Wolverine247 Board

No picture, but agree with the premise.

Now that the picture is there, the guy in the middle (Gallon?) is wide open.

And he's on his back foot so it's not a strong throw.

Oh I'm not arguing at all. Bad call by Borges and bad execution by Denard = 3/4 INTs. Last one I'm ok with.

I've been arguing the same things for a year. The same thing happened in the MSU game all of last year. The D doesn't give a rats ass about Denard and playaction. Every defense has the same idea to contain Denard and stop him running first. The other thing i noticed today is that with the more fakes and the more Denard is moving around the less he gets his footwork right on his throws. Borges needs to pretty much eliminate all that crap from the playbook.

Listened to mark may this morning. He is 100% right. Let denard be denard! Al needs to stop drilling into his head to stay in the pocket! Unleash denard and the passing game will open up. So frustrating!!!! I was so pleased when the new coaching staff came in and said they wouldn't do what RR did and try and run a offense without the personnel. Seems like al is trying to do that now and it's upsetting.

Last two posts were simple and perfect

Im sorry, but where does aybody get the idea that Denard is a good passer outside the pocket? He is horrendous thrower on the run and outside the pocket taking him out of the pocket would have only made matters worse, in fact his first pick was on a rollout throw and was by far his worst throw of the night. The time he actually throws the ball well is when he is IN THE POCKET and sets his feet. Yesterday, You saw everything snowball on him and he had what I would like to call a Flukey preformance as he reverted back to old habits. Denard only turned it over 1 time. You may laugh, but I would say that was a positive. I think 1-2 turnovers a game is a resonable expectation for him based on his career to date, he reverted back to the mean in the second half and showed that he turnover fetish he was having the first half was a fluke. Bottomline, Michigan was dominating that game going into the 4th quarter Michigan had 236 total yards to ND 140 and were dominating time of possession as well even with the 6 turnovers. Turnovers were the story of the game and failed attemps in the redzone. Denard fumbling that ball on 3rd and 3 on the 20 yardline as we are driving for a touchdown summed up the whole game. Just was not his night, as nobody even really hit him on that play he just bobbled the ball. Borges, I thought did not call a good sequence of plays after Golson's first interception at the beginning of the game and then I thought he called a questionable HB trick play, because the offense was rolling at the time. Outside of that Borges called a great game, again just didn't execute. , our offense moved the ball up and down the field on a pretty good defense in Notre Dame sans the turnovers. This wasn't a situation where they just shut us down, Michigan shut themselves down and ND like any good team would/should do took advantage. Credit to ND, something they have not done in a long time. Team will respond after this loss.

I'm glad I'm not the only one questioning Borges and his play calling abilities. Big game after big game the play calling has been suspect, MSU last year, Alabama this year and now ND.

Not perfect.

Option 1: Do as they suggest, using Denard similar to RR. BLAME BORGES, Denard can't be our only offense. He can't have that many carries. We need to adjust and use a hybrid offense.

Option 2: Do as we are (hybrid offense), using Denard in some ways similar to RR and using some of Borges offense. BLAME BORGES, we need to use Denard like RR did. Denard needs to run more.

Either way, people are going to complain and blame Borges whether it is deserved or not.

mgovideo's highlights are attached. Pardon the music.

Fastforward to the 30 second mark and you will see the play in question.

At the point of the screen capture, Denard has just completed his play action motion and is sizing up Tuitt coming free. He probably expects this, as Schofield is blocking down on Nix, the DT. Denard then quickly plants and turn up field as Tuitt charges. Of course, since the PA is not set up by any run success and is extremely slow developing, Nix has simply charged straight up field and flown right by Schofield, who really didn't have a chance.

Denard, who does see the wide open receiver, is faced with some serious pressure from two sides. His rushed footwork is rushed and bad as he basically hops into his stance. Denard throws it off his back foot as Nix arrives to drive him into the turf, and the ball sails over Gallon's head.

Does Matt Barkley make a completion here? Probably. But this is not a good position for Denard to be in. There isn't a QB in the Big 10 who is going to do a whole lot better when put in this position.

So ultimately, yes, Denard made a bad throw and a turnover.

But Borges is primarily to blame for two reasons:

1. This is one more example of Borges ignoring reality when it doesn't agree with his game plan. He did this alot last year. In this instance he constantly went back to that slow play action when ND was obviously showing it no respect. Nix and Tuitt staying hard at home on Denard RPS'd us back to the Alabama game.

2. This is the second year coaching Denard and he thinks that not only can he turn Denard into Matt Barkley, but that it would be best to use him like Matt Barkley.

There's a flaw to your thinking (2 actually).

1. You are assuming ND is choosing to leave him wide open (unlikely).

Even if you assume they do leave him wide open on purpose, it brings up flaw #2 in your thinking.

2. The play call is designed to get people open, which it did. Pressure getting to the QB at all/faster than desired is indicative of a lack of execution up front, not a bad play call. Denard with a bad throw is also execution related, not a bad play call.

For the 1st time all year, our pass pro wasn't very good, but of course everyone wants to blame Borges' play calling, which wasn't that bad. The strength of their defense (interior front 7 - Tuitt, Nix, Te'o) outperformed our weakness on offense (interior OL). We were still able to move the ball on them on the ground and air when we executed properly. We attacked their weaknesses (secondary, edges on defense) - that is indicative of good play calling. Was it perfect or even great? I wouldn't go that far, but it wasn't nearly as bad as people are suggesting. And the loss wasn't certainly all Borges fault (or Borges and Denard), but people want to overreact and blame everything on Borges and/or Denard and claim one needs to be fired and the other benched. It's idiotic.

Also, just because the other team's gamble works, doesn't mean our team had a bad game plan. We execute better against their gamble and light up the scoreboard everyone is talking about how Borges is a genius - though the calls would differ none.