Greg Frey
Offensive tackles/tight ends coach Greg Frey is off to Florida State to be Willie Taggart’s offensive line coach. This isn’t a surprise at all, nor is it a disappointment. When Frey was hired at Michigan, many – including me – assumed Michigan would be changing its style to a more zone-oriented scheme. It was also thought that Michigan might go more up-tempo, since Frey has spent much of his career with Rich Rodriguez (at WVU and Michigan) and Kevin Wilson (at Indiana). Additionally, Frey has done a great job of coaching up offensive linemen in the past, including tall, lanky tight end/tackle types.
The zone stuff didn’t work, the up-tempo thing never materialized, and Michigan doesn’t have any tall, lanky tackles on the roster. Oddly, it’s slightly reminiscent of Rich Rodriguez hiring a 4-3 proponent in defensive coordinator Scott Shafer when the rest of the staff was geared toward a 3-3.
It sounds like Tim Drevno will also not return, so Michigan could be looking at an entirely new coaching crew on the offensive line.
Frey is from Clearwater, and he played at Florida State and was a national champion there in the early 1990s, so it’s understandable why he would want to return to his old stomping grounds. He also coached at South Florida before he moved on to WVU.
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Thunder, what are your thoughts on our Tackle recruiting for 2018? Mayfield & Hayes are Frey-types, correct? Did we just hurt Tackle recruiting for another cycle?
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I think those guys will be fine either way. Rich Rodriguez/Greg Frey offensive linemen were able to transition to Brady Hoke’s offense just fine, and many of them are still doing well in the NFL (Lewan, Schofield, Omameh, etc.). They are Frey types, but I prefer those types of tackles to the “ready-made” ones a lot of fans always want. Sometimes those are booms (Jake Long, for example), and sometimes they end up being too slow for tackle at big-time programs (Magnuson, Filiaga, Bushell-Beatty, etc.). Obviously, Magnuson, Bushell-Beatty, and others have been serviceable as right tackles, but you want left tackles, not just a steady stream of right tackle types.
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Taggart wants to run a power spread at FSU similar to OSU. Frey is perfect not only in philosophy but also environmentally. FSU is stacked to the roof Taggart & Frey should do more than ‘well’………..
What happens at Michigan is anyones guess. Its almost like 2015 again – starting over – at least on offense. Harbaugh has been fortunate that he has been able to have a guy like Mattison – so underrated, subtle yet the GLUE and unsung MVP of everything to Michigan’s defense from Hoke, to Durkin and now a truly great defensive leader in Brown.
Harbaugh has been unable to blend such a staff on the Offensive side – and this is ‘His’ side of the game. Makes me wonder IF he can Build a Team when ; in 3 years; he can’t build an Offensive Staff to coach it. We’re going to find out in 2018 if Harbaugh can Offensively coach a Team and if not then its going to be time to consider moving on………….
Jim Harbaugh Quote from August 2010 (while at Stanford):
“We’ll find out this year whether we can coach or not,” Harbaugh said. “Don’t confuse a bull market with being smart. We don’t have Toby anymore.”
We’ll all find out if Harbaugh can coach in 2018. ’17 showed me little. And his ‘luck’ might have run out with Stanford.
As I See It………….intjohn
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