Posts Tagged ‘al borges’

With the status of starting quarterback Denard Robinson's in limbo for the Wolverines match up with Ohio State this weekend, the media focus for Al Borges' weekly press conference turned to backup quarterback Devin Gardner, who has stepped in admirably in Robinson's absence.

One of the strengths for both of those Michigan quarterbacks is their ability to improvise when things break down, and still manage to come up with enough yards for a first down. Whether that means taking off and running, or getting the ball into the hands of another open playmaker, Borges explains that type of improvisation is a valuable skill set for offensive coordinators because it eases the pressure to call the perfect play every snap.

"The key is to keep the chains moving so that you can call more plays," Borges explains. "When people complain 'Well how come this guy isn't touching the ball more?' and 'How come this guy isn't touching the ball more?' it's generally because you're not getting first downs. You don't get the turns and you don't get the calls out."

"There's just no way that you can call everything perfect. You can't do it. So what's going to happen when you don't?"

"I know when I started studying what is commonly called the West Coast offense, you don't catch me using that term very often, I talked to Bill Walsh. I asked him 'What makes a good quarterback and what makes a great quarterback?'":

Walsh responded by telling Borges that it's the third play that makes a great quarterback. System quarterbacks can make the first and second play, but when things break down on the third play, that's when you know whether you have a good quarterback or a great one.

Hear more from Borges on his conversation with Bill Walsh below.

After yet another wild Saturday of college football, which coaches stood above the rest and gave their teams the biggest advantage? Find out in our Week 12 FootballScoop Coaches of the Week.

Head Coach of the Week - Art Bries, Baylor: In his fifth season in Waco, Art Briles continues to transform the DNA of Baylor football. Briles' team earned its first victory over a No. 1-ranked team, and first sub-.500 team to beat a BCS No. 1, and did so by 28 points. Baylor controlled the game for all 60 minutes, scoring first, constructing a 28-7 lead and, when Kansas State pulled within 35-24, ripping off 21 straight points to put the game out of reach. Kansas State, which had imposed its will physically on 10 straight opponents, was dominated at the line of scrimmage as Baylor out-rushed the Wildcats 342-76. Phil Bennett's defense also forced Heisman Trophy front-runner Collin Klein off his game as he threw for 286 yards and two touchdowns, but needed 50 passes (and 23 incompletions) to get there, with a season-high three interceptions. 

Offensive Staff of the Week - Michigan: The Wolverines didn't do anything spectacular in their 42-17 win over Iowa, but this award honors their methodical demolition of the Hawkeyes defense. The Wolverines' first six drives of the game went as follows: 12 plays, 70 yards, touchdown; seven plays, 79 yards, touchdown; eight plays, 85 yards, touchdown; seven plays, 87 yards, touchdown; 11 plays, 81 yards, touchdown; and six plays, 60 yards, touchdown. That's 452 yards on 51 plays (8.86 yards per play) of unrelenting execution from Al Borges' offense. Junior quarterback Devin Gardner got the start and completed 18-of-23 passes for 314 yards with three touchdowns and an interception while rushing nine times for 37 yards and three more scores. With regular starting quarterback Denard Robinson nursing a wrist injury, Michigan utilized him at running back (13 carries for a team-leading 98 yards) and wide receiver (two catches for 24 yards). 

Defensive Staff of the Week - Stanford: Not since Chip Kelly's first game had Oregon been held to 14 points or less, a span of 50 games. In fact, the Ducks came in to Saturday night riding an NCAA-record streaks of 13 straight games of 40 points or more and 23 straight games of 30 points or more, but none of that mattered in Stanford 17-14 overtime win in Eugene. Over four quarters plus overtime, Stanford held Oregon under its 2012 first quarter scoring average. Derek Mason's defense forced Oregon to punt eight times, matching a season high and held the Ducks to a season-low 405 yards of total offense. Stanford committed three turnovers, but the Cardinal's defense limited Oregon to no points off those takeaways. 

Special Teams Unit of the Week - LSU: Trailing 35-28 in the fourth quarter, a sputtering LSU offense faced a long field ahead of it until Odell Beckham returned an Ole Miss punt 89 yards for a game-tying touchdown. "Everyone had their block, everyone had their man and everyone covered their assignments," Beckham said following the return. Beckham's score completely swung momentum of the game as LSU would eventually win the game, 41-35. Drew Alleman nailed two-of-three field goal attempts and, despite another Les Miles coming up empty on another gamble, made all three of the extra points he actually attempted. Brad Wing boomed five punts for a 44.8-yard average with three pinned inside the 20, and the special teams coordinator Thomas McGaughey's coverage units did not allow Ole Miss any significant returns. 

Call of the Week - Dana Holgorsen, West Virginia: It may not have resulted in a win, but Oklahoma had no answer for Holgorsen's decision to play wide receiver Tavon Austin at running back. Austin, who had carried the ball 14 times for 103 yards thus far this season, rushed 21 times for a school-record 344 yards and two touchdowns. Coupled with his four receptions for 82 yards and his eight kickoff returns for 146 yards, Austin's 572 all-purpose yards were school and Big 12 records and came just six yards shy of tying the NCAA record. 

After losing one of the nation's most dynamic play makers in Denard Robinson on Saturday, Michigan's offense started to struggle behind an ineffective run game and a backup quarterback. Those two things are never a good combination for any offensive coordinator.

Offensive coordinator Al Borges was asked about the recent offenses struggles yesterday, and responded with a quote that he had heard from Bill Parcells years ago.

"The media and everybody always want to blame it on one thing, whether it's depth, or the playcalling or whatever. I heard Bill Parcells say this years ago, 'It's never one thing, it's always a bunch of things.'"

"As you go through and you critique a tape, and you look at the play calling, and you look at the blocking, it bears it out. Seldom is it the same guy making the error time and time again. I won't say that never happens, but it's usually a combination of issues that prevent you from succeeding, just like it's a combination of issues that help you when you do succeed."

Earlier in the interview, Borges noted an interesting statistic that should catch the attention of offensive coordinators. In the years that his teams have been most successful in the red zone, they've ran for 60% of their red zone touchdowns. 

During last years loss to Michigan State, Al Borges admits that the Wolverines were outmatched physically across the board.

The Spartan defense held the Wolverines to just 82 yards rushing and 250 yards of total offense on the day, something that Borges knows that they have to improve on coming into this weekend's match up with the Spartans in The Big House.

In their past 19 games, the Wolverines have failed to rush for 100 yards just three times, and are 1-2 in those games. Their game against Michigan State last year (a 28-14 loss) marked the first time in the Brady Hoke era that Michigan failed to reach the century mark on the ground. Their other two games were against Virginia Tech (a 23-20 win) in their January Bowl game, and their 2012 opener against Alabama (a 41-14 loss).

Over the past five games, the Michigan run game has been impressive., running for over 200 yards in four of the five contests. Four out of the past five games (against Illinois, Purdue, UMass and Air Force) Michigan has ran for over 200 yards, During that span, the only game that they came up short of the 200 yard mark was against Notre Dame, where they ran for 161 yards against a top 25 run defense.

This weekend, Hoke and the offensive staff have put together a game plan that hopes to take advantage of a Spartans defensive scheme that will likely look similar to the one that they put together last season that successfully stifled the Wolverine offense.

"You just study their schemes and work on how to attack their schemes," Borges explained. "You've got to practice what you think they're going to do, have hopefully some good, calculated play calls that put you in some advantageous situations, hope the lesser play calls aren't disastrous so you can line up and play again."

"I've been coaching that way forever and I'll always coach that way, whether it's Michigan State or whoever. You've got to study, study, study and hope your players understand what you're teaching them. Go get them. Don't over evaluate, don't under evaluate. Let the kids play fast. That's really the key."

In today's landscape of college football of up tempo offenses, focused on getting eighty plus snaps, and putting up 50 or 60 points per game, Borges admits it's not likely that they'll put up 500 yards a game. That's just not the way that they're built. Their approach of grinding it out while trying to get the most out of every possession, taking the occasional shot at the big play, is a little different than today's norm. 

"We're not an up-tempo team. We're not likely we're to have 500 yards a game. We don't play that game. We want to make sure there's a balance in the game, keep our defense off the field. We want to run the football, convert third downs...play what Brady calls Michigan football...it's not very popular these days."

"Our plan is we want to possess the ball as much as we can, score as many points as we can but not to the point we're so obsessed with running 80 football plays that we could have three and outs that could keep our defense on the field."

Twenty points will be the magical number for the Wolverines on Saturday, and they shouldn't need eighty snaps to get to it (the Wolverines are averaging just under 64 plays per game and 34 points per game). Under Brady Hoke, the Wolverines are undefeated (15-0) when scoring 20 or more points, and winless (0-4) when scoring less than 20 points.

Kickoff is scheduled for 3:30pm ET and can be seen on the Big Ten Network.