Bright Spot: Special teams
As pooptastic as the defense was today, and although Olesnavage missed that XP, Special Teams wasn't terrible today and you guys shouldn't be complaining.
Positives:
-Mesko was fantastic, especially with the 61 yarder
-Olesnavage made a 51 yarder and narrowly missed a 48 yarder
-No dropped punts
-Hemmingway's punt return
-Stonum had not one, but TWO 54 yard returns. This season, he surpassed Steve freaking Breaston in yards(granted, the defense has given him plenty of kick off returns). I don't think Stonum was stopped behind the 20 once today
-Close to blocking another punt (which would make four straight games)
So as troubled as this team is, they're solid on special teams. The onside kick was a lapse, as was the fucking ridiculous delay of game call on 4th &2 late (blame that on the coaches). But stop bitching about a solid unit where Michigan has been average (if even) for the last decade.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:51 PM ^
that was a dropped punt saved by a shitty call. game should've been over right there.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:16 PM ^
We turned the ball over on downs. We could have had more time on our last drive if we just coughed the ball up right there.
November 7th, 2009 at 3:54 PM ^
i agree he did a great job returning kicks, but he messed up badly on the 3rd and 5 before the missed fg. he's wide open a few yards beyond the 1st down. tate throws it and instead of moving up a couple steps and going to get the ball, he waits for it, allowing the DB to come over the top and knock it down. if he comes up a couple steps he's still got the first down and there is no way the DB knocks it down without a PI penalty.
hemmingway did muff that one punt, but we were bailed out by that terrible fair catch interference call.
November 7th, 2009 at 4:18 PM ^
Close to blocking a punt doesn't count for anything
November 7th, 2009 at 5:23 PM ^
What the hell we lose the game bc we cant kick an extra point and we give up an onside kick. Those seemed to outweigh the positives to me.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:12 PM ^
the game today.
missed xp, unaware onside kick, not being able to execute our own onside kick, and completely botching a punt return that would give us the ball at midfield saved only by a horrendous penalty.
This is what bad teams do, they aren't sound in the special teams and Michigan was not sound in the special teams game today.
Anything good they did today was outweighed by the simple missed xp and onside kick.
November 7th, 2009 at 8:39 PM ^
Your kidding, right? As bad as the Defense played, Special Teams was quite responsible for this loss.