IU, Ill and another of UM, OSU, Iowa, Minn, NW, Purdue?  Protect the UM/MSU, PSU/OSU, Iowa/Nebraska, Wisc/Minn, Purdue/IU, NW/Ill.  You still give up the same amount of rivalries, but you come up with an impressive set of protected cross divisional rivalries that are actually, you know, rivalries.  This certainly beats Iowa/Purdue, MSU/Indiana matchups we ended up with.  (Speaking of forced rivalries, how bad does this suck for MSU and Iowa.  Instead of a cross divisional rival you can get excited about, you have to play a school from Indiana).

- MSU just won the basketball lottery if these divisions translate to the hardwood.  Iowa and Nebraska as four of your games?  Can we just agree to let those two awful programs combine to make a middle of the road Big Ten team?  Minnesota and Northwestern are no threat to the Spartans, and UM is at least three years away from being a legitimate challenge for the conference crown.  Are we sure Izzo wasn't on the divisional committee?

- The Big Ten at least made things fair across the top of the divison by making PSU/Nebraska a crossover rivalry.  This means the best four programs will play at least two of the other three every year.  However, it could set up a brutal schedule for Nebraska or UM down the line.  Take for example a Michigan division lineup of Nebraska, MSU, Iowa, NW, and Minnesota; a protected rivalry against OSU; an unlucky draw of PSU and Wisconsin as the other cross divisional games in a year; and then the Big Ten championship game.  Ouch.  At least OSU and PSU get the Zooker, the corpse of Indiana's football team, and whatever team Danny Hope can put together at Purdue on a yearly basis.  For the time being it looks much easier to go undefeated in the second division than the first, and that is factoring in the current state of Michigan's program.

Ed. Note:  I wrote this before I checked out the schedules.  It seems my worst case scenario for a division one team happened, but to Nebraska, not Michigan.  In 2011 Nebraska plays at Wisconsin, Minnesota, Penn State, and Michigan, with home dates coming against Iowa, OSU, Northwestern, and MSU.  2012 reverses the home and away schedule.  Welcome to the Big Ten Cornhuskers.

Half Full or Half Empty? Receivers

Moving outside for a look at the one position group that has largely failed to be relevant (for a variety of reasons not limited to skill level) in the last two years.


Gone are the days of Braylon Edwards, David Terrell, and Mario Manningham.  This much is certain.  UM won't be seeing any Navarre-esque pro style quarterbacks slinging fade routes 50 yards down the field.  What does this mean for the passing game moving forward?

More of this, please.

Looking back, we don't have too much to see.  '08 was a lean year at receiver as the two best options decided to try their luck in the draft following the '07 season.  Martavious Odoms led the team from the slot, but the production on the outside was lacking.  Last year, despite 2000 yards from freshman Tate Forcier, the passing game failed to be the kind of factor in the offense that it is capable of.

Believe that Rodriguez coached teams won't air it out at your own peril.  Each QB brings a skill to the table that should open up passing lanes, while the offensive line looks to be better suited to provide pass protection.  If there was ever a year for the receivers to take the next step, 2010 is it.

Links? Links.

Ah, the crutch of the blogosphere: links posts.  Depending on what I find in my morning rounds of sports blogging, this could become a regular feature.

- First, if you haven't visited MGoBlog yet for the unit by unit breakdown, you should drop what you are doing and read that (pimping MGoBlog will also become a regular feature around here, so ready yourself).

- "They are what we thought they were."  (Any excuse to link my second favorite post-game coaching rant of all time is going to be jumped on every time, I assure you.)

The divisions are shaking out just like everyone thought they would.  OSU and UM seem to be splitting up, in favor of appeasing PSU fans who can't possibly be bothered to play a bunch of teams from the west of the Big Ten.  Rumor has it that The Game will still be the season finale.  Let's hope.

- Those dirty bandwagon jumpers over at the Wolverine Liberation Army have finally come to their senses and embraced the maize and blue again.  All the better to bitch slap the haters and trolls of the internet now that football season is once again upon us.

- Dr. Saturday gives a pretty fair take on the last two years under Rodriguez, "All news since December 2007 has been bad news."  My thoughts exactly.

- BHGP is reporting on Josh Koeppels attempts to get himself ready to face off against Mike Martin in October.  Now with gruesome video.

Half Full or Half Empty? Offensive Line

Moving to the other side of the ball today to discuss the world of possibilities that lie ahead of this offense in year three of the Rodriguez spread experiment.


Most of the blame for UM's poor performance in '08 fell on the shoulders of the two-headed monster at quarterback.  Nick Sheridan and Steven Threet certainly played awful under center that year, but the offensive line was so bad that a converted DT switched to offensive guard and won the starting position.  Youth won the day, and the worst offensive performance any UM fan can remember was well on its way to the record books.

And so went the 2009 season.

2009 was a year of hope.  The quarterback situation finally looked to have steadied under the hand of true-freshman Tate Forcier (that last statement is a testament to just how bad the Threet/Sheridan combo was) and the offense was poised to make the same jump that Rodriguez coached offenses had done in the past.  Things looked promising until center David Molk went down with a broken foot three games in, only to return for a single (7 yard run) play against Penn State before tearing his ACL.  The line struggled for a second year and subsequently so did the offense.

There are no more excuses.  The youth of '08 is gone, and the line is working with a legitimate two-deep unlike in '09 when the Molk injury caused massive restructuring.  The sky is the limit for this group, but where is the floor?

Half Full or Half Empty? Defensive Line

Another installment in my season preview which looks at reasons to be optimistic and pessimistic about the coming season.  Now that Secondary and Linebacker are out of the way things should be a little more cheery around here.


What's that, a position group on defense that we can actually be reasonably excited about this year?  You don't say.

Graham is leaving big shoes to fill.

If UM is going to win more than they lose in 2010   a novel idea I know   the defense is going to have to show a level of competency that has been absent the last two years.  The ability of the defense to do this is going to rise and fall with the ability of the defensive line to control the line of scrimmage and pressure the quarterback.  Even the most optimistic view of the linebacker and secondary performance this year still recognizes the obvious shortcomings that both units have.  There will be no coverage sacks this year, and unless Greg Jones gets lost on his way to Spartan Stadium on game days and somehow ends up in Ann Arbor, there is no knight in shining armor lining up five yards deep who is capable of neutralizing the talented group of running backs the Big Ten has to offer.  With great power comes great responsibility, and the defensive line is going to have to set the tone every game.

Just what we can expect is still somewhat of a mystery.