game recaps
100% worst thing ever
don brown
josh gattis
jim harbaugh
vincent gray
jalen perry
joe milton

Michigan State 27, Michigan 24 Comment Count

Ace October 31st, 2020 at 4:07 PM

"Disconcerting signals," indeed.

That was a penalty drawn by Cam McGrone before he exited this cursed game with an injury. It fairly describes the entire contest for Michigan.

Michigan State's offense could do one thing with any consistency: chuck the ball long against press man coverage. The Wolverines had no answers in terms of personnel and seemingly didn't try to come up with any schematically. The five Spartan scoring drives featured long passes covering 30, 53, 50, 19, and 31 yards. The coaches pulled starting corner Vincent Gray for Jalen Perry in the second half; Perry managed to stay closer to MSU's receivers but couldn't do any better at playing the ball.

Michigan's offense, meanwhile, failed to come up with a downfield passing game of their own, and much of their success on the ground came outside the tackles. State piled up six tackles for loss and held M to 4.7 yards per carry (sacks removed). Joe Milton's accuracy waxed and waned as he mustered 300 scoreless yards on 51 attempts. Jalen Mayfield went down late and, while he walked off the field, he was taken into the tunnel by the cart.

The coaches will come under heavy, deserved criticism for the most surprising—and perhaps most bitterly disappointing—defeat of the Jim Harbaugh era. The Wolverines were poised to tie the game at 14 heading into halftime before Josh Gattis dialed up second and third-and-goal plays with Hassan Haskins as a wildcat quarterback; the run was stuffed, the surprise pass underthrown and tipped incomplete by Ann Arbor native Antjuan Simmons, who had a standout game at linebacker for MSU.

Don Brown rarely deviated from calling press man coverage even though the defense was getting eviscerated by the vaunted Rocky Lombardi to Ricky White connection, which tallied eight completions on ten targets for 196 yards and a touchdown. Lombardi averaged 19 yards on his 17 completions and his total was deflated by numerous flags on the Michigan secondary.

In other Big Ten games, Minnesota lost to Maryland, which got pasted last week by Northwestern, which is losing by two scores early against Iowa, which lost last week against Purdue. I guess the silver lining is that this is an incredibly stupid year.

Comments

Cali Wolverine

November 1st, 2020 at 5:31 PM ^

Actually, I am a Republican and live in California, and am pretty familiar with Harris.  Not all Republicans have their head in the sand.  The fact that you think centrists are now “socialists” and buy this nonsense that Harris is the “most liberal senator” and parrot this BS back to people is laughable and shows your leanings.

Joined: 01/13/2013

MGoPoints: 21755

Brodie

November 1st, 2020 at 7:27 PM ^

I've often asked that question myself, but I think it's becoming more and more clear that either Harbaugh no longer has his heart in it and is bolting to the NFL when his contract expires or otherwise we're in limbo. So I think it's worth considering... Fickell almost assuredly wouldn't even take our call, so I would think it would be some combination of Matt Campbell, PJ Fleck, and Chris Klieman. 

Joined: 11/19/2008

MGoPoints: 10712

Wolverine 73

October 31st, 2020 at 6:43 PM ^

He said two years ago, after Ohio State eviscerated his defense, that he was installing more zone concepts.  When you have lousy corner backs, it might be a good year to play a lot of those zones.  When a mediocre QB rips up your man to man in the first half, you might want to switch to those zones.  WTF is he thinking?  Let’s just switch to our second string CB, he will be better?  Yeah, that worked.

Joined: 08/03/2009

MGoPoints: 27239

Midukman

November 1st, 2020 at 1:10 AM ^

The passés that were complete were well defended. The D line not gettin a bit of fucking pressure was the difference. I’m a Carlo kemp fan but if he’s the best we have we’re screwed. I agree that Brown needs to go. The guys tried to leave 2-3 times yet Harbaugh hasn’t showed him the door. Saban would have fired his ass after the 1st OSU corn holing.  

Joined: 09/13/2018

MGoPoints: 15906

Mpfnfu Ford

October 31st, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^

I’m hesitant to say fire someone in a season this screwed up, but it’s hard to defend keeping Brown. If you’re going to be someone who contributes nothing in recruiting, you better be a wizard, and all I see is a team philosophically unwilling to bend to the realities caused by piss poor recruiting.

Joined: 05/19/2012

MGoPoints: 6469

GoingBlue

November 1st, 2020 at 12:46 AM ^

Defense is recruiting. Play straight up tight man with one high safety and blitz everyone else every single play, and have Ohio State level talent, and you have a top 5 defense, that doesn’t get exposed 3 or 4 times a year. The best coach in the world couldn’t turn a team of 3 and low 4 stars into elite. If you aren’t recruiting at an elite level you need to go. 

Joined: 01/04/2017

MGoPoints: 1545

BlueInGreenville

November 1st, 2020 at 7:40 AM ^

There are plenty of examples of college football programs that have good defenses consistently every year without top 10 recruiting classes - take MSU, Iowa and Wisconsin as examples.  But you have to have a scheme that works and opposing OCs have figured Don Brown defenses out, and the refs are calling the hand checking stuff a lot more closely.  His needs to be more flexible in his scheme or we need another DC, but really we just need another staff altogether.

Joined: 10/22/2017

MGoPoints: 6329