Bag of Tricks?: Play Calling

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

...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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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?