Gattis Explanation For So Many Runs? Time of Possession?
Interesting article. Why not score and put pressure on Army to play catch up which would put them out of character like their red zone pass play which led to an interception? If Gattis and Harbaugh can't plan better than then holy shit folks.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:18 AM ^
It seemed to me that was exactly what the coaches were trying to do and then we fumbled a lot. But I don’t remember much from Saturday so...¯\_(ツ)_/¯
September 10th, 2019 at 12:12 PM ^
Drinking to the point of memory loss could be indicative of a problem...
September 10th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
Yeah, a problem of running out of booze.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
Well, fumbles are a problem.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
And a reason to drink to excess
September 11th, 2019 at 10:35 PM ^
New drinking game:
Everyone take a shot each time Michigan fumbles. Last person standing at half time, wins!
September 10th, 2019 at 11:21 AM ^
One of the greatest things to happen last Saturday: no Michigan player left the game with a knee injury. In fact, the only injury I saw was Turner's possible concussion on the targeting play. This game will be a motivator for Michigan and they will get exponentially better in the coming weeks. That's what I'm hanging my hat on right now. Not ready to jump off the train just yet.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
I hope your right Marvin.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:13 PM ^
*you're
September 10th, 2019 at 12:34 PM ^
You didn't let him finish. He was probably going to say something like "I hope your right Marvin... is better than your left Marvin." Doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt.
September 10th, 2019 at 1:44 PM ^
How about, "If anybody at UM schedules a service academy again, he ought to kicked right in his Marvins."
Still doesn't make a lot of sense, but you get the drift.
September 10th, 2019 at 7:24 PM ^
Sounds messy.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
Michigan survived the preseason and has 2 weeks to prepare for the real season. I can't wait.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:36 AM ^
Lavert Hill went down for a minute and had to leave the game after he was cut blocked at the knees. But he came back in so he's probably OK.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:39 AM ^
What is Josh Ross’s injury?
September 10th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
I believe that Don Brown said in his presser that is was a "Stinger". Those hurt like a bi***!
September 10th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
Agreed. There's a forum that is asking for advice about swelling days after encountering a stinger on these very boards.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:43 AM ^
Josh Ross left and didn't return
September 10th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
Just a stinger. He's fine.
The first time I had a stinger, I thought I was going to lose my arm. I couldn't feel it for some time, and then, when I got feeling back, my whole arm was on fire, it was a million degrees. Stingers are fucking wild.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:55 AM ^
It stunned my whole body, kind of zapped my head for a minute. I came off the field and the coach was like wtf? I gave him a look and pointed at my shoulder-arm assembly like I don't know what happened, and he kind of went "OK, stinger. Have a seat" and called for my replacement, almost chuckling. This was middle school (correction, actually 9th grade, not that it matters, but funny how the memory fails) football and a scrimmage, so no harm done.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:45 PM ^
Coaches that have seen a hundred stingers think it’s hilarious when you get your first and are freaking out. My coach was also laughing.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:56 AM ^
Stinger is a pretty good cocktail.
September 10th, 2019 at 3:38 PM ^
"See now that's why I call this guy the Stinger, because he goes down easy, like a cocktail"
September 10th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
I read that in the John gruden voice.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:36 PM ^
Stinger 72 Y Banana, man
September 10th, 2019 at 12:46 PM ^
As you should have, man
September 10th, 2019 at 11:54 AM ^
I am ready to jump off the Offense train right now, which should be no problem because it's going about 2 mph.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:15 PM ^
Which is double the speed of the offense for the past few years.
September 10th, 2019 at 1:34 PM ^
Hutch was gimping pretty good for a bit on Saturday. Have we heard anything about him? He stayed in so I assume it was nothing major.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:21 AM ^
I think Klatt made a salient point when he was talking about Shea not driving the ball down the field on deep throws. He looked good on short and intermediate stuff. An injury is probably why we didn't test downfield all that much. When needed, he was able to find Bell to move the sticks but couldn't hit those open deep shots.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:24 AM ^
I’d like to hear from Gattis why an injured Shea played over McCaffery. What was their thinking. The boiler plate he gives us a better chance to win is expected but it’s concerning if true. She’s was very average on Saturday
September 10th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
It's possible that the coaches trust their senior's ability to manage a game and avoid interceptions more than they trust Dylan right now. They probably thought they could run with the limited playbook and still win against Army because Army had inferior athletes. Remember, McCaffrey also fumbled against MTSU.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
There's also the "possibility" that the coaching staff, despite Shea's injury and them speaking highly of Dylan, knew that if Dylan came in and played well, a quarterback controversy was inevitable. I don't agree with that decision if it's the case. There still might be a controversy moving forward if Shea doesn't clean up his game. but just maybe it's why Dylan didn't play. Time will tell.
September 10th, 2019 at 3:18 PM ^
I think the coaching staff cared more about winning the game than a QB controversy. If Dylan was the better option in their minds, he would've played.
September 10th, 2019 at 4:53 PM ^
You're probably right, but nothing would surprise me at this point since the offense looks lost, undisciplined, and unprepared.
September 10th, 2019 at 7:53 PM ^
So you think that an obviously injured and limited 1a QB is superior to the healthy 1b QB? Just how bad is the 1b Qb and what does that say about the pablum they were selling about either QB could have been the starter?
September 10th, 2019 at 1:10 PM ^
The McCaffery hype is just that right now, hype. He threw 15 total passes in mop up duty last season and completed 8 of them. The staff likes him, but the staff talks up a lot of players, that's their job to build their guys up.
Personally, McCaffery probably isn't close to Patterson if he's not getting playing time right now.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
Shea has to be hurt, but not bad enough to be benched. Literally no other explanation makes sense.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:12 PM ^
On the first play of the season nonetheless. As someone said in another post, "That's the most Michigan thing ever."
September 10th, 2019 at 12:33 PM ^
Him being hurt does not have anything to do with his underhand fumble while spinning down. That's careless ball security.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Why not score and put pressure on Army to play catch up
Because the choice wasn't between scoring and not scoring. It was a choice between maybe scoring three points or maybe scoring seven points but with a lower probability.
Which of these was the right choice depends on many different factors that you haven't taken into consideration: the probability we make a 36 yard field goal, the probability we convert a fourth and 2, the probability we score a touchdown after converting, the probability Army's next drive ends in a touchdown, and the probability Army's next drive ends in a field goal.
edit: statistically, the best field goal kicker to ever play for Michigan was Garrett Rivas who made 78% of his field goal attempts. Across the P5, kickers make ~75% of 34-38 yard field goals (ours would have been 36 yards). My guess is Moody makes that kick less than 80% of the time.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
If you kick a field goal you go up 17-14 and that same slow moving team has to get in field goal position with just under 2 minutes on the clock.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:55 PM ^
We weren't in FG range on that one. We were around the 40 of Army.
It was the previous drive, when there was about 9 minutes on the clock, that we passed up a FG to go for it.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Army's a decent enough of a team, that just getting that win and getting out of that game should be viewed as good enough.
Whether you agree with it or not, us giving our defense the rest it needed helped us post a 2nd half shutout, and allowed our defense to come up with 3 straight plays to end the game in 2nd OT.
Scoring quickly and putting our DL right back out against that meat grinder could have allowed for one of those patented 12-17 min, 80 yard drive that Army pulls off.
Was it perfect? No. Did we win? Yes.
September 10th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
Exactly. People aren't understanding this.
Last year, Oklahoma may have had the greatest offense ever. They scored zero second half points against Army. ZERO. A team with a Heisman winner no. 1 overall pick, an NFL Oline, and what will be 2 first round receivers, couldn't score on Army.
Why? Because Army controlled the ball all game. They had TWO!! 10+ minute drives in the second half, and it threw off OUs offense and playcalling. And as an OU fan, I think leaving the defense on the field that long had some season long effects on the D.
There were still playcalling issues, but had Michigan adopted the score as fast as you can strategy, I'm convinced the D doesn't pitch a 2nd half shutout, and they lose that game.
September 10th, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
So we're going to convince ourselves that a 4:30 minute drive that goes 45 yards and ends on a turnover is better than a 65 yard drive in 3 minutes that puts 6 points on the board?
Jesus Christ, you guys...
September 10th, 2019 at 12:47 PM ^
The goal is a 65 yard TD drive in 7+ mins while limiting the risk of going 3 and out in 30 seconds.
Just look at the 2nd OT drive to see how quickly our aggressive offense got booted off the field. We didn't have what it took last Saturday to go 65 yards in 3 minutes against Army. No defense is conditioned enough to be on the field for 2/3rds+ of the 2nd half, eating FB dive after FB dive after FB dive.
Again, you can disagree with it all you want. We won the fucking game...
September 10th, 2019 at 1:27 PM ^
The goal is to gain yards and score points. The goal is not to milk the clock to zero as fast as possible.
Rice Owls, arguably the worst program in FBS gained 243 yards on 42 plays - an average of 5.78 yards per play. They only attempted 14 passes because their QB is a disaster. The still rushed for 6.0 yards per carry.
We gained 340 yards on 70 plays for an average of 4.85 yards per play. We threw 31 times. We supposedly have NFL talent all over the field. We rushed for 2.4 yards per carry.
I've posted the Oklahoma-Army highlights a half-dozen times in the past week. If you want to see what an actual offense does to the level of talent playing defense for Army, watch the wide-open green grass those guys ran through every time they touched the ball. Jump through this clip and find any play where the red team has the ball and tell me our offense was the smarter approach. They went to OT because the had no defense. We have a defense. We should have won by 30.
You can by as happy as you want about a win. Nobody's angry about winning. We were INEPT offensively. This was not by design. We didn't intentionally suck and gain as little yardage as possible. We were flat out terrible. There is no spin. We didn't do that on purpose. If we could gain 10 yards per play and score in one minute, we would've done that. Points are far more important.
No high level program makes college offense look as consistently difficult as we do.
September 10th, 2019 at 1:54 PM ^
I just disagree with you. When we were moving the ball pretty well in the first half. Three fumbles took away our chance to blow the game open early. The 2nd half was 3 plays for zero yards, then Army being a yard away from leading 21-7. At that point scoring in 1 minute and putting an exhausted defense back on the field for 6+ minutes only to go down 21-14 could have been a back breaker.
I'm not saying the offense was good. But the strategy change makes sense to me, based on situation. An opponent capable of bleeding clock, a backfield reduced to one back due to blocking and fumble issues, and a QB limited by injury are all factors to why the offense looked so bad in the 2nd half.
September 10th, 2019 at 3:18 PM ^
He doesn’t understand what you’re saying but I do. Oklahoma scored quickly against Army, thus leaving their defense out on the field a lot. No big deal right, except you get to the second half and can’t put any points on the board and your defense is gassed from being out there so much.
I guess to him that’s a better strategy than the one the coaches used. Either way the game is close and people are jumping off cliffs.