Wisconsin Snowflakes: The Coaching
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:44 PM ^
This is the coaching snowflakes after a road game vs a big-name opponent and I have nothing to incoherently rage about.
I.... don't know what to do with myself.
October 2nd, 2021 at 5:11 PM ^
Enjoy yourself... thats kind of the point of our pointless football viewing hobby.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
I owe Harbaugh and Gattis a huge apology. They made me look like a whiny bitch.
Thanks coach, I needed and deserved that.
October 2nd, 2021 at 8:35 PM ^
Good on you for admitting it, man.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:47 PM ^
Credit where credit is due, I thought Gattis called a really, really good game today. A lot of us - myself included - were very concerned that this staff would willingly get into a rock fight with any team on the schedule. Wisconsin, of all teams, is not the one you want to rock fight with. Michigan emphatically did not do that. They did a great job testing the perimeter and pushing the ball down the field through the air. And mixed in some power run just to keep things balanced. THEY USED TEMPO fer godsakes! They kept a good Wisconsin defense off balance all day today. I loved the assertiveness on 4th down to establish a lead and then dialed it back and forced Wisconsin to play offense.
I'm sure some posters will come here and still complain that Michigan didn't gain 800 yards of offense and execute every single play to perfection. These are the folks that don't know how to turn the BPONE setting off. Michigan called the exact game us fans were asking for. And they curb stomped Wisconsin in a way PSU and Notre Dame did not.
I've been critical of Gattis and Harbaugh many times on this board. Today, they deserve a lot of credit. Excellent offensive game plan.
Enjoy the win fellas! You certainly earned it today.
October 2nd, 2021 at 7:26 PM ^
Surprised there hasn't been more mention of them using tempo as you mention. Play calling was so good, it is as if we didn't even notice.
October 3rd, 2021 at 10:47 AM ^
Very well put. This game was visibly an excellent coaching job by the Michigan staff
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:49 PM ^
Outstanding coaching in all aspects. Perfectly complete. This is the first time that all the mistakes made were by the players rather than the coaches.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:49 PM ^
Well, that was a far nicer game than I was anticipating, and indeed, as we've not won in Madison since I was 24, this was an even better performance to watch (for the most part - that squib kick, grumble, etc....).
I was pleasantly surprised though.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:49 PM ^
Other than putting Villari in and asking him to pass and ruin the turnover-free record, I thought it was good. Seemed like we didn't do too much of any one thing and the Wisconsin defense didn't really ever lock on. 44 rushes and 30 passes seems like a good mix and the defense didn't let Wisconsin get over 200 yards until late garbage time.
10/10 would watch again
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:49 PM ^
Blue pants. Clearly the best coaching decision of the day.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:55 PM ^
Bowman had the interception.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:57 PM ^
Bowman had the interception.
October 2nd, 2021 at 5:45 PM ^
So it wasn't Villari who had the pick...Villari who had the pick?
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:13 PM ^
That was Bowman who threw the pick.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:20 PM ^
If you watch again, you might want to notice that it was Alan Bowman who threw the interception and not Dan Villari
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:57 PM ^
Yeah, I must've seen Villari out there the previous play and not noticed they brought a 4th QB into the game. Was Bowman tossing the pick.
Negged myself for the oversight.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:32 PM ^
Why wouldn’t you want villari to try a pass in a blowout? If he can establish that then his presence on the field is less predictable.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:42 PM ^
I don't think Villari is who you say he is. Unless my eyes were bad, he didn't throw a pick.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:56 PM ^
Bowman threw the interception--I think that was his first pass at Michigan.
October 3rd, 2021 at 1:27 PM ^
I think we all know where Bowman goes from here.
https://outsider.com/news/sports/watch-tom-brady-first-ever-college-football-pass/
October 2nd, 2021 at 5:19 PM ^
I think Bowman threw the pick. And while it’s annoying to lose our “only team with zero-turnovers” distinction, I was tired of hearing the announcers jinx us about that, and I’m glad the jinx kicked in during garbage time instead of a really inopportune moment.
October 2nd, 2021 at 8:20 PM ^
Bowman threw the INT. He may never play again for Harbaugh.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:50 PM ^
Loved the aggressive offensive play calling. Balanced rushing/passing calls. No turtling. Going for it on fourth and short multiple times. Stretching the defense with long throws, giving the receivers a chance to make plays. It looks like we have at least two quality QB's and the coaches need to trust them throwing the ball.
Hoping they keep this aggressive attitude.
October 3rd, 2021 at 9:00 AM ^
Was some of the strategy part of Matt Weis’ analytic skills? Perhaps he’s responsible for more of the “Madden” 4th down decisions.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:51 PM ^
I love our coaches.
October 2nd, 2021 at 3:56 PM ^
This is what I posted in the "Win Will Cause Me To" thread last night:
Win will cause me to...start believing that maybe the program is finally starting to turn the corner on offense. Because winning will most likely mean that we actually started utilizing our skill position players, threw the ball successfully, and finally opened up the playbook, necessitated by the literally best run defense in all of college football right now.
So here I am.
I fully expected the coaching staff to not put the players in the best position to succeed because quite frankly, that's all we've seen them do in the past. Call it BPONE, call it PTSD, call it classical conditioning, call it whatever you want, but that's been our reality as fans for a long time. We've always had the talent, we just never used it very well.
Well, today, we finally used our talent, opened up the playbook and threw the damn ball...because...as I said, we'd be facing the best run defense in the country. And it showed. We ran for a total of 112 yards on 44 carries for 2.5 yards per carry. And while that's almost double what Wisconsin has allowed all season combined, that's still...bad. Really bad. But, thankfully...finally...for once...the passing game came out of their coma and actually did something on the field. Cade had two passing touchdowns, both which looked good, and JJ had a beautiful deep ball passing touchdown. We weren't amazing (throwing for 60% and 253 yards total), but, we were certainly solid, and that's better then it's been in a quite a while.
Things that still concern me going foward:
- We continued to pound the ball straight up the middle into the teeth and strength of the best run defense in the country and accomplished nothing by it.
- We only pulled ONE QB keeper on a read (I think), which means we're still crippling the potential of this offensive scheme when there were plenty of free yards to be had.
- Our WRs continue to drop passes and hamper our ability to move the ball, which can also affect Cade's confidence. Hopefully this gets cleaned up. Losing Bell really hurt...
- The pass defense has shown to be very vulnerable to aggressive passing attacks, even from some of the worst QBs in the game. Hopefully this gets addressed.
BUT, overall, I now believe that our offense is finally turning a corner and is no longer a weakness for this team. Still haven't seen enough to call our offense a flat out "strength", but that could come in time as we play more games. We were definitely bailed out by Mertz leaving the game, as he was starting to light it up. But a dominating win is a dominating win nonetheless.
Positive takeaways from today:
- We FINALLY won a game on the roard as an underdog for the first time since Harbaugh came here. That's a monkey off this program's back.
- We finally beat Wisconsin at Camp Randall for the first time since 2001. That's a major accomplishment in any year against Wisconsin (yes, even this season) and yet another moneky off this program's back.
- We got revenge against Wisconsin for 2019 & 2020's back to back crushing losses. That's a great feeling and great for this team's confidence, especially doing so on the road.
- I think we actually made some offensive adjustments coming out of halftime, which is encouraging to see from this coaching staff.
It started rough, and looked very rocky going into halftime, triggering flashbacks of last week's Rutgers game. But the team played tough, stepped it up and made plays, and cranked out a dominating win over a great program!
Bonus: We actually won the turnover battle with multiple takeaways AND we didn't get screwed over by O'Neil's crew...is, is this allowed for us??
Onward and Upward! Go Blue!
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:25 PM ^
Agree with a lot of these thoughts as well. One point of contention I would note is related to the runs between the tackles. I definitely agree that was not where Michigan was going to find a lot of success in this game. But given that this is Michigan's offensive identity - a power running team that will beat you physically and schematically at the line of scrimmage - they're always going to bring an element of that to every single game regardless of opponent. This is what in turn, sets up things like the flea flicker touchdown and the intermediate passes to Wilson. Michigan has to present their power run game because it sets opposing defenses up for their constraint players later in the game. Not to mention, as good as Wisconsin is at defending the run, Michigan is also pretty damn good at running the ball themselves. They're always going to rely on that element of their offense to some degree no matter who they play. The important thing in this game, was to scheme and deploy the right constraint plays at the right time off their run action. I think Harbaugh and Gattis executed that to perfection today.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:40 PM ^
Could it not be argued that by investing so much in stopping the run, Wisconsin's defense (or Rutgers for that matter) was automatically opening up other areas of the field that could/should be attacked and exploited?
Unless you're facing a defense that can totally shutdown the run with only their front four, committing so many resources to stop the run should mean that our offense doesn't have to burn downs running up the middle for no gain in order to setup other aspects of the offense. We're seeing Ohio State do this to Rutgers as we speak.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:48 PM ^
Why?
If on the first series Michigan sees that an opponent is playing 8 or 9 crashing into the middle, Michigan does not need to 'show' the power running game. They need to pass immediately, pass on first down, pass on second down, etc., until the opposing D changes/adjust to prevent getting gashed over and over with quick passes.
THEN Michgan can run between the tackles at will.
October 2nd, 2021 at 6:05 PM ^
Perhaps you're right, but it seems like that isn't exactly what happened in this game. I would have to go back and look at Wisconsin's defensive alignment throughout the course of the game, but it didn't really jump off the screen to me that Michigan was futilely hurling Corum and Haskins into stacked boxes all day. And I think Michigan ran the ball as effectively as you could ask for in this matchup.
I take your point that in some instances, the passing game can actually be used to open up running lanes between the tackles, but did you come away disappointed with the way Michigan ran the ball? Haskins and Corum are two of the best players on the team, should we not give them some opportunities to run between the tackles simply because PSU, Notre Dame and Eastern Michigan didn't succeed with it?
The greater point I was trying to make (perhaps poorly) is that running your base offense is what opens up your constraint plays. I agree you could also invert that formula and use your constraint plays to open up your base offense. But the point remains, your base offense is predicated on what you do best as a team. Moving away from that entirely simply because your opponent shut that element of other opposing offenses down doesn't express a lot of confidence that you believe you are very good at what you do best. I felt like the coaches did a good job with threading that needle between base offense and constraint plays that softened up the defense.
October 2nd, 2021 at 7:40 PM ^
Not so much disappointment at how Haskins and Corum ran the ball, as they ran what the coaches called and they were facing the best run defense in the country. Just a bit disappointed I guess that the coaches, as a game plan didn’t seem to exploit Wisconsin’s run defense with the quick passing attack until Wisconsin was forced to ease up on the run, which (theoretically) would have then opened up big running lanes.
I mean at the end of the day we got over 100 yards on the ground, played well over all, and won the game. Just sorta wish, schematically, we’d do more to specifically exploit defense’s weaknesses rather than play into their strengths. Hopefully something that we can start doing as we move forward.
October 2nd, 2021 at 9:36 PM ^
That's a fair observation and criticism. I did seem like Cade was surprisingly underwhelming with the short passing game. He obviously did a great job connecting on his deep shots, His completion percentage bares that out a little bit (60%).
In any event, not trying to be pedantic, and I agree with your overall point. Perhaps Gattis initially planned to use the short passing game to supplement the run, but moved away from it once Cade showed some inaccuracies in the first half. In the end none of that really matters. Phenomenal effort from the players and very sound game planning from the coaches. Definitely a victory worth celebrating.
October 2nd, 2021 at 11:20 PM ^
The fact is that Michigan played well today.
Still, they benefitted from 3 Wisconsin turnovers and from hitting a handful of longer passes. The offense still is not where it needs to be to challenge OSU. The quick short passing plays are...not working well and/or insufficiently used. And there still were some instances (though not pervasive) of burning downs with running plays, such as settling for the FG when they recovered the fumbled punt return inside the 10.
Good overall. The offense showed that it can in fact connect on passes when it has to. That is progress. But this is still far from an offense that can keep pace with OSU. And I still do not believe Harbaugh fully embraces the concept that to beat OSU you must have an offense that can challenge the entire field vertically, horizontally, and most of all creatively.
October 3rd, 2021 at 2:53 AM ^
I can’t upvote this beautiful response, so a virtual +1 to you Sir.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:00 PM ^
I was screaming for them to test the edge and then they did with AJ Henning and then he lost a yard. Loved seeing more passing!
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:03 PM ^
Think Coach Jim was coaching for his job a little today, and passed a huge test. Far from a perfect game, but plenty of daring calls, a nice mix of pass and run, and a team that looked tough and ready, beginning to end. No let-downs next week against Nebraska!
October 2nd, 2021 at 6:34 PM ^
JH is not “coaching for his job”. He was getting at least another year with this new coaching staff provided there was not a total team meltdown. The thing about JH is that he a) is beyond money b) is focused on being successful at Michigan. c) has taken his last football job. He’s here until he retires, watch and see. Let’s hope he has gotten smarter about whom he surrounds himself with as his assistant coaches.
October 3rd, 2021 at 3:08 PM ^
Fair. I wrote something similar to what you have written here several times as the ink was drying on the new contract--that barring outright collapse Jim had two years left, at least, because it would take two years, not one, to see the changes bear fruit and a very young team mature.
So maybe it would be more accurate to amend my comment above to say that Harbaugh has carried himself out of danger, and that this team is in fact ahead of schedule--we can look forward to a couple of strong years of Michigan football to come. Which. . . yay.
And thankfully, we will never know--now--what might have transpired if we had fallen down badly yesterday. But I do think that another pasting at Wisconsin, another year of a certain kind of ineptitude and creative failure, might have ended his Michigan career. Things get toxic fast nowadays, and--see for yourself just how skeptical people were last week--the clamor for coaches' heads comes fast.
Does Warde have Jim's back? I believe that he does. But yesterday I'd persist in maintaining that a fair lot was on the line.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
Don't like the short kick at the end of the first half or the soft coverage on Wisconsin's FG drive. Otherwise, sound schemes on both sides of the ball.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:12 PM ^
The ceiling for this team is higher than I think any of us imagined, and I give credit to the coaches creating an environment to make that happen.
We could have a special season on our hands.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:14 PM ^
One thing that stuck out today was how well organized the team seemed. No dumb penalties or substituting that required taking timeouts. This team is a lot more disciplined (so far) than the last few Harbaugh teams.
October 3rd, 2021 at 8:57 AM ^
With a couple notable exceptions, the team has been way quicker at getting the play in this year. Among many other organizational improvements
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:20 PM ^
Protect Shawn Nua at all costs.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:22 PM ^
Definitely decent, two nitpicks would be going soft coverage against a struggling QB on Mertz's second to last drive and still burning downs with Cade on reads and unblocked guys that clearly aren't real reads. And if JJ is the guy who can make those reads he needs to be in on short yardage running plays.
They did throw it enough, which was the primary concern heading in and liked the aggressive mentality on 4th downs.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:53 PM ^
I wonder if Cade can’t make those reads or if they’re turned off (he’s not a good runner or coaches worried about injury). My money is on the latter.
October 2nd, 2021 at 5:20 PM ^
I mean that's fine but if so either scrap them entirely when Cade is in or have JJ run them in those situations. It is just a burned down with Cade though.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:25 PM ^
Improvement from previous years. Defensive side is plus plus.
We need better QB play to move our offense to the next level. In my opinion ,Cade is not that guy but JJ could be that guy.
October 2nd, 2021 at 8:33 PM ^
JJ sure could be. As he gets more comfortable in the full offense, he needs to play more. To the eye, he has a fair bit more upside than Cade.
October 2nd, 2021 at 4:26 PM ^
It looked like one of the first games Jim coached to win. Most of the time he is coaching not to lose! Well done Jim!