What a mixed day! I had an unbelievable experience in the Directors Box at the Emirates Stadium today for the Arsenal-West Brom game, but my mood is now poor after hearing of Michigan's close loss to Iowa!
The loss pretty much kills Michigan's chances of going to the B10 title game, so now the only thing I care about is beating Ohio State. If I was offered an 8-4 season with a win over OSU at the start of the season I would have snapped up that offer, and the same goes for right now.
I just don't get how we can beat Minnesota by what was it 58-0? Then the team Minnesota beats (Iowa) we lose to.... UM did not play at the level they are capable today and lost the game. The refs however did not help the matter when our team finally woke up in the finally 8 minutes of the game. They blew a touchdown catch and a pass interference on 2 of final 3 plays. This does not excuse the fact that our offense did not show up for the first 52 minutes and our defense seemingly played without passion until the final quarter when they had those two great 3rd and short stops.
ReplyDeleteI believe Hoke will get in this teams ears and have them come out next week and play to the top of their potential and beat Illini.... then we will lose to Nebraska in a close one and then Hoke will have this team especially ready for OSU to send the seniors out with at least one win over the buckeyes in a thriller.
I hope Im wrong but this team doesnt win more than 2 games the rest of the year including the bowl game. I'm not sure it even wins 2 more sadly
ReplyDeleteI put this one SOLELY on borges. I really do. Sure that Hemingway catch should have been a TD, but how many games will it take for Borges to realize that we just CAN NOT run pro offense against B1G then defenses? We do not have the personnel yet. You can tell because as soon as they started running spread, even the announcers noticed, we moved the ball, we put points on the board and we were clicking. It gave the defense energy, stopping Coker and Vanderburg on 4th 1's. I know the coaches want to turn to a pro style, but its like the old saying, if it's not broke, DON'T FIX IT
ReplyDeleteWouldn't mind losing if we could get a "clean" loss I suppose. Bad officiating happens all the time, but the bad officiating in our 2 road losses were enough to decide both games on their own, aside from the times we didn't execute like we should have. Leaves me with a mixture of frustration and disappointment that that I like to call distration.
ReplyDeleteBorges was bad today but we had a shot but Denard just can not throw deep. Ugh he sucks at that. We shouldn't have a play over 15 yards in the play book.
ReplyDeleteI agree worm, he definitely can't throw the ball deep, accurately. I've questioned the coaches before, putting gardner in there instead etc. But what I've seen recently, Devin Gardner is NOT the answer. Sure he looks good on paper and in practice, but he needs a full off season where he's practicing with the first offense. When he goes out there, he just looked completely LOST. We live by Denard, we die by Denard, I just with Borges would have let Denard, BE Denard.
ReplyDeleteIt was a terrible performance in all phases. Offense, defense, and special teams. We should paint our home locker room pink after that. Dreadfull play calling. Why dont you just spike the ball on first down instead of chucking the ball deep with Denard? at least it wont get picked. the dropped EP, and all the dropped passes by recievers. TONS OF DROPPED PASSES today. I thought the Defense was decent.. but the offense, my god... What is Denards strength his arm or his legs? so with the ball on the 3 yard line, you are dropping him back and running slants? are you kidding me? Roll his ass out and if its not there throw it away.. if he see's a seam let him run for it.. I dont get it. I also dont get him in a game where clock is critical cutting the ball up field for cut back yards when he can run it out of bounds. And in the 3rd quarter your run run run... that was the fastest 3rd quarter ive ever seen.. you would think we were playing with the lead. I guess im just a armchair QB, but that makes ZERO sense to me. Poor game management IMO. Other then that you better buckle up cause after looking at that game we will be lucky if we beat these last 3 teams.
ReplyDeleteI said earlier it was a trap game, but that was a exceedingly poor, FLAT performance.
If our defense doesn't tighten up,Burkehead will run wild on us. gardner does look lost but in the end I think he ends up a better QB than Shoelace. I use to think Jer89 was a fool but may be he is right,I don't think DR is the answer at QB. If he doesn't get MUCH better over this off season than maybe they should start DG next year.
ReplyDeleteI thought for sure we would have Denard at least roll out on 4th down. I would have let him run a designed run and hope we could overpower them for 3 yards. Anything different than the last play call. Yes, there was pass interference. Yes, we scored a TD 2 plays before. But I can't blame the refs. This (just as the MSU loss) has to be placed on very suspect 4th down play calling. Denard will throw his redzone picks. We have learned this over the past 2 years, but I don't want to have to get use to this play calling as I have Denards dumb INTs. I love the staff. They have recruited their butts off since they got here and this team will continue to improve. I want National Championships, and we will not get those if crunch time play calling doesn't improve. All that being said, you tell me 3 months ago we are 9-3 at the end of the year I take it in a heartbeat. Go Blue!
ReplyDeleteI agree with all of you on denards passing but I think some blame should be given to Borges. One of those last 4 plays should have been a roll out or bootleg to give denard the run pass option
ReplyDeleteKind of ironic with all the second guessing that no one has mentioned Hoke's burning of a timeout on 4th and whatever before the last time we got the ball. With that timeout we would have had a chance to roll Denard once or even twice and if he thought he had a seam he could have taken it. By the time we got down to the 3 there was about 16 seconds left with no timeouts. You can't risk a run that doesn't get in the endzone in that situation because at best you'll probably only get one more play. I understand that logic by Hoke, Borges and co for running 4 str8 pass plays. However, wtf was up with so many deep balls thrown. Ok clearly DR more than struggles with long passes so why did we have so many deep routes at the end of the game. What happened to the gameplans where we dink and dunk passes down the field and shred the defense. Our offense is back to the gameplan at the beginning of the year where we tried going down field too often and burn up too many downs.
ReplyDeleteI love how ESPN has it as "Iowa stuns Michigan" as if Minnesota just went into Tuscaloosa and knocked off 'Bama. They're a good team playing at home and we played so poorly. Our modus operandi.
ReplyDeleteWould you guys rather lose to Illinois and Nebraska but beat OSU or lose to OSU but beat Illinois and Nebraska?
ReplyDeleteIm torn.
@ GoTwins, Id rather win games we are supposed to?
ReplyDeleteI'm a believer in Hoke and the future looks bright but in our two losses this season we have been outplayed and more importantly OUTCOACHED! That cannot happen. It is not rocket science, Denard is better suited for a hurry up offense and it showed at the end of this game. Borges needs to realize this and not wait till the 4th qtr to change the offense and try to pull out miracles.
ReplyDelete@gotwins i would rather win the OSU game. I live in Ohio and am sooooo sick of hearing crap from OSU fans how they have dominated the last decade and all that crap. I so badly want a win over OSU.
ReplyDelete@akmed good point about the timeouts, i believe they were poorly used to and when we finally got down to the 3 and could have used a timeout to do a designed run we could because anything less than a touchdown the time would have ran out, so we were restricted to passing with 16 seconds left and Iowa knew that.
I am so suprised how every week people are begining to echo what me and Jer have been stating from the begining of the season about DR at QB and his lack of passing ability. I do have to agree though DG is not ready to take over the helm and Borges needs to adjust this offense to DR skill set because he is our best option at QB until DG gets more confidence and better acquainted with the pro style offense and some first team reps so he doesn't look so lost sometimes.
BTW anyone seeing this Nebraska score? NW is up 21-10 in the 4th quarter.
To all,
ReplyDeleteYou all have good points and I agree with what you saying. The blame goes to the coaches UM was not ready to play today on either side of the ball. And worse the player did there best to show that. The refs well there refs and make bad calls just like the coaches call bad plays.
As for the DR and DG experiment well it needs to stop now. It does not work. If you are going to put DG in the game put him in for a series.
The D got better in the second half. Countess is a beast. Why is Morgon playing so much?
I still have complete faith in the coaches and believe they will turn things around.
Worn,
Right back at you about DG.
Borges needs to consider going back to the spread. The RR spread. go back to no huddle and let DR run. Everyone knows how I feel about DR but if the coaches want him to be there QB they need to let DR be DR. Borges said a couple of weeks ago when asked about moving DR to WR. I am not taking 300 yards of offence out of the game by moving DR to WR. Well he is if he keeps coaching like this. DR had 194 passing and 55 rushing. And most of that passing came in the 4th. UM is not a pro style ofence yet just play the the streght of your player.
ReplyDelete@GoTwins
ReplyDeleteCan beating Illinois and OSU be an option?
I would rather beat Bucky and lose the others if not.
Reasoning: I hate Ohio fans more and my mom is going to Nebraska game whereas I'm going to OSU... so would rather drive home victorious and let her take the shitty ride back US-23. LOL
As for DR vs DG, I have always been for using DR as a Percy Harvin type, but as of late DG is making me think we just use DR for another year. Hopefully upset Bama, and if not make a run for a B1G with Denard as a 3rd year (hopefully vastly improved) senior and then turn the reigns over to DG when he can assuredly take every 1st team rep without looking over his back knowing Denard could be back in his spot any time. I'm completely torn on the issue. I choose whichever puts us in the championship game next year. Now if I could only foresee which that would be.
I don't know why Morgan is playing so much...what's more I don't know why Countess is not getting more time defending the other team's #1 WR. Floyd continually got burned by McNutt on 3rd downs. For those of you watching the Nebraska/Northwestern game...this is evidence that Michigan just isn't big enough to compete with the other schools in the Big Ten on a weekly basis right now. Iowa's D-line is definitely in a down year right now, but in all honesty I thought they man-handled our O-line for most of the game. With a full offseason with the new coaching staff with THEIR strength and conditioning program I really hope the coaches can had some good weight to our hogs in the trenches because right now they're getting pushed around. It's why our run game was ineffective in the Northwestern game and why schools like MSU, Iowa and OSU have beaten us for a number of years in a row now. I think the skills position players...WRs, RBs and CBs our nice to add to our class...but the true importance of this class will be the strong players we have picked up for the trenches. That's where this game is won and lost and right now we're just not big enough/mean enough in the trenches to compete every week in the Big Ten. On the bright side...I do love the fact that our team continues to fight even in games where we're losing/have lost. Unlike years under RichRod, the players believe in the system and the direction of the team and haven't given up like in years past...
ReplyDeleteI think it's obvious this team is much improved from last year but they are WAYS away from a BIG 10 championship. You can beat Purdue, Minnesota, and NW all you want but you HAVE to win games on the road. Iowa is not an elite team in this conference. Iowa is a solid team at home but very beat-able one at that. Against MSU and today our sluggish 1st halfs came back to hurt us and that cant continue. Next years schedule is much tougher so you can count that as another year without a Big 10 championship. Need the pro-stlye players in here ASAP for this team to succeed!!
ReplyDeleteAnd for the record..it should not even be a question who gives us the better chance of winning right now..It's Denard in a landslide
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteso after drinking a few beers i realized a pattern
ReplyDeleteWe beat ND, ND beats MSU, MSU beats us
We beat Minn, Minn beats Iowa, Iowa beats us.
We beat Purdue, Purdue beats Illni, Illini ? us.
We beat NW, NW beats Nebra, Nebra ? us.
Im praying this pattern doesn't continue and those question marks are "lose to" not "beat"
I just wish the staff would read our post.... I know they are more qualified and not all us could agree but they should hear others thoughts. I agree with a lot of you that we should be a spread and let denard be denard. We cant pound teams like wisconsin yet so use what we can. And sorry but the image of hoke not wearing a headset all game except last 5 min of game is not somthing i like. He needs to be more involved in what calls are being called... He can do that and stay active on side lines. To me it comes off bad. But just frustrating because everyone knows denard isnt tom brady, so why throw slants in middle of red zone? We need to run more and throw screens and short outs in the red zone to decrease turnovers. And lastly before i shut up i am tired of the throwing the balls out of bounds.... Coaches neex to be in his ear to run. As soon as he looks like he is running, defensive backs lose track of the wide recievers leaving tbem open. Example ND 4th quarter. But coaches need to be in Denards ear to scramble more! Thats where big runs will happen
ReplyDeleteThis is all on Borges. The D played quite well but he didn't allow the offense to flow and was extremely conservative until the 4th quarter where you saw him open up the playbook and let Denard throw. Let Denard throw more than dinks and dunks...he can throw the ball when we get him in a rhythm.
ReplyDeleteThere is next week against a struggling Illinois team, Nebraska lost to Northwestern who had to use an athletic QB which caused many problems, and O$U still can't throw the ball for crap.
GO BLUE!! This year is not over.
You can't blame the playcalling on this one i'm afraid. Borges gave us a good opportunity to win the game at the very end, hemingway was open and could have been thrown open twice, had denard been able to throw it accurately. secondly.. vincent smith dropped the ball in the end zone... it was in his hands.. borges had nothing to do with that. yeah, the officiating was god awful but we still had an opportunity to win the game, and choked.
ReplyDeleteif we spike the ball instead of calling the time out, its second down and we have less tries to get in the end zone. i understand that we might have been able to run the ball but who knows if that would have done us any good. you simply cannot put this on borges.
With the square peg into round hole theory -neither DRob or DGardner are the round pegs in the Al Borges system. So I believe its time to revisit the Gunner Keil possibility. It looks apparent that Al wont change his game sterategy so why not go after what we need. Its going to be 2 years yet before Shane Morris arrives. We need QB's like Shane & Gunner to fight it out for Al Borges's type offense not what we have now. With all that said -stick with DRob for the rest of the year as he gives us our best chance to win and finally - drop that 2 QB system we have going now -on it doesn't work.
ReplyDeletenot sure what everyone else feels about this. But since the recruiting of Rich Rod,"fast southern kids" I have noticed a major decline in team speed, especially on offense, as soon as the weather gets cold. Even denard looks like hes running into the wind. The team is way to wishy washy, I don't agree with the 4 play calls at the end. All game, not sure why when denard has ALL DAY to stand back there and throw, with obvious running lanes after his checkdowns are covered, and he just tosses it up to a covered guy. Take off and run Denard. I am fully aware we wouldn't be a .500 team without denard, but i can't wait for a new regime and a guy that can throw.
ReplyDeletein terms of Rich Rod's recruiting don't you mean "short, fast southern kids" ? And I kind of agree with you about the cold weather affecting their speed. I've always wondered what an SEC team would do against a Big Ten school if they had to play somewhere like OSU, Wisconsin, East Lansing or Ann Arbor in December/January instead of our teams having to go play them in warm weather in bowl games. Too bad we'll never find that out...
ReplyDeleteThe Michigan Wolverines and Notre Dame Fighting Irish football teams are battling each other to gain Rivals.com 4-star player Laquon Treadwell for their respective 2013 recruiting classes.
ReplyDeleteTreadwell, a star wide receiver/defensive back for Illinois Crete-Monee, has visited both Michigan and Notre Dame. The Chicago Tribune reported that the Wolverines and Fighting Irish have both made offers to Treadwell.
"I can bring great hands, break tackles and do my responsibilities on the team while providing leadership," Treadwell said in an exclusive Bleacher Report interview. "I'm just going through my recruiting process to see what I like."
Michigan might have an advantage in landing Treadwell, as the Wolverines have already locked up Crete-Monee senior safety Anthony Standifer. Standifer is a Rivals.com 3-star recruit who had nine interceptions in 2010.
The Wisconsin Badgers, Michigan State Spartans, Northwestern Wildcats, Iowa Hawkeyes and others are also giving Treadwell a strong look.
While Treadwell has excelled on both sides of the ball, the 6'3", 200-pound junior will most likely play wide receiver. He has an impressive 62 catches for 1,230 yards and 17 touchdowns.
Against Bloomington on Oct. 30, Treadwell had six catches for 119 yards and three scores to lead the Warriors to a 63-14 first-round victory in the Illinois High School Association 6A playoffs.
Treadwell's first touchdown was a 14-yard lob pass from junior quarterback Marcus Terrell. His next two scores (53 and 28 yards) came as he broke several tackles on the sidelines.
"I was just getting open when I needed to and running my route to perfection," said Treadwell, who was named Chicago Tribune Player of the Game.
As a defensive back, Treadwell is a great blitzer who has good ball awareness. He had 1.5 sacks and would have recovered a fumble for a touchdown if a holding penalty didn't occur.
For whomever lands Treadwell, he will not have a big learning curve, as he already plays in a college-like spread offense.
Hey Mark n MAcomb,I use to date a girl from there even though I live in Ohio.How is the area still up there? I always enjoyed Macomb.
ReplyDeleteNebraska also lost to Northwestern. We need Sparty to lay another goose egg (what are the odds of that happening, actually pretty good, they always seem to screw it up for themselves) and we need to beat Nebraska. Counting on a loss for someone seems like pretty thin hope, but Iowa and Northwestern are the two teams doing the upsetting this year and sparty plays at both schools now, so I'm betting they win both those games and lose a head scratcher at home to Indiana.
ReplyDeleteUM has lost there second game this year. It's not the end of the world. If RR was still coaching UM and they were 7-2 we would be celebrating in the streets. So lets have some faith and some patients. Because UM is on the right track to be champions again.
ReplyDeleteRoy Roundtree has 72 catches last year. He has 14 this year, with four games to go. Our top WR has 24 catches. Even if you factor in the drops, there is no way our top WRs should have this low of a percentage.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is, our offense is in limbo. The talent is there and is not being utilized properly. We run so much and so predictably because we run too many sets, but a limited number of plays from each set. If we're in the spread, you know its either a zone read, a bubble screen, a sweep to the RB or a QB sweep. If we are in the eye you know its right up the middle or a play action. If we run 3-4 sets you know its a slant or a 9 route.
Prof A i agree100% why dont we run option out of the power i and shot gun more? Why arent the coaches in Denards ear to run when option one or two are covered? And what happend to the denard run, and then throw the ball? That plays always open. Our offensive players have not been used at all this year. If coaches keep trying to pound the run in the power i formation we will be 7-5 this year. We need to spread them out! Look what Northwestern did to Illinois this year! Look what northwestern did to Nebraska! Look what indiana did to osu! And tell me are players arent just as good if not a whole lot better. Our talent has not been used right!
ReplyDeleteAgree with Hail-to-the-victors, one of our best plays ever since Rich Rod got hired, and continued on this year with Hoke and Borges has been to have Denard line up in the shot gun, tuck it and run, get the Outside Linebacker to bite (which they almost always do) and then throw it to the tight end right where the OLB should be. Why havent we seen that play at all in the last month or so? I'm confident that Borges can coach an offense in practice and get to them improve, but I'm not at all sold on his playcalling abilities when the actual games start. We could still be undefeated if we played the offense our guys are built for. Run the spread in the 1st and 2nd quarter, and if we get a big lead, then go to the Pro style. Borges is doing it opposite and banking on us coming up with a 4th quarter comeback which as we just saw, won't always happen.
ReplyDeletedefense has played well enough to be undefeated, if our offense was half as good as it was last year...sux to because we have the same players to run the offense, all borges has to do is suck it up and run the rich rod offense for 2 more year. when the players are gone then make the switch.
ReplyDeleteI'd rather take our lumps now with the offense and do a partial to full switch than to wait 2 years and then switch in all honesty. When you go through a system change you're going to have to take the bad with the good. There's no real identity to the offense yet, but then again we'll be worse off trying to change 2 years from now with really 3 recruiting classes coming in. Better for the new players to learn the new offense once than learning 2 new offenses. Make RR's players learn a new offense twice since most of them will all be gone by the end of next year anyway. We just have to learn to cope with a sometimes stagnant offense for no apparent reason. At least the D is light years better.
ReplyDeleteThe illinois roster has Countess as starting along with Floyd. Kovacs is starting SS, and it's between TGordan and Woolfolk for FS
ReplyDeleteStart time for Saturdays game against Ill. is now at 3:30. I like the 12 o'clock start times myself.
ReplyDeleteAny recruits that might be rethinking of going to Penn State that we might want????
ReplyDeleteDid Joe Pa know what happened?
ReplyDeleteWho is scheduled to visit UM for the Neb. and OSU games? Does UM get anymore commit before NSD?
ReplyDelete@Jer89
ReplyDeleteI am thinking anyone else that signs on with Michigan will wait until NSD just because thats a big deal for them and I don't blame them. And there may be some silent commits. Unless some big time recruit decides earlier, then maybe some others will commit while they still can. It will be interesting.
I never was on the side about Dunn coming to Michigan. But for some reason I have changed my mind. Ohio State penalties are due within the next month and I am sure that will be ugly for osu...sniff...sniff...
Noth,
ReplyDeleteI flip flop on Dunn as well. UM needs a RB but and this is a BIG but UM may have there RB they want in Rawls and Sione Houma. Alot of people think he is a fullback but maybe not. He has good size and speed so we will have to wait and see on him. As for the OSU stuff if they get more then a one year bowl ban I will be amazed.
Sidenote, Are the defences for bama and LSU that good or are the offence that bad?
@Jer89
ReplyDeleteI don't think we need a big RB in this class. We have depth, and talent, at least enough to hold off till next year.
I look at the LSU/Bama game like this. Bama has a good offense, aka trent richardson. LSU has a poor offense. LSU just had the better defense.
LSU / Bama game was NOT the game of the century. It was more like a Chicago Cubs score. Ended up being pretty boring. Teams have scored some point on both these teams so it's hard to say. I will say the SEC makes the B1G look pretty lame. MSU might only have one loss but there not that good. NU beats NEB. Everyone beating each other. Were starting to look like the MAC. :-(
ReplyDeleteBama was hit with injurys in the game too.
ReplyDeleteBama and LSU have the #1 and #3 defenses respectively. Yes teams have scored on them but that still says alot this far into the year. Also if you watched the game you could tell their defenses were extremely fast and physical. Numerous times the DE would stay stride for stride with the RB and tackle him before he could turn up on the outside. Their cornerbacks were true shut down corners also. Both teams had enough trust in their corners to go man coverage and load the box to stop the run. However, i agree this was a good game but boring and not close to the game of the century hell no even the game of the year. I believe that title belongs to the UM vs ND game.
ReplyDelete@jer as for officials Garnett is signed up to visit the Nebraska game. And Thompson and Wright are scheduled for THEE game.
As for commits we would like to pull from the Penn state fiasco. I would be interested in Schutt and Reeves. As for the full story on how this will affect PSU recruiting go to this site if you got an ESPN insider account (unfortunately i do not)
http://insider.espn.go.com/college-sports/recruiting/football/story?id=7202579&_slug_=recruits-stand-penn-state-shocking-news&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fcollege-sports%2frecruiting%2ffootball%2fstory%3fid%3d7202579%26_slug_%3drecruits-stand-penn-state-shocking-news
Hello everyone, I've been gone for a while... big move, and jog change.
ReplyDeleteInteresting comments from many....
Some random interjections:
1. The coaches know what they are doing. They are doing exactly what they said they would do: Put the best players on the field, and create opportunities for them to succeed.
2. The improvement in the D, and the D stats, on a national comparative basis, is astounding. I'm just a hack, but it would not surprise me if it turns out to be one of the best transitions in the modern history of the game.
3. The pre-season Vegas over/under for wins was 7, if I am not mistaken. The fact that we got there so fast is amazing, especially to the track proven pros, who will lose money when we get to 8.
4. The fact that DR is not catching passes, means he cannot. That, unfortunately means he has a future as a return guy, at best.
5. This is a TRANSITION year. Job well done, already. The fact that it has gone so well, is a testament to the coaches, and the heart of this team.
6. The ball needed to bounce our way, and the calls go our way, for any chance at an incredibly shocking surprise season. It happened on the biggest night of the year. It did not last week. For the rest of the games, it's 50-50 each week.
7. No matter what happens from here on, I'm ALL BLUE, and ALL IN! We will be 8 wins, or better, exceeding my expectations, with progress markedly exceeding my expectations on the D side of the ball.
8. Recruiting? Fugetaboutit!!!! Crazy good, and getting better.....
9. LSU/AL game of the century?!?! Please! Even LSU fans are not saying that. What the game did show, to those who not only watched, but saw, was that the SEC will continue to destroy the best of the Big Ten. Sorry, but it's true. It's like watching semi-pro.
Worth a watch- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECavt1VPTx4
As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Blue Marrow that the SEC is head and shoulders above every other league, including the B1G. I'm curious, however, as to how much of this can be attributed to having a deeper talent pool versus better coaching? As we all know by now, coaching can have a huge influence on the quality of the "on-the-field product"; however, if you don't have enough depth of talent, coaching can only take you so far. Thoughts?
ReplyDeleteHas anyone else read the LaVar Arrington piece on ESPN.com concerning the Penn State fiasco? Pretty troubling and intense stuff.
ReplyDelete