Michigan Linebackers Exposed

was Don Brown. The tackling is atrocious. Any runner who is willing to fight against being tacked will gain yards after contact from Michigan players. THe only way we can get pressure on the QB is to an all out blitz. A four man rush is non existent against an average OL.

Yes, we have held teams to low score but look at the teams. But for Colorado losing their fine QB early in the second half, it would have been a different ball game. If MSU had two more minutes we are looking at a lose. Wisconsin started a freshman QB who's only win came against a very bad MSU team the week before. Since the MIchigan game, he has steadliy improved. PSU also had a below average QB. 

All this falls in the lap of Brown. The next two weeks will tell us if he is a good hire. He is supposed to be the guru of how to defend against spread teams. He will have a lot to prove as the man that knows how defend spreads.

Dude, the D wasn't perfect by any means. But they gave up under 4 YPP. The loss was on the offense, plain and simple.

When your defense gives up 12 points they weren't the reason for your loss, regardless of whether your LBs had a poor performance.

It seemed to me that the LB's are so damn close to the LOS too much. It also looks like we are told to play aggressive and are out of control when approaching any runner, causing us a 50/50 chance of wrapping up.

The defense (LBs included) played more than well enough to win. Frankly, they played more than well enough for Michigan to blow Iowa out. Wadley is a legit NFL RB, so at some point you just have to tip your hat to Iowa.

This loss falls squarely on the offense, which was Hokesian in playcalling last night.

also, Michigan coaching staff EXPOSED AS WELL

Best D in college football has bad game, gives up 14 points, feels bad. Fans decide defense must be subpar.

If Speight connects on one of the first half play action bombs where Darboh was ridiculously open we're up 17-0.  I have to believe it's a different game at that point, especially mentally for both teams.  Then the safety breathed life into Iowa and we ended up in a dogfight.  We gave up 12 defensive points which was more than good enough to win easily considering the way we'd been moving the ball in previous weeks.  The offense needed to simply play to its own standard.  It didn't by a wide margin and we lost.

14 points, 2 given by the offense, and only 1 touchdown.  Defense wasn't the problem here, people.

 

 

The defense was frustrating but only gave up 12 points. This loss was squarely on the offense.

McCray had a bad game, but it happens. Imagine where we'd be if he had never recovered from his injuries earlier in his career.

Those Iowa backs ran over and through a lot of tackles. Our edge defense is not the greatest. Iowa was better prepared for this game.

It's very possible McCray is banged up. Seems to be a step slower than earlier in the year.

Edge defense was already an issue.. 

 

The defense didn't lose this game, though.. even though it came down to the last second field goal...

I might be an outlier in this thread, but they did their job throughout the game, the drops, the INT  because of a normally automatic receiver bobbling a perfect pass... those are the reasons we lost. 


You cannot get away with leaning on your defense that much and expect a bunch of coinflips to not go your way. (the facemask?)  

 

2,3.4 all lost..  #1 was playing little sister's of the poor. 

 

I don't want to get political about it, but being in classes all week across numerous colleges.... it felt like a f'n funeral for some kid who just died of cancer the entire time, and I'm not exaggerating by much -- if at all.  I cannot ignore that fact, no matter how diciplined this team is, we've all seen the pre-game protests by michigan players if we've been paying attention all season. 

 

It's no excuse, but the guys on our offense who are usually making plays were looking terrible for no real reason.   There was an underlying issue going on, and I don't have anything else besides my own personal experience in academia this entire week to go on.  Inside a university felt the weirdest it's ever felt in the entire time I've spent in one...  I'm in environmental sciences, political science, history, geography/planning, and engineering depts @ UToledo... and most of my week there was almost nothing going on besides talking about impacts of the election... the syllabus was put on hold.

 

I wouldn't even bring this up if it weren't for 3/4 of the top 4 taking an L . 

 

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That Akrum Wadley kid was really something else. He was juking everyone out of their shoes. Looked like Theo Riddick out there honestly. 

They had him coralled a number of times and he wiggled out or juked guys.  I don't know how they ran for so few yards before this game.  If they played like that all year, they'd have a similar record to Wiscy.  Wadley is a good player and he deserves credit.  Not saying we didn't show some weaknesses, but they did some good things too.  The real question is why they haven't all year.

What gave me pause about our defense was our inability to stuff Iowa on their last possession. Too reminiscent of the November games last year when we couldn't stop the run even when we knew it was coming. Last year we blamed it on injuries to the DL and our slow LBs. Both of those are improved this year, so is it just that teams have figured out how to gash us ten games in? I hope our coaches can mix in different looks for OSU to keep them guessing!

seems to me that everyone now is tackling high. McCray and gedeon and stribling, try to tackle the torso.

But this one is on Speight. You hold a B1G school to 12 point on the road. You should win.

A little off topic here but Peppers didn't look elite last night either. It's clear he needs more coaching and time in the college game. If he doesn't play the game of his life in Cbus, I don't know how he goes pro after leaving that legacy. As much as he has done for the team, would kind of be a let down to go out that way with all that talent.

I was half-expecting this to be from the guy who wanted those shirtless pics of the basketball team last season.

One notable thing outside of this.. people questioning the coaching... I thought the timeouts at the end were used properly to make them kick a long FG and have time left to make a shot down the field.  I am not going to argue with people, it seemed logical to me given the circumstances and I trust the people crunching numbers to make those decisions properly. 

 

 

Regarding Speight and the offense: 

I was questioning not putting O'Korn in when Speight was looking a little busted.... I was questining it a lot, actually... especially with the offense being completely flacid. O'Korn has looked pretty good out there this season and while I understand not wanting to demoralize your QB that has been  constantly getting better -- when he's hurt and the team can use a spark.. why not?

 That said, I was eating my words every time speight put the ball right where it needed to be and someone was there to drop or bobble the ball (resulting in a turnover) ... and we're talking about our best players, the players who could probably catch and not bobble a f'n musket ball on any given saturday. Players that have looked like NFL talent at times. 

The defense was looking exploited, but they still gave up very little... and when you consider how much time they spent on the field... it's not surprising to me at all that they gave up just enough yardage at the end to not prevent the game winning FG... 

 

It was a systemic break-down.. I won't blame the defense on this at all.  There isn't a defense that never wears out when the offense cannot keep them off of the field at all.. and that defense still kept us in the game until the bitter end.  

Addendum:  F that facemask call. I've never seen ANYONE try SO HARD to do everything they could to AVOID a facemask and still get called for it. Watch the tape, his head was turning away from the direction it would have been had the facemask been grabbed at all. 

 

Not getting into the rest of the "questionables" ... there's no point.  win every game, no margin for error or you're two loss michigan and the  penn state team you cleaned up gets to play for a championship... and the wisconsin team that beats the hell out of their oppoenents we managed to take down gets to go to the playoff..  I hate thinking about it -- especially after seeing LSU v Bama and knowing we have been getting better since that wisconsin game. 

 

The good thing is we had this margin for error, the bad thing is now we do not have it, and now are going to be a 1 or 2 loss team.  

 

 

I think we see michigan make a satement next week.  This does not happen again.   There are too many variables that could have affected this game, my post about the political impact on universities plays into it a little... if the kids weren't getting good sleep this week, if they were experiencing a lot of the same environment i was in academia all week, I can see it having an impact on them being ready to take on a late game on the road...

 

 

 

 

Ok, I'm done rambling and ranting.