The Ledge

I am less disturbed by what happened in the first half than what continued into the second half. Yes, a team can come out sluggish, but you can also wake up. The fact that there are still members of this team that witnessed Appy State should have been enough to put the fear of God into the team coming out of the half. I am not so sure that if UMass would have recovered the onsides kick we could have stopped them. Their offense running out of time might have been the only issue since they were not going deeper than 10 yards on most plays.

and they played down to the level of their opponent on Saturday, and therefore, will be able to raise the intensity in big games. As long as they score more points than the other team, I'm okay (if not thrilled) with it. They definitely looked sluggish and far less ferocious intensity-wise than they did in their first two games. Not having Brandon Herron (and also Mike Jones) left Kevin Leach on the field and Craig Roh at linebacker way too much. I'm hoping his return will give us more options in scheme and a better pass rush with Roh getting to put his hand down more often. That alone could make a pretty significant difference.

Also, it wasn't hard to recognize that the 3 man rush/umbrella coverage late isn't going to be our go-to scheme in big games. The game was firmly in hand until the blocked punt fiasco, and if Gordon hangs onto that pick (another lesson learned, Cam), we probably win by over 20 points. It was certainly ugly, but not as bad as the final score indicated. They were playing to "not give up the big play" for a lot of the game, and by and large they succeeded in that.

They definitely need to be willing to take a risk to get off the field in future situations. I've had just about enough of a 3 man rush on third and medium. The guy who makes the catch gets tackled immediately in the crowded zone, but what good is that if they move the chains? I don't think the defense is broken by any means, and they've proven for stretches that they can be pretty good. There's a lot of learning going on out there. I still expect them to play up to a serviceable level as the season progresses, barring Angry Michigan Hating injuries. 

Meeechigan Dan, I like the cut of your jib. Using the concept of variance to think of this game is right on the money, I think. Let's play a what if game that results from variance as well. What if Cam hadn't fumbled (an extremely high variance event) and we had gone down and scored to go up 49-24. What if Will hadn't DROPPED A FUCKING PUNT SNAP, which is so high variance that I have never seen it happen. Which I guess makes it low variance, but still. Let's say he had punted 35 yards and made UMass go more the length of the field than they did. Let's say they didn't score and we stayed up 42-30. Would we feel better about this game? Hell yes.

You refer to the D's performance against ND.  What about the fact that ND did not have their starting QB for much of the first half?  I think that help our D greatly.

It's worth questioning the playing time of one Cameron Gordon, say, one month down the road.  It's hard not to expect to see Carvin re-take the starting spot once he's cleared by the trainers, and then there's some decision-making that'll have to take place.

Do we go with the true freshman that was good enough to earn the spot at the start of the season, OR do we go with the Redshirt that has made some glaring mistakes but has also gotten some legitimate playing time??  Hard to make a decision there, but assuming that #13 is good to go by Oct 9, I just feel that Gordon hasn't done enough to play coach's hand.  Thoughts?

Bowling Green will be a nice tune up/focus on execution game before the start of the BigTen portion of our schedule. We will go up big and have a chance to get young guys some much needed experience that they have not been able to get yet. All our injured guys on D like M. Jones, C. Johnson and the rest will be back by MSU (at the very latest). The D will learn (probably sick of Barwis Beach by the end of this week) and they will play better. The MSU game will still be a shootout IMO, but our D will make enough plays to help us win.

As I say to myself in times of uncertainty, "This, too, shall pass."

1.UConn and ND aren't exactly gleaming examples of this defense being good.  UConn appears to be pretty awful, but still moved the ball on this D.  ND, had some high variance turnovers (not really forced) and played much of the game with their version of Nick Sheridan.  We can dismiss UMass as an outlier...but actually it wasn't much of one.

2. I'm not sure MSU's thoughts about the quality of the D really matter.  Its not like they're going to take the game lightly.  Are you saying they'll dramatically alter their strategy, and as a result they'll perform below their potential?

3. It can't get worse?  Kyle Rudolph, Tony Maeki, and Juice Williams all say it can get far worse. UMass was successful despite a lack of big plays.  You can point to TOP, but I'll hand that over every time if it means a few punts (which UMass had.)

4. Opening up the playbook is good, but it also means higher-risk plays that can result in turnovers.  Michigan's been very luck in TO margin so far.

5.  No argument - no bad long-term ramifications from a close loss for the team's attitude.

I don't agree with your conclusion, just the argument isn't especially 'elevating'.

The underappreciated factor is that the team had a mental let down after a big road win - a bunch of 18-21 year old kids showed up flat mentally - and that is really hard to turn around once the game starts - yes, our D is not very good, but they're better than Saturday's performance and with any luck, good enough to win 8 games.

our D is showing some really bad tendencies which are being picked up in fhe film room by the opposition and exploited on the field. Is it a lack of options that's keeping Michigan from making on-the-fly changes during the game?

...suddenly the UConn offense of whom I read so much through all of August is apparently peanuts (remember their gargantuan monster lineup of super huge road grading linemen?) and the ND game is dismissed because Dayne Crist got hurt...

I see the point you're making. You know, every once in a while when I'm hitting the draw well I just pull it a bit and end up in the rough. 

I was considering starting a new thread on this, but I tend to agree that we need to just move on from this rather disappointing outing by our D.

HOWEVA, did anyone else notice that there was an EGREGIOUS amount of holding by UMass's offensive line? I watched the replay on the BTN and there were a number of instances when Roh, RVB, and/or Martin had guys pushing them in the back and grabbing the back of their jerseys after they had beaten their guys. In a couple of these instances, the inability of Roh to get to the QB because of the hold resulted in some rather big plays downfield.

I know holding takes place on every play, but did anyone else think that the no-calls were absurd? Am I just on too much caffeine?

EDIT: on too much caffeine

Looking at the positives going forward:

1) If we play up to our capability we should have no problems with BGSU and Indiana putting us at 5-0.

2) Our three game stretch of MSU, PSU, and Iowa will test us much more then the first 5 games.  With the Denard factor I am expecting 1 or maybe 2 wins out of three

3) The Illini and Purdue should also be wins by virtue of us being an overall better football team and we owe both of them beat downs for the past couple seasons.  Going into the last two games on the schedule we should be at 8-2, or 9-1 and no worse then 7-3.

4) Wisconsin and OSU are the toughest match ups on the schedule.  We know exactly how Wisconsin is going to play us, it's just whether or not we can stop them.  RR is getting better each year against OSU and should give them another run for their money.  The best thing about having Denard is that ther is no game that is un-winnable.  My heart tells me we can beat Wisconsin but that it will be another year until TUOS goes down. 

5) We're going to a bowl game, and a good, warm weather one at that.  With a season like this we're going to pull in a lot of big time recruits i.e.(Dee Hart, Charles Jackson, Dallas Crawford, Anthony Zettel, and others that will latch on later) Next year the defense is going to be legit and going forward 2011 looks like a year that we will have a chance to BCS it! 

Keep the faith.  All in for Michigan, GO BLUE!

Unrelated.