Gorgeous Borges explains to Sam re: time of possession
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqy5qcArw-o
I was longing for a bit a football stuff, so here's some content about M-Iowa by Sam and Borges.
My favorite part starts about 20:00 where Borges talks about time of possession and how critical it is for the defense to have the offense possess the football for some stretches of time. Apparently Al is not much of a Rich Rod fan. Not that Al was perfect, but he does know his stuff better than we, the average fan.
Nothing all that new, but the whole thing is a pleasant listen.
Enjoy!
December 14th, 2023 at 9:10 PM ^
Rumor has it that Borges gets an inordinate amount of attention from the ladies
December 14th, 2023 at 9:19 PM ^
I'm sure were I female I, too, would....
Never mind. I don't get it.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:30 PM ^
I too get a lot of attention from the ladies at certain establishments. They always say I'm super charming. I have no idea why.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:34 PM ^
NTTAWT, but:
Are these establishments in East Lansing? Is some form of negotiation involved?
December 14th, 2023 at 9:42 PM ^
The first rule of these establishments: you do not talk about these establishments.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:15 PM ^
Rumor has it he is The Most Interesting Man in the World.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:55 PM ^
Why yes... yes he is...
December 14th, 2023 at 9:37 PM ^
Here is a quick explanation of the Gorgeous Borges story:
Sam (that I have known since his days at "The Fort") introduced my female friend and me to Al at the Slippery Noodle before the B1G Championship game and I am honestly shocked at the amount of attention that small event has received. Sam mentions it over and over on his podcasts and takes playful jabs at Al's popularity. FWIW, Borges was kind enough to spend some time and talk football with the ladies. Good guy and a pleasure to listen to and learn from.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:49 PM ^
Classic ball busting. It’s how men communicate affection/warmth for one another because we are too emotionally stunted/homophobic to express it without fear of being seen as effeminate.
December 14th, 2023 at 10:58 PM ^
My take: Sam does it because he’s smart, he’s good at his job, and he’s a good guy. It’s funny, it’s interesting, it builds some buzz for his friend Al, while at the same time being able to bust his balls a little.
December 14th, 2023 at 10:05 PM ^
Username checks out. I love the firsthand story - with timely delivery right on the blog, no less. Well played Blue Girl!
December 15th, 2023 at 9:56 AM ^
If true (and I have no reason to doubt it), this is now the best blog for inside information I know, between Sopwith and 4EverBlueGirl.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:38 PM ^
Ummm...
This Michigan team is extremely good at T.O.P. and absolutely use it to our advantage. But Borges and Hoke treated it like winning T.O.P. was winning the game, absolutely to their (and our) detriment.
December 14th, 2023 at 10:29 PM ^
Tempo is the devil.
December 15th, 2023 at 4:38 AM ^
Only if you go three and out three or more times in a row.
December 15th, 2023 at 6:15 AM ^
Tempo is for the Rocketts. One, two, three kick. One, two, three, kick.
I recall at least three games, under Al and Brady, where the opponent, running a marginal offense scored to end the first half (and basically seal the game win) because they had enough snaps to try something that almost worked a second time with an adjustment. Mattison never had time to coach the defense in between series. Hey, guys, here is what their offense is trying to do and here is the adjustment, but you can't do that effectively when the offense is not possessing the ball for anything but a brief period of time.
December 15th, 2023 at 1:22 PM ^
This is a great summation of the a lot of the issues under Hoke and the differences we see now. Like the 27 for 27 game, they didn’t seem to coach to the game. I think we see this go the other way a lot too like Kyle Shanahan vs the Patriots in the Super Bowl.
December 15th, 2023 at 2:26 PM ^
My memory tells me of a MSU game with rain, wind, and about a billion too many O'Korn passes that wouldve been better suited if they were runs for 3-4 yards. What a mess that was.
December 14th, 2023 at 9:47 PM ^
He should talk about using back to back reverses to set up a 3rd and 15 play next
December 14th, 2023 at 11:51 PM ^
Correlation something something causation.
December 15th, 2023 at 7:07 AM ^
Thanks for that.
The conversation on this topic routinely makes my head hurt. Your objective when you get the ball is to score, period. Doesn't matter if it takes thirty seconds or seven minutes.
TOP fans seem to believe that every run-oriented offense marches unimpeded down the field in 4-yard chunks and every pass-oriented offense goes three and out.
December 15th, 2023 at 10:13 AM ^
Your objective when you get the ball is to score, period. Doesn't matter if it takes thirty seconds or seven minutes.
Well, that's definitely Lincoln Riley's thinking, anyway.
There can be such a thing as scoring too quickly.
December 15th, 2023 at 12:26 AM ^
I always liked Al and I thought that he got a bad rap. IMHO, the way the offense fell completely off a cliff in Hoke's last year after Borges was fired (and the fact that Devin Gardner never came close to repeating any of his incredible 2013 performances in 2014) is proof positive that our offensive woes weren't totally on Al.
December 15th, 2023 at 12:55 AM ^
It was Brandon.
December 15th, 2023 at 6:29 AM ^
If you believe Brian Kelly (you have to read between the lines) when he said, "We overestimated Michigan's offense." 2013 was because Devin was a talented Denard-type unknown. Given how ineffective, and totally ineffective, Devin Gardner was against ND in 2014, I don't believe that Devin Gardner is capable of reading defenses. He is really, really fast and can throw the ball really, really hard but every great reception involved a tipped pass, a wide receiver getting bent into a pretzel, or diving for a pass while wide open.
Denard Robinson is another great example of arm-chair football geniuses. Some say Al misused Denard however, in spite of all the extra protection that Al gave Denard, Denard still could NOT finish his career with QB health. It appears that with more running plays, Denard's career would have been over sooner under Rich Rod.
December 15th, 2023 at 7:13 AM ^
In the video that is linked above, Borges talks about Denard's shoulder injuries. He mentions a game where they wouldn't even let Denard throw the ball in the pre-game warm-up, because he didn't want the opposition to watch him and see that he couldn't throw.
December 15th, 2023 at 10:14 AM ^
2013 was because Devin was a talented Denard-type unknown.
Except that he had started the second half of the 2012 season.
December 15th, 2023 at 10:00 AM ^
As far as I can tell, Borges is a football genius - I remember how blown away we all were when Heiko interviewed him and we realized how much more he knows about football than we had given him credit for.
That doesn't mean he was the right guy for us under Hoke, necessarily, but I have to respect him all the same.
December 16th, 2023 at 10:16 AM ^
Watch Borges on the videos every week with Sam Webb, especially the film breakdowns. He knows his stuff. He was the OC for Auburn's natty.
It's especially interesting when he start talking about scripting and sequencing plays as an OC, as well as why OC's make choices to not run certain types of plays that fans are CERTAIN would work.
December 15th, 2023 at 11:15 AM ^
Al Borges was a lot of things but he was not a perfect OC. He knew a lot of football but the Xs and Os are his strong point - player development and practical game planning were not. He learned football well; he was not great at innovating it himself when the gun was to his head.
I'm not sure it was the right call to fire him in 2013, but let's not pretend his offense was doing well. The Michigan State game plan was inexcusebaly bad; and overall, he had nothing in the tank when it came to handling the emerging defenses (what we'd now call modern defense - the stuff that Dantonio ran that was Saban's match quarters system), especially in the run game. Maybe he survives if he has a better OL coach, but ultimately development and performance there was part of his responsibility.
Basically, knowing football is a prerequisite to getting it done at a level that Sherrone more has managed, but alone the knowledge isn't enough.