Give me your AFA snowflakes
So I'm aware of the new rule, but I also wanted to gauge everyones reactions to the game now that they've come back off the ledge or sobered up. Hopefully, after sleeping on it, everyone will have more insight on the matter. I won't give my opinions in the OP, as to not anger the mods for creating an 'I think...' thread. I do like hearing some of the more informed opinions on the game after we have had time to digest.
Maybe this will help mitigate the risk of 19 million threads today about nuances of the game that probably don't require posts.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:27 AM ^
Oh, and Arizona whooped Okie State... And what the hell happened to Wiscy?
September 9th, 2012 at 8:32 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:12 AM ^
got their backs razor'd.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:30 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:44 AM ^
A few more than four, I think.
September 9th, 2012 at 9:56 AM ^
UL-Monroe>Arkansas
UCLA>Nebraska
OSU (not that one)>Wisconsin
Arizona>OSU (different one)
September 9th, 2012 at 10:29 AM ^
Also some semi-surprising I-AA wins over I-A teams. The state of Colorado is not a happy place right now. Wake over UNC is a surprise.
September 9th, 2012 at 2:19 PM ^
As a Boulder resident I can tell you that no one cares about the football team.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:24 PM ^
Sad. They used to.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:33 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:33 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:42 AM ^
DL - I think the most concerning part for me is the play of Big Will. I was hoping he would take a big step forward. The normal disclaimer about Bama and AFA applies, so I hope we see more out of him against ND.
LB - So are you a glass half full or half empty guy? We did have the best linebacker class last year, so maybe the freshmen are just that good. Again, tough two games to evaluate.
DB - There are still some pretty big breakdowns in assignment or something. Too many open guys back there. I think if assignments aren't blown, they are pretty talented.
Toussaint scared me too. I thought he was a known commodity. Now I'm really worried about lack of production from the RB spot. Crazy that we haven't had a consistent threat at RB since Hart. (Minor was hurt too often)
What did you see about Funchess that made you want him to become a WR? Admittedly, I don't really watch players for blocking assignments when the game is going on. Do you see a problem here, being he is pretty skinny still?
September 9th, 2012 at 8:49 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:09 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:15 AM ^
jeez, Demens seems to have an uncanny knack of getting caught in the wash. Jake Ryan and Frank Clark are studs. Joe Bolden with a huge stop in the fake FG late. The young guys are promising, and I'm loving that we have two potentially great red zone receivers.
September 9th, 2012 at 10:00 AM ^
Good point about Demens gettting caught in the wash, Morgan also to some degree. On that 4 and 3 key stop, James Ross reacted immediately to the play and got a great jump. AFA had a blocker out there that would have picked off Morgan, but Ross was too far upfield already so the blocker had to look for another target and Ross made the tackle.
Ross and Bolden will both be starting after a few more games.
September 9th, 2012 at 10:28 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 11:48 AM ^
Ojemudia is 230 lbs. In fact he is the same size as a freshman as David Bowens was when he was at Michigan. Both are/were about: 6' 3'' 230 lbs.
If you want someone coming hard off the edge into the backfield, in a non blitz situation, the two best players on the team are Jake Ryan and Mario Ojemudia
As for Funchess: I guess time will tell. I think he can play WR, but is needed more at TE. M has some viable options at WR, but not so much at TE. At TE, Brandon Moore is hurt, Jordan Paskorz doesn't seem to be an option, and that is about it.
The good thing: Wherever Funchess lines up; he's a matchup nightmare
September 9th, 2012 at 12:24 PM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:44 AM ^
I agree with pretty much all of this. We saw way too many freshmen play yesterday (which, to me, is not a very good sign).
AFA scored a few more points than I expected, but as everyone has been saying, that offense is hard to prepare for so I'm not panicking yet. Our offense is what really worried me. I thought we'd easily get 42 points, and outside of a few big plays we really struggled. Fitz had 7 yards on 8 carries. Yeesh...
September 9th, 2012 at 8:56 AM ^
I'd say production from the RB is the only facet we struggled with. Keep in mind, our offense ran about 6 plays all game. AFA was literally always on the field. I think our offense did perfectly fine, minus the whole RB situation.
September 9th, 2012 at 10:58 AM ^
about the secondary. Every time Jake Ryan was doing his job and attacking the QB on the option there was no one attacking the pitch man. That's the corners job to shed his block and be there IIRC.
September 9th, 2012 at 2:52 PM ^
Exactly my thoughts as well. Far too many times the pitch man was left completely uncovered. IIRC, Floyd made a few good plays with outside contain. I don't know whether Mattison's scheme had the cornerbacks or safeties playing a bigger role defending the pitch man, but it seemed like the corners were having an especially difficult time shedding their blockers.
September 9th, 2012 at 1:00 PM ^
I think Ross and Bolden playing a lot yesterday had more to do with them being faster smaller guys, that could better chase around the AF guys on the option plays. I think Morgan and Demens continue to start against bigger teams, as they are beefier , albeit slower.
September 9th, 2012 at 11:48 AM ^
Offense
- Denard did a great job of being patient. Allowing lanes to open up and time for routes to develop
- Denard didn't look comfortable in the pocket still though. He waiting for things to open up, but his feet were still jittery. He threw the ball off his back foot once in a very scary fashion. His height will always be a concern with passes over the middle. He needs to get his timing a lot better on short/intermediate routes, against better defenses he would have thrown some picks on late throws or wouldn't have found open receivers. Got to make that throw to DG at the end of the game.
- DG keeps improving, and his size and athleticism are proof of his potential. Still has pretty bad routes, but adds a nice threat for the defense to have to respect.
- Funchess looks good. Athletic, very comfortable catching the ball. He will be a very big asset this season going forward with teams once again having to respect more than just TE catches in the flat.
- Fitz needs to get going against UMass. This should not be hard, but he had no room all day and didn't really make anything happen.
- Oline has a lot of work to do. I think they had trouble getting solid bodies on the small AFA Dline. This isn't quite as drastic as this, but we used to use "grubbers" one year when I coached Freshman, whcih are essentially the smallest guys willing to stay low and disrupt the feet of the O-line and just attack them low, making it very difficult to to get to your blocks. AFA is kind of like that. The O-line will continue to marginally improve throughout the season.
- Roundtree doesn't exist in this offense. There are three threats to catch passes: Funchess, DG, and Gallon. I think Michigan is just waiting to get the freshman up to speed and they will see the field by B1G play.
September 9th, 2012 at 12:19 PM ^
We should try Roundtree back in the slot and use Gallon exclusively as an outside WR. I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but the slot is where Roundtree excelled and Gallon has the speed to be effective on the outside. Roundtree can't get separation deep against CBs.
September 9th, 2012 at 2:06 PM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:43 AM ^
Lots of room to improve but luckily the schedule allows time. I think in terms of this team's goals, the season starts in Purdue in 3 weeks and is fully determined starting with State then Nebraska back to back late in October.
Denard and the receivers seem to be greatly improved in the area of breaking off routes on hot reads to combat blitzes. That's going to help them in games to keep teams honest. State barrelled 8 guys at the line all game last year and Michigan had no answers.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:44 AM ^
We won a trap game and the offensive line play is very mediocre at this point. The team is young and if we get out of our non conference schedule 3-1 I will be optimistic the rest of the way. Our freshmen are impressive but are still freshmen. The future is bright.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:44 AM ^
I know AF was cut blocking all day so that has something to do with out D line not getting any penetration but i still think that will be a weak point this year. We failed to keep contain all day, that dissapointed me more than anything. Denard looked pretty good. I wanted Funchess to get in the game vs Alabama last week because I thought he could be a difference maker and it showed yesterday. Just my opinion but I just don't see him putting on too much weight over his career, at least not enough to be a true tight end. Would love to see him get moved to wide out and work on his route running and speed. He could be lethal.
September 9th, 2012 at 9:59 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:45 AM ^
Sorry 4 weeks for Purdue. That's even better.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:45 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:53 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:18 AM ^
yeah, pretty sure section 18, row 40 was tired of hearing that from me. Just awful, and we supposedly outweighed their guys by 40 or 50 lbs? Wow.
Also, why u no run Rawls at all?
September 9th, 2012 at 1:30 PM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 8:48 AM ^
- Bad initial punch and maintaining a distance with their arms. They let the O-line into their feet and body again. They need to take Air Force's Oline and use their downward momentum (from attacking their feet) and push their face masks into the ground.
- Linebackers are still slow. A very poor job scrapping over the top and getting to the pitch man. Jake Ryan should have had an easy day with sticking with the QB and having people cover the pitch man, instead he was defending both. MLBs look like it will be consistent rotation between the starters and freshman until the freshman get more used to the game or the older guys step up and take the job like they should. The fact that so many freshman are playing speaks to the lack of depth on this defense.
- DBs got caught with their eyes in the backfield several times. Several times did a poor job on the edge forcing the play back into defenders or stretching it out. Have to be stronger on the edge and not get blocked by the WRs so easily.
- Tackling is still an issue with this team. Wrap up damnit! Too many poor form tackles all around.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:49 AM ^
Why not make him run shorter routes? He's currently a non-factor the way he's being used.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:59 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:09 AM ^
And against Alabama, we could chalk it up to CBs who will be playing in the NFL next year. If he can't get separation against the AFA, it's keeping him at WR makes no sense.
September 9th, 2012 at 11:03 AM ^
Watch the game again. Roundtree was open for miles several times yesterday. I believe he was even waving his hands in frustration at one point.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:51 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:00 AM ^
I think every play, the guy behind me was like " We should have done that against Alabama!". This man was not a smart man, if we could put a shock collar on this man whenever he talks about Michigan that would be great. He thought we should have ran Denard every play against Bama.
September 9th, 2012 at 11:16 AM ^
Here is one thing I worry about Denard.
He is like a deer in the headlights when they blitz up the middle. To me, he should just rollout and look for a dump off or take off running but he never moves away from the pressure.
This does not bode well against MSU...
September 9th, 2012 at 12:22 PM ^
This was my primary concern as well. I think Brandstatter was saying QB Draw is the solution.
Whatever the counter to A/B gap blitzes is, we need to have it. Heiko this is your question this week.
September 9th, 2012 at 12:48 PM ^
What is really frustrating is that if Borges tells Denard "if you see ANY blitz in the middle, just tuck the ball and run to the edges", Denard will probably do great as edges should be open and he probably picks up 5 to 10 yards without much trouble.
But when he decides to pass, he REALLY wants to pass and does not abandon it quickly enough. He makes it even worse by backpeddling and either taking a sack or releases a duck with his back foot.
I think his pass accuracy is definitely much better than last year. But if he does not change this tendency, his INT rate is not going to drop much and I do not like our chances against MSU much at all.
September 9th, 2012 at 8:51 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:28 AM ^
September 9th, 2012 at 9:38 AM ^
How many yards did Fitz run for last year? You expect 1500-2000 yards from the HB every year?
September 9th, 2012 at 10:43 AM ^
I specifically said "consistent production". Consistency has little to do with totals, has everything to do with being shut down entirely one week and then going for 200 the next. Consistent running was Michigan pre-RR, when a RB was rushing for 60-200 every week, not 8.