The Elephant in the Room

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I'm just a guy. A fan for over 40 years. I have no coaching experience. So when I say "how is this offense supposed to work, exactly?" you know it's just me talking. When Coach says this loss or that loss is on him, ok, but you have an OC who is getting paid to present you with an offensive scheme worthy of the Big Ten. I don't understand. The QB is in the shotgun, the tailback is right beside him. The ball is in full sight. If we do the bunny hop and switch to the pistol, we know the back isn't going to hand off to the QB so it's 11 vs 10. Why can't we line up under center and run a Bug 10 offense? I'm fine with changing the cultur, RTB, Elite, loving our players, helping them grow in all aspects of their lives etc. But I look at our offensive scheme and say "How is this ever gonna work?" Maybe I need to go on YouTube and watch old WMU film for 20 hours. OK, go ahead and ban me from posting now.
 

Not only do I agree, I'll take it one step further. That play was ran at least 6 times, and every time it went for a loss or if lucky, no gain. After the third time, I would have told the OC to rip that page out of the playbook and throw it away, never allowing it to be called again. Instead it gets called even more. Whats worse, is that the play itself is so dumb and unimaginable in the first place. It looks like something a 4th grader would try to draw up in a huddle on a playground. What exactly is it trying to accomplish? What is it setting up for future plays? Nothing. Incredibly incompetent play calling and scheming. Really, it is embarrassing. I have ZERO confidence in this OC.
 

The OC tried some wide stuff in the first Q and had some success, but Michigan adjusted quickly, shutting us down. We kept trying to run against the third best defense in the nation (Smith ran 18 times for 38 yards total). We threw only 12 passes, completing only five! This has been going on since Mason left: with but a little variation, the NCAA stats this morning have been like this for years - 118th in passing offense, 119th in total offense. That is ridiculous. Croft has a nice touch on short passes, but was running for his life most of the game, but his improvised runs really helped at times. His designed runs went nowhere. The Gophers have to pass to complement their running game. They have to pass to score and their final three games are against teams that can score. The OC is being paid a small fortune and the HC a big fortune. They should be doing a lot better, as you say.
 

The one time the offense looked competent and in command all year was when they ditched the stupid shotgun against Illinois and ran it down their throats. And yes, Illinois is a thousand rungs below Michigan on the talent ladder, but that should be the offensive identity. Power running coupled with stout defense. That's how the vast majority of successful Big 10 teams get it done.
This quasi-spread offense isn't going to work here.
 

It's almost as if our Oline was losing the battle.

They could have called any play and we would have gained about the same.
 


I'm just a guy. A fan for over 40 years. I have no coaching experience. So when I say "how is this offense supposed to work, exactly?" you know it's just me talking. When Coach says this loss or that loss is on him, ok, but you have an OC who is getting paid to present you with an offensive scheme worthy of the Big Ten. I don't understand. The QB is in the shotgun, the tailback is right beside him. The ball is in full sight. If we do the bunny hop and switch to the pistol, we know the back isn't going to hand off to the QB so it's 11 vs 10. Why can't we line up under center and run a Bug 10 offense? I'm fine with changing the cultur, RTB, Elite, loving our players, helping them grow in all aspects of their lives etc. But I look at our offensive scheme and say "How is this ever gonna work?" Maybe I need to go on YouTube and watch old WMU film for 20 hours. OK, go ahead and ban me from posting now.

I know a lot of you don't watch other teams. But Penn St has been running that exact play with success all year long. So when I saw it last night, I was happy. It meant the OC was trying something new, that Michigan didn't have on tape. That's what we should be doing. It didn't work, so we moved away from it. We also did the double motion where a game came across the formation and then came back and was given the ball on a sweep. Those plays worked really well on the one td drive.

We should be a lot more worried why we can't find receivers that could start in the MAC or a competent QB. Those are huge immediate needs that must be addressed this off season.
 

The one time the offense looked competent and in command all year was when they ditched the stupid shotgun against Illinois and ran it down their throats. And yes, Illinois is a thousand rungs below Michigan on the talent ladder, but that should be the offensive identity. Power running coupled with stout defense. That's how the vast majority of successful Big 10 teams get it done.
This quasi-spread offense isn't going to work here.

In order to win big, you have to pass the ball well.
 

I can't believe how many people think anytime we lose yardage on RB plays it's because they don't like the play.

Do they watch to see if our O-lineman are actually moving people?

The only play where we had yardage running was when we quickly ran around the outside. (Basically plays where the O-Lineman are least involved in the play).
 

Please. No one defend that stupid shift/wildcat play. Not only was it 11 vs 10, but it is known who (RB) is going to do what (run). We don't have an elite athlete that makes that OK. Next, why even fake the handoff to Croft - get him out of there. You really want your QB as the lead blocker?


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I know a lot of you don't watch other teams. But Penn St has been running that exact play with success all year long. So when I saw it last night, I was happy. It meant the OC was trying something new, that Michigan didn't have on tape. That's what we should be doing. It didn't work, so we moved away from it. We also did the double motion where a game came across the formation and then came back and was given the ball on a sweep. Those plays worked really well on the one td drive.

We should be a lot more worried why we can't find receivers that could start in the MAC or a competent QB. Those are huge immediate needs that must be addressed this off season.

We did not go away from that play. We ran it at least once a quarter and not once did it gain yards of any significance. I would bet for the night that play lost yards.
We are way too predictable on offense. That is the biggest problem. The scoring drive we had was our best drive, because we ran some different things and did them on different downs. After that we didn't continue with that approach.


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We did not go away from that play. We ran it at least once a quarter and not once did it gain yards of any significance. I would bet for the night that play lost yards.
We are way too predictable on offense. That is the biggest problem. The scoring drive we had was our best drive, because we ran some different things and did them on different downs. After that we didn't continue with that approach.


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I didn't hate the play, but we did run it too often. Also that shuttle pass to Smith got awful results in the 2nd half after our success the first time running it.
The yards were got were mainly from trickery / mis-direction. Michigan adjusted, then we had nothing.

Sure the wildcat was awful.
I'm not convinced that any other play call would have gotten us more points last night.
 

We should be a lot more worried why we can't find receivers that could start in the MAC or a competent QB. Those are huge immediate needs that must be addressed this off season.

It's amazing that the WR on the team with the 2nd most catches is still Demetrius Douglas. He hasn't played in 6 games.

It's also pretty sad when you can watch a South Dakota St game and see more talent on offense.
 

The one time the offense looked competent and in command all year was when they ditched the stupid shotgun against Illinois and ran it down their throats. And yes, Illinois is a thousand rungs below Michigan on the talent ladder, but that should be the offensive identity. Power running coupled with stout defense. That's how the vast majority of successful Big 10 teams get it done.
This quasi-spread offense isn't going to work here.

I saw quite a few runs between the tackles yesterday, but none of them worked.
 




I'm just a guy. A fan for over 40 years. I have no coaching experience. So when I say "how is this offense supposed to work, exactly?" you know it's just me talking. When Coach says this loss or that loss is on him, ok, but you have an OC who is getting paid to present you with an offensive scheme worthy of the Big Ten. I don't understand. The QB is in the shotgun, the tailback is right beside him. The ball is in full sight. If we do the bunny hop and switch to the pistol, we know the back isn't going to hand off to the QB so it's 11 vs 10. Why can't we line up under center and run a Bug 10 offense? I'm fine with changing the cultur, RTB, Elite, loving our players, helping them grow in all aspects of their lives etc. But I look at our offensive scheme and say "How is this ever gonna work?" Maybe I need to go on YouTube and watch old WMU film for 20 hours. OK, go ahead and ban me from posting now.

Last week Rutgers gashed Michigan with that same play the first few times they ran it. Jerry Kill figured out a way to exploit Michigan's defense, and it worked. But even last week, Michigan's defense adjusted, and after the first few times, the play no longer worked. It's understandable, that Minnesota might try the same thing, but it should be expected that any DC is going to work the week following the game on those plays that his defense had problems with. As Fasternu points out, why in the world would anyone keep calling the same play when it gets stuffed everytime? It was obvious that Michigan was prepared for that play and had a plan that defended it well.
 

They were setting up plays where Rodney hands it back to Demry.
 

I think the reason we probably ran wildcat is because two weeks in a row the wildcat torches them. Probably wanted to see if it could work for us. Both Rutgers and Penn State scores on big plays out of the wildcat.
 

I think the reason we probably ran wildcat is because two weeks in a row the wildcat torches them. Probably wanted to see if it could work for us. Both Rutgers and Penn State scores on big plays out of the wildcat.

Trying it was fine. It became pretty obvious to all of us early on it wasn't going to work. Why keep trying over and over when they were crushing it each and every time.


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Trying it was fine. It became pretty obvious to all of us early on it wasn't going to work. Why keep trying over and over when they were crushing it each and every time.


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Because Rutgers ran it about 6 times and the one busted for a 65 yard touchdown after the first few didn’t work at all.

What it more says to me is how little confidence they have in the quarterback and offensive line
 

We should be a lot more worried why we can't find receivers that could start in the MAC or a competent QB. Those are huge immediate needs that must be addressed this off season.

While I agree our talent level at QB and Wide Receiver needs upgrading, our OC needs upgrading too. I an not a ball watcher at the games - I like to watch the entire field and see how plays develop. We have horrible spacing on our passing plays. There have been many times that you could put a hulu hoop around 2 gopher receivers. That's not on the players - that's on the coach and the scheme. There is no excuse for such poor design. And yes, maybe it needs to be a little simpler. But after Spring football, and 12 weeks of Fall football, I'd say its a big coaching problem if we can't get receivers properly spaced in a pass pattern.
 

While I agree our talent level at QB and Wide Receiver needs upgrading, our OC needs upgrading too. I an not a ball watcher at the games - I like to watch the entire field and see how plays develop. We have horrible spacing on our passing plays. There have been many times that you could put a hulu hoop around 2 gopher receivers. That's not on the players - that's on the coach and the scheme. There is no excuse for such poor design. And yes, maybe it needs to be a little simpler. But after Spring football, and 12 weeks of Fall football, I'd say its a big coaching problem if we can't get receivers properly spaced in a pass pattern.

Completely disagree with your assessment.

I agree the spacing is off on many plays. In my opinion most of the time the spacing is off is when defensive backs are physical and knock out WRs off their routes. That is a strength and speed issue, maybe a technique issue. That is not a route combo issue.
 

I know a lot of you don't watch other teams. But Penn St has been running that exact play with success all year long. So when I saw it last night, I was happy. It meant the OC was trying something new, that Michigan didn't have on tape. That's what we should be doing. It didn't work, so we moved away from it. We also did the double motion where a game came across the formation and then came back and was given the ball on a sweep. Those plays worked really well on the one td drive.

We should be a lot more worried why we can't find receivers that could start in the MAC or a competent QB. Those are huge immediate needs that must be addressed this off season.
I know it's a small consolation in a game like last night's but that one touchdown was really a nice mixture of play calls and execution. Michigan adjusted to it and unfortunately we didn't have another plan that could make up for the talent difference.
 


Agree with most of the sentiment here. Short passes are going to be key. I think Rodney is shifty enough that you bubble him and he can make guys miss and get yards. I'm not sure we have a WR that can do that. Quick slants, short outs, 3 steps and out. Running game is good enough for the most part that a little bit of competent passing game the offense could move.
 

It's amazing how much better Michigan's play caller looked last night than our guy maybe we should hire him? He's a lot smarter.

Or maybe our guys are reduced to gimmickry or slamming their heads against the wall because basic plays don't work with lesser overall line talent than the other team. Many passing plays also don't work with a QB that doesn't consistently make B1G reads or throws.

Once those improves Fleck and Ciarocca will start to look like geniuses calling mostly the same darn plays.
 


Completely disagree with your assessment.

I agree the spacing is off on many plays. In my opinion most of the time the spacing is off is when defensive backs are physical and knock out WRs off their routes. That is a strength and speed issue, maybe a technique issue. That is not a route combo issue.

I will disagree with your disagreement :)

Look at the Vikings. A team dedicated to running the ball without a strong armed QB or deep threat receivers. So what's their scheme? Short quick passes. Lots of crossing routes. Lots of pick plays (I know - illegal - but how many actually get called) Lots of dragging the TE across the field (when is the last time our 6'10" TE was even targeted? - I know - he goofed the Iowa TD play. But look how open. Maybe come back to it a few more times)

But still, there are things that can be done to better use what we have. I just don't see any creativity.
 


I will disagree with your disagreement :)

Look at the Vikings. A team dedicated to running the ball without a strong armed QB or deep threat receivers. So what's their scheme? Short quick passes. Lots of crossing routes. Lots of pick plays (I know - illegal - but how many actually get called) Lots of dragging the TE across the field (when is the last time our 6'10" TE was even targeted? - I know - he goofed the Iowa TD play. But look how open. Maybe come back to it a few more times)

But still, there are things that can be done to better use what we have. I just don't see any creativity.
You can’t run crossing routes if your wideouts can’t get off a jam. Which is our biggest problem. When the wideouts are contacted, they really struggle right now.


Our 6’10 tight end has below average hands, is a bad blocker, and an average rout stunner. If that is the answer then we have too many questions. Hell he can’t even run the route right when it is uncovered.
 

Yeah, the 6'10" thing gets brought up seemingly every game by the TV commentators. And the inevitable question of "why can't you just throw it up so high that only he can catch it", too. By the way ... why do people say that he screwed up the Iowa TD play?? Croft overthrew him by a mile, plain and simple. He would've had to be 15'10" to catch that pass.

Then what doesn't get brought up is that he is so long that he is at a natural, huge disadvantage run blocking.
 




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