MGoPodcast 11.8: Throwing Copper
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[After THE JUMP: ack]
1. The Offense
starts at 1:00
A few ways Michigan could have won. One would have been to catch the damn ball. Another would have been anything approximating even officiating because OMFG. Three would have been to recruit KJ Hamler. Bubble screens worked: yay. Shea had his best game this year but drops: DPJ had three. Great tradition wmith Herbstreit is when he does the downfield cam and sees nobody open when a lot of people are actually open. Why can't we run a screen? TE blocking problems. Finally they didn't fumble, and they dropped all the balls.
2. The Defense
starts at 26:43
Give up 283 yards and more than half of that is on four plays, including the Freiermuth pushoff. Penn State targeted two wide receivers this game. A few bad matchups but seriously they shut them down. Michigan's not Ohio State good, and Ohio State is the only kind of team that can overcome a team as decent as Penn State getting the calls they got.
3. Special Teams/Game Theory
starts at 41:52
Three horrible fourth down decisions. Punting on 4th and 1 in plus territory, and your punter is terrible at pinning guys deep! Punt on 4th and 3 in the deep 3rd quarter. Surprised Penn State didn't put Hamler back there for the 58-yard field goal when you don't have Nordin available (they did, then called a timeout). This is the stuff the rest of college football has fixed. Frames called timeout on himself when there's 21 seconds left and he knows he's gonna punt.
4. Around the Big Ten wsg Jamie Mac
starts at 56:58
Jamie regretting he left his BPONE comfy chair. Brandon Peters mom dropping bombs on Twitter. Illinois had zero trips into the red zone, Peters is 9/21. Whole Rutger ruined, Rashad Batemen is a dude. New Gopherquests: Minnesota could go 12-0, and Rutgers could be the worst team in the history of the Big Ten. Iowa controls their own destiny in the Big Ten West now. IU's defense has improved.
MUSIC:
- “Semi-Charmed Life”—Third Eye Blind
- “Hopefulessness”—Courtney Barnett
- “Plastic Beach”—Gorillaz
- “Across 110th Street”
THE USUAL LINKS:
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
- General podcast feed link
- Direct download link
- What's with the theme music?
Do you blame Jim Harbaugh? No I blame Hoobastank.
October 21st, 2019 at 8:45 AM ^
Hey, HSR hasn't used "Semi-Charmed Life" yet this year despite all of the other Third Eye Blind songs!
October 21st, 2019 at 8:50 AM ^
I want something else to get me through this.
(Or perhaps, I wish that you would step back from that ledge, my friend.)
October 21st, 2019 at 10:16 AM ^
As a 97 high school graduate, I am not a fan of Brian and Ace's music take.
1. Semi-Charmed Life is a good song. Deep, meaningful, art? Probably not, but a catchy song that brings enjoyment. It even made it into a recent episode of Henry Danger.
2. Everclear has some good songs as well. Santa Monica, Heart Spark Dollar Sign, Wonderful are all good, enjoyable songs.
3. People should like whatever music they like, end of story. If your feelings about a song are in any way related to how other people feel about it, you're doing it wrong. There's enough to worry about in the world, listen to music for your own pleasure.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:46 AM ^
You've got this all wrong. You need to like non-popular music until such time that that music becomes popular and then you label the artist as a sell-out and move on. How else can you look down on other's opinions and tastes?
October 21st, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
The corollary to this is that with whatever obscure music you claim to be "into" because nobody else has ever heard of it, your opinion must be so meticulously argued to complete and utter abstraction that there is no fucking way you can actually enjoy it because it is not about the music at all it is about being the coolest.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:30 PM ^
The best Everclear song was "Heroin Girl."
October 21st, 2019 at 10:09 AM ^
Michigan is 5-2
They played poorly enough to lose and well enough to win - both in the same game.
Penn State didn't enjoy the experience either, and they were exposed.
Is Michigan the 2019 chaos team?
In my opinion, yes.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:11 AM ^
Unfortunately, most of the chaos is to their own fans ...
October 21st, 2019 at 11:49 AM ^
Chaos team needs to be able to both punch up and lose to inferior opponents. Michigan hasn’t done the first almost ever since 2016 and only occasionally the second.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:20 PM ^
...and lose to inferior opponents.
What's the worst team UM's lost to during the Harbaugh Era? It's either a 9-3 Utah in 2015 or an 8-4 Iowa in 2016, right? And both of those were road night games, IIRC.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:38 PM ^
Definitely not Utah 2015, that doesn't make the top 3.
Iowa 2016 or South Carolina in the Outback Bowl in 2017. Also, MSU 2017 was worse than Utah 2015. Spartans finished 9-3 too, but they got slaughtered by both OSU and ND and had a ton of close, one score wins (vs. Michigan, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa and then they only beat Maryland by 10 points too). Also, we were at home instead of on the road.
I think Utah was more of an evening game by the way, it was light out for the entire first half. 6:30PM local time kick, but first weekend of the season so sun set later.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:17 AM ^
I thought Shea played a good game- good enough to win. Agreed that the officiating didn't help us- Pass Interference on offense- when they call it on a questionable call on Michigan but not the obvious one on a scoring play. OPI on Collins when he is fighting off the hold that has been called and then delete a long pass play when the offense is about to get going.
Defense let the team down by giving up big plays, and all of them TD's. Don't know how Hamler got free so easily when everyone knows he's the guy to watch. Kind of like Jonathan Taylor in the Wisconsin game. How does the defense not account for the best guys on the offense? Time and again the defense does that, and it is frustrating.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:42 AM ^
I think the whole football world has figured out Don Brown with the exception of Don Brown and Harbaugh. The big losses have seen the spectacle of Glasgow in the middle of the D line inside the 5yd line against arguably the best power running attack in the country. This was followed up with safety coverage on the most explosive player for PSU with equally predictably horrible results. He knows a lot more about football than me. His opposing OCs unfortunately are smarter than he is and are playing him big time.
i suppose you could chalk up last years Ohio debacle to the Dline being hurt and unable to pressure Haskins, but really 62? We couldn’t best mighty Maryland’s effort? Or any other single team OSU played last year? Harbs and Brown constitute an epically bad big game coaching duo.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:53 AM ^
Agreed. So is it a Harbaugh thing or a program wide/culture thing? Just frustrating to see other programs like LSU turn around so quickly in all aspects, in the SEC no less, and here we are 5 years in and seeing major struggles and inconsistency. Just makes me even sad and jealous to watch other college teams that are getting it- even when they are not, they look better than Michigan does nowadays. Just not sure where the disconnect is.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:37 PM ^
For a guy that everyone's figured out, Brown's D still performs well against most opponents.
Per Brown, we had a mixup in our coverages on a couple of those plays. That's life on the road in a crazy environment. Unfortunately PSU was ready to exploit it those times. Still, you can win giving up 28 points.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:43 AM ^
Come on ... the offense is and has been the weak point. If we could score 28 points or more every game and / or at least have consistent drives regularly our D is easily good enough to get us the wins we need.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:39 AM ^
Offense also let the team down in the first half. Defense can't always do it all every game. Offense has GOT to be consistently at least decent. If they played (like many have said) like they did in the 2nd half all game .. poof ... we win.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
I will look forward to the next 2 months of veiled references to Harbaugh's limitations as "program-defining" issues that could never be resolved and will doom the team to mediocrity. The dramatic change in turnover margin year-to-year is part of the culture, while the 20-ish yard drop in penalties per game compared to last year is? I assume that's just weird luck, and not proof that sometimes things just happen and it sucks in the moment.
Again, I think this site is great generally and I'll remain a supporter, but good lord is the melancholy and rueful chuckling getting a bit grating. You don't need to be a cheerleader or anything, but I've been down this road of "the program sucks and we're trapped and maybe the HC is an idiot we can replace" before, and it wasn't fun. Michigan has structural problems that they need to address, but the #7 team in the country, at home, showed a ton of fucking problems as well. This mythical perfect team that never screws up and always does the right things doesn't exist, and complaining your team isn't them either doesn't feel particularly productive.
I also cringe if the basketball team struggles out of the gate this year because, while people may claim they'll give Howard a leash, I remember 2007 and how quickly the masses turned on RR. Obviously I don't think Howard and MBB will fall like that, but this place isn't very forgiving.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:51 AM ^
Let me know if you need help on cherry picking data to fit your pre-conceived notions. Also, we could have discussion on how to identify patterns definitively with small sample sizes with lots of random variability in the data.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:16 PM ^
I welcome any insights you can provide.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:53 AM ^
This mythical team does not exist...
but Bama, OSU and a few other elite recruiting programs have a much higher margin of error. That’s the point.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
Sure, but even with all that margin for error Alabama made some awful plays in last year's title game. Georgia is recruiting like a mofo and got upset by a mediocre USC team at home.
Michigan recruits fine; they aren't quite at the level of Clemson/OSU/Alabama but they aren't light-years behind them. This isn't a situation where they're so physically overmatched as to not have a chance.
October 22nd, 2019 at 3:46 AM ^
And teams do have bad games ... Clemson almost lost to NC (21-20). No one expected that to be a close game at all. It's hard ... really hard to stay perfect.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
Absolutely--the travails of this season has oddly increased my enjoyment of things like the 2nd half of PSU. While I see where they are coming from, people who feel like "there is nothing to play for" now that we are (practically) eliminated from the Big Ten Championship seem to be missing the point of enjoying college football.
October 21st, 2019 at 1:13 PM ^
I don't think it's odd at all! The offense spent most of the season looking like lost souls out on the field. In the second half Saturday, they looked like a solid hard-working offense. It was a pure pleasure to see, and I'm hoping we see a lot more of it for the rest of the season.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
You have reasonable points about the excessive whining. But if one steps back and looks at the resources the staff has to work with and compares it to the results Harbaugh’s results are lacking. Wiscy is a great example. Yes their side of the conference is weaker but to say Chryst doesn’t over achieve with his recruits relative to Harbaugh would not garner much agreement.
I don’t expect perfection, expecting better than we’ve seen based on what he has to work with is reasonable. OSU is the only program that could claim aggregate better recruiting results over Harbaugh’s tenure. It’s the glaring evidence of under achievement, not the lack of perfection that is my beef. I think it’d be disastrous for him to go now, I just wish he’d seem to have a prayer against a 1st year OSU coach, let alone Frames Janklin.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
I think this is the reasonable complaint:
Michigan is producing at roughly Wisconsin's level (maybe a little worse or better given the year and what games fall home and away) despite having a huge recruiting advantage.
Wisconsin doesn't win big games on the road either. But they also haven't recruited any better than the 28th overall class according to the 247 composite in Harbaugh's time at Michigan.
With Michigan's level of talent, they should be winning the occasional big game on the road. They nearly did against OSU in 2016. They were fairly close Saturday. They made it a game against ND last year. But they haven't actually done it yet and haven't in a long time.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
I think the program is getting damn close, but the gulf seems to be widening. Let me explain.
The recruiting has been pretty damn good. They sell Michigan as well as anyone can sell Michigan. The only thing preventing it from even better is the lack of reaching that "elite" status on the field we've been chasing for 20 years. Winning begets better recruiting.
I also think the coaching has been fine, more or less.
I've concluded what's holding this team back is Harbaugh, or specifically a lack of what Harbaugh was best known for before he got to Michigan. He was supposed to be maniacally, obsessively competitive. A man who loved football so much that he's practically a prophet. "Who's got it better than us?!" Noooooooobodddddyyyyyy!
And yet his teams generally approach each game as though it was a business trip. Here is where Harbaugh has seemingly lost his edge or, worse, made a conscious decision to reign in his enthusiasm. They play like ponderous gentlemen. These are not pros. They're college kids and they should come out on the field like they were shot out of a cannon. Attack, attack, attack. It is the only way to play college football at an elite level.
Brian was right on this podcast. We had a 4th and 1 in PSU territory down two scores and Harbaugh punts. Jim Fucking Harbaugh goes for it every day and twice on Sunday. Where did that guy go?
October 21st, 2019 at 6:39 PM ^
Not necessarily agreeing or disagreeing, but I will point out that Nick Saban has said on many occassions that he teaches players to approach each game as a business trip, and that he thinks relying on frenzied motivation is not a realiable way to win enough games to be National Champions. His strategy is to train players to perform at a high level because it's what they do, not because they're all pumped up to play on a particular day.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
I think it's perfectly reasonable to be disappointed in the overall performance under Harbaugh. He's underwhelmed offensively, and while some of it is bad luck there's enough issues beyond cosmic justice that fall on him.
Wisconsin is a weird case - they run a particular system that works really well for them and they run it to near-perfection. And Chryst does well developing some of his players, but I do think people sometimes overrate "development" simply because the guy went from lower-ranked to start. Devin Bush wasn't destined to be an All American and a possible defensive ROY in the NFL; that's player development. Chase Winovich was a 3.5* LB who they turned into an All American by his senior year. Karan Higdon was something like the #45 RB in the country the year he signed; he wound up an all-conference performer. Lavert Hill, Ambry Thomas, etc. are fantastic corners and, as we've seen, not all Detroit-area guys turn out that way.
And again, James Franklin looked like a doofus last year in A2. Honestly, he didn't look great in this game and needed a lot of things to go his team's way to pull out a 7-point win where the tying TD was dropped in the endzone. Point to me the numerous coaching wins he had and I'll agree with you, but Harbaugh wasn't out-coached here.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:32 AM ^
This is not at you BronxBlue but just in general at any whining about the program:
For the bazillionth time, this is just about OSU. It's not even about losing to OSU, we can accept that same as we can accept losing to Clemson or Bama.
It's that losing to OSU prevents us from ever reaching the Big Ten title game.
And now if we beat OSU this year (haha) it won't even help us do that. It might buy another year of patience, at least.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
I agree, but even if they do beat OSU this year people will complain, as you noted. It's a national title or bust, which is totally reasonable but also tiring.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
Thank you for saying this, I've been feeling much the same way generally and I'm glad I'm not the only one.
Like, FFS, we've known since Wisconsin and Army that this team isn't playoff-caliber. Does that mean we should give up on them? That we should give up on the coach? That everything is bad and will never be good again? It's just a game, stop worrying so much and enjoy it. That should be the whole point of watching.
The team did something Saturday it hasn't done in a really long time in such a hostile road environment: they looked dangerous. PSU is lucky it built that lead, because they were dominated at home in the 2nd half. They had one good play in the 2nd half, and fortunately for them it was all they needed. But I enjoyed watching it, because I actually felt like they were going to do it until Bell dropped that ball (poor guy...but he was so instrumental in the comeback it's hard to even be mad about it).
It didn't feel like the ND game last year, which was M trying it's best but you just kinda felt like could never actually complete the comeback.
That game on Saturday, it felt different. Like Michigan knew they were coming back, they knew it could happen, and if not for a bad drop in the end zone it effectively did. Despite all the problems with execution or referring, they came back and drove for a tie against a top 10 defense, down 21 points, on the road. That, to me, was huge program growth. Harbaugh has never had an offense that could do that, because the prior offense was never built for comebacks like that. But with a Brown defense capable of shutting down any given opponent, an offense that can at times look dangerous spreading the field is exactly what we were all clamoring for in the off-season. Many here even said "I just want them to keep the game close." Well, they did, but because they lost I guess that doesn't matter.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Clearly, this is based on a much too small sample size but during this game, admittedly before the Bell drop, it occurred to me why Bell is Shea's favorite target and it seems to be justified. I also understand more why they throw to the TE's more and the other WR less.
I think the shelf life of calling DPJ, Collins, and Black "NFL WR" has expired.
Shea threw to the other WR in this game and it seemed apparent that they just don't do the good things that Bell does. With the exception of long balls to Collins--the absence of which is making me insane. DPJ and Black tend to drop the ball. None of the "big 3" seem any where close to as dynamic as Bell after the catch. Collins was in the open field and got caught by a DB who admittedly had an angle but Collins didn't even try to evade him. They spread around the bubble screens and Bell is repeatedly the one who breaks them big and gets more than the blocking justifies.
And then Bell dropped the last one.
This WR crew, for whatever reason, just isn't as good as everyone had hoped.
But still. The lack of deep balls to Collins. That seem to work almost every time. Is totally confounding.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
Collins was in the open field and got caught by a DB who admittedly had an angle but Collins didn't even try to evade him.
If it is the play I'm thinking of, the WR had one db and basically ran out of bounds to get around him. Why not try a cut back, or since the receivers are big, maybe they could run over/through the guy.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
I definitely had a "what was that" type reaction to that play. From the angle they showed the db that forced him out of bounds was the only one remotely in the picture. Would have been nice to see Collins try to set up a cut back or just throw a shoulder into him.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:56 AM ^
I highly recommend you and everyone take a look at the recruiting profiles(247 to be exact) of Collins and Black as evidence that the services nailed those evaluations on the head. Both receivers started highly rated and dropped a lot since inception.. The receiving core came in with a lot of fan fare but it hasn't materialized. Now, receiver drops are a Harbaugh thing as Dave questions and Brian agrees in this podcast. When did Darboh/Butt have an issue with drops? While Harbaugh did recruit them, sometimes you just miss and its possible Michigan has. I lot of people we're super high on Fisch but I believe Fisch was the evaluator for these guys. Part of the reason he got canned at Jacksonville were his personnel decisions as the OC, at least that is what I read somewhere. Could be a case of a better coach than judge of talent, maybe Harbaugh is the same?
October 21st, 2019 at 10:48 AM ^
Harbaugh always plays not to lose rather than to win. That is why he punted on 4th and 1 to open the game. He saw an opportunity to try to keep it a zero-zero game for longer rather than take the chance at a points while giving PSU a better shot at points if it doesn't go well.
October 21st, 2019 at 10:55 AM ^
That was baffling.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
Always? Harbaugh did go for it later in the first quarter. Also, kicking a 58-yard FG isn't really playing not to lose.
I agree that the 4th and 1 decision was questionable, though, considering that we can't seem to actually execute a pooch punt.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:48 PM ^
No, kicking a 58 yard field goal is just being fucking stupid. It's not too conservative or too aggressive, it's just too stupid.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:52 PM ^
Kicking a 58 yard field goal down 14 on 4th and 6th on the plus side is hoping to keep it close. The aggressive and right call would have been to go for it. The 4th and 3 call to go for it was right but not going for it in the 3rd quarter was wrong. So yeah I'd say a coach choosing to not attempt to be aggressive and make something happen on offense on 3 out of 4 tries is playing with a shitty mindset. From the drop he wanted to win that game scoring less than 20 and counting on his defense winning with the offense just not making any mistakes that got in the way and every decision he made was around that goal.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:59 PM ^
Kicking is not the safe move there. A miss gives the other team the ball on their own 41. Carr or Ferentz definitely punt there.
I agree with you on the 4th and 1 decision, but claiming that Harbaugh always makes that call isn't true. He went for it twice on 4th down in the fourth quarter of the Army game.
October 21st, 2019 at 8:06 PM ^
Harbaugh doesn't always play not to lose. I agree that some of his decisions in this game were less than ideal.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:11 AM ^
Make fun of Throwing Copper all you want, the fact is, Lightning Crashes holds up as one of the all-time great songs for singing along to while driving. The opening lyrics grab my attention like no other song ever has:
Lightning crashes, a new mother cries
Her placenta falls to the floor
The angel opens her eyes
The confusion sets in
Before the doctor can even close the door
We need more rock songs about placentas falling to the floor! DAMMIT!
P.S. Throwing Copper has a track called, "Shit Towne," which accurately describes where we find ourselves today after yet another road loss to a ranked team. Speaking of Shit Towne, I found this definition on-line for Towne: "Towne" is a non-word. It is an attempt to make someplace sound older and more distinguished that it is. So a more distinguished Shit Town. Yeah, I'll buy that.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
I have the "Throwing Copper" CD. Have to admit I lost interest in rather quickly; that disc hasn't seen daylight for a couple of decades.
October 21st, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Iowa and Minnesota: juggernauts!
October 21st, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
Iowa and Minnesota: juggernauts!
October 21st, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
How can you name the podcast "Throwing Copper" and not have any of the songs be from that album?
October 21st, 2019 at 12:02 PM ^
Especially considering they have a song on that album called "Shit Towne." (see above.)
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