Fourth Down Conversions

I'm sorry you had to endure that.  I remember christmas day posts of glee and excitement about getting tix to the game.  yikes.

how many times did UM go for it on fourth down this year. It must have been some sort of record. Earlier in the week I was watching a game between Clemson and S. Florida, and the announcers mentioned that Clemson was 2/3 on fourth down for the SEASON!

a) solid game insight

b) waiting for 800 pts before the first OP -- that shows good patience in the pocket and making the correct read.

Apathy had set in and it wasn't pretty. 

Sad to say this was me as well. Granted, it was my living room while everyone else in the house retreated to their rooms, but still. I hate this dull, numb feeling.

I've been thinking the same thing since looking at the boxscore yesterday. We had the 0 for 5 on fourth down, plus the 11 yard punt, the missed FG, and two TOs (I think.) That's like 9 turnovers total - change in possession without the benefit of a 35-40 yard net punt. If RR was just trying to keep it close and not embarrass the team, he should have punted on a couple of those 4th downs. But he was desperately going for a win or a change in momentum. For all the fans that boo when a coach punts on 4th down, Saturday is what happens when you go for it 5 times and miss all five. Short fields for the opposition usually ends up in scores. I'm pretty sure Lloyd Carr would have punted five times (or had a decent FG kicker he could count on, at least 11 or 12 out of 13 years.)

However, while RR seemed to be very aggressive on the 4th down calls, he seemed VERY conservative with Denard. After the first two drives, there were very few designed runs for Denard. Had Tate been available, maybe Denard runs more and the offense produces more than 14 points.

I also noticed that Martin only had 1 assisted tackle. I know nose guards aren't supposed to make tackles, but when Mike is 100%, he usually gets into the backfield a few times. I wonder if he wasn't 100% yet. Ankles can take more than a month sometimes. If it was just MSU effectively doubling him, I would hope that our defensive coaches would move him around on the line. But that supposes our D-coaches are able to make in-game adjustments. Sadly, that's just wishful thinking.

Craziest stat of the game - both teams averaged 3.5 yards per carry. The problem was we had the two long Denard runs, and a big sack of MSU. Subtract those plays and it was more in MSU's favor. The 18-23 passing from Relf didn't help either.

I was sitting in the corner of the south endzone , we only had 2-3 cowbells around 60+ michigan fans (a lot of michigan player's families) and it was demoralizing, it's no wonder they banned those from SEC games, I'm going to have nightmares of the michigan defense with cowbells playing the soundtrack.

Our inability to pick up the blitz in obvious passing situations absolutely killed us on third and fourth downs. That was by far the worst our offensive line has played all year.

I came away from the game thinking that the defense forced the offense's hand and took it out of its game plan.  The defense performed so poorly (or was outplayed so greatly) that the offense was forced to throw way more than Rodriguez wanted and forced third and long way too often.  Since the defense was not going to stop MSU, Rodriguez was forced to go for it on 4th down when he may not have done so, at least not every time.  The offense definitely did not play as well as it could, but I think the defensive failures had a much bigger impact on offensive performance in the past 4-5 games than most people realize.