Space Coyote on Routes, QB and WRs

Good life advice in general. Not everything is absolute. 

Didn't say anything much specific. Just trying to steer things into a civil dialogue.

He is the best poster. Or the worst. One of the two. 

Good points here, by one of the best commenters I've run across on MGoBlog.

I agree with JMo in that our passing game is fundamentally low risk, befitting our coach. Deep shots (on which I think JJ is most certainly coached to throw long), sideline routes, out routes, and then safe throws and checkdowns. Not a great deal in the middle of the field, especially longer than 10 yards. We had the "hole shot" throw against Iowa, the intermediate in-breaker to Bell against MSU, the first throw of the one game to Bell, and maybe a couple others, and that's basically it for the conference schedule.

But with our running game? That might just get us a win this year in Columbus. And that would be a great thing. Michigan running the ball in 2022 is a thing of beauty. It could be the best Michigan rush offense I've ever seen, or at least up there with Biakabutuka et al.

No doubt people speak in extremes, but IMO I haven't really seen many (any?) saying JJ is "the worst" or that the WRs are "the worst."

Both have underachieved from our preseason expectations. We want to know why.

I think the practice time point is the most salient. There's only so much you can rep enough to get good at. Think: how many teams can pound the rock and have an excellent drop back passing game? It's very, very rare and when you can find them, you'll likely find experienced players with an NFL future all over the offense.

To my untrained eye things just seemed different last season. Michigan obviously ran the ball a lot but there seemed to be a better mix in the play calling and there were times when receivers were wide open for big plays. This season reminds me more of 2018 with the “body blows.” This is definitely a different team overall and there is no Don Brown, but the offense this season reminds me of a service academy. Long drives that drain the clock and make each possession more important. Works great if you are ahead or within one score. Just hope the OSU game doesn’t turn into a track meet. 

Repping the run game to the extent we do has opportunity costs that limit the creativeness of our passing game. Like if your wide receivers blocking are a part of the run game that makes it really hard to stack wide receivers without tipping pass.

So you combine a very vanilla passing game with a set of receivers who are solid but very clearly not elite or stars and aren’t generally just going to win one on one consistently and this is what you get. 

Good stuff. I'd just offer the obvious take that when you only throw certain routes to certain guys,  it makes it easier to scheme for them, even with lesser guys.

For example, if I almost only throw 9s to a "fast guy" then guess what? When he's in the game they'll probably be playing off, and/or will have safety help. Also, we're really doing Henning a disservice with the lack of creativity in playcalling and design. He requires almost a special package to maximize his abilities and no that's not asking too much. It's their damn job. 

Also, why are we allergic to simple drag routes (to our best athletes) with a whip counter? Like 2016 OSU infamously did to us. Bubbles? Empty sets with rubs and the like? Double slants? These are other ways you can get behind the defense because youre putting the safeties in conflict. Especially since we already overuse the TE. They're also easy passes for a young QB.  Just because someone is fast doesn't mean they can only catch bombs. Or even that it's their best route. 

Running the rock isnt the only way to put safeties, and even corners in conflict.  Part of the reason no one's emerging is our utter lack of creativity in play calling in the passing game. It's easy to scheme for, while our run game is basically impossible to scheme for. Unless you're a loaded SEC team. 

I really dig that Harbs has this thing rolling like we thought he would, but imo to get to that next level, he's going to have to have plays and packages for those games when we're not simply the better team, ie. Georgia where we were (are?) 100% physically outmatched. Bludgeonball probably won't work then. 

We can get away with it in the B1G, but we are not very good at getting our WRs open and the ball in their hands despite having multiple studs there. Am i clear on that part? 😅😅Hopefully that changes next year after Blake leaves or this could become a "thing." 

We are all people.  As such, we tend to simplify others and their actions to fit the patterns of behaviors and outcomes we expect.  I believe that's the underlying point the Coyote is making, that, and the notion that the coaching staff could look at using simpler routes and throws for the offense.  

As an aside, I wonder if the Space Coyote talks to himself in the voice of Johnny Cash when he's composing internet stuff.

None of this changes the fact the passing game is a problem 

Devin Gardner says there are simple additions/wrinkles to the routes they are running much like Space Cayotes suggests that will be available for the OSU game.

This blog has pointed out in the past, 1997, that Harbaugh does make adjustments to the passing game for OSU but just not the pepcat (probably because Peppers does not have the touch required to make the required pass.)

I will leave it to the route experts to help me out, but I can hope. 

One thing that’s easy to miss if you only watch ESPN highlights at half time: lots of college QBs miss lots of deep shots, and often by a lot. Even really good ones (5 star Quinn Ewers was sailing everything over Xavier Worthy in a game I watched). So I think our fan-brain threshold for “good” is warped by the highlight reel effect. 

Now that said the Michigan deep passing game has not been statistically “good” - it’s below average. But it’s a small sample size thing, especially for a team that like to grind out long possessions and limit opponent touches like Michigan. And also an issue of small errors - JJ isn’t missing by much, sometimes receivers make a slightly bad adjustment, etc. So the difference between a good deep passing game and what we have is really just a handful of completed throws, maybe one or two per game. It may not be something that needs wholesale rework, just a little calibration and extra practice time.

I still think it is a harbaugh product offense. We threw deep well with rich rod, we did with Hoke, and it has stopped with Harbaugh.

I'm not sure what his Stanford teams did as fat as throwing deep. 

Look I don’t want to beat a dead horse but Shea just didn’t play well in 2019 or even to the “perfectly fine” level. A perfectly fine QB beats Alabama in that bowl game sorry.