WMU: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
The Good:
- Mattison's defensive schemes looked better than GERGs
- Good blitzing and opportunistic defensive play
- Kovacs, Herron and Demens
- Team looked more disciplined on both sides of the ball than last year...no turnovers and only 1 penalty
- Both Spread-Option and West Coast stuff worked...having more variety in our arsenal may bail us out at some point down the road
- Denard is still Denard
- Shaw and Fitz, Koger and Roy
The Bad:
- Special teams remain too "special"
- Not enough pressure from our front 4 on defense
- Cornerbacks still very bad
- Wow we really couldn't cover that one guy they kept throwing to over and over again, could we?
The Ugly:
- I know it's dangerous and all, but seeing a football game called in the 3rd quarter was disappointing
- Craig James, on several occassions, calling spread-option formations "pro style"
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:40 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:09 PM ^
they were not great. Avery made some good plays, but also made some bad ones. Without Woolfolk we are in trouble.
I'm beginning to think we have a special teams curse or something. It was embarassing AGAIN.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:21 PM ^
They were at least something approaching awful. WMU started the game something like 14/15 passing and had four drives within our territory in the first half. If Jake Ryan had not tipped that pass, we probably would have been trailing at halftime.
There were several plays were they looked lost lining up.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:50 PM ^
You can't pin that all on the corners. Carder faced absolutely no pressure until the first INT.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:41 PM ^
Still not convinced on the secondary and the return coverage was atrocious. Had some issues covering those misdirection run plays as well. Offense seemed to click a lot quicker than I thought they would and the only thing I could think was what a difference a healthy Shaw and Toussaint make. Herron = hero. Kovacs = Holy shit manchild.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:44 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:48 PM ^
I wondered about that too do you think it would make that much of a difference. I was noticing some pretty bad angles and what not out there, it might not have helped that the second half was essentially a wet mess either.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:53 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:07 PM ^
The kick-off coverage was poor for most of the game. Even with the shorter kicks, they should be better than this. Most of all, please don't play Woolfolk on the coverage team anymore.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:44 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:46 PM ^
They didn't look great, but they certainly took a step forward. Tackling was MUCH improved, especially in the open field. But coverage was still soft, and I'm not sure but I think our LBs were out of position on some of those bigger runs.
The nice thing was seeing the adjustments to our deficient coverage. Instead of sitting back and taking "death by papecuts," we brought the heat. We got in Carder's face and caused turnovers. Our coaching staff is willing and able to adjust.
Good first game, Brady. GO BLUE!
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:46 PM ^
I did notice and appreciate the discipline that Michigan had. A good clean game was played by the maize and blue today. I loved it.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:49 PM ^
Today we played a well coached football team with a solid QB.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:49 PM ^
I thought the defensive line struggled to get pressure on the first possession but settled in nicely after that. And Will Heininger seemed to have a pretty good game.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:52 PM ^
I have wanted to see this guy play in prime time, and he did not disappoint today. Ricky Barnum picked a bad time to get a suspension, becuase he will have to do a lot to win his job back.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:52 PM ^
The defense came up big here and there. But WMU coverted too many 3rd and longs...something that was too common the last 3 years.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:04 PM ^
They gave up 3 third and long first downs. That's really not alot.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:19 PM ^
Third and longs should be major advantage defense to get off the field. I for one was not really impressed with Def. They were disorganized early and CBs didn't really cover all that well. I did like that whatever adjustments Mattison made were effective and by the third quarter our Def showed some improvement. Jury is still out hopefull learn some more after ND.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:19 PM ^
September 4th, 2011 at 10:43 AM ^
It looked to me like Michigan was trying to get by with a vanilla defense early on. Perhaps to not show much to ND. When they saw this wasn't working the blitzing started.
Another thing is that early on WMU was making very quick throws or throwing off of play action. As WMU's QB's confidence grew they started taking deeper drops and it cost them.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:37 PM ^
...converted on 6/11 3rd downs. That's just plain shitty.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:42 PM ^
But how many of those conversions came on their opening drive?
September 4th, 2011 at 10:21 PM ^
2/3 on opening drive. 4/8 rest of game. 3/4 in the 3rd (and final) quarter, including a 3rd-and-9 and a 3rd-and-11.
Yep, still shitty. You might want to take off those rose-colored glasses.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:53 PM ^
Corners def. weren't awful. A lot of the catches WMU made were on good coverage, just perfect passes.
September 4th, 2011 at 4:58 AM ^
WMU's QB is the real deal, when he's done at WMU he'll have a shot at the NFL.
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:54 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 7:57 PM ^
The crowd noise sounded very impressive on TV.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:02 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:22 PM ^
but I'm pretty sure he is pointing with his head.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:19 PM ^
That was a suprisingly fun game. The rain refreshed all of us overheated students.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:25 PM ^
I was watching from a bar in California. I overheard many (older) people say "I'm glad I'm here instead of at the stadium". All I could keep thinking to myself was that it could/would be a really awesome atmosphere.. cheering in the warm crazy rain. Glad you had fun.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:00 PM ^
Pluses for me were Kovacs, Herron, Corners not being turrible, and the offense playing pretty well and getting into a groove. The DL was worrisome for a while, but started to get a lot of pressure toward the end of the half-ish. Overall I think the team lookedp oor at the start, possibly because of butterflies, and settled down nicely and corraled a future NFL QB.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:03 PM ^
Although White kept catching passes, he was getting pounded almost every time. On his last catch he were T. Gordan put him in the ground he seemed pretty slow getting up. That fact that they were flying to the ball and punishing guys was great to see and I believe would have shown better results if the game had continued. They were great about having two, three, four... Eight guys around the ball on almost every tackle.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:16 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:14 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:20 PM ^
Frank Clark made a pretty nice open field tackle on a kick off. I think it was Frank Clark
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:22 PM ^
Brandon Herron was trending on twitter
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:27 PM ^
After a false start in the 3rd quarter, Van Bergen was next to Carder and the ref with an open mic. You can clearly hear him say, "We're coming again," to Carder. That is definitely "Bad" ass.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:33 PM ^
The Good:
Brady Hoke Wet T-Shirt=happiness and rain-Bos
The Bad:
Rain washing out the game.
The Ugly:
John Saunders during a delay: "So The B1G has added 2 teams this year...how do you think Nebraska and Colorado will fare in their divisions?" ?!?!?!?!!!!!!
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:38 PM ^
Lol wut?
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:13 PM ^
Thinking the same thing. What in the hell are you talking about John. That is a very obvious and bad mistake. Time to clean house ESPN. Your employees are making you look terrible.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:37 PM ^
They didn't get too many chances (team only ran 39 plays) but Fitz and Shaw both looked really good and really fast.
If they stay healthy this offense is pretty close to unstoppable.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:39 PM ^
Three TDs on 39 plays is pretty efficient. I was really digging the play calling.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:07 PM ^
We basically only got to see half a game's worth of snaps from the O and the backs had just started to get the ball rolling (and open up play action). And Denard missed what I think was a wide open TD to Dileo on the OOPS! play.
7.3 per carry (with Denard bringing down the average) is a nice little outing.
The Irish are about to enter a world of pain.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:35 PM ^
We looked a hell of a lot better than ND did today.
September 3rd, 2011 at 8:53 PM ^
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:03 PM ^
Love The 1-2 punch at Tailback of Fitz and Mike. Think I wanna call em' Blaze And Lightning.
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:15 PM ^
Please don't do that
September 3rd, 2011 at 9:43 PM ^
.....Yeah....Maybe I Shouldnt...
September 3rd, 2011 at 10:17 PM ^
Legend and Leader. It's bad enough.