Getting Over The Hump
The program has gotten to the playoffs 2 years in a row and has beaten OSU 2 times in a row. Yay!
However, in the playoffs, this team has fallen apart as both an underdog and as a favorite. Obviously the team is in a pretty good spot, but what is needed to get the team to the next level?
-Better Athletes?
-Better Coaching?
-Better Assistants?
-Better Facilities?
-Better Bathrooms?
What are the missing pieces to become a contender like OSU, Georgia, and Clemson (most years)?
December 31st, 2022 at 8:44 PM ^
I just opened a 2000 Margaux that I've been saving for a long time. I'm hoping this gets me over the hump tonight.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:44 PM ^
I mean ... we had the ball longer than TCU, we had more yards, our offense outscored theirs ... Suggesting we're not "good enough" seems like an overreaction.
Sometimes you lose. It sucks. It hurts. You look for reasons.
Sports f***ing breaks your heart -- and perhaps being a Michigan fan most of all. But ... we'll be back next year, ready to have our heart broken again. Go Blue, goddammit.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:48 PM ^
You are an admirable fan.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:10 PM ^
If Ohio beats Georgia you need to pass that Margaux.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:37 PM ^
I wish there was enough to share with every Michigan fan tonight.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:21 PM ^
Jesus wouldn’t have excuses. Try harder. Sheesh
December 31st, 2022 at 9:00 PM ^
Yes. It was uncharacteristic play. Mistakes not usually made and some unfortunate breaks. This game is why I didn't want to meet OSU again. I know Michigan is better, but games like this happen.
BTW, this isn't deserving of its own thread but why does our running back room go from Corum(out) to Edwards (not 100%) to a last minute converted linebacker? Where were the guys we saw earlier in the year like Stokes and Gash?
January 1st, 2023 at 1:01 PM ^
I've wondered the same....where has Stokes been the last 3 games?
December 31st, 2022 at 9:10 PM ^
Yeah, I'm not sure how much can be gleaned about the program beyond "don't throw two pick-sixes, get screwed by the refs and then fumble at the 1-yard line" in a game like this. Could they have done more to win? Sure. But that's true for everyone.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:57 PM ^
We shot ourselves in the foot too much on this one. 2 pick sixes, a goal line fumble, and honestly we should have just taken the points on the first drive. I think today showed that if Corum does leave, we really do need another transfer RB. I'm not a fan of players switching positions like mullings. Sainristl moving is an exception, which happens, but in my opinion it just doesn't usually work.
That being said. We went undefeated regular season. BEAT OSU. DESTROYED MSU. This season was a success.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:22 PM ^
Fantastic comment and my thoughts exactly, JT being short ended me being so wrapped up in sports to where I allow it to affect my mood for more than maybe 15-20 mins after the game.
This team got punched in the face repeatedly and kept clawing we just couldn’t get the stop we needed. It hurts, but man give me this over anything we’ve experienced the past 10-15 years before the last two. I believe we can be right back here next year and I’ll be once again ready for the let down but, it’s hard to just not be happy putting the past in the past 120 other teams in the country would kill to be where we are.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:47 PM ^
None of the above. If you must play the blame game then it's mostly on the 4 week layoff. It's been an issue for more than 50 years now, going back to the early Bo Schembechler days.
Lloyd Carr's 1997-98 team managed to stay sharp and win the Rose Bowl game in 1998 to claim the National Championship. Maybe it is onus is on the youth of the Michigan roster while the 1997-98 had many upper classmen as starters. I'm guessing and there's no good answer.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:49 PM ^
Every team playing in a semi-meaningful bowl game is off for 3-4 weeks. Yet many of these teams still get up to play and even *gasp* win a bowl game occasionally.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:11 PM ^
Yeah, the layoff argument never made sense to me. But I will say it wasn't like TCU's gameplan was that much better than Michigan's, only they happened to pull out the high-leverage plays better than the Wolverines. It's not like they drew up that fumble in the red zone or the two pick-sixes. And their secondary was absolutely torched all game and their offense struggled for stretches.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:57 PM ^
Um, every team we play also has a 4 week layoff.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:10 PM ^
Not your mom.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:47 PM ^
If you remember that game Michigan came out flat and didn't play all that well in that Rose Bowl. It was a much closer game than had been expected.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:49 PM ^
I have no idea. I can’t even really point to a player or position group and say “this is why we lost and we need to get better here”. We were a team that was built on limiting mistakes and controlling both lines of scrimmage. Today we made numerous mistakes that we haven’t made all year and both lines were outplayed. We either werent prepared to play or we chose a terrible time to have a terrible game.
I still think we were the better team, we just didn’t show it today
December 31st, 2022 at 8:59 PM ^
It is puzzling how many mistakes that we made, in big ways (pick sixes) and small (false starts). It was uncharacteristic of this team.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:20 PM ^
No doubt. There were mistakes made all over the place and most were very uncharacteristic. It was like watching a different team than the one we’ve watched all year.
JJ - hasn’t put the ball in harm’s way. Did it twice with disastrous results.
Oline - soundly beaten many times. Too many negative or no gain runs.
Defense - strong against the run but were gashed repeatedly up the middle today
Coaching - just some puzzling and also predictable decisions. Running FB dive to Mullings (why line him up as a FB when he hasn’t done that all year?). Minter’s safety blitz on 3rd and 7 down 41-38. The third down screen to Bell that was blown up. Absolutely everyone in the stadium knew that was coming because we’ve run that play several times this year and we tipped it by alignment. Philly special on the first series when trick plays are not our identity?
There’s probably a few other things to point out but this is more than enough to lose a game against a very good team.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:37 PM ^
This is the 2nd year in a row that's happened though. The 2nd year in a row that, in the CFP, Michigan has done things in a negative manner that they haven't done all season.
That speaks to something wrong with bowl preparation. Harbaugh figured out how to beat Ohio State. This is the next "We'll do it or die trying" change that needs to happen.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:55 PM ^
Its an interesting thought. Teams usually do not have an extended period of time to prepare for Michigan. Usually there are a few non-con lightweights before a meaningful test. Everyone else has 1 week to prepare for Michigan. Now you give a team a month to prepare and they are sniffing out plays that we've used multiple times this year.
January 1st, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
This is pretty much what happened the last 6 bowl games Michigan has played. They look unprepared and play like it. It's like the team goes flat over the 4-5 week period between our last game and the bowl.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:49 PM ^
At one point, this game was 21-3. In the second half, they were down by 19. While the comeback was valiant and they never gave up, nothing about most of this game looked like anything we had season over the season. Harbaugh/Minter/Moore & Weiss have a lot of questions to answer because their players played their asses off with what I’m guessing was a vastly different game plan than the one they came in with.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:59 PM ^
I think they had to change game plans on the fly offensively because we are not a ground and pound team without Corum. We needed to be pass heavy from the very beginning of the game.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:22 PM ^
They should have known gowing in that we are not a ground and pound team without Corum. In both the OSU and Purdue games, we tried to ground and pound and got nowhere with it and had to adapt. They had evidence that they could no longer ground and pound with Edwards yet they seemingly came in with a similar gameplan and seemed shocked that they were getting the same results. The only difference is this time we made several big mistakes that prevented us from coming all the way back.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:03 PM ^
This game was a lot like the MSU game last year. A dumb, sloppy loss to a team we could have and should have beaten.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:50 PM ^
Don't turn the ball over.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
Sometimes the other also really good team plays better. Sometimes they get the early momentum. We weren't guaranteed a win, we were given a chance to win. We fought hard, we didn't give up. We got here because of the excellent team and coaches we've had all year. We lost some important guys to injury. What are you going to do? TCU was a great team, too. They won today. We keep going, keep getting better, keep trying to put all the pieces together in a way that makes a game like today not happen.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
Wendyk5 - We have been saying this since 1997 but in our world The Empire defeats the Jedi, Khan kills Kirk, Gold-Finger kills Bond and Ohio beats Georgia.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:36 PM ^
Here's my beef: we've been talking about beating Ohio State for how long? That's been our Waterloo. And then we beat them two years in a row, once in Columbus. We outperformed expectations in spectacular fashion. But we lose this game, against a team some are calling trash, and most are saying is not nearly as good as we are. But the thing is, they were good enough to be here so maybe we underestimated them. Maybe we overestimated ourselves. Who knows? But we seem to be throwing away the accomplishment that we've all been yearning for, for so long. And that really sucks. I get that everyone is pretty raw right now but I hope we don't lose sight of that. I really do. We don't get to have a head-hanging pity party anymore. We're not that team anymore.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:57 PM ^
“But the thing is, they were good enough to be here so maybe we underestimated them. Maybe we overestimated ourselve”
This is a near-annual tradition with Michigan bowl games that I’ve been watching for over 50 years. I hear it before every goddamn bowl game—Michigan is just plain superior to whoever our opponent is and we’re going to roll over their asses because they can’t stand up to Michigan’s physicality. For 29 bowl games since 1969, that arrogant assessment has been embarrassingly wrong. It’ll be the same way next year too.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:25 PM ^
I don't know why people predict Michigan will win....or lose. I think once you get to the top, there aren't any certainties anymore. Unless you're an Alabama-type juggernaut with so much depth that every string is practically first string. Ohio State has been at the top of the food chain for a long time but has lost a lot of bowl games, I think that's just the nature of the beast. The best play the best and someone has to lose.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:07 PM ^
I really don’t think we under estimated them, I think they just had a great game plan and we messed up on picks a couple times. They took away our run and we did not adjust fast enough. We want to beat Ohio state and then go on and do more. But for sure we did some great things this year
December 31st, 2022 at 10:55 PM ^
They ran their base 3-3-5 defense and had LB'rs filling the gaps - exactly what Alex said they'd do. What did Michigan do to counter that? Nothing. They ran directly into it and did nothing to mess with the LB'r reads. I spent the week screaming that Harbaugh loves to mess with LB'rs, just to see that he didn't do it one stinking bit. No outside runs, no TE drags, no crossing patterns to get a LB in coverage, no QB keeps, no passes into the seam... Nothing. Just run it straight into the gaps being filled by a LB firing at the snap because there was no misdirection.
All of that is the epitome of "underestimated".
December 31st, 2022 at 10:23 PM ^
I don't think anyone will throw it away, but certainly not the best time to be thinking back fondly about that accomplishment, especially with OSU currently winning their game. But give it a week (or a month if OSU wins the natty) and we'll appreciate what was accomplished
December 31st, 2022 at 10:40 PM ^
I agree with the latter sentiment but i really don't get why people give Ohio State the kind of power that would diminish what we accomplished against them in a game that doesn't even involve us. That seems irrational to me. Their game against Georgia has nothing to do with us. If they win, it's because losing against us was the worst possible thing that ever happened to them and that lit a fire. I don't think that takes away from our accomplishments at all. But I'm sure I'm in the minority.
January 1st, 2023 at 2:12 AM ^
You’re so brilliant and enlightened. Thanks for changing my entire worldview on fandom.
TCU just played better. Why didn’t I think of that?
December 31st, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
The disconcerting thing for me is QB coaching. I never thought I'd see Joe Milton look anything more than mediocre in a game and he actually played quite well last night with a new coach.
Is McCarthy better than he was 6 weeks ago? Of all the things anyone can nitpick in this game, McCarthy's 2 pick sixes stand out as the biggest difference.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:56 PM ^
The kid's a true sophomore, first-year starter, and threw for about 350 in the national semifinal. With the JJ who played against Illinois, we'd have lost by 30+.
The problem was that everything was on his shoulders. Corum was out and Edwards is a feast-or-famine kind of guy. JJ made a lot of plays, but we needed him to be lights out to win, at a time when Schoon got hurt, Wilson/Bell looked gimpy, and Edwards still couldn't really catch.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:14 PM ^
And JJ will be significantly better next year.
This loss will provide even more motivation / determination to win.
December 31st, 2022 at 9:16 PM ^
We have no evidence to say he will be significantly better. We just don’t. That’s hopium
December 31st, 2022 at 10:00 PM ^
He threw for 350 in a ridiculously clean pocket most of the day. He also threw two terrible INTs that decided the game. You can't overlook that as just two average interceptions. They are catastrophic errors, something this board beat the shit out of Joe Milton for when he was here.
I'm not saying he sucks. I'm saying that when you get to this level, your QB has to have the ability to put this team on his shoulders. Right now, he hasn't shown that. And there's no guarantee he will moving forward.
December 31st, 2022 at 10:26 PM ^
He threw for 350 in a ridiculously clean pocket most of the day.
Were we watching the same game? Our OL was a turnstile. JJ extended many pass plays with his feet.
Does it really make sense to pile on the QB of a team that scored 45 points - and it could have easily been 14 more - on a day when the run game wasn't doing much? (Not to mention that the QB himself was our best runner in the second half.)
The picks hurt, sure. But shit happens sometimes. JJ threw five all season, it's not like he's INT-prone.
December 31st, 2022 at 11:25 PM ^
Those pick sixes were terrible and probably doomed us. It's nothing like Milton though. Mccarthy can make all the throws but screwed up badly twice. Milton couldn't make most throws and turned it over almost half the time he tried to throw over the middle
December 31st, 2022 at 9:30 PM ^
Don't really get this take. The two pick-sixes were huge mistakes, obviously, and he bugged out of some clean pockets at times. But he also was pretty much our whole offense, on a day when we put up 45 points and 500+ yards. This TCU secondary isn't bad; both starting CBs got Dangerman status in the FFFF.
I don't understand why we didn't try to use his legs until the 3rd quarter.
December 31st, 2022 at 11:28 PM ^
If I could see it right live, it looked like their edge guy was a safety and was playing weirdly deep, which basically made all read option reads give reads. We didn't figure out how to run McCarthy until we realized we needed to run him off of pass fakes, which did work but late. Coaches should have figured it out sooner but I think that's why
December 31st, 2022 at 11:52 PM ^
I feel like there were several times when he could have made that decision for himself instead of waiting in the pocket for something to develop to no avail.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
Massive mistakes by players and coaches in the second most important game of the year. For some reason they just utterly lack discipline. They need to get that chip on their shoulder for these types of games.
December 31st, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
Fuck this game. Fuck the SEC refs. Fuck TCU. Fuck OSU. FUCK staying up for NYE. FUCK