Michigan State Snowflakes: The Offense
October 29th, 2022 at 11:57 PM ^
And BTW, the Ronnie Bell pass late in the fourth was cool to try to get into the end zone and I appreciated the effort but I'd rather stick with JJ throwing the ball. Or JJ throwing another play action slant a couple times for big yards like he did with Ronnie Bell earlier.
October 30th, 2022 at 12:09 AM ^
This is one of the classic examples of the score not reflecting what a thorough @ss kicking we gave the sparties. Yeah, I'd like to have seen the FGs turned into TDs, but the overall strategy was impeccable. It's a NFL vs college strategy...there was no way MSU was going to score more than 2 TDs, and so +9 was insurmountable.
October 30th, 2022 at 12:10 AM ^
Though I am grateful to be undefeated to this point and know many teams would kill for our past two seasons, what got us to this point will not get us to where we want to be Pass has been a four letter word at Michigan since Bo. It had better change fast if they are really serious about being truly competitive for national championships. When everything looks difficult and out of sync in our pass game then something is wrong with our scheme. Apart from our TEs there is nothing that we do do well. Bad route running, lack of separation, lack of receiver improvisation to help out our QBs, too many drops, not good on contested balls. Just don’t like what it portends for our stretch run. Sure we run the ball well but so does Georgia and Bama. And they also have a dynamic passing attack. That’s why we were pantsed by UGA last year.
October 30th, 2022 at 10:12 AM ^
100% correct.
October 30th, 2022 at 10:46 AM ^
Pass has been a four letter word at Michigan since Bo.
That was not remotely the case under Moeller and Carr, who between them had Grbac, Collins, Griese, Brady, Henson, Navarre, and Henne.
October 30th, 2022 at 12:12 AM ^
The most important thing is they did what they needed to do to get the win.
but the offense specifically needs to be better. It’s too many years in a row of this for it to be anything other than harbaugh. He’s clearly an extremely risk averse coach who is beating into his qbs and oc’s to take the safe conservative route. Never going to have an explosive passing offense if not willing to go down field and take shots.
October 30th, 2022 at 10:53 AM ^
The previous two seasons it was Josh Gattis who was the main whipping boy for our relatively unimpressive passing game. Now that he's gone, it bolsters the case for those who've been saying all along that the offense is what it is because it has Harbaugh's fingerprints all over it.
I wonder if this is reflective of Harbaugh's own college career. The largest number of passes he threw at Michigan was 37 against Washington in 1984. It wasn't until 1986 that he threw as many as 28 and 29 (Iowa and OSU respectively). Over his career as a starter, he averaged just 20 attempts per game. That might have been a lot for Schembechler, but it was many fewer than QBs at many other major programs were throwing.
By contrast, Chad Henne had 22 games with 30 attempts or more (with 6 games over 40 attempts), and over his career averaged 29.5 attempts per game.
Hell, John Navarre averaged over 31 attempts per game.
October 30th, 2022 at 12:20 AM ^
Stop settling for FGs and unleash the offense and talent you have. This should have been an even more crushing and embarrassing defeat for MSU.
October 30th, 2022 at 12:29 AM ^
I know I dont know as much about offensive football as Harbaugh and his harem of OC's, but I would like to suggest this thing called "crossing routes" and "passing in the red zone"...idk, maybe these stupidly easy things might work when called for🤷♂️
October 30th, 2022 at 12:30 AM ^
Are we still pretending that Cade is on the team?
October 30th, 2022 at 12:34 AM ^
How bad would the FG to TD redzone ratio have to be before we tried a first or second down pass?
October 30th, 2022 at 8:29 AM ^
JJ was something like 12/17 passing on 1st and 2nd down. This notion we don't pass on those downs is based on feelings, not reality.
October 30th, 2022 at 11:19 AM ^
In the redzone? You’re something like is also not very compelling.
October 30th, 2022 at 1:05 AM ^
Why didn’t our receivers eat up their dbs?
October 30th, 2022 at 1:07 AM ^
Doubt the TV broadcast would have shown this, but on one drive toward the north endzone I am nearly certain that JJ had a wide open receiver in the endzone on a play-action bootleg, but threw a poor ball to the checkdown (TE Loveland?) who dropped it. I get the sense that JJ has tuned his dial toward "game manager" mode to the point where he didn't see the home run there.
Good win! "Slow-motion beatdown" basically sums up this game.
Go Blue!
October 30th, 2022 at 8:50 AM ^
I remember that play. It was one of the few play action plays that we ran. JJ rolled out to his right and apparently Loveland was the first option on that play because his eyes never even looked downfield from what I could tell. I was laughing with my buddies telling them, "We finally run play action and all we do with it is check down to a well-covered TE at the line of scrimmage." Lol
October 30th, 2022 at 2:49 AM ^
As with others, less than thrilled with the lackluster performance in the red zone. Championship teams cap those with TDs. This team is just not getting that done consistently enough where better squads will make them pay.
The next beef is with the passing. It is great to run other teams through with Blake and Donovan but at this point it seems JJ and the receiver core are just not getting the job done passing. Don't know if the latter are just getting distracted or if the ball is coming in too hot at times for them. I wonder if JJ is struggling to cope with a fully healthy arm still or if it is something mechanical. Either way he's still not choosing to pass to open targets away from where he's trying to put the ball.
This team can be truly great if the passing game finally gets on track.
October 30th, 2022 at 3:16 AM ^
FWIW, during the halftime show, the Michigan Band did a routine that involved two sets of flags hung from strings, sort of like clotheslines. I’d say they were probably 10-12 feet in the air.
In the south end zone, the flags were hanging straight down and hardly moving. In the north end zone, they were absolutely starched — nearly horizontal to the ground. (The guy next to me in the stands noticed it — kudos to you, random seatmate :) It was extremely strange to see the stark differences between the two ends of the stadium.
Thus, it’s possible that some of the passing game inaccuracy was wind-related.
October 30th, 2022 at 3:45 AM ^
Our receivers our meh, that's the worst pass defense in this league, almost no separation.
Red zone, ugh, wasted so many downs running right into the teeth of the one thing MSU does well. Just a waste.
Opportunity was there to absolutely bury this game early, and maybe bury Tuck and that stupid program for good. Instead they live to fight again next year knowing they were one 4th a goal from making it a battle right to the end.
October 30th, 2022 at 6:05 AM ^
Why are we so scared to throw the ball down the middle Deep ? Vanilla as can be yet again
October 30th, 2022 at 7:14 AM ^
The biggest factor I’ve been tracking is the TOP. Michigan 40 mins to MSU 19 mins. I love the way the run game just methodically keeps plodding down the field and prevents the opponent offense from making plays because they’re rarely on the field.
JJ has to get through his nerves. His passing and ability to read the defense seems to have stalled a bit. These next few games, I’m hoping the coaches will really help him build confidence in his passing ability and how to take whatever the defense gives you on any given play.
October 30th, 2022 at 8:44 AM ^
They get a C+. Red Zone offense is not improving. Kicking 5FG is OK against sparty and the lower ranked teams. JJ's throws were not as accurate last night as well. Only one catch for Roman Wilson, Anthony and Johnson.
October 30th, 2022 at 8:47 AM ^
I’m going to accept and ultimately encourage the now clear fact that Harbaugh wants his team to be built to mash faces. It’s the right strategy IMO. Trying to out OSU the buckeyes with a too similar strategy plays into their hands. We need to be built for maximizing our opponents discomfort by making them do things THEY don’t like to do. That means making ever smaller and faster LBs deal with 6’6” TEs by the bushel getting their faces mashed repeatedly until they just can’t anymore. God bless Jim Harbaugh for deciding that when everyone else is sporting Uzi’s he’s bringing a sawed off 12 gage.
October 30th, 2022 at 9:17 AM ^
Play action should be more of a thing. With our run game the defense should bite on that more often than not for some chunk plays.
October 30th, 2022 at 10:23 AM ^
Came here to see "We don't want to give away the playbook!" Volume 8
October 30th, 2022 at 10:31 AM ^
Was fun being there is person to see Blake enhance his case to be part of the Heisman ceremony. What a game and what a great runner for Michigan.
October 30th, 2022 at 10:52 AM ^
I think anyone who expects Michigan to ever produce a Heisman candidate QB who puts up big numbers will be sorely disappointed as long as Jim Harbaugh is head coach at Michigan.
Michigan's national ranking in pass attempts per game
2015 - 67
2016 - 94
2017 - 98
2018 - 103
2019 - 68
2020 - 33
2021 - 95
2022 so far - 110
2020 is clearly the outlier, and the fact that Harbaugh's by far worst season is also the most pass-heavy season in fact shows you one of the simple realities of Jim Harbaugh football. Michigan will pass only when it needs to. The better a Michigan team under Harbaugh is the less it will pass. It will never be a pass-centric offense built around a QB. If a Michigan QB throws 40 times for 300+ yards, it's probably because the defense couldn't keep up and Harbaugh felt pressured to do it.
It may seem counter-intuitive because Harbaugh was a QB, but it bears pointing out that he was a QB at a time when throwing the ball 10-20 times a game was standard. With Harbaugh Michigan will be playing a modified form of 1980s football. It's not a bug, it's a feature.
October 30th, 2022 at 11:07 AM ^
It’s not even about the style or wishing for a high flying offense. I’m ok with this. It works. It wins. You just have to close the final gap; Hit on a few deep/big plays and capitalize in the red zone. Do that and it’s all good.
October 30th, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
I love the direction our O is going. LOS is ours and I love our pass blocking. As JJ is getting acclimated to being a starter, only his 7th start, our lack of downfield passing is subsidized by JJs legs.
October 30th, 2022 at 2:14 PM ^
Our identity is power football. It will always be power football under harbaugh, which means game manager QB. If anyone is expecting gun slinging air raid it ain’t happening here anytime soon
November 2nd, 2022 at 11:43 PM ^
Thank you. I want a team with an identity and that absolutely knows who they are. Might our power game run into an NFL D line vs. UGA or Bama and lose yet again? Yup. But don’t change a thing. Pretending like some particular “system” is going to overcome that is an exercise in futility that sends you chasing . Ruins your continuity and ultimately your execution.
October 30th, 2022 at 9:31 PM ^
Happy to be 8-0! My only concern with the lack of passing is that we’re not gonna land any top tier WR’s.