Vroom, Vroom, Vroomy Vroom Vroom
9/2/2023– Michigan 30, East Carolina 3 – 1-0
Well, here we go.
The best kind of thing to take from a game against a solid G5 program that's just turned over the vast majority of their personnel is one that is opponent-invariant, and the most opponent-invariant thing in football is quarterbacks dropping dimes. This space has long maintained that if the offensive executes perfectly, they just get to win. Via that lens the most important development from the opener is the prevalence of "nice try, I win" plays. ECU had some moments of excellent coverage that just did not matter.
McCarthy started out hot, casually dropping in an NFL-level 15-yard out to the field on Michigan's first drive that featured passes:
In addition to the Here Look At My Arm Talent plays he also moved opponents with the power of his mind. Folks have already pointed out the little pump fake on the third Wilson touchdown but this one is probably even better. Wilson isn't open until McCarthy focuses on Loveland:
ECU CB to bottom
Live I thought that was a weird coverage bust; no, it was just McCarthy manipulating the defense. This is something he did last year, particularly early, but it was an occasional thing. That felt like promise; here it felt more like a preview.
There is a warm blanket of a feeling you get when you are suddenly a fan of a football team with a quarterback who is obviously an NFL dude. The ability to drop back and rifle in lasers to guys who are sort of open changes the feeling of third and seven from "yikes" to "you have insulted my family by creating this third and medium situation and now I will exact my vengeance."
McCarthy did a version of this early last year as well, turning in 100% downfield success rate performances against Hawaii and UConn. This was different, though. ECU might not be good but this did not feel like the rote walkovers from last year. ECU asked McCarthy some questions, and he answered them. In addition to the two plays embedded above there was the throw to Loveland where ECU sent the house; McCarthy backpedaled to the left a bit to buy another half-second of time, then formed up and delivered a dart. This was not the McCarthy who went on a couple endless sojourns against Maryland last year. He was decisive. He was confident. He was in command.
He was locked in to the point where we can individually consider his incompletions:
- Wilson has the ball punched out early.
- McCarthy throws behind Johnson on a quick out during the one-minute drill.
- A linebacker with freaky long arms gets his hand on a ball that's arcing towards an AJ Barner touchdown in the back corner of the endzone.
- McCarthy breaks the pocket and can't quite get it to Wilson.
I don't think 1 and 3 are negatives, but just good plays from the defense, and 4 was a difficult proposition. I did think he'd broken the pocket enough that he did not need to pull the trigger immediately and could have run closer to the LOS. At that point the throws are easier and you can just run if necessary. So that is my complaint from this game. He's going to come in for a silly UFR grade.
The season preview said that if Michigan was going to Beat Georgia the McCarthy training wheels needed to come off, and they did. After the first drive 11/16 McCarthy first downs were passes. Michigan ran all the play action we begged for over the offseason, because ECU came in with an aggressive, OSU/TCU game plan.
Michigan said no, that's not going to work anymore. Try another idea.
AWARDS
Known Friends and Trusted Agents Of The Week
schwangle! [Barron]
#1 JJ McCarthy. See above.
#2(T) Roman Wilson and Cornelius Johnson. Wilson was more prominent in TDs but Johnson had the best catch of the day, a leaping stab of a ball a bit behind him to pick up a first down. Between them they caught everything that could be caught and seemed to be on the same page as McCarthy in a Jeremy Gallon sort of way.
#3(T) Ernest Haussmann, Kenneth Grant, Mike Sainristil, and Josh Wallace. It is extremely difficult to come up with a defensive player for this game because of the huge amount of rotation. Only Keon Sabb and Keshaun Harris had more than 36 snaps and 25 different players had at least 10. But also ECU was held to three points so lets sprinkle some holy water on the D, too.
Haussman led Michigan in solo tackles and had a couple of legit sticks; Sainristil had a pick and shut off the outside; Grant induced the Sainristil pick; Wallace almost had a stunning INT of his own but for the vagaries of fate and gave up zero completions on his two targets. Two points each to distinguish them from the clawing pack.
Honorable mention: Tommy Doman blasts some balls, including a That's Bait Kickoff. Kris Jenkins and Mason Graham delete all interior runs at them. Blake Corum and Donovan Edwards both flash their ability in mercifully limited opportunities.
KFaTAotW Standings.
(points: #1: 8, #2: 5, #3: 3, HMs one each. Ties result in somewhat arbitrary assignments.)
8: JJ McCarthy (#1 ECU)
4: Roman Wilson (T2 ECU), Cornelius Johnson (T2 ECU)
2: Ernest Hausmann (T3 ECU), Kenneth Grant (T3 ECU), Mike Sainristil (T3 ECU), Josh Wallace (T3 ECU)
1: Tommy Doman (HM ECU), Kris Jenkins (HM ECU), Mason Graham (HM ECU), Blake Corum (HM ECU), Donovan Edwards (HM ECU).
Who's Got It Better Than Us(?) Of The Week
JJ McCarthy looks off a flat defender and lays in a gorgeous touchdown to Roman Wilson in the corner of the endzone.
Honorable mention: Replay official has the over and lets the first Wilson TD stand. Blake Corum bursts off the left side, giving us some of them good Blake Corum feelings. Mike Sainristil picks off a pass that's a duck because the quarterback is trying not to be flattened by Kenneth Grant.
MARCUS HALL EPIC DOUBLE BIRD OF THE WEEK.
Michigan runs dive after dive in an attempt to get Edwards a touchdown, resulting in a goal line stand after a fumbled exchange on fourth down.
Honorable mention: Michigan's first drive is three runs under the shadow of their own goal line that gets stuffed. ECU's punter is annoyingly good at dropping in line drives just inside the sideline that roll forever. XP is missed.
OFFENSE
Quarterback takes have been expressed. Moving on.
Tackle: I continue not to get it. I'll have to UFR everything to get a definitive score but when I went over Michigan's busted runs Myles Hinton came up a lot. The frustrating first drive had multiple examples. On second down Zinter chips a DT and moves on; Hinton doesn't pick him up because he's doubling a DE with the TE. On third down ECU has a DT/LB twist on that's pretty clever and delivers a linebacker to the POA, but that guy is only cleanup after the backside DE slants under Barner:
Bad job Barner, I guess, but historically I cut guys some slack when they're trying to block a guy who 1) starts inside of him and 2) slants away from him. And:
Look at that gap in the line. Someone's filling it, and in this situation it is highly likely that the hand-in-dirt DE, who's shaded outside of Hinton instead of inside of Barner, is shooting inside. Hinton needs to help his TE out here; instead he releases to nobody and doesn't touch a Pirate on this play.
Contrast that to Trente Jones getting a late shift from a DE, anticipating the slant inside, and putting that guy on his ass:
"TE" #53 to bottom of line
Jones was also the point-of-attack blocker on Corum's long power run and blew a guy halfway across the formation.
This appears to be a consensus view since Hinton came in for PFFs lowest M OL grade in this game and Hinton himself told the assembled media that he "didn't play very well." He also said he "didn't play like [he] practiced," which is a thing that happens when people are in new situations. Jones should get the start next week if Michigan's following the same pattern they did last year, and if he performs like he did a year ago I'd imagine he holds onto the job.
do something about… that guy [Fuller]
Run blocking: withholding judgment. I tweeted something during the game that asserted that Michigan's shotgun runs weren't very effective because JJ keeps were off and ECU got to shoot unblocked guys at the ballcarrier repeatedly. On review this was only true a couple times, but there's a reason that the gun was generally regarded as a passing formation before the dawn of the zone read, and Michigan did little to control backside ends. When they did pop Bredeson into the flat it was an easy chunk gain, and I'm pretty sure that Edwards run that popped all the way out the backside was an intentional cutback. They ran a few things like it a year ago.
Anyway: new center, still figuring out the tackle situation, going up against some serious blitzballers. It'll get better. The weak YPC isn't the whole story because 1) a couple of successful Edwards runs were those touch handoffs that are very very technically passes and 2) Michigan decided to run the all dive redzone offense again when they tried to get Edwards a touchdown instead of just running plays that would score.
I'm not too concerned.
Heck yeah catchy guys. On review the first incompletion to Wilson was a PBU, not a drop—Wilson was just about to complete the tuck into his elbow when the ECU defender punched it out—so there's virtually nothing negative to report from the wide receiver corps. They helped McCarthy out a few times and there were no routine drops. Sometimes you take this for granted, and then you watch FSU-LSU and are suddenly very grateful that Michigan receivers have not regularly dropped throws in their facemask for a long, long time. The last guy who was an inexplicable drops guy was… Braylon Edwards?
Fred Moore unexpectedly prominent [Fuller]
Notable depth chart items. First game, actual depth chart reveal:
- Fred Moore appears to be WR #4, give or take O'Leary. He was in front of Derrius Clemons based on snap counts and targets. Clemons did get in earlier but there's a bullet about this in a sec.
- Backup OL was T/El-Hadi/Crippen/Gentry/T. This seems like good news for Gentry, who appears to have booted Reece Atteberry to defense, at least temporarily, because he was clearly on the two-deep.
- Kalel Mullings is indeed RB3.
- Davis Warren is QB2, although Harbaugh said the competition between Warren and Tuttle is ongoing.
Self-scouting ho. Michigan had some serious personnel tips in this game. Colston Loveland was 80% pass. Cornelius Johnson snaps were almost 70% pass; ditto Roman Wilson. Max Bredeson was the inverse, as was Trente Jones. Jones, ok, bonus OL whatever, but the starting WRs were very heavy pass tips and anyone else at WR was a heavy run tip. Clemons was two passes, 11 runs. Other guys were less extreme but third and fourth quarter snaps play into that.
hoss [Fuller]
Still on team Mullings. Mullings has kept his nose in front of Ben Hall for RB3 and he had a couple of late runs on which he was able to escape tacklers with nimble feet and then plow a rugby scrum forward for significant YAC. Mullings also intrigues as a second back with either Corum or Edwards, because he's big enough to be a reasonably good fullback and a good enough runner to be a lone back. Michigan ran out a few plays featuring both Mullings and Edwards; will be something to keep an eye on going forward.
DEFENSE
that kind of day [Barron]
Rotation items. Game one always gives you a chance to find out the actual depth chart. This is what it looked like to me:
DE | DT | DT | DE |
---|---|---|---|
Braiden McGregor | Kris Jenkins | Mason Graham | Jaylen Harrell |
Derrick Moore | Kenneth Grant | Cam Goode/Rayshaun Benny | TJ Guy/Josiah Stewart |
Goode and Guy actually got the first snaps when the second team rotated in, which was constantly. No DL had more than 27 snaps; 10 had at least ten. Guy and Goode, despite getting in first, look like third string options based on snap counts.
No need for a linebacker chart as only three guys got in before garbage time. Ernest Hausmann actually led Michigan in snaps and rotated through both MLB and WLB. Jaydon Hood and Micah Pollard are apparently third string, assuming that Jimmy Rolder is in front of them when he's back from injury.
The secondary:
CB | CB | NK | S | S |
---|---|---|---|---|
Will Johnson | Josh Wallace | Mike Sainristil | Rod Moore | Makari Paige |
Keshaun Harris | Jyaire Hill | Ja’Den McBurrows | Keon Sabb | Zeke Berry |
DJ Waller | Kody Jones | Quinten Johnson |
There had been rumors that Berry was practicing at nickel but McBurrows got all the non-Sainristil snaps there. I assume Amorion Walker factors in the CB depth chart somewhere but I have no idea where.
FWIW. Johnson warmed up with the ones and at that point I assumed he was playing. Sitting him was a very narrow decision, it appears. One dollar he's back for UNLV.
under duress [Barron]
Pass rush: ask again later. ECU did not suffer any sacks but they resorted to tactics that indicated they didn't think they could block Michigan at all. A large majority of plays that went downfield were quick fades, especially after ECU faced down the terrifying possibility of a Kenneth Grant stunt up the gut:
There were a lot of plays where ECU barely avoided disaster despite the gameplan. I think it'll come out decently in UFR.
Rooster Uche issues. Josiah Stewart came in after TJ Guy. He ended up with almost twice Guy's snaps so I think Michigan wants Stewart to blow up and get through the WDE depth chart until he's obviously the guy after Harrell. This implies there is a reason Guy got in before Stewart and in the limited time we got it seems pretty clear: Stewart's not very good at setting an edge. Almost the only ECU success on the ground all day came when guys bounced outside of Stewart. This only happened ~2 times, but that's not good relative to the other options unless you're ripping the quarterback's spine out of his body. That's pending.
you have our attention [Fuller]
About those fades. Michigan defended all of them, with Josh Wallace one ill-placed foot from an eye-opening interception:
I know this INT doesn’t hold up, but the body control and concentration by Josh Wallace (26, grad transfer from UMass) is too good to not highlight. pic.twitter.com/PbUEL26FMg
— Due# (@JDue51) September 3, 2023
Keon Sabb got tested on a slot fade on ECU's first drive and got a PBU; on the podcast there was some debate about how good this defense actually was. Sabb didn't get his head around but he didn't get lucky; instead he looked at his guy and got a hand between his mark's arms. I'll take that from a sophomore safety.
Hello Hausmann. I was a little skeptical that Hausmann was deserving of his #1-in-the-portal-until-Travis-Hunter-shows-up status midway through the offseason transfer cycle, but after one game featuring a couple of thunderous sticks and scattered plays between he looks like a keeper. This is another scouting win for a program that has them coming out their ears; despite the fact Hausmann was the #6 kid in Nebraska he was a "top target" for M, per Lorenz, and when things went south with the hometown school they leapt on the kid.
SPECIAL TEAMS
sproing [Fuller]
It's all new, so by relative confidence level:
PUNTER. Tommy Doman booted 44 and 45 yard punts that were obvious fair catches as soon as they came off his foot, one of them on a snap from the one yard line. He booted all of his kickoffs into the endzone aside from one James "Doug" Foug memorial pop-up to the two that had so much hang time that I was actively hoping the ECU returner would take the bait; he did and ECU started at the sixteen—actually the eight thanks to a penalty.
Doman looks like a seamless transition to another Brad Robbins tenure of approximately four opponent punt returns per season.
KICK RETURN. There was only one and it went in the endzone.
KICKER. A missed extra point isn't a banner way to start your Michigan career but Turner, previously 1/6 from 50+ on his career, was 2/3 in this one, although one of the makes didn't count because ECU had called timeout. His career record under 40 is such that I'm not worried about XP goofery.
English was not one of the four potential PR guys Harbaugh mentioned [Barron]
PUNT RETURN. Jake Thaw probably didn't have a shot at the first punt since it was a line drive that was just down the sideline, but other attempts were iffy. This feels like the brief Caden Kolesar experiment a couple years back, where the guy who did the best job at not putting the ball on the turf in practice got early-season snaps until the fast guy people wanted to take the job got it. In that case it was AJ Henning; here Karmello English got the last one and might be the long term solution.
MISCELLANEOUS
hang the red hat, hang the red hat, hang the red hat [Fuller]
Hope you like ads. All of that offseason garbage about how games needed to be shorter was just that. Through week one the new clock rules have cut off somewhere between four and 15 plays per game—there are a lot of competing claims out there—and all of that time has gone directly into commercials. Somebody crunched the numbers on the FSU-LSU game:
A reader crunched the numbers, hope you enjoyed last night’s event that included 131 ads and also some pretty great football in between. pic.twitter.com/y0TEAxw1Fd
— RedditCFB (@RedditCFB) September 4, 2023
In this game, Peacock—a streaming service that is making basically nothing off ads if their rotation is any indication—went to timeout with 19 seconds left in the third quarter and 46 seconds left in the fourth quarter.
What's the other thing that's on Peacock all the time? The EPL. NBC got six years of EPL rights for "more than $2.5 billion" two years ago. As of a year ago their all-time record for viewership for an EPL game was 1.4 million. College football absolutely dwarfs that. There are ways to make this less miserable, but no one is interested in exploring them.
Fox went to commercial seven times during the 2nd quarter, or once every 2 minutes and 9 seconds of game time. Good thing they changed the clock rules to shorten games.
— Tom Fornelli (@TomFornelli) September 2, 2023
Corporations should figure out that at some point your brand is being associated with "I hate you, give me the football back."
Harbaugh tribute o'clock. JJ McCarthy got off the bus with a "FREE HARBAUGH" shirt on, several other players wore Harbaugh-themed T-shirts, and Michigan's first snap not on the shadow of their own goal line was a train formation where the players held up four fingers—for the Alex Drains reading this, Harbaugh wore #4 at Michigan*. None of this really matters, but I guess it's nice to see that the players are upset about this in a way I bet one dollar no Brian Kelly team could ever be. Team seems tight-knit.
*[This is completely unfair to Alex, who has watched far more 1970-80s sports than I have, but in my defense I am very upset that he is so young.]
New scoreboards. I imagine they'll work out the kinks, but one man's initial impression:
- What's the point when replays don't take up the whole board? Make the football guys bigger for that bit.
- I do not need to know the score of a game that happened three days ago or that is scheduled for tonight. Keep it limited to ongoing games and the Saudi Premiere League.
- The stats were poorly presented. They were about 50% too large, forcing various drill-down stats to take up two pages. Attempts were presented on two different lines instead of "12/13," which was a thing that actually happened, and all of it was maize, which is a horrible background color. Shrink the stats, only rotate through the drill-downs during commercials. Make it look like a webpage, and when was the last time you tried to read something with a lurid yellow background? This isn't Geocities, baby.
HERE
There were only 19 fucks given the entire game, and several of those were about the portions of the game hidden from view by Xfinity's wondrous creation. The same really goes for the mere 24 shits given as well, although a few of those were from people who were already in mid-season form in the open thread. I do wish some of you wouldn't take the first game quite so seriously, but whatever. For a bit of contrast though, we managed 34 fucks and 30 shits in last year's Colorado State open thread, so by first appearances, we enter this season in a slightly more serene state, relatively speaking for Michigan fans.
We were all excited about JJ's performance, and rightly so, but what jumped out to me on rewatching was how easy so much of it was. Here's a capture I took at random from later in the game:
Look at all that space in the middle. Michigan's receivers were running dig routes into the middle of the field all afternoon; this one is notable because you can actually see defenders on the screen, something that did not always occur.
Best and Worst on the Fingers Aloft:
It was a bit cheesy but in a season where we already saw Northwestern players wear shirts saying “Cats Against the World” because their coach got fired for (checks notes) allowing a locker room culture of sexual humiliation and hazing to fester for decades, it was a harmless sign of support for their suspended coach. Most people seemed to agree in this assessment, though a couple of the usual suspects such as Steven Godfrey, whose entire personality appears to be just the physical manifestation of Calvin pissing on a Chevy logo and has a burning hatred for Michigan that seems to emanate from some time when Brian called him an idiot online, tried their hardest to make it some convoluted, premeditated middle finger from Harbaugh to the NCAA, as if Jim doesn’t have access to a pulpit (and used it) when he wants to roast his enemies. Regardless, we’ve got two more weeks of this insanity before Harbaugh returns to the sideline, but at this point it remains a bit surreal that a team as cocky (and good) as Michigan helmed by the deeply-weird and sometimes off-putting Jim Harbaugh would be receiving so much public support, but apparently the NCAA was able to mine deep enough into the core of the world in their search of continued relevance to cause that type of tectonic shift in public perception.
And your Michigan War Dad content of the week:
In 1844, the United States looked nothing like the country we know today. Texas was still in its brief period of independence, and nearly everything west of the Mississippi was unsettled, untamed, and and incredibly dangerous. Despite the images of the West subsequent decades were to produce, both the technology of the 1840’s and the strength of the local native populace put the settlers at a huge disadvantage.
In the summer of that year, Comanche war chief Yellow Wolf launched another in a stream of seemingly unending raids into Texas, hitting remote Bexar County. Yellow Wolf’s war band was large, around 80 warriors, and the Comanche were the dominant mounted force in the Americas. Captain John Coffee Hays of the Texas Rangers set off with just fourteen men to find Yellow Wolf and stop the raids.
Jack Hays
War on the frontier had taken up a more or less familiar formula by 1844.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:11 PM ^
Corporations should figure out that at some point your brand is being associated with "I hate you, give me the football back."
Obviously, it's impossible to not purchase any goods or services advertised during college football games. There are just too many that have near monopolies on markets. Eventually I will buy a bottle of Coke with lunch or something. BUT, my little way of giving the middle finger to those corporations is my refusal to purchase from them IF I'm given the chance. Do I need car/home owners insurance? Yup. Do I have an alternative to Liberty Mutual/Aflac/Allstate? Yup and I will go with that alternative because FUCK YOUR COMMERCIALS!
Hilton? Not if I can find a Marriot (though they advertise too - just seems like less) or something else.
Home Depot? I'll go to Ace or my local hardware store.
Seriously, just send these people into the sun.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:08 PM ^
I'm with you but also, now I have "Ace is the place with the helpful hardware folks" in my head. So maybe not the best example
September 5th, 2023 at 1:13 PM ^
Fair, but Ace advertises less than Home Depot so its really about levels here. Home Depot is obnoxious. Ace is less so (plus I like how Ace is set up over Home Depot).
September 5th, 2023 at 1:28 PM ^
The reality - whether we like it or not - is that advertising (when done properly) does work.
I own a marketing agency geared to local businesses...who are putting their brand in front of consumers on television, social media, radio, streaming video, billboards, etc. And they all get results.
We can sit here and be as angry as we want to be...but marketers wouldn't keep investing their money in marketing...if it wasn't effective.
September 5th, 2023 at 2:43 PM ^
Yep. I work at a large agency and this is true. That's one reason why we keep reading about the death of TV and yet people are lining up to advertise on TV. A few years ago, the amount of local lawyers advertising was manageable, now it is beyond any proportion, and that's because other firms watched Fieger and Morse getting results from advertising and the space is ridiculously crowded now.
September 5th, 2023 at 2:45 PM ^
Its been a while since we had a discussion about "Ace" here.... Usually leads to downvotes lol.
September 5th, 2023 at 2:49 PM ^
Obviously, it's impossible to not purchase any goods or services advertised during college football games. There are just too many that have near monopolies on markets.
___________________________________________________________________________
I don't think that's the case. All of the examples you gave have multiple alternatives as you pointed out. Maybe there was an US Army ad in there that I missed?
I'm in on a boycott of college football advertisers.
September 5th, 2023 at 3:23 PM ^
All of the examples you gave have multiple alternatives as you pointed out.
They do, but the top 95% of market share is advertised in a lot of products. I've seen Coke, Pepsi, and Dr Pepper ads. That's literally 94% of the US market IIRC.
Insurance wise, State Farm, Nationwide, USAA, Aflac, Geico, Allstate, Progressive, and Liberty Mutual all run ads IIRC. That leaves... AAA (which I think I've seen 1 or 2) and maybe Auto Owners if that's too local? Point is, that's a ton of insurance companies advertising so there aren't many alternatives.
Clothing is a little bit more varied, but a lot of the major clothing retailers are owned by the same larger holding group. Same with food and beer (though I try to stick to Michigan beers).
September 5th, 2023 at 4:04 PM ^
Advertisers advertising is a weird thing to boycott. They aren't responsible for the ludicrous amount of in-game ads, the networks are--they make all the decisions.
September 5th, 2023 at 3:40 PM ^
Corporations should figure out that at some point your brand is being associated with "I hate you, give me the football back."
It's odd to see Brian take that stance, when the site has TruStage come in for frequent random, unpredictable commercial breaks when we read/view its articles. I have no issue with all the ads on the sides and bottom of the page, but when an ad takes up literally the entire page, with no option to remove it for up to 30 seconds, it irritates me to the point where I'd never consider TruStage's services, no matter how good/cheap they may be.
TruStage I hate you, give me mgoblog back!
September 6th, 2023 at 12:39 AM ^
Just use an ad blocker. I do that and also send what I think is a fair contribution directly to the site each year.
If college football TV broadcasts had a beveled guilt for me to smash that would turn off the ads (and change the clock rules back), I absolutely would.
September 6th, 2023 at 1:40 PM ^
Home Depot is for laborers, Lowe's is for guys who get up at 9:30 on Saturdays
-overheard in a Lowe's parking lot
September 5th, 2023 at 12:14 PM ^
I'm not worried about Turner yet either, but there was something off about how the ball was coming off his foot on most of his kicks. I'm sure it's something that can easily fixed.
Somewhat related, it was interesting see Jay Feely's kid kick for CU. Anyone know if we offered him?
I'm more worried about how Stewart didn't set the edge. That could severely limit his playing time.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:17 PM ^
Yeah it's one thing if he just pushes a kick or something, but I don't think a single kick of his had the same rotation or launch angle. It was very Quinn Nordin-esqe. In some cases, the ball will travel fast enough to not end up 15 yards off line. In other cases, you'll miss a PAT which is just unacceptable short of a blocked kick or messed up hold.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:21 PM ^
It looked like me trying to hit my 4 iron.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:57 PM ^
It looked like 20 year old me trying to hit my 4 iron in front of 100,000 people.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:15 PM ^
me too, which is why i don't even carry my 4-iron anymore. sadly, these days, the "never try a field goal and go for two every time" is a vastly under-used strategy.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:33 PM ^
I didn't even buy one in the set of irons I bought a couple of weeks ago. Love my hybrids.
September 5th, 2023 at 2:51 PM ^
I think the overall percentage of made 2 point tries is <50%, which means that overall more points will be scored by kicking a 99% 1-pointer.
September 5th, 2023 at 3:37 PM ^
I have similarly heard that it's around 45%. So less than half but not dramatically so.
However, I have questions about that data:
1) If a team lines up to kick an XP, but botches the snap or something and winds up running one of those fire drill plays, does that could as 2-pt attempt or a 1-pt attempt? Two-point tries are infrequent enough that could skew the stats.
2) I'd be interested to see the percentages broken down by teams running 2-pt tries when they are behind vs. when they are ahead. Like if a team is down by 24 points and they score a TD to cut the margin to 18, maybe they go for two in order to make it a two-possession game instead of a three-possession game. But that team is getting its ass kicked, so in the run of cases you can presume they are the inferior team (at least in that particular matchup on that day). OTOH, a team that scores to go up 15 and decides to try for two in order to put the opponent in a three-score hole is presumptively better. So I'd be interested to see if the statistics materially fluctuate when depending on whether it's the better team or the worse team making the attempt.
3) I'd be very interested to see whether other statistics correlate with a higher success rate on 2-pt tries, such as a high YPC average or a red zone passing efficiency or QB rushing yards or anything of that nature. Seems to me certain kinds of teams may be better built for picking up three yards in do-or-die, goal line scenarios than others.
4) I wonder if teams that run 2-pt tries more often tend to get better at them (or worse) than teams that only run them when they need to.
September 5th, 2023 at 10:49 PM ^
Hit my 4i in a league playoff today from 170, into the wind, to 15 feet. Im a 9 Index. I still love my long irons (I also carry a 3 and i probably hit it 4-6x/round). Middle age Dad here.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:52 PM ^
He opens & spins his body on the followthrough to an unnatural extreme that gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Here's Moody on a PAT. You can't see his kicking leg because it's in front of his body, which makes sense because the ball is going directly forward:
From the front, beautiful form. The ball is perfectly vertical, and Moody is swinging his left arm across his body as a counterweight against the torque of his kick.
Here's Turner. His kicking leg has completely crossed his body and is visible to his left. Also note his opposite arm is swinging in the same direction. His entire body is spinning away from the ball.
Here's another angle. Again, his leg has crossed his body, and his left arm is leading it:
That's a followthrough to apply an extreme sidespin, which means he's kicking in a way that he has to kill an incredible counterspin with the contact.
I mean, he's able to nail a 50-yarder, but his form strikes me as needlessly difficult. Canceling an extreme spin and counterspin to a perfect zero? The tiniest error and the ball's flying sideways (like it did, twice). I'd wager a drop kick is significantly easier to execute.
He's probably always going to be streaky, which is a huge problem for a kicker.
September 5th, 2023 at 2:08 PM ^
Kind of like how a fade can become a massive slice. Yeah, that is disconcerting.
September 5th, 2023 at 3:48 PM ^
I feel called out. TRIGGERED
September 5th, 2023 at 2:47 PM ^
I MEAN THEY DON'T CALL HIM TURNER FOR NOTHIN' AMIRITE
September 5th, 2023 at 2:51 PM ^
YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPT AT HUMOR MAKES ME EXTREMELY MOODY
September 5th, 2023 at 12:16 PM ^
By my casual count, Turner shanked three kicks. One of them was a PaT that wobbled through the uprights somehow, but still...yikes.
The 'shorter' game; yep, all BS.This is what we get all the people who cheer about the dumptrucks of cash being chucked into what used to be amateur football; ESPN et al aren't printing it. They are selling your eyeballs and need to sell a lot more of it every year. Someone please do an analysis of how much of the 3.5 hours is actually play time. My guess is about eight minutes.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:21 PM ^
This is for the NFL, but I can't imagine it's too far off for where CFB is headed: https://dailysnark.com/2017/08/02/graph-shows-just-many-hours-commercials-youll-watch-football-season-vs-actual-action/
~6% of the entire experience is live game play.
33% is commercials.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:36 PM ^
It is getting really bad. I really won't watch a college football game live (without DVR fast forward available) anymore aside from The Game. I started to watch LSU v. Florida State, got really bored, then decided to do something and come back to the recorded game around 9 PM. The game was terrible with commercials and awesome without them. I'm watching Michigan v. UNLV as my own personal night game next week.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:48 PM ^
I will watch Michigan games live because if I don't, I will still check the score on my phone so at what point am I just watching what I've already kind of experienced? I am not glued to the TV anymore however. And once the game is pretty well in hand I'll do something else. So usually by the 3rd quarter.
As for other games, I won't watch them. LSU-FSU, I watched maybe 5 minutes of before I turned it off still in the 1st half. Just not worth it.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:53 PM ^
I have no problem staying in the bubble. I usually start Michigan games 2 hours after kick and watch them entirely without commercials. I did watch this past weekend live because I knew they were going to pummel ECU and I just wanted some brief confirmation before doing other things. But I won't make that mistake again. I only watched a quarter and was already irritated.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:17 PM ^
ditto. out of necessity, i switched to the time-shift thing during a game last season, and i'm never going back. the only thing i'm missing on is the game thread, which...well, let's just say i'm alright with that.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:39 PM ^
Football is my favorite sport, but it is funny, especially as a soccer fan, that it has a much lower game play to overall game time ratio than any major sport besides baseball, and yet most people would agree that football is the most exciting sport.
September 5th, 2023 at 3:54 PM ^
At home with TV, as compared to streaming, one can always change channels for a couple of minutes. With my system where I stream using my Fire stick and where I also have DirecTV, it is a different input and a bit of fiddle farting around with remotes to go from Peacock to DirecTV; in essence a pain in the ass.
At the Stadium, it can really be annoying in bad weather. I remember well the Army game we almost lost a few years back. It was a hot day and there were so many ads, the MMB ran out of things to play. We finally said screw it and left the Stadium.
I'd bet with more ads and fewer plays, the incentive to be at a stadium will be reduced even further. At Michigan, we are lucky that our attendance remains stellar. That isn't the case in an awful lot of stadiums.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:47 PM ^
It reminds me of how my bags of chips get a little more air and a few fewer chips each year.
September 6th, 2023 at 1:17 PM ^
It’s called expensing your way to a profit and companies that see some success almost ALWAYS go down that road. The first step toward a restructure and/or eventual bankruptcy.
I would personally rather pay more for the same quality product, rather than the same for a watered down version of what I originally liked.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:22 PM ^
Football is back.
Michigan is good.
JJ might be really, really good.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:04 PM ^
"JJ might be really, really good."
It's really quite amazing how long it's been since we could say this about our QB. Outside of Denard who was more of a RB who took the snap, it's been since Chad Henne. At least since the Harbaugh era we've had multiple teams where I said, "If we can get just above average QB play, we can win the B1G, and if we get very good to excellent play we can win it all." Now, and God willing they all stay healthy, we really do have a chance at it.
September 5th, 2023 at 6:28 PM ^
Your broader point is clear, but Denard was more than “an RB who took the snap.” He had six games of 200+ yards passing in the 2010 season, his first as a starter. For comparison, JJ had seven last year, including the BTCG and CFP seminal.
September 6th, 2023 at 1:23 PM ^
JJ will be a top 10 overall pick in next year’s NFL draft. It should be a GREAT QB class!
September 5th, 2023 at 12:22 PM ^
Minor quibble: I thought the AJ Barner PBU was an underthrown ball that would have been at his knees, but probably catchable. Great play by the defender, but could have been a TD with a better ball. Anyway, that's splitting hairs on an undeniably fantastic performance by JJ.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:44 PM ^
Agreed. Was underthrown. Also needed a bit more velocity.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:24 PM ^
Last guy with inexplicable drops was Braylon? Methinks someone is forgetting Darryl Stonum.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:55 PM ^
The correct answer is Ronnie Bell. That is not in any way meant to deny the greatness of his achievement and leadership while at UM. But it is factual.
September 5th, 2023 at 12:59 PM ^
Or pre-OSU 2023 Cornelius Johnson who felt like he needed to drop 1 good ball every game before he could catch the rest
September 5th, 2023 at 1:04 PM ^
Tell me more about what Cornelius Johnson accomplishes vs. OSU in 2023…
September 5th, 2023 at 4:39 PM ^
Well, he got wiiiiiiiide open.
September 5th, 2023 at 1:34 PM ^
I'm sure it's factually incorrect, but it felt like he started every game with a drop.
September 5th, 2023 at 2:22 PM ^
came to thread specifically for this. cornelius johnson has a crazy amount of straight drops. it's kind of unbelievable that someone could forget this (?)
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