Spath report on offense: There is a disconnect on gameday
Link to full article
On the offense so far: "I saw enough in the spring and in fall practices to know that what they wanted to be and what they have been are two very different things. And it's incredibly concerning. I think a lot of our fears about 'control' are coming to fruition. All the offseason talk about this being Josh Gattis' offense has thus far been talk. Jim's fingerprints are all over this. There's no aggressiveness. Certainly no speed in space. This is a ball-control, heavy reliance on the running game, limit mistakes, win-with-defense approach. That's how they went into the Ohio State game last year, and we know how that turned out.
"They're doing it out of different formations, out of a shotgun, no-huddle, and with zone reads instead of power, but it's still a run-first, conservative mentality.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:36 PM ^
There is a lot of hate/disdain for Michigan out there. I read a lot of the r/CFB subreddit and the general sentiment seems to be "well if Army hadn't gotten a false start and thrown an INT, they'd probably go up 21-7".
This is generally agreed upon and seen as valid.
But if I say something like "if Michigan doesn't lose two fumbles within the Army 30 and/or the fumble recovery for a TD is confirmed by competent officials, Michigan is likely up 21-0 at half" and that's somehow making excuses / not agreed upon.
September 11th, 2019 at 2:26 PM ^
That's bc Michigan is probably the largest fanbase represented on r/CFB so it rankles everyone else.
September 11th, 2019 at 5:14 PM ^
Spath definitely pushes the negative agenda to a higher level than most. on the flip side the show that comes on before his is so Ultra positive so you think nothing's wrong. so for me personally it's a nice mix. Whether he has inside sources or not who knows. However I do like him having Devin and James Whitley on weekly to discuss the previous game both of those guys know their stuff.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:12 AM ^
i think there is a disconnect with shea and his offensive teammates, or so i'm told.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:31 AM ^
Ok, and you were told this by whom?
September 11th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
one off from a player, a guy i've known for years, knows football very well, and i trust him.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:46 AM ^
Do they like McCaffrey better?
September 11th, 2019 at 11:58 AM ^
Anything specific? And does it involve the injury and/or the lack of QB pulls in the run game?
September 11th, 2019 at 12:16 PM ^
Or too much golf this summer?
September 11th, 2019 at 12:19 PM ^
in answer to rock, mgrow, and andi, what i was told was that shea is missing classes and showing up late to football stuff, causing the offensive unit to bear the brunt of that heat. also am told they all like d-caff a bunch.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:26 PM ^
Harbaugh always seemed to be the type to bench a guy who wasn't pulling his weight off the field.
But maybe this explains why Shea wasn't named a captain.
September 11th, 2019 at 3:27 PM ^
People always read way too much into who gets named captain or not. Lots of guys who people liked and thought were good leaders never got named captain.
September 11th, 2019 at 10:44 PM ^
Bronxblue - You produce a lot of great content for the site and I enjoy reading your material throughout the season. I'm curious what your sports playing background is. Football? Another team sport?
September 12th, 2019 at 10:54 AM ^
That's true, sure. But for a senior QB at a school like Michigan to not be named captain, I think there's something to that. We castigated Connor Cook for it, and rightly so. It's something I'll be paying more attention to, for sure.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
Well this has taken a sudden turn for the worst ... all his teammates and coaches were singing his praises during camp. Maybe it's the pressure of being booed by the Michigan "faithful" on game day all while playing injured. When I heard that, I was like shit ... this isn't going to be good for team morale. And when Coach announced their will be a two QB approach this year kind of weaponized the boo-birds by planting the seed of doubt on Shea. Maybe he was already injured in fall camp and the first hit at MTSU just aggravated an already known issue ?
September 11th, 2019 at 12:53 PM ^
If true, that would certainly help to explain some of the chemistry issues and poor execution we've seen on offense the first couple games. Not good for the team overall when your senior starting QB is setting a poor example like that.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:12 PM ^
Is it like he just doesn’t want to play anymore? Or something less trivial like he’s acting up because Dylan is taking his snaps in practice?
September 11th, 2019 at 3:06 PM ^
that wasn't part of our conversation, but my guess is that its more along the lines of a minor diva-virus. hopefully curable if accurate.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:52 PM ^
So the answer is: a bye week to get all the kinks worked out of the offense, get Shea straightened out and healthy, and a huge road win and great performance by Shea vs Wisconsin... I'm certainly hoping so, Go Blue!
September 11th, 2019 at 11:15 AM ^
There is a disconnect between Spath and the Michigan football program. Dude knows as much as a random mlive poster these days.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Spath doesn’t know shit.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Hoooo-boy...
September 11th, 2019 at 11:26 AM ^
I used to listen to Spath on WTKA a year or two ago but stopped once I got too busy. From what I remember, he was very "reactionary" similar to what you would expect from our more "loud" posters that tend to come out hot and heavy during and after games like Army.
Is there reasons for raised eyebrows? Absolutely. But this is 100% a "hot take" reactionary statement based off personal insecurity on how a team you love is going to perform that you have 0% control over. You cannot at this point know what will likely happen to the offense with such a small sample space. And the fact that Army is in fact an "outlier" in that this is a type of team you will never face again, you absolutely cannot base that game as evidence of the future. This does not mean that things are going to be great at Wisconsin and going forward, but it also doesn't mean we need to try to make theoretical bold statements that go against what the staff has been preaching since the hiring of Gattis after these two games of installing a brand new offense. The wait and see approach makes more sense than risking stirring up a fan base over small-sample-sized speculation.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:29 AM ^
Click bait. I listened to his show on this topic and he is just trying to generate an audience.
Speed in space was not the only tenant of the Gattis power spread offense. Folks need to listen to the coaches and not the media. POWER means run the ball first. I think the team has developed the speed in space (2nd quarter of MTSU) but have not been able to fully develop the power run game (Army was a good test). They are going to do both - that is a tenant of this offensive philosophy. If folks thought we were changing over to that Lincoln Riley wide-open spread offense they were just not listening to Gattis. Like Alabama is the goal, not Oklahoma.
Follow Sam Webb and Isaiah Hole if you want insight into the reality of the program.
Edit - and this philosophy fits Michigan's culture. Rich Rod was a huge failure because that purely offensive-minded approach doesn't fit the program. Josh Gattis is an awesome fit. I love the hire and his mindset, adding more explosive plays to the offense. My only gripe is that I would like to see Ben Mason in short yardage packages at FB in the power-I for both murderface blocking and the dive. We will still need that against certain B1G teams.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
Gattis has said in several interviews that they are still going to be a power running team similar to what osu likes to do with spread principals, so if they though a power running game was a way to prevent us from fumbling the game away and keep the ball from army then I'm all for it.
I bitched and everyone else is as well, but if that fumble return td wasn't whistled dead and we didn't fumble at all then army puts up 7 points the entire game and we most likely win 24-7 or 31-7 and the narrative is how good our defense is and how strong our offense could be.
Instead we fumbled away 3-5 possessions in the first half and scored once.
If they can clean it up we should be fine the bigger question everyone seems to have is if we even are capable of cleaning it up.
September 11th, 2019 at 4:33 PM ^
Michigan scored on one-third of its posessions that did not end in fumbles. That is not an elite offense. That is not a top-20 offense. The fumbles absolutely mattered and changed the game and the subsequent narrative, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water; even when they weren't fumbling, they were not performing at anywhere near the level fans were hoping for.
FWIW, what I saw vs. Army was so confusing that I am unable to draw any conclusions from it whatsoever. Every theory I have heard to explain the playcalling and the execution on offense seems to be easily refuted using pretty simple logic. Therefore, I am not concluding that Shea is awful, or that Gattis is a failure, or that Harbaugh is interfering with the play calls; I'm not concluding anything at all, and leaving it as an unexplained mystery at this point. As the season goes on, it might make sense in hindsight; or maybe I'll never hit upon an explanation that I believe.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
Hole’s article with quotes from Tarik Black is positive, so the board probably won’t like that.
But Tarik says “you’ll see—this offense is gonna be crazy”
September 11th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
I don’t understand, is Spath supposed to be a reporter or an analyst? He is unqualified to be a analyst but this entire piece has zero reporting and is 100% his opinion based on....well, I’m not sure.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:41 AM ^
Spath may not have inside info, but what we've seen on game day is not speed in space.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:42 AM ^
It's not clear that there's any real sourcing to this, but the speculation is real, and there's good reason for it.
At some point the micro-analysis can cause one to lose the forrest for the trees. Sure, Michigan's late drive where they ran every play needed to bleed clock. Sure there are injuries at tackle.
But we've had Harbaugh for five years. The benefit of the doubt is gone.
It's starting to get difficult to conclude anything other than Harbaugh is the issue here.
It's not that he's not the QB whisperer we thought he was. I think the issue may (MAY. All of this is only theorized and I could be way wrong) be that Harbaugh THINKS he's a QB whisperer and he is actively thwarting his players.
Think about it: Shea is banged up, misses a couple of throws, gives up a couple of fumbles. Harbaugh decides that his QB has the yips and needs to be protected. Result: Very conservative turn in the gameplan... and when the QB finally does get a chance to let lose, he presses, and now he DOES have the yips.
That sounds like a plausible explanation for last Saturday to me. Has this happened before?
Wilton Speight wasn't great, but he was pretty good for most of 2016. Michigan came out firing downfield in 2017, too. They were throwing the ball everywhere against Florida, and then... two pick sixes.
And then Speight didn't have it. He refused to throw into the endzone, and was missing wide open passes. He got the yips. Sound familiar?
John O'Korn kept being spoken of with promise, and it never turned out well. What was John O'Korn's best game at Michigan?
Purdue, of course. When he wasn't the starter and wasn't expected to play. No pressure. No excess involvement from Harbaugh. He came on the field relaxed, knew what he needed to do, and tossed dimes all over the field.
Later on he couldn't get it done. He regressed. And we wound up putting in Peters, who the coaches (or just Harbaugh) didn't think was ready, and (importantly) did not treat as if he was ready.
What if this is Harbaugh, self-purported QB whisperer, micro-managing his QBs, sending directives to the playcallers based upon his "feeling" about the guy under center, loading up pressure on them as they realize that a bad drive or two could result in the gameplan being scrapped midway through the first half?
It's not a sure thing. But it's possible.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:57 AM ^
Well FWIW Spath basically echos what I've been saying here since the game on Saturday ended, much to the chagrin of most of my fellow posters.
That's a very interesting QB observation Stephen. VERY interesting (and yes, possible).
September 11th, 2019 at 12:23 PM ^
You are going to some lengths to construct an over-long narrative which could be summed up by saying you're not a fan of Jim Harbaugh.
Also Speight was injured and more than once. He was never the same after the Iowa injury. Why is this so much harder to accept than a detailed analysis of some squishy concepts that rely on phrases that are vague to begin with? What does it even mean to say that someone is or isn't a "QB whisperer?" It's a phrase used to give praise, or in your case, to then demean, but it doesn't mean anything concrete to begin with.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:43 PM ^
False premise, since I am generally a fan of Harbaugh who has and will defend him.
I’m not looking to construct a narrative. I’m distilling some data points. I am open to the possibility that Saturday’s failure was the result of an oblique injury and a couple of non-repeatable bad things happening at once.
But it’s also possible that the reason Michigan’s offense hasn’t reached its potential, and in 3.5 years it almost never has, is because the man up front is the problem.
There is simply no excuse for this offense with this talent and this level of tactical parity not to be a top ten offense in college football. No excuse at all. Recorded above is one possible theory that could help explain why, thus far, the potential of this team has not been reached.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:56 PM ^
I'm curious about whether the same sort of reasoning would have condemned the PSU offense in the first few games of Moorhead's time as OC.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:11 PM ^
It’s possible that Michigan will undergo such improvement. It’s also possible that Michigan will continue to scrap its incentive gameplans mid game because of “reasons” and we’ll rarely see the offense running at full throttle.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:28 PM ^
I fall under this impression too. I hope like hell we rack up 500 yards of offense and light up the scoreboard...but something isn’t right and just seems off. You have weapons use them, our offense was the epitome of 3 yards and a cloud of dust in the 2nd half.
September 12th, 2019 at 12:06 PM ^
Absolutely. My biggest issue and I think it is all about coaching is that we make things so incredibly difficult, when there are 3 or 4 easier better options. Teams play 10 yards off our wr, do we see quick throws to pick up a quick 5 to 6 yards, no, we try the same telegraphed run plays. We rarely ever take what the d gives us and it drives me up the wall. It’s always excuse after excuse or the coaches try to blow smoke up our collective asses, when we see the myriad of issues that aren’t being addressed. We hear all the time about saving stuff for later in the year and some innovative new designs or counters, but when we play the big boys, we revert to the played out stuff. I was expecting and still hold out hope that this will blossom into a great offense, my heart tells me it’s happening but my head isn’t as confident
September 11th, 2019 at 12:40 PM ^
Nice summary...sort have had this general impression as well that JH is in his QBs heads to not make mistakes to the point of paralysis. They don't want to lose their starter job and mistake free ball is pushed so hard to the point QBs second guess themselves. Again, just a lingering suspicion I've had for a while now.
September 11th, 2019 at 4:53 PM ^
This is a great summary of my analysis of what's going on with these QBs. Happy feet, ball-patting, double- and triple-clutching the ball, and bugging out of the pocket early are all symptoms of too much pressure. Upvote.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:44 PM ^
Edit I'm an idiot, just skimmed the post but yea I agree about JOK, his best game was the one that he didn't start.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:48 PM ^
I see your point but I'm more inclined to believe it to be true for Wilton and John O'Korn but not for Shea. Shea had open receivers all game long, not just at the end or the beginning of the Army game. Same thing for the MTSU game. He just didn't pull the trigger. Either his injury is bad enough that it is in his head or he is and always will be indecisive like he was all of last year. I'm super close to wishing Dylan was the starter instead of Shea. I'm not there yet but if Shea has another bad game I'm all in on Dylan for the rest of the season.
September 11th, 2019 at 1:59 PM ^
Once again, Stephen demonstrates his genius-thanks man. Excellent observations and such a great take in so many ways. Assessing and instructing a QB is likely the most difficult of all coaching tasks-for many reasons. I am a big Harbaugh fan but nobody is perfect. Coach seems to believe he can will his QB to confidence and good play from the sideline-the player has to make it happen. Here JH gives me great pause...for exactly this, offered, listing of events...and the issue is compounded by his refusal to grant a fair chance to others competing for said playing time.
September 11th, 2019 at 4:29 PM ^
You forgot Jake Rudock...he didn't seem to have a problem with Harbaugh. He improved across the board going from Iowa to UM....and not to even mention Speight's injury or how he regressed when he was at UCLA ( 6 TD and 6 Interceptions). O'Korn..come on man...you think he 'regressed' from his ONE data point of a decent game?
None of the QB's or anyone else on the team seems to be 'tight' or nervous when they are in games or in front of the cameras. If anything you could argue that Shea has been the opposite of tight when you consider the way he's been turning the ball over. Even with his mistakes and purported injury Harbaugh hasn't give a hint that his job was in jeopardy. He's generally let guys play through their mistakes even when many fans have clamoured for the back up.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
All I know is we need Zach for the meat of our B1G schedule. A loss at Wisconsin doesn't kill our CFP hopes, and I want a B1G title. Spread out our 4* receivers, throw the ball to them, and cut Zach's carries in half until we get into division play. We need to get this offense rolling before Iowa comes to town.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:48 AM ^
Wow, this place sure gets touchy when people say anything bad about our team huh?
I mean, when Brian charted Middle Tennessee, he gave Shea an all-time record neg count in the running game. Army will probably be similar. SOMETHING not right is going on. I can't tell you what.
Spath's entire piece is quotes from sources. He's not making stuff up. So you can question the validity of his sources for sure, but this isn't his hot take--he is quoting other people whose opinion he values. Are they former players? Other media people? Who knows--they clearly don't want their name attached to the criticism.
I don't know what exactly is wrong, but something clearly is.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:25 PM ^
She was injured on the first play of the first game. We unfortunately had a good view of the hit that he took.
September 11th, 2019 at 12:25 PM ^
I've been very critical and skeptical of this offensive staff since Saturday.
People are touchy because it's Spath and he's garbage. He's a Skip Bayless equivalent. I haven't and won't click that link because I already know it's horseshit. I don't care what it says or whose opinion it supports.
September 11th, 2019 at 11:51 AM ^
eyeroll.gif
September 11th, 2019 at 11:51 AM ^
WD, I appreciate you and what you do for the board. But this is bullshit and you should feel bad for posting it.