M-Borg vs. THE Flavortown U Thread, Orig. by Buckeye Paul, absconded w/by talent.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Brutal effort tonight. Good lord.

Well, yes ..... then again, it looks like the entire BT will go 10-10 in conference losing every away game and winning evry home game...... heh.

Dark days for osu: The Goophers down bucky and Hafley bolts to BC.

Who was really running osu's D? Mattison? Hafley? What happens to Barnes? Al Washington? Bump-ups to Co-DC? Who replaces Hafley ....... I've heard Wisconsin's DC, Jim Leonhard may be in play as he could be lured away with big bucks from osu. If So, does Mattison "retire?" Seems like osu got it's money's worth from him. Fitting if he got eased out.

Not as exciting as the regular football season but the off-season offers a lot of drama.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Dark days indeed. Athletic Department in disarray

[iam416]

Mattison isn't going anywhere. Mattison called the plays. It's Mattison's defensive philosophy in place. I listened to the 2 minutes from Mgo on it and they continue to amaze with their sheer ignorance of Ohio State. I think they literally have zero interest in knowing anything about Ohio State.

Hafley is really good with DBs and did a really nice job working with Mattison to put together coverage schemes that fit within the framework of what Mattison wanted to do. Hafley is a rockstar recruiter. He was only going to be around for 2 years tops anyway. He is definitely on his way up and I think BC is actually a place where you can win a little.

So, Mattison is still the DC. Chris Ash was really interested in coming back to OSU. He really likes OSU and likes Day. But, he's not a "co"-DC and his defensive philosophy doesn't mix well with Mattison's, so he found his other familiar home with Herman. As a quick aside, Rutgers hosed him. Basically, they promised Ash all the shit Schiano eventually got in writing. But, they never delivered. He was running an FCS program. Schiano knew this. That's why he wasn't going there unless he got commitments in writing and such. I still really like Ash as a DC and as a recruiter.

Right now, the rumor is they are targeting Kerry Coombs to come back. He would fit into a co-DC category. He's not particularly wed to playing fucking press man 95% of the time, so he fits in with Mattison. He's a great recruiter and, TBH, he was a great DB coach.

If Coombs stays in Tennessee then they'll almost surely look for someone like Hafley -- a young NFL secondary coach that I've almost certainly not heard of.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Agree with you on the downward trend of useful insight at mgo. I have no idea of what the organizational chemistry is like there but Brian appears to have checked out and there is some disarray. Don't really care ..... I suspect during the off-season we might see some of the better staff bloggers (Seth and these days he's about it) go elsewhere.

I use mgobard as a sort-of news feed. I don't have a FB or Twitter account, don't use Snap Chat and a good deal of information during the off-season starts on social media - being suspicious of the quality of such information a necessary position as a consumer of it. The more I use Google News and its capacity to know what I'm interested in, the better my feeds. I read the article on Hafley to BC and names to watch as his replacement from Fansided 250, the Scarlet and Game segment.

[iam416]

I'd be surprised (and thrilled) if they got Coombs to come back.

My guess is it will be someone I've never heard of.

I should also note -- to be clear -- that Hafley was very involved in the defense. He was involved in the scheming, the planning and had free reign with the secondary. And the end of the day, though, only one guy can call plays and it was Mattison with Hafley's input. So, Hafley wasn't some glorified position coach. He was legit. It's a definite loss for OSU.

[hack]

Brian's logic and hardheadedness leads him to big hits and big misses. It sure is food for thought that Harbaugh saw Mattison in the decelerating phase of his career and OSU sees him differently. Michigan people can feel how they feel about Mattison but the non-feelings independent-of-rivalry stuff is a lesson there for the taking as we consider what can be done with our statistically elite/fails in big games defense. Probably is a lesson that won't be taken, at least by any media.

But, to Jeff's point, even though its true about Brian that he doesn't man up in ways sports writers have done in the professional world, he brings something else that's really valuable. Mgoblog roundtable with Sam Webb is a super example of this. Sam mans up and talks about what has to be talked about because that's his job. Brian should want to, but doesn't, and doesn't have to. I'm sure if he got enough feedback asking him to that might change things, but he's got a business model and it does not require him to do that, at least as far as I can see from the steady growth in advertising he attracts. Probably he gets away with that for the same reason that the forum there is awful. But the value there is that his Spockian non-jock approach lets him see some stuff sometimes that a person who comes from Sam's conventional approach cannot. Both of them of course are a key part of a balanced media diet.

[iam416]

On the micro point, I think it's possible to view Mattison precisely the same way but the circumstances determine his value to your group. M likely thinks Don Brown is an elite DC. They probably think Mattison is a solid DC. If you have elite then you don't care if solid walks out the door. Ohio State was in desperate need of solid. I don't think anyone at Ohio State thinks Mattison is an elite hotshot DC.

On the macro point, I think Mgo still does a pretty good job with M sports and that's the entire point of the blog. It is, in fact, entirely unsurprising that, when it comes to opponents, it's rife with meme "analysis." I don't ever go there to listen to their perspective on Ohio State because they pretty much don't have one of any value at this point. It pretty much amounts to some sort of hipster aloofness mixed with a healthy dose of snark. And, again, perhaps that's what his audience wants.

[hack]

Well certainly it's something you don't want to hear, and it doesn't offer you anything insightful as Michigan Monday does for us. Whether he's wrong or not, or whether that point has been made and there are others to make as well, is another story.

As for Mattison, for Michigan specifically, this is an invitation to think about whether you need elite or solid. Different levels of talent on the two defenses, so that's a factor. But Don Brown's unconventional approach hasn't worked against others as well at times -- PSU two years ago the primary example -- and certainly some Michigan folks have wondered whether the contrarian approach is too valued here. But that seems to be a Harbaugh trait. For better or worse, he just seems to be the kind of contrarian who values having different Xs and Os and isn't likely to just do what works because it works.

[Jeff Buchanan]

An interesting point about the contrarian aspects of JH and the potential that he is attracted to DB becasue of that.

From what I've read about Brown he has a lot cred among his peers and while elite is somewhat of a subjective characterization, right or wrong, h'e probably viewed like that. But his defenses at M getting torched by elite offenses makes me question how elite he is - solid, OK - but elite? I don't think so based on his performance at M.

Again from reading about defenses across CFB, the good ones don't have predictability or exploitable trends, especially those that can be pinned on a specific player. Seems to me, correcting bad player trends - and how McGrone could be bated into stepping inside v. the dobbins play is an example - comes down to coaching. Purely speculative but if a scheme looks good on paper like Brown's seem to be but can be exploited by OCs who can pick-up on trends within those schemes, esp. to the extent osu.ufm/day have done, it's time to re-evaluate.

While Brown is known for the complex looks he presents to QBs, there may be two problems with that. Over the season, his looks become predictable and appear in a pattern. The complexity leads to breakdowns when players don't understand their changing roles play-to-play or they are facing OCs who know how to bait them.

I like Don Brown. I hate turn-over. I suspect he is a domineering DC who assistants are overly deferential to. Maybe think about elevating Chris Partridge to Co-DC or bringing in a young gun from the NFL to clear some staleness and bring in some fresh thinking.

[hack]

At this point I'm open, but am particularly interested in the position coaching. Our corners have all developed nicely. Can't say the same for the DL or LBs, where it's been hit and miss and maybe more of the latter than the former. McGrone is a year younger than that Singletary/Anthony/Solomon LB class that ended up a total dud. Watching Meyer break down Hudson's fundamentals was painful. Gary learned nothing over his whole time here. Etc., etc.

[Hannibal]

Brian has been increasingly phoning it in for the past five years. I think that Harbaugh's failures have really broken him. An increasing amount of the site's content has been written by his sycophantic and much less talented employees.

[hack]

Not that its value is anywhere near the same without him, but if he sold it and walked away that would not surprise me. He certainly doesn't seem cut out to handle decades more of this as a career.

I don't know if he's the only broken one, that said. Harbaugh seems to be an assemblage of pieces of a former self as well.

[froot loops]

I would always rather have a coordinator like Mattison than Brown. Especially if you have a team getting a lot of talent through recruiting. In a perfect world you never have to over commit with blitzes. The more you are in base coverage the better.

[hack]

Brown inherited a ton of talent, and he certainly has an eye for three-star players out of NE. The overall level of talent is lower now; the results have been the same. There's arguments for and against, including your particularly valid point. I think it might be better for now to take a hard look at position coaching.

[WingsFan]

True 75%

False 25%