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| Desmond Morgan (image via AnnArbor.com) |
Let's see less of this guy on offense . . . good defenses. Because most of the time, they make Denard Robinson look lost.
Let's see more of this guy on defense . . . Brennen Beyer. I know Beyer has been injured, but I'm looking forward to his return. That will allow Jake Ryan to play SAM linebacker and move around occasionally without having to play defensive end on running downs.
Let's see less of this guy on defense . . . Mario Ojemudia. He's just not ready right now. I know he's in there because of necessity, but he's not strong enough or big enough to make any plays right now. It would be nice if Michigan could get enough depth where they don't have to play guys like this every year.
Play of the game . . . Thomas Gordon's interception. Gordon made a leaping catch of an Everett Golson pass in the endzone, preventing a scoring opportunity for the Fighting Irish.
MVP of the game . . . there aren't a whole lot of options, because nobody really had an exceptional night. I'm going to go with sophomore linebacker Desmond Morgan, who I thought had a very good game. I haven't rewatched the game, but in watching on Saturday night, I thought he was very solid in run support. I also thought Quinton Washington got off the ball really well; this was the best performance I've seen out of him.
I have no words for that game last Saturday... our defense held them to 13 points and we just couldn't punch it in the endzone a couple times.
ReplyDeleteFor fuck's sake... Borges should have switched it up to keep them guessing:
Put Bellomy under center, put Denard in as running back and send Devin out wide. I don't know... but this game was very winnable.
Bellomy is 0-2 passing in his career. I don't think he would have been the answer. Unfortunately, the loss of Tate Forcier and Darryl Stonum (which necessitated Gardner's position switch) has left us without any real depth. If Tate were still here, I'd have definitely put him in, but given the circumstances we had, I think we had to stick with Denard.
DeleteMy vote for "Let's see more of this guy on offense" goes to Devin Funchess. Remember how people were saying that ND couldn't possibly have a guy who matched up with him? We didn't even target him until late in the 3rd quarter, and we never threw at him in the red zone. But by golly, we made sure to run that dumbass play action rollout that we ran against MSU on 4th and 1 last year. Didn't work last year, didn't work this year either.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it was the same play as the MSU game from last year.
DeleteI think Funchess needs to get the ball more, too, but at first glance, I thought Notre Dame did a good job of being physical with him and not letting him out of their sight. I think they realized that he would present a matchup problem and focused more on him than Michigan's last couple opponents.
I would have liked to have seen Funchess too, but I think if he's in the offense is tipping pass. Right now it seems like it's Williams for run plays and Funchess for pass plays. He looks like a TE, he's called a TE, but in practice - Funchess is a WR that any good coaching staff is going to treat as such.
DeleteSeems like despite their personnel limitations, Michigan (well, Borges) is not going to be swayed from a whole bunch of 2-TE looks; even with walk-ons and one-dimensional freshman. Maybe I'm a simpleton, but this seems stupid to me. We have 2 good slots in Dileo and Gallon - we have 2 decent big guys in Gardner and Funchess, and we have competant 'possession' guys in Robinson, Jackson, and Roundtree. Go 3 or 4 wide and get Denard some easy short looks. Stop the play-action stuff that fools no one.
Oops, didn't mean to rant but the TE use just seems hard-headed to me. Even last year it was a stretch with Koger and a 5th year guy beside him with Moore backing up. This year - total joke. Not that I'm surprised, but everything gets magnified in narrow losses.
Borges has a mild flaw that a lot of offensive coordinators suffer from. They sometimes drink their own Kool-Aid a little too much. A game plan is assembled and they go with the game plan rather than what actually works.
DeleteGranted, I do like a lot of what Borges has done so far and he does a good job getting receivers open with routes, but I agree entirely that 3 and 4 wide sets could give Denard an easier time.
What was "working"? I don't see anything that consistently works with this offense.
DeleteWhat is working is QB runs and receivers getting downfield. Of course the latter is heavily aided by the former, but it doesn't matter when we have a QB that can't consistently throw to said open receivers.
DeleteDenard is a QB who struggles with footwork, consistency, and accuracy. He doesn't have natural instincts when it comes to scrambling. Borges is asking a senior QB to do exactly what he struggles at. Yes, the defense may be forcing the offensive play-calling toward the pass, but it can't be so heavily dominated by the intermediate/long routes that take time to develop. Denard needs to get in a rhythm with quick short passes. Easier said than done, but with these receivers the long stuff isn't getting TDs or moving the chains consistently enough.
DeleteThe thing that we do that looks like a read option was going OK.
I might have told Denard, " You're option #3. Find your primary guy, if it ain't there, check down one time, then run."
As an aside, whoever said Fitz needs to plant it and get north and south is absolutely correct, he just killed us on first down on our first red zone fail. Bad pitch or not.
Thank God I was at a wedding in the boonies and couldn't watch the game, because if I did, I'd probably have killed something. Time to re-group and whoop some ass in West Lafayette.
ReplyDeleteThe biggest difference from last year's game to this was the Wide Receivers getting their hands on the ball in the 4th. Gallon looked good, agreed, but Gardner's just not a reliable target. That deep ball that went off his hands was just brutal and it's frustrating to watching him get turned around and run sloppy routes over and over. The 'blame' in a narrow loss doesn't fall on any one person but I'd sure like to see some improvement from Gardner...and of course Denard. Like most Michigan fans, I think, I'd like to see more short easy throws and less intermediate/long stuff to the outside receivers.
ReplyDeleteI didn't come away with the same impressions you did at DE. Ojemudia may be raw but he looked active and made a couple plays. He's like Clark last year - limited, but useful. As for Clark, he looks good - and Ryan makes plays wherever they put him. I'm happy with the DE play and I was pleasantly surprised to see Q Washington do some good things (though I can't say I studied the DL with any sort of thoroughness or consistency - just casual observations). Besides Q, I agree with your praise for Gordon - he seems to have been learning from Kovacs, making good decisions and cleaning up very reliably and aggressively. Loving our safety play, and in general feeling surprisingly good about this D.
What deep ball went off Gardner's hands? The fade route to the corner of the end zone? That was a bad throw on Denard's part, expecting a converted QB to toe the line and reel that in. Put it up high in-bounds and let the 6'4" Gardner outjump the CB for it.
DeleteThunder, I could be wrong but I believe he is talking about the deep ball in the 3rd quarter. Gardner was split wide left with Roundtree in the slot on the left. Roundtree ran a vertical (I believe) route, which occupied both the safety and the corner. Gardner was absolutely wide open and the ball went off his fingetips. The pass was high but was still very catchable.
DeleteSounds right, @Anon. Whenever game video shows up online I can track down the specifics, but it was a ball that was very catchable if DG had stayed in stride instead of getting himself all twisted up once again. It went of both of his hands so should have been caught anyway. Was it a perfect throw - no, but it was catchable -- like the low 3rd down incompletion against Air Force it's the kind of catch you need your wideouts to make.
DeleteDenard had a bad game - obviously. He made bad decisions on the INTs, but when Brian crunches the numbers and does his downfield success rate the number is going to look decent, I'd guess. I think you were more right about this offense missing Hemingway than I thought. I really expected Gallon, Roundtree, or a freshman to step into the play-making void but it seems they're going with Gardner. I don't know if that's the best option or not, but it's not effective. All Summer I said the WRs would be better than everyone expected. Right now, it looks like I was wrong.
I thought that was a tough catch to make. It was both high and in front of him. Gardner stretched out as much as he could and it bounced off his fingertips. Now, I don't know if he ran the best route. If he slowed down somewhere before then, you could pin it on him.
DeleteThe ball went off his thumb and both hands - it was very catchable. Anyway, the reason it was high at all was because Devin misread the ball and then got himself turned around. Watch the replay:
Deletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dyus2RzYrU&feature=relmfu
At 41:15 Devin is wide open looking back toward the ball over his right shoulder. 41:16 of the video you see Devin slow up, start drifting, then twists himself 180 degrees backward to find the ball over his left shoulder. That is on Devin. He misread the ball because HE IS NOT A WR. He is not used to making these sorts of plays so he is raw and makes mistakes that an experienced WR would not.
Devin either has to twist the other direction (taking his eye off the ball while he keeps running forward) or Denard has to throw it more toward the middle of the field -- where the safety is. This is a well thrown and very catchable ball. If anything, Denard could have read it a split second sooner or thrown it further towards the sideline to lessen the WR's exposure to a big hit, but then Devin still would have done his twist thing and might not have gotten there in time.
None of that matters though because Devin is tall and a good athlete - so he gets both hands on the ball (see 41:23)...but fails to make the catch because -- HE IS NOT A WR.
He has the body, the athleticism, but he doesn't have the skills. You can be be the best athlete in the world, but the SKILLS involved in being a good WR, a good RB, a good Soccer player, whatever, are very different.
Michigan may not have a better option than Gardner but in these critical 4th quarter moments I'm hoping the ball gets thrown to somebody else, somebody who has been catching passes at least in high school and has SOME experience with it.
Its plays like this that make me wonder if Darboh isn't a better option.
Agree that Morgan seemed to play well. I've been critical of Morgan but it seemed like he had himself a nice game.
ReplyDeleteGood write up here and on the game wrap. Its nice to read an article where the writer knows about football, instead of just blaming Al Borges. I agree with basically everything you said. I think we are going to see a lot more pro style formations (ace, I-form, offset I, etc.) when UM faces good defenses as the season goes along. There will still be spread formations, but I think Borges is going to try to simplify the game for Denard. Denard is a one read QB. He simply is not capable of going thru progressions and making check downs. I think we are going to see Borges give Denard one read, and if that read is covered, Denard will just take off. I believe this offensive line is capable of being a power running team, and quite frankly, I would be surprised if we don't see a lot more of it going forward. The Big Ten is still very winnable for this UM team.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Anon.
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