That game could have been an email
That's my (PSU fan) summary of Saturday's game. Michigan was the better team, basically nothing from that game surprised me much. I've seen it before.
One thing I haven't seen before: a 7-2 Detroit Lions team! My brother was out here in sunny SoCal for the weekend & game, lots of Lions fans at SoFi today. Fun times (and why I didn't post earlier).
November 13th, 2023 at 3:11 AM ^
Always good to hear from you, NL! Didn’t know you were a Lions fan! Sure seemed like there were a lot of Lions fans there. Even early in the game, you could hear on TV big cheers for positive Lions plays and negative Chargers plays. And, of course, we could clearly hear the now mandatory road game cheers of Let’s Go Lions!
What you missed by not watching on TV: Tony Romo ❤️🦁!! He thinks we are among the top 2-3 NFC teams and a good bet to be in the Super Bowl this year!
One can only dream…..
November 13th, 2023 at 5:20 AM ^
To be clear, he said several times the Lions could WIN the Super Bowl . . .
November 13th, 2023 at 6:15 AM ^
No doubt about it. He is a fan of Lions of all types. And he's not wrong.
(Of course, the Lions are going to have to figure out a pass rush in order to win a playoff game, but stranger things have happened. Just ask Eli Manning, David Tyree and Tom Brady...)
November 13th, 2023 at 8:12 AM ^
the Lion is even his favorite character from the Wizard of Oz
and don't get him started on Aslan and the world of Narnia!
November 13th, 2023 at 8:47 AM ^
Exactly. Hutch can’t do it alone. I wish Holmes had made a bigger effort to get Maxx Crosby, Chase Young or one of the other DE’s who were on the market.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:59 AM ^
I think Romo is great. After seeing the BROWNS beat the Ravens...the Lions could be a potential SB team. The only problem I see is teams seem to adjust well to our Defense. The Lions in turn are slow to adjust...
November 13th, 2023 at 3:40 AM ^
Bad take about the Michigan PSU game. There were so many questions about Michigan going in, and Michigan needed to show an answer on the field. They mostly did. It was cathartic, and dramatic. No way it needed to be skipped. The game needed to be played. Sorry your team lost.
November 13th, 2023 at 4:47 AM ^
He didn’t say that it didn’t. He is saying that the result was predictable.
November 13th, 2023 at 5:19 AM ^
Maybe I'm not hip on the memes, but this one is from the phrase "meeting didn't need to happen, this could have been done over email" .... which questions the need to have the game actually happen.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:02 AM ^
I mean, we have all been to the "meeting that could have been an e-mail", yes (far too many of them, in my case, over the now decades)? It's basically that, yes, the meeting was happening but you walked in there knowing what would be discussed and how it would likely turn out and sure enough, that's exactly what happened.
November 13th, 2023 at 9:10 AM ^
His joke is as simple as saying he didn't need to spend 3 hours watching the game because, in his view, there wasn't much suspense as to the outcome at all
November 13th, 2023 at 7:16 AM ^
Look at it from the jaded PSU fan's perspective: yet another disappointing Franklin top-10 matchup loss with questionable play calling. They recognize this script.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:48 AM ^
Their fans were getting restless in the first half. That was not a crowd expecting a big win.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:53 AM ^
- Of course not. Their coach signalled very early that his best bet was to keep it close and hope for some luck.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:11 AM ^
He said he went for 2 in the first half because he thought that points were going to be hard to come by.
He was going to Iowa it.
But NOBODY can Iowa like Iow . . . er, Michigan.
November 13th, 2023 at 2:22 PM ^
In a game where you cant get in the endzone effectively why sacrifice a point? If anything you go for 2 in those USC/Colorado/Washington games.
November 13th, 2023 at 3:43 AM ^
FWIW, the Lions started 7-2 in 2014. They finished the year 11-5 (they would have won the division had they beaten Green Bay in the last week of the season) and then got robbed of a playoff victory in Dallas.
November 13th, 2023 at 8:25 AM ^
Luckily, they can't go 11-5 this year, so there's no chance of all that happening again.
November 13th, 2023 at 4:35 AM ^
Definitely not an e-mail in my opinion.
That game showed a lot and required a lot of Michigan.
Our defense was great. We thought it could be, so that didn't surprise.
But I don't think many people expected this to be the game where Michigan got its running game going big time, where Corum and Edwards got back to pulling off great explosive plays.
Also, Michigan had to change up some OL tactics to get that running game going. It was great to see it, and they got a game worth of practice at it.
And no one would have predicted a game with 8 pass attempts and practically none in the 2nd half. Just run 30 times in a row. That was wild. Had me yelling at the TV several times, but it worked, so I was wrong, and Moore was right. :)
November 13th, 2023 at 7:52 AM ^
I didn't read the 300 comments from the other thread about us not throwing the ball so it was all probably covered there. It worked, so Moore was right. But it baffled me in the moment and I still think it was conservative to an unnecessary extreme. Maybe we extend another drive in there somewhere with a pass (or stop the clock, or turn it over, those are the risks).
I've heard a number of national coverage reactions and the takes are so bad. They look at this as a negative about JJ. Michigan doesn't trust him, or he's no good, or he can't carry the team.
This was a big game. Did none of these people watch it? They didn't think that PSU's pass rush was the concern? They thought it was JJ's arm?
He's carried the team all year. It did not seem to occur to one person that maybe, just maybe, if we had our head coach, then Harbaugh might have suggested the play action pass a little earlier? I mean, maybe not, but this "Michigan doesn't trust JJ" shit is dumb.
November 13th, 2023 at 8:51 AM ^
Watching the game, I thought about the Patriots teams. They had Brady, but there were big games, late in the seasons, when they would just run the ball relentlessly (Burkhead game, James White game, Jonas Gray game). They could beat you with the pass, but they could beat you with the run. Take away Marvin Harrison, can the Buckeyes win consistently? Michigan just proved that they could do either, at a high level.
November 13th, 2023 at 9:00 AM ^
I really don't understand the negativity. When you can beat a top 10 team with a supposedly elite rush defense by simply running it down their throats, that's called dominance. How is that a bad thing? Yeah, running the ball 30 consecutive times might be frustrating in the moment, but if it ended up working, then what's the problem?
November 13th, 2023 at 9:56 AM ^
I've heard a number of national coverage reactions and the takes are so bad.
No shit. Stop listening to them.
November 13th, 2023 at 2:27 PM ^
These people love watching a 3 loss LSU team or a brutal USC team or maybe Colorado.
Follow the wins not the stats. Passing yards between the 20s with no TDs are like all bad carbs and no protein. Feels good and lots of fun but empty calories in the end.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:58 AM ^
I posted last week that M would run for 300 yards, but they only got like 220. 😆
Never in a million years did I think M would win it with 8 pass attempts though.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:12 AM ^
And yet, if someone had told me ahead of time that JJ would play the entire game but was only going to need to throw 8 passes, I would have immediately interpreted this as meaning certain victory.
Whether you look back at the history of Michigan Football or the career coaching record of Jim Harbaugh, you're going to see that the games with 30+ passes are somewhat frequently games we ended up losing.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:14 AM ^
Michigan literally thought that it was more likely that Penn State's defense would score than Penn State's offense would score.
They were right.
November 13th, 2023 at 2:42 PM ^
Yeah wild bounces saving James Franklin ass were the only thing we feared.
November 13th, 2023 at 5:58 AM ^
Glad you're doing well.
November 13th, 2023 at 6:22 AM ^
Dude…Franklin is so bad during the game.
November 13th, 2023 at 6:56 AM ^
I applaud you NF for being back here and offering your thoughts on who was the better team. I would be very unhappy to do something like that. You are a better person.
Lions have one thing going for them for sure. They fight back. That is the best thing about this team. And their coach is gutsy.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:03 AM ^
Speaking of emails, any Michigan leaks coming this week? Me thinks some more news will be coming out over the p.i. firm
November 13th, 2023 at 10:06 AM ^
If there is damaging information about OSU/Day's link to the PI firm, I think the timing would be to wait until next week to maximize the distraction for OSU.
Can you imagine if there were computer crimes and the FBI is raiding the OSU football offices for several days preventing the coaching staff from entering the building?
November 13th, 2023 at 7:14 AM ^
From the PSU side, yeah, not too surprising. But at least you have the Lions...Detroit, that is.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:21 AM ^
I went to PSU in person... It was loud! I don't understand how they don't win every game there. There is definitely a home field advantage.
November 13th, 2023 at 7:42 AM ^
No matter how loud they scream, Franklin is still the head coach and he continues to fire offensive coordinators instead of looking in the mirror.
November 13th, 2023 at 8:38 AM ^
Plus one for the funny title, sir.
November 13th, 2023 at 8:41 AM ^
This is a good post - we appreciate level headed 'other' fan input here!
November 13th, 2023 at 8:43 AM ^
My favorite comment from the Reddit thread was:
”If the Big Ten had REALLY wanted to punish Michigan, they would have suspended James Franklin for this game.”
November 13th, 2023 at 9:21 AM ^
For a PSU fan maybe that was an email. For CFB in general, and specifically for Michigan fans, the game needed to be played.
That game was nowhere as close as the final score indicated. I will complement PSU’s defense, though. At least they’re DL and pass rush. They were certainly much better than I was giving them credit for, even though I thought that in the game they were essentially pass blitzing on every down, seemingly determined not to let JJ beat them. They probably figured Michigan didn’t have a great run game and could stop that pretty much at will. Michigan’s decision to run it down their throats, to limit chances of turnovers but also figuring their defense could stop PSU’s offense every time.
PSU’s offense isn’t terrible, just predictable and Michigan shut them down hard, proving they have a championship caliber defense. And because of that, and the raucous crowd at the beginning, Michigan didn’t need to show much on the offensive side.
That game could have easily been a 31-9 game without Michigan having to open it up on offense, if the interception had stood. If Michigan had opened it up in the second half once the crowd was taken out of it, it could have been even more of a beat down.
November 13th, 2023 at 10:04 AM ^
Sorry for you as a Penn State fan that you had to see the same script play out again (and again), but at least the Lions we both root for won!
Do you agree with axing Yurlich post-haste or do you think it was partially a political ploy to throw heat off Franklin's own questionable game management decisions?
November 13th, 2023 at 10:08 AM ^
Dude, you deserve better than James Franklin.
November 13th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
Is Frames essentially PSU’s Richt. Decent enough coach to get them to 9-10 wins so they can’t fire him but will never get them over the top?