Zone Left

July 2nd, 2014 at 11:43 PM ^

The invasion of Grenada is more apt. Cuba and the Soviets embarrassed us at the Bay of Pigs. We responded by hammering them when they were impossibly overmatched.

At least I hope it's apt.

Damn it Brandon.

poseidon7902

July 2nd, 2014 at 3:01 PM ^

With the exceptionj of like 2 teams this year, isn't this our entire schedule?  I keep saying that till the B1G becomes competitive as a conference we're in a no win situation.  You beat a team you're supposed to and 'big deal, you should have beat them'.  You lose and it's proof that we're pathetic et...  This is why I love the idea of scheduling a non-conference schedule unlike the SEC.  Play real teams that mean something, not some teams that most high schools would give a run for their money.  

TorontoBlue

July 2nd, 2014 at 12:31 AM ^

I was at the opening game last season and watched Michigan roll 56-0.

Rest of the season didn't go so well.

Let's come out with a balanced attack and contiune to grow and evolve this season please.

GO BLUE

JTrain

July 2nd, 2014 at 6:16 AM ^

Let's be able to run the ball. For positive yardage. WITH A RUNNING BACK. Don't care which one. No trickery involved. Pound the rock.
Hell. Call the play at the line. Out loud. Execute it. Dominate. Can't watch another year like last year.
All last year felt like getting kicked in the nutz. Let's not go there again. I don't like that feeling.
Thanks.
The end.

Filipiak1

July 2nd, 2014 at 8:13 AM ^

I was there too, and remember thinking what happened to smash mouth football? We really couldn't establish line of scrimmage against CMU. This game against ASU will really show if this team has moved along or not... I sure hope so!

jabberwock

July 2nd, 2014 at 9:03 AM ^

The 1st game of the season, against App St. "will really show . . ."

no, it won't show us a god damned thing because :

A. its the first game of the season
B. It's App St.

The next game against ND will show us about 10X more IMO.
and by the time we play MSU, we should know just about everything.

jabberwock

July 2nd, 2014 at 10:47 AM ^

but from every scouting report on App St. for the last couple years (including this year) the 2014 App St. team should be god awful, nothing like the 2007 team.

We crush them and . . . we may still be average at best.  Or good, or great, or just as bad but happened to have a good game while they happened to crumble . . . ???

1st games are very rarely indicative of a team's season-long success, and that goes double for Michigan.   After the CMU game did you really expect to almost lose to Akron?!

I'll revise my earlier statement.  ND wont tell jus much either, wait for PSU.

DealerCamel

July 2nd, 2014 at 12:55 PM ^

this particular article argues that they won't be god awful... in fact, they might be alright.  Apparently their team was unbelievably young last year.  And through it all their QB still managed a 71% completion rate and 1.2% interception rate and their main back averaged 5 yards a pop. 

Caveat is the FCS teams they played against, yeah.

So who knows?

JTrain

July 2nd, 2014 at 11:41 AM ^

I thought the same thing last year about game 2. Walked away feeling pretty good after beating ND (cautiously optimistic even tho our RB's never "got off").
Eff. What a train in wreck.
I expect to see gradual improvement all year. Hopefully it happens.

alum96

July 2nd, 2014 at 1:36 PM ^

To be fair if you remember Devin played like Vince Young and by that he was on the run almost all night even when making great plays.  So he was under duress but thrived on it until he got sakced in the end zone.  After that he went into a funk for about 10 minutes until Fitz made a great run (or great run and catch, can't remember exactly) - that seemed to lift Devin's spirits and we played solid the rest of the night.  But at no time was that OL in good condition vs ND.  Devin hid a lot of woes that night.

ThadMattasagoblin

July 2nd, 2014 at 12:53 AM ^

It looks like their offensive is ahead of their defense. A RB with 1200 yards rushing and a qb with over a 70 percent completion percentage is good even if it's FCS play. All this being said we should crush both sides or we're in trouble for the season. 

ppToilet

July 2nd, 2014 at 6:25 AM ^

They will line up to blitz or stop the run on every play until Michigan proves they can block. In other words, what everybody did last year. Hopefully, our coaches realize this and will practice for it this summer.

Mattinboots

July 2nd, 2014 at 6:45 AM ^

I thought I had until August before I stopped reading mgoblog/watching ESPN to avoid all things about the first game of the season. Guess work will be more productive starting a month earlier.

Don

July 2nd, 2014 at 7:44 AM ^

Will we be really motivated to play them? None of the players or coaches on this team were around in 2007, and I wonder if our young kids are going to mentally take ASU seriously. After Akron, I'm not going to assume we'll dominate anybody physically until I see it.

BeileinBuddy

July 2nd, 2014 at 10:02 AM ^

Thinking out loud: maybe our teams haven't been as tough and aggressive because they're lowerclassmen combined with trying to wrap their heads around complex schemes so they spent too much focus and attention on just trying to be in the right position instead of getting after it. Maybe once they're more experienced and know the schemes like the back of their hand, they can pin their ears back and wreck shit.

1927

July 2nd, 2014 at 10:21 AM ^

The complex scheme's Borges' employed has been beaten to death on this board. But it's pure speculation to say that we played soft because our guys were focused on being in the right position or if they are just a bunch of Jack Miller's (Who I'm sure is a wonderful person and a great human being. I'm not dogging the kid, but he is just not an aggressive football player and has never played with tenacity and fire while wearing the winged helmet. This is not meant as an insult to him, but a fact that I'm not sure many on here could argue with).

Anyways, it remains to be seen, but we won't really know what the cause was until halfway through this coming season when the o-line has had some time to gel and we can realisitically compare borges to nuss 

maizenbluenc

July 2nd, 2014 at 2:30 PM ^

'Nuss said one of our problems on the line is we were missing an experienced center who can recoginize coverage and communicate assignments. We've had three new centers since Molk left. The last one will be out for at least the first game.

Part of me really wants Jack Miller to prove everyone wrong and take the lead this summer, rather than rotating through more inexperience.

snarling wolverine

July 2nd, 2014 at 11:38 AM ^

Don't forget we barely beat any of the weak teams.
We beat CMU by 50 last year. I know being negative is the cool thing right now, but usually under Hoke we've taken care of business against the crappy opponents.

mgoblueben

July 2nd, 2014 at 12:53 PM ^

besides being 2 yds away from losing to akron, and nit much more to uconn, lets not forget a year before we were a final drive away from losing to air force. and a couple years before that umass nearly had us too. we have not taken care of business. that cmu game was not pretty either. yea we won by 50 but we looked bad.

maize-blue

July 2nd, 2014 at 9:32 AM ^

I agree about the physical aspect of this team. We seen it in Hoke's first year but in the following two seasons the team seemed became less and less physically dominant. It's strange because that was Hoke's platform coming in. But for whatever various reasons that has happened they need to turn that around this year. They don't have to win 11 games but if they get back to a hard nose mentality and beat teams that they should beat and convicingly, then I think Hoke has something going.

alum96

July 2nd, 2014 at 1:38 PM ^

I am pretty sure the team will be motivated to play the team that pulled the greatest upset in the football program's history on them.

That said it is a no win game and dumb decision by Brandon.  There is no upside to it.  Win and you should have, if its close or fergodsakse somehow lose - it's obviously horrid.

FreddieMercuryHayes

July 2nd, 2014 at 8:13 AM ^

Only anallysis I'm looking for is: do UM's running backs actually go forward while running with the ball.  And please don't throw and INT.  If these things happen, it's already off to a better start than last year.