Snowflakes - The Day After (Offense)
Just finished rewatching all the offensive plays. The same was super-ugly and disheartening watching it live. Upon rewatching, it was like watching Murphy's Law play out in front of my eyes. Ugly, but saw more positive potential then I thought watching live:
- The job of a coordinator is to get the athletes the best play. Open plays were there. Upon rewatching, we were Inches away from a blowout. Key drops, missed cuts, & slight overthrows. The play calls were there, holes and open men were there, we just didn’t execute or got crap-lucked.
- Stop. Fumbling. The. Ball.
- The coaches seemed terrified to trusting the tackles. Any critical run play, they tried to work off of the interior line. Once Army caught on == toast. Runyun, please get back to healthy... fast.
- 4th Downs. Felt tooooo Harbaugh-ish. Wish we would have gone 4 wide to run those plays instead of bringing everyone into the box. Also, what happened to giving Ben Mason the ball? Doesn't need a whole lotta practice to get the run straight of two yards play correct.
- Should have kicked the Field Goal in the 4th w/ Moody. That + the Metallus points = Win.
- Army: A lot of varied zone. FLOODED the backfield, disguising coverages. Very fortunate we didn't throw any stupid INTs. Looked like guys were going to be open, then suddenly an Army defender would switch and appear out of thin air. They played very disciplined coverages. Anything that open underneath was swarmed, only longer routes seemed to eventually get open.
- Wish there had been more plays designed to punish the defense when they played 10 yards off the ball.. but none of our screen plays amounted to much, because the CB’s/LBs covered ground soooo quickly. Again, I was more impressed by the quality of the defensive effort in the rewatch.
- Wide Receivers: Mugged. All. Day. Could have called holding or PI on most passing plays. Reminds me of MSU. Once a defender felt like he was beat, they did anything they could to stop our receivers from running past them... Anything.
Work is needed. Room for growth by all parties involved... but I saw more potential for this offense to become something than 24 hours ago. Glad we have two weeks until Wisconsin... hopefully that is enough time to get healthy & iron out the kinks.
Last Hot Take: Don’t schedule service teams. I dreaded this one since seeing it on the schedule. All of the previews leading up to this made me feel worse and worse. Glad we came out with a W.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:25 PM ^
I think there’s already a post about snowflakes?
September 8th, 2019 at 5:25 PM ^
thank god it is a bye week.
September 8th, 2019 at 8:04 PM ^
Do the rules of the blog allow for OT threads during bye weeks? I think I’d rather have a few laughs from those rather than reread the same hand wringing, obsessive worrying negativity.
We won. The O played lousy, D saved our bacon.
Move on.
Can we get an update on the OT-Korean girlfriend thread?
September 9th, 2019 at 6:45 PM ^
I think she's the OT Korean wife now.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:26 PM ^
At some point offensively speaking, we have to admit that we are what we are. Every year we say the same thing. New system, room for growth, if and buts, yada yada. Truth is we are heading into our 3rd game. How much improvement are we really expecting from the playcalling to the execution??
September 8th, 2019 at 5:39 PM ^
2016 Penn State seems like a pretty good example. That offense didn't really take off until halfway through the season. It's not unreasonable to expect that they'll use the bye week to iron out the issues with the offense, and hopefully with a healthier Shea they'll use everything they have at their disposal.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:54 PM ^
The Lions are up 17-3, so anything is possible.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:25 PM ^
Lot of time left for them to blow this game. Be patient.
Edit - lol
Second edit - Seriously, Patricia may not last this season. Dude is seriously a disaster.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:55 PM ^
Man, Hockinson is making the Lions look like geniuses.
September 8th, 2019 at 7:04 PM ^
I’ll be the first to eat crow, I definitely wanted us to draft Ed Oliver. Hockenson is effective split wide or inline.
September 8th, 2019 at 7:22 PM ^
Nailed it. Not to say it is a 100% guarantee that we will end up with a solid offense this year but we have talent and your example of PSU is dead on. we need to get healthy and clean up our mistakes. That alone will make us a much more consistent offense.
September 8th, 2019 at 7:28 PM ^
My absolute favorite Michigan offensive excuse is "oh, they put away the playbook and are saving things for XXXXX team"
Michigan football: Putting away the playbook since as long as you can remember
September 8th, 2019 at 9:02 PM ^
Only the fans and announcers say the team put away the play book. The players and coaches don't say this crap.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:06 PM ^
I get your point but the "saving the playbook" angle evaporated last year. Once pepcat ended while being itself for a whole season I am convince that saving the playbook isn't a thing for Harbaugh. I suspect that the players never developed the ability to execute the next wrinkle or else it is poor coaching and I hate both alternatives and am looking for a third explanation.
September 9th, 2019 at 10:24 AM ^
It never evaporates. I read several people using the putaway playbook line after MTSU.
If Michigan kicks a 4th down FG and that TD return is allowed and wins the Army game 31-21, I'd bet we would have heard the same thing to explain all the runs for Zach and why Shea didn't keep. "Oh the game was in hand and they just went conservative to save things for Wisconsin..."
September 8th, 2019 at 11:12 PM ^
Remember all those wrinkles they were saving for TUOS with Peppers in the wildcat?
Those wrinkles consisted of Peppers keeping it every single time. Next level stuff.
September 8th, 2019 at 10:49 PM ^
2 games into the 5th season under Harbaugh and it's still the same complaints. This is a good, not great team. A good not great program. Plain and simple. This is what we are!!
September 9th, 2019 at 7:38 AM ^
For now I would settle for no fumbles and a few more accurate passes.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:26 PM ^
How much room was there for Shea to hold the ball and run? Was it as much as we thought there was?
September 8th, 2019 at 6:52 PM ^
Yes there was a lot. I sat here and watched play after play and was hoping, just once, that he would keep the fucking ball. That would have picked up chunk yardage and loosened up the run game for Charbonnet. I just wanted to shake the coaches. If Shea wasn't healthy enough to run the offense - RPO's and Read/Option, then McCaffrey should have been in there running it. To go from 18 QB carries the week before to zero or one was beyond frustrating. That is my only question from this game.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:22 PM ^
I havent looked at every single play but going through the highlights, it definitely looked like Army tried to force a handoff on nearly every read by having the force defender/weakside DE stay home. This was particularly true in the second half.
Army seemed to content to try to hang on to the lead by forcing us to grind it out 3-5 yards at a time as long as they didnt give up any big plays.
I think if you go through the film, you'll see that Shea didn't have a lot of "pull" reads during the game (especially the 2nd half) and that was almost certainly by design. Army's defense tried to negate the QB reads by giving Shea a pre-determined look and then designing the rest of the defense around it.
While this mostly involved simply forcing the handoff and rallying to the ball, there was a play at the end of the first half where it looked like they forced Shea to pull (i.e. the DE crashes) then followed it up by crashing their cornerback to the defend the QB keep.
Watch the CB at top of the screen immediately abandon the wide receiver in front of him. This was a play where they sold out to defend the zone read; there a Michigan WR on the bottom hash who is left completely undefended (Play starts at 12:35):
I haven't seen this discussed elsewhere, but one of the biggest issues that I saw was that Michigan's blitz pickups in this game were awful. Both of Shea's fumbles were a direct result of missed blitz pickups.
On the first fumble the LT (I believe Hayes) completely misses a linebacker flying up the middle on a delayed blitz while standing around blocking no one (play starts at 1:21):
On the second turnover, the RB (Turner) is late picking up a blitzing linebacker coming off the edge, who gets to Patterson untouched (play starts at 7:06):
These are brutal, because they are not blitzes where they outnumbered Michigan's blockers - they are simply whiffs. Hard to win games when you are giving up free shots at your QB.
This is perhaps the most egregious example. Going for it on 4th and 2 in the 4th quarter. Looks like Army again anticipates the zone read and decides to force a "give" read by having the weakside DE stay home, and then countering by blitzing the playside. Keep an eye on the top of the screen.
Army blitzes the cornerback off the edge to defend the keep. He comes through compltely untouched along with a second Army defender, and they are on Charbonnet as soon as he has the ball. They shoot pass three Michigan players and nobody blocks anybody. TFL. (Play starts at 19:39):
Speed in space or not, it doesnt matter what kind of offense you are running if you can't block.
September 9th, 2019 at 10:08 AM ^
That is a heckuva post for a snowflake thread!
September 9th, 2019 at 11:23 AM ^
hell of a post and good breakdown , I heard that the early issues with the blitzes caused shae to be scared to go past his first reads, and harbs kept the play calling very conservative because he knew shae was rattled, army had a hell of a game plan and forced us to play conservative, I am not sure what is the move going forward but it can't be this
September 9th, 2019 at 9:04 AM ^
I rewatched it twice last weekend, there were times that Shea had 10-15 yards off the edge if he kept it. Honestly I'm not sure if he is just having a hard time seeing it or was told not to run as much. Either way, bad, real bad.
Also, when Dylan was in, I don't remember which play it was but there was an easy touchdown, only had one corner (maybe a safety) off the edge and he was 10 yards off the LOS. If he would have broke that, easy TD.
Both are irritating but (not totally defending Shea) there were times the LT totally missed an edge blitz, like, didn't even look that way.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:27 PM ^
You must’ve watched a different game, there was no blowout in sight
September 8th, 2019 at 5:41 PM ^
To the OP’s point: take away the turnovers and hit the open receivers, we score more points and they score less
Also, water is wet ?
September 8th, 2019 at 6:46 PM ^
and they score fewer s/ Stannis Baratheon
September 8th, 2019 at 5:44 PM ^
Personally I think the rout would been on if Metellus doesn’t get called down.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:59 PM ^
That and right off the bat UM forced a 3 and out on Army's first possession, got the ball and was moving the ball then fumbled. It felt like UM was going to deliver a haymaker first thing but instead completely killed a hot start.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:15 PM ^
Totally agree with both of those. If they had finished off the first drive which it sure looked like they might instead of fumbling, I think a 7-0 deficit might have been all that was needed.
and then the td off the fumble would have made it 14-7 which also would have been enough
September 8th, 2019 at 6:20 PM ^
That's gonna happen throughout the season. We cannot be so mentally fragile when "momentum" shifts back suddenly. That's exactly what happened yesterday. We don't get the TD on the fumble and are all rah rah pissed off and then we fumble next play. We should be better than that, especially year 5 of Harbaugh
September 8th, 2019 at 6:27 PM ^
The program has been fragile with stuff like that since the Kick 6 against State. There seems to be an “expect the worst” collective psyche. Looking back on things it becomes really clear. Like when Ty Issac fumbles at mid-field on the second possession against State in ‘17. The sideline looked like a funeral with 10 minutes to go in the first quarter.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:35 PM ^
Yes, exactly. I'm honestly surprised they pulled out that game yesterday. Besides that, we have fascinating meltdowns at the first sign of adversity
September 8th, 2019 at 7:04 PM ^
It is actually a positive sign we did win that game. I have grown accustomed to other teams being the teams who will fight and scratch to win a game. They played like ass, but they did show resolve.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:32 PM ^
Personally I think Monken's decision to throw on the goal line up 7 cost Army the game.
September 9th, 2019 at 1:08 AM ^
That was an astounding decision. Army — Army!—- had two downs to go six yards. It was a moment where I thought, just for a split second - wait, is the fix in on this game?
September 8th, 2019 at 5:27 PM ^
No way to rationalize it. Offense sucked (execution, scheme etc etc all just the same thing). The end.
September 8th, 2019 at 9:20 PM ^
No way to rationalize it.
Amateur!
September 8th, 2019 at 5:28 PM ^
Whatever it is they’re doing they need to stop calibrate and listen. Come back with a brand new invention. Grab ahold of the ball tightly. Throw it like a harpoon daily and nightly. The defense will be like will it ever stop ? they don’t know. Turn off the lights and the Offense will glow. To the extreme they’ll rock the stadium like a vandal. Then light up the stage and wax their rivals like a candle.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:44 PM ^
Well done, Ice!
September 8th, 2019 at 7:11 PM ^
Your D is absolutely dirty. You need soap and water.. soap and water... soap and water....water,water,water,water
September 8th, 2019 at 10:08 PM ^
Dirty fuckin dangle bud. Wheel snipe celly.
September 8th, 2019 at 5:37 PM ^
When DPJ, Tarik, and Nico are all healthy, they should AT LEAST get 20 targets a game combined. If we lose, but are taking shots downfield and getting the ball in our playmakers hands, I won’t be too upset. It’s the mind numbingly terrible running the ball into 8-9 man boxes that gives this fan base no hope.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:00 PM ^
Yes, yes, and yes. Why we insist on running into 8 man boxes over and over again is puzzling. Looks like Al Borges is running the offense again.
September 8th, 2019 at 6:56 PM ^
Watching our freshman tackles on both sides need max protection help, while the defense sits in a massive/complex zone that covers everything while hugging the receivers... wasn't fun either. Hats off to the Army defense, they were out matched physically but their zones were complex and disciplined... very little was open until they went to man (Which was when our guys busted free).
September 8th, 2019 at 5:41 PM ^
Any updates on the key injured players?
September 8th, 2019 at 5:44 PM ^
Yesterday was as poorly a coached game as anything in the Hoke or RR tenure. Forced me to admit that Harbaugh is nothing special, and we have already reached our ceiling as a program under him. He's a good man which counts for something, but he's not going to win a big ten title
September 8th, 2019 at 5:49 PM ^
Its year 5. Just give me one win over a higher ranked team.
September 8th, 2019 at 8:24 PM ^
We are ranked 7 - so we probably have exactly 1 shot at beating a higher ranked team.