Michigan Football, Team 139, 2018 Season

[Jeff Buchanan]

Now, if we can just get Hannibal at least one foot out of BPONE. It's just too much to ask to get him completely out and we'd miss his negative takes.

[hack]

JMO but for me this season is about two things, both of which will either be addressed and the team's results will show it, or they won't be and the bottom line will not improve.

1. Can JH spot a problem and fix it? This was in doubt for me after he hired Frey and the OL got worse. It was a positive step when he jettisoned Drevno. Warinner looked like a great choice in the offseason and an even better one now. That in-season improvement that he's known for sure looks to me like it's happening here. Michigan's OL is leaps/bounds better than in early September. So that's a great sign. We needed to know that JH won't have ineffective cronies on his staff and that he can correctly diagnose and treat problems.

2. Can he beat rivals? Jury's out. Beat your damn rivals. Or, at the very fucking least, don't get destroyed by them. A loss to OSU this year like the '15 one is flat-out unacceptable. A loss to OSU and the refs combined, like in '16, is not acceptable but nor would that reflect poorly on JH. He's the coach. Isn't responsible for the game's integrity.

For the record, as of the offseason I expected him to go 2 for 2 on this front. I expected him to be more of the JH we thought we had.It looks to me like his reentry into the college game has come with some hiccups that he'll get past. But the time's now to show us. MSU will never be easy, but I'm looking for more than an escape win on Saturday -- the kind of rivalry victories M had over OSU in '11 or over MSU in '16. This team is rounding into shape nicely, and should be able to go into EL and control that game. I'm not expecting it to be over by halftime, but nor should it come down to the final drive. This is one of those years in which the talent discrepancy should really show.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I really think your expectations for #2 have more to do with the players and less to do with the coaching staff, assuming they have the team prepared every Saturday. My view is that the coaches are doing fine, finally, in 2018, after a lot of stumbles on the way. With the exception of the ND game, it would appear the coaches have done as best they can to have the players mentally and phsyically prepared with a game plan that puts the team in a position to win.

I had some problems in the first 5 game of 2018 with what appeared to be Harbaugh's fixation on power to the expense of everything else, esp. the kind of passing game that Patterson was demonstrably capable of delivering. However, I think it's petty clear now that he was sharpening the tools in his tool box in practice and saving those tools, namely the zone read/read option (RO) that he broke out v. Wisconsin. Those plays and the big gains they produced, it appeared to me, facilitated Higdon's and Evans' running. It wasn't so much the passing game that did that, like you'd think, but rather it was skillfully assembling a play-call list of runs that fed off each other. Trusting JH will have some of that mojo for Mork.

I posted a link explaining how Shea's big RO, outside zone keeper was done and that it was a clear reflection of JH's football coaching and scheme development skills going back to Kaepernick and Gore at SF...... something that a whole lot of folks, after 3y and ND, were starting to doubt. So, it seems to me that the coaches, including S&C coach, Ben Herbert - who got the game ball after the Wisconsin win - have the players ready to play. From there, it's a matter of execution and determination.

We throw the term, execution, around a lot without probably understanding what doing that entails. There are technical aspects that have to be taught and then absorbed and understood in a black board environment by the players who are going to run a specific play or package. Then it has to be repped during the limited padded practice time in game week and confidence developed by the coaches that the play or package design is going to work. Finally, the play or package has to be called at the right time in the game to maximize it's effectiveness and finally, the players have to do it live in front of 100,000 expectant fans with all the apprehension that they might screw it up. The more I think about it, the more I see how difficult execution can be.

Determination and mental toughness are another thing entirely. The players have talked about it this season unlike any mention of it last season. They've admitted that they failed to "finish" games last season. They've said finishing is a focus of this season. I saw an accounting of 2017 games where M had a lead and lost it. I think there were 4 or all 5 losses in games like that. You could see the difference in determination of this 2018 team on the road at NW and Saturday at home facing Wisconsin. They wanted those wins and fought for them. More importantly, they got Wisconsin down, then stepped on their throats and never let them get off the mat. Comments have been made that the Wisconsin sideline noticeably deflated when M scored on it's first possession of the 2nd half. When was the last time we saw that v. a good team? I don't even remember and I think it was why this particular win was so satisfying.

[hack]

The coaches pick the players.

[drok]

I don't want to play the role of downer, but let's not get too caught up in one win over an injury depleted team. I'm enjoying it as well as anyone, but just like we shouldn't have completely doomed the program forever more last year, we also shouldn't be claiming that everything is now fine. Let's see how the next few games go first.

[AlabamAlum]

Michigan is a shoe-in for the CFP.

[iam416]

Correct

[AlabamAlum]

The Wolverines will crush their enemies, drive them before the crowds, and will hear the lamentations of their women.

[hack]

I don't want to play the role of downer, but let's not get too caught up in one win over an injury depleted team. I'm enjoying it as well as anyone, but just like we shouldn't have completely doomed the program forever more last year, we also shouldn't be claiming that everything is now fine. Let's see how the next few games go first.

Yes.

[Detroit Dan]

I'm with AlabamaAlum and iam416 (some kind of dog food, I believe) on this one. I can almost hear the lamentations of their women if I close my eyes.

What I like about Michigan these days is the total program quality. Dantonio, for example, gets some important wins in big games, but the overall program quality is not on a par with that of Michigan. Their recruiting is 2nd rate, the team loses a lot of games to 2nd tier teams, and the off-the-field issues are more pronounced than at other schools. On the other hand, Harbaugh has been a great recruiter, is doing well with the Xs and Os in his 4th year as head coach with some quality assistant hires, and off-the-field negative issues have been minor. It's too soon to say that the offense is top tier, but it definitely is heading in the right direction.

[Rocky Bleier]

I don't want to play the role of downer, but let's not get too caught up in one win over an injury depleted team. I'm enjoying it as well as anyone, but just like we shouldn't have completely doomed the program forever more last year, we also shouldn't be claiming that everything is now fine. Let's see how the next few games go first.

But we just beat the great Wisconsin Badgers! People in this state (Wisconsin) act as though their Badgers are an elite program. They don't like when I remind them that the west division is pretty weak. I'm with you, drok. One impressive win does not make Michigan the sixth best team in the country. Lose either of the next two games and the party's over.

[drok]

Actually, I think we can lose to Penn State and we still control our destiny in the division. The MSU game is huge though.

[hack]

I think if Badgers fans look at this game in the context of Chryst's entire time there, they might very well feel it was one of his worst gameplans. It had that kind of feel to me -- just one of those games where the coaching staff didn't have the right approach. Michigan can take plenty of credit for shutting down their passing game, but I'm sure giving it to Taylor just 6 times in the second half isn't something it can take credit for.

[froot loops]

You have to have first downs to continue to run. It wasn't like Hornibrook was airing it out, he had 20 pass attempts on the game. Michigan was shutting that offense down. They really had no answer for the blitz. I don't know the stats on how many times Michigan blitz, but I want to say it was 100 percent.

[Jeff Buchanan]

There's a thing going on throughout CFB where the scheme, known as the blitz or blitz package, really isn't a schematic part of emerging defenses. Pressure is a characteristic of them and it is brought about by presenting an offense, especially an offense lining up with spread concepts incorporating a lot of gaps in the OL, with at least 5 sometimes 6 defenders working up field to disrupt whatever might be going on in the back field on standard downs. The corners play man and one or two S plays high. There are variations of this concept but were not talking anymore about a corner blits, a LB blitz or a S blitz. There is pressure on every play.

It's the pressure or chaos in the back field if you will, that disrupts the timing of the play. Michigan, among others, is very good at this and it is what Don Brown does. I'd have to look a bit more closely around some of the top 25 teams to see if this theme emerges among any of them. I suspect it does.