OSU Snowflakes - The Defense
November 24th, 2018 at 4:25 PM ^
Edit: its a family blog
November 24th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^
You're depressed, aren't you?
November 25th, 2018 at 8:21 AM ^
jesus christ, what is wrong with me? I apologize for this comment. time to do some self relfecting
November 24th, 2018 at 4:25 PM ^
The scheme doesn't work against good offenses. Even Matt Leinart had it pegged at half.. Something along the lines of "UM doesn't give the QB any reads" If you give a good QB time they will carve up man to man every time.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:25 PM ^
Hey Don? You know, PSU last year upset me too, and you sure did a good job turning that game around this year. But that wasn’t the last game of the season my man...
Also, there’s this newfangled play that offenses like to run called Mesh, let me draw it up for you, it’s super interesting...
November 24th, 2018 at 4:35 PM ^
Your last sentence is the most painful part.
Seth made the FFFF for the OSU offense on Tuesday and in it he included a diagram of their staple offensive play, Mesh. Seth from Mgoblog knew that was there staple play that we needed to stop. Did our 2 million dollar defensive coordinater not know that somehow? What was Brown working on this week? Jesus Christ
November 24th, 2018 at 4:25 PM ^
We got beat on the line of scrimmage. Haskins played well but was not pressured much. Appreciate what Chase brought to the table this year and tried to bring today. Gave his all. Suspect he moves back to linebacker in the NFL. OSU played their best game of the year today. Michigan played their worst defensively. Not sure why.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:33 PM ^
Because it’s Ohio St and Michigan.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^
HEY DON BROWN!!! YOU FUCKING SUCK!!!!’m
November 24th, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^
The defense is good until it has to be.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^
Oklahoma would have given a more inspired performance.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^
We don’t have any dudes, Don Brown is not a dude
November 24th, 2018 at 4:26 PM ^
When did Greg Robinson come back?
November 24th, 2018 at 4:27 PM ^
Keeping Kinnel and Watson in the game was a mistake. Lacking blitzes was a mistake. Tackling was poor. Defensive line was terrible. Amazing how horrendous this game was.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:28 PM ^
Interior D line got exposed. 2 years ago Mo Hurst and Ryan Glasgow and Wormley dominated the line of scrimmage. Last year Mo Hurst was a beast. This felt like 2015 when we got blasted off the line all day. Today the dline got dominated. Especially the interior. No defensive scheme behind that was going to work with Haskins having zero pressure all day. Blitzing just wasn’t going to hold up all day.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:29 PM ^
I'm not entirely sure what the plan even was today. We got no pressure all game against Haskins, he sat back there waiting for the crossing routes to open. We ran some zone after halftime but we didn't seem to know what we were doing because they just torched us.
Ohio State seemed to have whomever was matched up against Watson run a crossing route knowing he couldn't keep up. Watson's lack of speed was exposed. As good as he got over his career his lack of speed was always masked and today shined a huge light on it. No offense to him, but any talk of him possibly getting drafted was squashed today.
The run D was fine for 3/4 of the game, but the D seemed to quit late, allowing them yards.
The lack of pressure was eye opening. OSU has been giving up pressure at will to much weaker defenses throughout the season yet we got none. No adjustment seemed to come either.
Last years DB recruiting class has me worried now. We seem to be recruiting these long lanky guys, but can they run?
Overall this was very depressing. It's one game in the long run, but it just happened to be the most important game of the season and possibly many seasons. Don Brown got his ass handed to him. I have faith he'll respond.
November 24th, 2018 at 5:31 PM ^
Yeah, I have been worried about our CBs after Long and Hill leave for awhile now. I expect Thomas will develop but other than that.... shrugs. I see a bunch of guys who are just guys. Tall, but just guys.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:29 PM ^
Like I said on another thread, we don't beat good spread teams. They find 1 fucking play and over and over and over they kill us. Today the short slant over the middle. 10 yards, 8 yards, 12 yards when ever they needed it. Our speed was nothing compared to osu's. Oh well.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:30 PM ^
I don't want to ever hear a thing about the defense until they beat Ohio State, total embarrassment. Beat up on the weak and helpless, get roasted by the first quarterback who isn't injured in 6 weeks. The whole team was at fault today.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:30 PM ^
You can't beat OSU with a great defense. You beat them with a great offense.
Our offense was decent but our defense was atrocious.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:30 PM ^
Can’t ignore Don Brown’s failings anymore. #1 pass defense in the country? Seriously? It’s pathetic.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:31 PM ^
There is blame to give to just about every group. Every single aspect of the game could have been better. The one area that I am the most shocked about is the pass rush. They never came close to consistently getting pressure on Haskins and if you allow any top QB to just sit and the pocket and wait for people to come un-covered they are going to put up big...big numbers. Looked like 7 on 7 drills for most of the game.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:31 PM ^
Don Brown will dream about this everyday. Just like Penn State from last year. But we even set yourself up for the bad dreams!
November 24th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^
I still like Don Brown but he is all to willing to jump on a sword just to prove they either win with their style or die by it.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^
Overrated. I think our Dline just had a bad game but our secondary has always been overrated
Our secondary might be the most overrated thing in college football. #1 pass defense MY ASS
I cant believe how bad our entire defense played. Our dline pressured Haskins only a small handful of times all game. You cant give Haskins time to throw and expect to win
Thank God we don't have to face Tua and Bama. They would drop 70 on us easy
November 24th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^
That was the worst defensive performance by Michigan in near history. No need to sugar-cote it as we totally sucked.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:32 PM ^
Tough day for the recruiting rankings don't matter crowd.
Gil was atrocious. Our 3 star DT's got owned all game. Watson might have been responsible for 150+ receiving yards.
On the other side Stueber and Runyan got their lunch eaten today.
Recruiting needs to be better to win national titles. We bully 90% of the teams on our schedule but fold like a chair when we punch at our weight class.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:45 PM ^
And we find the one person on the board who’s thrilled that Michigan lost.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:53 PM ^
I'm pissed UM lost. Now, we can all keep lying to ourselves about this or we can be honest. I choose to be honest. We need to recruit better players.
November 24th, 2018 at 5:01 PM ^
Losing like this to OSU is just about the worst possible way to get better recruits!
November 24th, 2018 at 5:08 PM ^
OK, so let’s look at that, then. Which of these is your hypothesis?
- Michigan is bad at talent evaluation
- Harbaugh intentionally recruits poorer players than are available to him
- The Michigan coaching staff isn’t particularly good at convincing people to go to Michigan
I assume it’s either #1 or #3. If it’s #1, I don’t think you want to judge the entirety of the talent evaluation on one game. If it’s #3, perhaps that can be improved, but if your solution is to break the rules — which is widely alleged to be the behavior of Michigan’s chief talent competition — count me out.
Ultimately, it’s a chicken-and-egg problem. The star-gazer’s POV seems to be “5* recruits want to play for a winning program, so if you win, you’ll get better players,” but then it flips to “you can’t win without 5* recruits.” It’s basically the intro to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure in message board form. (“Yes, Bill, but I do not believe we will get Eddie Van Halen until we have a triumphant video..”)
OSU may have more raw talent than Michigan. Today, they also had a coaching advantage that wasn’t present in the 2016 or 2017 games, or in much of the regular season. Urban Meyer couldn’t figure out how to move the ball on Purdue. There’s more to the narrative than recruiting stars.
November 24th, 2018 at 5:26 PM ^
Cool story. Harbaugh gets paid a lot of money to get players here and win this game. Meanwhile Urban Meyer has had the #1 ranked recruiting class in the B1G 7 straight years and what's his record against Michigan again?
7-0
November 24th, 2018 at 5:55 PM ^
What’s his record against Michigan State, Iowa, and Purdue?
Look, most of us are upset that the game turned out the way it did. (I’m still not convinced that you’re not relishing the chance to say “I told you so.”) But (a) correlation doesn’t indication causation; (b) One of those Michigan teams lost to Rutgers; (c) saying “hurr hurr Michigan needs to recruit better” solves nothing unless you can propose a path to doing so.
You do understand that the players have to make the decision, right? I mean, surely you’re not suggesting Harbaugh engage in human trafficking. If there is a weakness in his recruiting strategy, identify it and suggest a solution.
There are some 5* players for whom Michigan will never be in the market as long as they’re playing by the rules and requiring that the kids “play school.” I have no interest in chasing those players. I’m fairly certain that Michigan is getting a pretty good number of the rest. Are they getting every one of their targets? No, of course not; neither does OSU. Heck, neither does Alabama.
Michigan had enough talent to win the game in 2016 and nearly had enough talent to win in 2017. I think they had enough talent to win in 2018 as well, and it’s more about coaching than personnel, but it’s tough to tell in the nuclear wasteland of whatever that was.
November 24th, 2018 at 7:41 PM ^
Who the fuck cares? He was hired to beat OSU and win the big ten don't give a shit what his record is vs teams who don't recruit in our stratosphere.
November 24th, 2018 at 8:02 PM ^
The talent gap between these two wasn’t much today. Frustrating because this UM team is pretty loaded. Most of the weaker recruits are O-Line, which didn’t have their best day. However, I clearly think coaching was the difference. Meyer and staff put his guys in position to Win & attack UM weaknesses. Harbaugh and staff didn’t. Funny thing is both Brown & Harbaugh are stubborn. They wanna play their way. Not hsving backup plans if things go wrong is laughable.
November 24th, 2018 at 10:33 PM ^
That game was all talent gap.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:33 PM ^
Don Brown is good, not great.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:35 PM ^
The problem with Don Browns defense is that we blitz the linebackers every other play which leaves the middle of the field wide open. Northwestern almost beat us because of this. Indiana looked good because of this.
OSU didn't even fully take advantage of the crossing routes yet they torched us anyways
Literally any time OSU needed a 1st down a simple slant was easy money. Nobody around their WR for 5 feet or more every time
November 24th, 2018 at 4:39 PM ^
The problem with don browns defense is that it's a fucking gimmick. Gimmick shit doesnt work in big time college football. There is a reason that no other winning team runs that defense.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:47 PM ^
They rarely blitzed today.
OSU got every matchup they wanted on M’s LB’s by sending RB’s out wide whenever they felt like it.
In Browns D, apparently LB’s must vacate the middle of the field when RB’s go in motion bc they can’t rotate a safety down to cover
November 24th, 2018 at 4:55 PM ^
Bingo.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:35 PM ^
Did Uche play? Didn't see him.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
Points OSU has scored against Michigan since 08: 42, 21, 37, 34, 26, 42, 42, 42, 30, 31, 62. Fuck everyone. The lowest fucking number on that list is from Rich Rod! How in hell does MSU keep these guys mostly in check and we get embarrassed?
November 24th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
Whew. I feel really good about myself today. Really wanted to buy a Revenge Tour shirt. But I thought, lets wait til we best OSU. Looks like I saved myself $25. Unfortunately I have drank $50 worth of Scotch watching the game today, so it is still a net loss. Looks like Harbaugh is our John Cooper. Bitterly disappointing.
November 24th, 2018 at 5:19 PM ^
I feel you, dog. Is that what the kids say these days?
November 24th, 2018 at 4:36 PM ^
I do not think that Michigan's back 7 was ever going to shut down the OSU passing game.
Probably should have played more zone (OTOH when they did play zone they were not very good at it because they have not done it much all year).
The real reason OSU was able to move the ball and score so easily is that the d-line today got absolutely ZERO pressure. Winovich and Gary did very little. That (plus the terrible offensive game plan) was the ball game and the reason for the blow out.
You just are not going to slow down OSU and Haskins if you do not get consistent disruptionand pressure from the d-line all day.
OSU's offense is going to get you into bad match-ups with a LB or safety on fast receivers. No way that can be avoided. Only way to limit them is the get lots of pressure on Haskins so he is inaccurate and/or his receivers do have time to break free from the mis-match in coverage.
TL:DR. You can't reasonably expect Bush, Watson, or Kinnel to cover a mismatch for 6 or 7 seconds. D-line has to force Haskins to throw after 3 seconds. Did not happen.
November 24th, 2018 at 5:12 PM ^
Don has alot of this defense back next year. They all should know this current man scheme. He better fucking install some zone coverages that take away these crossing routes because next years defense won't be able to match up with their speed again. ((How do you minimize that speed?? You make them have to stop and sit down in a zone boys!!)) I just hope it's not one of those zones that is taught where the players stand there and hope the ball comes right at them while watching the quarterback and not the guys running around them. It's not rocket science. Haskins and a lot of those receivers will be back next year so count on another blood bath.
November 24th, 2018 at 7:10 PM ^
Haskins won’t be back.
November 24th, 2018 at 5:17 PM ^
Thanks for the actual analysis. As someone who knows a lot less about football than you do - Michigan was inferior in all aspects of the game today.
November 24th, 2018 at 4:37 PM ^
Worst. Loss. Ever. Far worse than The Horror.
EXPOSED.