Michigan 33, Florida 17

[*JD*]

I had to take a screenshot of the youtube video, so sorry about the pixelation.

A nice surprise of a Google result when I searched "Michigan Crawford Florida Interception" was this:



Now that #1 Crawford knew what to do in the air with a ball!

[WingsFan]

I would call it 50/50 considering he was wide open and there was no pressure at all on Speight. That's a tough catch, looks like some alligator arms there also.

[AlabamAlum]

I agree. Not a perfect pass but the Wilt Chamberlian stuff is pure hyperbole. Any WR worth his salt would say he should've had it. I'd put it 2 to 1 on the Crawford.

What's ingenious is that the uni kind of blends in with the stadium wrap making recognition of movement harder at full speed. Very clever.

Well done, Harbz. Well done.

[froot loops]

It is kind of like Boise State hiding in the blue turf on kickoffs. Good artists copy, great artists steal.

[hack]

I liked this take on the running game, from bronxblue's best/worst:


On paper, you look at about 5.5 ypc (sacks excised) and figure Michigan was consistently gashing the Gator front 7. And yet, if you look at the play breakdown, you’d see Michigan ran for nearly the same number of yards on 3rd and 4th down (78) than they did on 1st and 2nd (90) until the last couple of drives in the 4th quarter when Florida was just sorta playing out the string. On the one hand, it was great playcalling in obvious passing downs, mitigating a weakness (pass blocking) by going against tendency and using Florida’s aggressiveness against them. On the other hand, it goosed the rushing stats quite a bit in game situations that aren’t sustainable going forward; team’s aren’t going to keep falling for Michigan running on third-and-forever. Throw out those 78 yards on 7 carries and Michigan’s top 3 rushers averaged 4.3 yards on 33 carries, closer to 3.5 yards per carry before garbage time. That’s not abysmal by any stretch, but the one consistent stat last year was that Michigan’s line struggled against good rush defenses, and that was with an older and more cohesive (if inconsistent) line.

[Hannibal]

I agree. Not a perfect pass but the Wilt Chamberlian stuff is pure hyperbole. Any WR worth his salt would say he should've had it. I'd put it 2 to 1 on the Crawford.

It's much easier to make that pitch-and-catch throw than it is for Crawford to catch the throw that Speight actually made.

Jeff, hack -- I use the term "game manager" somewhat in jest and derisively. "Game manager" is generally a label that crummy QBs who play opposite great defenses pick up. There is no pressure on a "game manager", so he just hands off the ball and throws very low risk passes all the time. The idea is that the guy doesn't actually lose you a game, nor will he throw for 300 yards. When I talk about Speight being a "game manager", I'm really referring to the role as what I think he is capable of. He doesn't win us games by himself, nor does he practice good ball security or take the easy throws that the defense gives him.

[hack]

It's much easier to make that pitch-and-catch throw than it is for Crawford to catch the throw that Speight actually made.

Not for Speight, unfortunately. Accuracy is obviously an issue, and he's not working with two SR receivers. But I think it's true that this throw was good enough. Just barely good enough, but good enough is good enough.

[WM Wolverine]

QB's don't always have a perfect window to throw through. Often defenders have their hands up, forcing the QB to change where he puts the pass. Sometimes when we see bad passes, it's because a defender changed the route the QB wanted to throw the ball.

[hack]

When we see Speight throwing high, however, that's just what he does. He misses high way, way too much.

[froot loops]

Some of that is confidence, throwing high means you aren't stepping into it. Plus he's tall, he's not going to get a lot of passes blocked at the LOS, but you will see high passes. He said he missed both throws, it's an early game against a decent team, nerves got the best of him. It's why coaches have cupcakes the first game.

[CGVT]

I think we as fans often view "our" QBs with a much too critical eye. If we watched every play of every game and looked at the top QBs on other teams the same way we look at our QB I think that we would probably see just as many, if not more flaws. I saw some pretty ugly throws and picks and questionable decisions by "top" QBs this weekend.

I'm not saying that Speight is not flawed. He certainly is, but probably not as badly as some think.

[hack]

Speight is all of the above. He's flawed, not confident, inconsistent, the best we've got. He's not great but he's good enough. I'm not convinced this was more than just first-game jitters, since he just came out and was the same guy as last year. It could be. Either way, the question is how to put him in a position to succeed. IMO that means closer to 20 throws a game than 30.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Monday morning QB'ing .........

There's a couple of good after the fact takes floating around out there, Hack has already mentioned one ....i.e., M's rushing game wasn't as dominant as it looked like it was in the box score/raw stats.

It's kind of like praising UFs pass offense with Franks at QB when something like 115y of that passing yardage came on two plays. What may be a better stat on YPA, run or pass, is the median. Stats guys can comment. I love them but I'm not an expert.

OTH, most observers have noted the run game is improved and is going to get better as the season progresses if the two units responsible for that (RBs and OL) remain healthy.

The tone of criticism of Speight is becoming more muted and rightfully so, IMO. Something I read regarding M's strategy as it became apparent that UF wasn't going to score many points was that there appeared to be some significant shrinking of the play book to reduce risk. We don't know if this was just how JH planned to play it and his plan was actually working or whether he simplified the playbook to keep Speight from making mistakes after the two INTs/Pic-6s. It's worth considering. The pre-planned notion is consistent with what I don't like about my perception of his overall strategy, i.e, the propensity to turtle to protect a lead regardless of the spread. That he wanted to protect Speight is also reasonable. So, ?????

Observers reviewing video and evaluating OL play report that it wasn't as good as the rushing numbers might indicate. Pass pro was OK except Ulizio did not look like he has that down at all and that is a problem. It's also been noted that neither Cole or Ulizio are prototypical Offensive Tackels so there is that limitation.

I think Brian does the best job of evaluating OL play in his UFRs and I trust his eye more than the one's I've seen so far. I did see the film on a couple of Ulizio whiffs leading to QB sacks so, there's not much doubt the RT position is going to continue to be something the coaches are going to have to work on. Runyan played some at RT. JBB??? Runyan appeared to be a step down from Ulizio who is very strong when engaged if not lacking that quick step to block crashing DEs. That's where his problems appear to be but, this was a top 10 set of DEs and DTs so, he won't face that again until maybe PSU and certainly osu. In addition. It was very clear that there was a plan to help him out at the RT position using the TEs. That did seem to help.

[hack]

I think the encouraging things from the run game were that Evans looked stronger between the tackles, and the left side of the line. IMO the glass-half-full takeaway is that Florida will be one of the better DLs we face all year, and it was manhandled when they ran left. One of the many ``the key to this game is..." sayings about football is that you have to run your bread-and-butter and succeed when the other team knows its coming. This year that could very well be Evans or Isaac behind Cole and Bredeson, and perhaps Kugler and a pulling Onwenu. I like how Isaac runs hard and physical in a straight line and makes you pay for tackling him, and that's a nice contrast to Evan's speed and use of angles. Have a few key plays and constraints off that and it could and should go a long way.

[Da Geezer]

I agree. Not a perfect pass but the Wilt Chamberlian stuff is pure hyperbole. Any WR worth his salt would say he should've had it. I'd put it 2 to 1 on the Crawford.

Any UM receiver wearing # 1 catches that ball. At least for the last 20 years or so.