Les is haunted by Schembechler’s shadow

As with many I agonize over the perceived underachievement of our football team and often try to make sense of it (something not easily done). I don’t think Les is as bad as some make him out to be but I do think he’s haunted by Schembechler’s shadow – his mentor.

After the ’08 QB/co-DC debacle, Les returned to his roots – Schembechler. Hence, with rare exception we have played “not to lose” as opposed to dominate, pillage, and destroy. On D we play to keep things in front of us, don’t give-up the big play, bend-don’t-break, etc and on O we typically play not to turn the ball over. After ’08 Les took the keys from Crowton, installed those NASCAR restrictor plate things, and lets him out only in daylight hours and with adult supervision (so I for one don’t think GC is the main holdup on O (as none less than DMitch have hinted at)).

Les is ok with huge disparity in TOP and yards, just don’t give up big plays and don’t turn the ball over. That’s his MO.

IMO, the lone exception is the UF game of this year. After the UF game I really though Les had seen the light and realized we are not going to win any sort of championship in the SEC by the Schembechler approach. Wrong. We went right back to this against Auburn. Vanilla on O and D. Yes, I think Les engineered the whole game plan in vintage Schembechlerism (and with about 7 minutes to go and the score tied 17-17 and our ball on the 40 he was almost vindicated).

Les has so much going for him and the handful of flaws are seemingly easily correctable. But until he escapes Schembechler’s shadow and begins to trust his players and coordinators, game-plans aggressively, and allows them to play aggressively, we will play down to our competition and continue to see the underachievement.

One final note, if you want to see what kind of team we’re really capable of having just look at ST’s.