Michigan State 27, Michigan 24
"Disconcerting signals," indeed.
That was a penalty drawn by Cam McGrone before he exited this cursed game with an injury. It fairly describes the entire contest for Michigan.
Michigan State's offense could do one thing with any consistency: chuck the ball long against press man coverage. The Wolverines had no answers in terms of personnel and seemingly didn't try to come up with any schematically. The five Spartan scoring drives featured long passes covering 30, 53, 50, 19, and 31 yards. The coaches pulled starting corner Vincent Gray for Jalen Perry in the second half; Perry managed to stay closer to MSU's receivers but couldn't do any better at playing the ball.
Michigan's offense, meanwhile, failed to come up with a downfield passing game of their own, and much of their success on the ground came outside the tackles. State piled up six tackles for loss and held M to 4.7 yards per carry (sacks removed). Joe Milton's accuracy waxed and waned as he mustered 300 scoreless yards on 51 attempts. Jalen Mayfield went down late and, while he walked off the field, he was taken into the tunnel by the cart.
The coaches will come under heavy, deserved criticism for the most surprising—and perhaps most bitterly disappointing—defeat of the Jim Harbaugh era. The Wolverines were poised to tie the game at 14 heading into halftime before Josh Gattis dialed up second and third-and-goal plays with Hassan Haskins as a wildcat quarterback; the run was stuffed, the surprise pass underthrown and tipped incomplete by Ann Arbor native Antjuan Simmons, who had a standout game at linebacker for MSU.
Don Brown rarely deviated from calling press man coverage even though the defense was getting eviscerated by the vaunted Rocky Lombardi to Ricky White connection, which tallied eight completions on ten targets for 196 yards and a touchdown. Lombardi averaged 19 yards on his 17 completions and his total was deflated by numerous flags on the Michigan secondary.
In other Big Ten games, Minnesota lost to Maryland, which got pasted last week by Northwestern, which is losing by two scores early against Iowa, which lost last week against Purdue. I guess the silver lining is that this is an incredibly stupid year.
October 31st, 2020 at 4:10 PM ^
Should have figured 2020 had a few more dong-punches left to give.
October 31st, 2020 at 4:28 PM ^
Hey just wait until the Ohio State game, then the “second wave” of COVID to ruin the holidays season.
October 31st, 2020 at 4:51 PM ^
Also Tuesday (because half the country is gonna be pissed no matter what happens)
October 31st, 2020 at 5:11 PM ^
More like 42% of the country is gonna be pissed because they couldn't fudge another EC victory, or 58% will be because they DID!
October 31st, 2020 at 5:16 PM ^
Either way roughly half of the country is gonna be pissed.
signed, the resident #nopolitics serial violator :)
November 1st, 2020 at 12:14 AM ^
Get ready for it. Trump is going to win again. Believe it or not, the vast majority of Americans aren’t into Socialism.
November 1st, 2020 at 12:32 AM ^
The fact that you think Joe Biden is a socialist says more about you than Joe Biden.
November 1st, 2020 at 1:03 AM ^
The fact that is getting beat by the team that lost to Rutgers somehow turns political is all we need to know about the state of Michigan football.
November 1st, 2020 at 9:29 AM ^
The fact that you don't realize his handlers are says more about you than him.
November 1st, 2020 at 12:40 PM ^
The fact the you don’t is more astonishing. Look at his plan. Not only is he a Socialist, he has dementia.
November 1st, 2020 at 9:51 AM ^
Did I miss something? Did centrists Biden/Harris drop out? Are the democrats now pushing a Bernie/AOC ticket?
November 1st, 2020 at 10:25 AM ^
The fact that you think Harris is a centrist says a lot about your political leanings
November 1st, 2020 at 5:31 PM ^
Actually, I am a Republican and live in California, and am pretty familiar with Harris. Not all Republicans have their head in the sand. The fact that you think centrists are now “socialists” and buy this nonsense that Harris is the “most liberal senator” and parrot this BS back to people is laughable and shows your leanings.
October 31st, 2020 at 5:27 PM ^
Second wave had already started ...
Wait the new lockdown coming into Michigan right after the election Wednesday or Thursday would be my guess.
October 31st, 2020 at 6:59 PM ^
Well there won't be any lockdowns in the Michigan secondary at least.
November 1st, 2020 at 10:07 PM ^
If there are, they'll be called for PI.
November 1st, 2020 at 3:45 PM ^
"Hey just wait until the Ohio State game, then the “second wave” of COVID to ruin the holidays season."
Can we reverse that order?
November 2nd, 2020 at 4:49 PM ^
That sums up my feelings on this game perfectly.
October 31st, 2020 at 4:11 PM ^
Smh lol. How this wasn't wrapped up by saying everyone should be gone at years end but instead "this is a weird year" is dumb .
October 31st, 2020 at 5:12 PM ^
I mean, the 8 game season began on Oct 24. What would YOU call it?!
October 31st, 2020 at 6:22 PM ^
What it is, a shit show that needs change
October 31st, 2020 at 7:00 PM ^
I've seen some yard signs and bumper stickers to that effect lately...
October 31st, 2020 at 7:34 PM ^
Who would you hire as the new HC?
October 31st, 2020 at 7:49 PM ^
Is it my job to hire some one? Look i really don't care much about Michigan football anymore so I don't care who they hire, but you can't keep this lame duck staff
October 31st, 2020 at 8:09 PM ^
This is such a stupid insinuation. Teams replace underperforming coaches and find success with their new coaches, it's not a novel idea. Have some balls and hope a change is the catalyst we need instead of being ok with mediocrity, jeez
October 31st, 2020 at 9:06 PM ^
Thought Fleck would be a good hire until the started the year 0-2
October 31st, 2020 at 9:42 PM ^
Mel tucker, split the difference between his current salary and Jim’s current and you win
October 31st, 2020 at 9:57 PM ^
This question is irrelevant now. So what the next hire isn’t if Harbaugh’s NFL caliber, to lose 3-5 games a year and get embarrassed in rivalry games any coach will do, and I’m sure can save some money also. This program is NOT winning any championships either way
November 1st, 2020 at 3:02 PM ^
Maybe that's it: Harbaugh's being NFL caliber means losing 3-5 games a year is okay. He hasn't made the transition to college.
November 1st, 2020 at 7:27 PM ^
I've often asked that question myself, but I think it's becoming more and more clear that either Harbaugh no longer has his heart in it and is bolting to the NFL when his contract expires or otherwise we're in limbo. So I think it's worth considering... Fickell almost assuredly wouldn't even take our call, so I would think it would be some combination of Matt Campbell, PJ Fleck, and Chris Klieman.
October 31st, 2020 at 4:12 PM ^
Jim , you and your team fucking sucked today. Explain please.
October 31st, 2020 at 4:30 PM ^
This will be our finest hour
October 31st, 2020 at 5:14 PM ^
His "explanation" is that msu is a lot better than they looked last week. Which is certainly obvious.
But why his team was so unprepared & unmotivated, and why they did nothing to adjust?
He didn't cover that!
October 31st, 2020 at 4:13 PM ^
Really Ace? That is all you have to write?
October 31st, 2020 at 4:16 PM ^
What do you expect after the outlandish and ridiculous post he made after the Minnesota game?
October 31st, 2020 at 6:11 PM ^
Only silver lining of this game. Cosigned Anthony Wright probably.
October 31st, 2020 at 7:32 PM ^
Yea that was a bunch of unwarranted gloating horse shit.
October 31st, 2020 at 6:31 PM ^
This gamer coincides with this game...I guess.
October 31st, 2020 at 6:45 PM ^
"Here are some things that happened. I have no opinions on the matter."
October 31st, 2020 at 6:50 PM ^
Let's go Red Wings!
October 31st, 2020 at 4:13 PM ^
Don Brown needs to go at least. Tired of this one-trick pony has been.
I doubt the AD will do anything w Harbaugh this year.
October 31st, 2020 at 6:43 PM ^
He said two years ago, after Ohio State eviscerated his defense, that he was installing more zone concepts. When you have lousy corner backs, it might be a good year to play a lot of those zones. When a mediocre QB rips up your man to man in the first half, you might want to switch to those zones. WTF is he thinking? Let’s just switch to our second string CB, he will be better? Yeah, that worked.
October 31st, 2020 at 6:53 PM ^
I’m also convinced his adherence to man defense also gimps our own QBs when they play opposing defenses who utilize zone.
November 1st, 2020 at 1:10 AM ^
The passés that were complete were well defended. The D line not gettin a bit of fucking pressure was the difference. I’m a Carlo kemp fan but if he’s the best we have we’re screwed. I agree that Brown needs to go. The guys tried to leave 2-3 times yet Harbaugh hasn’t showed him the door. Saban would have fired his ass after the 1st OSU corn holing.
October 31st, 2020 at 11:21 PM ^
I’m hesitant to say fire someone in a season this screwed up, but it’s hard to defend keeping Brown. If you’re going to be someone who contributes nothing in recruiting, you better be a wizard, and all I see is a team philosophically unwilling to bend to the realities caused by piss poor recruiting.
November 1st, 2020 at 12:46 AM ^
Defense is recruiting. Play straight up tight man with one high safety and blitz everyone else every single play, and have Ohio State level talent, and you have a top 5 defense, that doesn’t get exposed 3 or 4 times a year. The best coach in the world couldn’t turn a team of 3 and low 4 stars into elite. If you aren’t recruiting at an elite level you need to go.
November 1st, 2020 at 7:40 AM ^
There are plenty of examples of college football programs that have good defenses consistently every year without top 10 recruiting classes - take MSU, Iowa and Wisconsin as examples. But you have to have a scheme that works and opposing OCs have figured Don Brown defenses out, and the refs are calling the hand checking stuff a lot more closely. His needs to be more flexible in his scheme or we need another DC, but really we just need another staff altogether.
November 1st, 2020 at 3:52 PM ^
When you see that you only have Iowa-level talent on defense, then you need to learn to scheme like Iowa.
Alabama DTs and DBs ain't walking through that door.
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