Western Michigan Snowflakes - Coaching Stuff

Mike Hart hire = brilliance

Thoughts on the game:

Five things I liked:

1. Only one really bad QB decision (McCarthy should’ve taken a sack instead of trying to throw the ball on his ‘fumble’)
2. Attempted two home run passes when the game was close and hit them both. There was some urgency/tempo on offense in the first half 
3. LB’s seemed to play well based upon the view in my recliner 
4. Didn’t try to screw around with getting 8 offensive skill players involved before garbage time
5. Good team tackling and edge setting on defense 

Five things which still need find tuning: 

1. Still too many downs lit on fire on with first down play calling. Also, no QB’s run out of shotgun - I’ll withhold judgement until after next week on those two as it might’ve been opponent dependent. 
2. Two stupid penalties, even if the running into the kicker was beyond cheap 
3. From a clock/timeout perspective the coaches did better at the end of the first half but when they got inside the 10 they holed up. Western was daring Michigan to throw the ball down there and we decided to beat our head off the wall 3 times
4. Corners need more reps with zone coverage before they’re going to be comfortable with it against a good opponent. On a positive note, I don’t recall any massive busts. 
5. I don’t recall a single DT even getting a mention on the telecast 

***

Very good performance today overall save the Bell injury. Let’s hope for a sprain and that he can be back soon. Go Blue!

Did.. did Harbaugh just do a game day interview? 
 

Things might actually be changing… 

I wanted to see a faster "hurry up" offense.  I was pleased how quickly they lined up and made adjustments.

Stupid penalties need to end.

Can't wait for defensive UFR because I did not understand the Xs and Os of what was going on.

They won a game they should win and won it how it should be won. Give them an A after running the same play for the nearly entire first quarter.

Score an A. I have no complaints. Product looks much improved.

Stop the zone read stuff if you're not going to let your QB keep it. But the end arounds were executed so much more crisply than the old McDoom jet sweeps. So there's a noticeable improvement. End of half clock management was great, up until the very end. Overall, I didn't see too much that was different than years past, though they did play a little faster than I remember.

The win is the most important thing by far and this is nitpicking in the larger context of the win. But seeing Gattis run into the middle of the line on 2nd and 15 and 3rd and 15 after that KO return bordered on absurd. 

Where's the assholes from the Minn vs OSU thread who were asking pretty early in that game if PJ Fleck would consider coming to UM to "fix things"? 

Here's one:

Here's another:

I give our defensive staff credit for installing a completely new system and the players credit for learning it to a functional degree already.  Was impressed that we only had to call one time out on D.  Would have not been surprised to see more confusion than we did today.  Hated that we did not call time out after 2nd down and goal in first half and re group for a TD, forcing a TO after 3rd down run failed and settling for FG.

Ok, I don’t know where else to put this, other than thankful UM coaches didn’t do this…

Wisconsin fumbles on 1st & goal from the 1, recovers back at the 7. 

2nd and goal, tries to run up the gut.

Such a Paul Chryst thing to do!

I don't know WTF they were thinking with that two point conversion attempt. But that far ahead, it didn't hurt anything and I guess they'd planned it.

I get that they wanted to establish the run, and were able to. Whether they did it at the right moment on some plays is a question mark. Other than that, it was a solid performance with very few glaring mistakes and no turnovers. So I'd call that improvement.