Worst Game Plan You've ever seen

specifically point out, but I am always amazed by the coaches that game plan to score fewer points than the opponent.  

Hoke versus any uptempo/spread offense/zone read was a joke (ND, OSU, Indiana, even 2014 RUTGERS). Gave up 47 and thankfully won because Indiana had a pitiful defense as well (UM scored in the 60s).

I remember him talking about practicing up-tempo all week before the game. During the game the entire defense looked GASSED.

The Bears vs. Colts in the Super Bowl.

Lovie Smith refuses to bring pressure on Manning even though he already threw a pick the one time they blitzed him early in the game.  Instead, Smith decides that its best to give Manning "the short stuff" and Indy goes on a 7-minute drive to put the game out of reach.

Terrible. 

This thread, to me, demonstrates how hard it is for laypeople like myself to tell what is a good gameplan and what is a bad gameplan. There are some obvious choices, like Brian Kelly throwing out of the shotgun a bunch of times in a hurricane. But it's hard to tell beyond that what events are a product of a poor gameplan and what are just the result of getting beaten. 

Did a team not throw long because their gameplan was bad, or because the defense was dropping an extra safety deep? Was a team's running game pitiful because the coach refused to step away from running the ball, or was the OL getting so owned that running for a yard or two was the only way to keep pressure off of the QB? Was a gameplan good because a team won by 20, or bad because it could have won by 38?

It's hard for us to tell, except for the really obvious mishaps. I have a pretty good memory for stuff like this and finding games where Michigan's gameplan was distinctly bad (as opposed to other problems, like a bad OL or an inaccurate QB or just a generally conservative philosophy) that stick on in memory. There's the trash tornado and the Devin/Denard game at OSU. On the positive side there's the occasional stroke of genius, like the defensive lockdown of Purdue in 2003. 

But that stuff is easy to pick out and there's not a lot of it. It's hard to evaluate this without expertise.

We had a young D-line, but in general, this was as I recall, the first complete defensive meltdown against a spread offense.  Northwestern got chunk play after chunk play and a lot of it on the ground.  Jim Hermann had no clue what to do.  Randy Walker looked like a genius.  Northwestern scored 18 points in the fourth quarter to win the game.  As the future would show, the coaching staff didn't learn any lessons from this hot mess.

Here are some of mine:

Bo (1987)  First game of the year vs Notre Dame.  The offense was so predictable.  We got pounded 25-7 at home.  It was awful.

Moeller (1993)  @MSU  lost 17-7 and with a running back of Ty Wheatley and QB Todd Collins this should have never happened.

Lloyd ( 2002) Iowa home game. The playcalling was awful, no rythmn, and they blasted us at home 34-9.  Terrible coaching in all facets.

Rich Rod (2010)  @Ohio St.  lost in embarrasing fashion.  The game plan was awful, the defense even worse, and special teams was a disaster.

Hoke (2013)  Nebraska home.  A winnable game with a Borges pro-style attack.  I lost count on how many times I watched Fitz Touissant ran for -1 yards on every play. Lost 17-13 and I officially put Hoke on the hot seat after that.

Carr: "What we discussed at the half we are still in the game at 3-3 was going earlier to our two-minute offense [shotgun formation, more open plays]," he said. "But we wanted to protect our defense, so we decided to stay with the plan."

Jacking up 3s   Is this limited to football? 

Jacking up 3s   Is this limited to football? 

Pretty much knew it too when Peppers comes in - it'll be a read option and he'll keep 9/10 times