As the guy opposite Gus Johnson said, we were at Oregon State's level before Harbaugh got here. Never forget. There are much worse things than not being elite.

I like being the kind of team that can perennially pummel Michigan State/Penn State as opposed to the opposite.

This brings me little satisfaction. I want a team that's capable of winning it all. That's it.

If you can't win it all, 8-4, 6-6, 9-3, it's all the same to me. The only small factor in favor of 8-4/9-3 is that it could possibly help in recruiting?

I know something that'll help more than going 9-3 in recruiting. Money.

Dig up Ed Martin

Your program systematically covered up anal rape of children for 20 years.

You are a sociopath.

I realize your a little emotional right now so I’m gonna let you ride.

Look at his avatar too. Everything with that program is extremely creepy.

#JoeKnew

Yep, this pretty much sums up everything we've talked about.

I had him pegged as greear until he openly called for a black qb to start the bowl game.

whoever he is, I wish he was stfu talking like his opinion is more important than everyone else’s, like he’s been here forever and *special*.

maybe that’s why I’m tone-reading him as g10. smh

Sunday is here and it still hurts. But I like the program's direction. One good thing about having a weirdo like Harbaugh as coach is that he probably never leaves if we don't want him to. That kind of stability is probably more valuable than anything else. We're not cheating to pull in top players from the south and still performing well at recruiting. OSU has had a top 3 CFB QB since like, right after 9/11.

Best QB wins most games all things equal, and we had ten years where all things weren't even close to equal. Haskins is elite. OSU played out of their minds. We tried everything and it didn't work. Sometimes you just get beat, man. That's life. It sucks for a few days and then you get back up to get after it again. Not to get full on existential but if that isn't life in totality then I don't know what it is.

Swap OSU and Michigan offense skill position players then Michigan wins IMO. Just swap QBs and maybe Michigan prevails. Haskins is a very, very good player.

Jimbo recruiting more elite offensive skill position players is the key.

At least we beat Rutgers these days.

This is just not right

Urban is never losing to jim.

I guess my biggest surprise is that Harbaugh hasn’t innovated. He did so in the NFL and was a play away from winning the super bowl with Kapernick.

Strangely I feel much better today than I did in 2016. Yesterday was one of THOSE days where...you just get got. Brown tried everything he had and none of it worked. We had a bunch of constraint plays and tendency beaters to screw with OSU’s keys and run fits and some worked, some didn’t, but we got crushed up front then none of that worked. In 2016, Brown schemes up a massive tactical W against the OSU offense, we had a historically elite D (in retrospect, 2018 was great but not at 2016s level) but we were undone by maximally punished turnover luck and refereeing. THAT was the one we should have had.

Next year you’ll be in a similar spot, facing an OSU team ravaged by attrition. Haskins, Campbell, Hill, Jordan, Prince, Jones, Landers, Dixon, Bosa, possibly Day are all gone. Their replacements will be as good as ever but it’ll take time. And it’s in Ann Arbor for once. Let’s get it done.

All right, perspective here:

Our Vegas win total preseason was 9 games. We won 10 games while playing teams that finished 12-0, 11-1, 8-4, and 7-5 on the road, and 9-3 + 7-5 at home. All of our wins except Northwestern and maaaybe Indiana were convincing wins. We didn't squeak out wins in any of our games.

We did this with a first year QB in the system, and managed to implement a successful zone read running attack over the course of the season. The offense still scored 32 points (giving the 7 before the first half to the special teams) against Ohio State. That's about what we should expect given that we don't run up tempo and aren't great at generating explosive plays.

The defensive scheme gives me some pause. We just didn't seem like we adjusted well enough to a well run scheme with elite players. It's not a week in week out concern, but it is a concern against teams with elite offensive talent, which you're eventually going to run into (17 PSU, 18 OSU being the top two examples). The problem is that I can't say what exactly we were trying to do. It's not like we got burned going too aggressive and blitzing every play. We kept rushing four and couldn't defend the edge or defend crossing routes. It's like we were playing a bend but don't break scheme, except we kept breaking. Very poor performance and I don't know how to fix it. At least in the Saquon game we were aggressive and just gave up a few huge plays, which seems more on brand for us. This just felt off brand and disappointing yesterday.

re: defense, I think there were two lingering issues that were maximally punished yesterday.

1) Solomon injury. To steal a line from Brian, Mone and Kemp are just guys. OSU was able to stuff our pressure because they could single-block those two; that left an easy double on either Gary or Chase and a chip to the other side. Gary and Chase are NFL dudes but you can’t ask them to beat a double-team every snap. OSU was smart to come out passing; that let them lock Mone and Kemp on the field. Solomon and Dwumfour are our two guys who can win 1v1 in the pass rush and smash G/C back into the pocket but we weren’t able to get Dwumfour on the field much due to run liabilities and Solomon wasn’t available. It wrecked the entire pressure scheme.

2) Refs turning the DPI/holding sliders all the way up. Watson had a great year, but yesterday it became pretty obvious how reliant he’s been on using the dark arts to make up for his physical limitations. Once he couldn’t get away with his jersey tugs he had no chance. Just couldn’t play straight up against Campbell, Hill and Olave. Day knew it and went right after him.

This isn’t to say Brown is a house or cards or anything. But it reminds me of the Narduzzi MSU defenses with the insane match-quarters pressure that smashed less talented B10 teams, but then got annhilated against teams with the talent to beat it up the middle (Oregon, OSU, Baylor). The 2016 and 2017 DLs didn’t really have this problem (except for PSU). Go go gadget Greg Mattison next year. Let’s see what Brown comes back with. He’s been exceptional at scheming around what other teams hit him with (slot fades, slants, etc). I imagine he’s seen a mesh/wheel concept before so I’d expect a tweak before the bowl game.

Counterpoint

We lost by 30 to our rival. For a 4th straight year. While being favored. And a bye in the big ten title game which was also a playoff qualification game


You have to win this game


And we lost by 30


Do you think urban is going into Ann Arbor in the same spot next year and losing by 30?

Not going to happen


No amount of historical revision is going to change the fact that this is Michigan now. This is our ceiling. 9/10 win seasons with an occasional appearance in Indy and once in a few decade playoff experience.

Zimmer and TalkingDonkey with the takes.

Hip with the narratives


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I would be shocked if Gary and chase were double even half the time, let alone all the time.

To be fair, 9/10 win seasons have always been the avg ceiling. When stars align we will make playoffs.

Also the thing that pisses me off is that the only team that gets blown out in this series is Michigan.

76, 91, 93 tho!!

That 93 game was the flip side of this game. Michigan was down and out. Ohio State came into Ann Arbor undefeated (had 1 tie) with national title and Rose Bowl aspirations. And Michigan kicked their ass the whole game 28-0. I'm just glad I got to witness 91&93. Ahh, the good ole days.

This is such nonsense. Out of the top 5 teams we played, 4 of them were worse than what we thought they'd be, 3 considerably worse.

Penn St - LOL
Wiscy - LOL
Sparty- LOL

all 3 a ton worse than what we thought. You could even make an argument that Northwestern is worse than what we thought, even though they emerged from the heap of trash that is the West.

Ohio St, despite being 10-1, i think we can all agree was worse than what we thought they would be. They looked like garbage all season, especially the last few weeks.

Notre Dame obviously out performed their expectations...but even with them we faced their backup QB.

No, we didn't eek out any wins, (sans NW) because our competition was MAC level all year. We got smacked like the ***** we are vs the two decent teams we faced. We beat the 9 piles of trash we faced. That's it.

This season was 100% a failure, the program did NOT take any steps forward. Period. The only positive to come from this season, is we were so badly embarrassed, that it perhaps leads to some sort of changes on offense, so that the run up the middle for 1 yard stops being our primary play.

4 years in, Harbaugh graduating his first senior class, and we've yet to win the ****ing division. Let alone any goal that a real program would have.

As far as recruiting goes, we still can't seem to gain any tangible depth. Anyone know why? Lets take a peak at how many 3 star kids the big time programs take. The players you're going to rely on for depth.

Alabama - 1
Ohio St - 4
Georgia - 3
Oklahoma - 5

Then there's us

Michigan - 13

And there it is. I understand not gobbling up as many 5* as the big boys. They simply play the game better than we do. It's tough to compete when depth wise they are so much better than us too.