Michigan Offensive Breakdown with Al Borges This Week
These are amazing. I like them more than MMQB with Devin Gardner. It's wild to me just how much you can learn from these videos.
The main takeaways were that JJ's inexperience was the main reason for any implement in the offense, play calling was great, RB/OL/WR play were outstanding, TE and QB play need work, and that there's a lot of cause for optimism given that JJ is only going to get more experienced.
September 27th, 2022 at 4:41 PM ^
May I ask what "main reason for any implement in the offense" means?
An implement is a tool. Perhaps you mean some other word?
September 27th, 2022 at 4:56 PM ^
Impediment, I would guess.
Proof reading is a dying (dead?) art, though it does take time and we live in a busy world.
September 27th, 2022 at 4:59 PM ^
Isn't 'implement' both a noun for a device or tool as well as a verb you use for putting something into practice? I think the tool gets spelled with an 'i' sometimes, but I'm not sure that's correct. Inscrutable sentence, but I'm not sure the verb is the problem. I read it as something like 'failure to implement,' etc.
September 27th, 2022 at 6:39 PM ^
Spelling's the same for both.
Yeah, probably "impediment."
September 27th, 2022 at 4:41 PM ^
Haven't watched it yet, but interesting that Al's opinion is that the TE play needs work when Brian and Seth are singing their praises every week. I was also of the opinion that they are playing pretty well. Agreed that JJ will improve with experience and there obviously should still be a lot of optimism for the offense with him at QB.
September 27th, 2022 at 8:31 PM ^
Yeah, the TEs have seemed to be doing a good job, and I also thought the comment about the WRs was odd. Granted I'm only a layperson, but it doesn't seem like they've consistently been doing a great job getting open. Idk though.
September 27th, 2022 at 10:03 PM ^
Despite Joel Klatt constantly going on about Maryland’s stifling coverage, every time they showed downfield it seemed like somebody was open. Nearly every deep shot JJ took was open. JJ only threw one incompletion less than 20 yards downfield.
I’m guessing it was less “nobody was open” vs “JJ had a tough time seeing/trusting/getting on time to the relatively narrow windows open when 8 men drop into zone”.
September 27th, 2022 at 4:42 PM ^
No offense to Sam, but why in the world would he have breakdowns with Al Borges?
After the crap he pulled here, how is he any type of authority on offensive playcalling.
September 27th, 2022 at 4:47 PM ^
Because D1 offensive coordinators – even the bad ones – know far more about football than 99.99% of people?
September 27th, 2022 at 4:49 PM ^
I would still prefer, and am more likely to accept, the POV of good ones vs "bad ones".
September 27th, 2022 at 5:15 PM ^
The "good" ones are inevitably employed by football teams.
The "bad" ones work in the media.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:30 PM ^
I like it. Though one caveat (which I don't like admitting), one pretty good one who was bad for other reasons works for Fox at the moment.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:39 PM ^
There’s also a difference between being good at analysis and good in the moment. You could be an average or poor play caller in the moment but still have an excellent grasp on schemes and concepts and their effectiveness. Just because Borges didn’t perform awesome in the role at U of M doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn’t have the intelligence to adeptly analyze and critique the Michigan offense.
September 27th, 2022 at 11:24 PM ^
Amazing that folks cannot separate these two elements. The third element is implementation of an offense. Understand it, teach it, then call it.
My guess is Al might understand it too well to teach it at this point or the latter years of his career.
September 28th, 2022 at 2:45 PM ^
Also totally different to explain a play to spectators and then engage a competitive battle of playcalling against another master. Many orders of magnitude of difference in mastery between what we can digest and what plays out in a competitive game.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:59 PM ^
Have you listened to the guy in videos over the years? Very enjoyable. He loves Michigan by the way. He is funny. Sam and Al go at it and a good watch most weeks. He also jokes about how some people dislike him around here. Good watch.
September 27th, 2022 at 8:19 PM ^
That's why I refuse to read UFRs on this site until this blog hires Andy Reid and Bill Belichik to write them.
September 27th, 2022 at 9:35 PM ^
Maybe next year Sam can do these reviews with Josh Gattis.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:13 PM ^
Yeah, but as an attorney, shitty attorneys know far more about the law than 99.99% of people, but no way in hell should anyone take their advice on most anything related to the law.
September 27th, 2022 at 10:13 PM ^
Yea, but this is more like the guy who was promoted to partner at one of the big law firms but then lost a big case so now he's just in house counsel for a F500 company. The guy failed on nearly the highest stage in his profession, he is still incredibly knowledgable about the profession.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:53 PM ^
This makes sense right up until you realize that professional NFL and College Coaches still "ice the kicker"
Statistically an "iced" kicker is more accurate than not.
Just because you get paid to do something and you know a lot about it doesnt mean you're not kind of a dumbass.
Or like how a middle-schooler with madden probably understands end-of-half / end-of-game timeouts better than Jim Harbaugh (who, still, for some god awful reason, struggles with this, or at least did just a couple of years ago)
Also the myth of the hard-worker or overly-skilled worker is kinda proven to be BS. Statistically, in America, If you got a job it's because of connections and luck. Coaching is NOTORIOUSLY bad about this as its essentially one giant "good-ol-boys club". (so is reffing, btw, a big reason why its so garbage).
September 27th, 2022 at 7:42 PM ^
“NFL coordinators have a few dumb shibboleths and engage in some nepotistic hires” is one thing. “A guy with a mediocre D1 OC career is an idiot that knows less about analyzing plays than an internet rando” is a completely different thing.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:55 PM ^
I think "a few" and "some" is probably doing a lot of work there but otherwise, yes, I generally agree with you.
September 27th, 2022 at 4:51 PM ^
He was a P5 OC for nearly 20 years and coached college football for over 30 years. He’s far more qualified to comment on play calling and Xs & Os than Sam, Brian, Seth, or nearly anyone else in the Michigan football media/blog circle. He had his highs too, leading an offense than went 13-0 with the 2004 Auburn Tigers and would’ve gone to the CFP in today’s structure (likely would’ve gone to the title game as they probably beat Oklahoma) and of course the 2011 season here which gave us our only truly enjoyable happy season from the miserable 2007-2014 stretch. I was a vocal opponent and critic during his time at Michigan but that doesn’t erase his qualifications.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:10 PM ^
Neg me if you must, but I completely disagree with the assertion that Al Borges is "far more qualified" to comment on play calling. Just because you have more experience doing something poorly, and that many people who have no expertise in that field can recognize what is being done poorly, does not make the person who did the thing poorly any more qualified to comment on the field than someone who has experience recognizing (but not involved directly with) what's going on in the field.
Does Al Borges have unique insights into what is going on based on a lengthy history in coaching? Yes.
Are there reactionary fans who don't know much about the details going on? Yes, however those fans don't operate this blog and there is a difference in coaching something well and understanding what you're seeing and being able to adequately describe it while also comparing that to how the same thing is being done elsewhere.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:32 PM ^
Al Borges was good enough to be employed by D1 football teams. He wasn't bad at his job, he just wasn't as good as Big 10 defensive coordinators are.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:58 PM ^
I REALLY want to point out that you also didn't say he was good at his job, just "good enough".
I feel that's a pretty important distinction to make.
September 27th, 2022 at 9:56 PM ^
I think he was bad at his job at Michigan. I also think that his analysis is pretty good.
Devin Gardner summed it up perfectly in one of the videos. Borges wants to be right more than he wants to get it right. His play concepts weren't bad but the team that he had couldn't execute. Ultimately he failed because he couldn't successfully coach a team to execute the concepts that he wanted to run and/or that he couldn't adapt his scheme to fit the players he had.
But watching a game and explaining concepts is something that he can easily do.
September 27th, 2022 at 8:55 PM ^
Yes Gorgeous Al Borges knows more about football than you, or me, or anyone on here. The idea that he doesn’t is ridiculous. To be honest you and me aren’t qualified/in the know enough to even make that judgement. I am no Al Borges fan or anything but give the guy some credit for 30+ years in the game at a high level compared to I’m guessing close to zero experience from anyone here.
September 28th, 2022 at 8:20 AM ^
duffman, someone had to say it!
Armchair OC's killing a former coach that has been successful to the highest level in CF!
IIRC Borges biggest issue as an OC at Michigan was trying to do to much. People saying they didn't like Borges but he had Denard Robinson and made the offense viable against B10 Defenses! Then when Denard got injured, inserted Devin Gardner. And for everyone hating on Devin Gardner, Borges took him mid late in the season of 2012 playing WR to playing QB! Don't forget he was one of the best athletes on the field for Michigan so we took an athlete away from rec to play QB so he didn't have himself to throw to. He had Jeremy Gallon and Devin Funches who didn't exactly dominate like he should have!
September 28th, 2022 at 2:48 PM ^
Losing to other B1G coaches isn't poor in the context of comparing to average people. It's like running a 10.0 second 100M dash, you're not even qualifying for olympic finals but you're still faster than 99.9999% of people.
September 28th, 2022 at 2:50 PM ^
You think Al Borges knows less than the commentators on our Saturday games? He didnt know what to do with Denard and Devin and that was his biggest issue.
September 27th, 2022 at 4:57 PM ^
I'm sure you were his second choice, Franz.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:21 PM ^
1) I wouldn’t trust Brian to call a game either, but I find his analysis interesting
2) I actually think Borges’ particular failings as an OC might make him a better commentator - one of the common criticisms of Borges was that he ran a “grab bag” offense with little identity. But that means he knows a bit about every system. And another criticism was that “execution” was always to blame and he was asking the players to do things they couldn’t. That’s bad for a coordinator, but for someone who is looking at a play that didn’t work and trying to explain “what was the OC trying to do here” I think that is actually very helpful.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:57 PM ^
I think it's probably a lot easier to just say he's not that good an OC rather than to say that he's such a good OC that his plans were incoherent and unplayable for the mere-mortals we had playing at Michigan.
September 27th, 2022 at 7:39 PM ^
That’s… not what I said though? I mean that his skill set deficiencies that made him a not so great coordinator may be strengths as a commentator.
September 27th, 2022 at 8:05 PM ^
OR, and hear me out on this, they don't.
He has deficiencies that limited his capabilities, if his deficiencies particularly include a lack of understanding the nuance of running a coherent offense then maybe he's actually a terrible choice for any commentary on any nuances of running coherent offense.
September 28th, 2022 at 12:16 AM ^
Borges’ career spans a lot more than the 2012 OSU game. I mean, Borges’ offenses under Hoke ranged from “occasionally pretty good” to “oh God 27 for 27”. I don’t think anyone was sad to see him go, he didn’t get the job done at Michigan.
But an honest assessment of his career is “ups and downs over many years of D1 coaching”. He clearly has a huge amount of knowledge and experience. The idea that he’s too incompetent to analyze plays on AM radio (especially relative to everyone else involved in this conversation!) is bonkers.
September 28th, 2022 at 12:42 AM ^
He was mediocre at his job, he might be good at commentary, or he might not understand the finer nuances and actually be terrible at commentary. There's no real way to know for sure.
What I do know is the argument that he was mediocre at his job so he might be really good at doing another job in the same field seems to be missing a few pieces. Namely, proof that he's actually good at analyzing offenses to analyze an offense better than his own.
September 28th, 2022 at 11:41 AM ^
You're overthinking it. It's simple to explain: he might know the plays and why they work, but his job as an OC and a playcaller is to teach them such that 18-22 year old young adults understand them. Is it really so hard to see how he can understand a myriad set of nuances on how to run certain concepts against certain defenses and why they would work, might *not* translate to the field? The job wasn't just "run an offense, call plays". He had to teach them. He had to have players capable of running them. Honestly I think his failings as an OC come down to not being able to properly evaluate or teach what his offenses could and could not do on any given Saturday. Sometimes he looked brilliant, sometimes he banged his head against a wall and got "27 for 27" And he even talked about this idea in this video - you run the ball because you keep chipping away at a defense and sometimes it gets other things to open up...but there's a fine line between "keeping a defense honest" and "banging your head against a wall". He might not admit it but that "27 for 27" instance was exactly the latter.
September 27th, 2022 at 9:12 PM ^
Regarding your first point this should be pointed out regularly. Brian and Seth and all the other guys are smart dudes, but they are not actual high level coaches! They provide some insight, others like Borges do as well. The idea that Brian and Seth (nothing personal here you guys are great) are breaking down games and film and someone like Al Borges isn’t capable is insane.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:35 PM ^
I'd rank the offensive coordinating pretty low on the list of problems the team had when Borges was calling the plays here.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:40 PM ^
I don’t know.
He had some wizard like games where you were thinking wow this is how it should be. But more often it felt like the kids and game plan were just discombobulated and it left you scratching your head.
Some of his failings were poor line play.
Clearly he knows football when he is breaking down film.
September 27th, 2022 at 8:21 PM ^
This is where it's important to get another take, Devin Garder's for example, because while Borges explains things from a coordinator's perspective, listening to Devin has shown me where maybe Al called things better than it appeared but Devin and/or the offense screwed it up or went off script. And likewise, they will have a weekly argument about whether a particular play should have happened (usually a risky pass that Devin will say is worth it and Al will say is a mistake kinda thing) which gives extra context for why QB's and players and OC's may have their own influences on the playcall and how well the plays works in spite of or because of those differences.
Al Borges and Devin Gardner understand football a helluva lot better than most people and listening to them together is an amazing way to learn about offense in its totality.
September 27th, 2022 at 6:46 PM ^
2012… 2nd half at Ohio State was pretty damn bad.
September 27th, 2022 at 8:22 PM ^
And the 2013 Ohio State game is an example of Borges on one of his best days
September 27th, 2022 at 5:52 PM ^
I agree with you. The job he did here was pitiful. On par with Matt Millen running the Lions - and dont want to listen to his opinions either.
September 27th, 2022 at 5:58 PM ^
Nobody forced you to come to this thread.
September 27th, 2022 at 6:25 PM ^
Thing is, Nussmeier was 1000x worse. Nuss and Hoke actually benched Devin Gardner and put the blame on him. A 5th year senior QB who had previously scorched Ohio State.
In hindisight, especially with how Morris played when he got the start, that was an all-time coaching blunder. At least Borges didn't screw that up.
And for the record, the way that was handled was in a different universe compared to how Harbaugh handled Cade vs. JJ (giving both equal opportunities and letting results speak for themselves).
September 27th, 2022 at 8:35 PM ^
Yeah. Borges had his high points, like the 2013 ND and OSU games, to go with the low points. With Nuss we were simply awful all season.