U-M has attempted just one pass over 30 yards in each of the last 4 games
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:42 AM ^
We are saving them in the super dee dooper bag O' tricks for OSU.
Count on it.
Everyone says so.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:49 AM ^
I don't get it either. U-M waited until it was too late against Wisconsin to try it and low and behold they had success doing it. Think about it, in the Iowa, PSU, and Maryland games they threw one deep ball all game, each time to Nico Collins, each time a completion, and then never went back to it. They did it once against ND and it was a PI call. Other than that everything has been within 10-15 yards from the LOS.
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
there are deep routes on plenty of plays. Patterson just seems unwilling to try them. Unless the play design on all of those plays is just to use those routes to clear up the middle, seems like more of a QB than playcalling issue
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
Blaming everything on the starting QB, an annual Michigan tradition.
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:45 PM ^
Sheltering a 5-star player from any criticism because it tarnishes the crusade to slam "starz matter" down people's throats, a daily Maizen tradition.
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:05 PM ^
People don't have to slam "starz matter" down people's throats because the facts do that all on their own. All the facts.
And people don't shelter Patterson from criticism--have you been here before?
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:20 PM ^
This post is big facts.
But it is sort of impressive how he managed to take a post defending Shea Patterson and turn it into a negative and a hilariously bad argument about recruiting rankings. Don't see people shit down their leg like that too often.
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:27 PM ^
What was my argument about recruiting rankings? I agree that recruiting more 4 and 5 star players than not makes you a contender for a national championship, which Michigan does. What I don't need is bad-faith arguments created by a guy who has been banned from this and other sites dozens of times constantly filling the board.
You did the same thing over on 247 earlier this season. Your new schtick is to place all the blame on Gattis because Michigan has 9 top 247 starters on their offense and the fact that they weren't performing as well hurts your narrative. Thus, all the blame goes to the scheme and coaches, and any criticism of how the players actually play is immediately dismissed as "slander."
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:40 PM ^
It appears you have me confused with someone else as I just joined the site. As far as who deserves more criticism when the team doesn't perform I'd say this: the coaches are the ones who recruit the players and get paid millions of dollars to put them in the best position to succeed.
I'd see a medical professional about all that anger if I were you.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:45 AM ^
Thought: The QB play might be an issue.
Question: When will the QB play be good again?
Concern: The QB play isn’t good.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:02 AM ^
By having a 51.9% adjusted completion percentage on deep passes last season, Shea Patterson leads the returning contingent of B1G Quarterbacks. pic.twitter.com/MlfUfxF31B
— PFF College (@PFF_College) July 8, 2019
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:16 AM ^
Well, one of the games was a monsoon and throwing the ball in a downpour doesn't go well just ask Ian Book. Maryland the defense was left on the field a lot in the first half so controlling the ball and giving them a chance to rest I'm sure was part of it, they paved Illinois on the ground so why re-invent the wheel and PSU covered everything deep attempting to not break and just bend. Forcing the ball to just force it sometimes isn't the best idea despite Brian's mentality. Turnovers kill momentum, morale and confidence. Sometimes the coaches know more than the people paying to watch the games.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:40 AM ^
And along those lines, remember when the complaint 'round here was that Pep Hamilton's scheme insisted on long-developing pass routes that got our QBs killed because the O-line couldn't block for that long?
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:13 PM ^
And further continuing this thought, isn’t the point of “speed in space” to accumulate YAC rather than throw the ball really far?
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:43 PM ^
The QB play for Maryland? Yeah, he was an issue for them.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:45 AM ^
In the last four games Michigan is out scoring opponents 146-74. The team will throw the ball downfield when its necessary
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
I heard this last year.
Maryland came into yesterday with the 115th ranked pass defense in the country. Opposing QBs this season have completed 65.0 percent of their attempts for 273.6 yards per game, 8.2 YPA and a passer rating of 148.75 against them.
Shea Patterson averaged 6.9 YPP and U-M gained 330 total yards.
The coaches have to start throwing the ball downfield more. Their refusal to do so makes me think they don't care about opponent scouting reports and don't want to tweak their offensive game-plan against anyone.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:31 AM ^
That's my concern as well....they don't seem to go after the opponent's weak spots in their game plan....just the same shit over and over.
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:53 PM ^
True dat. According to the experts, what makes Belichick so damn good is he doesn’t care what his players can do because he already knows, what he concentrates on is what the other team can’t.
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:20 PM ^
Belichick would not be able to employ the strategy he uses in the pros at the college level. When your players are still learning and you have limited practice time, you can’t have a playbook as deep as the New England Patriots. Not even other NFL teams are able to be as diverse as the Patriots, so it’s entirely unreasonable to expect a college team to do so.
I think there is a fair criticism to say the coaches don’t come out with the best gameplans vs. weak competition, but perhaps you should use another college team as your point of comparison.
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:48 PM ^
You mean like the Notre Dame game?
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^
Thank you so much for such an insightful comment. We had completely forgotten that as coaches we "have to start throwing the ball downfield." I am puzzled as to why were are not following your recommendation. I'll make sure to bring it up during the next team meeting
Sincerely,
Jim Harbaugh
J. Ira and Nicki Harris Family Head Football Coach
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:27 PM ^
The fans were puzzled too, as we watched our season go down the drain in the first half against Penn State. And as it almost did against Army. But I'm sure you have someone to blame for that. The refs are always handy. Or the media. Or Jim Delaney.
November 3rd, 2019 at 5:40 PM ^
Hello denardsdreads. What to do when a troll (you) and other trolls (deepbluec, gomblog) dominate the thread. I wonder if you are all of them. I won't attack your arguments because you post not to argue but to irritate. No I do not have an anger problem, one of your attack memes. But I want you and your aliases gone. Stop coming here and talking to yourself. Leave and never come back. Your new response (I couldn't be that old poster, I am new to this site) is funny.
November 4th, 2019 at 1:36 PM ^
One can criticize the record or the performance. But to bring up such an obvious thing as something coaches have failed to consider is just plain stupid and trolling. Why not open another thread stating that the coaches should try to score more than the opponents?
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:24 PM ^
Yeah football coaches are known for being a group of professionals that "don't care" about things like scouting an opponent or making schematic adjustments based on what a team is capable of or beliefs about what other teams may do. That's why coaches go home as soon as practice ends and don't think about football or the team again until the next day when they squeeze into the old pair of Bike shorts and put the whistle over the head.
Instead of posting on here how about you head over to Schembechler Hall and talk to Coach Gattis about your hypothesis.
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:50 PM ^
Man, if this is your complaint after a team covered the spread by two scores on the road i feel bad for you. Go outside
November 3rd, 2019 at 3:17 PM ^
Indiana throws deep a lot and that's our last road game. Mich will have to defend that.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Well... We lost to Penn State and we only threw deep once... We also let Illinois back into the game and only threw deep once... Those were fairly good weather days too. Also 5 games ago we only scored 10 on Iowa.
I think we should try to throw deep a little more often.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:27 AM ^
Illinois was really windy - it really depended if you were going into or against the wind. We scored most of our points in the 1st and 4th quarters when we had the wind.
In any event, beating them by 17 on the road looks a bit different now that they are 5-4 and likely headed to a bowl.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:46 AM ^
Agree completely - Illinois was not the definition of a good weather day.
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:10 PM ^
It does become necessary when teams are putting 8 in the box. We do need to continue to work on loading up defenses and try to stretch the field. We will need it against MSU I. Two weeks
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:17 PM ^
Exactly. 8 or 9 in the box is the way to defend against Michigan. 60%+ running. Most of the pass plays M calls are shortish. An offense premised on stringing together drives instead of explosive plays.
Gatt/baugh will sometimes adjust, but it might take three consecutive three and out drives to bring the adjustment.
The stuff that Gatt/baugh seems to want to do over the last 3 games would work even better if they could keep Ds more honest with a few more successful 20+ pass calls, plus a handful more 30+ pass calls.
Who would really believe that the type of thing they are trying to do would not be much harder to defend if they could add in just a little more explosiveness/long gain attempts in the passing game?
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:58 PM ^
The QB may be reluctant to throw it deep. There is also a chance that the coaches discourage it. However I lean more towards the former. Shea has been quoted as saying he's taking what the defense is giving. When D Mac came in one of his first passes against Maryland was a deep shot down the sideline (well covered and incomplete). When Milton threw his touchdown it was a 30+ yd corner route. When watching the game we don't often see all the routes unless their is a replay focusing in on the routes. I'm not at the games so I'm watching on TV. So I believe there are routes that go beyond 20+ yds however the ball just isn't thrown there. 1 more example of a replay of a 20+ yd throw is the throw from Shea to DPJ over the middle against PSU. The route was ell down the field and open initially but wasn't thrown. Shea scrambled and threw late and the pass was broken up. Had he thrown it on time, DPJ has 20 on the catch and possibly 10 or more YAC.
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:14 PM ^
I agree that Shea is not the best ever at longer pass plays. But is is not terrible either. Certainly he is not so bad at them that they can only be done a couple of times per game.
Someone else posted the Shea had the highest long pass completion rate in 2018 of the returning Big Ten 2019 QBs. So the narrative that Shea is just not capable to doing this stuff seems wrong. He was pretty good at it in 2018. Shea was over 50% completions in 2018 on long balls.
Anyway, failing to better develop a long pass play/explosive pass play threat has its own risk--opponents don't have to worry about defending the whole field and just stack the box. Does not matter against Maryland. But against good D's...that spells disaster.
Maybe the oblique thing made long-ish and long balls more risky in much of 2019 for Shea. Who knows?
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:04 PM ^
This point is spot on. Michigan struggles to break their own tendencies. You see a team load box, make them pay. Don't wait until it's 3rd and 8 or you are down 14-0. Break tendencies in your first possession not after spotting you opponent points or field position.
November 3rd, 2019 at 1:34 PM ^
This assumes that the team doesn't need to do a thing in live gameplay in order to do it well when necessary. That seems like a faulty assumption, personally.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:46 AM ^
It’s fairly inexplicable given that the pass protection has been pretty good and these WRs can catch em. Unless its something to do with Shea’s ability or health you’d think that taking deep shots 3-4 a game would be a minimum, though ND it wasn’t really possible with weather
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:44 AM ^
Some people have been saying for a long time now Shea can’t throw deep
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:09 PM ^
He can throw deep, he just waits too long to throw, so the receiver has to slow up. They slow up and it's contested, where it wouldn't be if Patterson threw it a second earlier.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:57 PM ^
who are those people saying that?
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:50 AM ^
Yeah I think this is valid criticism. I guess maybe they are concerned about protecting the tackles but they had a pretty good day in pass pro against PSU I thought and they have a great pass rush. I wonder what the connection rate has been on the long bomb, seems like it has worked pretty well for us.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:51 AM ^
Those long passes look wobbly most of the time. I have to imagine that fear of interceptions is what's limiting the number of downfield shots we're taking.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:59 AM ^
Yeah. Hell, Patterson's short passes are wobbly.
November 3rd, 2019 at 2:54 PM ^
I thought it was weird listening to Harbaugh talking about how much zip his tight spirals were (post Illinois) when my own lying eyes keep seeing warblers from him all the time.
November 3rd, 2019 at 12:29 PM ^
3rd and 8+ is a great time to go deep 3-4 times a game.
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
Remember in game 1 or 2 when they used 4 verts for a TD?
November 3rd, 2019 at 10:52 AM ^
Unexpect the expected.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:00 AM ^
Expect the expected unexpectedly.
November 3rd, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
Set expectations low and then negatively disconfirm them