Sugar Bowl Open Thread - 2nd Half

Submitted by LSAClassOf2000 on

I'm in the liveblog, so this goes up with 2:33 to go in the 2nd quarter.

GO BLUE!

EDIT: I shall pass the bowl thread creation baton after tonight, but hopefully the rest of the BCS bowls are as entertaining as ours is turning out to be. 

Bosch

January 3rd, 2012 at 9:57 PM ^

I didn't really mean for you to create all of the threads (prematurally still IMO).

The Orange bowl starts in less than 23 hours.  You better make that open thread.

And hell.... might as well get a jump on the BCS Championship.

umich_fan1

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:04 PM ^

time to start playi calling a little bit more aggressively. How many times are we gonna run against an 8 man front when their safeties are 5 yards off the los. 

dragonchild

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:05 PM ^

Adjustments:

Logan Thomas is 8/11 for 117 yards.  Yo, Mattison, I know you like stopping the run and aren't much of a stats guy and all, but if this game was a boat, that thar's your leak.

Hagerup is averaging 25 yards per punt.  Might as well throw Hail Marys on 4th down; Denard's passes go farther.

Borges -- VT spotted you some breaks.  Stop being cute, stop overthinking and go with what works.  And assess Molk's injury.

jaysvw

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:09 PM ^

The coaches have made great second half adjustments all season.  No reason to think it won't happen here.  This first VT possession after the half is key.  Get a stop and this game does a 180 if it hasn't done so already.

dragonchild

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:13 PM ^

That's Borges' bad habit.  He goes away from what works, thinking it's the last thing the opponent expects.  Except even if they're flat-footed, an offense is kind of easy to stop if all the talent is used as just decoys.

Anyway, UM's a running offense so VT loaded up on that; I can understand that part.  But here's where a (play that shall not be named) would do wonders to loosed up VT's run D, and it'd certainly be "cute" in that they haven't run it all year. . .

snarling wolverine

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:19 PM ^

I really don't think he's called a bad game.  There have been plays that would have worked if executed (like that seam to Hemingway that probably would've been a TD, or the throwback screen to Smith) but we whiffed a block, or threw a bad pass, or snapped it poorly.  We've just got to settle down.

dragonchild

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:21 PM ^

What I mean by "cute" is that Borges sees Xs and Os first, talent second, and humans. . . not so much.

On paper, his plays work.  But with an injured center, a rattled QB and the emotional strain of some early mistakes, he's calling plays that are mentally very tough for seasoned veterans to execute, let alone underclassmen playing in a bowl game.  If Denard's rattled, you think the rest of the team can consistently execute 11-man football against an aggressively blitzing, talented VT D?

I was screaming for a timeout because as long as Michigan was off its game and Borges was going to keep calling touch plays ANYWAY, he really needed to take a moment to calm them down (and give the D a breather).  This team is good enough to play against VT.  But not when they're rattled.  That half could've been a LOT worse.

And it turns out we ended the half with a timeout to spare.  Yeesh.

GoPackGo

January 3rd, 2012 at 10:35 PM ^

The other part of the scouting report for VT was that they bring safeties, linebackers, everyone up and like to bring them on blitzes. Where Borges has failed is he has no hot reads/audibles for Denard when it comes. Everytime, receivers are running 15 yds downfield, so Denard has no where to go.