Michigan Monday: corn futures are down
Didn't see it posted yet, so here you go: https://buckeyehuddle.com/2022/11/14/michigan-monday-corn-futures-down/
A rather perfunctory recap of the Nebraska game with the same prevailing thought we all have: Michigan is good, but we won't know how good exactly until November 26th. Some highlights:
Offense
But the inability to connect downfield isn’t just on McCarthy. We’ve said here for weeks that it’s a two-way street between the QB accuracy and the receivers’ ability to get open or make 50/50 catches. Actually, right now, it’s not even a two-way street. It’s two one-way streets that have yet to intersect.
Defense
Watching Michigan’s defense this season has not been the most informative learning experience. You feel like you have a pretty good idea of how good they are, just like with the Ohio State defense, but the problem with both teams is that every opponent they have faced this season looks like an open mic night for offenses.
“Coming up to the stage tonight is an offense from Lincoln, Nebraska. Give it up for the Huskers.”
November 15th, 2022 at 6:53 PM ^
Reasonable takes again from Gerdeman. The sister piece over at 11W downgraded the Michigan threat level from Severe to High, but the consensus among Buckeye message board cretins is that they’ll demolish us.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:01 PM ^
Each fanbase has a similar pocket of fans with a similar view of their team's likely demolition over the other.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:13 PM ^
Everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the mouth.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:48 PM ^
I love that quote. It's got so many layers of meaning. ...and it is from Mike Tyson.
November 15th, 2022 at 9:00 PM ^
Mike Tyson, Philosopher, also has one of my absolute favorites:
"Social media made you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it."
November 15th, 2022 at 10:25 PM ^
And punched in the mouth
And punched in the mouth
And helmeted in the dong
And run over by a truck
And punched in the mouth again
And paved by a road grader
And crushed by a steamroller
And punched in the mouth again
Ohio thinks they're really tough now. Just think how much more demoralizing that'll make it when they find out they're not.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:53 PM ^
I don't know. I don't feel like Gerdeman knows this Michigan team except in the context of his own expectations. He seems to think we're trying to hit big shots and that we aren't getting them, running game included. That all we can do is grind because we can't hit big shots. But to me, the grinding is very much by design. If we wanted big shots in the running game, they'd go to the QB run package that gouged the hell out of Penn State. He also states that the lack of deep passing success has led to Corum being less productive on the ground as teams don't have to fear our deep game. That's not what I've seen on the offense. I've seen very little need to stretch the field when games are over in the 3rd quarter and the running game cannot be stopped, and therefore very little attempt to stretch the field.
Also, his notion that we don't get sacks outside of obvious passing downs, and that we'd better fix that if we plan to stop Stroud. I think the plan to stop Stroud is to keep receivers in front of us, tackle hard, and then prey on OSU's lack of a physical running game in the red zone. We're not going to go all out to sack Stroud. We're going to make him work long and hard to get down the field and make their offense hold up physically and make touchdowns.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:45 PM ^
I agree. I won’t pretend to know much about scheme and the X’s and O’s, but I’ve enjoyed listening to MMQB with Devin and Sam. Their most recent episode gave me (possibly false) hope. Long story short: They believe we already have a really strong short and intermediate passing game, good play action, as well as a solid RPO. They think we are basically “practicing” in game-time situations the deep pass because we are “good” with many other passing concepts.
I think Jim is intentionally making Day’s and Knowle’s jobs brutal. He’s putting a ton of concepts on film that they’re gonna have to plan for…and if we can hit just one or two deep passes against Illinois, I don’t see any way the OSU D can stop us…turns into Stroud v. UM.
November 16th, 2022 at 8:32 AM ^
Hitting deep ball after deep bal would be nice, but 7 yard outs and 4 yd runs are what’s taking a toll on opposing defenses. It’s not like we can’t throw, it’s that we don’t throw deep well. What if we actually hit a couple deep balls against OSU and then pound the piss out of them in the trenches. Eventually something’s gotta a connect.
November 15th, 2022 at 6:57 PM ^
I have a question. Why is it we don't know how good Michigan is until they play OSU but not the other way around? They haven't beaten anyone of note.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:02 PM ^
Perspective and benefit of the doubt. think most of our board feels that Michigan is legit and that we can’t fairly assess Ohio State since they ain’t played nobody. But how many times has OSU lost 62-39? We have two decades of material for the media and opposing fan bases to use as confirmation bias.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:05 PM ^
We also have the most relevant data point of 42-27.
Osu is largely the same team as last year with an upgrade on defense. Just how much of one remains to be seen.
Michigan has an improved offense vs last year, and also an improved defense by most metrics.
How it all adds up in Columbus remains to be seen but there's not a lot of reason to think 62-39 or any previous matchup besides 2021 is all that relevant
November 15th, 2022 at 7:10 PM ^
Well 62-39 is what happened the last time we played in Columbus, and if the question is why isn’t Ohio State critiqued like Michigan is then I think you have to admit that past results play a factor. I agree with you that the predictive value of past results isn’t strong, but the narrative value is incredibly strong.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:23 PM ^
All well and good but we will not be favored.
November 15th, 2022 at 10:21 PM ^
I think its going to come down to intensity.
I think those OSU players forgot what that game was really like, (Don Browns defenses didn't help). None of them played against a Michigan team they didn't ultimately destroy. Plus, covid year.
I think if OSU has learned to put on big boy rivalry-hate pants then Michigan is going to have a handful.
If Day doesnt know how to make these guys respect the rivalry, well, I think we'll probably see a repeat of last year.
November 15th, 2022 at 9:45 PM ^
I'm guessing that all the criticisms of our passing game and their run defense and everything else probably don't really matter and The Game will be determined by turnover margin and a few huge penalties or breaks to keep drives alive. You just hope those things go your way on that day. We can run it. They can pass it. We both have, at-worst, competent defenses. We play in their stadium. At this point, it's just time to see what plays out.
November 16th, 2022 at 8:33 AM ^
They’re proud of the ND game now that their “quietly 7-3”
November 15th, 2022 at 7:03 PM ^
Does anyone else get the sense that Gerdeman just hasn't had as much fun writing these for the last nearly two seasons now?
November 15th, 2022 at 7:10 PM ^
Long may it continue.
November 15th, 2022 at 9:58 PM ^
I do enjoy reading his MM write-ups more often than not. He doesn’t write like an 11W slappy who just completely writes off Michigan from Day 1, and he’s usually good for a great one liner or two in every piece (He wrote a line after the Hawaii or UConn game about how watching that was akin to paying to watch rich people hunt other humans for sport, and I got a really good laugh out of it), but what I feel like I’ve noticed since last year is the following trend.
1) He’s usually complimentary at the start of the year, almost overly so, when Michigan is beating up on CSU, WMU or UConn, but it has a feel of “Aww look at you guys beating up on tomato cans, that’s adorable.” tone to it. Like he’s just waiting for the October implosion that we were all conditioned to wait for for so many years.
2) Then, when Michigan doesn’t start losing and looks to be on the path to set up a winner take all game in the last weekend in November, his writing takes on a slightly more annoyed tone, like he’s wondering why that proverbial shoe hasn’t dropped yet.
November 16th, 2022 at 1:36 PM ^
Kinda reminds me of Herbstreit*. He would throw Michigan a bone or two in terms of compliments when he knew they looked decent but were still going to get destroyed by Ohio State. Has been a lot bitchier about them since last year.
*Though I do also remember the Herbstreit of the '90s, who used to always pick Michigan on College GameDay, but of course that was back when Michigan owned Cooper
November 15th, 2022 at 7:13 PM ^
Money quote:
The Wolverines getting healthy on offense won’t win them a national title this year, but it might be enough to get them past Ohio State.
They’re getting worried. They may not admit it, but they are.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:55 PM ^
So what he’s really saying is, “OSU isn’t good enough to win a national championship.”
November 16th, 2022 at 8:38 AM ^
I’d be worried as well and am worried about OSU. OSU fans seem to discount what we wanna do and think our physicality won’t be an issue. That’s as crazy as discounting Harrison Jr and saying he won’t go off against us. The thought of that guy matching up with our secondary scares the shit out of me. Hopefully at the half we’ve had the ball for around 20 minutes and it won’t matter.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:15 PM ^
I was listening to a sports radio show the other day, and they brought up a good point that Ohio State may likely abandon the run from this point onwards due to a lack of healthy running backs. Looking at this preseason roster to now, I can definitely see this being true.
Not only have their top-2 RBs in Williams and Henderson been persistently injured and missed several games each, the depth behind them is also banged up:
- Miyan Williams - Injured
- Treyveon Henderson - Injured
- Evan Pryor - Torn ACL
- Dallen Hayden - Healthy
- TC Caffey - "Out-for-Season"
With only 1 healthy RB in true freshman Hayden, they've had to rely on converted LB and WR to shore up the depth chart.
It is no secret that Ohio State was going to lean on their passing attack, but it is possible they won't even scheme to have a credible run game for the rest of the regular season.
Michigan's secondary will have to be on their A-game November 26th.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:58 PM ^
Current forecast for Columbus, 42 degrees, with chance of rain. Enjoy that passing game Bucks. I'll enjoy watching Corum disappear in the frothy scrum and spit out 8 yards later. Over and over.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:25 PM ^
He's actually carrying the scrum for another five to 8 yards. (witness against Michigan State)
It's been a while since I saw anything like that.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:59 PM ^
I could see it being 70% pass 30% run all the way up to 80-20. But they can't abandon the run game.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:05 PM ^
They did last year and relied on miracle catches to get down the field. And that was against worse DT's than we have now. I can see Ryan Day abandoning the run game.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:53 PM ^
I guess it depends on how you define "abandon." osu RBs still rushed the ball 27 times last season compared to 49 pass attempts.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:22 PM ^
I laughed at Rutgers being marked as (Rivalry Game)
It’s fair to criticize the schedule, but we can only play the teams on the schedule
November 15th, 2022 at 8:00 PM ^
Their schedule is exactly the same but sub Wiscy for Illinois and add a sad-sack one-dimensional Notre Dame offense led by Tommy Reas. We'd crush the Irish like 2019 if we played them.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:23 PM ^
I watched Northwestern handle ohio deep into the 4th quarter. I'm looking at our game in Columbus with less apprehension.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:34 PM ^
Agreed. OSU gave up 206 yards against the 10th ranked rushing offense in the conference even when they knew it was coming.
Our best rushing game was against our hardest opponent.
If they abandon everything and just pass, that plays into our hands and we'll wear them down.
November 15th, 2022 at 7:35 PM ^
Speaking of corn futures, are we destined to lose to Illinois after suffering a case of HSKR-22?
November 15th, 2022 at 7:35 PM ^
"But even as a mass of nubbins, [Blake's] gonna convert that 3rd-and-4 into a first down."
Yep. But let's give him some more rest this week.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:06 PM ^
Offensive offenses.
November 15th, 2022 at 8:41 PM ^
Bottom line: There is a whole lot of angst and doubt it these two and the increased snarkiness reveals a wavering confidence.