Mailbag: Lear, Rudock Deep, Punt Agonies, Whoville
Pretty much
As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods,
They kill us for their sport.Scott
What's going on with Rudock?
Brian - you made some comments today on the podcast about how Jake Rudock's inability to hit the deep ball has finally bitten us in the collective asses, which I agree. You also mentioned that when you watched him last year, while he wasn't dead-on every time, he was able to hit the deep pass from time to time - something he clearly can't do this year.
My question is this - to me, this does not seem like a 'new coach, new system' type of a problem. Those issues seem to be the ones where he fails to even attempt a throw to a wide open receiver (which he does all the time - but I give him more of a pass for that as the "new system / new coach" issue). But when he throws the deep pass, only inaccurately - that suggests to me an issue with maybe his mechanics or something else that has thrown off his accuracy past 15 yards. Any thoughts why that might be? If anything, I would expect his deep accuracy to improve with a guy like Harbaugh teaching him the fundamentals. Again, I separate this from other issues such as "stares down Butt" or "ignores screamingly open routes every once in awhile."
Thanks,
Jeff
Yeah, you got me. Some of the Rudock problems are issues that make sense given what we saw from him at Iowa. Not throwing at sort of covered Jake Butt on second and goal from the 18 is a Rudock problem I can understand. That is his reputation. Rudock not finding receivers is a problem I can understand. He's in a new system.
Rudock underthrowing Amara Darboh by about 20 yards is inexplicable. Any quarterback is going to be off on some long throws; to miss as often and as badly as Rudock has is not something that I saw last year. That's not just homerdom. Preseason, PFF put out an article titled "Michigan can win with QB Jake Rudock" that noted he was 12th in downfield (20+ yards in the air) accuracy by their system last year. In the Maryland game, BTN had a similar stat:
The disparity is certainly bigger now.
I don't know if he's hurt or his mechanics are messed up or what, but for whatever reason his ability to hit downfield passes has collapsed. Why? I dunno. Is there something different in what he's doing here?
2014
2015
Since one is in the middle of the field and one on the sideline. Those are throws of about the same length. Am I crazy or does the 2015 video look like a guy who's loading up to get it as far as he can while 2014 sees Rudock make a throw that's comfortably within his range? I dunno.
Something is wrong. A problematic injury, possibly one that caused the weird Iowa QB depth chart thing, is a possible explanation. The other explanation is ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Ref hot take
Brian:
Having read Seth’s analysis of the officiating (and you really should make him do that weekly) my question is why – why did this happen to us? If you ascribe these “errors” to incompetence, shouldn’t there be an equal number of blown calls going in our favor? Incompetent referees should be just as likely to screw things up for team A as team B and over the course of a 60 minute game shouldn’t it balance relatively out if they are simply incompetent?
The obvious alternative to incompetence is the officials had an agenda and carried it out. Granted, we still should’ve won the game but with so many critical calls being made against Michigan it made the game much closer than it needed to be and allowed the last play to finally tip the scale in MSU’s favor. And if it’s an agenda – why does it exist?
What say you? Incompetence, agenda or something else?
MGrowOld
If you flip a coin a million times there are going to be stretches in there where you get a long series of heads or tails. Michigan just ate an game that was virtually all tails. There's no need for a further explanation. Over the past decade or so it's been definitively proven that the replay officials are not good enough at their job, but that's all. The Big Ten tends to use retired referees in the booth, with evidently disastrous results.
If there was any sort of "plan" here Michigan wouldn't have gotten a free touchdown when their receiver barely scraped the pylon a few years back in this very game. Remember that? That call was overturned from the correct call to free TD. Replay officials should no longer be people with rotary phones. Actual officials are probably the best we've got. That sucks; not much to do about it.
[After THE JUMP: HSPs future, Whoville analogy, we should have done this or that]
Hybrid space players of the future
With the success of Jabrill Peppers in the HSP role and the HSP as the future of defense, what does the future of the position look like for Michigan? Michigan could have as little as one more year of Peppers, his replacement is likely on campus or committed right now, but it isn't clear (at least to me) who the heir apparent is? Who are your top candidates to take over the spot after Jabrill Peppers moves on to the NFL?
-Mathlete
Tyree Kinnel. Kinnel is an excellent athlete who is a corner/safety tweener, but don't just take it from me:
“Kinnel is just a great athlete. I would put him up there with guys like Cam Burrows and others like that from years past. He’s half safety and half corner. He has great coverage skills. He has good size. He is a fit kid.”
All three major recruiting services made that exact comment about Kinnel. While he's not Peppers his reputation is the kind of guy who can cover in space and lay a lick when that's required. He is, or will soon be, the heir apparent.
I mean, probably. Safety is looking mighty thin right about now. Next year Michigan will have senior versions of Hill and Thomas plus Kinnel and true freshmen. The only safety type they have committed right now is Josh Metellus, a sleeper out of Florida. Kinnel might get drafted at safety and then you're back to Countess-style nickelbacks.
Acquiring safeties is a major priority in recruiting the rest of the way.
How likely is the OSU game to be a defacto division championship now?
Enquiring minds want to know:
What is the predicted probability of State winning each of their remaining games? We need them to lose two. We have to count on them losing to the Buckeyes. What is the other game we need to pin our hopes on? Is it at Nebraska? Home against Penn State? Do the Hoosiers have a chance?
Joel
If you go by the advanced stats there's a surprisingly good shot. S&P has the Spartans just 26th. If we assume a loss to OSU, S&P gives MSU just a 21% chance of winning out otherwise, with games at Nebraska and home against PSU near coinflips.
That is optimistic. The stats don't know that MSU has been missing big chunks of their OL that has returned; also the outstanding weakness of MSU's defense will be difficult for Nebraska and Penn State to take advantage of. But if MSU was in dogfights against terrible Purdue(#98) and Rutgers(#92) outfits, every game on the schedule is losable. Except Maryland.
All of the infinite "we should have done X" emails.
This can stand in as a proxy for the rest:
In a situation like the one M found itself in on Saturday, have you ever heard of or seen a team put a man back behind the punter, sort of like the safety man on a kneel? He could protect against a high or low snap that goes past the punter, or in the case like Saturday, or a simple block, he's there for a potential tackle. Might be silly to plan for catastrophe like that but high/low snaps, bobbled snaps, and blocked punts collectively are not uncommon. And I can't help think that if Pepper was ten yards behind Blake we might be having a different conversation right now.
In Jim we trust,
Tim
Yeah, that would have been better than having Jourdan Lewis amble downfield by himself. Yes, they probably should have been in whatever formation they have for punts from their own goal line. No, they shouldn't have tried something weird or fancy to drain the last ten seconds. It took both a fumbled snap and a very bad decision afterward and that bad decision ending up directly in the hands of a guy running full speed for that to happen on a play that won't happen for another 20 years across CFB.
Practice time is limited and better spent on things that had won the game until a series of highly improbable things all happened at once.
But yeah next time have a safety.
Whoville man
Hi Brian,
I've encountered something odd, and after looking around, it's more common then I thought. It seems that Spartan fans, are angry that Michigan fans, aren't as upset, as they feel we should be. They want us to be devastated. To admit that it was the most gut wrenching, soul stealing thing that's ever happened in our lives. The fact that most of us are keeping things in prospective... this is Harbaugh first year, building a culture, waiting for a QB to make his offense go, ect.... well, it's disturbing a lot of Spartans. They feel like this should be a referendum loss. That this loss should define Michigan, and Harbaugh.
It's almost to the point they're more upset about us not being upset, then they are happy about winning. I even heard Wojo talking about this strange phenomena. He said it reminded him of, the Grinch stealing Christmas, yet all the people in Whoville coming out and singing... and the Grinch perplexed as to why... that's Spartan fans right now.
Chris
For real. Twitter's been interesting this week. I put up the game column and had a pile of Spartans descend on me for calling their trash program for what it is. Sorry guys, but if you play a guy who pulled a gun on someone this summer and repeatedly try to injure Michigan players once a game is decided and have a linebacker suspended from the Rose Bowl for still-undisclosed reasons that your beat writers scramble to cover up and run all the way from the other endzone to taunt the Michigan student section, I am going to call your program trash. You can call me whatever you want; the difference is that I don't care and won't read it.
OSU fans, too. Eleven Warriors just put up a boutique site dedicated to the bad things that have happened over the past eight years thanks to Michigan's "institutional arrogance"; I pointed out that a school that…
- had its last coach fired for repeatedly lying to the NCAA
- went undefeated and missed a bowl game because their athletic director thought they could get away with the previous bullet point without a post-season ban
- actually calls itself THE Ohio State University
…accusing anyone else of institutional arrogance was ironic, and RIP my mentions.
I mean, at this point I've seen a lot of bad things. After the immediate stun effect of that game I was more or less fine. As I said in the game column, it's clear where this is going and I'm just happy to have actual football back in my life. If this happens when M has a big opportunity in year five they I might get shook up. Right now I am calm because I like where this is going… and rivals are foaming at the mouth at me for that take.
Previous stops are not this stop
MGoBloggers,
What is the likely Harbaugh tenure at Michigan if all goes according to plan? And by “according to plan” I mean successful seasons of 10+ wins, BCS bowls, and possibly an NC? Am I unrealistic to think 5 years is too much considering he doesn’t coach for more than 4 years at each organization he’s been at?
Thanks,
Jordan Davis
Harbaugh left his coaching stops before San Francisco because they were steps up the coaching ladder, not because he had "worn out his welcome." Getting the Stanford job is a great move when you're at a non-scholarship I-AA school. Getting the 49ers job is a great move when you're at Stanford.
The only actual evidence that Harbaugh can't stay in a place for a long time is what went down in San Francisco, and at this point the entire world knows who the problem actually was. Jed York's a version of Dave Brandon the 49ers can't fire.
I'm not making any promises about Harbaugh because he's an extraordinarily strong-willed guy who is not necessarily a lifer. But he's building homes here, his kids are in school here, and this is his home. I think he'll be around a good long while.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:00 PM ^
Obviously unfair is the main point of contention there. Players false-start multiple times: how is it obviously unfair that someone did it intentionally.
Here is a link with specific examples of where this has worked:
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:10 PM ^
It is obviously unfair because it is being done to waste time. You specifically stated the motive for committing the foul was to waste time, therefore it is an obviously unfair tactic.
Thanks for the link. The Texas-Tulane game mentioned is different because the game was not at all in doubt; the officials don't care if Texas has to snap the ball three times or two. I will check out the others as well.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:56 PM ^
(Yes, I reviewed the rule this week to insure I was correct because this is one of those minutia things I've always wondered why a coach didn't use.) We couldn't false start on 2nd down, MSU had called a timeout. If the play clock was stopped at the time the penalty was called, then by rule, post-penalty, it restarts on the snap not the ready for play.
Again, I have literally seen multiple times teams with <2:00 left trying to run out the clock false-start and get an however-many seconds. I have never seen an intentional false start called in any of them. I don't think a team could string together multiple false starts; obviously at some point, the referee is going to figure it out. And again, if I'm wrong and the referee calls a penalty I have never seen called in DECADES of ravenous football watching, we are out 2-3 seconds and 5 yards in a punt situation. A pretty fair trade for the overwhelming likelihood is WE DON'T HAVE TO SNAP THE BALL AT ALL ON 4TH DOWN.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:05 PM ^
First: the "unfair game clock tactics" is not a penalty: it's a change in the enforcement. You have never seen this penalty called in DECADES of ravenous football watching because it isn't a penalty so it isn't announced. It just changes the enforcement. It happens all of the time, and you probably just haven't ever noticed it.
"I have literally seen multiple times teams with <2:00 left trying to run out the clock false-start and get an however-many seconds." Interesting. In decades of ravenous football watching, I don't think I have ever seen a team reduce the number of their snaps by committing a foul. Do you happen to recall any specific games? If so, I would love to hear about them: I would really like to take a look at the play-by-play, because I am very curious to see the circumstances when the officials decide not to bring this enforcement into effect.
For all of these "rule book tricks" that people come up with, I can assure you that there is a reason that real coaches don't employ them, and it's not because they haven't thought of them.
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:37 PM ^
always run your 3 plays to the very edge of the field. This takes more time to because the runner is going more yards (sideways vs. north - south) AND the play clock doesn't start until the ball is marked as ready for play. This means the refs have to run it in from the sidelines to the hashmarks. ALl in all this would have eaten at least another 20 seconds for 3 plays.
Game over ... sigh .....
Go Blue!
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:54 PM ^
out of bounds? You're trying to gain a couple seconds and risking 30 or 40.
October 22nd, 2015 at 8:35 PM ^
needs to go down on his own, if there are tacklers closing in. With 6 seconds left - you can take a snap tothe QB and loft a deep ball out of play and the clock will expire. We really only needed 4 more seconds run off from a total of 3 plays .... sigh
Go Blue!
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:14 PM ^
why does this keep being brought up? it must be by people who have never played or coached football. one more time, there must be 7 men on the line of scrimmage, that leaves 4 in the backfield. one punter and you allways have 3 blockers in front. the three blockers moved to the right with the punter stepping in that direction also. this punt would never have been blocked without a drop because no one for msu broke thru clean.
one thing went wrong and it was the most unlikely of all the possible bad things that could have happened. msu sold out for the block and yet still didnt get anyone thru. no drop and the game is over.
and yes you do need someone to go downfield so a msu player cant peel back and pick up a live ball just laying there.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:58 PM ^
One more time, there must be 7 men on the line of scrimmage, that leaves 4 in the backfield.
Actually - they changed the rule a few years back.
It used to say you must have 7 on the line. Now it says you can't have more than 4 in the backfield.
In the past if you sent 10 guys out, 6 on the line and 4 in the backfield - it was a penatly. Now, it is not.
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:07 PM ^
thats the same thing. come on. ive coached for over 30 years.
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:50 PM ^
That was a real NCAA rule change about 3-5 years ago: the rule used to be "minimum 7 on the line." The rule is now "maximum 4 in the backfield." Yes, it's the same thing if a team has 11 on the field.
There was a problem: sometimes teams sent out 10 players on a play, as we all recall from last year. The problem was that the officials responsible for counting the number of men on the line didn't actually count the number of men on the line--they counted the number of men in the backfield and subtracted from 11.
So it happened that if the offense accidentally sent 10 players out onto the field, and put 6 on the line and 4 in the backfield, the officials were missing the penalty. The rule committee's solution, weirdly enough, was just to change the rule so that 6 on the line and 4 in the backfield was legal.
Look at the infamous "10 men on the punt team" that Michigan pulled last year--6 on the line, 4 in the backfield. No penalty, because that's legal now.
I have no idea what this whole thing has to do with Saturday's game, but there you go.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:13 PM ^
Thank you, good sir. I couldn't bring myself to write another billion words on this. I read "But yeah next time have a safety" and I almost gouged my eyes out with paper clips.
You're exactly right. There is nothing to fix. Nothing went wrong. The play was wonderful. A symphony of superior design and delightful execution.
Blake O'Neill dropped the ball.
Quit trying to fix everything else that didn't happen.
October 22nd, 2015 at 3:47 PM ^
- UM had a gunner at the top who was doing nothing. Nothing. That seems like a bad move, in need of fixing.
- Five UM blockers were racing down to the south end zone, towards nobody, rather than seeing if the punt/snap was successful. Why was that? Seeing as there were no MSU players back, this seems like a bad move.
The main danger on this punt for UM--in this unusual situation--was either immediately in front of them (MSU players going for the block) or behind them (more MSU players and the possibility, which was not 0.2%, of a bad snap; catch; or blocked punt). The most probable "oh shit" scenario to lose this game wasn't way down at the south end of the field with zero MSU players.
So while I do *not* think there should be a "safety" behind Blake (everyone should have been blocking), there should have been at least a 3 or 4 of those five UM guys on the line peeling backwards, hard, after their initial block, instead of running down the field to cover non-existent MSU players. Yeah, that's unusual. But this was an unusual situation.
The main issue is, of course, Blake dropped the ball and then didn't fall on it. The punt, as designed, would have worked most of the time. But the coaches should have had the non-punters ready for the disaster scenario -- of which there was more than one possibility and aren't exactly unprecedented.
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:10 PM ^
Rob, allow me to introduce Pepto. Pepto, meet Rob. I have to go now, but you two have fun..
Edit: This might save you some time...
mgoblog.com/mgoboard/msu-was-lined-neutral-zone-last-play
97-110
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:32 PM ^
Exactly what I was thinking, Chuckie.
October 22nd, 2015 at 7:36 PM ^
of the David Soul as Daniel Boone gif. and with a plasma sword too!
October 22nd, 2015 at 8:48 PM ^
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:32 PM ^
No. There's nothing to fix.
You just suggested that Baxter tell his blockers to run backward toward their own endzone. I can't have this conversation.
October 22nd, 2015 at 5:46 PM ^
No improvements in the formation or scheme No being ready and in position if things go wrong. You're OK with 5 Wolverines running down to cover zero Spartans. Why you need 5 people to down a ball, when only 2-3 running free would easily cover it, I don't know.
And what's so shocking about having a 2-3 people shading backwards towards your own endzone --that's allowed right? Teams do try to protect their own endzone, right? That is where the main danger was -- it wasn't downfield, where there wasn't anyone from the opposing team. Can't we agree this was not a regular, do things the usual way situation? It was an all-out punt block with maximum stress/choke-potential for the snaper & punter. More likely than not, the action was going to happen on our side of the 50.
In any case, we saw how it worked out the standard way. Perhaps getting a little creative would be warranted, instead of just crossing our fingers and only relying on Plan A, and having no Plan B.
October 22nd, 2015 at 7:39 PM ^
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:15 PM ^
ball if the snap and/or catch isn't clean. Even if it was just a quick shout in his face before he went on the field. Based on his interview it sounded like the play was treated like "any other punt" ("plan for the best" is how I think he put it) just like the 4th and 16 punt against BYU where he personally decided it would be ok to try a fake. It should have been very clear to Harbaugh and Baxter then that maybe the kid requires just a bit more football-game-awareness coaching. Then in the most critical situation you could possibly imagine for a punter, they send him out there without a contingency plan.
They should have had the errant punt snap that worked in our favor v. Oregon State fresh in their minds too.
That OSU (ntOSU) disaster and lip-reading Harbaugh asking "what were you thinking?" to O'Neill after that BYU play. Harbingers, man. Guh, guh, guh ... Deep breath. Calm, blue, ocean.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:23 PM ^
Putting a safety behind the punter loses you one blocker in your shield, it's not a smart move.
As for yelling at a guy "to fall on it if he drops it," there is a line of coaching that I learned early on. 4th and short, and I told my DL "don't jump". All they're thinking is "jump", and then they jumped. You don't coach by telling someone what to do in the event something goes bad, because then they think about the bad thing.
I get that he should have fallen on the ball once he dropped it. I also get not yelling at him before going in there. It was an unfortunate, heat of the moment play that ended up costing Michigan.
October 22nd, 2015 at 3:26 PM ^
Is a common refrain to the DL in these situations on my son's team. Seems to work. Maybe the message is more positive?
October 22nd, 2015 at 3:59 PM ^
Unfortunately, in the situation with Blake, you can say "Catch the ball", but that doesn't give instruction for what to do in the event he doesn't. To get there, you have to talk about not catching the ball.
October 22nd, 2015 at 3:50 PM ^
Coaching kickers and punters has got to be the toughest, as so much of what they do is mental and confidence-based. So I am sure most, if not all, coaches stay very positive with them.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:14 PM ^
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:49 PM ^
I only have a desktop computer. Is this okay?
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:15 PM ^
It's amusing to me that I have yet to see a single post on my FB feed by Sparty fans that didn't revolve around Michigan fans' reactions and how shitty it must be to be a UofM fan. Not a single "good job" to their own team, not a single mention of how great if is to be a Spartan (unless compared to being a Wolverine).
Also, regarding "we should have done X" I agree with not trying something silly to run off 10 seconds, but what do you think about the decision to run up the gut 3 straight times? I seems like if you took the preceding 3 downs and ran sweeps that purposely wasted as much as time as possible, even at the expense of losing some yardage, you would be left with a 4th down situation where killing the final couple seconds becomes plausible, if not trivial.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:25 PM ^
I think the goal still has to be to get the first down, rather than to assume you won't get it in three tries. Michigan hasn't done a particularly good job on pitch-outs since early in the game. And, given how much time the runs drain, I think it was fine.
Really, how can you plan for something that flukey? Virtually any play you call has as much chance of going catastrophically wrong as that; indeed, pitching the ball to the RB has at least some chance of a fumble while there's still time on the clock.
I can say this about Sparty fans: Living out of State is a big, big plus on weeks like this. I paid for it all when UMD beat us in the Frozen Four a couple of years ago, though.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:48 PM ^
I don't see any real strategic decision that Harbaugh should have done differently at the end, especially given how good his punter has been all season. (Frankly, Hoke disagreeing with the decision even makes me more convinced it was correct.)
I also realize that you can't really practice these random scenarios to the Nth degree....especially in college.
But the one other thought I had was regarding a "safe pooch" scenario. As soon as you see that they have no returner, talk to the snapper and move the punter 5-7 yards closer to the LOS. Simplify the snap, just kick the ball any distance, etc. They would have no time to rush.
In this case, however, it was a dropped snap, which could happen even if it were a QB under center.
Any other crazy scenario is just that - crazy. Imagine if they snapped to Peppers and had two blockers follow him around as he ran back and forth to eat up 10 seconds. While fun to think about.....if he gets tackled with any time on the clock it is a disaster. The fact that there were 10 second instad of fewer and that a FG wins the game and doesn't tie forced Harbaugh's hand. If we were up three you run backwards for a safety and the game is over.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:57 PM ^
"Safe pooch" punts only work when a regular defense is on the field because you have your regular offense in. Many have argued for a regular own-endzone punt formation, which sometimes necessitates shorter snaps, but that is not optimal.
The fact is, if you remove five yards from the equation, you save the defense at least two critical steps in their attempt to block. If they have even one man free that is probably disastrous.
Really, any play that is called can have something go wrong. Michigan punted, and they did, but remember that Harbaugh said postgame that one of his options was a long pass. Problem with a long pass: You have to drop back. You are vulnerable to strip-sacks. You are vulnerable to a bad snap again. There's a good chance that there is time left on the clock if you don't succeed.
In other words, a lot of things that can go wrong. Hindsight may seem like it's 20/20, but it's really 50/50.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:38 PM ^
You don't need to pitch, just hand it off and have them bounce out and make a big arcing cut towards the far sideline. Or do a the safe "pass" hand off on a jet sweep. You can kill clock and not need the conversion this way, and I think the time on the clock allowed for this. The 10 seconds we had to kill divided by 4 plays is just 2.5 seconds, which I think you can easily burn those extra 2.5 seconds running to the far sideline on 1st-3rd down. That leaves you 2.5 seconds to kill on 4th down, which leaves you with all sorts of options (long bomb to no one would do it).
October 22nd, 2015 at 3:37 PM ^
Run to the sideline. Then the RB has a brain fart, or the MSU defense smartly latches on and runs him straight out of bounds and the clock stops. And you punt to Connor Cook with 50 seconds left instead of what would have probably been :03 or less. And Cook proceeds to throw 3 back shoulders to Burbridge and they kick the winning FG. Then you're in here yelling about how you would've run it up the middle 3 times to kill the clock.
October 22nd, 2015 at 4:40 PM ^
October 23rd, 2015 at 10:43 AM ^
Just pointing out that nothing is fool proof and second guessing this stuff is idiotic.
Let's go back to your first post and let you be head coach, and you break out your super-smart time-killer package and run your afore-mentioned Jehu Chesson jet sweep and he fumbles the game away. You know what you'd get?...
6 billion hate messages on this board second guessing as to why on earth you'd even consider putting the ball in a WR's hands instead of your most sure-handed running back. When the main objective is to milk the clock, and the only way to lose is on a turnover, you're suggesting running jet sweeps for a guy with 8 career carries.
And you've had 5 days to think about it.
:shrug emoji:
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:17 PM ^
Oh, 11w made a boutique site to troll Michigan? How cute.
I say this again, Brian and the rest of the crew - I think y'all really need to ramp up this site's level of single-minded obsessiveness about Michigan to match that of Elven Warriors.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:53 PM ^
It is so true. I got mentioned/tagged/texted immediately after the game Saturday by all my OSU "friends." I use the term friend loosely, because they are people that merely know that I'm Michigan fan, yet I have never conversed football with them in my life. Yet I saw the "RT this to ruin a MIchigan fan's day" Vine and screen shots of the final score or the "U mad bro?" status linked to me. I dare say, if Brian ever wrote a "This Week In OSU" I think we all would collectively shit ourselves. Not because I don't care for Ohio State, but because (as many people regularly point out) this is a Michigan blog that talks about Michigan athletics and topics. Sure, there will be a post from time to time that discusses opponents and how it relates to Michigan, but to have a WEEKLY FEATURE and a boutique site dedicated to anti-Michigan stuff just further validates to me that they seem to care more about Michigan's sadness than they do their own team's success.
My two best men at my wedding last summer are huge OSU fans, and there is no ill will on either side. They were both over Saturday, just about as irate as I was. They both even admit that "OSU fans are the worst," and that while they don't want to lose, they want Michigan to be good again. Most OSU fans covered up their fear of Harbaugh's hire with chest-thumping arrogance, my two buddies quite plainly said "I love the hire, but I'm scared shitless that Harbaugh is gonna blow people out." But all these collective reactions stem from insecurity and that fear of impending inferiority.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:17 PM ^
Ummmm, on that 2014 clip, he clearly underthrows Duzey (?) by a good bit, making it a very tough catch and leaving yards out there.
Perhaps Iowa didn't throw downfield very often and had more natural receivers as deep threats, leading it to be a combination of limited sample size and Jehu Chesson's lack of adjustment?
I mean, how many throws did he make 20-yards downfield for Iowa last year? 15-20?
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:17 PM ^
I just ran the coin flip scenario for a million tries and the longest stretch of consecutive identical results was 20 flips.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
You summed up my feelings about this game perfectly. After the initial shock and anger wore off, I was not too upset about this game, as it is clear the direction the program is headed and that it is going to be a rough few years for State. Let them enjoy this one, because it probably isn't going to happen again for a while.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
Completion percentage isn't a good reflection of how accurate a QB is. If a WR has to make a big catch that isn't within the normal running range, that's not an accurate pass even though it counted as a completion. Or if a WR has to pluck the ball from the ground or has to jump 10 feet to get the ball, it's not an accurate pass even though it's a completion.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:05 PM ^
The QB could have a reall ywell thrown ball that the wr drops or a really well thrown ball but the db makes a great play to break up.
October 22nd, 2015 at 3:54 PM ^
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October 22nd, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
People don't know what a series of coin flips usually looks like. 10 coin flips in a row is usually not going to be 5-5 or even 6-4. There are often long streaks of one side or the other.
You can play with a 50 coin flip here:
https://www.random.org/integers/?num=50&min=0&max=1&col=1&base=10&forma…
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
I've wondered if he's hurt or he got the yips like Joel Stave. Last Saturday, he seemed to be putting more air under his long passes, but they definitely had less zip on them, too. The underthrow to Darboh was a good example. His velocity seemed down the whole second half. I wonder if he does have a shoulder problem that they've been papering over since the Maryland game.
October 22nd, 2015 at 1:20 PM ^
re: How devastating the loss is: The problem we have, and it's a bad one, is that we have seen a couple of really devastating losses. At the time it happened, with a playoff berth in play and against our arch-rival, it felt as bad as any we've experienced.
The problem is that we've seen you can't truly judge how devastating a loss is in the moment. The App State loss was the opening chapter of the worst period in the history of the program, and set the stage for all that came after it. With each passing year of mediocrity the pain of it has deepened.
In contrast, that awful (and rather similar, albeit against a non-hated opponent) moment in 1994 against Colorado, while terrible, went in the other direction. It was terrible and shocking at the time, but: 1. It did not cost us a national title that season, since we were not going to beat Penn State that season and also wound up losing to Wisconsin and Ohio State; 2. We won a national title within three years, a dream season that included a total evisceration of that same Colorado team on the same field. The healing was fine.
Right now I believe Michigan will rebound just fine. Assuming we don't have any unpleasant surprises, the season will be fine and Harbaugh will field a fantastic team in the next year. Yes, the playoff possibility we were considering before Saturday was nice, but even as we were playing and leading I felt (and was not devastated by this) that we were not a good enough team to seriously compete in a playoff game yet. And that's fine.
Time heals some wounds. We'll see about this one.
October 22nd, 2015 at 2:01 PM ^
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