Thoughts and questions about the team and OSU game
Let me start by saying that I humbly approach this board w/ thoughts regarding the OSU game. There's a lot of talent that make up the members of this site and I appreciate everyone's contribution to the board. UofM fans are the most informed and knowledgeable fan base in the country. We're so far ahead of other fan bases in general in terms of fan contribution to blogs, media, statistical and X&O breakdowns. It's quite impressive. We can expect access to updated information regarding UM recruiting and game results within a short period. So, thank you.
1.) I was upset to some degree that the offense didn't run more zone blocking this season. The backs and OL ran it all last season, and we saw noticeable improvements last year. I understand it's not Jim's bread and butter, but it seemed like it should've been featured more given the OL make-up. Drake Johnson shined vs OSU last year, and it didn't seem like we took advantage of what worked vs their D last year at all on Saturday. Base blocking was too tall a task for this OL this season.
2.) What the hell is wrong w/ the defensive scheme Michigan ran vs OSU? Anything? Or, were Michigan's failures vs OSU strictly due to OSU exploiting UM's weaknesses? I lean towards the latter, but gd, how the hell do you stop these guys? I've become more in favor of having a mobile QB bc of the advantages the offense has in the running game.
3.) Was OSU more mentally prepared for the game this week?
4.) Something tells me that we're going to see a shift in OSU's dominance of the BIG East simply bc Harbaugh seems to be going after kids that aren't "Dave Brandon approved" if that makes any sense. Can't help but think that Michigan has lacked that mental edge that they had at times under Carr and Bo. There used to be a nastiness to this football program, a swagger, something very natural to the way the team played on game day. Seems like Harbaugh is going after kids that are mentally tough as well as physically talented. I saw improvements this year, but I expect a lot more in the future.
Anyway, I realize I'm ranting a bit. I'm just looking to share some thoughts and hear what you guys have to say. Thank you reading and I look forward to what you have to say.
Go Blue, forever!
November 30th, 2015 at 8:20 AM ^
Also don't think they are in those positions (as much) if you had Glasgow and Mone blowing things up a bit more and forcing qb decisions much sooner. By second half they were literally making comfortable reads in an up tempo offense and we were chasing not disrupting. Ugh. Okay now I am mad again.
On to the recruiting sites.
November 30th, 2015 at 3:17 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 6:29 AM ^
Not to downplay the importance of effort and desire, but having faster, stronger, bigger and more talented players are a necessity.
November 30th, 2015 at 6:44 AM ^
How many current Michigan players are 2016 draft prospect? You can name almost all DL who are late rounders, Lewis, Butt and that's probably it.
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November 30th, 2015 at 8:44 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 1:54 PM ^
Have you paid any attention to the NFL this year. There are many spartys making plays at the highest level. A lot more than we've produced recently.
November 30th, 2015 at 6:39 AM ^
Truth be told,
- it was a game at halftime; trailing by four, with leads in yards and time of possession. Think about that roughing the kicker penalty; a true momentum-shifter which matters when you're playing a superior team; just set up a return and it's likely a 17-7 UM lead at halftime.
- The talent gap in OL, DL, LB and RB was obvious; not sure any amount of coaching/scheming could have overcome that (cf., 1969).
- The 1969 analogy was there but not really: yes, playing defending nat'l champs at home with new coach (Bo disciple). No, MSU loss was wakeup call for OSU; they did not come in complacent and assuming a win.
- Bo was hyperfocused on beating OSU and knew how to do it having been a long-time Woody asst. JH is hyperfocused on player and scheme development, toughness and consistency. Not necessaoriy the best for overachieving in a single game but for gret for achieving in every game.
- With the exception of the OSU 2nd half, we beat (and at times dominated) the teams we should beat (on a talent level) and competed with the strong teams we played; this in year 1 with lack of top-tier talent/depth in key areas. When the right players are in place, developed and scheme-intergrated, watch out!
November 30th, 2015 at 7:47 AM ^
You've got them pinned deep in their end of the field. The punt will most likely put you around midfield. As it was it actually didn't make it to midfield. Why the hell would you risk a penalty trying to block that punt? That is such a low percentage play that it just seems stupid to try it. You've got one of the best teams in the country under wraps (at the moment) why the hell give them a huge boost like that?
November 30th, 2015 at 8:39 AM ^
Totally agree. How many punts are blocked per season vs the number of roughing the punter penalties? Must be 25 RTP calls for every blocked punt. Guys trying to block the punt aren't starters, are all amped up, and in this case, it was probably their first time in the game and they're ready to hit someone.
Dumb all around. Take the ball at OSU's 40 and be done.
November 30th, 2015 at 8:54 AM ^
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November 30th, 2015 at 8:56 AM ^
KInnel made contact with his plant leg - which is by definition a Roughing the Punter penalty.
November 30th, 2015 at 8:54 AM ^
You are playing a team with superior talent - they took a risk and got burned. It happens. That was inches away from being a touchdown for M or a safety.
November 30th, 2015 at 8:09 AM ^
That sums it up nicely.
On The Game, M D was containing OSU until that roughing the punter.
Part of Harbaugh's formula for solving OSU's offense going forward will be developing an offense that can run with consistency. Possess the ball. Limit OSU's overall posessions. Long slow offensive drives for M that give the D a breather. This will limit the possibilities off OSU gassing M's D with tempo.
Another part of the formula will have to be recruiting the sort of athletic D players that will match up well against Meyer's offense. Can't just recruit to build a generic strong D. Have to recruit to build the sort of D that is purpose built to deal with the sort of plays and athletes that Meyer uses.
November 30th, 2015 at 9:03 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 6:46 AM ^
With regards to question #2, it probably isn't the wrong plan if we hadn't bet on Ohio State not taking some inspiration from games played against us in more recent weeks. I could be wrong, but it didn't seem as if we were ready for them to run as many stretches and veers as they did, and those were the plays where we needed something from our LBs that we definitely weren't seeing. You might fix that with a mobile QB, which necessitates changes to how your offense operates and is defended by other teams, but you can also expand the repertoire of the defense that you run to account for such things.
November 30th, 2015 at 6:58 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 8:25 AM ^
They have a few things which make a huge difference. One, we both signed top recruits at RB in 2013. They got Elliot and we got Green. Elliot is phenomenal and Green was a bust. Two, we both have really good defensive lines, but there's were healthy and ours weren't. If our d-line was healthy and we traded RBs this game would look a lot different. Granted, there were other factors, but those two alone would make this game much different IMO. No Elliot and a healthy Ojemudia, Glasgow, and Mone would change things.
Also, their LBs are pretty good and ours are below average, same with o-line. In terms of recruiting our o-line has been better in the past 4 years, but guys like Kalis, Dawson, LTT, Bosch, & Fox have either under-performed, have been injured, or are no longer with the team. Our LB recruiting was good as RJS, Ross, Bolden, Gedeon, Ferns & McCray were all highly ranked, but so far they haven't lived up to their rankings yet either. We still don't have an elite pass rusher. We've only really signed Charlton and Marshall and Taco has not yet been that and Marshall is still young and no one's sure why he's not playing yet. And, we don't have an elite WR yet and have struggled to find good QB. Morris was supposed to be that guy and he's been disapointing. Hopefully O'Korn will be the guy. If not Gentry or eventually Peters should be good. And, hopefully either Harris or Cole can be that WR or one of the freshman WRs can step in, but I doubt they are ready for that. I'm sure Chesson and Darboh will improve, but neither of them are all-conference types IMO.
I think if we continue to recruit well we will have a better success rate with our highly ranked recruits panning out, but we've had really bad luck and/or scouting or developing with recruiting compared to on-field results. I think that will change, but OSU is still, and IMO has been for the last 30+ years, more talented than UM. We recruit at a similar level, but they typically slightly to significantly better with recruiting and hence more talented most years, which puts us at a disadvantage.
November 30th, 2015 at 10:44 AM ^
I don't really agree that OSU has been recruiting at a level above UM for 30+ years, the 80's Bo teams generally were filled with the guys he wanted and were extremely talented teams and that carried over into the 90's; I think the difference in the past decade though is that OSU is targeting players that are not only highly rated but they are extremely athletic and fit what they want to do.
Michigan meanwhile seemed to be recruiting well on paper but there didn't seem to be anyone on staff capable of determining that Elliot was the hit and Green was the miss, for example as tough as that would be when looking at a 5 star; it was more like recruiting the numbers rather than mining for the best talent, and also did UM want any speed at all on their team? I watched from a UP bar on Sat. and this guy kept yelling out "why are all our linebackers white"? Now personally, I'd be fine with a Ham, Lambert, Russell linebacking corp, but I think what he was trying to get at in a somewhat racist way is why aren't we recruiting any speed?
Harbaugh has to get to a point where he is getting a good percentage of the guys HE wants, and those guys have to be more athletic than what we have out there now at most positions, and I'm sure he already realizes that.
November 30th, 2015 at 7:05 PM ^
I don't really agree that OSU has been recruiting at a level above UM for 30+ years, the 80's Bo teams generally were filled with the guys he wanted and were extremely talented teams and that carried over into the 90's
Part of my statement is based on evidence and part is based on simply watching the games. I looked at ESPN, which only goes back to 2006. The only year UM had a higher recruiting class was in 2007. So, out of 10 years UM only had a better recruiting class once. There were a few years where they were close, like withen a class rank or two, but they were still lower.
Prior to that how would one tell the level of talent? We all know they have had way more wins, championships, and been in better bowl games in the past 10 years. What about the 90's and 2000's? My impressions of the late 90's and early 2000s is we had similar talent, but they were still a notch ahead. I guess we could look up the number of players that were either All Americans or All Conference. That would take a while to look up. But, when you reference Bo's years that's really before I was thinking. 30 years ago goes back to 1985 and Bo's last year as the head coach was 1987 I think. So, when we're talking about Bo's teams, that's a litlte before what I was thinking.
I agree we lack speed at certain positions like LB and RB. It's not a race thing. Miller is one of the most talented guys with the ball in his hands and Jake Ryan neutralized many of his scrables. We have big backs like Green, Smith, and Isaac. Drake is fast, but his injuries have probably slowed him up. A few years ago I never would have thought guys like RJS and Ross were slow, but I guess they just weren't as good as their rankings projected. McCray and Ferns were two other highly ranked guys. One has been injured the other transferred. But, Elliot is phenomenal. I can't think of many LBs that can run with him. Maybe Jaylon Smith at ND. Maybe McMillan, his teammate. Those are two of the top LBs in their class. Guys like Lewis, Thomas, Peppers, Clark, Hill, etc. are all fast. Wilson isn't a burner, but not slow. Elliot makes a lot of LBs look slow. And, I recall Peppers head-head-head in the open field facing Barrett and Barrett went right by him. I know Peppers is a better athlete, but he got burned plain and simple. Some things just happened regardless of talent, recruiting, and coaching. We just got beat. Peppers probably won't let that happen a lot, but it happened last Saturday.
November 30th, 2015 at 8:31 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 9:02 AM ^
Meyer isn't a better coach than Harbaugh. We just got beat by a more talented, and healthier team.
That and our defensive plan was stupid. But that's on Durkin, not Harbaugh.
November 30th, 2015 at 9:16 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 1:19 PM ^
Meyer isn't a better coach than Harbaugh.
Meyer may very well be, in the totality of college coaching (recruiting, etc.) a better college coach than Harbaugh.
He has certainly achieved way more.
November 30th, 2015 at 9:25 AM ^
IMO it's not schmatics, it's talent. If our recruits over the past 4 years panned out we'd be fine. But, we got beat on the lines and from a lack of production with our RB. If Green was who he was supposed to be and all our highly ranked o-lineman like Dawson, Kalis, LTT, Fox, etc. were who they were supposed to be and our d-line was healthy this game would look a lot different. We just had a banged up d-line and we've had really bad luck/production/development of recruiting stars over the past 3-4 years.
Harbaugh can't make Ojemudia, Mone, and Glasgow healthy. Harbaugh can't make our LBs tackle. Ross, RJS, Gedeon, and Bolden were all highly ranked recruits. But, that's not a halftime adjustment that can be made. Harbaugh can't make Kalis, Dawson, and Green live up to their recruiting profiles to make the running game work at halftime. These aren't halftime adjustments that can be made. They were better players plain and simple IMO. I don't know if it was bad player development with Hoke, poor planning of redshirts, poor talent evaluation, etc. But, whatever it was we had a lot of highly ranked recruits that either didn't pan out, were injured, or are not even on the team any longer.
November 30th, 2015 at 8:45 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 10:13 AM ^
Les Miles said on his exit that Carr was NOT strong enough to be the Michigan coach, or something simlilar, implying it took a harder personality. Carr also won with Mo's players Mo recruited, and then it slowly trailed off. Sure, Carr nailed the QB position, and it carried him.. .but when he began to lose to Tressel consistently, was when we erred, and not replacing him with our best option to beat Tressel, to keep up with OSU...that happened to be Dantonio at the time, suffice to say. It is what it is. THAT is how we kept up with Woody, by getting the guy who could beat him. We didn't this time. Now, you can see the seeds that were planted, and where we are at right now.
Recall what Tressel said about the program, how far behind we really were... He was right. It won't be righted until we get guys on the OL that will have the type of personality that you want. Not guys like Kalis or Magnuson or Braden. You need the Everitt and Cocozzo types, that you want on your side. MSU has them in Allen and Conklin. We, DO NOT. Not yet.
The "Brandon approved" comment, snarky as it was, is actually valid. And so was Larry Footes when he mentioned how we need more inner city dogs on the LB spot, or whatever it was he said that everyone felt was racist, but I didn't feel it was. He was right.
November 30th, 2015 at 4:15 PM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 8:59 AM ^
In terms of depth our strength coming in to the year was the D line and through the first half of the year it was dominant. But once the injuries to Glasgow, Ojemudia happened it hurt the D line as everyone could see once we faced a spread to run team at Indiana gash us right through the middle. I knew that would be the blueprint Urban would use and that it would be tough to stop Barrett and Elliot when Ohio State would run their base O. Without actually counting I would guess they ran 3 plays 90% of the game and Michigan's D could not stop it.
Michigan's Linebackers were constantly out of position and the arm tackles that everyone complains about is a result of this. It also does not help the linebackers when the D line struggled to gain leverage and quite frankly the depth of the D line creates issues for the linebackers. When a linebacker has a guard or tackle at the second level damn near every play it's hard to defend agile runners like Elliott and Barrett. So don't just blame the linebackers.
Another issue that plagues Michigan outside of depth is talent. Like I said above this team has talent, but I could scan Ohio States roster and find at least two guys at every position that could start at Michigan.
At the end of the day I don't want to wait 3-4 years for Harbaugh to have "his players" and I don't think it will take that long. It's important to keep developing the current roster while building the depth and talent level. This team next year will be loaded with seniors and Ohio State loses a lot of experienced players and will not be nearly as loaded next year. Michigan has a chance to bridge the gap and return the favor next year in Columbus and the way it lines up can see a lot of back and forth with us possibly beating them next year in Columbus and then Ohio State coming back the following year to beat Michigan at home.
November 30th, 2015 at 9:05 AM ^
WMU, NIU, Indiana, Minnesota and arguably Maryland all gave OSU a tougher game. So if it wasn't "scheme" and OSU's players were so "up" where were ours? We are worse tacklers than all of those other teams? OK, Cardale Jones started those games and we would match up much better with him as QB. But that argument points back to the fact that our base scheme on D matches up better with Jones than Barrett. And whatever the hell that was on D that attempted in scheme to match up with Barret was a train wreck from the beginning and we never changed it.
And therein lies my fundamental beef. I don't think our players were less "up" and I don't think they are 6th worse team OSU played this year. We could see that what we were doing scheme wise did not work repeatedly and we never tried anything different. What did we have to lose? We were already losing? Whether it was stubborness or plain ol resignation to fate, I don't care. It was ridiculous.
November 30th, 2015 at 9:33 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 9:40 AM ^
What I saw at the game was a lot of 6 man boxes, 3-3, 4-2 and deep safeties with very little else. I agree on your assessment of their execution, and I'm convinced we made it easier than it needed to be.
November 30th, 2015 at 9:42 AM ^
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November 30th, 2015 at 9:37 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 9:41 AM ^
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November 30th, 2015 at 10:23 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 9:44 AM ^
"the Monday morning quarterbacks" questioning all the coaches again. Wake me up when this passes please.
November 30th, 2015 at 11:29 AM ^
It is far better to question the paid and professional coaches than it is to impugn the talent, effort, smarts etc of the players (who I think do have their very souls dedicated to winning thanks in no small part to Harbaugh's raging competitive fire).
I'm tired of the Monday morning criticism of the individual players, They are who we thought they were, except way better than they were last year, again kudos to Harbs and the staff.
The questioning of the scheme is fair game as are the decisions of any person in a high position of management or leadership in any competitive endevour. I don't see a lynch mob here for any of the coaches. But to have no questions in the face of what we just watched, yikes, I just can't do that.
November 30th, 2015 at 10:24 AM ^
with the sky is falling.......The "I can't believe how far apart these two teams are/ the gap is much larger than I thought, etc"....
There's way too much weight being placed here on this one game. It you take all the information this year OSU would probably be favored by around a touchdown next week at Michigan and going from pick'em with no major injuries (considering Rudock was okay) to -7 this late in the season is such a huge move it would probably be an overreaction.
This was OSU's 2nd largest win of the season. I doubt Michigan is the 2nd worst or one of the worst teams they've faced this year.
On that day, in that game they played extremely well but it's also just one football game. If they re-played things from the point of the Michigan punt block in the 1st quarter and we set up a return instead of going for the block maybe we go ahead early. Maybe panic and doubt sets it for OSU after last week loss after that plus this isn't a team built to play from behind either.
If you look at the big picture this year the Buckeyes weren't anywhere near this level overall. It was just a great performance by a good team on that day.
Just like we weren't 1 point worse than them in 2013 or as close to them in last year's game, they're not 3 or so levels better than us either this year.
Sorry for the long Monday morning rant but needed to get that off my chest.
November 30th, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^
November 30th, 2015 at 12:50 PM ^
We've only beaten them four times since the Lewinsky Scandal broke and two of those four wins came while Clinton was still President.
November 30th, 2015 at 11:29 AM ^
Simple. IU showed the recipe to beat Michigan was to run outside zone at a face tempo. OSU just had the defense to shutdown our offense.
November 30th, 2015 at 2:50 PM ^
Did the same thing for us. And we totally ignored it.
November 30th, 2015 at 2:06 PM ^
I'd like to hear some other peoples thoughts. I think it is downright embarassing that Michigan was unable to make defensive adjustments. I understand the bend but dont break, but there comes a time where it just doesnt make sense. This all came to fruition during the Indiana game. If im Durkin at half, I promise you I put 9 in the box and man to man with Lewis and Peppers to stop the run game. Run blitz everytime and if we get beat deep with our two best defenders so be it. I can accept losing when our best guys don't play well. Same thing was on display against Ohio St.. Lets just sit there and keep getting chunked to death without making any adjustments, it's just absurd. You think Bill Belichick would allow a team to keep running on him like that? No... Im questioning how smart Durkin actually is. I mean it's elementary to make an adjustment like that. Thoughts??
November 30th, 2015 at 4:18 PM ^