osu @ M - Game Day, In Game, Post Game Discussion

[hack]

Sounds increasingly credible to me to blame Durkin, but, then again, if Harbaugh himself didn't identify stopping the read option as a major key to the game, that's alarming. Can't just trust that your DC is gonna handle that. The best coaches are supposed to have their fingers in every aspect, and that describes Harbaugh. It's not as if he approaches it like RichRod did. So he gets a big chunk of blame too. Gotta trust he'll properly autopsy this himself.

[Hannibal]

If they couldn't shut down OSU's offense then they should have been at least able to gauge the relative risk between letting Barrett throw the ball a bunch of times and letting them ram the ball down our throat over and over again. Especially when you have a serious depth issue on defense and you can't afford to give up lots of time-consuming drives without forcing any turnovers. I can't believe how fucking terrible our run defense has been in this matchup for the past decade.

[hack]

You would think so. At some point the devil you don't know is preferable, and that point would have been no later than the second drive of the second half. At the very latest. They started in with the three down linemen at or around that point, but that wasn't it. Especially with OSU having so little in the way of a passing game, it's really hard to understand.

[iam416]

I think Braxton and Hyde each had more rushing yards in 2013 than their counterparts did on Saturday. Unlike 2013, though, the Withers-Fickell braintrust wasn't doing its best to disaster up a win.

I'm going to miss Chris Ash. I have no idea where he'll go, but I have little doubt he get a HC offer this year.

[Rocky Bleier]

WM and I went back and forth after the game as to whether it was scheme or personnel. You got to admit that some of it is personnel, but then you (I) have to wonder why there hasn't been an effort to change either since Urban Meyer has been gashing our defense. Mattison has been there for 5 years now. Does he have any input on player recruitment? OSU is the best team in the conference and you would think that there would be some attempt to stop their offense. New scheme? New/different type players?

I stated elsewhere that Mone, Ojemudia, and Glasgow were certainly missed, but how do we have 3 lousy senior LBs and no one to take their place? Who crapped the bed on LB recruiting the last few years?

[WM Wolverine]

Spoke to my defensive coordinator friend (@ hs level) this afternoon and he told me he'd expect any option team to check to the read-option given M's base formation that they used vs OSU (1 safety high); where M was always short a man in the box. Stated there was little reason for OSU to pass all game as long provided M's DL wasn't dominating the Buckeyes OL...

Told me he thinks very highly of Durkin other than him having no ability to stop a simple read-option, a play in most teams playbook nowadays.

[froot loops]

The weird thing about that is Harbaugh got to the Super Bowl based on springing read option on the Packers. They never knew what hit them. You would think his teams would never look like Dom Capers did.

[Rocky Bleier]

Harbaugh's Stanford teams also did a pretty fair job of stopping Oregon.

[Hannibal]

Oregon scored 46 points per game in four games against Harbaugh.

[iam416]

Yeah, Oregon's offense housed Stanford when JH was there.

[froot loops]

At least when he was at Stanford it was a fairly novel concept, teams were still trying to figure out how to stop it. Now it is run by a large amount of teams, if you are going to get beat by it you should be getting beat by it by the secondary options that have been opened up by bringing the safeties forward.

[Rocky Bleier]

Wow, was not my recollection...

[Hannibal]

You may be thinking more of the David Shaw era. Shaw has had more succes on defense.

[iam416]

Yeah, Shaw had two straight years where they bludgeoned Oregon (17-14, 26-20). Of course, in his first season they gave up 53, last year they gave up 45 and this year it was 38 or something.

I think his biggest win was in 2012 when they beat Oregon 17-14 in Autzen and that was Oregon's only loss. That was a pretty good Oregon team.

[The Oracle]

Of course, all that was done with Harbaugh's guys as developed upperclassmen, not leftovers from a 1 win team.