TTUN post-mortem

[Thump]

I don't want to kill the kid because I didn't see your whole season, and I can tell he's an elite athlete. Furthermore, part of the problem is definitely the defensive system you run - all that havoc has a price tag, and in your DC's system that price tag is putting a tremendous amount of responsibility on the two safeties that aren't the deep guy. Plus you throw in that you guys went extra hard at the line on the snap specifically for Michigan, and what you've got is a player whose responsibilities would test most NFL safeties, just in terms of how much ground he has to cover, and how many reads he has to make on the play. So, that's the mitigating factor. What you can't mitigate is taking bad angles, flipping the wrong way on a pass play that cost you guys bigtime, and quite frankly giving up on a couple of plays. Again, in fairness, this defensive scheme is asking him to close a lot of gaps and never, ever, get beat deep - and those two assignments are in opposition to each other against a well-coached offense.




Hey, thanks, I think? :) I dunno, like I said in the other thread; there are reasons I'm not posting all this stuff on MGoBlog. I'm just a college football fan who happens to root hard for Michigan; nobody is cutting checks for my amateur PR work for the program. If you want to know the truth, I gave up on Harbaugh after the 2019 Wisconsin crap-show; known forever to me as "the Jonathan Taylor game" and not in a good way. So in some ways, I'm just as shocked as everyone who loathes Michigan that the last two years happened at all. Can't say I won't take them though; and the truth is, we need a guy like Harbaugh. Is he a weird f*cker? Absolutely; but he's also a big enough jerk to deal with the internal pressures and often unrealistic expectations, that come with the Michigan job. Dude's an absolute freak, but without him, we'd be Wisconsin with (mostly) better recruiting. P.S. I rather liked Cooper, but I can see why you folks would disagree :)

As for the rivalry; I mean I hate OSU football because anyone who has their lunch money stolen that often is gonna hate the guy doing it. It's just not personal, and it's not about anything other than football. I could really sincerely not care less where Obama's daughters go to school, for example. It's not even political, I just didn't sign up to root for school; I watch football, basketball when we're at least average, and hockey whenever we have NHL guys putting their time in before they go pro. I'm a fan; nothing more. Do I think OSU can win a rematch? Of course, I think they're an elite football team that can win any game they play; the recruiting backs that position up too. If I'm being honest, I'm even quite a bit scared of TCU; it's not like Michigan has a history of crapping the bed despite huge advantages on the lines, against a team with fast receivers and a QB that can scramble, right? *stares in App State*

But I wouldn't trade the opportunity for anything either. For us, right now, it really is about JJ. He has to keep playing up to his talent, or we're not going to win either of these games. But everyone who follows the program knew that was the score to begin with; that's why Harbaugh rigged up a QB competition that we all knew JJ was going to win - to take the next step as a team, we need JJ to take the next step as a player. I believe he can, I hope he can, but man I'm not psychic. :) I have no advice for Georgia; they ripped our soul out on live TV last year and don't see *that* much decline when I watch their highlights. If Michigan has to play them, I feel like the only thing I can hope for is they get bored/overconfident; so I hope you guys have a better answer than that. :)

Thanks for the welcome guys, it's been a blast so far. I gotta confess tho that I knew it was going to be; I read multiple complete threads before I signed up and kinda got a feel for the vibe here.

You’re the kind poster we value around here.

You are welcome here anytime!

 

[Buckeneye]

Glad to have you posting!

The one thing you keep coming back to that I can't help to address.

You speak very negative of #12 Ransom on our defense...

I couldn't agree more. He was a strong liability the last few games of the year and honestly this concerns me going into our game with UGA.

Edited: I should add that he was a strength for the first 9 games. However the last month he really struggled.

What you guys speak of, and our newly christened wolverine, is Ransom doing what he struggles at - coming downhill and into coverage from depth.

When he's back on a hash, his angles and north/south speed are questionable at best. And how he leverages himself picking up a #2 in quarters is just ugly.

That sort of thing can only be fixed with coaching and reps. Even then, it might not generate too much improvement. I still have nightmares about Jamario O' Neal.

 

[Captain Buckeye]

What you guys speak of, and our newly christened wolverine, is Ransom doing what he struggles at - coming downhill and into coverage from depth.

When he's back on a hash, his angles and north/south speed are questionable at best. And how he leverages himself picking up a #2 in quarters is just ugly.

That sort of thing can only be fixed with coaching and reps. Even then, it might not generate too much improvement. I still have nightmares about Jamario O' Neal.

Yeah that's about his comp really... honestly he's who I'd play less in support of playing Styles.

 

[jwinslow]

Okay so there's a lot going on here, and I don't want to be that "you so right" jerk. Gonna take it one by one.



I'm not sure how to respond to this because frankly even Michigan fans, don't really know what JJ McCarthy is. Last year he was the guy we brought in to take deep shots and if you go look at the numbers; he hit them. This year, he started off being absolutely clinical in the short passing game (albeit against weak competition) but couldn't hit the deep shot; that lasted for about eight weeks, and then he seemed to hit a wall. I was genuinely VERY worried after the Illinois game. But as you know, it worked out okay in The Game. So the fact is I dunno how you're supposed to defend JJ; it very much depends on which JJ shows up. The fact is, he has almost the entire toolbox (do not love his back corner fade game, but that's a HARD throw to make at any level) but we have no idea what he's going to do, or what his "natural" game is even now a full season later.

Yep, we've been talking heavily about how high his ceiling is but how dangerously low his floor is. Fortunately for him, he's yet to be in a contest without a strong defense and running game.

Everyone was sure that they'd make him uncomfortable and make good choices. Rutgers half 1 comes to mind. Instead they turned up the heat and made life very simple with dreadful execution. He had wide open guys so often. It looked like they were playing a bowling green secondary.

This is the part where I just say "you so right." I was more or less getting ready for a beatdown till Corny broke that tackle. As an aside tho; you guys took WEIRD pursuit angles all day. Definitely felt like you underestimated our speed in real time, because again, I've seen enough OSU games to know that normally it's not a problem for the Buckeyes. Still can't get over how bad a game #12 had; not picking on him, just the worst time to lose your markers and struggle with flipping your hips in space.

The safeties aren't elite but they've been solid to good most of the year, including Ransom, while the corners have been dreadful to "not all bad" at times. But the problem is they've faced horrendous offenses and that hid some huge flaws, and ironically JJ will be the high watermark, b/c stetson's offense is about mismatches not efficiency.

It will be interesting to see if the dabble with turning the "should be in HS" Sonny Styles loose. He's barely played, but he's the most athletic specimen they've had who knows how long, and there are no specimens built to handle the 2 cyborgs that Georgia has at TE. Lathan Ransom and McCallister are not built to stop those two. Rocket can do ok but will be outgunned.

Some of the breakdowns were not shocking, like this DCs odd penchant for rotating starters. Cam Martinez is not a top-3 safety, yet he was inexplicably in the game to get put on skates. And unlike Shawn Springs who got unlucky decades ago, Cam just got exposed. Of course on that same play there was another wide open guy

My stomach was in my throat until literally the SECOND long Edwards touchdown; then I felt relaxed. I mean not picking a fight but more or less isn't this the story of every game you guys ever lose? Talent and coaching wise, y'all are more or less in the top tier of college football, so aren't MOST games you lose a question of execution? Doesn't feel like the problem for the Buckeyes is EVER going to be "the horses." That having been said; if your staff calls a bad game (and forgive me, I believe they did) it makes it not only harder for the team to execute their way out of trouble, but forces them to do it more often. My read is that your staff called a game that forced kids to "make a play" too often, and eventually they crumbled.

Sure on talent. I was attempting to say that Michigan did their jobs most of the day while OSU did not. And they played tight. CJ has been going downhill in that regard. He's always been the antithesis of JT Barrett, but before the last few months, he was also was shockingly able to invent magic out of nothing.

Instead, he decided to do things like this:


and yes, they absolutely forced the issue, but never to the greatest WR in 5+ years in OSU, which is saying something, given Olave, Wilson, McLaurin, etc. Meanwhile they had a red hot true frosh Dallan Hayden who was sidelined all game for no apparent reason (alleged fumble issues in practice?). And they had a 4th string RB that ran really hard and well in the first half, and then never got the ball again.

I was pretty sure that play was a touchdown, but I'm not gonna complain that your QB put too much air under it and Mikey got the recovery and swat. I don't think they PLANNED to feature Stover quite frankly, I think OSU's playcalling made Stover the guy who was open, in light of the defense we're playing. I think Day needed to scheme someone else into the spaces Stover was roaming, because we had to, by necessity, leave those spaces open. I think that's why Day kept going to his screen game, because it schemes one of your stud WR open automatically; it's just that we were jumping the screens and quite frankly your dudes outside are not willing blockers for the screen target. THAT part, is all on the players imho. It's probably a whole different game with your all world slot guy in there because at least half those passes to Stover, go to a future NFL all-pro instead.

JSN being out is a huge loss, but if you're going to force the issue, force it to Marvin 8 yds underneath all game. Stop asking an inconsistent farm strong TE to be the star receiver.

Your interior DL (against a not healthy interior OL) won this play, and hid 3 different options for a TD:

Thanks for the welcome guys, it's been a blast so far. I gotta confess tho that I knew it was going to be; I read multiple complete threads before I signed up and kinda got a feel for the vibe here.

We welcome people who can talk football and back up their talk. Also those who have thick skin and realize which home they're in. If you can continue to do both, you're very welcome to continue.

Well, on defense, Michigan will make no adjustments because we more or less can't. This is the scheme that the talent we have allows us to run. We tried other things throughout the year and nothing looked anywhere near as good as the coverage-based zone scheme we're playing now; we don't have the pass rushers to spend all day in man, and while our secondary plays lights out as a unit, there is a lack of pure speed that forces us until the 2 high shell with pattern matching coverage underneath. We literally can't play any other way.

On offense, I would expect us to play a whole different game; less reliant on big plays, and more methodical. I think JJ will surprise you in that situation, he's excelled there before and faded down the stretch, but the ability is there. The truth however is the difference between this Michigan team, which believes it can win a national title, and last year's team, which we all suspect was just happy to be there, is JJ; and we're only going to go as far as he can take us. If OSU can confuse him, we will lose the rematch (assuming there is one ofc, fingers crossed and all that) - but I think he'll surprise you, he's harder to confuse than the highlights would lead you to believe.

I think JJ's floor gets more attention than his potential to linger near his ceiling.

It's not that he's stupid, it's that he's green and foolish at times, and he's not that dominant of a runner to get away with bailing and doing crazy stuff (like a braxton, denard, pryor, manziel, williams). He's a very fluid, big armed QB who is better at buying time than he is at scrambling

As for what I mean about showing his age, I'd argue that in that first half vs Rutgers, the scheme was so safe and effective that he had to do almost nothing, yet he almost had 3 game changing turnovers. They took the ball completely away from him and then it was a blowout.

That said, it was CJ that blinked under pressure and panicked.

 

[BuckeyesGunn]

"Here's how you lost."

Yeah, we know.