Denard Robinson is someone you know.
Michigan's junior quarterback exploded onto the national college football scene in 2010, his first season as a starter.
The 6-foot, 195-pounder from Deerfield Beach, Fla., became the first player in NCAA history to pass for 2,500 yards (2,570; 18 touchdowns) and rush for 1,500 yards (1,702 yards; 14 touchdowns) in the same season.
Robinson was voted Big Ten offensive player of the year. He was sixth in voting for the Heisman Trophy. He was selected first-team All-American by the Football Writers Association of America as a running back.
Now, here's someone most of you don't know: Al Borges.
He's the new offensive coordinator at Michigan after stops at Diablo Valley College, Portland State, Boise State, Oregon, UCLA, California, Indiana, Auburn and San Diego State.
And by new, I mean that Borges is the guy trying to teach Robinson to quit running the spread offense from last season and to learn the pro-style system new head coach Brady Hoke embraces.
All of which leads to this question:
Why in the world would you change offenses with a returning quarterback like Robinson, who gained 502 yards HIMSELF against Notre Dame?
At Big Ten media days, Robinson fielded 11 questions about Borges in the first 14 minutes of his session with reporters.
The quarterback was calm under pressure, playing coy about the new offense's alignments and focus, all the while showing enthusiasm for the switch and his new coordinator.
"Coach Borges can be energetic,'' Robinson said. "He tells us at the start of every practice, 'This is serious.'"
So we'll leave it to Hoke to explain in detail why the offense needed to change.
It's mostly about defense.
Confused? Don't be, Hoke said. Because for all of the yards and points the Michigan offense produced last season, it couldn't cover up for its stink bomb of a defense.
How bad was it? The 5,860 yards allowed were 25 percent more than the previous worst any Wolverine defense had given up.
The defensive-pedigreed Hoke believes that bad, soft defense is a result of practicing regularly against a basketball-on-grass spread offense.
"When your defense plays against a pro-style offense all spring and all fall camp,'' he said, "you build a toughness and an edge.
"This is a physical football league with physical offenses and people who run the football. We think we can play better defense because we do things offensively that help us feed off each other.''
Now, Hoke is no dummy. You don't succeed at Ball State (a term that included a one-point loss at Nebraska in 2007) and San Diego State without knowing what you're doing.
So just because Robinson will take snaps under center instead of in the shotgun doesn't mean that the guy with a 4.32-second time in the 40-yard dash will become a dropback passer and handoff specialist.
Said Hoke: "We are smart enough — which I know people don't usually say about me — to have elements in our offense which Denard does well from what he did in the spread.''
Easing the transition is the fact Robinson ran a pro-style attack in high school.
"Being under center and changing plays, all of that is comfortable,'' he said. "They are telling me not to force anything. And if men aren't open, I'm supposed to take off.
"It can be like a broken play. That's one of the hardest plays in football to defend.''
Robinson's familiarity with Hoke's offensive preference didn't stop him from thinking about a transfer after Michigan fired Rich Rodriguez.
"My mind was spinning,'' Robinson said. "I didn't know what to do. That's the guy who recruited me.
"But I was with family and friends and teammates, and we talked. Hey, our fifth-year seniors have been through three coaches, so I talked to them about it. They all said you aren't going to find a better school than Michigan.''
Hoke reminds the Wolverines of that every day.
"He tells us, 'We're Michigan and we're held to a standard,'" Robinson said. "That's to win and compete for the Big Ten title every year. So that's what we better try to do.''
Contact the writer:
402-444-1024, [email protected]
Copyright ©2011 Omaha World-Herald®. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, displayed or redistributed for any purpose without permission from the Omaha World-Herald.
9 Comments
Posted by: skers on 08/19/11 @ 2:03 am:
uh oh! hope our defense doesn't suddenly get soft.
Posted by: Donnie2112 on 08/19/11 @ 5:03 am:
I remain completely unconvinced that Meat-Chicken is going to do a sudden 180 on the D in their first year. Additionally, the model that Hoke brings up is silly, there's plenty of quality defenses that play against spread attacks in the spring and fall camps and can still play up against physical teams. It's all empty rhetoric.
Posted by: gnome master on 08/19/11 @ 9:13 am:
So they don't understand the concept of scout teams and defensive drills?
Posted by: Meechigan on 08/19/11 @ 9:50 am:
Hoke's an idiot re: the "defenses practicing against the spread" crap. Was Auburn's defense soft vs Alabama? 2.3 yards per rush.
Posted by: MaskedCabana on 08/19/11 @ 10:08 am:
A mobile QB can be just as dangerous running out of designed pass plays as designed QB rushes. Also, the RichRod offense sputtered against good defenses and lit up poor to average defenses. New philosophy for sure, but it's not going to be 7 step drops and then be a statue back there.
Posted by: david3464 on 08/19/11 @ 10:47 am:
Yeah n/k...So tell that to tOSU D the last few yrs, Neb. D, OU D...and Boise State D. Auburn D was pretty tough last year also...What a stupid thing to say as a coach.
Posted by: Not A Husker on 08/19/11 @ 2:18 pm:
Going from the Big 12 to the Big 10 was going from the frying pan to the fire. A Big 12 North Championship will soon be the stuff of "Remember When".
Posted by: Riggz83 on 08/19/11 @ 2:58 pm:
Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
Posted by: John on 08/19/11 @ 3:44 pm:
This whole article is at the very best uninformed. Nowhere has Borges claimed they are going back to a full pro-style offensive for the next season. He has even at times claimed that they will run Denard 15-20 times a game. Additionally, Borges has always used spread sets with several receivers and QBs can run just as well on a scramble as they can on a designed run or zone read. Also, Neb is going to have a very tough time coming into the conference. The Big 12 has terrible defense and mostly passing offenses. Michigan's terrible, inexperienced, and injury-ridden defense still held the veteran UCONN team to 10 points in the first game while Oklahoma let up 20 to the very same team in the bowl game.