Tag: Cameron Gordon

2011 Countdown: #19 Cameron Gordon

Cameron Gordon (#4)

Name: Cameron Gordon
Height: 6’3″
Weight: 222 lbs.
High school: Inkster High School in Detroit, MI
Position: Strongside linebacker
Class: Redshirt sophomore
Jersey number: #4
Last year: I ranked Gordon #11 and said he would start at free safety.  He started 7 games at free safety and 6 at outside linebacker; he had 77 tackles, 3.5 tackles for loss, 3 interceptions, 4 pass breakups, 2 fumble recoveries, 1 fumble return for a touchdown, and 1 blocked kick.

It was pretty obvious from the beginning of last year that Gordon wasn’t a free safety.  To many people, that was obvious when he was recruited . . . just not obvious enough to Rich Rodriguez’ coaching staff.  Gordon made some nice tackles and even a couple interceptions on passes where he didn’t have to run very far, but anytime he had to play sideline-to-sideline, it was a track meet he was bound to lose.  Why opposing teams didn’t run four verts against him on every play last year is beyond me.  But by the Penn State, it was obvious that Gordon needed to be somewhere else.  And just like Purdue in 2008 (Remember that? When we all learned what the 3-3-5 looked like for the first time?), Penn State was an abomination.  With offensive guards playing defensive tackle, safeties playing linebacker, and backup safeties playing starting safety, Michigan allowed 41 points to a walk-on quarterback and gave Evan Royster 150 yards rushing when he had been averaging 64 yards per game previously.

After the position switch, Gordon’s tackles per game dropped off (7.3 to 4.3), but he had 2 fumble recoveries, 1 touchdown, 1 interception, and 2.5 tackles for loss from his outside linebacker position.  He looked more comfortable playing closer to the line, and his speed went from being a weakness to a strength.  By the end of the season, he wasn’t a great player, but observers could certainly see that Gordon had developed into a Player to Watch over the next three years.

This year Gordon looks as if he’ll start at SAM linebacker.  He added 15 pounds in the offseason, which should allow him to shed blocks easier.  He’ll have hold off another viable option at SAM in redshirt freshman Jake Ryan (who’s 8 lbs. heavier at 230), but Gordon has a leg up on Ryan in the athleticism department and will also slide over to inside linebacker in obvious passing situations.  It would probably suit the defense well to sub Ryan for Gordon against power running teams or in short yardage situations, but Gordon’s forward momentum should carry over from the end of 2010 into 2011.

Prediction: Starting SAM; 60 tackles, 2 sacks

Poll Results: Who will lead Michigan in sacks for 2011?

Craig Roh will get a chance to create deja vu on September 3rd

A couple weeks ago, I posed the question, “Who will lead Michigan’s 2011 defense in sacks?”  Here are the results of that poll:

Craig Roh: 49%
Mike Martin: 21%
Jibreel Black (tie): 10%
Ryan Van Bergen (tie): 10%
Jake Ryan: 3%
Cameron Gordon: 1%
William Campbell: 1%
Other: 0%

Junior defensive end Craig Roh won the vote in a landslide victory.  I can’t tell if that’s good or bad.  Obviously, Michigan fans have high hopes for a coaching staff that features three current or former defensive line coaches in head coach Brady Hoke, defensive coordinator Greg Mattison, and defensive line coach Jerry Montgomery.  Roh was miscast as a linebacker last season and garnered only 1/2 a sack, which means that backup safety Thomas Gordon had 1.5 more sacks.  Yikes.  Still, Roh ought to be the starter at weakside end, which should create plenty of one-on-one opportunities with offensive tackles.

Senior defensive tackle Mike Martin finished second in the voting, but it surprised me that he only got 21% of the vote.  Martin had 2.5 sacks last season when he was strictly a nose tackle, and Mattison has promised to move Martin around this year – even to outside linebacker at times – to use his athleticism, strength, and quickness in various ways.  Martin will still face plenty of double teams, but if he can avoid the ankle injuries that slowed him last year, he might give Roh a run for his money.

Sophomore defensive end Jibreel Black and fifth year senior defensive end Ryan Van Bergen had exactly the same number of votes.  Black will split time between both defensive end positions, but he had zero sacks among his 7 total tackles as a freshman.  Meanwhile, Van Bergen is the active sack leader with 9 total.  He will face his share of double-teams as well, but he’s relentless and could make a run at the team lead, as well.

Redshirt freshman SAM linebacker Jake Ryan did not play at all last season.  He did have an impressive spring and earned compliments from the coaching staff, but at best, he’s expected to split time with redshirt sophomore Cam Gordon at outside linebacker.

Speaking of Gordon, he just barely beat out junior defensive tackle William Campbell (by one vote) for last place on the list.  Gordon had zero sacks among his 77 total tackles last season, although to be fair, Gordon played half the season at free safety before moving to outside linebacker.  In one-and-a-half seasons at defensive tackle, Campbell – who moved from DT to offensive guard midway through 2010 – had only 5 tackles and 1 tackle for loss.  He moved back to defensive line in the spring and at 6’5″, 333 lbs. should be a load for any offensive guard to handle one-on-one.  I do expect Campbell to break out this season, but Ndamukong Suh-like seasons are rare from defensive tackles.  Campbell will more likely end the year with 2 or 3 sacks, and hopefully a couple of his teammates will surpass that total.

Poll Results: Michigan’s leading tackler in 2011?

Kenny Demens (#25) wraps up the ballcarrier with help from safeties Ray Vinopal and Jordan Kovacs (#32). Image via MichiganDaily.com

The results:

Kenny Demens, MLB: 64%
Cam Gordon, SLB: 15%
Jordan Kovacs, S: 7%
Jake Ryan, SLB: 6%
Marell Evans, LB: 2%
Carvin Johnson, S: 1%
Other: 1%

Well, Demens wins the poll in a landslide victory.  As the middle linebacker and the most likely starter to retain his position, he’s probably a good choice.  Demens was the third-leading tackler in 2010, accounting for 82 total stops in just 7 starts.  That’s 11.7 tackles per start, which admittedly isn’t a perfect measurement, since he did play a backup role to Obi Ezeh before usurping the MLB job.  Demens was my hoice.

I’m a little surprised that Cam Gordon finished #2 in the voting.  He was the fourth-leading tackler in 2010, with 77 total tackles.  He’s heavier than the 207 lbs. at which he played last season, but it might be a bit of a stretch to expect him to be a force at SAM for the upcoming year.  He’s going to face a stiff challenge from the larger redshirt freshman Jake Ryan, who earned rave reviews in the spring and had a solid spring game.  They might split the snaps there.

Safety Jordan Kovacs is the leading returning tackler (he finished just one tackle behind departed senior linebacker Jonas Mouton, 117 to 116).  Kovacs started 13 games last season, which gave him 8.9 tackles per start.  He has touted sophomore safety Marvin Robinson pushing him for playing time, but I would expect the two-year starter to retain his job, at least for the beginning of the season.  His overall number of tackles will almost certainly drop, though, due to a [hopefully] improved defense that will get off the field a little quicker.

Strongside ‘backer Jake Ryan finishes #4.  He had zero tackles last year, mostly because he watched from the sidelines.  I think he’ll be a force in stopping the run, but expecting a first-year starter and redshirt freshman to lead the team in tackles is a bit of a stretch for me, especially if he and Gordon are neck-and-neck for the job.

Fifth year senior Marell Evans picked up only a few votes, which was slightly surprising to me.  Evans started at MLB this spring when Demens had shoulder surgery, and he’s my bet to be the starting weakside linebacker on September 3, provided Demens is back at full strength.  Evans only has 4 tackles and half a sack in his college career, which consists of one start back in 2008 and a bunch of special teams action.  He transferred to Hampton after the 2008 season and didn’t see the field for the past two years, but he looked solid during spring practices.

Carvin Johnson, the other projected safety, got a few votes, too.  Johnson was the 16th-leading tackler in 2010 while starting only three games due to injury.  He had an impressive spring, though, looking comfortable in the new defense and picking off a couple passes in the spring game.

I would be interested to hear which player(s) were the reason for “Other” votes, since defensive linemen and cornerbacks rarely lead teams in tackles.  The only other possibilities seem to be safety Marvin Robinson or weakside linebacker Mike Jones, both of whom I project as backups.

Review of 2010 Season Predictions

Denard Robinson was the star of the show in 2010

One of the reasons I started this blog a couple years ago was to record my thoughts and predictions in order to go back, see what I said, and see if I was right.  With the 2010 season completed, I thought I would go back and check out what I said prior to the year beginning.

First of all, here were my 2010 Season Predictions.

And here’s a rundown of how accurate those were:

STARTING QUARTERBACK
Prediction: I said Denard Robinson would start the opener but that Tate Forcier would have an opportunity to take most of the snaps by the end of the season.
Actual: Denard Robinson started the entire season.
Accuracy: 50%

LEADING RUSHER
Prediction: Denard Robinson with approximately 800 yards.
Actual: Well, I was right on the player, but wrong on the yardage.  Way wrong.  Robinson ended up wtih 1,702 yards on the ground.
Accuracy: 100%
LEADING RECEIVER
Prediction: Roy Roundtree with 60 catches for 900 yards
Actual: Roundtree had 72 catches for 935 yards.
Accuracy: 100%

LEADING TACKLER
Prediction: Jonas Mouton
Actual: Mouton led the team with 117 tackles, beating out safety Jordan Kovacs by a slim margin.
Accuracy: 100%

LEADING SACKER
Prediction: Ryan Van Bergen with 7.5 sacks
Actual: Van Bergen led the team in sacks, but it was a down year in that category – he ended up with only 4.
Accuracy: 100%

LEADING INTERCEPTOR
Prediction: J.T. Floyd
Actual: Cornerback James Rogers and safety/linebacker Cam Gordon each had 3.  Floyd only had 1, but he missed half the season with a broken ankle.
Accuracy: Incomplete due to Floyd’s injury

ALL-BIG TEN FIRST TEAM
Prediction: Center David Molk and kick returner Darryl Stonum
Actual: Molk was the right choice.  However, the coaches decided to save Stonum for his offensive duties, giving the job to a couple mediocre returners instead.  With a surprisingly good season, Denard Robinson was also named to the first team by the media.
Accuracy: 33%

LEADING SCORER (NON-KICKER, NON-QUARTERBACK)
Prediction: Roy Roundtree
Actual: Running back Michael Shaw scored 9 touchdowns to lead this category.  Roundtree and running back Vincent Smith were second with 7 touchdowns each.
Accuracy: 0%

BREAKOUT OFFENSIVE PLAYER
Prediction: Denard Robinson
Actual: Robinson was definitely the breakout player of the year on offense.  He was in the discussion for the Heisman, was the Big Ten Player of the Year, and generally wowed Michigan fans and college football fans in general.
Accuracy: 100%

BREAKOUT DEFENSIVE PLAYER
Prediction: Ryan Van Bergen
Actual: Well, nobody really expected much from the defense, and that’s what they got – not much.  Van Bergen had a decent season with 37 tackles, 8.5 tackles for loss, and 4 sacks.  But I think the real breakout star was middle linebacker Kenny Demens, who surpassed incumbent Obi Ezeh and finished third on the team with 82 tackles.
Accuracy: 0%

MOST DISAPPOINTING OFFENSIVE PLAYER
Prediction: Vincent Smith
Actual: I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Smith was somewhat less effective than is expected from a starting tailback at Michigan.  He finished the year averaging 4.4 yards per carry and – other than a long run against Indiana – was generally ineffective as a complementary runner to quarterback Denard Robinson.  Roundtree might be an option here because of his play in the final few games of the season, but Smith was ineffective for the majority of the season.
Accuracy: 100%

MOST DISAPPOINTING DEFENSIVE PLAYER
Prediction: Cameron Gordon
Actual: While Gordon was a disappointment after all the hype he received in the spring and summer, he wasn’t a complete failure.  He actually made some plays from the free safety position (3 interceptions), but he didn’t have the speed or awareness to stay there and moved to outside linebacker.  But the bigger disappointment was Obi Ezeh, the fifth-year senior middle linebacker who lost his job mid-season to redshirt sophomore Kenny Demens.  Ezeh ended the year with 58 tackles, which is exactly 24 fewer than Demens . . . and 8 fewer than J.T. Floyd, the cornerback who missed half the season with a broken ankle.
Accuracy: 0%

GAME PREDICTIONS
Win against UConn
Loss to Notre Dame
Win against UMass
Win against Bowling Green
Loss to Indiana
Loss to Michigan State
Win against Iowa
Win against Penn State
Win against Illinois
Win against Purdue
Loss to Wisconsin
Loss to Ohio State

OVERALL PREDICTION ACCURACY:
63.9%

Top 10 Failures of Rich Rodriguez

1.  Losing games.  This is obvious, but it belongs on the list.  Rodriguez finished his three years at Michigan with a 15-22 record.  That winning percentage (.405) is the worst in Michigan history.

2. Losing to rivals.  Rodriguez was 0-6 against Michigan’s two biggest rivals, Ohio State and Michigan State.  If you want to include Penn State, he was 0-9.  He was outscored by a total of 317-140 in those nine games.  It’s unclear how much a couple victories against Ohio State or Michigan State might have affected Rodriguez’s tenure, but wins against Indiana and Purdue don’t carry the same weight.

3. Neutering Scott Shafer.  Shafer has proven to be a solid defensive coordinator at every other stop – Western Michigan, Stanford, and Syracuse.  The former two were prior to Shafer’s hiring at Michigan.  But Rodriguez’s other defensive assistants were proponents of the 3-3-5 and seemed to undermine his authority.  Late in the season, Rodriguez even authorized a mid-season switch of defensive schemes from the 4-3 to a 3-3-5; Michigan subsequently allowed 42 points to Purdue, a team using a converted running back to play QB.  Shafer could have been a good coordinator at Michigan and helped Rodriguez keep his job, but he was fired after the 2008 season because, well, someone’s head needed to roll after a 3-9 season.

4. Hiring Greg Robinson.  Robinson had intermittent success as a coordinator in the NFL and in college.  But just like Shafer, Robinson was a 4-3 or a 3-4 guy.  In my opinion, the defense showed some promise in 2009, when Robinson used safety Steve Brown as an outside linebacker and freshman Craig Roh as a rush linebacker.  However, Rodriguez used the 2009-10 offseason to convert to the 3-3-5, and Robinson was obviously uncomfortable and inexperienced with running that defensive set.  That resulted in 458 points allowed in 2010, an average of 35.2 points per game.

5. Not retaining holdover players from the Carr era.  Michigan was extremely short-handed in 2009, fielding a team of 69 or 70 players who were given scholarships right out of high school.  Some of those players were bound for a career of anonymity, I’m sure, but others were not.  Quarterback Ryan Mallett was vaguely in Heisman contention this season.  Justin Boren became an All-Big Ten guard at Ohio State.  Adrian Arrington chose to enter the NFL Draft (and became only a 7th round choice) a year early.  Rodriguez can’t shoulder the blame entirely for these departures, but there’s no question that a guy like Boren would have been helpful in 2008 and 2009, the former season featuring a starting guard (John Ferrara) that was a mid-season position switcher from defensive tackle.

6. Stretching too much.  The Detroit Free Press reported some trumped-up charges regarding Michigan’s practice schedule, and that sparked an NCAA investigation.  While the charges were blown out of proprtion, they were a black mark on the Michigan program and resulted in probation and some lost practice hours.  Rodriguez wasn’t responsible for everything that went wrong in the compliance department, but his staff did fail to keep track of its countable practice hours accurately and a graduate assistant watched some voluntary 7-on-7s, which is a no-no.

7. Not finding his Steve Slaton.  Pat White got a lot of hype at West Virginia, but running back Steve Slaton was almost as important as White.  And prior to White’s arrival on campus, Rodriguez used running backs like Quincy Wilson and Kay-Jay Harris to great effect.  Rodriguez never found “that guy” at Michigan, partially due to injuries and partially due to recruiting.  Therefore, the offense wasn’t as spectacular as it might have been.  The lack of a running game cost Michigan a couple games throughout his tenure.

8. Not developing top prospects.  Rodriguez seemed to have an abnormal number of high-end recruits bomb out of the program.  And it’s probably a coincidence, but most of them seemed to come from the defensive secondary.  Four 4-star players recruited by Rodriguez never made a significant positive impact at Michigan (Demar Dorsey, Boubacar Cissoko, Justin Turner, Vladimir Emilien), which resulted in five true freshman defensive backs seeing significant time in 2010.  Furthermore, arguably Michigan’s best prospect in the last few classes (William Campbell) has yet to make an impact at Michigan and just switched from nose tackle to offensive guard in the middle of the season.

9. Handing out the #1 jersey to J.T. Floyd.  Before Rodriguez ever coached a snap at Michigan, he tried to give the #1 jersey to true freshman cornerback J.T. Floyd.  He was either unaware of the jersey’s significance or chose to ignore that aspect, but it was nonetheless a mistake.  Nothing seemed to highlight the fact that Rodriguez wasn’t a “Michigan Man” more than the #1 jersey snafu, which pitted some alumni and fans against him from the start.

10.  Poor player personnel decisions.  Part of the heat falls on the assistant coaches, but Rodriguez shoulders most of this blame because he has the final say: Rodriguez didn’t put his players in their best positions to succeed.  Running backs Sam McGuffie and Vincent Smith played far too much when there were more productive and explosive backs on the roster (Brandon Minor and Michael Shaw for starters).  Obi Ezeh should have been an outside linebacker starting back in 2008; and at least according to their play on the field, Ezeh should have been replaced by Kenny Demens much earlier.  Cameron Gordon – who has linebacker speed – spent half the 2010 season playing free safety.  William Campbell spent two years toiling on the defensive line before making a permanent move to the offensive line, and he didn’t even redshirt to allow for a fifth year of eligibility.