Late-Game Play Calling/Strategy v. OSU
Now that the game is a few days behind us and we've all had time to celebrate, I want other opinions on the end-of-game decisions. I'll preface my take with this: I'm old enough to remember the Lloyd Carr years clearly, and my POV is probably shaped by all the games Michigan lost, despite being the vastly superior team, because they didn't put teams away when they had the chance.
So on the second to last drive, following the Edwards pass to Loveland, there's about 14 minutes to go in the 4th. Michigan has it 1st and 10 on the OSU 20. We're up 7 and we have all the momentum. Great, aggressive play calling has gotten us into FG range, but then we get two vanilla runs and a very safe WR screen to Semaj that immediately gets blown up. FG time.
On the next drive, without Will Johnson, OSU pretty easily marches down the field and scores. We're now up just 3.
On our last drive, similar deal. As soon as we get into FG range, we go ultra-conservative with three very vanilla runs. Even knowing a first down wins the game, and knowing our best cornerback is out, we seemed content to play it safe and give OSU and Marvin Harrison Jr. the ball and the chance to beat us.
In real time, after kicking that last field goal to go up 6, I felt sure we'd had our chances to put the game away and were going to pay for squandering them. Thank goodness that didn't happen. But I wanted to see a lot more aggressiveness at the end of those final two drives.
I know people will disagree, but I for one absolutely would have gone for it on fourth down on the last drive in order to end the game then and there. My logic is that even if the 4th down try fails, OSU is then only down three, and might play it conservatively themselves (playing for OT) if they got down close enough to kick a tying field goal. Once Turner made the kick (less than a sure thing, given the circumstances), we were forcing OSU to try to score a game-winning TD. With a player like Harrison and our best CB out, I thought their odds of doing it were about 50/50.
Again, relieved and elated with how it worked out. And I thought most of the day's play calling was solid. I can see how Moore, as interim coach, might have felt pressure to play it safe once points were at stake. But II think that with Harbaugh on the sideline, we might have shown more aggressiveness at the end of those final two drives, and maybe would have ended up winning by a wider margin, or at least not allowing OSU the ball and the chance to beat us on their final possession.
November 29th, 2023 at 5:34 PM ^
I definitely did not like how we ended the game overall strategy wise. We either get that first down when they are out of timeouts or we get 7. Up by 6 meant nothing and if we didn't get lucky with that INT...... let's just say I was sweating bullets.
November 29th, 2023 at 5:44 PM ^
Play calling was too conservative and too much like Carr-era. But, no way we pass up the field goal on 4th down. Make them go the whole way to win. We had been bending on D all day and would not have had to bend much to put them in range for a tying field goal.
November 29th, 2023 at 8:40 PM ^
Sherrone is a great assistant coach who has handled the current situation about as well as he could. That said, not unlike his predecessor under Harbaugh at Stanford (David Shaw), he is a bit more conservative than Harbaugh. I think if Jim is on the sidelines Michigan is more aggressive in certain situations and M would have won going away (again) as opposed to a game that took years off of my life.
November 29th, 2023 at 8:47 PM ^
I wonder what Dan Campbell would have done.
November 30th, 2023 at 8:47 PM ^
I'm fine with the field goals, especially the last one. I'd rather OSU not be able to run it and need a TD in a minute with no TOs, a shaky QB and our defense pinning its ears back, even without WJ.
I'm fine with the 1st and 2nd down calls. The goal there, especially on the last drive, is to bleed clock and make OSU use timeouts.
I did not like the Semaj screen, mostly because a similar play to Edwards was dominated early in the game, and it put our WR blocking up against their 5* athletes teeing off. If you think the time is now for Semaj/Edwards, run the jet sweep or put the LBs into conflict.
On the last 3rd down call, I am of two minds. They absolutely want to force OSU to use their last timeout, so you can't throw anything that might be incomplete, which means no RPOs or downfield looks. On the flip side, if you have any play where you can put the LBs into a conflict - maybe America's rollout off play action? - you might be able to get all the yards. On the gripping hand, OSU had prepped and prepped for JJ keeps, so it is possible that anything on the perimeter gives a 5* DE a chance to make a play against our not-5* tackles?
This really reminds me of that Sports Night bit about play calling:
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Gordon: That was a terrible call.
Casey: Lost the game.
Gordon: I don't know how you make that call.
Casey: Yeah.
Gordon: Any idiot knows you hand it to Jermaine, you send him up the middle.
Casey: Yeah... well, you're not going to go up the middle against an 8-man front, but still.
Gordon: But still, you try a play action fake, you toss to the tight end off the flat.
Casey: The problem with that is, without establishing your running game first no one's gonna bite down on the play fake.
Gordon: Oh, but still...
Casey: Still.
Gordon: A post pattern, a slant...
Casey: He'd be going up against a defensive back who was second team all american as a true freshman. (shakes head)
Gordon: What would you have called?
Casey: Me?
Gordon: Yeah.
Casey: (sighs) The thing is, I haven't watched film all week, I haven't seen scouting reports, I don't have an offensive coordinator talking in my ear, I don't have 80,000 fans screaming in my face, so it's easy for me. I don't have 10 million people watching at home, including a pack of rabid alumni. I've had three days to think about it, he had seven seconds. So It's a lot easier for me to make that decision than it was for him. But since you asked me what play I would've called, I'll tell you. Now that I think about it? I have no idea.
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