Tyrone Wheatley comments on how close Michigan is to a NC
Sam Hellman at 247 posted a brief blurb with link to audio of Tyrone Wheatley's commenting on how close Michigan is to contending for a National Championship.
https://247sports.com/Article/Michigan-football-Tyrone-Wheatley-Morgan-State-131108763/
“They’re close every year, every year they’re close,” Wheatley said beginning at the 32-minute mark of the podcast. “I think, right now, the biggest issue that they have, it’s not really so much an issue, I just think everybody always blames the coaching staff. I just think it’s young men coming together and truly understanding that they have to outplay the coaching. What I mean by that is, I’ve been in the huddle myself as a player and a call will come in or a play will happen, the coaches can’t always put you in the best situation possible. This is the reason why they recruited me to come to the University of Michigan. To make things happen. To play far beyond the play call.”
Source: 247sports.com
April 11th, 2019 at 12:56 PM ^
Pretty difficult to "play far beyond the play call" on defense.
This is so false. Individual defensive plays can change a game. I think he is just saying players need to make big plays in big games.
Charles Woodson says hello.
Are you saying that the plays he made weren't difficult? Or that he wasn't one of the greatest defenders of all time?
Nope, I think he's pointing out that Charles Woodson has had very similar comments in the past about players needing to step up in big games.
I think he was suggesting that Woodson made big plays in big games.
Let's check in with Charles Woodson in 1997:
I think he's saying that Woodson made exactly the type of plays that Wheatley is describing.
I believe Woodson’s words after the OSU game with a Rose clenched in his teeth were “Players make plays”.
I never tire of watching clips of Woodson making special plays. Thanks for posting.
22 years later, and that punt return is still absolutely electrifying. DPJ, you're up.
22 years later, and that punt return is still absolutely electrifying. DPJ, you're up.
April 12th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Its clear he was saying Woodson, a defensive player, single handily altered games with big plays in big moments. "Playing beyond the play call."
Santana Moss?
Clearly Pony should have made some better play calls against TUOS.
"26 seconds" Mattison didn't help things by mailing it in, though.
How is it not the coaching staff's fault the players are not always put in the best situation possible? I think asking the players to outplay the coaching is very much an indictment of the coaching, at least the play calling.
Pretty sure that was his not-so-subtle point.
Interesting how people see and hear things differently.
I heard it’s impossible for any staff to call a perfect game and players have to make plays.
What your looking for is a marriage of great athletes and a coaching staff that puts them in the best position to succeed more often than the other guys.
Thats exactly what hes saying.
The other team gets a vote too and so its impossible to call a 100% perfect game. Hes saying if you get into a position where its not the perfect play call the players need to make plays to overcome that.
Seriously, the reason the defense is so good is because of coaching talented players. The reason the defense was bad was because the coaching takes talent so far, other talented teams and coaches will negate it, and the best players must make plays rather than succumb to mistakes.
Woodson is a HOFer, so his talent superseded any basic play calls that an offense could’ve planned to neutralize. And Wheatley was saying that it is not only up to coaches to call good games—the players have to step up even if the play can be neutralized. Wheatley is a college HOFer because he could shred great defenses.
Both players have preternatural instincts that we have not seen in spades for the last two decades in our players—which is why we’ve had few first rounders. Devin Bush is, perhaps, the first dude since Woodson who consistently shows superior instincts to go with superior physical talent.
I see glimpses in DPJ—he needs the ball more, though. I see potential in DMac.
All great college teams are a result of superior talent mixed with good play calling, but superior talent will make plays when there are plays that need to be made.
Bingo double D
Plus after you put the players in position they still need to step up and make a play or execute it properly
There's only so much players can do, and we don't seem to have many guys over the last couple years who will truly make something out of nothing. That's what he's talking about. The Coaches can only do so much.
I think the point is that the coaching staff cannot win the RPS battle on every play even if they win the RPS battle over the course of the game. On plays where they lose RPS, he's saying that the players need to step up and make something happen, e.g. a RB breaking a tackle in the backfield or a QB getting the ball out quickly to avoid a sack. The players need to not only be able to take what the coaches give them with playcalling, but also be able to make something happen when a play breaks down or they aren't adding anything.
To my mind the main thing we've been missing lately is a single game-changing player. Most great teams have at least one.
We don't beat OSU and win a NC in 97 without Woodson on the team, despite all of the other talent.
We really need to start hitting on some of these top tier QB's and RB's. If we had either in 2016 we would have played for a NC.
Yes, exactly. If Wilton Speight is half that guy, we play for NC in Harbaugh's second year. If our defense stops OSU's running back in the backfield the play before The Spot, we play for a National Championship. We are just a couple plays away most years. That's all I ask of our coaching.
I assume Woodson and AC (and several others, RBs, TEs, Defense) spoiled me in my youth. I assumed we would always have those guys.
Yeah, we were spoiled. So many great players in my youth, even outside of Des and Woodson.
Right, I think this is the point. And not in the sense that we need more 5* recruits per se, but we need more 1st and 2nd round talent. When's the last time that we had a 1st round draft pick at an offensive skill position? Braylon Edwards. What did he do to deserve that? Took over the MSU game with 3 TDs to steal a win. Before that? Chris Perry. What did he do to deserve that? Set the school records for carries in a game and in a season while still averaging 5 YPC. Oh, and that was also the last time we won the Big Ten.
A totally reliable RB who never fumbles and is a legit runaway threat would totally change the narrative on Michigan. Could you imagine last year's team with Barkley as the RB?
Higdon was good, maybe even better than Michigan made him look, but no DC ever stayed up late trying to fit their scheme around containing him. We need that kind of RB.
April 11th, 2019 at 10:59 PM ^
I think we finally are in a good place long-term with the QB situation we have, IMO. But yeah, we hadn't been in a while in the ideal spot. As for RB, we still got a lot of work to do.,,
You don't even necessarily need top tier QBs and RBs. Brian Griese was hardly a generational talent. He was very good, but he wasn't a terror on the field.
As for playing past the coaching, I can think of a recent example that was the furthest thing from a 5-star recruit -- Jordan Kovacs. The dude got burned at times (especially when asked to do too much), but every play he was on the field, you got the feeling he was going to do something. He had his limitations and didn't see much success for lack of coaching and talent around him, but he was fearless and gorrammit he made plays. Considering how small and slow he was, no one can make the argument that you need superior talent to play like that. He just knew exactly how to do his job, and when to go off-script and wreak havoc, and his technique was a joy to watch. Dude would've made an awesome viper.
Wheatley has a point; a lot of the guys on the roster are disciplined, hardworking, talented, and well-coached, but they kind of play to expectations. There have been exceptions like Devin Bush and De'Veon Smith, but I also get frustrated looking at some guys playing way below their ceiling. Not for lack of effort or bravado, but more a lack of situational awareness and introspection. Nico Collins comes to mind. The dude could probably run over some defenders but he gets happy feet because he can't tell when he can flat-out beat a guy and when he's gonna get beat.
Well since you've had your car lodged against an abutment by Larry Sellars, I'll go easy.
I think the problem is sort of a chicken and egg quagmire: if players never go out and "make plays" you never learn where the "positions they'll be most successful in" are located so you can put them there.
That's why the #speedinspace concept should pay dividends by testing more positions in the defensive backfield and exploiting the soft spots.
He starts off driving down the “not the coaching that’s the issue” lane and veers hard into “the players have to play better than the terrible coaching” sidewalk.
Definitely a veiled shot.
April 12th, 2019 at 10:01 AM ^
I don't see it as a shot at all. He's saying that coaching can only do so much. There are plenty of spots in a game where players need to be able to go off script and just make a play.
Perfect example was the Samuel run a couple years ago for OSU right before "the spot." That play call was going nowhere and Michigan should have had him bottled up for a loss. He made a play all on his own to reverse field and get positive yardage and put them in a position to win. The game was essentially over if he doesn't make something positive happen there.
Very interesting take. No matter what the coaches call, there is always going to be unfavorable situations faced by the players and sometimes they just have to make plays. Obviously the coaching should minimize the unfavorable situations as much as possible, but it really isn't realistic to expect them to be eliminated
So ignore the coaches and make plays. Fuck are we paying them for then?
You must not be very literate.....
And you must be new here lol
I think he is saying bad play calls will happen and part of being a great player and a great team is making a play even when you aren't put in the best position. Its making a guy miss or breaking a tackle when they have an extra man in the box, its beating and making a catch even when you are double covered because the play only had one route. No coaching staff bats 1000 and sometimes the players have to make plays in non advantageous situations to win the biggest games.
Programs that are close to national championships don't lay turds whenever they play another program that is close to national championships. They beat them at least occasionally.
Michigan is close to winning the B1G but not a national championship.
One of the "turds" laid playing another team of/near national championship quality is OSU. I dont get how we could be near winning the B1G (presumably beating OSU on the way), but not close to winning a NC.
Getting upset in the 2016 Orange Bowl when they were supposed to a championship caliber team? Getting completely trucked in the 2018 Peach Bowl when they were again favorites? It's not just OSU. National championship caliber teams are able to perform on a big stage but when Michigan gets close to anything notable they embarrass themselves time and time again by showing that they don't belong.
Michigan isn't close to a national championship because they can't compete with the teams that are nipping at Bama and Clemson's heels. Michigan is like Penn State and Stanford. They're fighting for conference titles but not realistically in the national title picture.
Clemson laid a turd in a big game like every year until they got over the hump
That's a good example. Clemson won divisonal titles, conference titles, and multiple NY6 bowls before they were at the level to win a national title. Michigan is close to clearing some of those humps but shrinks whenever they have a chance to actually win something notable.
Why are we jerking ourselves off with a Playoff talk when we haven't even been to the B1G Championship Game in the 8 years it has been around.
We are in the company of Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Purdue and Rutgers as far as B1G title game appearances go. That's not good.
I've officially curbed any thoughts about the CFP until we can at least win the outright B1G East Division and make it to the CCG.
Yep. It says a lot about the program that so many of us Michigan fans hang onto most wins and other history yet the past decade plus has been a complete whiff on almost all games of significance.
I can remember the 2004 game where 9-1 #7 ranked Michigan looked lost against a 6-4 OSU team that nearly lost to Marshall earlier in the season. It was inexcusable for a team with so much talent yet a crushing reminder that Michigan was not as good as USC or Oklahoma and the reason was reluctance to adapt. That hasn't entirely changed.
If this was a veiled comment on the current staff (not sure it was, but I can understand why someone would think that) then it was also a veiled swipe at Wheatley's coaches.
I think his point was that the players have to take accountability for their execution.
Eh....I think we all know what has hindered Michigan over the past 4 years with Jim Harbaugh. Now the pressure is on JH is produce with those hindrances behind him.
Yeah, if only we had Hoke or RR.
Man, seems like a lot of people really struggle to understand what he's saying.
Coaches cannot always put players in the best situation possible. Regardless of how good the coaching is, there are going to be difficult situations that you, as a player, need to overcome. What Wheatley is saying is that the difference between Michigan and teams that are winning national championships is that those players are overcoming tough situations when they need to.
Part of that is program building, it's expectation building. It's "next in line for the position". You step up in the face of challenges and go above and beyond, not just to the expectation. And at some point that comes down to the players, because as a coach you can only do so much to put them in the best situations. It's still up to the coaches to try to optimize the situation, but it'll never be perfect, because it can't be. This also isn't telling the players to ignore the coaches when they feel the information/content they are given is sub-optimal, it's saying make more of a situation than is just presented to you.
This isn't throwing the players under the bus. This isn't throwing the coaching under the bus. It's admitting coaching can't always be perfect, and when that's the case, to win championships, players need to rise above what is merely put in front of them. It's the difference between a RB that takes what his blocking gives him and creating something on his own. People have been oddly interested in finding this smoking gun with Wheatley vs the coaching staff or program or whatever. Wheatley wanted to move up the chain, that wasn't happening immediately at Michigan, so he sought other avenues as he should have. Like any other member of the coaching staff, he may have had disagreements, but he isn't on bad terms with the program or staff at Michigan.
I don't entirely agree with Wheatley's assessment. But I can for sure think of a few examples. In our game vs Ohio State in 2016, the play prior to "the spot" was a 3rd down handoff to Curtis Samuel. It was a typical Urban Meyer up the gut kinda thing, but it was snuffed out by Don Brown and our defense. But that didn't stop Curtis. He ran forever and a mile around the field to save the play and setup the offense for a short 4th down conversion.
In 2017, Ohio State was being boatraced by Penn State. In the 4th quarter, after little was being done by the coaching staff, JT Barrett went 16 for 16 on passes to put them ahead just before the game ended. When it's time for 1 team to rise up, Ohio State's guys do it. That being said, our coaches have recruited the talent and put in the schemes to give guys those opportunities. They just haven't come up clutch against Ohio State, but have against almost everybody else.