Baumgardner: if this continues, more losses will follow, more than one
Nick Baumgardner take on last night's game. Pretty fair IMO. The most "negative" quote is below, he did acknowledge all the positives (coming back, the complete shutdown, etc)
"A team with a vanilla offense and a defense that, save for about 15 plays in critical situations, is lights out. A team that plays with familiar inconsistent mental focus early away from home. What's that going to mean for this group's final record at the end of the season?
Unless Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh has better answers than he has shown, it'll mean more struggles — and more losses — against the Big Ten's best."
September 30th, 2018 at 9:34 AM ^
Read his article earlier and he's right. Michigan is going to struggle and lose games if they continue to play like they did last night. Other more skilled teams will find a way to gash Michigan's D and the O will not be able to respond. This has become a sad but predictable trend for Michigan.
September 30th, 2018 at 9:54 AM ^
It’s the same as it was last year: they come out super flat and undisciplined in the first and third quarters and well-coached teams will take advantage. Michigan’s talent will be able to make up for it in some games, but not the big ones.
Its been going on long enough at this point I feel pretty safe saying it’s just a trademark of Harbaugh teams and ain’t changing anytime soon.
September 30th, 2018 at 10:25 AM ^
they come out super flat and undisciplined in the first and third quarters
First, yes. ND and NW on both sides, and SMU offensively.
Third? Not sure about that. We dominated the third quarter yesterday, though we didn't punch it in at the goal line. Really, we controlled play over the last three quarters.
September 30th, 2018 at 10:53 AM ^
Don Brown’s Defense is a fucking wrecking ball in the second half of games! That’s the big takeaway from this game.
The offense sputters at times, but is improving.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:26 AM ^
Is he incapable of making adjustments during the game? It seems like they make great adjustments at halftime, but during the game it’s brutal.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:16 PM ^
Northwestern scored its last points with 12:56 in the second quarter, and proceeded to do nothing the rest of the half.
Incidentally we are giving up the fewest yards per play in the country, so maybe "brutal" isn't the best description of his defensive coaching.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:13 PM ^
It’s a wrecking ball against a horrible offensive team like NW. if we get behind by 2 tds vs. msu, Wisconsin, psu, or osu, they will keep putting it on as the talent is either equal or they have more of it. NW is bad on offense, msu, Wisconsin, psu, and osu all would have won by double digits against us last night.
September 30th, 2018 at 2:05 PM ^
Ill argue that MSU's current offense is just as bad as northwestern's..
Zero running game, and MSU throws it 30 plus a game...
The coaches seem to scheme well for the OSU game on the road and the players get up for that game under harbaugh other than DJ durkins debacle..
We get wisc and PSU at home where we play a hell of a lot better.. so time will tell..
September 30th, 2018 at 4:35 PM ^
MSU’s running game has not been good, agreed. However, our secondary against lewerke scares the shit out of me. I also worry some about their run game inside the RZ due to lewerke’s running Ability.
October 1st, 2018 at 1:29 AM ^
I said this almost verbatim a few weeks ago and got flamed lol. This scheme will only be consistently successful against teams with significantly less talent. I think stats can be deceiving.
September 30th, 2018 at 9:36 AM ^
This is going to be fun! Popcorn anyone?
September 30th, 2018 at 9:39 AM ^
Nick “Captain Obvious” Baumgardner
September 30th, 2018 at 11:39 AM ^
Michigan should not come out flat and fall behind!
September 30th, 2018 at 12:53 PM ^
Can't wait for your daily articles to show Nick how it's done.
September 30th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
Im sure someone will go through film and let us know but what happened yesterday? Were the WRs not getting any separation? It seemed like the line was giving Shea time to throw to a certain extent but he could never get the ball into the WRs hands. Is shark rider not really having an impact? Wasnt he brought in to coach the WRs
September 30th, 2018 at 9:43 AM ^
It was a limited sample size based on replays, but what I saw was not a lot of separation from the WR's
September 30th, 2018 at 9:58 AM ^
We really need to have more check down throws when our receivers are blocked. It will only be a gain of a couple yards, but a short throw to Higdon/Evans will make defenses honest and can prevent double teams. At least Patterson started running the ball more in 2nd half. Having that as an option can be a game changer.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:02 AM ^
I loved his runs in last night's game, I hated that we lived or died by them over and over and over again against a mediocre team. The play calling basically left him with no choice, run or lose, no checkdown.
September 30th, 2018 at 1:19 PM ^
If Higdon would only stop holding
September 30th, 2018 at 10:54 AM ^
We run alot of 2-3 pass option routes and 1-2 of those are usually TEs who are not usually the best at separation..We like to pretend its 1981 and we are bigger and stronger than the opponent and we can manball them into a destruction of rushing, time of possession, field position.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:06 PM ^
There were several instances of wide open TE's in the middle of the field and a clean pocket and shea was bailing. He was nervous yesterday.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:29 PM ^
Shea eating chicken?
September 30th, 2018 at 11:14 AM ^
It frustrates me how slow developing our plays are.
The few times we ran WR screens we typically picked up good yardage. If you watch OSU, the majority of their plays are quick slants/screens and they let their playmakers make plays.
The modern game is much more dependent on quick 2-3yard passes and letting WRs get YAC, and we seem to be way behind on that.
September 30th, 2018 at 9:40 AM ^
Two points.
First, the defense is lights out but for 15 plays in critical situations? What critical situations is he talking about? In the most critical situations this year, the defense has been dominant.
2) For all the talk of the vanilla offense, I actually thought they would have been better off at the beginning if they had been MORE vanilla. First two plays: a short completion and an end-around to a speedy freshman. Hardly a vanilla start, but it did put us in third and long right off the bat. No touches for Higdon on the first drive, and it didn’t pay off.
September 30th, 2018 at 10:16 AM ^
1) 3rd and long...
September 30th, 2018 at 11:58 AM ^
I’ll take a handful of 3rd and long conversions in the first 20 minutes of game time in exchange for an overall 2/3 stoppage rate (which is what the D is currently at) and regular second-hald diminance.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:50 AM ^
If the defense gives up yards/points then it was a critical situation. If the defense gets a quick stop it was not a critical situation. It's just like the schrodinger's opponents we have every season. If we beat them, it wasn't a big game. If we lost, it was.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:02 PM ^
Oh man the end arounds have to die. They seem utterly predictable at this point....
September 30th, 2018 at 2:04 PM ^
To give them credit, didn't we run a play off a fake end around to Ambry?
September 30th, 2018 at 5:21 PM ^
1st & 10 at NW 29: (12:49 - 2nd) Donovan Peoples-Jones run for 25 yds to the Nwest 4 for a 1ST down
The next play was our first TD.
September 30th, 2018 at 9:42 AM ^
Also, if we don't score as many points as the other teams we'll lose.
September 30th, 2018 at 9:56 AM ^
... says the guy hoarding all the secret decoder rings
September 30th, 2018 at 9:42 AM ^
"If the team keeps playing bad and making mistakes at times, they're likely going to lose against the best teams."
Genius! Just, absolutely brilliant and insightful analysis there!
September 30th, 2018 at 10:24 AM ^
Straw man. He's stating the obvious, but it's something that a lot of Michigan fans still haven't accepted. People who think this was a "good win", people who like the way this team is "growing", people who think we'll beat MSU and Wisconsin playing like this.
September 30th, 2018 at 10:36 AM ^
Will Wisconsin beat us if they play like they did against BYU? Will MSU beat us if they play like they have every game this year?
September 30th, 2018 at 10:55 AM ^
You know MSU will play their best game against Michigan, that's their bowl game. Doesn't matter if they are garbage the entire year.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:05 AM ^
That's not the point.
Michigan plays a bad game: OMG, WE WONT EVER WIN AGAIN IF WE PLAY LIKE THAT, HARBALLZ IS OVERRATED.
Another team on the schedule has a bad game: Oh, they'll be ready when they play Michigan.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:11 AM ^
Show us the last time a Harbaugh coached Michigan team was "ready" for a tough game on the road. How many times has Dantonio NOT has his team ready to play Michigan?
September 30th, 2018 at 11:22 AM ^
What is your definition of "ready to play"? Are you saying you can only be ready to play if you win?
I thin NW was ready to play yesterday but just couldn't pull it out at the end. This is the same for Wisconsin last year and OSU in 16. These are just two off the top of my head.
Just because you lose on the road does t mean you were not prepared and ready to play.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:31 AM ^
What is ready?
We were up 10-0 on Iowa in 2016, the opposite of yesterday's game. Were we "ready" to play that game? Even though we lost?
Would you consider us ready to have played Penn State in 2015, Ohio State in 2016 and Wisconsin in 2017? What is the criteria?
October 1st, 2018 at 7:02 AM ^
2015 - v. Florida in Citrus Bowl
2016 - v. Iowa, v. OSU
2017 - v. Florida
2018 - v. Northwestern
September 30th, 2018 at 11:16 AM ^
It’s a simple concept. Michigan doesn’t get the benefit of the doubt because we are notorious underachievers.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:12 AM ^
Not sure if people are just not paying attention to the little things that come out when the players are asked about MSU. There is an absolute distain for them.
I think Michigan will play one of their better games verse them this year too.
October 1st, 2018 at 6:34 AM ^
With how crappy MSU has looked in ALL of its games it would make people wonder if they were taking too much time to game prep for Michigan, OSU, PSU --- except MSU is getting beat on the line of scrimmage.
September 30th, 2018 at 11:28 AM ^
Wisconsin? At this point I think Maryland has a better than even chance of savoring a victory this time next week.
September 30th, 2018 at 12:20 PM ^
Put your money where your mouth is with your ridiculous emotionalism.
September 30th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
Emotionalism has nothing to do with Maryland having already beaten one ranked team this season. Speaking of which Texas itself is no slouch this year with victories over two ranked teams. I don't recall, when is the last time Michigan has had two victories over ranked teams in a single season?
September 30th, 2018 at 6:49 PM ^
2016 was a really long time ago, so I can see why you forgot we beat 3 ranked teams that year
September 30th, 2018 at 9:42 AM ^
I don't think Michigan is a top 5 team, but we came out the same way against ND and only lost by a TD on the road. ND is looking like a legitimate playoff contender so I'm not as pessimistic. This probably isn't a playoff year but things are definitely heading in the right direction.