Were we outcoached today?
State has probably the single worst defensive secondary we will play all year, and we wait until 7 minutes left in the game to get pass happy? This game probably should have been a 17 point victory if we'd started passing it sooner.
Despite the failure to throw sooner, we still would have woe the game if only the fake punt fiasco had not resulted in a field goal. It is amazing that you'd sent out a punter with an option to run the ball on 4th down from the 16 yard line. If you want to go for it, then go for it. If you want an option to go for it, put Forcier in the shotgun to see how they line up, and if State blows the lineup audible from the qb punt to a dive, etc.
So yeah, seems to may we were outcoached in the game plan and game calling department. Great effort by Tate and a nice comeback. Can't take away from his indivual effort, or the great pass blocking he had in the 4th quarter. All in all a good effort by most of the players, many of whom are young, in their first road game.
But I keep coming back to the playcalling . . .
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:15 PM ^
Don't bother Blue Seoul. He's busy coming up with scenarios in which rape is morally acceptable.
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:59 PM ^
a philosophy class, or do you still think kevin grady is an axe murderer?
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:40 PM ^
You're confusing me with someone else.
I'm not confusing you with someone else - you're the guy who posts TS;DR posts about the moral permissability of rape in certain circumstances, and comes on MGoBlog and suggests our offensive line shaved points. In other words: A completely stupid asshole.
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:48 PM ^
If you didn't read the posts, then you can only blame yourself for not understanding them. And you seem to be rather unfriendly. Do you really need to resort to calling people names? I've tried to be more polite to you, unlike some of your more deviant circle jerk friends, as you've shown glimpses of rational thinking.
I take back any insinuation of point shaving if you inferred any. I was thinking more along the lines of undisclosed injuries or just plain unacknowledged suckiness or mismatches. I'll reserve judgment until I can review the tape.
October 3rd, 2009 at 7:10 PM ^
The fact that you're seriously entertaining the possibility of point-shaving and need to "review the tape" says all I need to know.
October 4th, 2009 at 1:13 AM ^
how you continue to read what you imagined instead of what i wrote
October 4th, 2009 at 1:31 AM ^
Rather than placing the blame on me, and the apparently 5 other people who understood the same thing I did, you should accept some blame for failing to clearly state what you meant. OR backtracking like a motherfucker. Whatever.
October 4th, 2009 at 11:27 AM ^
eh? Maybe I'm oblivious but I didn't take his first post as insinuating point shaving.
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:42 PM ^
how you guys take a misconception and turn it into a perpetual misperception. I never had anything against odoms. I had something against the stats that didn't accurately reflect his performance, (and the performance of ALL other WR's in spread offenses, he was just a handy example that people here are familiar with) But he's been much better than kelvin grady, as the stats bear out. Didn't have time to update the spreadsheet last week as I was watching MSU games, but there'll be one this week and the preliminary data shows that odoms has been more effective. Unfortunately we don't have stats to measure blocks, (that would be a huge time hog, if you're keen to grade out 7 to 10 players on 60+ plays per game) but it seems he's improved greatly in that area as well. So I am glad, because improvement is what we're all looking for.
October 3rd, 2009 at 5:03 PM ^
you should probably get banned if you accuse a player on the team shaving points with absolutely fucking nothing to back it up
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:52 PM ^
more along the lines of an undisclosed injury that somehow the bookies found out about. or just general suckiness or mismatches that weren't apparent to the lay public.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:10 PM ^
Dantonio wasn't making any groundbreaking calls himself.
In fact, I thought the pitch he called (that Winston, in turn, fumbled) was a pretty bad call. Wet ball + wet hands = poor result.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:10 PM ^
If sparty can keep coming back from mistake after endless mistakes and our boys seem tired and slow (which they were) how is that a coaching issue. The seniors need to be getting into the young guys faces and putting fingers in chests, I don't see that anymore. Maybe they don't show that kind of action on the btn (when will this station be laid rest, it's awfulllllllll). Senior leadership has been questioned before! Out coached NO, out played YES, out hustled YES. Go for a 2 point conversion at the end of regulation and slip on wet grass and we lose by one then we can question a coaching call.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:13 PM ^
Dantanio is an idiot..for one he should of taken his 3 pts when it was 20-6 and he had a 47 yard fG try...then on 3rd and 4 he ran it with 3+ minutes to go giving a spread offense the ball.
I agree the fake punt option is IDIOTIC on the coaching staff to even have that in there anywheres below your 40 yard line...that wont EVER happen again.
Also they should of been trying to throw more earlier in the game. But if you really look at it I think they did try to throw but Tate either was rushed too many times or no completions.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 PM ^
He has to run it on that play. State just blocked it poorly, leaving Kovacs free to make the tackle. Still forced Michigan to use its last timeout and they then buried us inside the 10. This is exactly what Charlie got killed for against us. Dantonio/Treadwell made the right call there. You have to trust your defense to keep a team from going 90 yards with less than 3 minutes left and no timeouts in horrid weather.
The toss on first down in the OT was absurdly stupid though. If there was ever a time to go conservative, it's with the ball first down at the 25 needing only a FG to win and one of the best kickers in the country on your side. You run it and you hope to gain some more yards on the three downs and if you get the first down or the TD, great, otherwise you give your excellent kicker a 35, 40 yard FG for the win. Instead they lost 9 on first down, putting them out of FG range. Treadwell's fortunate that his players bailed him out on the next two plays, because that could have easily cost them the game.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:32 PM ^
I think MSU's opening drive probably changed a lot with the may UM was planning on playing this game. From what I remember, our early runs were unsuccessful, and we did try and throw it early, but we had those drops that killed the drive, and when MSU goes 17 plays, 10min on their first (real) drive of the game, that puts a lot of pressure on the offense. You just can't have short drives there and that's what those dropped passes led us into.
In a lot of ways, that game couldn't have started any better for MSU. Even with the INT.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:13 PM ^
no. being outcoached is when the other team fools you or you fail to adjust, or something of that ilk. we just made foolish decisions and mistakes. i don't think that = outcoached.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:22 PM ^
that failing to exploit an awful secondary is not being outcoached. State is not a good team, and their skill players other than quarterback are below average. I'm pretty f'n frustrated that we failed to exploit the weaknesses which were so obvious coming into the game . . .
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:20 PM ^
It's only idiotic because it didn't work out. I have no problem giving our 5th year senior, all-american punter, who has made the same read succesfully multiple times in the game before, free reign to go on any 4th and short situation.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 PM ^
except when the ball is inside the 20 yard line. The risk vs. reward just isn't favorable.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:42 PM ^
That's on Zolton IME. He should be smart enough to realize that the deeper in his own territory he is, the more sure he needs to be he's going to make it.
Like if half their team fell down, I'd want him to run for sure... I know that would never happen, but if it's 90% or more that he's gonna make it, I'd want him to go.
That said, it certainly wasn't the right spot for it.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:21 PM ^
I think Dantonio's game plan seemed strong, and I did think that we showed a surprising lack of creativity on offense IMO. But despite that, I don't think there is any doubt that execution errors caused the defeat, not coaching.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:23 PM ^
I don't we think were outcoached as Dantonio became ultra conservative but I have to question Magee's play calling? You get an interception on the first drive of the game and the first play call was a run up the middle? I thought we would see something different today? You get a big turnover early in the game and common sense says you go for the endzone on the first play to completely change the complexity of the game. Michigan for whatever reason continued to try to run the ball even though it was evident MSU was playing the run? We could and dinked and dunked all game long for 5 yards here and 7 yards there and won this game by 10 points. I am extremely disappointed in the play calling and compare this game to 2007 when WVU chocked against Pittsburgh, I am really now after watching this game starting to question the hire of Rich Rod? This was an easy victory and to me we played extremely conservative football...
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:27 PM ^
The team came in with a good game plan and played disciplined football for 60 minutes. However, the offense struggled with their execution through the entire first half and we made some big mistakes. You can't put this one on the coaches.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:43 PM ^
It was better than his play calling in overtime.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:41 PM ^
I think you're right about attacking the secondary. And though there were some serious execution problems, Stonum fumbles, for instance, and I think we should have one the game by at least a td and fg, I certainly don't think we should question the hire of Rod. He's a good coach. Good and great things are coming.
I do have some micro level issues with his coaching. Playcalling here, and lack of exploiting State's weaknesses. And, last year, failure to adapt and chew clock in a couple games caused losses. But, those are on a big scale relatively minor issues which can, and should, be fixed. (Plus I pretty much put all of last year in the basement and locked it up forever and don't really fault the guy for trying to teach his scheme. we knew that it would be brutal last year).
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:40 PM ^
But those were the first plays of the game coming in with the best running attack in the Big Ten... How do you not decide to run the ball and try to establish the run game?
And what do you mean we could have dinked and dunked for 5/7 yards all game? Did you see all of the drops we had? Did you even watch the game?
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:45 PM ^
even though your name is Bouje . . :)
I don't think he was saying don't run. I think he was saying the pass was there. It was all second half with spread field. You really can't argue that.
October 3rd, 2009 at 6:46 PM ^
And our two RBs had 10 carries between them... What do you want 50 passes and 1 run?
October 3rd, 2009 at 7:41 PM ^
Yes.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 PM ^
If anything, Dantonio got outcoached. He could have put us away several times and let us back in the game by being too conservative.
Fake punt was on Zoltan - I thought they tought business students about risk? Maybe that's why our economy went to crap haha.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:33 PM ^
At a certain point, you have to blame that on the coaching staff.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:36 PM ^
They were not outcoached. Not saying he's a genius, he ain't. Pretty pathetic actually. But can't say he got outcoached by hanging on with a conservative game plan . . .
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 PM ^
How about the 3 fumbles they put on the ground and got back? One of those goes our way maybe its a different outcome. We put one ball on the ground and they get it (well except for the kick return that was out of bounds). For as bad as we played and to still force OT, not bad in my mind. As many people have posted above, who all predicted us to be 4-1 at this point? All things considered I will take it.
PS. Just once I want Woolfork to make a play. He didn't look very good again today and obviously it cost us. Also, anyone else think we should have passed more in OT?
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:37 PM ^
Passed more in OT? We had 5 plays in OT -- 3 runs, and 2 passes, one of which was the pick. Passing in OT is generally a bad idea because with one bad choice resulting in a pick, your game is essentially over. Prior to that pick, the offense was moving just fine in OT.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:40 PM ^
We finally spread the field w/wideouts in the last quarter and they literally could not stop us. Not exactly sure why we didn't do that in OT.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:29 PM ^
Dantonio had a better game plan than Rodriguez. By sending receivers consistently downfield, he was able to keep the secondary back, allowing Cousins (!) to run the ball at our linebackers and expose the linebackers in pass coverage and run defense. Meanwhile, he managed to destroy our running game. Rodriguez wasn't able to get anything going until the fourth quarter, although I will give some credit for the second half defensive adjustments.
On the other hand, MSU's playcalling was horrendous. With Michigan's offense sputtering and time running down, all he had to do was run the ball and drain the clock. Instead, he put in Nichols and let him make some horrendous incompletions. They mismanaged the second half and enabled Michigan to stay in the game. Meanwhile, Michigan put in Robinson to run a drive when he clearly had no idea what to do, even for a third down obvious passing situation. These were obvious mistakes before the ball was even snapped.
October 3rd, 2009 at 4:44 PM ^
But I am skeptical that Dantonio's game plan was actually to have Kirk Cousins beat Michigan by scrambling. If it was, then maybe Dantonio really is a genius.
October 4th, 2009 at 6:16 PM ^
Sorry.
Dantonio's gameplan was to have Cousins and the receivers stretch out the defense. By sending 1-2 receivers deep, he kept the safeties back, putting the pressure on the linebackers to defend the intermediate passing game. They actually did better than expected in this regard, but as a result, they completely ignored Cousins, who was then able to pull off huge chunks of yardage that the linebackers proved unable to contain, when they really should have.
October 3rd, 2009 at 11:19 PM ^
Dantonio's game plan was clear from the onset. Going into the game, he knew his defense would struggle against our O. The best way to keep out offense at bay was to keep them off the field as long as possible. This goal was clearly accomplished, indicated by our 3 first half possessions. It didn't matter what kind of game plan RR had, he couldn't implement it with the offense on the sideline.
It wasn't until the second half, when we had more offensive possessions, that we could get into a rhythm on offense and move the chains. DRob coming in during the third quarter was an attempt to make a big play (as he has done thus far), and didn't work out. I'm not sure DRob "clearly had no idea what to do", it looked like he wasn't comfortable in the pocket going through his progressions on 3rd down. Typical for a freshman qb, but don't blame RR for trying an adjustment when nothing was working.
October 4th, 2009 at 5:39 AM ^
but the fake punt was a horrible call. At that point, we were down either 3 or 4 - less than a touchdown - it was in the first half, and waaaaaaay deep on our own side of the field.
There are situations, times, and places for fake punts, that was most definitely not it!!!
On the other hand though, it's only a horrible call b/c it didn't work. If we had pulled that off, turned it into a TD drive which ended up swinging the game in the other direction, that playcall would be heralded as gutsy and sharp.
Hindsight, 20/20, etc. etc. It was a bad playcall, it was a bad playcall that potentially cost us the game, but, in the grand scheme of things it was just *1* playcall so it shouldn't be blown out of proportion. There were other opportunities to win the game that we didn't sieze, so singling out this one thing and saying it is the one thing that cost us the game is kind of arbitrary.
If anything what cost us the game was the fact that no one on our defense was home on the final play.
October 4th, 2009 at 11:20 AM ^
ws near the end of the third quarter if I have my bearings right. It most definitely was NOT in the first half. And, I believe that we were down by 11 points at the time.
As far as bad call, it clearly was one. I don't care if he made it or not, that is not a situation in the game where you give your punter an option. On your 16 yard line. Had they punched it the end zone the game would have been over. As it was, it ended up likely costing us the win.
October 5th, 2009 at 10:12 AM ^
midway through the 3rd quarter at our 16 yard line, down 10-6 at the time FYI