UM does not play well on the road - why?
I have turned to the Board many times to help me understand things. Thanks to many.
I keep reading that Michigan does not play well on the road. The metrics back that up. Why is this? Growing up, every football player has home and away games. All of the coaches have coached home and away games. It's not new concept. I can understand why players don't perform well when they are used to artificial turf and then have to play on grass - but I don't get the away game stuff. I would like to hear opinions on why Michigan is road challenged.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:00 PM ^
No clue. It just doesn’t seem like the team is prepared, in addition to a wait and see approach this year on D.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:08 PM ^
Could also be due to those first 10 or so plays being scripted and probably something the D hasn't seen on film so they haven't prepared for it. That and every damn QB pays like TB12 against us.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:20 PM ^
That's true regardless of whether you're home or away.
October 1st, 2018 at 5:19 PM ^
Well apparently Michigan's offense is not allowed to run scripted drives like its opponents. How else can you explain the inability to move the ball before the fourth drive? Warde needs to address this with the league before Harbaugh says something vague and meaningless about it in a press conference.
October 1st, 2018 at 7:09 PM ^
UM can’t script and the other thing that drives me nuts is every time UM has a game like this it’s because the other team had a really good game plan to beat Michigan. If that’s the case then why can’t NW have a really good game plan to beat Akron? It’s always against UM.
October 1st, 2018 at 9:32 PM ^
The same reason we can have a great game plan for OSU and not for Northwestern. It's what the caches decide to plan for.
October 2nd, 2018 at 11:05 AM ^
Came off a bye week. Thorson’s first full game back. Everything that could go right for NW did for the first 20 minutes. Sounded like the coaches thought NW was consistently grabbing our pulling guards until they got called for it. And yes, our guys missed some tackles and seemed flat at first. Bottom line is I wouldn’t read this as “they lost to Akron, we barely won, therefore we’re bad.” Just a confluence of things for the start of the game.
October 2nd, 2018 at 7:51 PM ^
"Home cooking". But that affects every away team -- all home teams have some slight ref bias (noise from the stands, etc. See the video review in our last home game -- flag wasn't thrown until whole stadium booed).
I'm more interested in why *we*, *in particular* seem to be much worse than other teams.
We could prob run a regression on how teams do against the spear, with home and away splits. I'd bet we're not (statistically) significantly below the spread. If that's the case, its be hard to argue its not just
A.) Random chance, and
B.) We tend to remember the close ones, but forget the easy ones. Observer bias.
October 1st, 2018 at 5:59 PM ^
When every team’s QB plays lights out against us, it’s safe to say “it’s not you, it’s me”. It happens too often for it to be a fluke.
October 1st, 2018 at 7:24 PM ^
Well, we are #1 in the country in defensive YPP so there may be a bit of confirmation bias here.
October 1st, 2018 at 7:29 PM ^
You are right that M has a legitimately good defense and that we should probably cut them some slack, but it has twice this year given up sequences of big drives and, unfortunately for Don Brown and co., they can't afford to do that when the offense is only going to score 17-24 points against teams with a pulse.
October 2nd, 2018 at 10:00 AM ^
Yeah, I wouldn't call giving up 200 yards of total offense a great day for either the team or its starting quarterback
But here's the stat you've really missed: in two road games Michigan has given up 24 first quarter points and a total of 41 in those road contests, which is still less than three scores a game.
Now, for the year, the defense has given up 20 points or more just twice and a total of 74, on drives fueled by penalties that have led to 57 points in all five games. Thus on drives in which Michigan committed no fouls, the opposition has managed just 17 points.
There is a lesson there, somewhere, I think. Every score Northwestern registered on Saturday were penalty-aided. That was also true in South Bend. So, if you want to analyze why Michigan plays so poorly on the road or gets off to such slow starts defensively, you have to look at that or perhaps opposition conversion rate on third down. Michigan just seems to have a hard time getting off the field defensively on third down early in games, mostly because of penalties which extend drives or make first downs easier to obtain.
Michigan is being flagged for 5 to 6 more fouls a game than last year and 30 more yards in markoffs, which translate to three first downs on their own. Regardless of the officiating, this is a real thing.
October 1st, 2018 at 6:31 PM ^
HHHHHHmmm……...we havn't been great at home?
October 1st, 2018 at 4:01 PM ^
Which "metrics" back this up? I have not heard of them. They play about as well as other teams do on the road, as far as I can tell.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:09 PM ^
Harbaugh's road games:
Year 1
Beat Rutgers 78-0, beat MSU by 11 or 12, were upset by Iowa, and unexpectedly took OSU to OT.
Last year (not a great team, mind you)
Beat Purdue by 18, Beat IU in OT, blown out by PSU, lost by 2 TDs to UW.
This year:
Lost to ND by a TD, beat NU by 3.
That's a 5-5 road record. Our expected record might be 6-4 out of those games. I dunno. Seems like we're doing pretty average on the road, relative to the quality of our teams and opponents.
Edit: and I missed some games that improves Harbaugh's road record (read below).
October 1st, 2018 at 4:16 PM ^
This is Harbaugh's fourth season. In his first (2015) we lost to Utah by 7, beat Maryland by 28, beat Minnesota by 3, IU by 7 and PSU by 12.
Also, last year we beat Maryland by 25 on the road.
Harbaugh is 10-6 on the road altogether.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:23 PM ^
Ugh, I am getting old.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:17 PM ^
Edit: beat me to mentioning utah
October 1st, 2018 at 4:18 PM ^
Year 1 was 2015 not 2016.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:19 PM ^
Unless we're doing the "Year Zero" thing, you left out 2015, where Harbaugh lost to Utah in his UM opener, had too close for comfort wins at Minnesota and IU, whooped Maryland, and had a solid win at PSU.
EDIT: I type the slowest.
October 1st, 2018 at 9:30 PM ^
I think we're predictable. We beat the teams we are supposed to. The problem is we never seem to upset any higher ranked teams on the road. We never seem to outplay expectations. Things seem to have to fall into place for us to win against equal or better competition. We never out-scheme people and often get out-schemed.
October 1st, 2018 at 9:55 PM ^
I went back through Harbaugh's 3+ seasons looking at our road losses and rankings. The better question might be why can't Michigan beat ranked teams on the road?
In the Harbaugh era, EXCLUDING neutral site games (bowl and Jerry's world) Michigan is 10-9 on the road.
NONE of the wins were against ranked teams
7 of the 9 losses came against teams ranked higher than UM
The two other road losses were to teams (Utah & Iowa) who ended up ranking higher than UM in the final polls.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:27 PM ^
Overall Winning Percentage, 1869-2017
Team Win% gm W L T
Michigan 0.728 1283 917 331 35
Home Winning Percentage, 1869-2017
Team Win% gm W L T
Michigan 0.797 769 603 146 20
Away Winning Percentage, 1869-2017
Team Win% gm W L T
Michigan 0.644 436 274 148 14
Neutral Site Winning Percentage, 1869-2017
Team Win% gm W L T
Michigan 0.519 78 40 37 1
data from James Howell's web site.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:47 PM ^
Harbaugh's Michigan teams are right around historical averages.
Overall, they are 32-12 @ .727%
At home, they are 20-4 @ .833%
On the road, they are 10-6 @ .625%
On Neutral Sites, they are 2-2 @ .500%
October 1st, 2018 at 5:43 PM ^
What happens when you take out tomato cans, almost all of which (here's looking at you, Rutgers) are played at home? Is there still a disparity?
October 1st, 2018 at 6:33 PM ^
If you're going to do that, then you also need to take out other tomato cans, ala Northwestern from 79-82, etc
October 1st, 2018 at 4:49 PM ^
That's an incredible all-time home winning percentage. To be winning almost 80% of your home games for well over a century is remarkable.
October 1st, 2018 at 9:55 PM ^
Especially given how quiet rival fans like to say our stadium is.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:30 PM ^
Something along the lines that michigan hasn't beaten a ranked team in a true road game in a long ass time (2003? 2005?). And you completely missed a year of harbaugh. Lost at utah, beat IU in 2OT, beat minnesota with goal line stand, beat IU again in OT, beat northwestern by 3, loss to Iowa. And this is just harbaugh, going back 10 years we havnt won at columbus or wisconsin. We have road wins over unranked notre dame x1, penn state x2, and msu x 1. So "metrics"... even though this was just words and took 20 seconds. But sure, they play about as well as other teams if you're referring to the average big ten team.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:53 PM ^
Outside of 2015, 2016 & (hopefully) 2018, we've been a pretty average Big Ten team. So, it seems pretty normal that we haven't beaten too many teams that hardly anyone else beats on the road.
Maybe that's the "problem". Michigan hasn't been good enough to beat good teams on the road. So, there's the answer for the OP.
October 1st, 2018 at 6:29 PM ^
His question is why aren't we good enough to beat good teams on the road?
October 1st, 2018 at 7:14 PM ^
Recruiting. Does UM look like OSU?
October 1st, 2018 at 10:17 PM ^
Well duh. And his answer is we haven't been that great period. It's not just a road thing. But it's harder to win on the road. After that stat about Michigan's top 25 opponent road losses, someone had a good post here showing almost every program in the B1G (except OSU) has a pretty bad road record against good teams.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:02 PM ^
I'm not 100% sure here but I think it has something to do with touching, specifically the touching of one's self.
At night.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:08 PM ^
I prefer at work during my lunch break.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^
obligatory
October 2nd, 2018 at 3:48 AM ^
User name checks out!
October 1st, 2018 at 10:12 PM ^
Beautifully crafted. +1
October 1st, 2018 at 4:02 PM ^
At this point i can't give a direct answer. It's a mental block. We always seem to shoot ourselves in the foot. A bad call by the ref, poor execution on a crucial play, or when we have the chance to put a team away we get conservative. The list goes on an on.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:02 PM ^
Because they're not at home in the best stadium in the nation.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:05 PM ^
Because the other programs don't like us and they look at it as the biggest game of their season (in many cases). It's their Super Bowl and just a regular game for us. That's what it seems like to me but I'm not associated with the team so I really don't know.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:19 PM ^
I agree with this, Joe. Michigan plays from five to eight games a year that are "rivalry games" for the opponents. They really have to play at near-rivalry game intensity every week to have a great year.
October 1st, 2018 at 4:40 PM ^
That’s a horse shit excuse. Same could be said about osu and psu. All teams want to beat them.
October 1st, 2018 at 5:01 PM ^
Yea and we are not OSU and PSU good. We are and have been just a slightly above average team. That’s all there is to it.
October 1st, 2018 at 5:07 PM ^
PSU is not in a class above Michigan right now. OSU has certainly been recruiting at a higher level than we have though.
October 1st, 2018 at 8:29 PM ^
Correct, so why should we have to worry about “everyone” else treating us like a “rival” so those games are “harder” for us? Thats an excuse. We have more talent than 95% of the teams we play. It shouldn’t matter if NW considers us a “rival.”
October 2nd, 2018 at 10:15 AM ^
Exactly, the team should get up to beat anybody they play. I know its easier said than done, but why is the fact that the other team wants to beat us so bad matter when it comes to Michigan's play? If you know everyone wants to beat you that should psych you up and give you added motivation.
Michigan looks flat as hell on the road a lot of the time and its infuriating. They came out of the tunnel against ND - a major rival and the first game of the year - looking like they were there for a friendly game of 2-hand touch at a freaking company picnic. Michigan has to do a better job of getting up for these games.
October 1st, 2018 at 5:40 PM ^
We're not as good as PSU and OSU, but the other B1G teams still treat their game against us as if we are.
October 1st, 2018 at 5:57 PM ^
That’s a poor excuse . Since other teams don’t like us , we are gonna suck dong on the road?
October 1st, 2018 at 8:37 PM ^
Fuck no! We are not going to suck dong on the road!