Worst Game Plan You've ever seen
Yesterday's edition of Podcact Ain't Played Nobody featured an interesting question: What is the worst single game plan you've ever seen?
Bill Connelly, he of S&P+ and a Mizzou fan, cited a game in the mid-2000s in which Mizzou, with Brad Smith at quarterback, played at Nebraska, with what he described as 40 mph+ winds, and featured Smith throwing 40 times, rather than running.
Obviously, the pr-Harbaugh era featured a number of bad game plans, including the 27 for 27 game and the 2013 and 2014 MSU games.
Are there any that stand out for you? Any game plans against Michigan that seemed out of left field?
EDIT: In thinking about it further, I think a special place in hell is reserved for the 27 for 27 game, because of the reliance on a gimmick, the Tackle Over, as a central element of the game plan, especailly because they had to know that 2013-AJ Williams was not going to be capable of holding up, blocking wise.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:37 AM ^
2012 - Ohio State: For some inexplicable reason, Michigan's playcalling shifts at the half to a run-run-run-punt, primarily up-the-middle strategy.
2013 - Ohio State: Devin Gardner comes out of our last time out to attempt a two-point conversion to win the game...in the exact same formation as prior to the called time out. Thanks for nothing, Borges -- everybody in Michigan, Ohio, and freakin' China saw that coming.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:41 AM ^
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December 21st, 2016 at 11:44 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 1:14 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 11:55 AM ^
The two-point conversion in 2013 was a bad choice (the play was fine, calling it again after the time out was just dumb). The gameplan, however, was excellent, one of the finest Borges produced at Michigan, as shown by Michigan's terrific production that day.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:57 AM ^
Was that Borges, though? Or just Devin finally saying, "F This, I'm doing this myself."
December 21st, 2016 at 12:04 PM ^
It's not the backyard, QBs aren't drawing up passing plays on the palm of their hand here. Borges was calling the plays, Gardner was executing them.
Borges was a failure at Michigan, but let's not exagerate the level of failure just because we don't like him.
December 21st, 2016 at 1:09 PM ^
People forget that when Al Borges was on, he was ON.
The mediocre hack musician whose noodlingly redundant guitar work is too long, too complex and flat boring but he catches lightning in a bottle and pens one irresistibly catchy top-10 single out of this ass? That's Al Borges.
December 21st, 2016 at 1:06 PM ^
Denard came in, he was running....Devin came in, he was passing.
I knew it, Michigan knew it, Ohio State knew it, the entire damn stadium knew it. The worst part is we still should have won the fucking game.
December 21st, 2016 at 1:14 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 2:02 PM ^
The fact that Devin Gardner was playing on a broken foot might have had something to do with that one. It was the end of the game, Gardner's considerable reserves of grit had been exausted, and he was limited in what he could do by that point.
December 21st, 2016 at 7:05 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 7:34 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 7:57 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 11:39 AM ^
OSU forgot Elliot was their star running back.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^
This one is hard to top. I can understand not wanting to throw deep in the rain, but how do you forget to get the ball to the best tailback in the country?
December 21st, 2016 at 11:46 AM ^
For some inexplicable reason OSU’s OC decided to not run the ball eventhough the weather was terrible. Honestly I'm glad it did because they had a good chance to repeat. Plus we got to see MSU get shut out in the playoffs.
December 21st, 2016 at 12:03 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 2:19 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 2:35 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 4:33 PM ^
Elliott was the best back in the country. He's now one of the best backs in the NFL. You've got to feed a guy like that the ball. If he gets 20+ carries and the opposing D shuts him down every time, then fine, you tip your cap to them.
December 21st, 2016 at 4:50 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 7:35 PM ^
December 22nd, 2016 at 7:53 AM ^
Yes, he did. In a muted, morose kind of way, but go off on the coaches is an accurate way to describe it.
December 21st, 2016 at 8:07 PM ^
He only had 12 carries because they had a ridiculously low play count because they got no first downs and MSU drained the clock.
OSU's gameplan that game was atrocious because they ran the ball TOO MUCH. MSU that year had a very good run D and an atrocious secondary and yet OSU just ran the ball and punted over and over again because Urban and JT are afraid of the rain.
December 21st, 2016 at 12:00 PM ^
I agree. Last year's OSU game against MSU was my first thought as well.
December 21st, 2016 at 12:14 PM ^
IIRC, Elliott was in the hospital earlier that week with an infection. I'm guessing that weighed on the play calling.
December 21st, 2016 at 12:49 PM ^
For worse game plan ever.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:39 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 2:08 PM ^
...until he actually started to play like Tom Brady in the 4th quarter. Then it was brilliant.
December 21st, 2016 at 3:17 PM ^
Jeremy Gallon wearing his invisibility cloak didn't hurt, either.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:40 AM ^
2015 Ohio State
December 21st, 2016 at 11:40 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 11:45 AM ^
stands out. Michigan played aggressive the entire game and held the lead with less than 5 or 4 minutes less. Then went to a prevent to allow Troy Frickin Smith to have all day to run and pass, taking up almost the entire time remaining to end up winning the game.
Any team that runs the prevent defense is pretty much the worse game plan ever.
December 21st, 2016 at 1:50 PM ^
Is that the "LB on an NFL slot receiver for the obvious touchdown" game?
December 21st, 2016 at 2:40 PM ^
Michigan had held OSU to just over 300 yards and 19 points with just over 4 minutes left using an aggressive defense that went after Smith. Before the final drive he was 20 for 29, 223 yards passing and 19 points. They switched to the prevent and allowed him to go 7 for 8 for 77 yards while bleeding all but 27 seconds off the clock in a 4 minute drive.
Michigan lost 5 close games that year, but that stung the most. (Pitch to Breaston was a distant, but still painful 2nd).
December 21st, 2016 at 12:19 PM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 11:41 AM ^
Been a fan since Bo. Al Borges is the worst game plan I've ever seen.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:43 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 2:05 PM ^
Yeah, that one was brutal. IIRC, Nebraska gave up nearly 300 yards rushing to Wyoming that year.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:44 AM ^
Custer's gameplan at Little Bighorn
December 21st, 2016 at 11:45 AM ^
2010 Iowa was pretty bad. Another game where Borges tried to pretend Denard was Narvarre.
December 21st, 2016 at 1:28 PM ^
That game was actually 2011. Rich Rod was still our coach in 2010. But I do agree with you on the Iowa game. That game still makes me sick. Over and over they kept lining Denard under center and trying to make him a pocket passer until it was too late and we were down a few scores.
I looked up the Mgoblog offense for that game and look at these numbers:
In their base offense (non hurry time late in game while behind). Michigan ran 49 plays. Of that, only 22 were run in shotgun. That means 27 plays with Denard Robinson under center. To help you remember how much better Denard and our offense was in shotgun, look at the run breakdown for that game:
Ace package: 6 carries at 2.6 YPC
I-Form Package: 11 carries at 3.4 YPC
Shotgun: 15 caries at 6.3 YPC
December 21st, 2016 at 11:46 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 12:03 PM ^
Thats the one that sprung to mind as being especially bad and exemplified the worst aspects of the Hoke/Borges regime in which external factors were never taken into account and a certain amount of stubborness over-ruled everything. It reminded me of the Art Shell Raiders in the mid-90's at the height of the Jeff Hostetler-Tim Brown-James Jett era going to Seattle when the Seahawks were down to their third string cornerbacks and deciding that was the day they were going to establish the run against a D-Line led by Cortez Kennedy. It's been over twenty years and that still makes me mad.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:47 AM ^
My suspicion that the infamous 2014 Virginia Tech-Wake Forest game might have been the worst game plan seen in the last few years was confirmed when Virginia Tech was forced to admit recently that it too had been part of #WakeyLeaks.
According to the article I read, the game for which VT was given advance notice of Wake Forest's game strategy was in fact the game where neither team scored in regulation, thus elevating BeamerBall to a transcendant state which is divorced from the physical need to score points to win a football game.
The game plan apparently was - let's take this information and do our best to be utterly incapable of doing anything with it.
December 21st, 2016 at 11:47 AM ^
December 21st, 2016 at 1:36 PM ^
I watched most of that ND vs NC State game and that was truley one of the worst game plans i've ever seen. ND threw 26 passes in a hurricane. They didn't see committed to the run, and gave their running qb only 1 snap the whole game.
December 21st, 2016 at 7:18 PM ^