Utah Open Thread Comment Count

Brian

You can comment on the post if you like as we wait for the WLA to arrive, should be around 3. Excelsior! Or Yakety Sax, we’ll see.

Comments

Cannibal6

August 30th, 2008 at 1:19 PM ^

Brian,

I'm a bit surprised you haven't jumped on the opportunity to write "Utah Utes of Utah (We're from Utah!)."

This morning's slate of games is thoroughly un-entertaining.  As Teddy KGB once said, "I feel so unsatisfied."  Can 2:30 (CDT) just get here already?!

chitownblue (not verified)

August 30th, 2008 at 1:58 PM ^

All - we'll have the livechat up and going in about 30 minutes. I'm just stabilizing my beer/snacks/sandwich situation.

West Texas Blue

August 30th, 2008 at 7:45 PM ^

25 yards total rushing isn't what I expected for a team with 4 top RBs (Shaw, McGuffie, Brown, Minor).  We have serious problems on offense and it's going to take longer than I though to adjust and gel together.

West Texas Blue

August 30th, 2008 at 9:17 PM ^

I'm just really frustrated in that we can't stop any spread offenses.  Every year it's the same stuff; shreaded by a spread offense with no effective plan. I thought bringing in Shafer would help solve the schematic problem, but it seems that our personnel flat out sucks in defending the spread.  I'm just wondering if we will ever be able to defend a good spread team.  Do we lack speed? Do we have poor fundamentals? What exactly is the problem? Why did we do better in 2nd half than 1st half defensive wise?

gsimmons85

August 30th, 2008 at 9:48 PM ^

for the most part this was a good performance for the defense.   besides having trouble at first with the vertical seams olb's too worried about contain, and not holding the vertical, and a misplay by brown on the big pass.  even the first half wasnt that bad....  utah did a good job of getting the ball out early to keep the preasure from gettign there.  Michigan adjusted by holdign the vertcial seams better and the secondary breaking on more first move routes....   dont let the stats foul you.. michigan defense is good.. and much better able to contain spred offenses

Coach

August 31st, 2008 at 12:11 AM ^

It seemed to me that the defense looked better in the 2nd half because Utah went conservative.  They stopped throwing the ball and went with a lot more runs up the middle.  I'm sure some adjustments were made by Rodriguez at halftime, but I think it was more on the Utes than the Wolverines.

baleedat

August 30th, 2008 at 10:53 PM ^

i couldn't see shit from row 63 in the endzone, but the defense looked phenomenal in the the second half (and like shit the first). how'd they look on tv/close enough to see? also, how did the o-line look? couldn't quite tell who sucked and who was ok from where i was. basically i was too far away to see anything. can i get a quick (or long) recap please? i don't want  to have to wait to read it in the papers/here tomorrow.

edit: also, was it just me or did they not throw anything over the middle, or get it to the receivers in stride? the o just looked like shit from top to bottom from where i was.

Farnn

August 30th, 2008 at 10:29 PM ^

What really impressed me was our DTs ability to run down a mobile quarterback.  Also the fact that we actually seemed to have more energy on defense in the second half even with a lot of 3 and outs by the offense.  Looks like the days of 4th quarter melt downs may have come to an end.

Tim Waymen

August 30th, 2008 at 10:29 PM ^

Well that sucked, but it was the first game.  We have no offense.  Crap.  To anyone willing to answer, what is your assessment of the o-line?  I thought it was more a matter of the QB and the RBs struggling, but I'm not the expert. I just wish that Carlos Brown would have played more, definitely at RB.  I thought he was better than Minor last year, and he has speed and the moves.

The improvement by the D-line was spectacular, but the mistakes made in the 1st half and the beginning of the 2nd half were too big in the end, although that INT in the first half was the result of a bad decision.  Brian Johnson is pretty good though.

Clemson doesn't have it.  They will lose again and WF is going to win the And I called E Carolina or VTech.  I am a fucking guru.

gsimmons85

August 30th, 2008 at 10:35 PM ^

i called the ecu as well,  and im picking them next week vs wvu, i have watched that program grow up before my eyes...   and i am a huge wake forest guy, remember i was the leader of the jim grobe mafia.......    its going to be nice to have ecu and wake dominate recruiting in nc for awhile, instead of ncstate or unc      

 

 

gsimmons85

August 30th, 2008 at 10:38 PM ^

like i said, it was a lot abou the offensive line,   on runnign plays they were not gettign the push,   hard to run when the los is being reset behind the place the ball was snaped....    but i blame a lot on the wr's as well,  they were being covered one on one and were not able to break free very much........   

Tim Waymen

August 31st, 2008 at 5:25 PM ^

I am beginning to believe that the state of NC holds part of the future of college football. WF is awesome, although Grobe needs to recruit better, but he works well with what he has. UNC has a great coach in Butch Davis, and he has been recruiting pretty well; he really will build up the program. There is App St, may they burn in hell for eternity. I think that NC State will get a little better eventually. Tom O'Brien is a pretty good coach, but I don't know how far he'll take them. And Dave Cutliffe is a pretty good coach at Duke, but how much can he do there? Maybe he'll get them to a bowl game.  And of course, Skip Holtz is doing a great job at ECU.  I wonder how long they can keep him before he goes to a BCS school.

Farnn

August 30th, 2008 at 10:37 PM ^

I felt in terms of pass blocking the O-line was acceptable but far from good.  However, with run blocking I felt they were atrocious.   Too many times our RBs were tackled in the backfield by an unblocked DE or linebacker.  Hopefully some of the run blocking problems can be ironed out in practice and we might have a run game by the ND game.

Jim Harbaugh S…

August 30th, 2008 at 10:55 PM ^

TV called BG over Pitt last nite (can't remember who)...

 Did anyone see that smug lil troll Holtz say he knew Michigan would lose and that they won't be that good this year?  Like he was the only one in the world who had the inside info that UM was going to have a down year.  No shit, Lou.

jb

August 30th, 2008 at 11:19 PM ^

Rodriguez gets 1.  A real quarterback and 2. An offensive line that doesn't resemble my first crush's gash they will never be a good football team. 

 I love the fact that we played so many young guys right away.  This team will be great in the future... if and only IF we get a QB that can make plays (see Threet's throw on 4th down) and an O-Line that doesn't leak like a hooker on a period.

 

I puked after the third quarter.

 

JB

Jay

August 31st, 2008 at 11:26 AM ^

JB,

Your post should take the place of the MGoBlue banner on the homepage until this offense has at least 100 rushing yards. Make it happen, Brian.

Seriously

August 30th, 2008 at 11:28 PM ^

I
suspect Rodriguez is a better coach than Carr, and Michigan will soon contend again for national championships.

Good luck to Michigan in every game except the one that counts.

hat

August 31st, 2008 at 12:53 AM ^

It's not fair to knock the D's second-half success by saying that Utah was playing Lloydball.  We had six sacks.  The Utah coach wasn't exposing Brian Johnson to that many hits just for the hell of it.  The switch to a three-man front seemed to make a big difference after halftime.   

jblaze

August 31st, 2008 at 8:48 AM ^

Please don't priase Zoltan anymore and please take his shirt off your site. His name does not deserve to be known by anyone other than his parents.

Maybe we should recruit an actual punter next year too...

GO BLUE!!!

MechE

August 31st, 2008 at 1:17 PM ^

I'm not sure exactly how to feel about the game.  The result is what I expected, a close game with Utah winning.  However, I feel like Utah could've won by a lot more if they didn't constantly bail us out with idiot penalties.

Ellipses Man

August 31st, 2008 at 4:34 PM ^

There were a lot of good things that came in this loss. I am sure, once the players who played in the game for michigan got back to their dorms, numerous loud fbombs were heard. Then this morning, you go to church or to the cafeteria and were moving on. Because Saturday brings yet another team wanting to whoop your ass. After every win or loss you have to sit yourself down as a player, coach or fan and say,"If we do not show up next week we will lose." I think this team learned that it will have to claw and fight for every victory. Even if that means first downs. The key is that it has to get to a point where week to week more answers are found. There cannot be OR's forever on the 2deep unless players are injured. I'd imagine the coaches now have a better idea of who they can win with.