Tarik Black: “Trust me, this offense is gonna be crazy.”
https://wolverineswire.usatoday.com/2019/09/10/michigan-football-speed-in-space-offense-tarik-black/
Thought I’d share this somewhat positive post from a playmaker that’s bought in to break up some of the negativity lately.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:40 AM ^
I’ve already seen plenty of craziness from this offense, so I’d say he’s not wrong.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Yeah!
September 11th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Define "crazy". It was crazy on Saturday.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:02 AM ^
Subs?
September 11th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
Chicken teriyaki from Subway.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:42 PM ^
Best
Reply
Ever
September 11th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Good to hear that kind of confidence from inside the locker room. Do your thing Tarik.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:44 AM ^
We had subs ... it was crazy!!
September 11th, 2019 at 10:44 AM ^
I really hope so. This fanbase can not handle #SpeedInSpace being just another all talk hashtag.
Saw glimpses of what the offense could be against MTSU.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:06 AM ^
And even in the first half of the Army game if you can get past all of the "whoopsies." Outside of those fumbles, I was enjoying that first quarter and a half of offense. They just happened to vacate what was already working for them as far as driving the ball down the field.
September 11th, 2019 at 2:34 PM ^
I think "Speed in Space" will indeed be used, except in two situations:
- when the game is close, we panic and revert to conservative ball-control
- when the game is not close, and we save our plays/players
September 11th, 2019 at 3:50 PM ^
I think the playcalling changed because the game turned into exactly the game Army wanted..The part that makes it look so horrible is that it was our own mistakes that turned us into trying to win a catfight. Seriously that game was so boring to watch our defense have to defend the same crap over and over. Every series of downs looks exactly the the prior.
If we get a lead, and we certainly could have without the mistakes, they probably throw the ball 5 more times and have 2 more turnovers. I wish we hadnt vacated the early plan but I dont know that there was much choice given Shea's condition. Throwing the ball with your backup, or any kind of experimental playcalling is simply unwise when you're down a score and there's no guarantee you're going to get more than 1 or 2 more possessions.
I relegated myself to us losing after getting stopped on 4th down for the second time in the 4th qtr. Definitely should have taken the field goal instead of the first failed try. Although at the time I was hoping we were starting to get the push we needed to run that baby home. I'm just happy to not have that be a loss this early in the season with 2 weeks to think about it.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
I agree with you. However, sometimes I wonder what our fanbase can handle short of a national title.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:25 AM ^
Beating OSU is all I need.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
I just need them to beat everyone with State in their university name, regardless of how they spell state
September 11th, 2019 at 12:17 PM ^
This x 1000
September 11th, 2019 at 12:44 PM ^
Just give me one season in 15 years where we beat OSU (with an actual permanent head coach) and then go to a decent Bowl game and win.
I don't know of many Michigan fans that are "torches and pitchforks" for a national title. We just want to beat OSU and play really well and win a really nice bowl game. Asking for that to happen every 3-5 years isn't crazy unreasonable.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
Bowl games don't matter anymore.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
People will still be bitching about not looking good enough even if we went 15-0. It just is what it is.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:31 AM ^
I'd be fine taking a loss or two, so long as the team looks well prepared and like they know what they're doing. Sometimes the other team is just better - it's the looking lost and flailing around that gets me.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:05 PM ^
Actually, it's a lot less than you might think. We all want to win every game and look good doing it. And some games, we couldn't win by a large enough spread!
But after 10-15 years of irrelevance, I would be satisfied if we won most of our games. Maybe you lose one or two by just a few points AS LONG AS we look like really good team doing it. We haven't looked like a dominating team in forever.
I don't want to lose ever! But if we were competitive while doing it, I'd be ok. I think others would too.
September 11th, 2019 at 4:26 PM ^
People keep saying we haven’t looked like a dominating team but look at the mailbag. We dominated in most of our games last year. We beat down Wisconsin and PSU last year. Now granted I hope we don’t give that back this year but the program has had some recent success. If you want to say last year’s ending was disappointing given what we were expecting from the year’s performance, there I would agree.
September 11th, 2019 at 8:14 PM ^
We are a miserable bunch. 80%+ of FBS teams would kill for our performance the last 3 years, the revenue our brand generates, and the integrity in which we operate.
September 11th, 2019 at 9:14 PM ^
Probably. But JH was going to bring back championship football, not just a .740 winning percentage.
Wins and losses matter. How you perform in all of the games matters too.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
I'm still #AllInForMichigan. Is that dead?
September 11th, 2019 at 1:13 PM ^
I don't think it was ever really alive.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:45 AM ^
There's no reason it shouldn't be one of the best in the country once Runyan and DPJ are back (and really, it should be very good even without those two)...unless we have a QB problem that wasn't anticipated.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Well.... Are the WR's perfectly suited to this type of offense? Can Shae/McCaffery do the reads? will the O line start building on what they had last year?
I'm hoping for 'Oklahoma'; but I'll be satisfied with 'can competently score and hold onto the ball/not shoot ourselves in the foot'.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
I don't know what it is, but I've seen so many people type in, "Shae" instead of Shea and it drives me nuts.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:47 AM ^
It's because you're anal.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
You may be right, but it's still annoying. That and Gaddis/Gatis.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
*Aenal.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
No, it's because he's not a shithead.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:45 AM ^
I'll have to see what they do vs. Wisconsin to better form an opinion.
I'm hopeful but not optimistic.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:45 AM ^
When Gattis was at PSU with Moorehead (2017) they killed us mainly because PSU unleashed a brand new offensive scheme (it was like game 3 or 4 for them, I can't remember) and Michigan was not prepared.
Part of that was because they played cupcakes beforehand and didn't need to use anything interesting and part of that is because it took them a few games to really understand the offense.
I'm not saying that that is happening here, because nobody aside from the players actually know, but it's a possibility. I mean if I'm Wisconsin, what the hell do I prep for? A "zone read" where the RB always gets the ball? A WR jet sweep?
https://www.collegian.psu.edu/football/article_b983ce7a-b779-11e7-8179-97ebaccef2fb.html
September 11th, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
This was answered already, but Wisconsin should prepare for fumble recoveries.
All joking aside, given what Shea did against them last year, there's no way they're not preparing for true zone read including pulls. Other than that - well, I'm just hoping there is something other than that. RPOs, I suppose.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
It very well could be Gattis/Harbaugh want the team to master the fundamental components of this new offense. Just the basic run and pass plays. That’s what these two games were for, survive through the bye week then really open it up. But what I don’t understand is why a deep ball to Tarik and Nico ARENT apart of the base offense. I see them single covered with no safety over the top often, that should be an automatic check to a max protect and deep ball to them. It just seems so simple.
What also very well could be is that they do have lots more plays and Harbaugh says “nah” to them. I’m not convinced Jim truely trusts his QBs, therefore sticks to running the ball and short passes to the TE.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:12 AM ^
Agree, but maybe they aren't open or Harbaugh wanted to minimize (it didn't work) turnovers against a clock sucking team and told Gattis to go full turtle?
I'd also add that after Lamar Jackson and Baltimore's modernization, Jim (and his pops) may truly understand the importance of modern football. Thanks again John Harbaugh!
September 11th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
If Shea has a injured oblique and can't twist properly, and Dylan isn't a great long ball QB to begin with, maybe that could be a reason.
I'm obviously just guessing.
September 12th, 2019 at 1:48 PM ^
My biggest issue with Harbaugh is why in the hell don’t we do the simple easy stuff that is there for the taking. I’ve been askin this question for 4+ yrs now. We make everything so difficult
September 11th, 2019 at 10:56 AM ^
This is a reasonable take with the parallel to 2017 PSU. I think the only possible non-parallel that may factor in is a possible QB injury. Even still McCaffery should be able to carry the new offense at 75-80% (maybe even better) of Patterson's full-health ability.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:59 AM ^
Michigan won that game by a billion. Is that what you're saying?
It was PSU's 4th game. They beat two marshmallows and lost to Pitt before us. Then we smoked them like 49-10 or something. That was Franklin's sad Field Goal game.
After that, they ran the table scoring about a hundred points per game, upset OSU on the blocked FG, won the B1G and lost a Rose Bowl shootout to USC. And the NEXT year they kicked our ass in Happy Valley in the white out - Moorhead's 2nd year.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:09 AM ^
Yeah, this is where I thought he was going and is the best comparable. I remember the PSU sportswriters before and after that game - before they were saying the new Moorhead offense was just coming on, and they could see it really starting to explode, so they predicted a Michigan win; after they were despondent and thought they'd been sold a bill of goods.
Really they were just one or two games off. After being destroyed by Michigan, PSU went to OT with Minnesota and won. But after that... their offense began to set people on fire and they scored at least 38 points in 8 of the next 9 games (the exception being OSU). It's entirely possible this type of slow start may be happening here.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
Wrong year. PSU beat M 42-13 in 2017.
Edit: OP seems to be combining two years...PSU beat M 42-13 in 2017 to go to 8-0 and drop us to 5-2. In 2016, M beat PSU to go to 4-0 and drop PSU to 2-2.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
My OP says 2017. Not sure why people are thinking about 2016. Moorehead wasn't at PSU until the 2017 season.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
Dude... you're on the internet. Look it up.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:27 AM ^
Yeah, and you're saying that it was only the 3rd or 4th game and Michigan wasn't prepared for PSU's new offensive scheme. But in 2017 Michigan didn't play PSU until the 8th game...so there was plenty of film on the offensive scheme. And PSU still scored 42.
In 2016, M played PSU in the fourth game, and PSU only scored 10 points. 2016 was the year where the PSU offense turned it on later in the year.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:30 AM ^
According to wikipedia, he was there for 2016 and 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Moorhead