Coaching

Submitted by IvyLeague on

 

For having 8 months to prepare for this game, the offensive coaching was garbage. Borges got manhandled and taking the most dynamic player in college football in and out of the game was beyond baffling. The 4th and 1 call was one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen. We haven’t been able to throw all game and play action has been blown up every time and then to go back to it was shocking. Whether or not they like it or not, the spread is what's best for this team. The loss is squarely on Hoke and Borges. On the flip-side, Mattison knows what he's doing. What is everyone else's thoughts?

kevin holt

October 15th, 2011 at 4:17 PM ^

That's what they DID do. They tried to throw a curveball. Denard probably could have fallen over forward and gotten the 1st. Maybe put a fullback in behind him to get an extra push, but we don't need to hand off. The read earlier was good, where he pulled it out from Smith and ran, maybe do that again.

The point should be moot because Gallon had the first down and the refs fucked it up. Then Hoke forgot about his challenge I guess? There was hardly time left to save it for later. I thought it should be an official review even.

PIJER

October 15th, 2011 at 7:35 PM ^

The first thing that I said after the catch was "what a terrible spot" However, we still should be able to make less than a yard. The crux of the matter is that Gorgeous Borges didn't put our offense in good situations with his play calling. The defense held up it's end of the bargain, but the offense couldn't make anything happen. We spent the majority of the first half in MSU territory, and didn't have anything to show for it. I know that we have a special talent in Denard, but his passing wasn't on at all. So instead of going with trick plays let's go with screens, draws and other things that work against constant blitzing.

Maize and Blue…

October 15th, 2011 at 5:01 PM ^

How do you slow down pressure?  Throw some damn screens.  Borges resorted to what he did last year at SDSU.  If they got behind he abandoned the running game and threw, threw, and threw some more.  Darnuzzi owned Borges all day. 

I still can't believe Hoke gave State the wind and the ball to start the second half.  Reminded me of Mornhinweg taking the wind and giving the Bears the ball in OT.  Wile proceeded to make the decision even worst by botching the kick and giving Cousins and company great field position.

I want to see what the Big Ten does about Gholston and whoever #44 was.  Last year plays like those resulted in suspensions.

rman247

October 15th, 2011 at 3:54 PM ^

My thoughts are we lost a tough hard fought game against a good defense, and there was certainly a questionable playcall on fourth and one.  It sucks we lost, and frankly I am very upset, but to say what you just said is ridiculous.  Also how can you be mad about taking Denard out?  He didn't exactly have a great game.

JohnnyBlue

October 15th, 2011 at 3:54 PM ^

if we need to go to denard to throw late fine, but the were throwing the ball to much early, we needed to let denard do his thing and we didn/t I love borges but I think he forgot who his qb is.

SEAL Fan

October 15th, 2011 at 3:55 PM ^

Horrific play calling today on offense.  Not even s single slip screen against the blitzes.  Every team we play is going to blitz up the middle to take our run game away.

bouje13

October 15th, 2011 at 3:55 PM ^

What else can you hope for from the defense this year than to keep us in the game? And that's what they did.
<br>
<br>The offense was not good

FrankMurphy

October 15th, 2011 at 4:35 PM ^

F**k that. If Sparty wanted to win badly enough to take that many cheap shots, then let them win. 

I'm much less upset about this loss than I was about last year. Last year exposed Denard's lack of a dangerous arm. This year exposed Sparty's lack of integrity. 

EnoughAlready

October 15th, 2011 at 3:59 PM ^

Go Blue Phil is the only poster who made sense.  Denard's decisionmaking and passing accuracy were awful.  The game plan was fine.  Did you SEE Denard's passes?  And the offensive line -- they got dominated, totally chewed up.  The 4th and 1 call?  Ummmmm....how about the TE who blocked down for a double team instead of bouncing out to pick up the blitzer?  MSU made a good call -- period.  Michigan's offensive line stunk today, and so did Denard's passing.

Brick

October 15th, 2011 at 5:12 PM ^

It looked like the tight end was just slipping off that block and would have been open for an easy TD. Coaches thought the blitzer would follow Hopkins out wide but he was actually uncovered. If they covered Hopkins, it was probably a TD.

kb

October 15th, 2011 at 3:59 PM ^

When you can't establish the run and the passing game is off there are not many plays that work. The defense played well enough to win. Do you expect to come home with all wins?

MGlobules

October 15th, 2011 at 3:59 PM ^

I guarantee you go back and watch and you'll see that a failure to execute killed us on many of them. And the whole psychology and complexion of the other calls looks different if more of the calls are working. They don't call it Saturday evening QBing for nothing. Or something.

That said, the in and out with Devin Gardner seemed amateurish. As does a lot of football when you're screwing up. 

WreckingCrew

October 15th, 2011 at 3:59 PM ^

Are you actually an Ivy-Leaguer? Your grammar stinks.

 

We can blame it on the coaches all day if we want. Remember, though: we live and die by number 16. This season, we've lived by him more often than not. Today, we died by him. Still proud to be a Wolverine, and still happy to have our players/staff.

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 3:59 PM ^

Running backs not named Vincent Smith carried the ball twice in this game.  In a tight game, with advantageous field position throughout, and with a strong gusting wind making it difficult for anyone to throw (Cousins had very little success down the field).

Play action doesn't work when you don't have to respect the run.  Blitzers can tee off on the QB if he never hands it off.  DB's can be extra aggressive if they can play the pass exclusively.

We were the better team and the offensive playcalling cost us the game.

It is also very hard to not view Brady Hoke as a liar after all the shit he said this offseason about not putting everything on one guy, establishing a physical run game, etc., etc., etc.  We made zero attempt to do any of that today.

MileHighWolverine

October 15th, 2011 at 4:12 PM ^

Would it have worked?  Our O LIne got manhandled.

The 4th and 1 fake was a baffling call, though.  WTF?

Denard is over halfway through the season and continues to make BONEHEADED decisions. I fear the offensive transition really cost him a pivotal year.

Thug U getting away with their bullshit pisses me off to no end, though.

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 4:33 PM ^

It is a lot easier for the defense when you do the exact same shit on every play. 

Fitz carried the ball twice.  Both times he gained four yards.  That is working as far as I'm concerned.  The rest of the way we decided to do a bunch of other, more complicated shit that was negatively impacted by the weather and allowed the defense to tee off on it.

Just conceding that running the ball wouldn't work when we never tried it (and both RB's averaged better than 4 ypc on their limited opportunities) is silly.

MileHighWolverine

October 15th, 2011 at 4:39 PM ^

So is taking a small sample size and extraploting across the whole game.  Running it twice successfully doesn't mean it would have worked the whole game.  

They definitely needed to try more than they did though, point taken. I didn't like all the trickeration and slow developing plays when they had people in our grill every down.

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 4:59 PM ^

But never handing the ball off guarantees you have zero chance of keeping the defense off balance.  It also gives you zero chance to establish the physical ground game our head coach (and athletic director) promised would be a priority. 

They completely abandoned the non-Denard running game without ever forcing MSU to stop it on a consistent basis in a game where the score was always close and the weather made it difficult for either team to throw the ball consistently.  Even if you don't think it cost us the game, it is at best a massive screw-up and at worst a bunch of flat out lies we've been forced to swallow all offseason.

jmblue

October 15th, 2011 at 4:22 PM ^

We were the better team and the offensive playcalling cost us the game.

What is your basis for the bolded statement?  I don't like MSU any more than the next guy, but they certainly looked like the better team, especially along the offensive and defensive lines.

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 4:29 PM ^

They couldn't move the ball into the wind to save their lives either.  We had chance after chance to put them away, but a complete refusal to hand the ball off (on anything but the rare zone read to Vincent Smith) repeatedly put the offense in disadvantageous situations.  Then a failure to diagnose/counter a predictable blitz pattern killed us (the inside receiver to the top of the field is all alone on the pick 6 but is making an outcut with his back turned to Denard).

We didn't play all that well and still would have won easily with a more varied, run oriented offensive gameplan (of the kind our head coach spent all offseason promising us).  That is why I think we are the better team.

jmblue

October 15th, 2011 at 4:41 PM ^

I'm sorry, but you're being a homer here. 

MSU is undisciplined, but that doesn't make them an inferior team.  Their offensive line drove us back at the point of attack.  Our O-line regularly whiffed on blitzers and couldn't get any push in the run game.  I'm not sure why you think a more run-oriented attack was the answer.  After our first drive of the game, we had next to no success on designed running plays. 

Saying that we had "chances to put them away" is a reach.  We never led after the first quarter.  Field position and stupid MSU penalties helped us get into their territory as much as anything.  The two MSU fumbles both were largely unforced.  My takeway from this game is that MSU is better than we are, unfortunately, but for 3.5 quarters nearly Spartied the game away. 

 

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 4:48 PM ^

The two times we handed it to our best running back he gained four yards.  Then we never gave him the ball again. 

MSU sold out to stop Denard's designed runs and to pressure him when he dropped back to pass.  We played right into their hands by calling nothing else the entire game.

For all the bitching about Smith on 3rd and 1 and Robinson being forced to carry the entire load, followed by Hoke's assurances that this team was going to be physical and run the ball and be diverse on offense, to see anyone defending a gameplan where our backs carried it less than they did last year against MSU (in a game where we were down by three TD's with nearly 20 minutes remaining) sounds like Stockholm Syndrome at this point.

jmblue

October 15th, 2011 at 5:06 PM ^

Saying "We were the better team but Coach called bad plays" when you lose by 14 despite an advantage in turnover margin and a gigantic edge in penalty margin is being a homer.  You're not giving MSU credit.  They outplayed us despite their idiocy.

We did not mount an effective run game after the opening quarter.  Nothing worked except the jet sweep to Denard.  I'm not saying the solution was to run Denard more.  I think we needed to pass to set up the run, because MSU consistently had nine defenders near the line of scrimmage.  I don't think we had a great gameplan.  We clearly were not prepared for the blitzing.  But when you need a great gameplan to eek out a win, you're not the better team.

What I find sobering about this game is that we look like we have a long way to go to be a championship team.  We aren't a couple of playcalls away.    

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 5:18 PM ^

You're never going to mount an effective run game if you give your best back the ball twice in the entire game. 

We punted in MSU territory 6 times.  The defense held them to 334 yards with 2 (should have been 3) turnovers.  The game was tied when Gardner missed a wide open Hopkins for a TD.  We were down by a TD with 4th and 1 from the MSU 9 yard line when we attempt to fake a running play (as if they would be fooled when we haven't run it all day).  We were still down only 7 with over 4 minutes remaining when MSU does the same shit they had done the whole second half on defense (blitz the inside backers to force the ball out of Denard's hand and deny running opportunities) and we still had no answer for it (as I mentioned earlier, the inside receiver to the top of the screen would be wide open if only he were looking at Denard).

MSU got smoked by Notre Dame.  They eeked out a win against a mediocre MSU team.  They aren't very good.  We had every opportunity to beat them and our offensive staff got completely outcoached.

jmblue

October 15th, 2011 at 5:30 PM ^

Running up the gut (and Toussaint is an inside runner, let's be clear) when 1) the opposing defense is very stout up front to begin with and 2) is cheating safeties on every play is not a great strategy.  Yes, I'm aware of what our rushing averages were.  Almost all of those yards were gained on our opening drive of the game.  After that, MSU adjusted to our blocking scheme and every run (save the occasional jet sweep) was pretty much a lost cause.

The whole "Hoke lied to us" stuff is silly.  He'd love to pound it if he could, but this team is not built for that in general, and specifically not for this kind of opposing defense. 

PurpleStuff

October 15th, 2011 at 5:51 PM ^

First off, giving Fitz two chances to run the ball (when he was successful on both) isn't the action of a guy who would "love to pound it."  Having Denard run it 18 times (with little success) in a close game  isn't the action of a guy who "wants to protect the QB and not depend on just one guy."  Running the zone read with Vincent Smith, against a team that has overprepped to stop that staple play for four straight years, is generally going to be a lost cause.  That is all we tried to do after the first drive.  MSU didn't adjust to it, they just made tackles, something they failed to do on the opening drive. 

Michael Shaw is a pretty good outside runner.  He never saw the field. 

Even if the run doesn't work, it makes everything else easier if the other team has to defend it on a semi-regular basis.  We didn't even attempt to force them to honor it.

Our offense did everything Brady Hoke said we weren't going to do (stay in the gun the whole game, depend on the QB for a rushing attack, fail to run downhill, etc.).  If you say one thing and then do another, isn't that the definition of a lie? 

I've been as big a Borges fan/defender as anyone, but this was a massive fuck-up.

Born Blue

October 15th, 2011 at 4:56 PM ^

While watching the game on ESPN, in the second quarter, tie game, with Denard on the sideline, DG throws an incomplete pass to a covered Hemingway....meanwhile, Hopkins was open down the seam, with no one within twenty yards of him!  He was so wide open that if he caught it then, and walked in, he could score now and still not get touched!  Yes, we left points on the field, still, I feel for the players...especially the seniors...not like they didn't want to win.  What matters now is getting up off the mat and winning the remainder of the games.  Gentlemen, this is adversity, not during a game, but after a loss, what shall you do?

cargo

October 15th, 2011 at 4:01 PM ^

Where are all the RR haters now?  Bitch about his coaching in big games and wtf happened today?  Looked just like the last two years.