Bill C Army Preview
Good read to get an idea of our Week 2 opponent. Service academies are notoriously hard to project in S&P+ due to play style, recruiting oddities and more, but Army seems to break the system even more. They won 11 games last year despite being 84th in S&P+, which Bill C attributes to the fact that Army went for it on 4th down all the time. They faced 25 4th and 1's last year, including ones on their own side of the field, went for it 23 times and converted 21.
Definitely read the article as it's a good preview, but this can also hopefully drive home the fact that Army does NOT return 21/22 starters as many have said. They lose 5 front seven guys on defense alone.
Concerned?
Nothing to be concerned about. Army wins easily, 45-21
i think at this point it will be fun to see how low you can get your expectations in preparation for the season, Brutus. Looking forward to your predictions come fall about how the entire team will come down with the plague and be forced to start the women's lacrosse team instead as we suit up against Iowa.
Judging by the way the women's lacrosse team is playing... that might be ok!
In order to know my enemy, I must become him
Are you saying that many of us must become "Maizen"?
<<Insert "mind blown" gif here>>
I think evenyoubrutus was going for humor there. I found the comment funny anyway.
All the same, wait until about the middle of July, when prediction threads begin to appear among the threads on which wine pairs well with actual footage of a train wreck, and you'll see some bona fide alarmist behavior.
Yea he’s purposely setting his expectations as low as possible to emotionally prepare for season. Expect more of the same - looking forward to it
Dude, Army is a tough team. They win the ground battle every time. Since 9/11, they've been bombing it deep, and had air superiority since at least 1945. It will be a war in the trenches, which they've been winning since 1917.
They're undefeated since 1812*, their quarterback has an Eisen-howitzer of a cannon for an arm, and . . .
Ok, I'm spent.
*Well, except Nam.
I am concerned with the level of concern concerning the Army contest.
Sometimes I feel like the people within Michigan pump up their opponent too much
I remember there being a really high and building concern for App State and I kept getting concerned as more and more people began getting more and more concerned
I feel like it just snowballs. And we know for a damn fact the players read these comments and I feel like it affects them
No kidding. Kind of like when UM blew Air Force out of the sky a couple years ago and everyone was concerned that AF might put up a fight.
It starts from looking at the schedule saying
"oh we should get a win against Team X".
Then "true. I mean, it's team X. Easy win for Michigan.......team X has a pretty good Y tho".
"True, X does have a very good Y. It's a top _ Y in the country"
"So how will we stop Y?"
"Not sure....wow holy shit we won't be able to stop Y"
"If we can't stop Y, how can we beat team X?"
"Dude no idea. This is really concerning. Fuck"
"Yeah man I just don't see a way we pull this off"
"Me neither. Lemme post on mgoblog"
To any players reading this: in case it wasn't readily apparent, NONE OF US HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT. YOU SHOULD READ THIS SITE FOR ENTERTAINMENT VALUE ONLY. CARRY ON ABOUT YOUR DAY.
Patterson is the only player who reads this crap. This place is a bunch of fat guys past their prime who played high school football complaining about Michigan athletics.
I just meant in general. They definitely pay attention on Twitter, so I wouldn't be shocked if they read the main Michigan board
I just meant in general. They definitely pay attention on Twitter, so I wouldn't be shocked if they read the main Michigan board
I'm not fat. I'm pleasantly plump.
I'm fat
AND pleasantly plump.
Actually I was on the chess team in high school so I think I know what I'm talking about
I think the bigger issue with App State was the lack of concern. I remember hearing about players partying and getting high the night before the game.
What is the current level of concern we are supposed to have?
Not great, Bulb!
Our knees
Yeah, just checking. Are we doing that part again? Remember, service academies rely on cut blocking so all of our defensive linemen will be amputees following this game....
...or at least that's what I was led to believe prior to Air Force.
Another Army post? I'm getting concerned!
Thanks for sending this. Solid read. I think we'll get enough stops and simply outscore them. Still scary!
Defense is not the huge concern with Army, even if it was a decent part of their success last year. Ultimately the threat of a triple option team comes from its offense jamming the RPS "win" button all game long.
As has been discussed ad nauseam, the game that Army nearly won against Oklahoma was not a product of Army's defense, but its offense. Kyler Murray's performance was just fine, and Oklahoma's offense moved the ball quite well. They just could not stop Army from grinding up and down the field.
The scenario in which Michigan has a close game or a loss to Army looks like this: A TO or two and a sputtered red zone drive or two gives away points, and Army's offense unlocks the combination to prevent the defense from stopping it, and we get into the fourth quarter and it's something like 24-21 and who knows what happens next.
This is one area where I'm not as worried about the defense, because even if our athletes are a bit less talented up front than in past years, they're still quite talented, and the focus on disciplined play will ameliorate the issues that might come from younger players not having all the right instincts yet. Assuming the team follows its custom of preparing its option gameplan in training camp, they should be in decent shape.
Here's a fun little historical nugget for you. Army and USC are two of the schools Michigan has played more than four times that we have a losing record against. 4-5 against Army (last game in 1962) and 4-6 against USC (last game in the 2006 Rose Bowl).
Our worst historical record belongs to Cornell of all teams at 6-12. Last played those bastards in 1952. Now if they were on the schedule I'd be very concerned!
"I went to Cornell. Ever heard of it?" - Andy Bernard
"It's pronounced colonel and it's the highest rank in the military." Creed Bratton
From a certain point of view, there is a 3rd team we are under .500 against.
"The Ohio State University" who picked up that nickname in 1986. We are 13-19-1 against TOSU, while our record against plain old OSU is 45-31-5.
I get the joke, but "The" is actually part of the institution's name and has been since 1878.
Give me all of my wins please.
While the scenario you outline is certainly possible, we must all remember that Oklahoma is in the Big 12 where no plays defense at all. Also, plus one for using the word "ameliorate." Not one you see too often.
To be fair...OU didn't stop a lot of offenses last year.
To summarize the "concern" post from last week:
Army went 17/26 on 3rd and 4th down conversions against Oklahoma while averaging something like 4.3 YPP. They held onto the ball for 45 minutes at over 6 minutes per drive. Their scoring drives totaled 16, 16, and 19 plays. They're a plodding iceberg (kind of redundant).
Oklahoma scored on 4/8 drives with 3 others ending inside of Army's 30 yard line. TOD on the Army 1, INT on the Army 15 (pass was thrown from like the 50 though) and a missed 33 yard FG. They faced almost no resistance.
Army is a solid team that is well coached by a guy who is more than willing to push the envelope and make things uncomfortable by taking risks. They also lost to Duke by 20, played 2 FCS teams, and beat some 3 and 4 win teams by 1 score. Their Oklahoma result was impressive on the face of it, but that Oklahoma defense was coached by Mike Stoops and was the only reason why they didn't get boat raced in the 1st half.
That Army/OU game last fall --- each team had 7 possessions. For the entire 60 minutes of regulation!
You don't see that very often. Your typical college football game is about 2x that.
But if/when it does happen, it tends to keep games closer.
As you said - if OU's defense was better (e.g., was actually able to get Army's offense off the field), it's likely a much-larger margin. Because then OU has more possessions and those opportunities themselves and likely creates breathing room.
Army's coach knew all that, so it was definitely a good strategy by him vs OU last fall.
Army's coach knew all that, so it was definitely a good strategy by him vs OU last fall.
Not so much a strategy as much as just the nature of a triple option. The multiple 4th down conversions was a strategy that was used throughout the season, but overall just running the offense is what Army did. Michigan choosing to run 2:1 over throwing to DPJ/Collins/Black to shorten the game because the defense is weak would be a strategy. Army's offense is slow and grinding naturally.
And that's kind of my point. Their defense wasn't capable of staying with Oklahoma in any scenario. Their offense, had it not been playing the 84th ranked defense in the country, wasn't going to be able to carry the defense to victory.
Michigan might have to replace Gary, Winovich, and Bush, but they're not going to be the 84th ranked defense this year. The offense will be more than capable of putting up points. Getting Army to punt 3 or 4 times should end the game.
Good post and true. Limiting possessions naturally happens because of the triple option but "limiting possessions even further by always going for it on 4th down" is more what I meant to say. That is, of course, more a tactic than a strategy.
My favorite part is at the end where S&P+ gives Army a 7% chance of beating Michigan.
So now I am 7% concerned.
I am very concerned.
I'm concerned about the level of concern displayed in this post.
Michigan wins by 17-20.
I will be as concerned as Maizen tells me to be.
Maizen is not concerned. Army doesn’t get any three star recruits.
According to Wikipedia. The total number of active duty general officers is capped at 231 for the Army. No more than about 25% of a service's active duty general or flag officers may have more than two stars. Assuming they are near this, that means there are about 58 three stars and higher in the Army. A statue sets the total number of four-star officers allowed in each service which means the Army has 7 four stars!
I think this will still be a game in the 4th quarter. Michigan only beat a 6-7 Air Force team by 6 back in 2012...
That was a combination of a Borges offense and a Greg Mattison defense that was in RPS-negative range all day due to an antiquated DB alignment, and they yielded over 400 yards of offense.
Two years ago a similarly poor Air Force team gained yardage in the low 200s and scored 13 points, but Michigan's offense was a Drevno-Frey-Pep-Harbaugh mess with Yips Wilton Speight at the helm. Michigan only scored 29 points in a season when the highest point total all year was 36 (against Cincinnatti, in a game the defense contributed heavily to the point total).
I'm wary of Army, but I wouldn't worry about Greg Mattison messing up the defensive gameplan.
Yes, our team is no doubt in better shape than it was in 2012 but I do think the "concern" around here is legitimate.