Peach Bowl Snowflakes: The Offense

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on December 30th, 2018 at 1:00 PM

Here is the thread for snowflakes and hot takes regarding the offense against Florida in the Peach Bowl.

tybert

December 29th, 2018 at 11:38 PM ^

For the few of us leftovers from the 1970s as historians, this offense is today's equivalent to Bo's running the option in the 1970s vs talented and FAST USC and UW defenses in the Rose Bowl losses. It worked until the Rose Bowl then failed like our offense today. It finally took the return of Gary Moeller from a 3-year failed assignment at Illinois to convince Bo to use the forward pass and a guy named Anthony Carter to jolt the offense. That led to Bo's 1st RB win and an impressive one at that.

 

 

ST3

December 30th, 2018 at 12:38 AM ^

The most common take I’ve seen about the game is that we ran up the middle all game, didn’t make use of the QB in the run game and didn’t make use of our talented wide receivers. I just checked the box score. This take is flat out wrong.

Excising Shea’s 10 attempts for 5 yards and Mason’s 2 for 0, the rest of the offense gained 72 yards on 18 carries, exactly 4 yards per carry. That’s not good enough, but 18 carries is not an extreme amount.

Florida, in contrast, ran 40 times for 257 yards. If a wide open passing game is the be-all and end-all, why was Florida able to dominate us with an old school ground attack (with a fair amount of QB running from a not very mobile QB?)

This game was lost when Higdon and JBB couldn’t or wouldn’t play. I heard JBB has a turf toe, so I understand his not playing. Karan was a captain. I will never understand him bailing on his teammates. College athletics supposedly exist because they teach valuable lessons about teamwork and sportsmanship. It seems like nowadays they are teaching “every man for himself.” If I was Harbaugh, I would hold a team meeting and tell the players if you can’t commit to playing a whole season for your team, there’s the door, don’t bother showing up for spring practice. Bo would handle it like that. The Team, The Team, The Team. 

I think Harbaugh has lost his fire. Whatever he learned from Bo and Ditka is gone. The Harbaugh that upset USC with a mediocre Stanford team is long gone. 

Alumnus93

December 30th, 2018 at 12:56 AM ^

he looks old with those glasses he wears... would it kill him to wear contacts?  seriously... perception is reality...and at stanford he looked like a badass on the sidelines and his team played like it... now he looks old, and the team plays accordingly...

things seemed to go south when he began to wear 'woody' glasses... looked stupid, and old...

Ric8057

December 30th, 2018 at 1:35 AM ^

It’s scary how close i came to murder on that late 3rd qtr drive. We might have the best receiving corp in the country and nobody would know. The outside WRs are complete studs. I cant recall one significant dropped pass all year. I can yell out at least 6-7 from the 2 TEs in my sleep

Go for two

December 30th, 2018 at 10:37 AM ^

Finally saw the no huddle for a few plays. Would love to see this for an entire series.

Need two top notch RBs, we have three average ones.

If you are going to play 2-3 TE, you need to throw it to them more.

Need to continue to develop OL, ours is now average vs. poor the past decade

Need open QB competition in the spring, let the best one win

abertain

December 30th, 2018 at 12:13 PM ^

I've been a fan since the late eighties. My favorite Michigan offenses were under Moelller, when he was one of the first coaches to install the hurry up and that one golden game that was Carr's final one. \

For my money, Michigan should be basing out of 3WR and 1TE sets as their primary offense. They should be passing to run as most great offenses do these days. Michigan had a solid offense this year, but even Alabama would have lost last night if they didn't have a great offense. QB's are accounting for 40-50 touchdowns these days and Michigan needs to catch up schematically.

Chris Brown at Smart Football called the offense out after the game. It needs to be much more open next year. The best it looked was the final few games under Rudock in Harbaugh's first year. Even in Speight's first year, Michigan routinely used tempo and motions. They have fallen behind, and it shows.