Northwestern Snowflakes - The Offense
September 29th, 2018 at 8:09 PM ^
That was why we brought Shea Patterson in. That was his game to win for us. He took over especially on that last TD drive and won it.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:16 PM ^
He got lucky on a couple passes but I’ll take the W
September 29th, 2018 at 8:16 PM ^
I hate you so much
September 29th, 2018 at 8:38 PM ^
Yeah, I agree.
September 29th, 2018 at 9:31 PM ^
He’s not wrong. That “seem” play late was lucky as fuck. Good play in the moment, but don’t count on it long term.
September 29th, 2018 at 9:38 PM ^
And Gentry's drop, or Nico just stepping out of bounds on a perfect pass? How lucky were those plays?
September 29th, 2018 at 9:46 PM ^
Or the mystery holding on higdon?
September 29th, 2018 at 11:56 PM ^
That was McKeon’s drop wasn’t it?
September 30th, 2018 at 8:25 AM ^
Yeah, my bad
September 30th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
Gentry had no drops...it was McKeon. Killed a potential scoring drive dropping a perfect throw. You notice he wasn’t targeted the rest of the game and for good reason. More often than not Shea will put the ball where it needs to be. Gentry was money.
September 29th, 2018 at 10:01 PM ^
It wasn't lucky at all .The ball beat the defender. That's a major league throw.
September 29th, 2018 at 10:35 PM ^
That seam play was excellent, exactly what we wanted Shea to do. He needs to make key throws more, but that was what he is capable of. It's not luck.
September 30th, 2018 at 8:49 AM ^
Was ND lucky AF when they were arm punting TDs? Michigan should be undefeated.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:19 PM ^
Oh the guy who busted his ass and came up big in the clutch got lucky, but YOU will take the W. Fuck right off.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:29 PM ^
Are you mad because you look like you ate Charles Woodson these days?
September 29th, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
That would be something if Marcus Ray was posting under his own name on mgoblog, being a hater.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:39 PM ^
Knowing what kind of guy Ray is, would you put it past him?
September 29th, 2018 at 9:32 PM ^
Honestly, I generally assume that these accounts are random nobodies, but lately I've been wondering if this one might be legit.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:40 PM ^
Well if Marcus will take it then we're all good.
/s
September 30th, 2018 at 12:38 AM ^
Great point. Can’t say when the last time that has happened...denard.
This win says a lot about this team.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:58 PM ^
Yuck? They put up almost 400 yards. No turnovers. One series completely robbed by the Mars call. Another was flat out dripped by McKeon. This offense has the ability to be good, and the floor is mediocre. Tonight was a shade or two better than mediocre.
If this is the bad, and the good is what we've seen against our last few, it's still an improvement.
September 29th, 2018 at 9:22 PM ^
Exactly and Northwestern is a legitimate top 15 defense.
September 30th, 2018 at 10:46 AM ^
376 yards and 20 points against Northwestern is literally the definition of yuck.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:22 PM ^
Purdue, Akron, and Duke all put up more points on NW.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:38 AM ^
It’s clear that whatever the staff is doing to prepare the team mentally is not working. But hidden behind the passing game’s pathetic start was a good gameplan and even better pass protection.
While Shea did win us the game with some gutty play at the end, his start was awful. He missed checkdowns for easy yards on early downs and overthrew open receivers. His feet were nervous despite very good protection.
The running game was actually quite efficient until the play calling sputtered late and the only calls were A gap runs. Higdon played extremely well.
We need to find a way to start road games mentally prepared. Other than that and early mechanical issues from our QB—which were offset by some late heroics—this game looked like another step forward to me.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:45 AM ^
This post sucks. You should refer to Ron Utah's tutorial for future posting if you plan to continue contributing to the board.
September 30th, 2018 at 8:46 AM ^
This is a perfect assessment. We all know it even if people don’t want to say it. The team really needs to do something to prepare better for road games. Don’t know if it’s their sleep, workout schedule, diet, motivation, or what but it needs some serious work to be a top tier playoff level team.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:11 PM ^
My blood pressure.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:11 PM ^
It's not just the tackles. Our o-line is not good. Play calling was very poor. This generates zero confidence for MSU
September 29th, 2018 at 8:18 PM ^
Unless... they were hiding the plays intended for Sparty
September 29th, 2018 at 8:37 PM ^
Yeah, that’s it! LOL.
September 29th, 2018 at 9:44 PM ^
This narrative has to die. What you've seen is what we are....perhaps until Ohio State.
September 29th, 2018 at 11:23 PM ^
Knock it off. Seriously I cant take the “saving” crap anymore. The last 7 first down plays were dives up the gut that equaled 3 TOTAL YARDS! Every play Shea made that was our last hope wouldve been much easier to execute if called on first. Slant, screen, PA, anything. 6 of those 7 couldve been incomplete and we wouldve got more with 1 completed pass. That was Borges style bad with a dominate offense. Thank you Shea for saving our ass. Too bad you coaches made those calls on 7 in coverage and not 4 on first.
September 30th, 2018 at 8:10 AM ^
Yeah, and those plays set up the plays that won the game.
Did you see every fucking defender swarm toward Higdon on Patterson's keeps? That's why. Cause they thought it was for sure going to Higdon.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:24 PM ^
What in the world? The OL held up just fine. Patterson has time on most throws and they ran the ball reasonably effectively.(42 carries,180, 4.2 per clip)
September 29th, 2018 at 8:40 PM ^
I was watching the fourth quarter as we came back and the at least 8 if not more runs ups the middle where we got approx 1 yard per carry on every one.
Pass blocking was fine, not great but good enough. As the announcers pointed out, the way we were able to run was to spread the field since we couldn't run conventionally
September 29th, 2018 at 9:20 PM ^
Did you see the touchdown run in the Fourth Quarter? 'Cause that was pretty.
September 29th, 2018 at 10:25 PM ^
"I long for the Lloyd Carr days." -- Most people here.
That was Lloydball. Northwestern was teeing off on the run, and Michigan was running it. It worked out ok.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:38 AM ^
This was a comment I made to some of the others I was watching the game with. That it felt kinda like some of the Lloyd games where Michigan would go on the road and either get behind or let an inferior opponent hang around until the 4th quarter - then they'd just exert control. You could see one team making incremental improvements from drive to drive while the other one ran out of the ideas they'd worked out during the bye week.
The conventional run plays were frustrating, but set up a lot of the other components of the offense. And while Northwestern is not even a good team in many respects they are a top-20 rushing defense for sure. Their D-tackles are quality pluggers, the Gaz is the Gaz and Paddy Fisher is a legit run-killing LB.
The big problem was coming out flat-footed again and some of the penalties (the legit ones).
September 29th, 2018 at 10:29 PM ^
1st down runs every series have to stop.
September 29th, 2018 at 10:40 PM ^
I'm okay with it when we play Northwestern (and win). I hope they are trying to establish tendencies that they can break when they play tougher teams. I HOPE
September 30th, 2018 at 12:04 AM ^
More specifically, 1st Down runs for .5 - 1 yards need to stop.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:43 PM ^
This, especially since they were loading box to stop run.
September 29th, 2018 at 10:29 PM ^
actually, yes, I thought the oline looked to be fine....defense is more worrisome to me honestly....we were able to make "adjustments" on defense tonight because NW is awful on offense so we basically out talented them.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:36 PM ^
Thanks for proving you have zero idea as to what you're talking about. The offensive line played just fine today. What were your issues with the playcalling? The runs that set up the the play action that won us the game?
September 29th, 2018 at 8:46 PM ^
Fair enough--did you think the eight for so times we ran the ball up there middle in the 4th Q and got nothing more than 1 yard each time--when we really needed it--showed that the line played "fine?" My definition is different than yours. Did you think our having to put three wide sets way outside so we could run showed the strength of the line? Did you think being on the 4 yard line of NW and not giving it to Mason but instead going spread wide and empty was a good play call?
Our pass blocking was fine. But take away Shea's scrambles and like three Higdon runs and the stats are very bad for the run.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:48 PM ^
TAKE AWAY ALL THE GOOD PLAYS AND EVERYTHING SUCKED.
Great logic. The run blocking was fine too. You get that those runs set up plays like Patterson's keeper when everyone was expecting Higdon to run up the middle right?
Given your first post, maybe you don't.
September 29th, 2018 at 8:51 PM ^
No I don't, you are right. Shea's scrambles were not designed runs (one was). And of course teams want to run up the middle for no yardage repeatedly because they are setting up play action. THAT'S clever football. I defer to your football wisdom