1. Rich Rod - 33%  We are extremely short on scholarship OL.  Not having any experienced, quality options is a huge problem.  It's easy for fans to forget this in an era of MOAR STARZ!!! recruting, but even great OL players don't usually blossom until their third or fourth year in a program.  Lewan is the exception, not the rule.  And it's not just OL recruiting--we basically lost an entire class of players due to RR and the transition.  The notion that it's not RR's fault that he got fired is silly: RR completely failed on the defensive side of the ball.  That was his undoing more than any of the outside stuff.
2. 2013 "dithering" - 17%  I don't believe what we're doing is dithering.  Did anyone say RR was dithering in 2009?  Borges and Hoke spent the spring and fall camp saying, "We are going to transition to our preferred style of offense this year, no matter what."  You can call that stubborn, obnoxious, stupid, etc., but this team is never going to get good at the new style without actually doing it.  Most of the team is composed of kids that were recruited for this new style; sadly, they are inexperienced and under-developed.  Borges and Hoke KNOW they are calling plays that aren't perfect for our hodgepodge roster of RR legacies and Hoke pups, but they want the team to learn the system for the years to come.  Transition has to happen sometime.  As for the "gimmicks," that's just an OC and a HC trying desperately to find something that will work with this group that is within their philosophy.  Do I like it?  No.  But I understand what they're trying to do.
3. Borges - 15%  If things look bad in 2014 and 2015, I'll be calling for Borges' head.  For now, he is trying to implement a system with players that are either super-young or were not recruited for this system.  That said, he makes lots of decisions I don't like--running into stacked fronts with a weak OL, not using Funchess in the red zone enough, not using 3 WR sets often enough, too much play action on obvious passing downs, not enough draws, etc.
4. Denard "dithering" - 15%  The decision to try to make the best use of one of the best and most beloved players in Michigan history cost us two years of learning the system Hoke and AB want to implement.  I believe it was the right decision, but we should have seen more pain coming in the first year of a basically new offense.
5. Hoke - 7%  For reasons already explained, Hoke shares some of the blame.  He and AB are committed to the new philosophy, and they will run it even if it doesn't work.  Why?  They are laying the foundation for the future.  Just as with Borges, I will be much more critical of Hoke if he doesn't have this thing humming by 2015 (and it needs to be much better than this year in 2014).
6. Funk/OL & Ferrigno/Jackson - 5% each  Yeah, I get that we're young.  Yeah, I get that it's a new system.  But we should be able to execute fundamental techniques more effectively.  Again, these guys get a bit of a break because of the youth and transition, but we better show marked improvement at these positions next year, or I'll be calling for changes.

Basically, I believe we are seeing the natural growing pains of a transition to a new system compounded by youth, some occasionally silly play-calling, and the RR dearth.  I expect improvement in 2014 and great things in 2015.

Awesome post.  Nice mix of quantitative and qualitative analysis, and the discussion felt real.  Bravo.

Lloyd Carr deserves a small piece of this humble pie as well.  Perhaps not so much for this year's offense specifically, but definitely for the overall state of the program.

. . .that one more game like the Nebraska game would have caused me to do a four-day creep. Thanks for the Humble Pie meme. Steve Marriott, music's version of Vincent Smith (tiny but tough), would be proud.

"Suck pie," like any other culinary "masterpiece," requires preperation and just the right blend of ingredients.

The missing ingredients with which the rest of it could never have happened:

1.  LC "loses his taste for recruiting."

2.  Blowout loss to USC after loss to Ohio, leading USC players to say variations of, "We knew what they were going to run before they ran it."

3.  The Horror.

4. LC encourages all players to accept signed transfer papers after his last game. 

5.  LC sabotages Michigan recruiting from his office in Schembechler Hall, even while he is being paid what amounted to an honorarium salary.

6.  "Michigan Men" tell instate HS coaches not to send their kids to Michigan, thus giving Sparty a foothold which they still haven't relinquished.

RR was not given the opportunity to dig Michigan out of the hole that LC and his blind followers created.  Brady Hoke deserves the chance.  So does Al Borges.  David Brandon deserves to GTFO and run for political office.

"Michigan fans" need to become Michigan Fans and start supporting the current staff as it tries to dig out of LC's gaping chasm.

If you took out the highest and lowest marks in the array, does it change your average that much? (Say take out the outliers of Seth and Mathlete in "Rich Rod.")

And it's fun to match the jobs and backgrounds of the people and how they assigned blame. Seeing how Ace's recruiting bent influences things like "The Process" and "Rich Rod," etc....

This is one the best posts in a while. Quantifying blame is obviously subjective, but it provided for a great baseline for disagreement and discussion (and without flaming!) Kudos for including spacecoyote's take as well. Ultimately everyone agrees that Rodriguez's recruiting, the process, Borges, Funk, TE and RB blocking and dithering this year have hurt our offense we just disagree on the degrees. So let's be civil and not take disagreements personally.

Personally I'd peg OL coaching problems at 20 and Borges fusion cuisine at 15. The Mgoconsensus seems about right everywhere else.

Put me down for installing the "2008 Capital One Bowl offense" for this year's bowl game. If we can beat Iowa next week and grab the bowl game 9-4 is at least showing improvement, kind of. It basically means we are in a similar position to last year but if people are right that this is a year of tranisition then we will have paid one year of "transition costs". That means next year's offense should be somewhat competent. Not world beaters but similar to State's offense this year where they do enough to win games since the defense should start to look prettty dang good (A-/B+). In 2015 the offense should be similar to this year's defense, a B unit with promise going forward if we continue recruiting at this level. The coaches are on the clock. Also, I'm not giving up hope for Ohio State but unfortunately realisitcally it is going to be really hard to win that game this year. Never say die though.

The foundation of the team and the program is just gone.  Carr left the cupboard on the bare side, Rich Rod basically blew up what was left of the foundation to build over, and Brady came in and tried to work with what was there while trying to reshape the foundation into the airplane he wants while it's flying.  This is something that doesn't get fixed or changed overnight.  You don't have a mature core of players passing on a tradition of winning, expectations based on tangible results, and continuity that demonstrates if we keep doing these things, we'll keep being successful.  So, you have experience in some areas, total lack of experience in others, and a team grappling with what it takes to win.  Brady says they lack continuity and I'd agree with that statement.  The talent is there.  They have lots of problems between their ears -- confidence, trust (I do my job, he'll do his job), over thinking things while in learning mode.  Put bad play calling, coaching inconsistenices, and all that other stuff on top and you've got a nice hot mess.  Hopefully, last week's win laid another brick in the new foundation and will be a solid place to take the next step from.  We'll see on Sat.

does nearly everyone agree that GERG had no clue about developing a successful scheme defensively, and yet are willing to look the other way when we discuss the absolute failure of Borges to provide anything close to a consistent offensive scheme?

I read more excuses than facts.  His job is to take the talent we have and MAKE IT WORK.  Denard alone saved Borges' butt for 2 years, and THIS team has a lot of talent  -  Funchess, Gallon, Dileo and Gardner are this team's weapons - yet Borges continues to "pound the rock" vs. PSU and Nebraska when the moment to win the game was there. 

Hoke and Mattison are the reason we have recruited so well, but Hoke's downfall will eventually be Borges.  Like it or not the B1G is STILL a defensive first conference.  GERG didn't understand it defensively and now Borges doesn't get it offensively.  We're screwed unless we see a change.

Go Blue! 

1. Fans - 5%. A vocal minority sabotaged RR from the start. The fans who called for RR's firing deserve points too, but there just aren't enough percentages to add more.

2. RR - 0%. He inherited a smoking crater - Jake Long, Chad Henne, Mike Hart, Mario Manningham, Adrian Arrington, Shawn Crable and Jamar Adams departed from the team that lost to Appalachian State. After three years he finally had his team, flaws and all, in place. The team that won 11 games in 2011 was RR's team. RR turned UM around. The current coaches are responsible for the failure to sustain it.

3. The process - 50%. It should be 100% since RR should never have been fired, but that would deprive Borges and other coaches of the credit they deserve. Feel free to read "Dave Brandon" for "the process."

5-7. Borges' issues - 27%. 3/5 of the remaining 45% goes to the various failures of AB. He has lost games through awful game plans (Iowa and MSU in 2011, PSU this year). He has lost games by refusing to take the yards that defenses offer. He failed to give players the game reps they needed to develop (Gardner in 2011 and 20012, Kalis in 2012). He failed to develop a plan to transition from RR's offense to his own. He is constantly shuffling players around, destroying any possibility of continuity or stability. I combine the three because they are all elements of a failure of vision. He has failed to realistically look at what he has - and what he will have - and channel his resources towards his ultimate goal.

8. OL coaching - 9%. For all the criticism of RR, by his third year he was starting a couple of his own recruits in the OL and they were performing well. No one can point to a single player and say "he's better because Funk coached him." There's a bit of mindless insistence that players are better because they're older than they were when they arrived in Ann Arbor but that is an assumption based on zero evidence, only on the observation that that is the ordinary course of development. It ignores the fact that if the ordinary course of development were in effect UM would be blocking better.

9. TE/RB coaching -9%. After three years in college, players should have high school fundamentals down.

This format is somewhat unfortunate in that it subtracts too much of the blame from the current coaches by including a look at how we got here with an assessment of how the current coaches have utilized the tools they have. It would be nice to give the current coaches the 60%-20%-20% credit they deserve. It would also be nice to have a category to give Hoke credit. He is, after all, the head coach and ultimately responsible for the shortcomings of the coaches he chose.

We can't block anyone in the run or pass game.  All season on DVR I've been watching pulling lineman run right by a defender, presumably leaving him for another blocker, only to watch and see that someone never arrive and the defender kill Fitz or Devin.  In protection they inexplicably let real threats go and help double another guy who was doing fine.  As discussed in other threads, Lewan leaves a DT for Hayes (!) so he can help double a guy who's not doing much.  Barring that decision, Devin has a nice pocket he can step up into or run forward with lots of space.

Bosch gets blown up more than you'd want, but he'll get a lot better with age and strength.  Same with Magnuson.  Glasgow isn't getting overpowered much.  It's the scheme of the blocking. 

IDK, guys. RR getting 25% of the blame in the 3rd year of the Hoke regime doesn't seem legit. I respect the explanations, but look at how the line performed in the 1st 2 weeks vs now.

we've seen complete regression in these last 8 weeks (which have had 2 byes and almost no injuries). I don't see RR-related issues causing that regression in this 8 week period in 2013.

we're at the end of year 3. The offense should be better than this. If DG got hurt, or one or both of the tackles, or Gallon/Funchess,or Lewan went in the draft, I would be more forgiving (for lack of a better word).

really tho- we haven't had many injuries at all this year. this isn't like 2005 where the injury list was 15-18 deep. this isn't 2008 where we didn't have any talent. it's not 2000 (beginning of season) or 2012 (toward the end) where our QB got hurt and had NO depth at the position, which cost us a game or 2 we could have won otherwise. it's not 2004 where we had a true FR QB playing the entire year. it's not 2012 where we had Bama, OSU, Neb and ND on the road (3 of those teams had ONE loss combined, BTW... and that one loss at the hands of one of those very teams).

the offense is just laying eggs all over the field without many excuses to point to besides having 3 young guys at G-C-G and a couple young TEs. if the coaches would have developed a single coherent blocking and offensive system 2 years ago for these guys to learn and operate within in pracitce, film, etc... they'd be performing better. Instead, it's stretch/power pulling guards/tackle over/fullback iso. it's trying to get Funchess to block and finally giving up to put him at WR (where we knew we needed some playmakers anyway). it's tackle over. it's RBs that can't pass pro. it's RS SR RT who can't slide protect. it's (very young and slender) TEs that can't block but are out there anyway.

that said, the jury is 3 games from being 'out' and hindsight is 20-20 and you can't predict the future, nobody's perfect, etc.