Jerry Montgomery's contribution to our DL

Submitted by YouRFree on

Not sure if this is talked before. After Watching Oklahoma's dominant DL performance over Alabama's OL and our DL's regression this year. Oklahoma fans are very happy about that hire, and their DL has improved significantly this year. This make me wonder the effect of Montgomery's departure. When he left, most people believed this is minimum since our HC and DC were both DLine coach. But the result in 2013 doesn't say that, our DL performance was not up to standard. Our LB performance, seems to me, also regressed from last year when Mattison was the LB coach. Any thought?

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sheepdog

January 9th, 2014 at 11:50 PM ^

Pretty sure any perceived regression is because of youth, Pipkins going down, and just lack of talent.

Greg Mattison is a very, very good coach.  You don't get that reputation over your entire career and lose it in one season.  Shows the shortsightedness of his critics 'round here.

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LordGrantham

January 9th, 2014 at 11:51 PM ^

Jerry Montgomery did nothing for our DL.  He was the worst coach in the history of DL coaches, and I wake up every morning thrilled that he's gone.

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UMgradMSUdad

January 10th, 2014 at 12:15 AM ^

Most of the discussion I've heard about Oklahoma's defense, especially the performance against Alabama, centers on the blitzes Mike Stoops was calling.  Oklahoma's D did put more pressure on Alabama than any other team this year, but much of that was coming from other position players besides the Dline.  The leader in sacks in that game with three was a LB.  

I'm pretty sure Mike Martin and RVB made that huge leap their senior year primarily due to their work ethic, talent, and Mattison's tutelage in looking at film and calling stunts.

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Swazi

January 10th, 2014 at 12:19 AM ^

Michigan has two DL coaches on the staff already.  Mattison's specialty is DL, and as we all know Hoke coached the DL under Lloyd.

 

Losing Pipkins hurt.  A lot.  However, as Brian pointed out, the opponent YPC was the same this year as it was last year when Montgomery was still around.

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B1G_Fan

January 10th, 2014 at 12:29 AM ^

We had Jabril Black playing NT at 280 pounds, Beyer was our SDE at 250, we rotated in keith heitzman and the rest where freshman / redshirt freshman and Frank Clark. Undersize, injury and youth where the main issues on D line. Most will be better next year.

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turtleboy

January 10th, 2014 at 1:02 AM ^

Oklahoma had a pretty average defense this year, but they had an amazing bowl game. Well, two guys had an amazing bowl game, the quarterback and the weak side defensive end. They almost single handedly torched Bama, but the team didn't play like that all year by any stretch.

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LordGrantham

January 10th, 2014 at 1:53 AM ^

Yeah it's incredible how people latch onto single performances to conclude that a coach is shitty or brilliant.  If you go to 11W, you'll see tons of posters explain of stupid it was to get rid of Borges given our 600-yard performance against OSU. 

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WolverineNick

January 10th, 2014 at 7:42 AM ^

DL had 73 tfl compared to 70 for Michigan. They had 26 sacks as a team before the 7 sacks in their Bowl game compared to Michigans 25. Their pass rush wasn't anything to write home about.

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LSAClassOf2000

January 10th, 2014 at 8:37 AM ^

Further, in terms of average yards per game allowed, Oklahoma's 350.2 yards to Michigan's 371.5 doesn't represent enough of a difference to make a lot of conclusions, much less ones based on a single performance. Both defenses are still in the top third of FBS play, which to me is the group of good to great defenses basically. 

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Haywood Jablomy

January 10th, 2014 at 9:18 AM ^

If the D line regresses and doesn't do their job it makes it difficult for th LB's to do their jobs. Particularly when they are young. Though, admittedly, I am a bit tired of hearing youth as an excuse on both sides of the ball.

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Leonhall

January 10th, 2014 at 9:19 AM ^

Probably look at stats before posting something like this. Our dline wasn't great this year, but honestly, I think it was better this year than last. And outside of OU's bowl game, there's wasn't great either.

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Young John Beilein

January 10th, 2014 at 2:10 PM ^

Yeah, probably did.  I remember when Ferns committed, his family singled out Montgomery as pretty much "the guy" in his recruitment.  Obviously Ferns has plenty of love for Michigan as a whole, but it was interesting to hear them talk about how great he was.  Roy Manning seems to have made up for the loss to some degree.  Maybe we would have gotten Hand if he was still around, but it seems like Manning has done a good job elsewhere.

Not sure how we can gauge his loss on DL coaching but any judgements made now are probably just guesses.

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