Tag: Martavious Odoms

Michigan vs. Illinois Awards

Ryan Van Bergen (#53) was a force to be reckoned with all night. (image via MGoBlue.com)

Let’s see more of this guy on offense . . . Martavious Odoms.  Odoms was struggling to see the field earlier in the year, partly because he was recovering from a broken bone in his forearm.  It was frustrating to see a key player from the past few seasons end his career by barely seeing the field.  Luckily, that trend appears to be ending.  He got what seemed to be the most playing time of the season against the Illini, when he had 2 receptions for 46 yards, including a 27-yard touchdown reception from Devin Gardner to go up 24-7.  Odoms was also wide open in the endzone early in the game, but Denard Robinson overthrew him.

Let’s see less of this guy on offense . . . umm . . . Denard Robinson at quarterback.  Bring on the anger.  Robinson has clearly regressed this season, and I’m not going to blame it entirely on offensive coordinator Al Borges.  Borges hasn’t made the same playcalls that allowed Robinson to put up good numbers last season, but much of that is on Robinson’s shoulders, too.  He was unable to hit wide open receivers early in the year, and his inability to hit the deep ball has been extremely maddening.  I described Robinson last year as “wildly accurate” because of his throws that would be catchable but wouldn’t allow receivers to run after the catch.  There was another fine example on Saturday evening when Robinson hit tight end Kevin Koger down the left sideline, and Koger was so wide open that he had time to stop, catch the ball, get started again . . . and get dragged down at the 2-yard line.  If that’s even a decent throw, it’s an easy touchdown.  Devin Gardner at least deserves a prolonged look if Robinson isn’t getting it done, because Robinson is turnover-prone and his rushing has been disappointing for the last several weeks.

Let’s see more of this guy on defense . . . Thomas Gordon.  Gordon has been a turnover machine with 1 interception, 4 fumble recoveries, and 2 forced fumbles on the season.  He’s also the team’s second-leading tackler, despite coming off the bench for the past two games.  Meanwhile, senior Troy Woolfolk has been inserted at safety despite clearly being unhealthy; Woolfolk has yet to create a turnover in his career.

Let’s see less of this guy on defense . . . Troy Woolfolk.  This is obvious, considering the above paragraph.  Woolfolk is hurting the team by playing such significant minutes.  I wish he would have been allowed to get healthier earlier in the season, but he wasn’t.  It’s pretty apparent that he won’t be healthy during the regular season, although hopefully he can get his body right by the bowl game.

Play of the game . . . Jordan Kovacs’ forced fumble and Gordon’s recovery.  Illinois had just stopped Michigan on the goal line and had some emotional momentum.  Running back Jason Ford popped free for 8 yards up the middle when Kovacs put his facemask on the ball, which fell to the ground while Gordon jumped on it.  If it hadn’t been obvious previously, it seemed to me right there that this day just wasn’t going to go well for the Illini.

MVP of the game . . . Ryan Van Bergen.  The defensive tackle/end had 7 tackles, 3 tackles for loss (for 28 yards), and 2.5 sacks.  Mike Martin (9 tackles, 1/2 a sack) would be a decent choice, and so would Fitzgerald Toussaint (27 carries, 192 yards, 1 touchdown).  But on a night when Illinois couldn’t do anything consistently on defense, in large part because quarterback Nathan Scheelhaase was under pressure, I have to give it to the guy who took him to the ground a few times.

2011 Countdown: #18 Martavious Odoms

Martavious Odoms

Name: Martavious Odoms
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 173 lbs.
High school: Pahokee High School in Pahokee, FL
Position: Slot receiver/wide receiver
Class: Senior
Jersey number: #9
Last year: I ranked Odoms #16 and said he would start at slot receiver, catch 35 passes for 420 yards, and score 2 touchdowns.  He started 3 games but missed the second half of the regular season with a broken foot.  He finished with 16 receptions for 241 yards and 1 touchdown.  He also had 8 kickoff returns for 180 yards.

I think Michigan fans can all agree that we love us some Martavious Odoms.  The man love started when he ran head first into a middle linebacker to block for Denard Robinson’s electrifying first play as a collegian and continued through his game-clinching touchdown catch from Tate Forcier in the 2009 Indiana game.  Before that he was just a fumble-prone punt/kickoff returner with occasional highlights like his 2008 punt return for a touchdown against Purdue.  Unfortunately, Odoms has started piling up injuries, missing one, three, and six games in the last three seasons, respectively.  At that rate we can expect Odoms to miss ten games in 2011, but I hope not.  He’s a tough player with a little bit of a burst, and his blocking is second to none from the wide receiver position.

The move to more of a pro-style offense this year suggests that Odoms will see a slightly diminished role.  He was on pace to catch 30-plus balls last year, but those will be harder to come by in 2011.  Michigan will likely run more I-formation plays (something that was all but abandoned last season), and the two outside wide receivers look to be Junior Hemingway and Roy Roundtree.  Odoms has been running with the first group as a slot receiver, and he might pick up where Roy Roundtree left off out of spread formations.  With Darryl Stonum redshirting this season and only one viable returner in the form of Drew Dileo, it would be nice if Odoms could also contribute on the return units, where he has averaged 22.1 yards a return in his career.

Prediction: Starting slot receiver; 25 receptions, 300 yards, 2 touchdowns

Poll Results: Who will be Michigan’s leading receiver in 2011?

Roy Roundtree

Roy Roundtree: 48%

Mississippi State 52, Michigan 14

Kick returner Martavious Odoms stiff-arms a Bulldog defender

Well, that was disappointing.

Martavious Odoms is a beast.  Odoms came back from a broken foot that he suffered halfway through the season, and he played an excellent game.  His only reception was an impressive 27-yard catch on which he twisted in the air to reel in the ball.  But he was also very effective on kickoff returns, taking back 7 kicks for 161 yards (23.0 yards per return).  You have to appreciate how hard this kid plays on every single play.

Chris Relf is not a beast, but Michigan made him look like one.  This is nothing new – Michigan makes opposing quarterbacks look awesome.  But never has that been more apparent than on New Year’s Day.  If you extrapolate Relf’s performance on Saturday over 13 games, he would have ended the year with 234 completions on 299 attempts (78%) for 3653 yards, 39 passing touchdowns, and 13 interceptions (and Relf’s lone interception was a Hail Mary at the end of the first half).  Prior to the Gator Bowl, Relf was 111/197 (56%) for 1508 yards, 10 touchdowns, and 5 interceptions.  That’s right.  Michigan literally made Relf about two or three times better than he was during the rest of the season.

James Rogers is fast.  Even coming out of high school, Rogers’ #1 strength was his speed.  Although the Bulldogs scored on the very next play, kudos to Rogers for chasing down running back Ladarius Perkins on his 81-yard reception.  Perkins looked like he was gone on the play, but as soon as I saw Rogers turn on the jets, I knew it wouldn’t be a touchdown.

Here’s my weekly rant against Vincent Smith.  Argh argh argh argh!  Guess who got the most carries aside from Denard Robinson?  Vincent Smith.  Guess who has the second-lowest rushing average on the team?  Yep, Vincent Smith (4.42 yards per carry).  Fitzgerald Toussaint (10.88), Michael Cox (9.3), and Michael Shaw (5.36) are all significantly higher.  Freshman short yardage back Stephen Hopkins (4.08) is the only back with a lower average.  And I find it funny that one of Rich Rodriguez’s reasons for playing Smith was “He’s not a fumbler.”  Well, now Smith has fumbled about 5 times this year, which is far more than any other running back.  So how about just putting the best player out there, someone who might have a chance at being consistent and/or making a big play?  It’s ridiculous that the starting running back is so ineffective when there are other options that just don’t get a chance to see the field.

Denard Robinson is still erratic. . .  Look, it’s painful to criticize Robinson.  He doesn’t get much help, he gets beaten up, he’s got a great attitude, he plays hard, and oh by the way, he has a great deal of talent.  But he shouldn’t be throwing the ball 41 times in a game.  I realize that the game situation called for a lot of throws; when you’re down by 38 points, running doesn’t do much.  But this game just didn’t play out well for him.  If backup quarterback Tate Forcier wasn’t an idiot and remained eligible for the bowl game, then the second half would have been a situation in which Forcier would have been inserted.  Forcier is more effective when the playcalling is limited to pass, pass, pass.  So part of this can be blamed on #5, but Denard Robinson was the one who overthrew Junior Hemingway a couple times.  Denard was also the one who consistently made “inaccurate completions” where his receivers had to dive, jump, or twist around to catch the ball.  You’re not going to get a lot of yards after the catch when the receivers don’t have forward momentum.

. . . and so is Roy Roundtree.  I was all about Roy Roundtree early in the season, but he’s totally fallen apart over the past few games.  He dropped a couple passes against Wisconsin, five against Ohio State, and another couple against Mississippi State.  One of the drops against Mississippi State was a very nice deep throw from Robinson that might have gone for a touchdown, except for the fact that Roy Roundtree spent the previous TV timeout eating some KFC.

Field goal schmield goal.  It’s not like losing 52-17 is much different than 52-14, but I was furious when Rich Rodriguez sent out Brendan Gibbons to kick a field goal in the first half.  It’s 4th-and-4, and you’re going to send out a kid who’s 1-for-4 on field goals on a team that’s 4-for-13 overall?  When your defense sucks and so do your kickers, you go for it in that situation.  Those kickers shouldn’t have seen the field except for extra points.

Rich Rodriguez is gone.  This was probably the case prior to the game, but the 38-point loss pretty much seals the deal.  My expectation is that athletic director David Brandon will let Jim Harbaugh coach Stanford against Virginia Tech tomorrow night in the Orange Bowl.  Then later in the week, Harbaugh will be hired to replace Rodriguez.  Rodriguez and his staff had a chance to make a case for themselves in this game, and they laid a very stinky egg.

2010 Countdown: #16 Martavious Odoms

Name: Martavious Odoms
Height: 5’8″
Weight: 175 lbs.
High school: Pahokee High School in Pahokee, FL
Position: Slot receiver/wide receiver
Class: Junior
Jersey number: #9
Last year: I ranked Odoms #13 and said he’s not a gamebreaker, but always a threat. He caught 22 passes for 272 yards and 1 touchdown; had 1 rush for 13 yards and 1 touchdown; and returned 6 punts for 54 yards.

When I think of the beginning of the Rich Rodriguez Era at Michigan, I think of Odoms. Even though Odoms wasn’t the only player Rodriguez added to the Class of 2008 when he took over, he was the most successful and at times the most frustrating. He had an up-and-down freshman season in ’08, where he led the team in receptions but also had fumbling problems and muffed several punts and kickoffs. Of course, normal teams would have had enough depth to put an upperclassman in his spot, but Rodriguez’s other option was the misplaced and disgruntled Toney Clemons. Last season Odoms was involved a little less in the offense due to the emergence of Kelvin Grady and Roy Roundtree, who combined for 43 catches. However, he had the game-winning touchdown reception against Indiana and did the following, which endeared him to many Michigan fans:

Broken play? Not a problem. Here, let me go run full-speed into the middle linebacker, get knocked down, then get up and chase down the play to try to block someone else!

Adding to the awesomeness, Odoms was fast enough to nearly catch Denard Robinson from behind after getting knocked down – he reportedly beat Robinson in the spring’s Fastest Man Competition. I guess that’s why the University of Miami (FL) tried to give him a track scholarship out of high school.

Anyway, Odoms is a great glue player. He’s not a superstar, but he’s versatile and gives a superb effort. He won’t juke many defenders out of their shoes, but he will try to accelerate through tacklers and split defenders who might misjudge his speed. I’ll take a kid like that any day of the week. However, fellow slot receiver Roy Roundtree emerged toward the end of the season to lead the team in receptions, racking up 30 in the last four games. I expect to see a lot of four-wide sets with Junior Hemingway, Darryl Stonum, Roundtree, and Odoms this fall. That gives the team a good possession receiver (Hemingway), a deep threat on the outside (Stonum), a guy who can get open over the middle of the field and get deep (Roundtree), and a good bubble screen guy (Odoms). There are also rumors that Roundtree and Odoms will see time at wide receiver, not just in the slot. If the quarterback play is consistent, Michigan’s receiving corps should be a bright spot in the 2010 season.

Prediction for 2010: Starting slot receiver; 35 receptions, 420 yards, 2 touchdowns