The Home Stretch

/
Everybody is lining up this week to stand at the buttocks of the Michigan coaching staff and get their noses just a little bit brown, already declaring the current season a resounding success. The Wolverines just grabbed their 8th win of the season, a somewhat decisive victory on the road against a team that 1) squeaked out a 17-14 victory over Western Michigan, 2) is coached by Ron Zook and 3) Had lost three consecutive games while scoring a TOTAL of 28 points. It's a celebration! If you watched that game, you know it was one of the poorest excuses for a football game ever played. The only team in the country that played worse than Michigan on Saturday was Illinois. Michigan would have lost to pretty much anybody else that day. Missed opportunities, turnovers, an embarrassing red-zone offense, and a rotating pair of quarterbacks that are both mediocre at best with regards to passing. I'd like to also add that I think Denard has been pulled a couple times this season, Saturday being one of them, under the guise of injury...when in fact he was not injured. I feel like his injuries have come all too coincidentally after very poor interceptions.

And somehow, holding Illinois (the 78th ranked scoring defense in the nation) to 14 points was the defining moment for the Michigan defense. In fact, depending on who you ask, it turned them into an actual Michigan defense. Listen, they played very well against the run, and as I said last week, Michigan's turnaround on D from last year to this year borders on the miraculous, and it is a testament to just how bad Greg Robinson was, how bad Schafer was before him, and how poor the general defensive direction and communication was in the previous regime. It is also a testament to the quality of opponent we've played, as the Big Ten is worlds worse, team by team, than it was last year. Also, I cannot say enough about how bad Ron Zook's gameplan was. Illinois scored their first touchdown in the third quarter to make it 17-7 on a drive that was all passes, basically a series of completions and pass interference penalties. I thought they had us. I thought they figured it out. Yes, despite JT Floyd being anointed the next Charles Woodson by the blogosphere this week, Michigan is still vulnerable to the deep ball. Throwing deep against us will get you large chunks of yards and/or draw penalties. It's a nearly foolproof plan. And after Michigan countered the Illinois's TD with a three-and-out, I was convinced the Illini were about to make it a three point game. But they went back to running and a sideline to sideline passing game, never throwing the ball more than 5-yards past the line of scrimmage. That got them nowhere. JT jumped a short route and got an interception that set up Devin Gardner to put the game away. 8 wins for the first time since 2007. Bury the demons? A little bit. Still concerned about the future from both a "right now" and "5-years from now" perspective? Most definitely.

 

I'm worried about the last two games. I'm concerned that Nebraska's line will show us the kind of manball we saw at Iowa and MSU. I'm concerned that OSU will find a way to put it all together for that last Saturday in November. But beyond this season, I'm still worried about where we are going. We are going back to building a Big Ten champion, and in the short term that's going to make us feel better because we've endured so much pain in the last 3 seasons. We can very easily dominate this conference. So could the 7th best team in the SEC. As Ohio State has shown in the past several years, dominating the Big Ten does not translate nationally. And ready or not, we are headed to the big stage, because after these two games, our next two games are (likely) January 2nd against an SEC team that we have no business playing...and then Alabama on September 1st.

 

Brady Hoke is well on his way to being the Michigan Man we needed. He is certainly "as advertised." I just want him to be more than that. Even in these rebuilding times, when victory is so much more appreciated, I want to see Michigan moving past being Michigan. I know Brady will get us back to where we were, and I hope he proves me wrong and gets us to where we've never been.

I Know Team 132

/

​

There's no debating, this defense is remarkably better than last year.  Still full of attrition, still full of injuries, still starting babies and walk-ons, and yet performing at a level that warrants your attention.  The 2011 Wolverines boast, per game, the #10 scoring defense in the country (16.38), and the #28 defense in total yards (335.75).  Through the same point last season, Michigan was allowing twice as many points (33.89) and 118 more yards (453.67) per game. 

And that's where the good news stops for now.  The offense has been struggling to find its identity, residing somewhere between the wide open speed of the RichRod led Wolverines and the I-form/playaction/drop-back passing scheme you came to know and love...and eventually hate...under Lloyd Carr.  For me, it's about the misuse of talent.  Denard, when left to roam, makes things happen.  But somewhere along the line his "health" became the focus, or at least that's what they're selling us...less running, more quarterbacking...less RichRod system, more installation of the system we will be using in the future.  They are making Denard into the QB of our future, and it remains to be seen (meaning next year) if he can develop that skillset.  Regardless, it seems our 2nd biggest concern (behind the worst defense ever) going into the season is coming to fruition...Denard is no longer Denard.  They are coaching this team like they have the ability to punch teams like Iowa in the mouth, to win in the trenches, to play power football.  But that's a few recruiting classes and apparently a significant amount of growing pains away.

The Purdue victory, and the method by which it was accomplished, is what lost the game at Iowa.  They won that game with the system of the future using players of the past, playing a craptastic Big Ten squad, and they assumed it would work again.  It didn't.  It won't.  A Michigan offense that isn't centered around Denard and his uncanny ability to be his own personal playaction is not going to work...not this year.

NASCAR.  It's the buzzword of the week out of the post-game pressers.  It's Coach Hoke's pet name for the two-minute offense...the offense that wins games, the offense that worked against Notre Dame to the tune of two touchdowns in a little over a minute, the offense that marched down the field in the 4th quarter this week.  It had Iowa on it's heels.  It was unstoppable.  It IS unstoppable.  So the simple question becomes, why isn't NASCAR THE OFFENSE?  Even some watered down version of it is better than what we did out there for three quarters, and what we seem to try to shoehorn in every Saturday.

At Kinnick, I sat five rows up behind the Michigan bench at about the 25 yard line.  Not my favorite vantage point, given the depth perception issues you get when the ball is snapped at the other end of the field, but fun to experience every once in a while, especially when the action is right in front of you.  Michigan came on and off the field in my corner.  After halftime, for the first time in many years, I yelled at a coach.  "Turn him loose Coach!" I yelled at Brady.  "Turn him loose!"  I struck up a conversation with a former Hawkeye player in the stands, and he was as astonished as I was that Denard was so handcuffed.  When the opponent is wondering why you aren't gashing his team with your team's strengths....that's when you know you are doing something wrong.

And the answer today from Fort Schembechler seems to be "we need to play tougher," when the reality is, we need to play smarter and faster, at least on offense.  Smarter and faster would have made the Sparty game closer.  Smarter and faster would have won at Kinnick.  Tougher might win in the future, but the truth is, team 132 does not have the men for tough, and it would be very surprising if suddenly they developed into what Brady wants them to be in time for the season saver after Thanksgiving.  

That's not to say that Indy is out of the question.  The Big Ten is a mess.  A giant sloppy mess of barely average teams beating each other up from top to bottom.  If you think you are in the driver's seat, you are probably about to lose.  

But Michigan would need to win out to even sniff a chance, and that is no small task.  In addition, I don't think it's this team's focus anymore.  I believe this season has become about beating Ohio.  And while that hurts to say right now, it's going to feel so good that none of this will matter.

The Fatman Cometh

/

​

Ahhhh yes.  We've had our 15 minutes of fame a time or two here on UMTailgate.com, but never quite like this.  I arrived at the tailgate to find my tailgate neighbor and his son (whose snarky wit you can follow on twitter @cooperjd88) asking for my autograph.  I dismissed it as trash talk regarding my previous night's activities at Ann Arbor's finest pub, Conor Oneill's, where the crowd was treated to appearances by some mid-90's Wolverines, and John U. Bacon himself.  Bacon had a smile on his face that couldn't have been removed with steel wool...dude sold some units.  But it wasn't about that.  It seemed that the great read whose poignant prose I had been begrudgingly laboring through, Bacon's Three and Out, contains a reference to a certain pleasantly plump tailgate site owner donning a shirt referencing the misinformation slinging Free Press writer with an agenda that attempted to bring down RichRod and Bill Martin.  Chapter 21: Big Ten, Big Rings, Big Games....a few pages in under a bold heading that says Wolverines are 3-0!  Football's Back, you'll find this:

On a Michigan football website, someone posted a photo of a proudly overweight tailgater wearing a too-tight blue T-shirt spanning his gut that said, ROSENBERG SAYS I WORK OUT TOO MUCH.

Ok, ok.  I was proud...but that shirt was not tight.

Then I got home and did a narcissistic self-google of the term "Rosenberg Says I Work Out Too Much" and came up with some hits.  Here, here, and here....which included such quotes as:

That's the guy. "Very large" may have been an understatement... I was drunk.

What's larger than very large?  Bastards.  Then there's conflicting information on my size a year later at the Spring Game...

I do not know who you speak of. However, I did see a rather large man (tippin the scales at about 300 lbs) wearing a T- shirt that read "Rosenberg thinks I work out too much." My dad and i were laughing so hard that we were on the verge of tears. I also saw him at Connor Oneills after the game. Cheers to you if you are out there.

Which is followed up by...

Don't know him, since I have my own festivities, but, he has a blog...

Oh, and looking at the pics, he doesn't LOOK 300#...maybe the photos have a slimming effect!

That's right baby...I wear it well.

What's really funny about this is that I spent a lot of time this past winter and spring at Sweetwater's coffee shop in downtown Ann Arbor, surfing the internet and blogging and drinking coffee....basically posing as a student, ok maybe a grad student, alright, alright, maybe a professor...and chatting up Mr. Bacon, who spent his evenings there writing and editing the book.  We talked Michigan football a lot, sharing stories and opinions, with him never letting the cat out of the bag about all the information he had.  He also knows me as the Friday night DJ at Conor Oneill's, where he occasionally makes an appearance.  I wonder if he also knows that I'm that "proudly overweight tailgater."  Next time Mr. Bacon....next time.

Anyway, I'm nearly done with the book now.  It's been a painful read.  To believe in your team and believe that the things that are going on behind the scenes are all for the betterment of the program...that's a great thing.  Even when you are complaining and dreaming up conspiracy theories amongst friends, there's still part of you that trusts the system.   Bacon exposes that very system and confirms all of your worries.  And the reliving of each of the 22 losses over the last three years....its like watching Leaving Las Vegas and Million Dollar Baby back to back.

But it is what is is.  A history lesson.  Study it....and never let them repeat it.

GO BLUE!