Hoke for Tomorrow Is Not Surprised (Iowa)

Illinois is the worst team out of the three, so it's good that the away game is in Champagne.  Out of the other two, we have a Braska team with a spotty quarterback who has to play away, and a freshman coming to the big house for the first time.  Also, if anyone looks up the recent history of Iowa, their home record the last ten years is insane.

Michigan is just not good enough to turn the ball over and win against very many even average Big10 teams. The turnovers killed us.

Despite that fact that our QB turned the ball over multiple times again, one was a fumble doing things he makes plays doing.  The other was not a bad throw.  True, he missed some guys on deep throws, but I don't think we ever expected him to be great at that.  If a few of those drops become catches, the TD call/no call goes our way, and Denard looks to have had a decent day.

While I agree that Ohio is down farther than I've seen in almost a decade, and both Nebraska and Illinois are beatable, all of these teams will require our best effort to come out with wins against.  Ohio is still likely our worst matchup unfortunately.  We will  have serious trouble moving the ball against their front, trouble still stopping them from running with their big O-line, and Miller will make enough plays with both his arm and feet to make him hard to defend.  I think it will be closer than in recent years, but I find that to be a tough win for us.  But, my hope is we can at least go .500 against Neb & Ill and possibly win both if we have our A-game on.

As long as we don't lose 4 in a row to finish, and we finish with 8 or better wins, this year was a success and a step forward.  It's always hard to lose to MSU & OSU so many times in a row, but we would have won the games we are supposed to, and won a few that could have gone either way while improving our record from last year and much improving our defense while having a great recruiting class coming in.  All big steps.  Let's make that happen & support our guys!

I agreed with Spielman that Iowa was playing with more emotion than Michigan at least until the fourth quarter when Denard finally got rolling.  Emotion is a powerful thing in college football.  Northwestern was the fired up team vs. Nebraska yesterday.  Michigan has to play like the hungry team in Cham-Bana on Saturday.  Oh yeah, winning the turnover battle will certainly help, too.

Was that I did not think we played very well, but yet were in the game until the end.

The plan with Denard seems to be a conundrum.  Stay in the pocket while not able to look to secondary receivers or bust out and make a play.  It was clear to me that the coaches placed a strong emphasis on staying in the pocket.

We sure missed an opportunity in the division standings with Nebraska losing at home to Northwestern.

The bottom line is these are a bunch of 19 to 21-year old kids playing a game, the outcome of which depends to a large extent on their collective emotion in any game.  Anything can happen on any given day, so hell yes we can beat Ohio and perhaps close out with three wins.

Am I delusional?

by all of us and the team as well. We are playing good defense and still have a lot of tools to use on offense. The team needs to have more passion and energy at the start of next weeks game and that should be the difference. While yesterday still hurts I am optimistic about our prospects in the next three weeks.

Michigan's offense struggles against big aggressive DL's, which both NE and OSU will bring.  I thought IL was going to be a tougher match up earlier in the season but they have peaked and now look like a middle of the pack B1G team. If we don't play hard IL will be a road loss.

My hope is that we can beat OSU. However, OSU's defense will keep them in the game and their running game will give them some offense. I hope DROB is passing well that day so that we can open up their run stopping defense.  If we only get one more win this season and it's against OSU, then Hoke will be my hero if he can stop the streak!

I believe the ball the got intercepted was tipped, and by rule there is no pass interference on tipped passes.

that's not how it works.  Once the ball is tipped, contact is allowed.  That doesn't mean a defender can interfere as long as he tips the ball in the process.  

Edit:  meant as reply to Blue_Bull_Run

We were in the running for a spot in the Big Ten Championship game and we had nothing to play for.  I guess I should expect to lose the next two also because we have nothing to play for.

While Ohio may look worse then any time you can remember they are improving and will add Posey to the mix before we get to play them.  I can't say I saw any improvement this past week against a team that had just lost to Minnesota.  Plus our final three opponents all have mobile QBs and our history playing against such QBs is terrifying.

UM will not be a great team until they learn to be aggressive from the first play on the road. I can't remember the last time UM won a meaningful road game.

Our defense played great - all the analysts are saying Coker gashed us - I didn't see it that way. Iowa only had 300 years.

Our offense should score 30 points a game. Yes - all the calls seemed to go against us. But if we play the 1st quarter like the 4th quarter (ie, attack, attack, attack), we will the game by a touchdown.

UM is equal with all 3 teams remaining - let's get that 10 win season.

Hoke's (Borges'?) decision to put Gardner in at QB repeatedly was in Michigan's failure to score. It seemed as if Robinson would get into a rhythm and then Gardner would be put in at QB and stifle the drive. Also, at the end of the game, why didn't Robinson get to run his roll out pass/run option? My recollection is that that play often worked. I know Hoke et al. get high praise, but I can't help but question the play calling.

Michigan would have won if it wasn't for the pink locker room.

Why has no one mentioned that blown timeout?  It was blown for NO. APPARENT. REASON. whatsoever.  That timeout would have given us the option of running at the end.  It was a giant mistake imho.

MSU will lose @ Iowa - fall to 4-2

Iowa will become 4-2

Nebraska will rebound and beat Penn State on the road - 4-2

Michigan will win at Illinois - 4-2

That's my opinion...next 3 weeks are going to be crazy!

On defense I thought UM played as well as they could considering the known issues with the defense.  There were a few edge failures.  But thems the breaks when your playing freshmen LB'ers.  We also are still a little slow in the secondary and we had to play off a bit. 

I was very upset on the offensive game plan.  As predicted the running game was not nearly as effective.  DR seems to run best when there is the potential for misdirection.  I did not understand the jet sweeps as it became obvious to the defense what the play was going to be.  I agree with the poster who critisized bringing in Gardner.  I can't see how a QB can get into rythm.  Worse, every Gardner snap was a gimmick.  The defense just seemed to know that certain options were off the board when Gardner is under center.  The people on MGOBLUE seem to think that DR is on track to turn into Tom Brady at the midway point of the Nebraska game which is nonsense in my opinion.  I was hopeful prior to the season that Borges would figure out how to best use DR.  It appears increasingly more likely it is leaning towards a Gardner takover for 2012 and DR will go the way of Randal El.  I do not see how UM wins verses Nebraska or OSU with the offense skipping from one gimick to the next.  It is almost as if GERG became our offensive coordinator.

Tactically I did not understand the timeout prior to the Iowa punt.  If we had two timeouts when we were down at the 3, we still would have had a run option.  The plays on the three got players open.  Of the three plays we had a ref call a TD not, a player dropped the ball, and we failed because of interference not being called.

I don't really care too much about the Iowa game. Nobody predicted us to win the B1G, yes it's disapointing but whatever.

For the love of God, just beat Ohio!