Coaches lack trust in QB or WRs?

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csom_1991

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When bad things started snowballing against us, they completely took the ball out of Morgan's hands and just ran every down. This is kind of concerning to me as we need Morgan to be leader and if we don't trust him to make a play vs Miami (OH), how can we against B1G competition?

I wrote last week that has has regressed - it is either that or he was a product of really good WRs in TJ and RB. Watching the RB highlight film, he definitely bailed Morgan out on a ton of marginal throws. So, maybe the regression is due to lower talent around him but I think it shows he has reached his peak. If coaches don't trust him to make good decisions and complete a 4 yard dump off to break up 20 straight running plays, we have a big confidence issue.
 

I think this is on PJ and the OC. They want to run the ball too much. They want to control the clock, control the game, and grind it out on offense. The play calling becomes more pass heavy only when they need to, and that makes the play calling much more predictable and results in 8 and 9 man boxes. Kirk did a better job with balanced play calling, but even then, they wanted to run it more often than not.
 

matt said:
I think this is on PJ and the OC. They want to run the ball too much. They want to control the clock, control the game, and grind it out on offense. The play calling becomes more pass heavy only when they need to, and that makes the play calling much more predictable and results in 8 and 9 man boxes. Kirk did a better job with balanced play calling, but even then, they wanted to run it more often than not.
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Very true. But they won't be able to win in the conference without passing - remember Penn State in 2019?
 

I am hoping this is like 2019 where they ran a very simple plan against "easy" teams and then opening up the playbook and passing game against tougher competition. While I do think there are things to work on and the play calling is suspect, I am hoping this is just what we saw in 2019.
 
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I can understand wanting to run the ball and establishing an identity. But, Morgan was playing at a very high level 2 years ago and has looked like a shadow of that player the last 2 season. There were a ton of drops today which didn't help, but we need to have the QB be an asset to the team. I still have nightmares from Mitch Leidner's senior year regression when the hopes were so high that a multi-year starter would be a real asset in his final year. I don't want to see Morgan go out in the same way.


matt said:
I think this is on PJ and the OC. They want to run the ball too much. They want to control the clock, control the game, and grind it out on offense. The play calling becomes more pass heavy only when they need to, and that makes the play calling much more predictable and results in 8 and 9 man boxes. Kirk did a better job with balanced play calling, but even then, they wanted to run it more often than not.
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The offense changed a lot when Wright got hurt. I don't have numbers to back it up but I bet we attempted very few passes once he left the game.
 

MNVCGUY said:
The offense changed a lot when Wright got hurt. I don't have numbers to back it up but I bet we attempted very few passes once he left the game.
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When he got hurt, I think that was incompletion #8 in a row or something like that. I don't recall many, if any, complete passes or attempts after that.
 

Michigan has 54 rushes and 15 passes tonight.
 

Word said:
Michigan has 54 rushes and 15 passes tonight.
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They were up by 2 scores the whole night - different story. We had a comeback that was basically stopped by a penalty pushing out the 2pt conversion attempt from tying the game. For Michigan, they got bailed out by an unsportsmanlike penalty against UW or their gameplan would have needed to change as well. With the penalty, all the UW momentum was stopped so they could just play to drain the clock.
 



csom_1991 said:
I can understand wanting to run the ball and establishing an identity. But, Morgan was playing at a very high level 2 years ago and has looked like a shadow of that player the last 2 season. There were a ton of drops today which didn't help, but we need to have the QB be an asset to the team. I still have nightmares from Mitch Leidner's senior year regression when the hopes were so high that a multi-year starter would be a real asset in his final year. I don't want to see Morgan go out in the same way.
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I have no idea what you are talking about. You’re comparing Tanner Morgan to Mitch Leidner. You and the rest of the Morgan critics are absolutely crazy. The issue is the OC, but we’re only 2 games in so let’s see what happens. Fleck running the ball has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of confidence in Morgan. If anything it’s because the receivers were dropping the passes as Fleck said in the press conference.
 


PJ Fleck is the kind of guy who would be on a legendary craps shoot in Vegas and would walk away from the table and to the cage before seven-ing out and passing the dice.
 

matt said:
I think this is on PJ and the OC. They want to run the ball too much. They want to control the clock, control the game, and grind it out on offense. The play calling becomes more pass heavy only when they need to, and that makes the play calling much more predictable and results in 8 and 9 man boxes. Kirk did a better job with balanced play calling, but even then, they wanted to run it more often than not.
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I disagree Kirk did a better job. Until the penn state game we literally had the same threads that we have now.
 





Some Day...Maybe said:
I have no idea what you are talking about. You’re comparing Tanner Morgan to Mitch Leidner. You and the rest of the Morgan critics are absolutely crazy. The issue is the OC, but we’re only 2 games in so let’s see what happens. Fleck running the ball has absolutely nothing to do with a lack of confidence in Morgan. If anything it’s because the receivers were dropping the passes as Fleck said in the press conference.
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This. These young receivers are playing like its flag football not expecting to catch contested balls. We were spoiled by TJ, Bateman and CAB to a lesser extent, who used their bodies very well against DBs. These current receivers? Not so much yet.
 

How many games has Tanner won for us on late game drives?

Pure guess, but the coaches wanted to shorten the game and escape with the ugly win. The remaining WR talent without CAB and Wright may have been a consideration, and/or the potential for a turnover affecting the outcome. PJF has a strong conservative streak like some other recent coaches. Yesterday ‘s second half was as close to a Jerry Kill Limegrover O as we’ve seen.
 

csom_1991 said:
I can understand wanting to run the ball and establishing an identity. But, Morgan was playing at a very high level 2 years ago and has looked like a shadow of that player the last 2 season. There were a ton of drops today which didn't help, but we need to have the QB be an asset to the team.
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I'd be surprised if fans were saying that Morgan was playing at a high level after a handful of non-conference scares early in the year in 2019. This could be a little bit revisionist history, no?

We're two games in and exactly where everyone thought we would be. Wright has been a bright spot, Potts has been a bright spot, BSF has actually produced... The defense has been a big concern, no doubt about it, but at this point I'm not concerned about where the offense is.
 

Great Plains Gopher said:
Very true. But they won't be able to win in the conference without passing - remember Penn State in 2019?
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Not just Penn State. Here are some others from that season:

Georgia Southern, won 35-32
Rushing: 48 attempts for 93 yards
Passing: 19-31 for 289 yards

Purdue, won 38-31
Rushing: 33 attempts for 123 yards
Passing: 21-22 for 396 yards

Iowa, lost 19-23
Rushing: 31 attempts for 117 yards
Passing: 25-39 (Kramer was 0-4 on attempts when Tanner was taken out) for 368 yards
We missed a field goal and an extra point kick in this game so there was the 4 point margin.
 


Some guy said:
I disagree Kirk did a better job. Until the penn state game we literally had the same threads that we have now.
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I think Kirk’s offense had a stronger identity and flowed better. We knew we were getting inside/outside zone, quick slants, intermediate slants, and deep play action. And those could all be run from the same sets.

Sanford’s offense does not have a strong identity. We know that we get inside/outside zone and some slants, but I’m not quite sure how to characterize what we do outside of that.
 

matt said:
I think Kirk’s offense had a stronger identity and flowed better. We knew we were getting inside/outside zone, quick slants, intermediate slants, and deep play action. And those could all be run from the same sets.

Sanford’s offense does not have a strong identity. We know that we get inside/outside zone and some slants, but I’m not quite sure how to characterize what we do outside of that.
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The things you just described is literally what the team ran yesterday from multiple formations
 

Some Day...Maybe said:
I have no idea what you are talking about. You’re comparing Tanner Morgan to Mitch Leidner.
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I agree that one can't compare Morgan to Leidner but you have to remember that Leidner actually was pretty good as a junior (his best year although the team finished with a losing regular season) but surprisingly had worse year with a better team as a senior. Tanner has given us some great moments over his career and has never had a truly bad season but a senior year regression isn't an impossibility even with Tanner.
 
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cjbfbp said:
I agree that one can't compare Morgan to Leidner but you have to remember that Leidner actually was pretty good as a junior (his best year although the team finished with a losing regular season) but surprisingly had worse year with a better team as a senior. Tanner has given us some great moments over his career and has never had a truly bad season but a senior year regression isn't an impossibility even with Tanner.
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We are how many years into the PJF era and we have an experienced QB that had states legit comparable to Joe Borrow 2 years ago for pass efficiency, etc. - AND WE HAD ZERO PASSING YARDS IN A HALF.

We have a good running game that we were able to fall back on - but the whole Miami comeback was fueled by our inability to get first downs to slow their momentum. We should be able to rely on a multi-year starter at QB and our coaching staff to put the players in a position to keep the forward pass part of the gameplan.

As to my original comment on Leidner - his 2nd half vs. Wisconsin is a legendary display of how a QB hurts rather than helps his team. Morgan at least has the composure to make some good decision still - I hope that composure remains even if we continue to struggle in the passing game. For Morgan, his biggest asset is his decision making - he needs to continue to use that and the coaches need to put him in a position to use that without him forcing the ball. I think this is going to be a long season and I really don't want a repeat of Leidner's regression.
 

Pompous Elitist said:
How many games has Tanner won for us on late game drives?

Pure guess, but the coaches wanted to shorten the game and escape with the ugly win. The remaining WR talent without CAB and Wright may have been a consideration, and/or the potential for a turnover affecting the outcome. PJF has a strong conservative streak like some other recent coaches. Yesterday ‘s second half was as close to a Jerry Kill Limegrover O as we’ve seen.
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Fresno State comes to mind. I'd say he sealed the Auburn win with TJ's catch and run. Still, I get your point.
 

I think PJ just decided to get out of the Miami game with the surest path to a win—though an ugly path—and without any further potential screw ups from a passing game that had, for some reason, gone cockeyed.

I believe that if CAB and Wright and Jackson are all healthy and available against Colorado, we won’t spend half the game sending our RBs into overstacked boxes. We’ll pass downfield and might use second and short situations (if we have some!) to try to take the top off the defense. Succeed a bit at the passing and our running game moves back to even Steven.

Let’s pray that our defense has gotten better …
 

A QB is only as good as his surrounding support team, unless they are really shitty. Look at the game last night you had a running QB and a throwing QB. Everyone loves to watch the fireworks of the QB running around, but every time I have watched him he looses to the QB that can sling the rock. Morgan has been a great cog for PJ and a guy that transitioned with him to his new job.
 

csom_1991 said:
When bad things started snowballing against us, they completely took the ball out of Morgan's hands and just ran every down. This is kind of concerning to me as we need Morgan to be leader and if we don't trust him to make a play vs Miami (OH), how can we against B1G competition?

I wrote last week that has has regressed - it is either that or he was a product of really good WRs in TJ and RB. Watching the RB highlight film, he definitely bailed Morgan out on a ton of marginal throws. So, maybe the regression is due to lower talent around him but I think it shows he has reached his peak. If coaches don't trust him to make good decisions and complete a 4 yard dump off to break up 20 straight running plays, we have a big confidence issue.
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Do you think it had anything to do with Morgan's health? Watch. After running a RPO and keeping it (mind-blown, I know). He appears to take knee to the kidney area while awkwardly diving for the line to gain. I think Morgan was hurt, and they left him in there to manage the remaining time / snaps rather than turning to Annexstad
 

VolitileGopher said:
Do you think it had anything to do with Morgan's health? Watch. After running a RPO and keeping it (mind-blown, I know). He appears to take knee to the kidney area while awkwardly diving for the line to gain. I think Morgan was hurt, and they left him in there to manage the remaining time / snaps rather than turning to Annexstad
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Morgan was very dinged for a play or two and Annexstad went rushing to find his helmet. By the time he got it and warmed up a little Morgan seemed to have regained his composure and was moving around ok but they definitely thought about pulling him after the shot he took.

Don't know that it played into the lack of passes in the second half but they certainly came close to putting Zack in there.
 

Face The Facts said:
PJ said postgame that "if our WR's drop balls, that tells us we need to run the ball".

I didn't see the full second half, but assume that's why we didn't pass much.
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Does that go for.. "if we keep running into 9 man fronts and getting stuffed.. that tells us to run even more!" ?
 

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