How Michigan football returned to its smashmouth roots

Mark Snyder | USA TODAY Sports

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- For nearly all of the Big Ten Network's six-year existence, Michigan football has been spread city.

Aside from BTN's first season in 2007, Lloyd Carr's last at U-M, the Wolverines have run some version of the spread or read-option offense.

Every spring and fall, the network analysts would attend a practice, try to absorb the flavor and make nice about the impact of an offense they knew didn't fit.

Then they strolled into Ann Arbor this spring and had to check their GPS — or their mirror to see if they rolled back a decade.

This was Michigan playing smashmouth football, the game's nastiest, purest form.

"When I saw them in the spring it was like a war at the line of scrimmage," BTN analyst Gerry DiNardo said. "It was what you imagine it looks like at Alabama and all the downhill teams. It changes your entire program. Just like the spread makes your defense soft, the West Coast offense makes your defense tough."

This was no happy accident under coach Brady Hoke. This is his football: dirty, nasty, the type that echoes.

For two years, he has wanted to "hear football," the crunching of helmets, the pounding of pads, but he and coordinator Al Borges were running an offense that almost sapped the sound.

But when he arrived at his dream job in January 2011 to find dynamic running quarterback Denard Robinson, he had no other option.

His U-M predecessor, Rich Rodriguez, sunk himself immediately in Ann Arbor three years earlier, refusing to adapt to his personnel, forcing the read option on offensive players designed for a pro-style.

Hoke wouldn't make the same mistake.

"We'd be dumb as coaches if we wouldn't take the abilities that our players have," Hoke said this summer. "That's the one thing our offense (i.e. Borges) did a tremendous job with Denard, not having an ego about 'this is the offense I want to run and I've run my whole career.' It was, 'how can we tailor some of the things we do?' But also how can we enhance the different things we need to do because of his skill set."

Robinson seriously injured an elbow nerve last October, and new QB Devin Gardner got his four-week cram course in pro-style to end the regular season.

Borges, who has run a West Coast version most of his career, knows something about coaching downhill runners.

Remember Carnell Williams and Ronnie Brown at Auburn? DeShaun Foster at UCLA? DiNardo has seen it up close, hiring Borges to run his offense at Indiana in 2002, and knows Borges is a team player and willing to adapt. But his preference is now in place.

Like a massive rock dropped into the Big House ocean, the ripples will continue for years.

The differences

"We have a snap count, we come downhill, we're not in shotgun as much," Borges said. "I believe there's a physicality that comes with pro-style offense that doesn't come with other offenses. ... A lot of it is how you coach it. You can be a pro-style team that throws every snap and you're not going to have a lot of physicality with that. We don't have that philosophy."

After redshirting last season, right guard Kyle Kalis can see the differences, explaining now there's a snap count instead of going "silent one" all year with Robinson in the shotgun.

Hoke is reborn this off-season, talking about the power play, the lead play and combination blocks, the words wafting and his voice intensifying, his personal symphony.

The effect

Before fall camp started, Hoke said publicly it would be far more physical than his first two camps. Some of that was because of greater depth, but much of it was the desire to infect his team with an attitude.

With ball control and brutality from the line, the defense is prepared from practice and more rested in games, able to push harder when on the field. Instead of practicing "sideways" as Borges said this week, it's nose to bloody nose.

"I think it helps everybody," Borges said. "I think it helps the special teams. When you recruit tight ends, big wide receivers, fullbacks, those guys, look in the NFL, they're all the special teams players. It has carryover effect to every phase of your game, from a physical perspective and a meaner perspective, if in fact you're preaching physical football."

The reach

Even as the coaches were running the spread in games the past two years, they were telling recruits what was coming. Kalis heard it constantly from U-M offensive line coach Darrell Funk.

"When I was committed to Ohio (State), Coach Funk, he would always Facebook me and he was telling me, we're going to a power offense and we want you for that," Kalis explained. "So I knew when I was committed, it would be a power offense (eventually)."

Hoke's staff has excellent recruiters, proven by the talent they've corralled in just a few years and the commitments building for 2014 and 2015. Those powerful linemen on both sides, the long-limbed, athletic receivers, bruising running backs, dynamic tight ends, suddenly they all want Michigan and the Wolverines haven't yet played a down of their pro-style.

The model

They can't take all the credit; Nick Saban is doing some of the job for them.

Alabama has built a dynasty by pounding people. Rolling offensive and defensive linemen into the NFL draft, paving the way for Heisman Trophy candidate tailbacks, all with a nastiness that makes the Tide the crimson standard.

Hoke saw up close in last year's 41-14 loss to the Tide in Texas what he imagines in Ann Arbor. The game "helped our mentality, it helped from a standpoint with our kids when you go back and look at it how they stood up and how they did things," he said. "I think it was a good experience for us."

More enjoyment probably came when 'Bama steamrolled spread-based Notre Dame in the BCS title game.

"(Power football) gets you ready for all the situations you have to have to win the national championship," DiNardo said. "Think about goal-line opportunities, both teams have the same amount of goal-line opportunities in most games. Think about four-minute offense, short yardage, goal line. All that kind of stuff, that Alabama's more prepared to do where a lot of spread teams are not.

"Until Oregon wins the national championship or (Rodriguez's) Arizona or someone that is a spread team from top to bottom, I maintain the best defense and ball control offense and someone that can move the chains at a critical time is the better way."

The result

Chris B. Brown, who runs SmartFootball.com and contributes to ESPN's Grantland website, is a football film junkie. Breaking down schemes and tendencies, he has studied Borges' history.

He has seen him pound the ball regularly and then take a shot downfield at the optimal time. He has talked to Borges' disciples and heard the stories about his teaching methods, working to get the timing offense, and the play-action passing, just right.

"Brady Hoke isn't a head coach that's one of these guys that's like, I just want to have the most yards and points on the board," Brown said. "He just wants to win ballgames and he's willing to win games ugly. … They're willing to run the ball in the second half, grind it out and play close to the vest versus a team that goes all out. It may hurt your offensive numbers, but it may be what's needed to win."

After five years of trying it someone else's way, Michigan finally returns to its own.

The clothes may get a little dirty, but they fit much better.

Mark Snyder also writes for the Detroit Free Press, a Gannett company.