I was wrong about Harbaugh inheriting a loaded roaster. Michigan needs players. They are super well coached. Harbaugh will need 3 years to recruit the needed talent. What is amazing is that this patched together in spots team should have actually won this game. A credit to a great coaching staff.
Well Coached Team- Talent Not There. 3 Years
- Thread starter scfanblue
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I think good coaching would have been trying other running backs ... Smith just was not picking his holes well at all.
Jesus Christ on a popsicle stick - putting in Morris would have been an abortion. Rudock is fine and hopefully gets some help from the running game going forward. It will take 2-3 years. It's very sad, believe me, but true.
Cowherd hates Michigan and wants Shane Morris to start. Hmm, that tells you all you need to know. HA!
I don't think was all that fine at all, he disappointed. Missed many wide open receivers, three picks ... his "strength" was supposed to be taking care of the ball ... he didn't.
I disagree. There r no RB's that are better than Smith. Green is way to slow and so is Isaac. Morris would have turned the ball over as well. I think we need to recognize that Harbaugh simply needs to recruit for Michigan to get better. 3 years before this team becomes nationally competitive again. Recruit recruit recruit
You crack me up man - you went from 10-2 to 3 years? I am still sticking to my 10-2 prediction - I expected us to lose 2 of the following 5 games (PSU, OSU, MSU, @Utah, BYU). This is toughest road game and Utah is like Eugene - really really tough place to win...look at their home record. Michigan had a chance to tie if not for that INT that was returned. This was a game of missed opportunities - we actually had them where we wanted. My only true disappointment was that their weakest area was their secondary and we did not exploit it more. Ruddock had tons of time - I actually think Morris is a better long-ball thrower, while Ruddock short-routes. Would have been useful to loosen that D up and give Morris a chance. I said this in another post - the one truly disappointing play for me by far by when we had 2nd 1 and could not get 1 yard in 3 tries. That was really disappointing to me that our O-line could not muster up the heart to make a push??? Also, I think Isaac looked way better then Smith to me personally - Smith has zero moves - just brute force which did not work and won't work against teams like MSU. Isaac has better burst IMHO. We will be fine and I guarantee you it won't take us 3 years man. Next year we will have Darboh, Butt, Bunting, Perry (a year older), Harris (a year old), Mitchell, Ways, etc. Most of our players will be coming back and we will have O'Korn who will have had almost 2 full years to sit, practice and learn. We will have a brutal schedule @MSU and @OSU but we will get there.
defense looked pretty good, receivers looked good, running backs looked OK, O-Line still sucks, new QB looks bad.
I'm an Iowa fan and what you got from Rudock tonight is what we finally got fed up with and he lost his job. You will have about half of your games that you could win if he could hit the wide open receiver deep down the field. I can remember at least four games last year that we lost by less than seven points where he either over threw or under threw more than one deep ball. What did he have tonight three or four? He will also have deep ball where he doesn't have the arm to throw the ball over the top and will throw it on a line. This will cause it to be broken up or intercepted. I don't know what your looking for in a QB but what you seen tonight is what your going to get.
Don't disagree - Ruddock is a great QB if you have a rock solid line with some great RBs that can create a push and you don't need to throw beyond 20 yards or so - I think we knew what we were getting - he's still better then our other options unfortunately.
Hoke's last three recruiting classes contained 36 four and five star recruits
Over that same time span, Utah had 7 four star recruits
And the reason for the loss is that DESPITE being "super well coached", there was simply too much of a talent differential to overcome? Really?
This is exactly right. If UM needs Rudock to throw the ball 45 times a game and have to hit long throws...UM is in trouble. He isn't that type of qb. He missed on some very important long throws. He had a chance to really make this game competitive.
Rudock may hit 1 out of 10 long throws. What makes people think Chesson was going to catch the ball anyway?
UM showed some good stuff with Butt and Darboh but intermediate stuff. Rudock looks like he can throw some screens but as you mentioned...it needs a running game.As I mentioned on another post...that pick 6 doesn't happen if UM does it job (OL/Smith) and picks up a couple of yards on that 2nd down play which was clearly there but wasn't executed. Rudock needs help because he isn't Aaron Rodgers.
That is what I saw on a game last year vs. Nebraska. It looks like he is a dink/dunk qb with some possible intermediate stuff and a little scrambling ability. I don't have a problem with that but that he did make some poor underneath throws.
I'll give Utah credit too.
A poster below says you've had 36 four and five star recruits in two years. Every single one of them were initially celebrated on this board. We're these players over rated or is it coaching?
It's coaching - it's about a system and habits. These 36 players have had some really bad habits - ever read how pilots train? It's takes 10K hours of doing something before it becomes a habit. These kids have had bad habits for the past 2-3 years and you can't expect that with 30 hours of practice all ailments will be corrected. It takes time - on paper we have far more talent then almost all teams we will play this year, except OSU. We have more 5/4 stars then MSU as well but that does not mean they perform at that level because MSU has developed their talent much much better then Michigan has in the past 4 years. You can't just miraculously improve everyone on the team all at once. It's still a team game and unfortunately our weakest links are at positions where we can not be weak - QB and RB. It'll take time. If our talent and performance don't improve over the course of this year, then yes we likely recruited way over-rated kids.
As an outsider I maintain what I originally thought when Harbaugh's was hired. Success for the Wolverines this year won't be defined by winning 9 to 11 games. It's more about how the team plays.
Beat the team's you should and play well against the better teams. I don't know enough about Utah to say they are a very good team or not but all things considered UM played well against them.
Obviously there were issues and some growing/transition pains. Ruddock may not be an All- Conference QB this season but those interceptions were uncharacteristic.
Beat the team's you should and play well against the better teams. I don't know enough about Utah to say they are a very good team or not but all things considered UM played well against them.
Obviously there were issues and some growing/transition pains. Ruddock may not be an All- Conference QB this season but those interceptions were uncharacteristic.
I'm concerned that the new DC seems to share "26 seconds" Mattison's aversion to sacks and creating turnovers. We all know Gardner was a TO machine, but the fact that the D was awful at forcing turnovers didn't help matters. That needs to change.
Also still waiting for Kalis to block someone. Has he done that yet in his third year?
Take away 2 of Rudock interceptions and we win that game. Not bad for playing a pretty good team on the road, plus first game under a new coach staff. Can't believe our run game struggles this much when we have two 5* backs plus Smith who is decent.
