Hot Take: Defensive Construction, Not Talent Level Led To Our Struggles In CFP

Other than the pile of defensive players currently kicking butt in the NFL, Michigan needs to recruit more talented defensive players.

Signed,

N. S. Sherlock

No doubt OP.
 

But why did MacDonald choose to construct the defense out of less talented players than Georgia? Bad choice for the construct. Maybe the defensive construction will be better in the future (maybe use more talented players?).

And my shrink thinks I'm bipolar...

NGL, I only clicked to see if I could guess who made the thread.

I guessed correctly.

The only good thing that came out of this is I assume mgoblog made another penny or two from the clicking.

Michigan needs to get longer across the board and add mass to it’s interior lines.  Bama, Georgia, most all sec teams had interior lines DT, NT, RG, C, LG all in the 340-360 range..  We looked very small in this regard lining up.  Same thing watching Iowa, Penn st line up against sec teams as well.  

Uga had 6’4 lbers 240-250lbs, Safeties were our lbers and corners were our safeties.  So they had a much bigger team overall.  But the biggest advantage they had was how limited our offense was under Cade.  

Uga did not respect that cade could throw deep with any consistency, didn’t respect his legs or really his arm at all.  Hence they loaded the box and kept an extra defender and sometimes two esp on 1st down was attack.  

Imo Gattis really let them off the hook by having the same game plan, plays, player packages for the 3rd straight game in a row.  And didn’t do much at all different with JJ on the couple plays he came in for in the 1st half.  They were very well prepared for what our offense did.  Which allowed them to be ultra aggressive and put our oline on it’s heels.  We couldn’t force them to chase because they were blitzing into the teeth of every play call knowing what the play call was.  

Cade missed an open Cornelius Johnson immediately checking down on the 1st series of the game, missed open te’s in the passing game several times and had windows to throw but he wasn’t confident to throw.  He was holding the ball again and they got far more aggressive because of it.  Sure, he had one scramble where Georgia vacated the middle of the field and it didn’t happen again.  Why, because they got on their dt’s for being so far out of their lanes, they still let lbers roam and drop….  This was the game where Cade had to grow up into more of a passer and waiting till the 2nd qtr to start warming up wasn’t an option.  

We beat Bama with Brady and we beat sec defenses with qb’s that could take those defenses apart despite a size advantage or what not.  We took Florida apart with Henne and again with Ruddock… because we had qb’s that could dismantle a good defense.  Well, this game needed a much better passing threat.  Which is why I was also surprised we didn’t have JJ ready to go as well.  Ready to operate at full open offense.  We waited way to long to switch to JJ.  

On the premise, our recruiting class we added good length, size, speed on defense, esp in the defensive back field.  We need to close on the lber Henry, dude is needed 6’4 big fast lber..  We need multiple classes like this class, need to close on 5* tackles, bigger interior and keep upgrading with every class.  

Stopped reading at "rendering garments". 

If you start your title with “hot take:”, maybe just don’t post it.

This post sucks!

Peppers in that pizza. 
NIL, re$t is conver$ation.

So to paraphrase what you are saying it isn’t talent we need. 
 

Our defensive issues will instead be turned around by more talent at dt more talent at db and More talent everywhere where we  have less talent than other teams. 

The quick releases by the GA QB were the real killer to our defense. We need DBs who could keep up with their quick WR and RB. The main problem was that the offense did not perform well. I think the game would have been closer if Harbaugh would have started McCarthy.

This gave me a headache.

UGA is so stacked it's depressing. Georgia's highest rated defender and sack leader at the time, LB Adam Anderson was kicked off the team for rape Oct 30th. He was a projected top ten draft pick and they barely skipped a beat.  

This is the second crappy post I've read from you in two days. What gives?

1. "Allow me to offer." You can do what you want. It's a free country, and a mostly free blog.
2. "From where I am standing." And where is that? Who are you? Why is your "hot take" worthy of consideration?
3. "Hot take." Man, I hate "hot takes." This seems more like a hot pile of crap.
4. "Michigan has really struggled in defensive recruiting." Says who? Michigan hasn't recruited at the same level as Bama, Georgia, and several others. But their recruiting hasn't "really struggled." I guess I'll agree it is improving.
5. "I don't think there is evidence that we can't recruit well enough to put forth a much better showing." Umm, I think there is plenty of evidence. One is the number of "starz" coming out of the south, as compared to the State of Michigan. We're just fortunate that we're not overwhelmed with recruiting competition in Illinois and Indiana. Two is the number of bagmen. Actually, considering our geographic disadvantage, and the lack of as much overt booster financial support, it is amazing we have done as well as we have.
6. "The future looks bright." Yeah, I guess that's the one thing I'll agree with you on.

Snazzy take! Others response posts are always better than the OP.

Piling on the "this is a terrible take" bunch...

7 of Georgia's 11 defensive starters were ranked in the top 45 in their respective classes. Davis was actually the lowest ranked, at 424, and he simply became a beast.

By comparison, 2 of Michigan's were top 45 (Dax and Hinton). 5 of them were ranked outside the top 350 in their classes. IF we had the same talent level, the D would have been fine. The scheme may have changed a bit based on what the players were athletically capable of, but McDonald's scheme was just fine for the talent he inherited. They've adjusted their recruiting to address certain areas, but outside of beefy NIL we're incapable of recruiting to the next level sustainably across multiple classes.

The difference in talent level between a top 5 class and a top 10 class is dramatic.

I mean if your defense is constructed with Devin Bush, Rashan Gary, Hutchinson, Ojabo, Lewis, Long, and Hurst all at the same time, then sure it’ll beat Georgia. Outside of that? Nope. Then again, that’s  something they call a talent gap.

Also find this argument hilarious because  you single out the defense (a consistently good unit throughout the season) when the problem was that we couldn’t score points on Georgia.

Our defense held Georgia to what one/two scores in the second half? Our offense didn’t look too good either if you remember. One of the major issues was that our offense was a bad matchup against Georgia because their strengths neutralized our strengths and we didn’t have the pieces on either side of the ball to beat Georgia who had elite talent. But go ahead, blame the defense “construction”.

You lost me at “rendering” of garments. It’s “rending”, which is a religious practice of signifying grief by the ripping/tearing of clothing.