Nostalgia is here

Submitted by BornInAA on

Good morning, dear Michigan football fan. By now you may be cursing the sun for aggravating your hangover and thinking a world near absolute zero with no sun would be a better option - popsicles don't have headaches. Or, you greet the sun with a tear rolling down your oxygen mask because you lived to see another day. This, after clutching your left arm to the floor and your last memory being something about overtime and flashing lights.

NOSTALGIA

I am here to tell you everything old is new again. The passing of time glorifies the past where every fish you caught as a child was a state record and every Bo team was undefeated up to The Game, having rolled over the "little 8" by an average score of 55-0. I am here to tell you this is not true. Bo had a game, against this very Indiana squad, at home, that required a no time left on the clock 45 yard pass play to a guy named AC that won the game and the fans actually rushed the field in joy. Bo lost to Purdue, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and even lost the little brown jug in a 17-20 thriller at Michigan stadium. Ufer even called these teams "the cardiac kids". This is college football.

OFFENSE

Tickets for the Rudock bandwagon are available at the box office. All of the NFL quarterbacks, NFL receivers, point-a-minute teams in the history of Michigan football never put on a show like Rudock did last night. That's a school record 6 TD passes at 33-46 for 440 yards or 13 yards per catch. Oh, he ran for 64 yards too. Indiana played the "stack the box Michigan has to beat us with the pass" all game. While this has worked in past years, now with Rudock and his receivers jelling, at team blitzing every play and playing zone against Rudock is not going to work well. Yes, when they stack Michigan against the run - we can win with the pass. Kudos to the offensive line protection all evening.

DEFENSE

Indiana scored 27, 26, 27 against OSU, MSU and Iowa. 34 against Michigan in regulation. They are a very good offense with the best OL in the Big Ten and  probably 5 NFL starters. That said, with injuries and a sub-par tackling effort, even underdogs have their day. (see Nostalgia section above). This is college football. Let's hope the D-Line and linebackers step up to fill these gaps. That said, this is the best offense we faced this year and is on par with OSU.

TAKE THE W

Take the W - these games happen in college football. OSU took the W after scraping by these guys by 7 points at home. Even in the Bo years Michigan was tested by underdogs a few times a season. Point spreads are meaningless. Feel good about the win and our passing game finally clicking. Just think - you could be an Indiana fan wondering why Wilson went with a pass in 2OT after Howard was chewing us up all game. 

 

 

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Jayvandy23

November 15th, 2015 at 9:47 AM ^

I remember listening to Ufer on the radio when AC caught that pass.  I really hope history repeats itself against Ohio State in Harbaughs first game against them.

Joined: 11/06/2008

MGoPoints: 10953

freelion

November 15th, 2015 at 9:48 AM ^

I'm so happy for the win and am not lamenting the effort at all. Year 1 of Harbaugh has to be a bit of a glue and string effort because of the transition so any way to get a win is good enough for me.

Joined: 10/03/2013

MGoPoints: 9049

ssuarez

November 15th, 2015 at 9:53 AM ^

Rudock is now, in aggregate, having his best season as a college QB.

YEAR TEAM CMP ATT PCT YDS AVG TD LNG INT RAT
2015 MICH 185 288 64.2 2220 7.7 14 64 8 139.5
2014 IOWA 213 345 61.7 2436 7.1 16 72 5 133.5
2013 IOWA 204 346 59.0 2383 6.9 18 85 13 126.5

Joined: 11/03/2008

MGoPoints: 1124

Soulfire21

November 15th, 2015 at 9:56 AM ^

One minor quip, OSU played at Indiana. Also in his last two games he is 51 - 71 for 777 yards and 8 TDs to 1 interception. Competition caveats apply but Rudock now holds the single game passing TD record. Fuck yeah!



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Joined: 03/18/2010

MGoPoints: 22716

turtleboy

November 15th, 2015 at 9:59 AM ^

Pretty obvious that Godin starting at NT against indianas offensive line was a mismatch. Surprised to see him start there, since Hurst has been the regular backup, and Godin was out injured himself 2 weeks ago. Reminded me of them starting Ross at the Buck for one game against Minnesota. Not to say the sudden deficiencies are all on one person, the linebackers should come back with a healthy number of negative plays in UFR as well. Second level tackling was pretty bad last night. They used a ton of misdirection, and it seemed to work.

Joined: 04/22/2011

MGoPoints: 35131

DairyQueen

November 15th, 2015 at 12:39 PM ^

People are also MAJORLY discounting how strong the BIG-10 is this year, from top to bottom, it's the strongest conference by far.

UM fans as well. Minnesota and Indiana may be historical bottom-feeders, but they have potent aspects to their game. 

Their records clearly don't tell the story of how strong their team is. Minnesota only lost to TCU by 7 in their season-opener (and those little TCU shits were ranked #2, and have clearly enjoyed playing in a terrible BIG-12 conference, while being given sympathy votes as an "I'm sorry" from last year).

Also the BIG might just contain the strongest set of QBs, on average, in the nation.

It's easy to say UM should have steam-rolled these teams, because we steam-rolled OOC bottom-feeders at the beginning of the season, but if you look at the overall performance from top to bottom, of the BIG, I don't see how you don't put it as the strongest in the nation right now.

All Top-25 rankings (from CFP to AP to Coaches) are currently reflecting that sentiment as well.

 

Joined: 04/20/2014

MGoPoints: 6642

UMForLife

November 15th, 2015 at 10:02 AM ^

Well said.

I don't know if my heart can take many of these games. However, I thoroughly enjoyed the win. It is so much winning on a thriller. After that devastating loss on a game we won't talk about, I was very down. That was a long walk back to the car, but I realized how excited I was. It is my fault to think that MN and Indiana games would be easy and had high expectations. When I sit back and think about it, if I had no expectation, these games would be a lot of fun.

Having said that, I hope we win 45-0 against the next two teams. Go Blue!

Joined: 11/04/2013

MGoPoints: 63393

Roy G. Biv

November 15th, 2015 at 10:08 AM ^

The 2nd half reminded me of Wiscy 2010 where they ran the ball 30 some straight times (side note: I was at that game, Madison is a road trip I recommend everyone take). The gaping holes and missed tackles were disturbingly GERG like. I look forward to seeing how the staff responds these next 2 weeks.

Joined: 09/03/2010

MGoPoints: 6956

Boner Stabone

November 15th, 2015 at 11:40 AM ^

Anyone else notice that when Harbaugh burned a timeout in the first half, he said come later in the second half he might wish he still had that time out.

I was like... Brock these are not rollover minutes.  You cannot carry timeouts over to the second half. You get 3 new ones to use.  He was pretty brutal yesterday.

Joined: 01/06/2015

MGoPoints: 24004

LSAClassOf2000

November 15th, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^

Brock Huard was admittedly getting on my nerves too, even to the point where I was wishing I could pat him on the back and say, "It's OK, Brock, only most of the country saw that 55-7 drubbing of your Huskies versus Nebraska in 1998, a team you quarterbacked as I recall. We can't always play our A game all the time - you should know that."

Joined: 01/07/2011

MGoPoints: 130561

Blue60060

November 15th, 2015 at 10:08 AM ^

I was in the Old IM building working out during the 79 IU game, having sold my tix so that I could focus on my grades as a senior.  They towel guys in the locker room had WJR on the radio and while some of us were dressing.  We all danced a jig when AC caught the ball with Ufer going nuclear.

Joined: 07/03/2015

MGoPoints: 55

alum96

November 15th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^

Saving grace was all those drives early that Indiana only got FGs instead of TDs. 

Also the OSU Indiana game was also in Bloomington.  I guess if you want to do a "relative" thing we did it with a healthy Howard and Sudfeld and both those players went out with injuries in 2nd half of that game vs OSU.

I think we contained Sudfeld fine - esp considering the lack of pass rush; he will get his..  Howard and their OL dominance was the issue.  I thought we'd limit him to 80-120ish.  I am perplexed Indiana can find such OL with all their 2 / 3 stars and we have such issues. 

We made Howard look like vintage Timmy B for those too young to remember seeing him.

Joined: 04/28/2012

MGoPoints: 82301

Don

November 15th, 2015 at 11:28 AM ^

The primary reason is that they've got maybe the best OL coach in the conference in Greg Frey, who was by far the best assistant RR had here. If BH had a lick of sense for quality assistants he would have retained Frey, and I think there's a decent chance that Hoke would still be coach in 2015 if he had, considering the magnitude of our OL problems toward the end of the Hoke/Funk tenure.

The fact that Frey has accomplished what he has at IU is remarkable IMHO. I'll be very surprised if he doesn't get a HC gig soon.

http://www.iuhoosiers.com/coaches.aspx?rc=1155&path=football

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 148237

Artichokes Anonymous

November 15th, 2015 at 10:17 AM ^

While I think the defense underperformed, I came away pretty impressed with the IU offense. If that's not the best offense we've faced so far this year, it's not far off. They kept running because it was working, but overall they seemed more balanced than in years past.

Joined: 12/21/2012

MGoPoints: 1055

DougoBlue

November 15th, 2015 at 10:40 AM ^

Over the middle with those spindly white legs, stumbling gracefully around would-be tacklers will live forever in my mind. I was at that game in 1979, my first year as a season ticket holder. What an incredible day that was in a game that had so many similarities. The play that I remember was when our back intentionally "fumbled" the ball about 25 yards out of bounds to an excitable Lee Corso. That gave Michigan the opportunity for one more play. The Winner from Johnny Wangler to Anthony "The Darter" Carter FTW. That game shared a lot of emotions with this one as we thought at various times in the game that we would; get it straightened out and cruise to a victory... lose the game... tie the game or just maybe actually win the game.

My question to the coaching staff is why didn't we pass more? Seems like we could have just kept throwing the ball until they stopped us. We wasted many a play giving it to Smith up the middle for no gain... but then again we know Bo would have been looking down smiling at his protegé as he showed just how stubborn he can be.

Seems like Harbaugh took a page from the Schembechler/Carr playbook for this game.

Joined: 02/06/2009

MGoPoints: 132

Bluelake

November 15th, 2015 at 11:03 AM ^

I think injuries are really starting to show for our D. Not having Glasgow on the d-line was huge. Clearly by the end of the game our d was running on fumes.

Indiana has the best offense in the conference with a Qb and a rb that will be drafted by the NFL.

I'm just glad Indiana threw the ball on the last play rather than run it.

Joined: 10/21/2015

MGoPoints: 534