Why has Michigan struggled in night games under Harbaugh?

It's not just night games. The team has struggled all season aside from the opener against Florida. And I know exactly why. The complete lack of Yips in the first row. Warde Manuel get on that shit, and move the Yips back to where they belong.

Personally I believe it has everything to do with the fact that all the losses have been either an away game, a neutral site game without a first rounder and a Mackey award winner, or in a monsoon with an objectively mediocre offense.  Ignoring MSU and FSU for a second, the rest of the games have been away games.  Literally every university student LOVES night games and the crowds are usually far drunker and more rowdy, which creates a MUCH more hostile playing environment.  Not that hard to understand how this can cause people to underperform.  Calm down and be logical

To sum it up succinctly: Too much pressure. The pro system is too pro based. We play far too conservatively. The expectations are too high (in that it becomes a psychological detriment to the players and team). Maybe with the right talent and when talent has been "developed" (i.e. upper classmen) this will all work out (see Alabama). At the end of the day I am just disappointed we haven't utilized the talent we have better. I get there is a "system" and "trust in execution" by coaches, but we have the same talent Penn State has (if not better) sans a functional O-line (but fuck that excuse bc FSU last season) and we haven't adjusted to maximize it. Same old story though *sigh*

Maybe its past JH bedtime. Good lord the absurdy of some of these posts is absolutely ludicrous. Geesh!!!! Next up for fellow mgobloggers.....The Michigan record of Oct 21st night games. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah.......  Let us all over analyze every fucking thing and create a post about it. 

Because I touch myself at night.

Other than Iowa (who is tough at home at night and almost beat Penn State), we beat the teams we were better than, and lost to the teams that were better than us (yes including MSU this year).

Just like we would have done during the day.

It has almost nothing to do with nighttime.

Because  night games are against the natural order.

I have it on good authority that Harbaugh has specifically trained this team to sleep at night (and to be awake during the day). How does he do this? Basically every team activity is scheduled for early in the morning, mid day, or early evening. Most players have naturally fallen into a regular rhythm of sleeping somewhere between the hours of 11PM - 7AM.

While that may seem unrelated because games rarely go as late as 11PM, most peoples' energy levels decrease throughout the course of the day. Think of it like your phone's battery: you start the day at 100%, and as you get closer to the end of the day you get closer to 0%. Back to the Michigan football players. They start their days at 7AM with 100% "charge" and due to Harbaugh's sleep conditioning, they're closer to needing another "charge" during night games, leading them to play a bit more sluggishly. Again they don't actually need a charge. I'm using "charging" as a comparison to the way humans have to sleep.

The upshot of all of this is that Harbaugh needs to vary the sleep schedule of his team. Any method in which he can disrupt players late at night should work. Bo used to sneak into West Quad every night and blow airhorns in the players' ears for 4 months prior to any night games in order to break up any undesirable sleep patterns. And it wasn't just Bo. Any good football coach does this. Whenever Fielding Yost's teams played in primetime ESPN games he would famously deny them hard tack for weeks on end, causing hunger pains which disrupted their sleep.

In both cases players were given a solid 8 hours the day of the game and then sent out onto the field, reminding the team "your batteries is now at 100% like your iPhones are in the morning." This is where that famous Michigan phrase comes from.

To see this aspect of the game overlooked really just shows the incompetence of this staff.

sleeping with an enthusiam unknown to mankind

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