Iowa @ Michigan, Saturday, October 5th, Noon, FOX/Fox Video.

[lineygoblue]

I don't want McCaffery in the game unless he is fully, totally and completely ready to go. We don't need him in there trying to run this mess of an offense while still recovering from a concussion. We'll need him for the next two seasons.

I heard that Harbaugh said after the game that "the offense seems to be hitting its stride".

Huh?

Coach... seriously ... do those glasses you wear have some sort of new technology in them that allows you to watch another game? You certainly weren't watching the Michigan game today.

The offense is on life support. They are in no way, shape or form, "hitting their stride". They're in danger of being blown right off the field. Especially when they face the likes of the Nits, Sparties and Nuts.

There were times when I wondered if I was watching Shea Patterson or Tate Forcier. Where have you gone, Tate?

[WM Wolverine]

Not sure if McCaffrey is any better but Shea will lead us to 8 wins, at most.

[lineygoblue]

And eight wins is probably the ceiling for this team.

Eight wins is do-able with some help. (MSU, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland)

Nine wins or more is out of the question. They'd have to win all of the above plus one of PSU, OSU and ND.

Not happening.

[Jeff Buchanan]

I look forward to Buchanan, by Tuesday, rationalizing today as a high quality win.

Nope ..... not going to put lipstick on that pig.

There is no way that the offense is going to improve with Patterson at QB and Gattis calling plays. I've seen enough of both of them. It's hard to determine if there might be some kind of negative synergy going on between those two guys that makes them both terrible or if they are just both incredibly inept at what they do.

Patterson has established he's at his ceiling in this offense. In fact, I don't think he can run it efficiently at all. He continues to bail early, throws with inconsistent accuracy on his deep ball and, if he's making Zone or RPO reads, and I question those are available to him, he makes the wrong one enough times to show Gattis is playing RPS with only the rock.

The OL he's behind isn't helping either of these two look like they know what they are doing. None of them are consistently moving the LoS downfield or consistently getting to the LB level inside. That Iowa was playing zone most of the game makes that shit inexcusable. Iowa routinely presented a defense to M's O with 5 defenders v. 6 blockers...... and you can't break Charbonett, Turner or Wilson loose and geet some fucking blocks at the second level for a big play? Fuck no, it didn't seem like it. Michigan has one run, ONE, over 14 yards this season according to ufm in his post game comments. They have 3 plays IN FIVE GAMES over 50 yards. You cannot win in today;'s CFB world without an explosive offense. There are two many random factors at work that play against what it looks like Harbaugh is trying to do against better competition. This may be one of the big reasons he can't win the big games.

I'm not a coach but I damn well know Gattis' play design and in-game calling makes no sense. The offense looks unprepared and that's on the coaches - is this the first time they saw Iowa play C2-Zone? That Gattis continued to have 4 NFL caliber receivers run routes 10 yards down-field and then sit on them demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how to clear the zone that is going to be your QBs first read. There has to be routes that bait the Ss and CBs to clear the middle zone. Then you run a drag or a slant. Those were there on occasions when the receivers did that but instead of continuing to work that sort of success, Gattis would call some dumb-ass play that made no sense in the context of the series being run. In fact i don't think a single series made any sense excpet theone that resulted in a TD.

On the plus side, M did beat a ranked team and covered the spread!!!!!

Also on the plus side, Illinois is trailing Minnesota 37-17 and the Goopher has 451 yards of total offense and 256y rushing. A win for M in Champaign Urbana is looking a little bit better if M's O can just look a little bit like the one that showed up for Rutgers and a lot less like the one that showed up for it's other 4 games. I can hope but my ET finger light is growing really dim.

[hack]

If McCaffrey's ready, do it. Harbaugh hasn't trusted a QB since he put too much trust in Speight in '16. He's not going to get there with Patterson, but McCaffrey at least might be able to keep it and run.

[hack]

Let's have a hats off to Don Brown, though. The man-on-3rd-and-22 play in the second quarter was maddening, but I bet the vast majority of us were waiting for the late-game collapse that never came this time. Especially when Paye went out. Brown recognized he couldn't get front-four rush and got it done with effective blitzing. Was the kind of game that makes me hope he's gonna learn how to stop solving other people's problems with aggression. Clearly you could see improvement with crossing routes.

[hack]

Two other comments, thanks to Gus/Klatt:

1. Carlo Kemp told them that the difference is that everybody's all in this year, unlike other years. I'm not buying that one bit, even though this game's defense fought to the end. But something is definitely off on the intangibles front. Really hard to assign severity to those kinds of problems with any degree of certainty, but there are whispers about that stuff regularly enough to question Harbaugh's ability to get buy in from everybody. Whomever spent the summer golfing, half the team skipping out on last year's bowl game, etc. etc. Too many incidents and suggestions to call them isolated.

2. The OSU problem attributed to not having enough players from Ohio. That's quite possibly a reasonable thing wonder about. Hoke make a point of recruiting the state, and didn't win but had a bunch of guys that played HARD in that game.

[maxreturn]

Two other comments, thanks to Gus/Klatt:

1. Carlo Kemp told them that the difference is that everybody's all in this year, unlike other years. I'm not buying that one bit, even though this game's defense fought to the end. But something is definitely off on the intangibles front. Really hard to assign severity to those kinds of problems with any degree of certainty, but there are whispers about that stuff regularly enough to question Harbaugh's ability to get buy in from everybody. Whomever spent the summer golfing, half the team skipping out on last year's bowl game, etc. etc. Too many incidents and suggestions to call them isolated.

2. The OSU problem attributed to not having enough players from Ohio. That's quite possibly a reasonable thing wonder about. Hoke make a point of recruiting the state, and didn't win but had a bunch of guys that played HARD in that game.

This is just more evidence that the primary issue is coaching, or more correctly stated; lack of coaching.

[Jeff Buchanan]

This is pathetic.

In Harbaugh's post game presser he blithely said, "the offense is hitting it's stride in every way." Patterson essentially said that when the defense is playing lights out you just play to them. At least Mayfield was honest when he said, "sometimes when you play a quality defense like that it makes you focus on technique.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/2019/10/05/jim-harbaugh-says-michigan-wolverines-offense-hitting-their-stride/3885048002/

[lineygoblue]

I think Harbaugh is having some buyer's remorse when it comes to Gattis. He bought into the hype surrounding his offensive pedigree, and hired the guy before he knew a lot about him.

For my Captain Obvious and Sunday Morning QB moment, I think what Harbaugh should have done after last season is to find a OC that pretty much runs the same offensive schemes that he does, but with some new ideas. An example which is still painful to me is what Tressel did to Lloyd Carr. He took Lloyd ball to the next step and beat Carr with his own game, while Carr remained in neutral. I think this is where Harbaugh is now. His offense can work, but he hasn't been able to move forward with the times, with all the new stuff DC's throw at him. Instead, he's brought in Gattis, who is trying to bring in a completely different offense, that neither the players nor Harbaugh understand. And he's committed to it for this season, no matter what. He can't throw it out now without completely wiping out the season.

I think Gattis is gone after the season, (captain obvious again) and if Harbaugh intends to stay, he's going to have to find a OC that can run Harbaugh's offense, and juice it up with some new ideas.

Patterson looked more like Tate Forcier yesterday than he looked like himself. He was running around, not knowing who to look for, not sure what he was supposed to be doing, and totally lacking in confidence. And it looks like he's been told not to run the ball.

Last season Patterson ran the team pretty well, the last two games notwithstanding. He had some swagger, and played with a lot of confidence. Today's Patterson looks like a first-year sophomore who needs another off season to learn the offense. Its terrible. I'll grant that Iowa's defense had something to do with that, but this offense plays right into the hands of a team like Iowa.

There is one more tomato can on Michigan's schedule. They should handle Illinois, but after that, they'll finish the season with teams that can completely kick their tails. Including Maryland and Indiana. They better get this fixed or they are in for several humiliating losses.

[froot loops]

I think Harbaugh is having some buyer's remorse when it comes to Gattis. He bought into the hype surrounding his offensive pedigree, and hired the guy before he knew a lot about him.

For my Captain Obvious and Sunday Morning QB moment, I think what Harbaugh should have done after last season is to find a OC that pretty much runs the same offensive schemes that he does, but with some new ideas. An example which is still painful to me is what Tressel did to Lloyd Carr. He took Lloyd ball to the next step and beat Carr with his own game, while Carr remained in neutral. I think this is where Harbaugh is now. His offense can work, but he hasn't been able to move forward with the times, with all the new stuff DC's throw at him. Instead, he's brought in Gattis, who is trying to bring in a completely different offense, that neither the players nor Harbaugh understand. And he's committed to it for this season, no matter what. He can't throw it out now without completely wiping out the season.

I think Gattis is gone after the season, (captain obvious again) and if Harbaugh intends to stay, he's going to have to find a OC that can run Harbaugh's offense, and juice it up with some new ideas.

Patterson looked more like Tate Forcier yesterday than he looked like himself. He was running around, not knowing who to look for, not sure what he was supposed to be doing, and totally lacking in confidence. And it looks like he's been told not to run the ball.

Last season Patterson ran the team pretty well, the last two games notwithstanding. He had some swagger, and played with a lot of confidence. Today's Patterson looks like a first-year sophomore who needs another off season to learn the offense. Its terrible. I'll grant that Iowa's defense had something to do with that, but this offense plays right into the hands of a team like Iowa.

There is one more tomato can on Michigan's schedule. They should handle Illinois, but after that, they'll finish the season with teams that can completely kick their tails. Including Maryland and Indiana. They better get this fixed or they are in for several humiliating losses.

I pretty much agree with all of this.

I would add that it is weird that they allegedly changed the offense because it doesn't work in the college game. Maybe that's true but you'd like to see it fail with an actual NFL caliber pocket passer. 5 seasons in and the quarterback position is still a big question mark.

[hack]

Harbaugh hasn't trusted a QB since he put too much trust in Speight in '16. Even when Peters came in and had a few good games and looked like something to build on, the leash was just so damn short. Doesn't seem like he's given his QBs much of a chance to earn that trust.

[Hannibal]

Did they even change the offense? If so, what the hell did they even add? More option? Nope. RPOs? Nope. More complex passing game? Nope. More complex running game? Nope. We're still running Pep's offense except now it's just shit.

[WingsFan]

Year 5 and Harbaugh hasn't even had his own qb , Patterson, JOK and Rudock all transfers.

[hack]

Patterson's been fool's gold. The staff should have done a better job giving him an offense in which to work, but he clearly doesn't make the most of what he's been given. In retrospect it might have been better had he not come here.