Maryland Snowflakes: The Offense

OL, was good trente Jones played much better than expected and el hadi more than held his own for Keegan

JJ was okay today. Made some good throws, missed a few others. Missed at least two deep throws where his guys were open and hitting them would’ve led to scores and made this game a lot more comfortable. But he just flat out missed them. 

Corum was in fire today, but that’s about it. 

These gents are going to have real tough sledding next Saturday. Iowa may have rusted asscrack for an offense, but their defense is for real. And Kinnick is Kinnick. 

They may only need 17-20 points to win, but those points could come at a premium. 

How many OC's does it take to call 3 runs in a row directly into a stacked box?  Two, it takes two OC's to call 3 runs in a row directly into a stacked box.

I don't understand why people are complaining about the playcalling. We rolled up 463 yards, split evenly between the ground and the air. That's called a balanced offense.

We knew Maryland could score. The passing game clunked , JJ was inaccurate, especially on three open deep balls, Corum looked great. Got out with a win- hopefully they fix the issues before Kinnick.

Go Blue

A positive was the third quarter adjustment made to attract with underneath/short routes. 
 

Maryland will be 8+ win team 

I think this is a game the coaches will learn a lot from.

We know 2 things:

1. Corum is a stud
2. The offensive line can move people

That's enough to build a good offense around. To be great, McCarthy needs to play a lot better, but I also think the coaching staff will learn what he's comfortable with and what he isn't, and get better at building game plans around him. It's easy to forget that this is the _first_ full game McCarthy has played against an opponent with a pulse. Cade looked very shaky against early competition last year (including _bad_ competition like Rutgers), but eventually the offense found its identity with him.

I still think the offense has tremendous potential if things come together and they improve each week.

We need Edwards back.  Corum was fantastic, but we need someone to share the load.

This did not look good for the offense.  MD played a great defense and if it weren't for Corum we get the L at home. Definitely need Donovan back and Green.

It's not easy being QB1...

So it seems apparently we are taking turns calling plays on offense? That needs to stop. I don’t know what is really going on but there is enough smoke that this has been an every other play and/or the drive thing that it’s probably correct. 

hone in on a play caller.  
 

JJ will grow bit time from this. take the W and learn and grow. Huge game next week. 

Blake Corum was spectacular, rushing for 243 yds.  Whoever wrote during the game watching JJ "is an experience", very well said sir.   Yes he is fast,has an incredibly strong arm and is an amazing scrambler.  There were some open receivers deep in both the first and second half and JJ missed them.  Finally hit RB deep late.  JJ made lot of good throws too, and almost a bad pic on goal line.  Michigan needs to hit more of those plays when receivers open deep, and can't afford drops either.  Imho, Blake and the Michigan secondary won the game today.  Plenty of room for improvement in the passing game.  Feels like JJ will improve after today and has a very high upside. Hope Cade gets healthy soon.  Do not think Cade  has takien his last meaningful snap this season.   4 & 0, ! & 0, get better, move on. 

Play calling was ass. 

If JJ plays at like 80% of what he was the first two starts, we score 55+.  Missed deep shots and missed a wide open seam route from Schoon on the sack deep in our own territory.

I think if JJ hits 2 of the 5 open receivers he overthrew on deep balls today, we score 2 more TDs and everybody feels differently about the offense.  For the most part, I think it was fine.  The playcalling led to some opportunities.  But JJ was a little off today (and still threw 70% for 220 and 2 TDs so...yeah). 

He does need to learn when to give up on a play.  If no one's open, you've got to either check it down, throw it away or run.  You can't just hold the ball.

Clearly Maryland has improved. Missing Edwards, Keegan and Erick All cost UM at least another TD. #GoBlue

Sloppy execution and some mystifying play calling in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. 
 

Third quarter, want to lean on Corum? That’s fine, but we can’t be running 100% of the time. When they let JJ pass finally what a surprise that Michigan started scoring TDs again. Hope they learn from it.

no depth at running back and qb is going to be a thing.  Edwards and McNamara need to get back asap

Run RPO jim !!!!!

I mentioned this earlier in the season as  well, but it’s usual a pretty promising sign when a true sophomore like El-Hadi has stepped into essentially a starting role with Keegan banged up and not looked out of place. And Michigan has bodies at OL so it’s not like he’s being thrown in there out of necessity. More likely we’re seeing why he was a Top 100 recruit and it’ll gives you some comfort long term.

My biggest concern is that it looked to me like the WRs couldn't get open.  Why? Did Maryland know the routes?  Was the play calling too predictable? Did the WRs need to adjust their routes to counteract the coverage?  Would hitting on the deep routes have opened up the coverage?

Good to win a game when JJ doesn’t have the deep ball, frosh RB fumbles and OCs cannot dial in a consistent passing game. Also missing several key players in Keegan, All and Edwards. Maryland has some athletes on D and they’re fresh this early in the season, which matters with their thin roster.

It was a grind, but always accept a solid win in the first tough game of the year.

Filiaga sighting.  Good for him

Corum is the only offensive player on the team worthy of any mention of Heisman talk. 

Personally, I’m glad they sputtered (just maybe not to this extent) against Maryland. 
 

Erick All and Donovan Edwards were SORELY missed today. Clearly the ceiling of the offense is lower without them.

JJ didn’t play with the confidence that he has so far, but it also seemed like the WRs weren’t getting open - and they are going to be tested harder next week. 
 

onward. Go blue!

Maryland gave up almost 600 yards to SMU. I'll say it all day. Our offense needs to modernize. It was strictly on play calling, I can't blame the players for this. Where are the explosive plays we had last year?

Made a meme

It would have been nice to see more consistency breaking down what Maryland was offering. But McCarthy didn't turn the ball over and 34 is a decent total in the Big Ten.

Interesting that Harbaugh's teams have now scored exactly 3,000 points in 89 games (34 points per game). Obviously, it's a very different game today, but that is the highest average in Michigan history by quite a bit (Gary Moeller was the only other coach to average 30 per game).

Spread was around 20 with over under around 64. Essentially we scored one less touchdown and gave up one more touchdown than Vegas expected. Everyone relax. 

• Corum was godly
• JJ looked decent. He really needs to get rid of those hero runs and learn that he can in fact throw the ball away. Deep ball accuracy wasn't great, but did make some nice throws
• OL looked decent
• Playcalling was very meh

I readily admit that I could have missed it, but I did not see too many read options and it felt like there were opportunities for them based on MDs rushing attack. It looked like JJ could have pulled some and run for good gains. I’m not really complaining here but I’m curious to see the diagnosis in Brian’s UFR. 

The offense early on was getting 3 and manageable using Blake Corum. But then 3rd and something else became a problem because Blake or any RB not named Hassan Haskins or Derrick Henry can’t carry it 3 straight times very well without being gassed. They tried Gash on 3 and 4 thinking if they got it close they could bring Blake back in and go for it, but he didn’t get it close. The CJ Stokes fumble was devastating, because Corum was gassed after the long run, and they needed another back to complement him. After the fumble they trusted nobody. That put more pressure on JJ. After a couple early hits on JJ I think they kept him out of the fray and he had to throw into the 8 man drop zone and struggled a bit. Edwards would have made this different I think. But they knew this going in. Would like to have seen more Henning doing Deebo stuff today 

Michigan played the exact offense against UConn that would have worked great today, but instead didn't.

A prevailing opinion seems to be that JJ "just needs to hit those deep passes" but I'd like to remind everybody that JJ is not prime nfl mvp Tom Brady yet, and is in fact still 19 years old during his 2nd career start, and that Maryland sold out against the deep ball. All of those half dozen deep attempts were tightly covered, with Defenders hand checking the entire way. JJ, to his credit, didn't do what Taulia did, and put it where the defender could tip it for an INT. The OC committee also didn't seem to exploit the gaping hole in the defense created by selling out deep, either. Our young qb could've had the easy 10 per completion they were just handing us, and gotten into a good rhythm, but for the playcalling.

I feel like we've seen games like this every season incl. last year. I also feel like the first 3 games vs the cupcakes of all cupcakes led a lot of folks to have perhaps slightly unrealistic expectations regarding the productivity of the offense.