Read this blog on how bad our defense is and tell me Lovie should have a job (anywhere) next year.
https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-foe-film-illinois-defense-2019
https://mgoblog.com/content/fee-fi-foe-film-illinois-defense-2019
2019-20 Coaching Discussion/Carousel
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ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Well, the exact thing that was implied was that Jim Harbaugh when he was hired at Michigan in December 2014 had a higher chance of success than would any of Meyer, Stoops, or Dabo were they to be hired by Illinois this offseason.
Which I think is an easier lift, even though the Illinois side is doing a lot of the work in driving down the chances.
But to even things up a little bit, let's ask whether Stoops, Meyer or Dabo would have a higher chance of success if they were hired by Michigan this offseason than Harbaugh did at the time he was hired.
Stoops clearly does not, IMO. I don't really think Meyer does either, though that could depend on the definition of success (going like 24-1 and then quitting again would be a real possibility there. Is that success?). Dabo is a tough one. Is he bringing his whole staff?
But anyway, the real crux of the problem here is that you're clearly wildly, wildly understating Harbaugh's value at the point he left for Michigan. He was at the top of any list for any job in football at that point, Michigan fans were being laughed at for entertaining the idea that he'd choose them over the plum NFL situations that were eager to have him.
And college-wise, what Harbaugh did at Stanford was more impressive than anything Stoops has done since I've been old enough to drive.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
MGoBlog is so perfectly Michigan in a nutshell. Really excellent, super smart work that still completely rubs me the wrong way and makes me hate them.
But they aren't wrong, and that's my point. Lovie has done such a bad job he shouldn't even be a coach anywhere again.
"But really most of this was on the linebackers, who look like they've never been coached on zone coverage. Rule #1: you and the other linebackers' butts should never touch:"
I wonder who the LB coach is also....
Here is my plan of action for the rest of the season:
1. Fire Lovie (and Miles) immediately following Michigan game. Put Corey Patterson as interim. We have nothing to lose doing this and Patterson can at least motivate guys to play hard.
2. Either redshirt and shut down Williams, or play him every snap. Let's either save him for the next guy or get him some game experience. If he plays, run RPOs all day with Willams and Corbin. Inside Zone, Buck Sweep with WR bubble screens and slants.
3. Play Cover 1 Man, heavy box, with heavy blitzes. Our LBs suck in zone and we play not to lose. I don't care if we get beat over the top, we will be aggressive at least.
4. Start calling anyone and everyone interested in coaching our team and get them going in recruiting early as possible.
With this plan, we probably lose the games we are supposed to lose, but we could maybe steal a win and move forward with our new staff.
1. Fire Lovie (and Miles) immediately following Michigan game. Put Corey Patterson as interim. We have nothing to lose doing this and Patterson can at least motivate guys to play hard.
2. Either redshirt and shut down Williams, or play him every snap. Let's either save him for the next guy or get him some game experience. If he plays, run RPOs all day with Willams and Corbin. Inside Zone, Buck Sweep with WR bubble screens and slants.
3. Play Cover 1 Man, heavy box, with heavy blitzes. Our LBs suck in zone and we play not to lose. I don't care if we get beat over the top, we will be aggressive at least.
4. Start calling anyone and everyone interested in coaching our team and get them going in recruiting early as possible.
With this plan, we probably lose the games we are supposed to lose, but we could maybe steal a win and move forward with our new staff.
Deleted member 654622
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Wow this dude straight MAULS Lovie and this defense. And you know what, HE IS RIGHT
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
The week-in, week-out constant failure of our linebackers to demonstrate any basic knowledge of our scheme at all when their position coach is the totally unqualified son of the head coach is a fireable offense all on its own, IMO.
I don't hate Lovie, I'm not really angry with him, and I think some of the revisionist history about how certain all of this was in March 2016 is stupid and lazy and wrong, but I feel absolutely no guilt about the fact that he's about to lose his job. He has no one to blame but himself.
(As distinct from, say, John Groce, where it was a clear as day decision, but I still felt kinda bad about it)
From the MGoBlog preview, btw:
Luke F is Gary M 2.0 he would be a disaster
Jives with what I’m seeing but still isn’t telling the full story and it’s beginning to annoy me.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Please elaborate
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
Say what you will about me, but you can't say I don't elaborate 
Deleted member 654622
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Beard. Analysis. More beard. More analysis ...............................
When do we act?
When do we act?
Well, I'll preface by stating that while I understand this blog article can only be so lengthy, the author blanket describes everything we do schematically as Cover 2 Under which is incorrect not only in the Minnesota contest but over the course of the season. I'm actually seeing a lot more Cover 4 (Which, for note, has killed Quan Martin). That's a thorn for me personally, they may appear the same but they're vastly different.
When I watch a defense, I probably don't do as well as others (This author included, and kudos to him on a job well done) at watching the opposing offense in relation to it (RPO not withstanding), I'm looking primarily at three things and three things only: What I believe the defensive call is, where I believe our players are supposed to be and where they actually end up after the ball is snapped. To this effect, I've loosely charted that our core linebacking group is out of position on three or four out of every ten plays, our most egregious offender being Milo Eifler. The article's belief that Eifler quote "seems very confused out there" is wholly accurate. It doesn't matter if we're playing a straight Cover 2, a variant Cover 3, Man 1 or Cover 4 Under, Eifler is rarely playing where he is supposed to be playing. If he's supposed to have the hook, he's in the flat. If he's supposed to have the seam or the dig, he's right near the LOS and he's never, ever, ever in position when he actually is supposed to take the flat. For those who have seen the Illinois Breakdown films, have you noticed that they consistently stop and highlight plays where the flat receiver is open with the comment "Someone is supposed to be here"? That someone has almost always been Eifler. Miles Smith has failed terribly in this regard. Either he's incapable of diagnosing the issue and teaching the correction or he is seeing it and nothing is being done about it. Either way, it's inexcusable and the effect on the defense has been irreparable. I'm on record in my belief that Milo needs to be out of the starting rotation, we'll see if anything changes come Saturday. Jake, Dele and Delano have all had spurts of good and bad. They have made a number of impact plays, nine of our thirteen turnovers have been caused by one of these three (Another by Tariq Barnes) and that shouldn't be overlooked but the bad has begun to run equal with the good and we're not strong enough as an overall football team to overcome those lapses. This is a fairly talented unit with a lot of youth and experience that should be the crux of the defense but instead is merely limping along. HOWEVER, it is not the unit's achilles heel which is what drove my original comment. The achilles heel of this unit is the back half of the secondary. Whereas I approximate our linebacker's to be out of position thirty-forty percent of time, I see someone on our last line in the wrong spot approximately sixty percent of the time (Not an exaggeration...). The blog only touches on this but it's the apex of our defensive struggles. We can't cover the dig, we can't cover the post. We don't know the reads in the red zone, we don't play the inside shade on the tight end. We don't cover the run, we consistently take the wrong angle to the ball carrier and rarely if ever drive on the football (Which is, you know, the entire premise of the Tampa 2). More upsetting to me and I'm sure it sounds like a broken record, we routinely fail to execute very simple combination coverages. If the Y stays short, the safety takes the deep hash. High school defenses know this. Want to guess how often we're out of position on plays like this? You probably don't. Most embarrassing of all in my mind is that there is no clear egregious offender who, if we got out of the lineup, could potentially improve our play. They're all terrible. Tony Adams doesn't know what he's doing, Sydney Brown doesn't know what he's doing and as the article correctly points out, Kerby Joseph is quote "unplayable" (Something I've been saying for, oh, 5 weeks now). Want even more depressing news? Unlike the linebacking core, we don't have a shred of impact play to look back on and say "At least we've done something positive". Do you know how many turnovers and/or sacks have been created from a player in the back half of our secondary? One. One. One lonely ball thrown directly to Michael Marchese. That's the entirety of the plus contribution we've gotten from our back half.
If you haven't vomited profusely by now, I'm about to make things worse. With the linebackers, I think a better positional coach can take this room with it's youth, experience and overall talent level and grow it into a high performing unit in a short amount of time. With the safety group, I have no answers. There's no help in sight. The guys we have now aren't athletic enough to dramatically improve regardless of the positional coach, Derrick Smith is going to be a little too big to play there effectively (Lovie, if he staves off termination, has already stated he'll play linebacker) and no decent recruit will give us the time of day. We're in a real bad spot not just now but also very likely a year and even two years from now.
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TMC999
- Not Iowa
I agree. Long shot. But.... I think to inject the needed U-turn that we truly need, instead of yet another calculated risk... will take an attention grabbing financial package.
TMC999
- Not Iowa
More:
I’m not necessarily saying Doeren but....heck. Go target a more proven Doeren-esquire commodity from a Power Five. We need more than a reasonable gamble like some MAC or Sun Belter at $1.8M for 5 yrs. They need to show fans and recruits they’re serious and not hoping for lightning in a bottle. It has to have an element of a splash factor or the deafening sound of apathy gets louder with each depressing home loss. Doeren. Campbell. Whittingham ($3.3/yr... do $5.5 x 5). Who could use a change of scenery? Who is at odds with their administration to to point they’d say screw it - I’m out. Like Underwood. Do I think we’ll go that route? Nope. But I can dream of reading a twitter headline of the next hire and being stunned (in a good way)... and not thinking “seems reasonable”.
so long story short, Lovies defense sucks and hiring buddies and family in order to be puppet master of the D, has killed us. Scream scheme all you want, it’s the lack of coaching, BigTen caliber players, adaptability and stubbornness by Lovie. Was hoping he’d change things up in offseason but he did absolutely nothing. Even in a down BigTen, this team still cannot compete. Sad.
So...the tldr version is essentially...the defensive players coached by coaches with NFL level experience have no idea what they are doing while the players coached by college coaches do. At least as a sort of, no nuance baseline.
ChiefGritty
- Chicago, IL
And like, I am far from an X's and O's football expert, but knowing just enough to be dangerous, this makes it basically impossible for me to tell what we're supposed to be in on most of these plays.
How can I tell what the basic architecture of the D is if the safeties are god knows where? That's the first thing you look for!
Full sincerity — you guys have enormous brains and I will always take the bait and pick them.
Some people are calling for Lovie to be fired ASAP or at least during the season, and not sure what the benefits of this are. Presumably, your top candidates to replace him are currently employed, so not like you’re going to get a head start in hiring a replacement. Can still do some back channel gauging of interest with Lovie in place, which is what you’d be doing if he were gone. Just seems like you lose X months of recruiting because with Lovie gone it is official that your lead recruiter is very likely dead man walking. At least with everyone still in place — even though recruits may still think that is the case — at least you can recruit to the point where you’re keeping the relationship somewhat alive so new staff has a decent jumping off point. I mean what is the recruiting message if Lovie is fired Monday? I realize even with him here the pitch isn’t good but seems nonexistent with him fired in midsession
I’m not a big fan of mid-season firings unless reason for dismissal goes beyond just football results. Just don’t think it is a good look. But more I’ve thought about it is there really any benefit other than making some pissed off fans feel a little better? Don’t get me wrong, I believe Lovie should not be the HC next year, but not sure I see value of firing him now.
I’m not a big fan of mid-season firings unless reason for dismissal goes beyond just football results. Just don’t think it is a good look. But more I’ve thought about it is there really any benefit other than making some pissed off fans feel a little better? Don’t get me wrong, I believe Lovie should not be the HC next year, but not sure I see value of firing him now.
I have a few errands to run before the game today and would be willing to write up a much wordier, more technical in-depth response afterward in order to demonstrate what it is Lovie is asking this defense to do each Saturday but for now, I’ll give the short response: Watch the MIKE, watch the boundary corners. Luckily, those two positions are generally where they are supposed to be (Hobbs has issues but he’s a strong assignment player). Their positioning will guide you through what the call is and where each player is supposed to be on the field.
wolfpack fan here checking in. Its interesting to see you guys mentioning Dave Doeren as a possibility. I think he would do fantastic for you in regards to getting your program to 7-8ish wins consistently. He seems more of a program builder however then someone that can really take it to the next level after that. He is an incredibly stubborn coach which makes it frustrating as a fan. He almost left for Tenn a couple of years back so I think he would be open to leave to go back to the midwest. I know for a fact however his wife loves raleigh so that may be an issue. After 7 years it may be time for a mutual split between NCSU and DD. I personally dont want him to leave as he recruits well enough, develops players, runs a good program etc. But he is never going to win anything of substance esp with clemson in our division. He mostly beats the teams he should and rarely beats the teams he shouldnt. Which is why there is some angst about him in raleigh. I think he would go to you guys if the offer was right but I put him leaving us at sub 50%.
In short I think he would do an incredible job elevating your program from what it is today
In short I think he would do an incredible job elevating your program from what it is today
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