Why the Peppers to Speight to Chesson play?

Submitted by MGoFoam on

Please forgive me if this has already been discussed. What do we think was the purpose of that play? Clearly, we didn't need a trick play to beat Maryland. That means our coach wanted that play on tape. Why? Was it to tell other coaches (Urbz and Saban) that their corner better not cheat in when Speight is out wide because he might still get the ball? Or was it to set up some other play?

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youn2948

November 7th, 2016 at 2:15 PM ^

Harbaugh plays video game football on the actual field.  While he's fine conservativing it up against an MSU or a tight game.  He likes to have fun, could it be a chess mastermind approach to screw with other coaches and setup tendancies, yes.

Could he just legitamitely enjoy fun football, yes.

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Alpaca

November 7th, 2016 at 2:22 PM ^

If I were to tell you that you had to prepare for 1 thing all week vs 100 things all week, which scenario do you think you will be most prepared for at the end of the week? More plays other team have to prepare for the less prepared they are overall for any single play.

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CoverZero

November 7th, 2016 at 2:26 PM ^

Why?  Because they can.

A play like that one does the following:

1) Practices a difficult play in a real time situation.

2) Lets skilled players do their thing and have some fun.

3) Sends a message to future opponents: "Have fun prepping for this too."

4) Sends a message to recruits at the game: "We win with style and fun."

5) Is fun for the fans too.

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PopeLando

November 7th, 2016 at 6:51 PM ^

Did you catch that Maryland had three game day analysts dedicated to deciphering which of the 20 most common personnel packages Michigan had on the field? That was pretty awesome. I really think that our coaches have discovered some kind of new system for rotating players or assigning players to a specific package of plays. I can't remember any team - including last year's Michigan - with as much offensive rotation as ours.

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MGB

November 7th, 2016 at 3:08 PM ^

The Russians hacked Harbaugh's playbook, and called the play to expose it before we could use it for the winning touchdown against Ohio State.

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Michifornia

November 7th, 2016 at 3:46 PM ^

NOT?  The thing I love about our offense is the diversity and vast number of weapons.  I like that we are trying some other things.  Hopefully we can keep ohio guessing.

GO BLUE!!

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cbs650

November 7th, 2016 at 4:33 PM ^

Peppers looked wide.open on the back side with blockers in front after the toss back to Speight. Maybe that's the progression if the deep ball is not there.

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Squash34

November 7th, 2016 at 4:57 PM ^

And handed off to peppers, who then throw back to speight. This makes the throwback easier, because if speight is lined up wide and sprints back 8 yards at the snap the def can react easier. But , yea, it's about slowly putting differant things on tape from he peppers package. I bet they add a few more things, possibly his first down field throw( I know one of his tds verse Rutgers was a throw he took off on). It's all about making them have to prepare more, and hopefully get them to just not stack the box when he is in. You don't have to worry about using up the trick plays verse a team we don't need to because the offensive staff put in wrinkles every week to attack the def they are playing. I'm sure they have several tricks for whatever style of def they play.

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tolmichfan

November 7th, 2016 at 5:14 PM ^

How I see it we can beat anyone on our schedule using our basic offense, but the players will get bored so they add new plays to keep practice fresh and to keep the players mentally getting better each week.



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LKLIII

November 7th, 2016 at 5:41 PM ^

I understand the theory that we just flood the scouting tapes with a bunch of plays that the opponent has to now prepare for. But am I missing something here? Instead of showing them what we COULD/CAN do, why not show them nothing and make them guess entirely? What's a harder test to study for? One that has 1,000 potential questions that you get to see ahead of time? Or one they has an unknown number of questions and you only get to see a small fraction ahead of time & need to speculate about the rest of them? I guess it helps to run plays in life game action to get used to them, but I still don't see how SHOWING opponents additional plays is better than NOT showing them.



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