and sometimes your Masterpiece ends up to be a pile of crap. Tonight was a wasted effort and a comedy of errors. It was Geraldo Rivera and Al Capone's vault.
Michigan lives and dies on the arm and legs of Denard Robinson. That arm and legs have won the last two games against ND. Tonight it threw and fumbled it away. Michigan Football right now is the equivalent of John Daly or Phil Mickelson on the golf course. Sometimes you boom it 350 yards, make an eagle and win a major. Sometimes you shoot 85 and find yourself on the next bus or flight out of town.
Tonight was an 85. With a ton of shanks, penalty shots and poor play.
I think there are two people to blame. Denard of course and Al Borges. When is Al going to understand how to use Denard? He is not a drop back passer. You also have to have the threat of the run to open up the passing routes. When everyone knows he is going to throw, bad things happen.
I love Denard but he is making the same mistakes he did his sophomore year under center. He is not throwing the ball away, he is making terrible decisions on who is open and who isn't and he is trying to create a highlight with every play. Sometimes you have to live to play another down. Even his short throws were bad today. If you noticed he had a very strange motion where the ball started to dive after he threw it. There isn't any touch on the ball. Quite frankly, it's terrible and things a senior should not be making.
Now on to Big Al. You F up the first series from the 10 by calling a sweep on first down. Then Michigan gets back there and you call a Vincent Smith RB pass, which was clearly set up from the previous series. How many points did that cost us Big Al? At least 6 and maybe 14. Terrible just terrible. How about mixing in a few running plays in the first half or maybe some hurry up offense?
Or here is an idea, how about giving Denard a few "safe" throws to get his confidence up. Instead you are running deep routes to the full back thrown by our wide receiver. Let Denard be Denard and get the F out of the way. You are over thinking the room and it's making you look foolish.
September 1 was embarrassing because Alabama beat Michigan in every aspect of the game. This game was embarrassing because we beat ND in every aspect of the game besides the scoreboard and turnover margin. ND's defense played well but all of those turnovers were very poor decisions by Denard.
Tonight's game was a total wasted effort by Michigan's defense. Michigan was a pass interference penalty by a true freshman way from ND kicking nothing but field goals. Greg Mattison had a great game plan and the likes for Ryan, Demens, Gordon and Kovacs came to play. The offense instead of scoring just threw the ball to ND linebackers and cornerbacks.
A Masterpiece that went wrong, way wrong.
What's next? A terrible time for a bye week or a good time? This team clearly needs some work and now they have 2 weeks to fix it. They find themselves 2-2 heading into the Big Ten season. The goal of Indy is still alive in a weak Big Ten. Those are the two positives from tonight, the Big Ten is still ahead and the defense played it's ass off.
I maybe the only person that feels this way but I think Brady Hoke has to do a better job of managing the game from the sideline. If Big AL has a moment, you might be able to stop it if you have your headphones on. He clearly intervened at half time and adjusted the strategy. He needs to do that during the game as well.
I don't have anymore to say, it's late and that game was hard to watch.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
ND Post Game
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8 comments:
The defense has been fairly solid. The UMass game balanced out the Air Force game. Alabama has so much talent on the OL, that only a defense loaded with NFL prospects like LSU will slow them down. Tonight they played great.
As for the offense, I’d like to see a more traditional pro style look with Denard under center, a FB, a RB, and a TE. Denard needs to go through his progressions and if nobody is open, he needs to take off. They can still run Denard from under center...just have him drop back, pump fake, and take off.
As for Denard, there is something about night games that brings out the worst in him. It really shows this season because he doesn't have Hemmingway around to bail him out.
I cannot give any credit to ND. They are hot garbage that were handed a victory. Hopefully, Stanford, Oklahoma, USC, and maybe even the U or another team can bring ND back to reality by doing what Michigan should have done tonight...beat them.
I'd take a 95 let alone an 85...
I don't agree with being down on Borges, Denard isn't a QB, it's hit or miss if he can hit someone in the flat let alone anywhere else. The OC's hands are tied.
Vincent Smith didn't have to throw that football in the endzone, Michigan ran that play before, he should have known better.
The D for the most part executed, the O....not so much.
What hurts is the Seniors aren't have good years so far on offense. Lewan had a couple lapses again tonight as well.
They aren't executing. Players make the coaches look smart or dumb.
Kudos to Mattison and the defense. They did us PROUD last night.
I totally agree with the comment that Borges should have gotten Denard some safe passes to get him in rhythm. We all know and have seen that he is a BIG TIME rhythm passer. The thing that I can't understand is that they really don't seem to let him make any adjustments at the line of scrimmage. Time and time again you would see 1 safety up top on early downs and 8 in the box. the CB's would give a 10 yard cushion and they'd show it early. All we need to do is rise up and throw to the WR and we have a 1 on 1 in the flat. It would be a guaranteed 5+ YARD GAIN EVERY DAMN TIME! When you start doing things like that, then they're forced to play up a bit and then either they'll get beat deep or they'll have to help over the top. If they do that, then they won't have their 8 man box. Either way, we win. We saw in the 1st half that their CB's were absolutely terrible and then we never took advantage of them after the 1st quarter.
All in all, a frustrating game to watch. I think I yelled at the TV more last night than in any other Michigan game ever.
I wonder who will be under center next year. I LOVE DENARD, but, I sit and wonder how the offense is going to look 2 years from now when we get these big OLinemen that we've been recruiting into the mix and Morris under center. I really hope we get Treadwell.....
Let's face it guys, we looked plain bad last night. We looked plain bad against Alabama (justified). We looked plain bad in the last bowl game (even though we managed a win) -- mainly offensively: the defense has been respectable. What's with all the trick plays? What's with Toussaint being so ineffective? He ran like he was afraid to get hit. Why not give somebody else a chance?
I don't know where all the talk about Denard's throwing motion improving comes from. It hasn't. So the question is, why is he asked to pass so much? You CAN have an effective offense based on a running quarterback as many of the plays last night demonstrated.
Borges gives a good press conference, but the bottom line is that his offense is lacking time and time again. I'm not sure the game he envisions is based on any kind of reality. Games have been lost because of unfathomable play calls. Too many of the wins can be attributed to just, plain luck.
This is not a game we should have lost. We lost to a mediocre team. I'm not seeing any improvement on the offensive side of the ball -- and it shouldn't be blamed on Denard.
Yes, the artist painted a bad picture last night....but Michigan should not expect to win games with only "a one trick pony."
The offensive play calling didn't work in the red zone and was too predictable throughout the game.
Hope the UofM coaching staff reads this blog and changes its offensive ways....during the two weeks of reconstructive practice.
You know fair is fair; if the Defensive Coordinator has to take the heat when the defense plays badly, the Offensive has to take the heat when the offense stinks up the joint. The defense did well and the offense was not prepared.
The offense hasn't been consistent all season. Are running game is Denard, which means it is not established. Blame 1 - offensive line coach, who's resume' is not impressive. Blame 2 - Al borges, if you know Denard is a runner more than a passer, then let him run. You are trying to turn a racing horse into a walking horse and its killing him. sad to say if RR was here Denard would have that Heisman, my opinion, cause his passing numbers were getting better under RR. Borges resume' is okay, but not impressive, not for this day and time.
It's up to Hoke to recognize and make changes when it is necessary. Which hopefully is soon.
Bottom line: call plays to denards strengths and everything else will fall in place. Find a new o-line coach
Look at last year when we lost 2 games, Iowa and Michigan St. It was Borges bad play calls. The Iowa game we only needed less than 5 yds and Borges called all past plays. Why when denard can run that in. Michigan St. game he called a pass when we only needed a few yards again. I almost want to call Borges the mole of MICHIGAN football. He is killing us softly!! Think of when he would rotate Denard and Devin. you can't do that when Denard is the leader. PLAY TO YOUR PLAYERS STRENGTHS. Work on the weaknesses in the off season not during the game.
Borges please do better
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