MLIVE's Projected Starters (No surprises)
5 Battles to watch in priority order:
LT
P
LB Gil/Ross
RT
Slot
Cannot say that I am on the edge of my seat to see who wins the P spot! Nevertheless, I read everyone of these articles because thinking about the season brings me great joy. UMCB11, we treasure your activity on the blog.
Don't mock the punter spot. It can be a huge weapon for us, especially with a defense that has been #1 in the country at forcing 3 and outs the past 2 years. Winning the field position battle will only help our offense. Our punting game was terrible last year, it must improve.
We lost 17.2 yards per game to our opponents in penalties, net loss punting, and net loss kicking. Almost two first downs a game. Things need to be cleaned up.
This.
Don't be football ignorant - your Punter is one of your most important players. We need Robbins to take a huge step this year.
No doubt, that is a very important position! Just not one that I am on the edge of my seat about in July at the moment. If you are onthe edge of your seat for that now, I can totally respect that.
When Stringer Bell and I team up to defend the honor of punters
Strong to quote strong - Zoltan Mesko approved
I mean... we lost a game to MSU based almost solely on the punter... you may not care, but it’s actually a critical position, especially in terms of determining field position.
Well, before that happened, we almost won that game because of the same punter.
The life of a punter...only remembered for when you royally dick the dog.
Which is why punter is such a crucial position.
Right - think of the dogs
He was doing quite well before the punt attempt that lives in infamy but by no means did we almost win that game because of a punter.
Question: which punter since then would you pick? He was really good.
I am not understanding your reading comprehension. I said until that point he played quite well and never suggested anything about someone else punting. But since you brought it up, Kenny Allen was his back up and was also really good.
O'Neill averaged 41.3 yards per punt for us. Allen averaged 43.3 his senior year, an impressive 2 full yards average better than Blake. O'Neill's average yards per punt that msu game was 44.6.
Again, we did not almost win that game because of our punter.
The only reason we should have won that game was because of our domination on special teams - part Jabrill’s returns, and part O’Neill flipping the field all night. Our offense wasn’t finding a lot of room, and O’Neill was crucial in setting our defense up to get the ball back.
I still agree O'Neill was having a good game. But he single handedly put up 6 points on the opponents scoreboard at the worst possible time. All of his good punts combined do not even come remotely close to offsetting that.
I think everyone agrees that the muffed punt was bad, but I think you are still having reading comprehension problems. The assertion, which is not totally unreasonable is that without his strong punter earlier in the game, we may have given up more points, ergo we already would have been losing without the field position advantage punting was critical too.
I was referring to the user to who made it sound like I implied O'Neill should have been the back up with not understanding what he was comprehending.
I understand your assertion but it is a very far out on a limb assertion. He had one huge bomb that game that MAYBE helped prevent points. But that is still a reach to confidently say. Other than one giant punt that game he had a standard good game. To say he punted so amazing he directly caused us to score points while preventing them from scoring with field position is pretty crazy.Would Kenny Allen of played much, if any, worse than Blake if he played that game? The fact of the matter is handed 6 points to the opponent and there is no way you can say that was worth it to have all his other punts that day.
No, lost on the inability to close out a tough opponent and get first downs. Not the punter.
Punter catches the snap, it’s game over. Michigan wins.
Michigan did enough to win that game until the snap was dropped
Michigan doesn’t play “Lloyd Ball” at the end of the game and instead gets a first down. No punting necessary.
The blame game is fun, especially when the football game is four quarters and includes 22 players on the field for every single play.
That wasn’t Lloyd ball. That was putting your team in position to win. Up 2, at midfield, punting with 10 seconds to go. That is exactly where we wanted that game. I’m not sure if your suggestion would be to pass the ball at any point at the end of the game, but asking the punter to catch and punt the ball is what 99% of football coaches would do because that is how you would win that game. Anyone who thinks trying anything other than running the ball into the stacked box doesn’t watch sports and is using amazing hindsight in deciding what to do
Again - it’s not just a single play or even a single possession. Check the game log and review all the drive summaries from the 4th quarter. Lloyd Ball in all its glory.
A lot of you are really misconstruing my point here. This isn’t an attack on O’Neill at all. He’s a very good punter and was near All-American caliber for us.
My point is to highlight the importance of the punter position. Where yes, we lost a game specifically due to the punter dropping the snap.
He catches it, we win. He drops it, it’s returned for a TD, and we lose. There’s really no debate about that. In that sense, everything that led up to that point is just noise. It ultimately came down to one play, that rested on the shoulders of a punter.
Just to highlight how critical the punter is to determining the outcome of games.
And you're also probably the same guy still blaming the refs for osu. Look, the punt contributed to msu, yes, but it was not WHY Michigan lost that game.
I’m not sure why you think the punt wasn’t the only thing that lost us that game. The offense and defense and coaches got us the lead with 10 seconds at midfield with the ball. They all did all of their jobs.
Were there any dropped third down passes that could've gone for a first down? Offense have any turnovers? Defense pitch a shutout? The punt was equally contributing to result as all of the other issues that happened during that game. Simple as that.
I'm still blaming the refs for OSU 16.
As a matter of fact the refs sucked in the MSU & OSU games last year.
College refs are garbage and the BIG should never have allowed OH refs to be working that game.
The truth is the truth.
I must have missed the part where Michigan stopped MSU on downs the drive before.
It was a freak end of the game. It's not about having issues closing out a tough opponent, because if Michigan gets that punt off the game is over.
We lost to MSU because of a punter? Funny, I don't remember that happening. When? This comment confuses me.
#repressedmemories
Lost the game because of arrogance. Nobody on the Michigan side of the ball thought for a moment that MSU was going to do anything other than catch the punt and let time expire.
You really think that’s what the coaches thought? You don’t think our coaches stressed to block for punt block? That wasn’t arrogance, it was a mistake, a fluke, but it wasn’t arrogance.
Didn't we have the wrong/inadequate formation in place to actually block for the punter on that play?
Hopefully Hudson can make a move because JBB at LT is not a good sign. I won’t believe that JBB has seriously improved his pass pro until I see it.
Hudson at LT presents its own negatives, like a RS Freshman starting his first ever game on the road at Notre Dame. I am more in the mindset of "Trust that who Warriner puts out there is adequate until proven otherwise, no matter who it is." If they get beat to shit against ND, then maybe I'll worry about a long season, but I'm going to trust that Warriner will develop them until then.
Sounds like a good philosophy. Ed Warinner has done great everywhere he has been.
We have a tough first game and then some breathing room to get the line developed. Per Bill Connelly preseason rankings (away games in italics top 25 match up in bold)-
- #7 Notre Dame
- #87 Western Michigan
- #74 SMU
- #60 Nebraska
- #38 Northwestern
- #80 Maryland
- #12 Wisconsin
- #11 Michigan State
- #8 Penn State
- #84 Rutgers
- #58 Indiana
- #1 Ohio State
Survive Notre Dame and you get the soft jelly filling of our schedule. Then three really tough games but two of them are at home. There will be time to develop the offensive line.
It’s only “not a good sign,” if you’re basing your opinion on what you saw last season.
It is entirely possible that JBB reacted extremely well to the OL coaching change and is a much improved player.
Possible... but unlikely. I trust Warinner to eliminate our stunt problems but thinking JBB will be an adequate pass protector seems like wistful offseason thinking.
And based on the fact that he hasn’t had any offseason chatter his results from last season are the most solid thing to base an opinion on. Especially given the fact that he is a Senior.
You can have doubts. You can say it’s a question-mark.
But until you actually see then on-field product, saying it isn’t a good thing is nothing more than a shot in the dark.
All we’ve heard all offseason is how improved that unit is. JBB is part of that vastly improved unit.
Sure I don’t KNOW that JBB will be bad but based on a large sample size of his previous performances I have significant doubts.
And as to hype, last year the offensive line was called the most improved unit... look how that turned out. I’d pay more attention to the specific player hype that Ruiz, Bredeson, and Runyan have received
For the record I do think that the offensive line has improved, the sheer about of quotes praising Warriner prove that. But those refer to the simplification of blocking schemes and should ensure Michigan doesn’t have any free running defensive lineman coming to kill the qb this year. But my doubts about JBB are about his ability to successfully block a WDE 1 v 1.
If Runyan has a solid hold on RT already (indicating that he may be the best tackle) why wouldn’t he get a shot at LT?
But if he isn’t the best tackle then why wouldn’t the loser of the LT battle challenge him?
Because James Hudson is going to surprise everyone and be the first offensive lineman to be a finalist for the Heisman trophy as a left tackle.
*First freshman OT. Orlando Pace finished 4th.
Best guess I have is maybe Runyon doesn't have the quickness to be a Left Tackle??
*Runyan
Runyan is one of the most athletic lineman we have. He doesn't lack for quickness, so it is likely another issue.