Indiana Snowflakes: The Offense
October 8th, 2022 at 3:47 PM ^
Which half?
October 8th, 2022 at 4:29 PM ^
Seriously.
I can’t tell how much of the first half was the shock of seeing a coach carted off vs. simple poor execution.
The second half was almost surgical.
Though we’ll (I’ll) bitch all week about yet another short yardage situation where pre-snap it was clear the running play that was called had zero chance of success. Gotta clean that up.
October 8th, 2022 at 6:02 PM ^
I wonder if the team found out that Hart was going to be OK and played the second half accordingly. I sure hope he is.
October 8th, 2022 at 6:34 PM ^
Most likely they all needed halftime to gather themselves and focus. Harbaugh said as much after the game
October 8th, 2022 at 10:20 PM ^
Obviously the offense was affected by the Mike Hart incident.
Two RedZone trips that ended in zero points didn't help either.
Running into a stacked box is frustrating to watch.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:47 PM ^
Please call better plays that allow players to be successful.
October 8th, 2022 at 6:59 PM ^
All I could think of on that keeper where McCarthy got drilled was really hoping that that hit wouldn't make the coaches squeamish with running him, since they barely do it anyway.
October 8th, 2022 at 9:23 PM ^
With McNamara still out, being squimish about running him seems like a damn good idea.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
JJ will soon be our first 400 yard passer since Rudock vs Indiana
October 9th, 2022 at 6:15 AM ^
Devin Gardner said on a recent MMQB that he believes JJ could break his record (503 yards vs Indiana in 2013).
October 9th, 2022 at 10:03 AM ^
Well yeah we have to face MSU’s secondary so it’s pretty much a given
October 8th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
A win is a win is a win. That’s all.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:50 PM ^
A 31-10 road win when we outgain them 469 to 222 while kneeling down multiple times to run out the clock in the red zone? That is more like a WIN!
October 8th, 2022 at 4:15 PM ^
We didn’t see this on the west coast because they sent us to 15 mins of commercials before the UCLA/Utah game actually started. But I did learn that Taco Bell is competing with McDonald’s by wrapping sausage McMuffin meal deal into a tortilla and selling it all day. So there is that…
October 8th, 2022 at 6:03 PM ^
...are you riffing?
October 8th, 2022 at 8:15 PM ^
Yeah, well, I didn't read the script, so....
October 8th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
JJ and friends were resilient and effective. Great to see his first 300 yard passing gamw! Schoon is turning into an automatic first down machine. I love the weapons on this offense!
October 8th, 2022 at 4:38 PM ^
That’s nuts. The offense was a shit show for 3/4 of the game against a terrible defense. The score doesn’t indicate how close the game was.
October 8th, 2022 at 4:47 PM ^
The score doesn’t indicate how close the game was
You're right -- the score doesn't show how much better Michigan was than Indiana. Did you just watch the 2nd quarter? Because bad luck and reffing aside, Michigan dominated 3 of 4 quarters
October 8th, 2022 at 5:28 PM ^
You're right. but it's also right that there were serious problems with the offense against a bad defense-not average, bad. Just to choose one-the repeated 100% runs out of the pistol, which anyone can see and key on. The super restrictive play-calling is another that takes actually playmakers and limits them. Lastly, the apparent inability of our WR's to get separation from mediocre DB's. Lots to fix. But it was a good win and you can never look great every game, so there's that too.
October 8th, 2022 at 8:51 PM ^
Corum was very upset about Hart. The team was shaken up still going into halftime. Do you blame them? These are still kids on the road and their coach had a seizure in real time and they didn’t know anything about the situation until halftime.
October 8th, 2022 at 11:00 PM ^
JJ had a great game despite the atrocious playcalling in the first half and really came alive in the second half. I didn't even really have much issue with the redzone INT. It hit Bell in the hands and deflected in the air, not much you can do there
October 9th, 2022 at 12:14 PM ^
Why was it “atrocious?” The refs were blowing up every Michigan big play. I am actually happy with the first half play calling. When you are in a hostile environment, against an inferior team and the refs/momentum aren’t in your favor you need to be conservative.
The second half was what we thought it would be.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:48 PM ^
This was like watching a 16 year old learning to drive a stick shift in a Ferrari.
October 8th, 2022 at 4:26 PM ^
Perfect analogy.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
When flea flicker?
October 8th, 2022 at 3:54 PM ^
Next week 😃
October 9th, 2022 at 6:27 PM ^
And in 2 more weeks as well!
October 8th, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
Playcalling was atrocious for 3 quarters
October 8th, 2022 at 8:00 PM ^
They won by three touchdowns and gained nearly 500 yards. Nothing about the game was atrocious.
October 8th, 2022 at 8:47 PM ^
There certainly seem to be some bugs so far. Big question for Brian on the UFR: Joel Klatt pointed out that we are heavily tipping our hand towards run when we motion pre-snap; do the numbers back this up? Are some of these notion plays actually RPOs that have the slider turned towards run?
It seems like Klatt’s observation was on point in real time, but it would be interesting to see any analysis on this from season numbers to date.
October 9th, 2022 at 10:54 AM ^
I thought Klatt's observation was one of the most stunning takeaways from the game. If true then other teams, if they had not noticed, certainly notice it now. You're basically tipping your pitches. It's even worse than the pistol formation tendency.
October 9th, 2022 at 11:21 AM ^
This staff likes to run things to set up counters in the future. Expect them to break tendency when really necessary.
October 9th, 2022 at 8:16 AM ^
lol.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
Started great, ended great, I forget what happened there in the middle.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:50 PM ^
If you don’t remember anything happening in the middle then your memory is correct.
October 8th, 2022 at 4:32 PM ^
Right before the blocked FG, it seemed if Henning runs through the catch rather than committing to some BS looking half lunge, it’s a TD.
I like Bell in the short passing game much more than downfield. Curious the one downfield shot was to him rather than one of the better deep threats, and the pick in the end zone doesn’t happen with a bit more separation.
But man, Klatt was right about him on that TD pass where he was blocking on the outside. What an incredible player and leader on this team.
October 9th, 2022 at 7:45 AM ^
Which "better deep threat" should they have targeted?
October 9th, 2022 at 8:53 AM ^
Anthony.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:49 PM ^
It was nice to see JJ get 300 yards passing. Offense seemed predictable. I think we were saving things for next week. I'm not going to complain when we absolutely dominated them the way we did in the second half. We will open it up next week.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:55 PM ^
In year 8 with Harbaugh, do you actually believe that 'we are saving things.' Maybe Jabrill Peppers will finally throw out of that wildcat formation against Penn St.
JJ is great. Let him make plays please.
October 8th, 2022 at 3:57 PM ^
I honestly do. Harbaugh knows PSU has a bye. If he has a trick or a gimmick he is going to save it. He always saves stuff for OSU. I thought the year we lost with O'Korn he called one of the greatest games I've ever seen. We have new coordinators this year. I'm sure there is stuff we are not showing.
October 8th, 2022 at 4:01 PM ^
Well I like the optimism. Hope I'm wrong.
October 8th, 2022 at 4:18 PM ^
Is it Groundhog Day? I feel like every football weekend for 8 years I’ve heard the same tired justification for vanilla offense, especially the passing game.
October 8th, 2022 at 5:10 PM ^
You’re probably right, but last year vs OSU says they do save some things, and rightly so.
October 8th, 2022 at 5:14 PM ^
What did they save in that game? Kind of just mauled them to death.
October 8th, 2022 at 10:33 PM ^
I'll concur on this, Honker. Your offensive line just straight up beat our defensive line... not much "saving plays" went on, and they weren't needed. If OSU couldn't stop the run, why go away from it?
October 8th, 2022 at 5:21 PM ^
Yes. Michigan does this a lot.
Examples:
The zone arc read that Shea pulled out against Wisconsin after setting it up most of the leadup in 2018.
The WR screen-and-go feint they threw to DPJ. That one was very frustrating, because they set it up for a couple of games and then pulled it out against.. I think SMU? Or some other weak opponent.
Various end-arounds, blocking combinations, etc.
Harbaugh offenses have done this for a long time. Yes, Jabrill never passed, but in most of these other cases (including a number of situations in 2016) stuff that was shown for a week or two or three set something else up for a later week.
And, to be honest, it frustrates me at times, but it is definitely real.
October 8th, 2022 at 9:21 PM ^
I think there's a big difference between having 2 or 3 new plays per game, which pretty much every team does, and saving a larger schematic approach for a certain game. When people talking about "saving something" or "holding something back," they mean the latter, not a few specific plays designed for x opponent.
October 9th, 2022 at 12:54 AM ^
What do you mean by "larger schematic approach?" It seems like this is a moving target. Do you mean wholly different running schemes? Say, transitioning from zone blocking to gap blocking? Michigan did that in 2017. Or do you mean different types of formations? Say, transitioning from three-receiver sets to sets that have two and three TEs to abuse undersized defensive fronts? That's what Michigan did against Maryland.
To some extent a team's offense is what it is. Installing entirely new schemes has a lot of costs associated with it, and you don't get as good with them. Al Borges installed a bunch of new stuff every week and developed some intriguing game scripts and the occasional great game and a lot of clunkers.
The critique starting all of this was Jabrill Peppers not throwing out of the Pepcat, which... is a couple of plays. A "larger schematic approach" sounds interesting but one really needs to establish what that means before it can be held against the coaching staff for not doing that. It seems a particularly weird critique of the Michigan staff, which isn't perfect but also runs a pretty wide diversity of plays and formations.