Iowa 14, Michigan 13 Comment Count

Ace

A Murphy's Law game.

Any number of individual plays could've changed the outcome. Most of the ones that come to mind involve Wilton Speight, who had his worst game of the year, then had injury added to insult at the end.

Speight wasn't alone in his struggles, however. Jehu Chesson missed a chance to bail his quarterback out, instead getting a third-down pass ripped from his hands by Manny Rugamba, costing the Wolverines a chance to put the game away. Khalid Hill missed an assignment that led to an early safety and lost a fumble returning the opening kickoff of the second half. Chris Evans was the only running back who could consistently get anything going. The playcalling, personnel usage, and late-game clock management will be nitpicked to death this week, and not without justification.

While the defense played well on the whole, they couldn't contain Akrum Wadley, who accounted for 167 yards on 28 touches. And, yes, there were multiple questionable calls by the notorious officiating crew led by John O'Neill.

"Not every little thing is going to go our team's way," said Jim Harbaugh. "To win, you've got to make it go your way. We didn't."

Michigan still has everything to play for, but they've lost all margin for error if they want to keep their Big Ten title and playoff dreams alive. Before they even get that far, though, they have to figure out what went wrong tonight. This game should not have been close, let alone a loss, but a number of underwhelming performances occurred in conjunction at the wrong time. There's no sugarcoating tonight.

Comments

kawter

November 13th, 2016 at 12:10 AM ^

Just win out, we need ZERO helps from Ped U!!!!

We're still in a great spot, likely ranked 4-5 and controlling our own destiny.

I still plan on eating dinner at St Elmo's on the 2nd before the game against

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mediocracy2

November 13th, 2016 at 2:47 AM ^

Although, OSU looms large (especially after tonight). If the transitive property worked for college foosball (which it usually does not) we lost to a team that just last week got embarrased by PSU, who in turn beat OSU a few weeks back. 

uncle leo

November 12th, 2016 at 11:56 PM ^

Any help. This loss doesn't change a thing.

What they need to concern themselves with is figuring out how to play with more fire and whether or not Speight is the right guy to win on the road, especially after the injury.

I Like Burgers

November 13th, 2016 at 12:08 AM ^

Agreed on not needing help.  They still need to beat Ohio State (which now looks like a tall task considering the last two road performances) and win the Big Ten and then they'd make the playoff with ease.

Don't agree on Speight being the issue, though.  The play calling this game was straight ass.  Speight was 0-ball game on long passes and they still kept calling them.  Right up until the end.  When they saw him struggling, they should have started calling short passes, screens, etc to build up a rhythm.  Instead we got long bombs, and "Hey Peppers, is in the game, wonder what the play will be" or "Hey, McDoom is in the game, wonder what they'll do."

Those funny videos of Penn State calling out what Iowa was going to do last week?  Yeah, that was us this week.

I Like Burgers

November 13th, 2016 at 12:36 AM ^

Speight was never the same after that safety drive.  Before they made him throw on 1st and 10 from his own 2 yard line, Speight was night and day.  Starting on that drive with that throw, Michigan's offense went:

Safety (-2yds)

3/Out (1yd)

3/Out (2yds)

3/Out (8yds)

3/Out (0yds)

FG (12 plays, 60yds)

INT (9 plays, 22 yds)

3/Out (2yds)

 

Before that, they had three drives that went for 6/22, 10/23 FG, and 9/72 TD.  Speight was 6/11 for 68 yards.  Not good, but not bad.  After that, he finished 5/15, 35 yards, and an INT.  

And given all of that, on the most important play of the game, 3rd and 8 they had Speight go long to Darboh.  Just dumb play calling.  Yeah, maybe Darboh could have caught it, but the throw was short and behind Darboh.

snarling wolverine

November 13th, 2016 at 1:24 AM ^

They "made" him throw from our own endzone against MSU, too, and he completed a deep ball to Darboh.  Personally, I like that they have confidence in him to do that.  He happened to be off tonight for whatever reason (and his WRs didn't help out, either).  Actually, my issue is more that as the game went on, the staff waited until obvious passing downs to let him throw downfield.

My biggest coaching gripe, though, is with the defensive staff for seemingly not recognizing that Iowa was going to get Wadley the ball as often as possible, whether by handoff or pass.  On that 4th and goal, how were we caught off-guard by him coming out of the backfield, when he'd carried the ball their whole drive?

 

I Like Burgers

November 13th, 2016 at 12:39 AM ^

Didn't catch that during the game since I had to watch portions on mute.  But that seems like it would be on Speight and the coaches.  Speight for going for it repeatedly and then on the coaches for not telling him to take what the defense was giving him and/or for not calling some shorter confidence boosting plays.

denardogasm

November 13th, 2016 at 12:10 AM ^

1. Yeah not sure why we would need help from Penn State?  We need to beat OSU, just like before.  Should still be ranked above PSU tomorrow.  That'll be interesting.

2. To suggest that Speight might not be the best QB for this team is just plain stupid though.  One bad game plagued by really bad playcalling, an injury, and a lot of drops doesn't knock him down the depth chart, especially with two games to go.

3. Fuck.

jmblue

November 13th, 2016 at 12:29 AM ^

But the thing is, they have a chance to move as high as #2 in the rankings this week. I can't realistically see them dropping out of the top four if they win out.

We've just got to take care of business. And we can - we're better than we looked tonight and I think we'll give a better effort in Columbus, though it will be tough regardless.

snarling wolverine

November 13th, 2016 at 1:22 AM ^

If they're #2 this week in the CFP (which is very possible, as they were #5 this week and #2/3/4 all lost), do you really see them winning them dropping all the way out of the top 4 if they win the next two weeks?

I strongly suspect they're in if they win out.  It's going to be up to us to keep them out.

 

Michifornia

November 13th, 2016 at 12:00 AM ^

And yeah I'm pissed like everyone else.  But Harbaugh and company will learn from this and will be ready to play a LOT better the next two weeks.

This will sting until we play next week.  Shake it off, beat ohio and we are still in the mix.

GO BLUE!!

Bones032

November 13th, 2016 at 12:01 AM ^

I'm very confused that everyone assumed we were putting up 40 pts tonight. What have you seen from our offense in road night games in the last decade to make you think that? Glad I was on the side who was super nervous and knew what kind of game was coming. Still hurts, but not as shocking as it must be to most of the fanbase who was super confident for whatever reason.

MGoStrength

November 13th, 2016 at 10:49 AM ^

We have had a big change in the program and I think we are all on board with Harbaugh.  But, there is at least one commonality from the previous regime that has been a thorn in our side for about 10 years, and that's the offensive line/running game.  Now, we have had great o-line man during that time like Lewan, and we have had great running performances with either D-Rob or against less than stellar defenses.  But, traditionally the things that help you win in close games are defense and running the ball, specifically with the running back.  And, it's been quite some time since we've been able to pound the ball with the RB consistently against quality defenses.  If the defnese isn't great, or we have good balance, then yes we can run.  But, we haven't been able to run in obvious running situations against the better defenses like Iowa, MSU, and Wisc this year.  Which also leads me to predict we won't be able to against OSU, so we'll have to find creative ways to run the ball, be better throwing, get special teams TDs, or get some TOs or luck.

 

I think Newsome really hurt us.  Braden seems to be struggling at tackle.  I'm sure Bredeson will be great in another year or two, but he's a true freshman.  Kalis and Mags struggled last night.  And, although Cole's probably our best lineman, he's no world beater.  Jaleel Johnson was dominating up front.  We made him look like Malik McDowell.

 

I do think Evans had better luck than Smith and should have gotten more carries.  And, although Speight has been improving weekly, he's still a first year starting QB.  Has Speight ever been to Kinnick before?  Although Darboh has had a great year, he's still Darboh, a usually reliable, albeit not incredibly talented, wide reciever.  He'd probably be a possession reciever on most quality UM teams of years past.  He's no Braylon, Terrell, Manningham, Funchess, Howard, etc.  He's not gonna take over a game by himself and neither is Chesson.  In fact, Butt is probably the only guy that can do that on our team right now.  We don't really have a big play threat.  I think Evans and McDoom will develop that in the future, but right now we don't have that guy.  

 

So, when we can't run the ball without trying to be overly cute for lack of a better word (with Peppers or McDoom or end-arounds) than it's difficult to win road games against the better defenses.  They neutralized Peppers for the most part in the return game.  They only had one TO and it was at our 20 yard line.  We turned the ball over twice I think.  We had lots of personal fouls.  And, the officiating was bad.  That's a lot of random things all go against us in one game.  And, when that sort of things happens, it's difficult to win close games unleass you can establish a consistent running game and we couldn't.  That has been the case for about the past 10 years, so there is some truth to that statement.  It's not about attitude, or a mental funk, or the coaching, or a curse, it's about the offensive line IMO.