TheWolverine.com Chat: Michigan football, hoops, and more
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Michigan follows up a tougher-than-expected win over Maryland with a huge road game at Iowa. The Wolverines are always getting tough crossover games, it seems, and this one shouldn’t be much different.
The Hawkeyes aren’t very good on offense — last in the country in total offense, in fact — but they have an elite defense. Head coach Jim Harbaugh knows Michigan will be in for a battle.
“It really goes back to the early 1980s, with Norm Parker, coach at Michigan State, defensive coordinator … [Iowa’s] defensive coordinator for 30-some years,” Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh said. “That’s where this defense originates. And he happened to coach a defensive back by the name of Phil Parker at Michigan State. And then in 1999, Kirk Ferentz went to Iowa, hired Norm Parker as the defensive coordinator, and Phil Parker as the secondary coach.
“That system has been in place since 1999. Phil Parker was the secondary coach there for 13 years, and then took over as the defensive coordinator. Ever since, it’s been a system. It’s a way of playing; it’s the Parker way, and it’s really good, everybody knows what to do. Everybody’s playing the proper leverage, the proper technique, the proper fundamentals at all times.”
And it’s an opportunistic bunch, he added.
“The challenges it presents are if you are inaccurate where the throw — overthrow, under-throw, tipped ball — It’s highly likely that it’s going to result into a turnover,” the Michigan coach added. “If you’re not as sound as you can possibly be, then you’re in for a rough one.
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“But it’s a scheme (that) is flawless. Everybody where they’re supposed to be, when they’re supposed to be there, playing the techniques [where] they’re supposed to be. So, the challenge is that makes you on offense be really tight, tight.
:It’s the time to tighten up in every aspect of our offensive technique and fundamentals, alignments and assignments. So it’s, yeah – it’s been 48 hours of looking at that and look at it every possible way that we can improve ourselves.”
Michigan offense faces a big task
“We’ll see” is how Harbaugh responded when asked if his offense would be up to the task.
“It’s good that we won the game, but there are a lot of things to coach from our last game,” Harbaugh said. “So, we’ll see how our players respond to that coaching and see all the areas that we can make better, fix even … how well we do that.
“I’ll have a better feel for that as the week goes on. I predict that we can. Fixable things just kind of require taking the coaching and continuing to then go practice it and then be able to, once you’ve practiced, be able to do that in the game day. The game day environment in a hostile stadium, loud stadium … all those things are going to take some work.”
