Morning after snowflakes

You've gotta take the good with the bad. For all the games that we won only because Denard  produced something amazing (OSU last year and all of 2010 come to mind), there's gonna be an opposite game.

I'm not bashing Denard, and I think he's the best player and QB on this team, but last night's loss was a direct result of him not taking care of the ball.

Despite that though, I'm hopeful for conference play. After being put in bad positions all night, our defense only yielded what should have been 3 FG's if not for a blown coverage by a Frosh on an All-American TE. Our Offense should signs of greatness, but again, it comes down to protecting the football. If we can do that, the Big Ten is bad enough that I would start buying tickets to Pasadena

I think you might've set the obtuse analogy record for a single thread.

Purdue must be destroyed.

 

I thought about throwing myself out a window last night only to fear a Notre Lame player would intercept my fall.

Overall, M impressed last night.  I did not think they would even have a chance to be competitive after what ND did to my team last week, but in reality M likely wins if the best player on the field has even an average game.

My expectations for both teams are readjusted. 

The defense was spectacular. To hold ND to 13 points and 240 yards on the short fields they had all night was incredible.

But simply put, Denard blew this one. A senior quarterback can not make those throws. It was a serious regression on his part. It pains me to put this one on him, but it is deserved.

Do I hate denard/want him pulled? No. He's still our best playmaker and has earned his role as the leader of his team, and has bailed us out many times before. But I am ready for Denard to graduate and for Shane Morris to come in and take over the position.

Finally, the B1G is super weak this year. We can still win the conference and get to the Rose Bowl, in which case, all from this game would be forgiven.

I think we all have to take the larger view. Our lines performed much better than we assumed, which gives reason for confidence heading into the B1G. Denard will come back from this. We'll be fine.

you tried to hard on your thread.

Seriously as bad as that game was last night I still had us 2-2 after our non conference. The balance if karma was bound to be restored against ND. Positives we moved the ball, Roy got involved, Fitz woke up and the DLine was fantastic. We will be fine in the B1G10 as Denard will not play this bad again.

We are still the best team in the B1G.  Frustrating we couldn't find the end zone yesterday (hell we scored more against Bama), but at least we looked the part.  Going to crush Sparty this year.  

I got the right amount of drunk last night. I barely remember the first quarter

Including Denard but also Vincent smith, al Borges, q Washington, j Wilson, d Gardner (whose sloppy route on a slant was 50% of one of those ints and looked lost in space on a deep route) Floyd, dancy toussaint, mealer's bad snap, a j Williams pointless hold that was declined in favor of even more pointless Barnum hold.

Schematically, I think Michigan had a great game plan on offense. Short manageable throws against a depleted irish db group set up the qb runs in the first half, come back to a power running game in the second. They got good yardage and 3rd down conversions, except when it really mattered.

A wise man once said "the coaches are coaching their hearts out and the players and screwing it all up!" Or something like that. It happens.

This sounds harsh, but its not meant to be. Sometimes you get some breaks to overcome mistakes, sometimes those breaks are just more mistakes. No matter what, this will be a fun year. Expectations are middling, team is still in transition, Denard is still a 1 man show and great kid. I am not sure how many more middling expectation years there will be before expectations are up and these game are ulcer inducing pressure cookers again where I can't sleep before or after a game and every play and coach and player gets scrutinized as Michigan returns to being Michigan.

but this one is on him.  If we have someone to just manage the game we come out with a win last night.  I get that he's the best player on our team and he's singlehandedly won us many games, but at the same time I don't think it is too much to ask and expect that a senior QB learns how to throw the ball away when nothing is there and make good decisions with the ball.  It tells me that he hasn't really made much progress as a thrower in nearly three years.

I'm over it.  Denard is our QB for this year, which includes all the bad with the good.

 

I hope we win the BigTen, I won't be too upset if we don't.  I still think that 2 years from now Michigan is a top 5 team, and this game does not affect that predicition whatsoever.

Hopefully it was just one bad game.  If Justin Verlander goes out to the mound and gets rocked for 7 runs in 3 innings, people shrug their shoulders and say, "well, he didn't have his good stuff tonight."  But in football, everything gets magnified because the teams only play 12 games per year.

At any rate, I don't see what good it does to bash the kid.  It's not like we have another QB we could put in and expect a better performance.  

Just bought my tickets for the Michigan State game. Onwards.

Denard makes average defenses look terrible but struggles beating a good defense. The same can be said for many qb's but denard doesn't seem to be able to make the throws necessary to keep them honest. A -gap blitzes still rattle him to the point his foot work goes out the window.