Sp. Teams, Turnovers, Red Zone D, Luck
I am so glad Michigan won, but this game kept me on pins and needles. I had a sick feeling in my stomach, and the resolve of the team in pulling this out was tremendous.
There are so many different things to credit for the win. And there are also numerous things NOT to credit. To wit,
- Our running game was virtually non-existent. Between our OL, their blitzes, RPS, we barely got off any signficant runs.
- We kind of stopped their running, but I saw a lot of missed tackles, and both Wilson and Thomas got a significant amount of yardage.
- Our passing stunk. While Hemingway's TD catches were great, those were thrown up for grabs, really jump balls, and the first one could easily have been an interception. We were fortunate that one interception was called interference (correctly,), and that a second pick was called back because of the ground.
- Their passing was decent. It seemed they shredded our secondary quite a bit. We were fortunate that other than Posey and Ohio, (and ND somewhat,) we didn't face too many accurate QB's combined with tall, fast receivers. Our secondary has got to improve.
Given our non-existent running, our sketchy passing, their running, and Thomas's ability to be patient and find receivers, I would never have believed we would win. (oh ye of little faith.) I remember thinking with a couple minutes left in the first half how fortunate we were to only be down six, and how VT really was very vulnerable by not scoring any TD's.
Why did we win? Well, there are all kinds of reasons.
- The special teams. That's too general, especially given the poor punting we began with. But we caused and recovered a fumble just before the first half. We stopped them on a trick play in the second half. We benefited greatly from the roughing the kicker penalty. Gibbons hit three field goals and missed none. (yeah Brunettes!!)
- Turnovers. Between their fumble and Clark's interception, we scored 10 points. Huge turn around. You also could include the two interceptions they had which were overturned by official review.
- Red Zone defense. Stopping them at the four yard line was huge.
- Good fortune, or making the most of your opportunities. Not only did we get turnovers and stop them several times on fourth down, Michigan capitalized on these opportunities.
I loved this game, and hope it is a great portent of things to come.
January 4th, 2012 at 12:51 PM ^
Would you ever watch this game again on ESPN Classic? I wouldn't
I guess you love bad football because that what this was. We won. Yeah!. Now let's move on to 2012 recruiting and burn the tape.
January 4th, 2012 at 12:55 PM ^
I was just thinking that I probably need to clear this from my DVR. I'm happier than ever we won, but it was ugly. If I don't delete it, it'll be to keep the pregame and postgame stuff. The actual game was tough to watch.
I was actually thinking, maybe BTN will have that B1G Football in 60 show they have sometimes. I could keep that on the DVR and watch that if I knew it was an hour long and some plays/drive may be cut out. But that prolonged 3.5 hour display, meh, I'd rather rewatch the Ohio game, Nebraska game...or even the Minnesota game which was video game like domination that I find it funny.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:42 PM ^
It would be hard to watch this game again. It is the complete opposite of the UTL game. I watched that game at least 4 times.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:53 PM ^
Excellent point. My answer: no, would not watch replay. I'm still trying to scratch my eyes out from the pain endured watching it live.
January 4th, 2012 at 12:51 PM ^
If Denard can keep the interceptions down next year, watch out NC and Heisman.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:12 PM ^
Wow. I love me some Denard but a Heisman candidate he is not.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:00 PM ^
We don't live in a vacuum where VT was the only opponent we played. This season was a transition to a new offense, culminating in the severe thrashing of OSU in the last game, where Denard played like a Heisman candidate would against their most hated rival.
I don't know why things were so off yesterday. I suspect that Molk being injured and a bad matchup against a pretty good defense were the main culprits. But it's really not at all that crazy to project Denard as a Heisman hopeful next year.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:44 PM ^
is not Heisman material man. He may have some of the attributes of a possible Heisman winner, but not here and not now. To state that he has the potential to win a Heisman trophy puts individual pressure on him to perform at a level that he cannot in this system and to a level unnecessary for the team to succeed. Denard needs to be Denard. He is nobody's Heisman, but he does not need to be.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:19 PM ^
January 4th, 2012 at 2:29 PM ^
I couldn't believe how bad some of the throws Denard made yesterday. There are rumors that he was playing on an injured ankle but I'm not sure how much that would effect his passing game. Too many back foot throws and balls thrown up for grabs. We wouldn't have been in the Sugar Bowl game without Denard but it's glaringly obvious he has a long ways to go as a QB.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:29 PM ^
I couldn't believe how bad some of the throws Denard made yesterday. There are rumors that he was playing on an injured ankle but I'm not sure how much that would effect his passing game. Too many back foot throws and balls thrown up for grabs. We wouldn't have been in the Sugar Bowl game without Denard but it's glaringly obvious he has a long ways to go as a QB.
January 4th, 2012 at 12:54 PM ^
Our first down play calling was too vanilla for me. Borges seemed apprehensive to let Denard throw on first down for some reason. I'm looking forward to the UFR on this one.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:00 PM ^
Maybe Borges was hesitant because Denard threw one INT and almost threw 3 or 4 more on only 21 attempts. I don't think the problem was coaching in this game. Va Tech simply had better athletes. I think the formula for stopping our offense right now is simple, you have to be able to matchup 1 on 1 with our WR on the outside and blitz the crap out of Denard while making sure to stay in your lanes to do that Thing is the only defenses to have the athletes on defense to do that against us were MSU and Va Tech(I think Iowa was more a coaching issue).
January 4th, 2012 at 1:08 PM ^
With very few exceptions, Vatech's db's had UM's receivers blanketed most of the night.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:16 PM ^
It seemed our passing game was struggling because we were constantly in 2nd or 3rd and longs, which allowed VT to bring alot of pressure on Denard. A short passing game that would bring 4-5 yards would've been a nice change up to the 1-2 yards we were averaging on first down carries. I wouldn't have abandoned the run, but I thought we could've tried to keep them off balance a little better.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:30 PM ^
I guess I'm just curious what routes would you have run. Denard almost got one picked off on a slant and the VT DBs were just all over our WR all night, even on the short stuff. I agree I guess that I would have tried a few more first down passes, but acknowledge you take a huge risk of a MSU-like game losing INT when you do that.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:42 PM ^
The only double move I can recall off the top of my head was the play where Hemingway got tripped (no call). It looked like but for the trip that was going to be wide open.
The line held up fairly well to the pass rush and so time for double moves was available (there were sacks, but these mostly happened on clear passing downs and after the inital reads were covered, for the most part there was time to pass). I think this also would have had them back off the slants/short passes too.
Edit: Obviously double moves are not the "short passes" the previous poster wanted, but they would be passes and would (thoretically) open up the short passes later.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:01 PM ^
And it's the last game of the year, stop saving Denard, where is the Denard Iso play? Stop with the read option when it's not working.
And what's a fella got to do to get a shovel pass put into this offense?
January 4th, 2012 at 3:53 PM ^
And it's the last game of the year, stop saving Denard, where is the Denard Iso play? Stop with the read option when it's not working.
And what's a fella got to do to get a shovel pass put into this offense?
January 4th, 2012 at 12:58 PM ^
on your point about Wilson/Thomas getting a bunch of yards. Wilson had 82 yards on 24 carries. Let that sink in a minute. One of the top running backs in the NATION was held under 100 yrds rushing for 3.4 ypc. That's a good day for ANY defense. Thomas had 16 rushes for 53 yards (3.3 ypc).
Also, our D-line held their team to 1.1 ypc in the redzone.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:05 PM ^
the defense did a solid job against the run. The running plays where Thomas hurt UM was usually when he scrambled on a pass play.
The pass defense was the frustrating part of the defense. Granted UM got burned by a lot of short passes/bubble screens but when VaTech did complete a pass downfield, the wr was generally wide open.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:15 PM ^
The defense was actually pretty damn good. What hurt was that pretty much every play they gave up was a 3rd or 4th and long.
<br>
<br>Five 15-yard plays in a game sounds fairly innocuous. But when it's five 3rd and 13s that get hit for 15 yards, the cursing begins.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:22 PM ^
The run defense was amazing all game. I'm surprised they didn't attack our secondary more, they were definitely our weakness (along with LB play).
A quick note on our defense for next year... although we do lose our top 2 contributers from the DL, everybody else on the line has one more year of experience. BWC looked pretty good in the bowl game, so all things considered I don't think they take a tremendous step backwards. A step back for sure, but not that much. But the best part: every single player in our back 7 returns. That's pretty much unheard of, at least in my memory. Demens will be a senior, Morgan will not be a freshman anymore (although there's a chance he gets jumped by one of the freshmen), and everybody else will be that much better, too. The defense should improve next year.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:03 PM ^
Y U TRY PUNT WITH FOOT IN TACKLE?
January 4th, 2012 at 1:14 PM ^
so lets say your tackled while rugby punting do you get a roughing the kicker penalty?
January 4th, 2012 at 1:41 PM ^
IIRC once the kicker leaves an area he becomes a runner. AI could be wrong but seems we have had this discussion before.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:45 PM ^
According to <a href=http://en.allexperts.com/q/College-Football-2792/2008/11/Football-punti… page</a>, if you've started the kicking motion, yes. In this case, though, he was initially tackled while running and it wasn't clear he was going to punt, so no penalty.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:07 PM ^
as a reason why we won. I could not see going for it on 4th and 1 when a FG puts you up two scores in a game where Michigan had done nothing offensively, and knowing Michigan had done a great job all year on plays like that--even though VT had generally been successful in converting those. Nor did the fake punt make sense in a tie game when Michigan could have been pinned deep and hadn't moved the ball all second half. You have to wonder about the conservative play calling in OT (two runs up the middle, pass on the boundary on third down) when VT had been throwing successfully all game against us and had a huge size advantage in their WR.
January 4th, 2012 at 1:22 PM ^
They were moving the ball with ease the entire game, and their QB sneak/dive play is an almost guaranteed 2-3 yards. I think going for it on that 4th down was the right call early in the game to try to put it out of reach early - not perfectly analagous but very similar to us faking the FG in the Nebraska game that ultimately led to the TD instead of the FG and really put a cap on that game
January 4th, 2012 at 1:32 PM ^
I think you should go for that 4th and 1 every time if you are VT. You have a big QB who almost always falls forward and you have been successfuly almost every time the whole season. Plus it was early so you didn't know if your D was going to totally stop Denard or not. Had to figure we'd score some TDs and that was a chance to really put us in a hole.
I also think they should have gone for it when they did the fake punt. I just think the fake punt was the worst possible call. Had to know Michgan was at least wary of it (heck I was wary of it). Plus, if you are going to go 4th and 1 run the QB sneak. Yes we stopped them once, but they also picked up 3 on 2nd and goal from the 1 on a QB sneak. A QB sneak there was a chance to really put us away (driving for game winning score).
January 4th, 2012 at 1:16 PM ^
The defense, particularly pass defense, made HUGE strides this year. It IS improving. There were certainly some WRs open, there were also a number of passes that were completed because a very talented QB found a big, talented receiver in a small window. I think we were very fortunate to win. I also think that our task was made more difficult because neither Molk nor RVB were fully healthy. On a couple plays, it was obvious that RVB was slower than usual, and that allowed some of the long scrambles. I'm optimistic for next year if we can keep up solid line play with the losses of our seniors.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:13 PM ^
that Wile was punting and not Hagerup?
also, Stephen R Kass, i pronounce you King of the Bullet Points
January 4th, 2012 at 2:45 PM ^
first two punts were awful - something like 25 yds and 35 yds and neither was a shank. They had great hang time but covered very little distance.
January 4th, 2012 at 3:47 PM ^
Then Wile came in and hit a couple 45 yards. I think Hagerup's time as starting punter is over.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:14 PM ^
On the luck point, does anyone track it for football the way Pomeroy tracks it for basketball? My instinct is that we were fairly unlucky in 2008, 2009, and 2010 and preposterously lucky this season. But I'd love to see actual stats on this.
January 4th, 2012 at 5:55 PM ^
I couldn't help but think of the Mathlete's analysis on "luck." In general, I don't know how you apply "luck" to the data point of a single game. But if you can, this really seems to be a "lucky" game for Michigan.
I've been pondering the question, "who deserved to win?" I really think this is the wrong way to frame the question. No one "deserved" to win, but Michigan opportunistically seized victory from the jaws of defeat. They didn't play well, and the stats were awful, but it doesn't matter. The defense stiffened when they needed to, Junior caught two jump balls he needed to, the special teams performed when they needed to.
On the other side of the coin, I do think that Beamer made some bad coaching decisions.
January 4th, 2012 at 2:15 PM ^
Martin and VanBergen.
Those guys were a stone wall.
Every Play.
Amazing.
January 4th, 2012 at 3:25 PM ^
A team of overachievers in every single sense of the word from the walk-on safety to the head coach that found a way to win 11 games with effort, heart, belief, guts, bailing wire, tape, glue, duct tape, and what not. I've seen many a far more talented Michigan football team lose games just like the way VT lost this game. If we can keep this effort, attitude, belief, guts and whatever and keep upgrading the talent, we are going to be a perennial national contender. The old conventional wisdom that Michigan is a bunch of highly recruited and pampered star athletes that underachieve may be in for a permanent death!
January 4th, 2012 at 6:23 PM ^
While scoring defense is what wins games (UM ranked #5 nationally after last night @ 17.4 ppg) the more accurate baraomter of a defenses effectiveness is the Red Zone Scoring Defense efficiency. After last nights game UM was #2 nationally @ 68.29% (50.0% on away games) only slightly behind leader Alabama @ 66.47%. This is how you win 11 games while at times looking inefficient.