This is what we faced last night, on the road, in one of if not the toughest environment to play a game in with a team starting a bunch of fr and soph. I did not expect to win this game at the start of the season and I didn't expect us to win it yesterday. Now, I didn't think we would get boat raced either. I am not selling this team off due to this beat down. Penn St. is loaded with really good, experienced talent. I can't stand McSorley but the kid is a really good football player. With all of that said, they beat us on matchups, nothing more nothing less. They had the best player in college football against possibly our slowest defender. Yeah, not good. Their all time leading WR against our two worst cover DBs. Yeah, not good. The fact that we didn't adjust just boggles my mind. I've come to expect so much from Don Brown this was just an over the top surprise. Everyone has a bad night. I still think our D is pretty damn good. We just ran into a team with great plan. Their OC is outstanding and he outdid DB. Just as DB completely destroyed him last year. It happens.
I still think we have the ability to finish this season with 8-9 wins. For me, this season has and will come down to OSU. I know, we have no shot. I say BS. While OSU has really good talent on O, it's not as good as Penn States. Even with the mismatches, McSorley still had to put the ball on the money and he did. Barrett is not a guy that can do it consistently. We tighten up against the QB run and we have a real chance at beating them, especially at home. Win that and the whole narrative of this season changes.
I am just as frustrated as everyone else. Jim HAS to make changes to the Offensive staff after the season. HAS to! The QB play is not good but I'm not ready to crap on Jim for this. There is a reason he got Rudock for year 1 and that no one on the roster was close to him. Both Speight and O'Korn are serviceable enough to win with. We all want to see the next great Michigan QB but on a whole they take time to develop. Maybe we missed on Peters, maybe not. Maybe McCaffery is the real deal maybe not. Hoke left a shitshow in this area. Having to hope that a RS or true Frosh is the answer is a byproduct of that. I do believe down the road, maybe as early as next year, we will have better QB play. As an aside, I thought O'Korn more than did his job last night. He played with courage. Kudos to him.
Now to the real issues. My biggest concern coming into this year and moving forward until we see something positive is the O-line. This is an area where Jim deserves every bit of criticism he's getting. For 3 years we have seen the same shit, over and over. It's not acceptable. With new guys starting, you expect some struggles at the beginning of the year as they try and find cohesion but you expect to see week to week improvement. Where the hell is it? For 3 years, we have watched different guys making the same mistakes. We have enough talent dammit to put out a serviceable group. All of the guys that graduated from last year are on practice squads. NFL teams will not waste one roster spot on a player without talent and ability. That tells you that they were talented enough to perform better while they were here. I know we have guys out of position (Cole) but he started for two years at LT and looked better than this. For me, it's all on coaching. There has been one guy here for all 3 years. He absolutely has to go. He is the one constant in all of the crap play we have seen from this group. Will Jim do it? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, we need a real RBs coach. Sorry Jay. Maybe we can make him full ST coordinator. We also need a 100% dedicated WRs coach. We have too much talent there to waste by not having a coach that can bring the best out of them.
Also on the changes front. I think Jim needs to let go of the playcalling. Bring in a coach is just the O coordinator and give him control. Jim will have his input but let someone else call 100% of the plays. Look around college football. We usually see great improvement when coaches pull themselves out of playcalling (see ND this year) and just run the team. And no more running and passing game coordinators. It just hasn't worked. Again, will he be willing to do that? Who knows?
We absolutely better win the next 3 games. If we lose one of those, well, I will be changing a lot of my tune. Wiscy is another incredibly tough place to play and this team will still not be ready to win at a place like that. Again, it all comes down to OSU. We will need bring out everything we have in the bag on O to compete. We will need to have the O-line play their best game. If we just gave up 7 sacks to PSU...yeah, OSU's front 7 (especially the line) is much, much better. I say here our D will keep us very much in that game. OSU's QB and WRs are not good enough to make the plays as consistently as PSU did. Again, we win that game, it changes the entire dynamic of the season. For me, that was always going to be how I judged if this season was going to be a success.
I still think we have the ability to finish this season with 8-9 wins. For me, this season has and will come down to OSU. I know, we have no shot. I say BS. While OSU has really good talent on O, it's not as good as Penn States. Even with the mismatches, McSorley still had to put the ball on the money and he did. Barrett is not a guy that can do it consistently. We tighten up against the QB run and we have a real chance at beating them, especially at home. Win that and the whole narrative of this season changes.
I am just as frustrated as everyone else. Jim HAS to make changes to the Offensive staff after the season. HAS to! The QB play is not good but I'm not ready to crap on Jim for this. There is a reason he got Rudock for year 1 and that no one on the roster was close to him. Both Speight and O'Korn are serviceable enough to win with. We all want to see the next great Michigan QB but on a whole they take time to develop. Maybe we missed on Peters, maybe not. Maybe McCaffery is the real deal maybe not. Hoke left a shitshow in this area. Having to hope that a RS or true Frosh is the answer is a byproduct of that. I do believe down the road, maybe as early as next year, we will have better QB play. As an aside, I thought O'Korn more than did his job last night. He played with courage. Kudos to him.
Now to the real issues. My biggest concern coming into this year and moving forward until we see something positive is the O-line. This is an area where Jim deserves every bit of criticism he's getting. For 3 years we have seen the same shit, over and over. It's not acceptable. With new guys starting, you expect some struggles at the beginning of the year as they try and find cohesion but you expect to see week to week improvement. Where the hell is it? For 3 years, we have watched different guys making the same mistakes. We have enough talent dammit to put out a serviceable group. All of the guys that graduated from last year are on practice squads. NFL teams will not waste one roster spot on a player without talent and ability. That tells you that they were talented enough to perform better while they were here. I know we have guys out of position (Cole) but he started for two years at LT and looked better than this. For me, it's all on coaching. There has been one guy here for all 3 years. He absolutely has to go. He is the one constant in all of the crap play we have seen from this group. Will Jim do it? Your guess is as good as mine. Also, we need a real RBs coach. Sorry Jay. Maybe we can make him full ST coordinator. We also need a 100% dedicated WRs coach. We have too much talent there to waste by not having a coach that can bring the best out of them.
Also on the changes front. I think Jim needs to let go of the playcalling. Bring in a coach is just the O coordinator and give him control. Jim will have his input but let someone else call 100% of the plays. Look around college football. We usually see great improvement when coaches pull themselves out of playcalling (see ND this year) and just run the team. And no more running and passing game coordinators. It just hasn't worked. Again, will he be willing to do that? Who knows?
We absolutely better win the next 3 games. If we lose one of those, well, I will be changing a lot of my tune. Wiscy is another incredibly tough place to play and this team will still not be ready to win at a place like that. Again, it all comes down to OSU. We will need bring out everything we have in the bag on O to compete. We will need to have the O-line play their best game. If we just gave up 7 sacks to PSU...yeah, OSU's front 7 (especially the line) is much, much better. I say here our D will keep us very much in that game. OSU's QB and WRs are not good enough to make the plays as consistently as PSU did. Again, we win that game, it changes the entire dynamic of the season. For me, that was always going to be how I judged if this season was going to be a success.
