The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/80972
MORE B LOOKING FOR Coordinator Al Borges' Offenses Are Accustomed To Year-Two Progress BY JOHN BORTON y any objective standard, Michigan's 2011 offense wasn't the college football equivalent of Spam. The Wolverines averaged 33.3 points per game, more than their offense- emphasized, defense-decimated brethren of a year earlier. While U-M's 2011 defense drew most of the slack-jawed admira- tion by comparison, the offense didn't take a backseat. It produced Michigan's first pair of 1,000-yard rushers since 1975, a quarterback that totaled 3,349 yards of offense and the second-best scoring outfit in the Big Ten. More importantly than any statistics — both head coach Brady Hoke and offensive coordinator Al Borges stress — Michigan's of- fense proved good enough to help win 11 football games. Now, the football-moving side of Michigan has a chance to get even better. History whispers that it will do so. Borges has served as an offensive coordinator in some venue for the past 31 college football seasons. His crews have always 72 s THE WOLVERINE 2012 FOOTBALL PREVIEW Borges and the Wolverines set a high bar last year, averaging 33.3 points and 404.7 yards per game, but past results for the coach por- tend improvement in 2012. PHOTO BY LON HORWEDEL improved dramatically year one to year two, with a couple of excep- tions — Auburn from 2004-05, when it couldn't have gotten much better, and 2002-03 at Indiana, which is … well, Indiana. The latter reference probably isn't fair and doesn't tell the story of those Hoosiers teams, at least relating to the Borges pattern. The Hoosiers featured different quarterbacks in each of those years, just like the Tigers did, meaning all predictable progress bets are off. At Michigan, he has senior Denard Robinson back, following a very productive junior season. At the same time, Robinson led the Big Ten in interceptions, with 15, and connected on just 55.0 percent of his passes. Those areas alone allow room for the Wolverines to take a leap forward on offense. Again, statistics don't represent the bottom line. But taking care of the football, running an even more efficient offense, and getting better in aspects directly relating to winning football games could make the difference between good and great. "The one thing about Al is, he is as good of an offensive mind as there is in this country," Hoke assured. "When you see what he's done at the different stops he's had, he does a tremendous job. I think this may have been his best year of coaching, from my standpoint, because of changing within some of the things with the spread. "That tells you about a coach. The one thing about this staff, and