Snowflakes Thread: Coaching Vs. Minnesota

Up 14-3 and got too cute on offensive play calls. Tried to make Ruddock into something he is not. He is not a long ball super accurate thrower. Look at Leidner - he played well and darn near pulled it out, but he was used appropriately. 

I don't know I kind of think the good teams win close games thing is crap.  I understand the philosopy and the emotion of  Kill reitring but this is a team that literally can't pass the ball outside of the tight end position and they shredded us.  I wondered which team would come out after the MSU debacle and thought they'd either re-group and say we need to massacre everyone or a team that was still snake bit and thought the season was loss after the MSU game and that's what I saw.  i

Up 14-3 and got too cute on offensive play calls. Tried to make Ruddock into something he is not. He is not a long ball super accurate thrower. Look at Leidner - he played well and darn near pulled it out, but he was used appropriately. 

Speight. Entered the program behind much higher rated QB's. Speight didn't give no ****s.

The media focused on Jake and Shane for the QB position for the season. Speight didn't give no ****s.

Harbaugh signed 100 QB's during his first "official" signing period where he had 3? months to prepare for? Speight didn't give no ****s.

Jake went down during a play that deserved a penalty and recieved none. Speight gave no ****s.

Speight, under tons! of pressure needed to score a TD to win. Speight gave no ****s.

One touchdown, a 2-point conversion later. Speight still doesn't give a fuck. Speight is a starting Michigan QB and has earned it.

If Speight never gets the nod for another start in his career I will always remember him. He was subbed into a game during a HUGE point in Michigan's history. 

Losing this game, Michigan would reasonably never be in the BIG 10 Champtionship game conversation agian, for the year. Michigan would have lost a conference trophy...again.

Speight stepped in during a TREMENDOUS point of the game. No time to warm up. No time to gauge the defense. Speight gave no ****s.

Speight is a Michigan QB. Speight stepped in and delivered. He gave no fucks.

Any thoughts on our challenge in the first half? I wasn't sure it was a great idea to challenge a call that didn't look like it would obviously be overturned, and only for the difference of a few yards (though to be honest in that situation a few yards could make a difference). Still, that meant that we didn't have a challenge to use later in the game. I think I would have saved it, but then again I'm some guy commenting on the internet and Harbaugh is . . . Harbaugh. 

Props to Minnesota's coach for a helluva game most people gave them no chance at winning.  Some of us, me included, worried about the emotion factor which pretty obviously pushed Minni players into a different zone.  Their QB was playing like Tom fuckin Brady making throws / catches that were clearly supernatural.  

Harbaugh was awesome in his creative use of personnel and overcoming injuries and stupid mistakes by our players.  

We benefited from the bad clock management of Minnesota's interim head coach.  I suspect this will probably go down as being his finest game.

My only other thought is why, oh why, do teams have their otherworldly finest games in the history of their schools...always against us?

Their coach may have cost himself a fortune by his end-of-game (and end-of-first half) game calling.  I know there are an incredible variety of jobs open and it's going to be tough to attract a good coach to a program that hasn't won a conference title in 50 years, but I don't see how they can take the interim tag off of him after that performance.

First, we absolutely caught a break that the refs (correctly, as far as I could tell from the replay) brought the ball back to the half-yard line instead of letting the touchdown stand.  As we well know, just because it was the right call doesn't mean they call it right.

Second, the big issue was Minnesota using up 17 of their 19 seconds on the first play.  You should be ready to run a pass, then another play (with timeout if needed), then decide about OT.

Third, I know that I was both happy and nervous that they chose to put it on one play.  Happy because one play against our defense is emotionally our best case scenario, but nervous because stopping someone from a half-yard is really hard.  People always think OT is better than it is, but in this case given no FG is automatic, OT is less than 50% to win, and getting a half-yard seems like it should be more than 50%, even against our D.  After all, they racked up 461 yards - even if a third were lucky, that's still 300 yards on the day.  If they had run something to the side opposite Peppers or made one of our CBs defend a triangle route, we might yet be sunk in gloom that they had the balls to go for it.