September 9th, 2017 at 3:44 PM ^
looked to me like Fickell & Co got a lot of lessons from the FL film on our defense.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:45 PM ^
Obligatory Fickell is Adam Sandler post.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:18 PM ^
I think he looks like Luke Wilson. Fickel not Sandler.
September 9th, 2017 at 9:25 PM ^
Fickle, Sandler. Sandler, Fickle....
September 9th, 2017 at 3:45 PM ^
I don't undestand anything the coaches are trying to do on offense. Why, in year 3, do we constantly have unblocked players getting to the RBs?
September 9th, 2017 at 3:51 PM ^
Trap play down on the goal line was blown up cause the trapped DT wasn't blocked. Think that was Onwenus error
September 9th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^
I think the coaching staff is calling reasonably plays sometimes and guys are just not blocking people. There were a couple of runs in this game where you had numbers and yet LBers got in behind the line with little resistance. It's a young team, but it should be said that the guys who couldn't beat out any of the offensive linemen last year are now the starters. Everyone expecting a huge uptick in production were being needlessly optimistic IMO.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:43 PM ^
That's a very reasonable un-hot take. The internet is no place for you.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:51 PM ^
I actually sort of like these post-game threads because I don't listen to talk radio and I miss that particular lazy analysis.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:45 PM ^
Had some Lloydball flashbacks in the 2nd quarter. Should have gone for it on 4th and inches and should have ran Isaac more in the first half. More play action and a HB screen could have softened the aggressive LB play from Cinci's defense.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:25 PM ^
These Lloyd ball comments really get old to me. Sure, he had his flaws...but If I'm not mistaken he had the leading rusher, passer, and reciever in Michigan History on the same team. Not to mention possibly the best Michigan offensive lineman of all time. Did he have his flaws as a coach...of course, but I don't think I saw any player with that level of production today.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:41 PM ^
And depending on which team you are referring to, they lost between 2 and 5 games.
September 9th, 2017 at 7:00 PM ^
Since 1975 there's only been 1 season where they haven't had at least 2 blemishes (losses and ties) - 1997. If you want to look at 2 losses there's only been 3 seasons where they haven't lost at least 2 games: 85 when they had one tie and one loss, 92 when they had 3 ties and 97.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:44 PM ^
You cannot be so obtuse as to not know "Lloyd-ball" refers to playing horribly uninspired football (like today) vs big underdogs. It doesn't mean he didn't have some great teams ('97, '06) & great games (UVa, several vs osu, Braylon-fest, psu '05 most notably).
And of course, Lloyd-ball is summed up for the rest of our lives by The Horror.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:22 PM ^
I don't think this is about me being "obtuse" .What bothers me about the "Lloyd ball" comment is people act like he was the coach who underachieved and never took care of buisness against the underdogs...when in reality Bo Schembechler had plenty of those games, Jim Harbaugh, in his career (not just Michigan, has had plenty of these games). I just feel like people are too quick to jump on coach Carr...and treat him like a Rodriguez or Hoke...when in reality his body of work deserves to be remembered with the legends of MIchigan Football.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:45 PM ^
The game management left a lot to be desired Bob.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:47 PM ^
...was Les Miles-esque. It was horrific and disillusioning.
Also, tunnel screens work well against our defense. Maryland used it to great effect last season.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:59 PM ^
If we stop them on 3rd down we have them backed up with 1 minute left and 2 timeouts plus obviously college rules. Didn't need to burn 3 timeouts imo
September 9th, 2017 at 4:00 PM ^
Use your timeouts on defence.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:21 PM ^
Such a simple concept and yet....
September 9th, 2017 at 6:27 PM ^
Normally right, but in this case wrong. Had we used our time outs we would have only given their offense more time to work with and the rest of the drive may have gone very differently if they weren't battling the clock.
Hindsight is 20-20 and in this case it turns out not using the time outs was the right call.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:54 PM ^
He didn't use them in case they gained a first down. Which they did-- on a huge gain. I know we're all assuming the D gets off the field there, but they didn't.
Later in the drive, Cincy was in pass-to-the-sidelines-only mode because there was so little time on the clock, thanks to keeping the TO's in his khaki pocket.
If we DO get the stop on third down we still have a minute on the clock and two timeouts. Seemed like logical use of timeouts to me.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:03 PM ^
Taking time outs might have helped Cincy the way they started moving the ball. Besides, do you actually trust Speight in a 2 minute offense? Last thing we needed was a pick six going the other way.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:22 PM ^
Speight ever sad to say
September 9th, 2017 at 4:29 PM ^
I thought the announcers were freaking out over nothing. And anyway it didn't matter because we gave up a 1st down.
Last thing we needed to do was get the ball, go 3 and out, and give Cincy another chance to drive.
The timeout with 20 seconds left was more questionable if anything.
September 9th, 2017 at 9:59 PM ^
Screens work well against us all the time. Look back at that Iowa game and Waddell obliterated the defense on screens. I love Don Brown's defense but it's too aggressive sometimes.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:46 PM ^
When passing isn't working we just keep doing it....ug
September 10th, 2017 at 12:33 AM ^
certainly a desire to get Wilton going better and build some confidence. Well... uh... mission frighteningly unaccomplished. I can be patient and see how things improve over the season, and I felt like I understood why we were still passing, but that understanding just made me more discouraged by the resulting product on the field...
September 9th, 2017 at 3:46 PM ^
Not sure how I feel about Drevno as OC - starting to question the play calling
September 9th, 2017 at 3:53 PM ^
Same last year, and we weren't sure if it was Fisch. Maybe the constant is Drevno. Starting to think it should be Pep and Jim while Drevno focuses on the OL.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:59 PM ^
Too many cooks in the kitchen maybe????
September 9th, 2017 at 6:10 PM ^
Uhm... Drevno focuses on the OL? Don't we already have a very respected OL coach?
September 9th, 2017 at 7:12 PM ^
Frey is tackles and tight ends.
September 9th, 2017 at 7:46 PM ^
Keep hearing about how great Isaac and Evans are as receivers, yet we do not throw to our backs. How about a screen, a flat, something to keep the defense honest and spread out.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:54 PM ^
i miss jedd fisch
September 9th, 2017 at 4:05 PM ^
Just starting now?
September 9th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^
I was just going to make a very similar comment. not impressed at all so far this year and most of last year with the playcalling. The WR screens and constraint plays that were supposedly from Fisch in 2015 that helped keep the Door off balance are completely gone. I think Drevno is too old school and is really limiting the offense.
September 9th, 2017 at 5:04 PM ^
I'm not saying I disagree, but in addition I'm sure the game plan didn't include a bunch of stuff we want to save for later. Coaches probably thought we could stay pretty vanilla and win. Which we did, but not as convincingly as we would have liked.
EDIT: Whoops, MGoBlue24 beat me to it.
September 9th, 2017 at 8:11 PM ^
I'm hoping you're right .... keep it simple and don't put anything on tape. I thought the same thing last year and then was disappointed to see the same vanilla plays later in the year, though.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:47 PM ^
Why keep throwing when we were torching them on the ground with outside runs? Gain 5 yards on first down with a run and then two bad pass plays would follow. It felt like that all game long. So frustrating.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:51 PM ^
Tacopants
September 9th, 2017 at 3:49 PM ^
Routes at the LOS on 3rd and 10....
September 9th, 2017 at 3:49 PM ^
Looks like they put the 3-3-5 back in the barn after their 3rd Q touchdown.
September 9th, 2017 at 8:28 PM ^
I think the coaches were trying to avoid showing anything but the 3-3-5. I bet they wanted to go the whole game with it. They switched things up in the 3rd only because things were threatening to get truly horrific.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:49 PM ^
Harbaugh can be stubborn to a fault.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:51 PM ^
Can be frustrating.
September 9th, 2017 at 3:50 PM ^
we are saving our good plays for our main rivals. We only used our bad plays today.
September 9th, 2017 at 4:29 PM ^
This is the ONLY take possible that doesn't lead to directly questioning the preparation, motivation, and the game management in today's gm.
So, yeah, let's say the staff flat looked past Cinci, and we'll see a much better prepared team vs Air Force
September 9th, 2017 at 4:43 PM ^
The offense plays did seem a bit vanilla. I just remember in the Florida game, it seemed like their was a lot of misdirection and deep shots. They didn't try much deep outside of the Crawford touchdown and it didn't seem like they had a ton of misdirection outside of a couple of plays here and there. I don't think a team saves good plays, but I wouldn't be surprised if the taff was trying to have the team work on a couple of concepts.