Michigan Offensive Breakdown With Al Borges (Natty!): This team was on a mission and they executed.
Every week TMI’s Sam Webb and former Michigan offensive coordinator Al Borges come together for the Michigan offensive breakdown, a review of the prior week’s contest with a deep dive into game strategy and analysis. Borges uses his decades of coordinating experience to explain key takeaways for the Wolverines moving forward. To view the most recent installment in its entirety, press play on the video embedded below.
Sam Webb: Yeah, I hear what you’re saying about [the Bama game] being the national championship [game]. I felt like they dominated both, though. Bama; that game was close because Michigan made mistakes. Not that we’re gonna be telestrating it, but you think about two muffed punts that they had in that game, a missed field goal, and a missed extra point. I mean, in that game, if those things don’t happen, I wonder if Bama is run off the field. This Washington game was very much on the verge of the Huskies being run off the field. I think it was a little bit deceiving because that fourth down call… I wonder what you thought about it, Al, from a play call prospective. Because they ran a split zone on the third and seven. I’ve gone over this, split zone on third and seven, and I was thinking, ‘all right, this must be… he’s running it here and he feels like if he gets close enough he’s gonna go for it on fourth down’. They gained four yards, and I said, ‘Well, okay, they gotta punt.’. And they said the same thing, because it’s not close enough. And then they changed it. They changed their minds and said it is close enough. And that wound up keeping Washington in the game and I was wondering what you thought about that sequence?
Al Borges: I don’t have any problem with what they did. What happened on the fourth down, they ran the double stick. Which means two guys are running quick outs, and the two inside guys are gonna run a little six-yard stick routes. It’s just enough yardage to get the first down, right? And the Washington safety saw the quick out and JJ went to it pretty quick. And he just jumped the hell out of it and defended it. It was a good play. I mean, hats off! I don’t really second guess going for it. And I don’t really second guess the call, they defended the play pretty well.
Al Borges: Going for it a fourth downs, you’re not gonna get all of them. And they’re always gonna talk about the ones you don’t. Okay? They’re not going to talk near as much about the ones you do. So all told, I don’t have any buyer’s remorse on that, and running the split zone, trying to get it closer. They probably wanted to get it closer than it was, but they’ve done that before Sam. That ain’t unusual. Third down running split zones; that’s old news now. We’ve seen that last few years. Right? So I don’t know that the strategy was that bad. It just didn’t turn out exactly the way they wanted it.
