Mattison and defense at the game

They played one of the most explosive offenses in the nation. Let's be real.

I was not surprised.  We gave up 47 a month ago to Indiana, after all, and got run over by Iowa a week ago.  The D has never been all that great at stopping either the run or the pass this season.  The pass rush has been minimal, the DL has struggled to get a push up front, and the DBs have struggled to stay with their men in deep coverage.   Not a recipe to stop the OSU offense.

I think their ability to to run was pretty predictable. We struggle bringing down bigger backs like Weisman and Hyde. I obviously wouldn't have predicted giving up 400 yards rushing but gotta give osu's offense credit. They are pretty lethal when they get Hyde rollin

Playing Avery & Furman was a big mistake. They suck. Also missed Ross

And why wouldn't we basically have Jake Ryan shadowing Hyde?  Realize he isn't a middle LB but I would think he could try and shadow him, on one side. 

In some ways, it is more embarrassing to get dominated like this on the ground.  A passing attack over the top of our D might have scored the points too - but it also might have left Miller injured!  Instead, we seemed to play a soft zone, and 6 man fronts and this became a dominant effort by OSU. 

I remember one 4-play drive they literally scored in 1:16 - on 4 runs!  LOL.  Embarrassing.

thought the biggest thing was their tackles dominated us.  I think we should have been blitzing Ryan off the edge every dam play, he was the only one that disrupted anything in the backfield.

Avery sealed our win 2 years ago with INT.  He is a solid nickel corner playing our of position.  Furman hasn't seen much time at all and looked lost.  Is that his fault or coaching?  Maybe both.  I don't think these guys "suck" at all.

I do think the inability / unwillingness to play 7-8 in box or throw some run blitzes hurt.  And I am not sure but I think Jenkins-Stone getting ejected hurt too - though I hadn't heard him in game prior?

Were just not good enough in the middle of the DL. Pipkins was a massive loss this season and QWASH hasn't seemed to be healthy all year long.

Next year as much as I hate using that word should be better, while young hopefully the younger Redshirted guys like Poggi/Hurst can put on some weight to help in the middle.

Frankly, the most disappointing aspect of this year have been the respective lines. Both need to make huge strides for their to be drastic improvement in 2014. I think Hoke and co understand that which is why I believe a huge emphasis will be placed upon improving the offensive and defensive lines.

It would've been nice to have Peewee all year and in this game as well.

I said earlier in the year that we should play two DT and not a NT and a 3T against the power teams and am not sure how much we used that against OHIO. With Pipkins out I wanted Henry and Washington all game with Black and Wormley used more as ends for contain. Thought i saw more typical 3T used and their larger experienced line manhandled smaller UM DL players all game. I guess you could say pick your poison as the pass was contained and Meyer would have done more spread passing if we did use a stouter line to load up on the run. I thought people say make Miller beat you with his arm so a lot of blitzing with lane discipline ala MSU approach may have worked if tried and we had the right people doing it. Borges may have saved his job and likely did but Special teams were a disappointment again and still. How does the rest of the B10 seem to have better than average kickers and UM struggles..I hope to see more ST focus and teaching and a QB coach under Borges at least for better results. Hart can replace Fred Jackson if he retires also. Hecklinski safe and a lhelluva recruiting coordinator.Poor tackling was again evident yesterday and stark compared to OHIO tackling. How good the LB coach (Smith) is versus Manning I question. Maybe red Deer antler spray like the other teams use is the answer?

Most of our starters/upperclassmen on defense are not the same level of athlete that they were facing.  Also OSU's offensive line is better (way better) than any we have faced this year, and our d-line is still young.  They dominated the line of scrimmage.  I actually was surprised how few opportunities our secondary gave them to make plays in the passing game.  

Well, Pipkins was out and so were James Ross and Jarrod Wilson. We started a freshman (Gedeon) at WILL, and their running back was bigger than our inside linebackers. We were down to playing a third-string nose tackle (Richard Ash). And a lot of our talent is very young.

There are lots of reasons. I'm not really sure why anyone would have expected Michigan to stop their offense. They have pretty good players everywhere. Heck, my prediction was one of the most optimistic ones I saw, and it said that Ohio State was going to score 31. They ended up scoring 7 fewer points than their season average, so that's not a bad day for our defense.

Our defensive ends, I don't think any of them scare anyone as a pass rushing threat. Our tackles are either small, Black, or young, Henry, or injured, Washington. We still have yet to get that recruit that is a DE that will give us 6 or 7 sacks in a year. Wormley and Beyer are not those kinds of guys, Hand would have been that guy.....

I think Henry will be great next year as he improves his leverage and gets stronger. Hopefully Pipkins is back and healthy as he can be a space eater. 

Mone will be a huge key to the difference in a couple years as I believe he will eat up two blockers. I don't know what impact he could have next year as DL is typically a very tough position for Freshman and DTs tend to develop a lot slower.

Michigan's defensive rankings having been misleading these past few years. Are we greatly improved from Rich Rod years? Yes. But I think our D ranking are inflated due to below average Big Ten offenses. Put this team in Big 12 or PAC 12 and we'd be shredded weekly.



Secondary play has been downright mediocre and the D passing stats are greatly helped by crappy QB play in Big Ten. This defense has a long way to go to be elite.