where do we go from here

Submitted by sedieso on
well, i think it is safe to say that juice picked us apart. there is no reason our defense should give up over 500 yards. the unfortunate part is that penn state is coming up, and that game is away and they have more play makers IMO. the fortunate part though is that we should win next week and looking at the schedule we match up well against little brother and i am still not convinced that northwestern, purdue, and minnesota are all that good. i am being very optimistic when i say this but i still think we can win these games and get to 7-5.
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KzooRick

October 4th, 2008 at 8:31 PM ^

Yes, I agree, State, Northwestern, Purdue, and Minnesota are all winnable games.  Expecting a team this young in a transistion year such as it is to win them all in a row is very optimistic.  Im afriad 3 out of 4 is alot more likely.  Expecting UM to upset two ranked teams on back to back weeks would have been very optimisitc also.  We have a very good defensive line, but we also have some big weeknesses at spots on the defense, as Brian has pointed out, and they got exploited.   Beating Wisky didn't change that.  Its not like last year when we knew we had the talent and all they had to do is play up to it and not get injured.  UM just dosn't have enough talent, but I think thay will soon.  The talent level from being a middle of the road big ten team and being a contender is not that great anymore but there also is not a whole lot of room for error if you have a down year.

Joined: 09/15/2008

MGoPoints: 41

DoctorWorm

October 4th, 2008 at 8:53 PM ^

Well, thanks for marking down MSU as "winnable" instead of the usual "HAHA WE'RE GOING TO KICK THEIR ASS YES". Credit for that much progress.

Joined: 08/13/2008

MGoPoints: 62

hat

October 4th, 2008 at 9:15 PM ^

I don't think the D played quite as badly as the final numbers indicated.  They were consistently put in bad spots by our offense, which did nothing in the second and third quarters.  They hung in there and made some big plays up until the Shaw fumble.  You just can't give a talented offense like UI's the ball again and again.  The refs also did us no favors, calling multiple borderline pass interference penalties and swallowing their whistle on some really blatant holds by the Illinois OL (including on Juice Williams's long run). 

There was no excuse for that 75-yard TD pass, though.  A converted TE should not get behind our DBs.  I don't understand why our safety play is so poor on these deep balls.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 15

wolverine1987

October 4th, 2008 at 9:32 PM ^

I started another thread because i was so frustrated with the safety play--and it's not just on deep balls, its missed tackles and bad pursuit angles on runs as well.  But i don't agree with you, while its true the offense didn't help, its pretty clear to me that the defense was the reason for this--multiple missed tackles, bad play from Mouton and mistakes from Ezeh, and the aforementioned safeties.  It seems 2 out of every three downs were strong, but them a long pass or missed tackle meant a first down.  Although I will say that McGuffie ran like a pussy on that goal line run from the 1.

Joined: 07/07/2008

MGoPoints: 18065

cbuswolverine

October 4th, 2008 at 10:12 PM ^

It happened over and over and over.  There were receivers open all over the place.  The defense gave up pass plays of 46, 57, 77, and 37 yards.  There were blown coverages left and right.  Tackling sucked.  It was disgusting.

Hell, they didn't even have a huge advantage in time of possession because every time we went three and out, it took them about four plays to go 80 yards and score a touchdown.

How you can watch a game where we give up 45 points, 501 yards, and ~25 yards per completion and come away with the impression that our defense played well is completely beyond me.

 

Joined: 08/14/2008

MGoPoints: 5958

sedieso

October 4th, 2008 at 9:40 PM ^

darryl clark is not as fast as juice but he is a better passer and all three of psu's wr's are better than nething illinois has with the exception of benn IMO

Joined: 09/12/2008

MGoPoints: 563

hat

October 4th, 2008 at 9:42 PM ^

Fair enough.  I will add that it's maddening how tailback screens seem to be the perfect antidote for our blitz every time. 

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 15

MrVociferous

October 4th, 2008 at 11:28 PM ^

Dude, everyone needs to take two steps back from the ledge.  The issue is this: we don't have enough talent on this team to win games when we make mistakes. We barely have enough talent to win games when we don't make mistakes.  Carr and Co. left the talent cupboard very empty when they left.  Its a big part of the reason why we underperformed most of last season when Henne and Hart were hurt, there was no talent backing them up.   As a result, we're not going to be "Michigan good" this season.  Accept it.

If, however, you actually watch what is going on in these games instead of trying to find some bullshit "one play that lost the game" excuse (the game is long and there are many, many reasons we lost) then you would see what this team can be capable of when the talent cupboard has been restocked.

There is a reason we have a lot of true freshman playing on this team.  Its because they are better than the upperclassmen they are replacing.  Quit being a bunch of whiney bitches and support this team as they go through some growing pains.

Also, if I caught any of you bitching like this near me -- in a bar, on the street, in front of your mother -- I would personally knock you the fuck out.  Chill. The. Fuck. Out.  Its one year of bad football.  We'll be better next season

The End.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 1299

blue edmore

October 4th, 2008 at 11:39 PM ^

Excellent point, couldn't said it much better.  We were overmatched, execution-wise, though it also seemed like we didn't get too many calls our way (a lot of holding of our d-ends by the Illini).  People just need to be patient around here until we get this talent in sync with the system.

Joined: 07/01/2008

MGoPoints: 4

maracle

October 5th, 2008 at 1:19 AM ^

I think regressions were inevitable this season.  Last game wasn't really even a good game, it was a good 4th quarter.  At least we lost to a team that had a good chance to beat us regardless.

 I expect to lose to Penn State and Ohio State too, if we beat them then that's great but not a surprise if we don't.

But we really need to beat the teams that are beatable.  Losing to Toledo would be a serious blow, we need to get all the wins we ought to if we want to get to a bowl.

The success of this season to me is basically binary...bowl or no bowl?  We're not going to win a big ten title.  If we get into a "good" bowl somehow we're probably going to get destroyed.  There's nothing wrong with a middling bowl this season.  But it's pretty easy to get into a bowl these days, so no bowl = we suck.

As for today's game, take away some of the big plays from Illinois and it might have been close or even gone the other way.   I see 5 plays for 35+ yards for Illinois, plus 2 short yardage drives off fumbles.  Those plays accounted for pretty much all of their points.  Right now the big mistakes are what's killing us, not sustained drives.

Joined: 08/31/2008

MGoPoints: 332