Rutgers @ Michigan, Saturday, September 28th, Noon EDT, BTN/Fox Video

[Jeff Buchanan]

FWIW, that's not the way I read it. If I understand Brian correctly, which I may not, what he's saying is that Harbaugh has enough statistical credibility to keep his job even though he doesn't deserve to. But we'll see where the guy is in the coming weeks, when he calms down. He's one voice worth listening to, but not the only one. Right now Spath seems pretty clear-headed, even though at other times he seems like a bit of a clickbaity sort of guy.

Well, you might be right, Hack. Because I didn't see the movie to which he draws an analogy to the Wisconsin game and by extension Jim Harbaugh's Michigan HC tenure. I also skimmed right over that shit to see if he was going to make a fucking point. He did and how I read it is how I posted about it here.

I'm all in favor of letting Harbaugh coach the season if only to see the dumpster fire he could be totally responsible for. Hanni is correct. The wheels are completely off the wagon. It is going to take a monumental effort to get to 7-5. 5-7 is entirely possible without some major changes.

I don't particularly like the idea of putting Warinner in as OC. He failed in that role at osu. You can't make sense out of bringing someone completely new and outside the program in now so, Warinner may be the best bet here assuming Gattis is to be removed as OC. There has been plenty of support for going back to a base IZ/OZ power game and throw in a bit of ZR/RPO which JH actually seemed to do last season. It wasn't terrible.

Alternatively, stick with what you have in the ZR/RPO and see if you can make it work. I'm not sure about benching Patterson. I've seen plenty of discussion on whether or not he can be resurrected from the depths he is most certainly in right now. It's an open question.

I have also seen some decent commentary on McCaffrey. He is believed to be highly competitive which makes him reckless and you can argue his recklessness is behind his injuries. He won't make it through the season in a ZR/RPO offense so highly dependent on a run threat, QB included. Then you are faced with a Patterson/Milton or even Cade Mcnamara. The targeting hit Dcaff took to his head certainly was bad but it's been pointed out he does not know how to protect himself and although I can't comment, those that have some experience with this say that he didn't and exposed himself on that particular hit. It wasn't the first time. I think his arm could be as good as Patterson's if not better. He seems to read and process defenses better and sees receivers better than Patterson.

In fact both of these QBs could be decent if Gattis or whoever, started running recievers laterally - something that has been pointed out isn't happeneing with highly skilled receivers in Bell, Sanristil and Cornelius Johnson remaining on the sidelines.

I think most experts involved in such large scale organizational change would advocate for incremental change. There are outliers and they can work but in the context of the Michigan culture thing, incrementalism is probably approrpiate. I'm good with Gattis staying and running his offense or only as a mouth piece for an offense Harbaugh is comfortable with. In the meantime start working on Harbaugh's return to the NFL and a search for his replacement to be in place by December. Should M finish 11-1, and that's my bar for retaining Harbaugh, carry on.

[iam416]

[Jeff Buchanan]

He's invested in it and day failing at osu. He is so fucking wrong

[iam416]

[hack]

Let's give him a week to ease back from his most emo self into the more rational person that looked at the numbers way back when and figured out Hoke at that early stage. We'll see what he says then.

IMO, Jim's gotta own it so he can tweak it. Take the keys back from Gattis and fix it his way. These halfmeasures are clearly a disaster.

[iam416]

Concur.

[froot loops]

The way the Michigan program has been run since the late days of Carr, a head coach hire is a crap shoot. It isn't at OSU or Wisconsin.

[iam416]

Precisely.

[hack]

Makes sense.

[Jeff Buchanan]

So, moving on ........

Michigan is a 27.6 point favorite v. Rutgers, Michigan having not covered the spread in forever. M goes into this game with a 2 and 3 record in it's last five games. It should probably be 1 and 4.

Rutgers has fundamental problems on both lines and it is why their record is so poor. They are the perfect example of why you cant win games in the BT if you lose at the LoS. Uh, that pretty much describes Michigan at this point. M's lines <<< osu, UF, Army, Wisconsin. The saving grace in M's next game is that Michigan's lines >>> than Rutgers.

There is no telling if Brown will continue to use his hybrid 2-4-5 or switch to his more conventional version of a 3-3-5 which is actually a 4-3-4. If he shows the 2-4-5 and the LBs have to make up for poor DT play and don't do well doing it, Rutgers will move the ball. M consistently lost the edge v. Wisconsin and if they do that against Rutgers, something that team will most certainly test, Rasheem Blackshear, who plays a jet back role (H-Back) or Isaih Pachecco, who plays RB, will find it and get chunk yards. I'm not confident that this won't happen. I think it will and produce a lot of discomfort, angst and post game gnashing of teeth. These two players are quality backs and probably both of them have NFL potential.

Artur Sitkowski is back at QB after the Texas Grad Transfer who beat out Sitkoski for the QB job was knocked out of the Iowa game last week. He's doubtful for Saturday. Hence Sitkowski. He's OK. He can do what Patterson seems unable to do ...... throw on rhythm and get the ball out quickly. Through three games, he has 3 sacks. He's throwing to primarily his backs, esp. Blackshear. He also has one of those long but a bit underweight Fr. receivers in Isaiah Washington. He is probably not a deep threat mainly because that is not the Rutger's offense MO. Rutger's offense is very spready so, I see Brown deploying his D in mostly nickel coverages - his MO against spread teams. What that nickel scheme looks like though is TBD. I expect to see a lot of ZRs for Pecheco and plenty of short RPOs for Blacksheer.

The Rutger's defense isn't particularly good and suffers from a dirth of playmakers. But it's not terrible. Before Iowa kept the Rutgers defense on the field for ever, they held the Iowa offense to 38 yards in the first quarter and notched several 3 and outs forcing Iowa punts. They are going to look pretty good against M's shaky offense that is hampered by both injuries and poor QB play. We still don't know if the Gattis offense will get on track, if Harbaugh has imposed more control on it and what it will look like on Saturday. For all intent and purpose, this is a start-over for M.

The Rutgers punter, Korsak, a junior, averaged 47.6 yards on 10 punts v. Iowa and most of them were bombs. A decent tool against a crap M offense that won't be able to dig itself out of punts inside the 20.

I'll do my two scenarios here:

(1) Michigan discovers an offensive identity. My preference is that they hold on to the Gatttis ZR/RPO base and try to make it work. I've got no problems with adding some IZ power as a means of developing a better run game if only to facilitate the RPO. Patterson gets the ball out quicker and in rhythm and Gattis puts some laterallity into the passing game with Black, Sanistril and Johnson. Arm punt the shit out of the passing game to Nico and DPJ if he plays. Brown fields a well prepared and efficient defense. Michigan wins something like 35-17; they won't cover. 55%

(2) Harbaugh has intervened and the offense struggles in a mode they have only practiced for a week..... or he hasn't and Gattis puts another shit show on the field. Patterson continues to struggle. The defense continues to get had by well designed offensive plays like they did v. Wisconsin. We've all seen it. Michigan wins in a nail biter 20-18. 45%

[iam416]

If this is a close game then make plans for the rest of your Saturdays.

[WM Wolverine]

Rutgers is as bad as usual. Iowa beat them 30-0 and it wasn't as close as the score as Rutgers barely crossed midfield.

[Jeff Buchanan]

So, talent, you acknowledge there's a chance that it's close, right? Plenty of people laughed at the Knights/Wolverine match-up pre-season. They should be laughing at Michigan and I suspect plenty of people are. Wait, I know they are.

There's some over-reaction, sure but you can't be three games into a season about to embark on #4 and be as woeful as this team seems to be. So many question marks.

Truth teller coming up.... and yes, I'm already contemplating what I'll be doing on Saturdays the rest of the season.

[AlabamAlum]

[lineygoblue]

I think Michigan wins, but I don't believe they'll cover. Patterson is not 100%, and his confidence is zero. Charbonnet is going to be watched closely and won't get a lot of carries. McCaffery will still be in concussion protocol and may not play again for a few more weeks. So, if Patterson is still shaky, that means we may see Milton. Who knows what he will bring to the table.

Defensively, Michigan HAS been exposed, and Chris Ash is no dummy. He'll attempt to run the things against Don Brown's defense that everyone else is being successful with. So unless Michigan snaps out of its six game funk, I suppose Rutgers could hang with Michigan for a while. Maybe even longer than most of us will be comfortable with.

In this game, I'd like to believe that Michigan would hammer Rutgers to the tune of about 56-10. But I don't think that's happening.

I think its going to be a lot like the MTSU game.

Michigan 31
Rutgers 17