The Official NotreDameSux vs ][V][ichigan thread

[Michlady]

actually i am sure brandon and hoke will talk tomorrow
hoke is on the road after that for a few days

 

[gotime909]

Holy fucking excuses....

 

[rumseyhouse77]

The D can only do so much.

The D played really well. Better than I expected. Even the O played well, the bonehead plays and INTs is what killed them. The ND D did not stop Michigan. Michigan stopped itself. How many 3rd down conversions did Michigan get. How many 3rd and longs (+5 yards) did Michigan convert. If not for the turnovers, particularly in the redzone Michigan would have won.

Well, now I want a win over sparty! GO BLUE!

 

[byco42]

Denard clearly has not learned to play the QB position yet. He is actually regressing, which is unprecedented in the recent history of M football, John Navarre included.

 

[Michlady]

Well, Al Borges isn't going anywhere, and Denard isn't going to stop being the starting QB, so for the love of God can we please go into a game that uses Denard for what he is, not for what Borges wants in a QB?

But then again, all Borges has to do is wait this out, and next year he's either got Bellomy or Morris under center and then maybe he'll know what the hell he's doing.

No matter who the QB though, you have to be concerned that we have an offensive coordinator who went play action on 3rd and 1 last year at MSU, who threw three straight plays from inside the 5 at Iowa, and then tonight ran a HB option on 1st and goal.

totally agree - let denard be denard
they shoudl have changed he game plan after we messed up the first quarter

 

[bamf_16]

And I put a ton of this on Hoke too. We took W A Y too fucking long to run plays in the second half. Two possessions in the 3rd quarter?! And then that wasted timeout before third and goal?! You save that timeout and call the best play you can in the 30 seconds you have. Even if you get a TD, you have to get a stop to get the ball back, and that wasted timeout is something that should hopefully eat at Hoke this week to the point he never makes that fucking mistake again.

 

[Michlady]

i too also agree d looked better - and i was liking most of it

we have a week off so time for them to really focus

 

[umwolverines31]

Just imagine if we actually played a good team tonight. It would have been like 56-0. Everyone is praising the ND defense but what did they really do that was impressive? (other than the giveaways right to them). They made some stops inside the redzone, but i put more of the blame on play calling and Denard being clueless. Taking sacks, penaltys, ect. Im not saying Michigan is good by any means but that ND team is NOT GOOD AT ALL!!

 

[Michlady]

and sad thing ND will move up and we move out the rankings..i still don't think ND is top 10

 

[byco42]

I don't know. That 4th down call on the MSU 7 yard line last year is close.

You have three plays from the 10 and the first choice is to let a midget RB in his first play of the game throw the ball? That trumps all.

 

[hungry]

You have three plays from the 10 and the first choice is to let a midget RB in his first play of the game throw the ball? That trumps all.

both were pretty stupid

 

[dubbsco]

Bamf, they absolutely dictated the run game in the 3rd quarter. They got into position to score plenty of points. Denard's boneheaded plays cost them. I don't think you can blame this on the 3rd quarter playcalling. Yeah, the timeout was crap, agreed. But they were moving the ball at will, and did nothing.

 

[gotime909]

and sad thing ND will move up and we move out the rankings..i still don't think ND is top 10

You think Michigan deserves to be ranked?

 

[Michlady]

And I put a ton of this on Hoke too. We took W A Y too fucking long to run plays in the second half. Two possessions in the 3rd quarter?! And then that wasted timeout before third and goal?! You save that timeout and call the best play you can in the 30 seconds you have. Even if you get a TD, you have to get a stop to get the ball back, and that wasted timeout is something that should hopefully eat at Hoke this week to the point he never makes that fucking mistake again.

clock was not handled well

 

[rumseyhouse77]

Well, Al Borges isn't going anywhere, and Denard isn't going to stop being the starting QB, so for the love of God can we please go into a game that uses Denard for what he is, not for what Borges wants in a QB?

But then again, all Borges has to do is wait this out, and next year he's either got Bellomy or Morris under center and then maybe he'll know what the hell he's doing.

No matter who the QB though, you have to be concerned that we have an offensive coordinator who went play action on 3rd and 1 last year at MSU, who threw three straight plays from inside the 5 at Iowa, and then tonight ran a HB option on 1st and goal.

Yeah, that play at MSU came to my mind also. Why the cute play? Why Smith, he is too short and not a qb. He panicked and just tossed it up. If you are going to do something tricky like that, why not give the ball to Gardner, a tall qb? That ball gets tossed outside or into the corner and it is a TD instead of an INT. Stupid.

 

[Michlady]

no i think we are right out of the rankings but i don't think nd is top 10 either

but then cfb is weird this year

 

[uofm06marine]

I think the D played well. Notre Dame scored 10 points off of turnovers within Michigan's side of the half. They were served a shit sandwich and gave the team a chance at winning the game.

The offense lost this game. The part that stings the most is that Notre Dame's D didn't really do anything significant to stop us and everyone knows that we shot ourselves in the foot.

 

[bamf_16]

The D played really well. Better than I expected. Even the O played well, the bonehead plays and INTs is what killed them. The ND D did not stop Michigan. Michigan stopped itself. How many 3rd down conversions did Michigan get. How many 3rd and longs (+5 yards) did Michigan convert. If not for the turnovers, particularly in the redzone Michigan would have won.

Well, now I want a win over sparty! GO BLUE!

Eh, overdramatic. It's not that Denard has regressed, because I don't think he has if you look at his play in its entirety. He is a 6'0 (at best) QB with poor lower body mechanics who struggles to read the coverage in the middle of the field. The prostyle offense attacks the middle of the field underneath the Cover 2 and bets that the wideouts and the tight end are better than your linebackers and safeties, then uses their overpursuit to go down the field. It's what Griese did with Tuman to open up the outside for Streets. It's what Joppru did, Butler did, etc. But when you have 6'3 Griese, 6'4 Henson & Brady, 6'6 Navarre, 6'3 Henne, etc. you have the QB height to run it. They also had the mentality to stand in the pocket and continue to scan the defense in the face of pressure. Denard simply cannot do that. At this point, it's not something he's going to learn, just as Henne never really learned to scramble behind the LOS ala Ben Roethlisberger to give the receivers extra time. Denard is simply unable to take a shotgun snap, not drop back, read the middle of the defense over the O and D lines and make an accurate throw. He's actually better from under center when he turns his back to the line, and reacts instead of seeing the whole defense for several seconds.

I think it worse in the long run to run a zone read scheme with this offensive line. For as long as Hoke is coach, they'll be a prostyle physical blocking offensive line, and it doesn't make sense do abandon that for this year and then expect these guys to magically make the transition next spring. Denard can't throw timing, intermediate routes down the middle. So Borges needs to fucking stop calling them.

Denard hasn't stopped doing what he does well, or regressed in that manner. Instead, I see him being asked to do more and more and in more important cases that which he does not do well. Think about it, it took 4 interceptions in the first half for them to finally call an offensive scheme in which Denard is a threat to run on every play. It shouldn't take that!

 

[bamf_16]

Bamf, they absolutely dictated the run game in the 3rd quarter. They got into position to score plenty of points. Denard's boneheaded plays cost them. I don't think you can blame this on the 3rd quarter playcalling. Yeah, the timeout was crap, agreed. But they were moving the ball at will, and did nothing.

That fumble was huge, but I'm more pissed about the possession in the end of the 3rd/beginning of the 4th where it was a 2 score game and they took their sweet ass time, then wasted a timeout. In first series of the third quarter, you can defend the slow pace, because coaches typically don't worry about the clock much in the third if it's a 1 or 2 possession game. But that's my biggest complaint. They fucked up the clock management on a night where everything else was fucked up too.

 

[bamf_16]

Yeah, that play at MSU came to my mind also. Why the cute play? Why Smith, he is too short and not a qb. He panicked and just tossed it up. If you are going to do something tricky like that, why not give the ball to Gardner, a tall qb? That ball gets tossed outside or into the corner and it is a TD instead of an INT. Stupid.

that's another point that no one else has brought up.... WE ALREADY RAN A FUCKING PLAY WHERE WE TOSSED BEHIND THE LINE AND THREW A PASS! Have you ever seen a game where that play was called twice before?! And we did it twice in one fucking quarter.