Spring Football Bits Loses Spring Game
Usually this time of year you get some kind of spring game recap. Michigan had a spring game, but this is all you get.
— Michigan Football (@UMichFootball) April 12, 2021
Saturday was a great day to compete!#GoBlue pic.twitter.com/XeYvWF9kfs
What sticks out, other than the uniformz, is the pathetically small amount they’re willing to share with the public. The fanbase’s reaction to this has fallen into three camps:
- I would have liked to have seen a spring game.
- Call me when they win something.
- I don’t want to think about football.
All three are valid. The second and third camps are the BPONE, and were bound to continue regardless of football’s existence. For personal and professional reasons, I fall in the first. If you haven’t skipped to the comments to post something like 2 or 3, you’re probably there with me, and wondering if there’s an explanation.
Lately if you want anything from the football team you have to listen to the Jansen podcast, where Jansen said this regarding why fans and media were not allowed to attend:
The State of Michigan is utilizing the Big House as a vaccine site. So they didn’t want the parking lot to be full of cars. They didn’t want there to be a confusion about where to go for people scheduled to get their vaccine on that Saturday.
…and this on why they didn’t broadcast it:
As I understand it the Big Ten Network had set a certain time that all of the programs needed to say ‘Hey, this is when we’re going to have our last practice.’ And with the uncertainty of the pandemic, with the changing schedules, Michigan just wasn’t able to meet that deadline because they had to move some things around, and it just didn’t work out.
If they wanted to keep it small for the vaccine site—or you know, because last weekend was the peak of the pandemic—that’s fine. That’s not the reason media were expressly prohibited, including those with invites through other means. It’s still more responsible than Michigan State’s decision to invite 6,000 people to Spartan Stadium tomorrow, and one I can support.
[Hit THE JUMP]
But that’s not the reason it wasn’t broadcast. I was watching BTN that afternoon. It was Michigan-Maryland in softball, Penn State vs Indiana in the soccer championship, then Gymnastics in the evening. As much as I like our softball team, if Michigan football wanted that slot, do you really think BTN wouldn’t have accommodated? If they couldn’t, do you think they might have aired it another time?
If BTN really didn’t want Michigan Wolverines football in mid-April, Michigan still had video cameras there, and the power to release far more than one minute and twelve seconds of close-cropped film literally passed through a maize filter. They have an entire media company—IMG—under contract for this.
The truth is you didn’t get a spring game because they didn’t want to subject the players to your negativity. Jansen admits “there’s not a lot to brag about right now” after a 2-4 season, and that’s the truth. Also true is the fanbase is out of patience for Harbaugh’s regime going into a year that’s going to require quite a bit of it. There’s nothing you can do about that but win, and you can’t win a spring game.
There’s nothing to lose either. Spring games aren't for the media; they're for the fans. In safer times, most go to take in the sun as much as the other thing they've been deprived of all winter. They wash over you, at most show you a guy to get excited about because of one play.
I’ve been to and written about spring games for bad Michigan football teams, and still fall for them every year. I saw the 2008 offense slosh around a wet high school and appreciated the defensive continuity. I saw the 2009 and 2010 defenses torched and memorized fan videos of the young quarterbacks responsible. Two years ago I watched the edge of the defense come apart and called Gattis a genius. No matter how bad they were, my reaction to this was going to be clipping plays that show how it might work. In college football, you reckon with reality in November; in April even Hoke springs eternal. The only way to lose is not to play.
The fact that this program somehow found a way to take an L in their own spring game makes me less confident they can beat Western Michigan or anyone after that.
If they’re terrified of having stupid slappies like us get a look-see, their house must be in worse shape than mine after 13 months of pandemic. The various types of interceptions from their various types of freshman quarterbacks must be worse than the ones the transferred former starter opened and closed last season with. The defense’s confusion at a new system must be so recriminating you could make a slideshow of linebackers yelling at each other. Every fade down the sideline must be a replay of Ricky White Day, except the overthrown passes are coming down out of bounds.
But that’s your spring game recap. The only thing we've learned is the football program itself agrees they're unwatchable. They don’t have everything locked down, so I’ll have a final football bits for you next week. Happy commenting.
Yeesh. When does basketball season start up again?
April 24th, 2021 at 11:54 AM ^
And gymnastics!
I don't have anything football-related to add. So let me admit that one time when I was painting a bathroom wall, I farted and accidentally shit my pants. The ultimate indignity was that the toilet was located no more than two feet away.
This actually pretty analogous to the current Michigan football fan experience.
I’m so glad that you, and others, saw the parallels between my soul-baring pants shitting incident and the current state of our football program.
I’m cautiously optimistic that our recent coaching and defensive philosophy changes are equivalent to me owning up to shitting my pants by immediately yelling downstairs to Mrs. Bootlegger, “Hey {name redacted}. I just shit my pants!” She handled that news with stoicism and aplomb. I threw out my underwear, put on some fresh ones, and continued painting. We’re still married 20+ years after that unfortunate incident. I assume my Michigan fandom will follow the same trajectory.
BTW, I haven’t shit my pants again. Ever. Those few close calls in intervening years were the equivalent of beating Rutgers in 3 OTs.
April 25th, 2021 at 12:51 AM ^
If only the figurative Michigan football toilet were only 2 feet away.
It's more like we are stuck in traffic on 94, prairie doggin' with cramps and profuse sweating. It's not a question of whether pants will be shat, but how much and will it get into the perforated holes in the car seat stinking up Michigan football for years to come.
well, the michigan football message board experience, if nothing else.
This is the type of hard-hitting commentary that keeps bringing me back to this site. Well done!
In other words, a sludgefart.
I prefer shart.
April 23rd, 2021 at 11:36 PM ^
Oh, this is plenty football-related.
If it's true that they didn't as not to subject players to negativity, then that is quite bad. Because both go with the territory, good and bad, and is the price they pay for the glory when they do win. When they do they become lifelong heroes and all the benefits that go with it, with the massive alumni network we have. Gosh I hope Jim isn't getting soft. Cannot have it both ways, and is a slap to the fan base.
To that point, I wonder how the players feel about basically being hidden from the fans and media. A lot of these guys came to Michigan to play on a national platform and experience what that’s like. And while they still do in many respects, it’s a little unbecoming of a self-proclaimed tier I program to hide their spring game from the public. It honestly looks worse than if the team came out looking like total shit, in many respects.
It seems like we haven’t had a true spring game since Harbaugh has been here. I’m sure he was delighted to have it basically closed to public. We wouldn’t have learned much from it anyway. It’s one thing if you are Alabama and as a fan are watching to see who the next great player(s) is going to be. When you’re us and are watching just to see if we are competent enough to have a shot at beating MSU, it loses its luster.
April 25th, 2021 at 10:15 AM ^
Harbaugh 2015...running remote camps coast to coast. Media can't get enough of him. Harbaugh 2021...hiding in the basement. Media has forgotten to even look for him.
And it all changed one November Saturday in 2016.
April 26th, 2021 at 11:57 AM ^
One thing I did notice as soon as Meyer took over at OSU was that he reminded me of Izzo in that he never passed on an opportunity to get his stupid face on TV. He realized that one thing that most top recruits have in common is they love to be in the spotlight. Why do recruits give a list of their top 10 schools when they know only 3 are really being considered? More tweets, more views on their recruiting profiles, and greater national visibility. We laughed about MSU's claim to "build the brand" for a recruit, but at least they acknowledge that is what the recruits are seeking.
Recruits want to be part of a program that gets on TV and is run by a coach that has no shame when it comes to promoting himself and his team. Meyer was the same guy that lobbied for Florida to play OSU for the NC instead of Michigan, while we silently took the high road. Flash is easier to sell than hard work, and OSU understands that. While we don't have to go full-on "Circle of Trust" or McDonalds bags full of cash, we do have to realize that today's game is very different from the one that Bo coached. Any kind of visibility is good for keeping the program relevant in the long run. Even a lame-but-televised spring game is better than nothing.
Do you think that OSU hiring Mattison, and then using Mattison's intimate knowledge of Brown's game plan and his players' strengths and weaknesses to gash Michigan's defense until Brown and the Mattison-era recruits were gone, might be a source of paranoia within the Harbaugh camp?
Not one bit. This isn't the 19th century, when you had to hire someone from inside the program to learn what Yost was doing. Playcalling and fooling opponents with schematic surprises are relatively tiny parts of coaching, played up because they're what fans see. You pick the scheme you know how to teach and have the players for, and everyone knows in a short time what you're running.
Ohio State didn't do anything interesting on defense against Michigan in 2018 or 2019. On offense they pressed the buttons where their talent overwhelmed Michigan's, and waited for Michigan to buckle or give up something easy because they were overreacting to the weak spot. Ohio State ran Duo, which punished small defensive tackles for being puny. It didn't take special knowledge to know what our message boards were bemoaning all year.
I do think Ryan Day anticipated Brown's reactions in the passing game very well. They weren't hard to anticipate--he just got destroyed on four verts in man, let's run four verts and see if we get zone. Oh, Michigan botched their Cover 3: yay points.
Worse football teams tend to lose to better ones because their players perform better. Much of the difference can be explained by the fact that players can fluctuate wildly in performance. There's a version of the 2019 Game where Haskins follows his guard all the way to the endzone and Michigan's down 7 with 12 minutes left to play. Michigan left a lot of points on the board in that one, and none of that was from Mattison scheming up something that would counter the things we were doing.
Why has Michigan not shown the inclination to score fast and score more? Is it due to lack of playmakers? Lack of imagination in play-calling? I mean how many years does it take to install an offense? Most (if not all) teams seem to do it in the second year. Why does Michigan seem to be wandering in the desert with no game plan and continuity across games? Too cute for their own good?
The answer to all your questions is because of the head coach that's been here for the last 6 years.
:D Besides that?
It's not what Bo would do.
In the "Best Plays" topic, there is an excellent description of the Bo-era tendency to underuse skill players like Jim Smith and Anthony Carter. Harbaugh is as much a Bo disciple as there ever has been, along with an unwillingness (or inability) to adjust to the modern college game. He just does not seem to understand that the game is different now, and Michigan needs to adjust.
Bo's philosophy cost us wins almost every season, but we still gained results. Carr's similar philosophy cost us wins almost every season, but we still gained results. Harbaugh has the same philosophy, and it's costing us even more dearly, because we are faced with an national-title contending OSU juggernaut and a murderer's row of improved and improving teams in the Big Ten East (and a weaponized Wisconsin, who of course we have to play too).
TL;DR -- Bo and Lloyd got away with their methods, but Jim faces extra hazards that mandate adjustment, which he will not (or cannot) do.
Murderers row, like the hot ass trash MSU teams that he’s lost to? Harbaugh is a worse college coach than Carr, period.
I agree with you that last year's MSU was hot garbage, but I am filing them under "improving" along with Rutger(s) and maybe Maryland. If the trend continues, there will be no conference pushovers for Michigan, and If Michigan continues on its path, they will be a lower-echelon team in the Big Ten East, despite their on-paper talent.
Also, I agree that Carr was a better coach than Harbaugh is at Michigan. We're on the same page.
You are probably 100% correct, but why do you think OSU didn't carve up Michigan's defense in 2016 and 2017 like it did in 2018? Also, are you sure that Mattison wouldn't have any inside knowledge about Michigan's defensive line that would have gone beyond what OSU already knew? I'm not talking X's and O's as much as player tendencies, quirks, etc.
[W]hy do you think OSU didn't carve up Michigan's defense in 2016 and 2017 like it did in 2018?
The answer to that is JT Barrett. Brown's defense was built to defend against the JT Barretts of the world, running QBs that struggled to accurately throw into tight windows. OSU actually did carve up Michigan's D in 2017; it was after Barrett went down and Haskins came in. Because Brown's D wasn't built to defend against the passing spreads that Day brought in, at least not against teams that we couldn't simply overwhelm on talent alone.
This is accurate although I'd point out JT Barrett had a couple key scrambles in his games to help OSU against Michigan.
The issue is man defense. It wasn't just deep throws. All of us remember watching the 5 yard crossing routes that were easy to throw and OSU WRs running for years. Man defense is high-risk, high reward. The rewards are those 42-7 wins against Penn State, 21-7 against Michigan State, 10-3 against Iowa when the defense completely dominates (I get those games feel like decades ago right now, but they were dominant defensive performances). The risk is Ohio State since Barrett went down in 2017--the defense literally doesn't get a stop.
Yes Barrett got a few scrambles, but those were top 10 OSU teams still loaded with talent, and it's a pipe dream to think they wouldn't get anything. We by and large shut JT Barrett down, which is more than we could have asked for given the circumstances.
And yes the issue is Brown's man defense, but you make it seem like it's random chance whether you get the high reward (i.e. those 2018 PSU, MSU, Iowa games) or the high risk (getting our heads bashed in by OSU in since the third quarter in 2017, PSU in 2017, etc.). I.e. that it's bad luck that we almost literally haven't gotten a stop against OSU since Barrett got hurt. I don't think it's luck at all, I think it's that Brown overwhelmed the bad QBs/offenses we played, and got blitzed by teams that had a decided schematic advantage against his defense coupled with the talent to make it pay off.
Also too, you seem to be implying that it was only because of Brown's high risk/high reward D that we got those good results in e.g. 2018. I disagree with this as well. Maybe Brown's extreme aggressiveness made the results a little more lopsided than they could have been, but I'm sure any solid D could have shut down those PSU/MSU/Iowa offenses just fine. But the flipside is that there are other D schemes that would probably have done better against OSU.
April 23rd, 2021 at 11:50 PM ^
I didn't say it was random chance. Man defense increases the variance. You get the positive blowouts--the destruction of a very good Penn State team that should have beaten OSU in 2018, holding Michigan State to 100+ yards of offense in 2018, etc. But when it doesn't go well, it can get ugly--OSU in 2018 and 2019, Michigan State in 2020--a team Michigan had zero business losing to.
Why? Because short throws can become big plays, runs that get past the second level often go a long way (DBs heads are not turned towards the play, but to the man). The good part about man is that it usually comes with pressure on the QB and is, schematically, fairly easy to teach. Michigan didn't lose to OSU in 2018 because they didn't know what to do. They lost to OSU because they couldn't cover well enough and the pressure and/or front 4 never got home.
Everybody seems to forget this now with all the revisionist history, but Michigan was FAVORED to beat OSU in Columbus in 2018. The result that day was a shock, particularly on defense. They had given up 20+ points 3 times in 11 games to that point--20 to SMU, 21 to Maryland, 20 to Indiana. What happened? Bad match ups exacerbated by man defense. And when they went to zone, they looked lost.
After years of Troy Smith, Pryor, and Barrett destroying us on the ground, I think we all would’ve lost our minds if we would have let their qb beat us with their feet again. I can’t blame Brown at all for wanting to put a stop to that.
April 27th, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
mattison was on michigan's staff in 2018
Not really. They gashed us just as hard the year before Mattison was there and the 2018 Indiana game exposed a lot of weaknesses even though we won that game handily.
Good point about the 2018 Indiana game, but in 2018 OSU scored twice as many points as it did in 2017. As Brian and others on here have mentioned before, the 2017 game was one non-terrible QB away from being really close.
April 23rd, 2021 at 10:03 PM ^
Different styles of play by OSU and--personal opinion here possibly-- I would categorize the '16 and '17 teams as vastly more talented on defense.
What do you think? Does the program just seem like a dumpster fire or is it a dumpster fire?
It's a flammable dumpster that is itself on fire.
With tires inside.
When listening to JH communicate to the media, I wonder if he communicates to his coaches and team the same way. No wonder they don't know what they area doing.
So, a front page article.....specifically to invite people to bitch about the football program? The same group of people who could turn a "what a beautiful day" comment into a bitch about football session? The same group of people that are ridiculously negative, already?
I mean....seriously. What's the point in this?
How about STOPPING the negativity, when we don't even have football fall practice for another 4 months, and the first game on SEPTEMBER 4th?! You wonder why the program is reluctant to show us their SPRING practice (which they didn't even get last year)? Shit like this is why. ?♂️
Sorry for the negativity buddy, you seem to be one of those people who just want to live in a fantasy world, rather than admit this program sucks. Here is what will happen this football season.
1) Blake Corum will run for 1,500 yards and 19 touchdowns as a Doak Walker Finalist
2) Michigan will beat UW 48-10
3) Cade McNamara will throw for 3,800 yards, 28 touchdowns, and 4 picks
4) Ronnie Bell will catch for 1,400 yards, 16 touchdowns, and have an All American Season.
5) Aidan Hutchinson will have 13 sacks and be a top 4 pick next year
6) Michigan will beat OSU 63-3, with OSU getting a sad field goal in the final minutes
7) Cade McNamara loses the Heisman Trophy, but throws the game winning pass to Erick All in the End Zone against Clemson to cap off a 15-0 season.
8) Vincent Gray will learn how to run.
Thanks. This is the type on unbridled optimism that I can get on board with.
Too measured. Not good enough.
There's "wanting to live in a fantasy world", and there's wanting to not get inundated with NONSTOP negativity. What is the best part about being a fan? Hoping that next year will "be the year". Even if you know the team will suck....maybe they won't. Watching that team overachieve is a wonderful feeling. Does ANYONE who watched Brady Hoke's first season really think that team was an 11-2 team? No. They were the luckiest Michigan team I've ever seen. They over achieved like a mofo, and it was WONDERFUL. What was wonderful about it was that nobody expected it.
We have NO IDEA what this season is going to produce. Last season had so many things that were out of the norm (no spring practice, inexperience, crazy amount of injuries....to important players, season being cancelled then reestablished, half a season, COVID protocols, a coach not even showing up in person, and a bunch more). I wouldn't think that is a good base to form any logical opinion from. This season could be a disaster or it could be a huge surprise. What many of us are getting tired of is.......NONSTOP comments about how shitty our favorite team is going to be. Those same people will surely enjoy a successful season, so why is it fair to actively ruin any kind of joy the rest of us get from the team......before the season even starts?
Do I think the team is suddenly going to be a national championship contender? Nope. I also haven't had any delusions that by simply hiring a particular head coach that we'd be championship contenders in a few years......after a 5-7 season.....and our rival (coached by a hall of fame coach and one of the top 3 teams in all of college football) being in our division. Maybe the delusional people are now disillusioned, and they are taking it to the other end of the extreme spectrum. Fan is a short form of fanatical, so that explains the silliness. However, it doesn't excuse the fact that the fan base (and blog writers) is making it miserable to even want to watch our favorite team. That isn't ok.
Jim, did you eat your Milk and Steak today?
Why do you keep confusing negativity and the truth??? It IS true this program is broken and trash right now. It IS true that if Harbaugh had not played here, he would have rightly been fired. It IS true that fans are tired of this program treating us like shit. It IS true everyone wants Michigan to win, but we aren't the problem for knowing they won't.
And it's true, I do live in a trailer with my mom. And it's true, Cheddar Bob did shoot himself with his own gun....
Why do you keep confusing the truth and opinion?
April 24th, 2021 at 12:32 AM ^
What did I say that isn't true??
Regardless of what you think is true, calling the program "broken" and "trash" is an OPINION, not a FACT.
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