Michigan Football, Team 138, 2017 Season.

[Mackenzie]

Just watching some of the other bowl games, there were many teams that looked so much more dynamic that M. And, that seemed mostly due to QB's that can make things happen with their feet. I thought Mayfield from Oklahoma looked really good in the Sugar Bowl and think they would likely have crushed OSU if they had played them in a bowl game--or any other team the B10 threw out there. The freshman kid, McSorley, at Penn State also looked very good. Don't get me wrong. I know that M's scheme is very much different and I'm not a fan of basketball on grass week in and week out. Still, I think that if the goal is to make the "final four" that M's brand of football may suffer. I know Alabama has done it the old fashioned way in the past but I think even Saban has seen the writing on the wall and is willing to change despite being able to recruit the best kids to exclusively play old school football if that's what he wanted. This is not a knock on JH and I know he will "tweak" and that M will play solid football with him behind the wheel. I just don't know that "solid" is enough these days. So many others posts have been much more reflective on the subject as opposed to mine which is nothing more than gut feeling based on what I seemed to see and feel as I watched this bowl season.

[*JD*]

Peppers signed with an agent. No surprise but it's now official.

[*JD*]

Now Sam Webb is saying that report is false.

[hack]

He's gone. Surely he's got to be gone. Butt tore up ligaments in the bowl game.

[Whitley]

He's gone. Surely he's got to be gone. Butt tore up ligaments in the bowl game.

The only thing that I think would bring him back is the fact that he has never played in a bowl game for Michigan.

[hack]

Just watching some of the other bowl games, there were many teams that looked so much more dynamic that M. And, that seemed mostly due to QB's that can make things happen with their feet. I thought Mayfield from Oklahoma looked really good in the Sugar Bowl and think they would likely have crushed OSU if they had played them in a bowl game--or any other team the B10 threw out there. The freshman kid, McSorley, at Penn State also looked very good. Don't get me wrong. I know that M's scheme is very much different and I'm not a fan of basketball on grass week in and week out. Still, I think that if the goal is to make the "final four" that M's brand of football may suffer. I know Alabama has done it the old fashioned way in the past but I think even Saban has seen the writing on the wall and is willing to change despite being able to recruit the best kids to exclusively play old school football if that's what he wanted. This is not a knock on JH and I know he will "tweak" and that M will play solid football with him behind the wheel. I just don't know that "solid" is enough these days. So many others posts have been much more reflective on the subject as opposed to mine which is nothing more than gut feeling based on what I seemed to see and feel as I watched this bowl season.

Harbaugh's the guy that opted for Kaepernick in the pros. He's not going to be hostile to the spread, or incorporating elements of it. I really don't think our problems are due to scheme, or will be long-term. I do worry a bit about his system being more finicky than the spread, but he's thrived with this type of approach the whole way through. He knows how to make it work. I'm as mystified as anyone over how the offense bogged down and became completely ineffective in the last month of the season, and do note that it happened last year too, though more with the running game than Rudock and the WRs. I don't get why the jet sweeps disappeared but Pepcat stayed even though the jet sweeps never stopped working and Pepcat hasn't since early November. Just put Peppers in the McDoom spot, or in the backfield on those. Or something. So there are concerns, and I'd love to know more about what Harbaugh was thinking as the offense devolved into what it became in the last four games. But, two things here:

1. Speight surely was still hurt in the OB. They never threw long. The vanilla offense wasn't what Harbaugh thought was best. It's what he had to settle for, I think.

2. The OL. Just not any good. Which is why it's so frustrating to keep missing out on elite tackle prospects.

Bottom line for me is that I bet Speight wins the training-camp battle and is significantly more accurate next year. Obviously that's what he'll be working on all summer. If Speight doesn't win the training-camp battle that's extremely encouraging, because Speight was pretty damn good when healthy. And, secondly, Harbaugh knows what's what here. He's not fumbling about for solutions.

[WingsFan]

When was Speight pretty damn good on the road? name one game

[Rocky Bleier]

Rutgers. Big Freakin' Deal.

[hack]

They spent most of the year at home, so that's no doubt part of the reason why Speight was pretty damn good for most of the year. No doubt about that. Ultimately you can evaluate him on MSU and Iowa, since he was hurt for OSU and the bowl. And that's definitely not a favorable evaluation. Of course he's a first-year starter and he's not gonna be perfect. Next year he won't be a first-year starter.

[Rocky Bleier]

Next year he won't be a first-year starter.

Peters will be. God, willing...

[hack]

If Peters is good enough, or McCaffrey, then by all means. But Speight's got some stuff you can't coach, and has some problems you CAN coach him out of.

[SeattleLionsFan]

I thought Speight was an above average college QB. And In fact for several games he was dealing. Then Iowa happened and then he got injured. He is not the problem.

Also not the problem? The scheme. There's no scheme in the world that allows DTs to run free in the backfield and can be successful.

The OLine is an issue. And I don't know if it's Drevno or the talent, but if you replace Kalis with a real all big ten OG, we would have been undefeated.

[WM Wolverine]

Kalis couldn't block anyone, embarrassing for a former 5-star. Bredeson wasn't much better but the two of them made Speight run for his life on nearly half of his pass attempts...

Grant Newsome being healthy would've helped a lot, allowing Braden to stay at LG , especially in the critical last 4 games. Those 3-losses were decided by 2-points in regulation.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Just watching some of the other bowl games, there were many teams that looked so much more dynamic that M. .....

This is relevant to Hanni's points about wishing that Harbaugh might change his approach.

There are some edge offensive concepts out there being employed by PSU, USC, U-Dub among the blue bloods that had roots in lesser teams trying to gain advantage over the talent that the blue bloods have access to and can recruit.

Peterson with the Huskies and Helton with USC are good examples. I'm not good enough to explain in any great detail how this stuff works but I get some of the terms and you can see them played out in the bowl games McKenzie saw.

First, every one of these teams run spread-power offenses and to a certain degree, pro-style. Peterson's Huskies are an outlier but his offense is still a spread to run operation. Peterson's offense is at U-Dub, a lot like his offense at Bosie - lots of spread concepts but with more power.

Harbaugh is running pro-style power offense - or would like to. He lacks the OL to produce a dominating run game and has a mix of TEs that aren't great at both receiving and blocking - they are good at one of them; Butt is a good example. He's not a blocking TE but he's a very good receiver. JH is also limited in his options based on Speight's skill set and given the inability of the OL to keep him clean so he has the time for his receivers to get deep and be open.

Did you ever see any threat to USC's QB, Sam Darnold, from PSU that has a good DL and does blitz a bit? No ...... that's because their offensive linemen are recruited and developed as massive road blocks to defenders trying to enter a pocket and, more importantly, USC QBs are recruited and developed for a quick release out of the pistol. Couple that with rangy, 4.3 receivers, a decent power runner and you have USC's offense. Franklin has done the same with his OL and McSorely and it works with him slinging it around for 35+ attempts a game. He also has Barkley an elite RB.

Harbaugh has Speight who is playing behind an OL who can't keep him clean when he steps up, has a slow release and no dominating running backs who can find a hole when there really isn't one to produce a run/pass threat that will cause defenses fits.

Anyway ...... I can see the need for a change in approach as Hanni suggests - maybe more pistol and less under center plays; trips sets with 3 receivers really wide on the field side and an eligible TE to the boundary and one to block. Baring that kind of change and knowing Harbaugh, I see a greater need for OL development that can prevent guys like FSU's Demarcus Walker who lined up right over Cole and Bredenson and just destroyed them and the designed pocket, making Speight's job impossible. That severely limited Harbaughffense.

It will be interesting to see how the offensive staff takes shape with the departure of Jedd Fisch, how Harbaugh addresses the problems on the OL with new hires and how he gets Speight or Peters and the offense overall ready to play faster and conceptually something like Helton appears to be doing with his offense at USC.

[Kstat]

Speight overthrowing wide open guys downfield was happening long before the Iowa game. Guy has no accuracy at all.