This Week’s Obsession: Defensive Trajectory
Heininger Certainty Principle passed its first two tests with QWash and Campbell (Upchurch)
It’s our weekly roundtable to talk about things that Michigan fans—and by Michigan fans I mean just me—are obsessing about. In honor of the family road trips you just got back from, this week’s it’s a great big “Are we there yet?” In the game:
EDITOR #34
COPYEDITOR #7
CORRESPONDENT #28
PRESS AGENT #4
SOCIAL MEDIA DIRECTOR #89
STATISTICAL ANALYST/THERAPIST #58
The question:
In 2011 Michigan was 6th in scoring defense, 17th in total defense, and 16th in defensive FEI. In 2012 Michigan finished 19th in scoring defense, 13th in total D, and 26th in defensive FEI. Do you consider that treading water, an expected fall given the DL graduations and tougher schedule, or a veiled improvement? And where do you see this trend going in 2013?
Seth: I admit this topic was a little brought on by panic after getting persistently torched in NCAA 14, which could just mean that Desmond Morgan is way better at playing as Desmond Morgan than I am.
BiSB: From my understanding, Tracy Morgan is better at being Desmond Morgan than is Seth. I'd bet that Morgan Fairchild is probably a better Desmond Morgan. But that's neither here nor there. 
Michigan didn't take a significant step back in 2012, which I would consider a victory. Replace WMU, SDSU, and Virginia Tech with Air Force, Alabama, and South Carolina, and you're gonna have a bad time. Factor in a regression to the mean on the fumble recoveries and the lack of Mike Martin, and those defensive numbers look pretty good to me. They actually gave up about 3 ppg fewer in conference in 2012 despite a tougher road/away split (though obvious BIG TENNNNN caveat applies). 2012 also felt more repeatable, though I have no objective means to demonstrate this.
I don't think 2013 is the Great Leap Forward, but I think we'll see continued progress. The numbers will probably look shinier if for no other reason than the easier schedule, but I'd bet on the defense being 'better' as well. The secondary will be more athletic, which should go a long way toward helping combat the 2012 struggles with spread teams. Hopefully Dymonte Thomas can indeed be deployed as the spread neutralizer. The ILBs will probably still have some struggles with the learning curve (and the training table), but last year's experience should lessen the pain. The meat of the schedule doesn't arrive until November, by which point Jake Ryan will hopefully be settling back onto his throne of skulls and flow. Questions remain on the D-Line, but Will Heininger. /Offers a small running back as a sacrifice to the Mattison. Praise be unto the Mattison. May his swag reign for a hundred seasons.
Kaili!
Mathlete: When I was preparing my pre-season projections, I compared the the 2013 Michigan defense profile to teams from the last several years, the nearest comparison, 2012 Michigan. In terms of production returning, recruiting profile and prior year performance this year's defense looks a lot like last year's squad. The turnover randomness could swing things a bit and with a strong group of underclassmen and Greg Mattison, there is certainly potential for upside.
The schedule should help mitigate the statistical rank downside risk, but if there was going to be a year where things took a step back, this looks like the only candidate. With that said, I don't see that happening. Defenses are a lot more stable and predictable in performance than offenses. Look at experience, look at recruiting profile, check to see that there are no stuffed animals on the sidelines and you should have a pretty good idea where your defense will end up. I rank this year's defense as the 10th most talented (based on age and recruiting profiles) in the country and they return nearly three quarters of their production from last year's squad. It appears we caught a break with the schedule and the timing of Jake Ryan's ACL tear with a Tommy Rees led Notre Dame offense the only major game he should miss. There is always a chance things don't turn out, but I don't see anything that says this year will be a major step back and if anything a few areas that could be signs that 2013 could be a step forward.
Seth: You guys keep denigrating my skills at videogame defense, as if you're not just mashing the "plow" button with Quinton Washington every play while trusting Gibson to run your defensive 
backs. To answer my question above, I thought Washington's emergence was very significant. The drop-off from Martin and Van Bergen to not them was going to be steep, and it happened but the linebackers improved to such a degree as to make it null. I blame the schedule and losing Countess early to any discrepancy (J.T. Floyd wasn't as solid against the Kenny Bells as he had been in 2011 vs. the big leapers). I also blame offensive regression for the difference in scoring D.
Things are still coming along. Other than Air Force—blessedly we don't face one of those again—the defense didn't have any game where they performed significantly below expectations. Mattison didn't like the Nebraska game but raise of hands who thinks that was on the D? Northwestern is a legitimately good offense, even when Trevor Siemian isn't turning into an unstoppable throw god.
I'm less concerned about who rotates in at 5-tech since there's a lot of meat for the meat god there, and Heitzman wasn't so bad last year. What worries me is what we'll look like early. Jibreel Black versus Notre Dame's offensive line, and Jarrod Wilson versus a Brian Kelly passing attack: those are what scare me. Wilson will be good one day but right now he appears to be a big dropoff from Kovacs and needs some starts in a bad way. Later in the year I think we'll have more faces appearing at the 3- and 5-tech rotations, with contributions from Wormley, Henry, Godin, Strobel, and backup options including a highly regarded true freshman, or the other Glasgow, or even some of that Washington-Pipkins action they keep denying. They'll be a much better defense when they face Ohio State than when Notre Dame comes to town; in the aggregate they’ll look better in yardage thanks to competition but tread water otherwise.
Blue in South Bend: I think having Countess back will be huge. I'd remind you that with him in the game, we held Alabama to a three-and-out (miniscule sample size National Champions wooooo). I do worry about whether Wilson can prevent the home run plays the way Kovacs did, but overall I do think the secondary will be a surprising strength of this team.
/Offers a second small running back to a dormant but extant Angry Michigan Secondary Hating God.
/Mashes "plow" button.
Kaili!
Brian:
PHRASING
Anyway: I spent a large chunk of last offseason fretting about that fumble recovery rate and expecting something less than impressive as a result, and that was kind of borne out. Michigan did take a half-step back last season, because that's the kind of thing that happens when you go from Mike Martin to one guy with the vague hope of beating a blocker one on one (Jake Ryan). Michigan explored the outer limits of how good a defense can be when you have almost no natural pass rush or athleticism in the secondary. Turns out the answer is "actually not that bad, at least compared to the GERG years."
I think Michigan will get back that half-step this year. There appear to be two major upgrades in the personnel turnover: Countess replaces JT Floyd and James Ross functionally replaces Kenny Demens. While I spent the duration of Demens's career talking about his surprisingly good coverage, Ross should blow by him as a player right now. Floyd spent most of his career on the edge of getting bombed; though he managed to come through repeated targetings mostly okay the fact that every offensive coordinator on the schedule decided to spin that slot machine was indicative. Meanwhile, Frank Clark and Jake Ryan post-injury should adequately replace Jake Ryan.
I'm still not seeing a great defense what with no pass rush from the interior three guys unless Jibreel Black blows up in a way that would frankly shock me. I don't see how a 280 pound three-tech holds up in the Big Ten, don't see much production out of SDE, and while those spots were not exactly gangbusters last year, a lack of developed talent on the defensive line remains a problem.
2014 is when this can get nasty. Michigan returns 8 starters, losing only five guys off the entire two deep: Washington, Black, Cam Gordon, Avery, Thomas Gordon. They add Jabrill Peppers, and Hoke's first recruiting class will finally be ready to infiltrate the starting lineup in earnest. A senior will have--get this--been in the same system his entire career. Craig Roh just started weeping uncontrollably and doesn't know why. He suspects why, he always does, though.
LATE BREAKING Heiko: Well, I guess I'll put in my two cents.
/Inserts dollar.
/Doesn't receive change.
/Becomes poor.
I love the defense. I get weirdly excited when Michigan's defense takes the field, because I love watching a well-executed stop take the air out of the other team. The comforting thing about the defense over the past couple years is that they always seem to get better as the game goes on. In Michigan's seven losses since 2011, how many of them can be blamed primarily on the defense (i.e. defense let the offense down)? Only one: the Outback bowl vs. South Carolina, where Michigan was playing without its top two corners and therefore got bombed by SC's receivers.
In fact I think watching the defense improve last year after losing Martin and Van Bergen was something I clung to after it became apparent that the offense was in for a season-long struggle against good teams.
Are we ready to expand the Heininger Certainty Principle to apply to the entire defense? I think so. In contrast to last year's interior OL and tailbacks, no part of the defense has failed to improve over the course of the season. We already know about the D-line, but the linebackers and secondary each had question marks about their viability also at one point or another. Remember when "linebacker hesitancy" was a thing? Or when everyone panicked after Countess's ACL injury? I mean, here we are in 2013, and it's like we knew all along about Quinton Washington and Desmond Morgan and Raymon Taylor. High five.
Maybe it's because I've been primed to consider any defensive competency the best thing ever (I came to Michigan in 2008), but I think we're already at a place where we can count on Michigan smothering most opponents. Depending on how quickly guys like Chris Wormley, Dymonte Thomas, and Jarrod Wilson get up to starter speed, it'll be a question of whether Michigan ends up in the top 10 or top 20, and I think most of us will happily take that.
Are you saying that Brian or Seth or Mathlete aren't more qualified to write about Michigan football than Drew Sharp?
As others have said, Brian's the one that does all the UFRs. It's not just the fact that he writes them, but the length of time he's done it for, and the fact that he can feed Heiko questions about what happened on a particular play and get confirmation from the coaches that he's right about it a decent percentage of the time. As for the others, the Mathlete's pretty transparent about his methodology and, based on what limited knowledge of statistics I have, his analyses seem to be more or less flawless. Seth's been around the longest after that, and has produced a lot of stuff, which generally seems to be a lite version of the Mathlete (lacking the PAN metric, for example) dressed up with literary flourishes. Ace's qualifications are that he, like, had a blog (which I might be able to distinguish from a heap of 15 other Michigan blogs if I really had to), and Heiko's are that he's smart and Borges likes him. I literally have no idea about BiSB aside from what Seth said below.
Maybe I'm missing stuff. But I don't think the qualifications are identical--Brian's the one who built this thing.
What qualifies any of us to talk about any of Michigan's sport team? For most of us, nothing. I, for one, still enjoy the discussion and reading everyone's opinions. Well, except for people who disagree with me, they're dicks.
What I'm saying is that I enjoy the feature, even if not everyone on the panel is some sort of expert.
Nobody's about to turn most of us into regular contributors to a front page feature.
And I say this even about the people that are activily trying not to be argumentative. You're all full of it. Every single last one of you! Unless you agree with me, then you're still full of it, but maybe like post-10:00 am after your morning coffee full of it.
,except with the full of shit part
FWIW I like them
You remind me of WolvinLA2.
this is referred to as "concern trolling."
I really think you should stop using quotation marks until you learn how they work.
But I'm not arguing with anyone (other than you, about your responsibility to stop misquoting me). It's possible to like something and think there's room for improvement.
Keep digging. It's entertaining.
Don knows how to use quotation marks. Keep showing 'em, Don.
I do kind of wonder what qualifies the contributors other than Brain and the Mathlete to have their off-the-cuff views taken seriously.
If the crowd wants me to shut up, that's fair. But Heiko, Seth and Ace really know their stuff. You certainly don't have to AGREE with them, but their opinions are a pretty good jumping-off point for a discussion of these topics.
I asked brian about that when it came in. It's an Archer reference.
On the other part, speaking for myself, Ace and Heiko I should hope our body of work on this site and in the mag would stand as qualification. For BiSB, have you read his comments or followed him on Twitter or anything? He's got his ear to the ground as much as just about anybody.
that as an avid reader and infrequent poster on this site I thoroughly enjoy this section. Whether any of you are experts or not, you all know far more about the intricacies of the sport than I do so I always find them enlightening.
Keep up the great work guys, I know everyone appreciates it.
I thought at least the PHRASING line had gotten pop culture'd, but I guess I need to throw my Buddy Holly frames back on.
But in this context what is it referring to in the rest of the article? The title?
"Mash the Plow Button"
Well, I don't actually know what the qualifications are, for one thing. How much of your work on the magazine is technical/copyediting? How much is research based? I don't know.
Obviously the Borges thing was a total coup, but AFAIK Heiko is just a (friendly, smart) med student who, in free time he must borrow from another dimension, attends press conferences as Brian's mouth and transcribes everything afterwards. Having watched football my entire life, should I trust his football acumen over mine? I don't know. Over Brian's? I doubt it.
Before BiSB had a column, I'd have been surprised to see posters take his word over that of, say, Geaux Blue or Magnus. I'd also have been surprised to see them take Geaux Blue's word over his, just to flesh out the example--I just can't distinguish their levels of expertise.
I don't mean to pick on anybody, and maybe my doubt just reflects my failure to recognize evidence of expertise. But in cases where I can't tell who has the better side of things just from the arguments presented, is there a reason not to believe whatever, say, Brian says? If so, what is it? What are the track records here? It'd actually be cool to see the accumulated evidence that each of you is more locked in than your average talking head on ESPN.
It does kind of point to what is kind of an omission on the part of the blog. And "About the Writers/Mods" second in the about tab would be nice, kind of detailing expertise, what they do here, their function elsewhere, etc. Just a thought maybe, especially for newer people or just those interested. Doesn't have to be anything lengthy, but would probably be helpful.
If I were a more helpful human being, this is what I might have said.
This is the part where i feel obligated to bring up the old point system, as this would get pos banged to death. As a longtime casual reader, I have always found it difficult to determine who is who. A brief summary of roles and responsibilities, coupled with some individual bios would clarify a lot of misconceptions.
I can only assume you meant to respond to one of my illuminating remarks.
I was responding to who I responded to. Can you go to bed now? Youve done enough damage for one day.
I'm not an expert. Many people know more about football than do I. But the point is that we aren't stating objective indisputable facts. We're sharing opinions and educated guesses. They're meant to get a conversation going and spur some thoughts. Some may make strike a chord with you. Some may strike you as patently unreasonable and stupid. That's what the comment section is for. If you have specific disagreements with the theories about next year's defense, I'd love to hear them. To me, it's a fun topic.
The reason you know we aren't trying to impose our superior knowledge is that we DISAGREE with each other in these pieces. Except with regards to Mattison. All hail Mattison.
Is this the "We're Cold Pizza" defense? There's a board right over there for that! But if that's really the idea, then I actually do have a suggestion, since Seth asked for them, and because generating content for content's sake does not distinguish MGoBlog from lesser sites. Rather than running a weekly fabricated mailbag question with special guest appearances by BiSB and Skip Bayless Whoever's Online Right Now, it would be cool if it were really built around stuff you guys are all already thinking about and discussing amongst yourselves. Actually, I think it's less important that it's about Michigan than that it's going to provoke non-rote (and yes, expert) contributions. Otherwise it's just a forum topic that's frontpaged to take up space. IME, that's one of the quirks of the mainstream media that it'd be better not to emulate.
a) Cold Pizza has been called First Take for several years now.
2) Cold Pizza's/First Take's schtick is to generate a ridiculous premise with no basis in reality, and then to debate the merits of each side. This isn't that. This is a series of answers to an open-ended question like, "will the defense be better next year, and why?"
d) I'm honestly not sure what your complaint is about the source of the question. Most questions are "fabricated" (there are very few naturally occuring football-related topics), but the prospects for the 2013 defense is about as on point as you can get, and is certainly something people have been talking about.
That's a much more cogent response than the one I had started in my head. This entire argument has me befuddled - am I now so old that the origin of "blog" has faded from memory? Do people think this is a Time, Inc. subsidiary?
Whatevs, get off my lawn. I miss Haloscan.
I am extremely happy that it's still "Cold Pizza" in my head, because fuck that show. I'll have to trust you about their schtick--I think of it as a show based on people yapping about whatever they can just to fill time (i.e., content for content's sake), but I obviously haven't been a regular watcher in a long time.
Not for nothing, but if not for "content for content's sake," nothing would hit the front page from probably May through the end of July.
It would be really cool if one of you (maybe on a rotating basis from year to year) spent most of each off season attending coaching clinics and football camps, and reporting first-hand on all that. Are the costs of doing that sort of thing totally prohibitive?
I guess it is a front-paged forum topic, but then it's a souped up forum topic. THe problem with Cold Pizza I thought wasn't the format but the level of knowledge the hosts had for the topics under discussion. When it came to what it's like being a minor league baseball player they were really smart--when they tried to talk about football it was awful, made moreso because Skip Bayless was the guy they'd call in for that. Skip BAYLESS!
I think as far as Michigan football/basketball are concerned the writers on MGoBlog have pretty well-established credentials in various arenas. There are some guys on the board with more expertise, for example I saw Space Coyote floating around in this thread--when it comes time to do a roundtable on a WTF play from the Notre Dame game I'd like to get him involved.
Having better topics is a challenge for me right now. It's offseason. The one I have bagged for next week if nothing happens is what the tight ends are all going to look like.
The biggest reason I wanted to start this feature was a lot of times there are things we gloss over so they won't take over a post and readers are left with a "hey, waitaminute I wasn't done with that" sensation. Recent example: what we're going to do with all of these tight ends from the Jake Butt article. Khalid Hill's seems to be in the hopper as I write this--the topic's gonna come up.
If you want an insight into the gchats between the staff recently it's been a lot of NCAA 14 and, at least between me and Brian right now, production of the hoops/hockey book. Roundtable: "What do you think of Gasaway's concept for a feature?" We used to get together once a month or so because Upchurch is good at making everyone come to Ann Arbor for that--we haven't had one of those in a bit.
I guess it is a front-paged forum topic, but then it's a souped up forum topic. THe problem with Cold Pizza I thought wasn't the format but the level of knowledge the hosts had for the topics under discussion. When it came to what it's like being a minor league baseball player they were really smart--when they tried to talk about football it was awful, made moreso because Skip Bayless was the guy they'd call in for that. Skip BAYLESS!
I completely agree here.
I think as far as Michigan football/basketball are concerned the writers on MGoBlog have pretty well-established credentials in various arenas.
One of your writers is actively denying having any expertise or credentials up and down this thread...
The biggest reason I wanted to start this feature was a lot of times there are things we gloss over so they won't take over a post and readers are left with a "hey, waitaminute I wasn't done with that" sensation.
Is getting everybody's off-the-cuff reaction to these things the highest quality way to present them? If the problem is that you have too much to say about something for the post it's initially mentioned in, why not say all that carefully in its own post? Not enough hours in the day?
If you want an insight into the gchats between the staff recently it's been a lot of NCAA 14 and, at least between me and Brian right now, production of the hoops/hockey book. Roundtable: "What do you think of Gasaway's concept for a feature?"
I might be alone here, but I actually think this would be a really interesting roundtable, particularly in retrospect. Getting you and Brian to discuss something like "Why'd we ask Gasaway to change his topic/angle?" or "What was the flaw in Gasaway's initial approach?" would be a neat, NYTimes Public Editor kind of feature.
One of your writers is actively denying having any expertise or credentials up and down this thread.
I should clarify; I'm not an expert. I just know a shit-ton about Michigan football. Many other people also know shit-tons about Michigan football, though, so I'm not a special butterfly whose opinion should be taken as gospel. There's no such thing as a special Michigan Football Knowledgetude certification, and if it does exist, I don't possess one. But I have people skills, and on occasion I get to chime in on stuff that isn't Twitter-related. Feel free to skip my contributions. They're clearly labeled for your convenience.
If the problem is that you have too much to say about something for the post it's initially mentioned in, why not say all that carefully in its own post?
Perhaps you should check out the new feature that attempts to do precisely that. It's called "This Week's Obsession."
Perhaps you can infer my response to what you said there from the question just before what you pulled out for the second block quote. Or are the responses here much more thought out than it would appear?
Anyway, as far as I can tell your response to the first block quote was to agree with it...snarkily? I'm going to save my pointlessly snarky pissing match skillz for people without front page columns. Seems safer.
Do you have any actual criticisms of the content included in the OP, or are you just bored and looking for a weirdly technical debate on the meaning of qualifications and expertise in the blogosphere?
I'm certainly not looking for a debate about qualifications. I just didn't know what they were in some cases. You might have noticed that I did eventually make a criticism, which Seth already recognized as valid: it's a frontpage forum topic. I think they can do better.
You can plead what you want but your complaint about the forumesque nature of the article is really a complaint about the format of the article and not the quality of the analysis provided by the roundtable members. Since you were calling into question the qualifications of the roundtable members I wondered if you actually disagreed with any of their positions and/or the supporting arguments. If not, then I don't really understand the long discussion of credentials/qualifications.
I personally like the roundtable thing, but that's me. If you don't I think it's perfectly fine for you to say so, but I don't see why the qualifications of the authors is anymore relevant to this piece than any of their previous pieces. When Heiko writes the opponent preview pieces nobody says, "He's not qualified to analyze Indiana's Defense!"
Having reread the article half an hour ago, I think one of the contributions is nothing but forumesque echoing of oft repeated front page content. This'll get downvoted to -1 whether I name names or not, but I'm not going to.
Btw, what I called into question was whether they were so qualified that their off-the-cuff reactions should be of interest. I suspect Heiko puts more work into his opponent preview pieces than anybody puts into responding to a question they got emailed this morning.
Edit: Incidentally, Seth provided several pieces of genuinely new information in response to my comments. I don't know why you continue to mischaracterize the exchange as a long discussion of credentials. If you just consider my posts, I've weighed in substantively on format, topics, and presentation.
1) You characterized their contributions as off-the-cuff, but you don't really have any way of knowing how much research they did. So I really don't think your italicized qualification is that critical. Either you think they made good arguments or not.
2) I don't think I mischaracterized the exchange. Your initial comment and many of your successive comments were centered around the qualifications of Seth and company. I think it's silly to critique their qualifications when you could have simply critiqued their arguments. As frequently happens, the discussion meandered and you did indeed comment on more substantive subjects. That doesn't really change the fact that you engaged in a long, silly and tedious discussion of the importance of credentials. That's what I was criticizing and I think it's disingenuous to pretend that I've mischaracterized anything.
3) I think it's obvious that the biggest reason people are annoyed is that you're being a giant dick. Very little of your criticism could be construed as constructive. Take, for instance, the claim that "one of the contributions is nothing but forumesque echoing of oft repeated front page content." How is that helpful? You haven't even really made a substantive argument. You just insulted somebody's writing.
Re: 3: I'm not going to name names, but that is a direct criticism of the content. I didn't claim that it was constructive. The fact that it isn't is why I didn't say it until you kept insisting on criticism of the content because you didn't like the (constructive!) criticism of the format/topics/etc. Let me pull a WolvinLA2: "Be a dick, be a dick, be a dick. Aww you were a dick. Waaah!" Don't ask if you don't want to know. (FWIW, I think the reason people are annoyed is that they systematically fail to distinguish being questioned from being insulted. That's a culture thing. Not a healthy one.)
Re: 1: From the original introduction of the feature:
Given the vagaries of our schedules you won't see responses from everyone every time, for example I kinda sprung this on everyone last night and anyone who keeps reasonable sleep hours probably hasn't seen the email yet.
And we continue to get responses that come in late, as if they just saw the question. But if, contrary to appearances, it has at some point become a researched feature, they've had plenty of opportunities to say it is. (Clearly some responses mention research they've done for other purposes.)
Re: 2: I'm not going to engage in a long, silly, and tedious discussion of the subject of an earlier allegedly long, silly, and tedious discussion.
I'm fairly sure you're not going to be done here until I pretend that I don't have a response so I'm going to leave it at that unless I have something actually productive to say.
I made a "contribution" just last week, and someone basically accused me of plagarizing from SBNation,a blog or site I am not familiar with. Surprisingly, about two days after my post indicating that we could basically field an indefensible offense near the goal line with the addition of a TE that stands 6'6" w/a 33" vertical-putting him close to a "Bill Walton" leap, coupled with Funchess added to a qb that makes close to perfect touch passes. I took a lot of crap for that and two days later someone found my reasoning viable enough to make it front page news here. I don't worry too much about the criticism factor here because many find that is what they're best at and I'm a strong believer in people playing to their strengths.
You made a typo or spelling error. Someone made a joke about it. You acted like a 7 year old child. You also said you were quitting MGoBlog.
Pull your shit together. You're a 60ish year old man. Act like it.
The format isn't really the same as a Cold Pizza or PTI thing, where it's basically trying to be sports cable news talking heads, always debating and arguing. It's far more the Sports Reporters where there's a topic and everyone presents their viewpoints, but it's not so much a debate or hostile. (Even faux hostile). So I think the comparison you're having to defend isn't really fair.
I take back every nice thing I said about this edgier Seth! That's some bull... oh... oh, wait... never mind, carry on. If you need me I'll be over here. Just let me know.
Probably during the season.
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