Questions for the Coaches / Former Players Here

I just for the life of me don't understand why we can't throw the occasional screen pass. We used to do that a lot with De'veon and Fisch. And it seems like a good way to mitigate inexperience on the offensive line.

There was a second quarter check-down to Evans that netted 23 yards, and I thought to myself, "why don't we give Joe more efficient plays like that?"

Every time Corum catches the ball in space, something good happens, but yet they don't exploit that matchup. 

And I do really like Milton's moxie, but I swear he has to stop throwing into so much double coverage, especially deep.

On defense, there's just too much to fix in-season. Brown hasn't been the answer for awhile, but they really don't have any answers at corner, so I'm not sure that changing personnel matters.

Last night's Clemson-ND game was instructive. There were a ton of yards and points put up by both teams, but both also (and ND in particular with Hayes) were every so often able to make a key defensive play to force a punt or turnover. I haven't seen anything of the sort from us the past two weeks.

Not a former player or coach, but it appears the staff is leaning on Gray because he has the most experience and knows what he's supposed to do...he just can't do it.  Seems like they value that over a youngster who is more prone to a "left a guy wide open" bust as opposed to the "see if the QB can hit this guy with a 3 yard cushion" option they currently have as a reality.  

Corners with faults need to make up for it with another really good skill.  Morgan Trent was on the stiff side, but he was fast.  Jourdan Lewis is on the small side, but he is fast and had good technique.  Stribling had good technique.  Gray is slow and does not have good technique.  

Recruiting matters. Corners with 4.7 speed will get lit up all day. 

How about a simple lack of experience.  Most teams go through it that is true, but look at ND who has a 5th year QB or OSU and Fields.  Simply put we lack experience.  All of our senior WRs left.  

I'm not interested in 2020. I get there are a few holdouts like chuckums who are willing to keep JH for 2021 b/c of 2 things as I can tell: COVID and the extreme youth on the team. Those are legit "yeah buts" IMO but my problem really comes down to 2019.

Ask yourself how many guys were drafted this past year? (and 2 years ago when we had 11 I think get drafted? but I'm not gonna litigate the entire 6 years). How much expereince AND talent did we have? At QB, OL, WR, LB, DE, Corner. Youngish and no depth at RB, DT and S but it's college - you can't have 3rd and 4th year players with depth at every position every year. 

Now ask yourself what the result was? 9-4. 3 blowout losses. Not only no contension for the CFP (which should no longer even be a reasonable metric at M anymore), but no real contension for the East or the B10. In year 5. With talent and depth all over the field and at kicker.

These problems we have in 2020 are not isolated and it's not as simple as "but recruiting" as many have (rightfully) brought up. This program cannot RETAIN players. Talented players that can contirbute to a successful B10 team. St. Juste (medical, but obviously they are making the wrong decisions there after him and the DT from 2 year ago went on to play). Soloman at Tenn. Singleton & Dwumfore @ Rutgers. Look at the Opt outs that failed to opt back in! We have a RS So. OT that will be going into the draft one way or the other - can't even get a RS JR year out of him. Peters loses job - xfers faster than you can say "no depth." DMC - ditto. God help this team if Milton gets hurt. LACK OF RETENSION is a FEATURE of the M program that should be counted against JH, and should NOT be considered a bug that mitigates JH's responsibility for a young team in 2020.

No point in discussing coordinators. This is bigger than coordinators. No point in discussing position coaches. Bigger than that. There's one simple correction M can make to fix all of these:

1. Poor QB play and the poor decisions that led to the QB poor roster year in year out.
2. Inability to produce anything close to a top 15 offense in today's CFB.
3. Inability to recruit and RETAIN minimal depth at critical positions like DT and CB.
4. Inability to create a gameplan that makes a competitive game against inferior talent like MSU and IU this year. IU is a legit 8-4  or 9-3 team this year so that loss is what it is, a loss to a more experienced and better FB team. The MSU loss (2 scores!) was a loss that should never happen.
5. just can't complete for the division in any realistic fasion due to all of the above.

You know what that one fix is at this point. Don't talk about prep for next year when you KNOW we will lose an OT early to the draft, and BOTH DEs, who are the only redeeming players on this defense, save Dax Hill, who I'm sure would leave early for the draft if he could. The defense will not magically find more DTs, replacements for AA level DEs nor any CBs. "Wait for next year" arguements began and ended in 2018 in anticiaption for 2019.

IDK who the candidates are. Fleck and Fickle should be on the long list at the very least, but if M can't afford a buyout for a HC who has less than 18 months left on his contract, IDK what to say. 

From a coaches perspective, too much youth is difficult to stitch together.  The veterans that know the system are like extra coaches but on the field, in the play.  They are critical in-game “coordinators”.  That is one reason they are so valuable.  Losing Ambry really hurt the DBs because he was a leader and talented.  

I have spoken to a number of players from the '97 team and they indicate the "meritocracy" is a joke and that Harbaugh plays favorites.

Their words, not mine ((ducks)).

I played one year of 8th grade football and then again for about a month my senior year, so I'm pretty legit.

But the one thing I remember hearing from coaches over and over again was: if you're in pass coverage, when your man turns his head to look for the ball, you turn your head and look for the ball. It seems so simple and almost every game now I see a defensive player not do this and either 1) fail to make a somewhat easy INT  2) give up a huge completion/TD or 3) get a PI flag (refs seem much more eager to throw a flag if you don't try to play the ball). This infuriates me. People like my father, grandfather, uncles, friends with much more football experience than I do - even announcers - have all always said this same thing: turn your head. Honestly, some of Gray's bad plays - the big TD by State last week - wouldn't have happened if he just found the ball.

That seems like the easiest part of pass coverage and yet no one does it (Jourdan Lewis actually used to do it very well).

Can someone explain?

After Gray's completely unnecessary PI on 3rd and 10 which would have been a stop with plenty of time left and down 10 points, how does he not come out?  Seems you have to let Turner or Perry or Seldon or DGW try.

I'm a little surprised we haven't seen Seldon yet.  CB is not a hard position for a freshman to learn if he has the ability.  We heard his name a lot during the pre-season so combined with that, his recruiting profile, and the struggles with Gray, I'm surprised.  FWIW Perry and Turner did get a run and didn't fare any better.  I'd think we move Green to the boundary, let Seldon cover their #2, and let Hill handle the slot.  I'm also surprised we haven't heard peep about Quinten Johnson.  I know he took a medical RS last year with an ankle injury, but he should be healthy this year.  Hawkins hasn't exactly looked great either and Johnson had the top SPARQ score for an ATH and ran a 4.4 40 so we know he can run and is a great athlete.  But, safety is a little harder to learn for a RS freshman with very little experience.  But, I'd think we would want to get him ready for next year at least unless Hawkins comes back for another year.

Is the offensive game plan for MSU and Indiana actually drastically different than Minnesota (as it seems to me as a layperson), or it's actually similar but the defenses are simply taking the more "speed in space" elements away by alignment / strategy / whatever?

It seems like execution is the larger problem than scheme on offense.  The plays are there.  There are open WRs that either Milton doesn't see, doesn't make an accurate throw to, or the WR/TE drops the ball.  We also aren't getting much push up front from the line for the running game.  The one surprising thing I'm not seeing a lot of the QB keep.  That's about my only complain with play calling.  The rest seems like execution.  But, it's hard missing your #1 WR, starting OTs, and breaking in a new QB, OGs, & C.  We all knew offense might see some struggles.  But, I didn't think we expected the OTs to get injured, for all the drops, Milton unable to hit the deep ball, and so few QB runs.