Report: BC DC DB TO MI Comment Count

Brian

B9318913734Z.1_20150919003320_000_GPTBVLII0.1-0

SI's Thayer Evans is reporting that Michigan will hire Boston College defensive coordinator Don Brown in the same capacity at Michigan:

Sam Webb has an unconfirmed report that Brown told BC's players he would depart today.

This is the first that Brown's name has come up in connection with the Michigan job, which goes to show how much this was on lockdown. I was momentarily disappointed and then I remembered spending much of the year mad at BC for having the audacity to  be above Michigan in the rankings.

This is not because they beat up on Howard and Maine. S&P ignores that stuff. Meanwhile let's play spot the outlier in Dalvin Cook's season:

image

15 for 54 is BC. everyone else got nuked except Georgia Tech, which managed the 17 for 82 above.

BC's defense finished the year third in S&P+ behind only FSU and Michigan despite having nowhere near the talent either of those two teams had *and* having the kind of crippling dysfunction on the other side of the ball that usually leads to late landslide victories. You know, the kind of offense that can do this:

Wake Forest 3, Boston College 0: It's okay to hate something you love sometimes

Football Study Hall's Ian Boyd wrote a feature on Brown's defense not five days ago. Read the whole thing but here's the nutshell version:

With a quick LB corps, safeties that can play multiple roles, and effective DL anchored by highly skilled tackles all of the schematics and skill sets on the Eagles' defense were able to pull together to form a dominant unit. They were hard to move the ball against on normal downs and then pure murder on 3rd and long. Too bad about that offense.

Brown doesn't fit Harbaugh's profile in that he's 60 and presumably not looking to move up, but as far as results go he's a very impressive hire. And he's a college guy, so thumbs up for that.

Comments

MEZman

December 20th, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^

I think his nickname is "The Dude" so there's that.

 

Edit: He also used #DUDEOFTHEDAY on twitter to highlight individual players. Ok I'm on board with this hire.

FreddieMercuryHayes

December 20th, 2015 at 4:41 PM ^

Well, did not see that coming. I have to say, what he did at BC this past year was extremely impressive. However I don't know enough about his past resume to get a great read. It doesn't look like he'll be leaving anything soon, so hooray for continuity. If he's good.




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad

Maizen

December 20th, 2015 at 5:08 PM ^

Orlando and Aranda? All due respect to Brian the Orlando love was weird as hell. His defense was not good this year and he has very little experience.

Aranda feasted on shitty offenses all year and got BOMBED by OSU last year.

Brown is a flat out stud who shut down FSU and ND with half the talent. And he comes from a great coaching tree in Addazzio and Edsall (two good defensive minds) who hired him.

clarkiefromcanada

December 20th, 2015 at 5:12 PM ^

I'll give you Edsall as solid on the coaching tree but Addazio is brutal. Turrible as OC in Florida (where fans were happy to see him move to Temple). I had to watch his act at Temple (think paleozoic era manball). At BC he's been a significant drop from what they expected. We at TU were glad to see him depart. 

Addazio is not a good defensive mind, BTW. Brown, however, appears to be and kept BC in any number of games this year.

MGoStrength

December 21st, 2015 at 8:05 AM ^

I'm not sure that's accurate.  Is there any evidence to say that's true?  I know kids like success, but I think being a good recruiter is a lot more than posting top defenses?  Mattison is a great recruiter and it's not as though UM has posted a ton of great defenses, right?  Same goes for USC and their defenses/d-coordinators.  Now, those are great recruiters with not great defenses, not the other way around, but nonetheless.  I know it seems logical, but I feel like kids pick a school more based on emotion, feel, coach's personalities, location, tradition, childhood rooting interests, etc. more than statistics.

 

At a place like UM it's obviously an easier recruiting sell because you already have things like facilities, tradition, etc.  And you also want a good schematic coach, so I'm not making an argument that one is more important than another.  But, Durkin was a young, energetic, charismatic guy who was a good recruiter.  So, all I'm saying is it would be great to have some similar qualities, plus being a good schematic coach.

Jonesy

December 21st, 2015 at 6:10 PM ^

Pretty sure Durkin didn't recruit hardly anyone this past year and our recruiting class is doing fine.  Borges only recruited bust qbs and nothing else and our recruiting was fine then too.  I'm much more interested in how well he coordinates a defense which history seems to show he does quite well.

beef supreme

December 20th, 2015 at 5:07 PM ^

Not about scheme entirely. If you don't have the horses, and the other guy does....... look at msu this year vs osu. They got blasted last year, but in a monsoon, they got just enough by absolutely selling out to stop the run and urbz turtling massively. If osu had thrown it in the second half, they win that game.

Scheme is important. Have to give ur guys a chance. But talent? Biggest issue against spread teams along with ball control to keep them from racing up and down the field on you.

micheal honcho

December 20th, 2015 at 8:11 PM ^

Nice cherry picking. Tell you what. You gather up the best spread team in history and I'll take the best D LSU has ever fielded and beat your ass every time. Ask mighty Oregon how they like facing LSU. Rich rods best team would get waxed by any of LSU's best 5 D's. When people ask why the tempo spread won't work in the NFL I direct them to watch LSU. Give LSU even a marginal O and they win the games you posted clips of. Spread is not stopped by scheming against it. It's stopped by an angry,fast and aggressive D line and a gamblers mentality on D. JT Barret would be a cripple if they tried this years game plan vs. M against an LSU D line. I'm so sick of the sucking of every "spread" penis that falls out of a zipper around here. MSU with their 29th rated recruiting classes would rather play JT's spread than face Harbaugh again even with his stop gap QB and the leftovers of a Hoke dumpster fire O. Go cheer for Casteel. He's your guy I'd guess.




Sent from MGoBlog HD for iPhone & iPad