Rutgers Snowflakes: The Coaching

We saw who McNamara really is today. He won’t get in the way when things are going well, but he can’t put a struggling team on his shoulders. We’ve also seen, before today, that McCarthy is far more talented. McCarthy is dynamic. McCarthy is a playmaker. Ultimately, it’s pretty simple. In today’s college football world, one of these guys is going to be the QB and the other is going to transfer. There’s no way McCarthy is going to sit behind McNamara for two years. Either he becomes the starter or Michigan will lose him. After today, there’s no reason not to make the switch now.

We won but we will never compete for a BIG championship playing this way.  We are timid and not assertive. We try to avoid losing rather than playing to win.  Right off of the personal foul call we should have gone for the dagger to the heart.  At least attempt to throw to the end zone.  Yet again, before the missed FG we could have sealed the game by attempting to throw for the 1st down and ending it right there.  Instead we are trying to steal the game.  This right here is why this regime will always be a bridesmaid.  It is not the talent level, it is the mentality.

The Coaching: I give Rutgers' staff a lot of credit. They took away the run between the tackles knowing how stubborn Harbaugh is, and they put the game in Cade McNamara's hands. On offense they utilized the legs of their quarterback and played to win the game. Bravo.

Well I have solidly been on the keep this staff. I can’t say I am going to keep backing them after that second half. That was very bad. Defense wins the game again when they are supposed to be on a learning curve. Fire Harbaugh and promote either Hart or Weiss to head coach. Heck promote MacDonald or Clinkscale for all I care. I don’t think this whole staff is bad. In fact, the supporting staff seems extremely good. This is solely on Harbaugh. Nobody knows if it’s also a Gattis deal or not, but clearly a Harbaugh problem. I honestly think if you promote someone on the staff and keep the core together you could have a great team with the recruiting acumen and coaching of the guys Michigan has. Just need to run a modern offense and keep building Macdonald’s defense. 

I fear we just watched the MSU game. Minus the winning part. Minus the first half part.

JH turtles better than most coaches …

Flat out confused by the 2H play-calling on O. The edges were open and no deep balls, let’s keep running the fake read-option until it’s an obvious play.

Coaching good when team plays good, coaching bad when team looks bad. 

If the first three games mean little, then this game means little.  Key is to get better and play better.  We’ll see how we play on the road at Wisconsin next week.  We had a very rough 2nd half, but a W is a W.  Plenty of room for improvement and learning.

They needed a change but Don Brown would've annihilated that Rutgers gameplan.

We outplayed Rutgers in first half.  They outplayed us in the second half until the last 8 minutes.  Felt like Rutgers had better half time adjustments and pep talk.  Sorry to say it also felt like Schiano, who is a good coach imho, might have outcoached our side today, though I give our defense a lot of credit for being clutch when tired late in second half.  Still, 4 & 0 and 1 & 0 means something and agree it is important to see if and how we improve next week. 

Mc Donald held his guys together. Gattis lost it. How does the offense swing 180 deg from one half to another? That better change next week.

Given Harbaugh's record in road games against ranked teams, how does this team not lose at least 3 or 4 games?

Most will blame Gattis 

Because they lie and refuse to blame Harbaugh

They're like Trumpers

Harbaugh is puke

A mixed bag.

It was disappointing to see there didn't seem to be a countermove when the 'let's carry for 7 yards a pop and shred' offense shriveled up and died. There was also the poorly executed sequence at the end of the half. On the flip side, early in the game, I saw tempo on short yardage executed better than it ever has been under Harbaugh.

The defense gets a pass this week, imo, after losing their captain before halftime. The soft coverage on the outside let Rutger get 2nd and 2 way too often, but there were also some TFLs and decent coverage to offset that. Tackling wasn't super crisp either, but not sure that's on the coaching.

A big smelly turd.  From the clock mismanagement at end the first half to the very end.  Pathetic.

You can’t run up the gut against a stacked front.  Almost everyone knows that-the problem is that few that don’t seem to work in Ann Arbor.  It worked against Washington because of the defense they played;  it didn’t work against Rutgers because of how they schemed.

If you’re afraid to throw and don’t have any perimeter running game who do you plan on beating?  All this talk about OSU being vulnerable is misplaced.  This was as close to a train wreck as we could be without actually losing.

You can’t run up the gut against a stacked front.  Almost everyone knows that-the problem is that few that don’t seem to work in Ann Arbor.  It worked against Washington because of the defense they played;  it didn’t work against Rutgers because of how they schemed.

If you’re afraid to throw and don’t have any perimeter running game who do you plan on beating?  All this talk about OSU being vulnerable is misplaced.  This was as close to a train wreck as we could be without actually losing.

If they do not radically rethink the stubborn running into stacked boxes, Michigan will lose at least six games. 

Responding to Rutgers' all-day stacked box D with passes over the middle and edge running would have produced a 30 point win margin.  But Jim cares about a particular style of football more than adjusting and taking easy yardage when the opponent decides to sell out to stop the between the tackles running game.

We are in year seven.  None of this is new.   His stubborn commitment to a particular style of offense, sticking to it no matter the game situation, what the opponent D is doing, etc., will weigh Michigan down until he is fired or leaves on his own.  

Rutgers looked at what Michigan was doing on D, adjusted, and called plays accordingly.  Not that hard to do.  But Jim never will.

At least we know Harbaugh is still Harbaugh. Set this team up to blow this game, but somehow came up with a turnover. The fantasy is over. 

Michigan had 5 drives in the 2nd half before the kneel downs.

On 1st down, 3 runs, 2 passes.

The 12 plays before the drive that got them into FG range, 6 runs, 6 passes.

The problem wasn’t them turtling or playing not to lose

Gattis calls the plays. Saying harbaugh stuck with the run is innaccurate. Gattis did not call an end around or outside runs. That’s his job. 

He isn’t a good coordinator. 

First half seemed just fine, and the clock stuff end of half seemed more like some analyst told them to take a TO and do the field goal as it was better to take sure points than try to squeeze 4 second pass play in with 5 seconds left with hopes of a FG if it didn’t work out. 
 

Second half, I think Cade had the yips and put them way off schedule in both TOP and field position (obviously points too). A handful of open passes were totally missed by Cade, as if all his confidence went out the door after his missed TD pass first half. However, when it was clear Cade was off, they should have tried outside runs with Corum and some sweeps and reverses to Henning to move the offense instead of just trying to go up the middle. Disappointing as I think that was probably there for the taking.  
 

Defensively, not having your field general LB probably didn’t help as that’s usually the guy making the call on the field for the D, probably one reason they got gashed by the option so much, Macdonald needs to get that corrected and fast. However, he must have given a good speech those last couple series with a couple big stops and a turnover. 
 

With Schiano, Rutgers will be one of those teams for the foreseeable future. 
 

Also, while this team certainly got exposed in a couple ways the second half, they still won, they looked very well in control the first half as they should, and I don’t believe they are actually as bad as we looked in the 2nd half. Bad juju with Cade’s awful yips and missing your 5th year captain MLB who calls the defense on the field. 

Better be a super focused week of practice to gear up for Wisconsin, still a very winnable game.