Middle Tennessee Snowflakes: The Offense
September 1st, 2019 at 1:19 AM ^
The offense sucked.
September 1st, 2019 at 10:40 AM ^
Go Bucks, amiright?
September 1st, 2019 at 1:22 AM ^
Ronnie Bell is overrated. He's just not a great receiver at this level. I'm sure he's a nice guy.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:32 AM ^
He runs great routes but seems to have stone hands. Players turn it around. Gallon was a bit inconsistent catching the ball early on but was a terrific route runner and he turned it around
September 1st, 2019 at 1:40 AM ^
Fair enough. He also looks slow to me.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:56 AM ^
He is a long strider. All long striders look slower than they are. Also, he was returning punts after hill muffed it. Gotta have good hands to do that. That said, he did have two drops, but I think we will find it's not a normal thing for him.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:23 AM ^
Shea was solid in the first half. He got banged up good in the 2nd quarter, which is when Dylan went in.
He came back, struggled, Dylan came back in. Everyone needs to calm down. New system, 2 freshmen OL, DPJ was out, Black was banged up in the 2nd half as well.
Charbonnet is as advertised. He stood up for a huge block from a LB in the first. He runs north & south, hard.
I think this game was a feel out sorta thing. We ran a lot of the same plays from different looks. We didn’t open up the playbook at all. Calm down, we’ll be just fine.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:29 AM ^
Wasn’t great, but wasn’t awful either. For a week 1 game without your All-B1G LT and best/most versatile WR it wasn’t bad.
QB play was pretty good. When Shea is on with his throws he is on. Held the ball too long some times. Dylan runs the read option to perfection but dear lord he’s gonna break his collarbone again running the way he does. He runs like a RB and not a 6’5 extremely slender QB. The consistent running of him when Shea is banged up was confusing.
RB play was excellent for what they got. Zach could really be something, and Turner is a solid back. Tru and Ben can get some tough yards and pass pro
WR play was pretty good. The personnel was a bit head scratching. Nico was not on the field a whole lot it seemed, but him and Black looked good. Imagine when we can line up DPJ as the inside receiver at times. It’s going to be lethal. Bell runs great routes but suspect hands. Last drive of the first half we had Johnson, Sainistrill and Bell the whole series. Made no sense.
TEs are decent but not spectacular. Eubanks was used a lot different than he was last year.
OL gets a C+. Run blocking was decent pass blocking was average.
All in all this does have the ability to be a great offense, but the playcalling and personnel needs to be better, and Shea needs to be a little more consistent.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:39 AM ^
Couldn’t agree more about Dylan. On twitter people were blaming Gattis, those were runs that Dylan decided to do; I know he can scoot but he needs to run as a last option, seemed like he kept wanting to run first when there were passing options open
September 1st, 2019 at 1:53 AM ^
Those young wrs were in because it was garbage time.
The line was better than a c+. They averaged like 5 a carry for 200+ and that was with several goal line runs. Pass pro was really good imo. Mtsu only got pressure when they brought 6.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:57 AM ^
I was referencing the last drive of the first half where we inexplicably spiked it
September 1st, 2019 at 2:06 AM ^
Black was already in the tunnel for that drive. Not sure about Collins, but wouldn't be surprised if he was a bit banged up too.
September 1st, 2019 at 8:48 PM ^
But the team was able to trade those two timeouts they took into half for a Chick-Fil-A sandwich.
September 1st, 2019 at 2:15 AM ^
Most happy with:
Charbonnet is good as hyped
Receiving core is deep AF (need DPJ)
D looks better than serviceable, suspect studs will emerge
Most concerned:
Red-zone O looked clunky AF
Will any back be allowed to keep momentum?
Gimmicky plays when you have obvious go-to studs make no sense whatsoever
Does/will this offense have an identity?
Harbaugh’s continued torching of seconds in crunch-time drives/lack of urgency will be deadly in a close contest
Shea’s arm is kinda meh
QB runs will get QBs injured
Punt returns
Yeah, that’s a lot of concerns. Very hard to predict greatness or failure at this point. Will certainly have to show more consistency in execution to make beating OSU feel like a legit thing.
September 1st, 2019 at 8:08 AM ^
Brandon Peters > Shea Patterson
September 1st, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
If that were the case, he'd be the starting quarterback for Michigan.
September 1st, 2019 at 11:45 AM ^
I'm just going to go and ahead and assume you're not serious. Because I'd hate to believe you were. I like to believe in the best of people, so if you were serious I'd have to believe you're a complete and utter fool, and I'd prefer not to.
September 1st, 2019 at 8:29 AM ^
Play calling will get better. I don’t know why people around here have anointed Gattis as this proven offensive genius. We just watched the first game he called and I thought he did a decent job. I expect him to grow a lot as the season progresses but that was his first game.
September 1st, 2019 at 9:13 AM ^
Whine, whine, whine. A very vanilla game plan against an obviously overmatched opponent for the 1st game of the year and everyone here is certain they know all about team 140.?. No wonder our players ignore our fans.
Did any of you watch other games and note the mistakes and miscues? About par for the course. Let’s see how we do against Army. You know, that team that pummeled Rice 14-7.....
September 1st, 2019 at 10:00 AM ^
September 1st, 2019 at 10:15 AM ^
The scoreboard doesn't reflect Hill's missed pick 6. Also worth noting, Hill's dropped fair catch which resulted in 7 points for the bad guys. That is a 14 point swing.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:58 PM ^
I can understand how some points scored may not reflect on how a particular unit performed: I.e a special teams TD doesn’t speak to how the D performed.
But the what ifs about poor plays that actually happened, and good plays that never were doesn’t make sense. Michigan has been what if for at least a decade and a half. It’s time for us to stop making excuses and explaining things away. The sky isn’t falling, but I don’t think anyone should be expecting a CFP run based on what we saw yesterday against MTSU. I want us to have nice things, but I can also see that we don’t seem to have enough of them or use them like others seem to. Just win baby.
September 1st, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Overwrought whining like a bunch of damn teenage girls. At least give the guys until Wisconsin until you write the season off. Truly pathetic.
September 1st, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
Can’t believe we have people on here vying for mcaffery over Patterson. What are you guys watching. Dylan will be good but did anyone see him throw a particularly impressive pass?
September 1st, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
Considering he only had 2 passing attempts (both completions) it is not a big enough sample size to throw out comparisons.
What I did see, just like last season, is that when he was in the game - everyone around him played better.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:07 PM ^
If McAffery’s name was Dylan McArthur or something other than McAffery and had the exact same skillset a far smaller amount of fans would be vying for him to take over for Shea.
He is good, and he could be very good, but as of right now I know for some odd reason this point hasn’t resonated but he does not have as strong of an arm as Shea, and while his running ability is an asset, the way he runs the ball will get him sidelined within a game.
September 1st, 2019 at 2:08 PM ^
Ehhh I don’t know. I don’t watch the NFL and though I’ve heard of the family, I haven’t really seen them play. I’m not necessarily calling for him over Shea...but what I have seen of him makes me curious and want to see more. He’s taller, his ball looks to have more zip, faster, and seems to have a little more “juice” or “it” factor. People say Shea has it, i just don’t see it. Maybe it’s just confidence. Shea holds onto the ball too long, has an average arm, and just doesn’t “feel” like the guy for whatever reason—although people keep saying it.
I don’t care if Ben Mason was playing QB, I think we are all ready to see it being played at an elite level. Especially with Harbaugh or at least what we expected from him. OSU made a third string guy look like the next coming. Late season Jake Rudock was the only QB since Florida game Henne that I felt could win a championship based on actual play—not potential.
Truth is we struggled against MTSU. And we had difficulties in all three phases. Only the offense is new. We’ll see where the season goes. But we haven’t seen a Belein in March improvement from football since 1997. Since then we have kind of been paper tigers. Including 2006. It would be nice to see us blow up when it counts for once.
September 1st, 2019 at 11:44 AM ^
I think one problem here is that everyone wanted to see everything in the first game i.e. 8 receivers each get 100 yds and 2 TDs, 3 RBs hit 150 yds and 3 TDs, etc.... That just wasn’t going to happen. Gattis and company showed enough.
Considering this was Game 1 in a completely new system, DPJ was sidelined, all 3 QBs played, and a considerable amount of freshmen or first year players saw meaningful action, the offense actually overachieved to a degree.
450 yards and 40 points is nothing to sneeze at...pretty much matches what osu did to a shitty FAU team.
September 1st, 2019 at 11:46 AM ^
Can we score 40+ points on the road to beat Wisconsin ? Possibly, but need Runyan back and healthy. Seeing DPJ in a boot was disappointing. Watching Zach romp and pass pro was very promising.
Eye test position grades:
QB = 4.0
RB = 4.5
WR = 4.0
TE = 3.5
OL = 3.0
Overall = 3.8
Not bad for game 1 with lots of areas to be coached-up and grow from. But based upon the defense, we need to get the offense at consistently elite status to out score power teams like Wisconsin.
Thought guys looked a bit first-game nervous and need to drop the two QB approach as it killed Shea's mojo. Play Shea until his afternoon is done, then run McCaffery with the first team for quality practice minutes.
September 1st, 2019 at 12:08 PM ^
Are your scores on a 5 or 10 point scale? /s
September 1st, 2019 at 1:09 PM ^
100 point scale.
September 1st, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
So did you re-watch the game or just sober up? Quite a bit different tune from last night.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:32 PM ^
40 points on the road in Wisconsin? No shot but we knew that before the season and unlikely any team in the country can. Good news is only need 25 or so to win game
September 1st, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
Really hard to grade us against a team that wasn’t even MAC size much less Big Ten size. Their front 7 in a 4-3 defense was insanely small.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:31 PM ^
I’m sure this will not go over well, but Patterson is not the answer. He is a solid qb but is not elite. Maybe he can get there this season. Last night I saw too many under thrown balls, indecisive in the pocket, poor ball security, etc.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:42 PM ^
People calling folks raising valid concerns “freaking out” is uncharitable. The point that we matched one of our 3 best scoring totals from last year is a terrible point to suggest we are improving: it was MTSU. We are SUPPOSED to score 60 on them with backups playing the second half.
I think there are absolutely valid concerns. And while optimism is anyone’s choice, so are pessimism and realism. I did not see anything that gave me confidence we will beat OSU this year. Sure, it’s game one in a new offense, but I also saw some of the same things we’ve been seeing.
One of the most annoying things for me is that Shea holds the ball entirely too long. Being in his 3rd college offense probably doesn’t help. His ball also doesn’t arrive quickly so his reads should probably be that much quicker if we are going to get the passing game going against better competition. From my eyes and memory, several of his passes looked like they’d have been broken up or picked against better competition. While the OC has to scheme guys open and wideouts have to do their jobs, the QB has to deliver the ball on time. He can’t expect the receivers to stay hand wavingly wide open for long. Let alone expect his protection to hold for the extra 2 seconds it seems to take him to decide to actually throw the ball after he sees a guy open.
September 1st, 2019 at 1:46 PM ^
It would be interesting to see if the snowflake threads tend to be more negative after night games.
Hypothesis: the fans are drunk and angry.
September 1st, 2019 at 3:08 PM ^
Am I the only one who thought that our new offense would look a bit more like what MTSU was running?
Offense was decidedly different than from what we ran before, but needs a lot more polish.
Charbonnet looked fantastic- he will be a star and will mitigate the Najee Harris disappointment, as long as he stays healthy. His potential is seemingly way greater than Higdon’s.
September 1st, 2019 at 3:28 PM ^
My take on game one
1 MTSU was up for this game. They were well coached, played fast and had talent. I thought this game was a good pre Army game. Not for the scheme but tenacity.
2 This game was somewhat used as a scrimmage and yes, some testing was accomplished and why not? Gattis has many possible tools, he is smart to probe in a game setting in order to game plan in the future.
3. If Shea had some bruised ribs it explains some of his play in the 2nd half. Certainly he has some issues needing work. Some stated earlier and some overblown.
4 A team will not be 100% proficient adapting to a pro spread offense immediately . According to some successful coaches, an offense needs several games to improve game performance. Some of the opinions I've read here lack basic common sense. Learning an offense and making split second decisions and reacting with speed is a learned skill. Coach Warinner stated if a player fails to preform it is because of several reasons; Lack of talent, confidence , doesn't understand what is expected of him [more coaching] or needing time on task. Last night was game one.
5. I'd take Michigans OL game over OSUs. In terms of whole game performance in run blocking and pass pro.
6. The run game will be fine this year without the expense of the pass game. Stats were fairly even.
7. More RPOs will be exciting to watch!
8 Tempo is better controlled with this offense.
9 Thank God will still have three weeks before Wisconsin.
September 1st, 2019 at 5:26 PM ^
Am concerned with Shea Patterson. He seems to lack pocket awareness. I have also noticed that he looks awkward as a runner. He has good speed, but does not look fluid as a runner. I am glad we have Patterson, but I think Dylan is the better QB all around. There seems to be more energy when Dylan Mc is on the field.
September 1st, 2019 at 9:57 PM ^
One thing I haven't seen anybody comment on that truly bothered me about the offense last night was the cadence in the snap count. Maybe this wasn't as obvious on TV, but I was at the game, and it was literally the exact same thing every single time. Fake clap; QB looks up; Clap to snap.
People have commented on how Shea was constantly under pressure, and I have no doubt that's part of the reason why. It's such an easy thing to fix. Hoping that Gattis takes care of it before the next game.