One For The Ages, Hail To The Victors!
by SCM on Sep 13, 2009 3:40 PM CDT
in Michigan Football
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PrintOk, so a great number of months ago I wrote a post lamenting the fact that we had signed a long term deal to play Notre Dame. I was short-sighted and wrong. Yesterday was a perfect example of just why we play Notre Dame and why this is one of the great rivalries in the sport. Once again on the national stage (for all the right reasons this time) on a perfect day for football with an absolutely tremendous atmosphere, and the game that played out like that? Wooooo (!!!!) indeed.
Onto the collection of thoughts:
General what-have-you:
- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- That was far and away the best Notre Dame team I have seen in a long long time, beyond a shadow of a doubt. I would not hesitate one bit to say that will be the best offense we see this season.
- Notre Dame played a darn solid football game, in fact they played extremely well and got beat. They came back from down 11 not once but twice.
- The crowd was awesome, the 110,278 were thunderous throughout and it sure seemed like there were fewer ND fans there than in prior years, which was a pleasant surprise. Student section was awesome. All the questions about whether or not the structures would make a difference have been answered with a resounding yes.
- Speaking of the structures, the shadow from the Western building covers the entire field by the time the second half rolls around, a few more lights might be called for on these 3:30 starts.
- I know they specifically built those seats in the student section for the band, but they need to move them, you simply cannot hear them if you're anywhere South of the 50 yardline.
- Clausen was more accurate, but he still really rushes throws when he is pressured in any way (which was infrequent at best yesterday) and the majority of the passing game is predicated on chucking it deep, this strategy works entirely because of Tate and Floyd, more on that later.
- The ND kick return guy touched the ball on our "squibb" kick, hence why the clock ran, if I can see it 40 rows up it shouldn't be that hard for people watching in HD to determine it too.
- WOO coaching adjustments, WOO clock managment, WOO play calling, WOOO!
- I'm going to preface this one; I was/am a big Lloyd Carr fan. But you CANNOT tell me that any time over the past 15 years we would've gone for it on 4th and 3 like we did on Forcier's lightning bolt TD. We punt that ball 100 times out of 100 with the old regime.
Offense
- Tate Forcier, I mean what can you say? An epic performance. The play before the winning TD was one of the greatest individual efforts I have ever seen, for him to avoid the sack and get the ball to Savoy in the corner of the endzone was nothing short of ridiculous. The ensuing drop was soul-crushing for approximately 5 seconds, and yes it was tipped.
- Savoy's catches got us into that position in the first place, don't forget that.
- So much for that shutout of Nevada eh? You cannot put into words how much better this offense is, you just can't.
- Brandon Minor averaged 10 YPC on his first 9 touches of the day and ended up with 106 yards on 16 touches and 1 TD. It is an appreciable difference when he is in there in terms of how he hits the hole and accelerates, welcome back sir.
- Did not see Shaw even once yesterday, which surprised me. Carlos looked great on a few screens, although he made a few catches a little more dramatic than they probably needed to be.
- Lost Moosman late in the game, which last year would've been DOOM, and this year we put in Dorrestein and didn't miss a beat... awesome. I thought the offensive line did a GREAT job against a much faster opponent this week.
- 1st and goal on the 1 and no points... ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! That was one of my few criticisms of the play-calling yesterday. I'd rather us stay in the shotgun and keep the D spread out, let Minor see the blocking and pick his spot rather than just barreling into the line from the I-form and let the D put everyone in the box.
- Kevin Koger, Greg Mathews, LaTerryal Savoy, and Darryl Stonum all stepped up big-time. Tate's one poor throw of the day was to Koger when there wasn't a defender within 20 yards of him on our second to last drive... I just can't say enough about how well the offense has done getting our receivers into space thus far.
- Absolutely nothing but praise for the playcalling and clock management on that final drive, awesome job Coach, awesome job.
More after the jump...
Defense
- Wellllllllllllllllll we held on didn't we? Yeegads.
- Hardly any pressure on Clausen at all, this was due to a combination of very quick drops/throws, max protect, relatively little blitzing, a solid ND O-line, and yes, the occasional BLATANT hold on whomever was assigned to block Graham and Roh.
- Not one deep ball given up, yes ND moved through the air very well, but considering how much of an island we put Warren and Cissoko on out there, to not give up the one play drive was really encouraging.
- Warren's coverage of Tate on ND's final possession was PERFECT, Warren ran the route for him and had position the whole time, nevermind Tate hugging him to keep him from picking it off. I've seen loads of whining about this (shock!) from ND fans who can promptly stick it where the sun don't shine for all I care.
- Halftime adjustments! The third quarter performance on D was huge. The perfect screens from the first half were suddenly being snuffed for no gain. We gave up something like 308 yards in the first half and then somewhere around 35 in the 3rd quarter? Phew.
- Would've never guessed we would've let them gash us on the ground like they did... it was hard to tell if we were caught out of position or if there were some poor pursuit angles taken by the safeties coming up in run support, but there were some enormous holes out there. Overall the ND O-line turned in a fantastic performance when they weren't holding the bejeezus out of our defenders.
- No Vlad Emelien... Beauford brought this up when we talked after the game, the guy who came on when Williams was hurt (whom I can't even find on the roster) played well, but I was under the impression Vlad was contending for a starting spot, anything going on with him? EDIT: The safety who came in was Jordan Kovacs who is #22 on the official roster but I believe was sporting #32 yesterday, and again, nice job sir.
- Floyd is the real deal.
Special teams
- WOOOOOO SHADES OF STEVE BREASTON WOOOOO! What a bolt from above that was.
- Zoltan needs to just settle down, he's misfiring more often than he's hitting moon shots.
- Tate's pooch punt was a thing of beauty and a great call
- Could've done without the missed chipshot FG, but Olesnavage again looked solid on the one at the end of the first half.
- Kick coverage looked less solid this week, the big one we let go right up the gut was particularly frustrating.
The takeaway
- Enormous win for this team and the program, just enormous.
GO BLUE!!!
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Whining ND fans
Normally they’re amusing, but when we beat them, they’re HILARIOUS!
Yeah, what’s up with Zoltan?
Brought my Argentine girlfriend to the local bar (the only one that shows football instead of futbol) to watch the game – her first as a Michigan fan. Needless to say, she had a great time!
to be fair to olesnavage
it was a tough angle from that close in (hence the reason they took a delay of game to push back 5 yards). which leads me to something i’ve always wondered – why are the college hash marks so much farther apart than the nfl hash marks?
Squib Kick
You wrote: – The ND kick return guy touched the ball on our “squibb” kick, hence why the clock ran, if I can see it 40 rows up it shouldn’t be that hard for people watching in HD to determine it too.
-——————————————————
Now, I dont have HD but the camera angles they where using on ABC during the squib kick were not that great. On top of that, the camera person pretty much immediately panned to the end zone after the ball passed the ND guy around the 2 yard line.
It wasn’t until the game was over and ABC started trying to explain why there was only 9 seconds on the clock instead of 11, that ABC even showed a replay of the squib. Heck, even Charlie (the man seacow), looked confused. The announcers were talking about how he sent his assistants after the refs (who were already in the tunnel) to get some explination. If I remember correctly, the announcers even thought there was supposed to be 11 seconds on the clock.
I am not a Pirate! I am a Pre-Salvage Engineer. I get things before they get wet.
http://aleks-home.myminicity.com/
by horp the reckless on Sep 14, 2009 11:14 AM CDT reply actions
When I watched the DVR of the game...
yesterday, I was surprised they didn’t spend a little more time replaying that on the broadcast. Our seats are in the South endzone where they were receiving the kick and it was a noticeable change in direction of the ball when the guy (forget his number) reached out with one hand and then seemingly thought better of it after the ball hit him.
I believe Charlie sending his assistants to the refs was more to do with what he believed to be still one second left in the game from Golden Tate’s final reception and inexplicable dash across the field, but I may be wrong.
GO BLUE! http://www.maizenbrew.com/
Michigan fan living in Central Ohio
This might have been the best weekend ever.
Two weeks ago all I’m hearing about is the “too much practice” crap article. The radio around here talks about nothing but “he’s lost control of his team, etc.” Of course nobody actually reads the article and just follows the national media reaction to form their opinion for them. So basically – Rich Rod is “a dead man walking coach”.
Well after the first week, Michigan looks impressive and OSU doesn’t. Week leading up to UM-ND and OSU-USC is all about how bad USC will beat OSU and a tiny comment on UM looking improved and we’ll see this weekend against ND. My favorite comment of the week was from an OSU talk radio host saying he doesn’t want to lose to USC because he “doesn’t want to hear the media bashing on OSU the following week”. Though he was all over UM the previous week. So he can give it, not take it – what a loser.
Anyway, the UM-ND game is amazing. and let’s give some credit to ND too. They’re a good team and if not for Weis throwing the ball twice on their last possession, we would’ve lost our timeouts and who knows. However, if he completes a pass he’s a genius. He’s got to be getting killed in South Bend. They have some real good players, especially Floyd. He’s real special – can I draft him for my NFL fantasy team right now?
But, what can you say about UM – everyone is “ALL IN”. The team all around is playing great. I know the D gave up a lot of points, but ND has a lot of NFL talent and we might not see a better offense all year that will give us so much match up problems. We’re not as deep defensively as we’d like to be, but our offense is.
Minor is just awesome in this offense. Brown is doing good too (would’ve like to have seen Shaw some though). The receivers are doing great – though I’m waiting to see Odom do more (but I won’t forget the block you laid out in week 1 to spring Robinson). Koger is a beast. O-line is doing outstanding. I’d like to see us work Darnell into the offense with Forcier at QB and get him the ball in open space easier – fingers crossed. and Forcier is just plain sick.
With the OSU loss to USC, the radio this week will be sweet.
Finally, let’s all keep our expectations in check a little. We’re still young and growing. But, with a very weak Big Ten – I think we’ll do well. Enjoy the win and keep the train moving – All in!
Speaking of Odoms...
If you get a chance to watch Stonum’s TD return again, check the block that springs him… Martavious flat lays a guy out in the lane… again.
Let’s also remember he made two HUGE grabs to get us out of 2nd and 15 on that final drive, including a great catch on 3rd and 4. Martavious has played some great football these past two weeks, a lot of it being those “little things” that make all the difference in the world.
GO BLUE! http://www.maizenbrew.com/
Not to pick on Odoms or anything
but I have not been impressed so far. He is supposed to be a super playmaker and I have yet to see him make a whole lot of plays. He did have a couple of very good blocks, but he doesn’t look explosive on the kickoffs, he only caught 3 balls for 18 yeards, and his only carry went for -4 yards. I like the way Stonum looks however, and I know thats easy to say after a big game, but he seems to have more ability as a WR, and I like his size. ND must have noticed this too, since they didn’t kick to him again.
On a positive note, I loved the half time adjustments by this staff. I really did like Carr more than most. I thought Carr was a great man, ran a very clean program, loved his players, and was a better coach than he was given credit for. However, I always had a problem w/ his ability to make half time adjustments. If something worked in the 1st half, he assumed it would work again and didn’t plan for the other team adjusting, and didn’t adjust well to what another team was doing to stop him. This coaching staf did a great job in the 2nd half dialing up some pressure and not sitting in the same zone defenses, rushing 3 or 4. It was a very entertaining game, and of course Forcier looks like a QB I can really get excited about.
It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.
That being said...
We have a loss if it weren’t for Odoms making key blocks and catches in key situations vs ND. He may be getting pushed back in the depth chart, but he is a warrior and gives 100% every down. Not to mention the downfield blocks he had vs Western…
Personally, I love that dude.
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast
for it is a human number its number is six hundred and forty two.
by Pinchy The Lobster on Sep 15, 2009 1:33 AM CDT up reply actions
WHAT A GAME!!
INCREDIBLE finish, though I lost about 10 years of my life, LOL!! Great analysis. Can’t remember the last time we had a KOR for a TD but it was good to see & couldn’t agree more with the defensive adjustments coach G-Rob made at the half…AWESOME!!
Tate Forcier…a “Michigan Legend” in the making & a future Heisman contender, if not winner!! Signature win for the entire university, especially coach Rich Rod. We just need to stay focused & realize that it’s only two games…we have 10 left & defensive “issues” that we need to address…but I love our offense & the direction we’re heading in. GO, BLUE!!
HAIL, TO THE VICTORS VALIANT
HAIL, TO THE CONQUERIN' HEROES
HAIL, HAIL TO MICHIGAN
THE CHAMPIONS OF THE WEST!!
by bleedmaizeandblue on Sep 15, 2009 1:20 PM CDT reply actions
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