MGoPodcast 11.8: Throwing Copper
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[After THE JUMP: ack]
1. The Offense
starts at 1:00
A few ways Michigan could have won. One would have been to catch the damn ball. Another would have been anything approximating even officiating because OMFG. Three would have been to recruit KJ Hamler. Bubble screens worked: yay. Shea had his best game this year but drops: DPJ had three. Great tradition wmith Herbstreit is when he does the downfield cam and sees nobody open when a lot of people are actually open. Why can't we run a screen? TE blocking problems. Finally they didn't fumble, and they dropped all the balls.
2. The Defense
starts at 26:43
Give up 283 yards and more than half of that is on four plays, including the Freiermuth pushoff. Penn State targeted two wide receivers this game. A few bad matchups but seriously they shut them down. Michigan's not Ohio State good, and Ohio State is the only kind of team that can overcome a team as decent as Penn State getting the calls they got.
3. Special Teams/Game Theory
starts at 41:52
Three horrible fourth down decisions. Punting on 4th and 1 in plus territory, and your punter is terrible at pinning guys deep! Punt on 4th and 3 in the deep 3rd quarter. Surprised Penn State didn't put Hamler back there for the 58-yard field goal when you don't have Nordin available (they did, then called a timeout). This is the stuff the rest of college football has fixed. Frames called timeout on himself when there's 21 seconds left and he knows he's gonna punt.
4. Around the Big Ten wsg Jamie Mac
starts at 56:58
Jamie regretting he left his BPONE comfy chair. Brandon Peters mom dropping bombs on Twitter. Illinois had zero trips into the red zone, Peters is 9/21. Whole Rutger ruined, Rashad Batemen is a dude. New Gopherquests: Minnesota could go 12-0, and Rutgers could be the worst team in the history of the Big Ten. Iowa controls their own destiny in the Big Ten West now. IU's defense has improved.
MUSIC:
- “Semi-Charmed Life”—Third Eye Blind
- “Hopefulessness”—Courtney Barnett
- “Plastic Beach”—Gorillaz
- “Across 110th Street”
THE USUAL LINKS:
- Helpful iTunes subscribe link
- General podcast feed link
- Direct download link
- What's with the theme music?
Do you blame Jim Harbaugh? No I blame Hoobastank.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:24 PM ^
Oh more of "the defense actually played well and didn't lose this game" takes. 28 points. Safeties covering the fastest player on the field. I'll go ahead and assume this take again next week when ND score 30+ and in November when osu score 50.
October 21st, 2019 at 12:26 PM ^
Iowa doesn't control their own destiny, that's wrong.
If Iowa wins out but Minnesota wins out besides in Kinnick, the Gophers go to Indy. Iowa would need Minnesota to lose one additional game (likely PSU or Wisconsin, both of which are in Minneapolis). Iowa winning out also assumes they beat the Badgers in Madison, which doesn't seem particularly likely given the UM and MSU games in Camp Randall.
Minnesota has the chance for a historic season, but they need to reverse some very longstanding trends in their two biggest games:
- Gophers have not won in Iowa City since 1999.
- Gophers have not beaten Wisconsin at home since 2003.
In smaller trends, Minnesota is more surprisingly also riding two year losing streaks against both Maryland and Northwestern (2017 and 2018).
October 21st, 2019 at 12:46 PM ^
Throwing Copper was a pretty good album. "White, Discussion" and "Stage" were the best songs. It's ironic hearing Ace, a guy who likes ska, talk shit about any kind of music.
October 21st, 2019 at 1:16 PM ^
I will buy Brian 1000 hair ties if it means he'll use them to prevent his hair from randomly tapping the mic during the podcast!!!
Alas, it's been like this for a LONG time so I have no hope of it getting better. As it is, I find it just annoying enough that I have to stop listening for a while but not so bad that I can easily allow myself to just skip the podcast entirely. And the randomness of the tapping makes it nearly impossible for me to tune out.
This little thing is far and away the biggest gripe I have with this otherwise excellent site.
Note: I'm assuming it's Brian's hair based on a comment Seth made when someone else brought up this exact issue in the Comments section of a different podcast. Seth said he can't make Brian stop.
October 21st, 2019 at 4:49 PM ^
Logged in just to upvote this. I will also chip in an additional 1,000 ties. Maybe we can make a difference.
October 21st, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
So, just to throw this out there, I thought I saw two uncalled penalties on PSU which made a huge difference and I haven't heard anyone else mention. The first was that long run right up the gut that PSU broke in the first half. Watching the replay (Saturday night, couldn't find the play today), it looks to like one of the PSU players has grabbed onto a Michigan player's facemask to hold him back right at the point of attack.
The second was the final Bell drop. I never saw a replay which showed Bell before the ball got there, but the first chance you have to see him in the play, the defender is clearly yanking on his shirt pulling him back from the ball. I guess it's possible he waited until the ball hit Bell's hands and only then tried to yank him back, but surely the most likely explanation is he saw Bell lunging for the ball and grabbed on immediately to try to save the touchdown.
October 21st, 2019 at 1:23 PM ^
It's amazing to see how going for it on 4th down has gone from a trick play, so rarely used that it made Sports Center or, in earlier days, the front of a newspaper's sports section, to being an almost normal part of the play package.
Back in the day: "Oh, my god, they're goin' for it!! On fourth down!!!"
Now: "Why the hell aren't they going for it?!"
October 21st, 2019 at 9:11 PM ^
At the end of the offensive section of the podcast they talk about inconsistency being a hallmark of the Harbaugh Era. I generally agree with that, but with a caveat: I feel like the inconsistency has been inconsistent. Look at the Ohio State games since Harbaugh has taken over:
2015: Durkin year, it’s assumed he was looking ahead to Maryland, no chance in hell. Huge L.
2016: JT was short. Game plan was amazing (and so was the defense), 2 critical goal-line turnovers and an insane Curtis Samuel magic trick win this game for OSU. For the most part, not a loss on the coaching staff.
2017: Anyone besides JOK wins that football game. Urban gets outcoached and still wins because of a pitiful QB situation in Ann Arbor
2018: We don’t need to relive that, but we all know a lot of the blame goes on the staff for that loss.
Obviously it’s a tad bit reductive to use OSU and extrapolate a trend from that, but I think it illustrates my point well enough: Harbaugh’s teams have been too inconsistent to label his tenure as inconsistent. 2016 was a year where everyone took a step forward and the team was a CFP contender on both sides of the ball. Now this year there’s a perceived backslide/plateau in both player development and the team as a whole. The team is good and very put together some years and spaced out in others. I’m not against calling Harbaugh inconsistent, but could what we’re seeing this year have more to do with the fact that 50% of the coaching staff got flipped last year and they’ve overhauled their offense and less to do with the HC?
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