TCU Snowflakes: The Coaching

Hoooooooorible red zone play calling in a couple of cases.

1.  Initial trip to red zone.

1st and goal from the 9 goes like this: 
-- Edwards 3 yard run
-- False start, now 2nd and 11
-- Mullings 2 yard run
-- Michigan goes all pass, TCU shows blitz, does indeed blitz, gets a couple guys instantly into McCarthy's face, Michigan has no emergency-outlet pass (in case blitz gets through), McCarthy runs for his life and miraculously gets to the 2.

Now it is 4th and goal from the 2.  Dudes, it's the start of the game and you just had a series of fiascoes -- take the 3 points.  But no.  It's not even something higher probability, like a QB sneak.  Instead it's go for it with a goofy trick play of TE throwing to QB, which utterly fails.

2.  Trip to red zone after refs blew the call on Wilson's touchdown.  1st and goal -- from the 1 ft line.  You've got 4 plays to get 1 ft.  It's QB sneak time.

Remember when TCU blew it in their championship game, when they were goal to go on 1 yard line?  They could have done QB sneak, but instead had Duggan back off the line and hand it off, which got stuffed, and they lost.  Remember when everyone thought, "Man, that TCU OC -- what a moron"?

"Hold my beer," says whichever Michigan OC calls the red-zone plays.

TCU playing way better than its former best and Michigan playing not so great looks the same as dreadful preparation.

went to bed well after midnight and can’t sleep. Even after sleeping but a few hours I can’t believe how mad the coaching staff shit the bed against TCU. Feeling numb AF! 

For me, the most egregious coaching errors were the goal line calls that were obviously 'WTF were they thinking' ideas, and the clock management at the end of the game that put more pressure on the team.

But eliminate one of the pick sixes, or the goal line fumble, or the bad call and Michigan wins and we're all ecstatic.

The loss was a complete team effort. Sadly, OSU proved that Georgia would have been beatable.

There is no justice.

Harbaugh and his staff, for some reason stray from their strengths on the big stage.

* Red zone calls were deadly

* Blitz packages were exposed

* Team looked like they had no TCU        film prep for half the game.

Great opportunity squandered.

If a team like Michigan plays a 51-45 game then you know the game totally got away from the staff.

100% on the coaches. A lot of questions raised by such a loss, especially but not only the defensive side of things.

Has anyone said the staff was total shit yesterday? If not, let me be the first to say so! 

I was most put off by Minter sending outside blitzes and every single time TCU made a huge gain. They were, for the most part, keeping everything in front of them.

Same thing happened when they played OSU. He sent a safety blitz and Harrison Jr. scored his TD.

We've seen the FB/RB fumble into the end zone before. I know Edward's hand was in a cast, but him or JJ should've taken that one. It didn't look like a clean handoff to Mullings. 

And what happened with the OLine totally disregarding TCU's LB's? When you double team 3 DLinemen, you leave huge holes open and TCU LB's. 

I wish we could have nice things. 13-0 is great, 13-1 and not playing another game until September, is not so great.

Go Blue!

Attack the edges…it worked when they tried it 3x. I bet they regret not doing it more often. Hit PAP much earlier as the linebackers and safeties couldn’t cover as opposed to multiple short runs. The other stuff, fumbles, INTs is on player execution.

on D, thought minter got too aggressive and it hurt them a lot. The deep pass, long run, long pass and third TD all came against the blitz. I think that drive where Duggan just kept scrambling changed the game plan, and it worked in TCUs favor. They are a big play team and Minter played into their hands because he didn’t want the play making and scrambling to be an issue. 

Blaming the coaches for this performance is  a knee jerk reaction. Coaches didn’t throw two pick sixes or fumble the ball on the goal line. Thats 21 points of margin right there, and we get a comfortable win. The reality is that most teams don’t win when their QB throws two pick sixes. Even with those errors, the team was still put in a position to win the game at the end. The coaching was good enough to win, but the team made too many mistakes.