Can we start talking Connecticut
September 16th, 2013 at 6:56 AM ^
Seriously. I am not qualified to make any comments on UConn b/c I have not seen a down of them playing. Same with State for the matter.
My thoughts based on MGoReading: If we come out and play how we are capable of playing it should be a nice Saturday evening of enjoying the winged helmet on National TV. We will certainly have to endure some of the Akron talk and highlights early on in the game but hopefully Gardner and the offense can put that to rest early.
Not a huge fan of the 8 pm start on the road. Hopefully it is not an issue and it is a good showing for the many people watching. It will go a long way into the bye week if we look good again at 8 pm for the nation to see.
Please do not ruin the weekend.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:20 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 10:11 AM ^
We had better prepare for UCONN and Minnesota before thinking about anything else. I guarantee that Minny is better than Akron.
This season thus far reminds me of 2010, great UTL victory and then the UMASS squeaker and then an average season.
Rolaids!
September 16th, 2013 at 10:27 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 10:28 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 10:33 AM ^
Yes, I had the UTL game wrong but the feeling is the same as the 2010 season. TWSWBC: Ya, nothing personal, you are right. I just am afraid of each opponent from here on out!
September 16th, 2013 at 4:44 PM ^
this was the CLASSIC LET DOWN GAME. The stadium was not sold out. THE TEAM,will put this behind them.Don't forget we our 3-0 and we are still 17-0 at home. MICHIGAN is going to destory unconn and then on to the B10.GO BLUE!!!
September 16th, 2013 at 6:59 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 7:25 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 11:44 AM ^
no it doesnt really matter, its like that for literally every mac game that isnt the season opener and is at noon and is overpriced for the expected quality of game. deleware state wasnt packed to capacity and we still smoked them. the difference between 115,000+ and 107,000+ isnt that much overall from a noise/energy standpoint. the lions had a long sellout streak all through the millen era and they still sucked. the seahawks have arguably the best 12th man effect in football and they still were mediocre most of the time. A&M and their vaunted 12th man isnt what anyone would call a perenial powerhouse. Talent and execution play a much bigger role in outcomes of games than the 12th man. If the crowd really mattered Sparty would never ever win at Munn because it is dead silent most of the time, and we would never ever lose at Yost.
September 16th, 2013 at 7:22 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 7:49 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 7:55 AM ^
Nice ref, just watched that with my son for the first time last week.
September 16th, 2013 at 7:57 AM ^
If you beat the team up too much, they'll be decimated by game time. Coaches better be smart enough to know there's a point of diminishing return regarding burn-out / fatigue, too.
It's what goes on in the 5" between players' ears more than the 100 yards on the field.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:35 AM ^
If our players' heads are only 5" wide, I think that could be part of the problems.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:55 AM ^
so it all works out.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:03 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 7:22 AM ^
I expect the team to play with more passion and effort this week. The defensive has gotten better as the season has gone on the past to years and the same is mostly likely going to happen. as far as the offense is concerned, we may need to go to a zone blocking scheme to reduce the number of missed assignments by the O line and fullbacks.
THAT IS ALL
September 16th, 2013 at 7:34 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 7:42 AM ^
Did you miss the downward spiral that was Michigan football after the App State game in 2007? It is for good reason that many people here are concerned when Michigan was so close to experiencing the start of that again.
Does it need to be left behind? Sure. But Michigan was five seconds and the opposing QB missing a wide open receiver in the endzone away from being the laughing stock of college football again. It is understandable why that would take a bit to get over for those on this board.
September 16th, 2013 at 7:49 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 7:57 AM ^
Yes, this... not a great job this weekend, but they won. Lick your wounds, heal up, and move on. This next game is on the road, at night. It will be a big road test, anyone doubting that need only step back to their DVR's and rewatch this past weekend.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:15 AM ^
Your highlighting that play as a bright spot? Michigan should have NEVER been in that position in the first place. Watch the game again, and tell me a bright spot.
Besides Devin's turnovers, the most concerning part of the game was how AKRON, I repeat, AKRON controlled the line of scrimmage. What was it 6-7 tackles for a loss? How does that even happen against such a team? I'm very concerned going forward. And don't take too much comfort from the Notre Dame win. If you watched the Notre Dame vs Purdue game, it showed they are nothing near the team of last year.
The only good thing going for Michigan is they do have some time to correct things, before it really matters - Big Ten wise.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:54 AM ^
Well, the fact of the matter is we were in that position and the defense that "can't pressure the QB" did so and we won.
September 16th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
I am concerned with how much weight you are putting on ND's performance against Purdue. Purdue lost by 3 at ND last year. ND also had narrow victories at home against Pitt (3OT) and BYU. ND is still a good team. They won't be 12-0 obviously but any win against a top 25 team, as I expect them to still be come season's end, is a quality win.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:41 AM ^
I really hope you are not serious. That is all.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:42 AM ^
Not only do I think he's serious, I think he's right.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:02 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 9:41 AM ^
Did you miss the downward spiral that was Michigan football after the App State game in 2007?
You mean when they then lost to a team that could have played for the national title (alas, poor Dennis Dixon's ACL) and then ripped off 8 straight wins (including a 38-0 win over ND and a win over #10 Penn State) despite Henne having no shoulders and Hart having no ankles?
We define "downward spiral" differently.
September 16th, 2013 at 10:14 AM ^
I remember Michigan finishing strong that year, beating a pretty good flordia team.
we didn't actually lose, and hopefully we beat uconn next week. Akron played out of there minds, and we played way below ourselfs, we avoided the trap time to move on.
September 16th, 2013 at 4:50 PM ^
this is just crazy talk!
September 16th, 2013 at 8:00 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 8:01 AM ^
Let's just kick their ass and go into the bye week strong.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:17 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 8:30 AM ^
I thought Fitz played well. As you said, "not all his fault." Almost all of his negative yards were due to problems in blocking / excellent defensive call. Also, two of his best runs were called back because of penalties.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:20 AM ^
Looking at Saturday's game through an ever-lengthening lens I recognize first this is a very young team missing a key linebacker. It also has a QB whose reach sometimes exceeds his grasp. The team's expectations of how this game would play out were rudely shattered by a bunch of kids well prepared by a couple retread coaches to play a competitive football game.
Does the M team have fundamental issues, both on offense and defense? Yes. Does the team have the personnel and the coaches to address these issues? Yes. Look for a much more competitive effort against the Huskies this Saturday night. Go Blue!
September 16th, 2013 at 8:21 AM ^
by not getting blown out by Maryland but I think it is a winnable game. Hopefully our coaching staff (- Borges) doesn't get outcoached again. I know that this will be an unpopular statement but the truth often is, on mgoblog, when it involves saying negative comments about our team or coaching staff.
Greg Mattison had his worst coaching performance, since he arrived at Michigan and was completely outcoached by Akron. When a 4 man rush isn't working, try something else and when that works, stick with it. 90% of the plays were a 4 man (or even worse a 3 man rush) but on the rare occassion that he decided to blitz, he got positive results. He needs to stop being stubborn and realize that right now our defensive line sucks....
September 16th, 2013 at 8:24 AM ^
I think Borges called a decent game. It wasn't perfect (I wished he had run the veer more), but he can only call the plays and can't actually block or stop Devin from throwing TaINTs. Mattison had a really poor game, but hopefully that is a bit to do with not expecting to have to gameplan extensively for Akron. I thought he did much better against ND, and while we love to say "outcoached" by Akron, it does have to do with Akron playing well and UM obviously not doing well.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:38 AM ^
September 16th, 2013 at 9:45 AM ^
4 guys hasn't worked the entire game and everytime you blitz, you hold them, it makes sense to me to blitz more. He could have done some hybrid stuff, like dropping a lineman and rushing a LBer but it seemed to me that Mattison thought he could just vanilla the crap out of Akron and didn't have anything else prepared.
September 16th, 2013 at 10:07 AM ^
Blitzing is a gamble, you don't magically get an extra guy(s) on the field, they have to come from somewhere. Blitzing every down is not a gameplan. They were already picking apart our LB's in coverage as it was. Should we blitz more in some situations? I think the answer is probably yes, and we'll see that next game. Bottom line is our front 4 isn't very good at pass rush which makes the defense not very good. Blitzing is a bandaid that you have to use carefully because it could burn you big if the offense guesses right.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:22 AM ^
Nope. People still want to vent about a win.
/s
Seriously, though, UConnis pretty bad. Akron kind of caught UM napping and had a great gameplan. Connecticut is a train wreck. I caught a bit of the game against Towson and they looked lost out there. I think there defense was solid last year but appears to have regressed/lost much of that talent. It will be ugly until such time as Hoke calls off the dogs.
September 16th, 2013 at 8:50 AM ^
For the board's perusal, here is some of the preliminary information.
Per TeamRankings, the early line in this game is -17.5 and the win probability for Michigan is about 88%, so there is that. Here are their key matchup stats:
|
Offense
|
Michigan | UConn |
| Yards/Play | 6.6 | 4.5 |
| Points/Play | 0.624 | 0.247 |
| Rush Play % | 57.56% | 38.82% |
| Pass Play % | 42.44% | 61.18% |
| Completion % | 60.71% | 63.04% |
| 3D Conv % | 51.35% | 27.78% |
| RZ Scoring % | 85.71% | 100.00% |
|
Defense
|
Michigan | UConn |
| Opp Yards/Play | 4.9 | 7.1 |
| Opp Points/Play | 0.296 | 0.451 |
| Opp Completion % | 51.54% | 53.57% |
| Opp 3D Conv % | 44.68% | 26.67% |
| Opp RZ Scoring % | 63.64% | 100.00% |
September 16th, 2013 at 9:59 AM ^
The line has moved from favoring UM by 18.5 to 17.5 in the last day. Should be interesting to see if it keeps dropping:
http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/odds/las-vegas/
September 16th, 2013 at 9:02 AM ^
But I do agree that the majority of the doom and gloom is extremely tiring. There are problems on this team that need fixing. There were problems during the ND game and the CMU game. This team isn't perfect and still has a long ways to go. They also just played an awful game that doesn't represent the ability, skill level, and everything else that this team has to offer. This is not a .500 team. The fact that people can flip so easily, can jump on and off the band wagon so quickly, because for the first time the have perceived something they didn't before, is annoying. Most of the talk can be focused forward now, especially on the boards. Everything on the boards has been discussed to death.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:44 AM ^
+1 Rational.
September 16th, 2013 at 10:22 AM ^
I totally agree. Maybe it was because I watched the game on tape already knowing the outcome, but I didn't see much that was PANIC inducing. It was just one of those weird games where just as we were poised to do something good, one or two guys would have a bad play and cause us to stall. We'd flash big plays where everyone looked like they should against an outmatched opponent, and follow it up with blowing assignments and letting guys blow up plays in the backfield. We turned the ball over giving them 7 points and took away a probably 7 from ourselves, then handed them 3 more points on a shanked punt. Gardner just looked shaky and indecisive all game, something that he hasn't really shown before. Akron also made some really nice plays at key moments, offensively and defensively.
That said, I think some problems are becoming more and more clear. The front 4 isn't going to get home 90% of the time. Couple that with playing soft zones and I think teams will see a recipe for dinking and dunking down the field on us. I thought Glasgow and especially Miller had really rough days. Glasgow seemed to be surprised by the quickness of their 3 tech a lot and get beat on slants, especially early. Miller was just generally bad. There were a lot of plays where he would get put on skates and end up in the QB's lap or in the way of the RB or pulling linemen. Other times, he would simply whiff. I'm interested to see how he grades out in UFR this week.
September 16th, 2013 at 9:16 AM ^
Just to be clear, is there still a large contingent of UM fans who think Hoke was dissing Akron by calling them "glazed doughnuts"? I'm pretty sure he meant the game was a "glazed doughnut" game because he would be buying doughnuts for the early arriving students. Right?
September 16th, 2013 at 9:34 AM ^
People may be confused by the whole "chicken" thing. Hoke WAS calling Notre Dame chickens. Hoke WASN'T calling Akron "donuts." He was saying "hey, come to the game and you will RECEIVE donuts."