Football Study Hall piece on M offense under Shea
August 28th, 2018 at 4:57 PM ^
Seeing Ben Mason split out wide would be the strangest thing and potentially the most Harbaugh thing. I'm so curious and excited to see what the offense will look like on Saturday.
August 29th, 2018 at 10:10 AM ^
I hope we split Mason out wide and just have him run over the CB a few times. Good luck adjusting from that to keeping up with DPJ and Collins on fade routes...
August 28th, 2018 at 4:59 PM ^
We are going to find out soon enough. Let's hope it actually is something we can cheer about when Michigan deeeeeeeestroys Notre Lame in South Bend Over. I could really use a blow out score of Michigan 42 Notre Dame 0.
August 28th, 2018 at 5:05 PM ^
Shouldnt dump on ND .Kelly is an ass yes but their program is probably the closest thing to ours, and they are generally fine people like Iowa and Wisconsin.
Now, re MSU, OSU, as you were....
August 28th, 2018 at 5:18 PM ^
Kelly is responsible for the death of a student. That's at least on par if not worse than anything Dantonio and Urban have done.
August 28th, 2018 at 7:28 PM ^
I have a number of friends who are either employed at ND or are graduates, and I can tell you they are embarrassed by Kelly and would like to see him gone. They find his antics completely out of keeping with the university they love.
August 28th, 2018 at 5:38 PM ^
Now, I've met some reasonable ND people over the years, but I have met a fair number of Irish fans that bathe daily in the spring of overrated and consider it an honor to do so.
August 28th, 2018 at 6:32 PM ^
I used to think that too, and then I spent some time on their campus. Sure, they're smart, and they have a football tradition (that we gave them), but otherwise they're nothing like us.
I've never seen a more repressed and miserable group of people in my life. Really the opposite of Ann Arbor.
August 28th, 2018 at 6:51 PM ^
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
Except East Lansing
And Columbus
And College Park
And Happy Valley
And whatever Baylor calls its host town
And wherever RichRod currently lives
August 28th, 2018 at 5:05 PM ^
Wow.
August 28th, 2018 at 5:07 PM ^
It's interesting that the author thinks that Janes Hudson will be the starting RT.
August 28th, 2018 at 5:18 PM ^
Yeah what an idiot. Obviously it’s going to be Mayfield. Boom!! Yoder-ed!!
August 28th, 2018 at 5:24 PM ^
2 things about this.
1-This article implies UM will be an IZ running team because that’s Warriner’s speciality. I thought that was disastrous last year and they were going to focus on power.
2-All of the formations listed sound fun but you should probably swap McKeown and Gentry in all of them.
August 28th, 2018 at 6:19 PM ^
Either they have confidence in their IZ game or they were doing those drills at open practice to throw ND off. Either way it does sound scary considering the struggles last year.
August 28th, 2018 at 6:58 PM ^
They were awful at IZ last year, but maybe Warriner’s simplified approach has allowed this to be reintroduced. It makes sense if they are indeed going to feature more RPO and spread-like concepts. If they run it well enough it can open the counter and the pass play Denard executed regularly.... the fake IZ quick slot slant pass.
August 28th, 2018 at 8:11 PM ^
I don't think they stopped running IZ last year. Yeah, the went away from it and back to power runs to clean things up mid-season, but they were still running IZ late in the year. And with far more success than they had early! I think they used it more as a constraint play, rather than as the base scheme like they had early on. In any case, they used it for good yardage later in the season against both Wisconsin and OSU.
August 28th, 2018 at 6:25 PM ^
So many targets and options for Patterson. Praying the OL gives him the time to utilize.
August 28th, 2018 at 6:45 PM ^
I think there's some good information and concepts in this article, however, I still think our primary offense is going to be gap concepts and power formations. These spread concepts will most likely be implemented to supplement our primary offense. There no way that Shea trained all offseason on being under center for them just to abandon it. Additionally, I just don't see us switching back into an IZ scheme after the disaster that was last year.
August 28th, 2018 at 7:01 PM ^
"With Shea Patterson, a simplified and spread-friendly yet still downhill blocking scheme, and the pro-style talent that’s already assembled in Ann Arbor, this Michigan team could potentially put it all together in a magical way this coming season."
Yes, Lawd Yes!
August 28th, 2018 at 9:40 PM ^
I read that and had to control myself lest I swoon.
August 28th, 2018 at 7:11 PM ^
Why does he think Hudson is starting over JBB?
August 28th, 2018 at 8:56 PM ^
I hope they throw to the RB's and FB's a lot.
August 28th, 2018 at 9:24 PM ^
I'm sorry, I just think it's smarter to make teams space out if you want to gash 'em up the middle than stuffing everyone inside all the time. And if you've got those guys on the roster, you can do all the shifting Matt Canada innovated where you'll shift from power sets to spread with the same beefy personnel.
Look at what Harbaugh disciple Willie Taggart did at USF/Oregon. Spread the field but with lots of beef on the field and run all your power o from the shotgun with a lot of power read/power read toss if you've got a runner and a lot of RPO if you've got a passer.
August 29th, 2018 at 2:53 PM ^
I'm the same.
Outside of '13 FSU and BAMA fielding an entire team of 5* talent because BAMA, it seems pretty obvious that spread teams with big powerful players (ie. NOT Rich Rod style) dominate CFB. All the top teams are running it. Would be nice to see the offense modernize along the lines of Clemson, PSU, etc.
August 28th, 2018 at 11:59 PM ^
I hope they go more spread, but I hope the offense becomes less Borges-ian. '15 and '16 were good in that they had tons of personnel packages combined with creative play calling. '17 was an identity free mess with few exceptions.
August 29th, 2018 at 12:54 PM ^
I don't know how it's going to work out but one thing I'm sure of Notre Dame has no idea what's coming at them on Saturday. Should be fun.