Michigan-Washington Natty Game Thread

WJHorn said:
I hope both Sark and PK watched the game closely last night. While we didn't have quite the same personnel as Michigan, especially in the secondary, there should certainly be several lessons on how our Sugar Bowl game plan could have been improved...
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I agree that on defense our game plan could have been much better. I don’t think UW punted in the first half. They drove the ball at will. Over 400 yds passing.
Our offense was hamstrung by 11 penalties, multiple fumbles and multiple batted down passes. And we still scored 31. I feel good about our offense. If our backs hold onto the ball; and the team cuts the penalties in half, then I think they would have beaten Washington.
 
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Michigan's D in the national championship was kind of the Manny Diaz pipe dream that we had been sold in Mack's waning years. Pressure from any angle. Forcing QBs into awkward and odd throwing spots. DBs making plays against both the run and pass. We've just never been able to materialize it except for a handful of games in 2011-12.

If our D had half as many good looks at Penix as Michigan did last night, we win that game by 10+. But Coach K is always going to be a bend-but-don't-break kind of guy.

The Sugar Bowl also spelled the doom of portallers like Watts, Thompson, and Crawford... bearing for the entire nation our DB woes on their shoulders. The distance between them and Michigan's DBs might as well be an ocean. And that doesn't work at a place that claims to be DBU.

I'll give Coach K credit where it's due, as our improvement is probably almost as much on him as it is Sark. But if we're going to continue to compete for a CFP spot in the expanded 12-team format, we need to look more like a B1G team on D. And not a XII team (or even most SEC teams for that matter).
 
Not trying to talk bad about coach PK but i believe we've had the athletes in the secondary to be better than what we've seen on the field. I would like to see what Akina would do with the same talent but also perplexed as to why we have to have a CB whisperer in order to have a solid secondary.
 
I don't think our 2023 secondary was great by any stretch, but i also don't think it was nearly as bad as you seem to suggest. Our bigger problem was the pass rush. Our interior DL stopped up the middle with the best of them. But with a weak pass rush, good QBs were able to sit in the pocket and wait for a receiver to get open. No secondary, no matter how good, can deal with that.

Look at how many open receivers Penix missed against Michigan. That wasn't because their secondary was better. It was because their pass rush was better. They were able to play tight coverage and only had to maintain it for a few seconds.
 
havoc7701 said:
Remember we are in a conference with these clowns again. ;)
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Why do you disparage "clowns" by associating them with these "dick-wads"?
Then again, why do I disparage "dick-wads" by comparing them to these "***-wipes"?
Then again, why are these ***-wipes being...hurumf hurumf hurumf..., see what you've done to me?!?!
 
NJlonghorn said:
I don't think our 2023 secondary was great by any stretch, but i also don't think it was nearly as bad as you seem to suggest. Our bigger problem was the pass rush. Our interior DL stopped up the middle with the best of them. But with a weak pass rush, good QBs were able to sit in the pocket and wait for a receiver to get open. No secondary, no matter how good, can deal with that.

Look at how many open receivers Penix missed against Michigan. That wasn't because their secondary was better. It was because their pass rush was better. They were able to play tight coverage and only had to maintain it for a few seconds.
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While I'll concede that a lack of rush from our EDGE guys is a huge factor in opponent success, I don't think anyone would argue that our DBs did a good (or even mediocre) job on contested balls, angles, and tackling outside of the one Taaffe hit in the Sugar Bowl.

The good news is that we didn't need our DBs to play that "Manny Diaz" style against the run because our DL and LBs were good at containing it this year.
 
What happens if Edge and DB are both improved where pass D is much better but we allow more rushing due to weaker DT and LB? Is this an upgrade over this year? Remember I don’t recall a single team being able to rush the ball even partially acceptable at all this season.
 
Horns11 said:
I don't think anyone would argue that our DBs did a good (or even mediocre) job on contested balls, angles, and tackling outside of the one Taaffe hit in the Sugar Bowl.
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If you stopped your argument with "they didn't do a good job", your position would be defensible. But you can't seem to stop there. Suggesting that they weren't even "mediocre" is ridiculous. They were significantly better than mediocre.
 
1sahorn said:
Why do you disparage "clowns" by associating them with these "dick-wads"?
Then again, why do I disparage "dick-wads" by comparing them to these "***-wipes"?
Then again, why are these ***-wipes being...hurumf hurumf hurumf..., see what you've done to me?!?!
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:beernana:
 
NJlonghorn said:
If you stopped your argument with "they didn't do a good job", your position would be defensible. But you can't seem to stop there. Suggesting that they weren't even "mediocre" is ridiculous. They were significantly better than mediocre.
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Did we watch the same Sugar Bowl? By what metric were they better than mediocre? Was it the 1 total pass breakup that made them alright? Derek Williams did more in his limited play during that game than any other DB, and he's a freshman.

If your ire is solely directed at the pass rush, then I'd say the same pass rush with better personnel would yield better results.
 
Horns11 said:
Did we watch the same Sugar Bowl? By what metric were they better than mediocre? Was it the 1 total pass breakup that made them alright? Derek Williams did more in his limited play during that game than any other DB, and he's a freshman.

If your ire is solely directed at the pass rush, then I'd say the same pass rush with better personnel would yield better results.
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There were numerous instances where we had receivers blanketed with good coverage, yet Penix managed to thread the needle and the receiver managed to make an incredible catch. Most days, those would've been breakups and the stats would've looked better. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap when the other team plays lights-out football.
 
NJlonghorn said:
There were numerous instances where we had receivers blanketed with good coverage, yet Penix managed to thread the needle and the receiver managed to make an incredible catch. Most days, those would've been breakups and the stats would've looked better. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap when the other team plays lights-out football.
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The refs didn't call a single hold on their o-line. I saw a handful of blatent holds that should have been called.
 
True. Holding was called just once all game, and that one went against the Longhorns. The refs mostly let the OLs play, which made things all that much harder on the secondary.
 
My thought during the game was that I wish we had unleashed our d-line, especially Murphy and Sweat like Meatchicken did. It seemed to me that the um d-coordinator decided that there was no way Washington could really hurt them with the run and the line just pinned their ears back and went and wrecked shop in the backfield looking for Penix. Coach K likes some read and react defense. We needed the line to just go after Penix and if they saw someone with the ball on their way to Penix just grab them. Michigan also did a great job of showing all-out blitz and changing who backed out and who came.
 
I wonder if the schedule had been different. If UW had to beat Mich to get into the finals did Udub spend most of its energy to get there
just wondering
 
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