Everything I am bulleting here is to compare and contrast the personnel we saw in the college football postseason and where we stand today:
* Of the 4 playoff QBs only CJ Stroud will play in the NFL into a 2nd QB. On the other hand, average QB play ultimately saw the descent of Playoff regulars Clemson and Oklahoma. Great QB play and scheme saw Tennessee wake up the echoes.
* Georgia's multiple TE scheme is devastating; it's why I really wanted Prieskorn and wished we could have gotten Marshon Ford back. It's the antithesis to empty sets and it allows for outflanking defenses on the edge with tight ends across the formation (Kentucky killed us with it in 2021). When we went empty with Cunningham it usually meant he was running it. I suspect under Brohm with the emphasis he has had getting WRs in here we are going to see empty and 4 WR sets at a rate we have never seen at Louisville.
Eventually I think a multipurpose QB will have to be the departure from Brohm's prototypical QB; Plummer is good for what we need now, but a more athletic QB--and think Jordan Travis more than Lamar Jackson--will become necessary.
* I always think of that scene from Saving Private Ryan when they hit their objective with heavy casualties and Capt. Miller says to Sgt. Horvath "it's not enough...it's not enough" We don't have enough on the offensive line or at DE to compete with Clemson and Florida State. Yet. Thankfully they aren't on our schedule next year but we didn't block Clemson this season with what we thought was a decent personnel group; we did Florida State but we generated running yardage out of the QB position in a way we won't moving forward--and I'm actually alright with that. But we have a long way to go to get to the level we saw in the NY Bowls and the last two weekends at OT. We don't need a Mekhi Becton caliber OT, we need TWO Mekhi Becton caliber OTs....and Roman Oben/Bruce Armstrong caliber OGs. Look at your 1st round draft board and it's littered with OTs from teams that were in the New Year's caliber bowls and the playoffs...and the EDGE rushers they were tasked to block. We landed some parts on Signing Day and in the Portal, but they aren't the physically finished products we saw in the postseason. Stanquan Clark is a Dude, TJ Capers is a Dude...Adonijah Green will have to be developed into one in the weightroom. We have decent numbers with our DTs, but we need that Dude that is the first question an offensive coordinator asks his line coach "do we need to game plan double teams on number 9#?"
* While a progressive, exciting scheme can make a big difference in regular season and League play--something we saw with the re-emergence of USC, USC Jr. and Tennessee--I am fond of the edit to the time worn--and I think completely outdated--phrase "Defense wins championships". No, Firepower wins championships. The ability to produce chunk yardage offensively into big plays and the ability of a defense to both negate those and inflict long yardage situations with explosiveness from your DEs. Blitzing attempts to mask those differences where they exist...but firepower says even a great CB 1v1 on a great WR is going to lose most of his battles and Michigan found that out in spades against TCU. TCU found out early they stood no chance getting to Bennett without blitzing and were outmanned; they had tubs of goo isolated on GA's TEs and it looked like the Chippendale's spot on SNL between Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze. They were doomed from the opening whistle.
* I am concerned about our scheme under English because I always perceived him all the way back to Michigan to be fairly unimaginative in the traditional Big Ten sense. God forbid but what we saw from Brian Brown from mid-October on was a combination of personnel experience within the scheme and some imagination without sacrificing to big plays. He was getting home against Pitt and Wake with 3, 4 and 5 rush combinations; it wasn't selling out. We were a beat late against Clemson and struggled to get their offense off the field and we never blocked their O line with any consistency. We are really going to miss Abdullah's versatility and ability to be moved around into different spots with impact. On a personnel level I think we have potentially one of the best secondaries in the ACC; but we need people to get home at the DEs. We need people to elevate to an all-ACC standard.
* One thing I am taking as a big positive...if the Notre Dame game is played somewhere between the USC and Clemson games it is sitting on a freaking tee for us. I guess we'll know if that's the case in by the end of the month.
* Of the 4 playoff QBs only CJ Stroud will play in the NFL into a 2nd QB. On the other hand, average QB play ultimately saw the descent of Playoff regulars Clemson and Oklahoma. Great QB play and scheme saw Tennessee wake up the echoes.
* Georgia's multiple TE scheme is devastating; it's why I really wanted Prieskorn and wished we could have gotten Marshon Ford back. It's the antithesis to empty sets and it allows for outflanking defenses on the edge with tight ends across the formation (Kentucky killed us with it in 2021). When we went empty with Cunningham it usually meant he was running it. I suspect under Brohm with the emphasis he has had getting WRs in here we are going to see empty and 4 WR sets at a rate we have never seen at Louisville.
Eventually I think a multipurpose QB will have to be the departure from Brohm's prototypical QB; Plummer is good for what we need now, but a more athletic QB--and think Jordan Travis more than Lamar Jackson--will become necessary.
* I always think of that scene from Saving Private Ryan when they hit their objective with heavy casualties and Capt. Miller says to Sgt. Horvath "it's not enough...it's not enough" We don't have enough on the offensive line or at DE to compete with Clemson and Florida State. Yet. Thankfully they aren't on our schedule next year but we didn't block Clemson this season with what we thought was a decent personnel group; we did Florida State but we generated running yardage out of the QB position in a way we won't moving forward--and I'm actually alright with that. But we have a long way to go to get to the level we saw in the NY Bowls and the last two weekends at OT. We don't need a Mekhi Becton caliber OT, we need TWO Mekhi Becton caliber OTs....and Roman Oben/Bruce Armstrong caliber OGs. Look at your 1st round draft board and it's littered with OTs from teams that were in the New Year's caliber bowls and the playoffs...and the EDGE rushers they were tasked to block. We landed some parts on Signing Day and in the Portal, but they aren't the physically finished products we saw in the postseason. Stanquan Clark is a Dude, TJ Capers is a Dude...Adonijah Green will have to be developed into one in the weightroom. We have decent numbers with our DTs, but we need that Dude that is the first question an offensive coordinator asks his line coach "do we need to game plan double teams on number 9#?"
* While a progressive, exciting scheme can make a big difference in regular season and League play--something we saw with the re-emergence of USC, USC Jr. and Tennessee--I am fond of the edit to the time worn--and I think completely outdated--phrase "Defense wins championships". No, Firepower wins championships. The ability to produce chunk yardage offensively into big plays and the ability of a defense to both negate those and inflict long yardage situations with explosiveness from your DEs. Blitzing attempts to mask those differences where they exist...but firepower says even a great CB 1v1 on a great WR is going to lose most of his battles and Michigan found that out in spades against TCU. TCU found out early they stood no chance getting to Bennett without blitzing and were outmanned; they had tubs of goo isolated on GA's TEs and it looked like the Chippendale's spot on SNL between Chris Farley and Patrick Swayze. They were doomed from the opening whistle.
* I am concerned about our scheme under English because I always perceived him all the way back to Michigan to be fairly unimaginative in the traditional Big Ten sense. God forbid but what we saw from Brian Brown from mid-October on was a combination of personnel experience within the scheme and some imagination without sacrificing to big plays. He was getting home against Pitt and Wake with 3, 4 and 5 rush combinations; it wasn't selling out. We were a beat late against Clemson and struggled to get their offense off the field and we never blocked their O line with any consistency. We are really going to miss Abdullah's versatility and ability to be moved around into different spots with impact. On a personnel level I think we have potentially one of the best secondaries in the ACC; but we need people to get home at the DEs. We need people to elevate to an all-ACC standard.
* One thing I am taking as a big positive...if the Notre Dame game is played somewhere between the USC and Clemson games it is sitting on a freaking tee for us. I guess we'll know if that's the case in by the end of the month.
