Michigan 32, Nebraska 29. Post Game Discussion

[Jeff Buchanan]

Seth at mgo provides a couple of revealing criticisms of M's offense in his UFR of the Wisconsin game (caveat on Fox shitty camera work).

The run plays we're seeing with dwindling success, where M's success with this in the first three games was good, is because M doesn't have good counters to its base run play. The split zone. First, opponent OCs know from tape this season that McNamara isn't going to keep. When McCarthy comes in he probably is. This allows the opponents' D to focus on the gaps and put bodies in them. DEs are slanting inside and Ss are playing just outside the box. That's part of the problem. The other part is that if the O lines up for one of these plays - essential to make the split zone run play work by making defenders assignment more difficult - they don't really run it:

• Arc Read. (But our QB won’t keep it.)
• Zone Read. (But our QB won’t keep it.)
• Split the RB out and run the QB. (Lol right.)
• Split flow. This is a play-action pass that turns all those crossers into a levels read. Michigan has only run this as an RPO screen to the TE, which doesn’t work against zone.
• RPOs that attack behind the LBs as they overplay the run.

Seth assigns this problem to Harbaugh. It's persisted through every OC that's been hired since JH became the HC. It's a senseless insistence on hammering away at the split zone as M's base offensive play. This is what is run on short yardage and goal line plays and we all know how those are turning out most of the time. Not good. To demonstrate how insistent Harbaugh seems to be running this play, Seth compares examples of a FB dive and QB keepers run under the C that routinely provide at least 3y (Ben Mason).

It really is hard to complain though. M is undefeated and has never trailed. The problem is that opponents are going to get harder to dispatch given what Seth describes as an apparent fatal flaw not yet fully realized.

Unless you're as obsessive as me and have the time, like I do, to go through these, just scroll down to the grades section and the comments that follow:

https://mgoblog.com/content/upon-further-review-2021-offense-vs-wisconsin#read-more

[iam416]

Seth will be bitching even when M is 12-0. This is a juggernaut. 2016, but with a better QB.

[Hannibal]

Harbaugh is running a Lloyd Carr type running game. Albeit with personnel who can execute it very well. But they have no constraint plays that work, and they don't have a Brady or Henson caliber QB who can punish defenses the way that they need to be punished. Our playbook sucks this year but at least we aren't turning the ball over. Gattis and Harbaugh have never meshed their styles effectively. It seems to be all or nothing for one or the other instead of a "best of both worlds" type approach. Gattis might be a good OC at his next stop, but he's the wrong OC for us.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Seth will be bitching even when M is 12-0. This is a juggernaut. 2016, but with a better QB.

Potentially and only that. But you're right about Seth. The entire mgo crew seems to be immersed in negativity.....well deserved if you ask me. I find it hard to eliminate the doubt myself, a dong punch one Saturday away. Look at Linesman, a long time M football devote'.

I'm not alone in saying M's offense is decidedly similar to the approach he took at Stanford. But he had Luck and that changed the offensive dynamic. QB's with Luck's skill set were able to reliably punish defenses that tried to gang up on the split zone concepts he successfully run at Standford. When Luck departed, Stanford was still a credible football team but not lethal enough to dominate in securing championships and for that matter neither has Harbaugh been anywhere and at any level he's coached. He's good but not that good.

So, I think there is a ton of credibility to Seth's very specific take on this lack of effective counters and constraints to split zone run plays that seem to be plaguing M's run game against teams like Wisconsin. Acknowledged that the Badgers probably have the best two LBs in the Big perfectly blended into Jim Leonard's run defensive scheme that M was probably over matched against. But one has to ask, why, in his 7th season at M he's not had or developed a QB who he feels confident that he can run the counters and constraints without risking a turnover or injury.

We might learn something v. Neb that the hammering away at the run game as JH envisions it will work against a defense that may or may not match up as well against M's run game as Wisconsin's did. Maybe, he'll break out the plays M's run game needs to make it dominant. But, I doubt it.

[lineygoblue]

Seth will be bitching even when M is 12-0. This is a juggernaut. 2016, but with a better QB.

No.

Ruddock was much better than both McCarthy and McNamara, and any similarity to a juggernaut in 2016 was quickly disposed of by Utah.

The real juggernaut in the B1G is still in Columbus. Nobody else in the conference can match the raw skill level on the roster there. Nobody. All its going to take is one well-played game for those kids to realize how good they are, and after that, its over.

Michigan is fair on defense, but has been exposed. They didn't face a QB last week who could take advantage of those weaknesses. They will this week.

Offensively, Gattisbaugh's stubborn insistance to run the ball even when its not available will cost them dearly this week. The Huskers will NOT allow M to run. Gattisbaugh will have no plan B, as usual. Anyone that has watched any M football at all over the Harbaugh term knows what's about to happen. He's not going to become Nick Jr. overnight if he hasn't done it in 6 years.

Huskers get what a lot of people will categorize as a 'signature' win, but really, they'll be beating a team that is only fair at best.

[Mike]

Utah was Harbaugh's first game in 2015. 2016 was the year they started 9-0 while outscoring opponents by 39 ppg. Then they lost that road night game at Iowa. Beware the road night games.

As for 2021, Michigan is a competent football team that, so far, doesn't turn the ball over and plays solid defense. That's a recipe for success against the vast majority of opponents but it's going to get a lot tougher from here on out. The offense is still very vanilla and the run game that was averaging 330 yards per game out of conference is suddenly averaging 2.9 ypc in Big Ten play. Most games other than NW and Indiana will have to be won with Lloyd Ball.

[Tom W]

Still, FEAR the HUSKERS of the CORN!

[lineygoblue]

Utah was Harbaugh's first game in 2015. 2016 was the year they started 9-0 while outscoring opponents by 39 ppg. Then they lost that road night game at Iowa. Beware the road night games.

My mistake, I stand corrected. I was too lazy to Google it.

[lineygoblue]

Still, FEAR the HUSKERS of the CORN!

I have no idea why this isn't the unanimous view in here. You people act like you've never seen Michigan play a road night game before. Why in the world would anyone think that Michigan should be favored in this game? We've all read this book before. We've seen this movie before.

Frosty has had this game red-circled for more than a year. Martinez is coming off what was likely the game of his career. He's red hot.

This is an easy pick. Nebraska will win by a TD or maybe even more.

[Tom W]

Gee, perhaps it's because you're confused the Huskers' with Alabama or Ohio State. IIRC, the same thing happened last week with another team in red and white uniforms.

Nebraska is a decent team, and they may very well play lights out and win this game. But there's no way that this should be a UNANIMOUS view here.

Frost has been an even bigger disappointment than Harbaugh has. Perhaps Wiz can attest to whether or not he has this game "red-circled"- or if he even knows how to use a marker- or draw a circle. He can probably do both, but he hasn't exactly wowwed anybody in the conference with his coaching accomplishments.

But yeah, it's a night game. Michigan could NEVER win one of those..

[lineygoblue]

Tom, .. are you trying to get me to behave rationally?

Others have tried. Its impossible.

[Tom W]

Nah, I'm just trying to remind you that despite being on the "DetroitLions Forum", we aren't actually talking about the Detroit Lions.

Michigan is not the Detroit Lions. The worst things don't always have to happen to them.

[iam416]

No.

Ruddock was much better than both McCarthy and McNamara, and any similarity to a juggernaut in 2016 was quickly disposed of by Utah.

The real juggernaut in the B1G is still in Columbus. Nobody else in the conference can match the raw skill level on the roster there. Nobody. All its going to take is one well-played game for those kids to realize how good they are, and after that, its over.

Michigan is fair on defense, but has been exposed. They didn't face a QB last week who could take advantage of those weaknesses. They will this week.

Offensively, Gattisbaugh's stubborn insistance to run the ball even when its not available will cost them dearly this week. The Huskers will NOT allow M to run. Gattisbaugh will have no plan B, as usual. Anyone that has watched any M football at all over the Harbaugh term knows what's about to happen. He's not going to become Nick Jr. overnight if he hasn't done it in 6 years.

Huskers get what a lot of people will categorize as a 'signature' win, but really, they'll be beating a team that is only fair at best.

Mike already noted that you're in the wrong season, but to finish it -- The Mac Boys are MOST DEFINITELY better than Wilson fucking Speight.

[lineygoblue]

Mike already noted that you're in the wrong season, but to finish it -- The Mac Boys are MOST DEFINITELY better than Wilson fucking Speight.

I will cautiously give you that point, but my bigger concern is that Harbaugh is going to let McCarthy get away like Carr did Henson, and we'll end up with Dave Cone.

But for now, .. McNamara >>>Speight. No doubt.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I understand rational reasons why M's run game appears to be shackled by a lack of well run constraints and counters to M's base split zone run. Harbaugh's doing most observers believe it is and will continue to plague M football as not a one off fatal flaw.

I understand most rational reasons why observers think Martinez is a danger man because of his legs not his arm.

But CFB being played by all Division I teams except for Alabama and UGA in the 2021 season is completely unpredictable.

McDonald was hired to stop the typical QBs that do their QB thing like Justin Fields at OSU. Neb is an elementary school test of whether he is any good at doing what he was hired to do. I say that because Nebraska does not have the supporting cast that OSU QBs have both up front and in the skill positions.

For me, this game is a toss-up being that my recency bias is in conflict with my historical bias. I've witnessed one too many Don Brown collapses in the face of a good running QB running an option offense that can also throw the ball. I long for the days of the ascendancy of Jim Hermann's famous defense when he shut down ND's option football ...... after that he was mostly shit. So, not that.

The stuff Neb runs - UCF option ball - can be contained but it takes M's DEs, especially Hutchinson but also Ojabo, to let go of some of their natural instincts and training that will cause them to over run plays or lose contain. Dax will be key in seeing what's happening and containing it opposite Hutch. The same thing for the OLBs. They have to make the reads or M is fucked. None of this is easy. Well run option ball is hard to defend. Frost's boys may be getting it, caveat NWU which Alex Drain writing for mgo called pathetic.

Wiz suggested that over "thinking" Neb's offense was counterproductive. I'll leave it to McDonald to do that. We should be worried more about is scoring on Neb's defense. Certainly, Neb's OC will have seen how the Badgers held M's rushing attack to what, something around 94y? He'll have seen all the stuff Seth lamented about that's missing in M's run game.

If McDonald is successful - and I think he will be - in keeping Martinez, the sole guy that all of Neb's offense flows through - in check, this could very well be a sludge fest kind of game. I don't think either team is capable of a getting a win in a shootout nor do I think M is capable of scoring over 24 in a defensive battle.

Nebraska 24 - Michigan 20