Michigan 34, Miami (NTM) 10
WITH AUTHORITY [Eric Upchurch/MGoBlog]
The gulf between box score and eye test is vast this evening.
The box score says Michigan gave hapless Miami their 19th straight loss with authority, outgaining the RedHawks 460-198, moving the ball well on the ground (6.1 YPC) and through the air (8.4 YPA), and ultimately cruising to a 24-point victory.
My eyes saw Michigan cough up three turnovers in the second quarter, allowing Hapless Miami to tie the game at ten apiece and hang around for a while.
The box score shows that Miami scored ten points against the Wolverine defense, but the eyes know those should be charged against Michigan's offense, as those scoring drives covered all of 26 and 21 yards following U-M turnovers.
The box score doesn't contain a giant red "WTF" flag. My eyes saw this at the end of the first half:
You can click to enlarge that picture, or I can just tell you that Michigan ran a four-minute drill with zero urgency or effectiveness. After Michigan tried to run a quick play on fourth-and-1, only for Miami to call a timeout before the snap, Brady Hoke decided to punt on 4th-and-6 from the Miami 37 when the Wolverines took a delay of game penalty coming out of that timeout. The decison to punt was so surprising Miami didn't put out a returner, then called a timeout of the "you can't be serious" variety. Finally, U-M took another delay of game to give Will Hagerup more room to boom a punt that hit the end zone on the fly.* Insert giant red "WTF" flag here.
The box score shows Devin Gardner had an efficient 184 yards and two TDs on 20 attempts, with one lone interception blemishing his stat line. The eyes saw his mechanics, which are all over the place, and at least two should-be interceptions hit the turf or, in the case of Jake Butt's first catch, get rescued by a great effort on the receiver's part. In fairness to Gardner, the box score also doesn't show that his interception was tipped at the line.
A crease, that. [Upchurch]
The box score and eye test agree on a couple things, at least. The offensive line did a fine job opening up holes after Miami stopped packing the box with eight defenders; when the RedHawks had to adjust to account for Michigan's wide-open receivers, Derrick Green went off, finishing the game with 137 yards and a pair of scoring runs on 22 carries. Green showed off patience, vision, and the decisive cuts necessary for success in a zone running scheme, and the numbers say as much.
Amara Darboh also looked good as he stepped into a starting role with Devin Funchess in street clothes; the redshirt sophomore caught six passes for 88 yards and Michigan's first touchdown—when he caught a quick slant and powered through a tackle to poke the ball across the plane—though he did lose a fumble during that stressful second quarter. Jake Butt looked healthy after playing sparingly against Notre Dame, finishing with three catches for 59 yards and a score on a clever fake screen called by Doug Nussmeier.
The defense thoroughly dominated Miami. RedHawks QB Andrew Hendrix could only muster 165 yards with one TD and one INT on 26 passes. The Miami passing game fared a whole lot better than their running game, which managed a paltry 33 yards on 24 attempts. The defensive front looked great, and even without starters Ray Taylor and Jarrod Wilson, the secondary held strong. Jourdan Lewis recorded his first career interception with a leaping grab on the sideline, while Jabrill Peppers impressed with his physical man coverage, forcing throw after throw to sail into the sideline.
The box score, which must be taken into account—our lyin' eyes being what they are—says Michigan turned in a dominant performance, with the final score a bit deceiving thanks to those turnovers. While it took longer than anyone hoped or expected, the Wolverines ultimately dispatched a bad team with relative ease.
On my drive home, however, I'll remember the groans that accompanied Hagerup's ill-fated punt, and the boos that followed the team into the tunnel, and I'll wonder what that kind of first-half performance would result in next week, when a plucky Utah squad coming off a bye week visits the Big House. The mental image isn't a pleasant one.
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*Apologies for initially screwing up this sequence of events; now edited for accuracy, though the general "WTF" feeling stands, of course. This was horrible clock management and an infuriatingly conservative call in a one-score game against an overmatched opponent.
September 13th, 2014 at 11:26 PM ^
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September 13th, 2014 at 11:31 PM ^
The receivers botched them. So, yea, co-play and actual competition should be active points of consideration.
September 13th, 2014 at 11:50 PM ^
As opposed to inactive points of consideration?
September 14th, 2014 at 12:10 AM ^
These darts were made against a team that has lost 18, now 19 in a row, with the game decided, against the second string.... And this earns co-play? No.
September 14th, 2014 at 2:31 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 9:40 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 12:00 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 1:45 AM ^
FG kicking improved.
September 14th, 2014 at 2:08 AM ^
I'm glad to see the all too common "A win is a win" comments are completely vacant from this blog. As we all know, a win is not simply a win. How you win matters, and Devin Gardner looked absolutely horrid. That punt to end the half was absurd, and Doug Nussmeier really needs to call a better game and make a decision of what our identity is going to be. One drive, we are a spread offense. The next drive, we are lining up and playing ground-n-pound. The entire offense is a massive cluster F***.
September 14th, 2014 at 4:38 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 7:16 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 7:20 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 7:43 AM ^
We will easily be the worst 10-3 team I the history of organized sports.
September 14th, 2014 at 12:27 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 9:36 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 10:16 AM ^
I hope you are right and that is what I would expect to see if there is true progress.
September 14th, 2014 at 1:19 PM ^
Yes, because that buys Hoke more time. Look I get you're biased in his favor because you know him personally and played under him but this team will never be elite under Hoke. We either makes the playoffs once in a bluemoon or hardly ever at all. It's not losing games but it's how we look when we win or hell when we lose. Ohio State steamrolls a middling MAC opponent while I'm wondering if we're gonna pull out a win in the second quarter. You shouldn't be struggling against quite possibly the worst team in FBS in year 4 of a coaching regime no matter what. We hired a career .500 coach and we're seeing those results. He is who we thought he was.
September 15th, 2014 at 10:38 AM ^
I am biased. I always admit that. I was also biased in favor of Lloyd Carr. But I am a reasonable person. When Lloyd lost to App St. even I jumped off the bandwagon. There will probably come a similar time for Hoke. I just haven't seen it yet. And I certainly don't think there was anything wrong with the win yesterday, aside from the end of half fiasco.
I don't have a problem with anyone wanting to fire the coach. That's their right, and is the nature of fandom. What I do have a problem with is bad arguments. I'm not biased in Borges's favor. I've never met the man, and I thought he was the definition of average, but I stuck up for him on many occasions because people made really bad arguments. Saying a man with a .667 winning percentage is a .500 coach is stupid. Calling yesterdays game a struggle is stupid.
Also, 10 wins doesn't buy anyone time. It end the hot seat talk, full stop. That's not why I'm picking that number, though. I have believed this was a 9 win team since fall camp. Add a bowl game, and there we are.
September 14th, 2014 at 6:39 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 8:13 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 8:28 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 8:51 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 12:34 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 2:50 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 5:34 PM ^
His record is above average. He's won 15 and lost 9 conference games in the three years; the average is .500 by definition.
The team's improvement compared to the prior 3-year period is also above average. M was 6-18 over the three years before he arrived; that 15-9 is a nine game improvement. Here's the conference delta:
- Michigan +9
- Indiana +2
- Michigan State +1
- Wisconsin +1
- Minnesota 0
- Penn State -1
- Purdue -1
- Ohio State -2
- Iowa -4
- Northwestern -4
- Illinois -6
Three games per season is pretty good; nobody else in the conference has even improved by one (Nebraska's entry in the interim made the overall delta negative).
Wins. Comparing wins to the school's established baseline. That's usually how head coaches are evaluated; do you have a method you prefer to these?
September 14th, 2014 at 6:45 PM ^
I think we can agree that we both just want wins.
Go Blue
September 14th, 2014 at 6:54 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 9:27 PM ^
Here's to more wins.
September 14th, 2014 at 9:00 PM ^
I can think of a couple of ways to tackle that one. I'm not sure what I'll find but here goes with the first and quicker of the two.
Using Massey as always (unlike the other computer services he has a free and functional website), Michigan's best win last year was over ND, who finished #29.
Here's the best win of the other conference schools:
- Illinois #68 (Cincinnati)
- Indiana #48 (Penn St.)
- Iowa #36 (Nebraska)
- Michigan St. #7 (Stanford)
- Minnesota #36 (Nebraska)
- Nebraska #25 (Georgia)
- Northwestern #55 (Syracuse)
- Ohio St. #22 (Wisconsin)
- Penn St. #22 (Wisconsin)
- Purdue #283 (Indiana St.)
- Wisconsin #33 (Iowa)
Four of the other eleven conference teams had better wins than Michigan's best, seven did not. That's above conference average, in what I think we probably all agree was by some distance Hoke's worst season of the three.
That analysis is crude and not very enlightening, but I think the point is that top-20 wins are rare and Michigan's six-year drought (the last was Carr's last game) isn't as unusual as we think. The entire conference only had one top-20 win last year.
September 14th, 2014 at 6:50 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 8:37 PM ^
I think the counterargument would be that Michigan has institutional and structural advantages that mean that an average FBS coach should be able to do better than average there. That's fair as far as it goes--Indiana hasn't been at the basement of the conference for decades just because they've had a long, long parade of terrible coaches. Some situations are better than others.
But that's why I brought up the comparison to the prior period.
September 14th, 2014 at 8:47 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 9:10 PM ^
What I think I don't quite understand is: why are people mad precisely now? What makes winning most of your games, but not as convincingly as we'd like, worse than the actual losing was? Why is 15-9 worse than 6-18?
A lot of posts here, reaching back for a time when things were as bad as they are now, reach for '07. That's weird.
September 15th, 2014 at 9:30 AM ^
September 15th, 2014 at 11:30 AM ^
That all sounds right.
But what I think is nagging at me is a plausible, to me, alternative history:
Hoke and Borges make the other choice in 2011, and install Borges's offense on the spot, without any modifications for the talent on hand. Denard is given a chance to compete at QB but he isn't a good fit for a true WCO and he winds up moving to WR or RB, where he's going to end up playing in the pros after all and where he would have been all along if he'd played for anyone but RR.
Mattison/Hoke/Hecklinski et al work the same magic with the defense they did in real life. The offense sputters, like Borges's offenses always do in his first year. We go 8-5, people are sad about Denard but damn, look at that defense, that feels like Michigan again, maybe we're on the right track.
The second year there's still some mismatch of talent/scheme but people are starting to learn the offense and fit into the new roles. By year 3 the thing's fully installed and it looks like last year but with some better run blocking and with a more experienced Gardner. Hoke's first three years are 8-5, 8-5, 9-4.
And everyone's basically happy. Or, to quote Harbaugh, at least they're the least unhappy.
The weird part is: given the choice between the two scenarios, nobody would choose that over 11-2, Sugar Bowl, Denard. But giving us what we wanted is what has Hoke's seat warm. It got hopes too high too fast; it flipped the trend line the wrong way. And the transition that would have been seen as a valid excuse in '11, just like it was in '08, wasn't seen that way when it was put off by two years.
September 14th, 2014 at 8:21 AM ^
that sequence of plays was far from the worst aspect of this game. the 3 giveaways were much worse but i expect nothing less from brian jr.
September 14th, 2014 at 4:11 PM ^
You're kidding, right? The "fumble" was a result of one of the worse replay reviews I've seen. The INT got tipped and the receiver still had a shot at it. The special teams fumble was the only thing close to having to do with game prep/systematic problem. That end of the half fiasco was all about game and clock management and wasn't a result of essentially random ball bounces as most turnovers are anyway. So, yeah, that was the worst aspect of the game and something that it seems like we've seen too much of the past few years.
September 14th, 2014 at 8:57 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 8:58 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 9:11 AM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 10:40 AM ^
I saw Braden donkey some folks so I was content.
September 14th, 2014 at 2:58 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 2:59 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 4:42 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 3:22 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 6:46 PM ^
September 14th, 2014 at 6:48 PM ^
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