Do you think they've been protecting Milton?

If you're losing all your games, whether or not your first-sting QB is upright is beside the point.

Even if that had been true, it should've been chucked out the window a few minutes into the MSU game.

One other thing: If Cade (an early enrollee in 2019) is useless at this point it would be yet another miss (or episode of mismanagement) at the QB position. (My money isn't there.)

I think this is a possibility. IIRC, Shea had a pretty big game of running in one game and then it disappeared there after. Again, not absolute about this, but it wouldn't surprise me. 

Protecting a QB to avoid potential losses in the future...while you are actively losing in the present...is counterintuitive. 

I'd rather run the qb every game than call the game scared. Justin Fields didn't get injured by having the qb reads on.

False.  If we overlooked #13 Indiana, the coaches are even dumber than I think they are.

As explained in “neck sharpies,” if your quarterback is not a threat to run, this offense does not work. It is baffling why they don’t tell him to keep the read option a few times to keep the defense honest. Additionally, we never tested the outside with a jet sweep or other plays. Their corners were crashing in on the run, and we never made them pay for their aggressiveness. 

Finally, as others and I pointed out before the season, an inaccurate QB kills you. Inaccurate passes are drive killers, and when you do have an accurate pass, the pass is dropped. It is very frustrating and results in an inability to sustain drives, especially when you can’t run either. 

I have my doubts that Milton will ever be a great quarterback. He reminds me of Jamarcus Russell- physically-gifted but unable to put it all together. Being able to throw the ball 70 yards is not helpful if it is always 20 yards past the receivers. 

If by “they” you mean the offensive line, then the answer is only sometimes. 

I wondered that against MSU, but once we were down several scores against Indiana and we still didn't run Milton that theory went out the window. There's no way they would do that when we're down several scores to a top-15 team.

Am sorry, but if this is true and we're coaching scared, then we deserve to lose.  Better to win and assume the normal risk of injury, than lose almost for certain.    And great players are often forged in the fire, which never seems to happen here at Michigan, where it seems everything is forged in practice.  When we constantly practice versus a gimmick defense with no DTs, the players that thrive versus this don't necessarily can handle playing versus a normal defense.... as far as we know, McNamara is the superior QB in play versus a non-gimmick defense.... and this is coming from someone who thought Milton is gonna be a monster.  This also implies McCaffrey... rendering judgment in our atypical practice is dangerous....   

If Bo were alive, I think he'd have ripped our defense, point being is that we are practicing against a defense that nobody else plays, and it would ring true.

No. You play to win the game. 

~Herm

Joe Milton—another QB with a lot of talent and potential wasted by Jim Harbaugh. I can’t believe I’m actually typing those words, but it’s true.

False - we’re just bad. 

Yes. This season is a bust, may as well keep him upright in anticipation of next year . 

Sure. Just like they were "protecting" Patterson, Peters, O'Korn, Speight, and Ruddock.

Edit to add: The only thing they're "protecting" them from is putting up stats and points.

No matter how long Joe Milton is our QB he will always struggle with accuracy. I expect it to get better with more experience, but he never will be a Joe Burrow or even Justin Fields level in terms of accuracy. The coaches drew up a good plan for the Minnesota game, but for some reason have scaled back the last two weeks. Asking Joe to be a pocket passer with no RB help because we remain insanely vanilla with our playcalling, is doing nothing to help his growth. It also doesn’t help that the easy rollout passes have been dropped 50% of the time.

Probably a safe strategy.  Milton might not be great (yet, if ever), but he's probably several steps above Cade.

Never forget Bellamy (nothing against him, he tried his best).

Milton is a better passer than a runner.  Still a good runner for a pocket passer, but makes sense they are looking to throw.  

False.  Coaches knew they needed to run against MSU, and especially against IU who is a far superior team to UM. I think the playbook got locked down, and both MSU and IU exploited a ? defense on our side. We chose not to adjust and pretend if the head is buried in the sand, good things will happen. 

Time to remind everyone again, that there is no statistical evidence that a running QB gets injured more than a traditional pro-style QB.  It was studied at the NFL level, and no correlation was found.  People have crunched numbers at the college level-- I wouldn't go so far as to say a 'study' was commissioned, as in the NFL, but there are tons and tons of statistics available to even casual fans-- and no one has presented a compelling case to show any correlation.

The hardest hit a QB will ever take is most likely when he's hit from his blind side while waiting to throw the ball, completely unaware that he's about to get run over by a 240lb man with bad intentions.  When running the ball, you're fully aware at all times that you could be hit, and act accordingly.  If you want to save Milton from being hurt, don't continually put him in 3rd and 9, when everyone knows he's passing and the defensive coordinator can dial up exotic blitzes that are risky if you lose the RPS and the other team runs.

Where has this theory been "hinted" at? 

If the coaches "underestimated" their 2nd biggest rival and also the nation's 13th ranked team at their house... yikes.

I don't know why designed QB runs haven't been called more either, but hopefully that's not the answer.