On one play Dax got caught peaking inside inside of getting out to the edge and it cost about 8 yards.

Sure not good enough to stand toe to toe with the OSU receiving cores of the world, but someone like Rutgers give me a break. UM's dbs are better than their receivers and that's not even a question. Rutgers has no downfield passing game whatsoever and no real threats at receiver. Bend but don't break against good receiver corps sure, but not against a team with the talent of Rutgers. They also have an oline that struggles in pass protection to even have time to get the ball downfield. There is literally no planet where UM should feel the need to not trust their DB's this year against a team like Rutgers. They gave away free yards for absolutely no reason.

This is just not true at all. Green has in fact established himself as at least solid as the year went on last year and so far this year.The only time he has even got beat this year is on a couple balls he was in perfect position on that were underthrown or miraculous catches. Gray, lol you can't even spell his name right has graded out as much improved this year as well. Hill is a very good cover guy at NB. WMU was already a more talented passing offense than Rutgers and they held up just fine. Stop thinking last years aberration of a year is a new norm, UM absolutely has a better pass defense than Rutgers has a passing offense. Rutgers didn't even attempt downfield passes against Syracuse, and probably doesn't have a single WR who would start on most Big Ten teams. WR talent in the Big Ten is just not good overall honestly, OSU is the only team who can overwhelm everyone with their WR talent. PSU is probably next with Dotson but nobody else too scary around him.

Against Rutgers you absolutely can. Unless you honestly think UM has a worse pass rush and db personal than Syracuse. Rutgers has not been to get consistently over the top of any of their opponents and guess what all three  had worse personal than UM. Rutgers can't get the ball downfield period, their QB and oline issues alone don't allow it, that has been true against all 4 of their opponents. They attempted two balls downfield all day. One Green was stride for stride with the receiver and was only caught cause it was horribly underthrown, the other Gray was in good position as well and sailed 15 yards out of bounds.

Sorry I brought up the dreaded “TOP” argument, which is auto negs on this blog, but it’s at least one of the elephants in the room of the story of the second half. Having 16 total opportunities to run offensive plays certainly puts a damper on your chances of scoring points. Having the ball longer clearly keeps the other team from scoring, especially in a game that played out this way. I’m not forgiving all the play-calling, clearly they were overly conservative, which aided in us not possessing the ball, but Cade did not help with all his wide open missed, keeping the ball when he shouldn’t,  Haskins taking an unneeded cut, and the defense did not help by staying on the field for 80% of the second half. 

We hit those few easy passes (also the TD at end of half), the run opens up a bit, and we likely score at least one more touchdowns or another FG, maybe 2, and we are probably talking about something like a 28-10, 30-10 or 34-10 victory that left a little to be desired instead of an entire dumpster fire of a half. With all that said, yes, I also think we abandoned the outside run a bit too much, but the narrative for this game is being overblown on the offensive side. Cade started yipping, the defense did a lot of sucky things up front making for too many 2nd and shorts, they got off schedule. 
 

NIU HAD THE TOP ADVANTAGE AFTER THE FIRST HALF AGAINST US. YES, THIS POST DESERVES ALL CAPS.

Agreed. Like I said, allowing them to easily stay on the field for 80% of the half and trying to make your defense defend like 10 different 3rd and shorts is a recipe for keeping your D on the field, getting them tired, and not giving the offense near enough reps to find any rhythm. Also, the Rutgers D is fresh every time they step on the field. 
 

Maybe the silver lining here is they have pretty of film on how to correct both the front seven and the cushion given by the DB’s. Also, lots of 3rd and short practice. Hopefully all the above and Cade improves from this second half showing, I believe they will. 

Can’t wait for Sam Webb to put lipstick on this pig ?

Colt Burgess,

 I’m with you. This business of making it look like they didn’t scout the opponent at all feels exactly like 2020 MSU game. 

yeah, if anything needs an "auto neg" is the tired post that the good plays are all Gattis and great and the bad plays are "vintage Harbaugh". Pretty sure Jim didn't just decide at half that we would call all the plays the rest of the way. 

No this is a pretty consistent with Harbaugh because he is a play scared conservative approach, who when he gets a lead plays to sit on it in any game where the opponent threatens. He just tries to kill the potential of big negative plays that can swing the game quickly and in the process chokes the life out of his own team. So yeah turtling and playing like ass when the team gets punched back is totally in line with what we've seen from Harbaugh as a coach.

The first three games I was pleasantly surprised to see that there was an attack mentality. Just play good hard football, have fun, and try to destroy your opponent. That was a new Harbaugh. 

But in the second half of this game the old guy came back. Henning never touched the ball on offense. The edges were there to exploit and yet nothing. McNamara had tons of time in play action and in the first half he was hitting wide open receivers in stride. If he was rattled in the second half he should have come out. Let McCarthy rip it. What is he afraid of?

Don't play "not to lose" anymore. That's a loser mentality. Michigan is not good enough to do that. Almost nobody is these days. Parity is becoming more and more of a thing. The transfer rules are tightening everything up and Michigan can lose to literally anyone left on their schedule if the coaches try to control everything.