Mailbag question: Denard being an impact

Posted at 4:00pm — 7/30/2010

Mailbag question: Denard being an impact

Thanks for answering my previous question so promptly.

What do you think?

One thing I think that would really amp up the offense is if Denard can drop back a little, and if no one is WIDE open, start jetting toward the LOS–but here is the important part–if he can keep his eyes down field as the play develops and hit those guys that COME open, the offense would truly be dangerous. Combine the above and his already proven ability to just hit the afterburners and you now have a true dual threat QB. He does not have to be able to sit in the pocket, read the defense, and make a laser-like throw (not to mention charging defenders). Vince Young did this a lot and he made timely throws that moved the chains while trotting toward the line of scrimmage. If Denard, and I believe he will, can do this as well, the Michigan offense should be loaded for bear. If he does this, I think 8 wins is a given.

Thanks again.

BlueGrit

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Thanks for the question.

No Problem, we try to keep up with the e-mail questions as much as we can and the mailbag section is a top priority. It is now time to ramp up the coverage from the sleepy summer and GBMWolverine will now go back to posting several articles a day like we typically do during the football season and the primary recruiting season (December-February). So, readers please help us out by offering more emails for the mailbag section and the staff will work on reasonably quick responses. Emails discussing recruits, team groups, performance and progress, and other Michigan sports are welcome. Especially valuable to many readers are mailbag questions and Coach’s Corner articles about the technical nature of football, the famous X’s and O’s.

Now to your question and thank you for again writing.

There is no doubt Denard Robinson is a phenomenal athlete, his speed and acceleration are scary.

The staff at GBMWolverine expects that Denard will add a big play dimension to the offense and create more space for others. As teams commit a defender to “spy” on Denard Robinson this necessary defensive adjustment will open up space for others to operate. One of the primary philosophical tenets of the spread is to create space and take advantage of slight errors by defenders to gain big yardage by skilled athletes. Denard is such an athlete.

In our opinion the key to Denard’s overall success this year will be his development as an accurate passer. Denard has plenty of arm strength, but if he is not enough of a threat passing, teams will pull the safeties up and lessen the space he has to use. In addition, last year Denard ran basically up the middle into a collapsing posse of defenders.

The tackles must do a better job of neutralizing edge defenders who last year simply took away the perimeter and funneled both quarterbacks into the middle. With no serious passing threat the same results could be expected this upcoming season, regardless of who mans the qb spot.

GBMWolverine believes Michigan has done an acceptable but not exemplary job of stretching the field horizontally. The next logical step is to now stretch the field vertically (a clear current weakness of the UM offense) with the tight ends and wide-outs to make use of the entire field and minimize opportunities for the defense to stack the defense within five yards of the line of scrimmage. Spread the bread is a term used for offensive strategies that use every weapon placing the defense in a position where defenders must play straight up and not ignore any offensive option on the field.

How many wins? That is a tough question to answer accurately based on only the play of the quarterback. The qb in the spread is critical to a team’s success, but there are still 21 other starters, plus special team play that is clearly critical to achieving wins.

One obvious thing Michigan must do this year to improve the win total is cut down the turnovers. The past two seasons have produced excessive turnovers and games have been lost because of this liability.

Thank you for writing.

Written by GBMWolverine Staff

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