First- OSU's ranks in YPP total defense the last 3 years:
2018- 72nd
2019- 1st (!!!)
2020- 83rd
One could argue "peak roster" and such, but that is still a ridiculous variance- he would improve the results on defense immediately
Hafley was also ranked the #4 recruiter overall, his first year in CFB after 10 seasons in the NFL- I know Michigan's issues aren't really in that area, but he would be a huge get there...
I still can't believe CFB fans (of all teams) have been either screaming or lol-ing about throwing the ball to Nico Collins, and Michigan started doing it, and it worked. Since when are CFB fans right about anything?
Also, those numbers for Ruiz and Bredeson are impressive, especially when you consider the front 7s they've faced this season- are these guys not great run blockers? I rarely see people "raving" about their play, Ruiz was getting blasted all season by UM fans...
I may be projecting, but I read this as less "dismissive of Michigan" and more "irritated Sparty did not step up and do Sparty things and mess with Michigan at least a little bit"....
Also, "my job made me go to Rutgers and watch sadness" irritation too maybe...
Yep, they have the awesome "Detroit" spelled out in the shape of a gun shirt that Mac wore on an episode of Always Sunny in Philly...they started right in my neighborhood in Columbus, can't believe how big they've gotten
They could break a few plays, depending on how aggressive young guys like Hill and McGrone take angles. But PSU made them look like little kids and I can't see anything more than a 43-20 game at worst. Most likely will be 44-10 or something.
Your offense looked like they suddenly remembered they'd forgotten to take off the ankle weights they'd been training with all offseason, suddenly they were at 1.5 speed. Shea looked like his Gatorade was spiked with Adderall or something. What exactly changed I wonder?
"Bad by OSU standards" does not necessarily equal "bad"... they were 15th in the nation at 3rd down defense for instance...like I said, many big plays, few drives down the field though...
OSU was not a "bad defense" last season- they finished 26th in S&P+. They just gave up some big plays...they were basically like Michigan against PSU Sat night over the course of the season...
LOL, you gotta be kidding me... OSU is 9-1 in their last 10 vs, Wisconsin including 4-0 at Camp Randall. They are 9-3 in their last 12 vs. PSU, including 5-1 at Happy Valley.
Sparty has given OSU the biggest trouble recently, but OSU is 5-0 in the last 5 games played at East Lansing...
I'm sure you know OSU's record vs. Michigan....
The problem is not the schedule, it's the teams in the B1G not providing competition...
Of course but the fact is you do have the talent to beat PSU, so this game isn't one that you need "some bullshit" to win...you can beat them straight up on the field...
Although at this point, you guys not fumbling is almost "some bullshit" in the eyes of opposing fans.
I only saw the beginning of your game, and it looked like Illinois would be lucky to reach 100 total yards. Not sure what happened, but seems like a noon road game against a crappy team would lead to "sleepwalking" a bit, especially when it's sandwiched in between Iowa and PSU...
Saban and Swinney are the only ones mentioning right now. Sustained excellence through several roster changes.
Riley is a great offensive mind, but having Mayfield, Murray and Hurts as your QBs is something most college coaches could not eff up even if they tried. Jury is still out on how well he coaches a non-Heisman talent at QB, and fares outside of playing B12 "defenses"....
Those white-out game crowds are utterly insane and can even rattle stone-cold killers like JT Barrett. Patterson is really going to have to get his head straight by then or even a Don Brown miracle won't be able to save them from a bad, bad time...
Shouldn't really be "trying to be explosive" anyway- players make explosive plays, not necessarily playcalling. Handing off to Dobbins is not an explosive play, until he makes it one.
Passing-wise, CFB is almost all YAC anyway, 90% of big play passing highlights are a crossing route or slant thrown 10 yards and the WR houses it.
Seriously though, I cannot speak to Harbaugh or Day's intelligence personally, but I'm pretty sure neither of them are stupid enough to willingly work for Dan Snyder.
Michigan returns 8/11 starters on offense including the QB and 3 NFL-bound WRs....offense starts a little shaky, new system, no surprise, but by game 5 they are...oh my god, avert your eyes...
Michigan returns 5/11 starters on defense, they start shaky, because they lost a lot, and like an alcoholic that keeps drinking, they got no DTs...Don Brown makes adjustments, and by game 5 they are...looking way better, like maybe a Mo Hurst away from being elite or something.
Your offensive coaching is (relatively) bad and has been since Jimmy came along. If the QBs suck, it's still on the coaches. Meyer realized his little spread schemes were not fooling anyone anymore and got Wilson/Day, Harbaugh figured this out also and got Gattis, but they all keep seeming to forget to get the QB and team totally immersed so that they look almost robotic and unthinking out there, relying on muscle memory. There's no crispness, flow, rhythm, playclocks are still winding down, this will keep your ceiling at "very good" even if everything clicks, until it is fixed...
I'm sure your coaches are conflicted on the issue....Sure, a running QB helps, but you also need a QB to survive the season. Shea is not exactly built like Hurts/Barrett, etc, and you have a murderer's row of front 7s in Iowa, MSU, PSU, ND and OSU on the slate. (made perfect sense to not run them much against Rutgers)
Teams that defend the pass well will key on the RB every time and let the QB get yards and get hit, this is why Barrett would end up with 20 carries/game. Gotta get that passing game firing.
"Gattis isn't Moorehead" is much less important than "Patterson isn't McSorely"
McSorely was inconsistent and often banged up, but that's where the comparison ends. I've seen McSorely perform at levels Shea has never reached, and his on field aggression and decisiveness were leagues above what Shea has shown me so far. McSorely was a "gamer", as one would say, if he was having an off day passing, he'd just start taking off and running until he was broken bits of QB. He had control of his offense even when he was driving it off a cliff sometimes...
Harbaugh is a risk-averse coach by nature, but he's had such great defenses every year (top 10 in YPP 2015-18) that he felt taking risks on offense wasn't actually all that risky, because they'd get the ball back anyway once Hurst got off the opposing QB and they peeled him off the turf and punted. Yes, that was "risky" for Harbaugh.
The D this year is probably going to be good, but it's not any of those. Adding that he does not trust Shea all that much and it's possible you are going to see more Tresselball than you want.
Personally, I would just throw the damn ball to Nico Collins. He's open. If he's covered, he's still open. And if he's triple covered against Army, he's still freaking open.
I literally have no idea what your coaches are doing. Even if you want to run the ball, you don't have to run up the middle every play. Jet sweep? Reverse? End Around? Imagine Charbonnet taking one of those fifty straight handoffs and tossing it back to Shea. He'd probably be looking at a WR or TE standing by himself downfield, facing him waving his arms. Too risky? For a 10th year senior QB or whatever Shea is? Why is that? Who's coaching him? Was he too injured? Why was he out there? Other guy not ready? Why? Who is coach...etc...
Shea is the starter and should play, he didn't seem overly limited until the very end, just high risk putting inexperienced DMac in a lot vs. knee choppy feisty TROOPS...
Wonder if Harbaugh is "bubble-wrapping" DMac to an extent, I mean, if Shea can't get through MTSU and Army unscathed, there is little chance he survives Wisconsin, Iowa, PSU, MSU, OSU... He probably saw some nightmare scenario where McCaffrey goes in and get hurt and then your season is toast. He told the OL to just go out and man up and win the game, and is not happy with the result. Game reps are great, but so is going into the OSU game without having to tape a QB together from spare parts.
The other option is McCaffrey is actually worse overall than "injured Shea", which seems impossible, but if true, yikes...
He played against their 1st team too, so did Haskins who went 20-23 for 233 and 4 TDs....meanwhile Wisky played WKU and UM played WMU...so....their methodology for QBs is questionable at best...
The only reason OSU has two losses is because they played two teams in your own top 4- had UM played them, they'd have two losses, too, and by much wider margins (OSU played them close). Case in point, the only top 25 team UM has played, they got blown out. At home. Plus, OSU has actually beaten 2 decent teams in Arizona and Arizona St, much better than ND or Indiana.
It's all irrelevant I guess, as Iowa will put it to rest.
was a formation, not an offense. Now some teams run a high % passing game primarily out of the spread a la Texas Tech, others run a zone read option, a la WVU, Illinois, which encompasses a lot more running, and there are West Coast offense types as well, etc.
They seem like a slightly better version of the team they've been for the last 8 years, capable of 9 wins and completely incapable of beating a real team like Florida.
Somewhat the same with OK St, I really wonder about these B12 teams vs. a man-eating SEC defense.
Overall, though, I think the poll is better than most, and the PSU-OSU situation will resolve itself this weekend anyway, if PSU wins @ C-Bus they deserve to be above Bama.
Oh, and Utah needs to go down to #15 or so. No way they beat a Mizzou or LSU in my opinion.
Recent Comments
You need a 'shop of the Simpsons opening with Bart writing "I will never include Maryland in a gauntlet again" for that transgression last week...
Great stuff as always, epic diner analogy
Couple things to consider about Hafley...
First- OSU's ranks in YPP total defense the last 3 years:
2018- 72nd
2019- 1st (!!!)
2020- 83rd
One could argue "peak roster" and such, but that is still a ridiculous variance- he would improve the results on defense immediately
Hafley was also ranked the #4 recruiter overall, his first year in CFB after 10 seasons in the NFL- I know Michigan's issues aren't really in that area, but he would be a huge get there...
I still can't believe CFB fans (of all teams) have been either screaming or lol-ing about throwing the ball to Nico Collins, and Michigan started doing it, and it worked. Since when are CFB fans right about anything?
Also, those numbers for Ruiz and Bredeson are impressive, especially when you consider the front 7s they've faced this season- are these guys not great run blockers? I rarely see people "raving" about their play, Ruiz was getting blasted all season by UM fans...
I see the Fear Level for OSU hasn't changed at all since preseason despite what we've done....
DISRESPEKT!!! (ok, work with me here)
I may be projecting, but I read this as less "dismissive of Michigan" and more "irritated Sparty did not step up and do Sparty things and mess with Michigan at least a little bit"....
Also, "my job made me go to Rutgers and watch sadness" irritation too maybe...
Ummm, it was 38-7. OSU outgained Wisky 431-191. 6 YPP to 3.75 YPP.
That's a shelling.
Yep, they have the awesome "Detroit" spelled out in the shape of a gun shirt that Mac wore on an episode of Always Sunny in Philly...they started right in my neighborhood in Columbus, can't believe how big they've gotten
They could break a few plays, depending on how aggressive young guys like Hill and McGrone take angles. But PSU made them look like little kids and I can't see anything more than a 43-20 game at worst. Most likely will be 44-10 or something.
Oh come on, you guys looked good last week, you can recap OSU!
Also, do I need to talk to your boss? Cause we cannot have these interruptions in our weekly Opponent Watch
Your offense looked like they suddenly remembered they'd forgotten to take off the ankle weights they'd been training with all offseason, suddenly they were at 1.5 speed. Shea looked like his Gatorade was spiked with Adderall or something. What exactly changed I wonder?
"Bad by OSU standards" does not necessarily equal "bad"... they were 15th in the nation at 3rd down defense for instance...like I said, many big plays, few drives down the field though...
OSU was not a "bad defense" last season- they finished 26th in S&P+. They just gave up some big plays...they were basically like Michigan against PSU Sat night over the course of the season...
LOL, you gotta be kidding me... OSU is 9-1 in their last 10 vs, Wisconsin including 4-0 at Camp Randall. They are 9-3 in their last 12 vs. PSU, including 5-1 at Happy Valley.
Sparty has given OSU the biggest trouble recently, but OSU is 5-0 in the last 5 games played at East Lansing...
I'm sure you know OSU's record vs. Michigan....
The problem is not the schedule, it's the teams in the B1G not providing competition...
Of course but the fact is you do have the talent to beat PSU, so this game isn't one that you need "some bullshit" to win...you can beat them straight up on the field...
Although at this point, you guys not fumbling is almost "some bullshit" in the eyes of opposing fans.
Wow, the Iowa part at the end was fantastic.... I think Dancer in the Dark was actually made to represent Iowa offense under Ferentz...
He posted that he watched your game with Iowa twice. He's probably irritated about that still....
I only saw the beginning of your game, and it looked like Illinois would be lucky to reach 100 total yards. Not sure what happened, but seems like a noon road game against a crappy team would lead to "sleepwalking" a bit, especially when it's sandwiched in between Iowa and PSU...
Saban and Swinney are the only ones mentioning right now. Sustained excellence through several roster changes.
Riley is a great offensive mind, but having Mayfield, Murray and Hurts as your QBs is something most college coaches could not eff up even if they tried. Jury is still out on how well he coaches a non-Heisman talent at QB, and fares outside of playing B12 "defenses"....
Wow, this has certainly not aged well....
Those white-out game crowds are utterly insane and can even rattle stone-cold killers like JT Barrett. Patterson is really going to have to get his head straight by then or even a Don Brown miracle won't be able to save them from a bad, bad time...
Shouldn't really be "trying to be explosive" anyway- players make explosive plays, not necessarily playcalling. Handing off to Dobbins is not an explosive play, until he makes it one.
Passing-wise, CFB is almost all YAC anyway, 90% of big play passing highlights are a crossing route or slant thrown 10 yards and the WR houses it.
Seriously…
No Ryan Day?
Seriously though, I cannot speak to Harbaugh or Day's intelligence personally, but I'm pretty sure neither of them are stupid enough to willingly work for Dan Snyder.
Michigan returns 8/11 starters on offense including the QB and 3 NFL-bound WRs....offense starts a little shaky, new system, no surprise, but by game 5 they are...oh my god, avert your eyes...
Michigan returns 5/11 starters on defense, they start shaky, because they lost a lot, and like an alcoholic that keeps drinking, they got no DTs...Don Brown makes adjustments, and by game 5 they are...looking way better, like maybe a Mo Hurst away from being elite or something.
Your offensive coaching is (relatively) bad and has been since Jimmy came along. If the QBs suck, it's still on the coaches. Meyer realized his little spread schemes were not fooling anyone anymore and got Wilson/Day, Harbaugh figured this out also and got Gattis, but they all keep seeming to forget to get the QB and team totally immersed so that they look almost robotic and unthinking out there, relying on muscle memory. There's no crispness, flow, rhythm, playclocks are still winding down, this will keep your ceiling at "very good" even if everything clicks, until it is fixed...
OK, I'm an OSU fan, but this is a good take. Nice and sadistic mindset, I can appreciate it...
After skipping last week....
This is a crucial, must-win entry for Opponent Watch that threatens to serve as a turning point for the entire BSB Era
Thankfully, you killed it as always- I think OSU may go to eleven this year...no Barrettnopass/Haskinsnorun/Schianonocoach chinks seen thus far...
I'm sure your coaches are conflicted on the issue....Sure, a running QB helps, but you also need a QB to survive the season. Shea is not exactly built like Hurts/Barrett, etc, and you have a murderer's row of front 7s in Iowa, MSU, PSU, ND and OSU on the slate. (made perfect sense to not run them much against Rutgers)
Teams that defend the pass well will key on the RB every time and let the QB get yards and get hit, this is why Barrett would end up with 20 carries/game. Gotta get that passing game firing.
"Gattis isn't Moorehead" is much less important than "Patterson isn't McSorely"
McSorely was inconsistent and often banged up, but that's where the comparison ends. I've seen McSorely perform at levels Shea has never reached, and his on field aggression and decisiveness were leagues above what Shea has shown me so far. McSorely was a "gamer", as one would say, if he was having an off day passing, he'd just start taking off and running until he was broken bits of QB. He had control of his offense even when he was driving it off a cliff sometimes...
Harbaugh is a risk-averse coach by nature, but he's had such great defenses every year (top 10 in YPP 2015-18) that he felt taking risks on offense wasn't actually all that risky, because they'd get the ball back anyway once Hurst got off the opposing QB and they peeled him off the turf and punted. Yes, that was "risky" for Harbaugh.
The D this year is probably going to be good, but it's not any of those. Adding that he does not trust Shea all that much and it's possible you are going to see more Tresselball than you want.
Personally, I would just throw the damn ball to Nico Collins. He's open. If he's covered, he's still open. And if he's triple covered against Army, he's still freaking open.
I literally have no idea what your coaches are doing. Even if you want to run the ball, you don't have to run up the middle every play. Jet sweep? Reverse? End Around? Imagine Charbonnet taking one of those fifty straight handoffs and tossing it back to Shea. He'd probably be looking at a WR or TE standing by himself downfield, facing him waving his arms. Too risky? For a 10th year senior QB or whatever Shea is? Why is that? Who's coaching him? Was he too injured? Why was he out there? Other guy not ready? Why? Who is coach...etc...
Shea is the starter and should play, he didn't seem overly limited until the very end, just high risk putting inexperienced DMac in a lot vs. knee choppy feisty TROOPS...
Wonder if Harbaugh is "bubble-wrapping" DMac to an extent, I mean, if Shea can't get through MTSU and Army unscathed, there is little chance he survives Wisconsin, Iowa, PSU, MSU, OSU... He probably saw some nightmare scenario where McCaffrey goes in and get hurt and then your season is toast. He told the OL to just go out and man up and win the game, and is not happy with the result. Game reps are great, but so is going into the OSU game without having to tape a QB together from spare parts.
The other option is McCaffrey is actually worse overall than "injured Shea", which seems impossible, but if true, yikes...
FINALLY!! JUST PUT IT INTO MY VEINS!!!!
As always great stuff. Though you did make me have to go and look up "Tre Roberson"....
Calling Out Draftageddon
Remember when you guys were seriously debating whether to take Nick Bosa or Rashan Gary first last year? That was adorable...
He played against their 1st team too, so did Haskins who went 20-23 for 233 and 4 TDs....meanwhile Wisky played WKU and UM played WMU...so....their methodology for QBs is questionable at best...
PFF's bar for 70 must be pretty high, since Martell was 10/10 for 121 yards and 1 TD with no INTs and barely made it over...
The only reason OSU has two losses is because they played two teams in your own top 4- had UM played them, they'd have two losses, too, and by much wider margins (OSU played them close). Case in point, the only top 25 team UM has played, they got blown out. At home. Plus, OSU has actually beaten 2 decent teams in Arizona and Arizona St, much better than ND or Indiana.
It's all irrelevant I guess, as Iowa will put it to rest.
was a formation, not an offense. Now some teams run a high % passing game primarily out of the spread a la Texas Tech, others run a zone read option, a la WVU, Illinois, which encompasses a lot more running, and there are West Coast offense types as well, etc.
They seem like a slightly better version of the team they've been for the last 8 years, capable of 9 wins and completely incapable of beating a real team like Florida.
Somewhat the same with OK St, I really wonder about these B12 teams vs. a man-eating SEC defense.
Overall, though, I think the poll is better than most, and the PSU-OSU situation will resolve itself this weekend anyway, if PSU wins @ C-Bus they deserve to be above Bama.
Oh, and Utah needs to go down to #15 or so. No way they beat a Mizzou or LSU in my opinion.