QB Play Is The Difference in The Game
Shea is it. He is the reason Michigan can win this year agains Ohio.
3 years ago, we got boat raced by a ticked off Ohio team and Ezekiel Elliot (Thanks Sparty).
2 years ago in the Shoe, we had them where we wanted them, until Wilton threw a pick 6 to let them back in the game, then a fumble and a close 4th Down measurement that seemed to go Ohio way (Along with multiple uncalled holding on Ohio O-Line). So close.
Last year- O'Korn, ugh. Many things went wrong there, but if the QB position was solid, we might win that one or at least have a chance to get back in it. But, ugh. O'Korn.
We have been in those last two games, even outplayed the Luckeyes only to fall short. But, QB play has killed us in both of the last two games.
THIS YEAR- Shea has got us in a much better place. Along with our defense, these Wolverines should do well this weekend. Please. This team has stepped up to the occasion all year. Wisconsin- tough test, passed. Sparty on the road- tough test, passed. Penn State- seemingly tough test, passed. Not only passed those, but like Winovich said- took their lunch money back.
This game- toughest of them. In the Shoe. It's Ohio.
PTSD from the last however many years against this dang team has me thinking cautiously. Standing on a ledge. It almost would be better have Ohio on top of their game rather than seeing them struggle. Go in with the mindset that they have to be on their best game to win. Don't want the team to let up because they see The Buckeyes down. Play them like they are Ohio. But- Shea has us in a much better spot than we have been in a long time. This team has a leader on the field. Play as they have been, and these Wolverines win The Game.
Nothing matters right now except this Game. I'm even not too worried about being out of the top 4 CFP, but winning The Game this weekend is the toughest test. Let's pass it guys!
Go Blue!!
November 21st, 2018 at 11:59 AM ^
Your (take is) hawt.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:14 PM ^
the hawtest
November 21st, 2018 at 12:07 PM ^
Great content. Thanks.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:10 PM ^
I'll be honest. I'm nervous as fuck. This pit of butterflies in my stomach gets stronger and stronger every day. At this rate, I'll be puking by Friday night.
I'm so damn nervous because this is it. This is the year it gets done. It has to. I can't take another consecutive loss, watching those cunts celebrate and go on to the B1G championship. I cant take another Christmas party where I get shit on by the 90% Buckeyes in my family. I can't fucking stomach another season lost because of them.
We, as a fanbase, deserve it. Coach Harbaugh deserves it. Most importantly the team, the team, the team deserves it; the guys who've made every Saturday a joy for me this season.
I know my love for the Wolverines is unhealthy, but c'mon, give me the fix I need. This game is the most important game I will have watched in my lifetime, and it just can't go any other way. Fuck Ohio.
There are football games, and then there are football. Fucking. Games.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:21 PM ^
I totally hear what you are saying, but there is no deserve. Gotta go take it.
November 21st, 2018 at 2:47 PM ^
As William Munny once said, "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it."
November 21st, 2018 at 12:33 PM ^
I'm with you. Holy crap am I nervous. But I am allowing myself to believe!! Back off the ledge!! Haha!
November 21st, 2018 at 6:15 PM ^
Wish my voting feature worked... this deserves up-votes.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:12 PM ^
I liked the part where you called them the Luckeyes.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:13 PM ^
So is rushing yards. So is defense.
Generally, the better team wins.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:20 PM ^
Does the team that scores the most points win more times than not? /JohnMadden
November 21st, 2018 at 12:40 PM ^
Almost always yes. But not in '16 unfortunately.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:34 PM ^
We seem to have had the better team the last two years. But again, our QB has let us down. This year is different.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:43 PM ^
I wouldn't say we had the better team last year (OSU won 12 games) but we did have the better gameplan.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:54 PM ^
OSU had the #1 s&p team last year and we were 27th. In 16 we did have the better team according to s&p (barely) but this is why flukey games often lead to unexpected outcomes.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:28 PM ^
And line play, secondary play, turnovers, special teams, coaching adjustments, and officiating--among other things...
November 21st, 2018 at 12:13 PM ^
Huh, so the play from the most important position on the field is important. Interesting.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:17 PM ^
Yes, but what about the weather?
November 21st, 2018 at 12:22 PM ^
Cloudy with a chance of meatballs.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
I know- obvious. I'm talking myself into being confident going into the game. I've watched The Game since the 70's during the 10 year war. Used to have confidence watching it no matter the records or who was on the field. The last 10-15 years (since John Cooper left) the confidence in playing our arch rivals has fallen to almost zero.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:27 PM ^
In other news, water is wet. More at 6!
November 21st, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
All those years in the '80s and '90s when we were beating Ohio State regularly had one thing in common . . . superior QB play.
While we were trotting out future NFL QBs like Harbaugh and Grbac and Brady, they were showing up with Herbstreit and Stanley Jackson and Bellisari.
When we started losing to them, we were the ones with the lesser QB play.
This year can be the start of getting us back to our rightful position.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:22 PM ^
There were some exceptions. Griese was brutal in 1995, throwing three picks and that kept the game close even when we ran for 400 yards on them.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:29 PM ^
He got better.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
Speight’s fumble was negligible because they got the ball back on a short field and scored. The interceptions were bad and the spot was the spot, but the worst play, in my book, was not tackling Samuel on the play BEFORE the spot. Had him penned in and it would have been 4th and very long.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:22 PM ^
That's the play that killed it. We had like 3 shots at him and whiffed on all of them.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:29 PM ^
Kind of hard to tackle when holding is legal (for one side only).
November 21st, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
Excellent point. At least O'Neil crew is not officiating the Game. Hopefully.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:46 PM ^
Watch the video if you can stomach it. Multiple penalties--holding and blocking in the back--went uncalled on that play.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:49 PM ^
On that 3rd and long play, Glasgow is deep in the backfield and Samuel is stopped in his tracks. And then for some reason Glasgow turns and runs back to the line of scrimmage, opening up a lane for Samuel to run on the left. I guess Glasgow didn't want to risk getting juked by Samuel, but he doesn't have to make the tackle there; if he just stands still, Samuel has nowhere to run but straight ahead into the DL for no gain, and then OSU's shaky kicker has to try a 40-yarder to tie.
Glasgow played a great game overall and I hate to bring up one play, but man. OSU needed a ton of things to go their way that day to survive and they all did.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:17 PM ^
I disagree OP. I'm 59 and trust me when I tell you this that "The Game" has been won or lost in every one of those 59 years in one simple, yet oh so profound way, and it's not the QB.
It's the final score. I've noticed that when the game ends the team with the most points has been declared the winner in each of those 59 games EACH AND EVERY TIME. Now some of those games we had better QB play and some of those games we didnt. But damn if the team that had the most points when the game ended wasnt always declared the winner somehow.
Now that being said having a good and healthy QB for the first time in seemingly forever in this game will sure as hell help matters so despite the hawtness of ur take, you're not entirely wrong.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:17 PM ^
OL is just as big. The last time we had a competent OL coach (in Frey, not bogged down by Drevno) in 2011, we handled our business.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:27 PM ^
OL are big? What world am I living in?!
November 21st, 2018 at 12:18 PM ^
I think it will come down to if the defense can get pressure and hits on Haskins.
If he is able to stand and deliver without being bothered much, the game will be a toss-up.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:26 PM ^
We did not do well on this last year when Haskins came in. We could not get to him and he killed us on those short crossing routes and some QB runs.
Um, kind of like Indiana this year too.
*Gulp*
I hope Don Brown has something up his sleeve for this game . . .
November 21st, 2018 at 12:36 PM ^
I'm thinking the Indiana gameplan wasn't holding back per se, but (UFR pending) it was uncharacteristically conservative. The guy known as Dr. Blitz had lately been keeping guys back to discourage slants.
Up against a QB who's vulnerable to pressure, though, I anticipate he's gonna have the front 7 pin back their ears. Even if Winovich is questionable, we've got a pile of guys who can get to the QB -- Dwumfour, Uche, Gary, Bush, Hudson. I'm worried about the DTs getting picked on by the run game but Indiana needed the QB run threat to open things up. We can force OSU to choose between Haskings getting hit as a runner or Haskins getting hit in the pocket, and Haskins won't like either option.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:39 PM ^
Last year the defense was not prepared for facing Haskins because he had not played- no film on him. And then, as he came in- can he throw? Can he run? No clue how to defend him and he torched us. Now we see Haskins weaknesses and strengths and Coach Brown will have the D ready.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:53 PM ^
This. Actually I'll go a step further and say that Haskins wasn't a complete unknown so much as everyone was pretty darn sure they knew what he was, and everyone was wrong. Everything we knew about Meyer's last decade as a college HC said that any QB he lost to injury would be replaced by yet another QB who excelled at the run game and couldn't throw very well, because that's every Meyer QB, ever. . . right up until Haskins came in. Haskins is the antithesis of Barrett and there's no way anyone saw that coming.
In any case you gameplan for the starter, so the defense prepped to stop Barrett. Once the game started, the adjustment Brown could've made were very limited.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:32 PM ^
Agree. But this year, with Martel as the backup, I have to assume Brown will have pulled out his notes on how to stop Barrett and reviewed them with the defense in case Urban has a sizeable package for his backup to run—Martell being the antithesis of Haskins now.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:18 PM ^
OSU scored 14 with Barrett in the game and then, after scoring a TD on Haskins's first possession, scored 3 points the next two drives.
The D gave up a TD on his first possession, but the score was only 21-20; the offense had a chance to retake the lead. It did nothing.
Then the D gave up a field goal. OK, still a one-score game (24-20). But the offense did nothing.
Then the D got a stop. Still a one-score game. Again the offense did nothing - O'Korn airmailed an interception to the free safety. OSU finally put the game away with an insurance TD in the last minute.
To me the takeaway is not that the D lost the game. It's that the offense could not score in the last 25 minutes of the game and against OSU, with or without Barrett, you can't have a drought that long and expect to survive.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:20 PM ^
Come get your neg for Luckeyes
November 21st, 2018 at 12:32 PM ^
Almost as clever as MSU fans who refer to us as scUM.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:45 PM ^
In OP's defense, OSU was a two-point conversion away from losing against Maryland, and on said two-point try there was a receiver wide open, and Piggy just happened to badly miss a pass of less than 10 yards. That seems kind of lucky to me.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:50 PM ^
They are not only a very good football program (kills me to say), but, they do have a quite lucky streak where calls and bounces and the unluckiness of the opponent seems to help them out. So, yeah- Luckeyes.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:21 PM ^
Last year, definitely. But in 2016, both quarterbacks ran hot and cold. Barrett made a few plays with his feet but was awful passing the ball. Speight had the three turnovers but also made some big plays. In the end I think we still win that game with a different officiating crew.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:24 PM ^
I don’t know how comfortable I am with this. I understand with the OP is saying, but I think that this year the buckeyes may just have a better QB. Barrett was not great and he gave us a chance. Obviously QB play is important but I think this game will come down to who wins in the trenches. This year we have to pummel both of their lines.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:24 PM ^
If we outplay them and we outscore them I like our chances.
November 21st, 2018 at 12:28 PM ^
Hell I'll take just outscoring them. If we score more points than them, I like our chances.
November 21st, 2018 at 1:39 PM ^
You are a risk taker!!!!
November 21st, 2018 at 12:24 PM ^
Hot takes from Captain Obvious:
Improved quarterback and offensive line play are the major differences between this season and last season, the major reasons the team is 10-1 now compared to 8-3 last year. Those are also the reasons that Michigan has a much better chance to win the game this year.
An additional year of experience for players at other positions has been helpful. and other parts of the team have displayed incremental improvements this year. But quarterback and o-line play are the real differences this year.