i think i'd rather michigan try to go for broke. osu has had some difficulty turning yards into tds.
we had 500 yards against nebraska, but only 26 points, because we settled for 4 fgs and threw two interceptions in nebraska territory. we had 600 (!) yards against oregon, but only 28 points, because we failed on 4th down three different times in oregon territory, ended the half running out of time at the oregon 18, and threw an interception in oregon territory. we had 466 yards against penn state, but only 26 offensive points because, again, we settled for 4 red zone fgs and a had red zone turnover on downs.
that's how you stop ohio state. you get to the red zone, even the numbers up, rely on the fact that qb run isn't a part of the offense, and hope for a rz stop.
if you're giving up 40 yard touchdowns trying to force turnovers, that plays into osu's hands, imo.
I don't really agree with this. for one, we really don't use tempo much. for two, we don't run a ton of crossing routes, because no one plays man on us. well, purdue tried, and that was a disaster. i mean, we still run them, for sure, but mesh concepts are no longer the bread and butter like you noted with barrett and haskins.
we run a lot more rpo than we ever have under day. and we throw more than we run. most of the passing offense is rpo, intermediate zone beaters, relief bubbles, and the occasional pa deep shot. stroud doesn't hold the ball long. the offense thrives in the 10-15 yard windows.
stroud is a lot different than fields and haskins. fields was a little slower to process stuff, and he'd hold the ball a ton, and took a lot of sacks. haskins was terrified of being hit, and would throw off platform under pressure a lot. stroud doesn't really get hit. he will throw it away, or make a dumb throw on the run into coverage long before he takes a sack. he also is not afraid like haskins was, and will definitely step up and throw despite getting crushed.
it's an interesting matchup, because osu's o-line weakness is in the interior, and michigan's d-line weakness is the interior too. i think michigan will need to find creative ways to get ojabo and hutchinson attacking an osu guard or center, otherwise, i expect a lot of stalemates at the tackles with stroud stepping up into a clean pocket. hutchinson and ojabo are great, but idk how often they stunt and amoeba rush the a-gaps. you guys would know that answer.
michigan should get their yards through the air. i'm skeptical you'll be able to run consistently, and i don't think cade is very good, but a lot of not very good qbs have moved the ball effectively through the air on us this season, so cade should be able to do the same. especially with his short game accuracy. michigan should be able to dink and dunk down the field if they stay on schedule. but if they get into the red zone and score 3s instead of 7s they are going to be in trouble. especially if they are draining their own clock to do so.
i'm just telling you, that's how they do it. they re-rank it each time. clean slate. idk if that part is dumb. i actually think that part is good. how often do we complain about poll inertia? they are trying to avoid that.
what is dumb, and is a total cash grab, is releasing rankings now. in week 8. just release an end of season cfp ranking before championship week. and then release the final ones after conference championship week.
the cfp rankings are re-done every week, and only take into account what happened so far. so there is no such thing as "dropping." they re-do the whole list. no one moves up or down. this is expressly stated in the cfp committee protocol. baylor and tcu had better resumes than osu after 11 weeks. they didn't after 12 weeks.
the big 12 boned itself by declaring them co-champs after saying all year that they were gonna crown "one true champion" based on the fact that all 10 teams played each other round robin style. once the big 12 saw tcu was ranked higher than baylor going into week 12--even though baylor beat tcu and was the rightful big 12 champ--the big 12 declared them co-champs so the committee could pick tcu as a conference champion. whoops!
i would disagree with that. 2002 krenzel averaged almost a full yard more per attempt (8.5 to 7.6) than 2021 mcnamera is at right now, and 2002 krenzel rushed for nearly 400 yards. halfway through 2021, mcnamera is sitting at -12 rushing yards.
I don’t think it’s smoke and mirrors. CJ Stroud has looked like a new QB since sitting the Akron game to get healthy and the defense has completed changed schemes, coaching, and personnel on the fly since the Tulsa game.
I do think OSU is winning the national championship, but I am also an idiot homer.
would you rather have osu's record v. michigan since 2000 or tom brady's nfl success for a team you don't even for over the same time period? this is a brain buster.
eh, it's not a red flag for me, a fan of osu having good players at osu. it should be a red flag for you, and you should ask yourself why the greatest qb of all time had to split reps in college with a freshman and his biggest accomplishment was winning an orange bowl. shouldn't the goat have won a heisman? he even lost to john cooper! who loses to john cooper?!
kordell started in the nfl at wr, and became a qb. and was a qb in college. not the other way around. the best college qb turned nfl wide receiver is probably hines ward.
it doesn't really matter who they played. they went from playing exclusively single high cover 1 and cover 3 to basing in two high cover 2 and cover 4. like they literally don't play the same defensive scheme anymore. they rotate in cover 1 and cover 3 post snap. it's completely different than all of 2019, 2020 and the first 3 games of 2021.
wait, really? i though mccord looked clearly worse than stroud. mccord literally did what everyone accused haskins of, and that's have a 300 yard passing game with 250 of it in screens. every pass mccord completed was a jet handoff or a wide receiver screen, with the exception of the smith-njigba td, which was severely underthrown and required the wr to make a great catch.
granted, mccord was a true freshman playing in his first ever game, but stroud at least completes passes up the deep and intermediate sideline and in the mof. stroud's only drawbacks so far have been his complete inability to run (obviously a function of his shoulder issues and not wanting to be hit) and his inability to connect deep to olave and wilson, which is a major issue.
i mean, you just named less than half the starters as entrenched upperclassmen, and munford's role is on the chopping block. jones already bumped him to guard, and then munford got hurt and the guy who replaced him the last few weeks has been better (matt jones).
if munford doesn't start at rutgers, i wouldn't be surprised.
i guess i was proposing that the solution for michigan is to recruit better and let its athletes be athletes. if the concession is that will never happen, then yes, i guess you may as well try to be wisconsin on defense. which isn't a bad thing! it's just getting late early for harbaugh at michigan and can he afford to spin wheels on defense for a year while everyone gets on the same page and learns an entirely new defensive scheme? we'll see.
don brown's defense with ohio state's players would be unbelievable. wisconsin's defense with ohio state's players would be great too, but it would take a lot longer to get there, and is still susceptible to college kids making the wrong decision. there aren't a lot of wrong decisions to be made in don brown's scheme. just run.
the entire post was about michigan trying to run the baltimore ravens' complicated and unique amoeba defense. i just double checked and the baltimore ravens are, in fact, in the nfl.
doesn't complexity hinder development? early harbaugh offenses were very complicated and featured a ton of different formations and personnel groupings and were 25th in S&P in 2015 and 35th in 2016. i agree, that's "fine."
to your second point, yes, osu was not complicated at all in 2020 and got exposed because it didn't have players good enough to play cover 1 against alabama (or even, like against indiana). it had those players in 2019.
osu would prefer to have better players than to change schemes. day has said as much.
i read this and think of the same over-arching theme of the harbaugh era: michigan is too complicated and too nfl for its own good.
the only time michigan has ever been national championship caliber at anything under harbaugh was the brief period of time it ran a very simple defensive scheme with nfl talent and dominated. the talent well dried up after 2018 and michigan regressed on defense. ok. noted.
but what was u-m's solution to this problem? recruit better? no! somehow u-m decided to pivot and hire a bunch of inexperienced nfl guys to come in and teach some some extremely difficult nfl concepts to not very talented players on short notice. haven't they been doing that on offense (to better players!) for years with poor results? idk.
i'm a hater, granted, but i can't see a scenario where michigan's defense is anything other than a redux of its offense under harbaugh: way too complicated for the college game.
it's nice michigan tried to change up on offense and hire gattis, and maybe gattis isn't the right man for the job, but still. the idea is there. they did the opposite on defense.
No, not really. The main culprit was changing coordinators and having no practice time because of covid so they exclusively played 1 high cover 3 and had no (effective) cover 1 changeup like they had in 2019.
I do think OSU should be better this year because they will have a full camp and ample practice time to rep cover 1 more and practice more nickel with more 2 high looks so they aren't stuck in cover 3 all game.
yea, he's fast. very fast. definitely the guy you want to run straight. he just can't stop or turn. i think osu is committed to running wide zone as the base run play, and needs a rb like dobbins or sermon who can stretch the defense out before finding the cutback lane. teague ... can't. he left a ton of yards on the field agasn't alabama, and if sermon plays that game, we keep pace for a lot longer and definitely only lose by 2 tds.
in only a few carries against clemson, williams showed more ability to plant and cut and change direction than teague has in 2 years.
Recent Comments
it would awesome if michigan tried to jam a bunch of nfl wrs with marginal dbs
didn't ohio state beat nebraska by more than michigan did?
smith-njigba leads osu in receiving yards and catches, i think he's already broken out
this is hysterical
i think i'd rather michigan try to go for broke. osu has had some difficulty turning yards into tds.
we had 500 yards against nebraska, but only 26 points, because we settled for 4 fgs and threw two interceptions in nebraska territory. we had 600 (!) yards against oregon, but only 28 points, because we failed on 4th down three different times in oregon territory, ended the half running out of time at the oregon 18, and threw an interception in oregon territory. we had 466 yards against penn state, but only 26 offensive points because, again, we settled for 4 red zone fgs and a had red zone turnover on downs.
that's how you stop ohio state. you get to the red zone, even the numbers up, rely on the fact that qb run isn't a part of the offense, and hope for a rz stop.
if you're giving up 40 yard touchdowns trying to force turnovers, that plays into osu's hands, imo.
i didn't say stroud was "better," i said he was "different." isn't michigan the academic school? you can't read no so good?
I don't really agree with this. for one, we really don't use tempo much. for two, we don't run a ton of crossing routes, because no one plays man on us. well, purdue tried, and that was a disaster. i mean, we still run them, for sure, but mesh concepts are no longer the bread and butter like you noted with barrett and haskins.
we run a lot more rpo than we ever have under day. and we throw more than we run. most of the passing offense is rpo, intermediate zone beaters, relief bubbles, and the occasional pa deep shot. stroud doesn't hold the ball long. the offense thrives in the 10-15 yard windows.
didn't you already try that last year?
don't really care. he rocks in college. and you're going to have to play him twice.
stroud is a lot different than fields and haskins. fields was a little slower to process stuff, and he'd hold the ball a ton, and took a lot of sacks. haskins was terrified of being hit, and would throw off platform under pressure a lot. stroud doesn't really get hit. he will throw it away, or make a dumb throw on the run into coverage long before he takes a sack. he also is not afraid like haskins was, and will definitely step up and throw despite getting crushed.
it's an interesting matchup, because osu's o-line weakness is in the interior, and michigan's d-line weakness is the interior too. i think michigan will need to find creative ways to get ojabo and hutchinson attacking an osu guard or center, otherwise, i expect a lot of stalemates at the tackles with stroud stepping up into a clean pocket. hutchinson and ojabo are great, but idk how often they stunt and amoeba rush the a-gaps. you guys would know that answer.
probably your username
really, the entire point of my comment was the author saying that michigan was gonna beat osu this year.
it’s not as fun to beat you when you know you’re going to lose. it’s way more fun to end revenge tours or whatever.
some of us hope to win a national title and then suffer by losing in the playoff!
you cannot have true suffering without hope!
it feels like it's going to play out like the 2015 game.
…
this is obviously the path.
michigan should get their yards through the air. i'm skeptical you'll be able to run consistently, and i don't think cade is very good, but a lot of not very good qbs have moved the ball effectively through the air on us this season, so cade should be able to do the same. especially with his short game accuracy. michigan should be able to dink and dunk down the field if they stay on schedule. but if they get into the red zone and score 3s instead of 7s they are going to be in trouble. especially if they are draining their own clock to do so.
it's not unreasonable for michigan to win.
yea but since this started in 2014, osu is also 5-0 vs. wisconsin, it's just that 3 of those wins are in indy.
i'm just telling you, that's how they do it. they re-rank it each time. clean slate. idk if that part is dumb. i actually think that part is good. how often do we complain about poll inertia? they are trying to avoid that.
what is dumb, and is a total cash grab, is releasing rankings now. in week 8. just release an end of season cfp ranking before championship week. and then release the final ones after conference championship week.
the cfp rankings are re-done every week, and only take into account what happened so far. so there is no such thing as "dropping." they re-do the whole list. no one moves up or down. this is expressly stated in the cfp committee protocol. baylor and tcu had better resumes than osu after 11 weeks. they didn't after 12 weeks.
the big 12 boned itself by declaring them co-champs after saying all year that they were gonna crown "one true champion" based on the fact that all 10 teams played each other round robin style. once the big 12 saw tcu was ranked higher than baylor going into week 12--even though baylor beat tcu and was the rightful big 12 champ--the big 12 declared them co-champs so the committee could pick tcu as a conference champion. whoops!
i come here to drink the tears of michigan fans but this was a nice change of pace.
ok
there's an h! you're missing our h!
i would disagree with that. 2002 krenzel averaged almost a full yard more per attempt (8.5 to 7.6) than 2021 mcnamera is at right now, and 2002 krenzel rushed for nearly 400 yards. halfway through 2021, mcnamera is sitting at -12 rushing yards.
cincy actually dropped two in a row. also it was week 4. but yea.
is there an upside higher than national champion?
it's hysterical to think michigan has a better running game than osu
I don’t think it’s smoke and mirrors. CJ Stroud has looked like a new QB since sitting the Akron game to get healthy and the defense has completed changed schemes, coaching, and personnel on the fly since the Tulsa game.
I do think OSU is winning the national championship, but I am also an idiot homer.
would you rather have osu's record v. michigan since 2000 or tom brady's nfl success for a team you don't even for over the same time period? this is a brain buster.
eh, it's not a red flag for me, a fan of osu having good players at osu. it should be a red flag for you, and you should ask yourself why the greatest qb of all time had to split reps in college with a freshman and his biggest accomplishment was winning an orange bowl. shouldn't the goat have won a heisman? he even lost to john cooper! who loses to john cooper?!
kordell started in the nfl at wr, and became a qb. and was a qb in college. not the other way around. the best college qb turned nfl wide receiver is probably hines ward.
ouch, michigan swinging back where it hurts, total nfl qb starts since 2000.
was this a burn or
it doesn't really matter who they played. they went from playing exclusively single high cover 1 and cover 3 to basing in two high cover 2 and cover 4. like they literally don't play the same defensive scheme anymore. they rotate in cover 1 and cover 3 post snap. it's completely different than all of 2019, 2020 and the first 3 games of 2021.
most surprising is the fact that osu has completely re-made its defense in the last month.
good thing they didn't listen to you and benched stroud
wait, really? i though mccord looked clearly worse than stroud. mccord literally did what everyone accused haskins of, and that's have a 300 yard passing game with 250 of it in screens. every pass mccord completed was a jet handoff or a wide receiver screen, with the exception of the smith-njigba td, which was severely underthrown and required the wr to make a great catch.
granted, mccord was a true freshman playing in his first ever game, but stroud at least completes passes up the deep and intermediate sideline and in the mof. stroud's only drawbacks so far have been his complete inability to run (obviously a function of his shoulder issues and not wanting to be hit) and his inability to connect deep to olave and wilson, which is a major issue.
i mean, you just named less than half the starters as entrenched upperclassmen, and munford's role is on the chopping block. jones already bumped him to guard, and then munford got hurt and the guy who replaced him the last few weeks has been better (matt jones).
if munford doesn't start at rutgers, i wouldn't be surprised.
There is a definitely a culture war between the 2020 and 2021 classes and the duds from 2018 and 2019.
if osu is going anywhere this season, it will be by playing the kids.
it makes sense that he is injured since he refuses to scramble on broken plays and we are not running any qb keep read plays
in defense of dallas gant transferring, he sucked week 1, and hasn't played since. now why did he start week 1 ...
cuz it's jon not ja-hon
i guess i was proposing that the solution for michigan is to recruit better and let its athletes be athletes. if the concession is that will never happen, then yes, i guess you may as well try to be wisconsin on defense. which isn't a bad thing! it's just getting late early for harbaugh at michigan and can he afford to spin wheels on defense for a year while everyone gets on the same page and learns an entirely new defensive scheme? we'll see.
don brown's defense with ohio state's players would be unbelievable. wisconsin's defense with ohio state's players would be great too, but it would take a lot longer to get there, and is still susceptible to college kids making the wrong decision. there aren't a lot of wrong decisions to be made in don brown's scheme. just run.
the entire post was about michigan trying to run the baltimore ravens' complicated and unique amoeba defense. i just double checked and the baltimore ravens are, in fact, in the nfl.
doesn't complexity hinder development? early harbaugh offenses were very complicated and featured a ton of different formations and personnel groupings and were 25th in S&P in 2015 and 35th in 2016. i agree, that's "fine."
to your second point, yes, osu was not complicated at all in 2020 and got exposed because it didn't have players good enough to play cover 1 against alabama (or even, like against indiana). it had those players in 2019.
osu would prefer to have better players than to change schemes. day has said as much.
i read this and think of the same over-arching theme of the harbaugh era: michigan is too complicated and too nfl for its own good.
the only time michigan has ever been national championship caliber at anything under harbaugh was the brief period of time it ran a very simple defensive scheme with nfl talent and dominated. the talent well dried up after 2018 and michigan regressed on defense. ok. noted.
but what was u-m's solution to this problem? recruit better? no! somehow u-m decided to pivot and hire a bunch of inexperienced nfl guys to come in and teach some some extremely difficult nfl concepts to not very talented players on short notice. haven't they been doing that on offense (to better players!) for years with poor results? idk.
i'm a hater, granted, but i can't see a scenario where michigan's defense is anything other than a redux of its offense under harbaugh: way too complicated for the college game.
it's nice michigan tried to change up on offense and hire gattis, and maybe gattis isn't the right man for the job, but still. the idea is there. they did the opposite on defense.
No, not really. The main culprit was changing coordinators and having no practice time because of covid so they exclusively played 1 high cover 3 and had no (effective) cover 1 changeup like they had in 2019.
I do think OSU should be better this year because they will have a full camp and ample practice time to rep cover 1 more and practice more nickel with more 2 high looks so they aren't stuck in cover 3 all game.
yea, he's fast. very fast. definitely the guy you want to run straight. he just can't stop or turn. i think osu is committed to running wide zone as the base run play, and needs a rb like dobbins or sermon who can stretch the defense out before finding the cutback lane. teague ... can't. he left a ton of yards on the field agasn't alabama, and if sermon plays that game, we keep pace for a lot longer and definitely only lose by 2 tds.
in only a few carries against clemson, williams showed more ability to plant and cut and change direction than teague has in 2 years.
i think williams is going to start, and i'd be surprised if teague ends up with more carries than henderson when the season is over
oh my god new favorite comment alert. i should read the whole thread before i post this but still.
loved this one
julius peppers played both at unc