Penn State 42, Michigan 13
A matchup problem. [Patrick Barron]
Michigan has weaknesses that playoff teams lack. Tonight, those weaknesses were brutally exposed by a Penn State squad that sure looked like a playoff team themselves.
This game looked all but over in the opening five minutes. On the second play from scrimmage, future Heisman winner Saquon Barkley shifted over to quarterback, ran a read option with quarterback Trace McSorley acting as the running back, and gutted Michigan for a 69-yard touchdown. The Wolverines, on the other hand, went backwards on their opening possession, then watched as Barkley finished off a four-play, 78-yard drive with a 15-yard touchdown off a speed option pitch. Michigan, again, had negative yardage on the following drive.
A miscommunication between McSorley and tight end Mike Gesicki resulted in a David Long interception that briefly gave the Wolverines new life. After marching down to the PSU three, it took four cracks for Karan Higdon to finally break the plane. Quinn Nordin, getting booed by a crowd that never forgets a slight, missed the extra point. Michigan's counterpunch brought the defense to life; Khaleke Hudson nearly picked off a screen pass in the end zone.
Also a matchup problem. [Eric Upchurch]
The teams traded punts until a flurry of action at the end of the half. First, an unlikely connection from John O'Korn to Kekoa Crawford set up a six-yard Ty Isaac touchdown to bring Michigan within a point. Then McSorley threw Penn State down the field in the blink of an eye before finishing the drive on a three-yard keeper.
While the Wolverines went into the half down only 21-13, the numbers were foreboding. PSU amassed 302 total yards in the first half, more than Michigan had allowed in a full game this season. The safeties, steady to this point, were exploited in space by Barkley and McSorley. The offense mustered only 141 yards on five fewer plays, still hampered by poor blocking and a lack of trust in the passing game.
Given all that, it probably shouldn't have surprised too many people when Penn State blew the game wide open in the second half. Issues new and old appeared on PSU's first possession of the half. Tyree Kinnel got dusted one-on-one by DaeSean Hamilton on a slant for 26 yards; Barkley dropped a big gain after easily beating Mike McCray on a wheel route; McSorley seemingly juked half the defense to find the end zone on a beautifully designed inverted veer that had Barkley motion before the snap, drawing much of the defense's attention. Just like that, PSU took a commanding 28-13 lead.
Once again, John O'Korn couldn't generate much in the passing game. [Upchurch]
From then on, it was a merciless beating. On offense, O'Korn was improved from last week's woeful outing but still only managed 5.9 yards per attempt. Any hopes of a comeback were dashed when cornerback Christian Campbell beat Karan Higdon around the edge and ripped the ball away from O'Korn. They were really dashed when Barkley toasted McCray in man coverage for a juggling 48-yard touchdown two plays later; McCray had no hope of keeping pace, yet the normally unassailable Don Brown kept allowing that matchup to play out.
It was academic from there. McSorley added another rushing touchdown with 7:53 to play. Michigan's final possession ended in appropriately inept fashion. Facing fourth-and-nine, the coaches pulled right tackle Juwann Bushell-Beattly, who allowed consistent pressure, to insert Nolan Ulizio as an apparent pass-protection specialist. Before they could snap the ball, O'Korn took a delay of game. After the penalty, redshirt freshman backup Shaka Toney ran right around Mason Cole to sack O'Korn for the coup de gras.
Michigan can only fix so much this season. With the schedule letting up considerably over the next few week, they're likely to try some new patches, potentially including one fans have wanted for weeks. Quarterback Brandon Peters was warming up on the sideline before O'Korn ultimately took the field for M's last drive. Given how that drive played out, that was probably for the best. Now that the conference title is essentially out of reach and a top-ten defense isn't facing M's O-line, it's time to see what Peters has got. While that won't solve everything, it could be the spark this offense desperately needs.
Many of tonight's other issues will be taken care of for this year, at least, by not having to face Joe Moorhead and this Nittany Lions offense again.
They want Bama. They can have them.
October 23rd, 2017 at 7:39 AM ^
This is quite simply about the best post I have ever read on this blog, save some of Brian's gems. Look around the country and the offenses being employed, and this is SPOT ON. College football at some point boils down to coaching, and having guys who know what system works, and the ability to implement it. I fear that we are being passed by in the sense that what works at the pro level doesn;t necessarily translate to the college level. We regularly get scorched by mobile QB's, and it appears they can do so even to our lauded defenses. Harbaugh is still the man, but needs to steal a page from Franklin's and as much as I hate to say it, Kelly's playbook and get assistants in who can light it up at this level. Head coaches steer the ship, but its quality assistants who aim the guns and sink the enemy, for lack of a better analogy..............
October 22nd, 2017 at 1:23 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 7:56 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 1:23 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 3:03 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 4:45 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 1:38 AM ^
Anyone who watched Michigan's preceeding games with any shred of objectivity could see this coming. I feel like I'm watching the same shitty movie i've seen so many times since 2007. Michigan shows obvious signs of problems, but somehow comes into mid October 5-1 or 6-0 and people just drink the kool-aid. The first decent conference opponent we run into, we shit the bed and it's all down hill from there. I thought we got off the ride with JH, but here we go again.
October 22nd, 2017 at 9:06 AM ^
Continuity is the key. As more recruiting classes come in the team will improve. This team is an 8 win squad consistent with the Vegas line early in the year. We were all encouraged by the Florida win and the start, but the team is the youngest in the country and they are not up to the level of PSU or even OSU.
8 wins with a team as young as this one, probably means good things to come.
Key position questions moving forward are QB, RB and Oline. If that gets sorted out, the future is bright.
October 22nd, 2017 at 1:57 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 12:32 PM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 12:53 PM ^
Are you seriously going to say Jordan Howard is better than Barkley? Zeke is a fair discussion, but Howard - not even close.
October 22nd, 2017 at 2:03 AM ^
2017 - 17, 2016 - 14, 2015 - 18, 2014 -27. Overall they never had top 10 recruiting classes but I guess their coaches are good at getting good players. UM: 2017 - 5, 2016 - 6, 2015 - 40, 2014 - 18. This down season may hurt recruiting a bit but we should be in the 10-20 ranked class and then if we improve next year we should have another top 10 class.
October 22nd, 2017 at 7:51 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 9:23 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 2:07 AM ^
This is not a good football team.
A lot of this season's problems fall on the coaching staff.
The meme coming into the season was that if they can survive the first half of their schedule and endure growing pains, this young and inexperienced team will improve as the season progresses. I haven't seen any improvement so far this season. That is disconcerting enough. A bigger indictment on this coaching staff is the alarming number of players who haven't shown any improvement from last year and some who have showed clear regression. Where is the player development?
Thus far I give this coaching staff a failing grade so far for the season. Having said that, to suggest that this staff is a failure and that they are done is flat-out absurd. Currently there are no better options for this program than Harbaugh. He's been somewhat nauseatingly deified by our fan-base and some of the media since the day he accepted this job. With his pedigree and hype we all hoped that he'd be as good as Urban Meyer. I don't think he is. But he's a heck of a lot better than RR or Hoke. Maybe he's no better than Lloyd Carr. After the last 2 coaches, I'd be OK settling with the next Lloyd Carr. Optimal? No. Tolerable? Yes. Look at MSU. They were a horrendous 3-9 and had a horrific offseason shedding a ton of young talent. Yet, here they sit with 1 loss and wil llikely finish with a better record than us. This is what Dantonio does. Hopefully, Harbaugh can at least be as good as Dantonio.
it's critical that this team wins at least one more and becomes Bowl eligible. Those extra 4 weeks of practice will be sorely needed.
There are no gimmes the rest of the way for this team.
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:07 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 9:49 AM ^
Speight regressed.
Evams regressed.
Bunting regressed.
Cole looks like he may have regressed a little bit.
McDoom is contributing less than a year ago.
Crawford is attrocious.
Wheatley is a ghost.
Khalid Hill has regressed.
O'Korn, Higdon, Isaac and the rest of the O-line don't look any better than they did a year ago.
While still flawed Gentry, McKeon, Poggi and possibly Perry all look to be ahead of where they were a year ago.
We are seeing an appalling lack of develpment on the offensive side of the ball. When it's that widespread it's bad coaching.
The D has been much better. Other than McCray pretty much everyone has imrpoved from a year ago.
October 22nd, 2017 at 10:58 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 11:18 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 2:36 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 6:11 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:01 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:11 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 4:40 PM ^
Brian predicted a loss. Are you upset he didn't predict a worse loss? Confused.
October 22nd, 2017 at 2:42 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 7:56 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 2:50 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:42 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 3:19 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 4:01 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 5:39 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:27 AM ^
I agree that you can't put this on O'Korn. I thought he played smart considering. That being said it's now time to prep Peters for next year. O'Korn playing from this point forward does nothing to improve the team for next year. He is a 5th year senior and has no eligibility next year.
Time to give Peters some game time action and get him in position to compete next year with Speight and McCafferty for the starting positon.
October 22nd, 2017 at 11:22 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 12:24 PM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 9:04 PM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 7:44 AM ^
On the couple of clean pockets John threw to the open man. He is wholly serviceable if we could pass protect. His main problem that I see is what he does when he senses pressure. A great QB will sense the pressure and adjust without taking his attention away from passing progression. JOK senses the pressure, switches his focus to escaping and panics.
October 22nd, 2017 at 7:48 AM ^
Also, the blown grounding call was atrocious. Didn’t make the LOS and nobody for 20 yards.
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:21 AM ^
It's not why they lost but there were blatent holding plays on every McSorley run. The jersey grab variety right in front of officials. 1 penalty all game for PSU is crazy, but you have to play through it.
No excuses, even with the calls PSU was the better team.
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:32 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 10:24 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:01 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:37 AM ^
Dude, where were you sitting? Our seats were in the M alumni section and your experience of Beaver (and Butt-head) stadium was a carbon copy of mine. Over the years we've been to every stadium in the big ten and apart from ohio and sParty we've never been subjected to so many f-bombs and taunting. Even walking to the car, these d-bags would lean out of their decked out 80's style cars and shout f-Michigan. From their behavior, one would think that these morons had lost the game? Given PSU's sordid history, I think dropping the f-ing thing would be wise?
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:40 AM ^
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:22 AM ^
For the segment of the fan base that follows the state of Michigan's recruiting, attrition, and relative experience vs. the opponent game to game, I have a suggestion.
If you are going to post on here with facts about why an offense loaded with veteran talent had a big night against a defense loaded with underclassmen, cut and copy it for later use.
You'll need it after every loss for the 5 games. Those mind-numbing weeks when the howling "unacceptable" crowd buries this wonderful blog with the repetitive baseless whining.
Time saving tip.
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:28 AM ^
Defense got out schemed and made 0 adjustments. Safeties, Hudson and McCray got abused.
It’s embarrassing how bad our oline is.
If Peters does not start next game I give up on the coaches. Every goal of the season is now lost. Play the freshmen so someone has experience next year. We don’t even know if Speight will be able to play again.
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:48 AM ^
After one of the earlier games in the year, someone said (it might have been JH, or a player), that you can't have 10 players doing their job on every play while one doesn't and expect to be successful. That was really the theme of the game again on M's side of the ball. Dropped passes, missed blocks on sweeps, drive killing penalties, blown coverages, and guys out of position. Sure we would all love stud playmakers but if guys executed what they needed to do, we might not have won but the game would not have been so lopsided.
October 22nd, 2017 at 4:45 PM ^
Hoke and Borges used to talk about 10 man football all the time. Unfortunately 10 man football is just a synonym for being bad at football.
October 22nd, 2017 at 8:43 AM ^
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