Notre Dame Snowflakes: The Offense
October 26th, 2019 at 11:15 PM ^
Go Blue!
October 26th, 2019 at 11:47 PM ^
Great win for sure.
The OL seems to have gelled after whatever disturbed them early
The RBs look very good to great at least two deep
The WRs were making hard contested catches
I saw some speed in space working like they've been trying to get it to do all season
That PSU loss really turned the corner for the team. I said I'd be happy if we don't lose another game we shouldn't and beat one of ND, MSU, and OSU. It's looking likely we win at least 2/3.
October 27th, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^
I saw Hassan Haskins. For a recruit supposedly added to round out a class that guy looks pretty damn good.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:36 PM ^
Anyone know what's up with Christian Turner? Did Haskins just pass him on the depth chart? Haven't seen him in a while
October 27th, 2019 at 1:20 PM ^
I'm guessing his acute fumblitis caused him to get buried on the depth chart
October 27th, 2019 at 5:45 PM ^
Well, we won against ND. Pretty sure of it.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:15 PM ^
Finally.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:15 PM ^
Bliss. Happiness. Beat down of the Fig Things.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:24 PM ^
But no Muppets.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:16 PM ^
Go blue!
October 26th, 2019 at 11:16 PM ^
The single biggest difference (IMO) is that Shea now stands in the pocket to find his receiver, even pump faking without getting scared and having happy feet. Just stand in the pocket come what may, you may get up from a play or two looking through the ear hole but eventually you'll hit so many receivers that they'll have to soften up their blitz to better cover the receivers.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:37 PM ^
Well, the single biggest thing then is up for debate.
I think it is the fact that the offensive line is playing much, much better and Michigan is also running the ball capably.
You know, kinda makes the QB better when he has time to throw and the running game takes the pressure off.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:39 PM ^
I knew they would have a good outing today because of the confidence I could see Shea had developed in the second half last week. Is it better protection he's getting that's giving him the confidence? I hope so but it's good to see him not do the skittish water bug thing.
October 27th, 2019 at 2:05 PM ^
Very simple...Shea runs every now and then.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:57 PM ^
Shea is still doing She things, we just didn’t lose because of it today. Fumble in the red zone, throw-away that went backwards that was almost a disaster. He was 6/12 for 100 yards and 2 TD. Our run game and defense won the game. Shea just didn’t lose it for them.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:02 AM ^
Yes, please start McCaffrey moving forward! Much better decision maker!
October 27th, 2019 at 10:26 AM ^
Senior experienced starter leads the team to a blowout win over a top 10 rival and we are gonna bench him? Uh, ok. You risk losing the team while they are feeling great and coming off their best win in a long time for the prospect of the future. I can see the rest of the seniors mentally checking out if that were to happen.
Shea is who we are riding with.
October 27th, 2019 at 10:51 AM ^
Dylan had the benefit of playing a completely demoralized 2nd string defense. It is not remotely the same circumstances. He looked good, but lets not act like the Irish were even trying at that point.
October 27th, 2019 at 11:59 AM ^
Given the conditions I thought the speed differential between Shea and DCaff could have really been a benefit. There were several rushing plays where Shea could not get the corner against the ND defenders, where Dylan might have turned those into big gainers.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:18 AM ^
He was 6/12 for 100 yards and 2 TD.
You can't drop Shea's stats as if they showed up in isolation. He wasn't anywhere near perfect, but he made some good plays/choices and that stat line was played in total SHIT weather.
October 27th, 2019 at 2:34 AM ^
Shea managed the game terrifically. You could tell that once we had a 3 score lead that the gameplan turned into “is the first route open? No, don’t force the ball and make a play on the ground.”
October 27th, 2019 at 8:01 AM ^
And 3 bad drops. (Fade to Nico was a really great throw.) Bad drops also in that weather, not to diss the receivers, but that was a good line for Shea. Great if not those 2-3 bad mistakes of his, so just good.
October 27th, 2019 at 9:45 AM ^
relative to other quarterbacks in the game it was fucking amazing
October 27th, 2019 at 10:41 AM ^
Shea also seemed to improve as the game wore on. He had a couple shit throws early, got some happy feet, and made some mistakes. However, he settled pretty quickly and made some good throws. He's definitely trending to "last year Shea."
October 27th, 2019 at 11:13 AM ^
Plus the 20 yard downfield block by Shea to spring Tru into the end zone defined his night ... COMPETITOR !
October 27th, 2019 at 2:41 AM ^
And Book was 8/25 for 73 yards. Cut the shit. When all you do is look to bitch and find mistakes then that’s all you will see. Never the good, only the bad with Shea.
Fields was missing open receivers all day and nobody Fromm OSU cares because OSU wins and their fans support the team.
October 27th, 2019 at 10:04 AM ^
Pretty much everyone on here has been trash all season
October 27th, 2019 at 11:18 AM ^
I watched most of the OSU Wisconsin game and it didn't look like it was raining as hard there as it was at Michigan. IDK, maybe the lights made the rain seem worse. Fields made some really good throws but also had bad misses. Bottom line, it was the defensive efforts that made things easy for the team and allowed both Michigan and OSU to roll yesterday.
October 27th, 2019 at 7:34 AM ^
I’m not very knowledgeable about football, but one thing that I noticed on McCaffrey’s series: he seemed to play at a different pace. I don’t mean his foot speed—I mean he would take the snap, run the play action, and then make a throw, all very quickly. It just seemed to happen with the sort of rhythm that I see when I watch other effective QBs/offenses. I don’t know if this is a real thing, or if it has been discussed ad nauseum in some of these threads. And I’m NOT saying McCaffrey should get the next start. It’s just a little contrast that I thought stood out, and it did seem that it was part of McCaffrey’s effectiveness on the few drives that he played yesterday. Not sure if anyone else more knowledgeable can comment.
October 27th, 2019 at 7:44 AM ^
It’s confidence and arm strength. DMac knows he can throw into tight windows cause he has the arm to do it. More often than not the first option is going to be open for Dylan.
October 27th, 2019 at 8:43 AM ^
McCaffrey seems to have a better skill set than does Patterson, but that’s only part of the package.
Was anyone else seriously wondering if the game were tight and the weather remained crappy that if Patterson legitimately could not hold onto the wet football they would make the quarterback change?
Kept thinking about Henne in 2007 against OSU and Carr refused to go with Mallett.
October 27th, 2019 at 10:14 AM ^
It also doesn't hurt that he was facing 2nd and 3rd string defense because UM was up 38-7 when he entered the game.
Shea made 2 plays in this game that will earn him tons of respect from the entire team.
1. Delivering the pass to DPJ while taking a huge hit.
2. Running down field to block for Tru on his TD run.
October 27th, 2019 at 11:17 AM ^
Well yeah, but opposing defenses have nothing to do with arm strength, size, size of hands to hold on to a wet ball, etc.
Try to keep up.
October 27th, 2019 at 3:45 PM ^
This is the second comment on Dylan facing the second or third string D....and to be fair I wasn't paying that much attention at that point, but the ND player that got hurt on the Sainristil TD was a starter. Going back and looking at that series, it appears that the front 4 were 2nd team on the depth chart, but the remaining 7 were starters. I don't know how ND rotates their DL so I won't comment on that. I will say that Dylan got the ball out quickly enough that I don't think it mattered if the DL was 1st or 2nd team given the performance in the rest of the game. I am not saying start Dylan at this point, but lets not knock his brief performance to support starting Shea. It is nice to have a competent backup.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:38 PM ^
I'm definitely a Shea critic, but keep in mind that all of that was in the pouring rain
October 27th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
No doubt. I don't think it's a coincidence that our best all-around game of the year is the one where he was asked to do the least. I just don't see how we score enough points to have a chance against OSU with Shea as the QB
October 26th, 2019 at 11:59 PM ^
I definitely remember him bugging out of several clean pockets today, but he's gotten better since the second half at PSU, and the one where stood in and took the hit while throwing the TD to DPJ was a gem.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:40 AM ^
that's it, I agree, since last week second half he's not as scared to stand in there, that's huge progress as without that we're losing to Wisconsin badly. Not perfect, not great, still mistakes (in slop weather) but getting there, improvement. THAT's what I'm talking about, if anyone can't see that they need to put on their glasses.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:15 AM ^
What in the world are you talking about?
Shea fumbled at the goal line, threw a left handed backward pass, overthrew Ronnie Bell by about 3 ft and the ball should have been intercepted (not to mention Bell got injured trying to adjust to the poor pass), had 11 carries for 2 yards and completed 6 passes.
I have no idea what you saw that said he played well.
EDIT: Look, I’m not trying to be negative. The weather was horrendous and Michigan absolutely blasted a top 10 Notre Dame. But you cannot watch that game and say Shea played great and showed huge improvement. You’re only saying that because the game was 45-14. If the ground game wasn’t working, would you be happy with 23 rushes/passes for 102 yards?
October 27th, 2019 at 12:57 AM ^
Agreed, Shea was below average at best. He gets rattled so easily and takes too long to make decisions. He seems to constantly make nothing out of something.
October 27th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
Performance is relative. Shea was way better than Ian Book who is really good QB. Look at the stats and the way each played in horrific weather. Have you ever played QB in that kind of weather ? That right their was a heroic effort ... Shea is a competitor. Glad we have him.
October 27th, 2019 at 1:42 PM ^
Shea sold the run better than the other QBs IMO
October 27th, 2019 at 1:26 AM ^
The biggest thing was not putting the ball on the ground. Once they got out of their own way they have been rolling.
October 27th, 2019 at 11:50 AM ^
Excellent analysis. I noticed the same thing. Shea and pocket presence has not been something we’ve seen a lot of this year. Maybe it’s the offensive line, and he getting comfortable in the new system.
Also, Hassan Haskins, dude looking like a dude
October 26th, 2019 at 11:17 PM ^
Great game. Nothing to really complain about other than a few spot plays. I guess if anything it’d be the lack of that home run threat RB. Charbonnet and Haskins have been great though - just hoping for a Saquon like improvement in speed in the future (Saquon went from 4.66 in high school to 4.40 at the NFL combine). It’d be nice to have someone who doesn’t get caught. It didn’t matter today but it would help immensely in the future.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:20 PM ^
Homerun threat is Turner but he’s been benched for too many fumbles. Got a couple nice carries at the end so hopefully he can work his way back into the rotation.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:25 PM ^
True +1, been a little shaky in pass pro also. I don’t know how Charbonnet’s doing so well in that regard already, but I’m impressed.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:49 PM ^
Doesn’t Turner have 1 fumble like everyone else?
October 27th, 2019 at 2:58 AM ^
Yes, but his pass protection is quite bad.
October 26th, 2019 at 11:21 PM ^
I'd like to see Turner back in the rotation.