Game 1 -- Middle Tennessee State at Michigan -- 7:30 PM August 31, 2019 -- BTN

[Hannibal]

And now McKeon drops one.

Like I said -- soft.

[hack]

JFC

[hack]

Just stupid.

[WM Wolverine]

1 QB on the field at a time.

[hack]

McCaffrey is going to be a very popular backup QB this year.

[hack]

Or starter?

[WM Wolverine]

Leaving a ton of points on the board, settling for field goals, can't get in end zone on 1-yd line, giving up possessions... Offensive line is contributing to some of these issues, couple significant mistakes at C/RT that killed drives... New offense still figuring things out?

[paul daugherity]

[hack]

They didn't let McCaffrey throw much. The red-zone offense looked like Harbaugh took back the keys from Gattis.

[maxreturn]

Underwhelming performance. Not surprised.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Think about these things:

Last fall, some of M's players were playing on Friday night in small towns before 100s not thousands or hundreds of thousand of fans. The rest are mostly in thier second or third years and are, for all intent and purpose, kids.

Don't go read mgoboard after a game; don't post here with mostly wrong observations where your emotions overtake balanced thought.

Read ACE's main board post at mgo.

My takes from the stands:

I was really disappointed mid first quarter when the score was MTSU 7, M 3. Didn't think M was going to lose but WTF!

I posted this up thread at half time but, MTSU profited from M's misalignment on D with misdirection. I don't think this was Brown's scheme failing but rather missed calls by whoever was setting the defense - probably Hudson. MTSU would put 3 or 4 receivers on one side of the field side and one more on the boundary side. The OL would block to the filed side, the entirety of M's D would shift in that direction, the QB would look to the filed, turn to the boundary and toss a quick shot to a wide open receiver in the flat. Happened a lot. The counter to that when M would back it's safeties out (looked like zone to me) was a QB or RB inside zone run for positive yardage.

The comments up thread about M's offense being the same as 2018 or Harbaugh calling the plays inside the red zone are just not accurate. That was Gattis. In game prep-doing the two QB thing was a mistake and a total bust in the game. Gattis also made some terrible calls. the most remarkably bad was the 4th and goal from the one. The entire MTSU team crashed inside. You could call that a RPS win for MTSU but, Gattis handed it to them. Fake inside and run outside or pass it. You can't win a manball game these days. Even FBS teams, the well coached ones and MTSU is that, will stuff teams that do that.

OTH, there were a ton of RO type plays, enough RPOs and a good dose of IZ/OZ plays. There's a lot of ball handling required in this offense. Needs work but I like what I saw conceptually. From ACE:

After a Patterson keeper for five yards, Gattis called consecutive run-pass options to free up Tarik Black for big gains, then a conventional play-action bomb to Nico Collins for a leaping 28-yard touchdown. Four plays, 67 yards, no huddles, 1:14 off the clock, seven points. This isn't last year's Michigan offense.

I'm waiting and seeing on the defense. It was good and bad at the same time and I'll have to see a replay or two to determine what was going on. Brown plays a 3 man front (over or under) against spready teams and that is a good call. But he doesn't have the horses at NT to make that work.

This COULD have been an easy 50+ point blow-out had it not been for two costly turnovers inside the M 30 by Patterson, 2 missed TD catches in the endzone, a muffed catch on a punt, a dropped pick 6, several potentially big pass play drops and what looked like potentially huge mostly IZ runs cut short because the OL couldn't hold their blocks up-field. I know, could-shoulda-woulda but this offense is capabl of those kinds of explosions if it can cut down on unforced errors.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Some pretty consistent comments out there on the web thinking Don Brown's defense has been downloaded by OCs and this game shows that it has and that he isn't adapting. Well planned and executed MTSU game plan to take advantage of M's typical D scheme and weaknesses up front. I don't know if that will hold water or not over the season. As well, it's hard, IMO, to evaluate this kind of thing from TV video and not just be reaching.

Also, am seeing a lot of comments on Patterson's inconsistency - kinda his MO throughout his career type comments. It was thought he can be brilliant or appear confused with his reads/miss seeing open receivers on his progressions. Ball handling will improve. That has more to do with continuing to practice the skills at the exchange or mesh that are a huge part of M's new offense.

Dwumfor and DPJ were on the sidelines in street clothes according to reports. We saw DPJ on the sidelines, in street clothes and wearing a boot but not Dwumfor. In fact, in watching video this evening, I saw him playing early and then left. Was it Dwumfor? At least there was a player, a very big one, with a #50 on the DL and playing the typical NT position. In Harbaugh's post game comments he noted with some qualifiers that both of these guys would be back along with Jeeter. He also noted that Patterson was working through something. Some comments on the web post game that he might have injured his hand. Not sure which one.

[lineygoblue]

We noticed that Patterson seemed to be wincing with some sort of pain around his rib cage in the 3rd quarter. Hopefully its no worse than a bruise.

Harbaugh seemed confident in the post game presser that DPJ would be back against Army. The only thing that scares me about DPJ's injury is that its reportedly a 'high ankle sprain', which is exactly the same injury that ended Mike Hart's Michigan career about 4 games early.

We could tell that Mid Tenn had been watching Michigan's last season video. They caught the DL over pursuing a few times. But Brown isn't going to change. He believes that although there is high risk, he likes the great reward more. Its vulnerable to counter action and shifty RB/QB's.

[Hannibal]

This felt a lot like watching a RichRod 2010 win. The defense was really bad. They got torn through like butter after both of our fumbles. The DBs blew a few coverages pretty badly. It reminded me of the Jim Hermann years. The DL was a complete non factor and ended up with only one TFL. Going into the game the consensus on the MTSU OL was that it was really bad. It sure didn't look bad against us. We really need our starting DTs healthy because Ben Mason as a DT is disastrous. And defense, overall, looked slow.

The offense is definitely Gattis's. Patterson is a mediocre QB though The guy just does not have the "it" factor. He's not good at all at throwing those screen passes. Gatts RPSs the MTSU defense big time on a few screens but none of them went for big yardage. The next time that he makes a big critical throw will be the first. The guy can't make plays when it counts. This is why so many of our drives stall after a couple of first downs. Granted, the receivers weren't helping him out, but Patterson's just not the guy. I like Charbonnet and it's very encouraging that he is clearly the guy that they trust doing the pass blocking. He is also the best runner. Ruiz had one horrible bust in pass blocking and I think that the tackles may have been beaten once or twice, but I did like the OL play. MTSU blitzed their balls off and they didn't get a lot out of it. But Patterson couldn't make them pay half the time.

Putting Lavert Hill in as a punt returner is one of the stupidest personnel decisions that I have ever seen in my life. The guy is arguably the most important player on the defense and they exposed him to injury in a way that was completely unnecessary. And he couldn't even catch the ball reliably. What the hell were they thinking? And what were they thinking putting in McCaffrey in as a wide receiver? Is that this year's Pepcat? Looks like it.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Following up on my comment above that OC's have "downladed" DB's tactics - MTSU appears to have done that quite well. Asher O'Hara was phenomenally and unexpectedly good with his play making ability. M's DEs were neutralized by play design.

There were several chunk plays gained by a flare pass into an undefended flat on the boundary side of the field. This was obtained by putting 3, sometimes 4, receivers on the field side and 1 on the boundary side. The OL blocks to the field side dragging the LBs in that direction. The boundary side receiver would run a dig-route (15y deep then cut in). This drags the cover guy who is playing tight man coverage down field. A Slot/H back, TE or RB would then fill the vacated space in the flat. O'Hara looks filed side, turns and fires to the boundary side flat. Easy 8-10 yards.

It looked to me like the Ss were coached to contain the play inside too aggressively thus, they repeatedly stepped up and inside as the QB took the snap. Then, you could see them trying to recover as soon as O'Hara looked to the boundary side receiver. MTSU seemed to be bating Ss to step up by a particular formation look that threatened an IZ run play.

This is just one play that tries to fuck with how Brown's defenders are coached to "solve problems with aggression." With fast twitch QBs who are getting the ball out to open receivers in 2 seconds or less, this kind of aggressive play from the Ss and DEs can be easily mitigated by approaches like this and are beginning to routinely characterize M's opponent's play design. M has been victimized by their last three opponents without, apparently, Brown adapting to it (???)

Now Brown advocates will point out that the rewards of playing aggressively like this outweigh the risks. There were a couple times where the CB correctly assessed these plays and stepped up, the boundary S properly replaced him on the dig route receiver and the receiver in the flat was tackled for minimal or no gain. I think M may have dropped into zone coverage at the snap on these. Not sure.

Most observers I'm reading are calling for more zone coverage against teams using play designs like this. Not sure if Hudson is missing these calls or doesn't have that option. I think he does and missed them when MTSU obtained chunk yardage. IOW, Brown may have coached the players to read formations and make the correct adjustments. We'll see ...... but not with the next two opponents, neither of whom will pass that much. Both Army and Wisconsin are run heavy. Defending the option game is one thing and we hope Brown delivers on his claim that he's been practicing for Army.