I tell you this story and it's 100% true because as a wise man once said, you can't make this sh*t up.
I was busy with kids sports on Saturday until 2:30. I got home and turned on my TV in the living room. I was getting ready for the MSU game and taking a quick break as I had been running around since about 6:30AM. At 3:00 PM my Samsung LED goes completely dark, I can hear ESPN but the screen is 100% dark. I try to re-start it and nothing. The TV is not working.
I thought ok, we will use the Roku and the ESPN App. in one of our other rooms. The plan worked well for most of the game. For those of you familiar with Roku, sometimes the stream will get stuck and you have to wait a few seconds as it re-loads. That happened on the time out before the infamous punt. I asked my wife if this was a sign from someone "up above" that they didn't want me to see something. The delay was more like 5 minutes then 5 seconds. With 10 seconds left in the game and just a punt away from the win, I wasn't too worried. I didn't see the play live and the feed came back with only an MSU player celebrating and the final score.
My heart skipped a beat but I wasn't shocked, I was just sad. It was clear that a higher power didn't want me to witness that play. I will assume they know better then I do. As this game was probably the most frustrating a game I have ever watched. MSU scored after terrible booth reviews, on a 70 yard FB pass and a fumbled punt on the last play of the game.
The booth official should be fired. The targeting call is absurd, the Butt review was a catch, and you can't tell if the MSU WR catch on the sideline foot was on the ground or in the air. (the Michigan goal line calls were correct, I also believe the MSU FB scored). The on field officials weren't much better. They were quick with a flag and late with a whistle. The entire officiating crew had a terrible day. (There were more then a few holds on the Michigan D-line that went un-called).
With that said, Michigan made it's share of stupid mistakes. Mostly in defensive penalties.
I also wasn't a big fan of the play calling. I think we saw that Michigan wasn't going to run the ball into the middle of the field. But we kept trying. MSU's secondary is very poor and we hardly challenged them. I know there was a ton of pressure but keep a TE in to block. Michigan needed more points on of their offense.
The defense played well, but didn't pressure Cook as much as I would have preferred. The pass rush came in waves but he never should have thrown for over 300 yards.
I loved Peppers on offense. It scared MSU out of two timeouts and set up another TD.
It was an awful ending to a frustrating as hell game. The bottom line is Michigan played well enough to win and also poor enough to lose. Michigan will take the next step when they can remove the "poor enough".
Sunday, October 18, 2015
A Terrible Ending To a Frustrating Day
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6 comments:
I haven't had that feeling of what the hell just happened since the Packers-Seahawks NFC Championship Game. The officiating in this game was awful, but I'm not going to focus on it at all because Michigan was winning in spite of it.
I didn't like the offensive playcalling. It was way too passive. While MSU is calling trick plays Michigan was very vanilla. It surprises me that they don't/didn't do a lot more play action, screens, or rolling Rudock out of the Pistol or shotgun giving him a run/pass option on top of the power running. Going forward I would like to see more of what I wrote.
On defense, they weren't consistently aggressive enough. I am a little disappointed they didn't blitz more or at least do more stunting. I also think they didn't try to play with Cook's head enough by showing blitz for one side and sending it from the other side, showing blitz and backing out, and or showing no blitz and then sending a delayed blitz.
What really costed them were two mental breakdowns, 1 by the players and 1 by the coaches. The one on the players was that pass to the FB which set up a one yard TD for Scott. They get a two score lead, give up a 70 yard pass, and they cap it off a play later to make it a one score game in 29 seconds. That cannot happen. It isn't really the scoring, but how quickly they did it.
The one on the coaches is the very last play of the game. I am disappointed nobody told O'Neill to just lay down with the ball if he fumbled the snap, especially since MSU had no timeouts and it would have been about a 54 yard FG into the wind. I am also disappointed none of the coaches were yelling for them to take a delay of game, so they could regroup, once they realized there was nobody back to return the punt. If they are ever in that situation again, just snap it to an up back or put a WR or Peppers back there and let them run the ball.
dude 1984: You nailed it... should have been more aggressive with play calling... did not know no one was in backfield for MSU to receive kick...somewhere, somehow, someone mentioned that the kicker should of had more guys around him for protection, and maybe they would have recovered the fumble, or blocked the guy who did recover it.
This is the equivalent of that Colorado "Hail Mary pass" game we lost when time run out... it "sux the life out of you". You can not revert to just man-ball unless you have the horses to do it with.
I think we did what we needed to do, until the last play. We lead tape to tape, other than two blown coverages, we played a tremendous defensive game. At the end of last season who could have imagined we'd start this year 5-2, with two losses to top ten teams, both games decided by one score, and we could have won? Sparty knows he had a gift handed to him, they couldn't take the lead all game long, we had them beat, for 59 minutes and 58 seconds. Sure, it would have been great to be up by two scores making an improbable finish impossible. Playing for a 1st down rather than to run out the clock MIGHT have changed the outcome. 299 times out of 300 O'Neil fields the snap and boots the ball. We played winning football and didn't get the outcome, its been a long time coming. Michigan football is back, sparty knows it, and don't think urban liar doesn't know it too. Go Blue!
Thank you for a very interesting analysis. Unfortunately, I could not see some the key plays clearly since I was at the game. I did DVR the game but haven't had the motivation to watch any of it again. In the stadium, the general consensus was revulsion at the officiating. The Bolden targeting call was a total abomination when upheld on replay. After seeing the replay at home, I am appalled. You would have to be blind, demented or in the tank for Sparty to blow that call. It was huge since it directly led to a Sparty TD and resulted in the ejection of our leading tackler for the majority of the game. That egregious call alone kept Sparty in the game. The Big Ten should apologize and remove the officials responsible. I'll have to take your word on the Butt catch and the overturn of the MSU catch or non-catch. Bottom line, if it's not indisputable, it shouldn't be overturned. As for the goal line calls, I should look at them again but my strong gut feeling is that the calls on the field (TD's) should not have been overturned. The entire mass of players pushed across the goal line on one overturned TD. Then there's the holding call which negated a Michigan INT. I will have to look at again but the Mgoblog consensus is that it was a horrible call as well. Michigan fought through all the adversity from one-sided officiating and had essentially won the game. That's why it was such a frustrating ending. It was a classic until the last ten seconds. I wouldn't label it one of the most incredible endings ever, not even close, not even close. I would put countless Hail Mary's, the famous Stanford-Cal game, The Alabama-Auburn kick six, etc ahead of this fluky ending.
The silver lining is that we beat Sparty except for a fluke. They used up a lot of good karma on that play and it will even out, quite possibly this season. Sparty just isn't that good this season. Michigan is still much improved and should still have a good or even great season.
Stop your whinning, your dumb coach lost the game for you. Urban Meyer would have ran the clock out so the kick wasn't necessary. Can't wait to see you get your 3rd loss when the Buckeye's come to town.
trolling faggot
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