ECU Snowflakes: The Coaching

Stand-in coaches did the job. 2nd half play calling and execution leaves much to be desired. I wonder if Harbaugh yelled at them for calling too many passes in the 1st half. Haha

Minter 1-0 as Michigan head coach. 

Enjoyed the run pass balance compared to years past even in the lesser games

Seems like we made good adjustments in the 2nd quarter but they made better adjustments at the half to counter ours. Interesting chess match!

Just fine. Like the early willingness to pass when the defense was stacking the box.

Free Harbaugh !  Congratulations to Coach Minter and staff.  ECU probably the best coached team we will face first 3 games of the season. 

Good adjustment to ECU playing 9 in the box.  And they did it almost immediately.  Solid two minute drill.  Second half just trying to get out of the game, so whatever.  Got a TD and fucked up at the 1 and then the quarter was over.

I think raw totals are going to have to be mentally adjusted to the number of available plays.

Missed having Jim and Sherrone around, but aside from the ultraconservative first series, nothing really to complain about.

The adjustments after the first two drives were really nice.

Let’s start practicing halftime adjustments too.

All in all shut it down after halftime.  Missed Moore as OL coach today. Next 2 weeks will be interesting with everyone but Harbaugh.

It was like playing with one hand and legs irons. No HC or OC. I'll bet the play calling script was designed to be ultra conservative. You could almost give them an incomplete grade.

After halftime was simply about mailing in the second half. They had a goal line drive in the third quarter and got stopped and the fourth quarter was simply for the depth chart. Minter did what he was instructed. He did not fail to make adjustments at half.

Next week they will want to improve on the second team offense performance. That was terrible and the play calling was far too conservative for them. It telegraphed the staff's lack of confidence in the second team's ability to run the O.

I'm disappointed with the second half. I feel like because we played ECU, and OSU is playing a conference game, they will jump us in the rankings now.

This is why I don't like the Michigan method thing. If Hinton was this bad in practice, why does he get a whole game to start?

We didn’t have to try to pound in an Edwards TD, but good overall. 

How much of the OL's performance can be chalked up to not having Moore on the sideline? Hopefully that changes next week.

Additionally, I wish that they were a little more aggressive in the 2nd half. You do need some style points for the cfp. You don't have to go balls to the wall but something more than today.

Everything seemed normal operationally. We seemed much more willing to throw when the defense was daring us to. Second half was mostly us just trying to get out of the game with no injuries so whatever. 

I have a big sad the coaches didn't let Warren pass downfield more often. You simply have to get your 2nd team QB live passing reps. The choice to keep him from doing that seems indefensible. 

Hopefully Jim was taking notes on Jesse's clock management.

And 4 consecutive exact same play calls near the goal line was aptly described by Simms as "stubborn".  With nothing to show for the stubbornness.

One minor ST error that was caught in time.

Grade A-

Love the adjustment to ECU selling out against the run. JJ took full advantage.

Excellent variety of pass plays, utilized our weapons.

IMO the only thing that could derail this team is injury - so I have no problem with taking the foot off the gas. Let the subs get run (they clearly need it).

One other important note - very clean game. Few penalties, no turnovers. That's a testament to good coaching.

Well done. Great start to the season!

Go Blue!

Great play calling on both sides of the ball in the first half. Loved our passing game. Moar play action please! They pretty much parked the bus in the second half which was understandable and smart.

Bad end of first half time management seems to have possibly carried over from last season, though I'll reserve my judgment until further games. We had a great drive going and ran out of time because they waited too long to take timeouts & were too slow with ~1 minute left. 

Not bad at all down a head coach & O Coord. Keep it simple: check. Win easily and keep everyone healthy: CHECK!! Test out those things you need test: not check. I think O starters could’ve come out sooner, excepting O line needs way more work. Needed to find QB2 and RB3 — needed more reps those guys. Needed to find out how you pass rush, no luck there, and who are your top handful for CB2 and DB rotation. Wallace & Saab looked more than serviceable. Everyone else: not so much, pending further review. All in all: well done Coach Minter & gang! 

Overall I liked the coaching. The switched from all run to passing midway through the first when ECU was working to stop the running game!

Coaching was solid - though I think the coaches let the players get a bit too complacent and lackadaisical in the second half. That probably cost the team 1-2 TDs and a shutout.

Really liked the passing game. 

Well done by Minter and the whole staff.  Solid win.

Forgot how negative you lot are. It was fine. McCarthy looked noticeably better in my opinion. The defense looked better than I expected. The playcalling in the second half clearly wasn't the best but whatever, that is pretty on par for an early season Michigan game where we're winning by a lot. 

I’m worried we put too much of the passing game on film and won’t have any plays left at the end of the season.

The most notable coaching piece was the quick switch to a passing focus once ECU stacked the box. Hopefully this flexibility remains, because it can pay huge -- read: CFP -- dividends down the road.

Excellent job overall. I didn't like them bashing Donovan into a wall a bunch of times on the goal line, but nothing's perfect. A grade of "A", certainly.

FIRE MINTER!

Still wasted a ton of downs mulishly trying to run into a stacked box. Take what the defense gives you. Why is that so hard to grasp?

Good stuff! I liked how they were willing to pass around the stacked box instead of running straight into it. When is the last time we let 30 passes rip against an opponent like this?

The second half was boring and predictable, but it was over at that point and I understand why they just coasted. The coaches don't seem concerned with covering a point spread. Run the clock out and get outta there. 

After a rewatch of this whole game, Michigan was clearly the dominate team at the line of scrimmage. There was plenty of push from OL, just a zillion dudes in the box to be accounted for from a well coached opponent who was gap sound. 
 

Pressure from interior D line was there all game which is why the opponent ran so many quick hitters, the effectiveness of the edges was almost erased to do quick passes. 
 

Blake and Donovan were both beginning to assert themselves before they were pulled from the game. They still had a 5 yd/carry average between the 2 of them through 3 quarters. 
 

Goal line stand was just bullshit play calling trying to boost Donovan’s TD stats. Please add a play action roolout for JJ easy walk in TD or throw to Loveland/Barner. 
 

Vanilla coached game, basically a practice against a team that was very well coached, but nowhere near the star power. 
 

This is primarily a rebuttal post to all those talking about how disappointing the run game and pass rush was, because the opponent clearly devised a game plan to mitigate those 2 things as much as possible, and was still getting dominated, just a more of a “slow cooker” rate as opposed to being “broiled in the oven”. 
 

Figured the coaching snowflakes was the best place for this hopefully level headed rebuttal.