Washington Snowflakes: The Coaching
September 11th, 2021 at 11:46 PM ^
Overall great game plan. Knew the strength of their defense was secondary and took them completely out of it. Defensive game plan was perfect
September 12th, 2021 at 1:57 PM ^
shhh ? be careful. You’ll wake the trolls & haters with this type of post. Lol
Couldn’t agree more, coaches took their best defensive players, basically, out of the game
loved every second of that game plan
September 11th, 2021 at 11:47 PM ^
A win is a win. And I love it when Michigan wins.
September 11th, 2021 at 11:47 PM ^
I'm not sold on the Macdonald defense. The secondary is still lost and wide receivers were wide open a lot tonight. Now imagine OSU's receivers in those same situations....they're gonna pass for 500 yards.
September 11th, 2021 at 11:55 PM ^
Probably. Although you know what OSU can’t do? Start this season 2-0 like we did. Joking aside, I don’t disagree that our CB a don’t look great at all. Best we can hope for is improvement throughout the season. Coming into the year we knew that this was a potential weakness.
September 11th, 2021 at 11:56 PM ^
Montana picked off Washington's QB 3 times last week, their offense is terrible. We are going to get exposed against a good team.
September 12th, 2021 at 7:40 AM ^
They scored fucking 10 points! And we're going to get exposed because we didn't have 3 Int's like lowly Montana did? Way too much bitching and misplaced perspective from so many of you after a fantastic night. Michigan beat the fuck out of Washington both physically and on the scoreboard. Ran it down their throats for almost 350 yards and yet many of you find something to bitch about for the sake of bitching about something. WTF!
September 12th, 2021 at 8:34 AM ^
You absolutely nailed it! Not sure what some of the bitchers were watching, but in my man cave, the D was amazing. Ok, tick tick, they gave up some garbage time yards, who friggen doesn't?? An absolutely DOMINATING D performance.
September 12th, 2021 at 2:05 PM ^
Preach brother. Mid way 3rd qtr their dline wanted nothing to do with us. We beat them down badly. ??
The arm chair coaches within this blog are ridiculous. Seems like if we aren’t #1 In both offense and defense , within the entire NCAA, those dummies won’t be happy.
M fan base summed up in your post. It really is sad.
hell of a win. Hell of a night. I’m slightly hungover after a late night victory whiskey….and don’t care at all. Woooooooo
Hail
September 12th, 2021 at 8:09 PM ^
Couldn't agree more, man. I don't know wtf these people expect. Would it have been nice to get some more passing in last night? Sure, of course. But they didn't need to. We wore them down by design, because of the looks they continued to present. So the coaches kept running it. It was safe, brutally effective, and shortened the game considerably. These are all great things.
Enjoy a wonderful win. After last year, you'd think more people would be happy seeing the team (seemingly) making real strides. We're not the '85 Bears yet, or the mid 2000's Patriots either. That's okay. Enjoy the positive progressions, and hope for more.
Save the bitching for when we lose, or at least for when it's actually warranted.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:49 AM ^
One thing is for sure, there were a few opportunities for an interception that didn't happen. I am not so worried about the defense right now as I am about the offense, especially the passing game. Should the running game run into obstacles, will the passing game be able to pick up the slack? Last night didn't instill any confidence that it can. One more "tune up" game against North Ill before Rutgers. Rutgers will come in with all guns blazing now that Shitziano is back steering the ship.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:24 AM ^
Shitziano
Really. Have we sunk down to the level of a message board that posts puerile crap like this?
September 12th, 2021 at 12:13 AM ^
I thought our secondary was decent in coverage. I didn’t see too many really open guys. It was more that we didn’t make some plays on the ball when they were there. Still, no huge breakdowns. I’ll take that defensive performance.
September 12th, 2021 at 6:48 AM ^
On several occasions, Washington's offense snapped the ball before our defense was lined up on the field. I saw a lot of the defense looking at the sideline, confusion, pointing, changing defensive formation, just as the ball was being snapped.
I'm sure that SOME opponent is going to try to run the same hurry-up. I'm also sure that McD will address it in practice and adapt.
By the time we get to OSU, the defense will have a season under its belt. I too doubt we have the talent to hang, but if we improve along the way, it might not be as gruesome as we thought.
The other big thing they will need to work on will be WR blocking on the bubble screens. Washington has very good CB's, but... damn. We never had a sniff at making any of those work.
September 12th, 2021 at 10:10 AM ^
Ronnie Bell was a ferocious blocker , The wideouts didn't block anybody when Cade threw the ball to Corum in the flat
September 12th, 2021 at 2:21 PM ^
WR blocking wasn’t there this week. Too many of those screens go forever if there was some blocking.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:30 AM ^
Stroud had no pressure on him until the later stages of their game and was picking them apart. He missed some guys because he occasionally throws high, probably a mechanics issue. He was mediocre on 4th downs.
The Washington QB was under a lot of pressure until the final stages of our game when he was able to get into a rhythm. Their TD was against #19, Rod Moore. a freshman I never heard of!
September 12th, 2021 at 10:57 AM ^
Can we wait to be depressed about Ohio State until we play them? Yes they are better than us, but does that mean we have to pretend we are losing to them every damn week? We just beat a P5 team. Let's take a minute to just enjoy it instead of being miserable fucks because it hypothetically wasn't a good enough win to beat one of the best teams in the nation.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:38 PM ^
You do realize that OSU passed for almost 500 yards today....... AND LOST.....
September 12th, 2021 at 12:47 PM ^
It's game two dude. The DB's are learning something new and playing in it for the first time, growing pains should be expected.
Now, its fair to worry, since you are a UM fan, and the secondary talent is not what it was a few years ago for sure. But so far the the Macdonald defense has done its job, not allowed many points or looked stupid much. If we get 5-6 games in, then go ahead and sell if you'd like.
September 11th, 2021 at 11:49 PM ^
Coaches treated Washington’s secondary like it was Seattle’s legion of doom. Can we throw for 44 yards and beat PSU? Wisconsin? OSU?
I sincerely hope the game plan next week is to get Cade as many passing reps as realistically possible as we need to figure out the passing game without Bell.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:07 AM ^
No and that’s why this game was so frustrating. You have a week maybe two to fox that shit or you’re getting stomped by those teams as well as MSU.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:26 AM ^
Seriously? After the shitshow that was last year, you are "frustrated" by a 31-10 win?
Get some perspective.
September 12th, 2021 at 6:53 AM ^
I've had chronic BPONE for a loooong time and even I couldn't get frustrated over this win.
Maybe, changing your avatar to a smiley face would help. :)
September 12th, 2021 at 12:15 AM ^
My thoughts exactly. The passing game needs to be improved before Wisconsin. Wisconsin has the defense to hold the RBs to under 150 yards rushing, possibly under 100 if the game gets out of hand. That won't be good enough to beat them in Madison.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:23 AM ^
I think everyone would agree that we’re not going to beat too many more good teams with this passing output. But I also think fans overstate the importance of a few game reps. I don’t think Cade would be a different QB now if he’d passed 5 or 10 more times tonight.
I’m not sure Cade’s the guy and I get the sense the staff feels the same way, regardless of their public statements. Frankly my takeaway from this game is that we might be a quarterback away from being a good team.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:54 AM ^
The gamelan was to run. Doenst mean we cannot pass. Don't worry.
September 12th, 2021 at 2:37 PM ^
Agreed. But when was the last time we had a good passing offense? I think that's where a lot of the concern comes from. It's not like Cade has been lights out before this year and we just had a game where we didn't need to pass. This passing attack, especially now without Ronnie Bell, is unknown. We could have a good passing game, it might be complete garbage.
Either the coaches don't trust the passing game or they're keeping it hidden until needed. IMO, given what Harbaugh likes to do I doubt the passing game is being kept hidden until its needed. I hope I'm wrong and the coaches are finally game planning for each opponent's strengths and weaknesses and when we face a shit secondary we're gonna air it out, I just don't think that's the case.
September 12th, 2021 at 3:58 AM ^
Could Penn State have beaten Wisconsin if they only had 50 yards rushing? Oh wait, that's what happened.
September 12th, 2021 at 4:12 AM ^
They all laughed when I said Bell shouldn't have been returning punts. We literally have no passing game now.
September 12th, 2021 at 7:53 AM ^
There are teams all across the country who recruit worse "every position on offense" than michigan that run a functional fucking pass offense.
What the fuck is going on?
September 12th, 2021 at 8:52 AM ^
I've been confused many years. I've always thought the objective was to win the game, convincingly if possible. Now I find out the objective is to demonstrate you've got a functional pass offense. So, really OSU (with 484 yds passing) met the objective and M with a convincing win did not.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:11 AM ^
Washington has an excellent set of DBs. One is more than excellent. Their game plan kept a safety as deep as any defense in the country. Their game plan was to stop the pass and not the run. Talk about Don Brown stubborn?
While history of Jim Harbaugh passing attacks is unimpressive, this isn't the game to worry about it.
September 12th, 2021 at 4:24 PM ^
Yeah, it's odd to see everyone parrot the bit about UW's incredible corners when they haven't seen a competent passing offense in two years.
September 11th, 2021 at 11:50 PM ^
Good win for tonight, I enjoyed it -- but overall it's just false hope for the future. Same thing we've seen since Hoke arrived basically. We love playing physical and running the ball, but we have no answer when we can't do that. So our path to a National Championship is to "out-physical" Ohio State, Wisconsin, and teams like Alabama in a hypothetical playoff. That's not happening. But I'll still enjoy tonight and last Saturday. I'm just not fooling myself into thinking it means anything in the big picture.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:05 AM ^
This is absolutely the right take. Enjoy it -- 31-10 is a damned good result -- but I think there are serious reasons for concern down the road.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:09 AM ^
No one expects this team to make a playoff or NC run.
September 12th, 2021 at 1:15 AM ^
I'm speaking more for this coach and coaching style, moreso than this actual team. There's no championship aspirations with this style of football unless we recruit like Alabama. And I love Harbaugh, but I hate his approach. These should be games to tune up your offense for an inevitable shootout against OSU and others. Instead, he just enjoys squishing inferior opponents. It'd be like preparing to make the varsity HS basketball team by beating up on your 9 year old brother in the driveway. Then you play someone bigger than you and have no plan.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:33 AM ^
I agree with your sentiment. After taking some time to reflect on last night's happenings, I am pleased that the running backs look good, the offensive line is getting a good push and someone finally stopped thinking it was a good idea to get 4 running backs and 3 tight ends involved in the game plan each week.
However, I am not sure I have felt this conflicted about a Michigan victory since the Illinois - Michigan stupidity of 2010. I wrote before the season a couple of times that I was not so concerned about the actual wins and losses (to a degree) but rather more interested that this is the coaching staff that should be leading Michigan in the future. On that end, Michigan has had two games against mediocre opponents and has done very little to give me hope that we can beat a team worth a shit if they can contain our RB's. Harbaugh has shown time and time again that when we can run the ball effectively and 'protect the defense' that we can and almost always will beat anyone that is of lesser or equal talent to us. That is no small accomplishment and I am not trying to downplay it any way because we've certainly had worse. But on the other hand, if you're not going to devote any game reps to an offensive/game philosophy that you're certainly going to need at some point, I have a hard time getting super excited.
Maybe Harbaugh decides the next two weeks to go full on air-raid with a rapid tempo, heavy RPO use and obvious attempt to squeeze as many plays/points out of the first 3 quarters as possible. I'll gladly eat my English Muffin with a large side of crow if they do. But, I suspect they'll be perfectly content to demolish NIU and Rutgers into paste and I just cannot get thrilled about it.
September 12th, 2021 at 9:23 PM ^
You lost me at comparing Harbaugh to RichRod.
I’m sorry, but comparing this game to our 2010 basketball on grass contest against Illinois where we won in overtime with our one good defensive play of the season is a very bad take.
Harbaugh offense >>>>>> Gerg Defense and getting our ass pounded by every somewhat physical team we played(including a mediocre Miss State team in a bowl)
September 12th, 2021 at 12:46 PM ^
Here is thing. They game planed for Washington, not to play every team on the schedule for a single game. You determine their strengths, try to mitigate it and exploit their weaknesses…
the fake punt was a great call and to me demonstrated, harbaugh has that fire ! I’m all aboard.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:08 AM ^
If you watched this afternoon's game, you can absolutely shove this OSU team around. Alabama...is another story.
September 12th, 2021 at 12:30 AM ^
Who cares if we can shove Alabama around? If we are playing Alabama it means we are in the playoffs having the best season we've had in 2 decades, and probably won the Big Ten for the fist time since 2004. Even if Alabama curb stomps us it will have been an amazing season.
September 12th, 2021 at 1:21 AM ^
I highly doubt we can even impose our will on Iowa or Wisconsin. We've seen what happens when Harbaugh tries to out-muscle those teams. It's just not a winning style of offense. It'll beat lower and mid-tier opponents, but you basically have no chance of a playoff run. Stanford is always the benchmark for this brand of football. They were at peak manball, had a mega talent at QB, and didn't come close to winning a championship.
September 12th, 2021 at 2:10 AM ^
"We've seen what happens when Harbaugh tries to out-muscle those teams"
In 2018 we beat a ranked Wisconsin 38-13. In that game, we rushed for 320 yards, and passed for 124 - with only 20 passing attempts.
IMO, Corum and Haskins are the best RB combo we've had at Michigan in decades - it's very possible we can beat them in a slugfest.
"didn't come close to winning a championship"
2010 Stanford was 12-1, won the Orange Bowl, finished 4th in the country and lost only to a great Oregon team that lost the BCS championship by a whisker. I'd say that's pretty close.
He also came within 3 points of winning the SB.
Hell, I don't know if we can ever beat aOSU, let alone 'bama. But let's at least work from facts.
September 12th, 2021 at 2:58 PM ^
Not hysteria and depression?
September 12th, 2021 at 8:11 AM ^
The coaches came up with a game plan which curb stomped Washington. Dominate on the ground and minimize exposure to turnovers. Force Washington to pass the ball. What’s not to like? This board can bitch about not having enough game reps in the passing game, but it wasn’t part of the game plan. You know who also needs game reps? Our young OL.
September 12th, 2021 at 11:35 AM ^
This can't be upvoted enough.
A good coherent gameplan on both sides of the ball. One they made minor adjustments to throughout the game to counter their opponents adjustments.
And a young O-line that looked terrible last year that looks pretty darn good in at least one phase of the game this year after 100 game reps.
September 12th, 2021 at 8:11 AM ^
Stupid double post. I hate accidentally brushing an ad when trying to save a comment.
September 11th, 2021 at 11:50 PM ^
I mean….. yikes. How is that a winning offense