Wolverine247 Board

I don't know the mind of the coaches and never claimed to. I'm drawing my conclusions from what I saw on the field. I saw the staff put out Bellomy as the number 2 QB in a critical game, and never even gave the guy, who through his 5 starts afterward, would lead the B1G in passer efficiency a look. And Devin didn't really even bring much as a receiver. Now, this may be a little speculation, but I don't think it's to far a stretch to draw the conclusion from these facts that the staff watched Bellomy in practice and liked him. They liked him enough that they decided they were comfortable with Devin abandoning the QB spot and putting this untested RS Frosh as the primary back up to a QB which does dinged a lot. And this had disastrous results. Again, with the guy who would have lead the B1G in passer efficiency sitting on the side lines. This one mistake cost us a spot in the championship game.

Now, as said above, small sample sizes and all, but you can't just give the staff a pass on that mistake. Maybe Bellomy did rock in practice. But deciding when someone is game ready is also part of evaluating your players. To give another example, do you give a pass to Lions management for seemingly having all their draft picks suck or have off- (and on-) the field issues? Eventually you have to look at the coaches and wonder about their evaluations. I'm certainly not calling for Borges or anybody to be fired, but at this point, when Borges says "This QB recruit is better than the rest", I don't just accept it, like if say, Mattison decides to give a scholly to an under the radar CB or S. I certainly hope Borges is proved right with time, but I'm personally still in a 'wait and see' mode.

Your post is misinformed my man.

First of all... A night game, on the road, at Memorial Stadium isn't the ideal situation for any backup QB to come into. A lot of times you don't know if someone is "ready" until they get out there in live game action. They also have said that if they knew Denard was out in advance, that Gardner would take the reps in practice and start, but it's too much to ask of a kid learning a new position to help the team to come in, in the middle of the game without getting full reps. There's absolutely no guarantee we beat Nebraska on the road with Denard at full strength, or if Gardner replaced him when he went down.

Also, Devin was the 2nd leading receiver on the team going into the Nebraska game and was leading the team in TD catches. It's not all world, but pretty impressive for a guy switching positions. So say what you want, but you're off base there.

Devin Gardner is a stand up kid, and the coaches have said that he came to them and said he wanted to be on the field helping the team if he wasn't starting at QB. So, I'm not really pretending to be in the mind of anyone, just believing two parties that I don't think are lying...

Also you want a track record? Well there's Cade McNown, Ryan Lindley, Jason Campbell, Tony Graziani, Gibran Hamdan... all guys that went on to the NFL after working with Borges.

Similar to Mercury, you're ignorant and misinformed. Why don't you tell me the ideal scenario for how you would've wanted the coaches to handle the season?

Also, hindsight is clearly 20/20.

Michigan had a void at the WR position going into the 2012 season. Gardner filled that void and it seemed that Michigan could afford to move Gardner because Bellomy had played like a capable back-up.

It was a calculated risk. Unfortunately, it backfired.

Moreover, Michigan fans have quickly forgotten how afraid they were for 2013 season after the Nebraska game. Only after Gardner had a good game at Minnesota did Michigan fans take a sigh of relief. But here's what amazes me: people have forgotten that Gardner didn't start well at Minny.

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Here's the catch-22 of the situation: if Gardner had remained the #2 QB and Michigan's WRs had struggled, some Michigan fans would've undoubtedly wondered why the coaches hadn't moved Gardner to WR.

I do like how there were more than a few people calling for Bellomy to start over Denard early last season, especially after the Notre Dame game, yet post-Nebraska the coaches were dumb and awful talent evaluators to have Bellomy second on the depth chart.

If we're being honest, there are good reasons to question Borges' skills at QB evaluation and development. A lot of the NFL QBs he's coached were not recruited by him, they were already at their respective schools when he joined the staff. If Gardner plays the way we all expect/hope he will over the next season or two, he'll be another for that list. Someone (sorry, I forget who) made a really good post a few months back looking at the careers of QBs that Borges actually recruited and developed all on his own, and the results weren't that pretty. This cycle, Borges chose Speight over Cornwell, O'Connor, Henderson, and all the rest of the QBs in the country. Speight bleeds blue, obviously, but at this early moment he is universally less well-regarded by the major recruiting services than the other QBs considered for that first offer.

So, I suppose what I'm saying is that yes, there are valid reasons to be skeptical about Borges when it comes to QBs. But I don't think that Bellomy is really one of those valid reasons.

Very interesting point. I'll keep it in mind.

This is true, but even if we disregard that, he still showed some extreme physical limitations. He has neither the strength or quickness to avoid the rush, and it seems that there are a lot of throws he just can't make.

The mental part of the game is really the only area he can excel at. If he is the panicky sort, he won't contribute.