Saturday, September 27, 2008

UW-Michigan thoughts ... are you kidding me?

You know what? I'm not sure that we will ever win a game in Ann Arbor, ever again.

Because that is a really bad Michigan team we just handed the game to. Maybe the worst in a generation, while we allegedly had a top 10 team. What a pathetic performance.

This one's on the Badger offense, no doubt. Dropped passes. Poor quarterback play. Questionable play calling. Blatant execution errors.

This one stings, a lot. Like sitting on a bee in your swimsuit. My guess is that this is karma's way of paying me back for gloating about every Michigan loss to such an extent. Hell, I even had the Badger shirt I was going to buy for Uncle John all picked out, and was looking for his address. Premature.

-Before getting into the segment of this post where I blame our guys, let me touch on this one first: did anyone see the roughing the passer penalty that kept the drive that led to Michigan's second touchdown alive? All I know is Steven Threet, who is just a terrible quarterback, threw a good pass that a Michigan receiver predictably dropped, and 20 seconds later there's a flag on the field and the drive is still alive. No one really talks about it. Michigan scores, Allan Evridge coughs up a pick six, and the rest is history. I would really like to know if that roughing the passer call was legit or not.

-Regardless, it should never have come down to a call, that one or the illegal man downfield call on the two-point conversion, which seems to have been a good call, with Travis Beckum lining up incorrectly. This is the sort of thing that always seems to go Michigan's way ..

How many drops did the receivers have today? Lance Kendricks had at least three, and the wideouts had three or four.

-Then, after playing reasonably well but getting burned by his receivers, Evridge went scattershot. Inaccurate throws. Holding onto the ball too long. Not securing the ball under pressure. I was not ready to call quarterback play an Achilles' Heel for this team, but it is, big time. He did make a couple really nice passes on the last drive, a big first down pass to Kendricks (great catch) and the touchdown pass to David Gilreath (another great catch).

-Even before Evridge went sour, we should have put them away. Time after time we failed to capitalize on good field position that Michigan handed us. It should have been 22-0 or 26-0 before Michigan got its pathetic offense in gear.

-How many third-and-ones did we fail to convert? The one that really sticks in my craw is the option left where Evridge made a terrible pitch to P.J. Hill and we lost five yards on the play. Can you remember any time when we've run the option successfully on third-and-one? Or at any down and distance, for that matter? Me neither. So STOP RUNNING THE OPTION ON THIRD-AND-ONE, PAUL! (That's been building in my for about 90 minutes.)

-All that poor offense in the second half fatigued our defense. No way Michigan scores those last two touchdowns against a fresh defense, not after the way we dominated the first half.

-I just can't get over how bad Michigan is ... so what does that say about us? Here I am talking for the last two weeks about what it takes for this UW team to be great. How about winning when the opposing quarterback goes 12-for-32 for 97 yards? Or when the other team turns the ball over five times in a half? What a lost opportunity.

Best case, I suppose, is this season turns into 1998 or 1999, where Michigan is our only Big Ten loss. That's sort of hard to picture right now, though.

At least the Brewers ... oh, right, they laid a big egg today too.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How stupid do you feel now?

Toohey said...

Wow. Not a good day for me today. And for the previous poster...thanks for the insightful comment.

My thoughts...

-We are NOT the 9th best team in the nation.

-Michigan's defense is actually pretty good.

-The rest of Michigan's team is just awful.

-Like you said, our poor offensive play tired out our defense and they were on the field way too much.

-VERY questionable third down play calling. You mentioned the option play, but when was the last time we called a bubble screen?

-Evridge looked terrible. Both quarterbacks looked bad. Why do teams call plays for a QB to throw on the run? I always thought you wanted to be set when you throw, but it seemed 80% of the passes thrown on both sides were done without the QB planting his feet.

-Congratulations to Michigan for stealing win. They tried to give it to us in the first half, but apparently we didn't want it.

-There's nothing like getting called in to work on a Saturday and working on downed servers for seven hours, avoiding all human contact so you can watch a game you taped, see your team take a 19-0 (albeit shaky) lead into halftime, and end up losing. Plus the Twins don't seem to want to win the Central.

-I blame this loss on Tappa for not posting an Office summary this week. Oh, and the ABC statisticians who threw up the graphic about Bielema being 19-0 when leading at halftime.

-one last thing. Tappa...how stupid do you feel now?

t

Coach Scott Tappa said...

How stupid do I feel now? What the hell kind of a question is that? If the question wasn't rhetorical, Not stupid at all. Frustrated? Angry? Baffled? Yes, yes, yes. Stupid? No.

Coach Scott Tappa said...

I got done watching The Office at 11:10 p.m. Thursday, way past my bedtime, in no mood to write, and started thinking that maybe it's time to give up on that every-episode recap deal. They are still good, but not as many moments of side-splitting laughter as I remember.

Toohey said...

"If you can't swallow it, just hold it in your mouth"

Come on! Really?!

Coach Scott Tappa said...

I'm not saying The Office wasn't funny or good - it was - but in this time of midnight feedings and 4-year-olds falling out of bed in the middle of the night, I'd like to just let the show wash over me, not try to remember all the funny lines. But yeah, that was a great one.

What about the moment where the new HR chick (an alum of The Wire, BTW), announces to the entire office that she thinks Kevin is ... special. That was rich.

Anonymous said...

Maybe when the offense and defense aren't entirely populated with enormous fatties and UW has an ounce of conditioning, they won't experience colossal meltdowns against teams that are conditioned and make second-half adjustments.

Anonymous said...

Just because ABC didn't show you a replay of the roughing the passer penalty right away doesn't mean the call was late or not legitimate.

You're complaining about things always seeming to go Michigan's way? UM gave you 5 turnovers in the first half and you failed to capitalize. Not sure why you're feeling sorry for yourself regarding the illegal man penalty after failing to take full advantage of 5 first half turnovers.

You're also complaining about your defense not being fresh? UW had the ball for 13 more minutes than UM. If they are not fresh, maybe they should stop eating donuts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Michigan made good adjustments at the half and started to give Threet some time in the pocket. That was the difference.

Face it, your team is horribly overrated, fat, and slow. I mean, just look at PJ Hill. Why does your TE look more athletic and in better shape than your star RB? Michigan is playing freshman all over the place and still won. That does not bode well for you in the years to come.

But, good luck next week against the Suckeyes. All the arrogant Michigan fans will be pulling for you in that game against the couch burners.

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