'New' OC Debord on Michigan Sports Magazine

Mike Debord is the new Michigan Offensive Coordinator -- but he isn't new to the job at all. He was the Wolverine OC for the 1997 National Championship Season and the next two as well, before leaving to take the Head Coaching position at Central Michigan. Debord has been back at Michigan the past two seasons as recruiting coordinator and special teams coach. He was interviewed on Michigan Sports Magazine which appeared on Fox Sports Detroit.

Note: the following is printed with permission of Fox Sports Detroit, GoBlueWolverine.com's 'sister Fox sports outlet'.

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Debord on his offensive philosophy:

"My philosophy is, you've got to be able to control the football and keep the defense off the field. To do that, you've got to be able to run very effectively and throw the ball very effectively."

"With any offense, you want to look at what the defense can give you, and take advantage of that."

"You've got to take shots at times in the game and put the ball down the field. But the biggest thing is being effective."

Debord comparing 2006 college football to 1997's:

"Football changes every year. The key thing in coaching is looking at your players and doing what they can do.

"The biggest thing with football now is, you've got to score points. What we did back then, especially in the national championship year, was really try to possess the ball, keep it as much as possible, but we didn't have to score as many points."

"In today's football, you've got to score more points, so you've got to do some different things. I think that's the biggest change."

Debord on fitting the scheme to the talent:

We basically played to the strengths of our players that year [in the 1997 National Championship season]."

"The biggest thing we have to do is do what our kids can do. We feel like we've got excellent players here, and we want to put them in a position to run an effective offense, where you are controlling the ball, scoring, and we feel like we've got great perimeter players, with receivers and backs. We've got to put the ball out there to them."

"We started yesterday off going through our entire personnel and talking about every player – what they could do, and what our coaches felt like they could do. So we're going to make some subtle changes to some things, and yet there were some things that were very well done, and we'll continue to do those."

"We're going to go through spring practice, and I'll be able to get a little bit better feel for what these kids can do."