Iowa offense vs. Penn State and its implied advice to Michigan
Hidden in this evening's excitement, Iowa pulled an Indiana, but actually in our favor tonight. In a losing effort, they defined the offensive game plan to defeat Penn State's otherwise solid defense. A huge chunk of Iowa's success on offense came from just chucking up fades and Iowa guys adjusting to make a catch. Penn State seemed to have no answer to this other than blind luck.
There is no team on the remainder of Penn State's schedule more capable to eviscerate them in this same way than Michigan, regardless of how inept the rest of our passing game is. If Harbaugh, Warinner and Gattis can just make some chicken salad to go alongside a main course of fades, there is a chance Michigan can crack 24 points or so and come home with a somewhat shocking win.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:25 AM ^
That is probably something we are well equipped for given our personnel and seems like something Penn State would have to adjust to, which could open up our run game and horizontal passing game. Therefore, I expect us to throw exactly 1 (one) fade next week.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:29 AM ^
Exactly. We already knew that we should do this. We already knew that we were built for it. We've already been begging (for the entire season to this point) that we would be doing this.
Iowa didn't teach us anything, and the OP just makes us sadder that we haven't already learned.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:52 AM ^
I just don’t get why the coaches aren’t putting this into our offensive game plan. I really do feel bad for our wide receivers. All of that talent just being wasted. Probably one of the best WR corps in the country and we aren’t utilizing them to their full potential. Why are we so damn predictable and boring on offense?
October 13th, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
While scratching my head, I’ll answer with a question: “because the coaches don’t want to put anything on film??” I dunno man
October 13th, 2019 at 8:53 AM ^
If Mich were to play Penn State at home, we could pull it off but at Happy Valley in a Whiteout at night; very unlikely to happen.
October 13th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
And make sure it’s thrown to the shortest receiver on the team: Giles Jackson.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:25 AM ^
PSU looked just like us verse Iowa, difference was PSU was on the road
I say if both teams play their best it's a 50/50 game. Before the Iowa/ PSU game I would have said 60/40 in favor of PSU
October 13th, 2019 at 2:47 AM ^
And as much of a cliche it is, it could be one of those games that turns on one play, ie a fumble recovery. Or even worse, it could swing on officiating, ie, who should really have gotten the fumble recovery.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:54 AM ^
Man, if the game is likely to turn on a fumble, that is pretty terrifying, given our tendency to fumble repeatedly.
October 13th, 2019 at 9:02 AM ^
#turnoversinspace
October 13th, 2019 at 10:39 AM ^
And we like to do it on our first possession.
#turnoverswithspeedwhilenotinspace
October 13th, 2019 at 1:33 AM ^
Michigan-PSU will come down to the fourth quarter. Hopefully we are relying on our D to seal a victory instead of our O to nab a come from behind win.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:48 AM ^
You are daydreaming. With this fumble rate, you will turn off your tv at half time.
why don’t we just accept that this is not a good football team? We are not even top three PROGRAM in BIG. C performance with A- talent. This is year number ? under Harbaugh? We are supposed to compete for national championship in 2019/2020 from recruiting standpoint per Chris balas ( he said it almost every year on air).
I cam not calling for Harbaugh fires yet. But look back, you would be blessed to have the coaching staff he had in year one. For whatever reasons, he cannot refill those assistant positions with equal talents when those guy left. The only two good replacement hire was OL coach and DC coach. Good assistant left, not as good assistant joined, that’s the outcome.
October 13th, 2019 at 9:33 AM ^
No worries, we have an awesome running back coach named Jay....can't remember his last name???
October 13th, 2019 at 9:40 AM ^
The TD pass Shea threw to clinch the game was a thing of beauty. He threw it outside low and away before DPJ made his break.
The DB had no chance.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:34 AM ^
Problem is our QB cannot throw the fade consistently.
I suspect he has a lingering injury causing him to underthrow, to fumble, and to have no touch. So he hesitates in essentially having to choose which one of these errors to commit.
Neither PSU nor Iowa are so burdened.
And it limits our ability to execute Iowa's (or indeed ANY) offensive plan against PSU.
October 13th, 2019 at 4:51 AM ^
I’m just gonna say it. Any attempts to try and pass Shea’s performance as a nagging injury are just BS in my eyes. He is what he is at this point. Harbaugh has apparently lost his touch in developing QB’s.
October 13th, 2019 at 7:20 AM ^
Whether inability or injury, same difference.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:26 AM ^
This is a hold-over of the youth-sports ethos... if your kid isn't performing, it's the coach, go somewhere else. Perhaps there is a more direct cause of Patterson's failure to satisfy expectations?
October 13th, 2019 at 8:57 AM ^
JH, QB whisperer; what ever happened? If Shea were to be playing under Brain Kelly, he'd have lost the starting position in game 1.
October 13th, 2019 at 10:16 AM ^
I think he may have in the Wisconsin game - only for his replacement to get concussed.
October 13th, 2019 at 11:20 AM ^
I'm also pretty sure that's what happened. The problem is Dylan takes too many risks running and I feel like he's going to be hurt a lot.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:42 AM ^
There’s an 85% chance our coaches do the complete opposite.
October 13th, 2019 at 10:38 AM ^
Hopefully, IOWA scored 12 points.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:46 AM ^
Penn State represents a golden opportunity. They will likely be # 7 or 8 depending on if they jump ND with one loss and a squeak-by win over mediocre USC. This team is overrated by rankings and coached by James Franklin. Michigan under Harbaugh has basically been guaranteed to lose these road games to top 10 teams. This will be the talking point in sports media all week - and rightfully so. Michigan will be mocked nationally and locally until they get the monkey off the back of winning the high profile national spotlight game.
GameDay will be feeding the nation all of the embarrassing Michigan football statistics - particularly Harbaugh’s road record against ranked teams. This is the perfect opportunity for coach to change the narrative and grab the nation’s attention for something besides the off-season. Here’s sincerely hoping that he can get the job done. We all know the alternative - more of the same Michigan and Harbaugh bashing from pretty much everyone. And at this point, it would be hard to argue against this rhetoric.
October 13th, 2019 at 2:03 AM ^
It's amazing how much more vocal our fans are about Harbaugh's record. Did anybody know before today that Franklin also hadn't won a game against a ranked team on the road?
October 13th, 2019 at 2:08 AM ^
So true - learned about his 0-6 road record vs ranked teams today as well (right before he made that mark 1-6). Frames is sneaky like that.
October 13th, 2019 at 2:42 AM ^
Yes but he’s also got a win over OSU and a B1G championship trophy. If Harbaugh had both of those things right now there’d be almost ZERO griping by the fan base.
October 13th, 2019 at 2:50 AM ^
Oh you sweet summer child.
October 13th, 2019 at 6:46 AM ^
Which is amazing because it's basically saying that over 58 games of Jim Harbaugh's tenure, if he had just beaten OSU in 2016 or 2018, then he's a hero.
Which means we're basically saying 1 game out of 58 is the way we're judging success.
Which seems like a bad idea.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:51 AM ^
This is sports - that’s kind of how it works. Winning the big one is generally considered more important than winning a bunch of small ones.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:51 AM ^
Well, not to mention he was JMFH when we hired him, coach that led an NFL team to 3 straight NFC championship games and 1 Super Bowl. Not to mention a rebuild of a last place Stanford to the top of the Pac 12 in 3 years.
We were expecting Meyer/Saban level consistency and results...to be among the elite of the elite.
The fact that we are defending his performance by comparing him to Frames Janklin in year 5 is sad. Yes, 2016 was a brutal break...we were better than OSU and outplayed them that year.
But nothing about the trajectory of this team over the last 3 years screams "elite performance" right around the corner. We have regressed.
I'd love a Dabo/Clemson situation where we give the guy enough time and we get there (elite performance), but this year we look lost and the program trajectory does not feel positive.
October 13th, 2019 at 9:16 AM ^
Interesting that Bo fired Jack, because he couldn't cut it when got older, and the Jim haves him move back to AA and live next door, and the program derails a bit after he's involved.
October 13th, 2019 at 10:23 AM ^
What are you going on about?
Jack was our DB coach under Bo, then was offered the DC job at Stanford. He wasn't fired, he took a promotion. Plus he was only 40 years old at the time.
October 13th, 2019 at 10:35 AM ^
Actually when Harbaugh was hired, the initial consensus here was that it would probably be a significant rebuild and that people should be patient. We were coming off a 5-7 season in which we'd lost to Rutgers and Maryland.
Then we went 10-3 in year one, which blew away everyone's expectations. And then we looked like a playoff team for most of 2016.
The problem is that going from the 10-3 level to playoff is the toughest leap of all. We've only rarely made that leap in the last 40 years. It's tougher still with OSU performing at a historically strong level. If OSU were to start showing some cracks under Day, that would be nice.
October 13th, 2019 at 11:38 AM ^
Expecting Michigan to be among “the elite of the elite” was never realistic, given the school’s high academic standards, inclination to follow the rules, cold weather location, relatively weak in-state recruiting base and Meyer’s presence at OSU, which made it far harder to recruit in talent-rich Ohio. We’ll see if that last part changes now that Meyer is gone, but thinking Michigan can build a program like those of the truly elite schools has always been a fantasy.
October 13th, 2019 at 9:54 AM ^
No it is perfectly correct. No one cares about 2nd place at this level, this is not our kids 3rd grade soccer team.
The Buffalo Bills would gladly trade all 4 runner-up trophies for 1 Super Bowl victory.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:59 AM ^
The fan base doesn’t expect one win over OSU every five years or one championship every five years. The fan base expects a 50/50 split with OSU and multiple championships, or at least advancing to the title game more than once every five years. There would be plenty of griping, but it would not be quite so intense.
October 13th, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
Absent winning a National Championship game, there will ALWAYS be griping from the fan base. If they were to win one of those games, the griping would begin again during the first game of the next season.
October 13th, 2019 at 10:36 AM ^
Time for Jimmy and the rest of the coaching staff to figure out how to game plan and get these guys ready to play. Period dot. Playing in a fog in the first half before waking up won't work.
October 13th, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
I complete agree -- this is an overrated (though still good) Penn State team, and there should be plenty of bulletin board material to motivate this Michigan team, which is on the same level talent-wise. There have been a few times where Michigan has risen to the occasion on the road under Harbaugh, namely last year against State, and in 2016 against State and OSU (sorry for bringing up that one again). They even clawed their back into the game last year against ND. You could even say that the 2017 squad put in a strong performance in Camp Randall, and then melted down once Peters went out. So only two of the above games ended in victory (and one ended in robbery), but in all of them Michigan fought hard. This coming week we could see some fight out of the wolverines, and that's all I am hoping for (other than repeated shots downfield to our awesomely gifted wide-outs). Then again, this same team shat the bed in Madison earlier this year, so who knows?
October 13th, 2019 at 2:23 PM ^
I agree that we need to come out guns blazing and attack. Somehow our guys have to let their guys know that we're not afraid of your whiteout and you have kicked up a hornets nest tonight.
I think Harbaugh's years in the NFL took away a lot of the motivational acumen he needs to coach college kids. Pros don't need motivation nearly as much. They are the best of the best, are grown men, and they are motivated by a paycheck. College kids play for their teammates, coaches, parents, and for glory. My message with this team, which appears way too ponderous, is attack, attack, attack at all times.
October 13th, 2019 at 1:48 AM ^
So...everything we refuse to do on offense because we’d rather run the ball up the middle all fucking game?
October 13th, 2019 at 2:10 AM ^
We gonna die. Book it. This program, on the road, under hostile conditions, is awful under Harbaugh. Night game whiteout at PSU in a revenge game? I don't care what they looked liked tonight at Kinnick - it has NO BEARING on what we're about to see in Happy Valley. We gonna die: PSU 38 Blue 10
October 13th, 2019 at 7:40 AM ^
Agree. Anyone here who thinks this is likely a close game is in for another disappointment. As we've seen, recent Harbaugh teams have shown a lack of toughness and resiliency on the road in tough games. With this year's team's inability to hold onto the ball and Shea being "Nervous Ned" in the pocket, it's not going to be pretty. I hope I'm wrong but I doubt it.
October 13th, 2019 at 8:31 AM ^
It seems like Harbaugh has obsessive compulsive disorder about road game prep and refuses to change his methods to get the best out of the team on the road. Kind of like RichRods 3-3-5 OCD and Hoke’s dive play on 3rd and 20 OCD. Harbaugh, start filtering the fluoride out of your water and you’ll have greater clarity.
October 13th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
it's possible. But we haven't played our best football yet. I believe this is the year this game is finally close.
October 13th, 2019 at 3:17 AM ^
Chucking up fades, Shea’s rare specialty, so of course we’ll game plan to do everything but that.
October 13th, 2019 at 3:21 AM ^
Yes, because Penn State will miss this vulnerability that armchair internet football savants picked up on, and fail to make any adjustments in their practice.
J.F.C.
October 13th, 2019 at 3:24 AM ^
One can hope, but we haven't seen a ton of evidence the offense can exploit the small weaknesses of defenses with a pulse. I think we have a chance of winning, but I wouldn't bet a ton on it yet, given the evidence my eyes have seen so far this year.