September 17th, 2018 at 4:19 PM ^
Well shit, I hope not. In fact, I was hoping it's closer to 25%.
September 17th, 2018 at 4:21 PM ^
I believe it. They had some good tweaks and wrinkles in store for OSU last year (just needed a QB).
I guess the trick with this sort of thing is bringing it out at the right time. I find it funny that for any new play, you can hear people exclaiming "Good idea to get that on film for other D-coordinators" while others lament "Why'd they use that against this opponent?!"
September 17th, 2018 at 5:18 PM ^
That’s probably a defensive scouting capacity issue.
If the offense is otherwise easy to prepare for, then showing extra plays or wrinkles is dumb because they’ll just prep for that too.
If the offense is already complex & stretching the capacity of the defensive scouting already, then overloading them could make sense.
In the first instance holding back plays is an ambush. In the second, it’s intimidating them because they KNOW they’re going in ill prepared and spread way too thin.
September 17th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^
That's pretty obvious from watching them. Seems like Onwenu should not be saying this publicly though. We want our opponents thinking this is all we have so they come out unprepared. Maybe it's just too obvious to be worth hiding.
September 17th, 2018 at 11:51 PM ^
Just like our enemies took Braylon Edwards calling the offense trash seriously.
September 17th, 2018 at 4:42 PM ^
"Onwenu said UM hasn’t even shown half its offense"
I guess that's why they're blocking half the time.
/s sorta
September 17th, 2018 at 4:51 PM ^
Watching our vanilla gameplan, it makes sense that this would be the case, and I'm desperately hoping it is. But then I get flashbacks to Jabrill's last year when we were all hoping they were saving an awesome part of the playbook for Wildcat Jabrill against OSU, only to see the same crap that didn't work all season. Guess we'll see.
September 17th, 2018 at 4:58 PM ^
Our offense was fine during the 2016 OSU game. 310 yards and we won time of possession. Turnovers hurt, and that game still came down to a coinflip of a spot from biased refs.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:25 PM ^
That's not my point. There's no argument that our offense is vastly improved this year, and I'd contend could possibly be, even at this point, good enough to keep us competitive through the rest of our schedule. I'm just saying be wary of anticipating a boost coming from an unseen part of the playbook... though I'm hopeful on that front too since it's so early in the year.
September 18th, 2018 at 9:56 AM ^
I think the vast playbook is meant to hurt the opponents ability to prepare for everything we can throw at them. We aren't hiding a stack of BEST PLAYS for Ohio State.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:02 PM ^
I hope its been the bad half
September 17th, 2018 at 5:02 PM ^
For the sake of his Coach’s job, I hope so.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:03 PM ^
And if history is a guide, we never will.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:08 PM ^
I believe it. And on another note, I was particularly frustrated by the sentiment from some of the more well-respected users here about the offense on Saturday. Saying things such as “this is a basic spread offense”, “the staff won’t captialize on DPJ’s talent and strengths”, and “square peg/round hole”.
After the first two series on offense ending in punts, the drives were as follows:
70+ yard drive to the SMU 12 before the defense made a great tip-toe INT on the sideline, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, touchdown, field goal, touchdown.
What the hell more are you asking of them to do? Seems to me the “basic” spread stuff was working just fine with a good mix of explosiveness from DPJ/Gentry/Evans and clock-churning, grinding it out. No need to unleash the playbook just yet.
And the staff isn’t going to fully utilize DPJ’s strengths? Well he just had a breakout, 3 TD performance featuring a deep shot, catch and run, and a fade route. He has 4 total in the past two weeks so let’s give the staff some credit, eh? The staff clearly took advantage of having him this Saturday so let’s see how the future unfolds before we bash the staff?
And square peg/round hole? Well other than anoth solid performance by Patterson and the offense, I also saw a QB converted to TE, whom the staff recruited for two weeks before committing, have a career receiving day.
The BAAWWWW and BPONE that Brian has alluded to the past couple weeks have been very tiring. We have a very manageable schedule heading into very winnable games against Wisconsin and MSU before our bye week, so let’s sit back, support the Team, and see what happens!
September 17th, 2018 at 8:48 PM ^
I wanted them to pass to set up the run from the get-go. Two (really three) failed drives against OSU/PSU and maybe MSU/Wisconsin and we're likely down 14-0. And we all know that JH has that explosive offense ready to go to come from behind. Especially on the road. Ugh.
Yes, the offense was firing after that. Because we were passing more. Let's do that from the start, instead of running into a brick wall for most of a quarter. It's a dangerous move.
M needs to be more aggressive and creative. I'll say it until I see it.
September 17th, 2018 at 11:19 PM ^
There must be a method to his madness - running into stacked boxes over and over again.
---
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results
- Einstein
September 17th, 2018 at 5:20 PM ^
Pep Hamilton spilled a tall glass of Johnny Walker Red on the other 78 pages and it's all smudged.
September 17th, 2018 at 8:29 PM ^
Pep has poor taste in Scotch. I knew I couldn't trust that man!
September 17th, 2018 at 5:21 PM ^
Other 55% must require blocking to show.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:28 PM ^
Really glad to hear we held it back vs. ND. Wow. This does not make me feel any better. I can understand a thin playbook vs. WMU and SMU, but man, ND?! Goodness gracious.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:36 PM ^
Or it could be that there are certain things we've installed that weren't designed for ND. Or it could be that we only ran 69 plays against ND. It's not like the coaches threw the fucking game.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:34 PM ^
Does this mean that he's actually 700 lbs?
September 17th, 2018 at 5:42 PM ^
Say less, Do More
September 17th, 2018 at 5:45 PM ^
This has been a trend with Harbaugh, he shows very little in early games. Unfortunately he often saves it all for OSU. I suspect this is why we have not seen Shae keep yet on those “read” plays.
September 17th, 2018 at 9:38 PM ^
It’d be nice if we can keep a QB healthy all year, that starts with not taking hits. I agree with you, we’ll start seeing him keep it in close games when it matters, until then, keep handing it off.
September 17th, 2018 at 5:51 PM ^
That's just BS. At this level the offense has been fully installed. The analysts work year round to prepare the staff. The offense is partially in place by spring ball and fully installed in fall camp. Sure, they can't practice every play in the book and some changes are made to adjust to what the opponents are doing leading up to the game. As the season unfolds, the necessary changes are made.
September 17th, 2018 at 6:16 PM ^
umbig, who calls the run plays?
September 17th, 2018 at 6:37 PM ^
JH is your OC.
September 17th, 2018 at 6:44 PM ^
That was my fear. thank you
September 17th, 2018 at 8:45 PM ^
UMBig11,
What is different from your expectations that you are now so down on what this team will do? Did you think we would only win 1 rivalry game in August?
You mentioned something about “factions” forming. How do you feel about Coach Harbaugh and has that changed since before the season started?
September 17th, 2018 at 7:44 PM ^
This 100%. /\ /\ /\ /\
September 17th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^
It may be all installed, but Mike is saying they haven’t shown half of the offense in games.
September 17th, 2018 at 10:43 PM ^
Like all weight loss and weight gain over the summer, this is exactly how I'm choosing to interpret Onwenu's comment.
September 18th, 2018 at 12:58 PM ^
This. Installed =/= call it against SMU. Jim played the Notre Dame game conservatively to not put too much on Shea in his first game. Lost that gamble, not because of Shea, but lost it. Now, there's no reason to show wrinkles until Wisconsin unless we are behind late in a game we shouldn't be.
If we look vanilla each week until Wisconsin, as long as we win, good. If we look vanilla against Wisconsin, then you can complain.
September 17th, 2018 at 8:27 PM ^
umbig11, I’ve read a few of your most recent posts and ever since the Notre Dame game I can’t help but get the sense that you’re unhappy with the team. Something up?
September 17th, 2018 at 8:41 PM ^
Lack of discipline, poor execution, and underwhelmed with the staff. Start winning big games. Otherwise, we are Iowa!
September 17th, 2018 at 8:50 PM ^
So much this.
September 17th, 2018 at 10:57 PM ^
Michigan is Iowa. In fact, Iowa has won more big games than Michigan since Jim arrived
September 18th, 2018 at 10:15 AM ^
Michigan is currently Northwestern. Being Iowa would be an upgrade.
September 18th, 2018 at 3:25 PM ^
Iowa loses a lot of normal games and wins big games.
We win a lot of normal games and lose big games. Not quite the comparison I would make.
September 17th, 2018 at 6:39 PM ^
Less than half of our offense? No wonder we struggle at times. I think we should always use all 11 positions from now on.
September 17th, 2018 at 7:22 PM ^
Even if true why say it?
September 17th, 2018 at 7:26 PM ^
Sooooo suddenly our offense will pick apart a defense and not run the ball with 8 in the box? I’ll believe it when I see it. Elite teams don’t run a different offense week to week. So all of the sudden we are going to see spread looks that have never been ran at gam speed? Our shitty play calling will cost us 3-4 games this year....book it.
September 17th, 2018 at 7:55 PM ^
Well, what about the offensive game plan and play calling against OSU in 2017?
In fact we did see plays and situational play calling in that game that we had not really seen all year.
The fact that we failed to make an easy interception, and then O'Korn threw a terrible interception, all in the 4th, not the offensive game plan, is the reason M lost that game.
September 17th, 2018 at 8:34 PM ^
The offensive game plans against OSU have been great.
If that was the FLOOR and not the ceiling, we could genuinely contend for B1G.
I’ve been pondering whether coaches like Meyer, Harbaugh, Kelly are on their last legs from an OC perspective. Take Meyer vs. Day - Day opened up the field and they look unstoppable. Meyer was content giving JT 20 runs up the gut. Haskins last year should have started over JT.
Maybe OCs are like chess players or mathematicians - a steep decline after 40.
September 17th, 2018 at 7:45 PM ^
I hope our offense is to abandon the run and spread it out when the games matter
September 17th, 2018 at 8:00 PM ^
If there was some magical offense, full of misdirection and frippery, uh, we would have seen it against Notre Dame. I don't think Michigan was okay losing that one to save up plays for later in the season. The offense might get better, but it's not going to magically become something vastly different than what we've seen.
September 17th, 2018 at 8:43 PM ^
VS oSU we ran the ball for 5.5 yards per carry. vs psu msu etc it was like 3. The OSU game plan felt different
Why can’t our OSU game plan be our Base package? Are there no more tricks up Jim’s sleeve?
September 18th, 2018 at 11:35 AM ^
"I don't think Michigan was okay losing that one to save up plays for later in the season. "
And I think Harbaugh would 100% agree with that statement. The whole notion about saving the playbook for more important games is bullshit. We might have a few trick plays, i.e. flea flickers, inside shovel passes, passes off a jet sweep, etc, saved up but I think this flavor of offense is what we're going to see for the remainder of the season. And that's not a bad thing if the OL improves and gels.
September 17th, 2018 at 8:27 PM ^
Is the Stanford-y stuff (odd formations, shifts, TEs everywhere) still in the playbook?