Jimmy Clausen is sporting a new ‘do and was showing it off against SDSU. Check it out:
Posted under Video
Mike Gundy Responds to Big Ten Coaches
Mike Gundy is sick and tired of Big Ten coaches telling lies and misleading not only the public, but also unwitting recruits. He’s here to set the record straight. Enjoy:
Posted under Video
The Shafer Profile Part II
The part with the videos.
Now that we’ve familiarized ourselves with some of Shafer’s credential’s, let’s delve into some tape from last year’s Cardinal and take a look at his schemes (spoiler alert: lots of blitzing).
Shafer runs a multiple-front defense, with a base 4-3. Against spread-type offenses, he’ll use a package called the “3-4 Okie” which, as the name implies, is a 3-4 scheme. The purpose of the Okie scheme is to disguise defenses so the offense can never tell who is actually blitzing on a given play. Often, on of the linebacker positions will be manned by a safety (or a LB/S hybrid) for a sort of 3-3-5 look, but with two safeties high.
4-3
One of Shafer’s favorite blitzes from the 4-3 stack is a dual-OLB fire.
There are also several other blitzes where he will send at least one linebacker, but often more.
3-4 Okie
The design of this package is intended to confuse the offense into not knowing who will rush on a given play. For much more on the Okie, read up on it over at 3 and Out, run by an MGoBlog commenter/high school coach who runs the Okie as his base package.
Risks
While an aggressive defense can help generate pressure on the quarterback, there are also disadvantages. For example, if the defense overpursues, they will be vulnerable to misdirection, such as counter runs and screen passes. In addition, if the pressure package doesn’t get to the quarterback, there isn’t going to be as much help in the secondary. An aggressive blitz scheme can often leave the secondary in man coverage.
When you have the athletes to match up (which Michigan will in most of its games this year), it can work to your advantage. However, it can create mismatches for the offense to exploit.
Losing to the Irish
For those worrying about how Shafer lost to Notre Dame, there is a little bit of reassurance to be had. For one thing, The Irish had a drive that was all of 14 yards, and the other two scoring drives were aided by big plays that were the result of poor execution (or simply not having the talent that Notre Dame boasts), not poor scheming.
Ed. Note: Thanks to Mike Gleeson, Stanford Video Coordinator for the game film, and to VB über-commenter RJ for hooking me up with Gleeson.
Mike Barwis for President
More of a “video piece” than a “podcast” per se. I don’t think people will complain. (Note: there’s a NSF word around the one minute mark)
Thanks goes out to GoBlueWolverine for one of the video snippets, our comrades at Wolverine Liberation Army for the paragraph in the opening shot, and this particular Barack Obama ad, and Ace of Sports (citing Adam Rittenberg) for the inspiration.
Also, there is a frighteningly robust community on YouTube of… wolf fans… …?
A Call for Assistance
If anybody has video of Stanford 2007 (the easiest to find will be USC or Notre Dame, but I’d prefer videos that aren’t just highlights), please shoot me an e-mail.
Same goes for Western Michigan from 2005 and/or 2006, but I imagine those will be a bit more difficult to find.
Posted under Video
Recruiting Update 7-28-08
New Information:
SC OL Quinton Washington. Not expected to take an official to Michigan.
FL QB Eugene Smith. Re-widens his focus after previously having narrowed to a top 5.
CA QB Tate Forcier. Top 6.
PA LB Dan Mason. Will commit to a school at the Army AA game. His current plan for official visits doesn’t include Michigan.
OK CB Gabe Lynn. Fluff.
FL Slot commit Jeremy Gallon. Most important news EVER: he has dreads.
SC DE Chris Bonds. Official visit schedule shaping up. Notre Dame visit for the Michigan game (and he will be unavailable for the big UM-MSU recruiting weekend, when he will be visiting Tennessee).
FL DE Ryne Giddins. Michigan outside of his top 6.
MD LB Jelani Jenkins. GBW headline says a super linebacker visited on Saturday, and the accompanying picture is of Jenkins, so we can assume he visited this weekend, no? Video fluff:
Removed:
MS S Rod Woodson. Committed to Alabama.
Posted under Recruiting, Video
Varsity Blue Podcast
West Virginia Offense. Next week we’ll get back to recruiting.
From The Archives…
Going through the old WOLV tapes, I finally found the original masters of the Shomari and Sean O’Neill Show. In their 1997-98 season they interviewed Charles Woodson a number of times. This episode includes an interview with the soon to be Heisman Trophy winner at Good Time Charlie’s slightly before the Ohio State Game.
In case you didn’t hear, he ordered the monster order of fries…
Posted under Video
Varsity Blue Podcast Episode 3
UPDATE: I just update the podcast feed, so if you subscribe, you might have to tell your software to check the feed again. In the future I’ll try to get it updated over the weekend. Also, I resubmitted it to iTunes, apparently it rejected it last time. If you want to manually add the podcast feed to your iTunes copy this:
http://www.panel-creations.com/varsity_blue/podcast/vblue_podcast.xml
Select Advanced>Subscribe to Podcast and paste the URL. It should then automatically update each week.
Posted under Recruiting, Video