Another Harbaugh Choke Postgame Thread

[lineygoblue]

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.

Agree about McNamara. Cade is the last guy on the list that deserves any blame for the loss. The kid played his best game as a Wolverine, and his efforts should have been enough to win. The coaches failed to prepare the players (read: defense)for what MSU had been doing all season long. Its always the coaches' job to put the players in the best position to win, and they failed to do that. Harbaugh is the chief on that totem pole, so overall, he's to blame. Add in mistakes, and some micro-officiating that helped MSU along, and we got stuck with the L.

[Mike]

He’s not total shit. He’s just a poor man’s Mark Richt.

Michigan threw for 406 yards and 3 TDs. I’m sure they missed some opportunities in the passing game. Corum’s early drop was one of them. But FFS, there are SEVERAL bigger factors in the loss than the passing game. Hell, just the aforementioned drop, strip sack reversal, and fumbled handoff probably cost Michigan a double digit win.

[lineygoblue]

The four FG's that could have been TD's was a difference of 16 points.

Add in the strip/sack/TD that was taken away, and add another 7 points.

That gives Michigan a 20 point win.

Again, McNamara isn't the reason for the loss. If anything, he kept them in the game.

[froot loops]

Prior to the game, fellas were downplaying the MSU offense by saying if you eliminate the big plays the offense wasn't that good. Now after the game they are trying to eliminate the big runs of Walker in the analysis. It doesn't make sense. A lot of the big plays over the year has simply been handing the ball off to Walker on a give and he takes it to the house.

They didn't really play a game designed to stop big plays. To do that you keep everything in front of you and play bend but don't break, you make him beat you 5 to 10 yards at a time.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Guys ......the author of the Technical Flyover piece was arguing that take away the KWIII's big plays and the rushing yards aren't significantly different between the two teams such that one could conclude that the team that has the most rush yards wins - a meme that has persisted without qualification for decades. The author then states that KWIIIs several runs from the LOS that resulted in TDs (his big plays) were an underlying cause for M's loss not that MSU rushed for significantly more yards than M. It's a fine point but nevertheless a good one. I think the author would agree with you, Froot, it was the failure to stop the big plays that contributed to the loss.

Both Mike and Linesman object to putting the loss on McNamara but I don't think the author is doing that. He's arguing that M's failure to overcome a known feature of MSU's offense - big plays - by failing to deliver counter punches in the form of M's own big plays - namely by having McNamara able to throw deep balls, contributed to the loss. He's NOT saying the loss is solely on McNamara. I think you both misinterpreted the article on that count. That's because both of you are so pissed off you won't entertain some of the more technical aspects of M's performance that contributed to the loss. Yes, Cade had a great game, no taking away from that but in M's first 7 games everyone of us here along with multiple other observers commented that M's passing game, in particular deep balls that produce game changing big plays, was weak.

That weakness was realized: The two McNamara throws that jump out as failed big plays that if he makes either of them, M's chance of pulling the game out increases substantially, were his slot fade on 3rd and 3 that he barely over threw and the deep ball to C. Johnson on 4th and 3 that was underthrown and intercepted. Those don't wipe out Cade's terrific performance but the failure to make either of them to extend a critical last drive contributed to the loss.

[Mike]

If the 3rd and 3 play you're referencing was the deep ball to Sainristil, that was one of the few play calls that I thought were really bad. It's a super low percentage throw to a guy that is short. They've tried it a few time this year and it hasn't come close to working yet. They need to scrap it all together. And yes, throwing an INT on your final offensive play can have a detrimental effect on your chances to win the game. There was 59 minutes and about 150 total plays prior to that one that put them behind to begin with.

There are plenty of factors to point fingers at. Hell there's probably 10 plays where if 1 or 2 of them go Michigan's way, they win. But they dug deep and made sure not to make any of them.

[lineygoblue]

I think we'll all agree that on all of Walker III's runs, he was given the ball in the offensive backfield. His big plays went the distance because no Michigan defender stood between him and the goal line mostly because the DC was trying to substitute and move people around, and nobody was in the spot where Walker ran. Those were big plays, with no long pass involved. Those plays beat Michigan, and the fault lies with the coaches.

McNamara played an excellent game. He threw a handful of bad balls, including the long passes. But the lack of long completed passes was not Michigan's downfall. The downfall was failure to tackle MSU's RB. That is directly on the shoulders of the coaching staff, not McNamara.

[Jeff Buchanan]

McNamara played an excellent game. He threw a handful of bad balls, including the long passes. But the lack of long completed passes was not Michigan's downfall. The downfall was failure to tackle MSU's RB. That is directly on the shoulders of the coaching staff, not McNamara.

The UFR is up at mgo and says exactly this. Cade threw many more dead on passes than ones he'd like to have back - the two aforementioned that ended the game included. The bottom line is that he was phenomenal and any attempts to include his as contributor the loss is just wrong and as Mike pointed out up thread.

What else it says is that the players managed to out play bad coaching and play calls, something else both Mike and Linesman pointed out-the in-game coaching sucked. I didn't see this but the UFR picked up on run plays that were called by Gattis over and over that didn't work and concludes, "is there anyone who does not understand why M's ability to score TDs in the RZ is due in large part to the Hoke/Borges mentality of doing this shit that Gattis has repeated.

Anyway, I gave way too much credit for the Technical Flyover piece for "apologizing" for bad shit that happened. The UFR is really good with some pearls in it about facing PSU and OSU going forward.

[WM Wolverine]

I saw more drops that would've been first downs/points than I saw bad passes. Sparty did give big cushions for a bunch of the game but McNamara was also hitting receivers right where Starty was blitzing from too and getting the ball in to tight windows...

I wasn't impressed with Sparty offensively, Walker is a stud but how many yards/TD's did he have when not benefited by M's defense not being set? M played well enough defensively when they were set and didn't what l adjust or take timeouts when they weren't ready, that's the the major reason they lost.