I mentioned it during the 3rd quarter, but the more I think about it, lack of depth has to be a huge factor in the defense sucking in the second half of games. That will at least be addressed next year. Losing Graham and Brown (and perhaps Warren) obviously hurts, but I still think they will be significantly better.

Minor RAGE!

R.I.P.

Yeah that huge sample size of Gardner at the college level is really convincing

Stop.

Gardner's passing ability rivals Pryor's. Look at his highlights - he needs help on his mechanics big-time.

no WAY is he ready to be a college starter right now

What I'm trying to say is Tate and the Michigan team as a whole played the way we would expect against a superior team with a one of the best defenses in the country. That's why saying Tate blew the game is going too far. We're not ready yet. It's that simple.

You really are just figuring this out NOW?

Depth at LB should in particular be better, we'll add Bell, Hawthorne, Jones, Cam Gordon, and M. Robinson. Ezeh should never, ever, ever see the field ahead of Leach or Fitz, and hopefully Mouton can finally get his head screwed on straight.

and the sample size of Tate being terrible and getting worse as they season went out and wearing down isn't convincing? he's so bad.

Has anybody heard the outcome of the Inkster game today?

TF post-mortem:

I got these stats from forever ago, but I have some QB stats from BCS QB's from 2002-2007. Of these, there were 25, + Tate, who started as true frosh (100 attempts).

Tate's stats: 58.7%, 7.3 ypa, 1.3 TD/INT ratio, 4.6% TD %, 128.15 rating

By completion %, he is 6th out of 26
By YPA, 5th out of 26
By TD/INT, 10th out of 26
By TD%, 10th out of 26
By rating, 7th out of 26

So, fairly good, all things considered. I don't have sacks/fumbles/rushing yards, so that's incomplete.

Also, unlike, say, Henne in 2004, he clearly does not have an abnormally positive amount of talent around him (Braylon, in Chad's case) helping inflate his stats. Point is, he struggled, but he was a pretty successful frosh QB under the circumstances. I may not be telling anyone anything profound, but it's nice to see the comparison.

I'm gonna go with Inkster 38 Opponent 15

Gardner 12-15 201 yards 15 rushes for 148 yards

He's a freshman. Writing him off now is so absurd.

but gardner is better...

when you have Gardner coming in...I mean...i think its more of letting the #1 recruit in the country at the QB position get his shine on.

Also, improvement: (I have no idea if GREARR is responding to me or not, since I don't read his posts. I trust whatever he is saying is truly profound though.)

So I never finished this, and one day I will, but I was also trying to see how much, on average, guys improve year to year based on experience, how long they've been starting, class, etc.

True frosh starters to true soph year:

Completion percentage on average increased by 2.6%, YPA by .75, TD/INT ratio .37 better, TD% by .26, and rating by 10.6 points.

So, I know you really can't do this, but as a very crude baseline, Tate might have:

61.3%, 8.05 ypa, 1.67 TD/INT, 4.95% TDs, 138 rating. Again, I know it doesn't work like that, but that's a pretty good statline. If nothing else, we've got a lot back on O too, so hopefully that helps him and the offense make a big leap. And you can expect, I think, him to cut down on the really bad mistakes. More than anything else, that would be worth a ton.

lolllllllllllll

IM SO HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD

Those expectations seem realistic to me. Good work.

I'm sorry. I guess I missed all of your insightful posts on the subject of the defense. Everyones always bitching at GRob and talking about how bad the defense is. Depth hasn't been talked about once to explain the second half meltdowns.

FWIW I think Robinson is a decent-to-good coordinator and not entirely to blame for much of the defensive struggles this season

Check out Brian's UFRs for video proof - there's only so much you can do when two of your linebackers show some of the worst football instincts I've seen.

I'll admit I haven't mentioned it itt. I really thought it was too obvious. I've been talking about lack of depth screwing us on D in second halves for a while now with my family and friends. The trend has been apparent at least since The Illinois game. You can believe I'm lying if you like. Don't matter to me.

The savior

I just hope Robinson isn't a poor recruiter as one person itt mentioned *may* be the case.

Also, if Ron Zook gets fired, I really wish Michigan would pick him up and put him in some minimal assistant role. That guy can recruit with the best of them.