Iowa Snowflakes: The Offense

The most important stat of the day, other than the final score: zero turnovers.

There were a couple of plays we shoulda done differently, but at the end of the day we got 20 meaningful points at Kinnick (as a top 5 team, no less) and didn’t turn the ball over.  I would take that seven days a week and twice on Saturdays

I was glad JJ played a game with no turnovers, despite the backwards pass. I pretty much wrote off a pick vs Iowa, because they're so good at it, and he's never started vs them. 

Michigan dominated on a limited playbook. Complain all you want but why open up the playbook when you can beat a team on low risk run and short passing? Guarantee they open it up when it matters

We played a conservative game and put up 27 points, on the #1 scoring defense in the country.

That should be clapped.

Excellent execution and play-calling for 2.5 quarters.

Offense is so close to dangerous. If JJ just hits Roman when he was open by 5+ yards or if JH pushes for more deep balls off play-action, the safeties would’ve backed out even more from the run game. Looks like the coaches are honing the run game for the really big games.

Harbaugh still turtles when the offense could put a dagger in the other team, but nice to win at Kinnick by any score.

Some of you should take about 24 hours after the game to comment after games. Michigan covered the spread in a game that never once felt close. They moved the ball at will when it mattered. Were they perfect? No. Were they good enough to win comfortably? Yes. The offense will grow as the play callers and JJ settle in. JJs first road game in a hostile environment against a top defense and yeah.. we turtled a bit. I didn't like some play calls either but up 20 late in the 3rd quarter and there is only one way Iowa wins that game. The job of the coaching staff is to advance and improve, not to you make you guys feel warm and fuzzy about the offense. 

Through almost three full quarters, the offense was fine for Iowa on the road. You knew Iowa wasn't going to score a bunch, as even when receivers were open -- two for TDs -- Petras couldn't connect. After approximately the backward pass event, it was a turtle job that I've seen a million times. Which, I mean, it's fine. We took away Iowa's biggest weapon -- the turnover-turned-defensive-TD.

So fine, we went into Kinnick and took care of business. We did see JJ run on a zone read, and he executed at least one, and probably more than one, RPO(s) correctly. That tells me that those plays are still in the rotation and will be utilized more fully when we need them. Then, once we got ahead by two scores, a lot of things were shelved for the day. That's not going to beat most teams, but it'll beat Iowa, and for the first road game for a young QB, I'm okay with it.

My only real concern -- and I don't see any problem with people expressing concerns after a win -- is the offense bogging down and settling for the two FGs in the first half. Despite it being Iowa, that's where we needed to stay aggressive and punch at least one in. Why? Because we're going to need to against teams like PSU and OSU on our schedule. I would have liked to have seen our O perform better in those situations.

EDITED TO ADD: JJ also completed the mid-level "hole shot" pass discussed in the preview. He was 1/1 on that, and I'm sure if we needed more firepower, it was there more times. Try to relax, y'all, we did what we had to at Kinnick.

Only 5 incomplete passes the whole game . We won yes , but we need to let the passing game thrive when it starts getting going . I wish we would throw to Anthony in the red zone . He had great success last year .

It’s definitely nice having an all American center laying dudes on their asses . 

Wondering about the ability to scheme up pass plays vs specific defenses.  Thorns picking apart Maryland right now.  

The offense and the play calls took what Iowa gave them until such point that the game was out of reach.  Michigan was smart and efficient.  Sure, I would've not liked to have seen three straight three and outs with the chance to 100% close the game out, but it was a pretty masterful game otherwise.  JJ missed on his only real deep shot but it looks like he's beginning to dial that in.

Good game overall offensively.  Didn't agree with some of the play calling late. Would like to see more targets to #86. Hes big, fast  enough and good hands. Go blue!

I hope that when JJ is needed to win a big game that they have given him enough experience to do more than manage the game. 

It wasn’t pretty, but any win at Iowa is a good win. The very conservative play calling was annoying, but they got to the right result. I just hope they open it up next week against Indiana, because with this defense, being conservative isn’t going to work against the best teams.

Good game plan - We ran the ball and we didn't turn the ball over.  That is how you end a streak of losses in a hostile environment to a good defense.   Eventually, we will need to do more on offense but you have to ease the young QB in against better competition.  I thought JJ was more decisive today which is a good sign going forward.  The offense really has a chance to be special by the end of the year.

No idea why JJ is throwing backwards like that.  Perhaps smarter football people can rationalize that. 

I like the calls and it’s only a matter of time before JJ and this WR room connect deep consistently. HAIL!!!〽️

Last drive of the 3rd quarter swing to DE and then another swing which was JJ only miscue was Horrible play calling.Blake was chewing them up and we we let them back in the game.

I thought the offense had a good, complete game.  Scoring 27 points was on the medium-high side of expectations @ Iowa.  Obviously the game plan was conservative by design in order to slay the chaos of Kinnick.

JJ had a bounce back game.  I thought he looked really good.  Took what was available and hardly ever put the offense in jeopardy.  He proved he can be Cade McNamara, Game Manager (TM) when he needs to do that.  He also proved that he brings a little bit extra on the TD throw to Donovan Edwards where JJ escaped to the edge.  Yeah, he had that one "fumble," the slight overthrow to Roman Wilson, a delay of game, and Zinter stepped on him to smother one drive in the cradle.  But, it seemed like he was very solid throughout.  Very encouraging in that environment of ill-tempered booing corn people, and after the game vs Maryland last week where he was just ok.

The O Line owned the line of scrimmage.  They were putting hotels on it like Park Place and Boardwalk.  I think I saw the line paying property taxes on the LOS before the game was over.  It was a blowout there, and on most plays Iowa simply had no chance.  Michigan could get 4-5 yards on 1st down every day and twice on Saturdays.  The only times Iowa got the upper hand were that ill-fated speed option into the boundary and that give to Corum into an 8-man (?) front where JJ probably could have walked into the endzone if he had booted around the edge.  It was also nice to see Keegan back in there (with a neck roll no less!).

Corum is such a stud, and he is doing just fine in the bell cow role.  Doing well in short yardage situations, too.

The offense outscored Iowa's defense 27-0

Ohio state don’t want none of this 

We went to Kinnick, punted 4 times, and had 5 scoring drives. That's not a bad day at the office.

I made a thing, this guy is the offense

ITT: People who believe it was a blowout because it should have been a blowout and don't want to acknowledge that Iowa was a whisker away from making things very, very uncomfortable late in the game.

The offense needs to open up the passing game to our WRs. We need to.come away with TDs in drives, if we have any chance to finish off PSU and outscore OSU. Why is this team so slow at running off plays?

The capacity for this board to come up with rationalizations for running a conservative, vanilla offense when we have first-rate skill players is apparently endless.  Harbaugh absolutely refuses to use McCarthy and his receivers to their full potential, for some unknown reason.  And I've completely given up on us ever using tempo as a weapon.

Haven't read through all of the 193 hot takes quite yet and I am sure others have the same complaint.   But clearly the momentum of the game briefly flipped to Iowa late 3rd quarter and early 4th quarter in large part because of a lack of imaginative/aggressive play calling. 

IIRC Iowa had scored to make it 20-7.  On the ensuing Michigan drive we were 3 and 1 and Iowa came out in the most stacked defense I can remember (10 in the box with a safety about 4 yards back).   Sparty burned us last year by passing for a TD in the same situation.  Maryland burned Sparty yesterday in the same situation by passing on 3 and 1 late in the game.  Now, I don't mind a run call here but, for Pete's sake, run something else than just into the strength of the defensive formation.  

LSA, please track the use of ‘turtle/turtled/turtling’ in the State of our Threads, thanks. I am a mere fan, but Harbaugh and the players seemed pretty happy in post game interviews. Good for them.

Got the job done. Improvements at OL, QB, and Blake Corum being Blake Corum.

My issue is that, in albeit limited targets, the receivers looked pretty bad today. Multiple routes missed or not given full effort, and practically zero non-gimme catches. That’s how I feel — we’ll see if the film bears that out. Wish they got a little more chances to showcase their talent...