Another Harbaugh Choke Postgame Thread

[AlabamAlum]

If the M-Florida game you are referencing is 2018, the Gators (like Bama) didn’t make the SECCG.

[AlabamAlum]

If the M-FSU game you are talking about was 2016, FSU, likewise, was not in the ACCCG

[lineygoblue]

I don't care. I'm pissed off. I don't care if I'm rational or correct.

[AlabamAlum]

If it’s not one of these games:

-2019, Alabama (10-2) vs Michigan (9-3), Citrus
-2018, Florida (9-3) vs Michigan (10-2), Peach
-2016, Florida State (9-3) vs Michigan (10-2), Orange

…let me know. I have everyone’s games at my fingertips (courtesy of J.Howell).

[lineygoblue]

If/when Alabama beats Georgia in the SEC CG, I think Georgia should play Michigan.

Its the only fair matchup that is possible.

[Mike]

Correction: The most recent bowl game against Florida was the Peach Bowl. There's been so many I can't keep them straight.

If the M-Florida game you are referencing is 2018, the Gators (like Bama) didn’t make the SECCG.

Right. Harbaugh's one bowl victory was over Florida in the Citrus when they DID make the SECCG. Determining who the #2, #3, etc. teams are in each league essentially come down to overall record and ranking. I don't think people would suggest that Northwestern has been the Big Ten's 2nd best team in 2 of the last 3 seasons. Maybe they would... but they'd be wrong.

Bama was a bad matchup for us but they are for pretty much everyone. Now that I've looked it up, here's some recent bowl games:

2018 Peach Bowl: # 10 Florida 9-3, #8 Michigan 10-2. Florida won 41-15

2018 Outback: So. Carolina and Michigan both unranked at 8-4

2016 Orange: #11 FSU 9-3, #6 Michigan 10-2, lost by one point

2016 Citrus: #19 Florida 10-3, #14 Michigan 9-3 we WON 41-7

2013 Buffalo Wild Wings: Michigan and Kansas State both 7-5, lost 31-14

2013 Outback Bowl: #10 So. Carolina 10-2, #18 Michigan 8-4, lost 33-28 in the waning seconds

2012 Sugar: #11 VaTech 11-2, #13 Michigan 10-2, WON 23-20

2008 Capitol 1: #12 Florida 9-3, Michigan unranked 8-4, WON 41-35

2007 Rose: #5 USC 10-2, #3 Michigan 11-1

2005 Alamo: unranked UNL 7-4, #20 Michigan 7-4

2005 Rose: #4 Texas 10-1, #13 Michigan 9-2

2004 Rose: #3 USC 12-1, #4 Michigan 10-2

2003 Outback: #20 Florida 9-3, #11 Michigan 9-3

Not gonna go through them all but the only outliers were South Carolina in the 2013 Outback (which Michigan should have won) and the 2008 Citrus which Michigan did win.

Edit: Texas in the Rose Bowl was a bad matchup but we won the Big Ten so you're going to play an elite team/conference champion in the Rose Bowl. The games with USC were old-school Big Ten vs. Pac 10 tie-ins.

[AlabamAlum]

I don't care. I'm pissed off. I don't care if I'm rational or correct.

Liney,

I, mean, I get it. You love your school. I am the same way. During a game, I often think every call that goes against Bama is a bad one and even if I have to begrudgingly admit that it was the correct call, I often am overcome with the feeling that they didn’t call X against the other team earlier or that MIGHT have been a penalty but they held so it should have offset or whatever. I think it’s pretty natural. I make it a point, though, to avoid wrapping myself in it because I understand I am wildly biased and as a result, I am not a reliable evaluator of such things. I can’t be - and, further - it will drive you mad. There is no relief for such things. The SEC office isn’t gonna look at my comments, review the film, and decide to reverse the results of the game (no matter how many times Auburn wasn’t flagged for a lineman downfield).

Michigan’s opponents average 42.5 yards in penalties per game. Michigan is flagged for 47 yards in penalties per game. That doesn’t mean much other than, to me, it somewhat suggests that the refs don’t have much of a dog in the fight. I say that, because let me be the White Hat at the Bama-Auburn game and I guarantee you Auburn loses 77-0. Every TD will be called back (those bastards always hold) and every stalled Bama drive will continue due to 1st down on penalties (I know they did something). Georgia would be 1-7 (don’t think I could flag them enough to seal a Vandy win).

As far as the bowl matchups, I think bowl committees love schools like Michigan, Alabama, Florida, etc, because we are from power conferences with big fanbases and had comparable W-L records. They were reasonable matchups.

Regards,
AA

[lineygoblue]

Thanks, AA. Excellent post, and you understand where I am at today.

I'd never officiate a game involving Michigan mostly because I wouldn't be able to take the pressure. And yes, I'd probably be biased. That's another thing about 2016 OSU v Michigan that still pisses me off, when it was found that four (4) Ohio residents were on the 7- man crew that said Barrett got the first down. The Big Ten office looked around and wondered what M fans were all upset about. BUT .. if you turn that situation around? What if M were to have 4 Michigan residents on the crew this year, and somehow Michigan wins on a favorable spot? I doubt that the Big Ten office would even allow such an assignment to be made, because, .. well, .. Ohio.

bah ..

I still feel that instant replay is being abused, and/or not being used in the way it was intended. Too many times we see calls based on a micro-analysis of the play rather than just looking to see if an officiating mistake was made. They're doing it in both the NCAA and the NFL. Shoot, when we were kids, playing in the neighborhood, whoever yelled the loudest made the call, and we went on with the game. Today, calls are made based on who can use the biggest technical words. Its awful.

Anything good (championships, post season) for Michigan is gone now. Had they pulled out a win, there was a miniscule chance of catching OSU on a bad day, and maybe getting a trip to Indy. Even with a loss there, we might have been able to see Michigan back at the Rose Bowl. That would have been a good consolation prize.

But now? Ahhhh.. Florida. Against a pissed-off SEC team.

Yippee.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Anything good (championships, post season) for Michigan is gone now. Had they pulled out a win, there was a miniscule chance of catching OSU on a bad day, and maybe getting a trip to Indy. Even with a loss there, we might have been able to see Michigan back at the Rose Bowl. That would have been a good consolation prize.

But now? Ahhhh.. Florida. Against a pissed-off SEC team.

Yippee.

I get you're pissed off and I agree with you that replay is being misused. I see Talent's point that he'd rather they get the call right and replay can do that. Can is the operative word. It's more correctly might. The micro-analysis of the strip-sack-fumble TD produced an erroneous call ..... and extended the game unnecessarily along with 6 other reviews and FOX's attempt to cram every possible commercial into the broadcast.

I wish one of the geeks that post at mgobard would do a diary entry that looks at the total of all booth reviews in BT games and see what the reversal rate is. I'd bet it is low demonstrating that it's overused and that the refs on the field, making the live call mostly got things right. Likewise if it's high, the quality of the refereeing is low enough to warrant looking at hiring and developing pro-refs taking managing these guys out of the hands of the conferences where we have a good idea it probably isn't the way to produce competence.

Beyond my agreement with you on refereeing CFB games and the overuse of replay, that you have, like I accused Mike, of already ceding losses to PSU and OSU is disheartening and not based on any logic or rational thinking..... which you actually admit. So, suck it up buttercup and hope for the best without incessantly making the point that you unequivocally expect the worst.

[THE_WIZARD_]

Because of the unexpected loss to TUCKER!!! I am hereby dropping one of the ! off of HARBAUGH!!! to just HARBAUGH!!

I hope you will all understand.

Thanks.

Your Pal and Fiend,

The Wizard, Esq

aka WIZARD!!!

[lineygoblue]

Beyond my agreement with you on refereeing CFB games and the overuse of replay, that you have, like I accused Mike, of already ceding losses to PSU and OSU is disheartening and not based on any logic or rational thinking..... which you actually admit. So, suck it up buttercup and hope for the best without incessantly making the point that you unequivocally expect the worst.

I'll give you the point that Michigan has a better chance of beating PSU than they do OSU. Its not by a lot, but there is a difference between the two teams.

I get it that you're a faithful alumni, and I respect that a lot. You want to believe the best about the team, and you want to remain optimistic. Based on what we've seen this year I can't be that optimistic. To win out would call for the best 4 game coaching stretch in Harbaugh's college coaching career. I guess I'm incapable of that kind of optimism.

[Jeff Buchanan]

If your not just burned out on post game talk, this is a good piece from mgo. Froot you'll like this. Despite all the discussion of KWIII getting 5TDs and the inability of McDonald to deal with MS's tempo and substitutions leading to at least 2 of them, this author concludes that the fundamental reason for M's loss was M's passing game not being able to hit WRs down the field when it absolutely had to.

This was a concern going into the MSU game - M's passing game would prove they're undoing - and that Cade couldn't hit his WRs on deep routes when he had to was essentially lost in the gaudy passing stats that he had and all the post game praise that was heaped on him. I thought this was a really good job of this author fleshing this out. One of those plays was on the INT that ended the game when C. Johnson couldn't come up with a hurried, back foot, underthrown pass. He lists a couple of other key passes attemtps to his WRs that if Cade makes these, the chance of M winning the game increases substnatially.

He also notes that rushing stats were equal between MSU and M. Sounds weird but makes sense when you read this part of the piece. When you take out three of KWIII's long runs that ended in TDs, recognizing these plays were huge M D busts (and the author explains in detail exactly what happened), He proves that the team that has the most rush yards doesn't always win. What is clear though is that when your opponent has big rushing plays that end in TDs, you're NOT going to win.

https://mgoblog.com/content/technica...gain#read-more

[froot loops]

That dude saw the same thing I did on those worthless blitzes on 3rd and longs in the first half. My son and I were screaming at the TV presnap to get out of the blitz. They weren't getting home and McNamara was finding the vacated area. In the second half they pretty much stopped that.

My hope before the game was Harbaugh was going to manball the running game like he had all year. I could handle 12 play drives between the 20s. I was worried about the passing game. I believe Harbaugh has made a mistake this year by throttling the passing game before this game. McNamara can be better but Harbaugh has to have more gameplans like that.

[Mike]

If your not just burned out on post game talk, this is a good piece from mgo. Froot you'll like this. Despite all the discussion of KWIII getting 5TDs and the inability of McDonald to deal with MS's tempo and substitutions leading to at least 2 of them, this author concludes that the fundamental reason for M's loss was M's passing game not being able to hit WRs down the field when it absolutely had to.

This was a concern going into the MSU game - M's passing game would prove they're undoing - and that Cade couldn't hit his WRs on deep routes when he had to was essentially lost in the gaudy passing stats that he had and all the post game praise that was heaped on him. I thought this was a really good job of this author fleshing this out. One of those plays was on the INT that ended the game when C. Johnson couldn't come up with a hurried, back foot, underthrown pass. He lists a couple of other key passes attemtps to his WRs that if Cade makes these, the chance of M winning the game increases substnatially.

He also notes that rushing stats were equal between MSU and M. Sounds weird but makes sense when you read this part of the piece. When you take out three of KWIII's long runs that ended in TDs, recognizing these plays were huge M D busts (and the author explains in detail exactly what happened), He proves that the team that has the most rush yards doesn't always win. What is clear though is that when your opponent has big rushing plays that end in TDs, you're NOT going to win.

https://mgoblog.com/content/technica...gain#read-more

Yeah, no. Just no. This is why I can’t read that site anymore. MSU outrushed us I think 199-145 or something like that. Not a huge difference but a difference nonetheless. If someone wants to fancy stat that away, fine. But any analysis that includes “when you take away 3 long TD runs” is not analysis, it’s apologetic.

And to then try to cast McNamara as the culprit when he had one of the all-time great performances in this series is beyond the pale. We made too many dumb mistakes, had some bad breaks with officiating, and generally choked. Again. Like always.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Mike, you've made it clear where you stand on this team and on Harbaugh in particular following the loss to MSU. If you didn't read the entire article I linked to you're not allowing yourself to be convincible. You've made up your mind already and won't entertain views of what caused the loss, other than what you enumerate above, and those are certainly among them. What Ian Boyd offers is nothing more than a pure analysis of specific set of plays that if they had gone in favor of M, M wins that game. They did not for any number of reasons not associated with the coaching staff but rather with players unable to be in the right spot, catch the ball, not possess i,v none of which have anything to do with coaching or players not wanting to win.

Coaches and players were in the film room over the last couple of days looking at the game, unemotionally, and doing the kinds of things Boyd has done tyring to get better at their craft. Fans tend to not do that instead allowing their emotions to dictate what they say about the game and its outcome.

My recounting of the author's main points may actually distort what he effectively argues. IMO, you're letting you emotions over the loss not allow you to accept other rational explanations of it. M lost. I think it instructive to analyze why. Occam's razor might apply but I believe it's an oversimplification.

I'll abandon my willingness to support Harbaugh and what appears to be an upward trend in the progress of the football team, with a perturbation of that trend in EL, if the team loses to PSU and OSU in some other fashion that it lost the game to MSU. Until then I'd encourage everyone to read and understand explanations for the loss other than Jim Harbaugh is shit as a HC.