Steve Deace: The Reckoning

This was a good, cathartic read. Saw this last night and shared.

Lawd...

Marcus Ray write the defensive part of the story...?

Comment #1 in that link is the only thing giving me pause. If we can collectively get past this without going insane and firing everyone (believe me I've thought about it) maybe we might compete next year and the year after with the back to back 5th ranked classes finally becoming upper classmen. 

1000% Accurate!!

I think there's a little more going on here, some of which Wojo gets at in this morning's column. Jim thought he could go in and play the way we had all year and win. It was a rude awakening, and pointed maybe as much to a little bit of arrogance--reading both our clippings and OSU's--as conservativism. 

I tend to be with Baumgardner and (indeed) Brian in thinking that what Warriner and Jim have come up with represents something very promising for our offense going forward. The problem is that we didn't utilize its promise yesterday. 

But just to play Devil's Advocate and challenge some of the thinking here, and pervasive on the board: What if we had played zone D from the start yesterday and/or the D had held up as in the first ten games? The offense might have been putting enough points on the board. 

The galling thing for me is that we came out at the start of the second half and continued to play the same game. It was as if Jim said we're only down six (was it six?) and we're going to stick with our plan, when opening it up was pretty obviously (now) required. A certain hubris there as well. 

I think there's a pretty good likelihood that there are no coaching changes this off-season. I think we've got a head coach for the forseeable future whether his vision can get us an NC or not. Anyone who thinks Cliff Kingsbury is walking through that door. .  .

The truth hurts. 

Well written.

Totally disagree.

M can win and will WIN The Harbaugh Way.

Loyalty, Integrity and Character are always First at M. 
I hope they always will be.

nobody gives a shit about your snowflake opinions, maizen. go away

I support my fellow Michigan fans right to vent, we certainly have earned it. I have been a fan just over 20 years longer than you have and thus have had all of your disappointments plus quite a few more.

A much younger version of myself once despaired that Bo couldn't win the Big One. At some point I realized that I still prefer getting in a position to win the big one than never getting to that point.

"One national title in 71 years" Ok,  or 2 in 72 years (even 3 in 73 by one measure). They are difficult and rare for almost all schools and 1997 was precious, and a season I am grateful to have fully experienced. I hope to experience that again. Jim Harbaugh is by most objective measures an excellent coach, one of the very best and he has proven it at multiple schools and in the NFL under different and sometimes challenging conditions. I feel fortunate that we have him. Don Brown, if he isn't the best DC is at least among the best.

We are not broken, far from it, and I look forward both to the next game, and the next season.

It is pretty hard to argue with all of this for me.  This is well-written and provocative without an antagonistic tone. Well done and thanks for sharing your intelligent perspective. 

Good column. I realized yesterday that we are never going to be Ohio state’s equal. Never. We may win once in a while but their program is among the three best in terms of talent and always will be. I know lots of anger will come my way for this but it’s reality. 

And you know what? That’s reality for every other big ten team and their fans too. Why stay in a conference where there’s an automatic loss for every team who plays them every year?

True, but you aren't dark enough.  I'm firmly in the camp "if Harbaugh can't fix it, no one can." Now however I'm coming round to the point of view that it's not "fixable," if that means winning at the top tier of college football.

You have to ask yourself, why are Saban and Meyer superior? I think the key is "winning with CHARACTER and cruelty."  (BTW, Les' OSU program was one of the least ethical programs around, and the less said of LSU and the SEC the better.)  Sure, roids, payola, and recruiting illiterate thugs have been around CFB for decades. The difference is that in our data driven analytics, moneyball society, the top organizations make sure every tool in the tool box, even the most unethical ones, will be used to the fullest extent. In our hyperefficient competitive world, you can only hang with OSU or Alabama by playing like them. I don't want Michigan going down that road, and I'm coming to terms with the idea Harbaugh may be more Ferenz than Saban.

In the meantime, our luck purely sucks. It sucks that the B1G East is so stacked, while the B1G West is a rotating participation trophy. It's boggling but true that since Michigan fired him, Rich Rodriguez has more Conference Game appearances than his two successors combined.  It sucks that OSU never, ever gets unlucky enough to lose against us, instead of PSU, MSU, Iowa, or PURDUE for the love of Pete! I don't know whether God hates Michigan, but I am confident Lady Luck is a Buckeye loving skank.

While Urban is clearly a good football coach, and while you make some good points, Urban is not the wizard you paint him to be vs. Harbaugh. 

When Harbaugh came to Michigan, OSU had a huge talent advantage yet somehow Michigan played very competitive games against OSU, and even had one stolen in Columbus in 2016 by some bad officiating in a very even game.  Last year in Ann Arbor, OSU had a decided athletic advantage and qb advantage in JT v. JOK at qb yet plays were actually there on the field to be had,  OSU won with decidedly better talent.

This year is a huge disappointment and I would agree OSU out schemed us, outplayed us, and made less mental mistakes (dropped passes, fielding kicks & stepping out of bounds, MA's, etc.  Going into the game, Michigan had played better football over the course of this season than OSU.  That is why most of the OSU fanbase and Vegas thought Michigan would win.  Unfortunately, OSU gelled before our eyes, played their best game of the year while Michigan played its worst.  This is really the first year in Harbaugh v Meyer where Harbaugh was outcoached in the game imho.   OSU came into the game as an underdog and played with a mental edge they had not displayed in the last few years.   OSU has had good athletes all along.  Michigan was close in 16 and this year that athletic gap was narrowed, but we got beat in all 3 phases of the game.  Sometimes college football is like that, but if Urban was a wizard,  OSU would not have taken the shutout beat down they took in the playoff game to Clemson in 2016, or the beat down they took at Purdue this year.  Urban is a great recruiter and OSU is loaded with speed and talent.  The gap is narrowing.  My take away from yesterday is Michigan did not handle being the favorite in this game well, and maybe wanted the game too much while OSU played with mental freedom of humbled expectations after the Purdue beatdown and the fortuitous escape at Maryland and made less mistakes.  College football.  Urban and OSU actually in a strange way benefited from some underperformance earlier this year.  I'm sure its  been tough to take for the players.  It sure has been us fans.  We need a breakthrough against OSU in the worst way.   Wish I had more of an answer, just not buying its Urban wizardry. This is the first year in the last four where OSU played with a mental edge over us, relative to our respective talent levels though imho. 

 Urban Meyer is retiring within the next six weeks. What do you think his wife was crying on the sidelines? I work with one of Urban’s surrogates and that’s what his surrogate told me two weeks ago. And that’s why Urban allow that writer to post an article about his health even know that writer is close to urban. 

The Ohio State game is a zero sum contest. And if you embrace it as everything or nothing and you lose, as we have for far too long, nothing in your program is then viewed as successful. 

And apparently everything else you do in anticipation of playing that game is now regarded as window dressing or meaningless.

Except that, this game also means nothing if you don't prepare to play it by beating all the opposition that comes before. And so this game has become a playoff game that Michigan can't seem to win.

And if that's what is most important to this fan base, and it is, then you must evaluate your program to see how you make that happen and do whatever it takes to achieve it. That is the argument here, that not enough has been done, when under the Harbaugh era, the one constant for winning this game has been better OSU quarterback play. 

Still yesterday, Michigan got outplayed in every phase of the game which means that no matter what it had planned didn't work and yet the offense scored 39 points.

Division 1 college football is the only sporting enterprise the NCAA manages in which its championship competition is run like a beauty contest, not based on how many wins a team records but how it looks in doing that.

Which means that even though OSU has 11 wins and one loss and a win over 4th rated Michigan, there is still doubt whether it deserves going to the championship playoff.

And if the Buckeyes don't get there,it will be because in the run-up to playing their arch rival, they lost to unranked Purdue 49-20, a 29 point loss. How do you explain that or giving up 51 to Maryland and basically not more because the Terrapins didn't want to defend the Buckeyes anymore and hoped to win on a two-point conversion in overtime?

Simple. They were at home and were better prepared and more focused to play yesterday than those other Saturdays on the road. And so instead of giving up 50 points, they gave up 10 fewer points while their offense worked with perfection because their quarterback was never hurried in the pocket.

And because NCAA football is what it is, the pundits of the game will debate over whether two teams that play no defense are better fits in a championship thay have no shot at winning against two more complete teams, which we honestly thought Michigan might be before being unmasked again by the rivalry-fueled Buckeyes.

So, what kind of program do you want Michigan to be? Well, a complete team with great quarterback play which guarantees we  beat the shit out of Ohio State for once in our lifetime. I have been to two Michigan victories over them and they are sweet. But they are much sweeter because they lead to greater glory. And there is only one way to get there, beat them at their own game while still beating all the rest who come before.

Illinois has been to the Rose Bowl more recently than us. 

So annoying when points like this are made without context.

That Illinois team didn’t win the Big Ten. They only went to Pasadena because OSU was in the title game. So, it was the same as reaching the Orange or the Sugar (both of which U-M has played in since that time) or whichever New Year's Six game U-M makes this season (which may very well be the Rose).

Also, Michigan beat Illinois that year!

Is this real?

Stick with religion (tribalism, false premises, and delusions) and go to bed. 

Fuck off. 

You are so full of shit. 

boilerplate sportsball talk

"modernize the offense"

this always means throw more.  Because that's what OSU did this year, right?  clearly we have to emulate them.

" Brown’s scheme is a gimmick. "

"video game"

Is Deace channeling his inner Valenti?

This isn't hard to figure out.  OSU has better athletes at every spot, in depth.  They're Alabama.  We've developed an upper crust of good talent, just like we had in 2006.  This year OSU spotted talent mismatches again, just like OSU and USC did in '06.

The only way out of this is to get better athletes.  Top level guys at every spot.  People are complaining about coaching with no solution - who's the miracle coach who will fix everything? 

Michigan hasn't been the same since Tressel made the speech during the OSU Basketball game. Michigan Blinked. Deace is correct. Until Jim and the rest of the Program embrace the rivalry with an enthusiasm unlike any other we can expect more losses like this.