Michigan Football Tidbits: Some of the Coaching staff

Coach Dews: As most of you know, we were not a huge fan of Coach Dews last year after watching the wide receivers’ play. They did not run routes hard, rounded off routes and blocking was a huge issue. We were also not impressed with the way he interacted with the players at practice.

Now with what he has done during the off-season, we give him some major props. For one, he is one of the staff’s best recruiters, and many of the recruits and their families comment on how impressed they are with him.

This spring he seems to have a better feel for the wide receiver group and they are playing a little better. His coaching style has seemingly changed completely around. He is joking around with the players now, and the wide receivers are practicing very hard. Some of the wide receivers who admitted they did not buy in a year ago are taking more of a leadership role this year.

Now maybe a quarterback makes all the difference in the world, which is quite possible, but one has to think that Coach Dews represents perfectly what all the coaches went through a year ago. They were frustrated, and might have occassionally over-reacted toward the players.

Michigan had a popular wide receiver coach under Carr, but Coach Dews is growing on the kids and the fans, especially with his ability to recruit.

Coach Frey: We have made our feelings known about Coach Frey since last year when we thought he did the best job with the least amount of bodies or talent, especially during spring football, when he only had seven scholarship players. We think he is one of the best position coaches in college football, especially when coaching spread blocking schemes.

Coach Tall: He really coaches hard and he always consults with the defensive line when they come off the field after playing. Coach Tall has some pressure on him and although he is a great person, we have not seen our defensive line progress as much as we would like.

Even this spring, we just do not seem to get enough pressure or penetration from this group without blitzing. The other area we feel Coach Tall is lacking in is recruiting. Rodriguez moved in two other coaches to help with Ohio; we expressed concerns last year about the recruiting in the Buckeye state.

The most interesting thing we saw in spring was the number of graduate assistants Coach Rod uses on his staff. Maybe they had that many in the past, but we sure did not notice them. This group of graduate assistants is very involved in practice and is constantly running drills. Some even seem to be the “lead coach” at certain positions.

The offensive line graduate assistant (former offensive center at South Florida) is very impressive. We noticed him last year during the coaches clinic, where he showed many techniques the offensive line uses. We think he will be an offensive line coach at some college in the near future.

The running back graduate assistant (former player for Coach Rod at West Virginia) is also impressive and the kids really seem to gravitate toward him for instructions.

The linebacker graduate assistant also helps Coach Robinson with defensive ends. He does a lot of coaching in order to free up Coach Robinson to be the defensive coordinator, which helps because UM has only four coaches on defense. He is a very knowledgeable coach who has great intensity.

The cornerback graduate assistant really helps Coach Gibson and seems to be used quite a bit by Coach Gibson.

As for Coach Gibson: Not sure what to make of him. Some do not think he is a good coach, that he is just a good recruiter. The jury is still out. Coach Gibson seems like a very quiet and shy person, especially when addressing large groups of people, such as at the coach’s clinic. He actually did not address the coaches so that Coach Barwis could spend a little more time with them at the clinic.

He is very personable when you talk to him one on one, but he is not a people person. So far, we do not find anything wrong with the way he coaches, and we are not sure if the defensive backs coach can be blamed for some of Michigan’s defensive troubles. It may be that the defensive scheme being used this spring is the main reason why the offense has been so successful, at least in the scrimmage on April 11.

Because of the added coaches and the way practices are organized and executed, all the players, no matter where they are on depth chart, are given opportunities and coached. Coaches work with the lower rated players just as hard as the top players, which seems to bring the team closer together.

Now that practices are over, the players will take some time off. Finals are coming up and then some of them will go home for a couple weeks. Summer workouts will start the first week of June, and Coach Barwis has already told the kids the summer workouts will be much harder than the winter program–especially the running stuff.

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Written by MaizeMan, CoachBt and ErocWolverine

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