Quick Takes from IU (fill 'em in!)

Submitted by Topher on
1. It was a classic Jim Hermann-esque defensive performance against a versatile spread offense: inconsistent pressure on the quarterback, not covering receivers over the middle, and poor tackling. 2. The center situation for Michigan has got to be worked out; five plays of bad snaps will cost any team a ballgame. 3. The performance of the impartial observers - officials and the broadcast crew - was lame. The officials flat-out blew multiple calls; Pam Ward's phlegmatic delivery was further degraded by her blowing clear calls on the field - twice she said runners had been knocked out of bounds when the officials had signaled touchdown.
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tomhagan

September 27th, 2009 at 6:26 PM ^

As good as Michigan's offense has been, it would be nice to see the WRs more involved and more/better tempo in the passing game.

Joined: 08/30/2008

MGoPoints: 105

tmiller

September 27th, 2009 at 6:37 PM ^

It may not be as Herrman-esque as you think. I don't have the link, but it was said that IU ran multiple formations and plays that they had not presented on film. You don't get that much time to react when they throw it in on the field. We can't use a timeout everytime we see a new formation to make an adjustment. The tackling did stink though. Moosman had about a week to work with two QB's on exchanges. The "let's catch them offsides snap" will go away. I bet we see noticable improvment this Saturday. Pam Ward is nails on a chalkboard!

Joined: 09/02/2009

MGoPoints: 2

Hannibal.

September 27th, 2009 at 6:48 PM ^

I wouldn't call it Hermann-esque for the simple reason that I don't think that Hermann ever had to work with such a combination of youth and lack of talent. Robinson just has nothing to work with. He can't trust anyone besides Warren to cover man-on-man, so that means he has to be really careful blitzing. We can't get any pressure on the quarterback with four guys and our linebacker play just sucks. I really hope that Robinson can turn this thing around. At least our tackling has gotten better this year. It wasn't good yesterday, but overall, it is way better this year. The defense in 2009 is a lot like the offense in 2008. Hopefully, the next year will see that same huge one-year improvement. I agree about the WRs. Where the hell were they yesterday? No catches for Stonum or Matthews, and only 1 yard for Hemmingway. This was against a team with a really crappy secondary.

Joined: 09/09/2008

MGoPoints: 9051

jmblue

September 27th, 2009 at 8:25 PM ^

Factors limiting WR involvement: -IU's excellent DEs were disruptive. Tate was flushed out quite a bit and forced to get rid of the ball early a few times. -Denard played QB for a fairly long stretch, during which time we seldom passed -When Tate returned, the coaches went run-heavy, probably to protect his shoulder.

Joined: 11/07/2008

MGoPoints: 102810

KBLOW

September 27th, 2009 at 7:04 PM ^

1. This team has guts and guts is enough. 2. Kevin Grady could contribute muchly and get more and more action through the season. 3. GERG is doing a great job cleaning up the mess of poor recruiting/player development/position coaching at the end of the Carr era and Shafer's one year.

Joined: 06/30/2008

MGoPoints: 22581

MaizeAndBlueWahoo

September 27th, 2009 at 7:13 PM ^

Pam Ward: not a good announcer. She makes mistakes all over the place. The one that was really pissing me off (and this is not even close to important in the grand scheme of things but it was still really annoying) was how they kept saying Michigan had a one-play drive to score their first touchdown, when actually it was two: Brown scored on 2nd and 10 after Forcier made a really lousy play on first down. Not big, but they kept on saying it and kept on saying it. I do give Ward and Bentley bonus points, however, for not once deploying the insanely obnoxious "if you're _____ then you _____" construct. I only heard it once and it was "if you're an Indiana fan then you have to blah blah blah," which is acceptable.

Joined: 07/02/2008

MGoPoints: 41586

CalGoBlue

September 27th, 2009 at 7:15 PM ^

GERG has no control over the lack of speed, talent and depth, but the tackling has gotten worse since each game since WMU. If they can improve on that for Sparty they will have a much better chance of winning.

Joined: 09/26/2009

MGoPoints: 163

Irish

September 27th, 2009 at 7:52 PM ^

MHO, The best UM has played so far this year was in Week 2, the offensive execution was very good and the defense up front never gave an inch. It was a very impressive performance for such an inexperienced team. These past few games though have been sloppy. 3rd week against Eastern ok not a power house, it can be harder to get up for a game like that. 4th week against Indiana seemed to be the same mentality but Indiana was able to take advantage, could they have been looking past Indiana some? Wont be sure till next week but their execution over the past few weeks makes me wonder if UM peeked in week 2.

Joined: 06/05/2009

MGoPoints: 3696

Niag

September 27th, 2009 at 8:27 PM ^

is how far we tend to play off the WR when it is a short yardage situation. I love when we get aggressive, play press coverage at the line and get after the QB. Obviously we cannot do this every snap, but I would like to see the aggressive style creep into the gameplan a little more consistently. Pam Ward is terrible. My wife even said women should not be sports announcers.

Joined: 09/03/2009

MGoPoints: 52