Bowl Prep: One Month v One Week

This is the perfect time to just do what they did all season. Run the damn ball down their throat. Keep Penix on the sideline. Don't go full 2nd half of Penn St, but run the fn ball. Get the lead and have clock eating drives like the last drive in The Game. 

I think Jim and Minters experience in the NFL with playoffs being week to week prep for an unannounced opponent gives them an edge against most college coaches, but DeBoer coached D-2 playoffs and they played same style, so it’ll be interesting watching their historical experience to guide their prep. 

I'm assuming the staff used the month to establish the bones of a game plan for both UT and UW. 

Been prepping for a couple years now.  Just do it. Execute.

I think having a week is good to not let things get rusty. We never play great after a rest, even when it’s just a bye week. 

The logistics of flying cross country back to AA and then down to Houston alone puts a strain on bodies and internal clocks.

Did Washington fly back to Seattle after the Sugar Bowl and then head to Houston or did they just hop over from New Orleans?

i think texas is very similar to mich on both sides of the ball. wash is similar to osu but with a bad D and a better OL. so prep shouldn't be much new for either team. i think we need to blitz penix a bit more than osu but maybe less than bama. let them try to complete 8-10 passes per drive in order to score. i like our chances.

i think mich wins by double digits if we don't beat ourselves; muffed punts, dropped passes and bad throws.

I think it works in our favor that Washington is not too dissimilar from OSU and thus our base defense is well suited to play them. Elite QB & WRs, not much QB run game, run offense is meh. Thats what we prep all season for, so thats about as good of a draw as I think youll get vs a top 5 SP+ offense in a national title game

Defense travels!

I'll say this, with a month off the coaches should have already had WA and TX thoroughly scouted.

History tells us that one week of prep time is loads better for Michigan. We will be much less sloppy in this game than vs. Alabama. I have no idea what it means for Washington.

If our run game was what it was in 2022, I'd say this is a tailor-made matchup. And since Blake is showing flashes, maybe it is. On defense, we'll be fine -- Washington will get theirs, maybe scoring somewhere around 27, 30, 31, something like that. If we get to 30 on offense, we will probably be fine.

If you watched Harbaugh's interview on the tarmac in Houston, he went over the schedule a little bit.  He said that this is a normal football week schedule, except that "Saturday" is "Monday."

There is very little time to do much experimenting and new game-planning.  You can really only practice what you already have in place. 

I would imagine that there was some prep, at least by analysts, for Washington / Texas as potential NC opponents if we beat Alabama.  But it's not going to be a whole new game plan.    

Based on our recent bowl experience, I am thinking the shorter prep time will help us.  I also think playing on an artificial surface will help us.

One item never mentioned is that Jack Tuttle was at Indiana the same time Penix was. I imagine that Tuttle knows Penix's tendencies very well. It might not make the same difference just as Saban adding Helow to his staff. Input from Tuttle won't hurt.

The one week interval in between game will allow the Special Teams to sharper up for Michigan. The prep for the Washington offense will be much like playing the '21 & '22 Buckeyes' offense when they had CJ Stroud. Michigan will be ready.

As many have already said, given the much weaker UW defense, Blake, Donovan and Kalel Mullings should each have a good day and gain lots of yards which equals more TOP. Throwing for TD will enable Michigan to build a cushion of a lead so that will be needed. I'd rather see Michigan go up 21-7 in the first half rather than 13-10. Like the 2021 OSU game, Michigan was always up 14-17 points during the second half. If Washington scores, then Michigan MUST answer with their own TD and keep that lead as large as possible.

I'd rather see Michigan play with only 7 days rest instead of 10-14 days. I also trust in Jesse Minter to dial up more confusing defensive looks. This will help to confuse Penix.

Whoops. My fingers are too fat. I need to obtain a special dialing wand. 

I don't know about bowl prep but I am going to be doing some bowel prep for a colonoscopy coming up.

What say I? Same thing I've been saying all season:

Go, Blue!

Offensively you could put our plays against Alabama into 3 categories: 1) stuff we run, 2) counters to what we ran all season, 3) stuff to beat Alabama's Rip/Liz pattern match.

Everybody has their own 1) covered. Biggest question is how much of bucket 2) do we have left? Presumably we do have some. The more the better. 

Category 3) is what's affected by the short prep time. We need stuff specifically for Washington's D. And time is short. A long plane ride back, another plane ride out, and plenty of media obligations.

It's been tough to analyze our team this season in large part because we knew only 2 regular season games mattered: Penn State & Ohio Soft. Imagine watching a 12-part Netflix series where 10 episodes have nothing but plot & character development and 2 episodes where all the fireworks are fired. So we're all picking over the entrails of those games - and now Bama - to figure out what's going to happen Monday.

One thing though is clear. Those "Georgia" drills the coaches ran were indicative of a program-wide prep for Monday's game. Lots of those plays in bucket 2) would have been great against Ohio Soft. We were literally saving stuff for the CFP semi-final. Its reasonable to assume there is stuff in the garage we were saving for Monday.

One week vs three weeks gives Michigan an advantage vs UW.

As the favorite Michigan knows what is wants to do and give UW less time to draw up a surprise game plan.

Also Penix has less time to study our complex defense. 

Play action??