Army Snowflakes - The Defense
September 7th, 2019 at 3:43 PM ^
The defense, despite getting zero help, and the offense putting the ball on the ground more than they put it in the end zone, still held army to 14 points in regulation, and limited the damage as much as possible. Credit to them.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:17 PM ^
And scored a TD of their own that was inexcusably, inexplicably whistled down. How critical was that in the final sum.
Other than the brain dead offsides in OT, I agree...credit due to the D.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:17 PM ^
Army does this to everyone, but damn Michigan made it hard on themselves today.
This whole team feels sloppy. It'll get sharper as the season goes, but they almost cost themselves today.
Don't play the service academies!
September 8th, 2019 at 4:34 AM ^
Play the service academies
September 7th, 2019 at 3:43 PM ^
Defense did the job we hoped it would pre season. Bend not break. Can't really bitch about anything outside of the absolutely terrible 3 man fronts on fourth down vs obvious FB dives.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:05 PM ^
Nothing obvious. You have to have a base defense that works against everything and run it at all times, or they’ll edge you. If Michigan loads up against the FB dice, Army will edge them outside for huge yardage.
Theres really nothing to learn from, defensively. Michigan isn’t playing an offense like this again. They weren’t spectacular, but they were fine. The Ross injury is the only significant news.
Live to play another day.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:12 PM ^
I didn’t see Ross get hurt or what happened? Any info on him?
September 7th, 2019 at 4:13 PM ^
I thought the defense was better than fine. They were put in a lot of tough situations and played quite well. B plus performance.
September 7th, 2019 at 5:09 PM ^
Agreed. The defense did pretty well in retrospect. Not much to extrapolate from a game like that.
I noticed Ross not in there at some point early in the third quarter. I believe Anthony got the majority of snaps in place of Ross. Didn't see what knocked Ross out. Hoping it's not too bad.
September 7th, 2019 at 9:51 PM ^
I respectfully disagree. To me, the most obvious and egregious error was having Ben Mason at DT for so long. He was run over, and over, and over, and over again. I am very grateful that mercifully that was patched over by, I believe, sliding Danna inside.
What was learned? Well, perhaps nothing new to us but to the rest of NCAA it shows Michigan has a soft underbelly in the D-line. Wisconsin and Iowa will almost assuredly be licking their chops as they make their living exploiting weak D-lines and out of position linebackers. We know the game plan - run up the middle a few times until the linebackers bite to help support and that's the time they throw the play action pass to the TE across the middle where the LBs vacated.
The defense won this game, though, with the crucial plays of Hill (INT) and Hutchinson (forced fumble). Army's inconceivable decisions to throw the ball helped. And I'm going to say a prayer for Zach Charbonnet to stay healthy as he is really the next big thing.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:22 PM ^
I would like to see a little bitching about Hudson lining up offsides for no fucking reason at all.
September 7th, 2019 at 6:57 PM ^
You're in luck. The floor is open.
September 8th, 2019 at 1:08 PM ^
Bitching switch thrown
September 7th, 2019 at 3:46 PM ^
3 down lineman got steamrolled all game long, yet we continued to trot out the same packages. Don Brown is too stubborn and will never learn just like OSU last year.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:50 PM ^
He planned all year for that
September 7th, 2019 at 4:18 PM ^
If he planned all year to give up only 2 TDs in 60 minutes, then good job.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:28 PM ^
He’s running a very different defense from last year, so I don’t see how you can bitch about him being stubborn. We didn’t lose to OSU bc he ran a 335 stack.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:40 PM ^
3 down linemen got Uche on the field, and he was a huge force in this game.
September 7th, 2019 at 6:42 PM ^
Independent of anything else going on, Uche needs to be out on the field.
September 7th, 2019 at 5:21 PM ^
It's pretty clear that if Michigan had the personnel to run a different D that they would. They don't have any D linemen. What's frustrating as hell is why? Hurt? Too young?
Carlo is ok. Hutchinson is going to be good. The ends are good. Then... Who you got? Jeter is not good. Vilain is... Still hurt? Chris Hinton is... Not ready? Hurt? Mazie Smith is... Not ready? Hurt? Dwumfour hurt.
Fact is, the offense can pull it together and turnovers should come around, but this team has no interior DL due to who knows?
September 7th, 2019 at 7:35 PM ^
No, this is how Don Brown plays the option. It's how he did it 2 years ago. It's not new.
https://mgoblog.com/content/upon-further-review-2017-offense-vs-air-force
And once again, it worked really well. Mouth breathers complain about dives. They gave up 14 points and under 250 total yards. If that happens every game we'll be 15-0.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:46 PM ^
Not sure how much you can take away from playing a triple option team other than that interior DL is still a problem. Most of Army's damage was right up the gut. Not sure if that was Kemp or scheme
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
Won the game for us. Bad off sides but hung tough at end.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:15 PM ^
I really dont understand that offsides.
You are one of the premier athletes in college sports. Someone with fantastic body control, fast decision making, and all the intangibles....but you cant look over and notice you are beyond the nose of the ball?
I dont understand how ANYONE lines up offsides.
September 7th, 2019 at 5:31 PM ^
IIRC he walked down to the line kinda briskly, maybe was trying to time it, got carried away.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
There is so much to worry about today, but the defense overall did as well as I could have hoped, and the performance in the second overtime was obviously huge.
If there's one thing I take away from this game - one we've all been dreading for years - it's that they went out in that second overtime and did something positive that really could give them a boost the rest of the year.
It makes the rest of this mess worth it (unless, of course, they've lost Patterson with the knee).
September 8th, 2019 at 1:32 AM ^
"The knee"? I thought it was cramps. I haven't seen a Patterson knee discussion thread so I believe this to be false.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
Almost meaningless going forward, but Josh Uche felt like our best player in this game. Against a team that only runs the ball. He needs to be an every down player.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:05 PM ^
Uche by far is our most talented defender.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:17 PM ^
For the front 7 yes. I thought Metellus did a great job today on the back end
September 7th, 2019 at 5:51 PM ^
Hill and Metellus--thank you for your efforts today.
September 7th, 2019 at 7:07 PM ^
Uche looked like a solid run defender, which, if true, would eliminate another excuse for not getting him more PT.
Kwity Paye looked pretty sharp too. Obviously he had the sack and FR at the end, but he made at least two tackles after a 0 or 1 yard gain.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
Defense did their job for the most part. The offense let them down big time. We were four yards away from losing until Hill came up with an interception.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:21 PM ^
Without a doubt, that was the play of the game.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:37 PM ^
Was also Army's dumbest call. When they called TO, I thought they might try to get greedy and pass.
That team simply cannot pass.
Didn't it look like Hill bobbled that a bit - I'm sure he (and all of us) were having flashbacks to last week. Fortunately he held on this time; that was a game-changer.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:34 PM ^
It was 2nd and Goal from the 1.
- 2nd & 1: Illegal Motion
- 2nd & 6: 1 yd gain
- 3rd & 5: Game changing INT
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
All I know is apparently Kemp is the only defensive tackle worthy of playing
September 7th, 2019 at 4:18 PM ^
Would you have rather played Ben Mason (see last weeks UFR), or injured Dwumfor?
September 7th, 2019 at 4:37 PM ^
I know frosh DT’s suck, but Mazi and Hinton can’t be any worse than Mason, and they are both much bigger and better equipped
September 8th, 2019 at 6:52 AM ^
Exactly why my optimism is gone. If Mason got that much run...bad sign
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
Did their job. Won the game.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:48 PM ^
Pretty solid B+ outing. 14 points against a bizarre offense that targets the weakest point of the defense. Pretty sure we would've taken that at 11:59 AM no questions asked.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:53 PM ^
Yeah, when you hold the opponent to 14 points (both from relatively short fields, to boot) you should expect to win. This isn't an elite defense and DT is likely to be a sore spot all year, but the defense is not the problem with the team right now.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:49 PM ^
Still worried about the tackles, but that was a winning effort. Well played, gentlemen.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:50 PM ^
Defensive didn’t make sense. Was a shit show. Embarrassment, joke.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:51 PM ^
Defensive scheme didn’t make sense. Was a shit show. Embarrassment, joke.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:52 PM ^
There was nothing about it from the beat writers, but did it seem like Ross missed a lot of the game to anyone else?
EDIT: Friend tells me banged up, was questionable for the second half.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:53 PM ^
Although the Army QB arguably cost them the game with his horrific decision to throw the ball directly to Hill on the goal line rather than taking the chip-shot field goal, I still thing the Defense deserves major props on that play. 3rd and 6 on the goal is a running play for Army like 95% of the time, it took discipline and execution to to not get suckered in and leave a receiver wide open.
September 7th, 2019 at 4:21 PM ^
Our secondary only fell asleep on one play IIRC.
September 7th, 2019 at 3:54 PM ^
I have no idea really. Other than Wisconsin is probably going to ass ram us into oblivion.
STOP. SCHEDULING. SERVICE. ACADEMIES.