Was D'Antonio sending a message
when he quipped that Michigan used 40 different offensive formations in the first half? Harbaugh's offense is pro style which is complex and requires exacting execution. Is it too much for kids recently out of high school to aborb? Should Harbaugh use an offense that fits the players he has.
Don Brown defense is predicated on the talent of the players he has and recruited. The results are obvious.
Maybe the answer to Michigan's offensive woes is to simplify offensive assignements. This includes blockng schemes, pass routes and play calling. Harbaugh doesn't have a Andrew Luck and needs to adjust.
October 8th, 2017 at 12:57 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:39 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:46 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 12:41 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 12:42 PM ^
Harbaugh gets all the media attention, Michigan gets all the media attention..meanwhile he's been doing a bang up job at MSU for a decade and he's just this grumpy-looking dude no-one but hardcore fans of college football or MSU knows a thing about.
If you were in his shoes, man if I were in his shoes professionally, I know I'd savor this so much and yes I'd be a bad winner. It's just one of those things. Some guys need to grind, some guys seem to have it all. Dantonio is getting a kick out of these wins and it's entirely understandable on a human level.
October 8th, 2017 at 2:26 PM ^
Even when we stunk under RR/Hoke, Dantonio had a Michigan complex. Just how he is.
October 8th, 2017 at 2:49 PM ^
it's maybe because Michigan is the way Michigan is regardless of who our coach is and what the record on the field is. Michigan meaning the fanbase, the students, the alumni, the players etc. There's an ethos of calculated mild cruelty and large doses of snobbery and condescension toward MSU and really most other schools in the region. It's not a secret and we definitely revel in that when the going is good.
Well the downside is that for those people there's nothing more satisfying than kicking us in the nuts and seeing us rolling on the floor in agony.
October 8th, 2017 at 3:25 PM ^
Fuck D'antino.
October 8th, 2017 at 12:43 PM ^
There is a reason that successful college offenses are very different than successful pro offenses.
Pro offenses are very complex. They can be deadly against college defenses, but you have to be hitting on all cylinders. There is no room for an inexperienced OL with no depth and a one-read QB with little pocket poise and freshmen recievers that aren't where they are sopposed to be at all times.
Problem for us is, Andrew Luck and the Stanford OL are not walking through that door.
Even Alabama can't get this magic pro formula to work all the time.
Meanwhile, Penn State switches to a typical "simple" college offense and has immediate success in just one year.
With the way our defense performs, we'd be better off to go the Penn State route and forget about trying to recreate the New England Patriots on a college field.
It's not working.
But we don't need it to work. We just need a half-way decent college offense to couple with our dominant defense.
It's time to make that change.
October 8th, 2017 at 12:56 PM ^
it took Mike Leach until year 4 to really make it work at Wazzu and a couple of years at Texas Tech. The point being that even very 'college' offenses aren't installed overnight even by really good coaches.
I think aside from all the lamenting of how things could be, should be, would be..in reality the choice is pretty obvious - patience. Rome wasn't built in a day.
October 8th, 2017 at 2:23 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:05 PM ^
We have a lot of complex route-trees, pre- and post-snap reads, motions, a zillion formations, and multiple o-line sets and reads. A multiple offense rather than a Meyer-style system. That's tough to throw redshirt and true freshman into. Clearly, this offense suffers from missed assignments all over the place. Time to simplify...
October 8th, 2017 at 1:35 PM ^
I get what you are saying, however, you are way overstating it.
Making Harbaugh's offense work well does not require the next Andrew Luck. Just need QB play to be one level better than Speight or O'Korn.
The offense last year was almost good enough to make the playoff and it was not stacked with super high end talent. It was a lot of veteran talent, some of whom made NFL rosters, but there wasn't anyone that teams had to scheme their D around. No all-americans.
With better QB play last year M would have been in the playoff. Would not have taken Andrew Luck level play. Just one level better than Speight.
It is taking too long, but if Peter or McCaffrey are one level better than Speight 2016, things will work well.
Plus, the offensive coaching staff needs to get their heads out of their arses on game plans and play selection. Was better last year than this year (Fisch?). But that is another story.
October 8th, 2017 at 3:00 PM ^
I wish it was just Speight or O'Korn. But it's not.
There are multiple failures among the OL, RBs, and receivers at play as well. And the scheme and play calling is not helping the situation.
We are not just one plug-in QB away from solving all of this.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:01 PM ^
But it seemed that you were saying the the JH offense won't work without a Andrew Luck level QB and an o-line as good as the better Stanford o-lines.
That is not really true. 2016 offense was very close to good enough to make the playoff. Just slightly better QB play would have done it. Andrew Luck level play would not have been needed.
And the 2016 o-line was not elite either.
So the JH offense can work just fine with a decent set of players (as in 2016, a unit with no all americans and few all big ten level players), plus QB play one notch better than 2016 version of Speight.
Might also require the return of Fisch or someone similar
October 8th, 2017 at 12:45 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 12:48 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 12:55 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 2:03 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 3:30 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 12:49 PM ^
Look at the offensive coaching staff. The results should not be surprising.
We have a guy who led the Browns offense to a 1-15 season with 4 diferent quarterbacks, a guy who has never been an OC, and a guy who has never coached RBs. Of course the product is shit.
October 8th, 2017 at 12:54 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 12:57 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:01 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:41 PM ^
Check the Browns roster on offense when he was there. The best player was Tyrelle Pryor playing...receiver. Hamilton had no talent to work with.
October 8th, 2017 at 3:13 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 2:06 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:36 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 1:47 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 2:11 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 3:04 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 3:17 PM ^
Find a Don Brown for the offense and let him run the show.
We've been around 40th in the offensive S & P rankings on offense for the first two years. We are around 70th now. This isn't just a 5 game thing- the offense hasn't been good enough in the first two years under JH either.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:30 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 3:48 PM ^
We got intimidated again by MSU. We dropped balls. The right side of our line was non existent. We didn't stick with the run when it actually wasn't awful. We tried to throw in sheets of rain like we were down by 21 and time running out. Our youth on offensive is more negatively impactful than that on defense, as is always the case but for a skill position like wr or sometime rb when you have a sick line (which we don't).
Kids learn though and we will be back. Too bad all factors came together at once against these douche bags but they did. We will be fine.
Beat OSU and win a bowl game and we will think it's the greatest season in last ten years.
October 8th, 2017 at 4:36 PM ^
Nah, Beating OSU and winning a bowl game happened in 2011. The only think that will be better than that is winning a conference title, or at least a division title. Something Michigan has yet to do.
October 8th, 2017 at 4:26 PM ^
HC and OC need to own this loss. Harbaugh outcoached by Dantonio, again. Khaki fails to put players in a position to win in big games.
October 8th, 2017 at 4:34 PM ^
Dantonio sends a message every time he plays us. That message is that we take this game very seriously and until Michigan starts taking it as seriously he will continue to get the better of us.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:32 PM ^
We aren't out of the running. Simmer.
Does throwing kids into a complex system have growing pains? Yes
What does harbaugh want to be able to promise recruits? The best shot at getting to the NFL, and the best backup plan (having a Michigan degree)
The learning curve is higher, it will take some time for this young team to develop, harbaugh has always recruited differently at o-line and fundamentally trains them differently to not just be "huge" but to NOT GET INJURED.
The learning curve is there, and it sucks to go through the pain, but in the long term, this team will be better, the players will be more highly coveted by NFL, and we just have to have some faith in that development or sit around bitching about how we suck.
It's still early in the season, we have a lot of highly ranked teams coming up to play, and we still have all the chances in the world to prove our team is worthy as any other. One loss, get over it, keep developing, move on.
October 8th, 2017 at 5:38 PM ^
Is that he is a better coach than Harbaugh. Period, dot, end of story. It's not debatable at this point. Give Dantonio this talent and he'd be in the CFP, and probably win a game.
It doesn't sound like it, but I'm a huge Harbaugh fan. That said, this game was a joke. I don't want to hear how young this team is. Figure out what they can do well, and fucking do it. Expand the playbook once they are competent at some things. And, for next year apparently, have one guy with the sole responsibility of the offensive line. I refuse to believe that a line with a 5th year senior, true senior, redshirt sophomore and two true sophomores has to be this bad. Both Drevno and Frey have a track record of developing good offensive lines. But something is getting lost in translation by sharing the duties.
I didn't see the whole Dantonio press conference but he wasn't as much of an asshole as he typically is after one of these games from what I saw. Maybe he knows he's proven he's the better coach and can lower the level of his asshole-ness. Maybe he knows he got away with winning a game he had no business winning. Or maybe he knows that he isn't facing RichRod or Hoke anymore and he'd better be careful in case Harbaugh finally figures this shit out.
This will be the second straight year that Michigan has a CFP defense and a much worse offense. What a waste. Better lock up Brown with a lifetime contract now, so we can be sure he's here in case Michigan ever develops a complementary offense. Maybe then Michigan can finally finish above 3rd in the B10 East.
Whatever, Michigan is an 8-4 team, at best. Losses to PSU, WSU and OSU are a given. The only real mystery is if O'Korn will fuck up another game and drop us to 7-5 and a late December bowl game. Fucking joke.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:09 PM ^
October 8th, 2017 at 8:35 PM ^
Stuff is getting figured out. It’s not working out perfectly on offense. It’s one game. It sucks we lost, but you’re overreacting a smidge here. It’s a competitive sport and we can’t expect all teams to bend over because Harbaugh arrived. I trust he’ll figure things out as he’s proven he can in the previous two seasons with UM and several other past journeys of success.
October 8th, 2017 at 6:50 PM ^
For now, Harbaugh et al might be outsmarting themselves on O. In a year when the O is seasoned at QB and OL, years IN THE SAME OFFENSIVE SYSTEM - no changes to the OL blocking scheme, etc. - I get it. An offense great players want to be in so they're ready for Sundays. If you're focused on winning each week, the Urbz / Mork approach win games. That felt like the difference yesterday.
Mork had his two effective drives that countered the aggressive D and after that got nada. Harbaugh and friends stayed committed to their O plan - regardless of watching the last two weeks of film that showed MSU could be had on the edge but the middle was death. Seems a little reminiscent of Bo - we run what we run and don't deviate. Bo also lost many confounding games over the years too, to bad Wisconsin, Minnesota, and MSU teams.
I put yesterday on the O coaching staff. By no means am I down on this staff. For the remainder of this year, we'll see what (if) they learn from it.
October 8th, 2017 at 8:30 PM ^
Their offense blew for the vast majority of the game. I wouldn’t take his advice on offense...ever
October 9th, 2017 at 11:01 AM ^