Penn State Snowflakes: The Coaching
November 13th, 2021 at 3:40 PM ^
Defense was outstanding. The offensive play calling is unforgivable in my opinion. What makes it so bad is you can see how close this team. We may never have a back and a pair of defensive end/linebackers like this again in my life. With a little imagination we could push OSU, but we were lucky to get this one today.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:58 PM ^
Definitely. That call on the All TD was unforgivable.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:04 PM ^
It was a crossing route they blew the coverage on. Without that one play this blog would be screaming for everyone to be fired. It would be nice if we played to win instead of playing to not lose.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:51 PM ^
And it worked. If Harbaugh had called a RPS+6 play that the players muffed because Penn State made a great play, would you be crediting Harbaugh for a clever play that didn’t work or would you be calling for his head? I’m guessing the latter.
We didn’t win the game by three TDs but we made enough plays to get the W, and that’s what you’re judged on at the end of the day.
November 13th, 2021 at 5:38 PM ^
They were driving the ball, I think this statement was getting out in front of your skis a bit.
November 14th, 2021 at 12:28 PM ^
Completely!!! Fire em ALL!!! Pun intended.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
This comment captures it for me 100%. Great to get a huge win, especially on the road.
That play that got the winning TD was a well-designed pass play that schemed All open for a huge gain and TD.
But...we still see far too few such plays. The offensive scheme, approach, play-calling...it is good, but not great. This offense could be much harder for opponents to handle than it is right now.
The play calling when pinned down at the 1 was bad. The sequence opened the door to Penn State's comeback.
In general the Harbaugh offense is not hard for opposing DCs to get ready for.
Just watching Purdue v. OSU, and Purdue just ran a brillianly designed pass route combo that got them a TD. They scored with intelligence against a far more talented team. When will we see intelligent play design like that in the Michigan offense? The All TD play was exactly that. But that sort of thing is really rare for Michigan.
D played well.
Even though I am critical of the Harb-offense, overall he is a very good head coach. He did not get to 9-1 this year by being terrible. He does many parts of the job well.
But...the offensive approach--overly conservative, too few intelligently schemed plays, predictable, fails to stretch the field horizontally and vertically, etc.--is the thing that will keep him from being elite, getting to the playoff, etc.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:48 PM ^
I feel like they work really hard on offensive blocking strategies to move folks around to create mismatches when running. Maybe long-term that can get us certain recruits on the offensive line who will appreciate those strategies.
The problem is that defenses still have a pretty good idea on nitty-gritty downs if we will run or pass. The running calls are better than last year in my opinion, but I just wish there were more real/fake-sweeps or side-to-side motions and interesting wide receiver formations.
There was the screen play that worked on 3rd and long...I wasn't able to watch the second half but I hope they were able to try that again (and not just on a 3rd and long). I feel like when a play works, bring it back, or provide a slight wrinkle on the last 1/3 of the WR's route so the cornerback and safety thinks it is the same route from what worked before, but then fooled last second.
Overall agree with your assessment. We are barely surviving and were bailed out on the All TD with bad coverage. So many of these games it seems like we could be blowing out the opponent, but aren't, seemingly happy to believe that our defense can make every stop and that the offense doesn't need to score too much...I feel like it is an arrogant "grind them down and see" approach.
I highly appreciate the general lack of turnovers this year, though. They occur, but seems clear that holding onto the ball is well-taught. Causing turnovers though...we are middle of the pack of high echelon teams.
November 14th, 2021 at 3:43 AM ^
Your point on the turnovers is valid, but remember that PSU fell on every strip sack today, something like 3 of which were their own fumbles. That's just bad luck.
I agree that it would be nice if they snagged more interceptions. They were close on a few but missed them all.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
The coaching has some problems for sure, but credit the players for not quitting and the coaches putting them in good enough position to eke out a win at the end.
That being said, this kind of shitshow is why Michigan loses so many games they shouldn't and can't beat OSU. That game is going to be a slaughter
November 13th, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
Really damn good.
Go Blue.
Onward.
FYS
Beat the Buckeyes!
November 13th, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
Franklin sucks! HAHAHA!
November 13th, 2021 at 3:52 PM ^
That could explain his notebook filled with dick drawings.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:41 PM ^
Harbaugh was so pumped at the end of the game. Love seeing coach like that.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:42 PM ^
Harbaugh was so pumped at the end of the game. Love seeing coach like that.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:42 PM ^
Well coached. Take away the 3 false start drive killers and I think we win by 14. They had PSUs fake FG sniffed out and #14 messed up.
PSU converted a lot of 3rd and longs and several 4th downs. And still only scored 17. And we gave them 3 on a sack fumble.
Conservative? Maybe. It’s a road win against a ranked team nonetheless. Ask OU how important that is today?
November 13th, 2021 at 3:43 PM ^
Please see above!
November 13th, 2021 at 3:44 PM ^
Good enough. They won. Some stuff worked well, some not so much, but that’s football against a good defense.
Macdonald occasionally got some bad personnel groups but he didn’t get caught subbing during tempo, which was an obvious adjustment but good to see them making it.
No idea how much of this is the staff and how much is leadership from guys like Aidan, but a lot of Michigan teams would have collapsed with the one-two punches we took on offense and defense in the fourth. And this team, again, got right back up and won the game. Definitely a different locker room than recent seasons.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:58 PM ^
I caught the referee standing between Cade and Vastardis to prevent (??) a snap! Quite often. Do not recall whether they did that with PSU. Any idea why? Or is it new?
November 13th, 2021 at 4:06 PM ^
UM made subs so they have to give PSU the chance to do the same.
November 14th, 2021 at 2:04 AM ^
Figured something along that line. Thanks.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:08 PM ^
Wasn't that Michigan made an offensive substitution, so the ref doesn't let the ball be ready to snap until Penn State gets its defensive substitution?
November 13th, 2021 at 4:16 PM ^
It’s to allow the defense to sub after the offense subs. I saw them do that to PSU also.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:05 PM ^
Actually, I thought he was totally caught on PSU's second drive, when I didn't see either Hutch or Ojabo out there for many, many plays. PSU saw that too and kept running tempo. I was hoping Michigan would call a timeout.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:52 PM ^
Yes, so, against MSU he got those personnel groups and responded by trying to sub guys while MSU was going tempo. You may recall some criticism about that. This time he did not try to sub against tempo, and as a result Michigan was not totally caught out.
And while it wasn’t a great drive, PSU did not score a TD.
So this was the response everyone wanted.
November 13th, 2021 at 5:07 PM ^
I mean, getting illegal substitution penalties is worse, but getting your two best DL by a country mile stuck on the bench while the opponent marches into scoring range is also bad.
It's really not clear to me that the gamble is worth it - Penn State could move the ball when Ojabo/Hutch were on the bench, and couldn't when they were on the field. Doing anything other than the latter is a head scratcher.
November 13th, 2021 at 5:53 PM ^
What you’re calling for, then, is for the staff never to rotate players. I’m not a professional here but I’m going to guess that there would be concerns about how they’d hold up for four quarters if that were the strategy.
If you’re going to play rotation guys occasionally there will be times where a successful play permits tempo to keep those guys (which are usually DTs) on the field.
November 13th, 2021 at 7:31 PM ^
"What you’re calling for, then, is for the staff never to rotate players."
No - he's calling for coaches to use timeouts to rotate your best players back on when they get caught off field and the other team is running tempo to keep it that way.
November 13th, 2021 at 8:24 PM ^
You get three time outs a half. That strategy would be, frankly, ludicrous. And then, what do you do when you’re out of time outs and they tempo you? What do you do when you need time outs late in a half?
November 14th, 2021 at 3:54 AM ^
This problem doesn't come up as often as you probably think it does. The second D Line guys are out there on purpose, and often things work out fine. But the very best use of a first half timeout is when you see your second D Line trapped on the field and getting worked, like in PSU's second drive. A regular timeout or just an on-field breather by any d lineman is the thing to do there.
November 13th, 2021 at 8:28 PM ^
And then people would bitch about blowing a timeout.
November 13th, 2021 at 10:32 PM ^
I’d avoid rotating both Hutchinson and Ojabo at the same time. Honestly either one tired plays better than their backups fresh. We do seem to rotate the DL more often than other teams, despite frankly having pretty meh depth.
Getting PSU off the field is another way to get your defense a breather, and H+O make that much more likely.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:44 PM ^
Good win despite the coaching. They could have put this game away and got cute with play calling. Its not a qb issue the coaches are hindering advancement. At least we won. But it should have been a walkway.
November 14th, 2021 at 12:06 PM ^
It would have been the first "walkway" against PSU this year. Am I to believe you think M is the best team in the country?
November 13th, 2021 at 3:45 PM ^
Maybe the McNamara fumble was a blessing in disguise, an inadvertent version of letting the other team score in order to get the ball back.
PSU got the ball near the goal, the defense held them to 3, and the offense came through.
But imagine if Michigan keeps the ball, it's 4th down, they kick, and Penn State has a few minutes to get in field goal range and run the clock down.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:04 PM ^
I was think the same thing.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:25 PM ^
If UM had to kick, the defense would have stopped PSU in time for the winning drive. Be a fan and celebrate the victory. Life is too short to dwell among the BPONErs.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
Great win!
November 13th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
Did not like offense play calling. Was not good and was predictable for much of the game. Glad we have a dude like Haskins.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:00 PM ^
Haskins and Corum are the reasons Michigan doesn’t have more losses.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:10 PM ^
Hmmm. Can't you say that about almost every team? "If you take away two of X teams best players they probably wouldn't win as much."
November 13th, 2021 at 4:17 PM ^
No because in the past we'd be running the same plays regardless of how good our RBs are. Good coaches try and utilize the talent around them to their advantage. Michigan continues to run the exact same thing every week, every year regardless of the talent around them. The difference this year is we have a good running game.
November 13th, 2021 at 4:24 PM ^
Ftown (autocorrect wants Clown): which of the 3 passing TDs are you referring to here as same old same old? Must be the laser to Wilson (what a catch over ducking ref’s head, btw) for second one when we’d seen how hard that 1.5 yards was proving to gain on the ground?
November 13th, 2021 at 10:13 PM ^
Do you think the run opened up the pass game? No it can't be!
November 13th, 2021 at 4:13 PM ^
Can’t this be said for almost every team. For example, Walker and Reed are the reason Sparty doesn’t have mor losses.
November 14th, 2021 at 6:09 AM ^
Now that's real expert analysis.
November 13th, 2021 at 5:59 PM ^
To be fair. It was seriously windy on the field today. Passing in that kind of wind, especially downfield, is a gamble when it’s really blowing. After watching this game I hope it’s blowing 40+ in Ann Arbor in 2 weeks. It would decimate ANY passing attack. Including Aaron Rogers & Tom Brady. On TV it’s impossible to get a real feel for the conditions but a classmate at the game was texting me saying it was a hurricane of garbage flying around. We did what we had to do in the conditions.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:46 PM ^
Michigan was out coached by Franklin.
The players gutted through in the 4th. Despite the coaching staff, not because of them.
November 13th, 2021 at 3:55 PM ^
What game were you watching? Franklin really botched that FG bluff in the 1st quarter that our guys snuffed out. If you're a Penn State fan, you'd disagree.
Why are some Michigan fans never happy? Michigan lost in Happy Valley the previous two visits there. Given what's on the line, this was a good win and Harbaugh had that one challenge got a key reversal on the punt.
Michigan is now 9 and 1, CELEBRATE!
November 13th, 2021 at 4:17 PM ^
Right. PSU isn't a terrible team and Michigan just beat them at home.