Bag of Tricks?: Play Calling
First off, we should have won the game and obviously officiating played but a big part in the loss. But wanted to touch on some questionable play calling and the "we are going to throw everything at them".
1) The Pepcat has not had any success against teams who have defenses with a pulse. Also running it on 3rd and goal from the 5? Not running any variation off of it past read option or direct snap run? It was basically wasting downs.
2) Play action from our own goalline which lead to the pick 6, thought the risk/reward there is just foolish. Speight was basically in a toss it up or take a safety scenario with pressure.
3) Maybe on a rewatch we can find some things, but did anybody notice any wrinkle or speciality play of any kind? Maybe the Speight injury limited our playbook but we ran a very vanilla gameplan.
4) I didn't think we tested the edge enough in the run game, Smith averaged 2.9 YPC and was really not very effective. Our lack of a run game didn't allow us to control the clock, salt the game away when our defense was dominating. We just couldn't keep the football in the 2H and I am surprised at the lack of origination.
Even with all this we should have won, but I didn't think Fisch/Drevno/Harbaugh had their best game. Not the primary reason we lost, but after the OSU games vs Wisky and MSU I was expecting more success.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:38 PM ^
November 26th, 2016 at 9:42 PM ^
I would have liked to see Peppers used more as a decoy lined up at either RB or at WR so it could open room for other players to get the ball or run it. I do no understand why we never did that. I also don't understand why we don't do more HB passes when we can't run the ball. I love Harbaugh and don't want to sound like sour grapes, but for all the Harbaugh genius I heard of I was not super impressed with the play calling. But, it's easier sitting home on the couch and it's hard when the offensive line isn't creating many holes for the running backs.
November 26th, 2016 at 9:59 PM ^
November 26th, 2016 at 10:21 PM ^
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November 26th, 2016 at 10:00 PM ^
Really hoping we would see some of it in this game, but no wrinkles of Stanfordization ever came. I want to just chalk it up to Brady's players or bad officiating, but it does seem like the Stanfordization is taking longer at UM than even at Stanford.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:05 PM ^
Our playcalling did nothing to help our offense when it needed it. This was true in the Iowa game too. It was also true in other tight games like Wisconsim (Speight was 1 for 11 on third downs).
This has been a pattern in thight games. The coaches get tight too.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:25 PM ^
What can the playcallers do differently to make Darboh help his hurt QB out on Michigan's last offensive play of the 4th quarter?
For all the people talking about playcalling: Was it a "great playcall" on OSU's third down play where Curtis Samuel scrambled wildly all over a play Michigan had sniffed out and managed to get Ohio State a reasonable 4th down opportunity? Or was it just a player making a play and dumb luck?
November 26th, 2016 at 10:20 PM ^
Playcalling was fine.
Up until the 43:30 mark, when Speight threw that god-awful interception (and right after Mason Cole's inexplicable facemask penalty), this is how the game had went offensively:
Michigan: 244 yards 17 points
OSU: 164 yards 0 points
Michigan was in total control of the game and looked to be on their way to a relatively easy win. Then the pick.
After Michigan's offense gifted OSU their 14th point, Michigan ran 11 plays. For all the people saying Harbaugh "Lloydballed" it, Michigan ran 6 passes and 5 rushes. There were no Pepcat plays (which I am in agreement on, was one area that I think Harbaugh never got right). It really did just come down to execution and officiating bias after it was 17-14.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:31 PM ^
every bad playcall is just as important as a missed call by the ref--and, one you can control.
The pepcat at the goalline cost us any real shot at 4 points. That right there is the game, and much easier to say it was objectively stupid and wrong than the 4th and 1 spot.
The speight pick 6 was a horrible play call. Granted, looking back, it didn't really cost us that much as we got the ball back and scored beore half time to regain the momentum. Could as easily have gone 3 and out and punted to them, had OSU score, and not had time to score again and gone into halftime down by 4.
The fourth quarter play calling was pretty blah, but I agree, it wasn't totally indefensible. It was more a product of OSU dominating the time of possession.
November 27th, 2016 at 3:05 AM ^
don't think the first pick 6 was a bad playcall- Smith missed McMillan who got a free shot on Speight causing the errant throw. Darboh was open on the play and would have been big to get out from the shadow of the goal line.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:31 PM ^
All 5 rushes were over the guard and on 1st and 2nd downs. The 1st down passing in the first half was missing in the second. Tough to complete passes when they are telegraphed by down and distance.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:42 PM ^
November 27th, 2016 at 12:55 AM ^
November 27th, 2016 at 12:32 PM ^
November 26th, 2016 at 10:31 PM ^
Would need to see video to review, but my impressions were that there was less variation in the playcalling and shifting/motions than normal.
I do not remember any deep throws, certainly not like we expected or were hoping for. IDK whether is was the playcalls or coverage, but it felt like the passing game was too reliant on short throws to the flat, and Speight's accuracy on those was a bit eratic. Darboh dropped a couple (again), and Chesson didn't really seem to show up in this one (again), so maybe that had something to do with the playcalling as the game went on.
Formations seemed terribly predictable, too. PepCat and formatons without at least two receivers deployed were invariably runs. I am pretty sure I've seen Smith and the running backs run a little harder than we did yesterday.
Seemed like Harbaugh thought they could get to the point where they would wear down the Ohio State front 7/8, and that never quite happened.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:31 PM ^
I think it's easy to say the playcalling is bad but the two picks weren't on the playcalling. You either throw more and risk another pick or run and risk not being aggresive enough.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:33 PM ^
November 26th, 2016 at 10:42 PM ^
...or maybe not. Too lazy/pissed off to check.
But, WHERE WAS McDOOM????
Two games in a row now, completely MIA on offense. As in, did he even see a snap?
Running McDoom on a jet sweep or two rather than Peppers crashing into the the center of the OSU D-line again might have been a good call, eh?
Disappointing.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:52 PM ^
McDoom coming into the game signals jet sweep, or some variation off the jet sweep. It's the only package he had, and he's a freshman that is not considered a leader on the team, or a threatening weapon by the opponent. I don't like the Pepcat package either - it hasn't done squat since Rutgers, but Peppers is a clear threat to the defense. Too bad they couldn't do something different with him.
November 27th, 2016 at 10:57 AM ^
Yes, McDoom was used this season almost exclusively in jet sweep situations. And...they worked quite frequently, too.
I didn't see a single down of the Iowa game, so I have no idea if we used/tried to use McDoom on a jet sweep in that game, but for sure we didn't against Indiana, and for sure we didn't yesterday. I fail to see the point of "he's a freshman that is not considered a leader on the team." Who cares?
If nothing else, bring him in and FAKE the jet sweep.
All things considered, and bad referee calls/no calls aside, I was highly disappointed in the lack of creativity on offense yesterday. For me, THE turning point of the game was the drive after the Peppers' INT. Right then and there, we come back on offense and move the ball and possibly put points on the board, that is extremely demoralizing. Instead, we go three and out; no harm, no foul to OSU. All that gained momentum lost in a little over a minute.
Arg. It's just so frustrating. I mean, let's face it: OSU didn't play a perfect game, either. They TRIED to help us with 2 missed FGs. But what they DID do is capitalize to perfection the situations resulting from every little (or big) mistake we made.
And we definitely did NOT return the favor.
November 26th, 2016 at 10:53 PM ^
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November 26th, 2016 at 11:02 PM ^
This is literally one of my worst fears is that they are going to be poached and it just happens to be during the biggest game of the season.
Yes it's all speculation but if it does happen then I don't even know what to think anymore.
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November 26th, 2016 at 11:03 PM ^
In each of our last 3 losses we gave back a possession for running into a punter. In Iowa we some how did it twice on 3rd and 10. I know we blocked some kicks this year but I'd be curious to know if it was ever the difference in a game. The last 2 losses were close enough to wonder what if. today we get the ball on the 30 instead of our goalline and probably dont give up the pick six.
Personally, I would trade never blocking a punt again for never getting a roughing the punter called against us again.
November 27th, 2016 at 12:06 AM ^
I've been wondering about that.
We used to teach aiming for a spot 1 yard in front of the "kick point" so that you do not run into the kicker. Yet Michigan's rushers seem to aim directly at the punter (quite often from head on) which makes such penalties inevetable if you aren't fotunate enough to get a piece of the ball.
It may be good risk to take when playing inferior opponents or teams with poor offenses, but in close games, these penalties are as bad as a turnover.
November 27th, 2016 at 12:48 AM ^
November 26th, 2016 at 11:06 PM ^
Its interesting that we never change our tempo- we never go into hurry up mode to change momentum- ever
Also- 85% of the time I could tell if a play was a run or pass
November 27th, 2016 at 12:07 AM ^
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November 27th, 2016 at 12:17 AM ^
I don't think it had much to do with Speight not being able to execute anything else because of injury, but maybe the game plan was designed with the real possibility that they couldn't count on Speight to be healthy enought, and it would have to be executed by O'Korn.
It does seem that Harbagh has a tendency to play more conservative in big games, not wanting poor execution of gimmick plays and things to be the difference in the game.
November 27th, 2016 at 12:51 AM ^
November 27th, 2016 at 12:19 AM ^
We will not beat Ohio til our blockhead of a coach gets it through his thick fucking skull that the Ohio state game is not just another game.
Blame the officials? How cute. How about we blame the real cause for the loss, the coaching of our overpaid staff. If you don't try to block a punt (while up big) you don't end up on the 1. If you don't call the dumbest pass play ever, Speight doesn't get intercepted. If you tried at all you could've found several pepcat plays that would've given osu fits.
We're back to being ridiculously predictable. 1st down is always a run off left guard or that stupid playaction where Speight fakes a handoff to a back that's not there. If we throw incomplete on first, second down is almost ALWAYS a run.
I thought Harbaugh was supposed to be some offensive genius? I am blown away at the vanilla game plan.
More than anything I'm tired of losing to Ohio state.
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November 27th, 2016 at 12:42 AM ^
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November 27th, 2016 at 3:19 AM ^
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November 27th, 2016 at 12:31 AM ^
We're still laughing at you.
November 27th, 2016 at 12:43 AM ^
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November 27th, 2016 at 12:19 AM ^
The Pepcat is fucking stupid and needs to go away 12 hours ago. All it does is burn downs. Run base fucking offense with two RBs if you're so fucking concerned about fucking deception.
November 27th, 2016 at 2:44 AM ^
Too bad our best D in 10 yrs was paired with mediocre O. But you can't win championships without the total package. Hopefully recruiting gets us there soon. Playcalling was mostly fine IMO and got us about everything we got because no dynamic playmaking got us anything extra.
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November 27th, 2016 at 3:13 AM ^
The offense really isn't all that good from a talent standpoint. Outside of Butt and Darboh as a secondary reciever, Harbaugh's going to want to upgrade at every position in the years to come. The defense, on the other hand, had a number of sure-fire NFL players across all position groups.
I also don't think he trusts Speight and/or thinks he's quite limited and waters down the playbook for him if you compare it to what he was running with Luck at Stanford.
By, say 2019, the offense will be night and day better and one of the best in CFB and we'll think it was amazing that he made Speight a serviceable QB.
November 27th, 2016 at 4:03 AM ^
Bottom line is Harbaugh got cute and pissed the game away where he should've been co TE t to just pound the rock
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November 27th, 2016 at 9:28 AM ^
November 29th, 2016 at 8:15 AM ^
Yeah, pretty sure we did Pound the Rock and couldn't move the ball in the 2nd half.
November 27th, 2016 at 6:51 AM ^
is 3 years from now. There's people posting on this forum who won't be alive in 2019 for sure. If we wanted to just flush the next two years down the drain and be good every once in a while, we wouldn't need the best-paid coach in college football. We expect to beat OSU next year, end of story.
November 27th, 2016 at 7:03 AM ^
or because he doesn't have confidence in his offense to get the job done?
All season we saw some exotic play calling, thinking that he was saving variations to bring out in the GAME. Instead, we got predictable/conservative plays.
The Peppers experiment had NO new wrinkles. I, and probably many here, thought that the plays he was putting on tape were a head fake, only to spring unexpected variations when it counted. It seems that he just wanted to make the opposition work overtime preparing for the whole playbook.
So do we put this on an average OL and hurting QB or does JH have a tendency to shrink the playbook as the stakes get higher?
November 27th, 2016 at 9:26 AM ^
November 27th, 2016 at 7:50 AM ^
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November 27th, 2016 at 9:24 AM ^
November 27th, 2016 at 8:24 AM ^
could be an issue down the line. He's just 11-13 as a FBS college coach in games decided by 7 points or less. Meyer in comparison is 35-13 or something like that. It seems clear that Meyer is a pretty aggressive coach while Harbaugh goes very conservative in these sorts of situations. Ferentz was more audacious in our game at Kinnick than Harbaugh and that's kind of worrisome.
Will Harbaugh's desire to be Bo v2.0 also ensure that he will suffer from the same fate i.e. no national titles and a meh record in big games?