MSU @ Michigan 10/7/17, 7:30 ET. ABC/ESPN/ESPNGo

[froot loops]

They had the effect of short punts.

[Rocky Bleier]

Two weeks to prepare looked more like a two week layoff. Once again, M fails to match MSU's intensity. Defense was sleepwalking in the first half. Offense was/is putrid. Staff was out-coached and needs a shakeup. Drevno? What real value does Jay Harbaugh have? Schmucks and Pedophiles are currently #1 and #3 in the 247 recruiting rankings. U-M is 14th. Future is bleak today.

So, in year 3 of Harbaugh's offense:
1. O-line sucks, and it won't get better soon.
2. Quarterback position also sucks, and it won't get better soon.
3. Running backs are okay-ish, but can't recruit an elite one.
4. Much heralded receivers can't run routes or catch the damn ball.

[Jeff Buchanan]

The interceptions didn't really "kill" drives -- they were already dead. ....... to extent anyone is suggesting the interceptions stymied the offense -- meh -- the offense was pretty well stymied. It was only a question of whether Sparty would get the ball via a punt or TO.

Yeah, maybe poor choice of words that "killing" drives.

The net result of the TO's on the offense was an inability to sustain anything on offense while at the same time turning the ball over to Sparty, as in, "short punts." Dantonio simply played his rope-a-dope - a winning strategy and that's not a criticism. As talent notes, a lot like how he beat urbz in the shoe.

[iam416]

Yeah, yeah. I know. Didn't mean to nitpick. My apologies.

[hack]

It shouldn't take a blue-chip running behind a line of five-star OL to have a competent running game.

[paul daugherity]

Yes, wins over PSU, Wisconsin and OSU would salvage the season. But after seeing this offense this season, what can you point to that says that they can score enough or perform well enough to win those games or make it likely that they'll win?

As for skewering Harbaugh, he is what his record and what the team's performance is. The offense is bad and in particular the OL has not gotten better in his time as head coach. At some point the buck has to stop there. Maybe I'm overreacting to last night, but that was a bad loss.

[hack]

Bad execution; flags; regression. Not signs of a well-coached team.

[Rocky Bleier]

Harbaugh needs to find his own Joe Moorhead, ... but he won't look for anyone.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Bad loss for sure. But JH is 24/7 at M. Problem is, against all expectations for HARBAUGH!!!, he's recorded 4 of those 7 losses to M's biggest rivals, MSU and osu.

His other 3 losses were to Utah in a season opener, Iowa and FSU.

Yes, his losses to M's rivals exaggerate his short comings.

Are there fixable things for this season - probably - but 8-4 remains the likely outcome. Obviously, he probably saves the season for us fans if he dials up a win v. osu in November, and we'll all forget about this loss if he does. To a lesser degree if he gets a win in HV, same result but IU, Maryland and Wisconsin lurk. Right now, the outcomes of all those games are in doubt with the offense as it is and likely will be going forward.

Are there fixes for 2018? Sure, but it's way too early to see how that plays out.

[Rocky Bleier]

Throw this season in the trash can. PSU will pay M back big time, and Urban will come into AA and deliver the annual beat down. Wisconsin in Madison will be another embarrassment. I'd like to know how Harbaugh did better at Stanford than Michigan. The academic standards there are tougher than at U-M, yet he put really good teams on the field. I know he had Andrew Luck, but the O-line at Stanford was really good too.

[Hannibal]

I thought that we would probably win this one. No shock that we didn't. I conspicuously predicted this game as a loss at the end of last year (I incorrectly changed that prediction after all of the MSU attrition in the off season -- Needless to say, I have learned my lesson). As has been the case since the middle of the George Perles era, MSU (and especially their head coach) clearly wanted this one more. They always do. Our idiot coaches go into this game every fucking year expecting that MSU will look like they did against Bowling Green. The only exception to the rule has been years when the MSU players have quit on their soon-to-be-fired coach (e.g. 2002, 1994, 2006). It is a vomit-inducing trend that has reached stratospheric levels with Dantonio as the MSU coach and will not abate until they make another crap hire. They will beat us next year too. If you are pissed off about 1-5 against OSU+MSU, then imagine how pissed off you are going to be at 1-7. We might as well be Minnesota in the Brown Jug game.

Harbaugh saw the issues after last year, but he clearly fucked up in addressing them. Badly. The coaching staff on offense is a clown show right now. Since most of the guys on offense have a track record somewhere else, I'm guessing it's a byproduct of the fucked up coaching assignments that everybody has. The OL has two coaches. There is an OC, a "running game coordinator", a "passing game coordinator", and no dedicated WR coach. The one exception to the "track record" statement is the RB coach who shares the same last name as the coach. He had two great years as our TE coach, but he is looking like Fred Jackson as an RB coach. That move looks about as smart as when Brady Hoke put the LB coach in charge of the DBs. Why Harbaugh would do something like that is a mystery to me. But since he is the coach at Michigan, maybe it shouldn't be a mystery. He is just following the tradition of making shitty nepotism hires.

One thing is becoming abundantly clear. Harbaugh is not a great college offensive mind. He's not even a good one. What he did in the pros is irrelevant here. His scheme sucks for college. Raise your hand if you thought that the #1 receiving recruit in the country would have five touches on offense through five games. Five! And it's obvious what an incredible athlete he is, so he wasn't overrated in that department. Everyone remember the Pepcat last year? That was a package designed by somebody who thought what worked in 2006 would work in 2016. Debord-like. Awful. Harbaugh is a cult of personality version of Lloyd Carr. But Carr got to face off against John Cooper and John L. Smith a bunch of times, which inflated his record. Now you are seeing what life would have been like without that.

I fully expect at least one offensive coach to be gone at the end of this year. I don't expect it to result in significant improvement. At least nothing of the "wow where did that come from?" variety. The Harbaughffense is what it is. It takes too long to pick up and it is way too easy for a DC to scheme against. It is a sucky approach to the modern college game that is going to put pressure on the defense to be national championship caliber at least 4 out of every 5 years. The exception years will be those perfect storm years where we have a bunch of fifth year seniors plus a few superathletes who are national award candidates like Chris Perry, Braylon Edwards, or Jabrill Peppers.

Harbaugh certainly isn't going anywhere. It's not like we would find anyone better. This is the end game. We're at our ceiling. We're Penn State during the late Paterno years. We're a rich man's Iowa. We are irrelevant on a national level. Permanently so.

[Rocky Bleier]

I feel bad for Rashan Gary. He could be winning at Clemson.

[Hannibal]

Pretty much. And we are going to completely piss away his three years at Michigan. We're already on schedule to piss away at least one of DPJ's three years at Michigan.

[Hannibal]

I read the game wrap-up thread at mgoblog. It is shockingly non-pollyana-ish, with harshly critical coaching staff comments getting upvoted. It's really weird seeing that at mgoblog.

[paul daugherity]

That's what 1-4 and an inept and ineffective offense gets you. The youth and inexperience arguments don't wash when the defense, which could have used those excuses, doesn't need them.