CR7

August 31st, 2013 at 6:51 PM ^

excites me but he does run very high so is prone to getting cut down. Needs to square up and thump. Can't wait for MOAR MANBAW.

Elmer

August 31st, 2013 at 7:17 PM ^

He looks promising, but I don't think he's in the greatest shape.  I bet next year he'll be lighter and faster.  The guy could be down-right scary in a couple years.

Section 1

August 31st, 2013 at 8:44 PM ^

Props to Team 134.  It looked to me like a very conscious, coached thing.  Frank Clark held all the guys in place, for lack of a better description, until everybody had done the right thing in shaking hands with the visitors.  There's no more reason to "whine," when the players are doing the program proud.  I now have little doubt but that the coaches got wind of this, and told the players what was expected.

Frank Clark may not be a captain, but he is a spiritual leader on this team.  It might just be that the complaining about a bit of substandard behavior had a very good effect.

MGoBender

August 31st, 2013 at 8:54 PM ^

This is the most blue-haired post ever. 

If the team celebrates a big win and forgets to shake some hands, it's not the end of the world.  It's not like NHL hockey where the post-game hand shake line is a big, established tradition.

Section 1

August 31st, 2013 at 8:59 PM ^

I think the debate is pretty much over, and the side that won was the side that complained about some of our games looking trashy at the end, and the team deciding to do something different about it.  If you were there today, you'd have seen that this was the case.  I'm really happy about it.

Section 1

August 31st, 2013 at 9:09 PM ^

The thing that gave the lie to what you suggest was Frank Clark playing traffic cop, holding all the guys in place at the center of the field until after everybody had done the greeting thing.  It was very, very, very noticeable.

sdogg1m

August 31st, 2013 at 6:53 PM ^

Except for some poor blocking, bad penalties, and the turnovers.

All the mistakes are fixable. They put points on the board and prevented any CMU touchdowns, not much more you can ask for.

kb

August 31st, 2013 at 6:57 PM ^

held CMU without a TD, forced TOs and did a great job of tackling.  They got pressure and multiple sacks.  This bodes very well for the team.

I worry about our receivers (other than Gallon) being able to get space against better teams.  I guess we will find out next week.

bronxblue

August 31st, 2013 at 7:00 PM ^

Feel much better about next week.  The offense looks solid, the defense can fly around, and nobody seems to be hurt (Reynolds and Funchess should be fine).

Jeff09

August 31st, 2013 at 7:00 PM ^

Full stop.  This team looks different than the last two years, at least to me.  Compare this opener when we beat Western.  As sloppy as this looked, that was much worse.  Central was never in this game.  Some specifics:

-The D line was dominant.  They were doing lots of slanting and aggressive stuff, which might be due to their size.  Works well here but we might get burned against good cutback runners.  That said I think we earned the right to rush four.  I saw multiple pressures from both the interior and the ends, and production from mulitiple guys (though I remember J Black showing up multiple times)

-Linebackers were very stout against the run, and blitzed with authority.  Will be tricky to run up the middle on us

-We were squishy on the edges.  Seemed to be a combo of linebacker overpursuit and CBs not holding up well.  I shudder thinking about the spread teams we will play...

-Safeties seemed very solid.  Whenever the ball got to the safety level they were in position to break up a pass, lay a big hit, or make the tackle.  No issues here so far

-The interior O Line is OK.  Not great.  Just OK.  Better than last year though, no doubt.  I didn't see anyone straight up missing their assignments so at least Miller is getting the calls right.  Blitz pickup seemed good, though Gardner did get flushed a few times.  Good think with his skillset this may be worse for the defense than for us...

-Gardner didn't look great, let's just face it.  That said, I don't know how much was him, how much was pressure, and how much was WRs and TEs not getting open.  I don't remember him missing any obvious / open throws that he missed... non-Gallon WRs and TEs seemed uninspiring

-Fitz looked good.  2011 form, like everyone has been saying

-Judging from just yesterday's and today's games, we will be at least even money in every game.  I've slowly moved my expectations up to: MSU probable win, OSU almost 50-50 push, and ND 50-50 push.  We should win 10 games regular season this year

joeismyname

August 31st, 2013 at 7:01 PM ^

front seven looked pretty terrifying and deep....and Wilson had some solid plays without Gordon in the back...good signs...i know its central. RB's looked great.

Crime Reporter

August 31st, 2013 at 7:01 PM ^

Good to see a return to the running game. Green and Stribling are going to be studs. The defense regularly got pressure with the four. Very solid game. Just need to cleanup penalties and turnovers.

TrppWlbrnID

August 31st, 2013 at 7:02 PM ^

We knew it would be, let's buckle down for UTL2.



No chesson at all, no FB touches at all, Gardner looked to eager to run and indecisive. Furman kind of blew his hot to get more pt today, back to kick teams.



I thought Rawls looked decent, hitting holes quick am with power, the mlbs looked stout and aggressive, kicking game looked solid.



At least we didn't play frickin bama again.

LSAClassOf2000

August 31st, 2013 at 7:02 PM ^

The defense actually tightened up a litte bit in the 2nd half, and by the end, it turns out that we only gave up 210 yards over 57 plays, which comes to 3.68 yards per play. On the offense, we gained 462 yards over  69 play, or 6.70 yards per play. 

The ground game looked really good - 242 yards at a 5.1 YPC clip - Green and Toussaint in particular stood out to me. In the air, Gallon, Funchess, Reynolds and Dileo all looked good out there. Final line on Norfleet KRs - 4 returns for 106 yards. One of those was a timely block away from going all the way.

 

snarling wolverine

August 31st, 2013 at 7:07 PM ^

We pretty much couldn't be stopped, except when we did it to ourselves.  That was good to see.  Definitely some execution issues to work on, but all in all this turned out the way a game against a MAC team should.  Hoke & Co's strong work on the recruiting trail is starting to show now - this is a very talented Michigan team, maybe the best since 2006.  

 

Michael Scarn

August 31st, 2013 at 7:06 PM ^

Front seven looked very good. Gardner a little bit concerning given the opponent, but I think he'll figure it out. Still like Smith better than Green at this point. Stribling is a huge coup.

EnoughAlready

August 31st, 2013 at 7:08 PM ^

Looked promising.  Deveon Smith runs hard and tenaciously, he just didn't get much blocking.  Rawls had a great run too.  Has anyone heard, is Drake Johnson okay?

RealJabrill

August 31st, 2013 at 7:09 PM ^

WOO !!  Bring on the Irish! 

In the beginning, some shaky QB play and receivers weren't getting open.  Nice to see disruption on defense.  Solid tackling.  Laying the wood on Special Teams and Knocking the QB on the ground.  Norfleet is going to be a fun toy in the slot.  Lots of Freshman and Sophomores making plays.  Derrick Green and Deveon got some tough yards in back up duties. 

I would have liked to see the OL push the line of scrimmage better.  Looked like a lot of the runs were bounced to the outside.  Also WAY too many penalities.  We need to play smarter. 

Overall, great effort.  We are young and inexperienced but its going to be a really fun year to be a Michigan fan.

 

 

 

Moleskyn

August 31st, 2013 at 7:20 PM ^

- Gardner looked mostly good. His picks were just dumb decisions.
- Shane looked like a freshman out there. I'm still excited for his potential...but I really hope Gardner stays healthy.
- Defense looked fantastic...except for Josh Furman. From my untrained eye, and without the aid of rewinding, it looked like he was the culprit for 2 or 3 of CMU's long pass plays.
- I thought the offensive line was OK. Maybe UFR will tell a different story, but I would have expected them to dominate a lesser team like CMU. They didn't seem bad, just not dominant. Maybe my expectations were just off?
- I was trying to keep track of all the true freshman who played. By my count: Green, Smith, Morris, York, Butt on offense. Charlton, Gedeon, Lewis, Stribling, Thomas on defense. Anybody I'm missing?

Great start to the season, bring on ND!

Moleskyn

September 2nd, 2013 at 12:05 AM ^

Haven't tested it out, but I'm pretty sure you can't do HTML tags in the mobile app. No biggie though, the formatting appears fine on the desktop version. On the app, my post is just one big paragraph, so I assumed it looked that way for everybody.

elm

August 31st, 2013 at 7:35 PM ^

Hill and Henry got in as well.  So that's 12 redshirts burned in the first game.  Hill is the only one I'm a little miffed by as I think he was only in on special teams even with 2 safeties out.

elm

August 31st, 2013 at 9:03 PM ^

Yeah, whiffed on that one.  Sorry.

As to why I'm a "little" miffed by Hill, if he wasn't even going to play meaningful (any?) defensive minutes when we had both of our starting safeties out for the whole game, then we're burning a redshirt for special teams, which makes me a little miffed.  On the other hand, if the coaches think he will be contributing to the defense by the end of the season even if he's only a special teams player right now, then I'm not at all miffed.  But they burned RJS last year for nothing more than special teams, so I'm not willing to completely give them the benefit of the doubt here.